The Renegade's Heart (20 page)

“Father Malachy!” she exclaimed, as if
delighted to see the priest.

“My lady Isabella,” a man replied, his
surprise undisguised. The floor boards creaked as he moved toward
the altar and Isabella. “I did not see you there.”

“I was on my knees, Father, the better to
pray.”

Murdoch bit back a smile at his lady’s
lie.

The priest, he soon realized, knew Isabella
well enough to be skeptical. “How uncommon to find you at your
devotions so early,” he said. “I know you are one happier to remain
warm abed.”

“Indeed, Father, but I could not do so on
this day.”

Concern touched the priest’s voice. “Is there
a matter troubling you, my lady?”

“I fear for the baker’s son. His cough does
not improve as it should, and I do not possess Eleanor’s skill with
healing. Siobhan is worried, too.” Isabella’s voice rose, no doubt
deliberately. “And Eleanor herself is less than well. I could not
compel her to visit the boy, nor could I have him brought him to
her, lest she take his cough. Already the alewife’s daughter has
begun to cough, and I fear my skill will not suffice.”

“It is a heavy burden you have assumed in
this moment of Lady Eleanor’s illness,” the priest said, his manner
calming. “I know that you will do your best, my lady, and that
truly is all that any can expect.”

“But I fear it will not be enough!”
Isabella’s voice rose in appeal. “Would you come and bless him,
Father?”

“Of course! I should have done so sooner, but
thought his condition improved.”

“I fear it is a false improvement, Father,”
Isabella said darkly, “and that he will become more ill soon.”

“Then I shall bring God’s blessing to the
boy.”

“We must go immediately, Father Malachy.”

“But...”

“Surely, you would not have the boy grow
worse?”

Isabella’s footsteps sounded overhead and
Murdoch guessed that she fairly ran to the chapel’s doors. The
floor creaked overhead as the priest followed her and Murdoch
watched their shadows pass overhead. Isabella continued to chatter
in a way most uncharacteristic of her and Murdoch could only assume
that she meant to keep the priest distracted from noting anything
out of the usual.

When the silence claimed the church again,
Murdoch began to count. The shadows seemed alive to him then, the
darkness of the crypt so oppressive as to smother him. The skulls
seemed to glow in their niches, laughing at him perhaps, and that
anxiety claimed him anew.

He counted to twenty, then moved with purpose
toward the stairs, still counting. His eyes were adjusting to the
darkness but his breath came quickly.

Something moved behind him.

Murdoch spun, but the bones had not moved.
There were no ghosts. He should have been safely alone.

Instead, he saw the pounded dirt floor
shimmer before his eyes, seeming to be both solid and seething at
the same time. He’d reached thirty, but counted more quickly
beneath his breath as he stared at the floor. The dirt seemed to
boil and to erupt, in a way that was more reminiscent of water than
earth.

He rubbed his eyes and passed forty.

When he looked again, a crevasse had opened
in the floor, a crevasse filled with writhing dark shapes. He could
not help but look within the deeper darkness there, only to realize
that it was a bed of black snakes, twisting over each other.

Fifty
.

One large snake climbed the backs of the
others and leapt out of the pit, slithering directly for him.
Murdoch took a step back, stumbling on the bottom stair. He backed
up the stairs, bumping his head against the wooden panel.

Sixty
.

The snake continued toward him, targeting him
with such accuracy that Murdoch felt his terror rise. He pulled his
feet up beneath himself and fingered the hilt of his knife. If it
came up the steps – and he could not imagine it could – he would
kill it.

Seventy
.

The snake seemed larger with proximity,
larger and thicker and more powerful. It reached the steps and
reared up, staring directly at Murdoch. It opened its mouth and
hissed. He pulled the knife but there was another shimmer.

And the Elphine Queen stood before him,
amusement in her treacherous eyes.

Eighty
.

“You cannot kill me, Murdoch,” she said. “I
thought you knew.” She leaned over him, and he averted his gaze,
knowing that one glimpse into her eyes would see him lost again.
Her hand landed on his boot, her fingers sliding toward his knee.
She gripped his thigh, the one that had been so injured and Murdoch
again felt a prick of pain. “Have you chosen, my love?”

“I thought you could not tread upon sacred
ground.”

She laughed. “All ground is sacred, my love,
at least to me. The earth will never spurn me.” She gestured and he
saw that the pit of snakes was gone, gone as surely as if it had
never existed.

Ninety
.

Even she seemed insubstantial, a vision
wrought of mist and shadows. She smiled at him and kissed her
fingertips, blowing him an embrace. “So, you have seen both
futures. One in my realm and one with those who haunt this place.
Which will you have?”

“Neither.”

“I do not offer that choice,” she hissed, her
eyes narrowing.

He kept his gaze averted, his breathing as
rapid as if he had been running.

“Fear not, Murdoch, when the moon is new, we
will be together,” she murmured finally. “One way or the
other.”

She faded from view, leaving Murdoch gasping
on the steps. He was cold again, colder than he had ever been, cold
almost to the point of paralysis. He lunged upward, opening the
door in the floor with his shoulder and lurching into the chapel.
He moved like a drunkard, his body unresponsive and heavy, and he
feared that he was half-dead already.

He caught his breath at the portal, leaning
back against it as he collected what was left of his wits. He
peered through the crack between the double doors at Kinfairlie
village, which was yet shadowed and quiet. He heard women at the
well, which was out of his view and to his left. It mattered
little. There was no time to waste. The longer he waited, the more
witnesses there might be.

Murdoch slipped out the door and around the
church.

He heard a woman shout at the sight of him
and silently cursed every soul who went early for water. The hue
and cry began immediately and he knew he could not make the village
boundary unseen. He would not endanger Stewart, unless he had no
choice.

There was a door open on his right, a kind of
shed filled with shadows. Murdoch dove into the space, flinging
himself to the darkest corner and backing into the wall. He could
smell hay and manure and horseflesh. The women raced past in the
alley beyond and he exhaled in relief when their voices faded.

He had just closed his eyes for a moment,
when a lantern was swung before his face. The smith’s features
appeared, lit from below like some unholy specter, and the man
nodded with satisfaction. “The renegade from the woods, I assume,”
he said in a low voice. His gaze dropped to Murdoch’s wrist as if
he knew what he would see there. “Fear not. I will not reveal
you.”

And he turned to his forge, breaking the
kindling over his knee as he commenced to light the fire for the
day. Murdoch exhaled a shaking breath and willed his body to
calm.

“Why not?” he asked quietly, not truly
believing the pledge.

The smith chuckled. “I cannot condemn a man
who puts a horse’s welfare above his own safety.” He glanced over
his shoulder, his eyes dark. “And I know enough of the Fae to
recognize one they intend to claim. Has she seduced you yet?”

* * *

Chapter
Nine

It was most curious.

Father Malachy returned to the chapel to
prepare for morning mass, struggling to make sense of the lady
Isabella’s behavior. He had never known her to be devout, and
generally she came as late to services as could be contrived
without earning anyone’s ire. She had been distressed, to be
certain, although he could not imagine why she had been praying
behind the altar table.

It was all most curious. Never mind that the
son of the baker and his wife, Siobhan, was so obviously improved
that the boy would scarce remain still to be blessed. His parents
clearly thought it unnecessary that Father Malachy had made the
journey to their abode.

It could be that the lady Isabella learned
responsibility. It could be that she took her newfound skills as an
apprentice healer most seriously and that this labor gave purpose
to her days. Father Malachy could give credit to that notion and be
glad of it, but still, something was amiss.

He might have put the matter out of his mind,
had he not noticed that the new candle he had set out the night
before had been lit. The wick was singed black and there was a
hollow at the top where the wax had melted. Indeed, the wax was yet
warm.

Father Malachy’s gaze fell to the door in the
floor, the one that led to the crypt. On impulse, he lit the
candle, opened the door and descended to the crypt. He crossed to
the trunk of the chapel’s treasury and knew he smelled an
extinguished wick.

The skeletons shared no testimony of whatever
they had witnessed.

Father Malachy lifted the key from his belt,
bent and unlocked the trunk. All was in disarray within it, most
certainly not as he had left it. Fear struck him and he searched
immediately for the most precious items in the treasury.

The silver chalice and platter used to serve
communion on high holy days were gone.

Father Malachy frowned at the rumpled
garments in the trunk and the small treasures left in disarray.
There were only two keys to this trunk and one was in his hand. The
other was in the possession of the Laird of Kinfairlie, and Father
Malachy knew it was not left unguarded.

He fought against the obvious conclusion. He
could not place such a theft at Lady Isabella’s door, for her heart
was true. She must have been deceived by another. She must be
aiding another, out of a false sense of justice.

Father Malachy had an idea who that villain
might be, even before the women who had been gossiping at the well
came to tell him of what they had seen.

* * *

Murdoch was astonished by the smith’s words.
He could not believe that there was any other man who knew what he
had endured – at least not one who yet lived among mortals. He
eased out of the shadows, wanting to learn what the smith knew but
not yet convinced to himself.

In any way.

“What do you mean?” he asked quietly.

The smith spoke without moving his lips much,
his attention apparently fixed upon the task of lighting the fire
in his forge. “The Elphine Queen has a fondness for mortals. All
the Fae do. They like to play with their prey before claiming them
completely. I ask merely how much of you she has in her
possession.”

“How do you know any of this?”

The smith smiled. “There is only one way a
man could know such a tale to be truth, and it is not by hearing it
at his gran’s knee.” He nodded at Murdoch’s ungloved hand. “I see
her marks upon you and I know what they are.” He pushed up his own
sleeves then, purportedly to keep them clear of the fire, but
Murdoch saw the tracery of blue on his skin.

It had faded to a delicate network of lines,
but the pattern was all too familiar.

“You see why I keep my sleeves long, even
when I work,” the smith said, tugging them back down again. “It
fades over time, but too slowly for my taste.”

“But she did not claim you.”

The smith shook his head. “I escaped her, but
I cannot tell you how.”

“Why not?”

The smith almost smiled. “Because the feat
that can release you must be done unwittingly, or it does not
count. I can only tell you that you make progress.”

That was far from all that Murdoch wished to
know. “Then tell me of your own ordeal? How long has it been?”

“Ten years.” The smith sighed. “My wife could
not settle after my escape, so certain was she that the Elphine
Queen would hunt me down and avenge herself.” He nodded toward a
closed door, which Murdoch assumed led to his abode. “We moved
annually, until we came to Kinfairlie, and here we have found some
peace.” He flicked a glance at Murdoch. “If she has lain with you,
you are already lost.”

“She has not. I asked to be allowed to return
home and she released me.”

“No. She gave you a reprieve. If she has not
had you yet, she still means to do so.”

“I wish she would change her thinking.” Even
as he uttered the words, Murdoch realized how foolish they
sounded.

The smith gave him a look. “The Fae do not
change their thinking. She does not release any mortal man from her
court willingly.”

“So it is a trick. My sole chance is to
unwittingly ensure my own release.”

The smith nodded.

Murdoch stared at the ground, irked.

The smith, meanwhile, left the forge,
crossing the smithy with quick steps. He removed a wooden box from
beneath the table where his tools were organized, looked left and
right, then opened it swiftly. He hid the box again, and brought a
swaddled item to Murdoch.

He unfurled the bundle of cloth, which held a
small knife with a silver hilt. The hilt was worked with elaborate
designs, swirls that were evocative of the marks on Murdoch’s
flesh, and the blade gleamed. “Toledo steel,” the smith said,
running an appreciative fingertip along the knife’s edge.

“The very best,” Murdoch said. “Stronger and
sharper than any other.”

The smith nodded. “The steel is folded so
many times and forged at such a high temperature, there are those
who think it sorcery to make steel so fine.” He met Murdoch’s gaze
as he offered him the blade. “Plunge it into the threshold of any
establishment you enter, even if you do not think your host or
hostess to be Fae. If they are, the steel will ensure that you can
leave their abode alive.”