The Rose Red Bride JK2

by Claire Delacroix

  Vivienne let her sister lead her up the stairs to the chambers above the hall, only half-listening to her chatter.

  “Do you know what Darg wished to do last night, in the very dead of the night?” Elizabeth demanded.

  Vivienne shook her head, not truly interested.

  Elizabeth flung out her hands. “She wanted to descend to the caverns beneath Ravensmuir! Can you imagine greater folly? Alexander would have my head...”

  Vivienne halted mid-step as inspiration struck. “Darg knows the caverns,” she said, realizing the import of that. She had forgotten about the labyrinth that wound beneath Ravensmuir. Could one get from the dungeons to the caverns and thence elsewhere?

  Vivienne did not know, but she thought that she might soon find out.

  “Of course, Darg does! She has lived there for centuries,” Elizabeth said with easy confidence. “She might even know them better than Uncle Tynan, or than our brothers, who played there so much when we were children.” Elizabeth shivered. “I do not like them, not in the least, and I refused to accompany her there. I fear, though, that she may go without me, for she is very intent upon the matter.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Sitting upon your left shoulder, nodding with her usual glee and recounting the rest of her verse.”

  Vivienne had momentarily forgotten that there was more of it. “What was the rest?”

  “Ride west, ride west with main and might; a maid will be saved this very night. Between the river and the sea, a dozen strides from the chestnut tree; near the vale of Elphinstone, there you will find the one wanted home.”

  “That was the part you told Alexander.”

  “Indeed.” Elizabeth smiled. “And this is the part I kept from him: A mirror of herself she will be, though few will have the skill to see. Though loosed from a suitor most unlikely, changed forever will this maiden be.”

  Vivienne felt her lips part at the truth of this. “What does Darg say about ribbons?”

  “It matters little what she says, for I can see yours with my own eyes.” Elizabeth stared over Vivienne’s shoulder. “It is a shimmering silver, as if wrought with the dust of opals.”

  “And is there another?”

  “A ragged one, as dark a blue as a midnight sky,” Elizabeth grimaced. “It is stained and most disreputable of appearance, though the blue is a wondrously vivid hue. It has been a lovely ribbon, though now less alluring than once it was.” She smiled at Vivienne, who wagered that the blue ribbon might also be stronger now than it had been. “It is the Nicholas’ ribbon, is it not?”

  Vivienne declined to answer, for her family’s misunderstanding of Erik’s true identity might prove useful again. “Are they entwined?”

  “They were, though the blue one is torn. A mere thread of it continues and I cannot see whether there is more or not.” Elizabeth frowned. “How curious. I wonder what that means.”

  Vivienne guessed that it meant that Erik was in peril, either from Alexander’s justice or simply from his injuries. She would have to aid him this very night.

  How she wished she could see Darg for herself! The fairy’s aid would be invaluable in this. She spared a glance to her shoulder, but saw nothing uncommon.

  “She is over there now,” Elizabeth said, pointing to the rafters. “She likes to oust any birds fool enough to settle there.”

  Vivienne studied each rafter in the general direction Elizabeth pointed but could see no spriggan.

  Elizabeth cast herself onto the cushions piled in one corner of the chamber at the top of the stairs, then turned her sparkling gaze upon Vivienne. “So, now that we are alone, you must tell me all. Did you lie with Nicholas in truth? Was it wondrous? Did it hurt as much as Vera insists it does? I think that she only tells us as much to ensure that we are not overly curious. Perhaps Alexander has even commanded her to do so, for if ever a man lost his ability to savor amusement, it is Alexander this past year.”

  “I am yet a maiden,” Vivienne lied again. “My courses began on Friday, so I have been unclean these days and nights.”

  Elizabeth winced, then sighed. “How regrettable. I knew that you would tell me what it is like if you knew, for you have always been unafraid to tell the truth.” Vivienne tried not to flinch at her sister’s certainty of that. Then Elizabeth frowned. “But did you not bleed just a few weeks past?”

  Vivienne shook her head. “You must have me confused with Annelise.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No, I distinctly recall you complaining, and Annelise never complains. It is most unnatural, do you not think, and makes the rest of us look discontented?”

  Vivienne smiled and sat down. “Perhaps you are discontented.”

  “Without a shadow of doubt,” Elizabeth agreed cheerfully. “You must have some detail to confess, though. Can Nicholas recount a tale? He must have some merit. You could never love a man who did not share your affection for tales.”

  “He says little,” Vivienne admitted. Erik did not tell tales, she realized, but his quest would make a good one.

  Especially if he succeeded, with her aid. She saw him in her mind’s eye, naming his daughters and measuring their heights, and her gaze misted with tears.

  There had to be a way out of Ravensmuir’s dungeons!

  “I did not recall that Nicholas was silent,” Elizabeth mused. “His sole affection seemed to be for stolen kisses and listing his own merits to any soul fool enough to listen.”

  Vivienne said nothing.

  “Oh, but you must be hungry!” Elizabeth rose suddenly to her feet and made haste toward the door. She moved with the same purpose as their late mother and the unexpected resemblance between Elizabeth and Catherine brought a lump to Vivienne’s throat. She saw suddenly from whence Elizabeth had inherited her ripe curves, for she stood the same height and the same shape, her hair was the same hue, as Catherine’s had been. The other sisters were wrought more slender, perhaps more like the women on her father’s side of the family.

  It was never far, this grief for the loss of her parents, though now it assailed Vivienne at the strangest of times. She thought then of Erik and wondered whether he felt the same way about his father’s demise.

  She would have wagered as much, so certain was she that they must be in agreement about such fundamental matters, though she knew that her conviction was wrought of little beyond instinct.

  “I promised Uncle Tynan to see you fed, after all,” Elizabeth continued. “I will return in but a moment - do not fear, the castellan’s wife will ensure that we have a wondrous meal here!”

  With that, Elizabeth was gone and the chamber fell quiet.

  Vivienne sank unto a pile of cushions, her fingers worrying the rich fabric as she thought. The challenge before her seemed insurmountable indeed. Without Darg’s aid, even if Vivienne managed to free Erik and lead him into the labyrinth, they would probably not find their way out before Uncle Tynan found them.

  Which meant that Elizabeth would have to aid in Erik’s escape. Vivienne nibbled on her lip, knowing that Elizabeth would earn Alexander’s ire thus. She did not want to cause trouble between her siblings and would have preferred to have leave her sister in innocence and ignorance.

  Where did one find a fairy?

  Vivienne raised her chin, carefully studying the beams of the ceiling and every nook in the walls. “Darg?” she asked, then repeated the query more loudly. “Darg? Are you yet here? Can you choose which mortals can see you? If so, I beg of you to choose me!”

  There was no discernible reply. Vivienne waited and watched, hoping for some glimmer of the fairy’s presence, but she saw nothing uncommon. As far as she could tell, she was alone.

  She called again, she prowled the perimeter of the room, but all to no avail. All she could hear was the merrymaking of the men in the hall below, their raucous laughter and their drinking songs.

  Either Darg was not here, or Vivienne could not see her.

  Vivienne sat down to await her sister’s retu
rn and decided that she would simply tell Elizabeth the truth, all of the truth, then hope her sister chose to be of assistance.

  There was little else she could do.

  While she waited, she pulled the dagger out of her belt that Ruari had brought to Erik from his father’s deathbed. It was not a long blade, though the scabbard was richly ornamented. The hilt was an elaborate piece of metalwork. The grip was twisted like plies of a rope wound together and the pommel held a blue stone of remarkable size. Four prongs, shaped like claws, held the stone captive, though it caught the light in a most uncommon way.

  Vivienne moved closer to the lamp and saw that there was both a word and an image cut into the gem, which was a rectangle as long as the first two digits on her index finger.

  “ABRAXAS” was the word inscribed in the gem, as well as Vivienne could tell. It was not a word she knew and she wondered if she read it incorrectly. Perhaps it was initials or a word in another tongue.

  Above the letters was a tiny figure that looked to be of a man - until Vivienne looked closer and saw that his head was that of a bird, and his legs were an odd spiraling shape. Were these errors of the engraver, or of some import?

  Vivienne could not say. She pulled the blade from its scabbard out of curiosity and was pleased that the steel gleamed even in the low light of this chamber. It had been honed many times and was graced with a few nicks, but the edge was wickedly sharp. This blade had been treasured, to be certain, and she wondered how old it might be, or what powers it was reputed to hold.

  Then she wondered how she would persuade Elizabeth to aid her, frowned and put the blade away. There were more important puzzles before her than any legends linked to the Sinclair hereditary blade.

  * * *

  Erik awakened in a dark, dank cell, and could have guessed in which keep it was located. There was a flickering lamp left on the floor in the far corner and the wild dance of the flame made ominous shadows. His sword and dagger were gone, though that was scarcely surprising, and he ground his teeth at the recollection that he had willingly granted his father’s blade to Vivienne.

  No good deed was ever left unpunished, to be sure. Vivienne had said as much and in this moment, he could find no fault with her thinking. He supposed that he should have been glad that none of those rough mercenaries had been able to seize his hereditary blade, but knowing it was in the possession of the woman who had deceived him was no consolation.

  For Vivienne had deceived him, and done as much so well that Erik had never suspected her motives. He had thought her persuaded of his reasoning when she had accepted a handfast instead of a marriage. He had believed her when she professed a care for his welfare and had agreed with his plan to halt for the night.

  In truth, she had only ensured that they did not ride too far, the better that her family could retrieve her.

  She had not truly forgiven him, but had merely feigned as much. She had contrived that they halted close enough to Ravensmuir that they would be discovered by her kin. And there could be no doubt of her motives, for she had refused to wed him when granted the chance.

  Vivienne’s pledge to aid him was a lie, as was her apparent desire for him. Erik Sinclair and his meager charms clearly would not suffice for a lady the like of Vivienne Lammergeier.

  Which meant only that he, once again, had been fool enough to grant trust where it was unwarranted.

  Erik stared sourly at the lamp and acknowledged that she had undoubtedly suggested the seven couplings not out of lust for him, but to ensure that he slept like a corpse. Her family had been upon them before he had even heard them approach, so exhausted had he been by their lovemaking.

  Worst of all, he had been witless enough to believe that a beauteous damsel raised in wealth might find him alluring or his quest worth fighting. Beatrice should have taught him the full measure of his allure to such women, but nay, he was too much of a fool to have already learned his lesson from experience.

  His father would have reminded Erik that he had always seen the good in others before he spied the bad, no less that to do as much was a dangerous habit.

  That only made him realize that his father was dead, that William’s wry voice would never again be heard in Blackleith’s hall. And that was a truth that Erik could not face in this moment.

  He sat up quickly to avoid his thoughts and the chamber cavorted around him at the sudden move. His head throbbed. There was dampness on his temple, and when he touched it, his fingers were stained red. Indeed, that slight movement had set his head pounding so vigorously that he could almost forget the pain in his hip.

  He ignored both, pushed to his feet and crossed the cell to examine the lamp. There was no more than a vestige of oil remaining in the vessel, doubtless to ensure that he could make no mischief of note with it. The flame danced so vigorously because it would gut itself soon.

  Erik took advantage of the light now to survey his prison. It was square, the ceiling low enough that he could barely stand, its walls wrought of fitted stone and its floor of pounded earth. There was a drain hole in the floor, as well as the tip of the nose of the rat that peered out at him from that drain.

  The rodent seemed to eye him with a measure of assessment.

  Erik wondered whether he would be fed some fearsome slop, or whether he would be abandoned in the pending darkness for the rat and its comrades to feast upon. Neither were promising prospects.

  He turned his back upon the creature and paced, pausing to try the stout wooden door. The door did not budge, but then he had not expected it to.

  The course from this point was clear. Erik would face the laird sooner or later to answer for breaking his word. There was no possible verdict save ‘guilty’, for he had not wed Vivienne. No happy compromise could be negotiated, now that the lady had spurned Erik before all.

  He glanced at the rat once more, irked that a similar charge had been cast against him - and unjustly - once again. Why was it that women chose to cast doubt upon his potency? He did not doubt that most of the men in Alexander’s company would have been glad to sate themselves with Vivienne, whether she had had her courses or not. He did not doubt that they jested in the hall over their ale at the impotence of the man imprisoned beneath their feet.

  Indeed, he could hear their merrymaking.

  This would not end well, that much was for certain. Erik did not expect Vivienne to defend him, much less to reveal that he was not his brother Nicholas in timely fashion.

  He considered his fate with a frown. The punishment could vary. He could be disfigured, marked as an outcast for the rest of his days by the loss of an eye or the tip of his nose or one of his ears. That was not particularly troubling, given what he had already endured, though it would be painful. He stretched his leg and thought he could do with somewhat less pain in his life.

  He could be condemned to have a more significant part of his anatomy removed, namely the one at root of the issue. That was not a comforting prospect. If Erik survived that ordeal, he would neither be claiming a maidenhead again nor providing that male heir that the Earl of Sutherland had demanded for his aid.

  Of course, Erik might simply be executed. Alexander was sufficiently vexed to demand a harsh punishment. Erik supposed that prospect should have bothered him less, as he was already reputed to be deceased, but it was that chance that made him pound upon the wooden door in frustration.

  He was not yet prepared to die.

  His daughters still had need of him.

  Erik hammered his fists against the wood and shouted, knowing it was to no avail, pounded more loudly and bellowed for justice.

  There was no reply. If anything, the festivities overhead seemed to grow louder. He finally halted and leaned his brow against the wood. The rat, he noted, watched with some interest, as if curious as to whether he was weakening.

  “It is the girls,” Erik told the rat, as there was no one else likely to listen. “There will be no one left to defend them once I am as dust.” He grimaced at the por
tal and gave it one last kick. “Although I have done a poor job of that defense thus far.”

  The rat seemed to find this argument cogent. It appeared to nod several times, weighing the merit of Erik’s words, then it turned and disappeared down the hole. There was a faint sound of scuttling feet before silence pressed against Erik’s ears again.

  He supposed Ruari must be pleased to have his predictions proven aright. The man could not truly have wanted to be burdened with the task of aiding Erik, and now he would be free to make other choices. So, there was an advantage to Erik’s disappearance in that.

  Indeed, there were many. Nicholas would keep Blackleith uncontested; the children would forget about their rightful father; Vivienne had probably already found another suitor or three; Alexander would keep Erik’s coin and the Earl of Sutherland would not have to undertake a battle for which he had no heart. Truly, there would be none to mourn Erik if the Laird of Kinfairlie felt particularly vengeful on the morrow.

  Erik surveyed his prison, his fists clenching and unclenching in frustration. He would not surrender. He would fight for his children until his dying breath, and he would fight more fiercely when that last breath seemed closer.

  There was no way out of the cell but the single door which was securely locked against him. The drain was no bigger around than his wrist, so that offered no option for escape. Erik paced, willing his aches and pains to diminish. This might be the most dire circumstance in which he had ever found himself, but he would not abandon hope.

  Someone at some time would open that door.

  Erik had no weapon and he had no tool. The lantern sputtered and died in that moment. He also had no light. He had nothing but his wits - which were proving to be meager - and his bare hands.

  But he had his anger and he had his determination. When some sorry fool opened that door, that man would learn what those few assets were worth. This might be destined to end poorly, but Erik would not accept his fate meekly.