Twice Upon A Time (The Celtic Legends Series) (22 page)

She swiveled with a swirl of cloak and strode toward the shadowed hall.
Once under the cover of darkness, she set off at a run. Her booted feet scraped on the old floorboards. She hurled herself down the back stairs and lurched against the garden door, banging it open to the light and air even as panic blinded her.

She stumbled through the garden, her feet slipping over the grass, her heart setting the pace of her flight. She grasped her skirts in her hands. She heard no footsteps crashing behind her, yet she raced as if chased by a demon, clinging to the dark, chill edges of the path, a sister to the shadows, but even then the sunlight sought her out—not even here could she hid
e from the truth and the light. The thunder of her heart pounded in her ears, as she reached the moss-laden stones that formed the far end of the small garden. She pressed her cheek against the gritty wall. She sank to her knees in the corner along with last year’s crackling leaves.

Then, without a whisper of notice, a cloud passed over her eyes.

No!

She curled her hands into fists. She struggled against the gray vapor that
blurred the edges of her vision.
No! No!
This evil within her emerged only when her strength ebbed, and now, now with all the fight drained out of her, she was helpless against the fog which thickened until the black haze cut off the brilliance of the day. The vision came, writhing like a serpent. Tall, silvery forms shimmered through the fog, moving more and more slowly until they stilled and solidified into the shapes of trees. This grove
lived
, for it had warmth and a welcome she fought against even in the mute silence of her thralldom. Blue green light filtered through the vaulted verdure to cast an uncertain glow upon her bare skin. Somewhere close, fire crackled high and hot. Above, in the star-studded skies, an unearthly moon-sun burned metallic and white-hot.

One part of her thought,
this place is Hell
, even as another part of her thought,
this is where I belong.

One of the trees birthed a shadow which unf
urled into the silhouette of a man. The creature approached. She stretched her arms to welcome him . . . and the creature embraced her and there was nothing but warmth in his arms, a sigh, and a dangerous homecoming. He wore a dark cloak which shimmered with gold crescents—a pagan thing which he shed effortlessly. The heat of his breath fanned her cheek, redolent of rain and dew, and his large hands rasped on her bare skin—
Oh.
She arched beneath the caress of his hand and the fire flared, higher and hotter. She felt herself yearning to open herself to this creature of her dreams and let him ease the growing ache in her body, this lonely void in her soul. And she sensed all around them the bated breath of hundreds of unseen creatures, watching, watching and waiting.

Then the scene dissolved into mist, and like every other time, she fought to stay with the creature
that filled her heart. She wanted to look upon the face of her lover, to finally capture in her memory the beloved features that always swirled in darkness. She struggled to probe through the veils that kept this last bit of knowledge from her . . . but inevitably the shadowy images receded.

The smoke obscuring her
vision thinned to filmy whorls and then dissipated altogether. She found herself propped against the garden wall, staring up at a stretch of white cloud in a stark blue sky. Hating herself for her weakness, hating herself for her fate. And more, hating herself for yearning for that fate—something no Christian woman should dare contemplate: the dark, forbidden merging of her body with some creature of that other world.

Hot tears streaked her face.
She’d never called this upon herself. She’d never blinded babes in the womb or stopped a cow from milking or summoned hail down into the fields. She’d never do such a thing, even if she knew the way of it. Now, someone had discovered her secret again. Now the Church would have no choice but to do again what it had tried to do all those years ago and failed: Exorcise the demon from her body and hurl it from this world.

She fumbled with the laces of her sleeves, jerking them tight to her wrist, and then trying, in vain, to tie them into knots, all the while watching the garden door, waiting for them to come and take her away.

It was over now, she told herself. All those years of struggle, of subterfuge—it was all over. There’d be no more lonely isolation, no more silent mockery, no more pain.

She waited
and wondered if the flames she had perceived in the distance of her vision were the burning stakes of her own witch’s pyre.

It was over.

Conor
curled his hand around a pitcher of wine. He strained his ears until he could hear her frantic footfall in the hall no more, his body still bruised with the imprint of hers. It was over now, all over. He’d guessed right thinking that no one knew she had the power of the Sight. She’d done well hiding it all these years, though he was sure she’d had little choice. Such a gift as that wouldn’t be understood, and the consequences of being marked the devil’s handmaiden in this time and place were fierce: Torture, to elicit a confession. Then death by fire.

She’d
looked upon him as if he held the torch.

He slammed the pitcher upon the table harder than he intended. She hated
him now, he’d done a fine job of that. There was no doubt he’d crushed whatever fragile lover’s dreams she may have harbored. This girl called Deirdre would fear him now. She would dream of him no more.

Good.

He strode out of her bedchamber, shouldering by the maidservant so roughly that the plates on her tray rattled. He plunged into the hallway and swiped the air with his hand, trying to wave away the fragrance of honeysuckle she had trailed behind her when she’d raced out of the chamber. He stormed into the room he’d been sleepless in for too many nights, the stale refuse of last night’s bread crackling beneath his boots. Octavius’s pallet was empty, but a lump lodged like a fattened tick in the pile of furs on Conor’s bed.

Conor
spied one of his old boots, swept it up and hurled it at the lump. With an outraged howl, Octavius jerked out of his nest.

“Pack.”
Conor kicked aside a dirty pair of braies. “We’re leaving this place before the Terce bells.”

He slammed the door on the Irishman’s incredulous sputtering and
strode toward the stairs. Soon he’d be rid of that worthless sluggard as well as everything and everyone else in this house. He didn’t know why he suffered that lazy thief, except that the creature was tenacious, and Conor had too much else on his mind to spare him a thought. But no more. She was healthy, so his duty was done.

Damn the gods
. For seven hundred years he’d battled the wisps and mists of their making, and now they mocked his efforts by leading him to her, reborn, as innocent as a child of all that had passed before, and ignorant of how every gesture, every glance, every word from her lips, skewered him to the bone.

He halted in the gloom of the hallway and
pressed his fists to his pounding head. Even now, a thousand crazed whispered voices whirled in his mind, stirring up a thick bog of conflicting emotions.
She is here again, she is mine, and I can live again.
How many hours had he tossed and turned in the night thinking of the possibilities, feeling as he had not felt in centuries, letting that whole first life unfurl before him. He remembered too well. Memory was why he’d leave her in peace. She would remain here, to live a better life without fear, anguish, and loneliness. He would not take the forty, fifty, even sixty years he could have with her. To him, that was a blink of an eye.

In the end, she would still die in his arms.

Conor walked down the stairs. In the solar of the main floor, the boards of the trestle tables leaned in a heap against the wall. A rat, gnawing on something discovered amid the rushes, darted off, and slithered through a crack in the warped corner plank of a large cupboard. Sir Guichard lolled in a seat by the hearth, swinging one leg over the arm of the chair as Conor turned off the stairs.

“
Ah, Mézières, here comes the man who raised your golden goose from the dead.”

“M
onsieur, I’ve been waiting for you.”  Monsieur Mézières approached in a cloud of orange scent. Freshly shaven, his blunt-cut, silvery-white hair shimmering with care. “Forgive my absence these past days. The fair is a harsh taskmaster.”

“It was your daughter I came to heal.”

“And that you’ve done well, by the sound of laughter coming from her room this morning.”

“
Which is why I’ll be leaving today. My work here is done.”

“Please, please, doctor.” The burgher raised a single finger to silence him. “We’ve a fee to discuss, and it will be a generous one, but this is n
either the time nor the place.”  The burgher clapped twice, the fur-trimmed edge of his scarlet tunic flapping. A servant bustled into the room with a pitcher of wine and three gem-studded chalices. “First, we three must celebrate.”

Conor
’s jaw stiffened. Through the cocked window wafted the babble of the crowd, a stew of fetid scents, the bustle of anonymity, while he stood still and chafed, bound by the strictures of polite society.

The burgher handed
Conor a chalice. “To your patient’s brilliant health, doctor.” He raised his own. “For my daughter’s happiness.” He held out the third chalice to Sir Guichard. “And to your future wife, Sir Guichard.”

At that moment, the bishop’s cathedral clanged the hour of terce. The bells reverberated through Troyes, joined by another chiming, augmented by the bells of a third church, then a fourth, the cacophony clattering through the city until the
vibrations penetrated the house’s timbers and seeped into the marrow of Conor’s bones. He clenched his jaw as the clamor gonged with chaotic abandon, until bell by bell, peal by peal, the din thinned until nothing remained but distant echoes and an ear-numbing hum in the air.

“A fine omen, this.” Monsieur
Mézières glittered with pride sharper than any of the cut jewels on his fingers. “I wanted you to be one of the first to hear the news, doctor. If it weren’t for your skill, this day would never have come. The arrangements were completed just this morning, with Sir Guichard’s consent.”

Sir Guichard barked a humorless laugh. “I consented to keep my fine family name out of debtor’s prison.” The nobleman swung his knee still farther over the arm
of his chair. One of the ties of his stockings hung undone, revealing a fleshy strip of upper thigh. “Even the noblest fields need a little manure now and again.”

Conor
’s hand instinctively stole to his hip, but the leather he clutched caved under his grip. It was the battered skin of his doctor’s bag, not the worn hilt of his sword. The sword was nothing but a faded memory, as was—until this moment—the powerful, primitive urge to wield it.

“To Deirdre’s health.”
The burgher hefted his chalice, his smile triumphant. “And to a rich and fertile marriage.”

He told himself that t
his is what he wanted as the chalice burned in his palm. This was for the best. For all his blustering, Sir Guichard would make a better husband than ever he could. The nobleman could give her children. The nobleman would grow old with her. So he choked off the surge of possessive fury and raised his thoughts to the Otherworld.

Play another tune upo
n your willow-reeds, old gods of mine. I’ve danced to your music before. I shan’t dance to it again.

The cold rim of the chalice bit
Conor’s lips. His throat fluxed as he forced himself to swallow.

Then she entered the room from the kitchens, her saffron cloak billowing around her skirts, her golden hair tangled and wild, the chimes of her belt jarring.
Conor gripped the chalice harder, for she was the gods’ most potent weapon, the spearhead lodged in the beating muscle of his heart.

She stopped abruptly as she noticed the three of them. She
knotted her hands together and swept her gaze to the floor.

“You summoned me, Papa?”

Monsieur Mézières spread his arms wide. “I have news for you, the most joyous of tidings.”

There was a pause, infinitesimal, but
Conor knew the way of his own wife’s face. Her gaze glanced upon him, and then glanced away, and he saw terror, uncertainty, the fear of oncoming doom, followed quickly by confusion, and then a rush of relief. She looked like a hanged man granted an unexpected stay just as the rope scraped his collarbone.

He realized she must have expected him to expose her secret to her own father. As if he’d tell any man of her gift of the Sight
.

The spearhead
in his heart twisted. Conor mentally seized the shaft and stilled it.

She
said, “Joyous tidings, father?”

“The most joyous
news a young woman could hear.” The burgher smiled like a benign benefactor upon a leering Sir Guichard.

The color which had only just rushed back into
Dierdre’s cheeks ebbed out again. She glanced in confusion toward the kitchen door, then back to the floorboards. “M . . . Moira just came rushing after me babbling on about the rumors . . ..” She swallowed drily. “Tell me she was teasing me.”

“Every word is true.” 
Monsieur Mézières deliberately planted his cup on the hovering servant’s tray and then folded his hands before him in a gesture of exaggerated patience. “Sir Guichard has generously consented to take you as his wife.”

She said, “Is that why this creature has been turning up for dinner every night, like a hair in the soup?”

Sir Guichard wrestled up a resounding belch reeking of sour wine and onions.

“Daughter—”

“I won’t be his wife.” She fumbled for the prayer book hanging from a cord at her belt. “I’d sooner marry a worm.”

The nobleman’s derisive laughter bubbled into his chalice. “It’s no worm you’re getting, my beloved, have faith in that.”

“What use have you for a wife, Sir Guichard?” She whirled in a blur of skirts toward the nobleman, the bells of her belt jarring discordantly. “Haven’t you enough mistresses to fill every bed in King Louis’s castle?”

“Daughter!” Monsieur Mézières’s fingers unraveled. “Show some respect for his title.”

“Title
? Don’t the moneylenders of Troyes own a good piece of that?”

Sir Guichard surged up from the
chair, bumping it back three paces with the force of his rising.

“She’s a child,” the burgher interrupted,
putting a restraining hand on Sir Guichard’s shoulder, “and speaks without thinking.”

“
There’ll be none of this when she’s my wife.”

Conor
fists were so tight he felt his fingernails break skin. His palm ached for the weight of a sword. His knife burned where it nestled against his calf.

Heed me, gods..
.. Play not your music. I won’t dance.

“I imagined you a timid thing these past months.” Sir Guichard thrust his cup out blindly toward a servant to be topped. “So modest, casting your eyes away whenever I saw you in the garden.”

“I don’t
care what you think.”

“N
ow that I see a bit of a savage in you, I’ll look forward to the taming.”

“Papa, do you hear him?”

“Daughter, there is much you don’t understand about a man and wife.”

“Bother her not with details
. I’ll begin her education on our wedding night.”

“Do be blathering on,
my lord.” She flexed her hand over the sweat-stained palm print on the spine of her prayer book. “The emptier the drum, the louder the noise, and your rattling’s near to deafening me.”

“Enough!” Monsieur
Mézières’s eye twitched. “You are distressed now, daughter, and know not what you say.”

Conor watched her gather her wits like so many scattered pins
. He watched in mute and pained silence as she swept to her father’s side, dropped her prayer book and gripped his arms—her eyes, as always, downcast.

She said,
“I know why you’ve done this. It’s no secret that his father borrowed a fortune from you to fund his way into the Crusade. But there must be other ways—”

“Silence, child.”
  The burgher shook himself free of her grip. “I should have known this announcement would come too soon after Jean-Jacques’s passing. Because of that, I will forgive you your insolence.”

“Forgive me
?” Her voice vibrated with surprise. “But—”

“Don’t leave, doctor.”

At the sound of the burgher’s command, Conor realized he’d turned toward the stairs, propelled by the urgency to get out—leave—run—before he used his dinner-knife to cut the throats of both men.

“I must apologize to both of you,” the burgher continued, “for my daughter’s sharp and over-quick tongue. Her mother was the only one who had any control over her, and the convent seems to have forgotten to teach her even the simplest of commandments—Honor thy father.”

Deirdre dipped her head
. Her hair cascaded across her face.

The burgher continued
. “The banns will be read this Sunday—”

“Sunday?”
  Confusion quavered in her voice. “You’ll be marrying me off so soon, when you and I have had only a few months together?”

The burgher stiffly patted her head
. “Perhaps I should have waited before making the arrangements, but I’m an old man, and have lost patience with the years.”