Lord of Shadows (8 page)

“Usually there are more to help,” Jane explained, “but Sister Miriam is sick with a head cold, Prudence is
suffering her monthlies, and Charlotte is visiting her sister in Cork who’s just had a baby, so I volunteered. I don’t mind. I like the time alone to think.”

No more needed to be said. Solitude was a precious commodity in Glenlorgan. Sabrina had the quiet hours of night duty in the infirmary. Jane had her after dinner washing-up. One lived here long enough, one learned to carve out a small oasis of quiet. That, or one followed Sister Bertha’s dubious example and went stone deaf. Drastic, but effective.

“I saw you with Mr. MacLir this afternoon.” Jane flashed her a wicked grin, fanning herself with a sudsy hand. “Now I’d marry him if he smelled like dead hippopotamus.”

“Jane!”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought the very same thing, Sabrina Douglas. I see the way you look at him when you think no one’s watching.”

Sabrina sniffed. “He’s a former patient. That’s all.”

“Mm-hmm. So was One-Eyed Toby from the village who got that fishhook in his lip, but I never saw you gawk at him like that.”

“Oh my, look at the time. I have to get back. Sister Moira’s taken a turn. I need to be there in case she wakes.” Sabrina motioned toward the sink. “Best get to it. That pot won’t scrub itself.”

At which point wet suds caught her square in the face.

Laughing, she grabbed up her tray. “See you back at our chamber later?”

“I’ll believe it when I see it. If I know you, Sister Ainnir will have to force you to get some sleep.” Jane scoured the pot with vigor enough to put a hole right through the bottom.

Tray in hand, Sabrina crossed the refectory. Up the stairs. Opened the door on a downpour, wind whipping the rain across the courtyard in sheets. Well, that was just perfect. She’d be soaked to the bone if she risked that mess. Nothing left of her dinner but mush.

Turning back, she retraced her steps. If she took the upper corridor that ran past the offices she could come down the east stairwell. That would leave only a quick dash across to the main ward. She’d still get wet, but not sopping. And her dinner might even survive.

The passage up here lay deep in shadow, broken periodically by tall rain-smeared windows casting wavery pools of gray over the floor. As usual, an eternal draft swept along, fluttering her kerchief, gooseflesh rising on her arms. Up ahead a door creaked back and forth in perfect spooky gothic fashion. Where were the ghostly moans? Rattling chains? A spectral lady in white?

As she passed Ard-siúr’s office, a horrible, low, rumbly growl lifted the hairs at the back of her neck. The wind chose that moment to kick up, throwing rain like pebbles against the windows even as the growl rose in pitch to a whining, snarling hiss.

She’d had to ask.

The growl culminated in a frenzy of hissing and yowling, the sound of glass breaking, and a definite non-ghoulish, “What the hell—you bit me.”

Ard-siúr’s cat zipped past her, tearing up the corridor followed by an enormous, looming body, black against the gray and silver shadows behind him.

“Daigh?”

He drew to a startled halt. “Sabrina? Is that you?”

“What are you doing here?” Unease slithered up her
spine. Could he be stealing? There was little in Ard-siúr’s office to tempt a thief. The treasures kept there personal, not profitable. Still, there might be enough to tempt a determined thief. And Daigh MacLir was nothing if not determined.

“It’s naught to worry you.” He sucked the skin between his thumb and forefinger. “In your Ard-siúr’s office earlier, I had a flash of memory. A feeling I’d been there before. Something I knew. It sounds like madness, but I had to come back . . .”

“That’s wonderful. What was it that triggered the memory?” She stood on tiptoe, peering over his shoulder into the dark room.

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. When I try to force it, I just come up against a damned hole. No recall. No memories.” Pain bit into the angles of his face, straining the muscles in his neck. “It’s driving me mad.”

“Come. Let’s go in together.” Before she could think of the wisdom of her actions, she grabbed him by the hand, leading him into the dark office. Lit the nearest taper, the wick sputtering to life with a few whispered words.

Nothing seemed out of place in the cluttered chamber. No obvious signs of disruption or theft. They stood together in the middle of the room, Daigh rigid with tension beside her.

Hopelessness. Misery. Desolation. Confusion.

His feelings hammered Sabrina in a relentless mental assault, a blinding headache shooting down her spine all the way to her toes. She fought to clear a space in her mind amid the cacophony of foreign emotion. Room enough to think of something beyond the slosh of her brain and the spots dancing before her eyes.

“Are you all right?” His black gaze swung to her, the meager light flickering over his stubbled chin, aquiline nose, broad warrior’s brow.

Her reply caught in her throat. She sought to tear herself free from his riveting stare, but found herself trapped. Unable to move. Barely able to breathe. For a fraction of a second, she felt a sense of falling. Wind rushing past her ears. Darkness closing in on her, and Daigh’s face filling her vision, though not Daigh’s face. He was different. But how? She’d no time to decide before he lurched away from her, breaking the dangerous connection between them.

“Sabrina?” he asked. “What’s wrong? Answer me.”

She recovered, suddenly as tired as if she’d been working in the infirmary for a week on no sleep. Eyes scratchy and stinging, muscles aching, the headache of before dulled to a continuous pounding throb at her temples. She still gripped her dinner tray, the everyday smells of ham and potatoes oddly comforting against the backdrop of darkness and mystery and magic that surrounded this man like an aura. “I don’t know. For a moment, I felt as if I might faint. And you were . . . but”—he frowned, his eyes like chips of obsidian in a grim face—“. . . never mind. I’m tired and I haven’t eaten. That must be it.”

Without a word, he took the tray from her. Offered his elbow for support. “Come. It’s no use. I remember nothing.”

She nodded, allowing him to guide her limp body. Leaning against him was like leaning against a tree. Solid. Unwavering. Though no tree she’d encountered had ever sent a tingly pleasantness buzzing up through her center. Or a warm blush touching her cheeks.

At the door, he paused, leaving her to reenter the office.
Bent to blow out the candle. For a long moment, he stood in the dark, staring round him, shoulders braced.

“Daigh? We should go. You don’t belong here.”

“You’re right, Sabrina,” he muttered. “I don’t belong here. That’s the only thing I
do
know for certain.”

Pinching out the tiny flame of her candle, Sabrina closed her diary, having answered none of the questions scurrying through her brain like mice in a cluttered attic. Instead, putting her thoughts to paper only added to the bewildering array of puzzles. Daigh at the heart of every one like the center of some great black storm cloud. Who was he? What event in his past had caused the brutal scarring of his body? Why did he insist he knew her? Why was she suddenly experiencing flashes of another, armored Daigh? What was he doing in Ard-siúr’s office? Had he told her the truth about the memory? What was he hiding? And why did she have the eerie premonition that events closed in around them? Dragging her into his orbit whether she willed it or not?

“Jane?” Sabrina whispered. “Are you awake?”

A grumpy mumble floated up out of the dark. “I am now.”

“May I ask you a question?”

“You’ve already asked two. Three’s my limit for the middle of the night.”

“Have you noticed anything unusual about Daigh MacLir?”

“Everything about the man is unusual. Can I go back to sleep now?”

“No. Listen. Ever since he arrived, I feel as if he holds some importance to me. And I to him.”

Jane heaved a sigh. The mattress creaking as she rolled over. “He’s got the devil’s own looks and watches you with that possessive midnight stare of his. Have you never sensed desire before?”

Sabrina squirmed beneath her blankets, her body awake to sensations she couldn’t put a name to. “It’s more than that. He breaches all my barriers. No matter what I do, I can’t keep him out. And twice now, there’s been more. I caught a glimpse of something. A vision. But it vanished so quickly I couldn’t tell you what I saw or if I even really saw it. It was Daigh, but it wasn’t. He was dressed oddly. From another time. Another age. And then tonight—”

“So you woke me up to tell me you may or may not have seen something or nothing.”

“Well, when you put it like that . . .”

“You’re tired, Sabrina. You work too much and sleep too little. It’s no wonder you’re hallucinating. Sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Practical, sensible Jane, the gods love her. “And his insistence in thinking he knows me? That he’s met me before?”

A grumble that had nothing complimentary about it and then another heavy sigh. “He was pulled from the ocean full of seawater and with no pulse. I’d not trust anything he contends.”

“So you think he’s mistaken?”

“Have you met him before?”

“No.”

“Ever laid eyes on him at all?”

“I don’t think so.”

“There. Now sleep. You and I have to be up at dawn. Good night, Sabrina.”

She lay back, hands behind her head. Stared up into the ceiling, a nagging annoyance tickling the edge of her consciousness before snapping into place. “Of course,” she exclaimed. “His eyes. That was the difference. His eyes were green, not black.”

“Green, black, or polka dots, go to sleep already,” Jane moaned.

Teresa’s grouchy voice interrupted from the last bed in the row. “I’ll just be happy when Daigh MacLir leaves, and we can all go back to normal.”

Sabrina shut her mouth, forcing herself to lie still. Even absent, Daigh played havoc on her senses. What was happening to her? Why was she feeling this way? And why did a return to normal now seem like the last thing she wanted?

Sabrina hitched up her skirts. Hiked her bag higher on her shoulder. Placed one booted foot upon the fallen log. Wobbled, arms swinging out to balance herself.

Beneath her, the stream churned against its banks, sending a muddy spill of water racing under the log. Upstream, broken tree limbs piled against an exposed root, caught in a growing dam of branches.

“Aren’t we past these juvenile games?” Jane asked.

“Enough out of you, Sister Brigh. Being a grown woman does not necessarily equal being a moldy old bore.”

“Very well. But your grown self is going to end up soaked to the skin if you aren’t careful,” Jane warned.

“But I’m being careful. And so will you.” She glanced back over her shoulder where Jane stood, arms folded, disapproval stamped upon her freckled features. “Come. You’re not a full sister yet.”

Tapping her foot, Jane rendered a skeptical grimace.

“Just.” With surefooted agility, Sabrina picked her way
across the slick, knobby log. “Like.” Dropped back to the path, sweeping her friend a deep bow. “That.”

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Jane stepped onto the log. “You’re completely incorrigible.”

Sabrina shot her a grin. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Rolling her eyes as she bobbled her unsteady way across the log, Jane joined her friend on the path. “It’s getting late.” She darted a nervous glance at the encroaching wood. “I wish you hadn’t taken so long with Mrs. O’Brian. We should have been home by now.”

Dusk filtered gray and purple through the trees. Drew long shadows in the spaces between. Branches scraped in the rising wind, clouds flattening low and angry across the sky. Rain and the damp, moldy pungency of earth scenting the air.

“Babies don’t exactly wear watches,” Sabrina replied. “As it was, it was a very short labor so be happy for small favors. We might have been there all night.”

“At least then we’d have been traveling in the morning. It’s awfully dark through here.”

“Come along. If we hurry we might still be in time for supper.” Sabrina grabbed Jane’s hand, and the pair hurried along the narrow winding track. Never noticed the strangers until they’d stepped into the path. Others drawing up behind them like specters.

“Sabrina?” Jane’s fear trembled her voice.

“It’s all right.” Sabrina’s gaze moved over the filthy, matted features of wild, landless men. “They wouldn’t dare harm us.”

She lifted her head. Let their greasy, hollow gazes slide over the snow-white kerchief covering her hair. The
somber habit. Let them conclude they’d not grown desperate enough to molest a pair of holy women.

A bone-thin man in torn trousers and a shirt that looked as if it had been made for a much stouter figure stepped forward. Sabrina’s throat closed at the flash of knife glinting in his fist.

The countryside crawled with gangs of destitute peasants turned off their land. Rumors of the crimes committed by these bandits were a common staple of daily gossip. Ard-siúr warned all to take care upon the roads and travel together when leaving the protection of the demesne. But she and Jane traveled upon
bandraoi
land. The village only a half mile beyond the last field’s border. They should have been safe. Should have been out of harm’s way.