Shana Abe (21 page)

“Good evening,” he said, because he could not think of anything else.

The boys chorused back his greeting; Avalon offered only a downward glance to her feet.

They all stood like that for a while, until Marcus ventured closer. The youngsters broke apart and allowed him in their circle.

“Can ye hit, laird, as the bride does?” asked one bold fellow.

“Well, I can hit, but not like your lady. She has a special skill.”

“Anyone can learn it,” Avalon said quickly.

The boys’ attention swung immediately back to her, hope and excitement teeming around them.

“Will ye teach us, milady?” asked the same boy.

Avalon hesitated, looked over at Marcus and down again. Faint starlight adorned her cheekbones, her lips, the very tips of her lashes, marking her in utterly feminine lines with cool blue light.

“I will, if I can,” she said at last.

Marcus crossed his arms over his chest. “Why couldn’t you, Lady Avalon?”

It was another challenge; he didn’t seem able to stop himself from issuing them to her.

She lifted her head, gazed at him deliberately. “I will if there is time,” she amended, and the boys gave their enthusiastic approval to this.

In their excitement they began the lesson plans without her, discussing between them when would be best to start, who should participate, and where to hold it.

“A moment, lads,” broke in Marcus. “Our lady has an injury. We must wait for her to heal.”

The boys settled down amid exclamations of disappointment. Avalon listened to them, then shook her head.

“We may begin as soon as tomorrow, if your laird allows it,” she said. “I can tell you what to do, and you may practice it before me. It would be a good beginning.”

Twelve pairs of young eyes swung back to him, and Marcus gave in with apparent grace. “As you wish,” he said to Avalon, and had to bow his head to hide the triumph he felt. One more small step taken to bind Avalon to Sauveur. He silently praised the persistence of the boys.

It seemed, however, that persistence had its drawbacks. The boys would not leave even after Marcus gave them his look of dismissal. They had turned back to Avalon and were again peppering her with questions, talking over each other, hardly waiting for her to respond. Avalon noticed his growing impatience; he saw the corners of her lips tilt up whenever she looked in his direction, each time the smile a little more obvious.

Eventually he had to physically break apart the group and motion them away, telling them it was time to go back down to wherever it was they came from, that the lady would still be here the next day to grant them an audience.

They dispersed at once, running off into the night, excitement undimmed about what great fighting the future would hold for them, armed with the battle skills granted by the warrior maiden of their infamous curse.

Avalon faced the damp stone wall, looking south over
the sea of treetops and sheer mountain faces. Marcus noted her sling looked different, a different color, a different pattern. He only somewhat recalled that moment in his study with those deceiving men, but it seemed to him Avalon had done something rather amazing at the time, something about removing her sore arm from the sling to prove her health. When it happened he had watched it from a distance; it had been one more ingredient in the volatile mixture of words and intentions in that room. But now Marcus wondered why she did it.

The emissaries would have been appalled if they thought she had been mistreated. They would have taken any injury and held it up as an example to suit their claims. Marcus was certain Avalon knew this as well as he did. And yet, she had acted in his favor. She had dismissed their concerns with princessly dignity and spared Marcus the necessity of taking action against them.

He came up beside her on the walk. “New sash.”

The top of her head reached just over his shoulder; she inclined it now, looking down at the sling.

“Yes. Your wizard gave it to me.”

“My wizard?”

“Your holy man,” she corrected herself. “Balthazar.”

Marcus grinned. “A wizard. How flattered he would be to hear it.”

“Don’t you think he’s like that?”

“Oh, aye, I agree with you.” Marcus leaned his elbows on the battlement, examining the sky. “Wizard is a good word for him. You found him out right away.”

“It’s his bearing,” she replied, serious.

He couldn’t help the question. “And what do you call ray bearing, my lady?”

She really seemed to consider it. A slight crease formed between her brows. “You … you are the laird. You walk with authority, and I think this is natural to you. But there’s more. You also walk with open eyes, and I think you have learned this.”

“Open eyes,” he repeated, captivated.

“Awareness. Even caution. And swiftness. Underneath all that command is the swiftness, like a falcon. A hawk.”

In Egypt, as a squire, he had seen a desert hawk once up close, tethered to a vendor’s arm but not hooded, with ferocious eyes to match the color of the sand and wings as long as a man’s arms. The hawk had been wounded, perhaps from its capture, and kept one taloned foot drawn up close to its body. Marcus had wanted to rescue it but Trygve had not allowed it, calling it a frivolity. Which should have given Marcus a clue to the knight’s true nature, now that he thought of it.

Marcus had never forgotten that hawk, its tethered leg, its spirit uncrushed and undaunted despite its pain.

Avalon was nodding to herself. “A hawk,” she murmured, then seemed struck by a thought. “A hawk may kill a snake.”

Marcus couldn’t follow her line of reasoning. “Am I the snake or the hawk?” he asked, not really joking.

“The hawk,” she said instantly. “You are the hawk. You must remember that.”

Anyone overhearing them would think them absurd, Marcus thought, but at her words he felt a soaring kind of relief, as if she had unlocked a private fear in him that he had never even known existed and blown it away on
the wind. Following this was gratitude, great gratitude. He was the hawk.

“Your people have been talking to me,” Avalon said now. “I think you should know.”

“Know what?” he asked, still feeling bouyant.

“They are troubled, my lord.”

“I wish you would call me Marcus,” he said, letting slip the thought that had been on his tongue. She looked taken aback.

“It’s not that difficult,” he teased. “A small name, really.”

“You’re not paying attention to me, my lord,” she admonished. “I speak of your people.”

“I am,” he countered, surrendering to her mood.

“They come to you with their troubles, you say.”

“Yes.”

“Well, Avalon, what do you expect? You know what they think of you, who they consider you to be. Are you truly surprised that they seek your comfort?”

“But there is nothing I can do for them! I’ve tried to tell them!”

“For many it’s enough simply that you’re here.”

“It’s not enough, you and I know that. Marcus,” she said, startling him, “I beg you once more to take the wealth I have. It would help so much.”

“Don’t you know?” he asked softly. “Haven’t you realized it yet? Your wealth is not the legend. It’s you. They want you, Avalon.”

The crease in her brow became more pronounced. She couldn’t seem to manage a reply to this, so she looked away again, shoulders slumping.

He edged closer to her, ventured one hand around
her waist, and to his wonder she allowed him the gesture, unmoving, as a doe might be when confronting a foe.

He didn’t want her to feel apprehension with him. He didn’t want her antagonism, her anger or dismay. He wanted her to want him as he did her, Marcus realized, and more. He wanted much more than that from her, things he could not even define. It almost made him afraid, the feelings that hovered in the recesses of his heart that all sang of Avalon.

“Will you marry me?” he asked, both of them touching so carefully.

“I cannot,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He had expected this answer but it hurt him anyway, a deeper pain than was warranted, considering their circumstances. No matter. Her response changed none of his intentions. They
would
be married.

Far off in the mountains a lone wolf cried as the moon began to rise, heavy and round, the color of bronze.

“It’s late,” Marcus said, but he did not move his arm.

Avalon didn’t reply. Like an enchantment her hair now took on the reflection of the moon, growing warmer and more golden. Her skin picked up this light as well, casting her with a suggestion of the tan of the people he had known in the Holy Land. Her eyes were dark and unfathomable. She leaned her head back to look up at him, exotic angel, and her next words jarred him back to their reality.

“My lord. How did you learn of Bryce’s intention to wed me to his brother?”

“A note. We were sent a note.”

“May I see it?”

He shrugged, removing his arm. The spell had drifted away into the night. “I don’t see why not.”

Marcus took her back to the only place Avalon felt she knew in Sauveur besides the little room she had stayed in. She had spent the late afternoon exploring as she could, walking aimlessly from place to place until she grew tired of the crowd that followed her and announced she was going out to look at the rain. The procession of young boys, however, had been undaunted by the prospect, and even seemed disappointed that the rain had stopped by the time they found the south tower.

But this room must be Marcus’s solar, for she had seen none like it in her roaming. It had a good feel to it; neither too large nor too tight, a nice-sized fireplace, two sets of glass windows with excellent views. She had not noticed it before when she faced the emissaries, but then, there had been more important things to consider.

The long table they had used was now covered in papers and loose scrolls, even open bound books with scribbled notes on the leaves.

Avalon watched as Marcus walked over to the mess, rummaged around in it. His profile was to her, intense and sober; he was so heart-stoppingly handsome even in the tartan, enough to make her reason drift loose for a moment.…

If only their lives had been different. If only he was not the son of Hanoch. If only he did not believe that nonsense of the devil’s curse. If only the horror of her childhood had not forced her to take that vow never to marry.…

But this man was a part of it, all of it, whether he willed it or not. Avalon thought that even if he had had a
choice, Marcus would have embraced that wretched curse anyway. And she would not be drawn into that devouring whirlpool of superstition and lies again. It would be a bottomless death to her.

She walked away from him, went to examine an intricate stitched scene on a tapestry by one of the windows. It was a noblewoman bathing in a stream, her long, golden hair cloaking her. Maidservants were nearby, watching their mistress with black sewn eyes and necks bent like swans. The water had been given threads of blue and green and white. There was even a school of little fish around the lady.

“I don’t know,” she heard Marcus say, frustrated. She looked around and found him seated, staring at the pile of papers with aversion. “It was here before,” he said. “It must still be here. All of these papers have been together.”

“What is this?” she asked of the mess, coming over to him.

“God knows. I inherited it.”

Avalon picked up the tattered paper nearest her.

“ ‘Four barrels good ale,’ ” she read to the room, translating the Gaelic to English. “ ‘In most excellent French oak and iron. Two ploughs with leather. Winter seed for … twenty fields. Thirty lamb in payment.’ ” She looked up. “A statement of account?”

“So it appears. I would suppose Hanoch had no inclination for such mundane things as record keeping.”

Five years at Gatting. Five years of Maribel’s diligent tutelage, from fashion to Latin to the complete management of the estate.

“You have need of a steward,” Avalon observed.

Marcus let out a laugh that had no humor. “Sauveur has need of many things, my lady, that I do not have to give it. A steward is there among them.”

Avalon fingered the paper she held, looking down with misgiving at the faded ink. But she still made her offer.

“I may help you, if you like.”

Marcus looked up, alert. “What?”

“I’ve done it before. I studied with the steward at Gatting. I know the way of these things.” She put the paper back on the pile. “He said I had an uncommon mind for mathematics, for a female,” she added derisively.

“You would act as steward?” he asked, disbelieving.

“No,” she said, fast. “I will train someone for you. Pick a man. Pick a woman. I will help as I can.”

He seemed lost in thought, staring at a space behind her, out of the circle of brazier light that flickered around them.

Avalon picked up a few more of the papers, glancing at them, moving them aside. Without planning to she found she was making deliberate groupings: bills for payment, receipts for bills paid. Miscellaneous and almost laughably disparate notes, some regarding grievances from one man regarding another, some apparently nothing more than opinions of certain people.

“ ‘Keith MacFarland. A shifty coward. An evildoer,’ ” she read, and put it in her miscellaneous group.

“That sounds like something Hanoch would say,” Marcus said dryly.

“Yes, but he felt it strongly enough to write it down. Odd.” Avalon kept sorting. “He did not strike me as the
kind of man who thought much of writing for any purpose. It was Ian who insisted I learn to read, in fact.”

“Ian?”

“Your father’s friend, Ian MacLochlan,” she said shortly. “The one who taught me to fight. Did you not know him?”

“No,” he said.

“You’re lucky.”

Before he could respond she held out an unfolded note to him. “Is this the missive you received, my lord?”

Marcus only glanced at the familiar lines. “Aye.”

She studied it. A swath of ivory hair had escaped from her loose braid and flowed down the line of her neck to curl across her chest. Marcus watched her dissect the words, knowing she was completely unaware of her own beauty.