by Lisa Jackson
“Aye. So Gleda said. It’s written.”
“Where? On what?”
“That, I can’t tell you, except that now I have not one scrap of a doe hide map but two that apparently fit together, like pieces of a puzzle.”
“The map you had was not whole.” He nodded.
“So now you can help. Here!” She tossed him the shovel, as her muscles were already sore. As long as he was here, he may as well work. “You start digging.” She indicated the spot where she’d started making a hole in the earth. “And I’ll tell you what I learned.”
“Just like that?” he asked, driving the shovel deep into the soil. “You’re going to tell me everything? After leaving me in the forest?” Clearly he disbelieved her, and she didn’t blame him. But she’d been keeping too many secrets. Bryanna could stand it no more. Isa’s warning be damned; it was time she trusted someone, even a murderer and a thief.
She pulled her mantle tighter around her to ward off the cold. “I’m sick to my back teeth of lying and half-truths and riddles, and so I want you to be honest with me and so I shall be with you. Unless of course Isa tells me not to.”
“She’s here with you?” he asked skeptically. He tossed a shovelful of dirt to one side, then slammed the blade of Liam’s shovel into the ground again, slicing more dark wet loam. “She and her husband, Parnell was it?”
“Of course she’s not here, and no, she was never married, Cain,” she replied, emphasizing the false name he’d given her when they’d first met.
He snorted a laugh. “Fine, fine, so I admit it, I lied when we met, too. We’re even.”
“Doubtful,” she said dryly, and he chuckled again.
“So, Isa, is she meeting you?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Shrugging her shoulders, she looked away and cleared her throat. She wanted to be completely honest with him but found it difficult. Could she really admit that she was listening to a dead woman?
“So where is she?”
“Well . . .” She hesitated while he continued to dig. How exactly could she admit that Isa was talking to her from the grave? Nervously, she touched the amulet at her throat, the one she’d retrieved from Isa.
“I thought this was the time for the truth.”
“It’s kind of hard to believe,” she admitted, watching the mound of discarded earth grow.
“Try me.”
“Isa’s dead.”
He stopped shoveling. “Dead?”
“Oh, yes.”
Leaning against the handle of the shovel, he said, “You know, before I dig any more, why don’t you tell me exactly what it is you’re talking about?”
“I intend to. But don’t stop. You keep at it.” She motioned to the ever-deepening hole. “I’ll explain.”
“Then talk.”
And she did. From the beginning. As he threw shovelful after shovelful of soft loam onto the mossy grass and the pile grew, she told him of Isa’s death and of the strange conversations they’d shared. She explained about taking Isa’s things and setting out on her quest, of learning spells and chants and how to dig, dry, and use herbs. As he drove the shovel deeper into the earth, Bryanna reminded him of how they’d met and, later, about how Isa’s voice insisted she leave him in the forest. She told about the quest to save some child she’d never met, of the dagger and stones, of using the leather map and riding to Tarth, where she’d met Gleda.
Bryanna caught her breath and looked up at the glowing full moon as she relayed how Gleda had shared with her the secrets of her birth.
“. . . that is, if I can believe what Gleda said,” Bryanna confided as she walked closer to the fire. She picked up a dry, brittle stick, then banged it over her knee, the wood splintering and cracking.
“You don’t believe her?” Gavyn asked.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” She shook her head at the events that had brought her here to this place, with this man. “I find it difficult to think everything she said was true.”
“And do you not think it’s strange that she and her husband died on the very night that you met? A coincidence?”
“Worse than that, I think she might have known she might die.” She tossed the pieces of wood into the fire. Hungry flames crackled and burned around the new fuel and golden shadows danced against the rough bark of the surrounding trees.
“A premonition? That she would have an accident?” he asked, throwing his shoulders into his task.
“Or that someone would kill her.”
“Kill her? You mean on purpose? Murder her and her husband?” He flipped a thick scoop of dirt onto the ever-growing mound.
“Why else would she have left the second part of the map with me?”
“That’s how you got the second piece?” he asked, looking up.
“Yes, I was getting to that.” She added twigs to the fire and continued with her story as the flames grew ever brighter. “And so I stole the horse and some things from her home, then followed the map to here.”
Gavyn stopped digging to mop his brow with the back of his hand.
“ ’Tis quite a tale, Bryanna,” he admitted. “Some people would think you were daft.”
“And you?”
He smiled, a slash of white in the darkness. “No, I don’t think you’re mad, but it seems almost as if I’m in one of the old ghost stories that we shared as children. ’Twas always a challenge to come up with something darker and scarier, a tale that would frighten your friends, especially the littler ones. All this digging up coffins by the light of the moon.” He motioned to the starry sky. “’Tis a little dramatic, don’t you think, like the old woman did it just to scare you?”
“I know not why this all had to happen at night.”
“Near midnight, right?” he asked, and she nodded. “’Tis nothing more than sheep’s dung, a ghost tale.” He shrugged, “But, ’tis fine. Here we are. Why not dig for dead witches?” He looked up at her, his sarcastic grin needling her. “I guess we can be thankful ’tis a moonlit night.”
“Just dig.”
His smile widened. “I will, but not forever. Not just to prove you right. Soon, I should come upon a coffin. If I do, then we’ll know if Gleda was telling the truth.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Then I doubt, lady, that you are truly the new sorceress of Tarth.”
Bryanna didn’t know what to hope for.
Either her entire life had been a lie and she was the daughter of a witch or she was, indeed, mad, listening to dead women and old crones who wove legends with truth. She rubbed her arms. “If you would like a rest, I’ll dig for a while.”
“I think not.” Gavyn drove the shovel deep.
And hit something hard, which made a loud, clunking sound.
Bryanna’s head snapped up.
Her heart turned stone-cold.
“Got something,” Gavyn said, and gone was any trace of cockiness, his smile fading.
As Bryanna walked closer to the deep hole in the earth, he leaned into his task, digging the shovelfuls faster, his blade striking something solid time and time again. Each time she heard that thunk, Bryanna stiffened.
She peered into the dark hole, where Gavyn scraped away the remaining dirt with the side of the shovel. “ ’ Tis a box, all right,” he said.
He was right. In the pale moonlight she saw the outline of a long wooden box, probably a rotting pine coffin. Out of habit, she sketched the sign of the cross over her bosom, while quivering to her very soul.
“Dear God,” Bryanna whispered as she stared at the casket. The wind rushed around her as a solitary cloud, gauzy and fine, drifted across the moon.
“Looks like Gleda was right,” Gavyn said, and without waiting for any word from Bryanna, he reached into the hole and swiped off the remaining dirt with a hand. “Do you want to do the honors?” he asked once the broken, rotting pine box was exposed.
She shook her head. “Go ahead. Open it.”
“All right then.” He positioned the
blade of the shovel to lever off the lid of the coffin, and the soft decomposing wood gave way easily.
Bryanna, her mouth dry as sand, braced herself as she lay on the wet ground and leaned over the edge of the grave, her arms dangling into the wet hole. She wrapped her fingers around the soft wood, and as Gavyn leaned on the handle of the shovel, helped him pry the cover off the casket.
With a loud, unworldly groan, the wood gave way.
The lid fell to one side.
The casket and its contents were exposed.
What Bryanna saw caused her heart to stop and a scream to die on her lips.
Lying in the box, black eye sockets gaping, was a skeleton, the bones of Kambria of Tarth, the barest scraps of rotting cloth visible.
But the dead woman wasn’t alone.
Cradled in her fleshless arms was a tiny separate set of bones, the perfectly formed skeleton of a baby.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“’Tis my sister,” Bryanna said, certain the baby cradled so carefully in the dead woman’s arms had to be Lenore’s missing child, the infant that had been switched.
“Lenore and Alwynn’s child.”
“Yes,” she whispered, a lump in her throat so large she could barely breathe.
“So the legacy, Gleda’s tale, is true. Or parts of it.”
“Mayhap all of it.” She sat back on her heels and looked up at the moon riding high in the sky, its watery illumination shining over the land.
“There is something more.”
“More?” she asked.
Gavyn was staring at the woman and child. “See there? Look.” The serious tone of his voice gave her pause. New trepidation assailed her as she eased over the rim of the hole again and peered into the darkness.
She saw the smallest glitter, like a bit of glass catching light, within the casket, about midway inside, between the dead woman’s hip bones.
The back of her scalp crinkled in revulsion. “What is it?” she asked, but in her heart she knew. It was a stone. One of the gems for the dagger. Shimmering pearlescent and bright.
Part of the legend ran through her mind.
An opal for the northern point . . .
“’Tis the opal, is it not?”
“Let’s see.”
Bryanna felt her legs go weak as he reached between the bones. She looked away, fearing she might be sick. “Someone hid it in the casket with her,” she said, as if that were a plausible excuse.
“I don’t think so.”
Oh, God! He was right. Why would someone hide it there rather than steal it? And its position . . .
Again bile climbed up her throat as she thought of what Kambria had endured, what she had done to save her child, to save Bryanna. Her voice was a whisper when she said, “Isa . . . Isa said that there were two items. . . . One would be the stone, and the other must be the child. . . .”
“We’ll see . . . ,” he said and reached farther into the casket, his fingers pushing aside the bones to retrieve the small stone.
Bryanna cringed, feeling that Kambria and the infant were being violated all over again. She knew the disturbance was necessary. For the love of God, that was why she’d come here, to locate the first gem to place inside the dagger. And yet, it still seemed wrong.
The moon rose even higher, giving off more light, until the night seemed a blue, filmy day. Bryanna held her breath as Gavyn rose from the grave holding the shining opal and handed the gem to her. Oval-shaped, it looked perfect in the silvery light, a smaller, elongated version of the moon itself.
“There is something else,” he said, and again disappeared into the pit. Still feeling ill, Bryanna poised at the graveside and peered in with ever more trepidation.
She knew where his fingers were burrowing and gagged as he retrieved what looked like a dark twig.
“Morrigu, Mother Goddess,” she whispered as the truth was evident to them both. “The stone and this . . . These items were not intentionally buried with her,” she said. “No friend or ally left them with her.”
He looked up at her and shook his head.
“They were hidden within her. Deep in her body.” Bryanna shuddered as she realized that Kambria was so desperate to keep her secret that she had hidden the jewel and the twiggish thing inside her, pressing them deep within her womb.
“Aye,” he agreed solemnly. “She must have known she would die soon.”
“So what is that? What did you find with the stone?” She motioned to the item in his hand.
“It looks like a piece of rolled leather.”
“Another part of the map.” Bryanna met his eyes in the moonlight. “The two things Isa told me about. The opal and the map.”
She glanced down at the skeletal mother and the bones of a baby who’d been born by another woman. Buried together. Forever bound. She felt herself pale. This could not be the babe Isa had mentioned. “Isa never mentioned that we’d find the baby here.”
“Maybe she didn’t know. Let’s see if there is anything else.” As Bryanna fingered the stone and bit of rolled leather, he searched the rest of the coffin, carefully examining around and beneath and inside the bones. Finally, he shook his head and straightened, his eyes just inches below hers. “There is nothing more here.”
“Then we must bury her again, along with the child.” Bryanna whispered a quick prayer. “Now they can finally rest in peace.”
“I would hope.”
Together they replaced the lid on the coffin. As Gavyn shoveled earth over the casket, Bryanna said another prayer to any god or goddess that would listen.
The opal winked knowingly in the moonlight, while the brittle piece of leather was lifeless and drawn. She walked to the fire, opened her pouch, and removed some of the beeswax. She worked the wax into the old stiff leather, softening it, massaging it, making it more pliable. Bryanna didn’t want to think about Kambria’s despair or her fear. What would it take to force this piece of leather up inside the very essence of one’s womanhood, to hide it there with a valuable stone? And the baby. Gleda had said the poor child had died a natural death; mayhap Alwynn had hoped that Kambria could use her powers to save the little girl, even heal her. Perhaps Alwynn had been the one to bury the baby beside her.
“No power is strong enough for that,” she said aloud, stretching the deer hide slowly over a rock, smoothing it each time it began to roll up again.
“What?” Gavyn was tossing the final shovelfuls of dirt onto the grave, tamping down the soft earth.
“I was just thinking about Kambria,” she said, grimacing as she tried to force the leather to flatten.
“About why, if she was such a great sorceress, she couldn’t save herself?”
“Aye.”
“Some things can’t be explained,” he said. “Like talking to a dead woman or dreaming of someone you haven’t yet met.”
“You know of my dreams?” she asked, confused.
He sat on a rock next to her and watched as she worked the leather, her fingers stretching and moistening the deer hide. “Nay, Bryanna,” he admitted. “I only know of my own. So where is the dagger?” She looked up from her work. “Let me do this. You put the stone where it belongs.”
He took over for her, pressing his thumbs into the leather as she unwrapped the dagger. “An opal for the northern point,” she said and carefully rotated the stone over the top hole in the dagger. As the opal clicked into place, she felt a sensation ripple through her fingers and run up her arm, warming her from the inside out. A flash of light sizzled upon the hilt of the dagger and the stone was suddenly affixed firmly in its position.
“By the gods,” Gavyn whispered. “It’s set.”
“As if it had always been imbedded in the handle,” she said. The old dagger seemed to shine now, the opal glowing pink and pale blue, though she was certain it was a trick of moonlight.
Gavyn’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe in magick.”
She handed the knife to him and he tried to wiggle the gem from i
ts place on the knife’s hilt, but it was solid. Gavyn shook his head slowly back and forth, then handed the knife to her.
“You might have to change your mind about your beliefs,” she said.
“Humph.” His brow still furrowed, he handed her the ragged piece of doeskin. “Mayhap we should look at this and try to understand it. Kambria went to great lengths to hide it.”
By the firelight they placed the three pieces on a long, flat rock, turning them and twisting them until their jagged edges meshed and the etchings made some kind of sense. “This is the way it goes,” Gavyn said, studying the symbols and weird hieroglyphics. He ran a finger from the spot that indicated Kambria’s grave to the edge of one portion, where, again, it looked as if the doe hide had been etched. “East,” he said, eyeing the surrounding hills. He glanced up at the sky, then nodded toward the steepest cliffs. “That way.”
Bryanna followed his gaze to the dark craggy hillsides covered in trees.
“An opal for the northern point, an emerald for the east . . . Tomorrow, I’ll head in that direction,” she said.
“And I’ll come with you.”
“Will you?” she asked, not certain that he should join her. As much as she missed him when he was gone, as much as she wanted his company, she was not sure he should be a part of her quest.
“Won’t you need a hunter, and a tracker, and a grave digger, and a bodyguard?”
She nearly laughed. “A bodyguard with a price upon his head, riding a stolen horse that belongs to a nobleman. Is that what I need?”
“Aye,” he said with a nod. “I think you do.”
“And what about the rest?” she asked, still sore enough to be reminded of their lovemaking.
“The rest?” His words sounded innocent, but his eyes glinted in the moonlight.
“Between us. You know.” The bastard! He was going to make her say it. “What happened last night . . . between us. What about that?”
“Since you think I was too rough with you, mayhap we should wait.”
“How long?”
“That, m’lady, is up to you. I am always ready.”
Cursed man! Was he laughing at her? His quicksilver eyes gleamed in the moonlight.