Shana Abe (20 page)

T
he storm turned his solar into a mystery of soft darkness: cool air, pewter shadows, the fresh smell of rain.

Marcus left all the lamps and torches unlit. He liked it this way, he preferred the natural light of the storm to illuminate his surroundings, to remind him that there truly was more to this vast world than sand and sun and parching thirst. It was the opposite of the Holy Land. It was as heaven was to hell. If it rained every day from here to eternity, Marcus would not be sorry for it.

And for this feeling—the gratitude of rain—Marcus could thank his knight, Trygve.

Sir Trygve had been educated in a series of monasteries, growing more fervently devout as his youth slipped away to middle age. By the time Marcus arrived from Scotland to be his squire, the knight had required prayers of his entire staff no less than four times a day, and Marcus was to spend many an hour kneeling at the cold stone altar of the family chapel in the tiny English shire that made up Trygve’s home.

The knight’s lifetime ambition had been to make a pilgrimage to the most holy of cities, Jerusalem. But the news that the infidels grew stronger and stronger in the
Holy Land, that they were invading and plundering Christian shrines everywhere, galvanized the knight. The church sent out a war cry: It needed good Christian men to defend it. Trygve had found his cause.

Marcus had been only fifteen when they set out. They had collected their indulgences from the pope, they were guaranteed a place in heaven for their good deeds, Trygve told him. And this, the knight had continued, looking down at his squire with joyful eyes, this was what set men apart from animals. This was a sanctified war, a glorious cause, and how blessed they were to be a small part of it.

Marcus had believed him. He had no reason not to. For all his pious words, Trygve had been a wonderful change from Hanoch. For the first time in his life, Marcus had found praise from a man of the world instead of the constant condemnation of his boyhood.

In every way, he had attempted to match the zeal of his benefactor. He had embraced the church, he had embraced the cry of “Deus vult!”—because Marcus had thought God
had
willed it, and he was but His vassal to be commanded.

For all his brave words, Trygve had proven to be past his prime in battle. It was Marcus who shone best there. It was Marcus, growing older than his years under the burning disk of the desert sun, who fought better than most men twice his size, and who gained his reputation as Slayer of the Unholy.

Trygve seemed to overcome his mounting awe and envy of his pupil. He had seemed truly pleased with Marcus’s progress, which indeed reflected directly upon him. He had bathed in that glory to the extent that the
knight declined to return home even after the official Crusade had ended and all the Germans and the French filtered away, leaving just a handful of the dedicated to fight the battle.

Sir Trygve and his squire lost not only their battalion but their servants, who had one by one crept away into the starry nights, never to return. They took the horses and the camels with them.

“A true Christian will never abandon the cause,” Trygve had rallied. “We will carry on, squire. We serve only God.”

His devotion had been real, no doubt of that, Marcus reflected. His pride in Marcus had seemed equally real. The only sign of Trygve’s growing discontent was the ever-increasing bouts of prayer, punctuated with louder and louder supplications, screaming fits to God, and, five times in that last year—Marcus had been there for all of them—falling into deliriums on the ground, writhing and spitting in a religious frenzy.

The last one had taken place just outside of Damascus. Lost Damascus, held quite firmly by the Muslims. Trygve had come out of his fit and announced that God had spoken to him through one of his glorious angels, descended from heaven to instruct Trygve on what he must do. God had indicated that Trygve had a holy mission, one no other could fulfill.

Sir Trygve made it his quest to free all of Damascus. Just one crumbling knight and his horrified squire.

A growling rumble of thunder shook the wood of his table, bringing Marcus back to his solar and the blessed rain.

Into the hilt of the Spanish sword he carried, some
long-ago fervent knight had pressed a minuscule chip of amber said to be from the shroud of Saint Cuthbert. It was firmly entrenched in the metal. Long had Marcus sat and looked at the dot of glowing gold and wondered how best to remove it.

In the end he left it as it was, more out of concern for destroying the balance of a fine sword than out of any reverence for a dead saint.

In the dim light now the brilliance of the little chip dwindled to almost nothing, outshone by the polished silver and cabochons of rubies of the hilt.

Marcus sat at his table, right where the elder of the church had sat, and examined the grain of amber once again, marveling that it had never fallen out, no matter how fierce the battles had become.

Avalon had stood so close to the wooden edge of the table, closer than even Marcus had when he faced the pope’s emissaries and their self-serving demands. She had seemed fearless. She obviously had no idea what those men of God had been capable of doing to her.

Balthazar entered the solar, walked leisurely over to a chair of dark oak and cracked leather.

“Behold,” he said, waving his hand about. “She walks.”

Since Bal was the third person to come to the laird and inform him that the bride had chosen to leave her chamber, Marcus only nodded, still staring at the amber.

“She cannot go too far,” Marcus said.

“Oh?” Bal leaned back in the chair.

Marcus gave a short laugh. “There is nowhere much to go, in case you had not noticed. Half of Sauveur is a ruin. Outside the rain has not eased.”

“It is so,” Bal admitted.

The rain crashed against the leaded glass window of the room, running down the panes in smears, rubbing together the brilliant September colors of the trees and grass outside. At least the habitable portions of Sauveur would be dry and solid for the coming winter. That much they had managed to ensure.

“Did you know my father kept horses in what used to be the west gatehouse, after the stables collapsed?” Marcus watched the rain outside. “I remember that. He said the horses were more important than the stones.”

“A wise man,” said Bal.

“Now, there’s an extraordinary thought. That Hanoch might have been wise.”

“Horses are valuable. Stone is free.”

A woman poked her head in the study, looked at Marcus, and said, “Begging yer pardon, laird, but the bride is out, ye know.”

“I know,” he replied.

The woman eyed him expectantly, then left when nothing more seemed forthcoming.

Marcus shoved a hand through his hair, finally looking down at the mess of letters and scrolls and bits of paper that littered the table. There was so much to do. It overwhelmed him so easily, he wanted to close his eyes and wish it to oblivion. Or wish himself to oblivion. Whichever.

“Your lady requires some clothing to be delivered,” said Bal now. “I believe you may expect it quite soon.”

“Clothing?”

“It will be sent up from the castle of your enemy.”

“What the hell does she need clothing for?”

Bal looked away. Now a guard entered the chamber, gave a short bow. “The bride is loose,” he said, concerned.

“I know,” Marcus sighed.

“She is in the buttery,” continued the guard.

“Let her be,” Marcus said.

The guard bowed his way out.

The papers were stacked up in precarious piles across the desk. There were ledgers and scrawled notes in his father’s handwriting, almost illegible. One regarding the payment of an ewe and her lamb for the loss of a hut. One on giving three sheep to the traveling priest, payment for a visit. One on a dispute over eight reams of woolen cloth. One on the formal protest of one farmer regarding another, claiming he had plowed five rows of oats into the other man’s land, set aside that year for barley. It was endless.

“So, what do you do now, Kincardine?” Bal watched from his chair, his words easy, affable. “Do you think to wait for your king to grant you leave to wed the woman?”

“I already have his leave,” Marcus said, bristling despite the casual tone of his friend. “I’m not waiting for that.”

“From the English king, then. The pope.”

“I don’t give a damn what they say. I’m not waiting for their approval, either.”

“But you do wait. For what, I wonder?”

Marcus shrugged, looking over the stacks of paper again. Bal studied him for a moment, then spoke once more.

“Are you not worried these English will come back and take her?”

“No,” answered Marcus. “That won’t happen.”

“You are certain of this?”

“It doesn’t matter. They may try, but they will not take her. We will be wed before the pope can make up his mind to be bribed by d’Farouche.”

“She is a jewel, a worthy prize for any man,” said Bal, testing him, perhaps.

“Not just a prize,” Marcus responded. “She is a woman first.”

Aye, how well he knew that: flesh and lips and sweet warmth, burning passion, kisses like illumination to his soul.…

“A jewel,” said Bal again, “craved by powerful men. Men who think to steal her from you, who enlist the aid of the holy and the mighty to do it.”

Marcus scowled down at the papers, each word a sharp threat to him, as they were meant to be.

“And yet, you wait for her,” Balthazar finished, and the question was still there in his voice.

“I have to …” Marcus trailed off, unable to put into words what he felt. He wanted to gain Avalon’s trust; he wanted to prove to her that he was worthy of her. He wanted to avoid anything that reeked of his father: force and violence and crushing dominion.

He wanted to
win
her, he realized.

Bal had been watching him, silent, assessing his thoughts with that slightly uncanny way he had.

“To woo such a woman,” Balthazar said now, “surely takes the bravest of men.”

Marcus brought his hands up to his eyes and rubbed them, letting out another sigh.

The cook came into the room. What was her name again? Tara? Tela? Tegan.

“Laird” said the cook. “The bride has left the buttery. She is off to see the south tower, she said.”

“Thank you.”

The papers would wait. They had waited this long, some of them years old already—what the devil had Hanoch been doing all that time, anyway?—and they could wait a day more. Or a week. Marcus pushed back his chair.

“Where do you go?” asked Bal, his voice rich with mirth.

“South tower,” said Marcus as he left. “I don’t believe I have taken in the view there yet.”

T
he south tower had needed no major repairs, as Marcus recalled. The stairs had all been fit, the beams still solid. Perhaps Hanoch had concentrated on maintaining it because it faced the Auld Enemy, England. Marcus had continued his father’s regimen of keeping a steady change of guard in that tower, a constant eye on the horizon.

But the guard was not looking out at the horizon when Marcus had finished climbing to the top.

He ducked out to the wall-walk to discover the rain had stopped as if on command, and now a field of stars was poking through the remains of the clouds above, sparkling even though the setting sun had left painted bands of teal blue and pink and lavender in the western
edge of the world. And surrounded on all sides by these celestial diamonds was Lady Avalon d’Farouche, talking amicably with a group of men and boys on the wet walkway, puddles of the night sky everywhere.

He had to stop to admire her, he couldn’t help but do it. If Trygve had ever truly seen an angel in his visions, Marcus doubted it had been more glorious than Avalon right now, with her ivory hair that caught the starlight, almond-shaped eyes framed in black, an easy smile on her face at the question of one of the boys.

He had never seen her like this before, relaxed, unguarded. As she talked she moved the hand that was out of the sling in a graceful arc, slicing the night air in a gesture that was at once feminine and strong. She did it again, slower, a demonstration. Another boy added a comment and she laughed, prompting the same in those around her. Marcus moved closer, fascinated.

“No,” she was saying, “no one has ever actually fled from me, not in battle or otherwise, I imagine.”

She broke off before she saw him; he could see her head lift from talking to the child, those marvelous eyes turning in his direction.

He could watch her forever. He wanted to stare into her eyes, violet or heather or whatever they were, and stay there, happy at long last, living in her world, the splendor of Avalon.

But when she finally spied him the smile disappeared, her manner grew guarded. The moment withered.

Don’t fear me
, Marcus thought, half a plea, and could have sworn he saw her falter.

She had heard him. He knew she had.

By now the others had noted his presence, the guards
snapping away from the group, the boys looking up at him with open mouths, then back to her.