“Alda, stop!” Brice shouted from above them.
“Be reasonable. There is no place for you to go. Gavin will treat
you fairly.”
There was a derisive laugh from Alda, and
then a howl of pain from Brice. Gavin released Mirielle’s hand to
hurry up the steps. Mirielle, having caught her breath and regained
her emotional composure, was close on Gavin’s heels. They found
Brice gasping for breath at the top of the stairs.
“Leave me,” Brice said, coughing. “Catch her
before she does something terrible that will destroy all of us.
She’s out on the battlements.”
Gavin stepped over Brice and continued
through the door. Alda had chosen the stairs to the highest
watchtower in the keep and now she stood beside one of the crenels,
the archer’s gaps in the stone wall that topped the tower. Above
her, on its pole, Gavin’s blue and green pennant snapped bravely
against a gray, windswept dawn. There were no men-at-arms here,
either, though there should have been four on duty.
“It is time to surrender,” Gavin said. “Give
yourself up, Alda. I promise, your punishment will not be
unjust.”
“There will be no punishment,” Alda shouted
at him. “You cannot touch me. My power is greater than Mirielle’s,
or even than Hugh’s. There is nothing any of you can do to me.”
“But there is, and it is the thing you fear
most.” Supporting Brice, who insisted on staying with her, Mirielle
had come out onto the battlements. Leaving her cousin to lean
weakly against the stonework, Mirielle advanced to stand beside
Gavin. “Gavin and Hugh and I together can strip you of your power.
Hugh and I can hold you in a net far stronger than the one I have
just used against you and, while we do, Gavin can send you to a
convent as he has threatened. There, on holy ground, you will be
unable to work your evil magic. There a simple stone cell and an
ordinary lock on the door will suffice to hold you.”
“Never!” Alda moved toward Mirielle. Her
brilliantly colored gown swished over the stone paving like a snake
hissing before it strikes. Alda’s golden-brown eyes burned hot gold
and then changed to a flaming red that was painful to look upon.
Alda’s hair had come unbound in her flight up the stairs. The
golden locks crackled and snapped with the energy of her magic. She
pointed a long, slender finger at Mirielle. “You cannot stop me. I
have had enough of your pious interference. You are neither mage
nor ordinary person, but a creature caught between the two. Since I
cannot use you, it is time for you to die.”
Now it was Mirielle’s turn to be caught in a
net. The one she had called upon to hold Alda had been restrictive
but not painful. Alda’s conjuring produced a net that prevented
Mirielle from breathing, that gripped her ever tighter, threatening
to break all of Mirielle’s bones and to squeeze the life out of
her.
“No! Leave Mirielle alone!” Brice launched
himself off the stonework and onto Alda, forcing her to loosen her
hold on Mirielle in order to keep Brice from knocking her down.
But Brice would not stop. He swung a clenched
fist at Alda, striking her on the shoulder. Alda spun around,
screeching. Brice hit her again. To get away from him Alda
scrambled up onto the broad stone at the base of one of the
crenels. Holding on to the stones at either side she hung there,
the red glow in her eyes searing all three of her opponents.
“You have no power over me,” Alda screamed at
them. “Weaklings! Villeins!”
“Alda,” Brice panted, “in the name of God,
come down from there. Repent, and you can gain absolution for your
sins.”
“I don’t need absolution! I am part of a
greater power.”
“The power of darkness,” Brice insisted.
“Alda, if you will not give up for your soul’s sake, then do so in
the name of the love I once bore to you, when you were an innocent
girl.”
“I was never innocent,” she snarled at him,
“and you were a fool to love me, for your love gave me power over
you. Love is a mistake I have never made, nor ever will.”
“Alda.” Putting out his hands, Brice took a
step toward her. “Please. Give up your magical power. I promise, if
you do, you will find peace and you can live a contented life.”
Alda did not bother to respond to this plea.
She took her left hand off the stone at the side of the crenel and
pointed a finger at Brice. With a strangled cry, his hands at his
throat, he went to his knees. Alda threw back her head in the
gesture so characteristic of her, and laughed at her writhing
victim.
From behind Gavin and Mirielle there came a
sound like a rushing wind. The sky over the highest tower darkened
as if a heavy thunder cloud hovered above it. Alda’s laughter died
away. She stared at something over Gavin’s shoulder and a look of
fear crossed her face.
“No!” Alda shouted. She put out one hand,
palm up, as if to ward off the rushing noise. “I am more powerful.
I, not you!”
The sudden movement made Alda lose her
balance. Teetering at the very edge of the crenel, she caught at
the stonework with both hands, but she had moved too far out. Her
foot slipped on the smooth surface of the stone. She hung there
while the wind howled and the sky grew ever darker. Her red skirts
billowed out around her and for an instant Alda looked as if she
were standing on empty air. Then she disappeared over the edge.
Her long, drawn out howl of rage and terror
temporarily paralyzed the wits of all who heard her.
The roaring wind stilled. There followed a
moment of complete silence, before calls and shouted questions came
from far below. Then a yell of fear, and more silence.
Up on the highest watchtower, Brice lay on
the stone paving, trembling and panting for breath. Mirielle
discovered she could move and breathe again, and Gavin took her
into his arms.
“My love,” he murmured. “Are you all
right?”
“I think so.” Mirielle took a long, deep
breath, filling her lungs with air that was remarkably fresh and
clean. She watched the rising sun break through a cloud to send a
single ray of soft light onto the watchtower to illuminate Gavin’s
triumphant blue and green banner with the scallop shell device.
“Is she gone?” Brice levered himself up onto
his elbows. “Is she really dead?”
“She must be,” Gavin said. “No one, not even
a powerful sorceress, could survive such a fall.”
“Don’t be too sure.” Brice dragged himself
toward the crenel. Leaning over the stone at its base, he looked
down. “Something is wrong. Alda must have fallen onto the ground
just at the edge of the moat. I can see a red dress and people are
standing around, but—what is it? They are moving back from her.
What has happened? Gavin, one of us should go down there.”
Brice pulled back from the crenel to find
Mirielle and Gavin with their arms around each other.
“I see,” he said slowly, with the air of a
man who was just beginning to waken from a terrible dream and to
observe the world around him with clear eyes. “Mirielle, I do not
completely understand how you were able to hold Alda immobilized,
but it is clear to me that the effort has exhausted you and that
you have need of Gavin’s support. I will go down to the moat and
give the necessary orders about Alda’s body. I am the seneschal. It
is my duty.” Brice appeared to be pulling himself together even as
he spoke. He tested the movement of each hand and foot and of his
legs and arms.
“Amazing,” he said. “I am stronger
already.”
After Brice left them. Mirielle and Gavin
lingered a while longer on the watchtower, standing with his arms
around her and her head on his shoulder until Mirielle had
recovered. Finally, Gavin stirred.
“My wife is dead,” he said. “I should grieve
for her lost soul, but all I can feel is relief that she will
trouble us no more.”
“Alda chose to lose her soul,” Mirielle told
him. “If she had accepted the punishment you wanted to lay upon
her, she might have redeemed herself in time. The decision was
hers, and hers alone. Considering the deaths she had caused, you
were more than fair with her.”
“Still, I wish there had been some other way
to stop her,” he said.
Mirielle saw the regret on his face and knew
it was not only for the woman who should have been his loving wife,
but also for those whom Alda had killed or made dangerously sick.
Thanks to Alda, Gavin himself was not in the best of health, though
Mirielle did not think he would admit to weakness.
“Come to your room,” she coaxed. “Brice will
find you there and present his report to you.”
When they reached the lord’s chamber Gavin
refused to lie down on the bed as Mirielle advised. She was able to
convince him to sit in a chair by the fire and she poured a cup of
wine for him. When she gave it to him, he took it and set it on the
table next to the chair. Then he pulled Mirielle onto his lap. She
did not protest.
“I have been afraid many times in my life,”
Gavin said, holding her close, “but never so terrified as when I
thought Alda was going to kill you. I knew you could not breathe, I
saw you struggling and I could do nothing to help you.” His arms
tightened around her. “In that horrible moment I knew how
impossible my life would be without you.”
Bending her back across his arm, he pressed
his mouth to hers. Mirielle’s fingers crept into his hair, feeling
the smooth, silky texture of it. She was conscious of the hard-
muscled thighs on which she sat and as Gavin’s kiss deepened, she
became aware of a different hardness that rose suddenly and
insistently. Nor could she deny to herself her own hot-blooded
reaction to his masculine arousal. When his hand moved downward
from her shoulder to her breast, Mirielle pressed herself against
his palm. Gavin’s mouth slid from her lips to her cheek and ear,
then to her throat. The hand on her breast moved farther, to
Mirielle’s thigh and then on to the hem of her dress. The delicate
stroking of his fingertips on her calf made her moan deep in her
throat.
“How soft you are.” His fingers reached above
her stocking to stroke the sensitive skin of her upper thigh.
Mirielle moved and twisted against his hand,
wanting still more. She knew where this would end. She began to
tremble, not from fear, but from the depth and extent of her
emotions. In her heart she was already Gavin’s, but she longed for
him to take physical possession of her. She knew what they would do
together, and she wanted it with every quivering inch of her
body.
Her thighs opened without any thought on her
part. He touched her in the place where she ached to feel him. His
hand was not tentative but firm, clamping upon her in a way that
jolted her to a new level of sensitivity. She buried her head
against his shoulder, shuddering with suddenly awakened desire.
“Shall I stop?” he asked.
“No. Gavin, I want—I want—oh!” She tightened
her arms around his neck as he moved his hand so that one of his
fingers began to slide into her while another stroked and circled,
pressing gently yet firmly against her aching flesh. Mirielle felt
as if the place between her thighs was on fire.
“I know what you want,” he whispered. “It’s
what I want, too. I think the time has come for us to move to the
bed.”
“Don’t take your hand away. I’ll die if you
do.” Mirielle found she could not be embarrassed by the desire she
could no longer hide. What they were doing was all new and strange
to her, but she felt as if she and Gavin were embarking together on
a wonderful journey. With him, there was no cause for fear.
“You will lack my touch for only a short
time, my dearest,” he murmured. “Then we will be as close as two
souls can be.”
All the same, she whimpered at the loss of
that sweet pressure when he released her and set her on her feet.
At once he stood, too, and lifted her into his arms, pausing to
kiss her once more before carrying her to the bed. He had taken
only two steps when someone began to knock at the door.
“My lord,” Brice called, “may I speak to
you?”
“I forgot about your cousin,” Gavin
whispered. “I will have to see him.”
Mirielle was on her feet again and Gavin
steadied her for a moment, looking at her as if to question if she
was ready to accept the interruption to their lovemaking. Not until
she smoothed back her hair and straightened her skirts and nodded
her readiness did he stride to the door to fling it open.
Brice stumbled into the room. He barely
glanced at Mirielle and made no comment on the fact that his ward
had been alone with a man in that man’s bedchamber for some time.
Brice had information to impart and he gave all of his attention to
Gavin.
“My lord,” Brice cried, “I have come to make
my report to you. Lady Alda—Lady—oh, God!” He covered his face with
his hands.
“Here.” Jerked out of her romantic trance by
Brice’s entrance and his dreadful appearance, Mirielle caught up
the cup of wine that Gavin had not touched. “I think you need this.
Brice, you are shaking. Sit down. I do hope you have not caught a
chill.”
“I feel as though I am burning up with
fever.” Slumping into the chair Gavin had vacated, Brice drained
the cup of wine and held it out for Mirielle to refill it.
“I think I understand your distress, Brice.”
Gavin sat opposite him. “I have seen the bodies of a few men, and
women, too, who had fallen from great heights. It is a terrible
sight, and most particularly when it is someone you know. Knowing
that you loved Alda once, I should not have sent you to see to the
arrangements for her. I should have gone myself.”
“You don’t understand. It isn’t that I loved
Alda, though I did, and in a way I still do and always will because
I remember so well the girl she once was.” With his eyes shadowed
and dark, Brice looked from Gavin to Mirielle. “There is no way to
say it gently, so I will be plain. I found Alda lying on her back
directly below the crenel through which she fell. By her gown and
her jewels and her size I knew her. Her golden hair was spread out
around her head, but when I touched it, the hair came off in my
hand.” Brice rubbed his hands together, as if to wipe away the
memory of Alda’s beautiful tresses laying in his fingers.