Heart of the Flame (22 page)

"I've been dispatched on high orders this morning. My lady wife wishes to know if Clairmont's lord means take his breakfast in battle gear at the table or in the tilt yard."

"Neither. I lost track of the hour. Do not delay the meal on my account."

"Ariana will be disappointed. So will a certain other lady, I wager."

Kenrick glanced sardonically at Braedon and sheathed his weapon. "Haven waits for me in the hall as well?"

"As lovely as I've ever seen her, even if her eyes seem a bit troubled. It doesn't appear she slept well last night...nor do you, now that I am looking at you."

"Sleep is rare enough for me. Last night was no exception."

His inability to relax was no secret about the keep, but he saw no need to divulge the details of the indiscretion he shared with Haven in his chambers. Not even to Braedon, who was the closest thing he had to a friend.

Haven was the primary cause of his current state of restlessness, but his new thoughts on the Dragon Chalice were a very close second.

"I believe I may have found a further clue," he told Braedon in a confidential tone of voice. "There is an entry in one of my oldest journals about a holy site where unexplained healings have occurred. This place, Glastonbury Tor, lies along the same set of lines that connects both Saint Michael's Mount and Mont St. Michel. My calculations had been off only slightly, but I'm confident I'm on the right path now. I'm certain I'll find a key to another of the Chalice stones at Glastonbury. I mean to leave soon."

Braedon was listening in thoughtful silence. "This place--Glastonbury Tor? I have heard of it. 'Tis located not far from Cornwall, is it not?"

"It is."

The dark knight needed not to speak the words for Kenrick to know what he was thinking. Cornwall, the place where Haven had spent the last year--where her past might yet wait for her return--might hold answers for Kenrick of another sort.

"She is affecting me deeply," he admitted. "Her memory of the attack on Greycliff is only partially restored; the rest of her past remains elusive. I will find no true peace with her until I know her heart can be mine in full. If I will lose her to her past at any time, I prefer to do it now."

Before she comes to mean even more to me
, he thought, refusing to voice the weakness aloud.

Braedon nodded slowly. "If there are answers to be had in Cornwall, or at Glastonbury Tor, then I pray you find them."

He placed a brotherly hand on Kenrick's shoulder, the look in his gray eyes grim with understanding.

Beyond them, at the postern door of the keep, a commotion was rising from within the castle. The clipped thud of sentry boots reverberated off the stone walls of the keep's entry corridor a moment before the door swung open.

"Where will I find Lord Clairmont?" inquired a guard's voice of Sir Thomas on his watch.

Concern edged the inquiry, immediately setting Kenrick's instincts on alert.

"I am here," he answered, already walking over to meet the knight who he now saw was accompanied by one of the villagers.

"My lord."

The knight inclined his head in greeting, as did the cottar, who swiped the cap off his graying pate in a deferential, if unnecessary, show of respect.

"What is it?" Kenrick asked, impatient with formalities of rank when it was clear that something was amiss this morning. He did not like the feel of it one bit.

"There has been an incident in the village, my lord. The villeins have apprehended a man--"

"'Tis a poacher, m'lord," interrupted the cottar as though excitement prevented him from holding his tongue a moment longer. Puffing out his chest as he spoke, his ruddy face and narrow-set eyes beamed with pride. "My boy Ralph got 'em with a pitchfork when the bastard tried to escape with one of the new lambs."

"He is dead?"

"Nay, m'lord. He lives, but he's hurtin'. My boy stuck 'em good in the belly, he did."

"Where is this poacher now?"

"Down in the barn at the village, m'lord. Ralph and some of the other lads are holding 'em there for ye. He's a mean one--spittin' angry to be caught."

"Poacher, my arse," Braedon snorted under his breath at Kenrick's side. "There is treachery here. It smacks of de Mortaine's influence."

Kenrick nodded. "My thoughts exactly. Shall we go question this trespasser and see if our suspicions are confirmed?"

"Lead the way," Braedon said, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

* * *

The dining hall was nearly filled with Clairmont's folk as Haven and Ariana made their way toward the dais. Ariana greeted those they passed, her kind smiles and cheerful demeanor not unlike a candle reaching light and warmth into a dank, dreary room.

Ariana's left hand rested lightly on her abdomen, a loving cradle for the babe that slumbered there. On her finger, her golden wedding band sparkled in the flicker of torches and the pale illumination of the morning sun that slanted down from the high windows of the hall.

"Have you been feeling unwell anymore when you wake?" Haven asked as they continued on through the shuttling throng of castle folk.

"Nay," she replied, smiling. "I am feeling better every day. The babe is strong, and I think 'tis time that Braedon knows he is to be a father. In fact, I intend to tell him this evening."

"He will be naught but pleased, I'm sure," Haven assured her.

Ariana beamed. "I hope so."

Haven walked along at the lady's side, truly excited for her joy. But she was not quite able to ignore the shadow of anxiety that dogged her steps at the prospect of seeing Kenrick that morning.

Where Ariana and Braedon were immersed in the bliss of their union, with happy news of the babe to come, Kenrick and Haven could claim only confusion and obstacles between them.

And desire, she thought with a pained twist of her heart.

She yearned for him with a fierceness she could hardly comprehend.

And there was more to the feeling.

Something that went deeper than the physical ache he conjured in her with a mere glance...with a simple touch of his sensual hands. As much as she wanted to deny it, she could not dismiss the awakening Kenrick stirred in her very soul.

A forbidden stirring that she feared to acknowledge, let alone embrace.

It was dangerous, this feeling she had for him, of that she was certain.

"...his leman, do ye say?"

Up ahead of her a few paces, Haven caught the murmured hush of gossiping voices. Two servant girls whispered back and forth, giggling as they shuffled along with the crowd gathering for breakfast.

"I swear it," hissed the second maid behind her hand. It was Mary, Haven realized once she heard her shrill voice and saw the freckles that spattered her cheeks. "I've seen them alone more than once. Why, just last night she came creeping out of the lord's chamber--"

Ariana cleared her throat in a pointed warning behind the tittering girls.

"To your table, Mary. That is quite enough."

"Aye, milady," the maid gasped, red-faced as she turned around and saw them standing there. Her companion and she slunk away to find their seats without another word.

"I am sorry," Ariana said to Haven. "I will speak with her later."

Before Haven could confess that nothing Mary said was untrue, a disruption caught her attention at the back of the feasting hall. A knight had come in from his watch with news that had the other guards talking amongst themselves in cautious voices.

"What is it?" Ariana asked of a passing servant who had just returned from their table. "What is going on?"

"A poacher, my lady. He's been caught down in the village. The men say word arrived not a moment ago."

Ariana blew out a troubled sigh. "And my husband? Where is Lord Braedon?"

"I understand he and my lord Kenrick have both gone down to see about the matter, my lady."

As the news of the intruder was dispensed, Haven weathered a gnawing pang of dread. "Oh, no. Something is wrong here. Ariana, last night...I was in my chamber when I felt the queerest sensation. It was evil, and I felt it staring up at me from outside the castle."

Ariana's blue gaze took on a worried sheen. "What are you saying?"

"I'm not sure. But Kenrick and Braedon--they're in danger, I know it. I have to warn them!"

* * *

The lambing barn stood an unassuming structure amid the timber outbuildings of Clairmont's village. Beyond its battered wooden door, huddled beneath low-ceilinged rafters lit with only the barest shafts of morning light from outside, easily a dozen cottars had crowded together to observe the morning's unusual arrival. The motley group of men talked amongst themselves, low murmurs and speculative wagers on how long the poacher might live with the gut wound that was slowly bleeding him dead in one of the stalls.

Kenrick strode through the assembled knot of villeins, followed close by Braedon and the old cottar whose son was responsible for apprehending the would-be thief.

"There be my boy," he crowed, pointing a gnarled finger toward a tow-headed young man who stood guard outside the berth, pitchfork still in hand. His ruddy face took on higher color as Kenrick approached, his fingers going a little whiter where they gripped the long handle of the pitchfork. "The bastard ain't died yet, has 'e, Ralphie?"

A rather sickened look came over the young cottar's face as he shook his head in answer to his father. The expression of remorse and shock deepened at the sound of pained moaning and thrashing that rolled out from within the stall.

It was obvious the boy had never drawn another man's blood before, let alone inflicted a mortal wound. A visible shudder worked its way along his lanky limbs. If he were made to endure his post a moment longer, the poor lad would probably either piss himself or lose his stomach on the spot.

Kenrick nodded at him in grave understanding as he came to stand beside him. Inside the stall, slumped against the timber wall and clutching a bleeding midsection, was a swarthy man with shaggy black hair and a thick growth of beard. He was panting like an animal, his teeth bared in a grimace of agony. A slivered eye rolled in Kenrick's direction, glinting with pain and, did he not mistake it, something darker.

Something malevolent, if the prickling of Kenrick's nape--and Braedon's low growl of warning were any indication.

The cottar's son nervously rushed to explain what had happened. "He sneaked in here 'fore dawn, m'lord. At first I thought a wolf broke in to take one of the lambs, for all the snarling and bleating I heard in here. I grabbed this fork thinkin' to drive it off. Didn't see 'til after I stuck him that 'tweren't no wolf, but a man. God forgive me--he's dyin', I think."

"You did right," he told the anxious youth. "You did only what you had to, Ralph."

"Aye, m'lord." The young man stood there, staring as though unable to move.

"Set down the pitchfork and take the rest of these gawkers outside," Kenrick calmly commanded him. A glance to the knight who had accompanied them down to the village brought the soldier to his side. "Stand guard at the door. No one enters. Understand?"

The knight nodded, then helped corral the curious villeins and escorted them out of the barn.

Kenrick stood at the head of the open stall, listening to the small crowd disperse, his gaze trained on the bleeding man who crouched low in the shadows. Braedon flanked Kenrick's left arm, his expression rigid, hand twitching in readiness where it hovered above his sheathed weapon. When the folk were gone, the barn door having creaked to a close, Kenrick spoke.

"I suppose it was only a matter of time before de Mortaine sent his hounds to sniff around my keep. What were your orders?"

The man said nothing. He kept his head down, his barrel chest heaving, wheezing belaboredly with the effort to breathe.

"Who commands you--de Mortaine, or Draec le Nantres?"

No response, save the rasping pull of his lungs.

"I admit, I am surprised they would send just one of you--a dullard at that, if a stripling cottar could fell you with a field tool."

A curse rolled between tightly clenched teeth, but the mercenary said no more.

"Not of a mind to talk, are you?"

Braedon's sword came out of its sheath with a slow, lethal-sounding hiss. "I imagine I could loosen this cur's tongue."

The man slanted a narrow glare on the blade now poised a hairbreadth from his nose. "Go ahead and cut me. I don't fear death, and I am already dying."

Kenrick spared him only the briefest lift of his brow. "Yes, you are."

"Aye," the swarthy mercenary agreed, "and sooner than later. So why should I tell you anything? Unless you mean to staunch this river of blood, I've nothing to gain from helping you."

"I cannot stop the bleeding, no."

The man snorted smugly.

"I can slow it, however," Kenrick added. "I could have you bandaged up and held under my watch for the next few days--more than that, perhaps a couple of weeks. Long enough to get the word out to de Mortaine that you have betrayed him to ally with us in the quest for the Chalice."