The Chalice and the Blade (The Chalice Trilogy) (27 page)

“Milord, I looked ev’rywhere, both up and down, right into the thick of the place, and she’s not to be found.”

“Who?” Vivienne asked, before Soren could fully absorb what the man had said.

“The demoiselle, lady. Neither she nor Lavrans is in the tower, or anywhere in the castle.” Noll paled even further under Lady Vivienne’s darkening gaze. His speech grew fainter, fading into a bare whisper of breath. “There is only old Erlend in the Hart. Not even the hell hounds are about.”

He’d lost the maid. Soren felt ill, a condition only worsened by his wife turning her fury on him.

“I think mayhaps you are right after all, my love. There can be no doubt of a sacrifice being made this day.”

~ ~ ~

With a bemused smile, Caradoc accepted another sugar-encrusted apple tartlet from the proffered tray. The Lady D’Arbois was putting him off, delaying him with charm, procrastinating with small talk, and treading the razor edge of his anger with a light step. She was nonetheless doomed. If Ceridwen ab Arawn was not soon brought before him, he would gut every living soul within the castle walls and burn Wydehaw to the ground.

He had asked for Lavrans with no more success. That the two of them should be missing at the same time did not bode well for his old friend. Yet Dain was no boy to be led about by his cock. The two hundred marks were with Caradoc’s captain, Dyfn, along with saffron and violet sugar, enough to reimburse Lavrans for his trouble. There were no oranges, in part because there were no oranges to be had, and in part because he would allow himself to be pushed only so far by either friendship or necessity. Past that point, he would simply take what was his.

“Did you have much rain on your journey?” Lady Vivienne asked, touching her fingers to his forearm in a gesture so coyly seductive that Caradoc wondered if there might be reason to keep her alive longer than the others. The green wool of her gown was embroidered round the neck and sleeves, which were short to reveal the yellow kirtle beneath. The girdle hanging about her hips repeated both colors edged in gold.

He let his gaze rise to her face. She was pretty enough in an insipid way others might find appealing. For himself, he preferred drama to prettiness in a face, though the cruel little twist that passed as her smile held promise.

“No rain that I noticed,” he said.

She laughed and touched him again, this time letting her fingers slide down his sleeve and over the bronze points on his arm guard, until they caressed the bare skin of his hand.

D’Arbois was married to a whore. How intriguing. “How long until your husband returns, lady?” he asked.

“Oh, not long,” she assured him, then, as if realizing a missed opportunity, she lowered her lashes. “Or should I say, not nearly long enough.”

’Twas his turn to laugh, and he did heartily. After he gutted her husband and burned her home, he’d take this one north with him.

Vivienne blushed on cue, a well-practiced art, and wondered how much longer she could hold her guest’s attention without having to take her clothes off. Soren had put her in an impossible situation. Stave off the Boar, he’d said, as if she were a soldier wielding a sword and buckler.

The shame of it was, if they were unable to produce the chit, the Boar was likely to leave in a rage without giving Vivienne a chance to properly seduce him, and she so wanted to seduce him. The sorcerer paled in comparison to this man.

Caradoc was tall, broad, and muscular, without the gross excess of flesh that marred Ragnor. His hair was not the beast’s wiry red, or Lavrans’s silky chestnut, but was gold upon gold, thick and heavy like a royal lion’s mane. The similarity to the king’s heraldry made him seem even more the warrior, as did the studded leather guards on his forearms. He was no slave to fashion, but to battle.

Yet he was beautifully fashionable. His tunic was of the softest, warmest brown wool, the shirt beneath of the finest cream-colored linen. His chausses were dark brown, his boots fit him to mid-calf. No jewelry adorned him besides a simple brooch that held his cloak, but he needed none. His eyes were finery enough. A mysterious hazel they were, with flashes of green and gold—and even white, she would swear—within the blue-toned depths.

The only unsavory thing about him was the man he’d brought with him, a leech dressed in monk’s clothes with the odd name of Helebore. Fortunately, the man was not given to company. Shortly after their arrival, he had disappeared into the chambers assigned to Caradoc and had not been seen since.

“Mayhaps you would like to see the rosary,” she suggested to the Boar. “There are few blooms as of yet, but ’tis enclosed with a high wall.”

Caradoc leaned in close, and she saw that indeed, there were flecks of white in the irises of his eyes. “I have spent many a pleasant hour in ladies’ gardens,” he said, “and am sure that even without the sweetness of spring’s first blossoms, yours would prove to be as fragrant as any I have dallied in.”

There was no pretense in the blush that flamed in Vivienne’s cheeks. The color was caused by true emotion, excitement strummed to life by the dark timbre of his voice.

“Shall we meet this afternoon?” She would have wine brought up from the cellar, and more of Renaud’s apple tartlets baked. There should be a coverlet or two discreetly arranged on one of the benches. No sense in dirtying a gown.

“Aye,” he answered. “Let us meet this afternoon.” He smiled, and Vivienne near swooned with the thrill of it.

“Then excuse me, milord, and I shall go see what keeps my husband.” And if needs be, Vivienne would shake the chit Ceridwen free of whatever hidey-hole she’d found so she could present the pale, scarred thing to her betrothed. With his mind thus eased, there would be no distractions in their tryst, and certainly no competition for his favors.

~ ~ ~

“Have you found her?” Caradoc no sooner shut the door to his chambers than he asked the question of Helebore.

“Aye, she’s here now.” The leech did not look up to answer, but continued staring into his silver-rimmed mazer, a maple scrying bowl he filled with water and other less pleasant things when he wanted to see what could not be seen.

“What do you mean
now
?” Caradoc asked.

Helebore glanced over his shoulder. “She was not in Wydehaw when we arrived, but she is here now,” he explained. “They will find her soon enough, and then they will call for us.”

Caradoc was both irritated and relieved. “Where was she?”

“I do not know.”

“And her health? Is it good?”

“I do not—”

“Damn you, man! Do not tell me that you do not know.” His anger slipped the bounds of irritation and became rage. He raised his hand to strike, but was stopped by Helebore’s warning gaze.

“’Tis a fascinatingly difficult thing to see inside the Hart Tower,” the leech said, his voice calm, though his eyes reflected an ominous caution. “I have never encountered such a maze of veils, one after the other, like the layers of an onion. I know she’s in there, and Lavrans too, but I cannot see clearly beyond the Druid Door. Will be interesting, indeed, to study it up close.”

“We are not here to study doors,” the Boar said tightly, and Helebore noted the effort it took for the man to lower his hand. Cretinous brute. He cared naught what Caradoc thought. The opportunity was too ripe to miss. Helebore planned on studying and touching the door, and smoothing his hands over its wood, if wood it was. Study it and learn it, feel it and devour it, for the door had been made by Nemeton, he whose name had been whispered even in Ynys Enlli. The Brittany bard had been well known among men for whom arcane mysteries and secret knowledge were the breath of life. Blasphemy, the Culdees had said, and had thrown Helebore into the sea—only him, though, when there should have been another to drown at his side, for it took two to whisper.

His lips twisted at the memory. Blasphemy to search for the source of God’s power, a God Helebore believed in unequivocally, but not blasphemy to murder a brother monk? And for unjust causes? Saints, indeed. Frightened fools was more the truth, satisfied to glut themselves on piety and allegories of the abstract, when the abstract was waiting to be seized by a strong hand. Life everlasting was exactly that. Immortality was within a man’s grasp. Life here and now, and then and forever. If God had not wanted man to search, He would not have made some men into searchers.

Helebore was a searcher.

Nemeton was a finder. He had not died, Helebore’s fellow whisperer had said, and neither need they, if they could discover the Druid’s path and the source of the
pryf
, the very key itself. Through
pryf
a man could be transformed. A past could be forgotten, a new future could be forged. The bard had known the way of it, the soft-spoken Culdee had said, and had merely slipped free of the bonds of time. Beneath Balor Helebore had seen for himself marks of the Druid’s path. How much more would the Hart Tower reveal?

“I’ve heard the door’s magic is strong,” he said to the Boar, “put there by a Brittany bard and well worth close examination.”

“Magic.” Caradoc dismissed the word with a wave of his hand and wished he could dismiss the whole of it as easily. He would rather take what he wanted with his sword as he’d always done; and he would have, if Helebore had not washed up on the shores of Balor and shown him how much more he could win with magic. Unfathomable mysteries were hidden deep in the earth beneath his keep, mysteries of wealth guarded by strange and wondrous creatures: gold, jewels, and riches beyond most men’s imagination. His father had been a fool, risking all to take Carn Merioneth for vengeance and the bounty of its land, and then allowing—nay, encouraging—the murder of the lady Rhiannon, who’d been the key to finding the even greater fortune below. Gwrnach had died as much for his lack of vision as he had for the twisted cruelty he had honed upon his son.

Helebore arched a brow. “What is it you think you keep me for, if not for my magic, milord?”

The leech’s “milord” had the ring of sarcasm about it, but Caradoc could live with sarcasm. What he could not live with was failure. Helebore had promised him the power to take all of Wales, which was nothing compared to what the leech planned on keeping for himself. He’d heard the
medicus
mumbling and muttering to himself of a treasure untold, but if Helebore thought he could outwit the Boar of Balor, he would soon learn the feel of a blade in his gullet.

“I keep you for your wisdom, priest, and your wiles.”

The leech had known the importance of Rhiannon’s children, how their blood could call the beasts forth, and even more importantly, he had known they lived. Rumors of a fair-haired novice at the monastery of Strata Florida who bore a striking resemblance to a fair-haired novice at Usk Abbey had been brought to Ynys Enlli by a wandering Carmelite friar who had seen them both. It had been a stroke of Caradoc’s own brilliance and a good portion of his meager fortune that had convinced the Prince of Gwynedd to sanction his marriage to Ceridwen ab Arawn, the first of the twins to be found.

His visit to Strata Florida had not gone as well. Mychael had left his monastery, and his whereabouts remained a mystery, but not for long. Caradoc had stepped up the search for Rhiannon’s son. The latest news to reach the north had placed him near Cardiff, and thus Caradoc had set out to capture them both. One way or another, the Boar of Balor would have a child of Rhiannon’s blood.

“Is she virgin?” he asked Helebore.
One way or another
.

“Virgin, yea, virgin, nay, it matters not,” the leech answered. “Blood is blood. We will use whatever we get from her and distill it on my athanor into a potion strong enough to lure the
pryf
up from their lair. If it’s the boy’s we get, we will do the same. All that matters is that the blood comes from the line of the Magus Druid Priestess. It must have a familiar taste to the creatures, or they will not obey.”

Caradoc knew the taste of blood, and he knew the smell of it and the feel of it running over the hilt of his blade onto his hand, but he liked not Helebore’s easy dismissal of virginity. He would not be cheated out of that small spill of blood. He would mix his line with that of the Magus Druid Priestess and create a dynasty the likes of which no monk dared to imagine for fear of burning in eternal damnation.

“You will have enough of her blood to call the
pryf
, but no more,” he said, returning the leech’s warning look in full measure. “Remember this, priest. Before she becomes your sacrifice, she will be my bride.”

P
utting his arm and his back into it, Dain opened the trapdoor leading from the alchemy chamber to his solar. Erlend had let the fire go out in the athanor, ruining a batch of distillations he’d been working on for seven days, and his mood was poor. The hinges creaked, the dogs pushed out from underneath his raised arm, and a gratifying but short scream of fear escaped Erlend, only to deteriorate quickly into a bout of coughing and swearing.

“Demn dogs, demn dogs.” The old man cussed and flailed at the hounds. “Get yerself off me. Demn ye, Numa. Swivin’ bitch.”

A fine homecoming, indeed, Dain thought, continuing up the stairs until he was far enough to push the trapdoor over onto the floor. It landed with a loud bang, kicking up a cloud of dust and chaff.

The albino had Erlend by the chausses and was tugging at them, while growling deep in her throat. The old man’s soiled and tattered braies were coming down along with the drooping hose, a sight Dain could have gone three or four lifetimes without having to endure.

“Numa.” Averting his gaze, he called the dog off and pointed to the hearth. A giggle came from behind him. He glanced back over at Erlend and saw him struggling to rearrange his undergarments over his bony buttocks. The old man had backed himself into the wooden shelves lining the curved stone wall, and his every move caused the pots and jars to jiggle and shake. Ceridwen let out another laugh, more of a snort this time than a giggle. He was glad she was in such good humor after their long night in Wroneu. For himself, he felt like hell.