"I...I don"t think so." Everything about this strange woman, from her perfectly coiffed red hair to the tips of her fine-tooled little boots, made Siobhan feel like a mule in a palfrey"s harness. Yet here she was addressing her like they might have been old friends.
"I don"t know who that is," she admitted.
"Don"t know...?" The d.u.c.h.ess sat down on a chair as if her legs had given way beneath her. "But don"t you...? Lady Siobhan, how did you come by those marks on your throat?"
"Tristan bit me," she admitted. "I know he is a vampire." She sat down as well. "And your husband, too, I suppose, though he has never told me. Indeed, I don"t believe I have spoken with him at all." Too late, she remembered Silas"s lessons. "Your Grace,"
she added.
"Please, for pity," the other woman laughed, obviously relieved. "We have the same problems, my lady. Do call me Isabel."
"Isabel," she repeated, smiling back. "I am just Siobhan." She found herself liking this d.u.c.h.ess in spite of herself, and a strange sort of longing seized her. She had never had a woman friend in her life, and Isabel was right; they did have some of the same problems. How lovely it would have been to blurt out all her troubles and compare, to hear what this clever, pretty creature thought she ought to do. But of course she could not. "To answer your question, Isabel, I think both our demons are well," she said instead. "Are they in some sort of danger?"
For a fleeting moment, she saw a guarded look flicker through the other woman"s hazel eyes, but her smile never dimmed. "I certainly hope not," she laughed. "But their position is rather precarious, wouldn"t you say?"
"I suppose," Siobhan allowed. "Though I must say I"m more worried about the rest of us."
The pretty smile faded into an equally beautiful look of concern. "Are you truly?" she asked.
Before Siobhan could answer, the door opened, and Orlando came rushing in. "My lady," he demanded. "What are you doing here?" He embraced Isabel like he might have been her father, not her servant. "What has possessed you?"
"I missed my husband, of course," Isabel said lightly, but there was an unmistakable edge to her tone. She extricated herself from his arms. "We are very newly wed," she explained to Siobhan over his head.
"He is very handsome," Siobhan said, the only reply she could think of. "I will leave you to speak with Orlando alone." Making a curtsey, she left them, curious but too engrossed in her own troubles to scheme to find out more.
When she was gone, Orlando bolted the door behind her. "My lady, truly, what is wrong?" he asked Isabel. "Why have you come?"
"You never learn anything, do you, Orlando?" she said, letting her full fury show. "That poor girl...none of you has told her anything." She opened the pouch she would let no servant touch and took out the sheaf of scrolls inside. "Fools, the lot of you,"
she muttered, spreading them on the table."That poor girl, as you call her, is a brigand and a thief who had tried on more than one occasion to murder her husband,"
Orlando pointed out. "You should not have come, Isabel. You have no idea-"
"I know more than you think," she cut him off. Her expression softened somewhat, and she reached for his hand. "When Simon awakes, I will show you both."
"But why-"
"Orlando, please." She let him go, her hazel eyes troubled. "Please, just let me wait."
Siobhan walked out into the hall where the servants were setting up the trestle tables for dinner. The long afternoon was almost over; soon it would be night.
Michael was coming toward her. "It"s done," he said softly when he reached her side. "Everyone is in the caves."
"Were you noticed?" she asked. Silas was playing chess at the hearth with Master Nicholas, but his eyes were on her.
"I don"t think so," Michael answered. "Old Jack told that knight, Sebastian, that you had ordered the brush cleared from a section of the ditch for drainage. Some of the peasants are still clearing; the soldiers disappeared into the hole."
"Well done," she said with a smile. Any moment now, the sun would be down, and Tristan might appear. If she waited just a little longer, she would see him again before she fled. But if she saw him, she might never go at all.
"Siobhan!" Clare was running down the steps. "I took a long nap," she announced, smiling up at Michael as Siobhan bent down to greet her. "So I can stay up late with Papa."
"I think you should," Siobhan agreed, hugging her tight.
"Don"t tarry," Michael warned, giving Clare"s braid a friendly tug as he left.
She sat down on the step to the dais and drew the child into her lap. "I"m glad that man is gone," Clare said, taking her hand.
"Who? Michael?" Siobhan said, surprised.
"No, Michael is good." She traced the lines in her stepmother"s palm. "The other one. Gaston." She didn"t look up, but she frowned. "He is very, very bad."
"Do you think so?" She kissed the top of the little one"s head. She had always heard it said that children could see such things more clearly than adults. "I think so, too." She turned the child"s face up to hers. "Do you know I love you very much?"
"Yes." She looked so solemn, Siobhan could not help but smile. Clare would someday be a scholar, she predicted.
"I will always keep my promise," she said aloud. "No matter what might happen or where I might go, I will always come back to take care of you, just as I promised your papa. And when you are old enough and strong enough, I will teach you how to fight.
Do you believe me?"
She nodded. "I will have your sword."
"Yes," she promised, kissing her cheek. "You will have my sword."
The door to the hall burst open. "Where is she?" the duke demanded, coming in.
"Upstairs, Your Grace," Siobhan said, standing up. "In the solar." Vampire he might be, but the look in his eyes and his smile as she pointed the way to his bride made him seem very human indeed.
"Thanks, my lady," he said with a grin, sprinting for the stairs.
Tristan was coming more slowly behind him. He paused to scoop Clare up to his shoulder. "Let us see this d.u.c.h.ess," he said with a wink at Siobhan. Before she could answer, he had taken her hand to lead her to the stairs.
The d.u.c.h.ess in question was being kissed senseless by her demon duke. "I told you to stay at Charmot and be safe," he was scolding between kisses, her face framed in his hands. "I told you not to come."
"I had to," Isabel answered, crystal tears gleaming on her cheeks. "I had to come." She touched Simon"s face as if to prove to herself he was real. "I had to see you." She laced her hands behind his neck and raised up to kiss his mouth again. "Angel," she murmured as he crushed her close.
Watching them, Siobhan felt tears of her own stinging her eyes. Isabel seemed to understand so much more of what her lover was than Siobhan did Tristan, yet still they were parted. Still they were in pain.
Tristan cleared his throat, and his vampire brother looked up. "Shall we leave you, then?" he asked him with a smile.
"No," Orlando said quickly.
"No," Simon agreed, but he sounded far less certain. He traced the shape of his beloved"s kiss-stung mouth. "Later," he promised in a whisper.
Isabel smiled. "Always."
"We have much to discuss," Orlando went on, giving Siobhan a pointed glance.
Siobhan clasped Tristan"s hand in both of hers. "I want to stay," she said, meeting his gaze. Let me stay with you, she pleaded silently inside her mind. Let me know everything, and nothing else will matter.
"Forgive me, brigand," he answered, his sweetest endearment. "Wait for me, please."
She took Clare from his arms and smiled. "Go find Master Silas," she told the child, kissing her cheek before she set her on her feet. Then she turned back to Tristan. Without a word, she raised up on tiptoe to kiss him, her arms around his neck. Smiling, she brushed a final kiss across the corner of his mouth before she let him go.
"Orlando tells me that girl tried to kill you, my lord," Isabel said when she was gone. "I must say, I cannot believe it."
"I fear "tis true, Your Grace," he answered with a smile. Simon"s lady was a beauty, no question, with a saucy manner and a scholar"s intelligence clear in her eyes. But beside Siobhan, she seemed almost like a doll to him, too delicate to really be alive.
"But I do not hold it against her."
"Do you not?" she countered. "Then why is she not here?"
"Isabel believes we do Siobhan an injustice by not telling her all that we know of your quest," Orlando explained to Simon.
"I do indeed," the d.u.c.h.ess said. "Lord Tristan may be forgiven, I suppose; he is newly made. But after what happened at Charmot, you two should know better." Tristan smiled inside to see both vampire and wizard look chastened as children by her wrath. "Think how much pain might have been avoided if you had only told me the truth."
"This is very different, love," Simon said, taking her hand. "I told you, Siobhan was part of the rebel force that took Tristan"s castle. And there"s something else." He led her to a chair. "She has the sword, the one from the drawing of the Chalice."
"Siobhan has it?" Isabel said, her eyes going wide. "Are you certain?" "Had it," Tristan corrected. "I took it from her..." He stopped, seeing Orlando"s face. "What is it?"
"She took it back," the wizard said. "Last night, while the two of you were hunting. She came into the dungeons and rifled through your things until she found it. She took the stake as well."
"And you saw her?" Simon said, appalled. "You did not stop her?"
Orlando looked at Tristan. "I could not."
"But you"re certain the sword is the same?" Isabel interrupted. "You know it"s the one from the drawing?"
"Siobhan struck Tristan with it," Simon explained, putting a hand on her shoulder, not caring for the look he saw pa.s.sing between the wizard and the other vampire. "In truth, she almost destroyed him."
"His wounds did not heal for hours," Orlando agreed. "If he had not been able to reach shelter, the sunrise would have consumed him. Do you still think we should confide in Siobhan?"
"More than ever," she answered. "We need her." She reached for her scrolls. "When I"m done, I suspect you will agree."
"You found something," Simon said. He grinned. "So you didn"t just come to see me after all."
"Not just," she admitted, smiling back for a moment before she looked at Orlando. "Four days ago, I found more text in the catacombs at Charmot, hidden in plain sight." She opened a scroll on the table. "Remember the paintings on the walls?"
"That"s impossible," Orlando insisted. "We searched them thoroughly; there was no text-"
"No painted text, no; there was not," she agreed. "It was carved into the stone." She showed them a mostly black parchment covered in white lettering of a kind Tristan had never seen. "I put the parchment over the stone and rubbed it with a bit of charcoal," she explained. "And I discovered much." She reached back for her husband"s hand. "Orlando has lied to you, Simon,"
she said. "From the very beginning."
"No," the wizard insisted, but Tristan noticed he went pale. "I did not-"
"You told Simon you were a servant of the caliph murdered by Kivar," she cut him off.
"No," Orlando said, shaking his head. "He may have believed that, but I never-"
"You told him the Chalice would save him," she interrupted again. "That if he found it, he could be mortal again."
"And so he will," the wizard insisted.
"Will he?" she countered. All the sweetness was gone from her manner, and seeing the fury in her eyes, Tristan thought that perhaps she and Siobhan were not so different after all. "Listen to this," she said, reading from the scroll.
"And thus was Lucan Kivar banished from the realm of G.o.ds and mortal men, his cursed body flung into the night to burn across the sky until it came to rest in a far land over the mountains. All of his children were destroyed save the two sons born of mortal women before he touched the Chalice. The younger of these was Merlin, mortal but blessed with the love and the beauty of the G.o.ds. "Twas he who led his mortal kin across the frozen wastes to scatter over the islands they found, teaching them the old ways to pa.s.s on to their children in the time to come. "Tis said he died at last on Eire, the furthest of these islands."
She looked up at the wizard again as if daring him to speak, but he said nothing. She went on.
"The older was Orlando. Misshapen and stunted in body, he possessed the wisdom of the G.o.ds and immortality. Most loathed by his father, "twas he who betrayed Kivar to save his mother"s kin. Beloved of his brother and all mortals for his sacrifice, he still would not join them in their journey. He swore to cross the mountains and find the resting place of the Cursed One, to find a way to destroy him forever."
"And so I did," Orlando said at last. "I found him, and I found the way to destroy him."
"Yes, but at what cost?" Isabel asked. "When I read that story, I was shocked, but I came to believe it did not matter, that I had always known you had a power beyond any mortal conjurer. In truth, I felt better, knowing Simon had you to protect him." She opened another scroll. "Then I found this."
"Wait-you mean to say this tale is true?" Tristan demanded. "That all that you just read actually happened?"
"You are a vampire, brother," Simon said, his tone flat and even. "Can you not believe it?" He touched Isabel"s cheek. "What is written there?"
"The true power of this chalice Orlando so wants you to find." She read from the parchment, " "The Chalice was hidden in the realm of the G.o.ds, to be safe from all save those who know its secrets and share the blood it held once at their table. Only the Chalice can destroy Kivar, and only one of mortal blood can wield it." " She looked up. "I take that to mean not a vampire, but perhaps I am mistaken," she said acidly before she read on. "If a warrior of n.o.ble heart and mortal blood should wield the power of the Chalice against him, Kivar would be destroyed, and all his demon sp.a.w.n must perish in his flame." " She looked up again.
"His demon sp.a.w.n," she repeated. "Simon. Tristan. If you find this chalice and use it against Lucan Kivar, they will die."
"No," Orlando insisted. "I swear that is not so. At least...I do not believe it." He paced the room in agitation. "There was so much to remember, so much...I tried to write everything down, but so many fragments were lost." He smiled bitterly at Simon.
"May you never truly know the curse of immortality."
"So you"re saying this writing the d.u.c.h.ess found is all a lie?" Tristan said.
"No, it is true," the wizard admitted. "The most important truth we had-that is why Merlin would have taught his children to keep it. But it is not the whole truth." He looked at Simon again then looked back at Tristan. "I cannot bear it," he mumbled. "It has been so long, and there is so much I have forgotten without ever knowing I forgot. When I found the drawing of the Chalice, I realized how much I had lost." He turned back to the others. "Isabel, you found no mention of Joseph or his stake, did you?" he asked. "Yet we know the stake drove Kivar from his mortal form into his true, immortal shape, if only for a moment. If Simon had possessed the sword, he might have killed him then."
"Wait," Tristan said. "I am confused." His pragmatic warrior"s mind had been turning this story over and over, trying to find a way to believe this dwarf before him was immortal, the offspring of some evil demiG.o.d. "The Chalice is good, because it destroys this Kivar, yes? Then why should Kivar want it? I would think he would want to put himself as far away from it as possible."
"It doesn"t have to destroy him," Orlando explained. "That is something Merlin would never have carved into a wall, for fear Kivar would find it. Kivar has forgotten many things as well, more than I have, I think. Every time he changes form, he loses some part of himself. All he remembers is that the Chalice gave him power before he was cursed, that when he possessed it, not even the G.o.ds could touch him."
"He said it could heal him." Simon was staring into the fire. "He told me you were wrong, that the Chalice was not salvation, but healing."
"And so he believes," Orlando said. "And so it may be, for him. If he drank from the Chalice again, the curse that d.a.m.ns him to darkness might be broken."
"So he would possess all of the powers of a vampire with none of the weaknesses," Tristan said.
"Much more than that," Orlando said. "He could remake himself as he believes he should have been, an all-powerful G.o.d." He looked back at Isabel. "Having made his acquaintance firsthand, my lady, can you say we should not do whatever we must to stop him?" "But what is that exactly?" she countered. "What must we do? Everything we think we know could be wrong; isn"t that what you said? And everything you say could be a lie."
"Are we certain Kivar still lives?" Tristan said as Simon put his arms around his love.
"Unfortunately, yes," Simon answered. "His spirit escaped me when I met him last. And there is evidence that he has followed you. The voice you spoke of hearing on your way back here-that was almost certainly Kivar. And you said you dreamed of his hall, of his saying he would come to you."