Dragon Tree (24 page)

“He is
leaving? Odo is leaving?”

“He received a
summons from Prince John, as I understand it, and is being
forced—reluctantly I am sure—to temporarily abandon the hunt.”

Amie whirled
around and ran up the steps to the rooftop. She sought the same
merlon where she and Tamberlane had stood during the night and was
peering anxiously through the gap in the wide stone teeth when
Marak moved up beside her.

“You wished to
wave a fond farewell?” he asked dryly.

“I want to see
if he looks back.”

“If he looks
back?”

She shook her
head, too intent on peering below to offer explanations. The ground
was covered by a thin blanket of mist, a milky haze that rose no
more than knee deep and swirled apart in creamy waves wherever
beast or man cut through it. There were still puddles in the
courtyard below, and mud on the path that led across the outer
bailey to the barbican gates.

She spied
Tamberlane at once, his dark head bare of headgear, his broad
shoulders encased in hunting green. Odo de Langois stood by his
side waiting for the hostlers to bring their horses from the
stables. He had his helm tucked under his arm and held his
gauntlets in one hand, slapping the leather fingers on the palm of
the other, seeming to be chatting about things of little or no
consequence. His brother Rolf stood slightly behind, his eyes still
roving the walls, the arched bridge in the curtain wall, the well
where half a dozen women were already gathered and squabbling like
geese.

Odo’s cousin,
Sigurd, was standing at ease behind her husband, digging for
something in his nose, the other three knights were trying to catch
the eye of a milkmaid.

There were no
furtive glances, no conspiratory exchanges. Odo’s laughter was
hearty enough as he clapped a hand to Tamberlane’s shoulder and
thanked him once again for his generosity. When their squires
brought forth their horses, the knights mounted and clattered their
way across the courtyard and beneath the arched bridge.

Tamberlane
followed as far as the bridge in the curtain wall, his hands
planted on his waist, his focus on the small party as it made its
way across the outer ward and through the barbican gates. Odo's
fiery red hair made him easy to follow as they rode across the draw
and cantered casually along the bank of the lake to the
village.

Once there,
the knights were joined by the crossbowmen and men-at-arms who had
spent the night on shore. After some brief instruction, the men
hastened to gather up their belongings and, two by two they fell
into step behind Odo and his brother, who led the way into the
darker mists that blurred the edge of the forest.

Not once did
Odo turn to look back. Not a single sparing glance was wasted on
the tranquil beauty of the lake or the lichen-covered stones of the
castle walls behind him.

When the last
crossbowman tramped out of sight, Amaranth released a long, slow
sigh of relief.

He had not
looked back.

If
Tamberlane’s quiet assurances were to be believed, it meant that
Odo was convinced his errant wife was not within the walls of
Taniere Castle.

Marak was
watching her face with interest. “Pray, is that a smile, I
see?”

She turned to
look at him. Was she smiling? She couldn’t tell. But the tightness
was suddenly gone from her chest and the sense of dread that had
hung over her since waking on a table in Marak’s chamber was gone
as well.

She drew a
deep, clean lungful of air and twirled about in a small circle.
Yes, she was smiling and it felt good to do so again. She was
hungry too, having not been able to choke down more than a few
crumbs the whole of the previous day.

Marak laughed,
hearing the audible grumble from her belly. “Methinks the lady has
found her appetite again. The posset first, of course. I left it
back in the solar, not wanting to hinder my hands if you had taken
the thought to leap from the walls.”

Amie twitched
her nose in a mocking grimace. “Your possets taste like the stewed
underbellies of garden slugs, good sir, but I shall tip it
happily.”

“And... you
would be acquainted with the taste of a slug's underbelly?”

“Odo’s table
left much to be desired. Even pilgrims chose to walk another ten
miles rather than sit at his board.”

Marak laughed
again and extended an arm. After staring at it a moment, her smile
took on a wistful tilt, and she delicately placed her fingertips
upon his wrist, allowing herself to be regally escorted back
through the low slung portal.

Under the
seneschal’s stern eye, she drank the bitter posset as quickly as
her throat would allow, then stood, lacking all patience, while
Inaya drew a tunic over her head and laced it at the waist and
throat. It still felt odd—and oddly invigorating—to not have to sit
while her hair was brushed and plaited, and she was able to join
Marak out on the landing in short order to accompany him down the
winding stairs. The great hall looked somewhat different than it
had the previous day due to most of the men and knights being up on
the wall-walks to watch Odo de Langois' departure.

There was no
one seated at the dais; Tamberlane had not yet returned from the
bailey.

When Marak
pointed to one of the benches beside the lord’s enormous chair,
Amie hesitated but a moment before taking a seat. Marak joined her
and at once, lackeys rushed up bearing platters of fresh food to
break their fast—hard cheese, bread, a whole roasted fowl sitting
on a bed of boiled onions. Amaranth was ravenous and did not stand
on ceremony, reaching with bare fingers to tear the meat from the
bone and break off thick chunks of the yellow cheese. Marak ate
sparingly, more amused to watch her eat than to interrupt her with
conversation.

“Your shoulder
is mending well,” he remarked at one point.

She glanced
ruefully at the leg joint she had just torn from the fowl. It was
true. Her strength was returning hour by hour, it seemed. There was
still a dull ache in the muscles to remind her they had been
recently torn asunder, but from the moment she had watched her
husband ride away into the mist, the pain was barely
noticeable.

Tamberlane
entered the hall just as she was sucking the last bit of grease off
her fingertips. He stood on the stone landing for several moments,
his gaze scanning the enormous chamber before coming to rest,
finally, on the dais. Amie was again struck by the quiet authority
of his presence. Even if she had not been told who he was or how he
had earned his reputation, she would have known he was a slayer of
dragons, a man equal to fight at the right hand side of Richard,
Coeur de Lion.

At the moment,
however, he looked like he wanted to slay more than just dragons,
for his expression was as black as his hair. His gaze speared into
Marak first, then shifted to Amie.

“You would
have done better to remain a little less conspicuous, my lady," he
murmured when he drew alongside. "At least until the stench of your
husband's horses has left the ward."

She looked
helplessly to Marak, whose frown was visible through the shadows
beneath his hood. "Hold there, Ciaran. Direct your anger to me if
you must, for I seated her here."

"Then indeed I
shall. Look about you and what do you see?"

Marak and Amie
both followed his glance. The clusters of candles, wall sconces and
tall, spidery iron candelabra were lit, with metal shields on some
to concentrate the brightest light on the dais. With much of the
rest of the chamber in heavier shadow, anyone sitting on the dais
would draw attention, especially if that someone had short, glowing
blonde hair and the face of a cherub.

"The same
number who rode through the gates," Marak pointed out quietly,
"rode out again this morning. I counted them myself."

"Not before
their overlord announced a reward of ten gold crowns to anyone
bringing news of Elizabeth de Langois' whereabouts."

Amie gasped.
Ten gold crowns was an unimaginable fortune to common villagers;
the amount would tempt even the most loyal knight or guardsman. She
looked around the shadowy hall with new eyes, imagining everyone
staring, wondering, weighing loyalty against the ease such wealth
would provide.

“We have
matters of some importance to discuss,” Tamberlane said brusquely.
“But not here, there are too many eyes and ears about.”

Marak nodded.
“I will take Amaranth to my solar and await you there.”

Tamberlane
nodded and remained on the dais a few moments longer. His eyes were
dark and dangerously alert as he watched to see if any of the
lackeys or the knights who had begun to amble back by twos and
threes to the hall, paid any heed to the two hastily departing
figures.

~~

Marak led
Amaranth toward the far end of the great hall and the narrow stone
corridor that led to his tower rooms. Once inside the musty, dark
chamber, he left her standing by the door while he lit a taper and
touched it to several candles. Over each of these, he placed a long
glass tube which was tinted in such a way as to allow the light to
shine through but softened the piercing yellow eye of the
flame.

Amie looked
around, her gaze touching on the shelves with their bottles and
pots, the long oaken bink littered with the implements of an
alchemist, and even stranger objects for which she could not even
guess the function. A mortar and pestle she recognized, but little
else. The table upon which she had lain for so many pain-filled
days now held books and papers, assorted quills, brushes, and pots
of ink.

Walking
closer, she caught sight of writing on the top of one page, the
Latin words set down in bold black ink:
Praxis Magica
.

Beneath this
was a beautifully illuminated drawing of a circle with four
serpentine arrows pointing outward to four strange symbols. Between
each symbol was a smaller icon and the whole was encased in a ring
decorated with other symbols and odd lettering around the
circumference. Below the drawing were lines of script in an
language unfamiliar to Amie. The first letter of each word was
highly stylized and painted with inks of gold and red and blue.

Her eye was
caught by a dull gleam of metal and Amie nudged aside a sheet of
parchment to run her fingertips over a round medallion. The
depiction on the front was the same as on the paper—identical, in
fact, and she was angling it to the light to examine it more
closely when Marak came up beside her.

“Peasants are
simple people,” he remarked. “They wish to believe in magic, and
therefore are willing—nay, even eager to attribute all manner of
wondrous things to amulets, medallions... even vials containing
water scraped from the nearest pond and proclaimed to be the bile
of Christ. That particular medallion, for instance, when worn over
the breast promises to give the owner immunity from all manner of
ferocious animals. It also gives the one who possesses it knowledge
of their secret language, and, when certain words are invoked,
drives maddened beasts away in terrible fear. To ensure proper
potency, it must be fastened about the neck on a ribbon of red silk
and worn in conjunction with this...” He leaned over and picked up
a ring, the head flat and square, engraved with a pattern of double
X’s. “I made it for the village smithy, a man of copious strength
and body size who freezes and turns as gray as ash when he comes
upon a squirrel in the forest.”

When there was
no smile forthcoming to acknowledge his cleverness, Marak blew out
a soft breath. Ciaran's words had put the fright back into her, he
could see it in the thin set of her mouth and the constant movement
of her eyes, suggesting much thought was going on behind them.

“This might
interest you,” he said, turning the pages in the large volume until
he came across another beautifully illustrated depiction of an
elongated octagon with the head of a unicorn in the center ring,
surrounded by more symbols and mystic lettering. “Ah yes... this
spell claims to make the most taciturn man unburden his soul to the
one who possesses it. By laying one’s hand flat over the talisman
and encompassing it in the palm thus—” he took Amie’s hand and
placed it over the drawing— “and pronouncing the words
noctar
...”

He looked at
her expectantly and tipped his head, waiting.

“Noctar,” she
murmured, feeling foolish.

“...
rathban
...”

“Rathban.”

“...and
sunandam
...”

She started to
pull her hand away with a small shake of her head, but Marak held
it fast. When her gaze lifted to his, the light from one of the
hooded candles was reflected as a tiny, bright point in each of his
colorless eyes, the effect unnerving enough to make it impossible
for her to look away.

“
Sunandam
,” he repeated quietly.

“Sunandam.”

Whether it was
her imagination or the effect of his eyes burning into her, Amie
felt the parchment grow warm beneath the palm of her hand. The heat
spread up her arm and prickled across her chest, rising even up the
back of her neck and making her lips part with surprise.

He smiled.
“Now, even the most stubborn man of your acquaintance will be
compelled to unveil his secret thoughts and longings to you.”

She jerked her
hand away. “But it is only a picture of the charm, not the talisman
itself.”

Marak
shrugged. “Nine tenths of what may be perceived as magic is
dependant upon what is in the mind, not the hand.”

“I prefer to
believe what I can feel and touch.” She hesitated and added, “Which
leads me to wonder, however, if you have a charm for finding lost
things?”

“You have lost
something?”