Heart's Magic (14 page)

Bending down, Mirielle picked up one end of
the scroll that was laying at her feet. Her thought was to roll it
up while smoothing out the creases and brushing off the dirt. But
the parchment was so badly spotted that cleaning it was going to be
difficult if not impossible, and some of the tears would require
much time and patient gluing. Giving up her efforts, Mirielle sat
still once more, the partially rerolled scroll dangling from her
fingers, with one end of it falling off her lap and onto the
floor.

In the room to which he had carried Alda,
Brice was reaching much the same conclusion about Alda’s mental
state as Mirielle had done. He had known he would not be able to
carry the yelling, struggling mistress of the castle through the
corridors and rooms and then up several flights of steps to her
bedchamber. It would be too undignified to try. Someone might
decide to come to Alda’s assistance. And it was growing more and
more difficult to keep Alda slung over his shoulder when she
persisted in fighting him. Sooner or later she was going to land on
the floor and if she was hurt in the fall, the fault would be laid
at Brice’s door.

Over the past few weeks Brice had grown weary
of his mistress’ constant hysterics, though he did like the way she
needed him so desperately when she was in one of her tantrums. His
ability to dominate her was remarkably satisfying, but if she
behaved like this once she was his wife, he would have to keep her
locked in her room. At the present moment, he did the first
sensible thing that came to his mind. He carried his scratching,
kicking burden into a storeroom and tossed her onto a sack of
grain. Kneeling over her, he caught her wrists, holding her
down.

“Now,” Brice grated, “explain to me why you
attacked my cousin and let her workroom be destroyed.”

“Because she is helping those cursed
pilgrims.” Alda spat out the words. “They are all three involved in
a plot against Wroxley.”

“Have you gone completely mad? Those men are
harmless,” Brice told her. “Where our security is concerned I am
not as lax as you seem to think. I have had them watched since I
first learned they had entered the castle. Captain Oliver agrees
with me that their curiosity is perfectly natural. Sir Giles was
once a fighting man before he was so badly wounded, and thus he is
interested in talking to the men-at-arms. Master Hugh, on the other
hand, is a scholar and has shown no interest at all in matters of
defense. He is more absorbed with Mirielle’s herbal healing. I tell
you, Alda, your fears are groundless.”

“And I tell you, those men are dangerous! And
so is Mirielle.” Alda could not reveal to Brice why she was so
certain in her suspicions. Brice would not understand, and if he
knew all that she was capable of and all that she had done, he
would send her to the king for judgment. Alda shivered at the
thought. Whether she were hanged or beheaded or only confined in a
cell for the rest of her life, whatever punishment was meted out to
her, once it was over she would in the end be cold. And alone. In
the dark. Forever.

“Hold me, Brice. Warm me. I am cold. And so
afraid.” The ploy worked. It almost always did. Brice could not
resist the pleasure her body would give him. He released her wrists
so he could work at his clothes, freeing himself for her. Alda
grasped her skirts, pulling them upward to her waist. Wriggling
around on the grain sack, she let him see what awaited him.

She knew he was greatly annoyed with her and
so she expected—and hoped for—fierceness from him. Instead, Brice
kissed her in a gentle way that told Alda he was trying to soothe
the fears he believed were irrational.

The memory of another man drifted into her
mind, of Gavin her husband, kissing her in a similar gentle way and
tenderly doing his youthful best to overcome the concerns of a girl
whom he believed was lying with a man for the first time. Gavin,
himself still innocent about women if not actually a virgin at his
marriage, had been unaware of how far short he had fallen in his
attempts to please his new wife on their wedding night. Alda needed
not gentleness or kindness to reach her fulfillment, but
unrestrained passion that teetered on the brink of violence.

Feeling Brice’s hard masculinity pressing
into her, Alda dismissed the memory of Gavin from her mind and
concentrated all of her thoughts on her present lover, who was
moving deeper in a bold thrust. Brice stroked her yearning center
with liquid heat, warming her, allowing her to forget everything
but the overheated joining of their bodies. Alda pretended to fight
him, knowing her apparent resistance would force Brice to be
rougher in his efforts to reach his own release. She cried out and
struggled when Brice gripped her more tightly. Brice’s insistent
passion and his rough handling—yes, that was what she required.
From Brice’s hot desire she would draw the strength she needed.
Alda moaned with the approach of her pleasure. She was no longer
cold, and she no longer remembered her absent husband.

Mirielle was still sitting on the bench in
her workroom when Donada found her. After a quick look at the room,
Donada sat down and put both arms around her.

“Captain Oliver told me what happened,”
Donada said. “I will help you put this room to rights again. So
will the others.”

“Others?” Mirielle repeated with a bitter
laugh. “Who will defy Alda? Even Brice gives in to her rages.”

Mirielle fought the urge to rest her head on
Donada’s shoulder and weep. Crying would solve nothing. Having
spent the last half hour trying to accept what had been done to her
and to her workroom, she had begun to perceive that there were
unspoken reasons behind Alda’s cruel actions.

When Mirielle considered the events of that
day she saw again the peculiar emptiness that lay at the core of
Alda’s character. On the surface Alda displayed a formidable
selfishness. Beneath the selfishness lay an icy coldness and
then—nothing. Try as she might to understand Alda and to make
friends with her, Mirielle had never been able to reach Alda’s
heart. Now she thought that, while Alda might indeed be mad,
madness was not the whole of it. Something far more terrifying than
madness had caused Alda’s outburst against her.

“Mirielle, you’re shivering.” Donada rubbed
Mirielle’s hands. “Here, take my shawl.”

“Blessed saints in heaven!” Ewain the
blacksmith came through the door, followed by his wife. “Lady
Mirielle, I heard the tale from an angry man-at-arms whose injury
you once cured. He said you would need help, but I never expected
to see this kind of damage. You’d think an invading army had
destroyed this room.”

Close behind Ewain came Robin, who was
followed by a few maidservants with brooms in hand. To Mirielle’s
surprise, three men-at-arms also appeared.

“Captain Oliver sent us,” one of these men
said to Mirielle. “We have his orders to do what we can to help
you, my lady, and when we are finished we are ordered to stand
guard at the door and not to let anyone enter whom you do not want
in this room.”

“Just tell us what you want us to do,” Ewain
said.

Mirielle looked around at them, seeing the
friendship on their faces, seeing how willing they were to make up
to her for what Alda had done. They gave her hope. They needed her,
not only for her healing skills, but for the balance she could
provide against the violent swings of Alda’s moods. From these
honest folk she would find the strength to continue her work. They
would succor and sustain each other.

“I can fix this with little trouble.” Ewain
picked up the furnace door to examine its hinges. His wife began to
give directions to the maidservants, setting them to work with
their brooms.

“We can have the carpenter in here tomorrow
to repair those shelves,” said one of the men-at-arms. “And while
he’s here, he can hammer this table together again. The planks are
solid enough; they’ve only been knocked apart a bit. Most of the
nails are still holding.”

“Look,” Robin cried, stooping down, “here’s a
jar that wasn’t broken, and here is a lid that fits on it. There
are still some dried herbs inside, too.”

“I think there is much we can salvage,”
Donada added.

It was late evening before all of the broken
materials had been swept together and carried away by the
maidservants. Every one of Mirielle’s costly glass vessels was
gone, but Robin had retrieved several more whole jars from the
debris, some of them containing usable herbs. Donada had carefully
cleaned the remnants of the books and had made a start at repairing
the pages torn out of them.

“Mirielle, I can finish the last of the work
here, and these good men-at-arms will stand guard to keep
everything safe,” Donada said. “You must be weary after such a
distressing experience. Why don’t you go to your room now, and
rest? In the morning you will be able to think how best to go about
restocking your preparations.”

“Until this night, I never appreciated how
kind you are, Donada.” Mirielle did not say what else she was
thinking, that Donada’s calm and practical temperament must be a
great relief to Brice after Alda’s unrestrained emotions.

In her bedchamber, which was on an upper
level of the tower keep, Mirielle lit an oil lamp, then poured
water into a basin and washed her face and hands. She was tired,
but she doubted if she’d be able to sleep. She had too much to
think about, from Alda’s accusations and vicious actions and the
real reason behind them, whatever they might be, to Brice’s
inability—or unwillingness—to defend the cousin he claimed to love,
to Giles’s incarceration.

She knew she was going to do something to
help Giles. She could not leave him to Alda’s mercy, or to Mauger’s
brutality. She trusted Captain Oliver to keep Giles safe through
the night and that was the reason why she had not rushed to him as
soon as Alda had left her workroom. She would walk carefully as
Giles had warned her to do, and she would take no steps that might
make his situation worse or cause Alda to attempt to prevent her
from helping Giles, but in the morning Mirielle intended to speak
to Brice about the prisoner. If her cousin was not amenable to
releasing him and sending him on his way, then Mirielle would try
to enlist Captain Oliver’s aid. The captain of the guard was a
decent man and he had not been pleased by Alda’s mistreatment of a
guest. Surely he would know of a way in which Mirielle could help
Giles.

“Mirielle, please do not cry out.” A soft
voice interrupted her thoughts. From behind the bed hangings a
shape with a staff in its hand moved into the light.

“Master Hugh!” She kept her voice as low as
his. “What a relief it is to see you. I’m glad Mauger and his men
did not find you in my workroom, but how did you reach my
bedchamber without being captured?”

“By a means I intend to show you,” Hugh
said.

“Do you know Giles has been arrested on
Alda’s orders?”

“I do.” Hugh drew nearer. “Mirielle, your
assistance is vital to us.”

“You shall have it, with one condition,” she
said. “I want to see you and Giles safely out of Wroxley, but I
will not betray my cousin or cause trouble for him with the king.
Brice has hopes of one day being rewarded for his good care of
Wroxley Castle.”

“Your loyalty is admirable,” Hugh said.
“Giles and I have done nothing here that has not been approved by
King Henry. If your cousin has been an honest seneschal, then he
will have his just reward.”

“The king?” Mirielle repeated, surprised by
this claim. “I did not know.”

“Having heard rumors that all was not well at
Wroxley, King Henry sent us here to restore the proper balance and
order,” Hugh responded.

“Considering today’s events, it would seem
you have failed,” Mirielle said with a sigh.

“I am more inclined to consider what has
happened as a useful delay,” Hugh said. “I have learned that
someone who is able to cloak himself from my discerning is working
against Giles and me. His power is great, for I did not detect his
presence until a few hours ago.”

“Another mage? Here at Wroxley? But, who is
it? You cannot think I am that person,” Mirielle cried.

“No.” Hugh offered one of his quick smiles,
comforting but too soon gone. “When I look at you, Mirielle, I see
brightness surrounding you. There is no evil in your character. But
there is another within the walls of this castle who walks away
from the light. Unfortunately, I cannot tell who he is. The shadows
with which he has surrounded himself are too dense. I only know
that he is an implacable enemy to Giles and me, and he is working
to prevent Giles’s escape. That is why we need your help.”

“You must leave Wroxley,” Mirielle said. “I
am sorry to say it, Hugh, but to save your lives, both of you must
go.”

She would miss him and regret all he might
have taught her if the time for learning had been granted to them.
But it was Giles’s leaving that would rend her heart in two. In
less than a week Giles had taken command of her hopes and all the
sweet longings that had lain unexpressed in her heart until his
coming. She was not sure that she could survive without the sight
of him each day, without the sound of his manly voice or the
intense warmth of his embrace.

Still, Mirielle knew with an instinct she did
not question that if Hugh and Giles remained at Wroxley, the
shadowy force Hugh perceived and yet could not identify would
destroy both men. In the process, it might also destroy Wroxley and
all of the people there, including Brice, to whom Mirielle was
still bound by loyalty, whatever she might think of his personal
decisions.

“Of course, I will help you,” she said to
Hugh. “Only show me what to do.”

“I have seen the gesture you use to veil your
identity,” Hugh said.