Lamp Black, Wolf Grey (16 page)

Huw leaped to his feet, tears in his eyes.

“Oh, Megan. He is dying!”

Megan took his hand and squeezed it but could find no words of comfort or reassurance to give. She knew the boy might be right. Only time would tell. She stepped forward and tried to tempt the suffering horse with more salt but he was too weak to so much as lick her hand. Megan closed her eyes as she stroked him. He had trusted her to help him; had she merely hastened his end?

“Dafydd! Dafydd, where are you, man?” Lord Geraint’s shouts could be heard before he even reached the barn. He strode through the door, his rage palpable. “What is this? I hear word that Midnight is grievous ill, and I find a maid and a boy attending him!”

“My Lord, my own remedies were having no effect,” Dafydd said as he stepped forward. “I asked Megan to help. She has saved mares and colts here before today.”

“So you let her practice her arts on my finest destrier?” Lord Geraint picked up a handful of the discarded bracken. “And she feeds him this poison!”

“I sought only to save the animal, my Lord,” said Megan.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps you found an opportunity to vent your own anger by killing a favorite of mine.”

“No! No, my Lord.”

“Father, she was trying to help poor Midnight.”

“Hold your tongue, child! I have no interest in your view of the matter. Go back to your bedchamber where you belong!”

The boy shrank back as if his father had struck him.

“You would let Brychan stay,” he shouted, his voice shaking. “But not me. Never me!”

“Go, I tell you!”

The child ran from the stall. Megan wanted to chase after him, to take him in her arms and comfort him, but she was not free to leave. And Midnight still needed her.

Lord Geraint stared at the horse for a moment, then hissed at Megan.

“He had better live, d’you hear me? I will not be taken for a fool.”

So saying he left, his anger lingering in the stable after he had gone.

Megan shut his threats from her mind and turned back to her fading patient. His eyes were glazed now, and he lay flat in an attitude of hopelessness.

“Do not give up, my brave friend. Stay and fight, though this is the fiercest of all the many battles you have seen.” Megan did her best to sound calm, but tears coursed down her face. It would take nothing short of magic to give the horse the strength he must have to survive his ordeal now. As the thought formed in her head a new possibility came to her. She stole a look at Dafydd. He was busying himself with yet more bedding. Megan closed her eyes again and summoned up Merlin’s face behind her closed lids.

“Merlin,” she whispered his name. “Help us. Help us now.”

The stable fell unnaturally still. Megan waited. The horse lay motionless and touching the hem of death. A thin wind blew as if from inside the barn itself, whining around the stall, stirring up the straw. Dafydd stopped his futile work. Megan stood up, more than a little afraid, not knowing what could come next. The force of the wind increased, blowing Megan’s hair wildly about her, flinging bedding and hay in a whirlwind. Dafydd threw his arm over his eyes. Megan fought for breath as the dust was churned and hurled around the stall. Then, in a heartbeat, the tempest stopped. An eerie stillness filled the place once more. Neither Megan nor Dafydd moved. Midnight lay lifeless, until his great chest heaved in a giant, rasping breath. The animal coughed, raising his head, then hauled himself back onto his feet.

“By all that’s holy!” muttered Dafydd.

Megan rushed forward, steadying the stumbling horse.

“There! There, my brave warrior.” She patted his neck and rubbed his clammy ears. “You see? Your story has not yet ended.” As she calmed the animal she offered silent thanks to the unseen power who had answered her call for help.

*   *   *

W
ITH
D
AN HOME
the weekend passed in an exhausting series of emotional swoops and highs for Laura. She would be doing her best to focus on her husband, enjoying some simple task in the garden with him or sharing a bottle of wine, when she would catch her mind straying to think of Rhys. And the thought of him made the hours crawl by. By the time Dan left for London two days later, Laura was desperate to see Rhys again. She waited until Dan’s car disappeared out of sight and then hurried upstairs. Despite the fact that an autumn coolness was in the air, she chose a floaty, button-down summer dress. She wanted to look pretty for him, to look feminine. His touch, the way he looked at her, had made her feel womanly in a way she had never thought she could. It was as if the shortcomings of her body, her barrenness, her lack, were made to matter less. Not because Rhys could take away her longing for a child, but because with him at least her body was desirable, nubile, ripe, willing, and joyous. At least when she was near him she felt as if she was a complete woman, a woman who could give him all that he wanted. It was many painful years since Dan had been able to make her feel that. Laura brushed out her hair, leaving it loose and glossy, slipped on a pair of flat, leather sandals, and spritzed herself with perfume. She had her hand on the front door when the phone rang. She hesitated, moved toward it, then decided to let the answering machine click on. Penny’s voice was chipper as ever.

“Hi, Laura. Just to let you know, I’ve had the dates confirmed. We open the last week in November. Private view on the twenty-fifth. Give me a ring when you get this. Ciao!”

Laura frowned. She should pick up and speak to Penny, but her mind was focused elsewhere. She set off for the croft.

Summer was losing its glow. The landscape looked a little tired and scruffy as plants finished unburdening their seeds and fruits, flowers faded, and the sun’s rays weakened. Laura walked briskly along the shortest route she knew to Rhys’s cottage. She felt exhilarated. She knew she was being reckless. A part of her was appalled at what she was doing. But still she found herself unable to turn back. If she stopped to think about how her actions might affect Dan, or about what the possible consequences of such an affair might be, she would be paralyzed with guilt and fear. As it was she pushed such thoughts to the darkest recesses of her mind, determined to allow herself this experience, this pleasure.

As she neared the croft she could see Rhys, shirt off, working in the garden. She felt a thrill at the sight of him and at the memory of how his body felt pressed against hers. How it smelled. How it tasted. She raised an arm to wave at him. The movement must have caught his eye, for he straightened up and waved back slowly, watching her as she climbed the last few yards of the hill.

She stood in front of him, a little out of breath. She found it difficult to speak, to put what she was feeling into words. “I wanted to see you again,” she said, holding his gaze.

He propped his hoe against the garden wall and brushed dirt from his hands. He moved close to her, sliding his arms around her waist and pulling her gently to him.

“My beautiful, beautiful Laura,” he whispered into her hair. He kissed her neck softly, then found her mouth. Laura was surprised by the urgency and force of his kisses now, and surprised at herself. She kissed him back eagerly, running her fingers through his hair, pulling him tighter to her, meeting his body with her own. Rhys grabbed her wrists, holding her hands firmly by her sides, laughing at her enthusiasm, teasing her, taking control.

“My beautiful, impatient Laura,” he said, before swiftly lifting her up and carrying her into the house. She liked the fact that he took her straight to his unmade bed. It didn’t matter that he had been working in the garden—she delighted in the saltiness of his skin. When he pinned her down and quickly bound her hands with his leather belt before tying them to the bedpost it only increased her excitement and desire for him. With Rhys she wasn’t the Laura anyone else who knew her would recognize. With Rhys she was reckless, hungry, completely shameless. She lay watching as he kicked off his sandals and removed his jeans. His body was toned and muscular and tanned from spending hours out of doors, naked, apparently. He was glorious. Laura felt deliciously vulnerable as he began to undo the buttons of her flimsy dress. He kissed her shoulders, and her arms, and her belly, until she was inflamed to the point of madness. Sensing her intense arousal Rhys smiled at her.

“I know what you want,” he growled into her ear. “I know you, Laura. I know you.”

In an instant his mood and behavior changed. He became rough, wild, almost animalistic in the way that he made love to her. She was at first shocked, and then fiercely aroused. She submitted to Rhys for a moment, almost passively. But soon she found herself responding in kind. She had never experienced such abandoned, uninhibited, satisfying sex before. If Dan had treated her the same way she would have been appalled. With Rhys it was different.
She
was different.

After prolonged and athletic lovemaking, Laura slept in Rhys’s arms, astonished at how happy she could feel when she knew she was behaving unforgivably. By the time she woke up the September sun had already dropped toward the horizon.

“What time is it?” she asked.

Rhys stretched lazily. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s early yet. Stay there. I’ll make us some coffee.”

Laura watched as he crossed the room naked, completely at ease with his body, and with her. He disappeared down the spiral staircase and she could hear him whistling as he filled the kettle. Only now did Laura begin to take in what Rhys’s bedroom was like. There was something uniquely intimate about being there on her own, in his private space. The bedroom was built into the roof of the cottage, so that the ceilings sloped steeply, making it impossible to stand up unless you kept to the center. The large, low bed filled most of the available space. There were candles and lamps and a chest of drawers, as well as a clothes rail by the small dormer window. The end wall was covered by a large wall hanging. There was little space for anything else. Even so, there were books stacked in every spare corner. Laura leaned over to rummage through a pile on the floor beside the bed and as she did so she glimpsed a small plastic box in the shelf of the bedside cabinet. She peered at it. It was a case for contact lenses. She was mildly surprised. For one thing, it was hard to imagine Rhys’s body being anything but perfect in every way. For another, if he did have poor eyesight, she would have thought him much more the type to wear glasses, not lenses. It seemed somehow too vain and too self-conscious. She turned her attention back to the books. Most were on myths and legends and local folklore. They all looked well thumbed, with turned-down pages or makeshift bookmarks. One was devoted entirely to the subject of Merlin. Laura sat up in bed to study it but found the limited light made reading difficult. She was still squinting at the pictures when Rhys returned with the coffee.

“This looks interesting,” she said. “Or at least it would if I could see it properly. How do you manage to read anything in here?”

Rhys grinned. “Your eyes are accustomed to brighter lighting. It’s all a matter of what you’re used to. You’re right, though—it’s a wonderful book. I read it again and again.”

“Is Merlin a hero of yours?”

“Something like that. I do have an interest in him, you could say.”

“I admit I know very little about him,” said Laura, sitting up more to take her drink from him. “Actually, I’d never really thought about him before I came to live here.”

“And now?” Rhys settled himself on the bed next to her not bothering to cover up his nakedness. He smelled of clean sweat and dirty sex. Laura decided that on him this was the perfect combination of aromas.

“And now I find he is part of a local legend. Feels like I should read up on him a bit. Besides,” she hesitated, wondering how she could explain what she had seen. What she had felt. Would Rhys understand? She was puzzled to realize that the reason she was reluctant to discuss her sighting of Merlin with him was because she thought he might be jealous. The ridiculousness of the notion made her give a little laugh.

“Besides?” Rhys was waiting for her to finish her sentence.

“Oh, nothing. Like I said, if he’s part of a local story I feel I should find out a bit more. This is my home now—I want to understand as much about it as I can.”

“Well, if you want to know about Merlin you’ve come to the right man,” Rhys told her, flipping shut the book on her lap. “You don’t even need to strain your eyes to read about him—just ask me anything you want to know.”

“Great, thanks.” Laura sipped her drink, annoyed that she had missed the chance to ask to borrow the book. She did want to find out more about the mysterious figure who she seemed to connect with in some inexplicable way. True, she could quiz Rhys. He obviously enjoyed the subject and clearly had done a lot of research. But no, this was something Laura wanted to keep separate from Rhys. As to why she was baffled, instinct told her not to confide in him about her experiences. She decided to shift the focus of the conversation. She leaned down and pulled another book from the pile. It was a heavy tome, the size of a good dictionary or a city telephone directory. It was bound in leather of faded crimson with flowing titles tooled in gold.

“This one is quite beautiful,” she said.

“Have you ever seen one of those before?” Rhys asked.

“What is it?”

“A
grimoire.
”

“Sorry?”

“A
grimoire
, a book of spells.”

Laura’s first reaction was a small laugh, but she could see from his face that Rhys was in earnest. She settled the book onto her lap and opened the cover. The pages were gossamer thin, hundreds of them, each with detailed descriptions of spells, incantations, curses, hexes, and other things Laura had only ever heard of in fairy tales.

“I never knew such a thing really existed,” she said.

“Of course. Just as a cook needs her recipe book, so every witch needs her
grimoire
. There are spells here collected from magic practices from the far ends of Earth. And some a little nearer to home. Look here, for instance,” he said, turning the pages. Laura read the heading.