"My lord came back from the Holy Land and fell ill with plague," Korvel told her. "I was his steward, and succ.u.mbed to the same illness while tending to him. We were buried within a day of each other."
"So he comes home and infects you. Nice boss." The c.r.a.ppy tattoo was actually a series of flat keloids with a strange green tint to them. Each was so thick she couldn"t make a dent in them with her fingernail when she prodded them. "How long did that sheriff leave you hanging?"
"I cannot say. Weeks. Perhaps months." He stared down at her. "What is it? Do you wish to study me as well?"
Alex jerked away from him. She did not want to take a skin sample from him. She didn"t care what had happened to his neck.
She wanted Michael, this minute, so badly she thought she might scream. "Just bored. You can go back to patrolling the castle now."
"I wished to speak with you."
If he didn"t quit being so G.o.dd.a.m.n polite, she would scream. "We"re speaking."
He hesitated, as if searching for words. "You rouse the men too much."
She"d certainly kept them busy chasing after her. "Look, pal, I didn"t ask to be brought here."
"As you have made plain to the entire household," he a.s.sured her. "I do not refer to your attempts to escape."
Alex frowned. "Then what?"
"Your presence disturbs the men. You have made them very restless. They become more curious about you each day." Korvel moved to the window and closed it before looking at a spot on the wall behind her. "I have made my lord aware of this."
"Gee, thanks." Alex still wasn"t sure what he was trying to tell her. "Are you saying I"m getting on everyone"s nerves? I do that with people I like."
"No. You are too vulnerable, too open." Now he looked down at her. "If you wish to remain safe, you must begin to conduct yourself properly, as do the other women in the castle."The other women in the castle kept their mouths shut, looked at the floor a lot, and curtsied to Richard every five seconds. "Not going to happen, Captain. Your men will just have to put up with me."
"They wish to do more." A muscle under Korvel"s right eye twitched. "Stefan and the dungeon master already plan how they will share you between them when Richard gives them permission to use you."
Share her? "Very funny."
He shook his head slowly. "Soon I think even my lord"s permission will not matter to them. I cannot watch you and protect my master every hour of the day and night."
He wasn"t kidding. Alex wasn"t blind; she"d noticed how every Kyn male in the castle with the exception of Korvel and Richard had been looking at her. After a year of living with Michael, she also understood that most of the Kyn didn"t behave like modern men. In their time, women had no rights, no value, and generally were treated worse than farm animals.
Which was how, apparently, Stefan and the dungeon troll wanted to treat her.
It should have made her furious, and probably would when she thought about it, but Korvel was doing her a favor by warning her like this.
"I"m not deliberately leading them on," she a.s.sured him. "I wouldn"t; I"m not stupid."
"This I know." His voice lost some of its edge. "You must take care not to be alone with any of the men."
"Right." She pressed her fingers against her temples, which were pounding. "What makes it stop?"
"Keep your emotions in check. Freeze the anger you feel. The more emotional you become, the more scent you shed. Do not think about Cyprien." He crouched down to put himself on her eye level. "I shall do what I can, but you must discipline yourself."
She was shedding scent now; the whole room smelled of lavender. For the first time she caught his scent, too. It was something like pound cake fresh out of the oven. Vanilla pound cake.
Kyn bodies gave off an appealing sweet scent that acted like a superpheromone; it enabled them to hunt and mesmerize humans long enough to feed on them. Alex didn"t realize the scent affected Kyn as well, but then thought of how often the scent of roses-Michael"s scent-had aroused her. Other Kyn scent didn"t have the same affect. Phillipe"s made her feel warm and secure. Valentin Jaus"s had brought a familiar, comfortable sensation, like a hug from a friend.
As tasty as it was, Korvel"s scent only made her want to punch him.
Someday Alex would study Kyn pheromones and figure it all out. For now, she had to find out how much trouble she was facing here. "eliane said what I"m feeling-this sygkenis separation anxiety-would get worse. Can I control that?"
"To test the bond between master and sygkenis invites torment," Korvel said. "To deny it drives those who suffer to madness and violence."
"What?" She was appalled that Michael had never told her about this. What else didn"t she know? "How soon does it happen?
How will I know?"
He stood up and suddenly wouldn"t look at her. "You are different. My master says, more human than we are. It may not be the same for you."
"Give me a ballpark, then." When he didn"t answer, she added, "Korvel, I didn"t know anything about this, and I can"t fix what I don"t understand. Talk to me.""You cannot fix this. You will lose all control." He faced her. "It will either destroy your bond with Cyprien or your sanity."
The only time she had lost control was with Michael, and that had been strictly s.e.xual. "I just don"t see that happening."
"As I said, you are different." Korvel shrugged.
Alex felt like slapping him, but only because what he had said made sense. She was running on nerves, not thinking clearly-and anger had been her best friend lately. Then there was Thierry Durand, and the insanity he had suffered after believing that his Kyn wife had been tortured to death. "If I do this-become violent-will Richard give me back to Michael?"
"He may, if you do as he asks," Korvel said as he went to the door.
"And if I don"t? What then?"
"If you lose your bond to Cyprien, likely nothing. But if you lose your mind..." He glanced back at her. "He will have me take your head."
What Adelie had told Nick sent her out of the inn to make some rounds of the village shops. She bought a few overpriced trinkets in order to coax more stories out of the shopkeepers and clerks, but it wasn"t all that difficult to get them to talk. No one liked the chateau any more than they did its surly caretaker.
"Two Gypsy families came through town a month ago," the grocer told her. "They camp by water, and found a place near le chateau where the Basque did not see them."
Nick spotted an impact wrench kit sitting next to a refrigerated meat case and picked it up. "This for sale?"
"No. I do not sell such things." He frowned at the kit. "Someone must have left it here." He looked at Nick. "The Gypsies always stay here for the summer, but they left a day after they arrived. The woman came here for supplies before they went north. She told me that the water turned red under the moonlight, and that their dog never stopped barking until dawn."
Nick gathered some other interesting gossip about Father Claudio and the chateau. The village priest had been repeatedly called upon by the parish to visit Father Claudio and bless the ruin, but he flatly refused to go within a mile of the old man or the chateau, and repeatedly warned his congregation to stay away.
A wayward cow from a valley dairy had strayed onto the chateau"s property, and never gave milk again. The butcher"s wife, a robust and cheerful woman who had never been ill a day in her life, had become ill with a mysterious rash that seemed to drain away her vitality more each day until her husband took her to the hospital. The doctors claimed it was a bad case of anemia, but the villagers knew better.
"That wretched place is cursed," the flower seller confided to Nick. "I for one will sleep better when it is demolished."
The scents of the flowers made Nick"s stomach roll-she hated flowers-and she gritted her teeth. "Are there any plans to do that?"
"No," the old woman admitted. "Only talk of diverting the stream away from le chateau."
"Why?"
She grimaced. "The farmers say it collects in stagnant pools there, where mosquitoes and flies breed."
Nick"s last stop was the village garage, where she talked the owner into selling her the hand tools she needed. Once she told him that she would use them to work on her bike, he warmed to her and related his own story about the chateau."The crazy Basque come to the village with three men in a big truck, stop here to buy petrol and cigarettes," he said as he loaded the hand tools into a st.u.r.dy box. "One of them ask where he find a brickyard. I say to him, "Hey, you need that work done for you, you hire me and my sons. We fix wall, build new one, whatever he want. We build half the houses in the village." "
"But they didn"t hire you," Nick guessed.
The garage owner spit on the ground. "He say it for le chateau. I tell him there are no enough brick in France, fix that. The crazy Basque, he start telling me shut up, you know? And him a priest! So I forget where the brickyard is. And when the truck come back, such a pity, but I have no more petrol to sell them."
"Excellent payback." Nick looked past him at the beautifully organized rack of tools hanging behind his counter and saw a telling s.p.a.ce. "You lose an electric impact wrench kit?"
The shops had closed by the time Nick returned to the inn, and only the small cafe at the corner seemed to be doing any business. Young and old couples sat outside, watching the sky darken as they gossiped and enjoyed their wine and crudites.
Nick decided to check out the patrons at the cafe, and took the tools up to her room. She then walked down to the cafe and found an empty corner table where she could sit and observe.
The sound of hammering, Nick thought. The butcher"s wife and her mysterious rash. Looking for a brickyard.
Someone had installed an old Wurlitzer jukebox at the back of the cafe, which played a polyglot of old French love songs and bopping tunes from the fifties. As Bill Haley and the Comets rocked around the clock, Nick noticed she had attracted some attention. An older teenager at the bar had turned around and was staring at her from behind a half-empty bottle of beer.
"His name is Bernard," the waitress told her as she brought the gla.s.s of wine Nick had ordered. "He likes foreign women."
She studied the bold smile the boy gave her. "Glad to hear it." She dug a couple of bills out of her pocket, but the young woman shook her head.
"The wine is from him," the waitress said, and giggled. "I think he likes you." She went to wait on the next table.
Bernard climbed down from the bar stool and sauntered over to Nick"s table. "Hey. American, right?"
"Right." Nick watched him as he turned the chair across from hers around and sat down. "Thanks for the drink."
He acknowledged her grat.i.tude by scooting closer and lowering his voice to a seductive murmur. "Anything for you, baby."
Get away from me and forget you ever saw me. Nick smiled through her weary irritation. "You live around here?"
"Here and in our country house," Bernard advised her. "My father is mayor of the village."
That changed things. Nick noted the lack of razor stubble and the Silent Poets T-shirt. The mayor"s son might be coming on to her like Valentino, but he was probably just a kid. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-two. Older than you, cherie." He waggled his eyebrows. "Old enough, eh?"
Nick felt a thousand years old. Old and tired of boys on the make, tired of a world that most often looked through l.u.s.t-blind eyes. She hadn"t slept in forty-eight hours. She was planning to do something that was at worst going to get her shot and at best killed. Bernard hitting on her, she didn"t need.
I have to find the Madonna. Use him.
"Old enough," she agreed. His eyes zeroed in on her fingers as she toyed with the stem of the winegla.s.s. "You ever heard any stories about the Golden Madonna?""Lettice, the butcher"s wife, she is wild for the Madonna. Statues in the shop, in the garden, in her windows..." He shrugged as if to say she was crazy but it couldn"t be helped. "Me, not so much. Why go to church when I can be getting down with the real ladies, you know?"
Nick doubted he"d gotten down much farther than first base yet, but she nodded agreeably. "I like to take pictures of the Madonna. Do you know where Lettice lives?"
"In the flat above the butcher shop," Bernard said. He caught the lapel of her jacket between his fingers and gave it a slow, suggestive stroke. "But, hey, you"re not going anywhere but here, right, baby?"
"Yeah, right." Nick caught his hand and curled her fingers around it. "You ever see Lettice out walking anywhere outside town?"
"Sure. She goes into the woods all the time." Bernard licked his lips and shifted his legs, trying to disguise the erection straining at the crotch of his shorts. "She picks les cepes, the wild mushrooms to sell in the shop. You want to go back to your room, baby?
I show you a good time."
For a moment Nick imagined it. The beer on his breath didn"t mask the smell of his skin, and his p.e.n.i.s was standing up and begging for her like a friendly puppy. He"d be rough and clumsy, or quick and clumsy, but that didn"t matter. Boys like him were fast learners. Young and strong as he was, he"d last until dawn. She could show him a few tricks along the way.
His hand slid over hers where it rested on the table. "Come on," he urged. "Let"s go make the magic."
His touch made the faint shimmer of desire in her belly flare. Why shouldn"t she? Nick didn"t have s.e.x that often, and she missed it, missed the skin-to-skin intimacy and the welcome burst of the release. He"d love it, and he"d be safer with her than with some s.k.a.n.ky backpacker busy s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her way through Europe and spreading STDs. He"s as old as I was when- "Not tonight." Disgusted with herself, Nick drained her winegla.s.s and tucked some bills under the base. "Thanks, Bernard." She stood, and then bent and picked up the wallet on the floor next to his chair, and put it in his hand. "You should go home now.
Rest up, you know, for the ladies." Without looking back at him she strode out of the cafe.
Chapter 6.
Incense and peppermint, crimson and cloves... rings on her fingers and bells on her toes... she will have sunlight wherever she goes...
John Keller rolled over into soft cloth and coughed, his throat sore and his nose throbbing. The foul taste in his mouth told him that he"d been sick, but his stomach seemed all right now that he was...
Where?
He pushed himself up on his elbows to check the room. He didn"t recognize the bed or the furnishings, but they weren"t hotel quality. This was someone"s room, someone"s house.
He had been stripped of his clothes and dressed in some sort of oversize white shirt that hung to his knees. He reached up to rub the last of the sleep from his eyes and saw a deep scratch on the back of his hand.
Hey, daddy kins. Want to go for a ride?
The red-haired girl who had b.u.mped into him in the garage; somehow she"d managed to drug him. The man in the pale blue suit must have been a part of it. John remembered the strong smells of peppermint and cloves, and a.s.sumed the two had been Kyn.
But why defy Michael Cyprien and risk exposing themselves to abduct a washed-out human priest?
A heavy, cloying scent wafted around him. "Good evening, John Patrick."
He flipped over to face a pet.i.te blond woman dressed in what appeared to be a ball gown made of apricot-colored lace. She stood at the foot of the bed, her hands folded demurely in front of her full skirt. Thin coils of golden braid made gleaming circlets around a face that Botticelli might have loved painting.
"Who are you?"
"You may call me "my lady."" She walked around to the side of the bed, drawing the coverlet up over his bare legs. "Your clothes are being cleaned-apparently you became very ill on the plane-but soon they will be returned to you."
The floral scent came from her, and it was growing stronger. John tried to focus on what she"d said. "You had me kidnapped and brought here? Why?"
"My lady," she prompted.