Daughter of Fire (36 page)

Her answer was like the freeborn cry of the falcon as Rorke thrust inside her.

Smooth and sleek she molded him, her sweet fire easing his passage until he lay full and heavy within her.

Sweat glistened across his body at restraint that became almost a painful agony as he braced himself over her to keep from hurting her.

“Forgive me,” he whispered against the hollow of her throat. “I cannot bear to cause you pain.”

He made to ease from her, but she stopped him, slender hands moving low at his back to clasp him within her.

“Nay, milord,” she whispered fiercely. “You bring me no pain. You are magnificent,” she whispered. “As if you are not real, but some beautiful creature born in fire and blood.”

Rorke shuddered at the words. Never had he—battle-scarred from a score of blows, hardened by torture, the cruelties of his bastard life, and the harsh realities of war—ever been called beautiful.

It was a word for mystical, unearthly things not of this world, seen but once, and then never again but in a dream.

“Then burn with me,” Rorke whispered as their bodies began to move together, taking, giving, in a fierce joining until neither was certain where one ended and the other began.

Head thrown back upon the furs, Vivian’s eyes glistened as the magical creature became earthbound, mesmerized by the man whose love filled her repeatedly. She sought the sky, flew, and soared on the strength of his passion, like the creature whose fiery image spread across the tapestry wall—a creature born in fire and blood.

Rorke felt as if the very fabric of his life was being torn asunder, consumed by the sweet fire of her body, until, like that mythical creature that leapt from the flames of desolation, with a fierce cry, he felt himself reborn in her passion.

~ ~ ~

The chamber was cold, the fire having l burned low on the hearth. Vivian rose from the bed, wrapping a thick, warm fur about her. Rorke stirred at the sudden loss of her warmth, in that half-sleep awareness an arm moving across the empty place as though to gather her close once more.

She wanted only to return to that place, to feel his strong arms about her, his body stealing the heat from hers and then giving it back in the fiery passion as their bodies joined. But she could not.

A restlessness drove her from his bed to the hearth, the stones at the floor icy beneath her bare feet. Satisfied that he slept on, she went to the hearth to lay more wood on the fire.

Embers still glowed amid the ash, casting a feeble warmth as she passed her hand over. Then, the embers suddenly flared as the flame within stirred to life, bursting forth.

She fed the fire small bits and pieces of pine twigs and tree bark, a sudden pungence filling the air as the fire found pockets of sap. As the fire grew she laid a larger log across.

Flames leapt hungrily about the log, golden light leaping onto the cold stones, creating deep shadows just beyond. For a long time she sat before the hearth, feeding it more wood until it burned brightly.

This one night...

Against everything that she was, against a destiny that had been written long ago, and a prophecy that she must not deny, she had risked all, abandoned the warnings of her special gift, and crossed over into the mortal world to join with a man seen in her vision.

For the first time in her life, she didn’t understand, and the Voice that always guided her, speaking to her through visions and dreams, was silent.

“You’re there. I know you are,” she whispered, one hand closing around the dark blue crystal, the other reaching toward the fire now burning brightly at the hearth.

The flames curled and danced about the logs in colors of soft yellow, bright orange, fiery red, and blue as brilliant as the shimmering heart of the crystal.

She stared into the flames, casting her thoughts far beyond stone walls and wood fortress. Beyond the inns, taverns, and marketplaces of  London town; beyond the veil of night and the boundaries of time and place, to another place of hope, dreams, and ancient legend found in that lingering time just before dawn. In those few, brief moments when night is no longer night and day is not yet day—a place found only in the mist.

“Please, come to me,” Vivian implored as she held her hand before the fire. “You must help me understand.”

The fire calmed and burned steadily with a soothing, lambent glow as a hand reached out to her from the flames. There was both a powerful strength and a gentleness of love as it beckoned to her.

Vivian reached out, fingers extended into the flames. She laid her hand in that outstretched one. Strength and calm flowed through and about her. A vision appeared, surrounding that outstretched hand that offered love and comfort, of a forest clearing covered with freshly fallen snow, and a single standing stone.

Then that gentle, comforting grasp was broken, the fingers slipped from hers, disappearing into the flames. All that was left was the vision of the standing stone at the edge of the clearing. Then it, too, slowly faded, until all that remained was the fire burning at the hearth.

Nineteen

T
orches burned low along the walls of the passage as Vivian left Rorke’s chamber.

At the main hall, she could make out the shapes of William’s men slumped across long trestle tables or head-to-foot across the floor in rushes that reeked of spilt ale and stale food, and littered with bones from the evening meal that had been thrown to William’s hounds.

She pressed the folds of the mantle flat against her body to prevent any movement that would betray her as she carefully stepped over the sleeping knights.

The fire at the hearth had long since burned to embers, wisps of smoke trailing lazily upward. As she passed by, the embers flared to life, glowing bright once more as though sensing her presence.

There was a brief stirring among the slumbering bodies as one man turned over, disturbing another. She stood frozen as there was much reshuffling and resettling. Then it was once more quiet except for the snores that began anew, indicating they all slept once more.

The hounds were chained to the wall. One caught her scent and raised its head, threatening to rouse the others. Vivian, reached out and laid a hand on the hound’s sleek head. It immediately calmed, lowered its head to paws, and once more slept with the others.

She adjusted the hood of the heavy mantle lower over her face as she crossed to the heavily fortified entrance. At a niche beside the door a guard had been posted, and stepped from the shadows at her approach.

He recognized her immediately an expression of surprise at his stern features. She reached out, laying a hand at his mail-clad arm.

“Good morn,” she said in a gentle voice that slipped beneath his defenses. “All is well with you, I pray.”

“Aye, mistress.”

Suspicion was immediately replaced with confusion at the guard’s eyes, then uncertainty as he stared at her as though he had never seen her before.

“Please unbolt the latch,” she said, keeping her voice low and even in pleasing tones. When he hesitated, she gently increased the pressure of her fingers at his arm. He nodded and did as she asked.

“Tell no one that you have seen me,” she reminded him, her fingers still conveying that message of warmth through the sleeve of his mail hauberk.

“Aye, mistress.” He released the mechanism that lifted the heavy crossbar, and she slipped out, down the steps, and into the outer courtyard.

There were four guards at the gatehouse, many more positioned at intervals along the outer  wall. Clouds gathered across the moon, a portent of the storm whose chill was felt in the air. The moon sank low at the horizon with the coming dawn. Time was short. As the clouds rolled across the moon, the courtyard was, for a time, thrown into darkness as deep as night. Vivian seized her opportunity and cut across the courtyard away from the gatehouse.

She passed the kennels, vacant now, with William’s hounds in the main hall. Just beyond the kennels were the mews where William’s hunting birds, brought from Normandy, now resided. She slipped inside.

The sounds inside the mews were soothingly familiar. The small falcon had been given a perch apart from the larger birds at the end of the mews. Even though she was hooded to keep her calm, as were the other birds, she sensed Vivian’s presence and called out with a short, chirping sound.

She whistled back softly, the familiar four-note signal of greeting. Aquila stepped carefully onto her arm. Once they were outside the mews Vivian removed the hood.

In the gathering gray of the fast-approaching dawn Aquila cocked her sleek head first in one direction then another, and flared her powerful wings.

“Are you feeling restless?” Vivian asked softly, her lips a scant few millimeters from that deadly beak as she let her breath wash over the falcon. Aquila sat perfectly still, yellow eyes blinking as though she answered on some primal level only they understood.

“You must fly for me. I have need of your eyes.” Holding her arm wide, she sent the falcon aloft.

Aquila rose swiftly into the gray predawn, easily escaping the high stone walls. She circled once and then seemed to disappear, but Vivian was not alarmed. The falcon would seek a perch beyond the walls and wait for her.

“Now to my own freedom,” Vivian whispered with growing anticipation as she moved along the wall that ran behind the mews and separated the royal household from the hunters’ wood that lay beyond.

She had glimpsed it many times from inside the fortress. Driven by the images of her vision, the wood was now her destination.

There were no breaches in the wall by which she might escape. All had been repaired and fortified before William’s arrival. Every precaution had been taken against any surprise attack. Even now, a massive stone tower of Norman design was being built within the royal compound to replace the crumbling Roman fortress.

When completed, the Tower of London, as it was already being called, would be an impregnable fortress built to stand for a thousand years, a monument and a reminder of the Norman conquest of Britain.

She heard voices very near and though the words were spoken in French, she understood the conversation that passed between the guards. Very soon they would pass along this part of the wall. There was no time to look for a more secluded place. She must leave now or risk being discovered. Yet, Vivian hesitated. For the first time since learning the true depth and scope of her powers, she was uncertain, the prophecy that old Meg had revealed to her filling her with doubt.

She was not like other women, and yet for a few precious hours she had turned from her powers.  What if her powers had now turned against her?

Her hands trembled slightly as she flattened them against the cold stones of the wall before her. She reached out, focusing on the vision of the one who had reached out to her from the flames. Surely not all her powers were forfeit because of what had passed between her and Rorke.

She took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out, releasing the fear and doubt. With the sound of voices very near, she closed her eyes and pressed firmly against the stones at the wall. They were cold and wet with mist, yet she felt only warmth as she turned inward to that hidden place of dreams, secrets, and magic where the power of the flame burned brightly within her.

She imagined the wall, holding it in her thoughts as if it existed in her mind—every coarse grain that made up the stone, each crevice, seam, and joint, and the thick mortar between. Then she allowed herself to feel the cold and wet, seeing it, too, in the moisture that seeped across each flat surface and the frost that glistened at each jagged edge. Then, still turned inward, she imagined herself stepping through the wall.

First her hands, then her arms, reaching through the mass of stone. One step, then two, and as the power gathered and focused within her on the single point golden light, she passed through the wall as if she were no more than the mist, or a single droplet of water that moved through the stones. And on a single, ragged breath she emerged at the other side.

Her first awareness was the bone-aching cold of having passed through the wall, as if for those few brief moments as she passed from one side to the other, she had become stone, glazed by ice, seeped through with an aching dampness.

She felt weak, as if the life had been drained from her and now only slowly returned in the tingling warmth that spread through her arms and legs to settle once more within her. Gradually, she realized that at least this ability had not been taken from her.

It took her a few moments more to recover fully, reminding her of another reason she had never cared for passing through solid barriers. She didn’t like the unbearable coldness afterward. She heard a faint sound overhead. Aquila sat atop the western bastion, waiting for her.

“You, my fine winged friend,” Vivian told her, “are far too smug. Just you try passing through stone and see how you like it.” In answer, Aquila swept down from the top of the bastion, winging circles and spirals overhead against a leaden sky.

On a silent airborne thought, Vivian sent her toward the forest. There was no time to waste as the sky grew lighter in that time between darkness and first light.

She crossed the dry moat bed, and entered the edge of the wood, casting her thoughts far and wide with those of the falcon, searching for a clearing in the wood, in which stood an ancient stone.

The snow had not been trodden underfoot and lay like a white mantle across the ground, reflecting the growing light. A sense of urgency now filled her. She must find the clearing before the sun rose. Then, she heard the falcon’s cry. She plunged through heavy tree cover and thick underbrush, following that sound, until she emerged at a small clearing.

The snow glistened as it grew lighter all about. A feeble golden light splintered the thick sea of clouds at the horizon and penetrated the glade. Mist rose at the warmth that slowly invaded the clearing. It was then she saw the stone.

It was a large single monolith that seemed to have been etched by the eons of time. It rose out of the earth and snow like an outthrust hand, or possibly the blade of an ancient stone sword. She slowly walked toward it.