Temptation of the Warrior

by Margo Maguire

  The coach made several turns, and finally came to a stop. The driver came ’round and asked where in Holm Street Merrick wanted to go.

  “Do you know the Beattie house?”

  “Nae, sir. But I’ll find out fer ye.”

  The man trotted up to the first house on the street and skirted ’round to the back. He was gone only a few minutes before he returned. “Got it, sir. Friendly maids ’ereabouts, eh?” he remarked with a grin.

  Merrick gave a nod and considered how the driver had gotten his information. ’Twas unlikely that Harriet Lambton would react favorably to a well-dressed man who came to her employer accusing her of thievery. Nor would the owner of the house appreciate a stranger coming to ask about one of the maids. ’Twas a puzzle.

  When the coach came to a stop, Merrick asked the driver to step down.

  “I’ve a job for you.” He took several shillings from his pocket. “There is a kitchen maid inside the house, called Harriet Lambton, and I’d like to speak to her. Do you think you can get her to come out?”

  “Oh well, I’m nae so sure—”

  “I mean her no harm, and there’ll be a sovereign for both of you if you can convince her to join me here.”

  Merrick took the driver’s hand and turned it palm up, then he dropped a few shillings into it. “’Tis important.”

  “A sovereign more, ye say?”

  “For each of you.”

  The man touched the brim of his hat and jogged away to the back of the house. Merrick sat back and waited, forcing himself to be patient, when all he wanted to do was accelerate the process with a quick spell. He could easily vanish and enter the house. ’Twould be no problem to locate Harriet and convince her to turn over the locket.

  He thought about Jenny, and hoped she’d finally achieved some peace in her sleep. Certainly, it had been disturbing for her to remember what had happened to her friend, but it had to be worse to leave the memory lying dormant in the back of her mind. ’Twas how it had been for Merrick—he’d known he had an important task, and the niggling sensation of urgency had plagued him up until the return of his memory.

  The headmaster’s downfall was going to feel particularly rewarding, unlike Merrick’s departure for Coruain. Leaving England was imminent, and it should be all he thought about. But the image of Jenny’s face would not leave his mind. He could not forget the lively spark in her gray eyes or her courage under adversity. She’d been magnificent in the Old Scratch the previous night, never daunted by the danger all ’round them.

  Merrick turned his attention to the side drive, where the coach driver was hurrying back with a small blond woman beside him. He opened the carriage door when she arrived. “Please come in.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her. “I’d rather stay out here, if ye don’t mind.” Her hair was nearly white, like her brother’s, although her build was small and nothing like Frank’s. She was almost childlike. With speech a bit more refined than her brother’s, her manner was one part curious, the other part hostile. “Why are ye looking for me?”

  “You were a teacher at Bresland School?”

  She narrowed her pale eyes. “You’ve come from that foul old man? The headmaster? Well, you can just tell that boggin perv that he’s not to come near me again or I’ll—”

  “I’m no’ here for the headmaster. I’ve come to get Jenny Keating’s locket back.”

  The woman’s eyes went blank. “Her what?”

  “Her locket,” said Merrick, puzzled by Harriet’s reaction. “A bit of silver jewelry on a chain. A pendant. Miss Keating said she wore it hidden under her dress, hanging ’round her neck most of the time, or in a pocket of her dress.”

  “I never saw any locket, guv. Now, if you’re done…” She held her hand out and tipped her head toward the driver. “He said you’d give me a sovereign just to talk.”

  “Aye. And I will. Just a few more questions.” But what to ask? The girl seemed completely unaware of Jenny’s locket, although she could be lying. Merrick could easily determine if that were so…

  “What did you mean about the headmaster?” he asked.

  “Pinched me, he did. And more than once.”

  “For what reason?” Merrick asked, unable to understand why Usher would do such a thing.

  “You’ve not been around much, have you, toff?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “The headmaster likes his girls fair and small,” she said. “And I’m not game for his antics. Got out of there as soon as the penny dropped. And good riddance, too.”

  “Did he pinch Miss Keating as well?”

  She gave a bitter laugh and shook her head. “I’m sure there was a time or two…But he likes us small, and she’s gotten much too…Well, ye know.”

  He did not know, nor did he want to know. “The locket…You’re sure you never saw it?”

  Harriet shook her head. “If I did, I’d have hocked it so I wouldn’t have to be here, bustin’ my…”

  Merrick decided to risk a bit of magic to determine if she was telling the truth. The amount he used would be small, leaving few traces, hardly enough for an Odhar hunter to find.

  “Torrun mo dearbh forhais,” he whispered under his breath while Harriet continued to speak. A dull, blue light framed her body, and had Merrick not been looking for it, he’d have missed it, for it remained ’round her for only a fraction of a second before disintegrating into gray dust. But now he knew for certain that she was telling the truth. Harriet really did not know anything about the locket. Her only reason for leaving Bresland was Reverend Usher’s unwanted advances.

  Merrick concealed his disappointment and thanked the young woman. “Here’s your sovereign, Miss Lambton.” He tossed another coin to the driver and climbed inside, wondering how long it would take Moghire to carry him to Bresland School to search for the locket. Now that he knew why Usher was so anxious to keep Jenny there, Merrick had a suspicion he knew where to find it.

  The Isle of Coruain, 981

  Ana gazed incredulously at Sinann, who entered Coruain House with an entourage of her closest friends, sycophants who admired her beauty and skills. Skills at what, Ana was not quite sure, for the daughter of Aenéas seemed to use her talent only for solving complex riddles and puzzles.

  Sinann could not possibly become Merrick’s céile mate, no matter how lovely she might be, with her glossy dark hair and fetching amber eyes.

  “I am told you are in need of my assistance,” she said.

  Ana’s stomach turned. “Your lòchran to help shield the isles, Sinann.”

  A sudden, sharp-edged wind blew through the great hall, and Sinann staggered against it. The distraction of her entrance had altered the elders’ shields for a fraction of a second, and Pakal used the moment to ride a bolt of lòchran light and emerge inside the great hall. All at once, he was standing at Sinann’s back.

  As the tempest blew through the room, small items were lifted and tossed about. Pakal whipped one painted arm ’round Sinann’s neck and bent to her ear, giving her a quiet, irresistible tànaiste command.

  Unable to deny Pakal when he spoke thus, Sinann shot a powerful lòchran blast toward Ana, knocking her to the pallet and holding her down. Ana struggled for air, fighting to repel the sorcerer’s probes.

  “Tell me of stones, Druzai!” Sinann cried above the fierce winds, neither the voice nor the words her own.

  The elders crouched and held on to the furniture to avoid being thrown about the room; at the same time, they combated Pakal’s attack and forced a calming of the winds. They fortified the shields as Pakal dissipated like an exorcised spirit.

  Sinann fell to the ground, and her father, nearly spent, crawled to her side.

  Ana heard Liam and Cianán calling to her, but she could not make out their words. The voice of the Lord of Death drowned out anything the elders tried to say. Ana closed her mind to the black tentacles that somehow reached past her defenses and slithered through her brain, searching, demanding, hurtin
g. Ana pushed back against him, and with the help of the elders, drove Pakal from her thoughts.

  With a surge of power, she reversed their roles. Rising to sit up on the pallet, she threw her own questing sensors to the dark enemy, piercing through his own barriers.

  When she saw her uncle’s scepter in Pakal’s hands, she pushed herself to the edge of the pallet and swung her healing legs over the side. “You willna defeat us, Pakal. The Druzai will no’ be victims to the rogue powers of the Lords of Death.”

  Inside his thoughts, she saw a triangular-shaped stone tower with hundreds of steps leading to the peak at the top. ’Twas dark, but thousands of torches lit the ground below, held by a seething mass of handsome, bronze-skinned people, whose bloodthirsty, frenzied energy fed Pakal. A young woman with bound hands was dragged to the top of the tower. She screamed in terror when her bonds were cut with a silver dagger, and then she cried out in horror as they tied her, spread-eagle, to an X-shaped frame.

  Pakal’s power swelled and grew when a white-robed man, whose hair was cut in the same blunt style, stood before the girl, wielding the knife. Ana braced herself, unable to banish Pakal’s vision of the killing, of the sight of the poor victim’s heart being cut from her chest while it still pulsed with life.

  It sickened her, but she would not be cowed. “You will never take the heart from the Druzai people,” Ana whispered into the black bràth that served as his soul. “We are beyond anything you have ever known. Begone!”

  Carlisle, March 1826

  By the time Jenny got out to the street, Usher was gone. An outdoor vendor was setting up shop nearby, and she turned to him for help. “Did you see a man here just a moment ago?” she asked. “He was tall and well dressed, with white hair.”

  “Aye,” the man replied, pointing away from the city center, down the street. “’E hired a carriage. Right there. That’s ’im—not too far gone.”

  She saw the one carriage, heading north. “That’s the direction of the Lanes, is it not?”

  “Aye, but not only the Lanes, miss. The cathedral is up tha’ way, and the castle, too.”

  “Thank you.” The headmaster was not going to the cathedral, nor was he on his way to see the sights at the castle. His sole reason for coming to Carlisle was to find her. After she remembered the night of Norah’s death, it was perfectly clear that he’d kept her at Bresland intentionally. There might have been some earlier responses to the advertisements she’d made, but Usher must have confiscated them before she’d seen them. And he’d made certain that Mr. Ellis would break off their courtship, telling the young doctor tales about her intractable personality.

  She shuddered at the thought of the headmaster coming into her room during the night and stealing her mother’s pendant, for that was the only way he could have gotten it. No doubt he’d intended to hold that over her to keep her from leaving.

  As angry as she’d ever been in her life, Jenny saw no other coaches in the vicinity but did not allow that to deter her. She set off on foot, keeping Usher’s carriage in her sights as she hurried to catch up. Fortunately, the coach did not move very fast as it traveled in the direction of the tavern where she and Matthew had encountered Lambton the previous night.

  How futile that excursion had been. For all this time, she’d thought Harriet had stolen her locket, but it had been in the headmaster’s possession. Jenny hadn’t needed to run from Bresland to pursue Harriet after all. She could have confronted Usher that last morning in his office, and demanded that he return her locket to her.

  Which was what she intended to do now, although that was the least of her concerns. She was mindful that Usher was a vicious murderer. Jenny didn’t know how he’d killed Norah, and she didn’t want to know. But she intended to see that he paid for it. The magistrate in Kirtwarren would have to believe her.

  Usher’s carriage stopped and let him out. He did not look back in her direction, but stepped out and turned into the nearby lane as though he had not a worry or a care in the world. Jenny was repulsed by the sight of him.

  She picked up her pace to a near run. There were many places to hide in the Lanes, but not many decent houses, and she wondered what kind of business would bring Usher to this district. But no matter where he went, she was determined to find him.

  She reached the headmaster’s carriage and stopped to look in the direction he had gone on foot. He was within shouting distance, walking past the old church where Matthew had told her to go if they became separated. Jenny hurried to catch up. She was closing on him when he turned into an alleyway, exactly like the one where she and Matthew had hidden the night before.

  Before going into the alleyway after him, she looked around her and saw no one. The only traffic in the narrow street were the few horse-drawn rag and rubbish carts. Yet Jenny felt as though she were being watched by a hundred pairs of eyes, peeking furtively out of the grimy, cracked windows. Perhaps this was not such a good idea, to confront the headmaster here, away from any decent society. There was no one here to protect her…no one even to care if something untoward happened to her. Thinking better of it, she took a few steps back, then turned to leave.

  But Reverend Usher blocked her path. She realized he’d doubled back intentionally to trap her.

  “You’ll not be leaving the Lanes, you wicked girl,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.

  “How dare you call me wicked. If there is any evil at Bresland School it is—”

  “Defiant, obstinate, insolent female!” He took a step toward her, and though Jenny stepped back, she could not resist responding to the horrible man.

  “I pity the poor girls who must stay at Bresland,” she said in a challenging tone. “Although I doubt you will be headmaster much longer.”

  He continued to move toward Jenny, but she felt just as insolent as he’d called her. She was finished with cowering in fear of what might happen, and determined to do what was right.

  “You are a murderer, Clement Usher.”

  He slipped his hands into his pockets, pushing the edges of his coat away. Jenny could see her mother’s locket, dangling as though it were a common watch fob.

  “And a thief, too.”

  He detached the locket and chain from his waistcoat and held it swinging from his fingers in front of her. “I thought perhaps I might use your precious trinket to hold you at Bresland. But your coming to Carlisle has worked much to my advantage.”

  Jenny continued to retreat.

  “Mr. Ellis had grown quite fond of you. Even though I convinced him that he would not want you for his wife, he would have asked questions had you disappeared.”

  “Mr. Ellis?” Jenny asked weakly.

  “Aye. Poor sot was so taken by your pretty little heart-shaped face…”

  Jenny cringed at the headmaster’s mocking tone and the malevolent expression in his eyes.

  “Ellis did not want to hear about your faults. But I could not allow you to marry him. As I understand it, husbands and wives talk…”

  “M-my faults?” Jenny asked, stunned by Usher’s admission. She never expected him to confess that he’d ruined her chances for marriage with Mr. Ellis.

  “I cannot let you tell anyone about Norah Martin’s mishap—”

  All at once, a man came out of a nearby doorway. Moving fast, he ran into Reverend Usher and shoved him hard, grabbing her locket from his hand. Usher fell to the ground.

  Jenny took the opportunity to get away from Usher, who clearly intended to do her some damage and leave her in a rat-infested alleyway where no one would bother to wonder about her. Following in the thief’s tracks, she ran toward the church, hoping there would be someplace to hide from the headmaster if he managed to come after her.

  She arrived at the site of the two statues in front of the church, and saw a small black creature perched atop the shoulder of one of the tall stone statesmen. Jenny had never seen such an animal, but she became distracted by a horse-drawn rubbish cart, coming down the lane much too fast, caree
ning out of control. Taking advantage of Jenny’s distraction, the strange black creature jumped into her path, tripping her so that she went sprawling into the street.

  It was a little, scaly beast with huge, pointed ears and bulging eyes, and it pulled Jenny’s hair with glee, refusing to let her get up.

  “Jenny!” came a shout from afar. She looked up to see Matthew, and guessed that the hotel clerk had told him in what direction she’d gone.

  He was mounted on Moghire, coming up in the road behind the speeding horse cart. The driver shouted at the horses and tried to slow them, but they galloped on wildly. He jumped free of the runaway cart just as it tilted and overturned, smashing into the run-down dwellings that lined the lane. Jenny watched in horror as the horses raced toward her. All at once, Moghire made a spectacular leap over the detritus in the road, but it was too late.

  She shut her eyes tightly, and prayed.

  Matthew jumped from Moghire’s back and ran to the site where the horses had run Jenny down. He fell to his knees beside her and leaned close, afraid to touch her broken body. “Moileen!”

  Her injuries were grave. She was gashed and bleeding from her head, chest, and arms, and she was barely breathing. Yet in spite of her dire condition, she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

  “Matthew,” she whispered, her voice hardly an audible rasp. “A thief…my locket.”

  “I doona care about it, moileen. Just…”

  She was going to die. And some fool rum dubber was getting away with the brìgha-stone.

  Merrick had no choice but to chase the man down and get the locket from him. Gently, he brushed away a tiny trickle of blood from Jenny’s nose. She had difficulty swallowing, but she managed to whisper a few short words. “I love you, Matthew…”

  “Ach, lass…” Merrick rubbed tears from his cheeks and knew he could not let her die. He could try healing her, but he did not know if he had sufficient skill for it. He was no master healer like Rónán. There was only one other solution, but it would surely draw the Odhar to him. He could displace and prevent the accident from occurring. Displacement required a significant use of power, and there would be residual sparks trailing from here to the heavens. If Eilinora’s minions were anywhere near, they would not miss it. But Merrick would do no less for this woman. He did not care if Eilinora herself arrived here and destroyed him on the spot.