“See Sir Brice to his room. Make certain he
gets into bed at once and stay with him until I get there,”
Mirielle ordered. “I will explain to Captain Oliver why you are
late for your watch. Now, my lord Gavin, let me help you to your
bed.”
“I wakened intending to make love to you
again,” Gavin said as she saw him into bed and pulled the covers
over his shivering form, “but as soon as I lifted my head from the
pillow the sickness overtook me. Why, Mirielle? With Alda dead,
Brice and I should be recovering. Instead, I think I am like to
die, and Brice says he feels the same.”
“You are not going to die. I will not lose
either of you.” She spoke with such firmness that Gavin smiled
before he doubled up in pain.
“I have been sick before, once with a
terrible fever that lasted for days, but this is far worse. My
mouth burns,” he choked. “My belly aches. But I do not think I have
a fever. I am so cold.”
“I know.” She placed a hand on his clammy
forehead. “Gavin, promise you will stay in bed until I can prepare
medicine for you and Brice.”
“I cannot. There is too much to do.” He
pushed himself up on one arm, hung there shaking for a time, then
collapsed back onto the bed. “It seems I will have to obey your
direction, at least for a while.”
“A wise decision, my lord.” Not wanting to
reveal how worried she was, she adopted a crisp tone and a bustling
manner. “It will not be for long.”
He caught the hand that pulled the covers up
to his shoulders and held it tightly so she could not leave
him.
“You look like a woman who has recently made
love,” he whispered.
“So I have,” she said, smiling to cheer him,
“and I plan to do so again as soon as possible.” She bent to kiss
him, only to discover that his cheek and lips were as cold as
Donada’s face had been the last time she had seen her friend. With
fear clutching at her heart Mirielle headed for the door, eager to
get to her workroom and begin preparing the medicine that might do
no more good for Gavin and Brice than it had done for Donada. But
it was all she had, the only hope for her lover and her cousin.
“Mirielle.” Gavin’s weak voice stopped her
with one hand on the latch. “You must send a message to Hugh. Tell
him not to bring the children home yet. With Brice and me both
sick, it is still too dangerous here.” He broke off with a
smothered moan.
“I will tell Captain Oliver to send his best
rider on the fastest horse in the stables to intercept Hidern and
Bevis,” she promised. “Have no fear for the children, nor for the
castle, either. Captain Oliver and I will see to whatever needs to
be done.”
At Bardney Abbey, Hugh had already made his
decision about the children. “Reverend Father,” he said to the
abbot, “I am convinced that a new danger has arisen at Wroxley
Castle. I must leave the children in your care and go to Wroxley to
help my friends.”
“The children are, of course, welcome here,”
the abbot responded.
“If anyone should come to take them back to
Wroxley during my absence,” Hugh went on, “you must refuse to let
them leave. Release them to me alone. Only thus can I be sure of
their safety.”
“As you wish,” said the abbot, sending a keen
look in Hugh’s direction. He was a learned man himself and, perhaps
because of his learning, he was more tolerant of foreign knowledge
and unconventional views than most clergymen. Ever since Hugh’s
arrival at Bardney, the two of them had enjoyed a challenging,
ongoing conversation that ranged across many subjects. Now the
abbot nodded his understanding of the need to protect the children,
for Hugh had told him some of what had recently happened at Wroxley
and part, though not all, of the reasons why he and Gavin had been
sent to the castle by King Henry.
“The time has come,” the abbot went on, “as
you said it would, when the evil that holds Wroxley in its grip
must be undone. Rest assured that I will see to the welfare of
those innocent young ones whom you have entrusted to me. Know also
that my constant prayers will go with you.”
“Reverend Father,” said Hugh, “your prayers
may prove to be more valuable than the strength of all the king’s
men-at-arms would be.”
“The tools of the smith share a …sacred
quality.
The hammer, the bellows,
And the anvil are…miraculous objects.”
Mircea Elaide
The Forge and the Crucible
Alone in her own room, Mirielle lit an oil
lamp before she took the crystal sphere from her clothing chest and
unwrapped the silk. Holding the cool, polished orb in the palm of
her left hand, she gazed into it.
At first she could not properly control her
thoughts, for there was much to distract her. Outside her window
heavy rain fell and early morning clouds roiled dark and ominous.
Through the preceding evening and the long night that followed she
had fed medicine to Gavin and to Brice, to no avail. Both men were
still sick. To make matters worse, Captain Oliver and several of
Gavin’s knights, members of the band that had come to Wroxley with
him, had also fallen ill, along with a few of the castle
servants.
Nor was Mirielle unaffected by the mysterious
sickness sweeping through the castle. She was decidedly weaker than
usual, and was finding it difficult to concentrate on her daily
chores. Fearing that she might be about to fall victim to the
illness, she had chosen two squires who looked healthy and whom she
believed were honest and had sent one of them to stay with Gavin.
The other she had ordered to watch over Brice.
“I know this is not the duty you would wish
for,” she told them.
“Not so, my lady,” said Philip, the squire
assigned to Gavin. “If my lord were wounded in battle, it would
fall to me to nurse him. I cannot see that an illness is much
different. We are glad to do this service for a good master. My
lady, you do not look well to me. Rest in your own bed this night.
I will send for you if there is any change in Lord Gavin’s
condition.”
Mirielle had followed the squire’s advice,
though she had not slept well at all. Constant fear for Gavin ate
at her, along with guilt over her inability to do anything to help
either him or Brice.
“Show me what to do,” she whispered to the
crystal sphere she held. “Give me a sign. If I don’t take action
soon, two men I love will die, and many other good people besides.
It may be that the medicine I have prepared is wrong. If that is
so, then show me how to correct my mistake.”
A tiny spark of light flickered near the
inclusion at the heart of the crystal. So quickly did the light
come and go that someone looking less intently than Mirielle would
have missed it. She focused all of her thoughts on the spot. Soon
another spark appeared, flashing for scarcely an instant and then
disappearing. Mirielle continued to gaze into the sphere.
Slowly darkness overcame the crystal. Within
the sphere black fog billowed, very like the clouds above the
castle. A lightning-like bolt shot across the sphere and where it
ended, bright red flames appeared. Through the fire Mirielle could
see the battlements of a great castle. Another jagged flash of
lightning revealed men fighting atop those battlements. As Mirielle
stared into the clouded crystal the castle walls crumbled until the
once-great edifice was but a ruin. Standing behind the fallen walls
was a gigantic, unearthly figure cloaked in black, a nebulous form
that lifted its arms to the dark sky and threw back its head as if
it was laughing wildly in unholy glee, rejoicing at the fire and
destruction it had wrought.
A final blast of lightning turned the sphere
Mirielle to a brilliant, hot white that hurt her eyes and burned
her hand so that she almost dropped it.. Then the crystal was
perfectly clear again save for the familiar inclusion.
Mirielle sank down on her bed, staring at the
still-warm orb in her hand. The sign she had asked for had been
given to her, though not in the way she expected. She knew she must
make what she needed out of the answer in the sphere. And she also
knew there was only one person in the castle to whom she could
reveal her vision.
Rewrapping the sphere, she placed it back in
her clothing chest and shut the lid with a sense of finality. She
went to the window to look out upon the storm-tossed sky and the
shadowed castle walls. She stayed there for a long time,
thinking.
“Gavin, are you asleep? Can you hear me?”
Mirielle perched on the side of his bed. She had sent the squire,
Philip, away, telling him to get some food before returning. She
wanted no one else to hear what she was about to say.
“Mirielle.” The hand holding hers was
entirely too cold, but he did look a bit more alert than the last
time she had seen him, and she thought his voice was firmer. “I can
hear well enough.”
“It has occurred to me that I may have been
trying to help you in the wrong way,” she said. “It is possible
that you are not sick of the poison Alda used. Your illness may be
an enchantment made to seem like the poison that killed Donada and
made Robin so ill. If I am right, then mere medicine will not cure
you or Brice, or any of the other people who are presently sick.
Rather than treating the symptoms, we must find the cause. Then we
must destroy it,” she ended on a whisper.
“I thought Alda was the cause,” Gavin
said.
“So did I. So did Hugh. But what if this
apparent poisoning is intended to throw us off the scent of the
real villain? Gavin, this morning I recalled something Donada said
to me before she died. You will remember she had involved herself
with Brice because she was trying to discover who had killed her
husband, and your father.”
“I remember,” Gavin said. “It’s why Alda
poisoned her.”
“Donada believed Alda’s reason was jealousy
over Brice,” Mirielle said with some impatience. “Why Donada was
killed isn’t the point, Gavin. Among the last words she said to me
were, ‘The mage hides. And there is someone else.’“
“Someone else,” Gavin repeated.
“The fact that you and Brice, as well as more
than a dozen other people, are sick of the same disease that killed
Donada is proof that the evil was not banished when Alda died,”
Mirielle said. “I think there is a second mage at Wroxley, who
continues to hold the castle in his grip while he remains hidden.
It’s this mage who is making you sick, and until we rid ourselves
of him my medicines will not help you or anyone else.”
“Who is it?” Gavin shoved himself up against
the pillows. His full interest caught by what Mirielle was saying,
he looked decidedly more healthy than when she had first sat down
on his bed. “Do you suspect anyone?”
“No. This is a master mage, Gavin. He even
controls the weather around Wroxley, so I do not doubt he is able
to conceal himself beyond our finding. But we must discover who he
is. Our lives depend on it.”
“You think he controls the weather?” Gavin
looked as if he could not believe this assertion.
“Haven’t you wondered why it rains all the
time?” she asked. “I did, when I first came here, but everyone I
asked said that the weather has always been cold and dreary. Which,
I suppose, means that the mage has been here for a long time.”
“You aren’t right about the rain,” Gavin
objected. “We have had a few sunny days this spring.”
“Yes, when Warrick and Emma first arrived so
unexpectedly,” Mirielle said. “Our last sunny day was the Sunday
when we left the castle and went into the field to fly the kites
Hugh and the children had made. That was shortly before Donada
died. Since that day, we have had fog and rain and a series of
dreadful storms. Now that I think of it, perhaps Hugh had something
to do with the clear weather on that one day. Or, perhaps the evil
mage was as surprised as we were at the unexpected appearance of
two innocent children, and of a priest who, for a short time,
provided the pastoral care we have lacked since Alda sent the last
priest away after your father’s funeral. It’s possible that the
priest and the children together unknowingly interfered with the
mage’s control of the weather, at least for a time.”
“There’s good reasoning in what you say. I
believe every word,” Gavin’s hand tightened on hers. “We must
discover who this master mage is and then find a way to destroy
him, before he destroys us. But how can we uncover his
identity?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Alda spoke of
the magical lines that would increase her power once she held the
castle in her own name,” Mirielle said. “And Brice accused her of
feeding on his strength to make her power greater. Suppose this
mage requires a similar kind of nourishment?”
“Now, there’s an idea,” Gavin muttered. “Look
for a man who uses women as ruthlessly as Alda used men.”
Mirielle considered this notion, then shook
her head. “I don’t think so. This mage is far stronger than Alda
ever was. It’s even possible that Alda may have been under his
control.”
“What makes you say that?” Gavin
demanded.
“Because I don’t think Alda fell from the
crenel. I think she was pushed, or forced, over the edge. In that
last moment she screamed at someone—or something—behind us. She
pointed and cried out that she was the greater.”
“I thought she was screaming at you,” Gavin
said.
“So did I, at first. But no longer, not after
thinking about everything that happened from the time we first
confronted Alda and found her at the altar in that unreal room.
“There’s something else, Gavin. It has to do
with my magic. I worry that, if I tell you about it, you will
refuse to believe me.”
“Have you forgotten that I have spent several
years with Hugh? I may not have the inborn ability to work magic,
but I have learned from him. Like Hugh, you’ve never told me an
untruth. I will believe you, Mirielle.”