Claire Delacroix (14 page)

Marissa handed over the lot. Aurelia fingered the silk and Marissa smiled with the certainty that she would take the bait and wear the dress.

That made her almost laugh out loud. “Oh, and here’s a bit of makeup that just might be perfect for you, darling.” Marissa handed over a vibrant pink lipstick and a glaringly blue eyeliner that she hadn’t gotten around to pitching. “I thought the colors would suit you.”

In one way or another.

Aurelia stared at the cosmetics as though she had no idea what they were. Maybe they packaged them differently here - God knew most everything else was backwards in one way or another. People even drove on the wrong side of the road!

“At any rate, it will get you by until you can get some things in town.”

Then Aurelia glanced up and something flashed in her eyes that made Marissa wonder whether she had underestimated the woman’s intelligence.

The expression was gone so quickly that Marissa immediately doubted what she had seen.

“Thank you very much for your generosity.” Aurelia smiled. “I hope that you have not done yourself a disservice.”

“Oh no, darling, don’t fret!” Marissa, her optimism restored, gave her trademark trill of laughter. “I’m sure I’ll find some little rag to wear!”

“No doubt you will,” Aurelia said sweetly. She firmly closed the door before Marissa could wonder what was being implied.

Marissa stood there for a moment, then shook her head. Diverting Baird’s attention from Aurelia’s charms would take virtually no effort at all. Marissa was certain that Aurelia could manage the job just fine, now that she had had a little bit of assistance.

* * *

Aurelia tossed the armload of clothes across the room, outraged that Baird’s whore would try to cast her in the same role. The garb of a harlot was what she had shared, that much was clear, for no woman of honor could afford such fine fabric.

’Twas the mark of a whore to be indulged with silk. Aurelia supposed she should have expected no less.

But wait - who had chosen the garb? Certainly, the whore was adverse to any competition for Bard’s eye and would have shared millet sacks, given her choice.

Not garb wrought so fine as this.

Which could only mean that Bard must have dictated what would be brought.

But why? Aurelia thought furiously. Had the priest been successful in coaxing Bard closer to his own view?

Why else would his kiss have changed so seductively?

Aurelia examined the sheerness of the silken chemise once more. It was thin enough that any man would see the flesh beneath. Even a whore would have to be bold - or well claimed - to wear such attire into the evening revelry of the hall.

Especially in a holding so apparently devoid of womenfolk.

Aurelia’s mouth went dry at the import of this garb. Wearing this to the board would make Aurelia a temptress - and any results the fault of no one but herself.

Clearly, Bard meant to add her to the ranks of his whores! Why else would he insist Marissa share this garb?

Why, he might even have planned to bend his considerable charm upon Aurelia this very night! Perhaps she would be fed tender morsels to fuel her libido, or plied with mead until she was too drunk to fend off Bard’s advances.

And once her maidenhead was gone, Aurelia would be compelled to wed the cur or shame her family. It was reprehensible - yet curiously evocative of how Thord had been coaxed to his death.

Aurelia paced her chamber at breakneck speed as she worked through the repercussions of this deed. She would not drink a single sip of mead at the board this night. And she would not eat of any ‘special dish’ prepared for her alone. She would eat and drink only whatever Bard ate or drank first. Her chastity was not to be begged or bartered at any man’s command!

Especially the murderer of her only brother. Aurelia would rather starve than go to the hall and make such a spectacle of herself!

On the other hand, she was very hungry. She drummed her fingers and considered the problem of how she might foil Bard’s plans, at least long enough to fill her belly.

Suddenly, Aurelia glimpsed the linens adorning the bed. She hastily peeled back the coverlet and was astonished at the lush beauty of the smooth cloth revealed. Somehow a pattern had been made upon the fabric, though it was not woven there, its hues echoing the shades of the room.

Aurelia recalled the sewing needles in the little basket in the small chamber. There was another option! Oh, she would show Bard that she would not readily become his whore!

But she must hasten, lest she be too late to the board. Who knew when this “six o’clock” might be? The sky was already darkening outside the room and Aurelia was certainly hungry.

She might already be late!

* * *

The rain had stopped and the dark clouds had parted in the west to frame a magnificent orange sunset when Bard came downstairs. The dramatic light streamed through the tall gothic windows along the west side of the old bishop’s palace and painted the unfinished room in shades of gold.

Baird refused to look at the cut thorns marking the place he had met Aurelia.

Instead, he stared at the sunset, certain he had never seen another so beautiful. Baird’s senses seemed to have awakened after a long sleep when he had taken up residence here. Not only was every hue more intense, but the simplest food seemed more flavorful, and he felt as though he could hear a thousand voices in the wind.

Dunhelm had enchanted him.

Was that why Aurelia affected him so strongly?

Baird dismissed his whimsical thoughts and surveyed the construction critically. This was currently the tidiest public room in the renovation, though folding tables were the extent of the furnishings.

It was a far cry from his plans, though Baird could see hints of what the space would become. Although the main restaurant would be on the east side, stretching down the slope towards the beach and a stunning view, this would ultimately be a smaller restaurant. It would boast a comparatively small kitchen, and be a good place to have drinks or perhaps a casual lunch.

Right now, it was a less daunting unfinished space than the cavernous main restaurant.

The old stone walls of the 13th century palace exuded a cozy intimacy here, as would the great stone fireplace, once it was refurbished. Yet, the high ceiling would absorb the murmur of several dozen conversations easily.

And the view was magnificent, whatever the weather. The large windows granted a sweeping view of Dunhelm’s natural site. The sea stretched out to the west, shimmering in the evening light like an endless blanket of jewels, and waves crashed on the ragged coastline.

Currently though, the space in the east restaurant destined to be filled with gleaming stainless steel was still a gaping hole filled with wires and sawdust. Baird tapped his toe and wondered how long it would take for the food he had ordered to be delivered from the village.

Or how cold it would be when it got here.

Baird spotted a package wrapped in brown paper on one of the folding tables. He picked it up and noted that it was addressed to him in Talorc’s spidery handwriting. Baird smiled with satisfaction.

The mystery of Hekod was close to being solved. He could call the man tonight, maybe head to his place with Aurelia after dinner and get the whole tangle sorted out.

Whatever story Aurelia had concocted or family complications had brought her ultimately to Dunhelm, it would all be shortly laid to rest. Then, Baird could focus on solving the question of how he recognized her - and from where.

Baird tore the paper away with purpose, but paused to frown at the package’s contents. Instead of the telephone book he was expecting, he held a beaten-up copy of a book called
Sorensson’s History of the Orkney Islands
.

A history book?

A slip of paper was tucked into the middle of the book and Baird opened the volume to that page. There was more of the shaky writing on the slip.

“Here you will find the only Hekod that I know, he would be the famous one I told you about this afternoon, to be sure.”

The page marked was entitled “The Dark Ages in the Orkney Islands”.

Obviously, Talorc had mistaken Baird’s meaning, but a little history about the area wouldn’t be unwelcome. He had a few moments to wait for the others, anyway.

So Baird settled into a chair and read.

The Arrival of the Vikings

The Vikings first landed on the shores of the Orkney Islands sometime shortly after their raid on Lindisfarne, the famed monastery on the east coast of England, which occurred in 793 AD. Some scholars maintain that the attack on Lindisfarne was launched by a fledgling Norse colony in Orkney, but whatever the chronology, within a century, Orkney, Shetland and Faeroe Islands were all major Norse settlements. The Orkney Islands remained a holding of the Norwegian crown until 1468.

One of the first established Viking kings in the Orkney Islands was Hekod the Fifth, King of Dunhelm and Lord of Fyordskar.

Hekod the Fifth, King of Dunhelm?

* * *

Chapter Nine

Baird slammed the book closed. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end. Aurelia had claimed her father, Hekod, was King of Dunhelm and lord of somewhere else. Surely her father couldn’t be this 8th century Viking conqueror?

No, no, that was nuts! She hadn’t said Fyordskar. She couldn’t have. How could her father be twelve hundred years old, give or take a few decades?

Baird was connecting dots that didn’t deserve the link.

Obviously.

Okay, he’d never heard the name Hekod before, but it might be popular here, regardless of what Talorc said.

It was illogical for Aurelia’s father to be twelve hundred years old, plain and simple. He must have been named after this Hekod, and when Aurelia lost him, however that had happened, she was so upset that she confused the past with the present.

Baird was no psych. major but that made sense. Aurelia could spend her whole life looking for this historic Hekod and never find him - just as she would never find her father if he had abandoned her.

It was a familiar enough story to Baird Beauforte. Baird had to admire the way the human mind rationalized things to save its own sanity. His compassion for Aurelia grew with the certainty that they had both been dealt the same lousy hand.

But unlike Baird, Aurelia remembered her father, she had known him and obviously cared for him. Baird’s lips thinned. There was no way Hekod should be allowed to get away with that.

No one should have to go through what Baird had. He would make sure Hekod gave his daughter a straight answer, if nothing else.

Baird deliberately shook off any intuitive feelings that argued with his conclusion - intuition, after all, was illogical - and opened the book again.

Comparatively little is known of Hekod, other than the fact that he married a Pictish woman. There is some scholarship indicating that Hekod’s queen was linked to the Pictish List of Kings, the only Pictish document that survives. This could imply that his marriage was strategic move designed to assure his suzerainty in his new home. Appearances would support this, for unlike many conquerors whose reigns were short, Hekod sat upon his throne for at least twenty-five years.

A Pictish woman? Aurelia had mentioned the same thing.

But what was Pictish? Baird fanned back to the table of contents and discovered that a good third of the book concerned the Picts.

Little is known decisively about the Picts, and there is wide dissent in academic circles about even their origins. A prevailing opinion is that the Picts were a remnant of the Celtic society that once spread across all of Europe. When the Romans began to defeat the Celts, they moved to the margins of Europe, the Picts being those Celts ousted to the northern fringes of what is now Scotland. Other scholars maintain that the Picts were simply the descendants of Iron Age peoples in the area.

At any rate, even the word Pict is not their own - it is derived from the Roman
Picti
or “Painted Ones”. The Romans were continually harassed by the Picts, eventually resorting to the construction of Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall, further north, designed to keep these “barbarians” out of Roman Britain.

The moniker Painted Ones derives from the Picts’ purported fascination with body tattoos as ornamentation. These they created by piercing the skin with needles in intricate patterns, then rubbing the juice of an herb - woad, used as a blue dye in the area until the importation of indigo much later - into the punctures to make a fairly permanent stain.

If, like other Celts, they waged war in the nude, the Pictish warrior would have been an imposing sight.

No doubt.

Baird ran a fingertip across the swirling tattoo designs illustrated in the margin and considered to be characteristically Pictish. Intrigued as much by the story as the fact that Aurelia had chosen to use it, he turned the page.

But Baird wasn’t going to have the chance to read any more.

“Delivery from McNally’s Fish & Chip Shop! Someone order pizzas?”

The shadow of a gangly boy could be spotted in the corridor that stretched back to the entryway. He juggled a trio of boxes and peered into the sun.

“In here!” Baird called and jumped to his feet. He put the book aside reluctantly and rummaged for his wallet. “One’s vegetarian?”

“This one, sir.” The kid looked about himself with wide eyes and gave a low whistle. “This here is looking to be some kind of place, sir.”

Baird smiled with proprietary pride. “It certainly will be.”

“It has changed and then some, sir. We used to play hide and seek out here, sir, when I was a wee lad.”

“Did you?” Baird peered at the unfamiliar banknotes, trying to make sense of them quickly. “Must have been a bit dangerous. There were a lot of holes where floors had fallen in.”

“Don’t I know it! Part of the game, sir.” The boy’s eyes glinted with mischief. “But don’t you be telling my mam we done it, will you?”