Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123)

by Coulter, Catherine

  She whispered, terrified of the answer, “Are my parents still alive?”

  Sarimund nodded. “Yes, both of them are in fine health.”

  “And my brother?”

  “Raffaello as well.”

  She wanted to shout, to leap about. She had a mother who had loved her, petted her, who wasn’t afraid of her because she was magic. Magic? But it was true, she remembered it well. And her father, standing beside her mother, tall, his thick black hair brushed back from his face, a perfect man who’d once let her sit beneath his chair while he conferred with an ambassador from Austria. She’d been so excited she’d vomited on the ambassador’s boots. Her father, she remembered now, had laughed—once the ambassador had left. She frowned. Her father’s eyes, had she seen them somewhere? She said slowly, “My grandfather died while my father was visiting England and so he became the Duke of San Savaro after his return to Italy.”

  She grabbed Nicholas’s arms, shook him. “I have parents, Nicholas, and I remember them! They loved me, very much. I have a family!” She began to dance around in her excitement. Nicholas grabbed her and held her tight. He kissed her lightly on her mouth, kissed the tip of her nose, smoothed his fingertips over her eyebrows. He said, “Where is San Savaro?”

  Rosalind grinned up at him, so excited her feet still danced. “It is on the spur of Italy’s boot. San Savaro is also the capital city of the duchy. It is near Nardò, only five or so miles from the Ionian Sea. We had a summer palace overlooking the sea. I swam there with my brother. I remember one night I went down to the beach to swim under a full moon, not something I should have done, naturally. I heard my parents laughing. They were swimming in the sea, just like my brother and I did.” She paused a moment, tapped her foot. “Do you know, I’m wondering now if they were simply swimming.”

  Nicholas laughed. “A woman is married for less than a week and she knows everything.”

  Sarimund ahemmed. “Isabella, it’s time to tell my lord what happened.”

  Nicholas frowned at him. “How do you know she can remember what happened to her?”

  Sarimund shrugged. “She could not be allowed to remember before, it would have been too dangerous. Mr. Sherbrooke would have felt compelled to contact her family in San Savaro, despite his own misgivings. But now the time is right. Tell him, Isabella, what happened to you.”

  Suddenly the knowledge was there, alive and terrifying in her mind, and she trembled. “He was my father’s cousin—his name was Vittorio. He knew I’d seen what he’d done because he was magic, you see, and he knew I was magic as well. He sensed me, he knew I saw him smother the small babe then lay it back in its dead mother’s arms.”

  Nicholas said, “There was no one else there to see this?”

  Rosalind didn’t want to but she pictured that horrible scene in her mind. The dead babe and its dead mother and Vittorio standing there, staring down at them, a bitter smile on his mouth. She would never forget that, never. “No, only I saw him kill them.”

  Nicholas was frowning. “You were a child. Few people believe a child. Why would Vittorio take action against you?”

  “If I’d told my father, he would have had the bodies of Ilaria and the babe examined. They would have seen the marks of Vittorio’s fingers on her neck. Perhaps the physician would know the babe had been smothered.”

  Sarimund said, “Isabella, do you know why Vittorio murdered his wife and babe?”

  She shook her head.

  Sarimund said, “Theirs was an arranged marriage, naturally, but Vittorio was vicious and unnatural in his sexual demands. Mixed with the magic was madness, only his father Ignazio did not want to face it, he never had.

  “There came a time, however, when Ilaria hated her husband more than she feared him. She took a lover, a young man who sang beautifully, a wandering young man who left soon after he’d made love to her. He never knew she bore him a son and Vittorio killed them both.”

  Nicholas asked her, “What did Vittorio do to you?”

  “Tell him, Isabella. You remember.”

  “Vittorio caught me before I could get to my father.” She fell silent a moment, looked over the barren plain, then shrugged. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember anything else.”

  Sarimund continued. “Vittorio didn’t want to kill you. Even in his madness, in his fear that he would be found out, he still loved you, and he loved your father like a brother. But he knew you could not remain in Italy or you would tell your parents, and he knew your father would believe you. Vittorio knew your father was a very powerful wizard from a long line of powerful wizards. As far back as any could remember, there was magic in the Contadini line. In both your lines, there has always been powerful magic.

  “Vittorio knew if he didn’t do something quickly he would be executed for his crime, that or thrown into a mad-house. So he immediately caught you and gave you over to one of his trusted men to take you to England. I found this destination rather curious since your mother’s family is English, but no matter, he must have had a plan, though I never learned what it was.

  “It seems Erasmo—the man Vittorio put in charge of you—witnessed you go into a trance. He was very superstitious, and it scared him badly. He believed you a witch and evil.” Sarimund shrugged. “So he tried to beat you to death. Indeed, he left you for dead in that alley.

  “Ryder Sherbrooke found you and nursed you back to health. Ah, dearest Isabella, I am sorry your memory was closed behind the stoutest of doors, but it was for the best, for everyone. Erasmo told Vittorio you had died of a sweating sickness on the journey. He said there was nothing to be done to save you, and Vittorio believed him.

  “Ryder Sherbrooke decided, rightfully so, that no search should be made for your family. He wasn’t willing to take the chance that someone would try to kidnap you again.” Sarimund lightly touched his fingertips to her brow, touched his thumbs to her temples. “Do you remember now?”

  She nodded slowly, never looking away from him.

  She said in a child’s voice, broken and sad, “I’m sitting cross-legged in a small cabin on one of Vittorio’s trading ships, the Zacarria, and my hands are folded just so on my legs. I’m concentrating on my father. I know he and my mother are frantic because I was suddenly just gone, disappeared. Even though I know I’m at sea, far away from Italy, I still believe he can save me. My father is so strong, you see, so very good, and he knows me, knows what I think and how I think. He tells me I am his magic princess and he will make very certain my future husband is a powerful wizard so I will always be safe. He tells me that nearly every night before I sleep, right after Mother kisses me good night. He always smoothes my eyebrows with his finger, just like he does Mother’s.” Rosalind broke off, lowered her head, and the tears came, hot and thick. A child’s tears, she realized, not really her tears, not a woman’s tears, but remembered tears and perhaps they were the most painful.

  Sarimund touched her cheek. “Tell him, Isabella.”

  After a moment, she said in that same sad child’s voice, “I’m focusing with all my strength on my father, and I see him. He is striding back and forth in front of Mother, and he is very angry, and scared. She’s trying not to cry. My brother, Raffaello, is there and he looks very angry as well. He is striking one fist against his open palm, cursing. I call to my father, once, twice, then I scream at him in my mind. I see him turn quickly to face me.

  “But at that moment Erasmo came into the cabin to tell me we had finally reached England, that we’d docked at Eastbourne, and he was taking me ashore. I suppose when he saw me, he at first believed I was sleeping, but I wasn’t. I stared up at him, through him really, and cursed him in another’s voice, and in another language, yet he understood. It frightened him very badly. He screamed at me that he’d heard I was a witch and thus vile and evil, and so he dragged me off the brigantine and into an alley to beat me to death. A cabin boy tried to stop him. Erasmo clouted him and tossed him into the harbor. None of the other sailors tried to stop him. />
  “I awoke at Brandon House, and remembered nothing of what had happened. After six months, I sang my song and spoke. After I’d been at Brandon House for several years, Uncle Ryder told me why they hadn’t tried to search for my family—he feared someone would try to kill me again. His son, Grayson, was my best friend. I think he feared for me and thus he stayed very close for many years, though he never said anything about it.” She shrugged. “When Nicholas came back to England, I suppose he set everything into motion. And here we are now, in the Pale. Am I really magic, Sarimund?”

  He smiled at her. “Oh, yes. Your line is long and powerful, as I told you, as is the Vail line. However, unlike the Vail line, who forgot their magic”—he smiled now at Nicholas—“that is not exactly true. Galardi Vail, your grandfather, liked to toy with wizardry, but he never imagined that it was actually inside him, waiting to be freed. Your line, Isabella, the Contadini line, never forgot, which is why you were so strong. It is only when you lost your memory that you lost your magic.”

  She nodded slowly. She said, “Erasmo was right. I was a witch, a powerful witch, and I knew it, but—”

  “You still are. You are here and that makes you even stronger. Don’t forget it.”

  She said in some wonder, “I remember now when I was a child in San Savaro, I knew my father was spoken of behind hands, and with awe and pride, mostly, when the rain fell and none had been expected, or when a woman birthed twins unexpectedly, or when disease struck the fields and yet the barley and wheat still grew tall. All believed it was my father’s doing. He was magic and all knew it. He was also deeply good. He said I was just like him. I was his magic princess.”

  She turned to Sarimund. “My parents—do they still remember me?”

  He nodded. “Oh, yes. Every day they think of you, mourn your loss. As for Vittorio, he is wedded to another lady and abuses her endlessly. She has borne him no children. His seed is lifeless, you see. When your father realized this, he knew Ilaria could not have borne Vittorio’s child. And he wonders who the real father was, and wonders about those deaths and how you, Isabella, disappeared so quickly afterward. He remembers perhaps seeing you in that ship’s cabin, but he can’t be certain since he never saw you again through his magic, because the link was broken, you see. You no longer remembered him. Nor could your elder brother, Raffaello, ever find you and he carries his father’s strong magic blood. Your mother grieves, Isabella, she still grieves. You have four brothers now, the youngest only four years old. It would seem that there will be yet a fifth brother born very soon.”

  “I have four brothers? Almost five?” She couldn’t comprehend it, simply couldn’t take it all in. But she did comprehend one thing very well: Vittorio had never been punished.

  Nicholas said, “Sarimund, you said it was better she didn’t remember because Ryder Sherbrooke would have contacted her family, she’d have gone home to San Savaro and still been in danger. My question is why in the name of Heaven didn’t you simply strike down Vittorio? Then she could have gone home without risk.”

  Sarimund said slowly, “I know so many things, see so many things, but I am not of the physical world now, my lord. I could no more call down a plague on Vittorio’s head than a Tiber could trap a red Lasis. Do you understand?”

  “You mean you cannot cross from here to England?”

  He smiled at that and shook his head. “No, I cannot even cross into England. Nowhere on earth, for that matter.”

  “But—”

  Sarimund closed his hand around Nicholas’s wrist. “If I’d been able, I would have blighted that evil monster to the pit of Hell. Ah, there is so much evil everywhere. Here in the Pale, evil flourishes madly.”

  Rosalind looked squarely at Sarimund. “After I have saved Prince Egan, after Nicholas has paid his debt to me, I will go home and see that Vittorio is punished. Now, Sarimund, what are Nicholas and I to do now that we are here in the Pale?”

  49

  Sarimund lightly touched white fingers to her cheek. “Once you have saved the little boy, the earthly wizard who stands beside us will pay his debt to you.”

  Nicholas said, “Very well. I will accept that here in this strange land, I am a small boy, who is also a prince. She will save the boy, and thus save me. So, tell me, Sarimund, does this mean that you are my father as well, back when all this began? Are you a Vail?”

  Sarimund laughed. “My line is long and noble, perhaps more powerful than either of yours, but my line is not of your line, my lord. Your father is your father, the Earl of Mountjoy, descendant of Captain Jared Vail. You are English through and through.

  “You have come into the Pale as you were meant to do. You have become who you were meant to be. Time grows short now and it is time for you to act.”

  “Will Nicholas survive when he pays his debt to me?”

  Sarimund was silent for a very long time. He turned to look up at the three bloodred moons. “When Taranis approved my spell, he dreamed to me that if I interfered in any way at all, then the spell would cease and all would be lost. I demanded then to know why he couldn’t interfere; after all, he was a god, he lived in the Pale. He sang to me: I do not meddle in the affairs of witches and wizards and they do not meddle in the affairs of dragons.

  “Therefore, since I promised not to meddle, I cannot cast my eyes to what came to pass, and thus I cannot know.”

  Rosalind grabbed Sarimund’s beautifully stitched collar and shook him. “Damn you, wizard, that lame bit of reasoning is not good enough.”

  Sarimund eyed her, a gleam of pride in his beautiful eyes. “It is the best I can do. If only you had come to the Pale when I first selected you, Isabella, the bright child so filled with magic light—then all would have come to pass as I foresaw it. Jared Vail would have been here to protect you.

  “But the time was still far into the future. Actually, I have wondered if Taranis meddled and knocked time awry. He is occasionally bored, you know, and it would perk him up to create some mayhem.”

  Rosalind began shaking Sarimund, so frustrated she wanted to clout him. “You listen to me, Sarimund. I do not care if the magician Merlin himself knocked time awry, I don’t want Nicholas in danger, do you understand me?”

  “Since you are yelling,” Nicholas said, grinning at her, taking her hand in his, “he certainly hears you.”

  He turned to Sarimund. His voice was emotionless when he said, “You believe I will die, don’t you?”

  Sarimund said, “I cannot know, I told you. But now that I have seen you, my lord, I realize you are formidable, that you will not be easily vanquished, but your powers are still crude because you do not want to accept your magic. You must forget your hidebound earth rules with all their constraints. You must allow yourself to believe and accept what you are and you will grow stronger here, stronger than the three bloodred moons. You will be invincible.

  “Here in the Pale, magic is sharp and clear and embedded in the very air itself. Here, there is nothing to impede your ability—if only you will let your magic have its full rein. Here, you will find it obeys you, mayhap with some elegance. Elegance and grace of action is a very fine thing in a trained wizard.”

  Rosalind said, “The lines I sang when I first began to speak again—I know of his death and her grievous sin. Who are they? What does it mean?”

  “The he is Prince Egan, you know that his death is very possible indeed. Naturally, Epona’s is the grievous sin, which could come to pass if you fail. I planted the lines deep in your mind, so they would always be with you, a reminder, a trigger, I suppose you would say in your modern day, to make you see, to understand.”

  “But I did not understand.”

  “Perhaps my elegant lines were a bit too subtle, but no matter, you are here. Ah, look yon, there is Taranis. He is the leader of the Dragons of the Sallas Pond.

  “Listen to me, both of you. The balance in the Pale is always precarious. Taranis knows this very well. He made certain I knew it when he dreamed the danger to m
e so long ago.”

  Taranis, Rosalind thought as she and Nicholas turned to look at the magnificent dragon who was soaring through the night sky, silhouetted against the bloodred moons, coming closer and closer. The very air around him seemed to part with his passage. He flapped his huge wings lazily, remaining perhaps a dozen feet above them. His emerald eyes whirled in his great head as he studied them. He was much larger than his son, and he was elegant, all his movements lithe and supple, as if practiced for a very long time.

  Taranis smiled, pleasure flowed through him, although no one could tell that. He opened his great mouth and sang, “I am Taranis, Dragon of the Sallas Pond. I am glad you are here. Time grows short. Come, my lord, Isabella, it is time to end this. Blood Rock awaits.” He turned his great head toward Sarimund and sang, “You have kept faith with me. A wizard with a dragon’s honesty.”

  Rosalind said, “Do none of you speak simply here in the Pale?”

  Taranis sang, “The cadence of simple words is boring. The air lies flat when simple words spill out of a mouth. Singing the words gives them life and interest, and relieves tedium. I have waited for you for a very long time, as has Sarimund. We will see how well he casts his wizard’s spells, though this one is beyond old and perhaps unravels. Welcome, Isabella.” Then there was laughter, deep rolling laughter that seemed to come from the belly of that huge creature.

  “Go with him,” Sarimund said. “Taranis is pleased, he knows it is all about to come to an end. The Pale has been teetering as would a man on a stretched rope. What would have happened had you not come now? I do not know, but the possibilities curdle my innards.” He smiled at them. “Yes, I have innards.” He shrugged and patted his belly. “Go with him,” he said again, “be cautious, trust no one, and never forget, Isabella, no evil can touch you.” And then he simply wasn’t there anymore. Nicholas found he was only mildly curious. He knew Sarimund had simply vanished, impossible, yet it was so. I can do the same thing, he thought. Here in the Pale I can do the same thing. Here in the Pale I can do anything.