“There may be more to our troubles than
Alda,” Mirielle said. “It seems to me there is some other dark
strength coupled to hers.”
“So I have thought,” Gavin said. “Alda by
herself is incapable of the effort required to systematically
poison eight people, or to create the atmosphere of gloom and
unhappiness that infests this castle.”
“It’s because of me,” said Brice. When the
other two looked at him in surprise, he went on, “Alda told me once
that she draws strength from me each time we lie together. It’s why
I am so weak and drained. She sapped my strength and my manhood
from me until I became too exhausted to resist her. And she used
that strength to kill Donada.” Brice turned away, stifling a
sob.
Mirielle would have gone to him, but Gavin
prevented her.
“He is consumed with guilt,” Gavin said in a
low voice. “He cannot fully believe that I have forgiven him for
taking to bed a woman whom I willingly deserted years ago. Brice
insists that, having given up Alda’s embraces, he must further
expiate his sins by standing with me when I announce Alda’s
punishment to her.”
“Brice is right. You should not have to do it
alone. Alda is sure to fight back.” Mirielle slipped her hand into
his and Gavin pressed it. “I will be there, too.”
“Ley Lines…a ‘fairy chain’ stretched across
the land…lines of magnetic energy which are believed to lie beneath
the surface of the earth. Where the lines intersect, the energy
coursing through them is especially strong.”
Alfred Watkins, et al.
Mystic Places
Alda’s chamber door was latched from the
inside.
“I’ll break it down,” Brice offered. He moved
back a few paces in preparation for a lunge at the door.
“Save your strength,” Mirielle put a
restraining hand on his arm. “You will need it to face Alda. Brice,
she may try to seduce you again.”
“She won’t succeed,” Brice promised.
“Can you open the door?” Gavin asked
Mirielle.
“I think so.”
“Mirielle?” Brice looked confused. “How are
you going to do it?”
“By magic.” Mirielle could not help smiling
at the expression on her cousin’s face. Brice had no idea how far
her work had taken her. He thought she was only able to make herbal
medicines or packets of bath herbs and scented soaps. She was
amused when he and Gavin obeyed without question the order she gave
next. “Stand back, both of you, and stay perfectly silent until I
tell you it is safe to enter.”
She had learned more from Hugh than she
realized. His lessons, taught to her during pleasant evenings in
her workroom, came into her mind without any effort. In her mind’s
eye Mirielle could see the latch on the other side of the door.
Directing all of her thoughts to the bolt, she envisioned it moving
back slowly, without a sound, until the door was unfastened. She
waited, listening, but heard nothing from within, no cry of alarm
to indicate that Alda was aware of the use of an unusual skill.
Mirielle put out her hand to push the door open.
“This isn’t right.” Brice spoke before
Mirielle’s fingers could make contact with the wood. “Alda is the
one who is in the wrong here. Are we to sneak into her room like
thieves at midnight? We ought to burst in on her with our swords
drawn and give her a good fright. Then she might do what we
want.”
“Brice, do be quiet!” Mirielle whispered.
“If you do not follow Mirielle’s
instructions,” came Gavin’s low murmur, “I will have you confined
to your room. This is no task for blundering warriors.”
Brice muttered something beneath his breath,
then fell silent.
“Stay behind me.” Mirielle whispered the
words. She put out her hand a second time and pushed on the door of
Alda’s room. It swung inward and hot, perfumed air wafted outward.
Mirielle advanced to the threshold.
The room was well lit with expensive wax
candles and all the braziers were burning charcoal. Alda was not
there. She was beyond, in the other room, the square chamber that
extended from the outer wall of the tower, where no room ought to
be. Mirielle understood at once that what she was seeing was a
magical illusion created by Alda for her personal use.
Black draperies cloaked the walls of that
unreal room. A fire burned in a round pit set into the exact center
of the floor. At the far side of the room stood a polished black
stone altar. Clad in a flame red gown, with her hair caught high in
a golden net, Alda stood facing the altar. She was oblivious to the
three intruders who clustered at the entrance to her bedchamber.
Engrossed in some mysterious rite, Alda lifted a glittering black
goblet in both hands and spoke words incomprehensible to the unseen
listeners.
Mirielle was aware of the movement at her
back when Brice crossed himself. She heard Gavin’s indrawn
breath.
“It is not real,” she whispered to them.
“Believe with all your hearts and minds that it is not there and it
will vanish. See in your minds the solid stone of the castle wall,
see this room as it actually is, without Alda’s enchantment on
it.”
Mirielle sent all her strength of will toward
the wall she knew existed in the place where Alda’s secret chamber
appeared to be. She sensed Gavin’s brave will joining hers, then
Brice’s weaker but still determined will. The black draperies on
the walls of the unreal room rippled and wavered as if a wind were
blowing across them. The room began to fade and blur.
The goblet Alda was holding slipped from her
fingers to crash onto the black altar. Alda went rigid, then
whirled to face the three who had moved to stand just within the
entrance to her bedchamber. With a wild shriek she rushed out of
the unreal room and into the bedchamber. Just as she set her feet
onto the floor of the bedchamber, the unreal room disappeared with
a loud popping noise. In its place the wall of the tower keep
appeared as it ought to be, solid gray stone with a bright tapestry
hanging on it.
“How dare you enter my room uninvited?”
Alda’s head was thrown back, her eyes blazed with an unearthly
red-gold light. Her whole being vibrated and the folds of her red
skirts shimmered and moved about her like tongues of leaping
flame.
“Sorceress!” Brice took a menacing step
toward her. “Murderer!”
“You cannot accuse me. You know not who and
what I am!” Alda spoke with slow intensity. When she turned her
eyes full on Brice he gasped and clutched at his stomach, then went
down, doubling over in agony.
“Let him go,” Mirielle said.
“When I am ready, I will.” Alda watched Brice
writhing on the floor before her, his face gray with pain.
“I loved you once,” Brice cried. “Alda, have
pity.”
“You ask for pity, you weakling? And you
prattle about love?” Alda’s laugh was cruel. She lifted a foot as
if she would kick Brice, but she apparently thought better of it.
Instead, she spoke to him as if he were a half-wit. “Ever since I
was a child, my only interest in you has been your weak will where
I am concerned. I could always make you do whatever I wanted. Even
now, knowing as you do that I used your passion for me to increase
my own power, still, at this moment I could lure you to bed and you
would go with me most willingly.”
“No,” Brice cried. “You killed Donada and
made her son sick. I will never lie with you again.”
“If you do not,” Alda told him, “it will only
be because I have no further use for you.”
“Stop this at once!” Mirielle cried. “Leave
my cousin alone.”
Alda lifted her eyes from Brice’s crumpled
form to meet Mirielle’s fierce look. Mirielle sensed the woman’s
building strength and knew Alda was about to inflict pain on Gavin
and herself in addition to Brice. Quickly, before Alda could make a
move, Mirielle stepped forward. Again using Hugh’s teachings, she
conjured a protection to keep Alda at bay so she could not hurt her
unwelcome visitors. At Mirielle’s silent command a thin veil rose
between the two women, a net-like creation of Mirielle’s mind that
crackled and shook and spat sizzling sparks of energy. On
Mirielle’s side of it Brice lay groaning.
“She can’t hurt you any more, Brice,”
Mirielle said. “For the moment, I have her confined. I am sorry it
took me so long to establish the net. Gavin, tell Alda what you
mean to do with her. But hurry, please. I cannot contain her for
long. She is too powerful.”
“Alda,” Gavin said, “I have applied to the
Church for a Bill of Divorcement from you. It will not be difficult
to obtain, since Brice freely admits to adultery with you.”
“What is that to me?” Alda sneered.
“Despite the crimes of which I believe you
guilty, still you are the mother of my son,” Gavin went on.
“Therefore, instead of killing you or imprisoning you as most men
would do, I am willing to let you go into a strict convent for the
rest of your life.”
“Gavin, you don’t understand,” Mirielle broke
in. “Alda would sooner die than be confined in a place where the
very holiness of the ground would prevent her from exercising her
wicked power.”
“Now, there you are right,” Alda said. “I
have not done all that I have done in order to be sent away like a
rejected wife. Nor will I ever relinquish my power.”
“If you will not submit to my authority, then
I fear I will have to kill you,” Gavin said.
“I cannot die.” Alda told him. “I am
immortal. And much too powerful for you to compel.”
“Gavin,” Mirielle whispered urgently, “I
cannot hold the net around her much longer and when it fails, she
will surely take some desperate action, for she must know you
cannot let her remain free. You and Brice should leave the room
now, before she tries to kill both of you.”
“She will not let you live, either, and I
will not desert you,” Gavin said. Raising his voice, he spoke again
to his fuming wife, who looked as if she might try to break through
the confining net. “I have two last questions for you, Alda. How
did my father die? How did his seneschal, Paul, die?”
Alda laughed at him. Mirielle could feel the
strength the woman was exerting in her effort to break free of the
net that held her.
“Alda, I command you to answer my questions,”
Gavin said.
“On whose authority?” Alda asked. “Your
strength is fast waning from illness. Brice is all but dead. Your
friend, Hugh, is gone from here.”
“I am here.” Mirielle put all of her
remaining will, all of her courage and her love for Gavin and for
her cousin Brice into the net around Alda, tightening it. When Alda
looked at her, startled by the increased pressure, Mirielle said,
“Tell Gavin what he wants to know.”
Alda did not respond at once. Believing she
was about to launch an attack to gain her freedom, Mirielle
recalled Hugh’s most secret lessons and summoned up her final
reserves to resist the attack and to add more pressure to the net.
It was enough. Alda was compelled to speak.
“I killed Udo,” Alda said. “When Sir Paul the
seneschal was foolish enough to accuse me of the deed and
threatened to see me punished for it, I killed him, too.”
“Why?” Gavin demanded. “What reason could you
have for causing so much pain and death, for harming people who
meant you no ill?”
“I wanted this castle,” Alda told him. “I
will have it before I am done. It is why I agreed to marry you. I
could have stopped the arrangements my father made—even at that
young age I was powerful enough—but Wroxley is in a perfect
location.”
“The lines,” Gavin said. “Hugh has told me of
them.”
“He would know.” Alda nodded as if she and
Gavin were carrying on an ordinary conversation. “Wroxley sits on
an intersection of the magical lines, you see. The mystical energy
of the earth itself accumulates here, in this spot. Once I control
Wroxley, once the castle is mine and not yours, my power can only
grow.”
“Power to do what?” Gavin asked.
“Isn’t it clear?” Brice spoke, startling all
of them. Pale and shaking, he dragged himself to his feet. “Alda
has fed on my desire for her and, I suspect, on other men, too,
draining all of us of our will and courage. But while a man’s vital
energy is limited, the energy of the earth is not. If Alda can gain
control of Wroxley, she can feed indefinitely on the power of those
magical lines, whatever they are. Alda is mad for power. She wants
it for its own sake.”
In turning her attention to Brice for an
instant, Mirielle had allowed her firm upholding of the protective
net around Alda to waver. It was a time no longer than the blink of
an eye and a less determined sorceress might not have understood
how to take advantage of it. Alda was no ordinary sorceress. She
broke through the net with a fury that blazed red-hot in Mirielle’s
mind and that momentarily blinded her. Stunned by Alda’s power,
Mirielle would have fallen to the floor if Gavin had not caught
her.
Alda did not stay to complete her victory
over Mirielle. Instead, she raced out of the bedchamber and into
the corridor beyond. Brice went after her.
“Follow them.” Mirielle fought to regain her
strength. “Brice does not know how to deal with her. She will kill
him.”
“I will not leave you alone. Alda may think I
would, and she may have some scheme in mind to harm you in
vengeance for the way you held her captive.”
“Then we go together, for I know she will
hurt Brice if we do not stop her.” Holding tight to Gavin’s hand,
Mirielle hastened after Alda and Brice.
“This way,” Gavin said, pulling her along the
corridor. “I can hear heavy boots on the stairs.”
The footsteps were heading upwards. Mirielle
did not see Alda, but she caught a glimpse of Brice’s dark blue
tunic and his sturdy legs and she assumed her cousin was chasing
Alda. Mirielle gathered her skirts into her free hand so she would
not trip and went up the spiral stairs with Gavin. Strangely, they
met no one, though at that pre-dawn hour when the watch was changed
there should have been at least one or two men-at-arms coming down
the steps or going up to the battlements.