The Chalice and the Blade (The Chalice Trilogy) (33 page)

Dain came into the room on silent feet and reached up to touch the first star he came to, designated by its markings as the polestar. The barest shift in pressure sent the orb circling in the opposite direction, dipping and swaying in a graceful arc around the grooved edge of one of the bronze rings. He could not see Ceridwen through the darkness surrounding the spinning lights, but he could hear her on the other side, opening each orb to light the candle within and then setting the sphere adrift to drift in its lazy circle.

He worked his way around the pillar, changing orbits as he went and dropping in a pinch of
rihadin
here and there. “Fire eggs,” Jalal had said when he’d asked for a translation of the word, a word from a language spoken beyond the edge of the known world, a place lost in the frozen deserts that lay along the far reaches of the caravan routes.

Mutterings of consternation met his ears as the newly directed stars floated by her, defying their original course.

A fire burned in the chamber’s hearth, warming an iron pot. He set his package on a nearby table and picked up a wooden stirring spoon to taste the cauldron’s steaming, savory-scented contents. The soup was hot and flavorful and good for chasing away his chill. He dipped the spoon in again and brought it to his lips, blowing. Ceridwen had spent a busy afternoon, making soup and discoveries. As the broth cooled, the polestar came back from whence he’d sent it. With his gentle touch, the bright orb went spinning off in reverse.

He ate from the pot and waited, and confounded her from his side of the room. She nearly had all the orbs lit. He found a flagon of wine next to the hearth and tipped it to his mouth. ’Twouldn’t be long now.

The first fireball sparks showered blue and elicited a startled gasp from her. He grinned. Quickly on the heels of the blue came a shower of yellow and a short squeal. He laughed softly and took another swig of wine. Red followed yellow, and green followed red. Another blue
rihadin
took to flame, but she made no more sounds.

Curious, he walked toward where she’d been, peering through the sparks and circling spheres. When he didn’t see her, he kept walking.

“You!” she accused him from behind, nearly stopping his heart. “I knew ’twas you.”

He whirled, spilling wine onto his hand and across the front of his tunic. He laughed, his own startled sound.

“You ought to be ashamed.” She stood a scant distance from him with her hands on her hips, a warrior’s stance, but he thought he detected a smile on her mouth. He tilted his head to put her better into the light and confirmed his suspicion.

“I am ashamed,” he assured her, grinning, then lifted his hand to his mouth and sucked off the wine. With his other hand, he offered her the flagon.

She took it, one eyebrow arched to let him know a little wine would not absolve him.

“Want to help?” he asked, holding out the
rihadin
. She did not reply, only reached out and took three packets from his palm.

“Not too much in each,” he warned. “Just a pinch. I’ll do the northern orbits.”

They worked in opposite directions, her filling the lower spheres and him filling the higher ones. When they met again where they’d begun, the first
rihadin
were sputtering.

“Hurry,” he urged her, taking her by the hand and pulling her along. “We have to open the—” A fountain of yellow and green sparks burst into the air from the nearest orb, cutting off his words and their forward progress. They halted suddenly, bumping against each other. He instinctively protected her by holding her face against his shoulder. He could feel her laughing in his arms.

After the first fiery moments passed, she peeked up, grinning. “I put in the green, but I had no yellow.”

“And I had yellow, but no green.” His own mouth curved into a smile. She had understood as quickly as he. “I fear we’ve doubled up on our pinches.”

“Aye.” His smile broadened.

A shower of red and blue sparks followed by a burst of blue and green confirmed their mistake. He put his mouth close to her ear so she could hear him over the growing din. “We have to open the roof.”

She tilted her head back and gave him a quizzical look.

He pointed to a series of pulleys climbing the wall on the north side of the tower. A web of ropes laced through the wheels and led to the horizontal portcullis that comprised the ceiling of the upper chamber.

They closed the distance in a rain of blue and yellow sparks and put their backs into coaxing the oak-plated roof into giving way. It complied with a shudder and a groan and the high-pitched grating of long-unused gears. Moonlight streamed in through the first crack and spread farther down the dark walls with each crank of the wheel, until half the tower was bared to the heavens, and none too soon.

One after the other, the “fire eggs” burst into flame, shooting bits and flashes of hot color upward into the night sky.

~ ~ ~

Outside in the bailey, Father Aric stopped midway to the chapel and fell to his knees. His mouth was agape, his eyes wide as he stared at the top of the Hart Tower. Hellfire was spewing from between the battlements. The lurid colors defied any aspect of holiness and unequivocally indicated the workings of evil power. That damnation should arrive so quickly upon the heels of sin—truly before he’d even gotten himself tucked back into his braies and while the scent of the woman still clung to him—could only mean the worst. The Apocalypse was upon them. The Antichrist had come and—terror of terrors—had chosen Wydehaw as his point of ascension from the bowels of hell. Limb-numbing guilt assailed the priest. All knew the Devil followed naught but paths ripe with the stench of vile sin, and Father Aric feared his was the sin that had brought Satan to their door.

Fire sparks arced and streamed out of the tower, making God knew what demonic signs against the sky. The priest tried to cross himself, but his hands had turned to lead at his sides. He was helpless. Mud churned up by the earlier rain oozed around his knees, sinking him deeper into the cold, wet ground. His body trembled with a palsied fear. His voice could not but croak, “
Gloria Patri, gloria Patri
...”

~ ~ ~

In a protected corner of the rose garden, Vivienne shook out her skirts and smoothed back her hair. The priest had been quick, too quick. A sigh escaped her, then a tear. Perhaps ’twas no more than she deserved.

She sat down on one of the rosary benches, and another sigh left her lips. Her pride had cost her much that she had not been able to replace. Of the five years she’d been wed, she’d spent four scrounging through the depths of humanity to get a man in her bed.

Her birthday would be upon her again soon, and Soren’s also. ’Twas time for children to come into their lives, an unlikely occurrence given their current arrangement, and she was far too careful to end up breeding another man’s brat. She would not do that, not even for the sorcerer—as if he’d given her even half a chance.

When Lavrans had first come to Wydehaw, she’d thought she was in love with him. There was something appealing about a man who never lied, even if the truth he spoke was often disguised and much less flattering than what she wanted to hear or expected to be told. But ’twas not love she’d felt for him. He was a challenge, a delectable one, true, but not her heart’s desire. Foolish girl that she’d been, she’d given her heart to Soren in their first year of marriage, when he’d courted her as a stranger and won her as a lover, showing an appreciation for her wit and no penchant for shyness or sweetness—or virginity—in a bride. He was no warrior, but then she was no maiden in distress. He held Wydehaw through judicious alliances and the willingness to fight if all else failed. They had been a good match, one a mite close for some ecclesiastical tastes, but a good match nonetheless.

A smile flirted with her mouth. In some courts, harboring a
tendre
for one’s own husband was considered gauche, yet for Soren, she’d defied fashion, loving him beyond reason, beyond common sense. For the first time in her life, she had been happy and loved in return, secure within the walls of her own home and free to explore any sensual adventure she might imagine. Then Soren had thrown it all away in his lust for a boy.

A bitter sadness replaced her smile. Her defiance had gotten her naught but an endless supply of lonely nights and an occasional crude swiving. Love was such a tangle. She had taken another man in retaliation, and Soren had stood by, angry but silent. She’d taken another, and another, and another, until not even her husband’s anger had remained.

Now they both had nothing. Her pride could no longer withstand his indifference, and it seemed his sworn love had not survived her faithlessness.

Tears welled in her eyes. Father Aric had been a mistake: he’d exhorted their sinfulness even in the midst of their joining. Had she been reduced to so little worth, to the taking of hypocritically pious and premature priests? Had she abandoned her faith and her marriage vows only to be abandoned in turn?

The tears fell, making damp tracks over her cheeks and running into the corners of her mouth. Was there no hope of love? No light of truth left to guide her?

She lifted her gaze to the heavens, prepared to beseech the Lord, but the Lord answered before the words could form on her lips. Far above her, floating over the wall between the upper and middle baileys, was a light, a bright yellow light with a blue aureole. She stared, transfixed. The light floated closer, carried upon a gentle night wind, a golden star falling to earth within an azure halo.

Gold and azure, the colors of Soren’s standard. There could be no clearer sign. Her heart beat faster as the bit of celestial fire drifted over the rosary wall into her garden. It descended then and delicately extinguished itself on the damp petal of a rose, the flower of love.

Vivienne reached out with a trembling hand.

~ ~ ~

From the depths of his chamber’s embrasure, Soren watched the last of the sorcerer’s conflagration. He’d never seen anything like it, the flames, the colors, the sparks floating on the wind. The fool man ought to be brought up on charges for putting the castle in danger. Any one of a dozen or more thatched roofs could have caught fire. None had, of course. Lavrans had the Devil’s own luck, whereas he, Soren D’Arbois, Baron of Wydehaw, had none. He looked back at his bed and his thoughts turned brooding.

A strange air of anticipation had come over the castle of late, a strangeness confirmed rather than caused by the Hart’s fiery display. Spring was rushing in where winter had been, and the moon was waxing full. The conjunction of the seasonal and the celestial, especially on May Eve, always heightened the effect of both, a truth he’d never been told, but one he’d felt enough times to believe beyond doubt. ’Twas particularly hard on the priests, who seemed to lose their bearings in the midst of so much Nature enforcing Her will.

There would be fires in the hills tomorrow night, he thought, turning his gaze once again to the Hart Tower and the forest that lay past the walls of his keep. Fires not magically conjured, but no less potent than the one the sorcerer had sent to the heavens. Beltaine, as spoken in the old language of the pagan gods, was close upon them, and despite its centuries of Christianity, Wales was still full of pagan gods, none of whom had answered Soren’s prayers. But then, his own God had deserted him; he should have expected no better from Nemeton’s.

His personal anticipations had come in the form of deep longings, for what he was not sure, but he knew for whom—Vivienne, the wife he so easily could have lost yet again to Caradoc. Predictably, his longings had gone unanswered. He was a fool, his appetites beyond even his own understanding.

Dain was besotted with the demoiselle, that much had become apparent with her miraculous recovery within hours of Caradoc’s leaving. Soren had gone back to the tower to assure himself that she still lived and would continue to do so, at least until she was out from under his keeping. He’d found Ceridwen ab Arawn quite well, surprisingly well, sitting with the sorcerer over their evening meal. Soren had never thought to see such a cozily domestic scene in the Hart. Lavrans had nearly blushed at being caught, a delightful bit of fancy Soren had often dreamed of causing: a sorcerer’s blush.

Dain’s infatuation made him more human somehow, and, strangely enough, less sexually desirable. The unconquerable had been conquered, the seductive one had been seduced, and by an innocent, no less. At least Ceridwen had been innocent the first night Lavrans had taken her into his tower. Ragnor had sworn to her purity, though Soren would put no coin on the matter at this point in time.

“God’s balls,” he muttered at the realization. He wasn’t going to lose his whole damned demesne over a few drops of missing blood and some torn matter.

Vivienne, he thought. Vivienne would know what to do. Thank the Lord for a practical wife. She would know how to work a virgin’s ruse should the demoiselle need one for her wedding night.

He turned away from the window, fully aware of how his thoughts had contrived to bring him what he’d longed for. He had no choice but to call for Vivienne, to divert disaster for them all.

“Soren?” The sound of her voice brought his head up.

He had not heard her enter, not heard so much as a creak of a hinge, but she was there where she had not been for four years, in his chambers, standing opposite his bed. Tears marked her face. In her hand she held a rose.

“
Cherie
?” He strode toward her, concern knitting his brow. His arms opened of their own accord, and she ran into his embrace.

~ ~ ~

Dain was playing with fire, sitting so close to Ceridwen in the shadowy darkness of the upper chamber, sharing wine, feeling too alive, too good. They’d taken refuge on the floor between the table and the hearth when the
rihadin
had begun to flame, and they continued to sit shoulder to shoulder, knees drawn up, as the last sporadic bursts of color escaped from the orbs. A cloud of smoke had risen from the tower and passed over the face of the moon. Traces of it still lingered, wisps of a soft bluish-gray streaking Luna and obscuring some of her light, but the stars were adamantine, lustrous in their brightness against the night sky.