Shana Abe (32 page)

The mood of the entire castle seemed to grow dark. To match the ambience of gloom inside, nature conspired to croon in sympathy. The skies grew cloudy and tarnished, a brisk wind off the sea chilled everything it touched, coming and going in howling shafts down the bowels of the keep. Conversations among the inhabitants of Lorlmar had become scarce and muttered. No one smiled anymore during meals. Men stood with arms folded grimly across their chests, women hovered with their heads ducked down. Even the children seemed to have vanished into the cracks of the walls, gone off to a nursery Kyla had no invitation to visit.

And whenever Roland was nearby, everything just seemed to cease altogether, even the wind. Everyone paused in what they might be doing and watched him, watched her, waiting for something. Kyla had no idea what.

She did know, however, what
she
was waiting for. She was waiting for Roland to come back to her. She was waiting for him to meet her eyes without that blank glaze over them, the once-tropical warmth now a cold glimmer. She was waiting for him to address more than a few perfunctory sentences to her.

But what always happened was he would pinpoint her
with that look, check her from chin to toe, then turn away, as if the mere sight of her pained him. It became another secret ache she tucked away behind her own careful facade of blankness. At least he wasn’t as short-tempered with her as he seemed to be with everyone else. That was something, surely. When he had questioned her in detail about the attack, all she had felt from him was infinite placidity, only patience on his face. She told him everything she could think of save the moment in the garden with Elysia. That was too raw yet, that mesmerizing tale. Kyla could not speak of that to anyone. But she readily told the rest—where the man took her, what he said, how she escaped him.

When Roland asked what she thought the man might have been searching for she replied she honestly had no idea, provoking only silence from her husband, and a glacial look out a window. That marked the end of the longest conversation between them.

The third afternoon after the attack she was in the stables with Auster, talking softly to him, apologizing for not taking him out. Auster was expressing his unhappiness, snorting and pawing the ground, even nipping at the hilt of the dagger she had taken to wearing at her waist again; Thomas and Berthold—banished to either side of the line of stalls by her insistence—eyed the horse grimly.

The stalls were set up so that only wooden slats separated the uppermost portion of them. Behind Auster’s stall was another, facing the opposite side of the stables. Through the slats she could see movement, a pale horse, men around him, working on his foreleg.

Kyla tilted her head into Auster’s neck, stroking his nose, listening to the words that slipped between the gaps in the wood.

“Smith said he had just shod that mare. Just shod her.”

Another man grunted in agreement.

“Now, I ask you, what’s a horse doin’ throwing a fresh shoe? Smith’s shoe, which you know never come off till it’s time to pull ’em?”

“I heard the nails were pulled straight out. Castor’s lad found ’em. New nails, marked like Smith does for the horses. These were plain marked for that mare that Dedrick rides, three hash marks. Castor’s lad found ’em thrown behind a stump.”

The pale horse moved, let out a squeal of dissatisfaction. The men shifted and then continued talking.

“Aye, the lad took them nails to the captain right off. I was there for that. Never seen such a look on Duncan before. I heard that when he went and told his lordship, he like to blew the roof off. Had a fit.”

“I heard he busted the furniture. Sent for poor Dedrick right then and there, wantin’ to know how in blazes he could choose to ride a horse with no shoe.”

“Nay.” A new voice, quieter, more serious. “I heard it different. I heard his lordship didn’t say nothin’ at all. You know how he gets. Didn’t say nothin’. But they found them nails all twisted and bent up the next morn. Twisted up like with his bare hands.”

Silence settled on the men, and even the horse seemed lost in thought.

Kyla closed her eyes, continued stroking her stallion’s coat.

O
n the night of the fourth day she awoke suddenly, startled by the sudden dipping of the bed beside her, the glow of candlelight.

“Don’t be afraid.” Roland held the candle, sitting on the bed beside her. It seemed so unlikely that she did nothing for a long stretch of time, only stared up at him, waiting for the dream to change, for him to transform or vanish or, like the vision she had last night, to bend over and sweetly kiss her. But he did none of these things. He sat there, perched on the outer edge of the feather mattress, and slowly she realized she was not dreaming. Roland was actually here.

Kyla sat up, dazzled by the relative brilliance of him, the
soft gold of his loosened hair. Although his face was cloaked in dim starlight, she could feel the way he watched her, the intensity of him taking in her movements.

“My lord?” No, it wasn’t a dream, not this. The candle flame shivered in a draft blowing in from the open door, letting her see his eyes for an instant before they grew shrouded again.

“Are you awake enough? Are you listening to me?”

She nodded.

“Get dressed. I need you to come with me.”

“Where?” she asked, unable to quell the hope that sprang forth in her heart, thinking of the beach far below them, the soft sand.

Roland stood up, turned away from her. His voice was remote. “I need you to identify a body.”

She dressed hurriedly, tossing whatever underskirt was nearest her over her head, then the bliaut, struggling with the buttons running up the back until Roland said something under his breath and strode over to help her. His fingers were swift and efficient, totally impersonal. When they were through he took her arm and led her out, both of them immediately surrounded by her two guards.

No one said anything as they paced through the shadowy halls of the keep, past sleeping pages and squires, soldiers sprawled out on benches in the main hall, outside to the murky night. Clouds gathered and scattered along their celestial paths, some so low they looked like they might melt into the dark earth.

They walked along the bailey until they reached the stables, but instead of going in, Roland took her around the side, over to a group of men standing near the wall. The men were obviously waiting for them.

They stood aside silently as she approached.

It was the man with the black hair, of course. Kyla only needed a glimpse of his face, his body lying lax in the grass and dirt. His tunic was slashed, a dark stain of blood crossed over half his ribs. One of the soldiers bent down and held a
light closer to the form. She looked away, then nodded in answer to the unspoken question.

“Are you certain?” Roland remained standing behind her. She heard no inflection in his voice.

“Yes,” she replied.

She backed up, clutching the long, trailing sleeves of her gown in both hands, a nervous reflex. Roland made a gesture to his men. As one the soldiers surrounded the body and hefted it up, moving off into the night until the darkness swallowed them whole.

Roland and Kyla watched them go, only Berthold and Thomas remaining beside them, silent as always. Kyla made herself look up at her husband, searching for a trace of warmth, a trace of concern from the man she thought she had begun to know.

“A pity,” he said. Roland tilted his head down to her, gave her a mirthless smile, faint silver against the black night. “I would have preferred to kill him myself.”

And she believed him.

Chapter Fourteen

B
y the end of the week Kyla could stand the pall on the castle no longer. After the body of the black-haired man had been found, Roland’s mood became, if possible, even more dangerous. Now she didn’t even see him at meals, and each night had become an empty stretch of time that melded into empty days. People shied away from her as if she carried a hex. Even Marla was nowhere to be found.

Kyla needed the solace of the one person on the island that she thought might be willing to guide her out of this strange maze of bleakness she was following her husband into. She needed to speak with Harrick.

Lorlmar had no chapel. The single mass Kyla had been allowed to attend had been held in the great hall of the keep, and so she had to seek out Harrick in the most likely places she thought a monk might go.

Not the kitchens, filled with shiny-faced women who had no time for idle inquiries.

Not the great hall, either, which held people only as they went to and fro. It was not time for meetings or meals.

Not the stables, since Brother Harrick, she was told, did not ride.

Not the bailey, large though it was, for Thomas and Berthold would have spotted the tall monk even from a distance.

Not even his own quarters, small and sparse by choice—and completely empty, according to Thomas, who went in to be certain.

She found Harrick in the nursery, a place she would not have thought to look and discovered only by accident, as it was in the same portion of the keep as the monk’s rooms. There could be no mistaking the deep, calm tones of his voice behind the closed doors.

Kyla paused uncertainly in the hallway, wondering if she should intrude. Berthold solved her problem by opening the door for her.

Harrick sat in the middle of a circle of youngsters, hands in the air, fingers splayed.

“… with wings bigger than three men, and eyes of fire, and a string of pearls decorating his beard.”

The children leaned back farther to watch his hands, now flapping back and forth in unison.

“Tell us more!” cried a boy.

Harrick had seen her. The dragon wings came down, transforming into mere hands again. The children let out a collective sigh.

“We’ll finish the tale tomorrow. Saint George will wait.”

There were loud protests as Harrick rose to his feet, stepping carefully around the clusters of children. “Tomorrow,” he said firmly, and like magic the protest died down, the children jumping up and scattering to different corners of the room. A few came over to Kyla, led by Elysia, an ordinary little girl once more. A great deal more of them stood and stared in awe at Thomas and Berthold.

“Hullo, Auntie,” Elysia said, tugging Kyla’s skirts with both hands. “Are you feeling better today?”

Kyla reached down and touched the girl’s cheek, smooth and fresh. “Yes, thank you,” she replied.

“Good.” Elysia hugged Kyla’s knees, then moved away with her friends.

Women were taking the children’s hands, making them sit, be quiet, the countess was here, behave. The wind, so constant
of late, shook the windows of this tower room, rattling the panes, a whistling song brushing against the glass and the stones of the keep. Otherwise, the chamber had grown completely silent. Children and adults alike stared at her.

“Shall we walk outside?” asked Harrick.

“Yes,” Kyla said.

The wind was calmed to almost nothing in the bailey, allowing the drift of conversations to wash over them as they walked: squires standing in a clump around the quintain, stableboys leaning on pitchforks by a loose stack of hay, five young women with baskets and pails, walking slowly around the bend.

Harrick had said nothing further and Kyla was trying to think of how to approach what she wanted to ask of him. They were headed out of the main gate, she saw now, and to her surprise neither of her guards protested this move, both of them still flanking her, Thomas allowing Harrick the privilege of being on her immediate left.

Harrick took them off the path that meandered to the pier, onto a barely trodden line through the ferns that led to a sort of natural cupola amid the trees, a circle of evergreens placed almost evenly every four feet apart.

He smiled when he saw her look up, searching the sky for the centerpoint where the branches met, a green star for a roof.

“Unusual, isn’t it? I discovered it on my daily hike a few years ago.” He turned to the other men. “Please wait over there. The countess and I desire a moment of privacy.”