Her father had nodded approval. “Be good for her. Teach her the way of Right.”
When she’d complained she couldn’t see, he had cleared a space before her. And then she had been able to see too clearly that open stretch of cobblestones, that ominous pile of wood with the stake set cruel in its midst. She had seen the poor captive—a thin-faced, desperate woman—bound to that stake by iron chains.
And then it had happened. All at once she was no longer in her own small self. All at once she was feeling the prisoner’s terror, the eager, hating hunger in the crowd around her like one giant, pitiless animal. Stricken, she had screamed to be taken away. But it was too late for escape, too late to do anything but see the flames and hear the screams, and feel the agony that licked at her flesh—
With a strangled gasp, Matilde thrust herself back into the present, trembling. It couldn’t have happened like that. She had fallen ill soon after; she must have been already burning with fever. Of course she hadn’t felt those flames. Only a witch could have sensed another’s pain so stronger, and she wasn’t a witch, never that!
She glanced about guiltily. Startled servants were making self-conscious efforts not to look her way. With a mighty effort, Matilde shut out the past, retreating back behind her mask of calm. The perfect chatelaine gave them all an almost convincingly serene smile.
###
At least, Raimond thought, dismounting and shaking out his sodden clothes as best he could, it had finally stopped raining. And he’d reached his destination in all good time.
This . . . was the right place, wasn’t it? The hour couldn’t be anywhere near nightfall, but between the heaviness of the sky and the screen of leaves overhead, it was nearly black as midnight in this dank little glade.
As his eyes gradually adjusted to the dim light, Raimond peered warily about. An involuntary shudder shook him. As a boy he had explored here in defiance of his brother and the church ban on such heathen sites. The place had frightened him even in full sunlight, though of course he had never said anything about it to Gilbert. Up to this moment he had thought those fears only a child’s foolishness. But now he felt not at all advanced from the boy he’d been. Surrounded by heavy silence and the looming black shapes of gnarled, ancient trees dripping rags of moss, he had to struggle not to sign himself.
In the midst of the twisted trees, in what must have once, ages past, been a cleared circle of earth, was the heart of his childhood terror: a broken ring of weathered stones rising out of a savage tangle of underbrush like so many pale, pagan ghosts. Hating ghosts. Ghosts to rend a Christian soul . . .
Raimond spat. God, how it stank here! The rain should have washed away the stench, or at least deadened it, but no matter how he turned, the reek of wet stone and rotten vegetation caught in his throat and made him cough. And ah, would he never be warm again?
Something shoved him. Raimond got out a strangled, “God’s blood!’ and whirled to see—
His horse. Raimond let out a shaky laugh. At least the animal didn’t seem to be bothered by its surroundings, foraging with apparent calm for bits of greenery. Though what it could find palatable . . .
The horse flung its head up, ears pricked, and rumbled deep in its throat. Raimond’s hand flew to his sword as something large and dark crashed its way through the underbrush. He waited tensely, clutching the hilt, heart racing, as that Something resolved itself into a second horse that stopped at the far side of the stones, on its back a figure shrouded in a plain, dark cloak.
Silence. The rider sat motionless, a black, featureless mass in the darkness, head turned to Raimond. Raimond clenched his jaw, determined not to be the first one to yield. But the blank stare of that hood was unnerving, like something out of a priest’s lectures on Hell, and all at once he burst out: “Well? Who are you?”
There was the faintest of chuckles. “So, my lord. You came.”
Raimond straightened angrily. “I said, who are you?”
The figure chuckled again and pushed back its hood, revealing the face of the little sorcerer with whom he’d plotted the night before. “Now do you recognize me, my lord?”
Raimond nodded tersely, staring into the shadows behind the sorcerer, hand tightening on his sword hilt. “I thought you said to come alone.”
“I did.”
Raimond shifted so that his back was to a tree, thinking, treachery. . . . “Then who is that lurking behind you?”
“No one to frighten you, my young lord,” murmured a deep, amused voice, and after a moment, Raimond placed it.
“Baron Thibault. You trespass on my lands, my lord.”
“Your lands?” the baron murmured “I thought they belonged to your brother. No, man, don’t bristle at me. I didn’t mean any insult.” Baron Thibault kneed his horse forward a few steps, and sat, a clean-shaven, brown-haired man of middle years and stocky build, studying Raimond, a faint smile on his fleshy lips. Gold dinted about his neck, and an elegant golden ring flashed from a glove hand as he dismounted. “After all, my young lord Raimond, despite past . . . unpleasantness, we are allies just now.”
“Allies,” Raimond echoed skeptically.
Baron Thibault flicked a glance in the sorcerer’s direction. “You didn’t tell him?”
“I didn’t think it my place, my lord baron.”
“Tell me what?” Raimond cut in.
“That I am here as well.” The new voice was so soft Raimond had to strain to hear it. “That I still live.”
Tall and lean, the stranger moved noiselessly forward to stand beside the baron, face completely hidden beneath the shadow of a deep hood.
Does everyone have to be so damned mysterious?
There was nothing at all to be seen beneath that hood, and Raimond snapped, “Enough games! Tell me who you are and why you’re here, or I’m leaving.”
“You never did have patience, my young Hotblood.”
Raimond froze. No man had ever called him by that name save one, and he . . .
“Who are you?” he asked, half-fearful of the answer.
The stranger pushed back the hood of his cloak, revealing a fine-boned aristocratic face too thin, too finely drawn, pale and etched with lines of suffering till it seemed more the face of a saint than that of the fierce and vibrant man who—no, this couldn’t be! Raimond stared, pierced by hope so sharp it was nearly terror. Swaying with shock, struggling not to swoon like a stupid woman, he managed to gasp out only, “My . . . lord Rogier! But you’re—”
“Dead?” the other murmured. “Not quite.”
“But—no! Touranne—I saw—”
“You saw a man take a blow to the head. You saw him fall into the river. What you didn’t see was his body dragged, nearly lifeless, from that river by the men of good Baron Thibault.”
“But it’s been so long . . .”
“A head wound is no simple thing to heal,” the man said gently. “Baron Thibault kept me hidden, safe, all this time. Out of, no doubt, the pure goodness of his heart.” Rogier’s eyes glinted (Green, thought the dazed Raimond. Green as the eyes of a beast at night; his eyes were never green . . .) as they glanced sideways at the baron in cynical humor. “Perhaps he harbored some plan of using my sleeping mind but living body as his puppet in some power scheme—”
“Oh no, my lord!” the baron protested, and received a sharp, ironic smile in return.
“No matter, my lord baron. For whatever motive, you did keep me safe till the moment when my scattered wits so suddenly returned. Come now, Hotblood, stop staring! Do I look like a dead man to you?”
Overwhelmed, Raimond fell to one knee. “No, my Lord Rogier,” he said in wonder. “You most surely do not.” Dizzy and terrified at this sudden change in his plans, his life, Raimond added fervently, “My lord, I—I am your loyal vassal, as before. What do you ask of me?”
Rogier hesitated. For a moment his eyes were terribly sad, terribly alone. “I fear I must ask much, my little Hotblood. As much as you can give me.”
&nbs
p; Raimond blinked, feeling a small shiver steal its way up his spine. “Why, anything, my lord, you know that. I only . . .”
Raimond stumbled to a stop, mouth gone dry. Rogier was glancing at the little sorcerer. And a quick, secret smile flashed between them, sly and cruel. That smile . . . those green-glinting eyes . . . All at once Raimond realized he was afraid, though he couldn’t have said exactly why. All at once he wanted nothing so much as to be safely back in his brother’s castle, even if it meant putting up with Gilbert’s lectures.
But before he could move, Rogier, still smiling faintly, turned back to him, eyes clear and chill as ice. As Raimond stared up, helplessly fascinated as a bird before a snake, he heard the man say gently, “I don’t think you quite understand. What we need, my young Hotblood, is nothing less than your life.”
For an instant, Raimond was too stunned to even gasp, his mind screaming that Rogier would never harm him, that surely the man had been speaking in metaphors—
Not with those cold, cold eyes. A surge of pure self-preservation made Raimond leap up with a horrified, “No!” If he could only get to his horse—
But it was three to his one. He closed one hand about a stirrup, but the startled horse danced away, dragging him. Before he could catch at the dangling reins, strong arms pulled him back. The frightened horse shrilled its alarm as someone slapped it, and rushed off in a storm of broken branches.
Damn, oh damn!
Raimond twisted savagely, struggling to free himself, to get enough room to draw his sword. Before he could draw the blade halfway from its sheath, his captors fell on him, forcing him to the ground, the smell of mold rank in his nostrils. As he tried to writhe free, gasping, someone tore the blade from his hand, sending it flying out of his reach. His body was crushed against the earth, his arms pinned to his sides.
“Bind him, curse you!” Baron Thibault hissed. “I can’t hold him forever!”
Wild with terror, Raimond fought the triple weight restraining him, forgetting nobility, kicking and biting like any peasant in sheer animal panic. Despite his struggles, he felt the sorcerer easily snare his wrists, binding them deftly (As though I was a felon, damn him!). Suddenly released, Raimond tried to struggle to his feet, only to lose his balance and fall again. The sorcerer was upon him again before he could so much as kick, binding his legs as well. Raimond managed to gasp out, “You filthy little traitor!” before he was gagged with a scrap of cloth. Helpless, he twisted about to glare up at his captors.
“That does it.” It was a satisfied mutter from Baron Thibault. “Get him onto your horse, sorcerer, and we’ll take him back to my castle. His brother will pay us well for—”
“No,” Rogier interrupted. “He must not be taken from this circle.”
“What nonsense is this?” The baron stared at Rogier. And as he stared, the color slowly drained from his florid face. “God’s mercy,” Thibault breathed at last. “Those words about needing his life—you meant it literally, didn’t you?”
Raimond stiffened in horror, fighting against the gag choking him, pleading silently, No, dear God, no, Rogier, you can’t—
But Rogier was saying calmly, “I’m afraid I did.”
“Exactly,” purred the sorcerer, looking from one man to the other. “This is a place of ancient Power, lacking only blood to free it from the stones.” He glanced down, gloating, at Raimond. “Human blood.”
“Have you both gone insane?” Baron Thibault exploded. “I only went along with this farce because I thought you meant to hold the boy for ransom. But murder—”
“Not murder,” the sorcerer corrected. “Sacrifice.”
“Murder, I say! And I will not be a party to such blasphemy!”
That’s right, Raimond thought eagerly, argue with them, please, please, change their minds before . . .
“No, my lord?” Rogier asked. “And what are you planning to do? Tell someone what we mean to do here—and have my dear cousin the duke, your liege lord, learn you harbored me? Do you fancy a traitors death, my lord?”
The baron floundered, speechless, turning away from Raimond’s pleading eyes. “No,” he muttered at last. “I’ll keep my mouth shut. But I’ll not be a witness to this foulness, either.”
No! Don’t go! Raimond screamed at him silently.
But without another backward glance, Baron Thibault threw himself into the saddle and rode away, leaving Raimond alone and despairing with his killers to be. He tried not to flinch as the sorcerer approached, knife glinting in hand. But, oh God, he was about to die! Raimond squeezed his eyes shut, trying to pray, but the only thing that came to mind was a childish wondering if his brother would mourn him at all. In another moment he would feel the bite of the blade—
“No,” Rogier said, and Raimond’s eyes snapped open. “The ritual must not be performed just yet.”
The sorcerer straightened, frowning. “But, my lord—”
“What’s this? Are you questioning me?”
“N-no, my lord. But we should never have let his horse escape. It’s sure to run home. And that is sure to bring Baron Gilbert after us.”
Rogier—or, Raimond thought in terror, whoever was wearing Rogier’s body—smiled thinly. “What of it? Look you, you’re the one familiar with the Power here. You’re the one who insisted that all the signs of sky and earth say the ritual must be performed tomorrow eve—or not at all.”
The sorcerer sighed in submission. “So be it, my lord.” Raimond shut his eyes in shaken relief. He wasn’t going to die. Not just yet.
XV
POWER PLAYS
Hauberin shivered. Even with a fire blazing in the deep hearth, the baronial solar was still abysmally chilly and dank, reeking of damp stone. The prince’s temper was growing shorter by the moment, while his nerves fairly quivered with impatience to be off, to be doing something, to be away from these . . . humans who couldn’t even manage to heat a room properly. A flash of memory brought to mind himself in his own palace study, curled up in a moment’s snug privacy in a deep window seat, watching the rain, a goblet of spiced wine in his hand, the downpour outside heightening the pleasure of being warm and dry and at his ease—now that was how it should be in a civilized home!
Powers, would this endless day never be done?
Hauberin straightened his chair, listening to sudden not-sound. It had finally stopped raining. Not that it mattered. Even if Alliar and he could make their way over the morass those primitive, unpaved roads must be by now, he could hardly suggest leaving at this late hour, not if he wished any human guidance—Damn!
Aside from the equally impatient Alliar, seated across the chess table from him, the prince reflected that he might as well have been alone. Baroness Matilde was off seeing to castle provisions or laundry or the like. Baron Gilbert sat by the fire, puzzling over a parchment with his seneschal (neither of them, the prince guessed with a spark of contempt, particularly literate) and tacitly ignoring his troublesome guests.
The morning’s excitement—the duel with Raimond, the discovery of that crucial parchment (“And,” Alliar cut in severely, catching the edge of his thought, “that too-close brush with mind-death”)—could have belonged to another world.
The prince bit back an oath, fighting the impulse to pace. If only there was something he could do! Aside from concentrating all this long afternoon on total innocence, total harmlessness—Harmlessness! The last thing he felt right now was harmless, curse the humans for their narrow minds! Powers, how he would love to work some sharp, mischief-making spell just to see what would happen.
“What would happen,” Hauberin said to Alliar, who had been following his thoughts, “is that the baron would toss us out into the mud.”
The fastidious being winced. “After we’ve been so meek and mild, too.” The wind spirit stirred restlessly, outline blurring slightly then returning to sharp focus again at Hauberin’s warning glance. “Besides,” Alliar added, “we need his escort, or at least accurate directions, to get us to Tour
anne.”
“I know it. But if I sit staring at this chessboard much longer, waiting on a human’s pleasure . . .” Alliar tactfully didn’t bring up the subject of his own human blood, and Hauberin got to his feet, stretching. “It must nearly be time for my lord baron’s dinner. One more round of courtesy before bedtime. And then—”
He broke off at a sudden clamor outside the keep. The baron looked up, frowning, then shot to his feet, eyes wild with alarm as he caught some of the words. “Raimond,” he muttered, and swept out of the room. Hauberin and Alliar exchanged curious glances and followed.
There in the courtyard, a ghostly figure in the darkness but completely undisturbed by the fuss surrounding it, stood Raimond’s horse.
If Hauberin had harbored any doubts about the baron’s love for his brother, they vanished there and then as he watched that cool, self-possessed man dissolve into near-hysteria, cursing and worrying over Raimond in the same breath.
“You, you, and you.” The man’s finger stabbed at startled guards. “Mount up and search to the north—yes, now, you louts! And you three will search to the—don’t give me those insolent stares! Mount up, I say, and—”
“My lord husband.” Baroness Matilde had come hurrying out of the Great Hall to the baron’s side. “Please, my lord husband, you know the men can’t be sent out now, when it’s all out night.”
“They must! Raimond is out there somewhere, injured, or s-slain.”
“It’s already too dark. Even with torches, the men aren’t going to be able to see, particularly if they have to enter the forest.” The woman glanced quickly up at the sky. “I don’t think there’s to be any more rain; God willing, we’ll be able to follow Raimond’s trail in the morning.”
“We can’t wait that long!”
A Strange and Ancient Name Page 20
