Stealing Heaven

by Madeline Hunter

  He found Nesta down by the altar, setting out her little pots. A table had been constructed beneath a tiny window, and rows of lit candles, stuck on yet another plank, gave her more light.

  “Do you intend to make religious images now, and seek inspiration here?”

  “There is no room in my chamber for it, so I decided to bring my things here.”

  “There is plenty of space in the hall.” If she worked in the hall, he could see her.

  “It is quiet and private here.”

  The manor priest, a short, old man with wisps of grey hair springing from his head, approached with three more candles. He gave Marcus a toothless, formal smile. With great care he lit each candle, dripped a pool of its wax on the plank, and set the candle upright into the cooling puddle for support.

  “Thank you for your generosity in letting me work here, Father.”

  “With such labor as this do the monks pray, my child. Come anytime, when you need the counsel of our Lord.” He patted her arm affectionately and headed to the yard, to wait for dinner with everyone else.

  “Is that why you have brought your inks here, Nesta? To seek counsel with God?”

  “If I needed a chapel for that, I would be damned by now. I bring them here so that I can avoid the hall where too many English lords dwell, and where a fool sits in my father’s chair.”

  “Do not begrudge Hubert his little glory.”

  “Hubert is an ass.”

  “If he had been less of one, your father’s men would have been put down by now. Edward’s bad choice of castellan benefited you.” He checked that the priest was gone, then slipped his arms around her waist. “I should curse Hubert’s lack of wits. A part of me knows, however, that had he been a different sort of man, we might never have met.”

  She resisted his embrace for an instant, no more. It reminded him of their first one, in the garden under a moonlit sky, when her spirit had betrayed her good sense so quickly.

  Resting her cheek against his chest, she pressed close so that her body lined his. “Hold me, Mark. It is cold here. I had never realized how cold. I have been chilled since we arrived, and the warmth of your embrace is delicious.”

  He wrapped her in his arms and held her close while the candles dripped their wax and the damp silence of the chapel secluded them from the world. The bright glow from the candles grew and spread, filling his senses with shimmering white light and gentle heat. They might have been standing on a summer hillside at dawn, so complete was the peace and beauty he experienced.

  Thus it had always been at the height of their passion, but it had never been pleasure alone that brought this taste of heaven.

  “Can’t you get Arundal to leave?” she muttered.

  The light dimmed a bit. The world intruded. He caressed her, not minding much. Until this was over, the grace would always come in fleeting moments that they stole like thieves.

  “It would not matter if I could. Hubert has sent for others. Some lords from the north and east will arrive soon. I’m sure that the servants have told you that Carwyn’s numbers have grown. Hubert learned of it and grew worried.”

  He almost heard her thoughts as she calculated the implications of what he had said. The body he held trembled slightly, as if the chill she had spoken of claimed her again.

  “The manor will get so thick with English that there will be no fresh air to breathe,” she said. “Perhaps I will move my bed to this chapel too, and live here. I have only one sheet of parchment left, however, so I had better devise a very detailed image in order to make it last.”

  He kissed her head, and tested her resolve. “Nesta, do you know how many Carwyn has with him? If it is not too many, perhaps I can see that the others do not come.”

  She did not respond, not even to shake her head. Her silence revealed the battle her heart raged. She would not give him the numbers, although he suspected she knew them now and could anticipate how they would grow. But neither did she lie and claim the threat was small, so that he might make the moves that would put him at a disadvantage.

  He should demand the truth, but he could not. It was his fault that her heart had been split in two like this, and that speaking any words would force one side to betray the other.

  She nestled closer. The way she sought comfort touched him, and he caressed her face. His hands touched moisture on her cheek, and he tightened his embrace.

  “Mark, with Addis and Arundal here, and with other lords coming… there is no need for you to lead this army. It does not have to be your command that sends them out, nor you riding at their head.”

  Her words surprised him. She had just indirectly told him what he needed to know. She expected Carwyn to raise a formidable army, large enough to put him in danger.

  “Addis would never take my place, even if I wanted him to. Arundal gladly would, and may even try, and standing against Warwick when he comes will not be easy either. It is my duty, however. Would you really want me to step aside, Nesta? Would you want someone else deciding how this will unfold?”

  She rubbed her face against his chest, and he knew it was tears that she wiped away with the gesture. “The weak woman in your arms wants you safe, that is all.”

  She gently eased away, and he regretfully let her go. She opened her box, and removed the tiny brushes, one by one.

  He gestured to the table. “Make it a very detailed image, Nesta. One that takes weeks to finish. It might be wise for you to live in this chapel, and stay out of sight. If things go badly, it will not take long for others to guess the role you have played.”

  He left her, to do what she had to do. Her oblique warning had subtly unbalanced the war that her heart waged. The daughter of Llygad would feel compelled to rectify that.

  She watched him walk away. As long as she could see him, she could pretend that his arms still held her. She had experienced a poignant moment of utter connection in his embrace, and she held on to the memory, willing it to continue forever. With each of his steps, however, it slid away from her, leaving her finally bereft.

  A wonderful embrace. It had contained the best of what they knew during their truces.

  It broke her heart that it would probably be the last one.

  She looked down at her last piece of parchment. If she labored without respite, would God have mercy and give her His counsel? If not, would He give her absolution later?

  The brushes waited. The pots beckoned. The candles would last through the night.

  The light blurred as her eyes teared. She wished Mark had been more discreet. She wished he had not ruined the memory of this last embrace by pointing her toward betrayal with his words.

  Her heart tore. She experienced the horrible shredding that she had always known would come one day. If she had been anywhere else but in this manor, if her father’s memory were not so present in all of the spaces, she might have forsaken the dream right then and there.

  She wanted to. She wished she could. Not for her own safety, but for the man who had reminded her what happiness could be.

  A sound disturbed her. She glanced to the doorway, where Mark had recently walked. The priest stood there, barely visible.

  He had been a part of this manor her whole life. He had served her father, and baptized her and Genith, and had taught them both to read and write. He was all that was left of her girlhood, and his arrival gave her untold comfort.

  “Will you stay with me?” she asked. “I think that I will need your help.”

  He came to her. As he entered the light, it revealed his understanding and sympathy.

  She sat down and smoothed the parchment with her hands. He stood by her shoulder. Sadder than she had ever been in her life, she began her final image.

  Chapter 21

  The delayed dinner heralded things to come. The servants grew lax and lazy, and the disruptions created by the visiting lords and army plunged the household into chaos. Discomfort reigned.

  Worse, by evening of the next day, the Welsh populat
ion in the manor house had been depleted. Marcus suspected first. A few memorable faces disappeared. Tables appeared less cramped.

  That night, when Hubert called for his personal manservant, no one arrived in his crowded chamber.

  Marcus and Addis followed him down to the hall and watched him realize that the ranks had thinned. He strode outside and returned shortly, in a fury. He began an interrogation of the men who remained.

  “If she keeps it up, we will be doing our own washing soon,” Addis said. “I do not think Nesta’s only goal is to make Hubert appear a fool.”

  “He does not need her help there,” Marcus agreed. “They must have taken food out to the men in the camps, and simply did not return. I told Paul to be watchful, but I will not force them to stay. If the Welsh men support Carwyn, we are better with them not within the walls.”

  “Eventually Hubert will realize that she is behind this, Marcus.”

  Unfortunately, Hubert realized it at once. After bending his scowling face to Arundal’s ear, he bore down on Marcus with his ally in tow.

  “At least twenty have left, the strongest and most fit,” he reported, his face flushed with anger. “It isn’t just servants. A third of my guard have deserted too.”

  “You should have expected the latter, since most of your guards are Welsh,” Marcus said. “It is a wonder they did not hand this manor over to Carwyn months ago.”

  “My men were sworn to me, not a thief. They held me in awe.”

  Marcus bit back the response his mind snapped to that.

  “That woman is bewitching them to her own ends,” Arundal said. “She cannot be trusted.”

  “She spends her days in the chapel and is hardly a threat.”

  “She must be stopped,” Hubert hissed. “Who knows what messages she has sent to those rebels with the servants. Most likely she only had some remain here so she would have someone at hand to carry later reports.”

  “He is right,” Arundal agreed.

  Having shown some mettle, Hubert pressed on. “She has probably told them everything. I will not have a traitor eating at my board as if she is a guest. I am going to lock her away.”

  “You are going to do no such thing,” Marcus said. “I will consider your complaints and decide the proper action.”

  Hubert disagreed vehemently. Arundal’s lids lowered.

  Glints of suspicion sparked in both men’s eyes. As they walked away, their heads bent together, Marcus had no trouble imagining their conversation.

  They were questioning his judgment at best, and his loyalty at worst.

  “You had better speak with her,” Addis said. “I hate to admit that they are right, but if she is sending men to Carwyn, either to carry her messages or to fight at his side, she must be confined.”

  “I will find out what has been happening. As it is, she can do nothing more until morning.”

  He went to the chapel where she secluded herself, but not to speak of her little sabotage. The desire to merely see her and hold her for a brief spell drew him there.

  He found her praying. She knelt on the plank floor, wearing the same garment as the day before.

  She did not acknowledge his approach. She remained immobile, as if she had not heard his step.

  When he saw her expression, he knew there would be no conversation or stolen embraces today. It occurred to him that there might never be any, ever again.

  Perhaps it was the dim light from the candles, but he thought he had never seen her so weary, nor so sad. Her face wore both regret and resolve. He had seen that look before, on old, seasoned warriors as they left their tents to do battle.

  Her eyes were closed, and she did not open them. He decided he was glad for that. He was not sure that he wanted to see what those eyes might reveal.

  He wanted to touch her, so that maybe she would know that he understood. The gesture was not necessary, however. She already guessed that he understood far too well. After all, she might have chosen to walk down the path laid years ago, but he had been the one to remind her that the journey must be made now.

  He did not leave immediately, despite the way she ignored him. He stood to the side, watching her. Loving her. Saying his own prayers that their betrayals could be forgotten one day.

  Finally, he tore himself away. As he walked down the nave, he noticed that no parchment lay on the little table. Thick wax covered the old plank that had held the candles, and only a few low stubbed wicks rose from it now.

  Paul shared a tiny chamber with four other knights. When Marcus visited that night, they threw the other men out so that they could speak privately.

  After the door closed, Paul reached into his tunic. “If she sends Carwyn information, it must be with words, Marcus. Any of the servants who have left could have brought them. This is the only thing of hers that I have found, and it was not going west, toward her father’s men.”

  He handed over a parchment. Marcus knew what he would see even before he opened it. A tapestry design. It depicted four angels blowing horns, and a lamb in the center surrounded by rays of light.

  Marcus laid it on a trunk and positioned a candle so he could study it. “Who had this?”

  Paul sat on the bed and slouched against the wall. “The priest. He had been called to a dying man in the village to the east, and we caught him just as he was about to pass our sentries. He was not pleased that I took that from him. He said it was a gift from the lady, to help ease the man’s passing, and told us that God would punish us for interfering with His work.”

  Marcus frowned down at Nesta’s design. It would be her last one for a long while, since she had no more parchment. She must have worked on it all last night and most of today, and the painting showed her haste and exhaustion. Had she lost herself in it, as a form of meditation? Or had the priest mentioned the dying man, and she labored so that a holy image could be brought to him?

  “Heading east, not west, you said?”

  Paul nodded.

  It seemed innocent enough. And, as Paul had said, if Nesta sought to communicate with Carwyn Hir, she did not need to write her words. No doubt the departing servants had relayed the information about the lords and armies coming here.

  A bit of wax had dripped on one corner of the parchment, forming a tiny, crusty blob. He reached down and scraped it off with his fingernail while he held the sheet down with his other hand.

  The texture beneath his fingertips provoked his attention. Curious, he moved the pads of his fingers slowly and gently, and felt a series of shallow depressions and rises on the surface of the image. In his mind’s eye he saw other fingers doing the same thing, with a different parchment. Rhys had checked one of Nesta’s images this way that evening in his garden.

  The parchment had been scraped, Rhys had said, and used after writing had been removed. Marcus let his fingers drift, and found evidence of scraping over the whole surface.

  It was commonplace to scrape and reuse parchment, of course. Except that this was parchment that he had purchased for Nesta himself, and it had been new and clean when it reached her.

  He lifted the sheet, to study it more closely. As it rose toward him, the light from the candle backlit the upper left corner.

  Marcus’s arm froze. Despite the inks, the thinner areas of parchment let the light pass through. An image took form as the lines of scraping joined and flowed.

  Marcus found himself looking down at a small, hidden picture of a dragon.

  He moved the parchment slowly, so that the candle illuminated more of the scraping. Words revealed themselves, just as the dragon had.

  He read a few at the bottom, and his chest emptied out. For an instant only air filled it, not heart and bone. In that moment he deduced the outlines of a treason so audacious that even the air disappeared.

  Nay, it was too bold, too risky. Too complicated. She would not dare it. She would not even think to try.

  “Go and find Addis,” he ordered Paul. “Bring him here, but do not draw attention to y
ourself.”

  “He is somewhere in the camps.”

  “I do not care if he is in heaven or hell. Go find him. When you return, check whether Nesta is still in the chapel.”

  Paul hurried out. Marcus shoved the table close to a bed so he could sit. Slowly and methodically he moved the parchment in front of the light, and read the entire message scraped into it.

  Every line caused his blood to run faster. It was all there, the lords who were coming and when they might arrive. The presence of Arundal and Addis at the manor. The estimation of Carwyn’s numbers.

  His gaze stared at that part in amazement. According to Nesta, four hundred were already spread out in those mountains, including five prominent chieftains and their men. Addis had estimated no more than one hundred and fifty after his scouting today.

  Finally, at the end, he read the exhortation to move, and move now, that he had first deciphered. In those last lines there were enough references for him to know for sure to whom Nesta appealed.

  His gut twisted. He should have followed his instincts that night with David, when he had wondered if Nesta’s parchments carried messages. They had, scraped into the surface and hidden beneath the obscuring inks. These designs were all that she had passed to others, but they had been enough.

  And some, like this one, had not been intended for Carwyn or any Welsh leader. Nor for any marcher lord. Llygad’s dream had been much more audacious than that.

  And much purer. Marcus cursed himself. He should have guessed that any alliance would not be with a lord sworn to the English crown.

  He read it again, forcing himself to face the dangerous implications. Despite the chill claiming his soul and blood, he muttered a prayer of gratitude that he had intercepted this message, and another one of hope that he could find a way to save the woman who had written it.

  Paul returned with Addis. The two of them carried some cups and a wine bladder, and jested and laughed as they entered. Anyone watching would assume that they intended to get drunk.

  “It was all I could do to keep Arundal from joining us,” Paul said as he barred the door. “Hubert is bombarding his ear with the story of his life, and the evidence that someone would be getting soused warmed his interest.”