10 July, 1574. The Spanish Embassy, St. Germain, Paris.
Hal paused at the steps leading up from his cellar prison. He looked over his shoulder toward the closed door of his cell. Grunts and moans emanated from behind that door.
He closed his ears and mind to what must be occurring there. But he could not close his nose. Yassimine’s perfume overlaid the scent of a man’s sweat and spilled semen.
Some of that scent came from himself.
He hurried up the steps, away from his memories of torture and ritual. Away from what he feared he had become. Away from himself.
At this early hour before dawn, only a few servants stirred. He heard/smelled/felt them moving about the kitchen to his left at the first landing of the stairs. He stood hunted still, back pressed against the wall beside the door.
Two men, dressed in rough shirts and breeches and carrying pitchers of steaming water, slammed the door open as they tromped toward the next flight of twisted stairs. The broad and heavy portal swung toward Hal, blocking his view of the men and their view of him.
He held his breath for several moments, waiting to see if others followed the men with wash water for the nobility above. He heard rude shouts and muttered curses in Spanish, male and female, within the kitchen. But the people there seemed inclined to stay within.
With a gentle push the door began to close, as if moved by a gentle draft. No one came to investigate it.
Hal waited a few more moments for signs of movement up and down the stairs. With half of his attention on the activities of the servants he scanned his immediate environs. A change in the air currents from below alerted him to the next source of danger. The Master stood by the open door of the cell, adjusting his trunk hose and doublet while he spat a stream of Spanish curses into the dim interior.
Breathless with panic, Hal bolted for the next landing and the door to the outside. He did not pause to consider the direction of his flight until cool morning air brushed his face. He turned his nose to the wind and caught...
A blast of magic full in the face. The ground shifted beneath his feet. He struggled for balance. Black mist rushed toward him, enveloping him. Blinded and reeling, he fought to grasp the doorjamb.
His hand encountered only air. Flailing about, he stumbled forward.
Coffa stood squarely before him, growling and dripping drool from her exposed teeth.
Puzzled by her aggression, he held out his hand, palm down. Fighting his instincts every moment, he avoided looking directly into her eyes. He must not challenge her. She could kill him with a single clamp of her jaws to his throat.
She backed off a step, whining. Hope flared briefly in his heart. If Coffa was here, then Dee could not be far away. Dee would help him unravel the puzzle of his capture and the ritual he had endured. “Dee?” he asked the dog.
He needed to grab hold of her ruff and let her sturdy strength balance him.
She snapped at his hand and renewed her growling warning.
“Easy, girl,” Hal said quietly. “You know me, Coffa. Smell my hand. Remember who lies beneath the surface smells you do not understand.” He approached her slowly, cautiously even though the hairs along his spine stood straight up in warning of danger from behind.
Shouts of alarm erupted all over the palais.
Coffa worked her nose and curled her lip.
Frantically, he searched the rear of the walled compound for inspiration. He had to get out of here. Now. Before The Master sounded the alarm.
A guard, armed with a heavy pistol and a number of blades looked down from his post upon the wall. He blinked his eyes in confusion then opened them wide at the sight of the wolfhound and the man she had cornered.
“Coffa, heel,” Hal commanded in his most authoritative voice.
She dropped her ears and whined in bewilderment. But she kept her teeth bared. Her growls continued to rumble in her belly.
“Take me to Deirdre.” Hal continued to push his authority over the dog, all the while keeping a picture of her mistress in his mind. He projected the image as completely as he could.
The door burst open behind him, nearly knocking Hal flat.
“Ring the bell, damn you!” The Master yelled. “Sound the alarm. He must not escape.”
Hal wasted no more time on the dog or caution. He ran full out for the nearest exit. The narrow pedestrian door in the wall lay on the ground, splintered and broken. Beyond it, the manicured park and freedom beckoned.
He ran with Coffa nipping at his heels.
A large bronze bell began clanking from the corner tower.
o0o
10 July, 1574. An inn near the Cluny-La Sorbonne, Paris.
Donovan rested his head against the shoulder of his horse. The beast he’d hired in Calais had served him well, if not as swiftly as his own bloodstock, and deserved his rest. This quiet inn near the Pont St. Michel in Paris offered clean stables if not much else.
He thought the vicinity of the University would have more amenities for traveling scholars and church leaders. But the rabbit warren of streets in the Latin Quarter limited the space available to this establishment.
The dull ache in Donovan’s left thigh began to burn. His mad dash from London to the coast, the rough voyage across the Channel, and then the long ride inland to the city had cost him more than he liked. Who knew what dangers his family faced in this foreign land? He needed to be fit and strong to protect them.
His sturdy sword rested comfortably and easily in its sheath at his hip.
“Gods, I hate getting old,” he muttered.
What evil but Tryblith, the Demon of Chaos, could have caused Meg to have such a dramatic vision?
“I thought I sealed that devil’s spawn behind its portal!” he muttered. Perhaps his magic had been as inadequate in that endeavor as it was in scrying for Mary.
He grabbed the panniers behind the saddle.
The earth rolled beneath his feet. An explosion sent him reeling into the timbered walls of the stable. He fought for a precarious balance. Black smoke gushed toward him. His horse rolled its eyes and reared.
Donovan covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve as he searched for the source of the menace. Other than the prancing steed, no one else in the busy forecourt seemed aware of aught but their own business.
“Magic,” he whispered. The horse nodded its head as if agreeing with him. “What have the children done now? Wish I had one of the dogs with me. They could root out the source.”
He straightened away from the wall, surprised to find he still clung to his saddlebags.
A tousle-headed boy peered at him from behind the watering trough. His eyes narrowed, calculating and curious.
“Stable the beast. Fresh grain. And procure me a room,” Donovan ordered in French. He tossed the lad a coin and his bags. “I’ll return before sunset.”
He took off at an ungainly trot. His senses reeled, distorted by the blast of magic
His children needed him. He kept moving, righting for balance with each step.
All around him, people went about their business, blissfully unaware of the awesome power behind the smoke and the trembling ground. At the marketplace he paused to sniff the air. As rapidly as it had come, the black smoke dissipated. Or rather retreated in a roiling mass. Donovan followed it.
A few streets farther and he ran headlong into a small band in flight. Three men walked as rapidly as they could without attracting undue attention. They looked over their shoulders anxiously. The tallest among them carried a limp form in his arms. His sons and his steward.
“Where is Hal?” Donovan asked, rushing up to Peregrine.
He took Deirdre’s limp body gently from Peregrine. His son appeared dazed but whole. He’d recover, given the chance to be quiet internally while locked away from the turmoil of the mundane world.
Gaspar, on the other hand, looked as if more than his wits had been rattled. A black smudge marred one pale cheek and the tips of his blond hair appeared singed. By the magical black smoke or something less arcane?
Donovan cradled his niece close to his chest while he waited for the others to form answers in their addled brains. Dee’s eyes were scrunched closed as if shutting out the world.
Swiftly, he checked her for the awkward posture of a broken bone or cowering away from internal injury. She did not thrash, just lay there limp and withdrawn. He dared a brief probe to her mind and met a roiling mass of black—like the retreating smoke.
Or the cloud of confusion around a demon.
“Jesu, I hope it’s not Tryblith again.”
“We failed, Uncle Donovan,” Deirdre whispered weakly. Her voice sounded as if she had to drag it out of some dark recess in her soul.
Her words and her pinched face threatened to drive a stake into Donovan’s heart.
“Not total failure,” Peregrine choked out.
“She put a band of mercenaries to sleep before they could start a massacre,” Gaspar added. He seemed to be regaining his senses a little faster than the others. He had a reputation for having fewer wits to lose. Donovan knew that to be a mask. Gaspar played at innocence and stupidity to disarm people. They spoke freely of private things in front of him, believing him incapable of understanding.
“The dogs?” Donovan asked. He didn’t dare yet ask what had become of his son. Hal, the hope of all his ancestors to become another Merlin, a Pendragon worthy of dealing with Elizabeth Regina, Mary Queen of Scots, religious wars, and other diplomatic tangles, not to mention the day-to-day welfare of Britain.
For a few heartbeats Donovan was able to numb the pain that threatened to grow outward from his scarred thigh to envelop his entire being.
“Coffa!” Deirdre’s eyes widened, and she reached back the way they had come.
“Last I saw of her, she ran into that door you knocked down,” Gaspar said.
“Into the thick of the smoke,” Peregrine added.
“Mayhap she seeks her littermate and Hal,” Gaspar said. He spent a lot of time in the kennels at home and understood the dogs nearly as well as Dee, Hal, and Betsy.
“Let’s get you all back to the inn. You need quiet, food, and drink to sort this through.” Thom Steward finally found enough courage to organize them, as he organized Kirkenwood and all of the people who lived there.
“Coffa!” Deirdre cried. Her sobs reached right down into Donovan’s heart and threatened to rend it in two. “I can’t hear Coffa.”
“Whst, Little One.” Donovan crooned as he pressed Deirdre’s face into his chest. “Whst. You need quiet to listen for her. Quiet to soothe your aching mind.”
“I never needed quiet before.” She wriggled to get down.
Donovan held her tighter.
“Coffa will come back on her own. You must be patient and call her. Call into the quiet in the back of your mind.” He murmured to her all the way back to the inn.
Deirdre was safe. But Hal.
Hal! He stretched his mind as far as he could to reach his son.
Silence.