by Sandra Heath
“A spell? You mean something new, as distinct from whatever magic he performed last night?” Conan asked.
She nodded. “I do not know exactly what he has done, for I saw him only when he was finishing, but there were four candles, therefore four incantations. With Bran, there are four of you, so I imagine you are his victims. He intends to clear his path to the goal he seeks. You stand in his way now, just as you did fifteen hundred years ago. We are all in his way, for if we repeat now the actions we performed then, he knows he cannot succeed.”
Theo reached out to her. “Then marry me without delay.” It seemed so obvious a solution.
She smiled and closed her eyes as once again his hand passed through her. “Oh, my dearest lord, if only it were that easy, but we can only marry at midnight, on the cusp of May Day, in the shadow of the yew tree, just as we did before. If we do that, I will become a complete woman again, a warm and loving bride to grace your bed.”
Conan was more immediately concerned with the timing of Taynton’s sorcery. “When will this spell work?” he asked Eleanor.
“The very same stroke of midnight. So you see, we must marry at the very moment we become enchanted. Which will prove the stronger force? I fear it may be Taynton’s magic.”
Ursula raised her chin defiantly. “There must be something we can do to halt him!”
“If there is, I do not know. Once he has disposed of us, he must find the treasure or lose his chance for another five hundred years. We can only hope that he fails.”
“But if we were to find it in the meantime ... ?”
Eleanor looked helplessly at her. “Maybe. Oh, I cannot say, for I know so little. All I can tell you is that the answer lies at the heart of mosaic floor, and the chalice shows the way.”
“The chalice? Do you mean we can tell something from the decorative frieze on it?” Ursula was thinking swiftly, remembering that she and Conan had seen the chalice in the stables at the Green Man.
Eleanor looked close to tears. “Maybe it is the frieze, maybe something else. It should become clear when you expose the floor completely. The treasure was kept safe by my father, Eudaf Hen, so that Cadfan Meriadoc could not lay thieving hands upon it in my lord Macsen’s absence in Rome with his friend, Lord Kynan. But Cadfan conspired with others against my father. My dear lord was overthrown and murdered by a rival for the throne of Rome, and Lord Kynan was gravely wounded, only just escaping with his life. After that, my father became more determined than ever to deny Cadfan the succession, for the new heir was the babe I was carrying, Lord Macsen’s babe, so vulnerable to Cadfan’s wickedness. So to protect his unborn grandchild, my father hid the treasure and guarded it with a powerful spell because he knew Cadfan would learn magic in order to find it. My father always meant to reveal its whereabouts to the true heir, but died quite suddenly before he was able to do so. The treasure can be found only once every five hundred years, and whoever finds it becomes the victor. Both we and Cadfan have failed twice already, if we fail this time as well, we cannot try again for another five hundred years, and so on.”
She gazed tearfully at Theo. “If I had not fallen into Cadfan’s hands, he would not be so able to interfere with the pattern at every turn. I fear he will succeed in his aim, and when that happens, I will remain as I am forever.”
Theo could not bear it. “No! We will be the victors this time, my love, I swear that we will! Then you will be my bride again, no matter what my uncle may say! But first we have a dragon to defeat, do we not?”
Conan glanced at the floor they had already uncovered. “It’s obvious from the curve of the perimeter that the floor is quite large. You and I cannot hope to clear it in time, Theo, but if we had more men to assist us ... ” He looked at Ursula. “I think the time has come to inform your father about all this. We need as many men from the manor as possible, but we must be stealthy about it, otherwise Taynton might be alerted. What we really need is something to keep him distracted at the inn.”
“Vera will help,” Ursula said. “She loves him and wants to marry him, so if she thinks that helping us will definitely result in her becoming his wife—which it will if history is allowed to repeat itself—she’ll do what she can. I’m sure she will be able to create a problem of some sort in the kitchens that will require his full attention. She can cause a fire if necessary!”
“A fire might be just the thing,” Conan declared.
“Then the wretched place can be rebuilt and named something more agreeable than the Green Man!” Theo was adamant.
“It used to be the Fleece,” Ursula said. “Far more fitting for a village that is based upon wool.”
Conan returned to the subject of Vera. “It won’t do to be wrong about Vera’s loyalties. If she loves him, maybe she’ll want to help him, not us.”
Eleanor answered, “It is true that for all his wickedness, the Lady Severa loved Cadfan very much, but she always tried to save him from himself. She will be our ally now. Until now she has been unsure about everything, for she senses much, yet has no one to speak to about it. She knew there was something that bound her to me, even though I was a squirrel, but she didn’t know exactly what that something was. Why else do you think she did not alert him when my squirrel friends tried to release me by the pool? If we tell her the truth now, she will know what her role must be. Once she is his wife again, he will have to comply for another five hundred years.”
“She may have loved him, but did he love her?” Ursula asked curiously.
“Oh, yes, but his greed for the treasure always came between them. If my lord Macsen finds the treasure after all, then Cadfan’s heart will rule his head once more, and he will be content with Severa.”
Conan exhaled slowly. “Right. I think we know what is needed now. Ursula, you know Vera Pedlar better than anyone, so I want you to approach her and tell her what is necessary. Then, when Taynton’s attention is fully diverted, with your father’s leave, we’ll set his men to clear as much of the mosaic floor as possible. Once we see what is at the center of the design, maybe we will know what the chalice is for. Anyway, it’s all we can do in the time we have left.”
“I’m sure my father will gladly help, although what he will make of our, er, fairy tale, I hardly dare imagine.”
“Well, if we go to him now, we’ll soon find out,” Conan replied with a wry smile. Theo turned quickly to Eleanor. “You will come with us?”
“No.”
“But—”
“Please, for I do not wish to appear to anyone but you three.”
“Then I will stay with you.” Theo looked urgently at Conan. “I cannot leave her. Please, Conan ... ”
Conan nodded. “As you wish, but how will we find you again?”
Eleanor smiled. “I will know bring him here.”
Conan nodded again. “Very well. Ursula and I will get on with matters. We will come back as soon as we can, but we need a little sleep if we are to be effective in the coming hours, so do not expect us for at least a few hours.”
Theo gave him a grateful smile. Then he and Eleanor walked away into the trees, with Bran padding faithfully at their heels.
Conan held his hand out to Ursula. “Come, we have things to do.”
She slipped her hand into his, and they hurried away along the little path they’d followed earlier. They glanced back before the set was lost to view, in time to see Eleanor raising her ethereal lips to Theo’s in another kiss that longed to cross the boundary from the Otherworld to this.
Ursula let Conan lead her a few yards more, then halted. “Have you no kiss for me as well, Lord Kynan?” she asked softly.
His eyes were warm and knowing in the moonlight as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She savored the taste of his lips and the contours of his body, molding herself to him in a way that knew no shame. But what place did shame have in these ancient woods? The pagan past was the pagan present, and she was no longer bookish, proper Ursula Elcester, but the Princess Ursula in the ar
ms of her lord and husband. She should surrender to him now, let him take her here among the dusky bluebells; let him be her master ...
Conan’s desire was as fierce, and gratification was temptingly close, but with a huge effort he held her away. “We must not succumb just yet, my love. Let us first have become man and wife beneath the yew, for then the nectar will be all the more sweet.”
“What if I disappoint you?” she asked then, green Ursula Elcester suddenly very much to the fore again.
He smiled. “Disappoint me? My darling, I have already sampled your kisses, and believe me you are blessed with that art to the full.”
“Am I?”
“Oh, yes, so I anticipate the rest of you with barely contained ardor.” He pulled her to him again and slid his hands to her waist, then down to enclose her buttocks through the thin silver silk of her gown. “And you, my lady, may anticipate eagerly as well, for I know how to pleasure a woman. I have not led the life of a monk, I fear.” He kissed her again, at the same time pulling her hips to his and pressing her against his aroused maleness.
Voluptuous feelings swept her to the very edge of consciousness. The moonlit woods seemed to spin, and she felt as light as air, held to earth only by his embrace. Her body sang with excitement for a long, long moment, and then she felt weak and deliciously warm as she sank against him.
She could not move for several long minutes, for to do so would be to destroy the lingering pleasure, but at last she was able to slip her hand in his again and continue out of the woods to cross the lower park, she felt stronger and more invigorated than ever before. While she had Conan, there was nothing she could not achieve. Nothing.
Chapter 29
It was just as Ursula and Conan reached the door into the rose garden that she remembered something she had noticed on the mosaic floor. “Wait!” she breathed, and turned urgently to him. “The chalice is depicted on the floor.”
“Are you sure? I didn’t notice it.”
“Yes, I’m certain. Neither you nor Theo uncovered it. Some earth slipped away of its own accord, and I saw what I am sure was the base of the cup, or at least the base of a cup. I want to go back and look.”
“Ursula—
“Please, Conan.”
“What will it achieve to see if it is or not? There were all sorts of things in that design.”
She didn’t know herself why she wished to see it, just that she wanted to very much indeed. The desire to rest awhile seemed to have suddenly deserted her, and the need to return to the set was so strong that she began to hurry back across the lower park. Conan hesitated a moment, then followed, soon catching up and taking her hand to retrace their steps into the woods.
The set was deserted when they arrived. At least, not quite, for Bran was there, and Ursula knew he was waiting for them. The wolfhound had been drawn back to the set as surely as she herself had been. More than that, he was seated at the very place where she had seen what she believed to be a portrayal of the chalice. Sure enough, when she scraped away a little more of the earth, the tesserae design was quite clearly what she thought it to be.
“There!” she declared triumphantly. “I knew I was right!”
Conan smiled at her. “You are indeed, but I still fail to—” He broke off as Bran suddenly began to whine and scratch at the design. “What is it, boy?” Conan asked then, reaching down to pat the wolfhound.
Bran trotted away a few yards toward Hazel Pool, then turned to look back at them. He moved on another few yards and looked back again. They followed instinctively, and the wolfhound led them steadily toward the pool, and then to the hollow oak, where he got up on his hind legs to paw at the trunk just where he had seen Taynton hide the chalice.
Conan reached up to feel inside the tree, but just as his questing fingers closed over one of the chalice’s handles, Ursula heard a sound. “Listen! I think someone’s coming!” she breathed uneasily.
Conan left the chalice where it was, grabbed her hand, and ran toward the nearest thicket of bushes. Bran ran with them, and they ducked down out of sight just as, to their unutterable dismay, Taynton arrived with his companions, including Vera. As it all to happen tonight after all? They weren’t yet ready!
They could only pray they were wrong. As luck would have it, Vera came quite close to the bushes to put on her robe, and Ursula hardly knew the words were on her lips before she spoke. “Vera!” she whispered urgently.
The blacksmith’s daughter froze. “Miss Ursula?”
“Don’t look around. Just hear what I have to say. I can explain a great deal to you, and I can tell you a way to marry Bellamy Taynton.”
Vera had to make a huge effort not to turn around toward the whispered voice. “You ... you can?”
“Yes. Meet me on the village green in the morning. I will await you by the merry-go-round at ten.”
“Very well.”
“Be certain to be there. It’s very important, and will make much clear to you.”
Vera had turned her head just sufficiently for them to see her profile. She gave an ironic smile. “Then I will be very grateful, Miss Ursula, because I sense so very much, yet understand nothing at all.”
There was no time to say anything more because Taynton called rather irritably to her, “Don’t dally there, Vera!”
“Forgive me, master,” Vera replied, and hurried to join the others.
The ritual of the previous night was repeated, another nail driven into the oak, and the old ring game performed so that Taynton was able to reassert himself as the others’ master. When all was completed, and the thirteen had departed again, the secret watchers came out of hiding.
Conan smiled at Ursula. “That was quick-witted to speak to Vera, if a little risky.”
“I know she loves him, and will do whatever she can to win him.”
“I don’t think much of her taste in men. However, no doubt even Cadfan Meriadoc has some redeeming features.”
Ursula looked at the hollow oak. “What shall we do about the chalice? Take it with us?”
“Oh, yes. I’ll feel a great deal easier if it’s in our hands rather than his.” He hurried to the tree, reached in for the chalice, and then looked at it in the moonlight. “It’s a very beautiful thing,” he observed admiringly, turning it slightly so that the gold and jewels shone.
“And very unholy indeed,” Ursula replied with a smile.
“True.” He continued to study it. “Well, if there is a clue of some sort in this frieze, I’m cursed if I can see it.”
“Don’t say that, for it’s uncomfortably close to the truth,” she said, shivering.
“I’ll take back to the house, for you need some sleep, in readiness for tomorrow. Theo and I need it as well, but have six miles to travel to our beds.”
And so once again they retraced their steps through the wood, then across the lower park to the rose garden. Before going into the house, they concealed the chalice in the stables, not wishing to answer questions about how and where they had come into possession of such a notorious stolen object.
But a shock awaited them, for a sleepy footman informed them that about an hour earlier a messenger had ridden posthaste from Stroud with the news that the River Frome had flooded Fromewell Mill to the possible extent of making the building dangerous. Mr. Elcester’s presence had been required urgently.
The footman made little attempt to conceal his curiosity about Conan’s presence. It would have been bad enough if Ursula had been out and about alone with Theo, whom she was to marry, but to be with his friend instead raised all manner of scandalous questions. Ursula was past caring about such tiresome matters. “Everyone was going to sleep at Elcester Manor tonight. “Sir Conan will be staying here tonight, so I wish you to show him to the east bedroom. We are to be awoken at eight, and breakfast is to be served at half past. Then I wish all the men employed here to assemble in the hall, for there is work to be done. Oh, and I wish my mare to be saddled for half past nine.”
The
footman was a little bemused. “Er, yes, Miss Ursula,” he said, pulling himself together as best he could.
“And nothing is to be said of this. No one, but no one is to mention Sir Conan’s presence here.”
The footman could well understand the reason. “Yes, Miss Ursula.”
“Nor is anyone to speak outside of my order regarding the men. If anyone speaks out of turn, they will be instantly dismissed. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Miss Ursula.”
“See to it, then.”
The footman bowed, then withdrew, leaving Conan to look admiringly at her. “Oh, I can see what a very splendid Lady Merrydown you will be,” he declared.
She flushed. “There is many a slip,” she reminded him.
“Ah, but we now have the cup,” he pointed out.
“Yes. I only hope we will know how to use it.”
The footman returned with the maid, and Conan was led away to the east bedroom. Shortly afterward both he and Ursula were sound asleep in their beds. It was the dreamless sleep of the exhausted, and it seemed to be over all too soon as they were both aroused at eight o’clock.
The morning of May Eve was bright, clear, and sunny, and Ursula found she was surprisingly refreshed. She dressed in her riding habit because she was going to meet Vera later, and then went down to the dining room, where Conan was already waiting. He looked a little incongruous in evening attire, but it did not matter. Servants or not, he greeted her with a kiss, and they both sat down to a hearty repast.
Later, when the men were assembled as commanded, she informed them that she believed she had discovered the Roman villa her father had been seeking, but that in case it was a false alarm, she did not wish the matter to be spoken of outside the manor. That included all family and friends in the village, she added, knowing that Taynton numbered some villagers among his cohorts. She instructed them to bring as many spades and brushes as they could find and told them they were to act under Conan’s command.
Then she went outside, mounted Miss Muffet, and rode to the village to meet Vera on the green.