Bedtime Story (65 page)

“They probably wouldn’t be able to break the curse itself, but they might be able to come up with something to counter its effects on your son.”

“Do you think so?” I asked. It was something that I hadn’t thought of, a slim ray of hope under a door that I had thought locked for good.

“Well, I don’t know a lot about this,” she said, leaning back. “Just what I read in Lazarus’s papers. I’m sure they’d want to try, especially with David getting sicker.”

She was right: I could picture Sarah and Nora in the kitchen, poring over the pages I had sent, trying to do anything to help my son.

“Of course, if we had the book …”

I nodded. “I’m sure he’ll be in touch.”

She smiled. “I’m sure he will be too,” she said, still thoughtful. “He seems like the sort. Still, though, I wonder …”

I waited a moment. “Yes?”

“I wonder if there’s anything in Lazarus’s study that would be helpful. Something that might help your friends.” She sat forward again. “Do you want to take a look? I can’t promise anything.”

Her offer left me momentarily speechless. “I … I’d like to.”

She smiled. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. “The place is a mess, and I have no idea even where to start.”

“No, that’s fine.” The thought of standing in Took’s office, of looking through his last papers, filled me with conflicting emotions. Despite everything he had done, the suffering he had inflicted on David and Matthew and who knows how many other children, part of me was thrilled at the prospect of being in his office. “When can I come?”

She glanced at her watch. “How about right now?”

I thought of David and Jacqui, probably waiting for me back in the hotel room. “What about tomorrow? First thing?”

Her face pinched. “Actually, tomorrow’s bad. Is there a problem with going now? I can drive.”

I nodded slowly. “Sure,” I said. “That sounds fine.”

She squeezed my hand and smiled, clearly pleased with my agreement. “You can call your wife, let her know what’s going on. That you’ve been taken home by a ravishing young woman.”

Her eyes were laughing, and I couldn’t help but smile.

Sitting in the shadows under the window ledge, David and Loren waited. The sound of the Mermaid, a muted burble of voices that reminded David of the river, washed over them.

Time passed sluggishly, and it was all David could do to resist the potent force of Dafyd’s emotions, his almost irresistible desire to rush into the tavern and find his mother and Arian, no matter the guardsmen, no matter the cost.

He’s getting stronger, isn’t he?
Matt asked.

David didn’t answer. He was keeping his attention focused firmly on the pool of light that the window cast on the stone yard, the small spray of broken crockery from Tamas’s mug, the way the sharp edges and spilled ale caught the light.

“My mother would have his hide for that,” he said quietly. David hadn’t known that he was going to say the words, could only listen as they came, unexpectedly, out of his own mouth.

“What?” the magus asked.

He gestured at the shattered crockery “Bad enough that he was out here sneaking a drink when he was working, but to break one of the mugs …” He shook his head. “Better it be broken by someone with money enough to pay for its replacement. He’ll be hearing about that.”

“I expect she’ll be quite understanding about the loss of a single flagon, under the circumstances.”

It wasn’t much longer before there was a change in the sounds coming from the tavern, the laughter replaced with a slightly stronger, louder muttering and a loud, collective cry.

“That’ll be last bell, then,” David said. “My mother will be standing on a bar stool, telling the men it’s time to drink up and get back to their wives, and the women back to their husbands, and that they should try to get it right this time.”

“Your mother is a formidable woman.”

“She had to be, to come so far on her own. One of the only taverns inside the walls …”

“And now a son who will either be a hero or be hanged in the square at dawn, depending upon how events unfold.”

David glanced at the magus, hoping he was joking. He wasn’t.

“We’ll give it a little longer,” David said. “Give Tamas a chance to deal with any stragglers.”

Some time later the kitchen door creaked partway open and Tamas looked out into the darkness. As he scanned the yard without seeing them, his face fell, as if his worst fears had come to pass. When David reached over and touched his leg, Tamas jumped.

“Gods, Dafyd,” he muttered. “You’d scare me to death if you could.”

“It’s a good thing you weren’t carrying a flagon this time,” David said as he stood up. “She’d have your hide for sure.”

He squeezed his friend’s shoulder as he slipped in through the kitchen doorway. The magus followed closely.

“Is everyone gone?” the magus asked, as Tamas closed and bolted the door behind them.

“Yes,” Tamas said. “It was agony waiting for last bell and rounding them up, but there was no way to suggest to your mother that she might want to close early.”

“And the guardsmen?” the magus asked.

“I checked out front as I was locking up. No sign of anyone lurking around.”

“Still,” the magus said. “We should probably stay back here.”

Tamas nodded. “I’ll get them,” he said, stepping into the tavern.

David could hear his friend’s voice faintly through the wall as the magus lowered himself slowly onto a stool. Tamas’s voice grew louder, more insistent, and then he heard his mother’s voice, gaining in volume as she neared the door.

“…  swear to the gods, Tamas, this had better be something bloody important to interrupt me when I’m counting out. I’m going to have to start all over—”

She gasped as she entered the kitchen. She was wiping her hands on her apron, and when she saw her son she froze, her expression one of stunned disbelief that dissolved into tears as she whispered, “Dafyd?”

He nodded, unable to speak, his eyes brimming. And then she was across the room, her arms around him tight, pulling him close into the yeasty, beery, sweet smell of her.

“Oh, Dafyd,” she gasped. “I knew you’d come home. I just knew it.”

And Dafyd cried, because he had been convinced that he would never see her again.

And David cried, certain now that this was as close as he himself would ever come to being home.

Jacqui was practically dragging David up the street, clutching at his hand, urging him to walk faster than he usually did. She kept glancing between him, a half-step behind her, and the intersection in the distance, the corner where the restaurant was.

“Come on,” she muttered, trying not to take out her frustration on her son, but wanting nothing more than to break into a run.

Tony Markus had been the last one to have that book, and now he was dead. And now Chris was with Cat Took, probably the “unidentified woman” that Markus had been seen with before he died.

She cursed herself as she tugged at David’s hand: he was shambling along beside her as fast as he could.

She tried to think of what she would say, how she could interrupt their meeting without alerting Cat Took.

It would be easy, she thought. She’d introduce herself and David. She’d linger until she was invited to sit down, and she’d smile and join them, and then at the earliest opportunity she’d tell Chris that they had to go.

She was breathing heavily with the effort of pulling David along, but it was just a block away. A half-block …

She pushed open the door, and felt her knees buckle.

The booth where Chris had been sitting with Cat Took was empty, a few bills tucked under one of the abandoned coffee cups.

Mareigh clung to him tightly, squeezing him so he couldn’t breathe, then leaned him back to take a look, still holding his arms. “You look awful,” she said, reaching up to touch the lump at the side of his mostly bare head. “What have they done to you?”

“It’s a long story,” he said, embarrassed by her attention.

“You look like you haven’t eaten in a week, for starters,” she said.

“It’s close to that.”

“Well,” she said, stepping away from him. “We’ll see to that. Arian,” she called, turning.

But the girl was already standing in the doorway. She was so pale, so delicate, she seemed almost like an apparition, like an errant breeze
might blow her away. When their eyes met, she appeared to solidify, a tearful smile breaking on her face.

He stepped toward her as she moved toward him, and they met in the middle of the room. They didn’t touch, the very air between them alive with things yet unsaid. They stood like that for a long moment, just looking at each other, not speaking, not needing to speak.

“Well,” said Mareigh—and the spell was broken. “I was going to ask you to prepare some food.”

David started, as if he had been caught in a dream, looking out through someone else’s eyes.

“Yes, ma’am,” Arian said crisply, turning away.

“You, sit.” She gestured toward the table, then stopped, as if noticing the old man for the first time.

“Hello, Loren,” she said slowly, unsteadily.

The magus smiled and rose slowly to his feet. “Well met again, Mareigh,” he said, bowing his head slightly, his voice full and formal. “It has been a long time.”

Mareigh glanced at David, then back at the magus, looking puzzled to find the old man in her kitchen. “Very near a lifetime,” she said hesitatingly.

“Indeed.”

“So do I have you to thank for drawing my son into this?” Her voice wasn’t angry, but there was a cutting edge to it, an undertone of warning.

“My apologies, Mareigh,” he said, lowering his head again. “I am but a humble servant.”

She snorted out a disbelieving laugh. “So you’ve always said.” She looked at him for a long moment, as if expecting him to speak. When he didn’t she gestured at the table. “Sit, sit. Everyone sit.” She looked at her son. “Practically starving to death, you must be,” she said.

“Actually, I wonder if I might impose upon your girl,” the magus said, as David was pulling out a chair for Arian. “For a small favour.”

David glanced at him sharply.

“Do you know the abbey?” the magus asked Arian.

The girl looked at him curiously. “Of course,” she said cautiously.

Everyone knew where the abbey was.

“Might I impose upon you to deliver a message there? Neither Dafyd nor I can be seen delivering it, and I’m afraid Tamas is also too familiar a face.” He reached into his robes and withdrew a folded piece of vellum, sealed with a dot of red wax. “Which, unfortunately, leaves only you.” He extended the note toward her. “If you would be so kind?”

Her hand was shaking slightly as she took the message from the magus. “Who should I deliver it to?”

“Ask at the gates for Brother Maximus,” he said, smiling encouragingly. “Tell them that you have been sent by Brother Loren, and that you bear a message of the utmost importance.”

She looked down uncertainly at the note in her hand.

“When did you find time to write that?” David asked. The only time the magus had been out of his sight in the past few days had been while he slept and the old man rowed.