Claire Delacroix (2 page)

Niall stared. She seemed a perfectly normal, if uncommonly pretty, woman.

“I had understood that I would be summoned at the dawn, and as you might well imagine, I slept nary a wink last night, thinking all the while of this morning.” A merry twinkle danced in the warm hazel of her eyes.

Niall’s arrival was never greeted with such pleasure and he was momentarily uncertain of how to proceed.

“I simply could not wait and must say that I am most pleased that you have finally arrived. I cannot wait to begin. Shall we go?”

Niall blinked, but her smile did not waver.

“Oh! Where are my manners? Why, I am Viviane and so very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

This was no social moment! The last thing Niall wanted was to befriend a woman on her way to the executioner’s block.

But she stepped forward, her smile unwavering. “You do have a name?” she asked with no small measure of charm.

Clearly, this woman did not understand the fullness of her fate.

“My name matters naught,” Niall said gruffly, disliking that he should be the one to grant her the sorry news. “If you would turn about, I must bind your hands behind you.”

That should remind her of the trouble she faced this morn.

But she simply smiled and complied, as though there was naught strange about the request. She crossed her wrists behind her waist and Niall found himself unwilling to even touch the roughened rope to such creamy softness.

But he did.

If not too tightly.

“Of course, your name matters!” she chided as Niall scowled and knotted. “How on earth could I possibly have a conversation with you unless we are introduced?”

The omission did not seem to be interfering too mightily with that, Niall thought, but he refrained from saying as much.

“Truly! What would I call you? What would I say? There is absolutely no reason for this to be unpleasant..”

“Unpleasant?” Niall echoed, incredulity breaking his usual reserve. “You do understand that you are to die this morn?”

She glanced over her shoulder to him, her full lips quirking with mischief. “Of course, I understand that that is what people believe is going to happen, but I know that things will not come to such a dire end.”

Niall eyed her dubiously. “’Tis true then, that you believe you are a witch? You mean to enchant your way free of these proceedings?”

Her laughter pealed like a bell in the tiny chamber, the merry sound nearly enough to make Niall smile along with her. “Of course not!” She shook her head as though he was the one possessed of whimsy. “What a foolish thought. There is no such thing as witchery. ’Tis perfectly obvious that this is no more than a horrible misunderstanding and as soon as I have the chance to address the archbishop, all will be set in order.”

She smiled into Niall’s eyes and his heart took an unruly - and uncharacteristic - leap. Indeed, his mouth went dry.

When had he last glimpsed a woman so fair of face?

And when had such a woman smiled for him alone? Niall could not even remember.

It helped little that she made such good sense.

“Do not fear for my life, sir,” the lady murmured and wrinkled her nose playfully. “I do not mean to die this day.”

Niall was so disoriented by his own response to her smile, that his mood turned even more surly. “You may not have a choice,” he growled, then urged her toward the door.

“Oh, you take this far too seriously,” she charged, stepping delicately around a puddle of some nameless substance on the stone floor of the corridor. “My mother always declared that I had uncommon fortune...”

“’Twould seem to be less than that in this moment.”

“But that is only because details interfere and will be resolved in short order. That is why I could not wait for you to come, so we might begin.” Viviane leaned closer, her tone dropping confidentially. “Waiting has never been my strongest gift, I must confess.”

Niall harrumphed, uncertain why he felt so compelled to try to make her understand the full horror she faced. “You need not wait much longer for anything, from all signs.”

The lady mimicked his manner with a wink. “Such dire warnings! You, sir knight, are truly too glum for your own good. There is no point in fearing the worst until ’tis before you own eyes. That was what my mother always said.”

“’Twill be before your own eyes soon enough.” Niall trudged along the fitfully lit corridor, feeling even older in contrast to his companion’s light footfall.

Indeed, she nigh skipped. “Ah, but you do not know that I was born under a blue moon.”

Niall snorted at such suspicious nonsense. “And that will save you from death?”

The lady tossed her braid over her shoulder, apparently untroubled by his skepticism. “’Twill save me from any trouble that be might be sent my way. My mother said as much and my mother knew more than most.”

Something about her conviction caught Niall’s attention. “What do you mean?” he demanded suspiciously. “Did she believe herself a witch, as well?”

That laugh echoed again, the sound spreading a little sunshine in the dank corridor.

Niall completely forgot to limp.

“Of course not! You are a man looking for witches at every turn, sir!”

Niall’s ears burned at the charge, but he strode on stoically.

“She had the Sight,” his companion confessed as though there was naught preposterous about that. “She could see into the beyond like no one I have ever seen before.” The lady’s tone turned surprisingly wistful. “’Tis a rare gift and one that ensured we ate more often than we might have otherwise.”

Niall urged his charge forward, not liking how she suddenly turned silent. ’Twas evidently uncharacteristic and he had a strange urge to restore her good cheer.

For however short a time she might have left.

“She is dead, then?” Niall asked, realizing after the words left his lips that ’twas not the most uplifting question he might have concocted.

“Aye.” She smiled sadly for him, the smile not reaching her eyes. “She is.”

But the lady said no more and her shoulders sagged slightly. Niall’s footsteps echoed too loudly in the silent corridor as they walked. ’Twas only the fact that she was to die that troubled him, he knew it well.

“Mind your head here,” Niall instructed, touching her shoulder so that she did not bump her forehead on a low doorway. To his delight and surprise, she smiled at him once more.

“You are so very kind,” she said in a low voice that made something melt within Niall’s gut. “’Tis uncommon in a man so handsomely wrought as you.”

“Hardly that,” he retorted briskly, hating anew his role in all of this, refusing to take pleasure in her compliment. “Down this way.”

Viviane stepped lightly along the way indicated, her footsteps whispering against the stone. “My mother sent me here, you know.” His ward tilted her chin proudly as though she feared Niall would challenge her word. “That is how I know that no ill can come to me here.”

“That is scanty guarantee.”

“And what kind of a mother would send her child to their demise?” the lady demanded brightly. She slanted a sharp glance in Niall’s direction. “Would your mother have sent you into any place that might have proven a threat to your welfare?”

“Nay,” Niall was forced to concede, recalling all too well his mother’s distress when he learned to handle a broadsword.

“You see?” she said triumphantly. “’Tis more than clear that no mother could do as much, mine being no exception. Nay, she sent me here for my own safety and protection, and I have only good faith that ’twill be so.”

Niall thought it tactless to observe that even a mother could be wrong. “Your mother sent you to the archbishop?”

“Aye.”

Niall could not help but raise a skeptical brow. “Then it seems her gift of Sight was somewhat limited.”

His companion’s eyes flashed in a most intriguing way as she spun to face him. “Surely you do not doubt her gift?”

Niall was certain that his one level glance supplied all the answer necessary. He thought ’twould be churlish to further draw the line between Viviane’s assertions and her current situation.

The lady tossed her hair. “You must never have witnessed such wonders,” she declared. “It cannot be your fault that you do not believe in the most obvious things, for you seem a most sensible man to me.”

Before Niall could consider what to say to that, Viviane cleared her throat. “You see, my mother told me, on her deathbed, that I should come here if ever I was to want for anything. And I must tell you, that matters have not gone well since her demise.”

“Have you no siblings?” Niall was surprised to find himself curious, no less that he asked a question without intending to any such thing.

’Twas foolhardy to become interested in those sentenced to die.

Though he most certainly was not interested in Viviane.

“Not a one. ’Twas just my mother and I, all these years.” A frown momentarily marred the lady’s brow. “She told me the tales, and truly, I would have had no trade without her.”

“You have a trade?”

“Aye!” The lady lifted her chin. “I copy manuscripts and sell them in the markets.”

“’Tis a labor of monks.”

Her expression turned arch. “But they do not inscribe the more interesting tales, the ones which people truly desire to read again and again.” Despite himself, Niall looked to her in curiosity. “I copy romances, those tales of quests and knights and ladies fair, of bold deeds and fearsome dragons.”

“And you earn your keep with that?”

Her delight faded and Niall felt a cur. “I did, for a while. But times are less than good and even those who admire my work have little to spare. I have traveled much since my mother’s death, visiting all the familiar towns again, but to no avail.” She shrugged. “In truth, the details matter little. Finally, I had no choice but to take my mother’s advice, and so here I am!”

She granted Niall an unexpected smile so sunny it warmed him to his toes. “As soon as the archbishop hears tell of this, I am certain that all will be set to rights.” She nodded with a confidence Niall found hard to match.

He frowned as he tried to follow her explanation. “Why should the archbishop provide for you?”

But the lady only smiled more broadly at the question. Her expression was wondrously feminine and launched a queer sensation around Niall’s heart. Indeed, it seemed to beat overfast. And he could not haul his gaze away from hers, at least until he saw the gemstone swinging from the chain around her neck.

’Twas a moonstone, its milkiness containing an ethereal sliver of blue blue light. A more superstitious man would have named it a witching stone. Niall had heard tell of such things, though he had never given credence to those tales.

This stone, though, was odd. It seemed to glow from within and just the sight of it made Niall deeply uneasy. There was something unnatural about its very blueness, as though a sliver of the moon had been trapped inside it. Niall tore his gaze away, finding the task more difficult than it should have been.

A kernel of dread took up residence in his gut, though he could not account for its presence. Niall was afraid of no odd stone! He knew as well as he knew his own name that there was no such thing as magic. Indeed, Niall found himself unduly disappointed by the sign that this woman was as mad as he had originally feared.

A quick glance to the stone she proudly wore sent a most uncharacteristic shiver down Niall’s spine, however, and he scowled at the illogic of his response.

Magic was a whimsy for fools. The woman addled his wits. Too late, Niall recalled that Odo had warned him against this one’s copious charms.

“And that would be your witching stone,” he asked with all the skepticism he could summon.

His companion rolled her eyes. “What nonsense! I told you already that I am not a witch! I am but a woman, admittedly in a bit of a muddle, but ’tis a muddle that will come clear quickly enough. I have absolutely no doubt.”

And strangely enough, a goodly part of Niall wanted to believe her.

His gaze fell on the pendant once more, that uneasiness raising gooseflesh over his skin. Viviane followed his gaze and smiled as she toyed with the jewel.

“’Twas a gift from my father, on my birth,” she confessed, then flashed that disconcerting smile towards the knight once more. “My mother said he captured the blue of the moon within the stone just for me. Is that not a most wondrous tale? It could almost make up the difference for never having knowing him.” She shrugged again. “But ’tis a token of good fortune, if naught else, and never have I been parted from it.”

She was a whimsical one, that much was for certain. And dangerously beguiling. Niall harrumphed, thinking it poor timing to question her illusions.

“My mother told me once that if ever I had a wish to be made, I could wish upon this stone from my sire’s hand and all would come right for me.” The dimple danced engagingly when Niall dared to glance her way. “Is that not a wondrous gift?”

Niall could not keep his lips from twisting wryly. “One might think your current circumstance would well suit such an appeal.”

But Viviane laughed merrily again, the sound making Niall think of a brook splashing through an emerald glade. He was becoming overly fanciful, there could be little doubt of that.

“There is no need to waste its power. Indeed, I have only to tell my tale to the archbishop,” she insisted. “There is naught to worry about, for once I have had my hearing...”

In that moment, they reached the threshold of the prisoner’s gate to the courtyard. Niall caught a glimpse of the archbishop, his hands braced on the arms of the high seat, his expression grimly exultant, the black and red of his garb a striking sight. Thousands gathered in the courtyard, pennants snapped against the azure sky, the smell of smoke was in the air.

The sunlight glistened off the executioner’s gruesome arsenal, arrayed for public view, and Niall found a lump rising in his throat.

Then the crowd caught a glimpse of the prisoner and roared for blood.

Viviane jumped back against Niall in alarm. She breathed quickly, her gaze dancing over the sliver of view accorded to them from here.