AS quickly as the disturbance had come upon Radburn, it disappeared, as if the source had retreated into the netherworld. No. Not quite a full disappearance. A—resonance—remained, subtle but there, all the same.
Radburn breathed more easily as he took stock of his mental and physical condition. His muscles moved at his command. His stomach steadied. His head had stopped spinning, but a curious vacancy remained at the back of his neck.
“I can function,” he said, drawing a deep breath.
“I should hope so,” Sir Hugh said from the archway of the alcove. “His Highness is most concerned for your well-being.”
“Is he really?” Radburn raised his eyebrows in query. Part of him—the childish part that needed love and security and the approval of his legitimate brother—desperately wanted John’s concern. The older, more cynical and realistic part of him knew better than to expect or want anything from John. John was a tool, nothing more. Radburn couldn’t spare the emotion to care what his younger half brother thought.
“Concerned enough to dismiss the council for a few hours while you recover.” Sir Hugh continued to lean indolently against the wall, watching, waiting for a sign of weakness.
Radburn wasn’t about to give it to him.
“Recover or die?” he asked. “I assure you, last night’s fish might have taxed my system, but it is not about to kill me. I am made of sterner stuff.”
“Then why are your hands shaking and your face the color of newly milled flour? I think you had best retire, Lord Blakely.” Sir Hugh finally heaved himself away from the wall. But he didn’t go away.
“I think I shall do that. I shall retire from court for a few days until I know for certain His Highness is safe from whatever ails me.” Radburn smiled to himself at the double entendre. Fitz Chênenoir would never appreciate it.
“You are going to Kirkenwood!” Sir Hugh said through clenched teeth.
More perceptive than he thought. “Why would I do that?” Radburn stalled.
“Because what ails you is the same thing that ails me. John is dangling lands and titles in front of both of us. As long as we dance to his tune, he will continue to hold out that promise. But once we stray, the offers will evaporate as mist in sunshine. You plan to grab Lady Resmiranda and Kirkenwood without waiting for permission.”
Radburn laughed. He didn’t know how else to reply. This man was much too perceptive. He’d have to be eliminated. Soon. But first he had to neutralize whatever force of light had surged forward.
“Forget this conversation,” he said quietly, holding his palm before Sir Hugh’s eyes. With delicate fingertips he closed the other man’s lids. “You did not find me. You know nothing of my whereabouts or my plans.” Satisfied that the knight had accepted his statement, he withdrew his hand.
Hugh stood a moment, eyes closed, then promptly turned on his heel and left the alcove.
How long would the suggestion last in the man’s mind? Sometimes Sir Hugh Fitz Chênenoir saw just a little too much. That quality made him an admirable warrior and landholder, but Radburn didn’t need a warrior or a landholder. He needed a dupe to lie to the king.
That could be arranged, too.
Radburn smiled. With a snap of his fingers he summoned Fantôme. “Pack two horses lightly. We ride within the hour.”
His shadow nodded and slipped away, as silent and forgettable as a ghost.
Radburn needed to go to Kirkenwood and confront Lady Resmiranda and whatever aid she had managed to conjure. Her training was scattered. Her actions merely instinctive reactions. She was no match for him. For the time being.
But first he had a demon to visit; a demon who lived beneath a barrow with a dragon guarding its portal.
o0o
Hugh stopped walking in the midst of the bustle of court life. He had been about to do something... What? Something tasted foul in his mouth and his mind. Everything looked a little hazy and unfocused. He fought to clear the miasma from his mind.
Something strange had occurred in the last few moments. What?
He scanned the Hall for inspiration. The queen and her infant son had replaced the grim-faced lords who attended the king at council. John caressed the boy’s head in a loving gesture. Hugh remembered touching young John the same way. For a moment the king’s expression softened, shedding years of care from his face.
Queen Isabelle smiled, displaying a fine set of pointed teeth to go with her sharp features. Her long chin and nose were offset by fine dark eyes—slightly almond in shape. When she had come to court eight years ago, barely twelve at the time to John’s thirty-three, she’d been a sallow, shy child who hid behind her nurse and dull clothing. Now at twenty, she had blossomed into an exotic beauty who favored bright colors and fine jewels. She shifted the burden of young Henry to his father’s arms. They made a fine picture of familial bliss.
Hugh ached for the time he might share a similar moment with Ana. At least he still had Johnny.
The king had sent Hugh on an errand. He remembered that much. He shook his head to clear the fuzziness of his thoughts. His ears continued to buzz.
He needed a cup of wine to remove the acrid taste in his mouth. Like sulfur?
Blakely often smelled of sulfur and blood. Hugh shook his head trying to remember if he had encountered the king’s sorcerer half brother.
Ana would know how to retrieve the memory.
He missed her every hour they were separated. But for her own safety he needed to keep the king and Blakely away from Kirkenwood. Blakely wasn’t likely to step more than two paces away from his half brother. So where was he now?
Political power lay in having the king’s ear. Blakely made certain no one else got close enough to the king to countermand his influential whispers. Strange that the entire council—most John’s aging contemporaries, two score and more in years, heeded the words of one so young and untried in battle as Blakely. Blakely couldn’t be more than twenty-one or two.
“Will you sit at court this evening, Your Highness?” Hugh asked to cover his memory lapse. Something to do with Blakely.
“We have been here two weeks.” John yawned hugely. His son, Henry, did likewise. The momentary likeness between father and son touched Hugh’s heart. “We expected more disputes and finer hunting. Perhaps we should resume our intended progress toward Kirkenwood. Did you find Lord Blakely? What ails him?”
“I did not find Lord Blakely,” Hugh replied. That did not sound right, but he couldn’t remember seeing the king’s brother. Or had he? Where else would the taste of sulfur come from?
He started searching every shadow for evidence of the king’s half brother or the shadowy servant.
“I should like to visit Kirkenwood, John,” Isabelle said. Her soft syllables spoke of her origins in southern France. “I have heard many of the legends surrounding the Griffins. Are they truly a clan of giants with magical powers?”
John laughed, bouncing his son on his knee. The boy joined his father in delighted peals. “Lady Resmiranda is tall, nearly as tall as us, but hardly a giant. All of the Griffins are merely men and women, our dear Isabelle.” He kissed her cheek in reassurance, then continued.
“The fact that they honor their genealogy more than most—inventing most of it, we are sure—makes the Griffins appear more formidable and important than they are. Everyone knows that King Arthur Pendragon is my ancestor, not hers.”
Hugh almost laughed at that bald-faced lie. Henry II had planted the legendary King Arthur of ancient times in the vague nether ends of his family tree when the Abbot at Glastonbury had discovered a tomb beneath the ruins of his church that might or might not have belonged to Arthur and Guinevere. Hugh suspected the tomb had been created to attract pilgrims, and therefore money to rebuild his fire-ruined buildings.
John narrowed his eyes. “Yes, we do believe the time has come to invest the Baroness of Kirkenwood into her honors. She has had ample time to heal from the menacing cough. Send word for her to meet us there, Sir Hugh. We leave at dawn.”
What if Hugh could not find Blakely before then? Did the sulfur on his tongue mean that Blakely had used a spell to hide himself. Possibly to travel to Kirkenwood ahead of the king and kidnap Ana?
Hugh sent a bevy of servants in search of the errant lord.
o0o
Life settled in at Kirkenwood as if I had never left, as if Uncle Henry and Aunt Lotta still ruled there. Except for the garden. The herbs had always been the private preserve of the family. No one entered the walled enclosure without permission from one of the family.
I found the weeds a formidable barrier in my quest for an herb that would help keep the sword hidden. A native of warmer climes, the love-lies-bleeding plant should be in a protected corner, probably near the wall that faced south where it would trap the most sunlight and heat. The paths between the once orderly rows still existed. Barely.
Early on the morning after I returned to Kirkenwood, I took my basket and my sharpened athame—Uncle Henry’s ritual knife actually—and ventured into the garden. I longed to begin at the entrance, pulling weeds and clearing the delicate plants before they choked. But if I did that, the sword could be found a dozen times before I found the purple-red flowers of the love-lies-bleeding.
Even though dew still clung to the greenery and chilled the earth, I slipped off my clogs and slippers. I must focus and maintain contact with the earth for each part of the preparation for the magical spell of invisibility. I considered stripping off my gown, but too many people wandered the courtyard and the garden walls stood only shoulder high for me to be comfortable in such dishabille.
“How did you move over here?” I asked the wild endive that grew thick all along the north-facing side of the garden. I checked the other walls where the pernicious plants should be confined within their own bed. Sure enough, it grew thicker and more lush over there. “Well, I guess we will have fresh greens for supper.”
I should really dig out the entire plant, saving the flowers for dye and roots for roasting, but I hadn’t thought to bring a trowel, and I couldn’t blunt and defile my knife with vigorous digging.
“Thank you, God, for the gift of these leaves and flowers. They shall provide me and mine with nourishment and delight. No part of you will be wasted,” I promised. The concept of thanking the plant itself still felt alien. Everything came from God. So if I thanked Him, wasn’t I also thanking the plants?
My mouth started watering at the thought of a large bowl of fresh greens dressed with hot vinegar, bacon fat, and spices. Yes, indeed, the entire harvest would be put to good use. I could have a new gown and dye it the same shade of yellow as my hair with the blossoms.
Gradually I worked my way through the copious wild endive toward the protected bed where Aunt Lotta had placed the most delicate plants. They had come from the Holy Land and other Mediterranean countries, brought back by Crusaders. Many of my family had taken the cross. Some had come back with treasures and knowledge. Most, like Uncle Henry’s son and heir, had not returned at all.
The epitaph on Uncle Henry’s tomb suggested he had followed one of the Crusades in his youth. I could not image that most gentle and nonviolent man wielding weapons in battle. Bits and pieces of stories I’d heard as a child suggested he had returned broken in faith as well as body. He had hinted of Aunt Lotta’s healing of him. He referred to her as his salvation. I truly wanted to hear the rest of that story. Another time, when I could immerse myself in the numerous scrolls and books in the hidden library.
At last I spotted the drooping purple-red flowers of love-lies-bleeding. Was the name symbolic of the broken dreams and promises of so many of my family? I swallowed back the portents and omens and cleared the last of the overgrowth around the plants. One solitary stalk of love-lies-bleeding remained with a pitiful cluster of blossoms. All of the others had died.
No matter how I stretched my imagination, I could not harvest enough flowers to hide an entire sword. I didn’t dare harvest more than two or three flowers. The rest must remain to propagate new plants. My spell would fail with this pitiful harvest.