He explained how, in 1310, six hundred of their brothers had agreed to mount a defense against the unjust persecution, and Pope Clement had finally agreed to postpone the Council of Vienne for a year while they prepared. Then, Philippe the Fair, desperate to crush the Order and line his coffers before it was too late, circumvented the Pope, reopened his episcopal inquiry, and had fifty-four Templars burned at the stake outside Paris, silencing the remaining Templars’ protests. In 1312, the papal bull Vox in excelso was issued, forever suppressing the Order.
There were many questions she wanted to ask him, and this was a rare opportunity to explore history from a Templar’s perspective, but her first question was patently twenty-first century, brushed by a bit of romanticism.
“What is the secret of the Templars, Armand?” So many rumors abounded: that they had protected the Holy Grail, that the Grail was really the genetic bloodline of Christ, that the Templars had uncovered a personal alchemy for the transformation of the soul, that such alchemy could manipulate time and space. She didn’t really expect him to answer, but since she had her arm through the arm of a Templar, there was no harm in asking.
Armand’s smile made her shiver. “Do you mean what could we possibly possess that would make a king and a Pope fear us so greatly they would use every weapon they had to destroy us? Are you a religious woman, Lisa MacRobertson?”
“A bit,” she conceded.
“What might the Pope and king want from us?”
“Gold?” she guessed. “Religious artifacts?”
His laughter sent a chill up her spine. “Consider this: What if the Templars had discovered something that would tear asunder beliefs that had been held for centuries by nearly every land in the world?”
Now he really had her curiosity going. “You must tell me,” she breathed.
“I didn’t say that we had,” he prevaricated. “I merely postulated the possibility.”
“So, is it true then?” she asked, fascinated. “Does your Order possess such knowledge?”
He didn’t answer. His face was averted, so she didn’t see it contort with rage, hence she was completely unprepared when he grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back, arcing it up between her shoulder blades, forcing her to double over in an effort to escape the pain.
He shoved her against the wall and pressed a knife to her side.
Lisa was so stunned that she made no sound. One moment she was strolling with a perfectly sociable Templar, indulging her incessant curiosity, teetering on the brink of stunning revelations, and the next her life was being threatened. It had happened too swiftly for her to grasp, and, in shock, she had wasted precious seconds during which she might have fought back.
“Give me the key,” Armand growled into her ear. “And if you so much as whimper, I will kill you.”
“The key to what?”
“Circenn’s chambers.”
“I don’t have one!”
“You lying little—” Hooking a thick forearm around her throat, he patted her body, searching for a key ring. “Then it is in your room,” he accused.
“He has never given me one!”
Armand tightened his arm around her throat, cutting into her windpipe. His arm was an unrelenting band of steel, and Lisa felt her air supply being cut off. Her cheek smashed against the stone wall, and she grew dangerously light-headed.
“We can play as rough as you like, lass,” Armand murmured into her hair. “Where is the key?”
Lisa closed her eyes and reached for Circenn.
* * *
Circenn crushed his metal goblet in his hand, spraying half a dozen villagers with wine. He glanced about, his eyes wild.
Lisa.
Danger. Frightened. Can’t breathe.
But where?
He raced up the stairs to the garderobe, feeling for her with his heart, reassuring her he was coming.
Pain.
He cursed the emotional bond by which he could share her feelings but not obtain words or a hint of her location. Where would she have gone? How could she be in danger? Who could possibly wish her ill?
He ranged the corridors like a maddened beast, fighting an urge to bellow for her, aware that that would only alert whoever was threatening her. He paced up the south corridor, then back. Every ounce of his intellect was absorbing her fear, sponging it up, and it was rendering him senseless. He plunged down a hall, then stopped abruptly.
Brash fury would not serve. He must be logical. He should check his room and hers, then other areas she had been inclined to attend. Perhaps the chapel. He pivoted sharply and raced back down the hall. He flew through the castle and into the east wing.
As he neared his chambers he slowed, alerted by a soft murmur and a strangled sound. Drawing to a halt, he slipped stealthily around the corner.
Armand had Lisa pressed up against the wall outside his chambers, his thick forearm choking her to unconsciousness. Circenn labored to draw slow, silent breaths when his lips begged to roar. She was going limp in the Templar’s arms, giving up the fight as she lost her precious breath.
A flicker of silver flashed in the dim glow from the rushlights mounted on the walls. The Templar had a blade. Circenn didn’t wait to see more. He drew on his unnatural abilities and moved like the wind, stopping behind the Templar, who had no warning that Circenn stood a breath behind his heart.
“The key, you stupid bitch,” Armand muttered. “Don’t pass out on me.” He shook her. “Where does he keep the hallows?”
Circenn’s mouth twisted. So that was what this was about. A rogue Templar, turned on his Order. Armand wasn’t the only knight who’d lost his faith. Circenn had heard of others who, believing that God had abandoned them, had turned mercenary and faithless.
In an instant of blurred space, Circenn disarmed the knight and flung him across the corridor, where he struck the stone wall with a sharp crack of his head. He slumped to the floor. Circenn spared no regret that the attack had been unfair. When in the past he’d suffered guilt over using his enhanced abilities, he now felt grim satisfaction. He towered over the fallen knight and raised his sword for the fatal blow.
“Stop!” Lisa cried.
Circenn’s jaw locked, his face contorted with fury. His arm suspended at eye level, the point angled down, ready for one swift thrust into Armand’s heart. When he plunged down, it would be with such anger that the force would likely shatter his blade against the stone beneath the knight’s back. He spared her a glance, and from her horrified expression he realized that she was feeling his internal landscape: barren, bleak, and murderous. Hot. Hellishly hot. He would never understand—not even should he live to be five thousand—why women consistently protected villains. It was simple in a man’s mind: Kill the man who tries to harm your own. But women made it much more complex. They held out hope that evil could be redeemed. A foolish hope, to his way of thinking.
“Don’t kill him, Circenn. He didn’t harm me.” She touched her throat with gentle fingertips. “I will be fine. A few bruises, nothing more. You found us in time.”
“He touched you,” Circenn snarled. “He planned to harm you.”
“But he didn’t succeed.” She appealed to his logic: “Question him, determine what he is after, then banish him, but please …”
She trailed off and he stared helplessly at her. Damn her, he thought. She was deliberately flooding him with mercy, forgiveness, and the cool wind of logic. All those feminine things, they tumbled like snowflakes upon his masculine heat.
Dousing it.
Loath though he was to admit it, she was right. By killing Armand swiftly, he would never know his motives. He needed to uncover the Templar’s purpose, determine with whom he was in collusion and if there were other corrupt knights in his employ. He needed information first. Then he would kill him. He lowered the sword with a low growl of unsatisfied rage.
* * *
Lisa crept down the stairs. She’d tried to wait in bed for Circenn to come up, but had been
unable to stand it any longer. It had been hours since Armand’s attack, and although Circenn had promised not to kill the Templar, vowing angrily that he would turn him over to his own brothers, Lisa still felt his murderous fury. Their bond was frazzling her nerves. She had no idea why the knight had turned on her. Perhaps she shouldn’t have questioned him. Perhaps it was simply too upsetting for him to speak of the atrocities he’d endured.
The feast was still under way in the Greathall, the villagers oblivious to the bitter events of the evening. Circenn would keep the problem quiet, resolve it, and no one would suffer for it. She admired his methods. He was a laird who would not trouble his clan with dissension that he could resolve alone.
Moving stealthily, she slipped down the corridor to the study. The door was ajar and she peered in cautiously. He was there, as she’d suspected, with Duncan and Galan.
A dozen grim-faced Templars filed before him, and from the light misting of rain on their robes, she deduced that she’d missed their entrance by mere minutes.
“It is done, milord. We have finished our interrogation,” Renaud de Vichiers said wearily.
“And?” Circenn growled.
“It was worse than we feared. He was doubly a traitor, both to his own brothers and to Scotland. His plan was to abduct your lady and sell her to the English king for his weight in gold, plus titles and lands in England.” Renaud shook his head. “I do not know what to say. It grieves me. Armand was a Commander of Knights in our Order, and highly regarded. We had no idea. I swear to you upon our Order that he acted entirely alone.” Renaud directed his gaze to the floor. “We await your decision regarding the rest of us. We understand if you decide you must send us away from here.”
Circenn shook his head. “I will not hold the rest of you responsible for his actions. You have been loyal to me for years.”
The Templars rustled with murmurs of gratitude and repeated vows of loyalty. “You have been good to us, milord,” Renaud said. He took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, it was with such fervency that his words sounded stilted. “We do not wish to jeopardize your goodwill in any way. We look forward to a future in Scotland. What can we do to restore your faith in us?”
“It was never lost,” Circenn said, rubbing his jaw. “If Armand hadn’t been acting alone, you likely would have succeeded in taking her. I do not underestimate the powers of your Order, Renaud. I know what you can do when you pit multiple Templar wills against a problem. An attack from multiple brethren would have peacefully lured her where you wished her to go. You do not use violence. You use … powerful persuasion.”
Renaud looked abashed. “I hadn’t considered that, but it’s true. We could have taken her as a group. I forget you know so much about us.” He bowed, a posture of abject apology. “Milord, we would never harm your lady. We shall protect her as our own.”
Circenn inclined his head. “What of Armand?”
“As a show of our allegiance, we resolved that matter. He will trouble you no more.”
Lisa leaned a bit closer to the door. What had they done to him? Banished him? Would they drive him across the border for the English to catch?
“Explain,” Circenn ordered.
“We determined his crime and dispensed fitting punishment.”
“He is dead?” Circenn asked wearily.
“He died by receiving the price he himself had named for his corruption. We gave him his weight in gold.”
Lisa made a strangled sound that was fortunately masked by Circenn’s own. Her eyes flew to his, but he hadn’t yet noticed her. He looked shocked.
“Do not fear we acted wastefully,” Renaud hastened to assure him. “We know we will require the gold to rebuild both our Order and Scotland once the warring is over. We will reclaim it when we quarter Armand.”
Lisa retched instinctively, unable to contain it. A dozen eyes flew to the door, where she stood clutching her stomach.
“Lisa,” Circenn exclaimed, half rising. His eyes were wide and apologetic. “I asked you to wait in your room.”
“You know I never do,” she said irritably. “Why would you expect me to this time?” She looked directly into Renaud’s eyes. “What do you mean you gave him his weight in gold and will retrieve it?” She knew she shouldn’t ask, but her suspicions were so awful that she couldn’t help herself. If they didn’t tell her, she would just imagine atrocities. She’d long ago found it was easier to deal with reality than imagined fears.
Renaud did not respond, clearly reluctant to discuss the matter with a woman.
“Tell me,” she repeated, through clenched teeth. She glanced at Circenn, who was watching her with sorrow and understanding. She appreciated that he did not try to shield her; he understood that she needed her own answers in things.
Renaud cleared his throat uneasily. “Molten. Poured down his throat. It will cool and be removed without difficulty.”
“Lisa!” Circenn rose from the desk, but it was too late.
She was already running down the hall.
IT WAS SEVERAL DAYS BEFORE LISA RETURNED TO HER normal self. Circenn spent the time busying himself on the estate, waiting patiently as she worked through her feelings. He was never alone, always accompanied by the pressure of her heart. One day, he’d almost sworn that he’d heard her voice right next to his ear, muttering pig-headed, bloodthirsty primates, but the phrase had not made any sense to him. Whatever it meant, she must have been feeling it very strongly for him to pick it up. He wondered if their bond would continue to grow stronger over time, affording them deeper communication.
He respected her mild retreat, accepting that it was a necessary part of her adjustment to their way of life. His time must seem strange to her, and the ways of the Templars would likely seem extreme in any century. He was deeply grieved that she had found out about Armand, but if he had learned nothing else about Lisa Stone, he had learned how great her curiosity was. She wished to be shielded from nothing; she wished to be accorded respect and given all the knowledge available so she could make her own choices from a well-informed position.
He would not have wished Armand’s gruesome death upon any man, yet the Templars had their own justice and dispensed it with the same unyielding discipline with which they performed all their duties. In his heart he acknowledged that he was not sorry the man was dead. Armand had nearly killed his woman, nearly snuffed her fragile, tiny, delicate life.
And that terrified him.
Armand’s brutality had elevated Lisa’s mortality to an obsession with him. He loathed it, resented it—her mortality had become his archenemy.
Was he becoming like Adam? Was it in this fashion that such a monster had been fabricated? Did one broken rule permit the next and the next, until finally he would be able to justify taking anything he wanted? Where was the line that he must not traverse before it was too late?
You could make her immortal. You know you want to. You wouldn’t even have to tell her.
Aye, he wanted to. And it confounded him. He’d been married twice and never once considered trying to make his wife immortal.
But no other woman was Lisa.
Besides, up until now, he’d viewed what Adam had done to him as a curse, a vile corruption of the natural order of things. But now that he’d found Lisa, things were no longer so clear. Since she’d arrived in his life, he’d been reevaluating his beliefs, his objections, and his prejudices. He longed to storm into his castle, unearth the flask from its compartment in the stone, and force it between her lips, but he could never justify taking her choice away from her. Somehow, he had to bring himself to tell her.
Argh! he thought, closing his eyes. How?
Though he grudgingly accepted his immortality, after five hundred years there was much about himself he still despised. By Dagda, he’d been born in the ninth century! There was a part of him that was hopelessly old-fashioned. Although time’s passage had carried him out of the ninth century, nothing could remove the ninth-century sensibilities from hi
s heart. Part of him was a simple warrior and superstitious man who believed that magic sprang from evil; hence, he was an abomination teetering on the brink of corruption.
He suspected that holding on to his birth-century’s mores made him a bit of a barbarian, but that was preferable to what he might have become.
Still, he had to reach a decision, and soon. He needed to tell Lisa what he was and offer her the same, before her mortality completely undid him.
Helplessly, he’d begun to obsess about her environment. She suddenly seemed incredibly vulnerable. He’d begun to blow out rushlights compulsively, afraid they might spark and catch the tapestries and she would die in something as senseless as a castle fire. He’d begun to study every man he encountered, seeking hints of any possible threat to her existence. Armand’s attempt to abduct her had escalated his fears. She was delicate, and one slip of a knife could steal her from him forever. Once, he’d thought forever was bitter indeed, but now, having loved her, if he lost her, forever would be a cold, bleak hell.
Perhaps, via their special bond, she would understand and accept. Perhaps the thought of living forever would appeal to her. He would never know until he tried. The worst that could happen was that she would be horrified, reject him, and try to escape. If that occurred, he worried, he might truly revert to his ninth-century self, and lock her up until she agreed to drink from the flask. Or worse—do to her what Adam had done to him.
* * *
Lisa was curled in a chair before the fire when he entered the study. She smiled warmly at him. They shared a wordless greeting with their eyes, then she patted the chair beside her. He moved to her side and rested a portion of his weight on the arm of the chair, and bent to kiss her thoroughly. God, he couldn’t bear the thought of ever losing her.
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