Claire Delacroix (26 page)

This was no man to whom a thinking woman surrendered her heart.

I feared, though, that mine was halfway gone. He had confided some of his history to me, a rare gift, but I yearned for more of his tales.

I lifted my chin and swallowed. “I have yet to meet a man worthy of my regard. I do not know how I would love such a man if I did.”

Merlyn smiled, as if contented with an answer that should have been unsatisfactory. “It is consoling to know that even you have yet to find me fitting, your suitor from Dunkilber has fared no better.”

I was disgusted with myself for not quelling his expectations when it could have been so readily done. I spun and he let me go. I surveyed the floor with its many carved slabs, pretending that I was not as keenly aware of him as I was. “Does your rabbit warren of tunnels open into this chapel as well?”

“No.” He shrugged as I looked back. “There are openings all along the face of the cliff. More than one meets a path, one winds to the lip of this very cliff.”

“So, a man caught in the labyrinth is not truly snared at all? This entire holding is within his reach?”

“Not all of it. The tunnels do not reach far inland, so the keep is as far as the furthest.”

“How did your family find the time and the labor to carve out such a network of passages?”

“It was here,
chère
. Most were formed by nature, others had been added and reshaped by smugglers over the years.”

“This labyrinth is why Ravensmuir so suited your sire,” I guessed and he nodded.

Merlyn looked about himself and abruptly frowned. He crossed the floor quickly, then bent behind the table at the altar. When he stood up, he held a piece of crockery, turning it in his hands. “Did you come to retrieve this?”

It was an earthenware plate. The crockery was fine, the image upon it most familiar. The plate was dun in color with a line of cobalt blue around the rim, a bird with outstretched wings painted in the same blue in its center.

A lammergeier.

“Not I.” I traced the bird’s outline with a fingertip and met Merlyn’s gaze. “Is it from the keep?”

“Yes.” He frowned and said no more.

“None could have come the way I came without leaving a path.”

“I thought that only Fitz and I knew the labyrinth.” There was a rind of cheese and a crust of bread upon the plate, neither nibbled by vermin and neither so stale that they could have lain here more than a fortnight.

Here was a matter upon which we could not suspect the other, and I doubted I was the only one who seized upon this puzzle with relief. I turned and studied the chapel once again, seeking hints of occupancy.

Upon closer scrutiny, the stones in the floor were not laid as flatly or as evenly as one might have expected. There was dirt alongside the one beside me. I bent and Merlyn guessed my intent. He managed to lift one corner of this comparatively small flagstone, revealing that the soil beneath it had been disturbed.

“Someone dug beneath the floor.” I looked at Merlyn. “Someone sought the religious relic your father had never delivered.”

“Not unreasonably, they sought it in a house of God.”

“You?”

He shook his head.

We circled the chapel in opposing directions, pointing out the fresh scrapes upon the larger stones to each other. There were telltale remnants of earth when one looked with especial care, and numerous places where mortar had been removed. One particularly scraped stone in the back corner attracted my eye and I tipped it with considerable effort before Merlyn reached my side.

There were tools hidden beneath it. A small shovel, a bucket, a trowel and a knife. We did not touch them, and Merlyn returned the stone as it had been.

“Someone recently took refuge here, to seek the prize.”

“He might still be near,” Merlyn said grimly.

My gaze fell upon the plate once more. “And he had the audacity to steal from Ravenmuir’s kitchens.”

“Or had the endorsement of one within its walls.”

That truth made the hair prickle on the back of my neck.

“You should know,
chère
, that I came this time at my brother’s urging.”

I was shocked that he confessed as much to me, then that another Lammergeier hid from my view. “Gawain is here?”

His eyes narrowed. “He was here, for he sent me word from here, though I arrived to find him gone.”

“And Ada?”

“Said she has not see him in a year.”

“She lies.”

“Possibly.”

We looked at the plate as one. “Does he know the labyrinth?”

Merlyn shrugged. “Not to my knowledge, but why should he not?”

“Did your father show it to you?”

“No. I knew it was there, for he spoke of it, and I found several entries when I was younger. I only learned its extent after his demise.”

“When you came repeatedly,” I said bitterly. “Yet did not seek me out.”

Merlyn said nothing to that. Indeed, he turned his back upon me and strode back to the plate.

I could not keep injury from my tone. “Is it true what Ada said? Did you return here often?”

His shoulders stiffened but he did not turn and he did not speak for a long moment. Again I had the sense that my departure had stung more deeply that Merlyn would care to admit.

Or that he, yet again, preferred to keep his thoughts veiled.

“Perhaps you came to visit another,” I suggested, making no effort to keep my tone from turning waspish. “Perhaps you have an affection for Ada. She, after all, seems to think that Ravensmuir should have fallen to the hands of another, perhaps even herself.”

“Ada?” Merlyn turned, his expression astonished. “What claim might she believe herself to have?”

“Perhaps she shared your bed in my absence.”

Merlyn’s lips quirked, and he began to laugh. He flicked my chin with his fingertip, merriment crinkling his eyes. “Is this then why you would ensure that I am exhausted?”

I flicked my hand at him, annoyed that he teased me. “She believes herself to have some claim.”

“Seven years of labor is no strong claim to a keep’s seal,” Merlyn retorted, then tipped my chin upward. “Perhaps she has come to think of this place as her own, but there is no reason for it to be to my knowledge.”

“Were you here often?”

He nodded. “Several times. The relic with which my father wagered must be secreted here somewhere.” His gaze was troubled, and I thought I discerned something that he could not voice.

“Unless Gawain found it.”

Merlyn put the plate back on the floor of the chapel, his expression pensive as he crouched beside it. “Gawain is the finest thief that ever I have known.”

“And you have known so many as that?”

Merlyn disregarded my comment. “He leaves no evidence of his presence. He leaves no hint that he was the one there, nor even a sign that the sanctuary has been invaded. He would never have left so careless a sign as this plate.”

“Unless he was interrupted.”

Merlyn bowed his head. “If not worse.” I understood his implication. Whosoever sought the relic was prepared to kill to get it.

Had Gawain found it, then been killed for it? Was that why he was gone when Merlyn arrived?

But then, why had Merlyn been assaulted, as well?

I shivered. The chapel was filled with shadows and whisper like rustles of the birds. There were nests in the supports for the wooden roof of the chapel, the gleam of beady eyes revealing the birds which must have witnessed our coupling.

Merlyn pushed to his feet, suddenly impatient. “You have been here too long,
chère
. Even the most diligent cannot pray so long as this. Curious souls will wonder.”

“And one might seek me out.”

He scooped up the plate, pausing before me. There was hopefulness in his eyes that made him look younger, uncertain. “If a man sought your favor,
chère
, would you heed his efforts?”

“If a man confessed all he knew, I could do nothing but listen,” I replied. A ghost of a smile touched Merlyn’s lips, then he kissed the tip of my nose and was gone.

* * *

X

Merlyn’s was a farewell fittingly given to a child and it irked me as little else he might have done. On principle alone, I did not follow him to the door, nor did I watch him go. Instead, I paced back to the altar and prayed for some aid in this matter.

The wind blew in a gust and wood rattled against wood.

I tipped my head back and looked for the source of the sound. A wooden rosary had been hung over one arm of the crucifix hung behind the alter. Those beads swung in the wind and slapped against the crucifix’s center beam.

I had not noticed the rosary before, but there was a patina of dust upon each bead. And the wooden beads were dark, of the same hue as the carved wood itself, as well as hanging in the deep shadows beneath the window.

Indeed, there was nothing remarkable about it or its presence. I exhaled and glanced over my shoulder, feeling suddenly very alone. I wondered fleetingly who had left the beads here, perhaps a pilgrim or a priest, perhaps the soul who sought refuge, perhaps some long forgotten penitent.

I turned to depart, then spared one last glance for the swinging beads. My gaze sharpened and I nigh gasped aloud.

Tucked onto the support for the crucifix, hidden from casual glimpse by the carving of the dying Christ himself, was a bundle of cloth tied with heavy twine.

Perhaps I have a measure of the Sight, for I knew with unswerving certainty what it was. Here was the relic of Merlyn’s father, here was Avery’s prize.

Or there it was, so highly placed that I could not reach it without Merlyn’s aid. And Merlyn, of course, was not only gone without a trace but impossible to summon to my aid.

* * *

After a great deal of fretting and stretching, I reluctantly concluded that there was little I could do. And truly, the bundle, if it was the relic, had been secreted safely there for many years. Even someone who had sought it within the chapel had not discovered its hiding place.

Merlyn would be pleased and the prospect of that pleased me. Impatient to see him again, but knowing he had spoken rightly, I schooled myself to pretend I knew nothing of the prize. I retrieved the scythe and strode whistling back toward the keep. I strolled into the kitchen, making a show of wiping my dirty brow.

“That was heavy labor,” I declared to none in particular.

Ada’s lips tightened. “None asked you to do it.”

So, she had noted where I had gone. “But none would have done it for me. And in the absence of the ravens, I thought the occupants of this keep had need of some divine favor.”

Ada snorted. Her brother watched me, his task of turning the spit forgotten. I wondered whether he guessed the truth of Merlyn, through some odd sense that such people often have. I turned from his oddly knowing gaze.

“I have need of a bath before the midday meal, Ada,” I said in a most conciliatory tone, grateful that I could seize upon my labor as an excuse. “Could you provide me with a bucket or two of water?”

“Since I have nothing else to do?” she demanded, looking pointedly at the meal she was preparing.

“I could not come filthy to such a fine board as you clearly intend to lay.”

Her face pinched, then she turned away. “I should expect not, as you have a guest again this day.”

“I do?”

“Calum of Dunkilber has seen fit to seek you out again. He is in the stables with his steeds and squires.”

Annoyance rose within me, though not just with Ada’s deeds. My tone was sharp. “Ada, you should not admit any soul to the hall and stables who so much as appears at the gate.”

“Oh?” Her brows arched high. “I had though him an intimate friend of yours, my lady. Had I but known he was an enemy to be barred from entry, I should have done so.”

“He is not an enemy,” I explained with a patience I was far from feeling. “But it is not proper to admit visitors without the approval of the noblewoman who holds the keep and that, in case you have forgotten, is me.”

She surveyed me, her expression telling. “While it is proper for a noblewoman to tend her own grounds?”

I shook my head, knowing this argument could not be won. “Bring me two buckets of water with all haste, Ada. And admit none from this day forward without my express permission.”

“Arnulf will bring it,” she said tersely as I made to leave.

I paused, wondering what scheme she hatched with this choice, then spoke with a resolve that could not be mistaken. “Then he shall leave it outside the solar door and knock to let me know that it has arrived. I will have no man within my chambers.”

Ada, curse her, laughed.

I reached the solar before I wondered whether she meant only to irk me or whether she knew more of Merlyn’s survival than even he had guessed.

* * *

My bath was tepid and rushed. I struggled with the laces on a fine gown and hastened to the hall, arriving breathless to find my sister laughing at some jest of Calum’s. Ada was carrying a steaming platter to the board, her brother bore the roast meat behind her, and the smell of the food filled the hall. Merlyn’s two squires stood by the board, prepared to serve the meat.

The Yule log filled the hall with welcome heat and a merry crackle, while the green adornment we had labored to hang looked festive. Both Ada and Arnulf were so concentrated on their tasks that they looked almost amiable.

The table was set with linen and crockery - though it was a disproportionately small table for the size of the chamber, it looked welcoming. Braziers burned on either side, Ada evidently having decided that a visiting nobleman was worth the expenditure as the newly resident noblewoman was not. Sunlight filtered through the glass windows and drew golden patterns upon the floor. Calum’s squires clustered together and slightly to one side; a young girl stood near them but alone.

Mavella looked fetching and she laughed merrily. That she had dressed with care for Calum implied much. Certainly, she was pretty with her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling.

Had it not been for Tynan’s absence and the troubling circumstances surrounding that, this scene might have lightened my heart. Mavella and Calum both turned to smile at me and I forced myself to smile in turn.