Templar's Destiny (9780545415095) (11 page)

Sleep was a long time coming and I woke early, too keyed up to rest. Strange dreams of Gaylen and the carving took up much of the night. I saw him holding it aloft and calling upon it, but I had the feel that it was not behaving the way he wanted it to. His frustration followed me into the day, leaving me particularly edgy and raw.

All about the castle, workers moved at a feverish pitch. Word had reached us that the Holy Father had arrived during the night, and the King had called for a session of the courts to be held following the morning meal. The Templar and I took great care in dressing in the new wardrobe that had arrived from the seamstress. My hands shook as I went about my duties, and the Templar reached out to still them. “Take a deep breath, Tormod, an' let the power center ye. What will come o' the day, will.”

The words were simple. If only the task were as well. A session of the courts might involve Torquil. When at last we were finished, I stood by the door waiting as the Templar tucked several small knives into sheathes at his wrists and hip. “Can I …” I began.

“If ye are found with weapons, ye will be put immediately into the dungeon an' it would take more connections than I have to free ye.”

It was a harsh sentiment, but I would do nothing to jeopardize Torquil's life. I swept before him and stood at the door. “Are ye ready, my lord?” I asked. At his nod, I opened the door and gestured him to proceed. He inclined his head as he passed and I followed close at his heels.

In the hallway were a number of nobles and servants making their way toward the stairwell. As we joined them, I felt the eyes of the curious slide over us, but when I raised my gaze no one was looking, just a glance or the turn of a head, timed to avoid being caught. The Templar cleared his throat, and I jerked my eyes downward.

The floor below teemed with activity. An enormous hall was set up with row after row of long tables lined with benches and filled with people eating, drinking, and talking. High, long windows brought sunlight streaming down on the servants, who moved quickly and ably through the narrow aisles around the tables, filling trenchers and goblets the moment they were empty. Highborn and peasant alike ate together.

The Templar took a seat on the bench, and I hung back to see what I should do next. He motioned to the bench and I dropped beside him. “Can I fetch ye anything, my lord?” I asked quietly.

“I thank ye, lad, but the kitchen staff will see to it that we break our fast. Eat quickly, there are many to move in an' out o' here before court is taken up for the day. An' we will need to secure a place near Fabienne.”

I looked around. It seemed a fair informal room for something like court. “They will hear the cases in this place?” I asked.

He nodded. A servant dropped bowls of a warm grain porridge and loaves of newly baked bread for each of us. Honey and almond paste followed with a steaming brew of a leaf I was unfamiliar with. If this were the meal offered every day, it was no wonder the room was bursting with people. Still I wondered how it was that the lowborn were allowed inside and asked.

“It has been a long-standing tradition with the French court that all are welcome inside the castle. It shows the magnanimity o' the King for all his people.” I nodded and busied myself with eating.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fabienne approach with Lisette trailing close behind. The Templar stood and I quickly did as well. “Join us, please, my Lady,” he said. And she dropped down beside me, across from him.

“It is said that the Archbishop Lambert travels with His Holiness, and that the prisoner they bring comes from the Isles of Scotia,” Fabienne said. I sucked in a breath. Torquil. What was I to do?

“No matter what is said here today, Tormod, ye will stay silent an' react no' at all. If 'tis something ye do no' think ye can manage, ye should wait in the suite until I come back for ye.” His words were spoken softly, but it was as if he had shouted them into my face. I blinked and looked quickly around, then ducked my head.

“No. I will be all right. I need to be here,” I mumbled. The food was not a draw for me anymore. I pushed my portion away and offered my bread to Lisette, who took it with somber, fearful eyes. I wondered what would put such a look into the gaze of a child.

Even before Fabienne and Lisette had finished, the benches and tables were being pushed to the outer edges of the room and an elaborate dais flanked by one highly ornamented chair was carried in from another room. The number of guards around the chamber was suddenly far more than it had been just moments before, and everything within me stilled.

I craned around a group of crofters who had suddenly pushed forward. A ripple of excitement passed through the crowd, and the doors were drawn wide as a procession of richly dressed women swept in by twos to the sound of the royal trumpets. Up the aisle and through the benches they moved as if they were not walking, but floating. And then alone she came.

Her hair was bound in a chain of gold net that sparkled in the gleam of the sunlight. Her dress was the color of rubies and her skin as pale as the first snow of winter. But it was her eyes that drew me most. Amber and gold, like the rippling water of the burns rushing over the rocks of my homeland, fringed by lashes of deep thick brown. I stared as her head turned in my direction, latched on to my gaze, and held.

A sharp elbow dug into my side, and I was pulled roughly away. The intrusion was a surprise and yet the absolute balm that washed through me at her touch stalled my indignant reply. “Are ye no' supposed to be about yer duties?” I asked, masking my pleasure at Aine's appearance.

“In here she has only women,” she replied. I quickly glanced about the chamber. “She is protected, fear no'. There are guards all about the crowd to ensure it.” Aine's shields were thin and I felt her swirl of annoyance, though I did not know what it was she was off about.

“Aine, there's something ye should know.” I had been thinking of Bertrand for much of the night, and my chest ached with the knowledge that I would have to be the one to tell her. She turned to me expectantly, and I lowered my shields and called the painful memory to the fore, careful to mask the ripple.

Aine's gasp and the quick bite of her grip on my arm was covered by the arrival of the King's company. “Kneel,” I urged, and drew her down even as I felt the surge of sadness churn inside her. Tears were better concealed with a crowd focused elsewhere. Her body shook.

“That's why ye left,” she whispered. I nodded, barely able to contain my own sorrow. I had pushed it away to someplace deep inside of me, but with Aine here, it bubbled back up to the surface.

“But why?” Her words shook as she fought for control. “I don't understand.” The rustle of the crowd as the King took his place on the dais covered only a moment of conversation.

“'Twas the trainees, though I know no' why,” I murmured.

“No more now,” said the Templar softly. “There will be time to talk later. Aine, go to Cornelius's suite. He waits for ye there.”

She ducked her head and took her leave. The absent feel of her hand on my arm was nearly painful. The Templar moved beside me as the King called, “Bring in the petitioners.” I looked up at him for the first time, this man whom I had feared for so long. He was large and strong, with a long, angular face whose eyes stared ahead as if he were both here and somewhere else as well, as if his mind were not wholly in this room. His waving brown hair fell to his shoulders, and the great golden crown, set with a multitude of jewels, glistened in the morning light. Blue silk draped to the floor in a pool of light, and he was as still as one of the many statues that circled the great courtyard outside.

The doors at the end of the hall creaked as they were drawn wide once more, and everyone turned toward the sound. A procession of brown-robed monks, softly singing their prayers, entered first. Then followed a group of priests in shades of black and red — bishops, archbishops, and cardinals. As the first of the ranks moved up the aisle, the inhabitants of the hall once again dropped to their knees, crossed themselves, and praised the Lord. I followed their example, staring raptly as each passed, waiting with my breath held tight in my chest. And then he came. The Holy Father nearly glowed in the brilliant red of his vestments. His pale skin and almost paler eyes were such a sharp contrast to the robes, almost as if he were a living flame. I blinked as the vision washed over me. White robes. Red flame. Smoke. Pain. Blistering agony.

The Templar's hand was on the nape of my neck pressing down, his whisper deep in my head.
Let it go. Quickly.
The room swam into focus and yet the memory of the pain in my feet made me near faint. The Holy Father's procession was done, and all of the conclave were seated to the right hand of the King.

“Let the petitioners begin,” called the King. And so it began. I had never been present at the judgments by our laird and so stood, rapt, as case after case was brought before the assembled. Some were as simple as the theft of a cow. Others more difficult, with each side shouting and demanding that justice, whatever justice was seen fit by the King, was acted upon. The candle marks crept by and the cases began to seem less and less real and important. Until there came one prisoner.

He was beaten and bloody, fouled with the dirt of a long imprisonment. His face barely recognizable, and yet my heart went still at the sight of him. The Abbot stood in the center of the hall, wavering on his feet as the charges rang out. Obstruction. Tax evasion. Blasphemy. The list did not sound as though any of it were truly horrible, until the last charge was read. Murder.

I started forward, but the Templar tightly held me back. What I had planned to do, I had no idea, but I felt as though a terrible wrong was being enacted and I was compelled to stop it. The Abbot could not have committed murder. It was not in the man I knew.

“Mercy, my Lord. Please, for the sake o' one of God's chosen.” The Archbishop Lambert, Alexander's friend, spoke the words. I hadn't recognized him in the long procession but now was grateful for his presence.

“The law is not only for the ordinary man, Your Grace. It does not recognize the trappings of faith. Only what is proven and right, and in enforcing the law we praise His name.” He stared at the man, who dropped suddenly to his knees, unable to bear his own weight on shaking legs. “Hang him!”

The porridge I'd eaten surged to my throat, and I clapped my hand to my mouth to keep it down. The noise of the crowd was deafening, and I stood helplessly as soldiers of the King dragged the Abbot out of the hall. “Canno' ye do anything?” I whispered furiously to the Templar.

“No' here, Tormod. Let us be gone.”

We found Aine in the suite of Cornelius with a fine blue silken dress draped over her arm. I remembered the vision from a long time past of Aine in this very dress with a fine cloak of white fur and her hand on the sleeve of Cornelius, but something was different. In that vision, Aine's hair was not the short cap of curls that it was right now. A rope of braid had circled her head and in it was woven jewels and pearls.

“There must be something we can do,” Cornelius said, pacing. “Clearly the Grand Master knows nothing about this, else he would be here demanding that the Abbot be set free. The Abbot canno' be brought up on charges of tax evasion. He is a part of the Order, an' the Order is exempt from any an' all taxes.”

“The charges are a farce,” said the Templar. “Something made up to get the Abbot out of the way. But for what?”

“What could an unknown abbot from a small preceptory in Scotland mean to the King of France?” Aine asked, catching my eye, but looking away just as quickly.

“He is no' unknown, nor insignificant,” said the Templar. “He is the single most important money handler in the whole o' the Templar Order. I do no' think his abduction was by chance. But the why o' it still eludes me.”

“What can we do?” I asked.

“I've sent a man to the preceptory to deliver a message to the Grand Master,” he said.

“But there are those within who work a' cross purposes,” said Aine. “They've killed Bertrand. Is it someone who can be trusted?”

“Aye,” he replied. “The Archbishop can gain entrance an' a private audience as no other would be able.”

“But what are we to do in the meantime? We are still no closer to finding out where Torquil is,” I said. Seeing the state of the Abbot had built a knot in the pit of my stomach that refused to go away.

“Aine, have ye had any progress in getting inside the library?” the Templar asked.

“Aye. We were there this morning. It seems that the Princess has a great love for the room. Her mother had the place filled, an' she has read nearly everything on the shelves,” she said.

“Truly?” I said, unable to keep the surprise from my tone. “She can read?” Aine narrowed her eyes, then ignored me.

“There are so many memories in that room that I could not sort out the ones ye're needing. I'll try again as soon as I might,” she said.

“I'm not altogether comfortable with ye staying with the Princess. One more day an' then we must give up on that tack. Ye will join Cornelius a' the evening meal tomorrow as his newly arrived niece from Scotland.”

“But her hair —” I began.

“What the devil is wrong with my hair, Tormod?” Aine was angry with me and as usual I could not understand why.

“'Tis just that 'tis short, an' all the ladies here wear it long,” I fumbled with my words as the image of the Princess came to mind.

“Fabienne can provide a veil. I will have her meet ye here,” the Templar said.

Everyone, it seemed, had a duty in this but me. But I had more to think on right now. I moved toward the window as the conversation continued without me. I looked out to the river where boats bobbed sluggishly in the early afternoon light. The sound of the wind whipping against the castle countered my restlessness and the despair that was starting to eat away at me. In my ears came a sudden keening and my eyesight faded. A thick, iron ring pounded deep into the wall. A length of chain looped through it and attached to heavy manacles. Wrists cut and burning. The dirt wet with sweat and urine. The dark deep and the smell strong. Blood.

“What d'ye see?” Aine's hand on my back drew me from the vision.

“We've got to get him out o' there,” I murmured.

“Who?” she asked as I gripped the window edges.

“I don't know. The Abbot. Torquil. Me, mayhap.” My heart was heavy. The Abbot was surely in the dungeons. Torquil might be there as well. And we were standing around without a plan to rescue them. If I had the carving I could use the power to tear down the walls and take them out of there. If I hadn't lost it to Gaylen.

“There is time, Tormod. We will find him.” Her hand was still on my back, and I felt her determination and support. At all times, Aine's touch stilled the unrest within me, but I moved from her reach and stood alone. I didn't want comfort right now. I wanted to feel the anger and despair rolling through me. Deep beneath the base of the castle, the power of the land churned.

The Templar raised his eyes from the documents he was looking over. “Tormod. Triple shield.” The censure was there in his tone. I blinked, realizing that my moods were rippling the power and drew the shields tight around me. I turned back toward the window, and Aine moved off for the door.

“I'd best be going,” she said. “The Princess will be finishing her prayers.”

“Good evening to ye, then, miss,” said Cornelius. “Bran an' I will wait for ye on the morrow.”

I turned back only to see her slip beyond the door.

“We've got to get down to the dungeons,” I said quietly.

“We must bide our time, Tormod. The King is a man who must be moved politically. This dungeon is no' like the one ye liberated me from. 'Tis heavily guarded, an' ye must remember that there is still a price on our heads.” He stood and secured the documents in his cloak. “Let us retire. I will need ye to deliver a message to the suite o' the Archbishop.”

“Cornelius, Lady Fabienne will be dining with us tonight. Would ye make the arrangements?” he asked.

“Aye. I will, Alexander.”