The Master of Heathcrest Hall

by Galen Beckett

  The slab of iron shut with a clanging behind him.

  As it was his desire to speak to Sir Quent in private, Rafferdy was relieved to see the corporal had not followed him through. What was more, his relief was compounded as soon as he set eyes upon Sir Quent himself.

  They had placed him in a chair which was bolted into the floor, and had bound his wrists and ankles to it with manacles. This was a hard sight to bear, but it was ameliorated by Sir Quent’s appearance. He looked pallid, as was to be expected from a deprivation of sunlight, and his hair and beard had been allowed to grow to a rather wild state. But other than these things, he appeared well. His face was clean, as were the gray shirt and breeches they had clothed him in. True, he seemed somewhat thinner than before, but he was in no way emaciated, and in the light of the oil lamps mounted on the wall his eyes were bright and clear.

  “Great Gods, sir,” Rafferdy found himself saying as he rushed forward, “but it is good to see you.”

  That tangled beard split in a broad grin. “I can claim the same with regard to you, Lord Rafferdy. I was told only that a magnate wished to interview me, so you can imagine I was looking forward to the occasion with little relish, even though I was glad enough for a chance to leave my prison and move a bit. But to see it is you who have come …” Now that grin faltered, and his eyes grew brighter yet. “I am grateful beyond words. But please, can you tell me, how is Lady Quent?”

  That Sir Quent’s initial concern was not for the fact of his own imprisonment, but rather for the state of his wife, was no surprise to Rafferdy. Another chair had been arranged some distance from Sir Quent’s. Rafferdy dragged it closer and sat.

  “She is grievously distressed, as you can imagine, and so are her sisters. Yet she bears it all with remarkable fortitude and composure, as you can also imagine.” Despite the grim environs, he could not help smiling. “But you will be able to see for yourself, for she is here, just beyond that door.”

  Sir Quent’s expression was one of great bewilderment, as if he hardly comprehended what Rafferdy had said. Then, gradually, a look of wonder crept across his visage.

  “Ivoleyn is here.” He spoke lowly. “I had not believed such a thing possible. I had resigned myself to it. But now … is it so? Will I truly be able to see her once again?”

  Rafferdy laid a hand on his shackled arm. “Yes. I had only wanted to make certain that …”

  “That my appearance was not too shocking,” he replied, meeting Rafferdy’s gaze. “Yes, that was good thinking. But for all that I am rarely let out of the little chamber I am imprisoned in, and there are few comforts to be had within it, my treatment here has not been overly cruel. Therefore I trust I am not too dreadful to behold.”

  “Not at all,” Rafferdy said. “You look remarkably well. I will go fetch your wife at once.” He started to rise from the chair.

  “Wait for a moment, Lord Rafferdy.”

  These words were spoken in a deep and solemn rumble. Rafferdy hardly knew what to think of them. Sir Quent’s lovely and utterly remarkable wife was just beyond that iron door. That he should seek to delay his reunion with her was inconceivable.

  “Was there not something else you and I needed to discuss before I see Ivoleyn?” Sir Quent said.

  Yes, there was. Rafferdy had become so caught up in the idea of reuniting Mrs. Quent with her husband that he had forgotten what other business they needed to conduct. Slowly, he sat back in the chair.

  “I have some thoughts on the matter of your situation,” he said, with urgency now. “I would call them notions, really, for they are not well formed and are based on conjecture. You are more familiar with the methods of the Citadel than I, and I can only guess at the workings of the Gray Conclave. But I have some abilities I can bring to bear in Assembly. We have not yet foregone all of our old rules! Some due must be paid to them for Lord Valhaine’s authority to have any semblance of credibility. If I describe my thoughts to you, then you can add your insight to them, and so we might form them into a plan to effect your acquittal before the Hall of Magnates.”

  Rafferdy leaned forward in the chair, eager to explain the obscure rules he had discovered and the procedural gambits they might permit, but before he could do so, Sir Quent shook his head.

  “No, Lord Rafferdy, that is not what I meant. You and I could easily discuss such matters on our own. But even if there was any use to such an exercise, that cannot be why you brought her here.”

  No, it wasn’t.

  “It is dangerous for Lady Quent to remain in the city at present,” Rafferdy said, getting right to the point. “It is no longer a rumor that the Black Dog has formulated a method of detecting whether a woman is a witch or not, but rather a fact.”

  Sir Quent’s face blanched another degree, but all the same he nodded. “I have suspected for some time that Lord Valhaine sought such a thing. He has increasingly spoken of the Wyrdwood as a grave threat to Altania.”

  “I believe in that he is only echoing the opinions of his magicians,” Rafferdy said. “The High Order of the Golden Door are surely in league with those who dread the Wyrdwood and what it might do.”

  Sir Quent nodded. “I believe you are correct, Lord Rafferdy. And you are correct as well that my wife is in peril so long as she remains in Invarel. You no doubt wish for her to go to the east, to stay with Lady Marsdel I presume, if her ladyship has retreated there by now. But Ivoleyn will never consent to leave the city while I am imprisoned here. And so you brought her to me, so that I could convince her to depart the city.”

  “Yes,” Rafferdy said plainly.

  Sir Quent gave a firm nod. “Good man. And yet … you must know that peril could easily follow Lady Quent into the east, or anywhere she might go—at least so long as she bears that name.”

  Rafferdy did not understand; or rather, perhaps he did not wish to. “What do you mean?”

  Sir Quent let out a deep breath. “You know what will become of her as the wife of a confirmed traitor to the nation. If I face trial, and if I am convicted of this crime, then everything that is mine—every coin and inch of land—will be stripped away and returned to the government. She will be left with nothing. She and her sisters will be deprived entirely of support.”

  “Lady Quent can want for neither thing so long as she has friends such as Lady Marsdel and myself.”

  “But she will be deprived of these as well! To shun her will be required by law. To aid her or take her in will be to bring the wrath of the government upon you. Could you allow such a thing to happen to Lady Marsdel?”

  No, he could not, Rafferdy knew. “But still I would help her.”

  “Yes, I know you would, Lord Rafferdy. Or that you would try. But could you bear up to the scrutiny on the part of the government that such an act would surely bring upon you?” His gaze went to Rafferdy’s right hand, to the ring they both knew lay concealed beneath the kidskin glove. “You are the son of the former lord inquirer and a known magician. What would happen once you provide aid to the wife of a convicted traitor? How much more suspicion need be cast upon you before you find yourself situated just as I am now? Not much, I would think.”

  Rafferdy wanted to counter these words, but before he could think how, Sir Quent went on.

  “You know that I am right in this. To help her after I am convicted would only assure your own doom. And so she would have no one at all in the world to protect her. She would be utterly alone and in ruins. That is something I will not allow.” He clenched his hands within the manacles, and his voice grew so low it was as if he were speaking to someone other than Rafferdy. “I failed to protect Gennivel, to keep her safe when it was my duty. I will not fail to do the same for Ivoleyn.”

  Rafferdy did not even attempt a response to this. He knew the story of the first Mrs. Quent, and how she had died years ago trying to climb the wall of a stand of Wyrdwood.

  “You must work to get Ivoleyn out of the city at once, Lord Rafferdy,” Sir Quent went on, addressing him now. “I w
ill do my best to convince her to leave. Yet, in the end …” A visible shudder passed through him. “In the end, I believe there is one thing only that will release her and permit her to go.”

  Rafferdy stared, a creeping feeling progressing up his neck. “What do you mean?”

  The other man looked down for a moment, as if to gather his thoughts. Or perhaps his courage. Then, at last, he raised his head.

  “Tell me, Lord Rafferdy, what are your feelings for Ivoleyn? Are they similar to what you might feel for a friend, such as Mrs. Baydon? Or are they perhaps something more than that?”

  Rafferdy leaped from his chair, and his face stung as if he had been struck a blow. “She is your wife, sir!” he exclaimed.

  “A fact of which I am well aware. And if you think I do not treasure her as jealously as any king ever did a jeweled treasure … but no, I see that you do know this. All the same, if your feelings for her are something other than what you would profess publicly, or might even admit in private, then I wish you would speak them to me now.”

  Rafferdy might almost have thought he was being mocked or tormented except for the solemn light in the other man’s brown eyes. Still he said, “Even if it were true, why would I ever confess to such a thing as that?”

  “Because it would give me assurance that she will be cared for. In the times that come, she will have great need of something more than an acquaintance or friend can give. But I will not be able to provide that for her. I appreciate your efforts on my behalf, Lord Rafferdy, and I do not doubt your cleverness. But be assured that any scheme you might try in the name of freeing me will prove futile. I know Lord Valhaine well. The Black Dog does not bite without sinking in his teeth.”

  With a look and a flick of his finger, he silenced Rafferdy’s retort.

  “It is a fact, Lord Rafferdy. There is nothing that can be done for it. If I am brought to trial before the Hall of Magnates, I will be convicted. And as I told you, I cannot permit that. Above all else, I cannot let Ivoleyn become the wife of a confirmed traitor to the realm.”

  “But then what can you do?” Rafferdy managed to say at last.

  “Do not worry, Lord Rafferdy. Lord Valhaine has always thought me stolid and dull, but I am not without my own ability to scheme. There is yet one thing I may do.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You need not know the particulars. Suffice it to say I have a favor I can call in—an old debt, if you will. So that is resolved. But one thing is not—you have yet to answer my question.”

  Rafferdy wanted to believe he had no idea what sort of debt Sir Quent intended to collect, and how he planned to avert his conviction before the Hall of Magnates. Only that wasn’t so; he did have an idea, a most terrible idea. And knowing that, how could he answer with anything but the truth? Throughout his life, Rafferdy had always been quick with a glib falsehood if it suited his purposes. But he could not lie to Sir Quent—not here and not now.

  “Ivoleyn is the most beautiful and remarkable woman in all of Altania,” he said, his throat so tight the words inflicted a pain upon him, but he forged on all the same. “I admire and love her to the fullest extent I am capable. I have ever since meeting her, though I was too stupid to understand at first what it was I felt. And once I did, I was too cowardly to make a stand for it.”

  Rafferdy’s hands made themselves into fists at his sides—then he forced them to unclench. If Sir Quent could bear his fate resolutely, then at the least Rafferdy must bear this.

  “So you see, even if she had never made your acquaintance, Sir Quent, still I would not have won her for myself. I know what I am. I may be clever, as you say, and I will allow that of late I have done some things which have been of use. But I can assure you that this Lord Rafferdy is no more worthy of Lady Quent than Mr. Rafferdy ever was of Miss Lockwell.”

  Rafferdy thought he should say more, but he could not think of what. He supposed he should have been aghast to have made such a confession, but he was not. Sometimes a truth is so precious that it cannot be disowned, no matter the consequence.

  For a long minute, both men were silent. At last Sir Quent nodded.

  “Get her away from the city, Lord Rafferdy,” he said at last. “Do whatever you must to accomplish it. Promise me you will do this.”

  A feeling came over Rafferdy then which surprised him. It was not sorrow, or regret, or any sort of dread. Rather, it was a determination that was so grim as to be peculiarly satisfying.

  “I will,” he said. “I swear it.”

  Both men gazed at each other and saw that it was settled. There was only one thing left to do. Rafferdy withdrew the small, colorless gem from his coat pocket. Quickly, he explained its use. Then he knelt and slipped it into Sir Quent’s boot.

  “Keep it hidden,” he said, rising. “And if you should determine there is some other way to proceed, use it as I have described to send a message, and I will do what I can to come to you again.”

  “I may use it,” the other man said, “but there is no other way.”

  Rafferdy bowed, not wanting Sir Quent to see the anguish upon his face, then he turned and went to the iron door.

  “And, Dashton,” Sir Quent said behind him.

  Rafferdy paused, his hand upon the door.

  “Make yourself worthy.”

  Rafferdy squared his shoulders and arranged his face into a solemn but calm expression. Then he opened the door and went to inform Lady Quent that her husband was ready to see her.

  THE IRON DOOR shut behind Ivy with a knell that made her recall the thunder rolling across the moors around Heathcrest Hall.

  She was aware of the figure of a man sitting in the center of the dim, windowless chamber, but she could not bring herself to look at him directly. It occurred to her that she should have gone to him at once, and flung herself down to put her head upon his knees, but she did not. Or rather, she could not, for a terror gripped her.

  “It is all right, Ivoleyn,” said a low, familiar voice. “You need not fear what you see when you look at me. I am well.”

  Slowly, through great force of will, Ivy turned her head and lifted her eyes. At last her gaze reached him, and what she saw filled her not with dread or sorrow, but with a sudden and piercing joy. Now she did rush forward, and knelt down on the cold floor before him. For a while they only looked at each other. No other sort of exchange was necessary. Eventually he let out a sigh, and she reached up to touch his face with both hands.

  “Your beard is like a thicket of brambles!”

  It was a silly thing to say, not in any way appropriate for the situation. Yet it caused him to laugh, and she would have laughed herself, if she had not already been weeping.

  At last she withdrew a hand to wipe her cheeks. “You are too thin,” she said. “And your face is pale. It is so dark in this place.”

  “Not anymore,” he murmured, looking down at her. “Now it is exceedingly bright.”

  “You sound like Rose,” she said, “seeing lights around me.”

  “But I do see a light around you, Ivoleyn. I always have.”

  She looked up at him, and his brown eyes shone, so that she almost could believe they did behold an illumination besides that of the smoking, sputtering oil lamps.

  Ivy rose then, and proceeded to make an examination of him with light touches. She brushed her fingers over the familiar landscape of his shoulders, across the rugged crags of his face, and through his hair, which had grown into a long and tangled thatch like his beard.

  “Are you satisfied I am well?” he rumbled at last.

  “No, I am satisfied you are my husband. It might have been anyone beneath such a disheveled exterior.”

  Again he laughed, and this time she was able to echo him, if briefly. But quickly she grew solemn again.

  “Dearest, what must we do?” she said softly, urgently. “What must we accomplish to have you released from this place?”

  “I have already discussed such matters with Lord Rafferdy,” he said
in a low rumble. “There is nothing more that needs to be arranged on that account right now. The soldier will return for me soon. I would rather spend what time we have left in better ways. Learning how you have been, for one thing.”

  Ivy could not say she was entirely satisfied with this request. She wanted to know, without delay, how they were to effect his release. Yet she could not deny his request, not in his current state. Besides, she could ask Mr. Rafferdy later about what he and Mr. Quent had discussed.

  “Now, bring that other chair close,” he said. “Sit, and take my hands in yours, and tell me everything that has happened since I saw you last.”

  Ivy obeyed, sitting and twining her fingers with his, braiding them together like twigs of Wyrdwood. At first he gazed at her lovingly as she spoke, but his expression soon became one of growing concern. Ivy had not intended to burden him with the grim details of all that had happened, but once she began speaking about them, she found she could not stop.

  Hardly pausing for a breath, she told him how they had been cut off from society, but that her sisters were bearing it well, and that Lady Marsdel and the Baydons had not abandoned her; only now they were gone from the city. Then she spoke of more troubling matters: the manner in which Mr. Fintaur and Mr. Larken were murdered, her conversation with Mr. Mundy, and her visit from Lady Shayde.

  It was as she described this last happening that his expression grew especially grim. At last she was finished with her bleak litany. She wished she could have brought him news to lift his spirits in that awful place. But that she could have kept anything from him was, she knew now, impossible.

  “So Ashaydea came to you again,” he said, the furrows on his brow deepening. “And she offered to aid my cause if you would help her injure Lord Rafferdy’s.”

  “But I could not,” she said, and now she hung her head, suddenly unable to look at him.

  “No, Ivoleyn, do not have any regrets. Your choice was the right one. To betray Lord Rafferdy for our gain would have been an abominable crime, one for which you would never have forgiven yourself. Besides, I can assure you that, even if you had held true to your end of the bargain, Lady Shayde would not have done the same. To release me, she would have had to undo the very laws which grant her master his power. She could no sooner do that than a knife could, of its own will, turn itself on its wielder. In the end, she would have betrayed you.”