"Do you know what caused Mr. Pritchard to collapse?"
"He carries the curse of youth, which is idiocy, but he assures me he was not drunk. I have no idea what made him faint, for that is what he did, pure and simple. He had no seizure, no sudden pain in his head or limbs. So I must conclude that he collapsed for the simple fact that he is young and untried and-"
Nicholas said, "He is older than I am, Dr. Knotts."
"Then it must be a stricture in his bowels. This is not uncommon, particularly in young men with excesses of male vigor."
Peter sat up suddenly, thoroughly alarmed now. "A stricture in my bowels?"
"Aye, lad, but it will work itself out. Now, I must be off." And Dr. Knotts, after bowing to both Nicholas and Rosalind, was gone within the next second, Block at his side.
Nicholas said, "Don't worry, Peter. I fancy the good doctor has no idea why you passed out. Odd things sometimes happen when you least expect them, but then they pass. How do you feel?"
"I am fine now, my lord. I honestly don't know what happened. I was feeling quite fine, and suddenly, I saw this bright flash of white and then you were leaning over me, speaking to me."
It was the light that had laid him flat, Nicholas thought. But why? He said to Peter, "I wish you to confine yourself to very light duty today, Peter. Let's not take any chances. Now, my stepmother and my three half brothers just arrived. Her ladyship and I must attend them. Rosalind, come with me."
She asked him again as they walked to the library, "Richard wanted all of them to come here to warn you? That is nonsense, Nicholas, and you know it. I do not trust any of them, except perhaps for Aubrey. He seems harmless enough."
"Richard looks scared. No, he is scared. He's not a good enough actor to fool me and that alone gives me great pause."
In the library, they found the three brothers seated, drinking tea and eating Cook's gooseberry muffins. The Dowager
Lady Mountjoy stood next to the fireplace, a teacup in her gloved hand.
"I never liked this room," Miranda said when they walked into the library. "It's dark and cold, and so I told that mad old man."
"I agree," Nicholas said. "Now, Richard, you will tell me exactly why you have descended on Wyverly Chase." But Richard was staring at Rosalind. "You're here," he said. "Well, yes, I live here."
Miranda said, "Richard has had a dream, Nicholas, a dream that-"
"Why don't you let Richard tell us about the dream, ma'am," Nicholas said pleasantly, his eyes never leaving his half brother's face.
"Terrified about a silly dream, just like a girl," Lancelot said, and gave his brother a fat sneer.
"If you don't have anything useful to say, then shut up, Lancelot," Nicholas said. "Now, Richard, what is this all about?"
Richard rose. He looked straight at Rosalind and pointed his finger at her. "She killed you, Nicholas. I watched her kill you."
Rosalind didn't protest. She smiled at him and marveled aloud, "What a lovely thought that is-killing my husband and here we are newly wedded. Hmmm. Have you looked at your brother, Richard?"
"Of course I have! What of it? I'm very nearly as big as he is and probably more dangerous!"
That earned him an ironic look from Nicholas and another big smile from Rosalind. "Please, do tell me exactly how I managed to kill my husband."
"You think this is amusing, do you? You stabbed him, damn you. I watched you stab him."
Nicholas said slowly, "Did you happen to see the knife, Richard?"
"Why do you care what the bloody knife looks like? That is the least of your worries. This woman-your precious new bride-who has no family, no known background-she killed you."
"Then what did she do?" Nicholas asked him.
Richard's face flushed, his eyes darkened. "You think this is all a jest? You're mocking me?"
"Tell him what she did, Richard," Aubrey said. "Tell him."
42
Richard gave Rosalind such a venomous look she wanted to cross herself.
"She dug out your heart and held it up as if it were an offering to some heathen god, your blood streaking down her arms, dripping off her fingers. There was blood everywhere. She was covered with your blood, Nicholas, splattered upward even to her face."
"What did she do with my heart?"
Lancelot took a step toward Nicholas, fist up. "You bastard, you don't believe my brother. He doesn't lie, damn you. Listen to him if you Wish to live."
"I'm listening, Lancelot, but so far it sounds like a tale Grayson Sherbrooke would write, perhaps set at Stonehenge. You said this was a dream, Richard?"
"I'm not sure, actually, I was in a sort of waking state, so not really a dream, no. More like a vision. A vision of something that will happen. I was alone, in my bedchamber at home, and time lost all meaning to me and then the vision came into my brain, clear and sharp. I could even smell the blood when she cut your heart out of your chest."
Nicholas looked at each of them in turn. He saw bone-deep resentment in Lancelot, a sort of academic interest on Aubrey's face, flat contempt on Miranda's face, and on Richard's face-cold fear. He said to his half brother, "You came to warn me because-?"
Miranda stepped forward, her expression now venomous. "She held up your heart, you moron, and she chanted foreign words Richard didn't understand. Your wife killed you! And you have the gall to question your brother's motives in coming to help you?"
Rosalind spoke. "Richard, what was I wearing in this vision?"
"A white robe belted at your waist with a thin rope of some kind. Its ends hung down nearly to your knees. Your hair was long down your back."
"You are certain it was me?"
"Yes, all that wild red hair, your blue eyes. It was you." He frowned. "But it was as if you were in a different time, in a different place. I don't know, that doesn't really make sense, but I know it was you."
Nicholas said, "So now she's a vestal virgin of some sort or a high priestess?"
"I don't know," Richard said finally. "I don't know. There were no priests hovering about, no one else, only the two of you, you bound on your back and her leaning over you."
"Do you know why I cut out my husband's heart?"
Richard, for the first time, looked uncertain. "I don't know that either," he said slowly. "All I know is that you did it." He looked at Nicholas. "You asked me what she did with your heart. She flung it away from her, as if it were refuse, then she rose and stood looking down at you sprawled at her feet, and she was rubbing her bloody hands together."
"Like Lady Macbeth?"
"No!" Richard shouted at her. "There was no real blood on Lady Macbeth's hands, only her guilt made her believe that, but your hands were covered with Nicholas's blood."
Rosalind said, "We did have an argument last night, and I admit I wanted to smack him with a book, but I didn't even do that. This ripping-out-his-heart business, that would require a dedication to something fanatical. Another time, another place, I think you said." And she thought of the bloody knife in her own vision, the white drops sliding to the floor off the tip. Where had the blood come from?
"Be it elsewhere and in another time, you still did it, I saw you do it!"
"My lord."
Nicholas turned to see Block in the doorway, looking stiff and proper, though his eyes were a bit on the wild side.
"What crisis is upon us now, Block?"
"The old earl's ghost will not stop singing lewd ditties. Mrs. McGiver requests that you order him to stop."
Nicholas turned to his half brother. "Would you care to attend the old earl's ghost, Richard?"
Richard gawked at him. "A ghost? You're saying the old earl's ghost is real? That is nonsense. There are no ghosts. My grandfather is in Hell where he belongs."
Rosalind, seeing that Nicholas was primed for violence, said, "Richard, why do you find a singing ghost more unbelievable than me dressed like an ancient priestess plucking out Nicholas's heart and offering it as a sacrifice?"
"Let us go to t
he drawing room," Nicholas said. "Block, tell Mrs. McGiver we will take care of the ghost."
The door to the drawing room was open. Outside in the entrance hall stood Mrs. McGiver and Marigold, both listening intently, neither of them looking particularly alarmed.
Nicholas motioned the group into the room, placing his finger over his lips to keep them quiet. Once inside, Nicholas said toward the wing chair, "I am here. Rosalind is here. Other relatives are hare as well. What is it you have to sing to us this morning, sir?"
A minute passed. Two.
Richard said, "It is as I thought. Servants are fanciful, they make things up, they-" A creaky old voice sang out,
I am tired of strife I am tired of trouble. He stirs the pot And it boils and bubbles.
Once he comes the danger's near. Once he acts then death is here. Go to the Pale and slay the source Else the future may change its course.
"Don't be afraid, it's merely the old earl," Mrs. McGiver said kindly to Miranda Vail and the three young gentlemen surrounding her, all of them looking sheet white and ready to bolt. "He loves to sing, you know," she added, all confiding now, "and usually he doesn't make much sense. What he just sang, now that wasn't lewd. A warning it sounded like to me. I wonder who this he is? I don't like the sound of this, my lord."
Rosalind didn't either. She wondered who this he was as well. How were they supposed to get to the Pale to find and slay this bloody source to keep the future from changing from what it should be?
Nicholas said into the dead silence, "Thank you, sir, for your fine song. Your rhyming was inspiring as well."
Miranda said in a choked whisper, "There is no one here. We are the only ones in this room. This-this ghost-he sings like this all the time?"
"This was a trick," Richard announced to the room at large, "some sort of absurd trickery done by a servant who is hiding behind the draperies. One of you doubtless made up those ridiculous words for him to sing." He strode across the drawing room as he spoke. "Where are you?" he yelled, shaking his fist. "Come out from your hidey-hole now, else
I'll gullet you." He pulled a knife out of his coat pocket and brandished it at the draperies. The draperies didn't move.
Richard flung them back. There was no cowering servant there. He looked behind each piece of furniture. He found nothing at all.
"Where are you, you bastard?"
An ancient moan came from the depth of the old wing chair before it toppled onto its side to the floor.
Miranda Vail screamed.
Rosalind, Nicholas, and his four relatives sat at the breakfast room table.
Rosalind said into the strained silence, a smile in her voice, "Let me assure you again that our ghost is harmless." None of them looked too certain about that; indeed, Rosalind wasn't all that certain either that Captain Jared was merely the singing messenger. She said, "Enough excitement for the moment. We'll have a lovely breakfast."
"I could not eat," Miranda said.
"I can," Lancelot said. "I'm hungry."
"You are so pretty sitting there daintily spreading butter on your muffin," Richard said to his brother. "Just look at you, the image of a romantic poet. As for your gluttony, you'd best take care else you will strain your trouser buttons."
"I am not pretty, damn you!"
Rosalind called out, "Block! We are ready for another breakfast course."
Aubrey said, "This is a lovely room. Are you certain the old boy isn't dangerous?"
"I don't think so," Nicholas said. "He makes no threats. He simply sings and occasionally sends his chair toppling to its side." He shrugged. "One becomes used to it."
"You do not believe me," Richard said, and he drummed his fingertips on the mahogany tabletop.
Nicholas said, "Richard, tell me about the knife Rosalind was using."
"The bloody knife?" Richard smashed his fist on the table. "You're concerned about the bloody knife when what you should be thinking about is how to rid yourself of this vicious bitch before she murders you!"
"Cook has made some lovely toast and scrambled eggs, not to mention kippers and-" Block froze in his tracks at the violence he saw on his master's face, indeed felt in the air itself.
Nicholas rose slowly from his chair. "You will apologize to my wife, Richard, and you will do it now and with grace and sincerity."
Richard shot Rosalind a look. His voice was hairing as he managed to get out, "I am worried about my half brother. He does not seem concerned, and any intelligent man would be very concerned. We all came here to warn him, but-"
"You are mucking it up, Richard."
Richard cleared his throat. "I apologize, Rosalind. I do not know you so I cannot judge your character, but I had the vision and that is a fact."
"Do you know, Richard," she said, her voice emotionless, "I have never even been called a bitch, much less a vicious bitch. This vision of yours-"
"It is a portent," Miranda announced as she forked down scrambled eggs. "Visions don't lie."
A portent, Rosalind thought, and set to her own breakfast, surprised she was ravenous. She looked up to see Nicholas watching her. Surely he wasn't thinking she'd cut out his heart. But that vision of Richard's-
Nicholas said, "Richard, the knife. I ask you again, what did it look like?"
"It had a curved blade, and there were diamonds, rubies, and even sapphires embedded in the hilt."
Nicholas nodded. "I wish to show you something after breakfast."
"After breakfast," Miranda said, voice hard as the brass candlesticks in the middle of the table, "we are leaving Richard has delivered his warning. We have done our duty What happens to you now is on your own head, Nicholas."
Nicholas carefully laid down his knife. "I would like all of you to remain here for several days."
"So you believe me then?" As Richard spoke, he shot Rosalind a cold smile.
"Believe that Rosalind stabs me and cuts out my heart? No, but there are unanswered questions roiling about. Perhaps amongst all of us, we can figure out what is going on here."
"There is something else going on?" Aubrey asked, sitting forward, his eyes glittering. "Something better than Richard's bloody vision?"
"Oh, yes," Nicholas said, "much better."
43
Richard's voice was barely above a whisper. "Yes, yes, that is the knife I saw her plunge into your heart."
Rosalind saw herself holding that knife as it dripped blood-white blood. What if it was indeed a portent? What if something happened, something utterly catastrophic, and she did kill Nicholas? No, it wasn't possible, it simply wasn't. But what was possible, what was fact and she and Nicholas had to embrace it, was that there was magic at work here, ancient magic. She thought of all the Celtic names of the wizards and witches in the Pale. She thought of Taranis, the Dragon of the Sallas Pond, who'd been Sarimund's confidant of sorts. His was a Celtic god's name as well, and he'd claimed to be immortal. What if they were the same beings, but they'd somehow ended up in a different time, a different place? And somehow they'd spilled over into this world? Were they trying to come back, only something terrible had happened and they were stuck in the Blood Rock fortress? What if they wanted her to kill Nicholas because he'd descended from Captain Jared, who hadn't paid his debt to her?
How could such a thing be of help to them?
It didn't make sense. She'd been born almost three hundred years later, well beyond Captain Jared's time, surely a god would know that. But then again, maybe there were boundaries on ancient wizards and gods, restricting them to certain skills in a certain time, a certain place. Maybe they weren't all-powerful or omniscient.
It was time to act, she thought, time to discover what this debt was all about, time to learn who she really was, maybe what she really was. The possible what scared her to her toes.
She heard Richard Vail ask Nicholas, "What is the knife doing here?"
"This knife appears to have many incarnations," Nicholas said, and she admired his ambiguity.
"
Lawks," Aubrey said, rubbing his hands together, "wait until I tell my friends at Oxford what is happening in my family-ghosts and knives in a vision that really exist. But wait, Richard, are you certain you never saw this knife before? It did belong to Grandfather; it was in this room when you were a boy, wasn't it?"
Richard still stared at the knife, as if mesmerized. "I don't think so, but that was a long time ago and I was young-" He shrugged and tried not to look frightened.
"Nicholas is not our family," Lancelot said to Aubrey, "not really. Our father detested him, claimed he was a bastard, but since he was the image of himself, he couldn't very well prove it, now could he?"
Richard said, almost as an afterthought, "Shut up, Lance."
Lancelot puffed up and looked ready to yell, when his mother said, "It's all terribly unfair, but, at this moment in time, Nicholas is the head of the Vail family."
"Unfair to whom?" Rosalind asked. "Richard is the one who has been disloyal to his brother. I mean, trying to kidnap me, surely not a very praiseworthy thing to do."
Miranda said, "And why should he be loyal to this unwanted stranger? Gone when he was but a boy and he only returns to collect his dead father's title. What sort of son does that?"
Nicholas said, eyebrow arched, "One that is disowned, perhaps, madam?"
Miranda shouted, "It's still not fair, do you hear me?"
"I don't think it was particularly fair for someone to try to kill me when I was a little girl," Rosalind said. "What do you have to say to that?"
"I have to say you are probably a harlot's brat and her drunken lover took a cane to you, deservedly so, that's what I say."
In a flash Nicholas was not an inch from his stepmother's nose. He looked intimidating, dangerous, and ruthless. In a voice so soft no one could hear what he said except Miranda and Rosalind, he said, "Listen to me, you vicious old bat, you will never insult Rosalind again or I will ruin you. Do you understand me, madam? No more new gowns since there will be no more money, no more entree into society. In short you will be ignored and ostracized."
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