by Lily Baldwin
Her brows were plucked to thin, pale crescent moons. Her hair cascaded across the floor in thick waves and shone almost white, it was so blond. She did not require onion skins or lemon juice to lighten the color, unlike so many of the women at court, whose dull hair looked more orange than blond as a result of their efforts. Everything about Diana was naturally built to seduce, from her curvy figure to the throaty tone of her voice. And when she sang, men stopped and stared with hungry eyes. Joanie chewed her lip as she impatiently waited for her mistress’s hair to dry.
Simon returned a few hours later. “That will have to do,” he said, his voice strained. “The hour for supper is almost here.”
He gently helped Diana to her feet and wrapped his arm around her waist.
“No,” she said, not unkindly. “I can manage.”
Tears stung Joanie’s eyes as she watched her mistress gracefully cross the room to sit at her table where a gilded mirror reflected her ethereal beauty. Knowing the pain she must have felt tore at Joanie’s heart, although Diana let none of it show.
Joanie crossed the room and took hold of Diana’s comb and pulled her long bangs back to lengthen her brow. When her hair was pinned in place, she arranged the sides so that golden waves spilled over Diana’s shoulders past her waist. Then she helped her dress.
“Will Geoffrey approve?” Diana asked nervously, smoothing her hands over the intricately embroidered bodice of her pale green tunic.
Joanie doubted anyone could ever fully meet with the master’s approval. Still, Diana’s beauty was unmatched regardless of the passing of time. “You look stunning. Mind you do not overdo it. Hold your tongue so that you do not strain your voice. Remember, you have to perform tomorrow night.”
Diana nodded. “I will remember. I am hoping to get away as soon as I can.”
Simon filled the doorway with his large frame. “It is time.”
Diana stood and kissed Joanie on the cheek before she crossed the room and left on Simon’s arm.
Joanie stared at the closed door for a moment. Then she numbly turned and stiffly sat in Diana’s seat and looked at her own reflection in the mirror. Her greasy black hair hung limply past her shoulders. Her brown eyes looked back at her, dull, void of joy and life. As ever, her face was hidden beneath a layer of dirt and grime. Her master didn’t allow her a bath of her own. None of the ointments, oils, or perfumes on the table were for her use. She wore the same worn, tattered tunic every day. Once a fortnight, she was permitted to wash herself and her clothing in Diana’s used bath water. Not for her own benefit or health, but only so that the master didn’t have to smell her. Geoffrey Mercer’s cruel, twisted smiled came to the fore of her mind. Unlike Diana, she at least did not have to face him every day. Diana went to his room to perform her duties as leman. But whenever he did enter their room, it always meant the worst. The sound of his footfalls and that of his guard, who followed him everywhere, would echo through the stone corridor like thunder. A shiver shot up Joanie’s spine just thinking about the din of their master’s approach. She closed her eyes. Her heart pounded. Her breaths came short.
“Help us,” she whispered to no one, for who would hear the pleas of someone as insignificant as she?
Joanie whirled away from the sad creature she saw in the mirror, stood up and started to clean the room. She would keep moving, keep doing, despite her fatigue. She couldn’t stop. If she did, she would be forced to face the truth about Diana who was her one light in the dark. Her beloved mistress’s health had been failing for months, but she had managed with Joanie’s help. Still, the past fortnight had taken its toll.
“No,” she said out loud and fought back her tears.
After all, Diana continued to fight. She carried on, bravely surviving, and so would Joanie. That is what life had always been. It was what life would always be — a desperate fight for survival.
Chapter Two
A frigid gust of winter’s chill strikes Alec’s face while he hovers in the night air far above the city of London. Orange torch fire flickers like stars across the shadowy cityscape. Silence engulfs him, soothes him. He is cold and alone, but his mind is all his own, not burdened by other’s emotions or visions of tragedies yet to come. He is out of reach, flying above the human pain revealed to his seer’s eyes.
But then he feels a tug from below.
“No,” he says, his voice flat.
He turns onto his back and stares up at stars, distant guardians, but of whom or what? He once believed they were angels, but he stopped believing in angels long ago. Too many people suffered needlessly for angels to be real. He covers his face with his hands. Again, he feels a pull in his heart, a soul pleading for his. His hands fall away. Large snowflakes cascade and dance, whirling in swirling circles from a now starless sky. He sighs and spreads his arms wide, like a bird, and drifts down. The vague city shapes become defined — shacks, warehouses, churches, fortresses, docks, riverboats, and bridges.
Then he sees her.
She is standing on a narrow, wrought iron bridge, guarded by two lions, their faces watchful and regal. But those stone sentinels cannot save her, only he can. Her shoulders tensely hug her ears as she pulls the folds of her tattered cloak tighter against the wintry night. Fear and pain coil like writhing snakes around her heart. His long arm extends, reaching down to her, comforting her. Her wide dark eyes brim full of tears. Heartbroken. Hungry. Cold. Her pleas ride upon the whirling snow until they reach his ear in a whisper. “Help us.”
He descends, swooping down, stopping a breath away from her face. He meets her gaze.
“Alec,” she whispers, a puff of icy breath leaving her lips.
Alec MacVie sat up with a start, his thin wool blanket pooling around his hips. His heart pounded in his ears, along with the dizzying accompaniment of another’s heartbeat, her heartbeat. He threw back the covers, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and rested his head in his hands. A flash of cold lingering from the wintry dream passed over him, chilling his naked body. Shivering, he wrapped his fingers around the chard of stone, nearly purple in color, which hung from a long, leather strip around his neck. Heat emanated from the stone. He closed his eyes, inviting the warmth to imbue his body. The chill fled, but whoever she was, the poor, heartbroken lass on the bridge, her pain still gripped his soul. Her fear quickened his own pulse. He took a deep, slow breath and willed it all to cease. Slowly, everything drained away, leaving the hollowness inside him to which he had grown accustomed.
He crossed to stand in front of the hearth. Orange embers glowed in the darkness. Closing his eyes, he again saw her pale face and heard his name on her lips. Still staring at smoldering ash, he backed up a few steps and sat in the high-backed chair. The stone chard he wore now felt cool against his skin. He wrapped his fingers around it, wondering about the secrets it held — secrets kept even from his divining gaze.
The stone had come to him by the Abbot Matthew of Haddington Abbey. The Abbot led a secret network of Scottish rebels to which Alec and his brothers belonged. Before setting out on his latest assignment, the abbot had given Alec the chard and told him that it contained a secret he hoped Alec could reveal — a secret of great importance to the cause.
“Somehow, Scotland’s fate is tied to this broken chard,” the abbot had told him.
For months now, he had pondered the stone, but it had remained quiet, soulless; that is, until three nights ago, when he started dreaming about the lass on the bridge. Suddenly, the stone had allusively revealed itself, warming when her heartbeat accompanied his own. This was the third time he had dreamt of her, and now the third time he had felt the stone’s fire. But who was she? And what did it all mean?
He raked both hands through his hair, as he glanced about the room. One thing he knew for certain — the answers were not hiding there in his chamber. He needed to get out. Letting the cool stone fall against his chest, he stood and crossed to his wardrobe and grabbed a pair of hose. He pulled them on, settling the waistband
low on his hips. Then he yanked on a black tunic, which he belted at his waist. Within his tall boots, he hid a dagger. And after securing his sword to his back, he swept a thick, black cloak over his shoulders and headed toward the door.
Stepping into the hallway, he shut the door and locked it before setting out down the corridor, which was illuminated by candlelight. At the end of the hallway, he turned onto a landing. His eyes, as always, were drawn straight ahead where a massive shield bore the King of England’s coat of arms. The large display served as Alec’s daily reminder that he was, indeed, living in King Edward’s palace in London — or at least a wealthy English merchant named Randolph Tweed was.
For several months now, Alec had been living under the alias of Randolph Tweed, spying on the English court by order of Abbot Matthew. But in all that time, King Edward had not actually been in residence. He had moved his household to York where he readied his army for war, bringing a six-month truce with Scotland soon to an end. In his absence, he had left his palace in London in the less than capable hands of a man named John Bigge. The keepership was John’s according to hereditary laws, but as keeper, he had done little to preserve courtly order. Rather, his salacious appetites had invited all manner of sinners to court. He had even tempted the monks in the adjacent abbey to partake in his unholy revelries. In fact, it was rumors of the monks’ debauchery that compelled the abbot to send one of his secret rebels to the palace in the first place, and it was no surprise that he assigned Alec to the task.
Of all the secret rebels in Scotland, Alec was particularly adept as a spy, owing to gifts that had both served and plagued him his entire life. In the simplest of terms, Alec possessed the Sight. He could feel what another person was feeling, and if he laid his hand on someone, he saw into their soul — their fears, pains, sorrows, and desires. When it served him to be charming, no one could resist him. He could sense a person’s response to him, guiding his word and deed. They invariably told him exactly what they needed to hear. Lies could never fool him. Detecting deception came as naturally to him as breathing. More than that, he had visions, dreams that revealed need or what loomed in the future — like his dream of the heartbroken lass on the bridge.
When he was not pretending to be someone else, he chose to isolate his thoughts, to buffer and block out the voices. Over the years, he had learned to erect walls around his senses, shielding his heart and mind from the continuous barrage of human emotion. As a result, most thought him cold-hearted … a hard man. And whether true or not, he did nothing to change their minds. He preferred to keep people at a distance. They were all too human, too quick to distrust and to assume the worst of themselves and others. The inner workings of another’s mind was seldom uplifting. Most of the time, it was like walking through a nightmare of despair, and the king’s palace was no different. The keeper had amassed a collection of companions with the vilest of hearts, bent only on baseless pleasures.
He knew not the hour as he approached the great hall, but he would be able to judge the time depending on how drunk the revelers were. He closed his eyes, steeling his strength against the assault of emotion as he pulled open the large double doors and walked headlong into the large room. Piercing laughter and battling voices echoed off the vaulted ceilings. Raucous men salivated after dancers who languidly moved among the tables, undulating their hips in layers of sheer silk. Barmaids busily skirted around the dancers, filling greedy fists with large tankards of ale at a speed that meant the night was still young.
He took a step forward just as one of the dancers twirled away from groping hands straight into Alec. Her hands splayed across his chest as she looked up to meet his eyes. Flashes of her life came unbidden to his mind; a little girl loved and treasured, a father lost at sea, a mother with no place to turn, a life torn asunder, a beautiful young woman alone..
“I’m sorry,” she said, a sensual smile curving her lips. But then her eyes narrowed on his, and her smiled vanished. She dropped her hands to her sides. “Randolph,” she said, surprise and trepidation lacing her voice.
He held her gaze, but revealed none of what he’d glimpsed of her. Nor did he acknowledge her distrust of him. The dancers and serving maids were all afraid of him. They had seen his black eyes and cool facade and assumed the worst of him. Rumors abounded of his cruel sexual appetites, although he had never taken any one of them to his bed. Still, he did naught to dispel the rumors as it kept them away. Eyes now wide, the dancer turned and darted away from him.
He cleared her from his thoughts, emptying his heart and mind, choosing numbness over the lust, greed, hunger, and fear, which pulsed through the room and fought to enter him. Only snatches of emotion made it past. But then an ache so soft and pure, cut through the rest, overtaking all his defenses. Pain accompanied by truth rang out, even in its gentleness, above the din of desperation. His eyes fell on a woman he had seen many times before. Her name was Diana. Her flaxen hair trailed the ground where she sat, and her green eyes shone with mirth and delight. She was an actress without equal. Those surrounding her, her many admirers, could never have guessed the pain she was in. Only Alec knew that which even she might not have known herself. She was dying. He could feel the struggle for life in her waning heartbeat, but something or someone was keeping her alive. He looked at the large, detestable man at her side and knew he was not the reason behind her strength.
“Randolph,” a voice called out.
Alec turned and locked eyes with the keeper. John’s thick black hair curled close to his scalp. He had just celebrated his fortieth year with all the pomp of a true royal despite the humbleness of his birth. He was neither lord nor knight, but he carried himself as though he were king. He raised his tankard as Alec approached. “Randolph, I’ve not seen you for days.” His small, brown eyes darted left then right before he continued in a quiet voice. “Have you any news?”
Alec, of course, knew what John sought. Unbeknownst to anyone, from the very beginning, Alec had been pitting John’s companions against one another, mostly merchants and some lesser nobles, inciting conflict among the ranks. Then he revealed the subsequent deceptions and misgivings to John, earning his unquestioned trust. In turn, John’s approval protected him from the others, that and his own stony demeanor.
“I’ve nothing to report,” Alec said, his face and voice impassive.
John nodded, then his eyes left Alec’s as one of the dancers enticed him with the gentle sway of her hips. The keeper grabbed her. Alec looked away. Hazy drunkenness blurred John’s emotions, but he had at least what he thought he wanted — a tankard in one hand and a woman on his lap who was not his wife. Alec resisted the urge to shake his head in disgust as John palmed the dancer’s breast. He turned and started to walk away. He had to get out of there.
“Will you not join us?” the keeper called.
Alec glanced back. “I’ve some business to take care of.”
“Some evening you must bring your business here so that we might meet her,” the keeper called after him, laughing.
With a cool nod, Alec turned away from John’s greed. Ignoring the stares as he passed through the revelers, he stepped out into the courtyard and welcomed the sting of icy wind. The city awaited him, and perhaps this night he would find what kept him in London — the lass from his dreams.
Chapter Three
Alec crossed the king’s bridge and dropped a coin into the waiting hand of the river man. Then he stepped into the long, short-sided boat, easily absorbing the choppy waves in his stance as he leisurely took his seat. The MacVie men had grown up in Berwick Upon Tweed, the former Scottish center for commerce and trade. Once upon a time, they had been sailors and dock laborers. But those days had become only distant memory.
Seven years ago, King Edward of England attacked the once prosperous Scottish port, mercilessly massacring thousands of its residents, men, women, and children, even clergy members had not been spared. Now, Berwick was a shadow of its former glory, becoming nothing more than a mil
itary post for Edward’s burgeoning forces. Alec had been within the city limits when Edward attacked and had witnessed the brutal slaughter with his own eyes. He had only narrowly escaped being one of the many lost souls to have been buried in one of the mass graves dug right into the city streets. The tortured cries of the dying came unbidden to his mind. He fought to silence the pain and death, which continued to haunt him every day of his life.
The black hood of the river man’s cloak hung low over his head, shielding his face from the icy wind that blasted down the river. Without once peering out from beneath the folds of black fabric, he rowed the skiff to the other side of the Thames. “This is my last trip until dawn,” he rasped, still not looking up. Alec could feel his fatigue, but more than that, indifferent to the world around him.
Alec tossed an extra coin at the man’s feet before silently pulling himself with ease onto the pier. Then without a backward glance, he walked to the end of the dock. The dirt roads and storehouses in front of him were shrouded in shadow. Soft, wet snowflakes floated down from the starless sky, settling on the hard ground at his feet. He breathed in the sharp, clean air and glanced about, not yet knowing where to start his search. For the past three nights, ever since he had first dreamed of the girl with haunting eyes, he had searched the city for the wrought iron bridge, but to no avail. This night he hoped would be different.
He turned about, looking down each path. Then the answer came to him. Something had compelled him down a narrow dirt road that hugged a long row of shabby clay and thatch huts facing the Thames. Wagons had cut deep grooves in the mud during the day, but when the sun set, inviting night’s chill, the mud froze, making the road uneven beneath his feet. He stopped short. A sense of urgency struck him. Then the flash of a sweet, young woman’s face came to the fore of his mind. Her brow was pinched with worry. About her shoulders hung a pink tattered shawl, and she stared at the door, willing it to open. A breath later, the vision was gone, but the urgency remained.