The Falcon's Bride (35 page)

There was no sign of Isor returning, though he had been with her on the way, his magnificent wingspread silhouetted against the misshapen moon that lit her way. She passed the stile by the stacked stone fence, where she’d stopped to rest earlier. It wasn’t much farther, just around the bend in the lane. She wouldn’t stop to rest there now, though she was weary. Perhaps Drumcondra was asleep. Then she could crawl in beside him and not have to face his wrath again until morning.

The bend in the road loomed before her, and still no sign of the bird. Once she rounded the curve, the wagons should have been visible, but they weren’t. She spun in all directions until the motion dizzied her, and she fell to her knees in the mud. They couldn’t have moved on without her! There were no wagon tracks.

Thea scrabbled up and half ran, half staggered to the thicket where the camp had been. “My God,” she realized. “They’re gone.”

By noon Drumcondra and the Gypsy men had combed the land all around with no results. The ragtag party fanned out searching the wood, the hills and dales, some on foot, some mounted. They searched clear to the banks of the Boyne River, and all the way to Si An Bhru, but there was no sign of Thea. She had vanished into thin air. Drumcondra’s worst fears were upon him.

Still, they searched. He would not call an end to it, and he could not tell them what he feared—that she had once more breached the corridor. Half mad with worry, he drove the men like a tyrant until the sun began to sink
low, then left them and rode Cabochon like a man possessed for Falcon’s Lair. His last hope.

Drumcondra approached his wounded keep with a heavy heart. He hadn’t yet seen it in this time. How sad it seemed, looming black in bold relief against the twilight sky. The sight pained him. The drawbridge stretched across a gaping cavern. The moat had been drained. He rode his magnificent Gypsy horse over the span at a gallop, slid from its back and crashed through the halls, throwing doors wide as he progressed, calling Thea’s name at the top of his voice. He rummaged through the rubble, surged through the gallery, the kitchens, the servant’s quarters, his voice echoing back at him as he went. He climbed up to the battlements, sifting through the twilight mist with narrowed eyes for some sign of life—of
her
—begging God to strike him blind if only He would show her to him just once more. But God did not accept the challenge, and though Ros stalked the halls like a madman until full dark, there was no sign of Thea.

In desperation, he scaled the stone steps to the battlements again and whistled for Isor, conspicuous in his absence. He whistled again and again, until the sound failed in his dry throat, and pounded the stone ledge until his white-knuckled fists were scraped raw. Isor had never deserted him before. He was with her—he had to be, and Ros could not find her lest the falcon lead him.

Wearily, he climbed down the slippery stairs and mounted his waiting horse. Thea was not here, and with a sinking feeling tying knots in his gut, he rode back to the camp, praying that the others had found her. His rage forgotten, nothing mattered to him then but having her back, in his bed, in his arms; but she had not been found, and he dragged himself into the lead wagon, the wagon they shared, pleading with the shadows to show her face just one more time.

Sinking down on the edge of the pallet, he dropped his head into his hands. He was slouched thus when Aladar, the elder, entered the wagon.

Ros’s head snapped up toward his visitor. “Have they found her?” he begged.

The Gypsy shook his head. His wrinkled eyelids drooping sorrowfully made him appear older than his sixty-some-odd years. “We search no more tonight,” he said. “We are hunted, my lord. We are watched. We dare not leave the women and children long unattended. It is not safe here now.”

“We resume first thing in the morning,” Drumcondra decreed.

The elder frowned. “My lord, we cannot tarry here,” he said. “We are so close to freedom. Ships await us at the estuary that will carry us east. It will be a treacherous crossing at this time of year, but we must make it, or our pilgrimage is all for naught, and many will die. We must away before we have more serious threats to deal with than chamber pots and stones.”

“I will not leave without her, Aladar.”

“My lord, we
need
you!”

“And I need her!” Drumcondra retorted. “It is my fault she has run off, and I mean to have her back. The same dangers that exist for us here now exist for her as well—alone, afoot, while our kind are hunted down like animals, killed for no good reason but the sport of it, divested of their ears, their eyesight. I will not leave her here to that. Do not even think to ask it.”

The elder hesitated. “She may already have been taken,” he said, flinching at Drumcondra’s reaction. Ros was like an animal set to spring, and the old Gypsy went on quickly. “It is what the others think. What other explanation
is there? She cannot have vanished like a will-o’-the-wisp. If she has been stolen away . . .” He shrugged, wagging his lowered head.

Drumcondra stared at the elder. He couldn’t tell him about the corridor. Travelers were a superstitious lot, but they would never brook this, and even if they did, they would fear it and shun him.

“I will not leave without her,” he said unequivocally.

All at once, soft mewling sobs outside brought him to his feet, and Drumcondra threw back the blanket at the opening expecting to see Thea standing there; but it was Ina, blubbering into her apron.

“What do you want, woman?” Aladar barked, climbing down.

Drumcondra leapt from the wagon and seized the woman’s upper arms. “Is she found? Where is she? Is she harmed? Speak!” he charged, shaking her.

Ina shook her head. “ ’Twas to be a . . . secret yet . . . awhile,” she stammered. “Till she told ye . . .”

Drumcondra rolled his eyes. “Another secret?” he cried. What secret? His blood began to boil. He was going mad—he had to be. This was what madness was like, this twisting, racing agony of the mind that simmered in the blood and gave a man no peace.

“I . . . told her just last night. Just before . . .”

“
What?
” Drumcondra thundered, then in desperation to her husband said, “Aladar, what does she mean?”

“Be still, woman!” the elder charged. “Calm yourself and speak it plain.”

“I saw her run off,” Ina sobbed. “I should have followed. If only I had . . . She should not be taking risks now.”

“You are rambling, old woman!” Drumcondra said, shaking her again. “Speak it plain!”

“She is with child,” Ina sobbed. “Two bairns grow in her womb—a girl child and a boy child. We did the pendulum. . . .”

Drumcondra’s hands fell away from the woman’s arms, his addled brain groping toward sanity. He could do naught but stare. He knew well the accuracy of the pendulum. It had predicted the birth of his two murdered children what seemed a lifetime ago. Jeta had performed the ritual upon Maeve on both occasions. Jeta. His mother. It all came rushing back, crashing over him like an ocean swell, dragging him under. Gasping for air, he reeled off into the wood, staggering like a lord in his cups, whistling for his bird at the top of what was left of his voice.

The weather had turned colder. Patches of snow crunched underfoot. That was when Thea knew she had crossed over again. But where? What time was this? She shuddered. The cold was penetrating. Her homespun mantle was next to no protection from the chill. Why hadn’t she worn her pelerine?

The sound of tether bells broke the silence. Overhead, Ros’s bird soared, dipping and gliding, borne aloft upon a zephyr Thea could neither feel nor see, since it failed to flutter the pine boughs or ruffle the mulch at the edge of the lane. There was a strange comfort in the creature’s presence. As long as she could see it, hear it, there was hope of returning to Drumcondra.

Again and again, she paced off the thicket where the wagons had been, hoping to come upon the corridor that would take her back. All the while, the bird circled overhead, its screeches fair warning that it tired of its vigil until it finally soared off toward the direction of Newgrange. Should she follow? There was no question. At least there
would be shelter there; and then, once she’d rested, she could find her way.

She plodded on. If only there were some sign of life, some person to fix her position in her mind—
any
person. But nothing; no one was abroad. Not even the woodland creatures showed themselves, only the shrill cries of the falcon overhead gave evidence that any other creature lived but she and it. And then, in a blink, it was gone.

Thea spun in circles, searching the lightening sky for the falcon’s familiar shape. Panic turned her blood to ice in her veins. Before her, the graceful mound of Newgrange loomed, its menhirs spearing the dawn in black silhouette. Patches of snow clung to the mound like patches on a threadbare quilt. She staggered toward it. The dawn breeze ran her through like a javelin, chilling her to the bone. At least inside she would be out of the wind. Clutching her middle as if to protect the new life growing within her, she trudged on to the place where it all had begun, the strangeness, the impossible pleats she’d sewn in time that had given her her husband—
her soul mate
—and taken him away again. In that terrible moment, she would have welcomed Jeta’s ghost, repeating again her mysterious augur that she was the Falcon’s bride. But there was nothing. Nothing but the hammering of her heart thudding in her breast, in her ears, in her throat, as she ducked inside the passage tomb abandoned by the living and the dead.

Groping the walls, Thea inched her way along toward the blackness inside. The lightening sky at her back provided little light for her progress, but she knew the way now. She would not venture deeply in. She meant to stay close to the entrance, for escape if needs must. All at once, a glimmer of light beyond the standing stone supports that divided the chambers caught her eye. She
swayed as though struck. The fine hairs at the back of her neck prickled her skin. Objects being tossed about clanked and thudded. It was an angry sound. Someone was there. Raiding the tomb? Thea stood stock still. All the while she’d come, she’d begged Divine Providence for some sign of life, but now . . .

Footsteps! Carrying toward her. Thea flattened herself against the wall and held her breath. The sound had an angry ring to it, and more than one person was there by the sound. No . . . it was a man leading a horse—an Andalusian, like those in Nigel’s stables. Shrinking back against the dank bleeding wall alongside one of the standing stone supports, Thea bit down on her lower lip until she tasted blood. She could see him clearly now. It was Nigel.

She was trembling so, bits of gravelly residue clinging to the wall she’d pressed herself up against fell away, betraying her presence. The horse, which had come abreast of her in the narrow passageway, already spooked by the close confinement, shied and voiced a sharp complaint, and Thea’s heart sank. She was found.

And it was no use to run; the Andalusian blocked her way. Nigel threw down the reins and reached her in one stride. Seizing her arm in a white-knuckled fist, he yanked her out of the shadows.

“Well, well—what have we here?” he asked. He slapped the lantern he was carrying down in the stone basin alongside, and jerked her to a standstill. Sliding his familiar gaze the length of her, he took her measure. “How fetching you look in Gypsy garb. It quite becomes you, Theadosia. With that dark hair and those garish clothes, one might mistake you for one of the Gypsy dogs you’ve lain down with, eh?”

“Let go of me, Nigel!” she cried, trying to twist free to
no avail. His grip was like a vise. “What are you doing here?”

He whipped out a gold coin and flaunted it in her face. “Looking for more of these,” he said. “I know this came from the lower regions of Cashel Cosgrove. You and your Gypsy lover left quite a trail behind in your haste to flee my gracious hospitality. What I want to know is where did it come from, and how did he know where to find it?”

“Neither is of any consequence,” Thea said, struggling to free herself from his iron grip. “It isn’t yours. It belongs to him.”

“So it’s his, eh? And just how is it that something dredged up from the dungeons of
my
castle could possibly belong to this Drummond person whom I never set eyes upon until you brought him into my home? This smacks of thievery.”

Thea hesitated. Should she tell him? What harm could it do? He would never recover the gold. The Gypsies had it now in another time. It would finance their exodus to safer shores. If all had gone well, James and her father had the rest. She had to find out. Still she paused long and hard, for effect. If he were angry enough, he might forget the obvious—her strange appearance there. It was a dangerous game. She knew in her heart now that he was a murderer. He had killed the lightskirt. In a fit of jealous passion, he had brutally beaten and raped the doxy then slit her throat and dumped her in a Covent Garden gutter; she would bet her life upon it. She could see it in his eyes. She knew his capabilities. If she weren’t very, very careful, she could well become another of his casualties. Left here in the passage tomb, who would find her? No one until next solstice, when the light flooded the tomb for a brief seventeen minutes once more to illuminate her bones. She shuddered as the dark thought slithered across her mind.

“My husband is a direct descendant of Cormac Drumcondra, whose gold it was,” she said at last, “the inheritance hidden and to be handed down to Ros Drumcondra, his son, who . . . disappeared without a trace in 1695, and after that to any and all Drumcondra descendants so long as they lived. My husband stole nothing. The gold rightfully belongs to him. You and yours are the robbers. You, who have occupied the castle since you stole it from Drumcondra in a vicious slaughter of women and children, did not even know of its existence. How have you bloodthirsty lot deserved Drumcondra’s gold?”

“Oh no, my dear,” Nigel said, wresting her to a standstill. “When Cian Cosgrove won the keep, everything in it became Cosgrove property. Drumcondra descendants have no claim upon it. Never doubt that the gold is mine, and never doubt that I will have it back from your thieving Gypsy husband before the sun sets. Where is the bastard?”