by Sandra Heath
Bran whined and sat down, tail wagging.
“Why have you come here?” Conan wondered aloud, sitting up and stroking the hound’s head.
As he spoke, the shadows of two men darkened the stable entrance, and Conan got up warily, for they clearly knew he was there. “Who are you?” he demanded, reaching for an old coaching whip that must have hung on the wall for an age if its drapery of cobwebs was anything to go by.
“You won’t be needing that, Sir Conan,” Gardner’s voice replied. Then he came farther into the stables so that Conan could see his face.
“Why on earth—?”
The coachman held up a reassuring hand. “I don’t know what all this is about, sir, just that I had to be here. It just came over me, a need to come to this inn, where I knew I would find you. Then Daniel Pedlar was waiting for me and, well, here we are.”
Conan smiled a little. “The Black Druid, I believe.”
“That is so, sir, and Gardner ‘ere was once your faithful squire.”
Well, that explained the coachman’s remark the previous night, Conan thought.
Daniel bent to stroke Bran, who had gone to him. “And this ‘ere was Lord Macsen’s favorite ‘unting dog,” he said. “Weren’t you, old boy? Eh? Eh?” He ruffled the wolfhound’s coat, and Bran stood up on his hind legs, looked him in the eyes, and proceeded to smother his face with very wet licks.
“Don’t either of you know why you’ve come?” Conan asked.
Daniel pushed Bran away and gave a grin. “I do. I’m yer in case that toad Taynton cuts up rough with you, and Gardner yer ‘ave been summoned to ‘elp. I ‘ad this dream, you see.”
“Not another dream ... ” Conan groaned inwardly.
“Shook me up sommat rotten, it did,” Daniel said. “Anyway, Gardner and I ‘ave to ‘elp should you need us. This ‘ere ‘ound’s ready too. ‘E’d just love to take a piece out of Taynton’s back end, wouldn’t you, boy? Eh?” He ruffled the wolfhound’s head, and Bran’s tail wagged nineteen to the dozen.
Daniel turned to look across at Taynton’s window, and as if on cue Vera suddenly flung the curtains back. She looked directly at her father and gave a single nod. Daniel glanced at Conan. “ Tis time to go to it, sir,” he said quietly.
Conan dropped the whip and brushed some straw from his clothes, then left the stables.
Vera was waiting for him in the hall. There was a new glow about her and a light in her eyes that certainly had not been there before. “He’s still in his rooms,” she said, “and he doesn’t know you are here.”
“He soon will,” Conan replied.
Anxiety touched her. “You ... you will not harm him, will you?”
“He is the one doing harm,” Conan reminded her.
“I know, but he has now told me all that happened in the past, and I cannot point a finger at him and say he is wrong. The High-King chose wisely in Macsen Wledig, but might not you or my lord have been as fine a choice? You were both cast aside for a stranger, and although you could accept the king’s decision, my lord could not. I do not know that I could have done either. My lord may be the villain now, but the injustice he has borne these past fifteen hundred years was to some extent more than warranted.
Conan hesitated. He didn’t want to concede it, but two women has now said the same, Ursula being the other. Maybe they were right, poor old Cadfan was due a little sympathy. Except that it was rather difficult to sympathize with someone who resorted to dark magic!
Vera could read some of the expressions that passed across his face. “Please don’t condemn him out of hand, sir,” she begged, “for I love him so very much that I could not bear it if anything truly bad happened to him.”
Conan took her gently by the arms. “Vera, I will do what I can, but I am not the sorcerer. Believe me, if anyone is in danger now, it’s me, not him.”
Chapter 32
Taynton lay stark naked on the crumpled bed that was still warm where Vera had lain. He felt better than he had in, oh, one thousand five hundred years! He smiled sardonically, for he had to admit that although Eudaf Hen’s decision had been basically wrong, there had been some compensation in the resulting situation. Macsen Wledig had been obliged to go here, there and everywhere defending his British realm as well as trying to keep a firm grip on the reins of Rome, so much so that the term being run ragged occasionally sprang to mind. Taynton smiled again. It served the usurper right! Still, midnight tonight would be what might be called just deserts. Macsen, Kynan, et al would be brought up sharply for their former misdemeanors. The eyes of the otherworldly innkeeper watered, but not with tears of sorrow for his enemies; instead it was his cold. He sneezed several times, blew his nose on a large handkerchief. Vera was taking a plaguey long time over that rum gruel!
The door opened without warning, and Taynton sat up with a start, summoning a masterly frown because he expected it to be Vera having the temerity to enter unannounced. Instead, he saw Conan standing there. With a strangled cry, the innkeeper grabbed the sheet and dragged it over himself. “You’ve no business coming in here!” he shouted, struggling up from the bed, still clutching the sheet in front of him.
“On the contrary, brother mine, I have a great deal of business in here.” Conan gave a backward kick to shut the door.
Taynton was regaining his composure apace. “So you know. Well, our business was over in the time of Eudaf Hen,” he said coldly.
“Please don’t try to sound dignified, for you look rather ridiculous,” Conan replied. “Besides, as I see it, you are the one who is still bent upon our business.”
Taynton flushed. “Mock me at your peril,” he warned, and glanced at a vase on the window, which promptly jumped off the ledge and crashed in pieces on the floor.
“Very impressive. One day you must show me how you do it.”
Taynton sneered. “One day? You only have today left, brother dear.”
“That’s why I’ve come to have a little chat with you,” Conan answered, making himself comfortable on a chair in a patch of sunlight. “How is your leg, by the way?”
“Eh? Sore, if you must know.”
“Oh, dear. And your cold?”
“Disagreeable. I’m flattered at your interest.” Taynton spoke with haughty sarcasm, but spoiled it all by sneezing again.
“Bless you.” Conan beamed at him.
Anger stained the innkeeper’s face. “Why are you here?”
“To haggle.”
“Haggle?”
Conan nodded. “About the treasure.”
Taynton stiffened. “What about it?”
“Well, we know exactly where it is.”
The innkeeper became very still. “I don’t believe you.”
Conan glanced at a candlestick on the mantel, wishing he could make it hurl itself obligingly to the hearth below. He was somewhat gratified when it did just that.
Taynton leapt like a scalded cat, his feet became entangled in the sheet, and with a yelp of dismay he fell. Conan went to help him up.
“Don’t touch me!” yelled the innkeeper, grabbing the sheet to his loins again and trying to get up.
Conan tried his new skill once more, this time fixing his attention on the sheet, which obediently snaked around Taynton’s legs, tying him up a little like an Egyptian mummy. The innkeeper stared up at him, wide-eyed. “You have the power?” he breathed incredulously.
“So it seems,” agreed Conan cordially, by now accepting that the closing gate, biting squirrel, acrobatic coin, and suicidal candlestick had all been his doing, not the questionable whim of coincidence. “Now then, while you’re lying there so neatly bundled, let me put my bargain to you.”
“I won’t bargain with you, Kynan Meriadoc!”
“I think you will. You see, I happen to think you had good reason to grouse about Eudaf Hen’s decision. Not good enough to start throwing your wizardry around now, but certainly some justification for being peeved.”
“Peeved?” squeaked Taynton furiously
, squirming in his enormous bandage.
“Well, piqued, then.”
Taynton gave him a look that should have burned him to ashes on the spot. “Damn you,” he breathed, and sneezed violently, no easy feat when he couldn’t bend. His stomach muscles tugged painfully, and he sucked his breath in.
Conan smiled again. “Look, I’m being very amiable about this, and if you promise to behave yourself, I’ll let you out of that, er, winding sheet.”
“I promise nothing!”
“Then stay there.” Conan returned to his chair, stretched his long legs out nonchalantly, then touched his fingertips before him. “Now then, I have an offer that you might do well to accept. You are to undo all your bad magic, and in return we will forgive you. There, is that not magnanimous?”
Taynton couldn’t even bring himself to reply. Magnanimous? he thought. They might take him for a fool, but a fool he most certainly was not!
Conan pursed his lips disappointedly. “Very well, let me put it another way. You undo all your spells, and we will all live happily ever after. All of us, you and Vera included.”
“And abandon the treasure to Macsen Wledig again? Never!”
“By the laws of today, the treasure belongs to Mr. Elcester because it is on his land, and because it will be impossible to prove who the original owner was.”
“Elcester is a nonentity!” spat the innkeeper, squirming again, but becoming rigid as he tensed for another sneeze.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter whether or not Mr. Elcester is a nonentity, the law is still the same. I’m not going to put myself out indefinitely to reason with you. You’ve been a very bad lad of late, and I do not think the Green Man will be very pleased about it. He is the true master, my friend, not you. But that aside, for all your machinations, we’ve still managed to find the treasure before you, and now I want to live a long and happy life, with Ursula Elcester as my bride.”
“Ursula Elcester?” Taynton gaped at him. “But she’s supposed to marry—
“I know, and that is just another of my problems at the moment. You have my word as your brother that you will be apportioned your fair share of the fortune.”
“Your word? Pah!”
“Well, your word may not mean much to you, but mine is my honor. If I make such a promise, I mean it. You and Vera will be very comfortably off. Just think, man, you could be in legitimate clover for the rest of your life.”
“I’d rather be in obscene luxury that has come by illegitimately,” Taynton replied candidly.
“Vera wouldn’t wish that.” Conan looked at the rumpled bed. “Be honest now, haven’t you just had the best time of all your lives?”
Taynton hesitated. Damn it all, the fellow was right. He had just enjoyed the most gratifying few hours he could ever remember. Well, since his original life, anyway. And that had been happy in its way because of his Severa. She alone had saved him from complete destruction.
Conan pressed home the advantage he suddenly perceived. “You’ve been trying to make sure nothing is repeated, haven’t you? Well, I’m afraid you fell by the wayside today.” He nodded at the bed, and made it shudder slightly, as if two lovers were still engaged upon its downy mattress.
“Damn you,” Taynton breathed, giving him a venomous look.
“No, I’m afraid it’s damn you, my dear brother. After all this time, why can’t you just accept that you aren’t meant to be master now, any more than you were meant to be master then? More than that, why can’t you accept that keeping one of the finest inns I’ve ever been in is clearly your forte? With Vera at your side, you could own more than one inn—indeed you could become the realm’s foremost innkeeper.”
“Do you really imagine I will settle for that?” Taynton cried.
“Why not? Surely there is some satisfaction in doing something you not only like, but you’re damned good at? I believe the Duke of Beaufort himself sat down to dine at your Sunday table, and that he sang your praises afterward. An innkeeper such as I envisage you becoming would be a man of great influence, the friend of the nobility, accepted among them. So think well, brother. I can see to it that you never find the treasure, or I can welcome you among us. Which is it to be?”
Taynton gazed at him. Conan felt a disagreeable tingling sensation, and knew that magic was being directed upon him, so he gazed back, simply willing the magic to turn upon its creator. To his huge satisfaction, Taynton gave a cry of pain. “May that teach you a lesson,” Conan murmured.
The innkeeper went almost as pale as the sheet that enveloped him. “Where did you learn such things?” he demanded.
“I don’t know. Until I confronted you in here, I wasn’t aware I could do anything. Still, I am not as easy a victim as you may have thought, and I will not hesitate to do to you what you have seen fit to do to us.” Conan folded his arms. “I’m still awaiting your answer. Can we call a truce and work together?”
Taynton didn’t reply.
“Come on, my patience is running out,” Conan pressed, fixing his eye upon another candlestick and sending it to join its fellow in the hearth. Lord, this was really rather fun, he thought, wondering what other things he might be able to do. Foretell the cards in a deck? Be tipped of the winner in horse races? Now that would be useful!
Taynton drew a long, resigned breath. “All right, I accept your offer,” he said.
“This had better be the truth, or I vow it will be the worst for you.”
“You have my word, which is as much my bond as it is yours.”
Conan directed the sheet to unwind, and the innkeeper sat up to grab it quickly before it slithered back to the bed. His lower anatomy was still rather on display, which might be all right in front of Vera, who admired his masculinity, but he didn’t particularly wish to brandish all before Sir Conan Merrydown.
Conan got up from the chair. “Right, it is safe to assume we are now allies?” He extended a hand.
Taynton hesitated, but then took it. “We are.”
“I’m much relieved to hear it. Now there’s just one more thing. Will you kindly undo whatever it is you’ve set to happen to us at midnight?”
Taynton stared at him. “I—
Conan frowned. “Don’t think to trick me now,” he warned.
“I’m not, truly. It’s just, well, I don’t know how to undo it.”
“Please tell me you jest,” Conan replied in dismay.
“No. I know how to cast spells, but not how to undo them. I’ve never had to in all my fifteen hundred years.”
Conan felt like putting his hands to the innkeeper’s neck and strangling him, but confined himself to simply saying, “Then you had best look to your arts for some illumination.”
“Believe me, if I knew what to do, I wouldn’t hesitate.” Taynton ran his fingers through his hair in a way that was so like Conan’s own, that it would have been amusing had the situation not suddenly become so very serious.
“What exact spell have you cast?”
“That Mr. Greatorex, Miss Elcester, and the wolfhound will fall asleep and not awaken.”
“Bran? You directed your damned powers at a hound? How base can anyone be?”
“That white cur has caused me a great deal of trouble.”
“Not nearly enough. I’ve a good mind to set him on you again. He’s outside in the stables right now.”
Taynton moved backward. “Keep him from me.”
Conan looked at him. “Why didn’t you include me in your magic?”
“I would have done, but I didn’t have anything that belonged to you.” Taynton told him about the piece of paper that blew away and about the other items he’d used, and added, “I’d have come to you before long, because that seal you lost must still be here somewhere, if indeed it was ever mislaid.”
“Ah, you’ve caught me out.”
“So it was just an excuse to poke and pry.”
“I fear so,” Conan admitted, then drew a heavy breath. “If you don’t know how to revoke y
our evildoing, I don’t really know how to proceed from here.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I may not be able to undo anything, but it seems to me that everything I’ve sought to do will be overturned if the past is repeated exactly after all. You and Miss Elcester must marry before the Black Druid, as must Mr. Greatorex and Eleanor Rhodes.”
“And you and Vera,” Conan pointed out.
Taynton nodded. “I know.”
“And this must be at midnight tonight?”
“Yes. By the yew.”
“And provided half of us don’t fall terminally asleep before we can make our vows,’’ Conan pointed out bitterly.
“We can only wait and see.”
Chapter 33
The full moon slid from behind a cloud, and the shadow of the yew was very black indeed as midnight approached. On the green the fair was in full gaudy racket, with music, torches and laughter. People had come from miles around to enjoy the fun, and there was especial cheering when the morris men performed. But as midnight approached, the village became quiet. Even the fairground folk knew what was about to happen, for they too preferred the yew to the church. Everyone gathered by the lych-gate.
The primitive atmosphere of Beltane filled the night, and in the distance to the east one or two Beltane fires flickered as hamlets and farms more remote than Elcester celebrated the old festival in time-honored manner.
Daniel Pedlar stood beneath the overhanging branches of the yew. He wore his black robes, transformed into his original self, with nothing of the blacksmith about him now, or even the traditional morris man, for which latter role he had worn the same robes earlier. Tonight he was the Black Druid, high priest of the Green Man, and as such he would officiate at a pagan ceremony within the walls of the churchyard.
Horses snorted and stamped, for Conan’s carriage was drawn up near the lych-gate, having conveyed Ursula and him from the manor, together with Mr. Elcester, who looked as if he’d seen a ghost. The full story had been told to him, but he’d given up trying to understand, and simply did as he was requested. Taynton and Vera had walked from the Green Man, and Theo and Eleanor had also come by foot, from the woods.
