Claire Delacroix (6 page)

He did not live to savor his triumph long, but still it irks me. After my years of cunning, after my irreplaceable contributions to the building of my father’s trade - one cannot, after all, trade in religious relics without having such relics in one’s possession - after years of loyalty, I was left with not one crumb from my father’s table.

Is the wound bitter? No longer, but I know better now than to believe the pledge of any living soul. A man can rely upon himself alone. I relied upon my father and even that was too much. The lesson has been learned.

Indeed, I believe it was uncommonly generous of me to settle this debt with solely one relic of the thousands Merlyn inherited. This fragment of wood, sold with care, would enable me to repose in luxury in that Sicilian villa for all my days and nights.

And no whore - or even a thief pretending to be a whore - would cost me the sole prize I desired.

* * *

I finally took the road to Inverfyre on the morn of January 25, the very day that Saint Paul’s conversion is celebrated by the devout. It had been three weeks since Evangeline and I had so thoroughly sampled each other’s wares.

I had lingered. I had drunk and I had slept and I had eaten and I had ambled from one village to the next, with no clear destination in mind. I had listened, because I cannot cease to listen, and I had watched, because that is a habit of my trade.

And I had thought rather too much about a woman who had met me touch for touch. Evangeline haunted my dreams by night and dominated my thoughts by day. No whore had ever reveled in every caress as she had, no virgin could have been so awed by the passion betwixt us.

A more whimsical man than I might have said there was a curious magic between us, perhaps an attraction greater than mere lust. I knew that I had simply not had enough of Evangeline to be sated. Another night between her thighs, I was certain, would loose me from her spell.

I whistled at the dancing snowflakes as I finally took the road to Inverfyre. The day was remarkably bright, though it had begun to snow soon after I and my recently acquired horse left the last village’s walls. The snow was pretty, my mood improving with each step I took closer to Inverfyre.

As the road climbed, however, the snow began to fall in earnest. This snow tumbled from the sky in fat, wet clumps that accumulated with alarming speed.

The horse, a short shaggy beast, proved itself worth every silver penny it had cost me. It bent its head against the wind and strode onward with heartening fortitude. By midday, however, the road was so slippery underfoot that the horse stopped, obstinately refusing to go on.

I dismounted, intending to lead the horse, and was halted by the press of silence. I heard nothing at all, not a bird, not a footstep, neither a rustle nor another footstep. I fancied I could hear the snowflakes landing on the barren tree branches all around me. I glanced back to find that our footsteps were already being obscured. I realized belatedly that I had not seen another soul since the morning.

And dread began to tickle my belly.

I am a man of villages and towns, a man accustomed to the murmur of conversations just beyond earshot. I am a man who endeavors to accomplish his labor without awakening those who sleep within dangerous proximity. I am a man who sits on the periphery of the assembly, but is part of it nonetheless. To be utterly alone, save for a horse, was a new experience for me and not an entirely welcome one.

I could die in this woods and none would know of it.

Fewer would care.

Have you been to Scotland’s shores? If not, I suggest you forgo the dubious pleasure. Not only is the weather foul and the fare scarcely better, but the land itself seems wrought by some sorcerer.

It has moods.

Oh, I have not lost my wits. One glimpse of these valleys piled with mist and these peaks shrouded by low clouds, and one realizes why the Celts have always insisted that the world of unseen matters is woven tightly with our own. To be sure, there are rocks and mosses and hills and dales much like any other land, but in this one, every leaf and stone seems alive.

Watching.

Waiting.

This is a land occupied by wraiths and shadows, a place of dreams, an abode of nightmares. The people’s tales are filled with mournful ghosts and vengeful specters, of mischievous imps and malicious faeries, and not because the Celts are whimsical. No, I have never seen more stern and pragmatic souls in all my days, nor any more accurate to the measure.

No, it is the place itself that provides the wellspring for these stories. Tales abound of the fey seizing mortals for their own pleasure and entertainment, of ghosts luring mortals to their demise, of wayward travelers disappearing forever into the mist. The stories were as old as the hills and perhaps not untrue. I had heard a thousand variants upon these themes in the taverns I had frequented these past weeks.

I carry my own nightmares. Indeed, in some corner of my thoughts, I believe I knew from the moment I set foot on Scotland’s shores that a wraith was stalking me.

It found me here.

* * *

“Gawain!”

I jumped, so certain was I of my solitude. I looked back in alarm, desperately seeking the boy who had shouted my name.

Oh yes, I knew it was a boy. I knew his name, I knew the look of him, I knew how his wavy chestnut hair hung long on his neck and tumbled into his eyes, how he shoved it away with his grimy knuckles to no avail. I knew the agility of his fingers and the speed with which he could run.

I turned slowly, seeking his running figure in the snow, his clothing stained and tattered, his arms and legs too thin. I sought his running figure between the trees, darting from shadow to shadow.

But I could see only snow cascading from the sky. It fell relentlessly, filling the air with tumbling white flakes as far as the eye could see. It devoured the footprints left by the horse and I, it burdened the trees, it disguised whoever might wish to hide. My heart thundered and I was breathing heavily.

Silence. There was not a sound beyond those I made myself.

The cry had been nothing, I assured myself, a trick of my own thoughts. Yet the hair stood on my nape. He was not here, that imp, for he was dead. He could not be here. He could not have called to me, not as he did that fateful day…

I pivoted and plunged onward, leading the horse at a reckless pace. Desperation made me heedless, even as I knew I could not outrun a specter.

Yet I tried.

Mountainous crags rose on either side of the road, their summits lost in the low clouds, the chill that emanated from the stone enough to make me shiver. The road plunged and climbed, jammed with snow in its depths, icy at its heights.

I heard that phantom cry half a dozen times, and each time I redoubled my pace. I had no need for the stories of locals to taste fear. I yearned for the pungent heat of those taverns and their more pungent guests, the swill they offered as an excuse for fare and ale, the muttering of peasants seizing a moment of pleasure.

There was, however, no question of turning back. Inverfyre was my sole chance of salvation, for it was at Inverfyre that the
Titulus
was held captive.

My scheme to infiltrate Inverfyre, my plan to approach with caution, was lost in this mad flight. I was consumed with thoughts of warmth and companionship, of heat and sustenance and shelter. I did not know the hour or the day, I did not know how long I had persisted in this folly of fighting the snow. All was white and I had made so many guesses as to where the path lay that I feared I was utterly lost.

The horse and I were encrusted with the snow, nigh as two drifts ourselves, when night began to tighten its cloak about us.

“Gawain!”

Did I but imagine that the voice was fainter, as if weakening, as if realizing that I would not heed his cry? Guilt prodded me but I would not look back. I dared not.

Indeed, I had not looked back when it mattered.

I peered desperately into the flying snow before me, hoping I did not imagine the distant silhouette of a tower against the sky. I lunged toward it with new vigor, nigh running when I spied the gates before us.

Laughter carried to my ears, the laughter of men, the voices of women, the chatter of children. Surely, there could be no sweeter sight than those fortress gates opened wide, golden light spilling from the homes sheltered within!

I had no time to compose myself, to temper my haste or hide my relief, before a man cried out and pointed directly at me.

My heart clenched, though I could not discern his words. There was no place to which I might flee. He beckoned to two other men, the three immediately turning their steps toward me. The entire company within the walls turned as one to gawk at the newcomer, a stranger identified and singled out.

My heart sank. Evangeline had indeed prepared for my arrival.

But there is nothing to be gained in flinching from one’s fate. I gripped the reins and strode onward as if I had expected to be met at the gates.

Bravado can oft yield unexpected rewards, after all.

* * *

III

“Connor, you old fool!” the first man roared inexplicably, then strode toward me, his arms wide. I glanced behind myself, but I was his sole potential target.

In a flash, I understood that I had been mistaken for a man known here. My spirits began to lift. This was the manner of moment that makes me question whether divine providence might exist after all. It seems absurd that I could be so fortunate, but fortunate I have been in the past, and fortunate I clearly was again.

“What possessed you to take the old road on a day so wretched as this?” this stranger demanded, before enveloping me in a hug so hearty that he nigh cracked my bones.

I laughed, then punched his shoulder as if we were familiar. I had listened enough these past weeks that I could make a fair approximation of their manner of speaking. “Old habits die hard. You know as much.”

He was a tall man, roughly dressed. His grip was strong, revealing that he was well-muscled, and I felt a pair of blades hanging from his belt beneath his cloak. I liberated one of them, just because I could, and slipped it beneath my cloak and into my own belt without his noting my deed.

Habits do indeed die hard.

“Too stubborn by half, that is what you are, Connor MacDoughall,” a second, more heavy-set man, declared gleefully as he too granted me an embrace. “You insisted there was no need of a new road, nor of the tax collected to pay for it. Trust you to prove your own claim, whether the deed killed you or no.”

The three men, all crudely-dressed, gathered round and laughed at my folly, ale vibrating in their voices. The third punched me amiably in the shoulder - evidently he and Connor were not so intimate. They all sounded of an age with me, but their faces were etched with harsh lines from the fierce clime. Swords and daggers hung from their belts, ice crusted their brows and capped their heads. They were virtually indistinguishable from each other, save by their relative sizes, all looking like the spawn of Winter himself.

I realized that if I looked as they did, my own mother might not have recognized me. Therein lay the root of their error.

The horse nickered as the third man scratched its ears with unexpected affection. “I would never have sold Mathe to you, had I known you would try to kill the beast.”

It seemed remarkable that he might have owned this steed before, but I had seen with my own eyes that horses were few in this land and it was not far from York if one rode directly to Inverfyre. To be sure, I was not in a mood to ask many questions: I had made a life of seizing what opportunity presented and I seized it now.

“He fares well enough by me,” I declared, my thoughts racing. Perhaps by the time the snow melted from the lot of them, they would be too drunk to realize that I was not their comrade.

Perhaps I should ensure their drunkenness.

“And this is the greeting I get, after all this time?” I demanded in mock outrage. “Not a cup of ale nor a wench to be seen, just a grousing by way of greeting, even though the beast is fatter than when you sold him to me.”

The men laughed, even the one who had previously owned the horse. He nudged me, a familiar gleam in his eye. “There is ale, but they are wanting a rich price for it on this night. If you have enough coin to fatten the horse, perhaps you have some to share with your comrades.”

“Perhaps I do.” I peered into the village, noting how it had changed since last I was here. Poverty and hardship showed in faces that had once been plump with prosperity. “Where are my comrades? I see only a company of rogues intent upon emptying my purse.”

This was met with much laughter and back-slapping, and we moved as one toward a hut. A crowd clustered outside its open door, the lantern light from within spilling out upon merry faces. The ale-wife herself was a sharp-faced older woman with little flesh on her bones. There was a blue glaze across her eyes and she held her head at an angle that indicated at least partial blindness, though she moved with such surety that I immediately wondered.