Adonis puffed thoughtfully on his pipe as Drogo slammed into the rain. “Well, hell,” he muttered when no one else said a word. “Call me Hades, then.”
Thirty-eight
Lightning struck the oak in the corner of the garden. Thunder rolled, and children screamed in fright.
Glancing into the growing twilight, Ninian watched someone’s rooster float by on a broken cart. The sense of wrongness had grown to overpowering this past hour. She could scarcely think for the fear clouding her mind.
She had to go home.
If she were to have faith in her instincts as Granny said, she had to listen to this one, whatever the risk involved.
She glanced around as mothers settled their small ones down. Whether it was her herbs or her touch or the ale and milk Drogo had sent, the fever seemed to be diminishing. There were no new cases. And almost the entire village had migrated here during the day. The house was packed to overflowing with both healthy and ill.
Mary had acted as her right hand all day. She knew who needed what. Without giving another thought to the impossibility of what she had to do, Ninian removed her apron and set it on the kitchen table. “I’m going home,” she announced.
Everyone within hearing panicked, as she’d known they would. It made no difference. The sense of wrongness constricted her chest too badly for logic. Carts couldn’t traverse the flooded road. She couldn’t ride a horse. But she had two legs. They would carry her.
Mary’s husband and Harry, the shoemaker, accompanied her. She didn’t know what they thought they would protect her from, but she didn’t have time for argument. She cloaked herself as best as she could, hitched up her skirt and petticoat to hold them out of the mud, and set out down the straightest, highest path through the woods.
The men objected. They feared the growing dark and the fairies and whatever haunts they thought inhabited this unexplored territory. Ninian didn’t fear anything but fear itself. And she had more than plenty of that to spare.
Ignoring their objections, she hurried on, splashing through puddles larger than those she’d encountered last May. The storm still howled overhead, but she concentrated on chanting it away. Let the men think her mad as well as a witch. It didn’t matter. What mattered was in the castle ahead.
The closer she came, the more she felt the panic. It wasn’t her panic. Her aunts? The ghost? Drogo? She couldn’t tell.
As they reached the once babbling burn at the edge of the cleared portion of the castle yard, Ninian stared at it in bewilderment. Everywhere else the burn had become a raging river. Here, it pushed at the banks, but did not flow over. How could that be?
“Look, look there!” Harry pointed upward, toward the castle.
In the gloom, candles and lamps had been lit. They sparkled through the drizzle from the mullioned windows of the great hall. Most of the bed chambers overlooked the garden in the rear and couldn’t be seen. But light gleamed from Drogo’s tower—not from the windows at top, but from a crack half way down and widening as it reached the ground.
“The whole thing will fall,” Mary’s husband predicted, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning forward as if that would give him a better view.
“We’d better get everyone out of there,” Harry suggested, looking toward Ninian for agreement.
Persuade her pampered, light-minded, chattering family out of the warmth and comfort of a castle into the gloom and rain of a storm? Not in this lifetime. Never inclined to logic, they would merely look for the appropriate ritual to repair cracking towers—not that she could remember any ritual as practical as that.
She was beginning to develop some understanding of Drogo’s frustration with her.
“The hall will be safe.” She hoped. She really didn’t know which way towers tumbled when they fell, but it looked like the hall was a safe distance. “We’ll have everyone go to the hall.”
Giving her doubtful looks but not arguing, the two men assisted her over the rushing water and plodded diligently toward the endangered castle.
***
“Drogo-o-o!”
The scream exploded in his head as clearly as if the speaker stood beside him.
Startled, Drogo jerked on the reins, and his horse nearly lost its footing in the mud. He stared around the dark woods, but he knew he would see nothing but rain and trees.
Ninian. He was certain he had heard Ninian.
That wasn’t possible. Ninian was safe and warm in her grandmother’s house, fussing over her village patients. Ninian never screamed.
“Drogo-o-o!”
She was screaming now.
All the panic bubbling and building in his blood these last hours spilled over and erupted, leaving him oddly calm as he kicked his mount into a dangerous gallop. Mud and water flew beneath the horse’s hooves, but he was oblivious to the filth coating his breeches and boots. Ninian wouldn’t call for him if she didn’t need him.
How could Ninian call for him if she wasn’t here?
It didn’t matter. He gave into instincts he didn’t possess, pressing his horse to dangerous paces, leaping streams he would never have crossed had he given it thought. Ninian pounded in his blood. She lived inside his skin as surely as the person he thought he was. She was the soul he’d never had.
He approached the castle from the rear and saw no lights. Perhaps Adonis had been wrong. Perhaps Ninian’s family hadn’t arrived. He should continue on to the village, but he needed to check on Alan…
He needed to check on Ninian. She was here. He could feel it.
Abandoning all logic, he smacked the animal into the stable and rushed for the side door. He’d send someone else to the village to be certain everyone was on high ground. He had to see to the safety of his wife and son.
He heard the low murmur of chanting voices as soon as he entered.
Cursing the darkness, cursing his stupidity in panicking, Drogo threw off his soaked cloak and hat and strode swiftly toward the great hall. He hadn’t the patience for the social niceties of greeting Ninian’s family. He just needed to see that everything was all right, warn the villagers, and send Ninian packing. Somehow.
Ninian exploded through the doorway into his arms before he reached the hall.
“Drogo, the tower! It’s cracking. The stones are falling out. It’s crumbling to the ground. I don’t know what to do. I’m so glad you’re here!”
She flung herself into his arms, and he wrapped her close, relieved beyond bearing that she was safe and whole and his. The screams in his head were just that—screams. He’d panicked. He knew better than to panic.
“It’s all right,” he soothed. “Is everyone safe and dry? Where is Alan?”
“We’re all in the hall. Water is seeping down the tower stairs. I was afraid the tower would topple on the roof. Aunt Hermione is chanting the storm away, but it doesn’t seem to be working. And the ghost is screaming inside my head.”
He held her steady just to steady himself. “That tower has stood for hundreds of years. It’s not going anywhere. Is Alan well?” Even as he reassured her, he remembered the explosion his brothers planned. How far would the quake travel? Would they stop the water’s flow or worsen it? How would that affect the tower? It stood nearer the burn than the rest of the castle.
“Alan is fine. My cousins are keeping him entertained, but he’s fussy and crying. I need to go back to him. Please, Drogo, look at the tower. Something just isn’t right.”
He knew better now than to argue with Ninian’s instincts. Disregarding his muddy clothing, he caught her close and pressed a kiss to her willing lips. They molded eagerly to his, and he drank deeply. Tonight, he would have her. She was ready, and he no longer doubted anything about her. He didn’t know how it was possible, but they were one and inseparable and he trusted her as he trusted himself.
“I’ll check the tower,” he promised
as he reluctantly pulled back. “Ewen is planning to explode gunpowder to dam the mine water. Warn the others they might feel vibrations. I must send someone to the village to be certain everyone is on high ground.”
“They’re all at my grandmother’s. There is no higher.” She watched him with worry. “Are you sure that’s safe? If the ground vibrates…”
He didn’t know the answer. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Tell your aunts to chant for safety instead of annoying Mother Nature.”
“I will. Harry and Mary’s husband are here. Shall I send them to you?”
“With lanterns, if you will.”
She hesitated a moment longer, searching his face. “Drogo, I understand why you do not always believe me. I know I do not always behave as you think I ought…”
Impatient to check the tower, he almost didn’t listen, but something in her voice halted him. She had told him he didn’t listen, but he wanted to learn. Perhaps his impatience stemmed from dealing with people who didn’t have the same level of intelligence as he, but while Ninian may not understand many things he said, she understood much more than he did about some things.
“And I do not behave as you think I ought,” he reminded her. “Is there something bothering you?”
Her face lit with relief. “Yes, yes, and I know you won’t like it, but the cries in my head are warnings. It’s as if the ghost is trying to reach me, but…” She shrugged helplessly. “She doesn’t know the words. I see a dark hole and water and the crack in the tower but I cannot understand it. They’re pictures, not words. I have never had this happen before. It’s a very odd feeling.”
He wanted to dismiss this silliness. He wanted to tell her she was hysterical, but it was patently obvious she was not. She was worried, maybe frightened, but she was trying to explain something she did not understand herself. And she had been right one too many times before. Fear gripped his stomach.
“Keep everyone in one place. Keep the lantern well-trimmed. Stay near the door. If the hall begins to shake, if you sense any danger, leave. Go to the stable. That should be solid enough.”
She nodded and gripped his coat sleeve with relief. “I’m so glad you’re here. I was afraid you wouldn’t hear me call.”
With that enigmatic comment, she ran back to warn the others.
She’d called him? And he’d heard?
Perhaps there was more to being one inseparable soul after all.
Drogo was already studying the widening crack at the base of the tower by the time Harry and Mary’s husband arrived bearing lanterns. The light revealed what he already feared—the underlying foundation was bulging outward. He wasn’t a mechanical genius like Ewen, but it didn’t take much to understand that some pressure was building against the inside wall. It didn’t take much more logic to combine Ninian’s warnings with his own knowledge and common sense: water was flooding beneath the castle.
“Did this place have a dungeon?” he asked while trying to visualize the schematics of the castle’s lowest floor.
“Don’t know, but most of these old towers did,” Harry answered, poking at the crumbling mortar and watching the water stream through from the rain outside.
“The conservatory!” Ninian rushed down the dark hall toward them. “The conservatory bars the old entrance! I can see it. They filled in the moat and built on top of it. There was a door.”
Drogo couldn’t doubt her now. Dashing out in the mud and rain to knock holes in walls because his wife believed a ghost’s warning proved that his brain was as cracked as hers, but he had no better solution. The whole damned tower would topple on to the roof if he did nothing, and he couldn’t swear the roof would hold beneath the weight.
Only Ninian could drive him to this insanity.
“The water must have found a way into an old tunnel, but there’s no way for it to escape. We’ll have to find the weakest spot in the foundation and dig it out.”
“Somewhere near the conservatory. Between it and the kitchen. There used to be a garden.” Ninian looked pained and confused as she said it.
Drogo took her in his arms and squeezed her. “We’ll take care of it, moonchild. Just tell your family to chant for safety and leave the weather alone. It’s not the weather that’s at fault. Your very strange Adonis told me to tell you that.”
“My Adonis? He’s an Ives if ever there was one.”
“Claims to be half Malcolm, my dear. Go entertain your cousins with that.”
He loved the incredulous light in her eyes as she looked up at him. He loved her. With every fiber of his being. He didn’t even know what the damn hell love was, but he recognized it, through her.
“Go,” he whispered. “Trust in me.”
She smiled. “I do.” And she was gone.
Thirty-nine
They had dug a hole to the foundation and were in mud up to their ears when the explosion rocked the very ground they stood on.
In the rain and gloom, they could hear the ghastly creak of the cracking mortar as the ground shook and water pounded against stone.
“Out!” Drogo shouted, shoving the nearest man from the hole while his other helper scrambled out the back.
Before Drogo could follow, a flood of water crashed through the hole, tumbling him backward in a surging tide, carrying him helplessly toward the raging burn.
***
“Drogo!” Ninian screamed as the two men carried the inert figure of her husband through the front doors.
She thought her heart would tear from her throat with her sob as she ran toward them. He was so pale… Drogo was never pale.
Behind her, the chanting deteriorated to a murmur of questioning voices, but she had no mind for her family. Even the ghost had quit screaming in her head. Her only thought was of the man they lay upon the hearth, where the fire’s warmth could dry him.
Except he looked as if no fire would ever warm him again.
“We’re sorry, my lady,” Harry whispered, removing his hat as Ninian fell to her knees beside her husband’s still form. “He saved us first, and ’twere too late for him. We pulled him from the burn down by the road.”
“Drogo,” Ninian whispered, testing for a heartbeat, breathing, anything…
He was nearly blue with cold, and she couldn’t find any sign of life. Panic welled, but she refused to give into it. The physical presence that flowed between them pounded through her blood where she touched him. Blocking out the grief and consternation of the people hovering around her, blocking out all but the man who held her heart in his, she sought deep within her where instinct dwelled and let the healing power guide her.
Her fist crashed into his chest. Solid bone and muscle hurt her hand, but she pounded again, and again, forcing his heart to acknowledge her presence. If she could find Drogo anywhere, it was through his heart. He hid it from others, but she knew it was a large one, that he loved and loved deeply but simply didn’t know how to express it. She would wake up his heart if it killed her.
Faintly, the beat thrummed beneath her fingers, and she instantly fell on his mouth. She would breathe life into his lungs now, breathe in the air his heart needed to expand.
Someone tried to pull her away, thinking her gone mad with grief, but she shook them off. She was strong. They couldn’t take her where she didn’t wish to go.
Hermione started a new chant, a chant of birth and life, and Ninian breathed with relief, pouring the air she gulped between the lips of the man in her arms, pushing on his chest, forcing his heart to pump and his lungs to take what she offered. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she breathed and pumped and her arms trembled. She could do this. God had given her more Gifts than she’d ever accepted. She could feel Drogo’s heart, his lungs, his soul. He was here with her. She knew it. She just needed to reach him.
A surge of warmth and love flooded up her fingers, seeping from all the places
she touched him, swamping her with a giddy ecstasy that had tears streaming down her cheeks as she realized they emanated from the man beneath her.
He gasped and choked on a breath, and cheers resounded among the non-Malcolms at this sign of life. The women continued chanting, adding their spirit to Ninian’s, warming her, returning her strength, holding her in this moment so she didn’t disappear entirely into that place inside her where she’d found the knowledge and healing she needed. She wept and collapsed against Drogo’s chest as it heaved up and down.
Instinctively, his arms circled and held her close.
Her aunts and cousins crowed in triumph and crowded around.
Sarah ran up with blankets and dry clothes. “I don’t think I can do what they do,” she whispered to Ninian as she lay the garments beside her. “But I do know when a man is wet and cold. Drogo hates being cold.”
Ninian’s smile wavered only slightly as she nodded, and Sarah backed away. Sarah was confused about many things, but her heart was in the right place.
Drogo coughed again, and she debated whether she should push on his chest some more. When she tried to stir from his arms, he pulled her closer.
“Don’t move,” he croaked. “Don’t you dare move.”
Laughing, crying, she buried her face against his chest and let him dig his fingers into her hair. He was alive, and he was the same odiously demanding man he’d always been, and she loved him dearly. And he loved her. She could feel it, at last. She thought she would drown in the flood of emotion pouring from him. It was a good thing he normally dammed it up.
“You’re soaked, my lord. You will catch your death if we do not dry you out.” She was soaked, too, from lying upon him, but the heat flooding through his body was so welcome, she didn’t mind the damp.
Merely Magic Page 34
