A Warrior's Taking

by Margo Maguire

  “Why was he sad, Miss Granger?” Jane asked.

  “Be quiet, Jane,” Margaret admonished, “and listen.”

  “The yeoman was tall and handsome, and he lived in a beautiful land, with tall cliffs and fells to hike in.”

  “Just like Ravenfield!”

  Margaret jabbed her sister with her elbow to quiet her, but she was right. Sarah often made Ravenfield the setting of her tales. She’d never seen the castle before taking her post as governess here, yet it had been a part of nearly every one of Sarah’s earliest dreams. She could not explain it, nor did she try. Somehow, Ravenfield’s castle had always been a part of her, and when Captain Barstow had brought her here, she’d known she was home.

  “The yeoman, whose name was Robert, was lonely,” Sarah continued. “There was no young lady in all the kingdom who would have him for her husband.”

  “Why?”

  “Because a powerful witch had put an evil spell on him when he was born. Because of it, he was unable to speak.”

  Sarah enjoyed inventing amusing tales for the girls, and answering their inevitable questions about the characters or the plot. Every story was greatly enriched by the girls’ contributions, and tonight was no exception. Their embellishments kept Sarah’s attention fixed on the tale, and not on Mr. Locke’s company in the drawing room.

  He’d sat on the sofa between Margaret and Jane, and when Sarah had dared a glance in his direction, he’d seemed entranced by her music. It gave Sarah pleasure to know she had done well, performing for a man who seemed to have the resources to have heard the best musicians in the country.

  Yet she’d felt unnerved at the same time. His scrutiny had been intense, and Sarah had almost been able to feel him touching her skin…the back of her neck, her upper arms. She knew it was not rational, but the feeling had been strong, nonetheless, and not as unpleasant as such contact had been in the past. He was no cloying lecher who felt he had a right to touch her or speak indecently to her. He did not amuse himself with embarrassing her.

  Sarah drew out the tale of the mute yeoman, adding as many interesting elements as she could imagine. “There was a beautiful fairy princess whom the yeoman loved, but she took no notice of him because he could not speak.”

  Sarah wove the tale, capturing the children’s fancy, until she stranded the fairy princess in a giant’s lair.

  “What was her name, Miss Granger?”

  “Adriella. And the poor thing could not escape.”

  “Was the giant huge and fierce?”

  “Of course,” Sarah said. “But he had a very surprising wit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He enjoyed a good jest. He took her down into the cave on Robert’s land, and guarded the entrance so that Adriella could not get out.”

  “Did Robert come and save her?”

  “Not right away. The giant told Adriella that he would give her one question every day for three days. If she could answer all three correctly, he would let her go on the third day.”

  “Did she know the answers?”

  “No. For they were questions about men’s crafts. Carpentry, smithing, and weaponry. Adriella nearly despaired.”

  “Then did Robert come and save her?”

  Sarah nodded. “He tried. But the fierce old giant caught him, too.”

  The girls’ eyes grew large and round then, worried about their hero and heroine. “The giant knew that Robert could not speak, so he had no doubt the two would become his supper on the third day. With supreme confidence, the giant promised to go away forever if Adriella managed to answer all three questions.

  “The giant asked the first one, and when neither Adriella nor Robert could answer, he laughed and settled himself down for a nap. Then Robert took up a sharp rock and carved the answer into the rock wall. When the giant woke up, Adriella gave him the correct answer.”

  Sarah repeated the same process with the next two questions, and Robert and the princess were soon freed.

  Happy with the ending, Margaret started to complete the story the way Sarah had done so many times before. “The princess was so grateful to Robert that she gave him the tin Luck—”

  “And told him,” added Jane, “that if he kept it safe for all time, the luck of the fairies would stay with him.”

  “No!” Sarah laughed, pleased to be able to give them an end that they had not been able to predict. “She removed the spell that kept Robert from being able to speak, then flew away to the land of fairies. Robert found himself a wife and was able to tell her with words that he loved her. They lived happily ever after in the land of cliffs and caves!”

  “So the circles and dots on our castle walls are the ones Robert made?”

  “Of course,” said Sarah. “Someone had to have drawn them.”

  When the house was quiet, Brogan slipped out and went to the castle. He looked for the torch he’d left inside the mouth of the first cave, but it was not in the sconce where he’d left it.

  He considered whether one of the children might have taken it, but knew it was unlikely. The sconce was well above their heads, so they could never have reached it. He didn’t think either Sarah or Maud had come down here…

  Brogan had seen no sign of any Odhar, yet who else would have an interest in these caves? Who else might have taken the torch? He stepped inside and lit a match, holding it high. In the faint light, he saw the torch, lying near the opening to the next cave. He dropped his match, then lit the flare, looking for signs of an intruder.

  At the sound of stealthy movement in the next chamber, Brogan prepared to attack. If Eilinora or one of her sorcerers was inside, Brogan had trapped them. Their only escape would be through the hole in the lowest cave. They might not yet know about it, for the passage to it was extremely narrow.

  Moving silently, he gathered the energy he needed to vanquish the witch, then stepped into the next cavern, tossing the torch to the floor in front of him. He lifted one hand, prepared to shoot a killing bolt at the intruder, but stopped short when he heard a pathetic whimper nearby.

  Brogan faced no Odhar, but a small Tuath man. He was unkempt, with filthy clothes and a week’s growth of whiskers on his chin. He had only a few blackened teeth in his mouth…and Margaret was correct. He drooled.

  “Andy Ferris?” Brogan asked, lowering his hand.

  Quivering in fear, the man nodded. “Andy Ferris. Andy Ferris.”

  Sighing, Brogan lifted the torch and beckoned to him. “Come on. You doona belong in here.”

  “Sleep. Sleepy.”

  “Aye,” Brogan said, disgusted with himself for frightening such a pitiful creature. He hadn’t really understood Sarah’s talk about the simpleminded one, for there were no such beings on Coruain. “Come. The barn is a better place for you.”

  Ferris was still frightened and refused to move, pointing to the next cave and speaking gibberish.

  “What is it?”

  He made jerking movements with his hands and legs, shifting back and forth. “Do you understand me, man? ’Tis time to come out.”

  “Buh…buh…buh…” He began to weep, pointing into the deeper cave.

  “What is it?” Giving Ferris a wide berth, Brogan walked ’round him to enter the next cave. He raised the torch high and looked for signs of anything frightening, but saw naught. “Come and—”

  He stopped abruptly. On the floor of the cave was the shape of a cat, its ashes in a perfect silhouette of the creature it had once been. The animal had been killed instantly, scorched by a powerful surge of heat. Only a few tufts of brown fur remained.

  Brogan swore under his breath. He wondered whether Ferris had seen Eilinora, or if the mere sight of Jane’s dead cat was all that had frightened him. And what had Eilinora found? Had Ferris’s arrival forced her away from the cave before she could complete her search?

  Brogan had a talent for hunting magic, but when he engaged in the search, his perceptual abilities became dangerously diminished. He might not see or hear someo
ne approaching, making him vulnerable to attack.

  He decided to risk it. Without leaving a trace of magic for any other sorcerer to find, he would be able to sense any magic that had recently been used in the vicinity, and if had not been too long ago, he could track down its source.

  As he shifted his attention from the physical world, everything took on a shadowy form. Brogan opened his senses and looked for the yellow sparks of magic, the sure sign that Druzai power had been used nearby.

  He saw a few fading sparkles over the cat’s ashes, and noticed the familiar tangy scent of magic. Yet he saw no signs that Eilinora had used her power to search the walls of the cave. There was no indication that the walls had been disturbed in any way. She hadn’t found the stone, at least not down there.

  Stepping carefully, he walked out of the cave and searched the vicinity outside for a trail of sparks. He doubted Eilinora would stay near, fairly certain she would not want to be exposed before finding the brìgha-stone. She wouldn’t want to bring any Druzai attention upon herself before she possessed the additional power she needed to defeat Brogan and Merrick.

  Yet Jane’s cat must have startled her. As would Ferris’s appearance in the cave. She’d acted rashly, defending herself with Druzai power, thereby drawing Brogan’s notice. But the sparks were dissipating even now, and Brogan could not see any beyond the garden. ’Twas strange. There should have been a clear trail of her retreat, but Eilinora had somehow managed to mask it.

  Puzzled, he let his vision return to normal, then went to the shed for the shovel he’d used before. Though Jane was unlikely to enter the cave and see her cat’s remains, Brogan could not leave them for anyone else to find.

  He dealt with the ashes, then took a trembling Ferris by the arm and led him to the barn. “Here you are,” Brogan said, as though he had any right to settle the man into any part of Ravenfield. “Stay away from the caves.”

  Ferris wasn’t likely to go back there after his fright. He must have walked into the cave just as Eilinora blasted Jane’s cat, and Brogan wondered why she hadn’t killed the man, too. ’Twas exactly the kind of mischief the Odhar would commit solely to torment the Tuath, just for their own amusement. Mayhap Eilinora had not realized Ferris’s reduced mental capacity and hoped he would tell “strange” tales to incite panic among his peers.

  He doubted she would want to risk an outright confrontation, at least not until she had possession of the blood stone. For she could not be sure there wasn’t a whole army of Druzai warriors just waiting to stop them.

  Brogan jammed his fingers through his hair and wished Merrick had not decided that the two of them should recover the stones quietly and alone.

  “Colm!” he whispered, heading to the fountain.

  “M’lord, something…I feel something amiss.”

  “How do you mean?” Brogan asked.

  The dragheen’s demeanor showed subtle signs of distress. “I canna say. I saw naught, but I feel…” Slowly, he moved his hands to his stomach and hugged his body. “Something is verra wrong.”

  “Aye,” said Brogan. “The Odhar were here. Mayhap Eilinora herself.”

  Colm groaned. “I saw naught.”

  “But you felt it.”

  “Aye. And something more…I canna say what, but ’tis disturbing.”

  “She must not realize you are here, else she’d have immobilized you as she did my father’s guardians,” said Brogan. The royal dragheen should have been able to warn Kieran of a coming attack, but the Odhar had rendered them useless. “Take care that you do not give yourself away, Colm.”

  Brogan had a feeling he knew where he would find Eilinora, or at least one of her minions. Doubtful that she would bother the Ravenfield household again this night, he headed up the path toward Margaret’s tree. His normal vision was better than most, and the moon was bright, so he moved quickly and quietly through the yard and up the steep path.

  Following the directions given earlier, he found Corrington House easily, for there were lights blazing in all the windows on the main floor.

  As Brogan approached, he heard Tuath music and convivial voices through the many panes of glass. He climbed onto a lower branch of a nearby tree and glanced through the windows, looking for anyone who fit Margaret’s description of the stranger.

  Two well-dressed women sat at a pianoforte, but their music did not come out half as well as Sarah’s. A third young lady stood alongside two gentlemen nearby, her dark hair a sharp contrast to theirs. Both men were fair-haired and reasonably good-looking, and Brogan could not determine which was the squire.

  He eyed the two men and wondered which was the one who had captured Sarah’s affections.

  They were soft, pampered men, dressed in fine suits of clothes, but neither one wore gray. The first was a bit taller than the second, who wore a heavy, jeweled ring on his hand. Neither appeared full-blooded enough to satisfy a woman’s needs…a woman like Sarah.

  There was no indication to tell him which man was Crowell, and which was the visitor. But Brogan was prepared to dislike the former, whoever he was.

  He knew it was not sensible. His world was entirely separate from this one, and as soon as he found the blood stone, he would leave. At that time, he intended to alter the entailment of Ravenfield so that Sarah and the children would be free to stay, but he could not make Squire Crowell fall in love with her.

  Nor did he particularly want to do so. There had to be a better man for her.

  Deriding himself for losing his concentration, Brogan turned his full attention to the house. There was no outward sign of any Odhar presence, but he wanted to be certain.

  Shifting his perceptions once again, he shuttered his awareness of the physical world, impeding his ability to see any physical objects in the area. The sheep in the hills, the trees, the ground beneath his feet, the house and all within…everything became filmy, ghostly images as he concentrated on locating even the slightest residue of magic.

  Brogan hoped that if the Odhar who’d killed Jane’s cat was here, there would be at least a few residual sparks. He hoped they had not seen any need to hide their presence so far from Ravenfield.

  Extending his hands in front of him, he opened up his senses, allowing streams of his awareness to flow from his body. He searched for the bright sparks and the peculiar tang in the air that would indicate the recent use of magic. Beams of light streamed from him, invisible to anyone but another Druzai hunter.

  He sensed the exterior walls of the building and listened to the voices of those inside, talking and laughing together. Using all his perceptive senses, he perused the gardens for the yellow sparks, but saw none, nor did he did smell any magic in the air. If Crowell’s visitor was Odhar, he had not performed any sorcery here.

  Or he had somehow concealed his trail.

  Pulling out of his hunting form, Brogan shook his head to restore his vision just as a door crashed open. He heard barking dogs as they spilled out of the back of the house, panting as they ran toward him. Fast.

  With only a moment before they would be upon him, Brogan had no time to run, no time for prudence. There was no choice but to vanish and hope that none of the men or women in the house was Odhar. He moved quickly, bringing together his sorcerer’s will and his fae power. A second later the dogs were upon him.

  But Brogan was gone.

  Though he had not moved, the dogs could not see or smell him, nor could the servants who’d followed close behind. The animals caught whatever scent Brogan had left behind and sniffed the ground, frantically searching for their prey.

  They were unsuccessful. Brogan hoped there were no Odhar hunters nearby to see the sparks of his own magic.

  A window flew open and one of the two fair-haired men leaned out. “What is it, Gray?” Brogan looked up at him. Taking note of his weak chin and pasty skin, he decided this one must be Crowell.

  “Naught, my lord. The dogs just caught a whiff of something.”

  “What did they find?”
r />   “Naught, sir. They’ll settle down now.”

  The house had been quiet for well over an hour, but Sarah could not sleep. She lit a lamp, pulled a wrapper over her nightgown, and went down to the library for something to read.

  She assumed Mr. Locke had retired for the night, and that opinion was confirmed by his closed door and the lack of light underneath it.

  In Sarah’s opinion, the library was the most comfortable, coziest room in the house. With heavy, book-laden shelves built into the walls, it also had one large, overstuffed chair, and a lamp beside it to provide plenty of light for reading. On cold days, she and the girls liked to light a fire and sit together in the big chair, reading from one of the tomes that had been in their family for years.

  There were books of every kind in Captain Barstow’s library, subjects ranging from botany to history, as well as works of poetry and fiction. Sarah was filled with sadness when she realized that all these books would come into Mr. Ridley’s possession when he took control of Ravenfield. The girls would have no claim to them.

  She took out one of her favorite volumes and considered what she could do to remedy the situation. Mr. Ridley could not possibly know how many books were in the library. Sarah might choose a few—just the ones she thought would be most treasured by Margaret and Jane—and see to it that they went with the girls when they left Ravenfield.

  Sarah wiped her palms on her gown, shocked that she would even consider stealing from the new master of Ravenfield. The man had not even arrived, yet she was jumping to conclusions and considering taking his property like a common thief. What if her crime were discovered and she was hauled up before the magistrate and—

  “You are up late.”

  She whirled around to the sound of Mr. Locke’s voice, and let out a sharp cry.

  “You startled me, sir!” she said, lowering her voice. “I did not hear you!”

  “I apologize. I did not mean to frighten you.” In spite of his good intentions, he looked savage, like a jungle beast on the prowl, yet somehow out of its element. He was not merely the intense music lover who’d sat on the drawing room sofa a while ago. He was entirely too dangerous for her peace of mind.