Flame (17 page)

“What brings you here?” Her tone was ice cold
and impatient.

With a nod, he crouched down and began to
feed the fire again--the same way she had done the last time he’d
been here. “We finished a fine day of hunting, and I thought it
appropriate to share the spoils.”

“We have no need for acts of charity!”

“If that is so, Mater, then you must be the
only religious leader this side of Jerusalem who feels that
way.”

The old woman stared at the laird in silence,
and Gavin knew she was working hard to hold her tongue.

“Actually,” he continued. “‘Tis no charity.
At least one of these does was probably taken on your lands. ‘Twas
only right that your people have a share of the meat.”

She stood still, looking across the flames at
Gavin's face. “You keep yourself and your men away from this abbey.
We gladly forfeit all rights to any game you take. And we will not
touch this meat.”

“That, of course, is up to you, but you’ll
have to put up with a fearful stench as it rots here by your
fire.”

“Now, that is a feeble threat,” she scolded.
“But wasting such quantities is sinful. Nay, laird, you have to
take it back.”

“I will not,” he answered determinedly. “And
if you continue with this foolishness, I will have my men bring
provisions for you on a daily basis. In fact, I may just have them
go back to Ironcross and return with the
rest
of what we
killed today.”

She stared at him as if he was some hideous,
savage beast. Gavin came to his feet in one fluid motion and smiled
down on her. “But I must tell you that they have had a hard day of
riding. And once I drag them in here after all that extra work, I
do not believe it will be a very easy task getting them back on
their horses so soon. I fear you may just end up with a wee bit
more company than you are accustomed to. But you needn’t trouble
yourself--they will be happy enough sleeping out here on what is
sure to be a fine, clear night.”

Her wrinkled complexion flushed and her eyes
were blazing coals. “Are you threatening me?” she asked, her fury
ready to burst forth.

“Nay, I am trying to befriend you.”

Gavin watched as his simple statement caught
her up short in whatever she was about to say. A fleeting look of
confusion played across her wrinkled brow as the flash of anger
visibly diminished.

“I do not understand you, laird,” she said at
last.

“
That
is your own fault and none of
mine.”

She again resumed her effort to stare him
down, but Gavin had heard the distant alarums of victory, and he
was not about to back away now.

“What is it that you want from us?”

“Are you going to ask me that every time I
come here for a visit?”

“If I thought anything I might say could
deter you from persecuting us, I would pray for angels to repeat
those words each day over Ironcross Castle!”

“Well, you might consider praying for
something more useful, abbess,” he answered. “Just accept the fact
that Ironcross has a laird who takes an interest in his people. You
must become accustomed to having me around. The sooner you do, the
more comfortable your people will be and the less disrupted...” He
gestured toward the empty fields. “The less disrupted everyone’s
life will be.”

“You think ‘tis just that simple!”

“
You
make it too difficult.”

Mater’s frustration hissed out in a loud
breath as she turned on her heel and stormed toward the gate.

“Wait, Mater,” he said, laying a huge hand on
her bony arm. She paused, glaring at him. “You might tell your
legions of angels that this meat should be taken out of the
sun.”

The old woman glanced at the meat for a
moment, and then gave an almost imperceptible nod in the direction
of the hut she had come out of. Without another word or even a look
at the warrior chief, she strode--with Gavin on her heels--out the
gate, following the ruined wall until the valley floor began to
rise toward the fields above the village.

Before they had traveled an arrowshot from
the abbey, the sun faded from view. As he glanced to the west,
Gavin could see the black clouds of a storm advancing over the
distant loch. He turned his attention back to the wizened old
woman.

“How many times will it take for me to come
to the abbey before your people begin to accept my presence
here?”

“How many breaths remain in your body,
laird?” she said harshly. “You cannot force yourself upon
them.”

“I do not intend to use force,” Gavin said
matter-of-factly. “But these are now my people as well, Mater, and
I want you to understand that you cannot make me simply
disappear.”

She gave him a critical, sidelong glance. “I
should not be so self-assured, if I were you. You are only a mortal
creature--flesh and blood.”

“Do you think that only men are mortal?”

She didn’t answer him, but turned her
attention back to eyeing the plants around them as they walked.

“What do you have against us, Mater?” Gavin
continued after a slight pause. “Why is it that you welcome the
visit of any woman, and yet you despise the company of all
men?”

She ignored his question but came to a halt.
Gavin watched as her gaze swept over to the ground. As her eyes lit
on some frail-looking white flowers at the base of a protruding
boulder, she turned from him and headed toward her prize.

Once again, he’d been dismissed, Gavin knew.
But he was far from ready to leave. He strolled after her, watching
her carefully. “Mater, what do you know of the crypts and the
vaults beneath Ironcross?”

The obvious stiffening of her shoulders did
not go unnoticed by the Lowlander.

“Why is it, Mater, that those people of the
abbey were buried beneath the castle and not here...where they
belong?”

She slowly came to a stop.

“Why are they thought of as saints?”

She turned her face and Gavin watched her
hard unchanging profile as she looked down at the abbey below. She
stood in stony silence.

“Is there a link between the deaths of those
entombed in the crypt and the curse that has been plaguing
Ironcross Castle?” he continued doggedly. “Why is it that no one
even wants to speak of them anymore? What is the reason for such
mystery, Mater?”

He moved around her until they were face to
face. His tall frame and broad chest blocked her line of vision.
She was forced to look up and meet his gaze.

“I will not give up until you answer at least
some of my questions.” He tried to keep the harshness out of his
voice. “Who is it that is buried there, and why?”

Standing there, awaiting her answer, he
became for the first time aware of the sharp wind that had come
whistling up the open valley from the loch. The heather and the
grasses were bending to the rush of air, and he shook back the
black mane that was whipping about his face. The old woman simply
stared at him, seemingly unaffected by the piercing gusts.

“Tell me, Mater. Tell me of their past.”

Their eyes locked in a fierce battle of wills
as the wind pummeled them.

“Women! They are women who are buried there,”
she said at last over the rising wind. “They are our ancestors, our
saints, and our sisters. And you, laird...‘twould be wiser for you
to cease asking your foolish questions and let their souls lie in
peace. ‘Twould be best for you to ride back down into the flatlands
and never look back.”

“And if I do not?” he challenged, trying to
ignore the wind that was yanking at his tartan. “Would I then fall
from a horse and crack my skull on a rock like Duncan MacInnes? Or
would I drown in the loch like his son Alexander? Or perhaps I
shall be poisoned like Thomas. But I suppose all of those are
better deaths than being burned alive in a blaze that takes my
family and innocent serving folk along with me.”

He saw the smallest of quivers in the line of
her jaw. “So what is it, Mater? If I do not bend to your will, will
you order my death as well? Will you call on the powers of those
women and wish me into my grave?”

“What do you know of bending to one’s will?
You...and those like you...know nothing of what ‘tis like to
bend...to suffer!”

Somewhere not far down the valley, a flash of
lightning was followed by the crack of thunder. The storm was
coming on fast. Gavin did not remove his piercing gaze from her
hard gray eyes, even when he felt the first droplets of rain strike
his face.

“I’ll do what I must to protect my people,”
she said ominously. “And I’ll use whatever power I can muster to
crush the evil in men.”

Without waiting for him to say more, the old
woman turned and moved quickly past him and down the hill toward
the abbey. She was halfway to the ruined walls before Gavin turned
to watch her. Above her the sky had taken on strange, unsettling
hues of gray and green, and the flashes of lightning were now
followed immediately by crashes that seemed ready to split the
firmament with their noise.

Gavin watched her march through the gate, and
as she disappeared amid the stone huts, he was more certain than
ever that Joanna’s accusation of last night had to be false.

Mater’s words echoed in his brain, and he
considered all she had said. True, she would protect her people.
But somehow Gavin knew in his gut that her solemn vow did not
include murder.

Nay, he thought as the wind hammered against
him, Mater was no murderer.

Adding another log to the hearth, Gavin came
to his feet and stared into the leaping flames. For the entire ride
back from the abbey, he’d tried to recall everything he had learned
from Lady MacInnes before leaving the Scottish court, since the old
woman’s recollection of events past was the only thing he felt
certain he could rely on.

By Saint. Andrew, from the time he stepped
foot in Ironcross Castle, he had yet to hear a complete story from
anyone, and that included Joanna. To Gavin, she was clearly too
distraught from the tragedy she’d faced to relay anything that
might be construed as rational or objective.

And what of Mater?

Leaning one arm on the carved mantle, Gavin
pictured the old woman’s razor sharp look. She cut an impressive
figure--no question about that--taking the approach that she had.
And she was clever, for it was an art to talk so tough and to be
effective, without anything to back it up. To scare off an opponent
with allusions to powers beyond those of the natural world. But
that was her best possible defense, Gavin thought.

Still, though, there had been an attempt on
his life. The acrid smell of drying wool wafted upward from his
kilt, mixing with the lingering scent of burnt damask from the
curtains that had hung from his bed. Someone had come into his room
last night and had set his bed ablaze. Although he hadn’t had time
to think about it before now, Gavin was certain that this had not
been the result of any accident. He had put out the wick lamp.
There had been no candles left burning. The embers of the fire in
his hearth were simply too far away for the mat of woven rushes to
catch fire. Nay, it had been no accident.

And, Gavin decided, the intruder had been a
person, not some demon invoked from the bowels of hell as Mater
would like him to believe. Whoever had been here, the warrior felt
with some certainty that he or she was living in this keep. No
doubt it was someone who had witnessed Gavin’s repeated contest for
possession of Joanna’s portrait, for the intruder had known him to
be a sound sleeper. That was why the would-be killer had had enough
courage to close the chamber’s shutters before setting the bed
ablaze, hoping his victim would die amid the thick, choking
smoke.

The soft sound of a latch sliding and the
quiet creak of the panel opening on its hinges erased in an instant
the warrior chief’s thoughtful scowl, chasing all unpleasant
thoughts from his mind. Gavin straightened before the fire and
looked hopefully in the direction of the secret door. As she
stepped through and closed the panel door, Joanna’s frame formed a
shadowy silhouette on the wall from the light of the crackling
fire.

She had come, just as he knew she would.

She hesitantly stepped further into the room
and met his welcoming gaze. My God, he thought, she is beautiful.
This time, not quite so dazed as he had been the first time they’d
met, Gavin let his eyes study her face. She had been truthful when
she’d said that she was no longer the woman in the portrait. A bit
thinner in the face; paler in complexion; her eyes larger, wilder,
and somewhat more intense; her lips fuller; her features all
combined to make her even more stunning than the incredible beauty
captured by the brush of oil over canvas.

Tonight she had pulled her golden hair back,
and Gavin’s eyes followed the one long, thick rope of a braid that
draped over her shoulder, hanging down over her breast nearly to
her waist. She still wore the same large old dress he’d seen her in
the previous night. The dress seemed designed to hide all signs of
her womanly curves, though it did indeed reach only to her ankles.
But, looking at the smooth, ivory skin above the square neckline,
Gavin felt the prickling warmth stir in his loins at the
recollection that he had touched and caressed what was beneath the
ill-fitting garment. Gavin glanced with a lusty appreciation at the
sculpted beauty of the legs showing below the hem of the dress and
above the tops of the soft, worn shoes that covered her feet. The
singed marks around the hem reminded him of how close she’d come to
getting hurt herself.

Suddenly he was startled from his reverie by
the sight of her bandaged hands tugging at her skirts in an effort
to cover her legs. As he glanced up with amusement at her actions,
he was rewarded with a revealing view of the tops of her ample
breasts above the neckline of the dress.