Mystic Rider

by Patricia Rice

  The horse whinnied his approval of this plan. Eager for the reward of Chantal’s bed, Ian spurred the horse on. After the hard physical labor of removing a wheel from a heavy carriage, he’d like a bath, but he was unlikely to find one in these rural surroundings. If he weren’t in such haste to return to his party, he might take the time to find a stream or pond, but with one duty done, he was ready to complete them all. He wanted to take his prizes and go home.

  Murdoch still endangered his goals, but Ian preferred to hope Murdoch would be too caught up in his schemes to easily follow the chalice. If they could stay a few days ahead of him… Chantal and the chalice would be on a ship to Aelynn and safety.

  He rode into the town where von Fersen had said they might take luncheon.

  Still savoring his victory at finally possessing both chalice and amacara, Ian hadn’t paid close attention to the whispers on the wind until he rode into town and sought Chantal. He was immediately struck with a wave of rage and fear and grief.

  He reached for the oak staff he’d tied to his saddle and eased it from the loop. Unable to read his amacara’s mind, he reminded himself that she’d already been considerably upset, so he couldn’t know whether she’d stubbed her little toe or was in serious danger. He had to resist panic.

  Steeling his heart, he dismounted and cautiously walked the stallion toward the town square, examining the winds and trying to focus on separating thoughts from fears. He cursed his visionary skill for being so weak that he could not use it except when he was physically occupied and mentally open. His skills did not fit drawing rooms, of a certainty.

  Reaching the top of the hill leading down to the posting inn, Ian inhaled sharply. In the town square below, ill-dressed militia clashed with furious farmers and shrieking housewives. Rakes and brooms swung dangerously at swords and muskets, and a shot was fired into the air.

  Ian searched frantically for Chantal’s fair hair. He picked up Pierre’s confused thoughts as the riot swirled around him. The young priest had little experience in dealing with mobs, but he apparently knew Chantal was in the midst of this one.

  Straining to hold back his superhuman ability to run, Ian hurried down the hill, wishing for a better link with Chantal, one that reached beyond her emotions. Even their strong sexual bond would not let him invade her thoughts. But racing down the hillside faster than a galloping horse would terrorize the villagers. Better that he study the situation than act in haste.

  That rationality lasted until he recognized Chantal’s straw bonnet rolling through the dust.

  “Find the inn and your master,” he told the stallion, looping the reins over the saddle, forming the image the stallion would understand better than words. With only that admonishment, Ian broke into a run down the hill, staff firmly in hand.

  At the edge of the mob, he caught a housewife’s flailing broom and parried it with his staff into an opening between two thick farmers. Judiciously using the oak and his mental nudges, he poked his elbows into stout ribs and shoved a path through shouting, angry villagers. He couldn’t tell whether the militia held them off or urged them on or were simply shouting like all the rest.

  His innards roared in rage when he finally heard Chantal. Her voice was not the ladylike melody he knew so well, but more that of a shrieking fishwife. Goosebumps covered his flesh, and irritation shredded his eardrums. He smacked a soldier’s sword with his bare hand, sending it skittering beneath the feet of the crowd.

  He never got angry. He had no experience with explosive fury. Yet, he wanted to rip the crowd apart — and he had no idea why.

  Realizing that, he still didn’t stop and reconsider. Chantal was angry, so he must be, too.

  With the strength of ten men, Ian lifted a soldier and flung him out of his way, grabbed a burly farmer and twisted him around so he’d take his curses elsewhere. He shoved aside men and women alike until he reached the whirling eye of the storm — Chantal.

  Holding a… chicken?

  His peaceful, enchanting, melodic-voiced Chantal was screaming hysterically at a skinny boy in tattered military garments.

  The whole town screamed with her. Never again would he doubt the power of her voice.

  Ian strode into the circle, wrapped one arm around Chantal’s waist, slapped his other hand over her mouth, and hauled her off her feet.

  She kicked furiously, hitting his shins with unfailing accuracy. The chicken squawked and flapped its wings. Men cheered. Women railed. The skinny boy just looked dazed.

  Ian paid no heed to anyone except the woman in his arms. The stiffness was draining from her backbone, and she hugged the miserable chicken like a child, sniffing back tears.

  Hands full, Ian could only glare at anyone in his way and send them scurrying from his path. Once free of the crowd, he was able to see the inn and the carriage.

  “Do you wish to take the chicken to the kitchen or a henhouse?” he asked in his calmest tones, when, in fact, his head shrieked with a thousand damnable emotions — hers and his.

  Carefully, he lifted his hand from her mouth, prepared to cover it again should she emit another scalp-raising screech.

  “Kitchen,” she whispered. “Put me down, please.”

  He didn’t want to. He wanted to fling the chicken to the cook and carry Chantal straight upstairs to a chamber where he could close the door on the world. Barring that, he needed to take his staff to an empty yard and work through his serenity exercises.

  Instead, he had to figure out what had just happened here.

  He returned Chantal to her feet. Not meeting his eyes, she cradled the stunned chicken as if it were a long-lost friend.

  “Are you sure you want to take it to the kitchen?” he asked.

  “Papa loves chicken soup.” Straightening her shoulders, she marched toward the inn, back ramrod straight. Golden ringlets had escaped their pins and fallen flat in the heat and humidity. Her skirt was covered in dust and adorned with chicken droppings.

  Ian’s mouth twitched and his insides softened at the sight of her vulnerable nape and swaying hips. Whatever she’d done, she’d scared herself, and he itched to reassure her. He would make a rotten leader if he couldn’t handle one small woman.

  “I don’t think we have time for soup,” he informed her, following her to the back of the inn.

  “We will make time. Papa collapsed in the stable. He’s barely conscious. I’ll stay here with him,” she said boldly.

  That did not bode well for any of his carefully laid plans.

  Apparently having circumnavigated the crowd, Pierre hurried to catch up with them. “Chantal, I think you’re possessed,” he muttered angrily. “Or bewitched. How can anyone start a riot over a chicken?”

  Ian sensed the young priest’s confusion but didn’t trespass further into his mind.

  “I think your entire country is possessed and bedeviled,” he said to distract the priest from thinking of Chantal in such offensive terms. “Do people have nothing better to do than riot in the streets here?”

  “Not any longer,” Chantal said, shoving the chicken at a startled cook.

  Apparently deciding this was an argument he couldn’t win, Pierre dropped out of the fray to sample a sweet roll a maid offered him. Now that they were free of Paris, he’d returned to his clergyman’s attire. A priest’s collar had some benefits, like free sweet rolls.

  Lifting her bedraggled skirt, Chantal walked past staring scullery maids and into the inn’s hall. “The nobility has all run away,” she said scornfully, continuing her tirade. “What is left for people to do if they have no employment? Priests are in hiding. Artisans have left for other countries where people actually pay for their talents. Shall I continue?”

  “No. I can read a pamphlet if I want a political diatribe. I just want to know what set off this particular mob.”

  “I yelled.” She said it simply and coldly, as if it explained all.

  Ian feared it might.

  Her father was an Aelynner with a gift for o
ration. Chantal was a Crossbreed, born outside the aegis of his gods. For all he knew, her gifted voice could cause emotional discord and incite violence. It certainly seemed to have done so here.

  He followed her upstairs in hopes — and fear — of learning more.

  Seventeen

  As hard as it was to do, Chantal ignored Ian and opened the door to her father’s chamber in the inn. She was too shaken by her unusual behavior over the chicken to accept any more upsetting arguments. She needed her father’s calm understanding.

  “Chantal!” he called as they entered. “I heard the commotion. What happened?”

  That he hadn’t left his bed to find out spoke more than a volume of words. Without his wig, he was nearly bald and looked shrunken against the pillow. Escaping Ian’s presence, she hurried to her father’s bedside to stroke his brow. He felt too warm for her liking, but the room had little air, and the sun baked the roof. It could be just the heat, and perhaps his extreme anxiety, that caused his collapse, but his breathing wasn’t normal, and his color looked unhealthy.

  “I purchased a chicken for your soup, and some foolish soldier tried to take it from me. I boxed his ears,” she said with a bright smile. Actually, she’d screeched. Helpless against her fear for her father and their situation, confronted by a boy with a gun, she’d screeched like an Irish banshee — and the entire town had started yelling with her, rushing out in the street to take sides for no discernible reason. Perhaps everyone’s nerves were as on edge as hers.

  Her state of anxiety ever since Ian had ridden off had no doubt added to her hysteria. She really didn’t want to know what he’d been doing. She was coming apart at the seams just fine without also knowing he was involved in sedition.

  “You can usually sweet-talk an apple into falling into your hand,” her father chided, not understanding the extent of the damage she’d done. “You did not sleep well last night. Go rest, and I’ll be ready to ride by dinnertime.”

  She was grateful he had not seen the near riot, but her father was not a man who hid from reality. Alain turned his sharp eye to Ian. “I would speak with you, young man.”

  Chantal assumed that meant she was dismissed. She preferred not to hear Ian explain himself. If he could.

  She needed to settle her nerves. She didn’t need to know if the king and queen were escaping. That would surely be the end of the world as she knew it — and not conducive to serenity.

  The flute wasn’t sufficient. She needed her piano. Or the bell —

  Ian hadn’t brought Rapscallion with him when he’d raced in to save her from herself. Had he retrieved his chalice? Was it still tied to the saddle? Nothing else could calm her so well.

  On that hopeful thought, she ran down the stairs in search of the horse and her lovely bell.

  * * *

  “Tell me you didn’t help the royal family to escape in exchange for the chalice,” Alain Orateur demanded the moment the bedroom door closed behind Chantal.

  “I’m not in the habit of lying,” Ian said, taking a seat in a barrel-backed chair, folding his hands over his chest and stretching his legs. He might as well relax while being interrogated. He seldom found it necessary to explain his actions, but this was Chantal’s father. “I did what was necessary to save the chalice and my amacara. That I abetted a deed that was already underway, preventing possible harm to valuable lives, should meet with your approval.”

  Alain paled at the word amacara. “She would never agree to those vows,” he whispered in horror, dismissing the political argument for the personal one. “What have you done?”

  “What I told you I would do. I’m an Olympus. Did you expect any less? I must still put a halt to a wayward rogue named Murdoch. I don’t have much time. Do you know the nature of your illness?”

  Shocked, Orateur ran a hand over his balding pate, not looking at Ian. “She’s all I have left. I cannot believe…” His voice trailed off on a note of grief.

  “Have you even attempted to assess her talents?” Ian asked, diverting the topic away from any question of how he’d persuaded Chantal to take vows she did not understand. “The altercation outside just now wasn’t quite as simple as she made it seem.”

  Alain shook his head. “She is extraordinarily gifted musically, a talent your people do not appreciate.”

  “They’re your people, too,” Ian reminded him. “Where else but Aelynn would you go when war breaks out here? Or do you plan to keep Chantal exposed to violence and danger?”

  “She creates her own safety,” Alain argued, glaring at Ian. “Have you not noticed? When she smiles, the whole world smiles with her. Or at least the portion who can see her.”

  “Hear her,” Ian corrected. Until now, he’d almost convinced himself that Chantal had no Aelynn gift, but he’d been fooling himself. Since she did not have the changeable eyes of most Aelynners and gifted Crossbreeds, she must possess an unusual gift from the gods. He needed to find her mark and see what he had done by binding himself to her. He knew of no god of music.

  “She charms with her voice,” Ian continued. “And perhaps with her song, although that is less easy to ascertain. And since we all have a flaw in our gifts, she may also cause havoc when she is angry. I’d rather not test that last bit if the episode I just witnessed is any example.”

  Ian hid his shudder at an image of an angry Chantal on Aelynn, an island filled with trained warriors and highly sensitive people. Could he possibly keep her happy enough to avoid causing mayhem? Had musicians been bred out of the island for their ability to arouse strong emotion?

  “I have never seen her angry,” Alain protested. “She is like a ray of sunshine, always humming and singing.”

  Apparently, Alain had kept her happy. Somewhat. “I do not have time for this.” Ian rose in irritation. “Did she hum with happiness after her husband died? Will she do so if you die?” he asked pointedly. “I have some healing talent, if you are willing to submit to it.”

  Alain’s lips tightened. “I’ll be fine, for a man who can never go home again. Go about your treason.”

  Ian winced. As a leader, he’d done what he’d had to do to protect his home. But Alain was right — they could not return to Paris. He regretted that for Chantal’s sake, but on Aelynn, he could provide a better life for her than she would have in this brutal world. He had to believe this was what the gods wanted.

  But at his next realization, alarm streaked through him, and he nearly raced for the door. The chalice had just disappeared!

  “I have no allegiance to France and therefore cannot be a traitor to it,” Ian corrected, speaking hurriedly. “Your true home is on Aelynn, and you are always welcome there.” He held up his hand to stay Alain’s retort. “Saving a king is not treason. I would certainly hope I’d have people loyal enough to do the same for me, were I in such a position.” Without arguing further, Ian stalked out.

  Throughout these various altercations, his limited Finding ability had remained aware of the chalice’s presence safely in his saddlebag. But within the last few minutes, the damned object had disappeared from his consciousness. The chalice might be sentient, but he doubted that it had feet. He hurried down the hall, toward the stable.

  The only time he’d known the chalice to disappear from his awareness was when it was far away — or with Chantal. Since there hadn’t been time for a thief to go far…

  He reversed direction and hurried back down the hall, picking up traces of thoughts and physical sensations behind each door. He recognized Pierre and Pauline tucking the children in for a nap. Turning a corner, he felt the absence of thought or emotion behind the closed door on the end. The room could be empty. In which case, it wouldn’t hurt to look.

  He approached the door with a degree of caution. If this blank hole was Chantal, thankfully her grief and fear had subsided. But feeling no vibrations from her at all was unnatural. He’d been aware of her in some manner since the sky had revealed her to him more than a year ago. Since they’d exchanged vows, her
presence had been like a second part of him. Her absence now was palpable.

  This is what it would be like if he lost her. Ian stood still, trying to assimilate all his rioting reactions to the empty space where his mate should be. Bleakness. Despair. Loneliness.

  He had never realized how alone he’d been. How empty. He was a busy man, of course, and he had his mother and sister, friends.… But he’d always stood outside their lives, acting on his own, shouldering his responsibilities without help. He’d never needed anyone.

  He shouldn’t need Chantal. She was an emotional woman with no ability to lighten his weighty duties. But in some manner he couldn’t grasp, she provided what he was missing.

  Sending up a prayer, he opened the door without knocking. To his enormous relief, Chantal sat on the window seat with the chalice cradled to her breasts. She smiled sleepily at him as he entered.

  He was fortunate she did not heave the chalice at him. Ian was envious of the damned thing. He doubted she would hold him so lovingly if she guessed that he’d assisted the king.

  He understood now why she and the chalice disappeared together. They apparently nullified each other’s vibrations. Odd, but not extraordinary. Very useful, actually. When he returned home, he ought to test whether his mother had the same effect on the chalice. If so, it might explain why the gods had left it to the inhabitants of Aelynn to conceal.

  “Are you feeling better?” he asked.

  “No, just more in control. Did I have a fit of some sort?” she asked.

  “From all reports, it appears so.” He’d like to linger and explore the fascinating aspects she presented, but he couldn’t ignore Murdoch’s menace. Ian had hoped they could outrace Murdoch, but Alain’s illness ended that possibility.

  Murdoch was apparently still able to sense the presence of the chalice. Could he do so when Chantal held it? Ian would not underestimate the renegade’s determination and imperil innocents. He had to place himself between the chalice and danger.

  “Your father claims you’re never angry.”