The Herald of Day

by Nancy Northcott

  A chill ran down her spine. “So now the dead walk.”

  “As though that weren’t enough,” Cabot added, “I’ve bad news. George is betrothed to Wyndon’s daughter Lucretia. Word began circulating at the palace shortly after you left.”

  “Well,” Richard said after a moment. “Now I know how he gained my heir’s assistance.”

  Cabot said, “I’d wager he expects to get more than tonight’s meeting with Miranda in exchange for his daughter’s hand. But what?”

  “Perhaps it’s time for a closer look at my old nemesis,” Richard suggested.

  Chapter 14

  The next night, Richard and Cabot watched from the mews behind Wyndon House as its lights began to go out. Many of the neighboring houses had already gone dark.

  Into the far end of the mews rumbled a coach. The horses’ breath made puffy clouds in the cold night air. As grooms unhitched them, Richard and Cabot drew deeper into the shadows. They waited in silence until quiet again settled upon the other end of the lane.

  The night was much colder than usual, but the snow had stopped that morning and had mostly melted in the afternoon sun. There would be no footprints to betray their visit to Wyndon’s property.

  “It’s a slim chance of finding anything,” Richard admitted. “Still, we can’t ignore any lead.” Wyndon was out of the city tonight, taking George and Canby with him, and there might not be another such chance for days. “What better place for him to hide a stolen document than in his own secure, warded home?”

  “True enough.”

  Although Richard couldn’t scry into the house because of its wards, nothing prevented them from searching it manually. If they could find a way to enter undetected.

  The wards would either bar magical intrusion or respond to it by raising some sort of alarm. They could be used anywhere, but no one warded against ordinary housebreaking. Doing so would raise an alarm whenever someone opened a window or door and thus required removing the wards daily to allow normal traffic and replacing them nightly.

  Most people considered such arrangements more troublesome than useful. The houses of the Gifted thus enjoyed little more protection against ordinary crimes than those of their unGifted neighbors.

  Thanks to serving the Crown in a covert capacity, Richard happened to have some experience as a housebreaker. The pouch of lock picks hanging from his belt had seen a good bit of use, though not lately.

  “If he did take the Chronicle, what makes you think he didn’t destroy it?” Cabot asked. “I would, in his place.”

  “When Kit scried for it, he couldn’t locate it or learn what happened to it, which means either it’s in a warded place or it ceased to exist before the time we can still scry backward. I prefer to assume the former. Besides, you don’t have his family’s love of power. The more someone else wants a thing, the more they yearn to have it. If they destroy it, they don’t have it either.”

  Given the de Veres’ desire to hold what others needed, Edmund’s confession might still exist. Perhaps it only appeared to have been destroyed in a fire at Hawkstowe. Was that possible?

  Before he could explore the idea further, Cabot touched his arm. “The cellar and garret are dark.”

  “We’ll wait a few minutes.”

  In the street beyond, the watchman passed. When the sound of his footsteps faded, Richard stepped away from the stable wall. “Remember,” he told Cabot, “no magic unless we meet someone. We don’t want to trip a ward by mistake.”

  They hurried across the street to the tall garden gate. Its lock yielded easily to the first pick Richard tried. He and Cabot stole along the hedges to the rear of the house and slipped up the short flight of stairs to the kitchen door. Cabot turned to keep watch.

  Richard stood still, waiting for the barks that would signal a dog in the kitchen. None came. One less obstacle to fear.

  Bands of iron reinforced the heavy wooden door. When he touched the lock, it tingled with the faint residue of a ward. He took a deep breath and inserted a pick. The warding tingle remained steady, as he had hoped. Wyndon had set it against magical intrusion only.

  Of course, he had a very good lock to protect him from housebreakers.

  Richard returned the pick to his belt pouch and tried a second. A tumbler clicked. Another, however, remained in place. He swallowed an oath. Holding the first tumbler open, he chose another pick.

  The second tumbler moved. He pressed to keep it open. “Lift the latch,” he whispered.

  Cabot reached across him to open the door. They stepped into the silent kitchen and eased the door shut. The tantalizing scents of mutton and onion still hung in the air, a reminder of the night’s supper.

  The two men stood still while their eyes adjusted to the dimness. Shadows filled the long, high-ceilinged room. A wide table dominated the center of the chamber. Moonlight glinted dully on the curves of iron kettles.

  To the left of the door, lost in shadow that would have hidden them from ordinary men, narrow stairs wound upward. A steep flight led downward, likely to the cellar.

  “One room at a time,” Richard breathed. “We’ll search the library together, then the other rooms down here and meet at the front stairs.”

  “Aye.”

  Like a ghost, Cabot slipped through the door that led to the front of the house. Richard followed.

  The library held an impressive collection of books ranged on three walls. “Oh, hellfire,” Richard muttered.

  “Too bad we can’t use magic,” Cabot commented. “This could take a while.”

  “Yes, but feel that tingle?” It barely flicked the edge of his awareness, a subtle but unmistakable warning. “As we thought, he’s warded the room.”

  Richard turned to the nearest shelf and examined the books. “I’ll try opening my senses. That will make my touch more acute but shouldn’t cause trouble if I don’t reach out with my own magic.”

  “Don’t use enhanced sight, hearing, or smell.”

  Richard nodded. Those senses could extend perception and might trigger the wards. Careful not to reach out, he opened his mind to perceive more subtle energies. The warding tingle grew stronger, but nothing else changed.

  Cabot let out a slow, relieved breath. He turned to the nearest shelf and grasped the first book. Richard moved to the other end of the room to begin his own search.

  Searching the library took nearly two hours. They found nothing there, nor in the dining room, nor in the parlor. Frustration gnawed at Richard. He’d had hopes, admittedly slim, of finding the Chronicle here.

  The guest rooms on the second floor also held nothing of interest. He and Cabot went down the long gallery at the back of the house, heading for Wyndon’s chambers.

  A quick check of the master suite revealed that it comprised three rooms, a sitting room, a bedchamber and a tiny withdrawing room, or closet. Cabot chose the sitting room. Richard started in the bedchamber.

  Jutting out from one wall, a high, ornately carved bed with a canopy proclaimed its owner’s wealth. Gilt angels similar to those in the king’s rooms at Whitehall held back the damask bed curtains. Marble faced the hearth, and rush matting protected the parquet floor. Tapestries of hunt scenes hung over the mantel and on one wall.

  He opened his senses, again taking care not to extend them and thus trigger the wards, and ran his fingertips carefully over the carved panels. He finished the first wall, by the door, without finding anything. The portrait over the hearth concealed nothing.

  Running his fingers along the edge of the marble fireplace, he noticed a slight movement, as though the carved angel concealed a latch. His breath hitched in sudden hope as he pressed against the cherub’s inner side.

  The stone figure slid silently to the right, toward the edge of the mantel. Behind it lay a space the size of Richard’s fist, housing a marble knob that just fit within it.

  He slid his hand toward the space. No warding tingle brushed his skin. Slowly, hoping he wasn’t about to trigger a concealed ward,
he twisted the knob.

  Something popped on the far side of the hearth. He jumped back, but no ward exploded. The bottom panel on that side had sprung open. He knelt in front of it and found himself staring into a cubbyhole about a foot square.

  Before he reached inside, lest Wyndon had put a special ward on the space, he closed down his senses again. He also took care to note the positions of the objects within.

  The secret cabinet held a pouch of jewels, a box of deeds, and a purse filled with gold. Biting back disappointment, he reminded himself that such a hidey-hole might well serve as a blind for a more important one behind it.

  He pressed firmly on each edge of the left panel. Nothing happened. The rear, bottom, and right panels also yielded nothing. So much for slim hopes.

  As he replaced the deed box, a sudden hunch struck him. He pressed the edges of the top panel. Something gave, barely, but nothing moved. His heart jumped.

  He pushed hard in the center of the top panel. Something popped softly behind the wall to his left. The panel above the hidden cabinet sprang forward and struck him in the shoulder. Inside lay a scroll about the length of his forearm and as thick as his fist. A red cord bound it, and the end of the dowel he could see bore a red, dragon-rampant crest.

  This document had come from the Pendragon manor library.

  But how?

  Heart hammering, Richard noted the scroll’s position before lifting it out of the cabinet. Beneath it lay a scrap of parchment that read CroylChr 16 Feb 1463.

  Surely that meant the Croyland Chronicle. But was February 1463 the date of an entry in the Chronicle, or was it a date Wyndon had sought through time?

  Mulling that, he carried the scroll to the window and carefully unrolled the parchment. The ink on it had faded, but he could make it out if he squinted. One word seemed to leap out at him, Necromancy. As in magic involving the dead.

  Could this be the scroll Edmund had mentioned? It fit his description.

  Richard skimmed rapidly, his blood chilling as his eyes ran across phrases like the dead land and binding of the dead.

  But he saw nothing about splicing time.

  If only he dared take this with him. He needed to read it more carefully. The fact that Wyndon had it here, concealed, showed how much he feared having anyone else discover its contents. If he had this, could there be something else concealed here, something that dealt with splicing time?

  Cabot came silently though the door from the adjoining chamber. “Nothing there,” he whispered.

  “Look at this.” Richard extended the scroll to his friend. “The key to traveling the shadowland may lie in this treatise.”

  “Unfortunately, we dare not take it.” Cabot skimmed as Richard had. “Wyndon would scry and find out who took it.”

  “Indeed,” Richard agreed, biting back a curse. “With his many friends in the Conclave and on the Council, his having this, even though he shouldn’t, isn’t a clear enough tie to the changes to be damning.”

  “Even though it deals with binding the dead for magic? And belongs in the Pendragon library?”

  “There’s no proof he did anything with it, nothing to tie it to the time changes.” Richard ran a hand through his hair. “He can always claim to have found it.”

  “And the magic worked into the air and ground at Pendragon repels scrying.” Cabot shook his head. “God’s feet, Richard. He must feel damned secure, to keep that thing.”

  “Perhaps he thought he might need it again.”

  Before they replaced the scroll in its cupboard, Richard showed Cabot the scrap of parchment. Cabot let out a soft whistle. “Very interesting,” he muttered, “but also not proof of anything.”

  “No,” Richard agreed, “Nor do we have enough circumstantial clues to bring the Council around.”

  To make certain they didn’t miss anything, they searched the rest of the chamber and the tiny closet beyond. They found no more hidden spaces and nothing indicating that Wyndon could splice from one place to another.

  Cabot cast an inquiring glance at Richard, who nodded. Time to go, while their luck held.

  Miranda jerked upright with a scream locked in her throat. Before it burst free, she recognized her chamber at Hawkstowe House. She took a deep breath, trying to still her pounding heart.

  The dream had seemed so real. She dared not assume that it wasn’t, not the way her dreams had run lately. “Please, no,” she whispered.

  As her initial fright faded, a new tension took its place, a strange certainty. Richard was in danger.

  Her heartbeat gathered speed again. Now that she was accustomed to the house, Patience had taken to sleeping in the garret again, so there was no need to be quiet.

  Miranda slid out of bed to pour herself a cup of water from the pitcher on her washstand. The pitcher trembled in her grasp. She set it down hastily.

  “This is ridiculous,” she muttered. “I’ll wager he came home and went to bed hours ago.”

  Flinging the green dressing gown over her shift, she hurried into the corridor. Richard’s chamber lay a few doors down from her own, nearer the stairs. The house was silent around her. Everyone else had long since gone to bed.

  His door stood open. Neither sound nor light came from within.

  She took a deep breath. He had not come home. The dark, empty room implied that his servants did not expect him tonight. Had he sought out a woman, as so many men did?

  She had no right to care if he had. Still, she doubted it. The tension she sensed remained too strong to dismiss.

  The dream’s foreboding seeped back into her. Cold rose in her throat and danced down her neck and arms. She couldn’t sleep until this dread eased. Neither could she hover outside his door like a worried parent.

  Nor could she rest until he was safely home.

  The library was around the corner. She’d read while she waited.

  Richard and Cabot made their way through Wyndon’s house as quickly as they dared. As they reached the ground floor, Richard heard a faint thump. He and Cabot froze at the same time.

  Someone giggled in the kitchen. Its door stood ajar. Had it when they entered?

  They couldn’t go out the front. Not only would Richard have to pick the lock, but they’d risk being seen by the watch. If they used magic to avoid that danger, they would trigger the door wards.

  “Oh, Ormsby, yer too wicked, you are,” a woman’s voice said.

  “For a taste o’ them hot teats, I’ll show you wicked,” a man chuckled. A loud sucking sound, accompanied by gasping and moaning, followed.

  Finally, a muffled shriek came from the kitchen. A hoarse groan followed.

  “Hsst!” the woman said. “What was that?”

  Richard swallowed a curse.

  The woman’s companion said, “I didn’t hear nothing.”

  Richard glanced at Cabot, who jerked his head toward the dining parlor behind them. They backed toward it.

  “Come from belowstairs, it did,” the woman snapped. “I’ll wager that little tart, Marian, means to meet up with that new footman what’s been eyeing her.”

  “Jamie, that’d be.”

  Richard exchanged a look of relief with Cabot. They stood still, listening.

  “Aye. Come along wi’ you, Ormsby. Let’s put a stop to it now. His lordship don’t like the little trollops spreading theirselves for nobody but him, you know.”

  “That he don’t.”

  Fabric rustled in the kitchen. “Where’s me slipper? Ah, there ’tis.”

  The sounds of more heavy breathing and muffled groans ensued. Richard rolled his eyes at Cabot, who scowled.

  The woman sighed. “I’ll have to put the mutton joint away again. Go on, lovey. See to Jamie, and I’ll take care of the silly girl.”

  “G’night, then, lovey.”

  Richard and Cabot stole closer to the kitchen. Footsteps went up the rear stairs. Cabinets opened and closed. Muttering, someone went down toward the cellar.

  “Come on,” Cabot br
eathed.

  Needing no urging, Richard followed him out the door and through the garden. They reached the mews and hurried to the street.

  Miranda huddled on the library sofa. The crackling fire seemed to give off no warmth. Paradise Lost, having failed to divert her, lay forgotten on the floor.

  At least the feeling that Richard was in danger had faded. She wouldn’t rest easily, though, until he returned. Fretting, she fell into an uneasy doze.

  A latch clicked. The sound of footsteps on the rush matting tugged her toward awareness as someone sat beside her and brushed her hair off her temple.

  “Miranda?”

  She opened her eyes and saw Richard bending over her, his face furrowed with concern.

  A gasp of relief ripped out of her. Sitting up, she flung her arms around him.

  He caught her against his chest and held her there, his face pressed against her hair. “Are you all right, sweet?”

  Into his neck, she gasped, “I’m so glad you’re safe!”

  His arms tightened. He raised his head. Only then did she realize what he’d called her and notice the firm, solid feel of his body against hers. Their gazes locked, and the intensity of his stole her breath.

  Carefully, hardly daring to do it, she touched his cheek. He caught her hand, closed his eyes, and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. Heat shot up her arm and into her heart, and then lower.

  He made a sound like a strangled groan. When he opened his eyes, they were bland. The warmth within her faded to disappointment, but truly, she should’ve expected naught else.

  Gently, he set her away from him and shifted to the chair by the hearth. The firelight gilded the strong planes of his face and flickered in the blue of his eyes. Her heart yearned.

  But social ranks aside, he’d shown no personal interest in her. Whatever feelings that hand kiss and the look in his eye betokened, he didn’t mean to act on them.

  “That was presuming,” she said, her face heating. “I shouldn’t have. I was afraid for you.”