Microsoft Word - Jenny dreamed (33 page)

An icy chill settled over Jenny's flesh, and she grew dizzy again. Dev couldn't be ... oh, dear God no, she thought, struggling to get away from her captor, trying to tear the scarf away from her eyes. A horse whinnied as metal armor clanked against its own protective shielding, and she heard, as blackness mercifully blotted out pain, the heavy sound of a body falling to the ground.

When Jenny opened her eyes, she found herself in a world that had not existed for five hundred years. She was lying in a canopied bed whose heavy draperies of dark, purple velveteen were half drawn. A figure resting on a chair in the gathering shadows of the room rose at the sound of her voice, moaning, then sobbing as she remembered that Dev was dead. The pain that reverberated within her tortured mind was too much to bear in silence.

For minutes the maid who had stood watch over the unconscious girl stood at the bedside, unsure of what she should do. The lady was obviously in shock, beside herself with hysterical grief. Did she dare risk calling the Laird in now? Or, thought Amarythe, would it be best to wait until this storm of emotion had passed? Laird Rodrigo did not appreciate an outward show of feeling in anyone, but then, this young girl was his wife. Surely she, of all people, would be exempt from his wrath.

Finally Amarythe murmured a soft plea, "Weep nae more, m'lady! The sun is lowering and ye're husband'll want t'see ye soon. Approach him wi' eyes tha' be reddened wi' tears, or he'll be full of glow'rs and baleful temper." The lady stared at her as though she were some strange being not of this world, and Amarythe turned away with a puzzled frown of her own and went to fetch a cloth 'and a basin of cool water.

Jenny submitted dully to the attentions of the maid, allowing her to bathe her tired, aching eyes with the damp cloth, letting herself be helped from bed and dressed in a gown of pale blue linen. When the girl had finished her ministrations and handed Jenny a looking. glass, she did not recognize the person who stared back at her, Despite the uneven surface that gave her reflection a wavery appearance, Jenny found the transformation in the mirror startling. She was dressed in a simple clinging gown that silhouetted her body. A loose, knee-length vest of the same material hung in graceful folds over the garment, but it was shot through with golden thread so that it shimmered in the yellow glow of the candles that had been lit. A girdle of fine gold links belted the vest at the waist, fastened by a buckle set with a single sapphire the size of a small hen's egg.

In her strange, burred accent, the girl had answered her questions with the name of each garment. After she'd brushed out Jenny's hair until it lay like a heavy, gleaming veil of black across her shoulders, Amarythe had dexterously parted the heavy masses at the center and formed two neat coils of hair that she pinned to the side of Jenny's head. A long, nearly sheer veil the girl had called a wimple was wound under the chin and allowed to drape a bit before being pinned atop the head and covered by another veil that was secured by a simple gold tiara. Now Jenny looked like a well-to-do lady of the Middle Ages, an image that was as frightening and strange to her as Amarythe's accent or the antiquated look of the room's furnishings.

The girl had refused to reply to her queries about her surroundings, apparently afraid to say anything before Rodrigo had seen Jenny. When she was completely dressed, Jenny was escorted from the room, down a long, stone-walled hallway lit by flickering torches to a room with guards on either side of its massive, carved wooden doors. Neither of the two men was wearing knightly livery. Their modem style of dress, similar to the clothing Dev and Wynn had been wearing on the expedition, added to Jenny's confusion.

Both men lounged insolently against the wall, their guns obviously the threat that kept intruders away from Rodrigo's private suite. Amarythe must have become used to the aggressive, overly bold attitude of Rodrigo's hirelings, for as one of the men stepped forward and made a grab for her, she spryly avoided his grasping hand and threw an arm out to shield Jenny from the same. "Ye'll let us pass, y'big ox, or ye'll have ye'r master t'answer to!

The lady wi' me is the Laird's wife … step aside and let us enter!"

Though there was little respect in the appraising glances they gave Jenny, they appeared to take the warning at face value, and one of them swung the door open and stood back to let them pass by unmolested. Inside the maid ushered Jenny up to a huge desk and made a low, kneeling curtsey, announcing that she had brought the Lady Jennifer, and rising only when Rodrigo, without lifting his head from the papers he was studying, curtly dismissed her.

There was a long, purposeful silence before Rodrigo looked up, a maneuver that in the past had served to set the mood for his ascendency in a meeting with another. Too much had happened to Jenny this day, though, for her to be unsettled by such tactics. She stood facing him,

her head held high as her husband's eyes met hers for the first time in two years. "I had not thought it possible, my dear Jena, but you have grown even more lovely than I remember,"

he commented, his gaze sweeping over her body with a touch of the old, familiar possessiveness he'd always shown. "The style of clothing suits you ... an appropriate setting for a fine jewel."

"You have the advantage of being familiar with these styles ... with this place you've found, Rodrigo," Jenny answered coldly, glancing around at the tapestries decorating the walls, at the cressets that flickered a dull light over the room's furnishings. "Your gallant knights have cost me enough pain this day to last a lifetime; do not test me further by playing at cat-and-mouse games!" She glared at him, her nostrils flaring with open resentment, as he rose and walked around the desk to her side.

"You are referring to the men who died down below, no?" He took her hand, his eyes narrowing with a flash of dark menace as she snatched it away. He remained outwardly calm, though a tight, ticking pulse in his cheek betrayed a growing irritation with her lack of warmth. "Or perhaps to the young man who died after the journey here?" Jenny's eyes closed for a brief moment, and Rodrigo smiled, shrugging his shoulders in a careless way.

"These things happen, cara, life is given ... it is taken away. What can this one death mean when you have been given back your husband, eh?"

Jenny bit her lip to keep from crying out against his ridiculous claim, to hold back the ridicule she wanted to fling in his sneering face. What did it matter now that she'd found Rodrigo alive ... nothing mattered now. She turned her face away from him, then a whimper escaped her as his long, thin fingers closed on her jaw, forcing her around to look into his eyes.

"You do not seem happy about our reunion, little one. All these many months I have longed to see you again. Surely you must have missed me to come all this way." He let go of her, then caught her shoulders and gave her body a shake. "I am waiting to hear you speak of the love you bear me, Jena. Why do you choose to anger me at such a tender moment?"

"You ... I thought you were dead, Rodrigo." Jenny shivered, her entire body wracked with trembling. Even the bitter cold of winter in Montana had not left her as icy as the touch of this man who was supposed to be dead. With a care and consideration that was uncharacteristic, he drew her toward a chair and settled her in it. She looked up at Rodrigo with such bewilderment that he regretted his harshness and took her hand in his, chafing it to warm the pallid flesh.

"I am very much alive, Jena," he said, studying the pale, bloodless cast of her fair complexion. "Perhaps, before I answer your questions, you will answer one of mine. How was it that you came to be so positive I was dead? Has my brother assumed my title?" Jenny nodded, wearily explaining in a few words about the funeral.

"I see. My little brother finally saw his chance and, no doubt due to Inez's nagging influence, seized it. However, I am not angered. He is welcome to the duchy, he and his hoard of ugly brats. I have everything I want right here." Rodrigo squeezed her hand and added,

"Especially now, mi cara bella. I would imagine that it was Sebastiano who was buried in my name. The poor fool died of a fever not one hundred fifty miles from this very spot. I was indeed dismayed to lose such a faithful servant."

Jenny raised her head. "You lost a brother, Rodrigo. Have you no feelings?"

His fine, dark brows drew together in a puzzled frown, and his laughter was mocking. "For a bastard? What is the life or death of one of my father's by-blows to me? There were so many, one fewer makes no difference to the world." He dismissed the subject then as unworthy of further conversation and rang for a servant. "You must be worn by your journey; I will not make you face the full court at supper tonight. We will dine here where we can talk privately. I have so much to tell you."

Rodrigo ordered their meal, -and while they awaited it, the servant poured a glass of red wine for her. "There are drawbacks to the isolation of this spot. We must make do with what is grown here for our foodstuffs and wines," he observed. "This is one of the best wines they have managed, fermented of local berries. You will like it, Jena, and perhaps it will bring some color back into your face. I have never liked paIe, colorless beauties."

When they were settled across from each other at the small table the servant had set up, Rodrigo drew her attention to the plates and serving pieces. Everything, including the cutlery, was forged of heavy, glistening gold.. "It is real, my love, pure gold melted down from the offerings of the Chibcha Indians, given in tribute to this country's founder two hundred years before Columbus landed at the mouth of the Orinoco! Believe me, you have never before eaten from such an expensive service. The wealth concentrated in this tiny land would have made Queen Isabella herself green with envy."

Jenny was beginning to see why Rodrigo cared so little for the loss of his dukedom. She had little appetite for the highly spiced food, a dish consisting of lamb in a thick, sweet-tasting sauce. A thousand questions popped into her head, all answered before she could voice them as her husband continued his excited dialogue.

"We are in the fabled EI Dorado now, Jena," he went on. "Just think of it, wealth beyond belief, precious jewels such as the sapphire you're wearing, diamonds and emeralds that exceed its size! And it all belongs to me now."

"Because you brought armed men to overthrow the people? How long can you last here with that type of ... dictatorship? Be sensible, Rodrigo, you have always been that, at least!

When your stores of ammunition run out, how will you maintain control of a populace who must resent your presence?"

Rodrigo peered across the table, wondering at the perception his wife showed. He had never given Jena much credit for thought, had always considered her a pretty plaything, amusing but not one to discuss serious topics with. He smiled, enjoying their conversation. She had not only grown more beautiful, but more inquisitive and independent. "I will discuss that with you later, mi cara. Suffice to say now that I have enough of a stock of arms to last as long as I would like it to. Let me tell you instead about how this Elysium came to be and how I found it."

Jenny continued to sip at the wine while Rodrigo went on in his enthusiasm to reveal the mysteries of the colony of European settlers who had founded what was called Beann Gowd'en. "It is a harsh language, this Gaelic the Scots use, but at least they do not speak it often. Their language is a rough form of Old English and really quite understandable once one is accustomed to the cadence." He leaned forward, forgetting to eat as he spoke with relish of what was now his. "We live in another time here, Jena. The customs haven't changed for five hundred years. This city where Sir Thomas built his castle isn't even fortified. What need is there of stone walls or battlements when Neowe Erceldoune lies on a plain nearly three thousand feet above the valley floor? There is only one passage to the top, and it is well-hidden, so camouflaged that I nearly missed it my first time here."

Jenny took a deep draft of wine, bitterly reflecting on the phrase, "first time." It was obviously when he'd left and journeyed out of the Guayana to hire his mercenaries that Alazar had made his fateful sighting. How different her life would be if he had only missed seeing Rodrigo that day. "And so when your armory runs dry of ammunition you.will take as much wealth as possible and leave these people. Is that your plan?" Jenny pressed him for the answer he'd shied away from earlier.

"You are very perceptive, Jena. But there is a treasure of which I have not spoken yet, and it directly concerns you." He tilted his head back and drank from his glass. "Yes, I am puzzling you. It is time to show you my treasure. It seems that the fatigue and shock of seeing me again has robbed you of your appetite. Come." He rose and moved around the table, catching her hand to help her up. For the first time, his face looked pleasant as he smiled, his white teeth flashing against his dark skin, and Jenny had a glimpse of the man who had so enchanted her at the age of sixteen.

But Jenny was not sixteen now. She was a woman who had known love and lost it because of the man who held her hand, who was smiling at her as though nothing had happened when everything she'd held dear was gone. Again, as she withdrew her hand from his, Rodrigo mistook her shiver of revulsion for mere fatigue.

He led the way across the room to a bookcase and very carefully lifted down an aged manuscript. That was like him, Jenny thought, watching the delicate way he laid the fragile, yellowed sheaf of papers on a nearby table, opened them to a particular spot, and asked her to be seated on the carved bench before the table.

"Read this page. If you have trouble deciphering a word here or there, I'll translate it for you.

I know this section of Sir Thomas's diary by heart."

Jenny glanced down at the page, and to her tired; swollen eyes, the Gothic script seemed to blur, but the date, written clearly in the top left hand comer caught her interest. It read,

"Twenty-three, June, thirteen hundred thirteen, Anno Domini" As she began to read the message, she could almost hear Sir Thomas's voice and the pain it held.