Mid-June 1575. Kirkenwood.
Uncle Donovan greeted Betsy and me with open arms.
“At last, we all are together again,” he whispered with moisture in his eyes.
I threw my arms about both of them, anxious to be part of the family once more. I needed their strength, their understanding, and their insights to help Hal. The family would never be complete without him.
The raven on the well remained silent at my homecoming, as if he knew something terrible must come of this reunion.
Uncle Donovan squeezed me tight and then disengaged from the hug.
Sir Michael hung back from the exuberant greetings. He acted embarrassed. Our family had always expressed our affection physically. Not for the Kirkwoods the common practice of ignoring, and often neglecting, children until they emerged from the care of governesses and tutors, fully formed and civilized adults.
After exclamations over the changes in Betsy and me since our last meeting, half a year ago, Uncle Donovan turned his attention to my escort. He studied them all with a practiced eye. The queen’s guards, he dismissed to the kitchen by way of the stable for their mounts and the barracks for their own grooming. Sir Michael, he continued to appraise.
“I have reports you may carry back to Her Majesty on your return journey,” he said as he finally dismissed the young knight.
“My orders are to remain as bodyguard to Mistress Deirdre Kirkwood until she returns to court in the autumn.” Sir Michael stiffened his shoulders in as stubborn a gesture as my uncle’s outthrust chin.
Betsy and I exchanged mirth-filled glances. Each man had met his match. I decided to let them circle and sniff and decide territoriality, like any two male dogs sharing a kennel.
“I’ll not have a queen’s spy in my household. I have proved my loyalty time and again.” Uncle Donovan turned on his heel and stalked back into the manor.
“I extend my protection to you as well as to your niece,” Sir Michael replied. He followed the laird, close on his heels, not about to be dismissed.
“And you and your mistress think I cannot protect me and mine? Have I not done so for nigh on twenty years? Without any aid from Her Majesty.”
“That may well be, milord. But I have my orders. I’ll not disobey while I have breath in my body.”
“You may tell the queen that she may have chosen an heir to my brother’s place as her secret adviser, but the choice is not hers. You have only yourself to protect and I have no need of you here.”
“I know nothing of your brother’s place with Queen Elizabeth. Her Majesty values both Mistress Deirdre and Mistress Betsy. She parted with them reluctantly and only with the promise of my protection of them from those who have grief with your household.”
“We have no idle hands in this household, sirrah. If you choose to stay, you’ll shear the sheep, and harvest the barley like the rest of us.”
“If Mistress Kirkwood shears sheep and harvests the barley, then I will do so at her side. And, like your men, I will keep my weapons close by. The Scots are not the only raiders we have to fear this summer.”
That stopped my uncle.
“It comes so soon.” A deep sigh escaped Uncle Donovan.
Suddenly I feared what these two men knew. More than I did.
“Something comes. When, we do not know.”
I’d had enough of cryptic statements and half truths. If disaster came, I wanted Hal, my cousin and best friend, at my side. I had to break the spell put upon him by The Master and his slave before the next disaster.
“Where is Hal?”
“Hal is wherever he chooses to be.” Uncle Donovan retreated to the Hall, Sir Michael at his heels.
“He’s probably in the lair,” Betsy said upon a sigh of disgust as she, too, retreated to the interior of the castle.
I looked to Coffa for help. She pricked her ears and lolled her tongue. No help there.
“The lair is too obvious,” I said to myself. “The moon is past full. He doesn’t need to hide underground.”
Coffa liked the idea of a romp on the moors. Even after weeks of travel she had energy to spare.
“Come, Deirdre,” Betsy called to me from the top of the steps. “Hal will wait. We need to wash off some of this travel dust.” She looked as clean and well-groomed as the moment before we departed Whitehall.
I, however, needed a bath and clean clothes.
How did she do it? As I gnashed my teeth in frustration, I wondered if she had found a spell to repel lowly dirt from her noble person.
Sir Michael gestured me indoors with a slight hand motion. “I will seek out your cousin with your dog,” he whispered as I passed.
He returned without Hal just before the supper bell rang.
Uncle Donovan merely shrugged his shoulders in defeat and began the meal without him. Betsy lavished attention and affection upon her father. She shoved Griffin away from the honored place at Uncle Donovan’s right. My cousin settled next to me at the end of the high table, excluded from the intimate conversation between the laird and his daughter.
Sir Michael barely squeezed onto a bench at the other end of the table.
“Where is Hal?” I hissed at Griff under the cover of a raucous laugh among the retainers below the dais.
“Seeing to his own business.” Griff clamped his teeth shut.
“Griff, do not keep secrets from me. I know most of them anyway. Hal needs me and my help.”
“You don’t know all of our secrets.”
A page replenished his tankard just then. He hovered so long I wondered who had set him to eavesdropping.
I replied to Griff’s comment with an arched eyebrow rather than words that could be overheard.
“I knew he’d not keep it from you for long,” Griff said. Then he near emptied his tankard in one gulp. “Look for him in the one place Betsy will not go.”
Extra people crowded the Hall this evening. The armed escort from London, troubadours, traveling merchants, and farm workers. But they were all intent on the meal, the ale, and themselves. No one seemed to notice when I slipped away with Coffa to seek Hal.
Shadows cloaked me. My plain dark gown reflected no light. Even Coffa’s claws remained silent on the stairs and in the gallery. I felt safe using the passage through the castle walls.
An oil lamp lay ready in its niche inside the passage with flint and steel beside it. I waited to light it until after I had closed the door behind me.
Coffa led the way. She seemed eager to explore our old haunts and did not object when I turned right toward the caves. Memories of our last journey through these walls nagged at me. So much had happened since then. I had grown. Hal had changed. Helwriaeth had died. Coffa had matured and passed through two heats. At the next she would breed.
Would one of her pups replace Hal’s lost familiar? Doubtful if he remained a werewolf.
I entered the first echoey cave with its dripping walls and growing columns of limestone. My footsteps sounded loud in my ears and repeated themselves over and over. Shadows from my little lamp danced against the walls and ceiling like the troubled ghosts of the pain and loneliness Hal and I had endured since the last time I had passed this way.
I hurried along, for the first time in my life frightened of what surrounded me.
At the entrance to the crypt I paused and blew out my light. I thought I heard a muffled curse, but the echoes within the cave distorted the sound of my breathing and my heart beating loudly in my ears. After a moment, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. A sliver of light showed at the narrow cave exit (sunset came very late this time of the year at these northern latitudes). A broader expanse of gray came from the gateway up to the sacristy of the kirk.
“Hal?” I whispered.
Not so much as a shift in the air.
“Hal!” I called somewhat louder.
Hal, al, al, al, replied the echo.
Still no reply, no sense of another presence.
I eased through the crypt, wending my way through the tombs. The gate to the church opened with a touch. Someone had come this way since Father Peter had said Vespers. At the top of a long flight of stairs, I paused once more to orient myself. The red vigil light drew my gaze to the altar.
On impulse I knelt in prayer before the altar. My father had spent many long hours here in his youth before greater things called him away from his family home.
My education had included the forms of religion, but rarely the substance. Other than obligatory attendance at Anglican Mass—the fines were prohibitive to abstain—we did not include religion in our daily lives, even so far as to take the Lord’s name in vain as lightly as did our queen.
“Papa, guide me,” I prayed. “Show me the way to do what I must do.”
Follow the light in your heart.
I needed more than that. I wanted answers—not cryptic philosophy.
I forced myself to fold my hands and bow my head. I breathed deeply, seeking the calm before wielding magic. My heart continued to beat rapidly. My breaths came short and shallow.
I could not find the peace or answers in prayer that my father did.
A shift in the air. Not so much movement as a shrinking away from me.
“Hal, I know you are here.” I stayed on my knees, not wishing to frighten him away.
No, I am not. His mental voice came strong and clear. Either his power had grown tremendously in the last year or he was very close, within line of sight.
“If you are not here with me, then where are you?”
Nowhere.
“You have to be somewhere, Hal.”
Neither here nor there, neither real nor unreal.
“I think I know what happened in Paris, Hal. I need to remove the earring. We can break this thing if we work together.”
“Is it possible?” he breathed.
I had him now. He crouched in the doorway, on the porch of the little church.
I rose and faced him. He shrank into a tighter ball but did not move. Inch by inch I crept toward my cousin, as I would a wounded and frightened dog.
“I’ve done a lot of reading in the last year, Hal. I think I can break the spell cast upon you. We have to start with the earring.”
“It burns, Dee. Waking and sleeping, it burns.”
“The Master calls to you through the earring,” I guessed. “I think he is gathering his wolves to him in London. He has already killed Mathew Parker, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Sir Francis Walsingham is on his list. Possibly others.” Three more steps. I was almost close enough to touch him. “We can’t allow him to manipulate you, too, Hal.”
Tentatively, I reached out a hand and brushed his cheek.
“Oh, Dee, I have missed you so.” He rose and pulled me into a fierce hug.
I leaned into him, cherishing the strength of his embrace. With Hal’s arms around me, I could find the peace to pray.
But first I had a chore to finish.
While Hal clung to me, I reached up to touch the earring.
“Silver chain, bright as a star
Send your message from afar
Back to the sender alone
Gone away, no one home.”
With the last word I yanked at the chain.
Molten metal seared my finger. I yelped and jumped. Sucking the burn only controlled the pain, but did not banish it.
“Oh, Dee, I’m sorry. I knew it would not be this easy,” Hal sobbed.
“Step away from the girl,” a cold voice said from the stairwell to the crypt.
“Sir Michael, you have no right to follow me in my own home,” I snarled.
“My duty to protect you gives me that right. Now, sir, step away from her.”
“Who is this interloper?” Hal bared his teeth. But he kept me enfolded in his arms.
“Sir Michael Maelstrom, this is my cousin, Henry Griffin Kirkwood. Hal. He is closer to me than a brother. You may sheath your sword.”
“He is an agent for the Spaniard.” He leveled his sword and approached us. “Now stand aside, Mistress Deirdre, while I deal with him.”
“Your weapon is not silver. You cannot harm me.”
“But I can separate you from Mistress Kirkwood. En garde.”
Hal batted aside the sword with one hand. In the same gesture he kissed me quickly on the mouth and disappeared into the dusk. In a heartbeat, the trees and the tombstones of the cemetery had swallowed him whole.
“Where did he go?” Sir Michael rushed to stand between me and the door. “I’ve never seen anyone move so quickly.” He pressed hard upon his right shoulder with his left hand and gasped. His lips thinned and he swallowed hard. His grip upon his sword hilt loosened.
“Let me see.” I replaced his massaging fist with gentle but questing fingers. “Everything is in place. Bruised perhaps. I’ll make a poultice for you later.”
Hal had merely batted the sword aside, but the strength behind the gesture nearly dislocated Sir Michael’s shoulder. He’d be sore for days.
“Sheathe your sword,” I advised him.
“I have to go after him. He is dangerous.”
“He has gone where you and I cannot follow.” And taken my heart with him.
While Sir Michael nursed his arm, I touched my mouth in wonder where Hal had kissed me. His caress had burned me as deeply as the silver chain had seared my fingers.
But I felt no pain from his kiss. Only love. I nearly wept at the wonder and the sadness of loving a werecreature of the darkness.