Shana Abe (4 page)

No one ever talked of the raid to her. Not Hanoch, not Maribel, not even the servants. It was as if everyone wanted it wiped clean from the very memory of God. Was there anyone left from that time, back when Avalon had thought her life whole and happy? Perhaps. Perhaps there was someone.…

A maid entered, small and deferential. She bobbed a curtsy, then opened the door wide for the series of men who came in carrying Avalon’s trunks. There were a lot of them.

Avalon and the maid watched the men enter, set the trunks down against a wall, then go back out only to return with more.

“Tell me,” Avalon began, and provoked a startled jump from the girl. She smothered her smile. “I beg your pardon.”

Embarrassed, the maid blushed, not meeting her eyes.

“Could you perchance tell me what became of the woman who used to have these rooms?”

The maid looked tortured, as if the simple question was beyond her, then shook her head down at the floor.

“Well, then. Could you tell me of someone who would know?”

At this the girl looked up into Avalon’s eyes, almost fearful, then glanced over at the men still coming and going. Avalon followed the look and saw something she doubted the maid did: the
wrongness
creeping into the room through the open door, its sliding tendrils winding around the ankles of the girl. Avalon blinked a few times and the vision was gone.

The maid had not moved, and Avalon addressed her again.

“Perhaps you could simply tell me your name?”

“Elfrieda, milady,” the girl whispered.

“Elfrieda.” A man entered with the last trunk on his shoulders, heaved it next to the others, and bowed as he left. Avalon considered the maid. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen, milady.”

“Fourteen! So old! You look as if you could be my daughter.”

Elfrieda looked up, swallowed the silly lie with a
lighter heart. “Indeed not, milady! You look younger than my sister, milady, and she being older than you!”

Avalon gave a little laugh. “Do you think so? Then I feel better.” She walked over to one of the trunks and perched on its lid.

“Elfrieda, tell me, is there no one you can think of who would know of the Lady Luedella? She is the one who had these rooms when I was a child. I would be grateful for any help.”

Avalon couldn’t say why she was suddenly so determined to discover the fate of the woman. It just seemed important, immensely so.

She reached into the folds of her skirt and withdrew the small jeweled pouch she carried on a chain on her belt. Loosening the drawstring, she shook two golden coins onto her palm.

Elfrieda watched, disbelieving, as Avalon held them out to her.

“Any help at all,” she said quietly.

The maid inched forward, threw an agonized glance at Avalon’s face and then back to the coins. Avalon grasped a fragment of her thoughts.

Food, enough for weeks! New seed for the crops. Mayhap even a cow for Mama, milk for the baby.…

“Take it,” said Avalon flatly. She stood up and slapped the coins into the girl’s hand then turned away, disgusted with herself. What had come over her, toying with a child like that?

Elfrieda was leaving, bobbing more curtsies at the door, mumbling something incoherent and thankful before she was gone.

Avalon went back to the window and stared, unseeing, at the view.

C
ousin Bryce was laughing loud and long at something Avalon had said which was not particularly humorous.

Avalon found that the evening meal was punctuated with such laughter from him, accompanied by exclamations of her wit and charm. It was both unnerving and tiresome. Perhaps he actually thought her completely lacking in wit, Avalon considered, to think he was fooling her—that she would believe his show was natural, that he really cared enough about what she thought of his presentation of the leek pie to bring it up three times.

But she smiled cordially and nodded and made the appropriate comments to her host as they ate at his table on the dais in the hall that used to be her father’s.

Soldiers and nobles alike sat alongside each other in the large room, dining almost in silence as her cousin plowed on with his anecdotes and solicitations of her opinion. He offered her the choicest portions of each serving, fawned over her as she tried to eat, admired her manners repeatedly, and constantly refilled her goblet until it remained brimming with wine, untouched.

It was almost as if he were courting her, Avalon thought, disbelieving, but then shook her head at the idea. No matter how overly friendly he might be, Bryce d’Farouche was still her cousin, albeit once or twice removed. And he was already quite married.

Lady Claudia ate almost nothing, Avalon noted. She merely sat back in her chair and sipped her wine, watching her husband, watching Avalon. She had not joined in at Avalon’s tentative attempt to include her in the conversation, but had instead stared at her, silent, letting Avalon’s polite observation of some insignificant fact drift off, unanswered. Then she turned her head away and took another drink from her goblet. Bryce had talked over the moment, distracting Avalon by offering her another serving of venison. Avalon had declined.

She had never had such a strange meal, not even in Scotland, where the men remained boisterous while they ate, nor at Gatting, where all attempts to show her the world of the well bred had included dinner conversations not monopolized by one person.

Her father’s hall had always been loud and cheerful, or so it had seemed to the little girl who watched enviously from the top of the main stairs, still too young to join them.

This was a different time and place, obviously. This was not the home she remembered. There was a tension here, no doubt about it, the
wrongness
around them all fed by the nervous looks of the nobles, the grim chewing of the soldiers.

Lady Claudia, watchful and filled with wine, now sat with a slightly curling smile on her lips.

Avalon had to stop herself from leaping to her feet when the last course was finished.

“I thank you for your hospitality, cousin,” she said, pushing back her chair in what she hoped was a slow enough fashion.

Bryce stood up much more quickly. “What? Are you thinking of retiring so soon, dear Avalon?”

The hall fell silent.

She paused, still sitting, then replied, “Why, yes, I am. It has been a very long day.”

Bryce maneuvered himself until he was standing behind Claudia’s chair as Avalon watched from hers, wary. He placed one meaty hand on his wife’s shoulder.

“But the hour is yet early, Avalon! Do not say you will leave us so soon. Why, Claudia has been telling me how much she looked forward to hearing you play for us after the meal, is it not so, my wife?”

Lady Claudia’s teeth were stained with red wine, making her mouth ruby bright. She licked her lips and gave a lazy smile. “It is so.”

Avalon stood up and spoke firmly.

“Indeed, I am sorry to disappoint you both, but I’m afraid I have no talent for music. I cannot play.”

Bryce put his other hand on Claudia’s shoulder. “Of course you can’t. How clumsy of me to suggest such a thing. Growing up as you did, there would be no opportunity for you—”

“They have music in Scotland, my lord,” she interrupted, more amused than irritated. “All I am saying is that I have no skill for it.”

“Then Claudia will play for you, won’t you, my dear?”

Claudia bowed her head, seemed about to burst into laughter. “Of course I will,” she gasped, after a moment.

There seemed to be nothing to do but to follow Claudia, who walked over to the fireplace, holding on to her peculiar smile.

She played the psaltery, and fairly well, Avalon judged. She would have thought that the wine would make nimble fingers ungainly on the strings, but Claudia kept the pace of her song steady, tapping her foot against the floor as she sang a lively tune in her husky voice.

The women were clustered around the fireplace, the remains of the meal had been cleared by the serfs, the men were off doing Avalon had no idea what. Even Bryce, after making certain that his cousin was firmly entrenched by the fire, had left the group, entreating his wife in his loud and happy voice to keep playing.

And play Claudia did. After Bryce left she switched songs, moving now to a French ballad, slower, more melancholy. The mood seemed to permeate the group of women. Claudia stopped only to take swallows of wine between songs.

Avalon rested her cheek on her hand, staring into the fire, wishing she could be in the solitude of her rooms right now instead of here listening to this sad plinking of notes and tragic themes. The flames were beginning to slowly die, settling down to embers, molten centers, scraps of smoke.

Claudia finished another piece and Avalon quickly stood, intending to take her leave.

“You play delightfully,” she said, edging away from the group. “How sorry I am I must retire now. I simply cannot keep my eyes open anymore.”

Claudia, to her surprise, made no attempt to stop her, only strummed a few strings as she watched Avalon back away. The dying flames were clearly reflected in her eyes.

“Thank you so much” Avalon said, impatient to
leave but still seeking a thread of normalcy in the moment. “Good eve to you.”

“Cousin,” came a voice behind her.

Avalon turned around to see Bryce, returned from the darkness, standing quiet for once in the doorway. She wondered how long he had been there.

There was a man beside him, further back in the shadows. Both of them began to walk into the room.

Claudia continued to pluck at the strings of the psaltery, pursing her lips and looking down.

“Lady Avalon, I present to you your cousin Warner, my brother. Please do forgive his appearance, he has only just this moment arrived from the Continent.”

Warner came forward and took her hand, bowing over it. He was large and fair, like Bryce, with gray eyes and sandy hair, at least two decades older than Avalon. There was a fine layer of dust over all of him, marking the creases around his eyes and mouth in pale spider lines.

“Cousin,” he murmured against the back of her hand.

The chill came immediately, snaking up her arm, and she thought:
Of course, of course, Bryce wasn’t courting me, good heavens, he doesn’t want me for himself—

He wanted her for this man. For his brother.

The air left her lungs at her discovery, her fingers grew cold even as Warner squeezed them. Bryce was watching her closely, monitoring her reaction.

For an instant she had to admire his audacity. He actually planned to break the betrothal. He would brave the wrath of two kings and the Clan Kincardine to keep her in the family, and that wrath would not be inconsiderable.

And thus he would also keep all her lands and her wealth. Which were also not inconsiderable.

She stifled the laugh that rose in her throat, made herself take back her hand from Warner and nod to him coolly.

“A pleasure,” he said, inspecting her face, moving boldly down to her shoulders, her breasts.

Avalon took a step away. “I regret I cannot tarry further, my lords. I have traveled far today. Though not as far as you, I am sure, cousin Warner.” She gave the smallest smile to Warner, watched his gaze linger on her lips.

Claudia at last hit a sour note on her instrument.

“I find I am fatigued as well,” she said, rising and handing the psaltery to one of her attendants. “I will escort Lady Avalon to her chambers, my lord.”

Bryce examined his wife, then looked at Avalon, who strived to appear impatient.

“Good eve, then, my dears,” he said to them both, and bowed.

“I look forward to seeing you in the morn,” said Warner to Avalon, and she nodded again, taking Claudia’s arm and ignoring his stare on her back as they left.

Avalon remembered the way to Luedella’s chambers but walked back in silence with Claudia, matching her slow, measured pace, perhaps a result of all the wine.

Marry Warner! Again Avalon smothered an amazed laugh at the thought, then threw a glance at Claudia, who kept moving forward in her haze, unperturbed.

Obviously the notion was completely mad, but Bryce’s plans threw her own into disarray, and the damage could be anything from inconvenient to disastrous, depending
upon how soon he thought to push her into the engagement.

“Tomorrow night we are having a celebration,” said Lady Claudia evenly to the walls as they walked.

“Oh?”

Perhaps Claudia had her own chimera; she seemed to know what Avalon was thinking. Her face was serene as she met Avalon’s gaze. “Can you guess why, my lady?”

Disaster.

“I believe so.”

“I thought as much.”

Claudia let that hang in the air for a moment until they passed a sentry guarding a doorway, then she continued.

“Men do strange things, do they not?”

“Aye,” Avalon agreed, wholeheartedly.

“Take any man. Take my husband, for instance. Your own cousin. He may have a castle of his own. He may have lands reaching out forever. He may have power, serfs, knights. He may have all this, but will it quench his thirst for more?”