Lynn Wood - Norman Brides 03

by The Promise Keeper

  It was only now that she shared their fate she could truly enter into their stunned shock that their whole world was on the brink of crumbling beneath their feet just as the mountain of rock had crumbled and buried their loved ones.

  It already seemed as though an hour had passed since Michel wriggled his way through the narrow crevice, but she knew it had only been bare minutes since their glances had locked and held and she’d seen the regret in his, as if he already knew he was leaving her a young widow with a child to raise on her own. She was grateful no one attempted to approach her with hopeful tidings. If she heard the words, ‘Elena, dear’ accompanied by one more helpful hint as to how she should go on, as to what was the proper way for a queen to behave in such a circumstance, she wasn’t certain she would be able to restrain herself from screaming her denial, her rage, her bitter resentment that it was her husband whose life was hanging by a thread, so unless it was one of the trapped miner’s wives, or young Colin’s mother, who wished to offer their suggestions on her behavior, no one else had better dare attempt to do so. Or they would soon discover their dear Elena was not such a dear after all.

  As word spread of their king’s heroic deed, and dawn wore away into mid-morning, more and more concerned citizens made their way beyond the city gates to where the others already waited, adding their presence and prayers for the safety of the men trapped underground. If an enemy sought to attack the wealthy kingdom, now would be the time, when even its bold defenders were sick with grief at the loss of their young and courageous new king.

  Through it all, Elena stood, neither shifting her weight nor drawing her eyes away from the opening her husband passed through hours earlier. Time lost all meaning for her. She ignored the offers of food and drink offered in quiet, concerned voices. To Elena, they were like so much background noise as were the quiet conversations going on around her and the bracing stories being regaled of prior collapses where all the miners had been found alive and rescued. She neither focused on them nor gave any indication that she had heard them at all. She only stood, still as the statues that graced the keep’s courtyard, as she waited for news of her husband.

  Beneath his wife’s feet Michel picked his way through the mountain of tumbled rock. It was a dirty, laborious, exhausting passage but Michel finally found an opening large enough to sit up in and draw a deep breath. He took a pull from the water in his leather pouch to cleanse his mouth and lungs of the dust that filled his mouth despite the cloth he wore covering the lower half of his face to prevent him from doing so. He’d lost all sense of time since he left the cool morning air of early dawn and passed through the unwelcoming crevice to the dank, dusty world of buried stone and earth.

  Depressed at the hopelessness of the task confronting him, Michel sighed heavily and coughed up the dirt that was trapped in his throat. He leaned against the rock wall at his back and called out as he had been doing every few moments since he entered the failing mine.

  “Hello! Can anyone hear me?” He paused and waited, his expectation of hearing an answering call still not completely doused by his repeated failures to do so. After a few moments spent waiting for the echoes of his own voice to die down, he cried out again, risking raising his voice to a more forceful level. “Hello! Can you hear me?”

  He let his voice trail off again, but this time, within the silence broken by the echo of his own cries, he thought he detected the muffled cries of other voices. Hearing them, Michel sat up straighter away from the wall he rested against and crawled across to the other side where he thought the other voices emanated from. Using one of the iron tools in the heavy leather pouch he wore, he tapped gently on the side of the wall and yelled again. “If you can hear me, tap twice on the wall where the sound of my voice is the strongest.”

  Michel paused and waited. There it was. On the wall to his right, the distinct, impossibly clear sound: ‘tap, tap’.

  In joyous disbelief, Michel scooted over to the wall and tapped three times. Moments later three taps echoed back at him. They were close, closer than he would have believed possible. “Can you hear me? It is King Michel. We have men waiting to dig you out.”

  “Yes, Your Highness, we hear you.”

  Michel bent his head to the earth in grateful prayer, and then he lifted his head and asked urgently, “Is young Colin with you? Baron James’ son?”

  A moment of silence was followed by an unwelcome response. “No, Your Highness, we haven’t seen any sign of him. We’ve been trapped here since the second collapse. We were able to dig ourselves out of the initial rock slide and took shelter beneath a ledge when the ground shook and we knew another slide was imminent.”

  Michel took a moment to offer a prayer for the safety of his young guardsman, and then replied, “We’re going to get you out. All is in readiness. It shouldn’t be long now. Is anyone injured?”

  “Not enough to allow himself to be buried down here,” a relieved voice replied and Michel found his first smile since the news of the mine’s collapse reached him, and he dug in his pouch and removed a heavier tool. He looked around for the strongest, most stable rock above him in an effort to avoid setting off another rock slide and began tapping. When no response could be heard from above he tapped harder, and then finally, swung the tool against the rock above him with all of his might, only to be rewarded for his efforts with a layer of dust and gravel breaking free from the bottom of the stone and showering him with its spray.

  Disgusted, Michel wiped the grit and tiny stones from his eyes and prepared to change his location and begin again the painstaking process of signaling the surface. Before he could swing his arm and connect with the rock above his head, he heard it. An answering signal from above. They knew where they were. They were coming for them.

  “They heard us. They’re coming,” Michel shouted into the silence and heard the echoes of joyful relieved cries from the trapped men.

  Michel scooted back to where the trapped miners waited on the other side and leaned his weary back against it in silent communion with their anxious vigil. He took another swallow of water then used some of it to dampen the cloth secured across his mouth and nose. Removing it, he attempted to wipe the irritating grit and stones from where they embedded themselves in his eyes and took up residence behind his eyelids. He abandoned the effort when he realized his crude efforts were doing more harm than good.

  Instead, using the damp cloth to wipe the layer of fresh dust from his face, he closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the side of the small opening, and settled back to wait, offering another silent prayer Colin would be found alive, and a second prayer of gratitude he would live long enough to spend another night in his wife’s warm and loving embrace. Perhaps even long enough to see his son or daughter birthed. A contented smile curved his lips at the thought and shifting his weight on the ground to tuck one tired leg beneath the other; he drew himself up into a tight ball, wrapped his arms around his bent knee and dipped his head to rest wearily on his raised knees.

  His last unthinking action probably saved his life. For an instant later, the roof caved in around him, the wall he leaned against disappeared and he fell backwards into the cavern that provided shelter for the trapped men. Hearing their alarmed shouts, and remembering the protective ledge they took shelter under, Michel instinctively scooted himself on his back to the sound of their voices and just barely escaped having his head and chest crushed by a large boulder that landed where he had huddled only moments before.

  Unfortunately his right side was not so fortunate. The boulder brushed passed him close enough to carved jagged pieces of flesh from his shoulder, arm and leg before continuing on its deadly course to bounce across the far wall and settle there, completely oblivious to the agonized cry that erupted from the lips of the man it very politely refrained from obliterating as it had done everything else in its path. Another shower of smaller rocks and grit followed. These were less agile, or seemingly not as courteous of their larger companion, because one of
them, in its carelessness, struck a glancing blow across Michel’s temple, rendering him senseless, and then proceeded to spring against the far wall near its larger companion, but it did not settle there. Instead it ricocheted off the wall and came back to carve out another huge gash from Michel’s arm that they lay limply at his side.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  On the surface, Elena’s relieved tears at the news Michel had reached the trapped miners and the men awaiting just such a signal were already preparing to rescue him, turned to fresh horror when the earth beneath her feet shook anew. She watched terrified as the men who moments earlier eagerly prepared to descend into the depths to restore her husband to her jumped in panicked fear off the pile of shifting stone. She wanted to scream at them to go back, go back, but the words wouldn’t form in her throat. She couldn’t help herself. Her courage failed her at this, the final test of her resolve. She collapsed to her knees and gave in to the heart-rending sobs she’d held at bay, wrapping her arms around her stomach and cradling her unborn child protectively in their embrace.

  Beneath the unsteady surface, Michel lay unmoving under the careful hands of those tending his injuries.

  “Well, my young king, I must admit you give me cause to doubt your claim that you do not pursue your own death with the same reckless abandon of your twin.”

  Coming to his senses, Michel cringed at the sound of the familiar voice echoing through his dazed thoughts and replied with an effort at levity, “Yes, well, I don’t blame you. I seem to have had a run of bad luck lately.” As if appreciating his efforts, Michel heard the amused laughter of his companion, and added in a resigned voice. “I imagine your presence here does not bode well for the success of our efforts to return to the surface.”

  The echo of his companion’s deep sigh sounded between them, accompanied by the reluctant confirmation of Michel’s dark assumption. “Regrettably not.”

  Michel nodded. His misty companion had already cheated fate once for Melissa’s benefit, and admittedly when he’d warned Michel of Baron James’ treachery. Michel imagined his companion was not in the habit of handing out second chances, or even third chances as in his case, as a matter of course.

  “You imagine correctly, my young king.”

  Michel opened his eyes to meet death’s direct gaze and made a final request of his twin’s unusual friend. “Well, perhaps before we go, you will satisfy my curiosity in regards to the mystery of the curse.”

  His companion’s eyes lit with ready amusement, and then considering the matter, eventually nodded his assent to Michel’s request. “I do not see how it could do any harm to grant your request at this point, but at least allow me to render you a small service. Though my labors are unassailable there is no reason for your passage from this life to be accompanied by the pain you bear now.” Before he even finished speaking, Michel felt an instant relief from the agonizing, mind-numbing pain in his limbs and in his head.

  “Thank you. Let me assure you the service you rendered me was by no means a small one.”

  Death nodded and then sat on the floor near where Michel lay and leaned his back against the wall. “I cannot tell you the number of times I tried to convince your sister it was not necessary for her death to be accompanied by the violent end she seemed intent on inflicting upon herself.”

  “Let me guess,” Michel interjected. “She didn’t listen to your sound advice.”

  Amused laughter erupted from his companion. The arbiter of death laughed until the glimmer of tears appeared in his eyes. Finally gaining control over his amusement, he reached up to wipe them away and sat grinning at Michel’s amused expression. “I must admit, I find the two of you highly entertaining. I cannot remember when I have laughed like that, or enjoyed the company of two humans more.”

  “Regrettably I cannot return the compliment as I have no real basis for comparison, but I am glad you will be by my side to accompany me into the next phase of my existence.”

  “Graciously spoken, my young king. I hope that you may one day consider me the friend your sister does.”

  “I already consider you a friend. You have bestowed on Melissa and me a priceless gift. Did we not enjoy years together we would not have had without your act of mercy? Did you not give me time to come to love my wife and create with her the child she carries? How could I consider you anything less than a friend? Do not think I blame you now for doing what you must.”

  His companion’s expression turned to one of wonder and then coalesced into one of mutual respect. “Thank you, Michel, if I may?” At Michel’s assenting nod, he continued, “Before we leave this depressing place, let me at least satisfy your curiosity in regards to the ancient curse that was laid upon your blood.”

  Michel sighed deeply, foolishly perhaps given the circumstances but he was aware of a feeling of intense satisfaction that he was to learn the source of the mystery behind his months of searching before he left this world.

  “The stone you wear around your neck,” his companion began.

  Reaching for it, Michel asked, “The Salusian stone?”

  “Yes, though it was not always known by that name and if it is eventually recovered,” he worded delicately the implication behind his words and added, “it will no doubt come to be known by other names by future generations.”

  “So the stone does have some bearing on the curse’s resolution just as my grandfather suspected.”

  “Not the stone itself, but what it represents, and who it represents,” Death corrected. “The stone is merely a remnant of what was once a great jewel worn by the gods who walked the earth before the days of men. The original gem held captured moonlight, but when the stone was shattered into hundreds of pieces similar to the one you wear, the moonlight was lost and the stone’s power greatly diminished.”

  “The daughter of the moon,” Michel echoed softly.

  “Exactly.”

  Michel pondered the details of the story he’d just begun to hear and sought clarification of a particular point. “When gods once walked the earth before the days of men? Are you telling me this stone has been in existence longer than men?”

  His companion shrugged and admitted, “It is difficult to say. Only men concern themselves with the passage of time. The Almighty’s other children exist beyond time’s limitations.”

  Michel was quite certain he’d lost whatever fragile grasp he retained on reality after the blow responsible for his previously throbbing temple, but he was enjoying his perhaps imaginary companion’s account too much to concern himself greatly over its loss. “The Almighty’s other children?” he repeated.

  “Of course. Did you think man was the creator’s only offspring?”

  Michel sighed and admitted, “To be honest, I never gave the issue a great deal of thought.”

  “Understandable, given the limitations of your current existence. However, mankind is not totally without experience of the gods I refer to.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, they are the Almighty’s firstborn. They walked this world when it was still young and before men covered its virgin surface. Some remained beyond the advent of man’s dominion. They found the daughters of Eve worthy of their attention and took them as mates for their sojourn here on earth.” At Michel’s disbelieving look, he added, “I believe men refer to them as angels.”

  “Angels?” Michel repeated stunned, no longer certain he was hallucinating.

  “Do you wish me continue with the tale?”

  “Yes, please, forgive me. I find it difficult to comprehend how the stone around my neck, the one whose importance I have always dismissed could have once been part of a vessel of moonlight worn by an angel.”

  Death’s lips split into a wide grin. “You find such a happenstance more difficult to accept than the chance that you are sitting beneath a fallen mountain having a conversation with death?”

  Michel sighed ruefully, “Admittedly I have not yet had the opportunity to rank the two events in the order o
f which I believe to be the more fantastic, but despite the omission, I am fascinated by your account and anxious to learn its conclusion.”

  Nodding, his companion took up his tale where he left off. “As I was saying, the firstborn who lingered after the spread of man’s influence sometimes dwelt among them and took the daughters of Eve as mates.”

  “Men believed them gods,” Michel remarked.

  “Yes. Their conclusion was understandable and not so very far from the truth. The firstborns’ power and magnificence far exceeds the grasp of men.” At Michel’s attentive nod, he continued, “When the firstborn mated with the daughters of Eve the children they produced were of a noble lineage no longer seen on earth.”

  “They were half angel and half man,” Michel concluded.

  “Yes and no. The firstborn are not physical beings, but spiritual ones. In order to interact with men and take up residence in the physical world they had to create physical bodies for themselves which they patterned after the existing higher inhabitants of earth.”

  “Man.”

  “Yes. In this form they were not in their purely angelic state, so the children they produced with their earthly wives were not considered true descendants of the firstborn. They were however, a considerably higher life form than those of the primitive men inhabiting the earth at the time. In order to foster the evolution and advancement of the race of men, they attempted to keep their bloodlines free of the stain of lesser men.”

  “I think I see where this is going. The daughters of the angel who wore the moonstone came to be known as the daughters of the moon.”

  “Yes, very good, my young king,” Death announced, seemingly both surprised and delighted by Michel’s grasp of the intricacies of his story. “The moniker lingered long after the last of the firstborn grew weary of the limitations of their physical existence and returned to their natural form. The offspring they left behind however remained a powerful force on earth and became great and wealthy kings in their own right.”