Shadow Music (43 page)
They stayed quiet for a few minutes, and then she whispered, “Do you like my father?”
“I do not know him well enough to like him. He is a gruff man. He was not pleased to see the scratches on your arms and face, but when he heard Coswold was responsible, he could no longer blame me.”
“The boys got into my trunk today.”
He laughed. “They came in here…”
“They were curious. You will have to remove the lid. I fear one of them will get trapped inside.”
“We’ll go to the Buchanans in a few days’ time so that you may meet your dearest cousin,” he teased. “I think perhaps we will take Ethan and Tom with us and forget to bring them home.”
“You will not leave them. They are content here. Ethan broke one of my statues.” He yawned. “He did?”
“It was filled with gold.”
“It was
what
?”
“Gold,” she whispered. “The statue was filled with it. I broke another one just to see, and there was gold inside it as well.”
His reaction was much like hers. He was astounded. “There really is a treasure.” Gabrielle repeated the story her mother had taught her. When she was finished, she said, “Now that I know there is gold inside each statue, I realize how clever King Grenier was. The Crusaders were going to kill his loyal subjects because he made them pay a toll to pass over his mountains. They believed the country was filled with heathens, so what did the king do? He dedicated the country to a saint and changed its name, then sent a token amount of the gold to the pope. The Crusaders wouldn’t dare harm any of his people. An attack on them would be an attack on the pope.”
“Why would the king keep the gold hidden all that time?”
“My mother told my father that the king was a wise man. He knew that great wealth can also provoke great greed. His countrymen were content.”
“And greed would corrupt their way of life.”
“Yes.”
Colm smiled. “Aye, he was clever to use his favorite saint to help save his country.”
“There is more to tell. I asked my father, and he told me my suspicions were true.” She stretched up to whisper in his ear. “There is no St. Biel.”
A long silence followed, and then Colm said, “He made up the saint…”
“He saved his people the only way he knew how,” she defended. “I wonder, though, what the church leaders would think if they knew. I cannot tell them.”
“No, you cannot.”
“King John rules St. Biel now, and he will not get the treasure. I will keep it safe, and one day my daughters and sons will hear the story, and it will become their duty to protect it.” Colm laughed again. “No wonder the statues are never placed inside the churches.”
“It is tradition.”
“Started by a king who knew it would be blasphemous.”
“I will let our children and their children worry about the church.”
“But you must pass the secret on,” he said as he gently pushed her onto her back. “And I will do my part, love, to make certain you have sons and daughters.”
Shadow Music
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Julie Garwood
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINEand colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-50464-7
www.ballantinebooks.com
v1.0
To
Kendra Elyse Garwood for all the joy and love you’ve added to our family.
You are a treasure.
The wicked flee when no man pursueth:
but the righteous are bold as a lion.
PROVERBS28:1
O
NCE UPON A TIME IN THE YEAR OF THE VIOLENT STORMSthat tore in from the sea, the first horde of warriors from a distant land came across our mountains and onto our shores. With steel weapons strapped to their chests and burnished armor glistening like shards of glass in the midday sun, they marched in pairs for as far as the eye could see. They did not ask permission nor care that they trespassed. Nay, they were on a quest, and nothing would get in their way. Crossing our fair land, they took our horses and our food, trampled our crops, used our women, and killed many of our fine men.
They left destruction in their wake…all in the name of God.
They called themselves Crusaders. They fervently believed that their mission was holy and good because they had been told so by the pope, who blessed them and commanded them to journey to the other side of the world. They were to vanquish the infidels and force them to embrace their God and their religion. If the heathens refused, the soldiers were to kill them with their holy and blessed swords.
The pass through our mountains was the only route that would take the Crusaders forward on their quest, so they marched across it in legions, and once they reached the harbor on the other side of the mountains, they stole our ships to sail across the sea toward their destination.
Our small country was then called Monchanceux. We were ruled by our uncle, the benevolent King Grenier. He was a man who loved his homeland and wanted to protect it. We were not a rich country, but we were content. We had enough. When the invading horde stole from us, our king was enraged, but he did not allow anger to guide his hand. Because he was such a clever ruler, King Grenier came upon a solution.
He would make the next group of invaders pay a toll to cross over the mountain. Since the pass was so narrow, it could easily be defended. Our soldiers were conditioned to the cold and the snow and the bitter night winds. They could protect the ridge for months at a time, and winter fast approached.
The leader of these righteous invaders was outraged at the notion of paying for anything. He and his men were on a holy mission. He threatened to kill every soul in Monchanceux, including women and children, if he and his men were denied passage. Were King Grenier and his subjects in the good graces of the church, or were they heathens standing in the way of the Lord’s work? The answer would determine their fate.
It was at that very moment that our good and wise king embraced religion. He told the leader of the army that he and all his subjects were just as holy, and he would prove it beyond any doubt.
He called forth the people of Monchanceux and addressed them from the balcony of the palace. The leader of the crusading army stood behind him.
“From this day forward our country will be called St. Biel in honor of my family’s patron saint. He is the protector of the innocent,” King Grenier announced. “We will build statues of St. Biel and paint his image on the doors to our cathedral so that anyone who comes to our shores will know of his goodness, and we will send tribute to the pope to show our sincerity and our humility. The toll I collect will pay for this tribute.”
The leader of the traveling throng found himself in a predicament. If he refused to pay the toll—in gold, of course, for the king would accept nothing less—then wouldn’t he be refusing to allow the king to give tribute to the pope? And if the pope got wind that the Crusader had refused, what would the pontiff do?
Excommunicate him? Execute him?
After a long night of contemplation and a good deal of ranting and raving, the military leader decided to pay the toll. It was a momentous occasion, for a precedent was set, and from that moment on, every Crusader desiring passage through our lands paid the toll without question.
Our king was true to his word. He had the gold melted down and made into coins, and upon each one was the image of St. Biel, a halo above his head.
The royal treasury had to be expanded to make room for all the gold coins, and a ship was prepared for the voyage to deliver the offering to the Holy Father. One day huge, heavy crates were loaded into the ship’s cargo hold, and a crowd of citizens gathered at the harbor to watch the vessel depart for Rome.
Shortly after that historic day, rumors began to spread. No one could verify that he had actually seen the gold or could estimate how much was sent. Several ambassadors claimed that only a pittance reached the pope. The talk of our king’s vast fortune swelled and then receded like the tide lapping at our shores.
Eventually a quicker route to the Holy Land was discovered, and the Crusaders no longer tramped through our country. We were grateful for the solitude.
We were not, however, left in peace. Every few years someone arrived looking for the now-legendary gold. A baron from England came, for his king had heard the rumor, but after our ruler allowed him to make a thorough search of the palace and the grounds, the baron told him that he would return to England with the news: there was no treasure to be found. Because King Grenier had been so hospitable, the baron warned him that Prince John of England was considering invading St. Biel. John, the baron explained, wanted to rule the world and was impatiently waiting to take over England’s crown. The baron had no doubt that St. Biel would soon become yet another possession of England.
The invasion came one year later. Once St. Biel officially belonged to England, the search for the hidden gold resumed. Witnesses swore there was no rock left unturned.
If there had ever been a treasure, it had vanished.
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
EPIGRAPH
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY JULIE GARWOOD
COPYRIGHT
