Shana Abe Read online

  Ian MacLochlan was not of the family, not really. He was the son of the third cousin of a Kincardine, from an allied clan, but the real reason Hanoch had so readily accepted him—indeed, welcomed him—was that Ian had a way of fighting that no man had been able to defeat. And Ian had become Avalon’s tutor.

  Where he learned his odd moves he would never say. All that was known was that he had traveled a great deal out of Scotland, had been to distant lands with names no one could pronounce. Many people claimed he made up the tales. That Ian was touched, that he had never been beyond even England. But no one could dispute his skill in hand-to-hand combat.

  He was gray and cantankerous by the time the child Avalon had met him. Time had only increased these attributes. He had been a merciless instructor, as hard as Hanoch in his own way, the two of them sharing a pact to make this female into a prodigy of their own, to chisel out from the soft child the warrior maiden that the people needed.

  Ian was dead. He had died just before she left Scotland, in fact, so she knew it to be true. Otherwise she might still have cringed at the sound of anything like his voice. Ian and Hanoch had been the ones to watch for. The guards had been constantly rotated, so she never became too close to them. The cook had not stayed in the cottage, having her own hut in the same village and her own family to care for.

  The chatelaine had been her only companion, really. Zeva had been her name. Among the rows of faces Avalon saw now—all of them studying her so intently—no one resembled Zeva. Perhaps she was dead as well.

  Only Zeva had shown her any compassion at all, secretly unlocking the stifling pantry when the men were not about, passing in food and water for the child trapped within. Only Zeva had shed a tear when Avalon left at fourteen, had bade her well and hoped to see her soon.

  And Avalon, seasoned by then, had not responded to that wish. She knew better; indifference was her main defense, and she would not let go of it even for Zeva.

  No, Zeva was not here, not in the meadow behind her, nor in the mass of people before her.

  She didn’t know what to feel about that. Would Zeva have laughed in the glen with the others? Or would she have stayed still, remembering the little girl with the blackened eyes and bruised body who hated the dark? Perhaps only Zeva could have understood her.

  As she walked back to her castle prison, Avalon thought about how ironic it was that she had managed to carry her careful impassivity with her into her new life—until now. Until Marcus Kincardine: the one person she most needed her armor of indifference for had turned out to be the only one able to breach it.

  A man on horseback was galloping toward her along the road to Sauveur. He was a Kincardine, his tartan waved straight out behind him like a marker.

  He carried excitement, and the sight of him generated a new ripple through the crowd. He was one of the scouts, Avalon understood, piecing together the jumbled thoughts around her. If he was riding up to the castle this fast, there would be urgent news.

  About her.

  The scout was aware of the attention he garnered and part of him gloried in it, but most of him was absorbed in his duty. He had to find the laird. He had to tell him of the party of men approaching.

  The chimera blinked and showed her a glimpse of what the scout had seen, about ten riders, three different standards between them, including Malcolm’s own, which would protect them. The other two flags were unfamiliar to the watch, but not to Avalon. The royal crest of King Henry. The red cross of the papacy.

  She felt the excitement of everyone else combined with her own, soaring up now for different reasons.

  She would be saved! The kings and the church meant to save her!

  Marcus had come down from the meadow. With a small gesture he had placed a guard around her where she stood, large men forming a tight circle.

  The scout dismounted, bowed to Marcus, and began to talk. Around them clustered more people, men and women both. As the watch continued his tale the women gasped and looked at Avalon, and she felt their fear. The men were less demonstrative but equally worried.

  Only Marcus seemed composed. He listened without interrupting, nodding his head at the right times. When the scout had finished he said something to him and walked away, coming over to where Avalon stood in the middle of the circle of men.

  “Take her back inside,” he ordered, and then moved on.

  Chapter Seven

  Avalon didn’t have to rely on the power of her chimera to tell the way matters were going just hours later. She gathered from the silence of the walls that all of Sauveur was riveted on the visiting emissaries: a man from each king, two men from the church, six guards between them.

  Malcolm’s guard had mingled readily with the castle inhabitants. They had accepted food and whiskey and seemed very merry, or so said Nora, one of Avalon’s caring women. Nora bustled back and forth at the behest of the bride, soaking up whatever details she could and reporting them.

  Her aide was Greer, another of the women, who said the laird had been in with the travelers for over a full hour now, and no one had heard any shouting or cursing.

  “Mayhap they want only to see that ye be well treated,” she suggested hopefully, gazing at the bride, who stood by the hearth.

  “Mayhap,” Avalon said, biting her tongue to stem the torrent of words that swelled up. Freedom! Rescue! Farewell to the legend!

  Greer put a bowl of stew down on the sole table in the room.

  “Have a wee bite,” she said. “Ye must eat.”

  “I will.”

  But the woman would not be satisfied until Avalon had the bowl in her hands and took a spoonful. It had no taste to her but she complimented it anyway, which contented Greer.

  After the woman left, Avalon put the food down again and walked to the window, standing with one foot on the pallet to look out. The thin clouds of before had swollen with rain and turned the color of spent charcoal, portending another shower. The cold air came through the opening and brushed against her, only slightly cooling the flush of her skin.

  It would be over soon. The emissaries were demanding her release, and sooner or later Marcus would have to give in.

  She would leave here and never return. She would find her convent, retire there and wait for the right time to return to Trayleigh.…

  An uncomfortable memory intruded upon Avalon’s dreams.

  The wool-gathering girl in the glen had been truly upset by Avalon’s injury on the thorn. She had dismissed her own discomfort to see to the bride. Something that happened to that girl every day would not be endured for Avalon, and the girl had felt the bride’s pain almost as her own.

  Avalon would send aid to Sauveur. She would send sheep, coin, grain, whatever she could. She would not abandon the clan entirely. She knew now that she could not. They could not be held responsible for the travesty of her childhood, nor for the ways of their old laird. Not even for the myth that had sustained them.

  She would help them. But she would do it from England.

  The door opened. It was the wizard, bowing low as he always did.

  “You are summoned, lady,” he said. “Will you come?”

  At last.

  She had not seen most of the castle, and the halls she was taken down now were new to her, though they kept to the style of the great room. Arched ceilings. Pillars of black and gray. Most of the doors were closed, and at the end of the largest hall they paused outside one of these doors. There were men everywhere, women on the fringes. Avalon spotted Nora near the back, chatting softly with another woman. Mostly, however, the people were silent, straining to catch the sounds behind the door.

  They parted into halves as the wizard led her forward. Two sets of guards stood ready at the door, Englishmen from Henry, Scots from Malcolm. Malcolm’s men were relaxed against the wall, looking ready for more whiskey. Henry’s were staunch and straight, alert and unhappy. They noticed her at once, boldly took in the beauty whose plight had disturbed such crowned and holy heads.

/>   Avalon went to the door and opened it herself, stepping past the startled guards.

  Four men were seated at a long table of polished wood. Behind them were two more guards, from the church this time, heavily armed. Marcus stood in front of them all, and before she could take another step into the room, Avalon was hit with the sensation of danger brewing around her.

  Marcus was so furious he was almost in a rage. It was like a writhing, twisting snake around him; it was a wrath so deep, so sunken into him it was on the verge of breaking him in front of her very eyes. He emanated it, he was becoming it.

  She froze, realizing there was something here that no one else could see. Not the guards, not the smug-faced men at the table. Not even the wizard.

  Marcus was a man on the brink of collapse. He was about to splinter into a thousand slivers and what would be left might not be controllable. And the guards would hack him down before his own men could interfere.

  Instinctively Avalon knew Marcus’s snake was different from her own burden: the chimera stayed within her but had never overtaken her like this; in fact, the chimera was harmless in comparison. But the snake had completely captured the man. It was about to destroy him.

  Avalon didn’t know what to do. Thoughts of her own rescue receded, until all she knew was Marcus and the demon snake that was invisible to everyone but her.

  He heard her enter and turned his head. The snake stared out at her from Marcus’s eyes, uncomprehending, a beast without forethought.

  Against her will her feet brought her forward to him. She stared down the snake and then looked to the other men, the emissaries of Malcolm and Henry and the two men from the church.

  The men from the church. Here was the danger, she perceived. Here was the cause of the demon.

  They wore the heraldry of the righteous, white tunics with red crosses stitched into them, chain mail beneath. They were not too old, not too young, carrying identical expressions of prim lips, sanctimonious eyes. They seemed innocuous enough. But they had done something, all right, to bring out this menace in Marcus.

  “Lady Avalon d’Farouche?” one of them asked, giving her name a nasal cast.

  The snake in Marcus rolled over, constricted its coils.

  “Yes,” Avalon replied. She drew up even with Marcus, let him see her easily from the corner of his eye. It seemed important that he be able to see her.

  Henry’s emissary leaned forward and pointed to the orange sash that supported her arm. “Have you been injured, my lady?”

  Marcus focused on the man, his mounting wrath redirected.

  “It was an accident,” she replied. “It was nothing.”

  “Why then the sling?” asked the pope’s man.

  She shrugged. “Merely a precaution. I don’t really need it.”

  All four looked at her, unconvinced. Henry’s man stroked his beard. Avalon felt the snake tighten another notch.

  It would not take very much more to break him. She didn’t have to look at Marcus to see the process begin. She could feel it as if it were happening to her own body: the danger bleeding into his muscles, the primal threat growing darker, darker, to blackest rage. It made her heart race and her breath seem cold, stabbing.

  She couldn’t let him die like this, not for this. Not because of her.

  Avalon feigned nonchalance, slipped her arm out of the sling and flexed it in front of her, looking bored. Her shoulder howled in protest. She took the orange sash and dropped it to the ground, proud of the smoothness of her movement.

  “I am fine,” she said to the men.

  “Lady Avalon,” said the elder of the pope’s men. “We have it that you were abducted by force and brought here against your will. Is this true?”

  “Yes,” she said, after the barest pause.

  “Warner d’Farouche has petitioned the church with an official complaint. He claims to have a prior agreement with you, my lady. Is this true as well?”

  “A prior agreement?” She hesitated longer now, searching for the best option.

  Marcus turned to her. She looked back at him, drawn in despite her facade of tranquility, and saw that the snake was about to rise.

  Perhaps the other men began to sense the peril. The elder man of the church spoke again.

  “We would speak with you in private now, my lady.”

  “Nay,” said the snake, swift and menacing.

  “We will have a private audience with the lady, my lord!” Henry’s man had unwisely chosen to stand, daring Marcus to argue.

  It took her only a fraction of a second to put her hand on his arm, and it was almost too late, anyway. She felt his muscles tensed and ready to spring, lethal intent radiating from him.

  “My lord,” she said, and sent the thought with her mind.

  It broke his concentration for the second she needed. His pale eyes flew back to her, a moment’s uncertainty.

  “I would make this my boon, my lord,” she said, quiet.

  The snake wavered, weakened by her request. Avalon pushed her advantage, seeking the man she knew was listening to her. “You said you would grant me it.”

  The other men said nothing, all of them closely watching the scene.

  “It is not so much to ask.” Avalon looked around, behind her, seeking inspiration, and found the figure of the wizard lingering by the door. “Leave him here with me, if you do not trust what I may say.” She nodded her head to Balthazar, then turned back to the men. “I am certain that would be acceptable, would it not, my lords?”

  “Aye.” Malcolm’s man spoke for the first time. His look down the table challenged the others. “It would.”

  Still Marcus did not move away, not until Bal came up beside him and deferentially made his unique bow with his hands to his head. Marcus stared down at him, fists clenched.

  Bal said something in a strange language, flowing words that ran together, and Marcus turned back to the men, inclined his head stiffly, then left.

  It would be better now, Avalon thought. The snake had slipped enough in its hold, and the man would take over once more. The next time she saw him he would be whole again. She felt her body slowly begin to unclench.

  “What manner of man are you?” demanded one of the churchmen, taking in Balthazar’s tattoos and darkened skin.

  “Naught but a servant, your grace, from the Holy Land,” the wizard replied, and Avalon wondered that they could not fathom the contradiction in his words.

  But they didn’t. The man waved a hand at Balthazar, dismissing him to a corner.

  “From the Kincardine’s crusade,” clarified the other churchman, and the kings’ men looked comprehending.

  The wizard bowed again and retreated, disappearing into the shadows.

  “Lady Avalon,” said the elder churchman, the one who had not recognized the regal bearing of a wizard. “Your cousins, Lord d’Farouche and his brother Warner d’Farouche, have pleaded a grievance with the majesties of England and Scotland and His Holiness the Pope. They claim you have been wrongfully taken from them. They claim a prior agreement regarding you.”

  “What is the nature of this agreement?” she asked.

  The other church official broke in. “Before we continue, my lady, we must ask you a question. Have you been—” He broke off, beads of sweat forming on his forehead, then cleared his throat. “That is, have you in any way been compromised, Lady Avalon?”

  Foolish men. Would she be standing here before them like a statue had she been raped? Would she not have given them some sign already, to indicate her distress?

  “I have not been compromised in any manner,” she said distinctly.

  All the men looked relieved. The elder continued.

  “Very well, your ladyship. In this case, I must inform you that the nature of your betrothal is very much in turmoil. The claim of the Kincardine is well documented, of course. There is no doubt it exists.”

  “Aye,” said Malcolm’s man again, scowling.

  “But Lord d’Farouche says hi
s brother’s claim supersedes that of the Kincardine family. He declares the right of plight-troth. He maintains he had an agreement with your father that was sealed before the one with Hanoch Kincardine, which would betroth you to Warner d’Farouche.”

  Unbelievable. She could not allow this, despite the fact that she had been abducted.

  “I have never heard of such an agreement,” she said to the men. “What proof has he?”

  “He says he has papers, my lady. He is collecting them now for his case.”

  The second man leaned forward on his elbows. “Until this matter is clarified, Lady Avalon, you will remain a ward of the church, in our custody. We shall determine who has the right of your hand.”

  It was the solution she had been praying for not half an hour ago. She could go with these men, safe and chaste as could be, and when they were sufficiently lulled she could leave them behind.

  And if she did that, she would never be able to help the people of Sauveur. She would never gain access to the wealth that was in her name. There would be no aid for the Kincardines. There would be no grain or sheep or coin to send to soothe her secret guilt at abandoning these people, who had looked to her with nothing but desperate hope and their own sort of kindness.

  Yet even if she stayed with the pope’s men as their ward, there was a chance that Bryce and Warner would convince the church of their lies and gain everything, after all.

  And that would be unbearable.

  She would do anything rather than hand her fortune and her fate to her murdering cousin. She would rather die! She would rather …

  … remain here.

  Yes, remain here at Sauveur, and wait. And watch. And plan for the future—up here, away from Bryce, away from the church, she would be able to take control of her future, at last, and help the Kincardines in whatever way she could before she chose to leave.

  “Alas, good lords,” Avalon said now, throwing her fate to the winds. “I’m afraid I cannot go with you. I took a fall from a horse not long hence, and as of yet I cannot travel.”