Books by Maggie Shayne (282 page)

"You know I won't allow that to happen. Lie back, Arianna."

She did, reclining half across my lap, her side pressed to my chest. I tore a strip of cloth from her skirt and wrapped her wrist up tight. She winced in reaction and bit her lip. "I'm sorry it hurts you, lass."

"Fear not, Nicodimus. I'm committin' every bit of this pain to memory, so that I can visit it back upon him."

"Hush." I tied a knot in the makeshift bandage. "You'll need stitching. Can you stand?"

She nodded, and then clung to my neck as I got to my feet. She tried to stand without aid and wobbled a bit. I eased her into the crook of my arm. "Come down to the water's edge, and I'll wash some of the blood away."

"My head is spinning," she whispered, but she walked beside me, lowering her head as she sank down into the grass beside the water. This time, she remained sitting up on her own, as I tore at my clothing and used the scraps to bathe her with loch water. Gently, I wiped the blood from her slender forearm. She sat still and silent, contemplating the loch as before. I rinsed the scrap of cloth, squeezed it out, and moved to her face, wiping as carefully as I could. Then I paused, my heart tripping, as I saw a teardrop slip down her cheek.

"Don't cry, Arianna," I said, and I washed it gently away.

She whispered, '"Tis ironic, dinna you think? Now both the Sinclair sisters' blood nourishes this water."

"Then this water must be very special indeed," I said softly.

She met and held my gaze. Her eyes were so brown and deep ... and filled with far more pain and wisdom than a girl of nearly eighteen should know. She touched a palm to my cheek. "You likely saved my life just now, Nicod-imus."

I shook my head, and concentrated on cleaning her face, trying to keep my touch cool and impersonal. "'Twould take more than a cut such as that one to do you in."

She opened her mouth as if she would argue the point, but as she did, she spotted her beau on the ground. Her eyes widened, and I followed her gaze to where he lay. His nose broken, lip bleeding. I supposed I hit him a mite harder than I should.

"Mercy," Arianna said with a gasp. "Have you done him to death?"

"I think not. He moaned a moment ago. And don't pity him, Arianna. He didn't get half the beating he deserves."

I scooped her up into my arms, cleaner now. At least not covered in enough blood to send her mother into a dead faint should she catch sight of her. "I never could abide a man who'd harm a lady."

Looking back at the lad, she told him softly,' 'Think how surprised you'll be, foolish Angus MacClennan, when you learn once and for all that Witches
do
bleed."

I knew exactly what she was thinking, though it didn't take any magick to do so. Her thoughts were writ clear across her face. "If you think you can go about wielding magick for such petty causes as vengeance, lass, then you've had poor teachers."

She blinked up at me. "Are you admittin' you know of such things personally, Nicodimus?"

I scowled at her. "I'm only saying young Angus has done you a favor. He'll consider this proof of your innocence." I nodded toward her bandaged wrist. "Though I'd like to throttle him for it, all the same."

Her smile was sweet and slow. "You care for me far more than you know," she whispered.

I ignored that remark, finding it far too close to the truth. "When word gets out that Angus cut you and you nearly bled to death, then the speculation about you might well die." I glanced down at her. "At least until you do something to revive it all over again."

"Superstitious fools, all of them. They'll never let it die. They'll say the blood was an illusion, a trick, that I conjured the blood to appear and flow just to fool him." She tilted her head. ' 'At last Da canna expect me to marry the whelp now."

"Ahhh, you owe him for two favors, then."

She glared at me, and then sighed. ' 'Where are you tak-in' me, Nicodimus?"

"To the keep."

"The keep," she whispered, and her eyes turned to stare off at the fortresslike structure. Her slender arms clung more tightly to my neck, and her head rested upon my shoulder as I strode with her along the craggy path up the hill to the massive stone structure at its top.

"Surely you've been in the keep before, Arianna," I said teasingly. "You've nothing to fear there."

"Aye, I've been inside before. An' I dinna fear it, Ni-codimus. You've misread me entirely. I was born to live in a castle keep, and one far finer than this...." She smiled up at me. "Just as I was born to be with you, Nicodimus."

Arianna rocked against Nicodimus's broad chest when he scooped her up into his arms and strode toward the keep. His arms were clamped securely around her, like some sort of protective armor. His scent surrounded her, warm and musky and male. And this close to him, she could see the tiny bits of stubble that made his cheeks appear shadowed. Beautiful, he was. She'd never known a man so beautiful. And she knew she'd never felt so safe. She didn't like the idea that she needed a man to make her feel this way. She'd never
needed
a man for anything, and she'd vowed she never would. But wanting a man, well, she supposed that was a far different matter.
Not
wanting this one, with his angular face and his wizard's eyes,
that
would be impossible.

Behind them, she heard Angus groaning. Raising her head to look back over Nicodimus's shoulder, Arianna saw that Angus's face was a mottled mess as he stirred himself to sit up. Nicodimus didn't so much as glance backward at the boy. And she knew, even more surely now than she'd known before, that he felt something very powerful for her. It was there in the hard set of his jaw, in the furrow between his brows. In the way he cradled her against his hard chest

so carefully even while his broad strides ate up the distance to the keep. And in the way he paused ever so briefly, and closed his eyes tight when the wind blew her hair into his face.

Arianna felt a rush of uncertainty when he carried her through the outer gates and into the courtyard. Sounds of clanging metal rang in her ears. Men practiced with their swords, fighting one another in mock battle. Off to the left, there were men who shot arrows at straw stuffed targets fashioned in the shapes of men. Everywhere she looked, curious eyes in sweaty, wary faces seemed to greet her. To a man, they stopped what they were doing when they saw Nicodimus carrying her past. She could almost hear their thoughts as they stared at her.
What sort of trouble has the fool girl got into this time?

Laird Lachlan would not be pleased with her. True enough, Angus's attack had not been her fault, but the laird would not likely see it that way. She was the one whose behavior had stirred suspicious minds to wild speculation. She was the one who'd caused the tongues to wag.

She couldn't help but stiffen in nervous anticipation as Nicodimus carried her nearer to the huge, banded doors.

Nicodimus looked down at her as he strode closer. "What is it, Arianna?"

She shrugged, averting her eyes, "I'm hardly dressed proper to be visitin' the keep. Look at me. Barefoot."

"You've been barefoot every time I've seen you." His gaze was indulgent and slightly amused.

"My dress is but poor tartan, an' stained with blood an' loch water at that, Nicodimus. Perhaps I ought simply return to my mam an' let her tend the wound."

When he didn't immediately respond, she peered up at him, only to see his deliciously full lips curving at the corners. "Was it not you I just heard telling your beau that there was more awaiting you in this world than a dirt-floor croft and a life of servitude? Or was that some other barefoot hellion?" He shook his head.

"So you were spyin' on us the whole time, were you?"

"I'd say 'tis a good thing I was." She pressed her lips

shut tight, but he ignored her lack of response. "Joseph will have to know what happened sooner or later, Arianna. I cannot believe a girl of your spirit is afraid of her own chieftain."

"I'm nay afraid of any man!"

Nicodimus lifted one brow. "Good. You've no need to be. And don't worry yourself about your state of dress, Arianna. You shame the sun, and I think you know it. What you might be wearing has little to do with it. And I doubt it would have any bearing on Joseph's mood at any rate."

A thrill of warm liquid pleasure spilled into her belly. "Are you sayin' you think I'm beautiful, then, Nicodimus Lachlan?"

Nicodimus's eyes darkened from a gleaming topaz-blue to the shade of sapphires at midnight. "You're beautiful. But there is more than mere beauty shining from those brown eyes."

"What more?" Her words came out on a breathless whisper.

He seemed to force his lingering gaze away from her face, and with a ragged sigh and a sharp shake of his head, resumed walking. "It is dangerous ground I'm treading. Best we speak of something else."

"Tell me," she whispered. "Tell me what
you
see when you look into my eyes, Nicodimus."

He looked down at her once more, and it almost seemed as if he could see right to her soul. He held her gaze with his, exerting some unseen force, even when she would have looked away. His eyes probed for a long moment, and what she saw in them... It was so intense, so powerful that it nearly frightened her.

An instant later the large, arching door opened, and he never answered her question. Laird Joseph Lachlan appeared in the doorway, a strikingly beautiful woman at his side. Arianna had seen the dark, exotic woman in Stone-haven before. She seemed to come and go as irregularly as Nicodimus himself did. But she seldom set foot in the village, and seemed to hold herself aloof from the clan in the keep. No one seemed to know from whence she came. That

she was a foreigner was obvious. That she was well liked and welcomed by the clan chieftain, equally so. And if Laird Lachlan trusted her, then that was enough for his clan. Few asked questions.

But from the first moment Arianna had seen her, she'd burned with curiosity over the woman's background. The mysterious woman exchanged a lingering, searching glance with Nicodimus that made Arianna want to leap from his arms and claw out her eyes. 'Twas obvious they knew one another. And well.

Her eyes were ebon, slanted, and lined in black. Jewels dangled from her ears and a single ruby pierced her nose. So many bracelets adorned her wrists that they made music when she moved, and around her neck she wore at least as many pendants on chains. She was willow slender, and very tall—taller than most men, in fact. Her hair hung to her waist, blue-black and shining, and perfectly straight. And her skin was a flawless shade of bronze.

She met Arianna's gaze, and her expression did not change. She was stone-faced, no smile of welcome, no frown of concern. Nothing. Just a gaze that made Arianna feel measured and weighed and judged all at once.

"Come, bring her inside," Laird Lachlan said, stepping aside, holding the door. "I saw you comin' and summoned Nidaba. What's happened to her?"

Arianna stiffened in his arms as Nicodimus swept through the doors and into the great hall. Endless distance loomed above her, to the concave ceiling. She shivered at a chill so deep it seemed to reach out and touch her bones.

"Her devoted husband-to-be cut her," Nicodimus said. "To see whether she would bleed, he claimed."

The sound of conversation abruptly ceased as people in the great hall all turned toward Arianna. A lad with his arms loaded down with wood for the fire, the men who stood 'round the plank table deep in some discussion, the women performing various chores—everyone stared at Arianna so intently she thought their looks were burned into her skin. Nidaba muttered a word Arianna didn't recognize, but from the sound of it, it might have been a curse. She

had no inkling whether it was directed at her or at Angus. The woman looked briefly into Arianna's eyes and then away.

"I will tend the girl," she said, her voice as deep and rich as a vat of spring honey, with an accent too exotic to identify. "Bring her to my chamber."

There was no trace of the highlands in Nidaba. Her dark skin was sun-kissed, her nails long and curving, with tiny stones somehow affixed to them. And her dress was as scandalous as any other Arianna had seen her wearing. Black and tight and anchored only at one shoulder, leaving the other, and both arms, completely bare.

She was frightening, and Arianna did not fear much. She bristled, and told herself she could hold her own against the strange woman, should the need arise.

The chieftain turned and waved a hand to those in the chamber. "Go about your business. The lass is nay in need of your gawkin' at her." His voice lower, as they scurried away, he said, "Angus MacClennan is a foolish lad, if ever there was one." He ran one hand over his bald head and sighed, walking beside Nicodimus as Nidaba led the way through an arching doorway and into one of the many dark stone corridors. Nicodimus carried Arianna past what seemed like endless doors, and his steps echoed like ghosts all around them. While Arianna had often been in the great hall and the kitchens, she had never before been in the private wing or invited into the chambers of those who lived here. And yet, she couldn't stop looking ahead, at Nidaba. The woman's black dress seemed to be made of some magickal fabric that shimmered when she moved and clung to her like skin.

"He could have killed her!" the laird muttered angrily. "How many daughters does he think her poor family can stand to lose?"

"You can see the damage gossip can do, Joseph. The tongue-waggers who started this ought to be horsewhipped," Nicodimus said quickly.

"Aye, indeed. Gossip can be a deadly thing, Nic. A deadly thing."

Arianna cringed a bit, knowing Nicodimus likely believed her own behavior had brought this upon her as much as the gossip of the villagers had done. He had warned her, hadn't he?

Nidaba opened a door, and they stepped into a large chamber. It was far different from the dark, rather barren parts of the keep Arianna was familiar with. The room seemed to be of some other world, filled with the most incredible collection of exotic items Arianna had ever seen. Glittering stones of purple and blue and pink, some colorless, some multihued, lined shelves on the walls. And there were daggers—countless different shapes and sizes, all from different lands, Arianna thought, perhaps even ... different times. They hung on the stone walls, some crossing one another, some forming triangles, some fanning out like the tail feathers of some beautiful, deadly bird.

Nidaba waved a beringed hand toward her fur-covered bed, and Nicodimus lowered Arianna onto it. Then he stepped aside to let Nidaba move closer to her. The woman's black eyes met hers, and the ruby in her nose seemed to glow. Arianna shivered. And then the woman touched Arianna's forearm, clasping it to begin removing the makeshift bandage.

A jolt surged from her hand into Arianna's arm the instant the strange woman touched her. Just the way it had at Nicodimus's touch. Arianna's eyes widened. Nidaba paused, met her gaze, and seemed to will her to keep silent. Aloud, she said, "I have no need of you two men. You may go, take refreshment. I will bring her along to you when we've finished."

Arianna sought Nicodimus's eyes, her own pleading. She didn't know this woman. Nidaba frightened her, when she'd long prided herself on fearing nothing; not man, nor beast nor death itself.

"I'll stay," Nicodimus said, very softly. "She's been through a shock, and you're a stranger to her, Nidaba."

Nidaba's dark, probing gaze never left Arianna. "I am a stranger to most of the clan Lachlan. But few look at me with such wide eyes as these." Her hand clasped Arianna's

chin as she studied her face, and Arianna fought to hide her inexplicable fear of the woman. "You are right to be afraid, young one, of those you do not know. However, I mean you no harm .. .just now." As she unwrapped the wound, she whispered, "I am not one of the Dark Ones."

Arianna only frowned, puzzled.

And when Nidaba saw that she hadn't understood, the woman sent Nicodimus a questioning look, to which he responded with a quick subtle shake of his head. There was another long gaze between them, but it broke off when Nicodimus came to the other side of the bed to watch over her as the dark woman worked. The laird himself, not some servant, fetched water and a cloth, and brought fine whiskey for her to sip, while Nidaba cleansed and then stitched the wound, and Arianna clutched Nicodimus's forearm in pain.

Twice, Arianna saw Nidaba move one hand over the cut in a circular motion; saw her lips moving as she whispered some words too soft to hear. Almost as if... as if she were casting a spell.

But nay. She couldn't be. Could she?

When the laird left the three of them alone in the room, Arianna cleared her throat, gathered her courage, and blurted the question on her mind. "Are you a Witch, Nidaba?"

Nidaba's hands stilled. Then she lifted one forefinger, and taking the needle, pricked it. A ruby-red droplet welled from the tiny puncture, and Nidaba met Arianna's eyes. "I bleed. Therefore, I cannot be, can I?''

Silent for a moment, looking from Nidaba to Nicodimus and back again, Arianna realized it was meant to be a joke. Though the strange woman never smiled.

"I am serious," Arianna insisted. "Is it only when I touch the hand of another Witch that I feel that... that surge of... of whatever it is that I felt when I touched you just now, Nidaba? Or when I touch Nicodimus?''

Nidaba met Nicodimus's eyes, her eyebrows raised.

"But it canna be that," Arianna continued, shaking her head. "I feel nothing when I touch Celia's hand, nor Lean-dra's nor Mary's."

Nidaba tilted her head. "And who are they?"

"The Crones," Nicodimus explained.

"Ahhh," she said. "The mortal village Witches."

Arianna frowned at them both while Nidaba bent to her work once again. " 'Mortal'? What do you mean, Nidaba?" But Nidaba didn't answer. "Nicodimus, what did she mean?"

Nicodimus cleared his throat. "Nidaba is not quite fluent in our language, Arianna. It is not her native tongue."

"Do you think I dinna ken as much?" Arianna said with a toss of her head. "The entire clan kens she's a foreigner." Arianna looked at her. "Where do you come from, Nidaba?"

"I believe you know it as Sumeria," Nidaba answered without looking up. Her hair hung over her face like a black satin curtain.

Arianna blinked. She was uncertain, but she thought Sumeria to be the name of some long ago desert land; a place that no longer existed. She must be mistaken. She certainly didn't want to show the two of them her ignorance by asking.

"And, how do you two know each other?" she went on, bumingly curious about the nature of their relationship.