The Snow White Bride (21 page)

* * * * *

A
lexander did not savor
the choice he had made, though he knew that a bitter deed oft yielded results.

That did not make the enduring of it easier.

Even the weather conspired against him and his determination to check the boundaries of Kinfairlie. It began to rain in cold, steady sheets shortly after his party left the hall and the wind from the sea turned bitter. The snow melted into a churning mess of mud and ice that made their journey even more onerous than it would have been
o
therwise.

The sole comfort in all of this was that he had not ridden his destrier, but chosen a smaller palfrey instead. Alexander knew that his destrier, Uriel, would have protested such indignity as this weather, and the last censure he had need of in these times was one from the ostler over risking the health of a vigorous and costly steed.

The squires accompanying him did not chatter, as was their custom, nor did the bailiff from the village. The small party checked the western and southern boundaries, some hearty villagers accompanying the party when it was closest to the village. A few mothers taught their young children the marks of the village perimeter in the old way, by boxing the child’s ears when he or she reached the village boundary, the better that the line might be recalled.

The party took shelter that night at the sheriff’s abode and Alexander felt the burden of exclusively male companionship. The sheriff was unwed, though hospitable. He laid a simple board, though one that Alexander complimented for its generosity. The sheriff’s home seemed bereft of comfort to Alexander, who yearned for his own hall. Indeed, he longed for more than the comfort of his own bed and the heat of his own hearth and the sound of his sisters engaged in some petty argument.

He longed for the flash of his wife’s eyes, for the sparkle of her wit, for the sweetness of her kisses abed. Worse, Alexander knew that the lady would have welcomed his embrace again, had he been so resolute as to remain at home.

But he sought honesty, and he had noted that Eleanor surrendered details about her history only when she felt obliged to do so. It was her nature to hold her secrets close, and given what she had endured—or what Alexander knew of what she had endured—she had good reason for that. He was impatient, though, and was prepared to compel her to tell him more of her past.

He did not put credence in Rhys’s fears, to be sure, but the fact was that Eleanor wished to be wed to him, though Alexander did not know why. She had agreed to wed him on short notice, had cut her thumb to force his proposal, had ensured that their match was consummated when he threatened to have it annulled. She admitted openly that she wished for a son, though Alexander did not see why she had chosen him to grant her that child.

After all, the lady had no belief in the notion of love between man and wife. Much as it galled Alexander to admit it, she could not be smitten with him.

So
why had she chosen him?

He did not know, but he did know that she surrendered tales when she believed their marriage to be in jeopardy. So, he left her at Kinfairlie, for he could not linger in her presence and feign anger with her for no reason. He still felt a knave for his choice, but Alexander was determined to oust his lady’s secrets.

For he did believe in love, and further, he guessed that Eleanor could capture his heart fully. He needed to know for certain, however, that she was worthy of his trust. Alexander only hoped that this short interval bore fruit, for he knew not what else to do.

For he feared that he would not have to spend much more time in his lady’s presence, witnessing her strength and her ardor and her intellect, to lose his own heart in truth.

* * * * *

O
n that same night
that Alexander tossed and turned in the sheriff’s abode and Eleanor paced the solar floor,
Elizabeth dreamed a familiar dream. She tossed and turned in her sleep, but the progress of the dream was relentless. She did not want to review her part in ensuring Rosamunde’s demise, but the demons of the night left her no choice. Elizabeth stirred, fighting against slumber, but to no avail.

She is with her siblings in a tavern and concern sits among their company at the board. The dream is so vivid, she might be there again. They ride in pursuit of Madeline and Rhys, and Elizabeth tastes again her exhaustion, her fear, Alexander’s frustration. She watches herself save the fairy Darg from that spriggan’s own affection for ale. She could not have chosen differently, she could not have let the fairy drown, but the fact is clear.

Once, she saved the spriggan’s life.

The dream shifts with merciless predictability. She knows this dream and she loathes it, but it holds her fast in its clutches yet again. Elizabeth sits in the upper chamber of Ravensmuir with Vivienne. Time has passed: her hair is longer and Vivienne is more woman than she was months earlier in the tavern. Again Darg’s affection for ale betrays the fairy, and again Elizabeth sees the spriggan saved from certain demise. Again she could have made no other choice; again she sees the import of her own deed.

Twice, she has saved the fairy’s life.

The dream changes yet again and Elizabeth knows this to be the worst of it. She fights to awaken, but cannot. She would scream in protest but the dream condemns her to silence. She is in the labyrinth beneath Ravensmuir. She sees her aunt Rosamunde and her heart aches that she could have prevented that woman’s demise. And all unfolds precisely as it did so many months ago. Darg and Rosamunde fight, and in the ensuing struggle and confusion, the spriggan is nigh forgotten in the cold water that flows in the chasms of the labyrinth.

But Elizabeth notes Darg’s absence. Elizabeth insists upon saving the spriggan. Elizabeth risks her own life to retrieve Darg.

For thrice, she had saved the spriggan’s life. Three times Elizabeth had had the chanc
e to turn away; three times she
could have let the admittedly malicious spriggan die. But because she did not look away, Darg survived.

As did the spriggan’s hatred for Rosamunde.

And then, just when she expected to awaken, Elizabeth’s dream took a new twist.

Elizabeth is in the labyrinth of Ravensmuir, the
labyrinth that cannot be entered any longer, for it has
fallen to ruins. She is crawling through the rubble and she is calling for her lost aunt. Elizabeth feels the dampness of tears upon her own cheeks; she feels the heat cast by the single flickering flame of her lantern.

She knows somehow that she is in the great cavern that
once marked the lowest point of the labyrinth, the chamber that had once had a high ceiling carved from the stone. From here, one could
climb to the keep or walk to
the hidden cove that led to the sea, the cove where a small boat could be hidden. S
he does not know how she knows
as much, for there is only rubble and loose stone all around her and a fearsome shadow over her head.

She tastes her own bile
, fearing that she has been sum
moned to the site of Rosamunde’s demise. Indeed, she spies something in the rubble, something that could be
the toe of a black leather boot.

Elizabeth prays, but she crawls closer, seemingly unable to do otherwise. Just as she reaches the boot—for that is what it is—a gust of wind extinguishes the flame of her lantern.

Elizabeth is plunged into darkness and her heart fairly stops in terror. Is she destined to die in the labyrinth as well? How will she climb to safety? How will she make her way out of the rubble without a light?

The stone begins to rumble overhead. It is shifting. Elizabeth gasps in terror. The first loose stone strikes her shoulder and she bellows in fear.

The rock begins to fall in earnest. She scrambles in the direction she thinks she has come, but her fingers land upon the leather of that boot toe. She feels a scream gathering in her throat, for she guesses that there is the foot of a corpse within that boot. She will go mad in Ravensmuir’s caverns and no one will know of her fate. The scream begins to tear loose of her throat.

Then a light appears. The light is golden and welcoming, it seems to fill a portal that Elizabeth does not recall seeing before. And framed in that portal is a familiar silhouette, a woman whose very presence makes Elizabeth gasp in astonishment.

“Hasten yourself child,” Rosamunde says with some urgency. “We have not all the day and all the night to see this resolved. Hurry! Come to me immediatel
y!”

Then all turned black.

Elizabeth awakened, a cold sweat on her back and tears upon her cheeks. The dream named the root of it: by not letting the Fates claim the spriggan each time they tried to do so, by interfering in the order of things, Elizabeth herself was responsible for Rosamunde’s demise.

It was her fault that Rosamunde was dead, for it was her fault that Rosamunde had been compelled to return to Ravensmuir to sate the fairy’s greed, her fault that Rosamunde had been within Ravensmuir’s labyrinths
when they finally collapsed. Elizabeth wept, for it was bitter that she, who loved Rosamunde so well, should have been the one responsible for that woman’s death.

All the same, she had done what she had to do, for she could not have turned asid
e while any creature was in
danger. In so doing, she had condemned the one person she loved more than any other.

Her sisters slept soundly
, the echo of their even breathin
g infuriating their youngest sibling. What sweet dreams did they savor? Why must she be tormented by this fearsome dream, nigh every night? As Elizabeth lay there, brooding and bitter, she recalled the last, new part of her dream. She sat up, so sudden was her understanding.

She was being summoned. She did not know what her dream of Rosamunde meant, but she knew where she must go to find out.

Ravensmuir.

Alexander, of course, would never permit her to undertake such folly, and E
lizabeth did not imagine that
Eleanor would see her side in this endeavor, either,
w
hich only meant that Elizabeth had need of a
scheme.

9

T
he sun rose
with a reluctance that echoed Alexander’s own uncertainties in returning to his hall. The sea was like silvered glass that morning, tranquil as Alexander was not, and the sky was clearing. There was fog along the shoreline, clustered in the nooks of the coast, but Alexander found himself studying the distant waves, gilded as they were with the first light of the sun. His party galloped along the coast, checking the boundary markers along this last stretch of Kinfairlie’s borders.

The sea had always fascinated Alexander and he realized now that the root of his fascination was its changeability. Did his fascination with his enigmatic wife have a similar root?

Was his fascination as treacherous? The sea, after all, had shown its capriciousness in claiming the lives of both of his parents a year ago. Did Eleanor have a similar fate in scheme for him? Or was the lady falsely maligned?

Their duty completed before the sun rose high, the party turned back to Kinfairlie as one. The horses began to canter, needing no encouragement to return to the comfort of Kinfairlie’s stables. Alexander heard hoofbeats and thought for a moment that the passing of his own party was made greater by echoes on the walls of the homes in the village.

But no. Destriers approached. Alexander knew this with the certainty of one raised to be familiar with horses of all kinds. And they were numerous, so numerous that he feared the intent of their riders. Not for the first time, Alexander regretted that Kinfairlie’s curtain wall had never been rebuilt, no less that he had no coin with which to have it rebuilt now.

“Who rides to Kinfairlie?” Alexander shouted as he rode into his own bailey, noting that his sentinels peered into the distance. They stood on what high points there were, the rubble of the ancient wall included, and more than one had his bow at the ready.

“Praise be!” one sentinel shouted in apparent relief. “The laird of Ravensmuir arrives!”

“Praise be, indeed,” Alexander said with a smile of relief, then made his way to greet his younger brother.

It was Malcolm, against all expectation. What a blessing that his brother had come home to celebrate Christmas! Alexander had feared that Malcolm’s duties would preclude such a journey this year, though truly Ravensmuir was not far. He waved an enthusiastic greeting.

Then Alexander’s eyes narrowed at the size of Malcolm’s company and his arm stilled. Something was amiss.

A veritable herd of horses formed the arriving party, though not all of them bore riders. Each and every one was a glossy steed of Ravensmuir’s breeding, each one as black as the night, each one tall and proud. They stepped
high and arched their necks, these beasts who had no equal in Christendom, their dark manes flowing, their nostrils flaring.

Alexander counted all eight of the destriers currently siring in Ravensmuir’s stables, as well as the two dozen mares, which were none of them much smaller than the sta
llions. Seven foals had been born
this year, he knew this from Malcolm’s missives, and all seven were in this company.

With dismay, he realized that the riders accompanying Malcolm were his brother’s household staff, his ostlers, and his squires.

They would all need to eat. This was Alexander’s first thought and his second w
as a mental review of his inven
tories. Alexander felt cursed again by the realities of his circumstance. Every joy that came to him had to be tempered these days, it seemed.

Malcolm halted his steed before Alexander, dismounted, and doffed his gloves as Alexander did the same. Malcolm removed his helm, revealing the ebo
n
y of his hair so like Alexander’s own, and his expression was uncommonly solemn.

“What is amiss?” Alexander said by way of greeting. He guessed that there was some issue at import behind Malcolm’s arrival, no less with the fact that his brother was accompanied by his entire household.

Malcolm gripped Alexander’s proffered hand, then met his gaze steadily. “The ravens left.”

Alexander’s heart sank. It could not be so! One glance at Malcolm told him that it was the truth, but still he felt obliged to argue the matter. “But they never leave Ravensmuir. You know that as well as I.”

“Nonetheless, they have left.”

“Surely they will return shortly, and but make a sojourn away.” Alexander forced a smile. “Who can say what birds scheme? Doubtless you lose faith too soon.”

Malcolm’s lips set. “They never leave for even a day, you know as much. They have been gone this past week.”

“But—”

Malcolm interrupted him, his manner severe. “They took flight as one, dozens of them, and flew east with nary a cry. They waited for me to witness this departure, I know it well.”

“But that is madness.”

“They waited for me to leave the stables, that I would see their departure. They waited to ensure that I knew the import of their choice.”

Alexander laid a hand upon his brother’s shoulder. He knew the import of the ravens’ flight as well as his brother did, and he could understand Malcolm’s bitterness. It was said that the presence of the birds at Ravensmuir endorsed the laird in power, so their absence could not be interpreted in many ways.

The Lammergeier siblings had been taught the tale of Ravensmuir’s ravens from the cradle, though Alexander had always thought it whimsy. So, he had been convinced, had Malcolm, for Malcolm had always had even less patience with fanciful tales.

Alexander considered the size of the watchful company with some consternation, wondering how he would feed all of these souls for the remainder of the winter. “I think you put too much credence in this old tale,” he said, hoping to reassure his brother.

“How can it be interpreted otherwise?” Malcolm demantled with anger. “Ravensmuir has crumbled to rubble, its labyrinth collapsed and the keep fallen atop the ruins. A rabbit can scarce work it
s way into the old hall, so col
lapsed is the structure. The laird himself is dead, lost in those very caverns, his body is not recovered, and his heir is yet untested. The ravens left, as the old portent recounts, because there is no true laird at Ravensmuir.”

“It is but a tale, Malcolm.”

“It is an ancient tale and I see now that it is a true one. The ravens do not find
me worthy, thus they have aban
doned me.” Malcolm sighed and scowled into the distance, his voice softening. “I would prefer to discount it, Alexander. I would prefer to find no merit in old portents, but this one cannot be evaded. The birds merely echo my own convictions. I am ill-prepared for this inheritance. It is less than a single year since Uncle Tynan welcomed me to his household, and though I learned much beneath his tutelage, that is but a fraction of what I need to know to make any good of Ravensmuir, especially the ruin it has become.”

Alexander considered the company, virtually all men, and found them looking as uncertain as their suzerain. “What do you mean to do?”

Malcolm glanced back to those who followed them. “We have been living in the stables since the keep’s collapse, Alexander. Though these men have served me well, it is unfitting that they abide in such circumstance and with such uncertainty of their future.” He met Alexander’s gaze anew. “I come to ask you to take both men and steeds beneath your care at Kinfairlie. Indeed, I come to entreat you to do as much. I surrender my all to you, for you clearly are better prepared to administer a holding.”

“But Kinfairlie has always looked to Ravensmuir as its suzerain.”

“I would make you suzerain of both.”

Alexander’s chest tightened to the point that he could scarce breathe. “And what of you?”

Malcolm straightened. “I mean to seek my fortune.” He heaved a sigh. “And perhaps in time, I will show myself worthy of assuming the burden of Ravensmuir again, if you see so fit as to grant it to me.”

Alexander was tempted to tell his brother of the truth of Kinfairlie, but he feared that it would be too much for Malcolm to know that both holdings were in some jeopardy. “But you are already Laird of Ravensmuir, Malcolm. Is that title not sufficient for you? Think before you surrender your greatest prize.”

Malcolm almost smiled, looking much older than his twenty summers. “As Ravensmuir stands, no, being its laird is not sufficient for me. I can do nothing for my holding but watch it crumble to oblivion. Our legacy deserves better, Alexander, and I intend to find the means to make Ravensmuir glorious again. In the meantime, I leave its administration in capable hands.”

Alexander did not know what to say. Not only did he believe himself less than capable of succeeding in this feat, but Ravensmuir was more of a liability than an asset. It possessed no village and no fields, thus had no tithes. Its treasury had once been refilled by the trading of religious relics, but now those relics had all been sold and removed. Ravensmuir was of greater import as a legacy: it stood as a keep and piece of land to be defended for the sake of family history, but one that had little merit of its own to offer.

Especially to a laird already destitute.

Malcolm laid a hand upon Alexander’s shoulder, apparently misunderstanding the reasons for his brother’s reluctance to accept Ravensmuir. “Do not fear for me, Alexander. I will find the way somehow, I will return to rebuild our inheritance, and we will both know my feat to be done when the ravens land in Ravensmuir’s bailey once more.”

Alexander’s voice rose in frustration. “Listen to yourself, Malcolm. You cannot choose your course based upon the doings of
birds'!”

Malcolm sobered and his gaze was steely. “I can and I do, for the ravens of Ravensmuir are no mere birds. You should know that as well as I do.”

There was something uncanny about his brother’s assertion, and Alexander regarded Malcolm with skepticism. “Surely you did not learn to speak with them, as it is said the lairds of Ravensmuir can do?”

Malcolm averted his face. “Uncle Tynan taught me much, but there is still more to learn. Will you accept Ravensmuir’s seal or no?”

Alexander cursed, shoved his hand through his hair, and paced. Four dozen more men to feed. Three dozen massive, hungry horses. Miles of territory to defend, with no more coin in his coffers. His heart sank at the hope in the expressions of Malcolm’s company.

But what else could he do?

“I will hold it in trust for you, no more and no less,” he said with resolve. “Uncle Tynan chose you as his heir and I would stand by his choice, whether you have faith in it or not.”

“Will you stable the horses as well? You are welcome
to breed them in my absence, so long as you ensure that they are not poorly treated. They, too, are part of our
legacy.”

“My stable is humble, but it is yours,” Alexander said with resignation. “I know not how they will be fed, for we have not made provision for such a number of horses for the winter, but—”

“There is hay and straw at Ravensmuir,” Malcolm interrupted firmly. “I spent the last of Ravensmuir’s coin upon it, and it is yours, of course, for you are now laird.” He dug in his purse, then put the seal of Ravensmuir in Alexander’s hand. It seemed more weighty than Alexander might have expected.

“I thank you,” Malcolm said, seemingly relieved as soon as its burden passed from his grasp. His words turned hoarse. “I knew that you would aid me, Alexander. You were always resourceful, despite your many jests, and always would give assistance where it was most needed.”

“You must remain until Epiphany at least, for you cannot journey through the holy days.” He managed to summon a smile of encouragement for his brother. “We might well find a solution for your woes between ourselves by that time.”

Malcolm’s smile turned rueful. “I doubt it, Alexander, though I welcome the pros
pect.” He heaved a sigh, his ex
pression a perfect echo of what Alexander’s own mood had been for much of this past year. “In truth, I do not know where I should ride, I know only that I cannot remain.” His smile broadened. “Perhaps I will find an heiress to wed.”

“Perhaps you will find a sorceress to wed,” Alexander
muttered, for he doubted that any woman’s dowry could see both of these keeps rebuilt. His brother chuckled. “Come, break your fast. A problem always looks less formidable when one’s belly is full.”

Malcolm agreed with this, and Alexander commanded the men to take the steeds to the stable. He summoned his own ostler and ensured that that man’s authority was clear to Malcolm’s ostler, though it was apparent that the men would consult each other. The pair set immediately to assessing stables and steeds, and organizing the party that would return with wagons for Ravensmuir’s stores.

Alexander looked at the seal, so burdened with his family’s history, as Malcolm led his own stallion into the stables. He turned the seal, letting the early light play upon it, acknowledging his mixed feelings. On the one hand, it would be an honor to wield this seal, even for a short time. On the other, Ravensmuir could only sweep the last vestige of silver dust from his treasury.

He glanced skyward, perhaps hoping for divine aid, and spied movement at the window of the solar. He looked again and saw that it was Eleanor, her unbound hair stirring in the wind while she stood motionless. She watched him as he watched her and he felt a prickle of awareness beneath her gaze.