Templar's Destiny (9780545415095) (7 page)

Aine woke early and didn't speak a word to me as she washed her face and hands in a basin by the door. I moved to the pallet in her place and closed my eyes. The coverlet was warm with the heat of her body and smelled faintly of her hair. My insides were twisted with the oddness that now lay between us. I heard her moving about the room but did not dare lift an eyelid to see what she was about.

The door opened and closed. I cast a glance toward it. Though I worried briefly about where she had gone and what trouble she might get into, I closed my eyes and welcomed sleep.

Men in shadow, clustered together. Flickering candlelight.
“His name is Beaton. Wasn't that the name linked to Alexander Sinclair and the boy?”

I jerked awake with a bolt of panic. The voice was that of the Templar trainee, the older of the three working with de Nogaret and Gaylen.

Bertrand was discovered or would be soon. I rose quickly and threw our packs together, hoisted both across my back, and headed down the hall to the common room. It was empty, and a flicker of annoyance rolled through me.

Aine knew how dangerous it was to be out alone, and yet she had taken off nonetheless. Around the inn, I felt the sleep-dampened thoughts of the occupants as they began to rouse for the day.

She was not out back, where only a trough of water and some bundles of hay marked the stable area. Nor was she in the storage shed or in the main room. I was beginning to worry. Thinning my shields, I felt for her presence along the net of power that glistened in the early light. When I felt nothing, a tight knot grew inside me. If something were wrong, I would sense it, I told myself. If she were near, I would sense her. So why then did absence of both fill me with such unease? I lingered in the shadow of the inn's drooping roof. This was not the time for her to go haring off. We needed to probe the dream and find out what more we could.

Time seemed to drag as I waited and my worry for Bertrand grew. It was hard to believe that Aine would leave me without a word, but where was she? My breath floated cold on the air before me and I shivered.

Her childish game was frustrating. She was angry with me and went off somewhere to brood, severing our link to each other, so that I could not probe her through the power.

I made one last round of the inn, ending back in the room. “Fine. Have it yer way,” I mumbled. “I didn't ask ye to come along in the first place.” I couldn't leave a note — she could not read — so she'd just have to make what she would of it and wait. I thumped her bag on the pallet.

It was only after I had walked for over a candle mark that I remembered the Templar's command that I stay and wait for his arrival. Aine would be there, I told myself. He would find her, and I would be back with Bertrand before anything went amiss.

The stone wall of the preceptory was strong and fortified by a great many turrets spaced regularly by the walkways between. There was only one enormous wooden gate, and two knights stood guard on the parapet above it. From my vantage at the edge of the forest, I watched the latest rotation of the change in guard. The knights arriving were no less alert or fearsome than the ones they replaced, and I felt my resolve waver.

It was one thing to enter a preceptory under the protection of the Templar Alexander and entirely another to go in alone. I had no idea whether I would be welcomed or imprisoned and yet, for Bertrand I knew I must make the attempt.

Several carts came and went as I stood sentinel, thinking. I could not enter as myself and alert the ones who sought me. I could not just walk up to the gates and request a room.

A small weaver's cart approached from a distance, rolling along the rutted road. I watched it with half a mind. Its wheels were thin and spindly, lacking the iron rims of the heavier wagons. I doubted they would last long jouncing over the uneven terrain. I needed a way in. One that would take me past the eyes of the watchers.

The wheels were made of wood. Live trees. The Templar had taught me to look for life that remained within objects that had once been part of the weave of power. Although this wood had died and hardened long ago, if I could find just a memory of the life that had once resided there, I could work with it. I had once frayed rope in this way.

But I had to go carefully. To use power this close to the preceptory would be dangerous. The cart was nearing. If I was going to try, it would have to be now.

Quickly, I reached for the droplets of energy that hung softly on the edges of the trees. My heart sped, and a breeze riffled the tiny hairs up and down my arms. In my mind I pictured the front wheel of the cart, not as a solid thing, but the way it once was — a living, growing, bending stalk. Inside was the information of its past, the way it had been long ago, before man's hands had shaped and molded it. And it was there that I saw what I needed — the wheel's outer rim had a small knot of energy in the grain of the wood.

I drew moisture from the air and worked it through the tough outer layer and into the knot, forcing it into the small spaces that naturally occurred there. The splinter was faint, but with each turn of the wheel it grew. A loud crack, and the shout of the wagon's driver when the whole of it gave way in the next rut heralded my effort. In the confusion, I bolted from the trees and appeared at the driver's side, whispering the suggestion I had been planning.

An inconvenience. Good thing there were two of us. We will need to unload the wagon and carry the goods inside.

The driver had no thought for my sudden appearance, ordering me to deliver two of the bolts of linen to the Templar weavers and fetch the wheelwright while he saw to the horses. I was only too glad to comply — to the first of his requests, at least.

When I passed beyond the gate, I held the bolts high to hide my face and the moment I rounded the bend in the path beyond the granary, I laid them down in the late grass of the meadow and took off toward the main house as if I belonged.

There were many outlying buildings. I skirted several farms, stables, and worker houses along the way, keeping my head low and my eyes to the road. Bertrand had described the grounds to me. He would be staying at the dormitories, housed in a large building that encircled a central courtyard toward the northern edges. There were many workers in the preceptory, but I had to assume that not every one knew every other. I strode as if with great purpose. It would have been nice to use the power to cloak myself, but inside the preceptory the chance that I would be discovered far outweighed the risk.

There were fewer guards inside the grounds, and I found it easier to navigate than I had anticipated. Passing through an archway to the courtyard's interior, I encountered several knights in training. I dipped my head and they moved past, but not before I heard one speak.

“We will meet in the chapel, after weapons.”

I glanced up from beneath my cowl. The voice was familiar, one I had heard only this morning. It was Zachariah, who had met with de Nogaret and the others in the room at the Cochon Rouge. His companions had been there as well. Two of the men nodded and turned aside, disappearing along an inner corridor. Zachariah continued across the grass, and I ducked into the shade of one of the many pillars that ringed the courtyard. After a moment, I followed.

The man was much into his own thoughts, for although I stayed close he never once looked behind. He passed through a second archway, and I followed. But when his soft footsteps moved to a set of stairs at the end of a long corridor and beyond my sight, I was forced to hang back a bit. This was no open hallway filled with bodies to blend in with. I was alone. Still, I silently crept in his wake. The stairs led to a maze of hallways and abandoned rooms, where doors were ajar and furniture had been stripped. A fine layer of dust lined the floor. No one had passed this way but Zachariah in quite some time. I was easily able to track my way to the doorway he'd gone through.

Quickly, I slipped into the adjoining room, pressed my ear against the wall, and tried to make sense of the murmur of voices that came from the other side of it.

“What have ye to tell me that was so urgent it could not wait until we were assured of secrecy?” I was surprised. The other occupant must have entered from another direction.

“The healer who traveled with Sinclair arrived last night. He is seeking an audience with the Grand Master and asking questions about the Abbot from Scotland.”

There was a weighted pause, and I held my breath. “Did he arrive alone?”

“There was no other,” the trainee replied.

I heard the rustle of restless movement. “It could be a coincidence, but this is no' the time for chances. Far too much is a' stake.”

“That is what I assumed you would say. The matter is already being taken care of.”

I heard the clink of coin exchanged. “Ye will go far in this, lad. Yer service is noted.”

My throat tightened.
Bertrand.
I slipped from my place and made my way quickly down the stairs. In the space of a moment, the preceptory had changed. This place of refuge no longer held the safety I had come to rely on. My hopes and dreams were somehow muddied in a wash of uncertainty. Templar Knights, plotting against one of their own. My friend.

Anger curled within me, and as I passed through the dark and dusty hallways, the power deep below the land seemed to pulse with my every footfall. Without reaching, I felt the essence that was Bertrand. The location echoed impressions that had somehow become stored within my memory, the smell of a cook fire and baking bread. I turned toward the scent. He was near the kitchens.

That I could sense him there was a comfort. My focus was absolute: Get Bertrand and get out. The road I followed was all but deserted. Swiftly, I passed the granary and the weavers, across a field and along the path between the workers' huts, careful to avoid being seen.

Several wagons were being unloaded near the kitchens. Workers were hurrying and hauling. As I passed the side of a cart, I lifted a full sack of turnips. “Be at it, quickly!” a man emerging from the kitchens urged. “There will be little time as it is to prepare the feast,” he said. “His Eminence enjoys a meal that is overflowing.”

I ducked beyond the wooden lintel and into the kitchen, which was a flurry of activity. Workers were peeling and chopping vegetables, plucking an assortment of fowl, and stoking the fire in a hearth that stretched the width of one entire wall. The smell of baking filled every corner of the room. I dropped the heavy sack beside others of its kind and before anyone could direct me toward another duty, I ducked through a doorway into a small corridor that smelled sharply of drying herbs. As I worked my way through the building, the feel of Bertrand grew stronger. Yet I had to move with caution — there were others near. Voices and the edge of panic wafted toward me on the currents of power stirring in my wake.

“I don't understand, he was well just a moment ago.” The voice was one of the trainees who had been with Zachariah. “Put something beneath his head. Call a healer.”

I began to move more quickly, the gift in me responding to someone in need.

“But he is a healer,” murmured the first.

“Well, he's obviously not able to tend to himself. Call another.” As I reached the door, a boy brushed past in a sprint. Behind him several men clustered around a body on the floor. “His breath has stopped.” I slipped into the room, the power of the land seeping through the soles of my feet and washing through my body, readying for use.

The room was in half-light. Through the cluster of people, the pale slackness of Bertrand's face leapt at me, and my heart seemed to stop. With little care to the consequences, I pushed through the gathered, dropped to his side, and grasped his hand. Beneath my fingers his skin was hot and moist and the power within me surged like the crash of a wave.

“Breathe!” The trainee was leaning over him, feeling along his neck and chest for signs of life. I felt the man drawing from the web haphazardly, but knew that his abilities were weak. He seemed to have no idea what to do. No one would sense my use of the power in the muddle he was making.

Quickly, I moved into the haze of other sight, opening my mind to the inner workings of Bertrand's body. His breath and the beat of his heart were slow.

Help me.
I sent the call deep into Bertrand's mind as I examined the hot traces of red that lined his throat and reached deep into his stomach. I'd never seen anything like it before. The angry red was not just in those places, but had spread throughout the length and breadth of him. Bright splotches marred his inners and flowed in the blood pumping from his heart. Ill humors were circulating to every corner of his being.

Though the power was rolling through me, seeking out the wrongness, I felt resistance. The more I sought out the spots of red, the slower Bertrand's heart seemed to beat. I focused there, mentally squeezing the organ, expelling the blood, and encouraging it to beat faster, but it wasn't working. The moment I released it from my mental grasp, the heart went back to its labored pulsing. I could not make up the difference he needed. Bertrand's body was shutting down, going cold and still, one part at a time, and I could not stop it. Helplessness beat at my mind. How could this be happening?

The apprentice was frantic. “No! You must not die! Do you hear me?” His demands were loud. I felt like howling with him as well.

Tormod?
The probe was soft, within my mind.

Aye, Bertrand, I'm here,
I answered.
Tell me what to do, how to stop this!
His fingers were going cold in mine.

I am afraid. Pray with me.

Pray! No! Tell me what to do. I need help healing ye.
My eyes swam.

It's too late. There is no healing that will make a difference, lad.

The shock of his words made my guts heave. Too late! It could not be.
But I can do it. I can heal ye. The power is here at my call.

Need ye. Please.
His voice was weak.

What can I do? Anything. Just show me an' I will do what is needed.
I was desperate to help.

Want to go home, Tormod. Take me there.

Aye. Let's get out of here. Help me heal ye an' we can go home.
I begged him.

No. My body is done. Take me there.

Understanding came to me all at once. There was nothing more I could do to heal him, but I could bring him comfort.
Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name,
I began, and within moments the beauty of the prayer whispered between us. I called upon images then of our land, Scotia: the roar of the sea, the golden pink of dawn creeping over the cliffs, mist lying deep over the dark purple lochs. I let them fill my mind and his as well.

As the prayer came to an end, Bertrand's eyes opened and fixed on mine. I felt his body go lax then, and as the life drifted out of him we shared one last memory: A man's pale blue eyes, faintly lined with age and knowledge. Bertrand was gone before I could ask why the Archbishop was the last man he thought of before he passed. Then everything within me wept.

“I'm sorry.” The whisper of words barely brushed the air, but I heard them. The trainee's eyes were not on me when they were uttered, but they rose to mine as if he felt my pain across the body of my friend. My guts twisted with the sudden fury that overtook me.

“Here now. What's the commotion? Step back.” An old man's voice heralded the arrival of a Templar healer, come too late to do any good. At his side were several knights and a bevy of the curious.

Immediately, I slammed my shields in place and edged my way back from the body. The trainee's eyes remained on me, his questions plain. Who was I? How much did I know? Guilt and fear rolled off him as I circled the onlookers. Then, just as I slipped through the door, I darted a look back at him and shoved a whisper hard into his unprotected mind.
Ye will pay for this.