Temptress

by Lisa Jackson

  Had the old woman been right?

  Was this keep cursed?

  Was it possible that everyone she trusted was a traitor?

  Morwenna’s stomach tightened and she looked up quickly, her eyes scanning the large room and everyone within it. Was it her imagination or did the tanner avoid her gaze? And the atilliator, did she not see rebellion in his glare whenever she spoke with him? She’d thought it because she was a woman. . . . And where the devil was Alexander, the captain of the guard, the man supposed to keep the castle safe? He’d been gone all morning supposedly on a mission of justice, but could she really trust him? Had she not heard the people who were supposed to pledge themselves to her gossiping about her, talking behind her back, sniggering that she’d been left by her lover again?

  She couldn’t stand sitting at the table another second. Leaving her barely touched meal to congeal, she wiped her hands on a napkin and crumpled it into the boat-shaped nef sitting on the table. Before the the cupbearer could pour more wine into her mazer, she pushed past him and headed upstairs. To think. To figure out what to do.

  She couldn’t wait for everyone else in the keep to come up with ideas and plans; she, as the ruler, would decide what course of action to take. She started for her own room and then paused and walked into Tadd’s chamber, the room she’d shared with Carrick.

  Her face reddened when she noticed the bed, now freshly made. No candles or rushlights burned in the room; no fire had been built in the grate. She walked around the bed, remembering entering the room the night before, seeing him lying there, touching him, feeling the heat of his lips, surrendering to the magic of his touch.

  She’d thought she could fall in love with him again.

  And she’d been wrong.

  Sighing, she left the chamber. She spent the next hour in the solar, standing at a window, gazing down at the bailey and wondering how Carrick had escaped so easily. Did he have conspirators? Others who aided in his flight? Did one of them stumble upon Isa and kill her, leaving the ring of Wybren as a sick souvenir?

  Why, why, why?

  And how, damn it, how?

  “Great Mother, forgive me,” Bryanna murmured, grief tearing through her soul. She closed her eyes to block out the image of Isa lying on the physician’s table, her skin cold and ghostly white, her throat crusted in her own blood, but the impression remained as if burned into her brain.

  As she knelt beside the woman who’d raised her, the wet nurse from whom she’d suckled when her own mother’s milk had dried, she touched Isa’s stiff fingers and felt something, not life but the remains of it, as if Isa’s soul still lingered.

  “Do not leave me,” Bryanna whispered as her tears ran onto the dead woman’s fingers.

  I will be with you always.

  More startled than frightened, Bryanna’s gaze flew to the the dead woman’s lips. Isa had spoken! Yet words had not been uttered.

  Heart thudding, Bryanna asked timidly, “But how?”

  She heard Isa’s voice as if from within herself: In your memory, child, and in those things that I’ve taught you. Not in embroidery, nor hemming, nor spinning, but in my teachings of the old ways, of the spirit world, of the heart.

  “I believe not in such things.”

  Ah, Bryanna, ’tis there you’re mistaken. . . . You of all of Lenore’s children know of the great treasures of the earth. You who drank from my breast have the knowledge of truth. You alone have the sight.

  Bryanna could scarcely breathe. “The sight? Nay, nay, I see only what is in front of my eyes.”

  Only because you were looking but not seeing, hearing but not listening, touching but not feeling. From this moment forward your life will change, daughter, and you will know things others do not. Always seek the truth, Bryanna.

  “You are wrong about me!”

  Am I?

  “Yes!”

  Then why do you hear my voice?

  Bryanna dropped the lifeless hand. “ ’Tis a trick,” she cried. “Only a voice in my head. I—I am going mad.” Scrambling to her feet, she started to make the sign of the cross over her breast as she had a thousand times before, but her hand stopped in midair and she gazed down upon the one they had called a sorceress.

  She listened hard over the pounding of her heart against her ribs, and though Isa was no longer speaking, she heard the rustle of the wind outside, the pepper of rain upon the roof, and something else . . . something that trapped the breath in her ears. ’Twas the whisper of something dark and malevolent.

  She glanced down at Isa’s corpse. “Who killed you?” she asked, and though she quivered inside, she linked her fingers with those of the dead woman. “Who, Isa?”

  That is your quest, Bryanna. To flush him out and make him pay.

  “I will,” she swore, bending low to kiss Isa’s forehead, and she knew just where to start. Carrick of Wybren had disappeared on the night Isa had been killed.

  She would start with him.

  Leaving Isa’s body, she stepped outside, where the day was as gray as twilight and rainstorms rolled in one after the other. ’Twas gloomy and dark, perfect for her task. She walked quickly through the kitchens to a back staircase, and the scents of smoke and rendering fat followed her to the third floor. She passed by her room and eyed the doorway to her brother’s chamber, the room where Carrick had lain, supposedly ailing for so long.

  Once inside she surveyed the chamber with its high ceiling, large fireplace, and raised bed. Closing her eyes, she concentrated, hoping for some sign, a hint of the sight Isa had sworn was hers.

  Concentrate, she told herself when nothing came.

  She knelt as Isa would have, placed her hands on the stones beneath the rushes as if she could divine something about Carrick from this chamber made of mortar, stone, daub, and wattle . . . yet nothing came to her. Heart pounding, she approached the bed and sat on the edge. As she did she imagined Carrick and Morwenna together last night, two long-lost lovers reuniting. There was a magical, romantic quality to it.

  Except Isa died and Carrick disappeared.

  Running her hand over the bedclothes, she thought perhaps a vision would strike her. But all she saw was the room as it was, cleaned and fresh, the maids having erased all evidence of the coupling.

  She waited and nothing happened.

  “You’re wrong, Isa,” she growled. “I have no sight. I see nothing here. Nothing!” Flinging herself back onto the pillows, she gazed upward to the ceiling, her eyes searching for answers in the sturdy timbers.

  As she did she noticed cracks in the mortar high overhead. The same kind of even slits between the stones that she’d observed in her own room. She’d always assumed that when the castle had been built, the slits had been allowed to help air move through the chambers, to keep them from becoming stale, but it was odd, she thought, for they did not vent to the outside. This was an inner wall.

  She walked to her own room and eyed the narrow crevices, then went to the solar and Morwenna’s room. All the chambers had the same strange pattern cut into the wall just below the ceiling.

  But so what? ’Twas not a revelation. She wasn’t reading in bloody letters the name of Isa’s killer. She had no visions of Carrick sneaking through the bailey or slicing Isa’s throat. At that thought she cringed.

  She remembered Isa was forever lighting candles and tying them with string and sprinkling herbs upon them, and then gazing at the flame. Well, so be it. She’d heard the old woman’s prayers often enough.

  Quickly she hurried to Isa’s room, where she filled a sack with candles and stones and dried herbs and colored string. She spent the next half hour setting up a tiny altar in Tadd’s chamber.

  She didn’t bother wondering what would happen if anyone found her—they’d either think her distressed and mad with grief, or dismiss her as a silly goose, just as they always had. So behind the closed door of her brother’s room, she lit candles, rushlights, and the fire. Once flames were crackling in the hearth and emitting a glow ar
ound the room, she sent up prayers to the Great Mother, sprinkled pinches of herbs into the tiny flames of the candles upon the altar, and waited for a sign that did not come.

  Do not be discouraged, she told herself and tried again and again to hear the words of the spirits, to envision some kind of signal from Isa, to start her quest.

  And yet she failed.

  An hour passed and all she got for her prayers was an aching back and sore knees from kneeling before the fire.

  “A bloody mistake,” she growled.

  Disgusted with her feeble attempt at sorcery, Bryanna doused the flames of the tapers at her altar and walked to the corner of the room to extinguish the candles in the wall sconce.

  And then she noticed a scratch on the floor—no, several scratches, even scrapes that arced from the wall, as if someone had repeatedly dragged something from one wall to the next. Except that the scratches ended several inches from one wall, but on the other, they seemed to go to the wall . . . even through it. Using a candle for light, she knelt and examined the floor more closely. Was it her imagination or was there the slightest draft beneath this section of wall?

  Heart in her throat, she picked up a piece of straw from the floor and began pushing it against the wall where it joined the floor. The straw bounced back at her for a while until she came to the place where the floor was scraped. At that point and for nearly a foot farther, the straw slid beneath the stones, as if there was another chamber on the other side of the wall.

  Her heart was racing as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. Biting her lip, she rocked back on her heels and observed the wall. Could it be? Was this the vision? Or was she making something out of nothing?

  She saw no doorway, no perfectly cut stones . . . and her fingers found no slice visible to her eye . . . but somehow . . .

  Bryanna pried at the rocks, tried to force her fingers into the minuscule opening beneath the wall, but she found no latch, no secret key. All she got for her efforts were broken nails and bloody finger pads.

  It has to be here, she thought, though the first doubts crept into her mind. Carefully she began to run her hands along the wall as high as she could reach and all the way to the floor. She started at the corner and worked her way to the far side of the room.

  Nothing.

  Back to the corner.

  Inching her way down the wall again, concentrating on the rough texture of the stones, she closed her eyes, listening, feeling, centering her thoughts on her task, closing out all other thoughts, noises, smells. . . . Slowly she felt each stone, and after fifteen minutes she found it, a small latch hidden in one of the stones near the corner.

  Finally!

  Her breath nearly stopped.

  What now?

  Eagerly she worked the tiny piece of metal, pressing, pushing, pulling . . . to no avail. Nothing happened. “Oh, for the love of Saint Jude,” she whispered and then remembered Isa’s advice. “Mother Morrigu, help me,” she said. “Guide me and please aid me in finding the monster who took Isa’s life.” Then she took a deep breath, pushed hard on the little finger of metal, and heard a soft, distinct click.

  Heart leaping, she pushed against a stone near the scrapes on the floor and ever so slowly a portal opened, a jagged door as no rocks had been cut to create an even entryway.

  So this is how the bastard escaped!

  Bryanna put two candles in her pocket. Then, taking one of the lit tapers from the sconce, she stepped into the dark, musty corridor, determined she would learn how Carrick of Wybren had gotten away with Isa’s murder.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Morwenna was still pondering the questions, coming up with no answers, staring out the solar window and feeling utterly useless. She rubbed her arms and glanced upward, feeling again as if unseen eyes were silently observing her every move.

  A soft rap at the door announced the steward. “So where is everyone?” she asked as Alfrydd brought in his damned ledgers. “And do not talk to me of taxes today, please.” Unpaid taxes were the least of her worries. “I have too many more important matters to consider.”

  Alfrydd, forever weary, was decidedly more glum than usual. And argumentative.

  “But, m’lady, we have things to discuss and I think it would be best to do so, even though we are grieving, before Sir Ryden arrives.”

  Ryden!

  She’d forgotten that he would soon be at the gates of Calon, anticipating to be welcomed into the keep. He would expect a feast and . . . oh, no . . . “God in heaven,” she whispered. Before the last spate of tragedies had occurred, she’d planned to tell Ryden that she couldn’t marry him, that a union of their two baronies was out of the question. She’d hoped that he would understand; surely he would want a bride who was attracted to him. “I can’t think of Ryden now,” she said, ignoring the look of reproof in Alfrydd’s eyes. She walked to the window again and gazed outside to the bailey, where soldiers were still searching the grounds. “Where the devil is Alexander?”

  “It’s my understanding that Sir Alexander and the sheriff left at dawn to search for the band of cutthroats and thieves that have been operating in the forest not far from Raven’s Crossing. Another man, a farmer, I think, was robbed last night,” he said, bolstering what she’d already heard hours before.

  “What of the physician?”

  “Nygyll is in town tending to a woman who is having trouble laboring. She’s carrying twins, I’m told, and the midwife who would be in attendance has another woman who is birthing.”

  “And Isa can’t help,” Morwenna said with a catch in her voice.

  “Aye. The poor babes chose a poor night to try to come into the world.”

  He set his ledgers onto the table and reluctantly Morwenna left her spot by the window.

  “Why has Father Daniel not returned?” she asked. “Does anyone know where he is?”

  “Also in town,” Alfrydd assured her. “Helping the chaplain hear confession and then giving alms to the poor.”

  “He’s been gone for hours.”

  One side of Alfrydd’s skeletal mouth lifted in a sad, world-weary smile. “There are so many sinners,” he said, opening his book. “Always.”

  “I suppose. . . .” Morwenna briefly considered Alfrydd, wondering if he, too, was against her. He seemed such a kind and patient man, one who had never raised his voice, nor mentioned the fact that she was female, but sometimes those who seemed most innocent were the most deadly. Unless one had knowledge and looked closely, it was nearly impossible to tell a poisonous spider from one without venom.

  She tapped a finger on the open ledgers. “When we’re done here, send me the scribe. I want to write a letter to Lord Ryden. And one to my brother.”

  “As you wish,” he said, and when he glanced up at her, questions in his eyes, she only shook her head and refused to confide in him.

  “ ’Tis a private matter.” Already a plan was forming in her mind, a course of action that she would share with no one, for there was no one she could trust. Except for her sister, and to confide in Bryanna was to endanger her.

  She spent the next hour trying to listen to Alfrydd’s concerns about thievery within the keep; he seemed convinced that someone was pilfering everything from herbs, sugar, and rice to honey, dates, and even wine. He showed her where the clerk’s inventory didn’t agree with what he’d calculated had been purchased and used.

  He was starting in on the delinquent taxes again when she cut him off.

  “Another day,” she said. “This one is for mourning.”

  “Of course.” He managed a patient, if strained, smile and immediately called for the scribe. After Alfrydd left, she had the scribe write two quick letters, one telling Lord Ryden that she could not possibly marry him, a letter she intended to leave with instructions that should Ryden arrive when she was gone, he should be given the letter. The second one was to her brother, telling him that Isa had been killed and she would like him to send help in the form of soldiers she could trust. She woul
d give the letter for Kelan to Sir Fletcher, one of the men who had ridden with her from Penbrooke, a man who had spent years with her brother. He was one of the few here who, she was certain, would lay down his life for her.

  Once the scribe had left, she hurried to her own room. Her plans forming in her mind, she threaded a belt through the back of a leather purse and strapped it around her waist before donning a warm wool mantle with a hood trimmed in black fur. No longer could she sit around and wait. It had been hours since she’d found Isa, longer still since Carrick had left. If she stayed another minute in the keep, she’d lose her mind. Yanking on her boots and with a plan of action propelling her, she dashed down the stairs, surprised that she didn’t trip over Dwynn. He, too, was missing, no longer sitting listening at keyholes.

  She wasted no time in seeking out Sir Lylle. She was walking so rapidly she was nearly running, her breath fogging in the cold air. In her hurry she passed groups of peasants and servants gathered in the inner bailey. She nodded to their greetings but didn’t bother listening to their gossip. Let them wag their tongues and spread their rumors; she would no longer let whatever they were talking about concern her.

  Following a heavily trodden path to the gatehouse, she splashed through puddles and sank into mud that nearly covered the toes of her boots.

  Ignoring a guard’s question about her business, she barely scraped her boots before flying into the gatehouse. Up the stairs she pounded to burst through the door to the captain of the guard’s room.

  As expected she found Sir Lylle seated at Sir Alexander’s desk and looking for all the world as if he enjoyed his new command, as if he was already dreaming about someday replacing the current captain of the guard.

  At her entrance he stiffened and stood abruptly. “M’lady, what brings you to—”

  “Have the soldiers found anything that might tell them who killed Isa?” she demanded.

  “Nay.” He shook his head and frowned, his long face lengthening as the corners of his mouth drew downward. “Only impressions upon the mud, runes near the eel pond where they think Isa may have been praying.”