Dragonblade Trilogy - 02 - Island of Glass (20 page)

She asked for Kenneth’s
whereabouts perhaps more harshly than she should have. She couldn’t help it;
she was frightened. One of the soldiers, an older man, escorted her to the
knight’s quarters. Aubrielle felt foolish; it was her castle and she didn’t
even know where the knights were housed. The soldier knocked on the door, an
action that produced Bradley.

The short, husky knight usually
had the night watch. This was his one night off. Surprised to see the lady of
the castle, he quickly ushered her into the small, cramped room beyond. He
disappeared down a dark corridor and in a matter of seconds Kenneth appeared.

He was in a tunic and dark
breeches, wrinkled from slumber. He looked sleepy but was nonetheless very
alert, especially at the sight of Aubrielle. She had been very brave, very
strong in her actions, until she saw him. Now it was a struggle not to burst
into tears.

“What’s wrong?” Kenneth gently
gripped her arms.

His touch felt so good, so
protective. Her brave façade faltered. “A man broke into my room,” she said.
“He… he had a knife. The dog bit him and I was able to knock him on the head
and escape.”

His grip tightened, pure fury in
his eyes. “Did he hurt you? Are you all right?”

She blinked away tears. “He did
not hurt me.”

Kenneth was on the move, pulling
her along with him. “Brad,” he growled. “Wake Everett. Bring him with you up to
Lady Aubrielle’s chamber. And send word to Reid upon the wall to lock down the
castle.”

Kenneth had no weapon of any
kind. In his fury and haste, he had no doubt that his brute strength alone
would be sufficient against any intruder. He would tear the man apart with his
bare hands. Aubrielle struggled to keep pace with him, the little dog bouncing
along in her arms. Above his own enraged thoughts, Kenneth could see that he
was not making things easy on her and he quickly paused to sweep her up in to
his arms. She threw an arm around his neck and buried her face into his flesh,
her frightened tears wetting him. The dog licked his chin.

By now, the keep was in a mild
amount of uproar. A few of the servants, still awake, had seen Lady Aubrielle
flee the keep and they had alerted others. By the time Kenneth carried her into
the keep, there were several servants huddling in and around the stair hall. No
one had ventured to the third floor yet.  Kenneth took the stairs without
hesitation.

The upper floor was dark and
cold. Before he entered the chamber, he gently set on her feet. The dog
slithered from her arms and raced into the chamber, growling.  Kenneth followed
the dog, watching the animal race around the room excitedly. He saw immediately
that the room was empty.

Aubrielle timidly entered the
room, hovering near the door. “Where is he?” she asked with soft urgency. “He
was right there, next to my bed, the last I saw.”

Kenneth crouched down, noting the
small wet spot on the floorboards and the ash shovel laying a few feet away. He
ran his finger over it, observing the reddish-brown color.

“Blood,” he murmured.

Aubrielle had walked up behind
him. She stared at the blemish on the floor. “I swear that he was right here
when I left.”

“I believe you.”

 She just stood there a moment,
dumbly. Then she walked over to her bed and sat heavily, her movements
lethargic and full of despair.

“My God,” she breathed. “Does it
never end at this place? Am I to be threatened every night of my life?”

Kenneth stood up. “Both times I
have made the mistake of leaving you alone. Never again.”

Aubrielle was unnaturally pale.
She shook her head at him. “You cannot be with me every hour of the day and
night.”

“Perhaps not, but if I am not,
then another can be. I have a stable of competent knights and soldiers at my
disposal.”

She looked at him. “And for how
long do you intend this round the clock protection? A week? A month? A year?”

“I am sure that will not be
necessary. We will find whoever did this, Aubrielle. Have no doubt. You are
quite safe here, in spite of your recent experiences.”

Her response was to sigh heavily.
She pulled her robe more tightly about her, gazing thoughtfully into the embers
of the dying fire. Kenneth inspected the room just to make sure there were no
more assassins hiding in the shadows. He went to sit beside her.

She was silent and distant. He
put his big hand over hers. “Are you sure that you are unscathed?”

“Aye.”

“Do you feel well enough to tell
me what happened exactly?”

Her fear was beginning to
subside, replaced by raging depression and guilt. She knew she should tell him
everything but she was reluctant to, for many different reasons. She took a
deep breath for courage.

“I was sleeping when he entered,”
she said quietly. “The snarls from the dog woke me.  I ran to grab a weapon and
picked up the ash shovel.  He grabbed my arm and we wrestled before I was able
to break free and hit him with the shovel.”

“Did he say anything to you? Do
you know who he was?”

“I do not know who he was,” she
said. Suddenly cold, she rose from the bed and wandered towards the fire,
pulling her robe so tightly about her that she was nearly strangling in it.
“Kenneth, I must tell you something horrible. I am having trouble grasping it
myself.”

“What is it?”

She paused before looking at him.
“I am afraid to tell you.”

“Why?”

“I fear that my actions have
caused something horrible and that… perhaps you will judge me by them.”

“You will not know the answer to
that until you tell me what it is you have done.”

He was right. Aubrielle squared
her shoulders. “This man who attacked me in my room was looking for something.
It is something I stole.”

Kenneth’s pale eyebrows lifted.
“Did you steal it from him?”

“No.”

“Then what on earth did you
steal?”

She looked like a scolded child,
humbled by the remorse that now wracked her. “In my latter years at St.
Wenburgh, most of my studies were focused on the history of Christ and Grail
lore. It was something that fascinated me and the monks indulged my interest.
There was a manuscript, an ancient parchment called the Scroll of Munsalvaesche
that held particular fascination for me.”

“What is the Scroll of
Munsalvaesche?”

Her expression warmed as she was
suddenly transported into something that held great importance to her. “During
the Dark Ages, a king by the name of Titurel, lord of Munsalvaesche Castle,
wrote of the holy Grail. It was supposedly housed within his castle. But it is
more than simply the account of the cup of Christ. It is a true account of what
Christians refer to as the Holy Grail and its current resting place. This manuscript
is the reason that I must go to Glastonbury. It is the most amazing piece of
literature of this or any lifetime.”

Kenneth was silent, absorbing the
information as he watched her go to the smaller of her trunks. She rifled
through a considerable amount of clothing, shoes, and a few belts that ended up
on the floor.  He watched her pick at the lining of the trunk and carefully
tear it away. He heard the material give.  Once the lining was separated from
the sides of the trunk, she dug deep and pulled forth a long, ocher-colored
cylinder.

Kenneth’s gaze moved curiously
between the tube and Aubrielle’s face. Her expression was not lost on him; the
wonder and awe was obvious. She went to sit down beside him, holding the
revered object up between them.

“This is the scroll.” She
unsealed the end of the cylinder and pulled forth a yellowed, brittle
parchment. In spite of himself, Kenneth was very curious. Aubrielle carefully
unrolled the script to reveal very deliberate, artistic writing. It was, in
fact, a very beautiful piece. She began to read softly “’Many brave knights
have dwelled with the Grail at Munsalvaesche … the Grail of purest kind. If you
do not know it, it shall not here be named to you. By the power of that Grail
the phoenix burns to ashes, but the ashes give him life again.”

 He looked at her. “What does
that mean?”

Her face, so pale minutes
earlier, fairly glowed with excitement. “The secret, Kenneth. The Grail isn’t a
cup at all. It’s something else.”

He was trying not to be
skeptical. “A stone?”

She smiled, so brightly that it
lit up the entire room. “I really do not know. But when I find it, we shall
know once and for all.”

His skepticism was growing. “Do
you mean to tell me that you have no idea what you are looking for, only that
you must look for it?”

“Aye,” she looked back at the
scroll. “King Titurel describes it as a stone that gives life.  Others have
accounted it as a cup, of course, and the Gospel of Nicodemus even describes
Mary Magdalene as the Grail. You see, no one really knows what it is.  But
nearly everything I have read on the subject, including this scroll, points to
the Isle of Glastonbury as the Grail’s resting place.” She pointed far down
towards the bottom of the brittle parchment. “Right here, do you see? ‘That
Munsalvaesche wants for its Grail, for the knights, the
aeterno defensor
,
have taken it to
Insula Vitrum
to restore the health of the sleeping
land’.”

Kenneth knew his Latin; years of
knightly training by priests had taught him as much.  He translated the words.
“
Insula Vitrum
is Island of Glass. And
aeterno defensor
is
immortal protector.”

She nodded eagerly. “Glastonbury
has been known as the Island of Glass since the Caesars ruled our shores. Our
ancestors, in fact, called it Ynis Witrin, which is the old language for ‘Isle
of Glass’.  This scroll was written many centuries after the Romans ruled the
earth. If an ancient king wrote of this, then surely there must be some
connection. Surely the Grail, whatever it may be, is truly at Glastonbury.”

Kenneth stared at the parchment,
the faded ink, attempting to determine if she was certifiably insane or if the
entire idea intrigued him.  He had to admit that it was the slightest bit
interesting, but his religious sensibilities kept him grounded. Regardless of
what he thought, however, someone wanted the scroll bad enough to kill for it.

“Be that as it may, how did this
man know you had the scroll?” he ventured. “I sense there are far greater
forces behind this than just one random fool.”

Aubrielle shook her head, her joy
in the scroll somewhat dimmed. “I truly do not know.  How he even knows of the
scroll is a mystery to me, unless he was a student at St. Wenburgh as well,
perhaps before I was there.”

“That is possible. But to go back
to the monastery to search for it and then to discover it is missing… if you
stole it as you said you did, of all the students there, how did the finger
point to you?”

“I was always studying it in the
months before I left. It was never out of my possession. Perhaps they
rightfully assumed I took it.” Her eyes suddenly welled. “The man… he told me
that he had asked my mother about the scroll. Kenneth, he killed her because
she knew nothing. She did not know I had it. He thought she was lying.”

“He said that?”

“Aye.”

Kenneth looked at her, his mind
whirling with new, deep possibilities. He did not like the fact that something
dark and ominous was following Aubrielle, something he couldn’t fight off. It
was a faceless, shapeless evil. All of this revolved around her damnable
obsession for Glastonbury and the Grail. He couldn’t control her obsession. All
he could do was guard her until the fixation found a satisfactory end. The more
he looked at her, the more protective he became.

His arms went around her, pulling
her close. “I am sorry,” he murmured into her hair. “It was not your fault. You
could not have known this would happen.”

“But they killed her,” she held
him tightly, drawing on his strength. “She knew nothing, yet they still killed
her.  She must have told them I was at Kirk and now they have come to kill me
and take the scroll.”

Everett and Bradley appeared in
the doorway, swords leveled, preparing for a fight. Young Max the squire was
with them. When they saw Aubrielle and Kenneth seated calmly upon the bed, they
lowered their weapons.

“Where is the threat?” Everett
demanded.

“He was gone when we arrived,”
Kenneth mouth was muffled against Aubrielle’s hair. “Is the castle sealed?”

“Aye,” Everett answered. “No one
has gone in or out for a few hours according to Reid.  Now everything is locked
down. Whoever attacked the lady is still inside the castle.”

Aubrielle pulled herself from
Kenneth’s grasp; she did not want the knights to see her in a weak moment.
Keeping her back to them, she went to her dressing table and pretended to busy
herself.  Kenneth could see her dabbing at her tears from the corner of his
eye.

“Then rouse the senior soldiers.
I want this place scoured from top to bottom for this man that Lady Aubrielle
will very shortly describe to us. Anyone even remotely fitting this description
will be placed in the vault for identification.”  He looked to Aubrielle, still
at her table. “My lady? Are you strong enough to describe him to us?”