My True Love

by Karen Ranney

  Now, now, now, now, now. A sound, a movement, a beat.

  He smothered her keening cry with a deep kiss.

  Anne sat in the curve of his arms, leaning against his chest. He leaned his head against the trunk of a venerable tree, smiling softly. His eyes were closed, evidently too great a temptation for her. She leaned over and dusted a kiss on each eyelid.

  His smile grew broader.

  “Your feet are very large,” she said, as she settled back into position. “But so are mine.” He wiggled his toes, and she giggled. It was the first time she’d ever done so, and he was delighted by the sound.

  Her touch on his big toe made him squinch it up, curl his foot.

  “Are you ticklish?”

  He yelped as she dragged one nail across his arch. He opened his eyes and pulled his foot away, protection against her tickling touch.

  Stephen then reached out and trailed fingers along her jaw. He’d thought her lovely but had never considered how beautiful she was, with her eyes shining defiantly and a pink color to her cheeks. Her chin ended in a soft square, as if shielding her stubbornness in beauty.

  She sat beside him, tucked and laced, while he had yet to finish dressing. The truth of the matter was that he was so pleasantly weary at the moment that the effort was beyond him.

  He closed his eyes again, drifting into a soporific state of relaxation.

  “I knew I would love you,” she said softly. “But I did not expect to like you so very much.”

  He opened one eye.

  “Why should you not like me?”

  “You’re occasionally very fierce,” she said, smiling at him.

  “You’ve never appeared to be restrained by my ferocity,” he said carefully.

  “I was being brave,” she said. “It’s a Sinclair trait. We’re exceptionally courageous.”

  “And unpretentious,” he added before shutting his eyes again.

  She laughed. “My father has enough pride to fill all of England.”

  “You might have mentioned that Dunniwerth was so large.” He opened his eyes. “Or that he was an earl.”

  “Did you think me a poor laird’s daughter?”

  “It might be better that you are an heiress. I’ve just purchased land from your father. I think he tried to beggar me.”

  Her smile grew brighter, and her eyes appeared to sparkle at him.

  “You have?”

  “For a king’s ransom. It is, he assures me, a perfect place to build a fortress.”

  “My father thinks Dunniwerth is beautiful. I would not let him overly influence you,” she said, smiling.

  She settled against him.

  “Not once did I think you were interested in my fortune,” he said.

  “It was not chief among my interests,” she admitted.

  “My mind, perhaps? My ability to translate Latin?”

  “Your ability with a sword,” she said demurely, but with such a wicked gleam in her eyes that he fell back against the tree laughing.

  “I love the way you laugh,” she said.

  “I’ve not had much chance to do a lot of it,” he confessed. “After my father died, I spent too much time in London, trying to maintain my inheritance.”

  “Did you?”

  He smiled. “I did. Only to find myself nearly taxed to the death for it.”

  “What will we do with this land of yours?”

  “Build our home,” he said. “Something to last as long as Langlinais.”

  “Something even more beautiful,” she said.

  The words spun a web around them, made the moment perfect in its simplicity.

  He brushed her smile away with the edge of a forefinger, bent to kiss her again.

  “Ego te amo,” he said softly. “I love you.” He doubted she heard him. Because at the exact moment, Anne Sinclair of Dunniwerth was saying the same words back to him. A coincidence of speech. An accident of timing.

  Or perhaps the hand of fate again, opening their hearts.

  Epilogue

  Stephen.

  A call. A cry so loud that it stopped him in midstride.

  Stephen scrambled out of the earthworks. It was the beginning of the foundations for their grand castle, Sperare. Even now the name was being transformed into something unintelligible by those who spoke only Gaelic.

  The castle would take years to complete, but in his mind he saw it soar to the sky. Only he and Anne knew that it would closely resemble Langlinais. Nor would any casual visitor realize that there was a special strong room, one that contained a treasure of history if nothing else. Juliana’s chronicles would rest there, held in trust for generations.

  Douglas called out a greeting as Stephen stood and looked toward the island. The boy had been returned to Dunniwerth six months ago. A peddler had taken pity on Douglas and brought him home, but the journey had been delayed by the necessity of avoiding English troops. Now he spent his time in the foundations, doing errands and carrying dirt, as they all did.

  While it was true Stephen’s father-in-law never lost an opportunity to comment on the lack of fortification of their new home, they had become wary friends. But there was one person who would never come to Sperare. Ian Sinclair did not want to witness any of their new lives here.

  Stephen.

  They made their home on the island while Sperare was being built. Today Anne had remained behind in order to tidy up the graves in the clearing. The weeds were high and nearly obscured the stones. He’d made a promise to himself to investigate the small, round building when he had time. But other occupations, that of being a husband and a builder, had taken precedence.

  Stephen.

  He raced down to the shore and into the boat tied there. His land was directly opposite the lake from Dunniwerth and equally distant from the island.

  He said a prayer that Anne had not hurt herself, that one of the stones had not toppled onto her. Had an intruder slipped past his own defenses or that of Dunniwerth’s and come to the island? Or had Anne burned herself again trying to bake bread? A hundred such fervent questions flew through his mind. He rowed to the island faster than he’d ever made the journey.

  He could not dismiss the feeling or think that it was only that he had not seen her all day and she was in his thoughts. He felt her in his mind and knew that she called to him.

  He didn’t bother tying the boat, only stepped from it and raced to the clearing. Anne stood still in the middle of it. When she saw him, she smiled.

  She looked neither injured nor in pain.

  Seconds later, he was in front of her, his hands on her waist, then her shoulders. He touched her everywhere, all the while asking questions that she could not answer for the swiftness of them.

  She laughed. “I am fine, Stephen,” she said. “I wondered if you’d hear me.”

  “Was this a test, Anne?” He was to be excused, perhaps, for the fact that the question was shouted. He was more than furious. She might have needed him, and a lake had separated them. It had taken too many minutes to reach her. Moments in which he’d felt only a sick dread.

  Her soft smile did little to diffuse his anger.

  “No, Stephen.” She placed her hand on his arm, stood on tiptoe to place a calming kiss on his cheek. “No, my darling Stephen. But only the strangest and most wonderful thing.”

  She stood back, gripped his hand, and pulled him with her. They entered the ruin of the circular building. There was no roof on the building, and as at Langlinais, the timbers that had once supported it had long ago rotted and fallen to the floor.

  Overgrown with weeds and saplings, the building nevertheless maintained an aura of almost holy beauty, especially where the shadows merged to mimic archways, and a tall tree, fully leafed, appeared almost like a roof. Grass sprouted in the mortar between the stones. Flowers grew against the bricks, and vines used the altar as support.

  The silence was complete, as if nature word lessly communed with God in a place mortals had deserted.

&nbs
p; “Why did you bring me here, Anne?”

  “Even before Hannah lived here,” she said, “there were rumors that the island had been a forbidden place. I asked Gordon once why it was so.” She put her arm through his. There was a look of excitement on her face. “He said that it was because of the brothers who had lived here.”

  She smiled at him.

  “I’ll tell you the story the way Gordon told it to me. Once there was a brave Sinclair,” she began, “but then they were all brave. This one fought with Robert the Bruce, and a more tireless fighter was never seen.” He wondered if she knew that her voice had settled into a cadence, a soft, enthralling burr. “After the land was settled, he came home to Dunniwerth with his new bride, a sweet lass by the name of Honora. She was a cousin to the great king himself, but there was love between them, all the same.

  “One day, the lass took ill, and despite all the healers and the wives of the clan, it looked as if she might die of her fever. The Sinclair was beside himself with grief. He prayed that his young wife might be saved and promised God any gift if He would make it true. That night a man came to the door of Dunniwerth. He told the Sinclair that he could cure his dying wife. The Sinclair watched carefully as the man tended his sweet bride. She was not only cured, but out of her bed a week later.”

  She began to rub his arm with her hand. She did that often, seek a way to touch him, as if she could not believe he was real. The sunlight filtered through the trees and sought her out, giving her a radiance that was oddly fitting. He wondered if she knew how precious she was to him.

  Or how effortlessly she could coax him from anger.

  “The man had many brothers, and they were seeking a place where they might live in peace. The Sinclair, mindful of his promise, gave him the island in reward and sent him the stone in order to build a chapel. They never married but lived here in safety until the last of them died in his old age.” She glanced up at him. “I thought it a sad story, but I never told Gordon so.”

  He agreed, still not understanding why she’d called to him. He looked about him. Stone carvings such as these took years, a labor of love and obvious talent. There were four stone pillars in the deserted structure, each of them carved with trailing vines that then led to an inside wall. In each corner was a detailed carving of the face of a young man, his eyes closed as if in reverential prayer.

  He turned, and Anne was smiling at him. Her fingers reached out to trace a series of lines cut into the stone. Inset into the walls at spaced intervals were deep cuts, each carving the outline of a sword. Behind the sword was a square, and intersecting the middle of the sword a crossbar, so that it appeared both a sword and cross.

  “Stephen, do you remember Juliana’s glyphs?”

  He nodded.

  “I thought I knew the man in one of them.” She shook her head. “It’s why I drew him over and over. But it wasn’t the man I knew, but his shield. I recognized it. Look.” She continued to trace the line of the carvings with her fingers. “They’re the same,” she said.

  “The cross of the Knights Templar,” he said softly, recognizing it.

  He turned and followed the line of ivy. It stretched along the top of the wall until it ended at the altar. Chiseled into each end of the long stone structure were two figures, each of a winged man bearing an elaborately carved chest on his back.

  Anne followed him, her voice a whisper. “The brothers were knights, weren’t they?”

  “It would fit into your story. It was rumored that Scotland was the one country where they could find refuge.”

  “And the island would be a perfect hiding place for them,” she whispered.

  He came to the altar, where the ivy trailed to circle another cross. This one was carved from a square block set into the body of the altar, the raised design of it deeper than the other emblems. But that was not the only difference. There were groove marks outside the cross, equally spaced around it. Like sunbeams might appear. Not unlike the glyph Juliana had drawn.

  “Anne, have you ever noticed this cross?” He knelt before it, both hands outstretched to trace the design.

  She knelt beside him.

  “Is there something special about this one?”

  “Look how deeply it’s cut.” He pressed against the corners of the stone.

  She watched him intently.

  “Do you think it’s a hiding place?”

  Just then the stone moved reluctantly below his hand. A plume of dust escaped as Stephen pressed harder on the right corner. The stone turned slowly, grating against its base. A small peg worked as a fulcrum, revealing a hollow space behind the carved stone.

  They each looked at the other, the moment silenced by both anticipation and a trickle of fear.

  Stephen reached inside. His fingers encountered a gauzy material that he hoped fervently was not the fleshy relic of some obscure saint. As he pulled it from its hiding place, it disintegrated in his hands. Cloth, a tunic, bearing the distinctive red cross of the officers of the Templars. But that was not the only object in the small cavern. He bent and looked inside, his breath halted by what he saw.

  He stretched both hands inside and slowly pulled out the coffer. In carving it was the equal of the one that shielded Juliana’s codex. But it began to crumble in his hands.

  Anne traced her fingers over the rotted wood, their gaze meeting as their hands did.

  He raised the lid slowly, realizing that he was not startled by the contents. He heard Anne gasp as he lifted it from the chest. The Langlinais grail. Sebastian’s grand ruse. The knights had evidently never learned of the deception, had venerated it as a treasure, carried it to this safe place, where it had lain undiscovered for three hundred years.

  To be found by a man of Langlinais.

  The coincidence of it was staggering. He saw the same thought in Anne’s eyes.

  Her hands were trembling as she reached out and took the grail. He watched her as she studied it, turned it to find the light. It sparkled like a jewel, the damp air that had been so damaging to the cloth and to the wooden coffer had no effect on gold. Or on the small wooden cup that rested inside the reliquary.

  Men had been willing to kill for such a relic. They had counted it among their most precious of possessions and built a structure to house it. An act that might well have been viewed by some as steeped in piety.

  He stood and pulled Anne up with him. It had not been the structure of Langlinais or Harrington Court that had been important to him, but what the buildings had sheltered. The sounds of laughter, the expressions of life. The emotions of all the generations that had gone before.

  He’d not felt the sharp grief over the loss of his heritage that he’d anticipated. A connection to Langlinais was there in Anne’s drawings, in her visions, the words of Juliana’s chronicle. And now, strangely, in this grail.

  Anne smiled up at him, her eyes luminous. Not with tears but with joy. Another bridge between them. That they could love so deeply and so well.

  He had the sudden thought that they’d missed it all along. It didn’t matter what the treasure of the Cathars had been. Myth, rumor, or magic. It wasn’t a grail or a codex. The true treasure existed in two people finding each other in a world not disposed to love. That was the miracle of Langlinais. And he had brought it here with him. A greater legacy than brick or stone.

  He placed his hands on her waist and lifted her above him. He was so filled with happiness at this moment that he wanted the world to know it. Her laughter was full and rich, coaxing forth his own. His hands at her waist were her only support as they twirled in a circle, her arms thrown out, the cloud of her hair shining in the sun. An angel flying in the air.

  A dream he’d had once. A foretelling of the future? Or only a-promise, to be granted to him in the fullness of time?

  The echo of their laughter carried over the lake, borne by the gentle breeze.

  Afterword

  The Santa Helena shipwreck is modeled after an actual occurrence. In this case, a
seventeenth-century adventurer plucked great piles of silver from the coral reef where the ship foundered.

  The statue of Juliana and Sebastian is fashioned after an effigy considered one of the most romantic in Europe, the Greene Monument at Lowick.

  There is a legend that the Knights Templar, so persecuted in the fourteenth century, found sanctuary in Scotland with the Sinclairs. Some interesting archeological evidence exists that leads one to wonder if they really did make their home on a tiny island in a lake bordering Sinclair land.

  About the Author

  KAREN RANNEY began writing when she was five. Her first published work was The Maple Leaf, read over the school intercom when she was in the first grade. In addition to wanting to be a violinist (her parents had a special violin crafted for her when she was seven), she wanted to be a lawyer, a teacher, and most of all, a writer.

  The violin discarded early, she still admits to a fascination with the law, and she volunteers as a teacher whenever needed. Writing, however, has remained an overwhelming love of hers. She loves to hear from her readers—please write to her at karen@kranney.com, or visit her website at www.kranney.com.

  Karen Ranney lives in San Antonio, Texas, where she raised two sons.

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