Adrian

by Heather Grothaus

  “That’s an old wives’ tale,” Adrian scoffed. “If the island even exists.”

  She continued to hold his gaze, as if debating whether to tell him something he might or might not want to know. In the end, though, she only shrugged again.

  “Facts are facts, are they nae?”

  Chapter 5

  “You’d best change out of those wet things before you catch your death,” Maisie said to him after she had finished the cider in her cup. She needed to clean up the cabin a bit after Adrian’s stubborn insistence in opening the hatch, and the way things had gone thus far that morning, it would be better if he hid himself away behind his curtain whilst she did. “I assume you brought another suit of clothes with you.”

  “Just my robes from the abbey,” he said tightly, and she couldn’t help but notice the way his hands were clenching rhythmically on the tabletop. He refused to meet her gaze.

  Maisie set her cup down and gathered her skirts into her fists before lowering her feet into the icy water still flowing about the cabin.

  “That’s better than naught, I suppose,” she said as she waded through ankle-high seawater to her provisions trunk. “I am a bit surprised that a man of your station only claims one simple shirt and chausses, though, even if he is pretending at being a monk.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked in a guarded tone as she pulled out the jug of mead from the night before. Luckily, nothing bit her this time.

  “You’re from a noble family,” she said, rising and coming back to the table to set the jug before him. “Or am I mistaken?”

  “No,” he said slowly, eyeing the mead suspiciously. Apparently he’d decided the drink wasn’t poisoned after all—or perhaps he was hoping that it was—for he reached for the neck of the jug and poured a healthy measure into the cup he’d abandoned hours ago. “I can claim a courtesy title, although I don’t use it. My older brother is lord.”

  Maisie paused to look at him closely. The skin around his lips was white, as if he was exerting tremendous self-control by only sitting there. “You wish it was you?”

  He glanced up at her over the rim of his cup. “Wish I were lord?” She nodded, and he gave a frown. “God, no. Why on earth would I wish to be saddled with the running of a keep and preserving the livelihood of all who live under my rule?” He took a drink, hiding his gaze for a moment.

  Maisie felt a bit small after his sensible explanation, but thankfully he was not interested in her motives enough to question her. He set his cup down but picked up the jug as he moved around the table toward his curtained partition, gesturing toward her with the mead. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Nay. Toss your clothes out and I will hang them up near the cauldron to dry,” she offered. “Your boots might take a while longer.”

  His reply was the hush of brass rings as he jerked the curtain shut after him.

  Maisie raised an eyebrow at the curtain but then quickly turned toward the cabin to begin her tasks. She didn’t know how long she would have.

  First things first: the water situation.

  She had no choice but to drop the hem of her skirts as she brought both palms together in front of her waist and then moved them away from each other in a sweeping motion as she splashed toward the cauldron. Her toes were already numb. She patted the rim twice as the sound of gurgling water echoed in the wooden cabin, and soon flames leapt above the metal bowl, replacing the flickering glow that had warmed the cabin through the night. Little rivulets of water tickled the arches of her feet inside her slippers as the floor seemed to suck up the moisture, and so she balanced precariously on one foot, then the other, as she slipped them off. The boards beneath her feet were scratchy and damp.

  What a bothersome man he was turning out to be.

  As if turning her thoughts toward him again had roused him, Adrian called from behind the curtain. “What of you? Have you any family?”

  “I’ve a brother. We’re twins, actually,” Maisie supplied, although she was rather surprised at how readily she answered him. She waved her slippers over the flames in the cauldron in turn.

  “Twins? You must be close.”

  “Nae of late,” she replied, pausing to bend down and slip the toasty warm shoes onto her frozen feet. “He . . . doesna approve of my new role.”

  “Not an admirer of the queen, is he?”

  “Of her actions, rather.”

  Adrian grunted from behind the curtain. “I must say that I share his opinion from the little I’ve been told.” The brass rings tinkled as a bundle of dripping clothes was thrust through the narrow opening between the curtain and the wall.

  Maisie crossed the cabin with a frown. “What have you been told?” She reached out to take the clothes and caught a glimpse of Adrian Hailsworth’s wrist and forearm—the latter crosshatched with dark black markings.

  Her stomach did a neat flip in her abdomen.

  But before she could study the shapes, he pulled his arm back in.

  “That she instigated a coup against the king and has now found herself in a quandary of her own making. One that she needs my help to extricate herself from. Isn’t that the gist of it?” His boots thunked to the floor, one after the other.

  Maisie shook herself from the shock the sight of his arm had given her. She had likely only imagined what she saw any matter.

  “There’s more to it than that. You shouldna judge her so harshly before you know the whole of it.” She reluctantly picked up the worn leather boots, feeling the rumblings of new anger grow as she saw herself in the role of laundress for this particularly arrogant Englishman. “She is a good woman.”

  He harrumphed.

  “She is,” Maisie insisted, turning away from the curtain before she did or said something she would very soon after regret. She tried not to think of the purpose for Adrian Hailsworth’s journey to Wyldonna. “You’ll see. She meant nae harm to the king or her people. Quite the opposite.”

  “Any who aligns himself with the likes of Glayer Felsteppe cannot have selfless motivations. He is a liar and a murderer and a traitor.”

  Maisie dropped the boots to the floor and felt her cheeks heat, and not only from the flames in the cauldron as she reached up high to hang Adrian’s clothes from the hooks in the ceiling.

  “I’m certain she didna ken his full character when first they met.”

  “I’m certain she was only interested in whatever he promised her when they did,” he shot back from behind the curtain.

  Maisie spun to face the embroidered cloth. “It’s easy to see why it was your brother who was made lord and nae you.”

  “Yes, it’s called primogeniture,” he said with a sigh, and Maisie could picture him stretching out on the narrow bunk. “Had I the misfortune to have been born first, I assure you that I would have gladly forfeited the title.”

  “Rather disrespectful to your father’s legacy.” She sniffed, lifting her nose into the air and admittedly feeling quite superior.

  “It would have been more disrespectful to have taken on a role for which I am ill-equipped,” Adrian Hailsworth said blithely. “I’ve never had any desire to rule or to manage. I want only to read and think and learn and build. To be left alone, really.”

  Maisie blinked at the curtain. For a moment she wondered what it would be like to be so very certain of your own person, your dreams and talents and desires. To be certain of them, and to have the means to act upon them without fear of the consequences.

  But then she remembered where she had found Adrian Hailsworth.

  “Then why did you agree to come to Wyldonna’s aid?” she asked, fearing it was unwise to learn too much about this man’s motives and character, but at the same time unable to withstand her curiosity about him.

  Silence filled the cabin of the crawler for several heartbeats.

  “I don’t really know,” he said at last.

  And Maisie did not believe him in the least.

  “I’ll send your clothes through once they’ve
dried,” she offered.

  He didn’t answer her, and so she turned from the curtain to face Adrian’s wet and dripping garments hanging from the ceiling. She could have seen them bone dry in an instant, but she needed some distance from this man, whose firm ideals seemed to take up so much room both on the crawler and in Maisie’s head. Glancing over her shoulder to make certain he wasn’t spying on her, she reached up and took hold of the hem of each garment in her hands and concentrated.

  After a moment, she dropped her hands with a frustrated sigh. They weren’t even his clothes, unless he transformed into an aged tailor in the night. Likely they’d been fashioned for him shortly before he’d left Melk.

  Then Maisie’s gaze fell on the old, worn boots she’d dropped on the floor near the cauldron. One had fallen over onto its side, and although the leather that fashioned the whole of the thing was so worn that it was almost black with age and oil, the boots sported obvious new soles. On the upright shoe, darker splotches punctuated the toe area, as though the stains had not been tended to right away, and had permeated the leather. Maisie crouched down and touched a finger to one of the free-form discolorations. She drew her hand back to her chest in a fist.

  Blood. Adrian’s blood.

  Maisie looked over her shoulder once more, and this time the frown that creased her brow was more quizzical than angry.

  I want only to read and think and learn and build.

  How had it come to pass that a man who proclaimed to be a scholar had seen so much of his own blood spilled upon his boots? And although fine footwear was dear to come by regardless of your station, why would he choose to retain boots in which such a tragedy had occurred? Even going so far as to have them resoled?

  Maisie could have touched the stains again, learned more about the misfortune that had at one time likely caused Adrian Hailsworth a great deal of pain. But her cheeks heated again and she stood, returning her attention to the straightening of the rest of the cabin. She had no need to know anything further of him. It was none of her affair.

  But as she went about her chores a tiny, traitorous voice murmured to her that she didn’t want to know only because, if Maisie had her way, Adrian Hailsworth would soon find himself on the receiving end of considerably more misfortune.

  Adrian stared at the low, planked ceiling above his berth, concentrating on his breathing. In, one, two; out, three, four. After several moments, he had stretched his inhalations and exhalations to a count of eight and didn’t feel quite so much like clawing his way out of his own skin.

  That is, as long as he kept himself from thinking about the fact that he was trapped inside a tiny, windowless boat, in the middle of an ice storm at sea, with no means of escape whatsoever.

  Back to the beginning, then. He raised his head and took a swig from the jug, then lay back down. In, one, two; out, three, four . . .

  Better to turn his mind to the riddle of how he had arrived at his present predicament rather than the what of it. The most likely answer was that he had indeed slept through the first portion of their journey. After all, that was precisely how Valentine Alesander had dealt with his seasick woman on their journey to England. Mary Beckham had slept for days, none the worse for wear. But why would Maisie Lindsey deny it?

  Who wants to admit they’re a poisoner?

  True, but it’s not as if I wasn’t ever going to notice. Did she think I was dim-witted, perhaps?

  Any fool not giving pause at the idea of a journey from Austria to Scotland taking only three days is likely too mentally inconvenienced to draw breath continuously, let alone to put both legs in chausses. I do doubt she requested the aid of an idiot.

  In, one, two, three, four; out, one, two, three, four . . .

  It’s likely she did poison me; she only hasn’t got up the courage to admit it yet. After all, if I took it badly—which I did—I could have brought her to some harm.

  Perhaps, yes. But I’m not very hungry, am I? As one might expect after having been asleep for the better part of a fortnight.

  Adrian reached up with his left hand and rubbed at his jaw. He hadn’t shaved in a pair of days before leaving the abbey—much to Victor’s dismay, likely—and yet he wasn’t sporting a full beard. Like Herne Hailsworth, Adrian could manifest an admirable face of hair in only a handful of days.

  She could have shaved me, I suppose.

  It doesn’t seem to be in her nature to care for others in such a personal manner. Rather . . . unfeminine. No, that wasn’t an accurate description. Reserved, perhaps, was better.

  She wouldn’t have been caring for me, necessarily; she would have been covering her tracks. Although she did provide a fine meal last night. Or whenever it really was.

  In, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight . . .

  I, too, would be especially nice to someone I was persuading to ingest poison.

  Touché.

  Adrian turned over the various points both for and against the idea that he’d been poisoned by Maisie Lindsey in his head for the better part of an hour. Each time he’d thought he’d come up with a definitive answer to the question of how long he’d slept since last crawling into the berth, some other bit of reason would rise and defeat it. He was soon forced to accept the only logical conclusion: He had only slept the length of one typical night.

  But how, then, had they come to already be at sea?

  Snippets of his last conversation with his friends in Melk’s secret library flew unbidden through his mind.

  It is a magical island . . .

  Enchanted . . .

  Populated by fairies, mystical creatures . . .

  Adrian closed his eyes with a self-deprecating grin. He probably really should have a bit to eat before imbibing any more mead. Perhaps there would be another mince pie waiting for him once his clothes were dry.

  The ghost of a smile remained on his lips as he drifted off into a relaxed slumber.

  The scrape and clang of a gate caused his eyes to snap back open almost instantly, but the planked ceiling and hollow silence of the crawler had been replaced by sandstone sueded with torchlight and the faint screams of prisoners hidden away by twisting corridors. There was Constantine, tethered by his neck to the wall, his mane of hair now matted and dark, his face lined with sweat and grime and worry, his clothes hanging on his once sturdy frame like so many old rags tossed over a winter-nuded bush. The smell of Adrian’s own rotting body washed over him like a familiar perfume, and the agony of his injuries bloomed once more with vivid intensity.

  With one painful blink, Maisie Lindsey and her poison were forgotten as if they’d never existed, and Adrian was once more crumpled on the floor of the Damascene dungeon, where a large robed bundle now rolled awkwardly with some force into the wall opposite the cell door.

  The door slammed shut, and the bundle of robes unfurled itself to reveal what appeared to be one of Saladin’s own soldiers.

  The man got to his feet with a groan, brushed himself off, and then placed his hands on his hips, looking from Constantine to Adrian and then back to Constantine.

  “Gerard and Hailsworth, I presume?” he said in perfect English, accented with the spicy flavor of the Spanish shore.

  Constantine’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you think to learn from us, but we have nothing to tell you.”

  “I am no spy, my friend, although very soon Saladin will likely think me one. And I have your friend to thank for it.”

  Adrian’s ears itched at the mention of a friend. He and Constantine had no friends in the Holy Land any longer. They were all dead. Unless the Spaniard was referring to Glayer Felsteppe . . .

  As if Constantine had read Adrian’s mind, he demanded, “What friend?”

  “The giant.” The Spaniard slid down the sandstone wall to sit on the floor near Adrian’s blood-blackened boots. He kept his irritated expression, one knee bent up, his other leg stretched out before him, allowing his robes to reveal a pair of finely tooled leather boots of his own. He thre
w out an arm in disgust. “The white monster. He attacked me in Chastellet’s bailey! Demanded I show him the way to Damascus so that he might rescue his friends.” Then he waved a hand, as if dismissing the whole episode. “Bah. I knew it would no work.”

  Constantine’s eyes met Adrian’s for an instant before turning back to the Spaniard. “The giant—was he called Roman Berg?”

  “Yes! Roman Berg!” The dark-skinned man spat the name like an expletive. “He gave me a sack of coin to attempt to bribe the guards for your release. Now I have no coin, no horse, and will quite likely suffer a traitor’s death along with the two of you.” The Spaniard swung his head toward Adrian and looked him up and down uninterestedly. “Well, perhaps no you. I doubt you will survive the three days you have left before they are to kill you, my friend.”

  Adrian’s heart beat faster in his chest, causing the thrums of constant pain to turn into a stabbing vibration. If his throat was not now swollen nearly shut, he would have unleashed a barrage of questions at this man.

  Fortunately, Chastellet’s general was not so hampered. “We die in three days?”

  The Spaniard shrugged.

  “Where is Roman? Was he also captured?” Constantine demanded in a low voice, his eyes flicking toward the cell door.

  “No, no,” the Spaniard said. “I am no so stupid as to try to infiltrate a Muslim dungeon with a man who resembles the transfigured Christ. I left him in some caves outside the city. So he is safe, but I! I have the misfortune to encounter the one guard in all of Damascus who accuses me of horse thievery!” He gave a growl of complete frustration.

  “Why would a guard say you stole a horse?”

  The Spaniard rolled his eyes. “Perhaps it was because I stole his horse, yes? And because I had asked after the notorious betrayers of Chastellet, it has been assumed that I am in league with you. I wish I’d never heard of that hellish place! I should have known better once I saw the scavengers! Mierda!”