Fire Dance (41 page)

And he would explain away everything, if he merely gave himself long enough at it. Had he loved her all that much, that he would try to overlook everything?

But there were other things, many little times, too. That odd revulsion, yet obsession with the cloak, and getting it from him. He had thought it amusing once, not insidious.

And the way she had lurched at him, knocking his prized horn cup from his hand. She had tried to pass it off as clumsiness, but she could not have accidentally fallen in that way. He could still see her face, stunned by horror, the instant before she dashed at him. All he had done was to wipe the rim–

Sweet Jesus! He had wiped at a smudge on the rim of the cup, then raised the cup to drink.
To take the poison into his mouth!

Dangerous or not,
she
had believed it. Could she really have been trying just to keep him alive, all this time? Then why not have told him?

Ah, yes. Just as she had said. He would not have believed her. The entire thing, a dying man's evil revenge, in such a preposterous way? Even here, in the manor where she was so well loved, there were those who whispered of witchcraft. He had been more willing to believe that than the explanation she had given.

"Chretien!"

Chretien looked up, startled, from the far corner of the dais where he talked with Thomas. "Aye?"

"Tell me again where you found her."

"To the south, crossing the eastern fells."

"Know you of the Butter Tubs?"

"Butter tubs?"

"A hole in the ground."

"Nay."

"I know of it," said Thomas. "'Tis a hole into Hell, some say."

"Where?"

Lines furrowed Thomas's brow. "East in the fells, toward Muker Common."

"How do you get there?"

"Go south, through the Mallerstang, then east across the vale, and climb the fells to the pass."

"Knowing where Chretien found her, might she have been going there?"

Thomas puzzled but a fleet moment. "Aye, 'twould be there."

"Sweet Jesus!"

He threw himself out of the chair and raced up the staircase.

"Open it!" he shouted at the guard, who fumbled at the lock, dropped the key, and managed it on the second try. He dashed into the chamber.

Empty. Gone again. He searched frantically about. If she escaped this time, she surely would be gone forever.

At the far corner, he heard a small scraping noise, and his eyes darted toward it. A hole in the wall. A hidden bolt hole. A narrow gap not more than a few feet tall closed as a panel slid into place, and the small hand that closed it disappeared inside, beyond the wall. So that was how she did it. The candle was gone, too. Of course. It would be black as pitch in there.

He dashed out the door, intending to retrieve a candle from his chamber, but whirled around and grabbed the reed torch in the bracket beside the guard.

He found the panel easily. It was meant to resemble the remainder of the plastered wall, where it sat between exposed timbers. It slid and lifted, and left a small hole a few feet square, with blackness beyond. The torch lit a series of descending steps, hewn out of the stone.

Alain crouched down and crawled through the tiny portal, onto the topmost step. Above him, a hard rock ceiling forced him to remain crouched until he descended several steps. Looking down, he saw no light ahead of him. Had she escaped him? He would deserve it. He had not even taken the time to learn where the bolt hole came out.

Torn between a need for speed and caution, he felt his way down the steps to a sort of floor, where the cavern opened out. He looked about, saw nothing. Frustrated, he set the torch down on the step, and trained his eyes to the dark. To his far right he caught a glint of light, that then was gone.

If he called out to her, she would flee. She would not trust him, now. He shuffled his feet along the irregular path, testing his footing on the tricky, unpredictable cavern, all the while searching for the candle's light.

There it was. A little to his left. It meant climbing over a tall ledge. But there was a way around, to the right. He sidled that way and spotted a small footprint in the gritty cavern floor.

That path came to an abrupt halt. He set down the torch to search for the light of her candle within the darkness. Ahead, he could see it, yet the path, seemed blocked in all ways. Turning around, he saw what he had missed, a narrow passage almost obscured by a huge pillar of stone. He slipped around it sideways.

She moved on ahead of him, seeming to be oblivious to his presence. The candle's flame rose as if she climbed up steps. He followed, and came upon a series of natural terraces that led up to a strange rock that looked like it had grown there, merging with another that stretched down from the cavern's ceiling like a waterfall frozen into stone.

Behind it a light flickered, then blazed into brightness. A torch glowed yellow and pink through the thinner surfaces of the rock curtain, as if the stone were no more than cloth.

Quietly, he mounted the stone terraces as they swung around in an arc, and rising, came to an end at the edge of the stone curtain. He stood there, transfixed by what he saw.

Through passageway hewn from the natural opaline rock, a room was formed within the stone. The floor was nearly flat and level, but the walls draped and oozed like body organs torn from a corpse. Stone pillars here and there, of odd sizes and shapes, or half-complete and dangling, seemed grown into their places.

Two great, ancient tables dominated the chamber, and were littered with jars of glass or pottery, small and large. A small writing desk with a stool seemed almost lost against the complex jumble that formed the far wall.

Melisande stood poised near one table, hands folded neatly before her, as if preparing for something. Her fiery gaze raked over the tables and their contents, assessing. Then her jaw set tightly. Her eyes narrowed to angry slits.

With a fierce sweep, her arm swung over one table, dashing pots and jars, sending them tumbling, crashing, to the floor. Another swoop sent more flying smashing against the hard wall of obscenities in a chaos of color and acrid smells.

"You're dead!" she shrieked. "You're dead! You can't hurt us anymore! You're dead! I killed you! Do you hear me? Dead!"

She grabbed a glass vial and dashed it against the far wall. Then another. Streaks of thick yellow and brown oozed down the surface into crevices and over bulges.

"You can't have him! I won't let you! You're dead, and you can't come back!"

Pottery and glass, flung in fury, crashed against walls, floors, pitched one after another. She gave the table a great heave and threw it on its side.

Her wrathful gaze descended on the writing desk, and she stalked it like a wolf after a hare, closing in like a killer.

Her hands reached out to the great book atop it, ready to grasp, tear it to shreds.

She froze. Her eyes grew huge.

A quill pen lay atop the book, beside a fresh and ever-growing blot of ink.

She shrieked and bolted backward against the far wall.

Fyren stepped out of the shadows.

CHAPTER 21

Melisande shoved herself backward as if she might force herself into the stone, her eyes riveted on the man in the hooded cloak before her. His dark beard was heavily streaked with silver. His bright blue eyes, so much like Melisande's, glowed with malice. His mouth curled upward only on one side, an evil parody of a smile.

"I heard you, girl."

"You cannot be here! It is a dream!"

"You have come to me, again. I told you, you would. But you betrayed me, girl. I am not sure if I will forgive you. Leave the Norman now, and we will take back what is ours."

"Nay, I will not! You are dead!"

"So you have said, but it is not so. Have you so easily forgotten who I am? Did you think you could kill the son of Satan? You belong to me, girl. You cannot escape."

Melisande sidled along the toppled oak table, her back to the wall, toward the doorway where Alain stood. Alain put his hand on the hilt of his sword, praying for her to come closer.

The evil smile broadened on Fyren's face, yet curiously tilted up only on one side. His left hand lunged for Melisande, and she sprang away with a desperate gasp.

"You cannot escape me. You belong to me, not that pathetic Norman who dares usurp my place. He will die for taking you. You are mine. Satan gave you to me."

"You will not kill him! I have told him all!"

"You have told him naught. He would not let you live if he knew. Only I can save you. Come back, girl, and I will let you live. When I take the English throne, I will make you my queen."

He could not mean– his own daughter? Black rage flooded through Alain. With a roar from the bottom of his gut, he drew his sword and hurled himself into the stone chamber. Startled, Fyren leaped back.

"Behind me, Melisande. Hurry." Poised to strike, he menaced Fyren with the blade.

She seemed stunned in her place.

"Move!"

Fyren grabbed for her, but Alain threw himself between them, his sword threatening Fyren's throat. Keeping her back to the stone wall, she shuffled sideways, came up beside him.

"Behind me!" he demanded.

But as she shifted, Fyren caught her arm and jerked her before him. Melisande screamed, clawed at Fyren. Alain slashed his blade at Fyren, but Melisande was too close. He limited his stroke for fear of hurting her.

She must have remembered Lynet. She collapsed like a dropped rag to her knees before the dismayed Fyren could stop her. Alain swung, yet dared not swing hard. The blade barely grazed across the man's left arm.

As blood oozed from the slash, Fyren dropped his prize. With a garbled curse, he hurled an object at the stone floor. A loud bang exploded in Alain's ears and caustic smoke and rock flew in all directions. Alain grabbed Melisande through the choking smoke. Despite her scream, she scrambled toward him.

He could not see her, even beside him, fumbling through and choking in the same smoke as he. With a punishing grasp of her arm, he groped toward where he hoped the exit was.

"Out of here. Run!" he shouted as he coughed.

She pulled his arm, and he followed her lead. They touched the column of stone, probed with their hands and feet, worked their way around it. He stumbled at the first step she had already taken.

"Watch your feet!" she screamed.

How the bloody saints could he do that? He could not even see his feet.

"Steps."

Aye, steps. He struggled along the little terraces, trying to remember their shapes, feeling the edges before him, while she guided him by the arm he held. The acrid smoke thinned, air freshened. He could see only blackness. Without either candle or rush light, they were doomed in the darkness.

"We're lost," he said.

"Nay, I know the way." Her voice was little more than an excited whisper.

"Without a torch?"

"Aye. Hurry." She tugged at the arm that held her, urgently moving, he could not tell where, and his feet stumbled as he tried to find his footing. Sweet Jesus, he could be upside down and not know it!