Fortress of Mist (19 page)

H
e appears so serious
, Katherine thought.
Already, the weight of his power bends him
.

So she began with an awkward bow. As her heart thudded, she wondered in anguish, knowing she could never ask.
Does he feel for me the way I do for him? Or did my wishful imagination deceive me during those few moments he stared at me beneath the moonlight?

Katherine forced herself to remember she was beneath bandages—not a midnight messenger—and began to speak as she finished her curtsy. “You overwhelm me with these gifts of …”

Thomas frowned and shook his head slightly.

Katherine stopped.

Thomas stared straight ahead, every inch of his seated body the ruler of Magnus. Behind Katherine, each side of the huge double wooden door slowly swung closed under the guidance of the sentries just outside the room.

The doors thudded shut.

Thomas let out a great sigh.

“They seem to prefer it when I am solemn,” he said with a slight smile. “And with the Earl of York determined to take Magnus, it is not difficult to appear that way. I’m glad, however, to see you.”

Thomas stepped down lightly.

“Katherine, you’ve returned.” He knelt, took one of her hands, and
kissed the back of it. He stood and placed both his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve missed our conversations.”

Katherine smiled beneath her bandages.
He goes from formidable man to a sweet boyishness in such a short time. Not bragging about the Valley of Surrender. Not boasting of his new wealth. But spending effort setting me—a person he believes to be a freak—at ease. It would not be difficult to remain in love with such a person
.

She, of course, kept those thoughts to herself. Instead, she replied, “Thank you, m’lord.”

“M’lord! Not ‘Thomas’? After you rescued me from the dungeon? After you made it possible to conquer the walls of Magnus? You gravely disappoint me with such an insult.”

Grave disappointment, however, did not show on his face. Only warmth.

Would that I could tear these bandages from my face
, Katherine thought.
Only to watch his eyes and hope he smiles to recognize me from my visit to his tent at the army camp
.

She tried to keep the conversation safe so nothing in her actions might betray her thoughts. So her questions would reflect ignorance. “How fares that rascal Tiny John? Or the knight Sir William?”

A complex expression crossed Thomas’s face—a mixture of frown and smile. She soon understood why.

“Tiny John still entertains us all,” Thomas told her as the smile triumphed briefly, then lost to the frown and his eyes darkened. “The knight bade farewell much too soon after Magnus was conquered. There was much about him that cannot be explained.”

He tried a half smile in her direction. “Much, also, is a mystery to me here in Magnus. I feel there is no one here I can trust.”

He looked at her strangely. “Even your disappearance the night we conquered Magnus …”

Katherine bowed her head. “Thomas—”

“No,” he said as if coming to a quick decision. “I was not seeking an explanation. You, more than anyone, assisted me to this lordship. I am happy that you have returned. Furthermore, urgent matters press upon me.”

“Oh?”

“Strange evil generated by an ancient circle of high priests known as Druids. And worse.”

Thomas stared into space. “As you know,” he said, “when I first arrived in Magnus, the former lord, Richard Mewburn, had me arrested and thrown into the dungeon because of the deaths of three monks. My explanation to you was truth. One was bludgeoned by the other, and the remaining two killed themselves by accidently eating the food meant for me, food they had poisoned to murder me.”

Katherine nodded.

Thomas responded to her nod by starting to pace back and forth across the room, brows furrowed, hands clenched behind his back, and royal purple cloak across broad shoulders.

“After Mewburn fled in defeat,” he continued while pacing, “all in Magnus accepted that the charges of murder had been false, merely an excuse to imprison me and the knight.”

Katherine nodded again.

“Yet today,” Thomas said, “I received a message from the Earl of York that he has sworn an oath of justice, that he is determined to overthrow Magnus and imprison me for those same murders. There was enough time during the march to the battle against the Scots for the
Earl of York to accuse me of murder. There was enough time then for him to arrest me. Why did he not?”

“Perhaps because the time is convenient for him now that his son is no longer a hostage in your castle?” Katherine suggested.

Thomas glanced at her briefly, then shook off a strange expression.

“There is also that matter,” he said a moment later. “He says he demands revenge for what I did to his son. This on the heels of a message I sent to him, telling him that his son broke honor by fleeing from my castle. It’s as if the earl is determined to find an excuse to take Magnus.”

Long silence.

“Had the Earl of York heard of the deaths before the march?” Katherine started.

“That is what puzzles me. If so, why suddenly decide to act upon them later?” Thomas stopped pacing and stared directly at Katherine.

“However,” he said, “the monastery of my childhood was obscure, and I as an orphan, more so. Thus, it is easier to think that the Earl of York had not heard of the deaths.”

Thomas frowned, “How, then, did Mewburn, the former lord of Magnus—here in the isolated moors—know of those deaths soon enough to cast me into the dungeon, while others in power, such as the Earl of York, remained uninformed until much later?”

“I wish I could answer that for you,” Katherine said.

Thomas gripped the edge of the stone as he leaned forward. “I am not without hope.” He turned to her. “I am going to be gone for a day. Please don’t worry about my absence.”

“You’re leaving Magnus? How? It is impossible. We are under siege.”

“At night,” he said. “On the water.”

“Where are you going?”

“Some things,” he said, “I can’t share with anybody.”

T
homas was on a hillside, miles from Magnus. He had carefully hidden himself in thick brush, where a gap in the branches allowed sunlight.

He was hot and thirsty, and too often ants crawled up the outside of his clothing and onto his hands, but he dared not sit anywhere else.

Not with the single book in his lap.

There were others, wrapped carefully in oiled leather and hidden in a pile of rocks, but he only allowed himself to take one book at a time from the small collection.

If, somehow, he were caught or trapped, then all he would lose was a single book. Unthinkable enough that he might lose the others in his collection, but totally unfathomable that he would risk his entire library.

As for whether a man might be murdered to steal a book from him, that, too, was a possibility. It didn’t matter that the thief would more than likely be illiterate; when a book might take a year to be hand copied by a monk, any book was valuable merely for the labor put into it.

Thomas’s books had far more value, however, for the knowledge contained in each.

On the hillside, not for the first time did he wish earnestly that he had his entire library to consult. But it had been impossible to travel with them on his journey to conquer Magnus, when his only companions were those who had been condemned to hang before he helped
them escape. Physically, to travel with the books would have required a horse and a cart, something that would have drawn too much attention to their escape.

After becoming lord of Magnus, it had still been too risky to move his library. The appearance of Isabelle had proven that. He was watched—somehow—too closely at Magnus. How could he successfully bring the books in and keep them a secret? And where could he keep the books and trust they would be safe?

The only alternative had been to make his way back to the cave near the abbey where the books truly were safe, and smuggle the most important ones almost back to Magnus, where he could reach them, like now, in under a day’s travel.

He had never expected, of course, that all of Magnus would be surrounded by an army, that he would have to find a way outside of the village walls and off the island to reach the books.

Thomas pinched another ant that had made it past his boot, hardly aware he was doing it.

The book in his lap gave no satisfaction, no suggestions on how to defeat the earl.

He’d have to slowly go back to the pile of rocks, wrap this book, unwrap another, then sneak back to this hiding spot and hope to learn something from that book to help him keep Magnus.

And, if somehow he found a solution, he’d need to survive the trip back to Magnus.

With his hand on a large, flat piece of floating lumber, Thomas stood waist-deep in water and reeds beneath a moonless sky, knowing he had
failed. He was returning to Magnus without any plan for how to stop the Earl of York’s siege or how to defeat the Druids. Either opponent alone at this point appeared on the verge of victory; to face both of them and expect to keep Magnus was impossible.

As the small waves of the lake lapped up against his legs, it struck Thomas that if he were strictly a rational being, he would step back out of the water and flee the valley.

He had no family ties to keep him in Magnus, and certainly the property that was his was about to be taken away. Far away, at the abbey, he’d stored gold coin that would make his life easy for years.

If he walked out of the lake at this moment and returned to the abbey, he’d have his library of knowledge, a small fortune, and the freedom to go anywhere in Britain and start a life of his own. He could lie about his past and begin as a young merchant. Or he could become a soldier.

That was the decision a rational being would make.

It was utterly irrational that he would attempt to return to Magnus, hoping Robert had not used the authority bestowed upon him to open the gates to the Earl of York and negotiate a treaty that would leave Robert as lord of Magnus.

It was utterly irrational that Thomas would swallow his fear of the deep waters ahead and paddle in the dark, clinging to a plank for flotation.

It was utterly irrational to choose to accept his role as a lord of a small kingdom of people who were openly speaking against him, believers of dark superstitions who chose to accept that Thomas had been cursed.

So why was he pushing forward, the water now at his chest?

Ahead, he’d have to kick his legs for an hour to propel the plank
forward, trusting that in the dark of night on the dark of the water, he would not be seen by any sentries of the earl’s army, trusting that Robert would be waiting on the island at the appointed hour, not with a sword to end Thomas’s life, but with an extended hand to pull Thomas onto land, with the keys to a door that would let them back into the safety of the walls.

The land fell away from his feet, and Thomas slowly kicked forward, trying not to think about the depths of the water ahead of him.

Really, he should turn back and leave Magnus to its fate. Both the Druids and the earl had promised him a horrible death.

Still, he kicked forward, with his body weight from the waist forward on the plank.

He did not know how to win back his kingdom, nor did he even expect it would happen.

But he could not quit.

Because a life as a coward was, to him, a far worse fate than whatever was ahead.