What the Heart Sees (5 page)

To distract herself, she looked at the box. It was old and made of wood, banded with leather straps. It bore a sturdy iron lock that had obviously been forced open, for a jewelled dagger lay beside it, the tip snapped off.

“As stubborn and unyielding as some Saxons I know,” he murmured.

Cassie was about to offer up a retort when a stray beam of sunlight flashed off something inside the box and caught her eye. A frown creased her brow as she drew forward and the retort turned into a small gasp.

Nestled inside the box on a scrap of velvet was the silver mirror pendant, the one she had seen and touched not two hours ago.

“I see he finished it,” she said.

“Who finished what?”

She pointed. “The pendant. The old jewel-maker was polishing it when I went to the cellars to fetch iron for my father.”

“You must be mistaken. The chest and the pendant have been here, in my chambers for a sennight or more. As I said, it was found in one of the empty storerooms and I only broke through the lock last night. The parchment, the pendant and a handful of other jewels and chains were inside.”

Cassie shook her head, making the pale cloud of her hair dance in the sunlight. “No. It is the same pendant. I saw your jewel-maker polishing it. There could not be two so much alike.”

Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “There is no jewel-maker here at Belfontaine. What you see before you is the extent of all this castle possesses in terms of gold or silver. And that, as I said, has only recently come into my possession.”

“But I saw him. I spoke to him. He was at his work table and he...” she stopped and looked at the pendant again. She could see her reflection in the mirror and for one heart-stopping moment, she stared at her tousled blonde hair and thought it looked exactly the way—

“He what?”

She pulled her gaze from the pendant with an effort. “H-he said the silver had come from Damascus, the stones had belonged to a Syrian prince.”

Thomas scoffed. “Who has filled your head with such tales? Did he have a name?”

“Godfrey. Godfrey the Lombard. And...”

“Yes? And?”

“And...he was blind.”

Thomas folded his arms across his massive chest and regarded her from beneath an arched eyebrow. “A blind jewel-maker?”

“But I saw him.” Her voice trailed away and she bit her lip. “I could not have imagined it. If so then I must have imagined the other gold and silver plates, the cups, the chains...”

Thomas’s left eyebrow arched as high as his right. “Gold plate? Here, in Belfontaine?”

“In the jewel-maker’s workroom. In the cellars. I
saw
them. And I touched
this
,” she reached into the box and lifted the pendant, curling her fingers around it. “I held it, just like this, and...and look!” She opened her palm and pointed to the scratch on the pad of her thumb, then turned the pendant over and found the tiny rough edge on the silver that had dug into her hand. “It even pricked me.”

Thomas was looking at her as if she had lost half her senses.

“You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t disbelieve you, I just—”

“I will not be called a liar,” she said, her cheeks flushing hot.

“I am not calling you a liar,” he said gently. “But you have been up on a tower roof for several weeks without respite, you suffer from lack of sleep, poor food—”

“
I saw him
,” she insisted flatly, the green of her eyes flashing as hot as the emeralds on the pendant. “I saw him and I spoke to him. His hands touched mine. He was as real as you or I.”

Thomas clamped his jaw to a square ridge. “Fair enough. There is, of course, one way to verify the existence of this...this Godfrey the Lombard.”

He took her by the hand and strode out of his chamber. She had to run to keep apace, hair and skirts flying out behind her. His grip remained firm as he led her down the winding steps and across the dais of the great hall. He went directly to the narrow portal that led to the covered, winding steps and dragged her round and round the steep corkscrew case until they were in the cellars below.

Only then did he leave go of her hand to take up a pitch-soaked torch and touch it to one of the candles in the passageway. When the flame burst into life, he shoved the torch into her hand and pointed. “Show me.”

Cassie blinked in the bright flare of light. He was angry and she was beginning to wonder if she had, indeed, suffered some loss of senses, but she grit her teeth and started off along the arched stone undercroft, following it to the second wooden door and the guard’s post. It was deserted, as it had been the first time, and she passed through, ducking her head below the lintel with a grudging hope he would fail to bend and it might scrape the hair off the top of his head.

But he leaned to avoid the shaving and soon they were walking along the smaller passage, the torch throwing enough light to scatter rats and mice well ahead of them.

She held the torch up to three small doors as they paused before each, looking for the odd little carving she had noted on her first visit. She found it on the fourth door and stopped, letting the light flicker over the depiction of the moon and stars. It was dark inside, there were no streamers of light showing through the gap along the floor, but the latch worked just as easily as it had that morning and, lifting it, she pushed the door open and stepped aside so that Thomas could enter before her.

Even before the light from the torch bloomed inside, Cassie had an odd, scratchy feeling down her spine. It proved to be a harbinger of worse to come, for as she looked around, there was no sign of the work table, no shelves lined with gold and silver plate, no chains or crucibles or wires waiting to be plied into filigree.

Her mouth slackened out of its stubborn tightness as she moved to the middle of the small chamber and turned a full, slow circle, the motion causing smoke from the burning pitch to stream out like the tail of a comet behind the torch.

There was nothing. Nothing but decades worth of dust and cobwebs hanging in ghostly curtains from the ceiling.

While she stood frozen, riddled with confusion, Sir Hubert came crunching along the passageway with two other knights, all three carrying torches, their short cloaks belling out behind like great bat wings. They had seen Thomas dragging her across the great hall and had followed, anticipating some sort of trouble, for they each had their swords drawn.

Seeing them, Thomas stepped out of the room and murmured a few words. After swords were sheathed again, all four knights turned and looked at Cassie.

“I... I must have miscounted the rooms,” she said. But although she searched up and down the corridor, going into every chamber and thrusting her torch inside to be sure, she found no other doors marked with the moon and stars and no chambers holding the glitter of gold.

When she returned to the first room, her chest was tight and she was fighting to hold back tears of utter frustration.

“He was here. I swear it, he was here. In this room.”

“Whereas I warrant none but the rats have been here for several years,” Thomas said, making a face as he swiped a sticky cobweb off his neck. “Moreover, I would think someone in the castle would know of a blind jewel-maker within the walls, but there are none.”

“One-eyed Conan is the only lack-sight I have seen coming or going through the gates,” Sir Hubert remarked from out in the corridor. “But the only jewels he works with a deft hand are the ones inside his wife’s bodice.”

The men shared a bawdy chuckle and Cassie felt her cheeks darken further.

“He said he comes and goes by his own gate,” she said, raising her torch again and spilling the light on the wall. “Through there.”

Thomas peered over her shoulder. “Through there, you say? That very solid-looking wall?”

The light had indeed fallen on a block and mortar wall. There was no niche, no mouse-hole opening in the solid stone facade.

And yet...not quite so solid.

Cassie frowned and moved closer. She ran her hand along the rough surface, her fingers tracing a line of mortar that was crumbling between two squared blocks. As she brushed it, more and more bits fell to the floor, and when she had cleared a small section, the shape of a half-moon appeared.

Feeling a renewed surge of excitement, she found a stick of wood on the floor and began scraping in earnest. After a few moments she had cleaned a large gap behind the moon-shape, and uncovered a distinct groove in the stone. By now, the other knights had crowded into the chamber, adding their smoking torches to the closeness of the air. Cassie felt sweat on her brow and a stinging in her nose and throat from the smoke, but she scraped until her knuckles were raw from chafing against the stone.

Still not certain what this meant, she fit her hand to the groove and pulled. She pulled again and saw a few bits of mortar spit to the floor. A third hard tug and the solid blocks definitely moved. Thomas saw what she was about and took hold of her shoulders, moving her aside. He put his greater weight behind the effort, and in so doing nearly sent himself flying onto his arse. The solid blocks turned out to be but a finger’s width thick and came away with a sudden release that was as unexpected as the sight of the opening concealed behind them.

Thomas straightened and stared. The other three knights craned forward to see.

“‘Pon my soul,” Sir Hubert whispered. “It could be a priest-hole, common enough in the days of Old Henry when the mendicants had to creep about like ferrets.”

Thomas shook his head slowly and held one of the torches in front of the opening. All eyes went to the flame, and watched the black spiral of smoke, which was now being sucked to the side and vanished inside the hole.

“It’s a tunnel,” he said in awe. “By God’s grace, it is a tunnel. Father said there was a rumor that one existed, but he could never find it.”

“A tunnel? But where does it lead?”

“No time like the present to find out,” Thomas said and started to duck inside. Sir Hubert’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Nor any need to muddy your finery, my lord. There could be muck and dung to slip and slide through. Leave the discovery to Sir Roger, Sir Phineus, and myself. I’ll go first and if, by some miracle of Christ, it leads to somewhere other than an offal pit, we’ll follow and hasten back with whatever news we uncover.”

Thomas grudgingly stepped aside, knowing Sir Hubert was deferring, politely, to his crippled foot, but he was not happy being left behind. He watched the three men duck low and enter the passageway. His gaze remained glued to the mouth of the opening until the sound of their scraping footsteps grew faint and the glow from their torches faded to black again.

With barely contained excitement he spun on his heel and started to pace the small chamber side to side. He stopped after one full pass to turn and stare at Cassie. He suspected he should offer some form of apology, but with the torch lighting her like a fiery angel, he could think of only one thing he wanted to do. He took her face in both hands and tipped her mouth up to his, kissing her so thoroughly that it left them both breathless and gasping.

“By God,” he rasped. “I don’t know how you did it, girl. I don’t know what you saw or how you saw it, but...by God, it’s possible that you have just saved every life inside these castle walls.”

Her bruised lips, wet with the taste of him, remained slack and he laughed, bowing his head to kiss her again. He took a more leisurely exploration of her mouth this time, sending his tongue around the silky smooth surfaces, inviting hers to explore in return.

Ignoring the right or wrong of it Cassie kissed him back. She kissed him with all of the passion and secret longings she had kept squirreled away inside for so long.

When they broke apart this time, she did not care that her heart must be shining in her eyes, or that he could plainly see it. His gaze did not break away in disgust or amused contempt. Indeed, he relished each tremor he could feel in her body, savored each softly panted breath drawing on the honesty and purity of her emotions until he felt his own filling his chest and flowing through his veins.

He kissed her again, and this time his lips were warm and tender. His fingers threaded into her hair and his body pressed gently against her, letting her know his arousal was outward as well as inward. Her knees grew weaker with every stroke of his tongue and she knew she would have crumpled before him had his arms not kept her upright.

Feeling the hardness of his body against her she whimpered softly. He was all muscle and strength, and before him, she felt small and crushable but in a deliciously sensual, completely feminine way. Her hands crept up to his shoulders, then went around his neck. She would have kissed him like this forever, holding him, thrilling to feelings she had not dared to even dream about, but their solitude came quickly to an end. There were voices in the tunnel and the light was returning, glowing soft at the opening, growing brighter to mark the three knights’ return.

Sir Hubert was through the portal first, his face and tunic smudged with dirt and soot from the torches.

“Praise God, it is indeed a tunnel, my lord, and it appears to lead all the way into the forest. Phineus has gone to find the end but Roger and I thought we should return and bring back the news before you lost patience waiting.”