Daughter of Fire (29 page)

She hurried to leave when he stopped her, those strong fingers closing around the soft flesh of her arm.

“Vivian.” His voice was both harsh and gentle, filled with a conflict of emotions as overwhelming as her own. But it wasn’t the sound of her name that stopped her. It was his touch. And in it, she sensed those conflicted emotions, sensed the anguish that ran through them, with a longing so deep that it was painful.

“Please, let me go,” she whispered. Then, hastily stepping beyond his reach, she pulled open the heavy chamber door.

Judith de Marque’s surprise was as great as her own, at finding Vivian in Rorke’s chamber. But she recovered quickly and a cunning expression sharpened in the woman’s eyes as she stood at the threshold to the chamber, then swept past her.

“I came as soon as I received your message, milord,” she told Rorke. “I see you’ve poured wine for us.” Her voice was like warm honey as she closed the stout door firmly behind her.

Vivian leaned against the stone wall outside Rorke’s chamber, eyes closed as she tried to bring her chaotic emotions back under control by sheer force of will. Jealousy and longing spiraled through her. Jealousy of the woman she was certain must still be Rorke’s mistress, and a longing that it was she who longed to share the wine with him and so much more.

The vision that she’d experienced so long ago came back vividly to her. A creature born in fire and blood that spread its wings across the whole of England—Rorke FitzWarren. Her fate was inextricably linked with his. It was no accident or random twist of fate that had brought him to Amesbury. It was destiny, seen in a vision.

Clutching the brilliant blue stone that hung about her neck, she cast her thoughts far beyond the stone walls, beyond London, beyond time and place into the swirling mists where present and past merged in a time of hopes and dreams, in a faraway place that existed only in the ancient hollow hills, and the words whispered through her tormented thoughts.

Please, father. Help me!

~ ~ ~

A loud crash shattered the peaceful morning air in the gently swirling mist of the world between the worlds. The sound of metal being hurled against stones followed by a score agony of curses in ancient, half-forgotten languages.

Ninian hesitated at the bottom of the stone steps and wondered if she dare climb them to the top. Another burst of curses, followed and settled the matter as she gathered her skirts in hand and hastily ran up the steps.

The chamber was in complete disarray, utensils and their contents scattered about the floor. A dozen ancient books littered the table, stacked one upon the other as if some hand had hurriedly searched the pages. The flames of a dozen candles burned a lambent glow, but the scattered droplets of rapidly drying wax revealed the chaos that had gripped the chamber but a few moments before.

The metal brazier had been hurled against the wall. It lay on its side, its smoldering contents glowing on the stone floor.

He stood before the raised stone hearth that was of the same height as a table—where the brazier had sat only moments before,  weight braced at his hands, head hanging forward between slumped shoulders. The folds of the midnight blue tunic he wore draped his tall frame, concealing the gauntness that had set in. For the first time, he seemed completely unaware of her presence and a new fear knifed through her. She went to him, laying a slender hand as his shoulder.

“What is it?” she whispered. “What has happened?”

He stood there for the longest time, and then slowly turned to look at her. The handsome features had become more so with time, the lines about his eyes and mouth adding strength and character to his face. They were strong, aquiline features that suggested an ancient royal lineage, and Celtic forbears.

Long ago he’d chosen to grow a full beard, kept closely clipped about that strong set chin. His hair was also kept closely cropped, now sprinkled through with flecks of gray that framed strong features.  His brows were dark slashes above brilliant blue eyes that held a mystical fire of their own and had seduced a young girl who had traveled from her own world to bring him a legendry sword.

Time had not diminished her passion for him. Indeed, it had deepened it, giving it distinctive, new qualities like fine wine never tasting the same twice, the myriad colors discovered and then rediscovered all over again in the constantly changing rhythms of the earth, wind, and sea. But in everything they had shared, never before had she known such anger.

Ninian sensed it and saw it in fists clenched with impotent rage until his knuckles shown white, heard it in the barrage of curses that still charged the air of the chamber with a wild, chaotic energy, and felt it in the trembling beneath her hand.

“You need to rest,” she said gently. “You have been here all night.”

“I do not need rest! I must reach her. I must find a way,” he said with growing helplessness, hands thrust out before him. It was then she saw the painful, red welt at his hand where he’d burned it at the brazier.

“Come,” she said insistently, pulling him with her to the bench that sat before the table, mindful not to touch his burned hand. She gently pushed him down onto the bench. Taking several medicinal herbs from the shelf on the wall above the table, she laid them out precisely, along with a fresh strip of linen cloth. She sat down beside him and took his hand between both of hers.

“What did you see in the flames?” she asked, tenderly stroking his hand between hers, across long, strong fingers, then back across the whitened knuckles, and all around the slash of burned flesh at the palm of his hand where he had taken hold of the brazier and hurled it across the chamber. He refused to answer at first and as the silence drew out between them, she looked up at him.

His expression was tortured with such a sadness of helplessness. Tears glistened in those fiery blue eyes. “Dearest Ninian,” he whispered, his voice breaking softly over her name. “I was unable to see anything. Not even a fleeting image. Nothing, but a growing darkness.”

“It has been like that before,” she reasoned as she continued to stroke his hand, eventually gliding her fingers across the burned flesh, taking away the pain, healing the damaged flesh with the power that moved within her.

“Not like this,” he said in helpless frustration. “Always before there was a connection. I could reach her, but it is gone. I thought that perhaps through the light of the fire. But there was only darkness!”

“There has been darkness before,” she reminded him. “Darkness always follows day.” Her voice was as soothing as her hand, soft, as calming as her magical healer’s touch. He stared down at his own hand, where only moments before the flesh had raised an angry red welt.

She had bandaged it carefully with a special poultice that would make the skin strong again and protect against new injury. He stroked the linen bandage thoughtfully.

“You have always taken care of me. You bandage the wounds of the flesh and ease the wounds of the spirit. That which would not even be bearable, you make more than tolerable. You have brought me hope, faith, and passion, and made this prison that is my existence a treasure beyond compare. What have I given you that I deserve such as this?”

Passion. 

He had never spoke of it before, and there were shadows of doubts in her heart for she knew that he had loved another before her, even though what they shared was rare and often frightening in its power, taken to the brink where she had thought she might not survive it, but without regret if she did not.  She had been but a girl when she had gone to him and given her heart to him along with the sword of truth. 

“You have given me truth, honor, and love,” she replied.  “You have given me your heart and soul. And you have given me children when I despaired that I might never know that joy. I am by far richer for the bargain made.”

“But I have not kept the bargain,” he lamented, taking hold of her hand with his now without any lingering trace of pain. “I had thought that I could keep her safe, but I cannot. I have seen this darkness, Ninian. It is not like the darkness that follows the light of day.”

He stood and walked toward the chamber window. “It is a darkness that consumes the light, destroying it, obliterating all that was before and may ever hope to be.  And now I cannot reach her. I cannot warn her of it!”

She went to him, slipping her arms about his waist, feeling the ache of despair that spread through him, hiding her heart from him so that he would not see the fear there.

“She is part of us both. She is strong and fine and true. We will find a way to reach her.”

As she spoke she turned her face into his shoulder, terrified that he would see the doubt in her face or the tears at her cheeks, for her children so long gone from her for their own sakes to places where they might be safe, and for the one she loved and had given up her own mortal life to share his. Lover, through all eternity. Merlin, whose pain she could not assuage.

He bent his head to hers, with its rich fall of thick golden hair, like the sun burning through the mist.

Ninian. His lady of the lake, who had stolen his heart, healed his soul, and given him the sweet, precious gift of life. He held on to her, drawing strength and passion from her.

“I must find a way to reach her,” he whispered.

Sixteen

T
he narrow passage that led to the kitchen was cold and damp as Vivian’s feet skimmed over the stones. The flames of the torches quivered at her hasty flight and she hugged the folds of the woolen mantle more tightly about her.

The sudden warmth of heat from the ovens and cook fires was heady with the aroma of fresh-baked bread and meat already hung at the spit for the evening meal.

The cook cursed in French at one of several young girls who helped her. From the coarse exchange, it seemed the girl had returned late from the soldiers’ barracks. She was hollow-eyed and sluggish in her chores, causing the cook to wave a knife at her.

Vivian had left Mally and another girl busily preparing William’s chamber for the arrival of his wife Matilda with the  coronation only days away. Now, she looked for Meg and found her stirring herbal leaves into a small simmer pot over a brazier in the adjacent pantry.

The potion was for the painful stiffness that plagued the woman. Although the noise from the kitchen would have made it impossible to hear, still she sensed Vivian’s presence and smiled as Vivian reached around her to steady her hand at her stirring.

“Dear child, I despaired that I would ever have a chance to speak with you.” Meg said as she turned and put her arms about Vivian. “You are kept well guarded there is never a moment when we might be alone.”

Taking the old woman’s hand and pressing it against her cheek, Vivian said, “I sensed your thoughts and came as soon as I could. It is difficult,” she admitted, and, glancing over her shoulder at the cook who was busy with her own chores, said, “It seems the most private moment might be here.”

Meg nodded. “You are well?”

“Yes, very well. You must not worry so.”

“How could I not worry?” Meg sighed. “You are as much my child as if I had borne you. I am old and my powers are not as strong as yours, but whatever the meaning of this vision, I could not let you face it alone.” She pulled Vivian aside to the sacks of grain that lined the wall. They sat upon them and spoke of things there had been no time to speak of that last day at Amesbury.

“Has the vision revealed anything more to you?” Meg asked with concern in her voice.

Vivian shook her head gravely. “I have seen nothing more in the stone. But I have sensed a presence.”

Meg heard the hesitation in her voice. “Tell me of it.”.

Vivian hesitated. “It is difficult to explain, for I have never sensed anything like this.” She glanced back over her shoulder to be certain no one listened, for what they spoke of might easily be misunderstood by those who were superstitious about such things.

But even though no one glanced their way, indeed, could not have heard over the crash and clatter of cook pots and kettles, she sensed a listening presence. And so she sought to communicate with Meg in the old way, by giving the woman her thoughts. She held the old woman’s hand against her cheek and opened her thoughts to her.

“In the vision I saw a darkness unlike anything I have ever known, but I had no understanding of it. Since then I have not seen it again in my visions, but I feel its presence. It is here, in the shadows just beyond my ability to see it, as if it were waiting for something, or someone.”

Beneath her hand she felt Meg’s tremble against her cheek. Before any thought was shared with her, Vivian sensed the old woman’s anguish.

“Not for five hundred years has anyone spoken of the Darkness. When I was a child it was whispered about, a tale to frighten children, nothing more. Tis said to have come over the land in the time of the ancient kings.

“It is said,”
she continued, her features pale and drawn,
“that the Darkness destroyed the ancient kingdom.”

“Did no one try to stop it?”

“Aye.”
Meg answered.
“Someone did try to stop it.”

Vivian knew her next thought.
“And he was destroyed because of it?”
she asked fearfully.

Meg nodded.
  “Banished from this world forever.”

Tears filled Meg’s eyes, as she once more communicated with spoken words, “I fear for you my child. Leave this place. Come away to Amesbury. We can leave now. Poladouras will take us.”

Vivian sadly shook her head. “You know that I cannot. I have seen the darkness in my vision. I am part of it now. If I were to leave, it would only find me again. You know the truth of the visions—once seen they cannot be altered. It is what has not yet revealed itself that may yet be changed.”

“The future,” Meg whispered.

“Like a tapestry,” Vivian answered. “The threads are not yet woven.” She felt a small flame of hope. “The future is not yet certain and it lies in the hands of a creature born in fire and blood, and...”