Templar's Destiny (9780545415095) (16 page)

The wait during the rest of the night was unbearable. Much of it was spent on my knees, praying to the Lord that our plan would come off as hoped. There were so many things that could go wrong, the slightest unforeseen circumstance.

Aine knelt at my side, uncharacteristically quiet. At times, she reached over and laid a hand on my arm and I was calmed. We hadn't spoken of anything and, in truth, I wanted nothing but to be left alone with the thoughts of my brother. Gaston arrived long after dark with a message from the Princess. I was to meet her in the library within a candle mark. The time to repay her had come.

As I slipped from the suite, I felt Aine's eyes on me.

The library was dark when I arrived. I couldn't get the images of Torquil out of my mind, and my guts churned once more. The soft voice of the Princess broke the stillness in the room. “I've never seen anything like that before in my life.”

I moved toward the sound and found her curled up in a chair by the blackened hearth. I knelt before her. “An' I pray ye never will again, my Lady,” I said softly.

“He was your brother,” she said.

“He
is
my brother, Princess. He still lives.” I said it forcefully. I needed to hang on to the belief with all my heart and soul. She nodded.

“I have paid that guard to come to me if anything should happen to the prisoner,” she said, her words hollow.

I lifted a hand and cupped her face. “Then ye should be in yer rooms, for we both know that message will come tonight.” She rested her head against me a moment. “Gaston will sleep outside yer chambers in the hall. Send word when ye hear.”

“But they will not release him until morning no matter what,” she said. It was frigid outside, and it would be a better thing if that were true.

“But if 'tis earlier, I need to know. Please, tell me ye will send word. No matter what time o' night or morning,” I said.

“Of course. Tormod …” She hesitated and I brushed her cheek with my fingertips. “I don't want to know. I've decided. I don't want to know what is to come of my life. Whatever it is will be more than the poor, tortured souls that I saw today. And perhaps, when I am Queen, I can put an end to this kind of suffering.”

I drew her face up so that she was forced to meet my eyes. “Ye will make a wonderful Queen.” I sighed deeply. “The future is not something that is etched in stone. What I see might happen, but it also may never, an' so 'tis pointless to seek what is to come.”

She nodded. “Will you leave here? Will I ever see you again?” There were many things in her eyes, questions that I had no power to answer.

“I am to be a Knight Templar. I return to my home as soon as I finish the things I have come here for.” She lifted her face from my hand. “And ye will become a Queen,” I said. “I will forever be grateful for all that ye have done today.”

“It is I who am grateful. What you have shown me today is that I have lived a sheltered and pampered life. From this night on, I will not be content to sit, read, and embroider. And those who would use the King's power to further their ambitions will be brought to justice.” She was far away already, thinking beyond this day and this room.

“I must be getting back. Ye'll send word?” I asked again.

She nodded and stood before me. I dipped to my knee and kissed her fingers. “Thank ye, my Lady Princess.” She was a bit saddened. I could feel it projecting from her, but our places had been established, she as future Queen, and me as a Knight Templar. No more was written.

“Good-bye, Tormod.”

The Templar was on his way into the village to procure the wagon, blankets, and healer's ointments that Fabienne had arranged. She, Lisette, and Gaston had quit the palace at daybreak, heading for their estates up north, where we were to meet them. I stood among the trees, ankle deep in fresh snow that had fallen since we arrived. Gaston had sent word from the Princess midway through the night.

I trembled in the cold, terrified that something had not gone according to plan. Staring at the great pit outside the rear of the castle, the gruesome specter of what I was about to see, made me want to vomit.

My blood ran cold when I heard the clink of the rusted grate as it slid into place, and I held my breath as the first was shoved out the door and into the pit. It was the ragged old man from the first cell. His body was stiff and when he hit the frozen ground his head twisted at an impossible angle, the eyes still wide in the last moments of his death. I gasped and moved out from the cover of the trees, praying that no one would notice, though against the white of the landscape I was far from hidden.

The door remained open, and two men emerged, complaining about the duty they had been assigned to. “This one's a mess, he is. Don't get it on me.”

“Shut up and lift him beneath the arms. He's awkward as Hades.”

“His back's covered in blood. It's not like they will let me go back for a fresh sark. Let's just kick him out from here.” My heart began to beat furiously and I took several crouched steps, ready to run if it came to it.

“Just lift the bastard. I'd like to get on and break my fast,” the first grumbled. And with that, the body of my brother was tossed from the platform to land on top of the heap. From what I could see it was a clean throw, though he landed facedown in the snow. The gate closed, signaling that no others had died in the night, and I hurried to where they'd thrown Torquil.

I bolted over the hilly rise directly into the pit, my feet slipping in the snow, slowed by the many odd shapes that were beneath it. Bodies were frozen solid. Some large, some small, some whose eyes seemed to follow me as I climbed my way to the hill where two freshly dead had joined them. I found the old man first and did not stop, though I had the mad desire to straighten his neck. And then I found Torquil.

It was one thing to know that I had given him a dose of poison that would stop his heart, another altogether to see him facedown and dead, one body in a pile of many. I whipped him over onto his back and quickly checked to see that he had not been further molested. The Princess had said that de Nogaret was furious. He had obviously not gotten the information he would have liked from Torquil. It would take nothing for a man such as he to do further damage to a dead man just to make himself feel better.

Torquil looked the same as he had when I last saw him, though his face was an unearthly shade of white, and he did not appear to be breathing. Quickly, I drew the vial from my sporran, an antidote to the poison that had set him into the deep sleep they had mistaken for death. “Come on, Torquil,” I coaxed, prying his mouth open and forcing the liquid into his throat. There was no reflex that would make him swallow the drug, but having it inside his throat and in contact with the soft tissues there was supposed to be enough to make it absorb into his body.

Several moments crawled by and there was no reaction to the liquid. My heart began to pound forcefully. “Come on, brother, ye will live.” I spoke around my chattering teeth, my mind frantic with the possibility that I had been too late.

Nothing. One heartbeat. Two. My mind was racing. “Please. Please. Please.” I was holding tight to his tunic, begging. “Lady, help me!” I called to the Holy Mother, whose echo of power lived on in the carving. I knew that it was somewhere within the walls of the castle. What I didn't know was that it was closer than I thought.

“Once again ye're calling to an entity that will not help ye in any way.”

I turned to Gaylen, sick with dread. “Give me the carving. I have to help him. He has nothing to do with this!” Every moment that passed by was a moment more that Torquil was under the extreme sedation. He had to be brought out of it soon.

“He involved himself. A pity,” said Gaylen. “And since ye've seen fit to remove him from the King's reach, I believe that ye should take yer rightful place in the dungeon from whence he has come.”

“Please, I'll give ye whatever ye want. Tell ye whatever ye need. Use it to help him. Ye don't even have to give it to me. Have ye no compassion a' all?” I was so angry and desperate that I wanted to lunge for him. “What kind o' man sells his soul to see another gain a throne? He's my brother. Have ye never loved anyone?”

“I have known love, Tormod. All I do is in its name. Robert the Bruce will be King o' Scotland if I have to give over every dear mother, brother, and son to make it so.”

I felt the heat of the carving and suddenly saw the memory as if his perfect shielding never existed. English forces had butchered his family while he was made to watch. “
Tell your people that this is what will come of resistance
,” the English sergeant had said as he wiped the blood of Gaylen's brother on the sleeve of his tunic.

I pulled back, unsure why the carving was showing this to me. Gaylen had stolen the carving. He had given my brother up to this torture. How was I supposed to feel sympathy for him?

“I hold no illusions. I will burn in the fires o' hell for all I've done in the name o' vengeance, but I will take as many o' them as I can with me as I go.”

“I am no' yer enemy, nor is my family.”

“Touching, Tormod, but I care no' for any man. My oath is vengeance, and I will have it.” He drew his sword from the sheath.

“Ye canno' barter the Holy Vessel in the wars o' men,” I said.

“There ye are wrong. Its price is measured in gold an' the backing o' the King and Church. 'Tis a currency, as was yer brother, an' now ye.” His sword danced close and I was forced to step away from Torquil to avoid the cut.

“I do no' have to deliver ye fully whole, Tormod. They will make ye burn an' bleed even if I cut the ears from yer head an' the arms from yer body.” He took a step that brought him between Torquil and me. My heart beat fiercely just then for I saw a halting breath lift my brother's once-still chest.

“Why d'ye hate the Templars?” I asked.

He seemed taken aback by the question but answered without hesitation. “They are as easily bribed as any.”

I felt a familiar heat wash through me. “Why do they want a list o' the holdings o' the Order from the Abbot?” I demanded, taking advantage of his confusion and advancing on him to push him away from Torquil.

He seemed surprised by the sudden flare of heat from the carving. I was not. I felt the bond I shared with it pulsing more strongly than ever before. I knew that it was in the pouch by his side, just as I knew suddenly that while it was on his body he would be forced to truthfully answer anything I asked of him. “The Templars will see their last days an' nothing ye will do can change the outcome, Tormod MacLeod.” He seemed to recover his wits then and advanced on me once more. “Enough o' this. Yer brother is where he was destined to be, in the death pits, an' ye will come with me. De Nogaret will pay handsomely for the real Tormod MacLeod. He had little luck in getting the whereabouts o' the rest o' the Holy Relic from Torquil, but ye know where 'tis, an' ye will tell.”

I edged back from the reach of his sword, stumbling over bodies as I reached for my dagger. It would be nothing against a sword unless I could get it away from him and move in close. Gaylen made a strong sweep toward me and I leapt aside, feeling the slice of my tunic. I moved wide to the left, circling him in a crouch. Alone and barely armed I was no match for him.

But suddenly I realized that I was not alone. I felt a rise in the earth's power coming from the carving. The familiar rush of its warmth brought the confidence that had, moments before, deserted me. Gaylen sensed the change at once and jammed his free hand into the pouch at his side. Startled, he quickly drew it out again.

“The carving's power is only to be used for good, Gaylen. 'Tis for healing an' truth. Any who have ever tried to subvert it for evil have paid. She is giving ye a warning.”

With little effort I drew a near solid shield of heat and light around my brother and me. Gaylen's sword was no longer a threat. Fury pounded at my shields but I had little thought for him now. I crouched beside Torquil's body and felt for the beat of life at his neck. The pulse was light and erratic, but there nonetheless, and I was glad of it. Torquil's skin, however, was so cold that it had a near bluish cast. Snow was pillowed beneath his head, and on his lashes ice had frozen.

“Stay with me, Torquil.” I called the power with an authority I now knew to be mine. My fingertips tingled with the force of it as it flowed up from the land through the carving, into my mind, and out through my touch. At once the snow atop and beneath Torquil melted away. A body, frozen for the winter, lay beneath him and my stomach lurched in revolt. I closed my eyes and focused only on Torquil and began thrusting the sleeping draft out through his skin, following the paths of the sweat generated by the power's heat.

I could hear Gaylen cursing from beyond as he swung his sword to no end. The blade glanced off the shielding as if Torquil and I were encased in a wall of ice. Then, beneath my hands, Torquil began to stir, but the waking was not what I had anticipated. With awareness came the pain of his injuries, lashing our shared minds as one. It was all I could do to stay upright as I knelt over him. “Tormod,” he cried softly. “End this now. I canno' bear it.”

“Please, Torquil, just hold on. I can make it fade.” I drew the pain into my body and immediately lurched as I was assaulted with raw agony. I gasped and shook my head, trying to clear the haze of pain as I broke out in sweat. I could feel the shielding I held over us waver.

Drive the pain out of yer body an' into the earth.
The Templar's voice was in my head and I felt his presence coming from somewhere down the road, beyond the trees. Aine's song suddenly filled me, and I could breathe once again. I could hear the conversation passing between them.
No, Aine, don't take it from him. He must disperse it. He is holding Torquil steady. If we dilute the hold it will harm the lad.
The pain came back at me full force and my arms and legs began to shake.

From beyond the shielding, I felt Gaylen gathering power, fighting to use the carving against me. He held it in his hands now, but I was controlling the flow and the heat pouring off it was burning him badly. “Ye will obey me! I am the holder.” His voice cracked as he barked out the command.

With all of the pain coursing through me, I turned the power upon him. “If ye would use it,” I said evenly, “ye will know the price.”

To my surprise, I could see the vision that unfolded before Gaylen's eyes. A battle raged. Mounted Templar Knights, farmers, and lads, beat back a field of English soldiers. Bodies turned the grass red with blood. Gaylen fought, in the throes of a berserker fury, the bolt from a long bow lodged deeply in his chest.

I saw the carving fall from his fingers as shock rolled through him and he stumbled back. “'Tis the devil,” he whispered, staring at it with fear.

The worst of Torquil's pain was firmly grounded in the earth below my feet, and I found I could breath easily. “No, 'tis the light an' the truth,” I said. “Ye have seen yer death this day. Is it not what ye imagined it to be?” A choking sound rattled from his lips, and his skin had grown pale, the blade in his hand all but forgotten. “Nothing ye have done will amount to glory, for ye will die impaled by an arrow on the day of —”

He turned and bolted down the slope. Though I did not have a date in mind for his death, he would never know. It was enough that he had seen it. It would take a man of complete faith to look upon the vision of his death without fear. Gaylen, I knew now, was no such man. The carving lay in the snow where he'd dropped it, black once more.

Torquil had slipped back into unconsciousness as I set to work on the worst of his injuries with renewed determination. And from the road came the sound of the wagon that carried friends.