by Grace Draven
“You are.” At Ballard’s questioning look, Gavin shrugged. “Ketach Tor is too specific. Sauveterre could be any place, and it’s common enough among the southern provinces as is the name Lovet.”
Ballard chuckled. “I doubt there’s anything common about a ‘safe land.’ In fact, you’d be lucky to find such a place in the world.” He tipped his chin toward the kitchen. “I thought the fruit of this trip was to be more books for Ambrose or another cask of wine. That isn’t a book or a cask.”
Gavin looked sheepish. “I heard rumors that the Monteblanco markets carried rare grimoires. I stopped to have a look, maybe bring something back for Ambrose. I saw Cinnia at the market one morning. She’s a bookbinder.” He cleared his throat, obviously abashed at how quickly he’d fallen to her charms.
“I’ve never beheld a more beautiful girl,” Ambrose said in a reverent voice.
Gavin’s moonstruck expression mirrored Ambrose’s sentiment. “She is. And kind as she is beautiful. I’ve been in Monteblanco for three months now, courting her and working as a swordsmith at the town’s principal smithy.”
“Courtship?” Ballard slid a glance to Ambrose who met it with a sly one of his own. Gavin had known many women during his travels and kept several as mistresses, but he’d never pursued a formal courtship nor lingered in one place for too long. And he had never before brought one of those women to Ketach Tor. This was serious. If the sorcerer’s suppositions regarding the curse and how to break it were correct, then a union based on love between Gavin and his chosen bride might save both father and son. Ballard refused to ignite that small fire of hope and concentrated on the fact that Gavin brought the girl home instead of marrying her in her village. “Why did you bring her into these isolated wilds? I find it hard to believe Ketach Tor is a more hospitable place than her own town, especially in winter.”
Gavin ran a hand over his eyes, and for the first time since his arrival, Ballard noted the exhaustion in his face, the unkempt state of his clothing. He’d traveled hard and fast to get here. “Her family’s in trouble. A wealthy townsman holds her father’s markers, and he can no longer pay. The man demands Cinnia to forgive the debt, or her father will face imprisonment.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Why did you bring her to Ketach Tor?”
“Protection. Time.” Gavin began to pace. “I need the time to court her and keep her safe while I do it. I can’t if Jimenin...”
Ambrose interrupted him. “Who?”
“Don Gabrilla Jimenin. The man who holds Hallis’s markers. I can’t court her with him stalking her and threatening her father every minute.”
Ballard still didn’t understand the problem. “Then just kill him and pay the blot wite.”
Gavin laughed. “If he challenged me I would, but that isn’t how it works. Don Jimenin is a powerful citizen of the town. Influential and rich. He has a private militia of mercenaries and henchmen. The only reason he hasn’t outright abducted Cinnia is he wants to maintain a good name. Besides, blood fines are obsolete. No court in the land will accept one. I’d swing from the gallows instead.”
Ballard snorted. Things had changed a great deal in a few centuries. A man’s reputation had once rested on his prowess in battle and his loyalty to his king, not the manner in which he got his bride to the altar.
Ambrose worried the embroidery edging one of his sleeves. “You could have stayed in Monteblanco to protect her, but you’ve been called back by the flux.”
“Aye. I started feeling the effects last week.” Gavin looked to Ballard. “I couldn’t leave her, Father. Her widowed sister is a capable guardian and a force to be reckoned with but still no match for Jimenin.”
The girl had a sister. Ballard wondered idly if the siblings resembled each other. He pitied their father if such were true. One child with the face of a goddess would be hard enough to defend; two, a nightmare of constant vigilance. “If you’re called back and the flux runs high, then either Ambrose’s conjectures are wrong...”
Ambrose gave an indignant huff. “They’re not wrong.”
“Or Mistress Hallis doesn’t love you. It’s obvious she came of her own accord, but did she do so because she returns your affections or because her father needs money to avoid a prison cell, and she wants to avoid an unwanted bridegroom?”
Gavin shrugged. “All three. They aren’t ignoble reasons, and it was I who offered to pay her father’s debts. She didn’t ask. Even her sister rebuffed me when I made the offer.”
“Can you blame them? Beholden to one man or another, they’re trapped by their sire’s debt, and the girl is reduced to nothing more than a halsefang to keep him out of prison.”
“I don’t see her as payment,” Gavin snapped. “I want her to wife because I love her. I just need time to court her. Even if she rejects me in the end, I’ve promised her family will hold no debt to us.” His tone turned beseeching. “Cinnia cares for me. Away from Jimenin and without worries that her father will be jailed, I believe she’ll come to love me and agree to be my wife.”
Ambrose stroked his beard. “It might work, dominus. Winter’s set in. No decent roads for traveling, even in this age. She has only a father and sister, so I doubt we’ll have an angry pack of relatives descending on us to defend her honor.
Gavin chortled. “I wouldn’t say that. You haven’t met the sister. Louvaen Duenda is her own militia. Expect her at the gates in a few days to rescue Cinnia from our clutches.”
One of Ballard’s eyebrows rose. It didn’t speak well for Cinnia’s father that one of his daughters would play the savior to the other one instead of him. “When the flux peaks, you’ll have to give your beloved some reason for the noises below the hall and why you’ve taken to your bed. Are you willing to lie?”
“For now yes.”
Ballard clapped a hand on his son’s broad shoulder. “Take what you need from the treasury. Once the flux is in ebb tide, you can return to Monteblanco. If you love this Cinnia as much as you say, be ready to crawl and beg Hallis’s forgiveness for taking his daughter. A chest of gold might sweeten his mood but don’t assume so. Were I her sire, I’d break both your legs.”
“Were Mercer Hallis like you, Cinnia would never be caught in this trap.” Gavin embraced him, pounding his back hard enough to make Ballard’s teeth rattle. “Thank you, Father.” He bowed. “I take my leave of you.” He grinned and took off for the kitchen.
Ballard and Ambrose watched him leave. The sorcerer addressed Ballard without turning. “Did you notice his eyes? They weren’t like that at the last flux.”
Ballard’s gut clenched. He’d hoped it had been a trick of the firelight or his own imagination suddenly turned fanciful, but Ambrose had noted it as well. Gavin’s green eyes glinted yellow in just the right light.
Ballard sighed. “I’m like a bucket filled to the brim. The curse is bleeding over. Once it consumes me, it will take him. If that happens, Ambrose...”
“It won’t,” Ambrose swore in a low voice. “This girl may be the key. He just has to make her fall in love with him.”
“Then pray to your gods Gavin is more charming than I am and wins her soon.” He displayed one of his hands with its black claws and large knuckles. Spirals of dark blood coursed just below the corpse-white skin as if writing spells in his veins. “We’re running out of time.”
CHAPTER THREE
Louvaen pinched the corner of Cinnia’s letter between two frozen fingers as if it were a wild thing with snapping jaws and a nasty bite. The words scrawled on the parchment were unreadable symbols in the growing twilight. She knew each one by heart, had memorized every sentence during her miserable trip to this equally miserable fortress. The letter fluttered in the gusts of snow-laden wind and glowed with the magic mixed into the ink.
She despised magic. The purview of every charlatan, snake oil brewer, and bride-stealing nobleman, it did nothing but cause trouble and create misery. Her own mother had wielded her gift with some skill, or so her father like
d to brag. Gullveig Hallis would have been right at home in this gods-forsaken landscape where the air shimmered blue and hung thick with the stench of sorcery. Louvaen wanted no part of it. She opened her hand and watched the wind snatch the letter away, sending it fluttering and spinning like a frantic bird caught in a whirlwind. Curtains of falling snow soon obscured it as it floated across the gorge separating her from the ominous hulk perched on a spike of jagged rock.
Massive, dark with age and the soot of old fires, the fortress gripped the mount with buttressed claws built of stone. Pieces of the curtain wall were gouged from the west corner, leaving the shell of a tower teetering dangerously high above her. Louvaen fancied she heard it creak and rumble in the hard wind howling up from the abyss. A drawbridge stood flush against the citadel’s entry gate, anchored by chains strong as those that anchored ships. This was no gentleman’s estate, with manicured grounds and forests tamed to formal landscapes crisscrossed by level gravel roads. Whatever the de Sauveterres’ wealth—or lack thereof—might be, the family had chosen not to spend coin on a residence to impress the neighbors. This one fended off foes and friends alike with its lattice-barred gate, murder holes and arrow slits. Louvaen shuddered as much from dread as from the bitter cold cutting through her layers of wool. “Gods’ knickers, Cinnia,” she muttered into her muffler. “What have you gotten yourself into?”
The sky’s bleak gray had deepened while she stood on one side of the ravine trying to figure out how to attract the attention of someone in the castle so they’d lower the bridge. “Hello the house!” The wind shredded her hail to silence. She cursed and tried again. “Cinnia! De Lovet!” Glimmers of light appeared then disappeared in the blacker spaces of windows. As inconstant as will-o’-the-wisps, the lights danced from one window to another, from one level to another, never stopping in one spot for longer than an indrawn breath. A more superstitious person might fear they watched the active haunting of this dark place, but Louvaen didn’t put believe in ghosts and haints. She did believe in people carrying candles up and down stairs.
She growled her frustration. “I don’t have time for this nonsense.” A week of hard travel, the terror of finding Cinnia injured or dead, and the strange whip and pull of a magic spell that instantly transported her and her horse hundreds of miles to halt in this barren spot stunned and disoriented, had left her short on patience and long on temper. Hugging the edge of the world in a snowstorm while shouting herself hoarse didn’t improve her mood.
She dismounted and led the horse away from the drop-off to the stand of trees marking the forest behind her. A rush of hot air warmed her neck as her mount whuffled at their roaming about in the dark and the cold instead of sheltering in a comfortable stable. Louvaen stroked his nose and tied his reins to the low branch of a leafless birch. “You’re a patient lad, Plowfoot. We’ll be out of the wind soon enough.” She lifted the flap of a saddle pack and reached inside. The flintlock she’d leveled on Jimenin a week earlier rested heavy in her palm. Far better if she’d brought both pistols, especially traveling alone, but Louvaen refused to leave her father unarmed while Jimenin plotted against him. At least she had two spare rounds of shot in the pouch. She’d waste the one in the pistol getting the castle’s attention, use the second to blow a hole through Gavin de Lovet if he’d hurt Cinnia and keep the third for the journey home.
Snow fell harder, shrouding the hood of her cloak and covering her tracks as fast as she made them on her return trip to the lip of the crevasse. The empty expanse between her and the fortress, along with the pistol’s short range, ensured her shot would fall harmlessly into the blackness below, but the noise she’d make would damn well signal her arrival. She full-cocked the pistol, aimed at the base of the stronghold and pulled the trigger. A corona of bright powder flash blinded her as the pistol fired a boom that thundered across the ravine. Temporarily blinded by the flash and deafened by the discharge, Louvaen closed her eyes and retreated from her precarious spot. Behind her Plowfoot whinnied in panic, yanking on the reins that tethered him to the quivering birch. He settled under her touch and the soothing cadence of her voice. “Easy, my lad. Nothing to be done for it.” She slipped the pistol back into the pouch, promising herself she’d remember to reload.
Ears still ringing, she watched as every window on the fortress’s first floor lit with golden light. A silhouette, only slightly darker than the descending night and obscured by falling snow, appeared on the battlements near the gate. Louvaen marched back to the place where she’d fired her shot and waved. “Lower the bridge, you lackwit!” Whoever lurked up there might not have heard her inside, but Mercer Hallis had often said his eldest child possessed a powerful set of lungs when she was angered, and Louvaen suspected the solitary watcher had heard her just fine, even above the singing wind.
The groan and squeal of a turning windlass sounded, along with the rattle of chains as the drawbridge slowly parted from the gate and stretched across the breach. She untied Plowfoot’s reins from the tree but didn’t remount. Reason told her if the inhabitants in the fortress had wanted to kill her, they would have already put a half dozen arrows in her. Still, she felt better walking next to the big draft horse, partially shielded by his bulk, instead of high and exposed in the saddle.
Geysers of snow erupted as the bridge landed on her side of the crevasse with a dull thud. Louvaen hesitated at the edge and peered downward. The wind blew harder, a restless spirit whirling and whipping in blasts strong enough to push her straight off the expanse of wood and down into the gorge. She didn’t fear heights; she did fear falling to her death, and it was a long way to the bottom. Her heart pummeled her breastbone. She’d grown used to that particular rhythm since this trip started. Fear for Cinnia and now for herself. She’d be gray-haired before this was over.
The dark figure watching from the battlements never moved except for the flap of a cloak. Louvaen frowned. She’d get no help from that quarter. She positioned herself leeside to the horse. It would take far more than a few angry gusts to push Plowfoot off anything. Just to be safe, she looped an arm through the stirrup and held the reins loosely in one hand. They started a slow walk across the bridge, Louvaen counting each clop of Plowfoot’s hooves to distract herself from the temptation to gaze over the edge and into the trench. Wood planks thrummed beneath her feet, supplicant to the wind’s keening dirge.
They made it across in minutes that felt like decades. Louvaen’s hands were frozen in her gloves, her lips cracked and stinging. An iron portcullis rose to allow her entry, winched upward by an unseen hand. The tone of Plowfoot’s clops changed, signaling the transition from wood planks to stone pavers. They passed through a narrow barbican pockmarked with murder holes. She’d read of these things. Defensive measures used during attack and siege. Louvaen hunched her shoulders. The likelihood someone lurked above her with a pot of boiling pitch or hot sand was slim, but the idea still made her twitch and tug a little harder on the horse’s reins to hurry him out of the funneled passage.
Woman and horse halted in a deserted bailey. Sheltered by the castle’s towering bulk and the high curtain wall, the ward lay protected from the scream and bite of the wind. Snow fell in lazy veils to shroud the buildings hugging the perimeter. She made out a stable, forge, and the spavined remains of an abandoned bakery. More of the golden light seeped from shuttered windows, revealing the startling sight of rose vines in full bloom clinging to a garden wall and climbing the height of the tower keep.
She’d never seen the like, especially in the heart of winter. In the fey light of dusk, blossoms spilled down the keep wall in a crimson river to stain drifts of pristine snow. Louvaen had the unpleasant notion she gazed upon a wound in the castle’s stone façade from which poured living blood. She paused and stared harder at the flowers. Either she was more tired than she thought and her eyes were playing tricks or the vines moved. Twisting and eeling over themselves in an ever-shifting thorny carpet, they squirmed over the ground. Louvaen backed up against Plowf
oot as the flowers stretched their petal faces towards her and hissed.
Plowfoot’s ears flattened against his head at the sound. He shied away from the roses, Louvaen stuck to his side.
More sorcery. Ketach Tor drowned in the stuff. What crazed person enchanted roses to slither and hiss? She kept a wary eye on the plants and put more distance between them. At that moment she’d hand over her last coin if it bought her a rake and a torch.
She nearly leapt out of her shoes when the castle doors opened on a rusted shriek. Light poured from the entrance and across the steps. A familiar shape, cloaked and hooded, raced toward her. A lifetime of habit ruled Louvaen, and she held up a staying hand. “Cinnia! Stop running before you fall and break your neck!”
Her command went unheeded. Cinnia launched herself into her sister’s arms with a sob, knocking them both against an affronted Plowfoot. “Lou! Oh, thank gods, you made it safely!”
Despite the fact she wanted to wring Cinnia’s neck for scaring the life out of her and their father, she hugged her back hard enough to make her squeak. A gloved finger caressed the line of Cinnia’s nose. “Are you well?”
The girl grinned, her eyes bright in the shadow of her hood. “Yes, very well!” She kissed Louvaen’s hand. “But you’re an icicle! Let’s get you inside and by the fire. Someone will see to Plowfoot.” She peered past Louvaen’s shoulder, and dread replaced her smile. “Where’s Papa?”
Louvaen gave her arm a reassuring pat. “Not in a cell. He came down with a cold. I left him in Dame Niamh’s care.”
“She’s always liked Papa. She’ll treat him well.”
“Oh, I’m sure she will.” Their attractive widowed neighbor had been casting lascivious smiles at Mercer Hallis for years, ever since Cinnia’s mother died. Louvaen didn’t doubt the woman would coddle her father and try to seduce him into her bed. She kept that bit of conjecture to herself.
She let Cinnia lead her by the hand up the castle steps. Behind her, a cloaked figure led Plowfoot toward the stable. The mysterious watcher on the battlements had disappeared.
