Mistress of the Storm (14 page)
If he did not know better, it was laughter that floated outside the walls. A man’s. No. The laughter raced like the wind past his house, sounding like the tinkling of hundreds of bells, but also like a chorus of voices. Laughing, then fading off as quickly as it came.
Tempted to curse the fates or whatever had condemned him to live and die without knowledge of his origins or the reasons for his powers, Duncan ignored the urge to investigate and slid back down next to Isabel. She moved closer, kissing his chest as she laid her head there. ’Twas an unconscious gesture but it touched him deeply. Clearly she did not have any reservations while asleep. If only . . .
The laughter echoed in the chamber once more and Duncan decided not to draw its ire again. Turning to his side, he held Isabel tightly, wondering how she would react to what was to come and how it would change things between them.
Would the changes she’d already wrought to his accursed body change his fate as well? Or was he as damned as he’d ever been? Two more days and he would know. As he felt the pull of the moon grow stronger, he wondered if the tides ever considered fighting back or if the fight was as futile as he thought it to be?
Chapter Fourteen
G
unna cried twice during the noon meal and did not even put an evening meal on the table. Worse, she would not meet Isabel’s gaze at all.
unna cried twice during the noon meal and did not even put an evening meal on the table. Worse, she would not meet Isabel’s gaze at all.
Harald stomped in and out of the house, whispering to Duncan and listening to his orders with a black expression in his eyes.
Ornolf disappeared into the storage barn and did not come to eat with them.
Duncan was the worst, for he carried the look of a man facing the gallows.
And no one would speak to her about what was going to happen.
The next day dawned stormy and dark, the sun not daring to peek through the clouds. All day, people arrived at the farm and Isabel watched as Ornolf greeted them and led them to the barn. Some walked on their own, but others were carried or carted in. A chilling thought struck her as the third group turned up on the path to the farm. They were all either ill, ailing, or injured in some way. They sought out the man called the Healer—Duncan. Icy shivers traced down her spine and she trembled with fear as she faced the coming night, not knowing what to expect.
When she tried to speak to him, Duncan brushed her aside with an unusual indifference. And that worried her most of all. She found an extra cloak in his chamber, wrapped herself in it, and waited by the door to the house, watching the scene unfold through a crack in the shutters. Once she tried to follow Duncan out, but Harald and another man blocked her path, making it clear she was a prisoner, at least for the time being.
As the moon began to gain prominence in the sky Duncan entered the house, motioning for Gunna to leave them in private and she complied silently.
“Duncan—” Isabel began.
He waved her to silence. “There is no time now, Isabel.” His voice took on a strange cadence. “I must . . . see to things and you must remain here.”
“What will you do, Duncan? Tell me, I beg you.”
He took her hands in his and she jumped from the heat in them. Almost too hot to touch, his skin seem to sizzle where it contacted hers. “I cannot speak of it now. You must obey my wishes in this. Stay here with Gunna and do not leave until Ornolf gives you leave to do so.”
“But . . .”
He released her without another word, the air around her losing the heat he radiated as he stepped to the door. She shivered and tried to reach for him, saying his name, but he left without another look or word. When she tried to follow, Harald took hold of the door and stopped her, allowing Gunna in but neither of them out.
She tried to lift the latch, but it was held in place by something and would not budge. Isabel slammed her hands down on the table and let out a vile curse, startling Gunna so much she stopped crying.
“Tell me, Gunna. Tell me what is happening,” Isabel begged.
“I cannot,” Gunna said. “I am sworn to him, Isabel.”
“He brought me here because he thinks I can help him in some way.” Gunna’s eyes showed her shock at the news, so Isabel continued. “I was able to stop some of the effects over these last days,” she argued without knowing how accurate her statements were.
“Harald will stop you.” Gunna looked at the door, then back at Isabel. She shook her head and motioned for Isabel to follow her into the small storage chamber located opposite the bedchamber. “Come this way instead.” She drew back a cloth, revealing a small door.
Isabel reached to lift the latch. Gunna grabbed her hand. “Are you certain you wish to know the whole of it? Mayhap you should remain here as he—”
“Nay, I will not stay here,” Isabel argued. Something terrible was heading toward Duncan and she needed to warn him. A horrible churning in her stomach unlike anything she’d ever felt told her so. She must go to him. She must . . . do something.
“Stay in the shadows of the house until you reach the corner, then duck behind the fence. When you reach the barn, go to the back and find the third plank in the wall,” Gunna explained, handing her a dark cloak. “It slides apart and you can enter there, but Isabel, you must not reveal yourself or leave until everyone else has.”
Isabel nodded, anxious to get to the barn as quickly as possible. Pulling the hood of the cloak down low around her face, she eased the door open and stepped outside. The moon’s light shone down, lighting the landscape and throwing shadows across the yard. Using them to hide her presence, she did as Gunna had instructed and made her way to the barn. Finding the back corner, she counted and found the loosened plank. Holding her breath, Isabel tugged it open only wide enough for her to shimmy through, then closed it behind her. A wall of wooden storage trunks provided cover as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness before moving.
Ornolf’s voice broke the silence and she climbed up on one of the trunks to see into the open part of the building. The center part had been cleared of whatever goods or supplies were usually stored there. Those who were ill or injured were gathered in a small group with their families standing in another circle around them.
Duncan stood in the center of them all, his eyes closed and his arms crossed over his chest. But it was his hands that caught her attention.
They glowed like irons in the blacksmith’s fire!
Covering her mouth with her hand to keep from gasping aloud, she watched as he began to change into someone, something, else. No one seemed surprised but she could not believe what her eyes saw.
He took in a deep breath and opened his eyes. They glimmered and flickered like flames, brightening and burning until all the color was gone and only white could be seen. His face changed as well, with other features laying over his as though someone had placed a mask over it. The face was younger in some ways and much older in others as it melded with his own, making it appear as though several people lived in the same body.
“The Healer is here,” he said, but the voice was not his.
Isabel shook, fearing what she was about to see.
“Take me to them,” he ordered. He held out his hands and Ornolf guided him to the nearest invalid, a man of about two score whose arms and legs had been badly burned. Duncan reached out and placed his hands on the man’s arms.
She rubbed her eyes, not believing what she witnessed.
Their flesh seemed to melt together, rearranging itself from burned and ravaged to normal skin. All traces of the burns disappeared as Duncan touched the man. Once the damage on his arms had been repaired, Duncan moved his glowing hands onto the man’s legs. Impossible though it was, the skin repaired itself under his touch.
Isabel shook her head, denying what she saw each time as Duncan was guided from person to person. Her chest hurt from holding her breath and her eyes burned with tears as she watched him heal each one, drawing their injuries or their illnesses from them and leaving them whole.
He moved in utter silence. Only the sound of his deep inhalation as he began each healing broke the stillness. Ornolf stopped him once, but he looked out with those flaming eyes and set his gaze on a woman who looked whole. Duncan motioned her closer, but she shook her head, denying the need for his power until he said her name and revealed the truth of her condition to everyone present.
“Margaret, ’tis not a bairn that grows in your womb. It will be the cause of your death,” he warned quietly.
The woman began to cry and the sound of her desperate sobbing filled the barn.
“Come to me.” His words sounded as though he pleaded with her to let him help.
Margaret took one shaking step, then another until he could touch her, laying his hands across her belly and lower. She gasped and crumpled to the ground. Duncan knelt at her side and whispered reassuring words that only the woman could hear.
Ornolf helped him to stand and tried to lead him away, but Duncan stopped once more and looked across the people assembled there. He shook his head, then turned in Isabel’s direction. She ducked lower so she could not be seen above the crates, but she could hear him approaching.
“Duncan . . . Healer, you have done enough this night,” Ornolf urged. “Come away now.”
“There is another here who is so broken her soul calls to me,” Duncan said. “I can feel the damage even now.”
She held her breath then. He spoke about her, though no one knew she was there. How could he know? How could he feel such things? She fought to remain silent, to keep from answering his call and begging for his gift to be used to patch her soul and body back together. He would do it. He could, as she’d plainly seen. One touch of his hands and all the pain would disappear forever. She could be whole again.
She could . . . never accept such a gift.
Ornolf spoke to Duncan and she heard them move back to the center of the room. Risking a peek she watched as his hands lost the fire and his face became only his. Those who had been healed began to approach him, murmuring their thanks, trying to give him coin and goods in gratitude, but Ornolf guided them away.
Efficiently, he cleared the room and building, then took his leave of Duncan. She heard the door close and the bar drop into place. Isabel waited, not wanting to reveal her presence and remembering Gunna’s instructions to remain until everyone else left. Before she climbed down from her perch as quietly as she could, she risked one more look. What she saw stopped her.
Duncan sat slumped forward on the stool. Suddenly his body shook and shuddered until he fell to the floor. The same fire that had filled his hands took over his body and he writhed in agony as it burned him without destroying him. She could see he fought against it, clenching his jaw and moaning as wave upon wave of terrible pain coursed through him. He rolled to his side, curling himself into a ball, but another wave forced him to his back again.
Until his legs were exposed she hadn’t realized he wore only a loose robe, not unlike the one he’d given her but in a sturdier fabric. The fire appeared in his legs, setting his skin on fire, making it blister and burn. She hurried to him before she even knew she’d decided to help him.
But how?
Whatever controlled him was inflicting the very injuries and ailments on his body that he had taken from those he’d healed. Shaking her head, she watched as he clutched the parts of his body he’d laid hands on in the ritual. Was the power he hinted at destroying him bit by bit? Her tears poured out as she watched in helplessness, and reached for him.
He opened his eyes and stared at her. “Get out,” he begged through clenched teeth. “Now!”
She crouched down, unable and unwilling to leave him. Touching his face, she fell back from the fiery heat. The tips of her fingers reddened as though she’d touched a scalding cooking pot or iron poker in the fire. How could he live through such a thing?
“Duncan,” she whispered. “How can I make this stop?”
“You cannot,” he forced out. “Nothing can.”
The tremors seized him again and he moaned in agony in the silence of the barn. She sobbed, trying to think of something that could help him or ease his pain.
“I beg you, Isabel. Go now.” Then he was lost to the fire that burned him but did not destroy him.
She scrambled away, climbing to her feet and stumbling to the place where she’d entered. Without looking back again, she shoved the board aside and climbed out. Isabel could not return to the house sobbing and hysterical as she was, so she crept away toward the stream, her mind confused over what she’d witnessed. Just before she reached it, she was grabbed from behind, dragged into the bushes and thrown to the ground.
“What happened in there?” Godrod asked, his hand wrapped around her throat, slamming her head down. “What is going on, whore?”
Out of control, she cried and babbled what she’d seen—the fire in Duncan’s hands and in his eyes, the strange voices and face, and his ability to heal with his touch. She failed to keep any of it in. If Godrod believed what she’d seen or not, he didn’t say. He simply kept throttling her and slapping her until she told it all. When she’d finished the tale, he released his grip and tossed her aside.
“If I go back to Sigurd with such a story, he will have me see to you before he kills me. If yer lying to me, bitch, I will make ye pay for it. Ye will beg for death to end what I will do to ye,” he threatened.
She crawled away, trying to find a place to hide from him, from everyone, from everything, but he grabbed her ankle and dragged her back. With his foot on her stomach to hold her down, he reached for the ties on his trousers.
“No reason not to use ye while I have ye.”
He fumbled with his laces as Isabel watched in horror. Unable to fight back and utterly confused by what she’d seen, she gave up, throwing her arms over her face. He knelt down, spreading her legs and pushing her gown out of his way, chortling.
Isabel held her breath and waited for the pain.
Nothing happened. Opening her eyes, she watched as Godrod fell over to one side, landing on the ground next to her. She scrambled backwards to get away from him, and only then did she realize what had happened. Harald stood there with a long club in his hand. Looking from him to Godrod, she saw the gash in the side of his head from Harald’s blow.
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