A Glimmering Girl (12 page)

He stepped up to the window casement and drank in the view with his eyes. Home. There was Igdrasil in the distance, as enduring as he remembered, stark black in the darkening night. Beyond, the Severn Sea lay blanketed in swirling mist. Taking in the view, savoring the well-roasted Dumnos venison, he began to believe he was really home.

“I detest that man,” the baron said.

“You can’t mean my poor squire.” Ross came away from the window. The fire’s warmth was welcome, and he took off his cloak before sitting down with his father.

“No, no. Not Braedon. Prior Quinn—Bishop Quinn now, I see. Full of importance.” The baron filled two pewter goblets and nodded with satisfaction after his first taste of the wine. “Why does he need to speak to me privately?” 

“No honest reason I know of,” Ross said. “Aethelos is dead, and the king wants to stop any speculation about his new heir. Henry sent Quinn to secure your oath of fealty to Mathilde as his successor, but that oath must be signed openly and witnessed.”

“An oath which I will give. What do I care who sits on the English throne? One spawn of House Normandum is no different than another. As long as they leave us in peace.”

“Perhaps the church has something else in mind,” Ross said. “I heard grumblings at Windsor. Many in the church are against Mathilde.”

“They fear a queen will be weak,” the baron said. “Therefore the oath, to bind them. I’ll sign it tomorrow night at a banquet before my knights and be done with it.”

“I believe it’s the opposite, my lord. They fear Mathilde will be strong and she’ll continue Henry’s secularization of the government. Henry has shifted power to the barons’ hands at the church’s expense. Authority over markets and land use. He’s transferred jurisdiction over temporal matters to the assizes—”

“All that, I agree with. The local lord should settle disputes over men’s pigs and sheep. Leave Rome to the care and judgment of men’s souls.”

“But Stephen is the church’s creature. Quinn didn’t spell it out on the road to Tintagos, but in Windsor it’s widely believed that Stephen would restore Rome’s authority. I think Quinn means to ask for your secret promise to support Stephen when the time comes.”

“Preposterous. It would mean civil war. What’s to be gained?”

“In chaos, the righteous don’t prevail by their goodness. Victory goes to the powerful,” Ross said. “I saw it in the holy land. The church
wants
civil war precisely because it will weaken the monarchy, no matter whose head the crown sits on.”

“House Normandum is strong,” the baron said. “Their vassals are everywhere.”

“All great houses rise and fall. The church is forever.”

His father finished his wine and replenished both goblets. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, as he always did when confronted by a choice with two bad solutions. “Then you would side with Stephen?” he said.

Ross’s heart swelled. “You ask me?”

“As I said, Ross, you’ve come home a man. I see experience—and a little wisdom—on your face.”

“Then I’ll tell you. In a perfect world, I’d prefer Mathilde,” Ross said. “Church and state should be separate.
Render unto Caesar
and all that. But if it comes to a conflict, there
will
be chaos and brute power
will
win. That brute power is the church, and the church has chosen Stephen.”

“You speak like a lord, son. I don’t argue with your logic. You may well be right on the politics of the matter—but not the honor. I won’t dishonor Tintagos by betraying my king. If Henry begs my fealty, he will have it.

“Stephen will win.”

“Then let’s pray Henry gets another heir and lives twenty more years to see the boy crowned.”

The baron attacked his meat, finished with the subject. His position was understandable, honorable, and wrong, but this wasn’t the time to argue.

“You wanted to tell me something, father?”

“About Sir Yestin’s daughter…” The baron put down his goblet.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Ross stopped his father. “The journey from London was a long one, made longer by Bishop Quinn’s running commentary on how to improve Dumnos and Tintagos in particular. He was incensed to learn on his last visit here that a wyrding woman was called to attend a knight’s daughter during childbirth.”

“I’m sorry, Ross. It was a cruel way to learn of the girl’s death.”

“Quinn took pleasure in recounting the details. I don’t know how many times he called her a whore before he recalled that she’d named me as her child’s father. If it weren’t a mortal sin to kill a priest, I would have run a sword through him.”
If I’d had a sword.

“You wouldn’t have had the chance. Sir Yestin would have already done the deed—if, as you say, it were not a mortal sin.”

Ross shook his head. Such was the paradox of Dumnos. Men begged for a wyrd, and in the next moment they feared eternal damnation by the One True God. On the
Vengeance
, he’d watched a crewman from Penzance pray to Aeolios for a good wind, then kiss the cross hanging from his neck.

“Still,” the baron went on, “she had no business spreading her legs without first being taken to church.”

“I didn’t know about the child, or I would have married her.”

“And I would have forbidden it. You’re duty bound to make a better alliance.” Lord Tintagos squinted. “Great gods, son. Did you love her?”

“I did not.”

“Well, then. At least there’s that.” The baron again filled their goblets. “It’s a terrible thing to know the great love of your life is gone forever.”

“Still, you should have married again,” Ross said. “One son hardly ensures the dynasty, as Henry has sadly proven. And you deserve companionship if not love.”

“When they told me your mother was dead, I went to Igdrasil and prayed to Brother Sun and Sister Moon to take me right then and there. If Elaine was in heaven, then that was the only place for me. I couldn’t face life—even the idea of life—without her. I wanted to throw myself off the cliffs. But then God would separate me from my Elaine through all eternity for my sin.”

Again the paradox. The baron believed simultaneously in the wrath of God and the love of Brother Sun and Sister Moon—and could speak of them both in the same breath. Ross envied his certainty.

“The gods do work in mysterious ways,” Tintagos continued. “They close off one path and show another. I resolved to live on, to be a good lord, and to serve my people. One day I would see her again. In the moment of my resolution, they brought you to me, a sweet and holy consolation. Elaine’s son. My son.
Our joy.
My delight. In that moment I knew what the gods want from us: Above all, do not despair. Though sorrow comes, look for good in the world.”

Tears filled the man’s eyes; Ross saw them through his own. The baron grunted and Ross cleared his throat. They both bit into more meat and washed it down with gulps of wine.

After some silence, Ross said, “Quinn is dangerous. I’ve seen other cruel and vindictive men, but this one takes pleasure in cruelty. He refused to pray over the infant’s body and enjoyed telling me as much.”

“Aye, the sooner he leaves Tintagos, the better,” the baron said. “But let’s not dwell on the dead, not when my heart is so full of gratitude for your return. It will ease your mind to know Sir Yestin prevailed upon the wyrding woman to secretly bury the tiny body in sacred ground. Your little daughter is with Brother Sun and Sister Moon now.”

“It does, father. It does ease my mind.”

Little daughter.

Ross let out a sigh and tucked the loss away into a corner of his heart. He must get on with the business of living lest he be consumed by the fire burning in his head.

That fire had crept into his soul during the crusade, a low-burning flame of desolation and woe and hopelessness. It was a fire of infinite longing, and while it burned there was no room in his world for joy.

“Ha!” Lord Tintagos let out a sudden, boisterous laugh and rubbed his chin. “I have just the thing. I’ll order the Great Wyrding moved to the dining hall. Hang the tapestry right opposite the head table, in Quinn’s direct sight.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Won’t he be amazed to hear the story of King Jowan’s wyrding woman, Frona? The greatest wyrder of all time, how she transformed our iron ore and made possible the Dumnos steel coveted by every cook, smithy, and warrior.”

As Ross laughed with his father, the thought of Dumnos steel again reminded him of being manipulated to give his sword to Henry. A sickening insight grabbed him and fed the fire in his head.

There was more to it than the mere gifting of a sword.

Sarumen was a brilliant tactician, always several steps ahead of the game. If civil war came to England, both sides would be evenly matched, with no advantage in the number of men or fortified castles.

But if one’s equal
number
of men carried superior weapons into the fight—blades that could pierce armor and slice through a normal sword with a quarter the effort—the advantage would be not merely decisive. It would be overwhelming.

Lord Sarumen had wanted more than a gift to please a king’s ego. He wanted to whet that king’s appetite for enough Dumnos steel to arm his entire force. In a flash, Ross saw forward, and he saw backward. Four years ago when Sarumen himself had come to Tintagos to knight the baron’s son, it had been but the first step in a long march to one objective, a plan executed with eternal patience.

Sarumen wanted to control
all
the iron of Dumnos.

« Chapter 11 »
The Fisher King

Igraine spread her wings, caught a wind drift, and soared high and free above Avalos. Then she swooped down and circled the small island within the island, at the center of the freshwater lake where the marble rock kept
Mistcutter
safe from the world.

She lifted higher until all the island came into view, twenty-three miles long and seven miles wide. She flew east, away from the eternal spring, and plunged through the encircling mist which hid Avalos from the outside world.

Muscle memory told the way to Igdrasil. Igraine dismissed an avian impulse to scan the world tree for prey and kept on.

She’d never transmogrified outside of Avalos. It was winter in Dumnos. White mist in from the Severn Sea mingled with the smoke of fire pits and chimneys. Northeast of Igdrasil lay Tintagos Castle, the cliffs on one side and the remaining perimeter surrounded by a wall imposing to a human—and nothing to a falcon.

Inland and somewhat south lay the faewood. Even in peregrine, Igraine shuddered. Since coming to the mainland when she was thirteen, Igraine had roamed the hills and fields freely, limited only by her stamina and perseverance. The faewood was the one place Kaelyn always warned her away from. The fae were the enemy.

Igraine headed toward the castle. While in peregrine, she might as well eavesdrop on Bishop Quinn and learn why he was here. And if she also caught a glimpse of Sir Ross, she might find out what sort of man he had become.

But then, out of the corner of her peregrine eye, Igraine spotted smoke rising from a two-story cottage at the edge of the faewood. A cottage that looked older than any house or hut in the surrounds of Tintagos, yet one she’d never seen before. She pulled in her wings and dived down closer. Her tiny falcon heart pounded with excitement.

A woman was on the roof, sitting on a chaise. She was talking to herself—it looked like she was arguing with herself. Anger and bitter regret emanated in waves from the cottage. Something was terribly wrong here.

Dread flooded Igraine’s little bird body. Instinctively she caught an updraft and flew away from that horrible place as fast as wing and air could take her.

Elyse!
She had seen Glimmer Cottage…
and
Elyse. It had to be!

Remember, remember,
she told herself—though she usually retained little of her transmogrifications. A random sound, an elusive sense of face or place, with the feeling of snippets from faded dreams.

At the castle she flew over the gate and perched neatly on the smithy’s roof. The air within the keep was intense and a bit nauseating. Igraine turned her eye toward a smell of possible food. A fat man in a brown robe dropped a piece of whatever he was eating. She flew down to the ground and snatched it up in her beak.

Ack, disgusting.
She spit out whatever it was.

The man said, “What’s that falcon doing there, free of tether?”

She raced back up to the smithy’s roof. From that safety, she looked down into the face of Bishop Quinn, standing beside the fat man. His greedy gaze burned up at her, a reminder of everything she disliked about him.

“A silver coin to the man who brings me that bird,” he said. “She’s too beautiful to fly free.”

How dare you!
Igraine held the bishop’s gaze while his entourage began to climb the smithy walls.

“See how she waits so patiently.” He sounded disappointed.