Tapestry Lion (The Landers Saga Book 2)

by Nilsen, Karen

  “Ah, but we’re not talking about your honor. We’re talking about your recklessness. And you,” she turned her attention to me, her eyes like gimlets, “how dare you risk yourself and your babe? If Merius hadn’t gone after you, the watch would likely have you in custody.”

  “I had to get away, be alone for awhile. It was childish and wrong of me--I wasn’t thinking clearly,” I gulped. “I feared losing Sewell or Merius or both, and I couldn’t stand being trapped in the cell with my fear, so I ran from it.” I looked at Merius, but he was no longer looking at me. He was looking at the abbess, the lines of his face drawn taut.

  “You’re right, my lady,” he said. “I need to make certain none of them followed us here.” He rose and reached for the bolt.

  “Merius, no . . .” I grabbed for him.

  He met my gaze. “I’m just going to lure them away, if there are any out there."

  "But they'll not find our tracks surely--too many people travel this street for them to track us here." I clung to his cloak.

  "Perhaps, but the first thing they'll do is start going door to door, which will bring them here soon."

  "Of course we'll lie about your whereabouts when they come, but that may not keep them from searching the convent . . ." the abbess trailed off.

  Merius touched her arm. "I don't want you or the other nuns put in that position. If we're found here, the whole convent could be in jeopardy."

  "So you think we should leave?" I asked.

  "Not you, just me." He grabbed my hand, his fingers tight. "You're not fully recovered from childbed yet--you need to stay here and rest." Our eyes met, and I felt the sour weight in his stomach, how guilty he felt for fighting with me today. "I didn't realize how what I said would make you feel threatened enough to take Sewell and run like that," he muttered.

  "I know, dear heart. We've been under a lot of strain for a long time. Maybe that's how this bond happened--we're both so raw right now that we can't wear masks with each other anymore."

  "I don't want to be apart from you, but maybe it's best until you're completely recovered and we have a plan. I don't want anything I do to make you feel so desperate again." He squeezed my hand. "All right, there's not much time. I should leave. If I find the watch now, let them see me, and then run to another part of the city, they'll be distracted from searching and follow me. Then I'll lose them and get a message to Father. After he and I figure out how to get us out of this city, we'll come back for you.”

  The abbess nodded. “You’re less a boy and more a man every day, Merius. Be careful.”

  “Thank you, my lady.” He leaned down and planted a burning kiss on my forehead. His aura shone bright all around us, reminding me of being on the curved inside of silver plated shield, blinded and burned by the sunlight glancing off the silver even as it protected me.

  “Farewell,” he whispered. Then with a sudden click of the door latch and a cold rush of night air, he was gone.

  I opened my mouth to call out to him, but no sound emerged. Fool, I chastised myself. I sent my husband to God knows what fate. If something happened to him, I would never forgive myself.

  *Nothing will happen to me. Merius’s voice held his usual confidence--or cockiness, rather, with the sour mood I was in. *Go to bed.

  “As if I could sleep with you out there, wandering the night,” I muttered. “Ass of a husband.” All sense of him faded, as if he slowly drew a black curtain over his mind. I tried in vain to reach past the curtain. “Merius, please--I thought you couldn’t block me . . .”

  “Safire, you’re talking to yourself,” the abbess said sharply as she bolted the door.

  “I’m talking to Merius.”

  “Child, he’s gone.” She gave me a considering look. “Do you think if I help you that you can make it to your cell? If not, I’ll call someone to carry you.”

  “Carry me? I’m fine,” I retorted. Bracing my hand on the wall, I tried to rise. Instantly, my knees buckled, and I found myself back on the floor, staring stupidly at my traitor body. “What?”

  The abbess put her hand to my forehead. “No fever,” she murmured to herself finally. “At least not a natural fever. You know, you lost a lot of blood when Sewell was born. You’ve had far too much excitement for a woman in your condition.”

  “I have not, and I can walk just fine.” Her vinegar aura was all around, rousing me from my stupor. I tried to stand again, this time leaning my whole body against the wall. Swaying a little, I kept my balance this time and managed to place one foot in front of the other, my steps slow but steady. The floor vibrated with the turning of the earth and the light from the few candles was so bright that I closed my eyes, feeling my way along the wall. The stones scraped my skin, so rough I winced. Even on the backs of my eyelids, I could still see the candle flames, the blinding white centers, the hot blue middles, the painfully orange outsides.

  “God forbid Merius come back to find me like this,” I muttered. “He’s an unfortunate man, with a bastard son and a mad wife to his name.”

  “You’re not mad, Safire,” the abbess retorted, her hand on my arm, guiding me. “No truly madwoman would have such awareness of her own lunacy.”

  “I can feel the earth turning beneath my feet, see each layer of a candle flame even with my eyes closed. Is that not madness?”

  “No, it’s only madness if you let it be.”

  “What would you call it, if not madness?”

  “I would call it vision. You’re fortunate to be able to sense such things--most people’s spirits are never free of their moorings.”

  “Oh, my spirit’s free of its moorings.” I gave a wild laugh, then winced at the shrill echo of my own laughter. “It’s adrift in a fog, my lady, no anchor to hold it, no rudder to steer it.”

  “You’re too stubborn to lack a rudder, my dear, and you sail too fast to be adrift,” she said crisply. “You and Merius seem to have caught the same rogue wind. You know, you can always ‘lower your sail and drop anchor, if the wind is carrying you where you’ve no wish to go.’”

  I gave her a sideways glance, my eyes slitted against the too-bright light. “How does a nun learn Sirach so well? Shouldn‘t you be quoting prayers to me instead?”

  Her hand tightened on my arm. “I could force you to take the veil, you know. As I told Merius earlier, you need the protection of the contemplative life, even if your lower nature demands otherwise.”

  “How would a convent protect me?”

  “This afternoon should provide the obvious answer--you crave excitement, yet you swoon when your witch senses are overwhelmed, as they invariably will be outside these walls. You‘re too sensitive for any life but a spiritual one, a finely tuned compass that works best in the quiet and the calm.”

  “My lady, I’m grateful for all you’ve done, and I admire you more than any woman I’ve known. But I could never be like you. I have a baby and a husband . . .”

  “A husband who throws you into a tumult with his mere presence.”

  I grinned. “Haven’t you ever been in love?”

  “Any more presumptuous questions like that, and it’s the veil for you,” she warned. “Behave yourself and listen for a change. You and Merius will drive each other mad before the end, with how you feed off each other’s auras. I’ve never seen anything like it. It will consume you both if you don’t discipline and channel it properly.”

  “My talent does seem to grow, especially since I‘ve known Merius,” I conceded. “The movement in my sketches only seemed to start in earnest after we met. Is that what you‘re talking about?”

  “It’s dangerous, Safire. You talk to each other without speaking--I’ve seen it. It’s all right now, but it will only grow stronger with time. Do you really want him in your head with you everywhere you go?”

  I remembered this afternoon, Merius’s and my quarrel, the frustration of us knowing each other’s rough-edged thoughts before we had the chance to polish those thoughts into spoken words. The light still s
tabbed my eyes, the capricious floor trembled beneath my feet, the air hummed loudly in my ears, the abbess’s aura burned my lungs, my witch senses raw, my very soul exposed to the elements. Maybe the abbess was right--if I felt this way here, in this quiet convent, how would I ever again bear a crowded ballroom or street? How would I ever again bear the pleasure and pain I found in Merius’s arms?

  “What happened to me this afternoon? I’ve never felt this raw, not even when Arilea’s spirit possessed me,” I said.

  “Merius happened to you. Your quarrel with him this afternoon--it apparently threw open a gate between you, a gate I think has been there since you two met but that you’ve only opened by slow inches until today.” She paused beside a door--the door to my and Merius’s cell. “All right--I want you to lie down on the pallet. No reading, no painting, no sketching, no lit candle, in fact. Complete darkness--you need to rest your senses.”

  “What about Sewell?” I asked as she pushed me into the cell.

  “Someone will bring him to you in a few hours so you can feed him. Otherwise, you’re to stay here alone. Remember, you always have a home here, both you and Sewell. There‘s no need to run.” With that, she shut the door, leaving me alone in the darkness. I sank down on the pallet with a sigh and stared upwards at a ceiling I couldn’t see. My senses at last could rest, but my imagination raced onward, fed by the formless black around me.

  “Merius,” I whispered, but the dark didn’t answer. He was gone again, and we hadn’t even had the chance to mend our rift over Sewell. What if the abbess was right? What if Merius’s presence overwhelmed me until I went mad? What if he went mad because of me? What would happen if I did take the veil? Could I be a nun the rest of my days? I’d rather go mad in Merius’s arms than suffer chaste sanity. Surely we could find a way to be with each other and not be overwhelmed. But what if Merius insisted that I leave Sewell? I paused over this last. I could never leave Sewell--never. Merius knew that--he had just been swayed briefly by Mordric’s warped influence.

  Had Merius managed to mislead the guards and escape to safety yet? I sat up, glancing around wildly even though I could see nothing. Closing my eyes, I reached out to him, tried to sense him with my mind, but there was nothing, just the lonely darkness of the cell all around. I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly chilled as if I were outside without my cloak.

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Merius

  I raced around the zigzags of the streets climbing the hill, cloak hood pulled over my head. I arrived at a fountain and stopped, clutching my knees as I caught my breath. The fountain had frozen, the water caught for an instant of eternity, its gurgling chatter silenced, its quicksilver movement stilled in glistening furbelows and flourishes. My head whirled with sheer physical exertion. I hadn’t run like this since the night I had escaped from the palace. Even several hours worth of practice a day in the convent courtyard couldn’t give me this edge of clarity, hewn sharper by the welcome ache of my muscles. My body was the chisel of my will, and it needed frequent whetting.

  The thought of the convent with its thick stone walls and small cells made me feel trapped in a trunk. It was nice being here in the open, alone in the moonlight, inhaling the fresh air, no nuns or Father or Sewell or Safire to distract me. Was this feeling Safire had been seeking when she had stormed off into the snow earlier?

  I heard a yell, my feet already sprinting away from the fountain before my brain caught up. I ducked around the corner of a narrow side street and stepped into the shadow of a recessed doorway. The icy air pierced my lungs, my foggy breath absurdly loud in my ears. Where was the watch? They better have followed me here--I had made myself as visible as I dared, even pausing by the fountain in full moonlight.

  I waited as the cold seeped through my cloak and doublet. Finally I peered around the edge of the doorway. Still no watch. Should I go back out to the fountain, act as bait for a moment longer? Anything was preferable to this torturous waiting, the thoughts of Safire that seeped into my mind, insidious as the cold and far more inescapable.

  I could still feel how she had felt in my arms this afternoon, her bones as frail as a bird’s, her soul a wild, trembling thing that rose to her lips as I kissed her, inhaled the charred cedar scent of her fire. That thing she called an aura had been all around us, deep hues of purple and amber, light so shimmering and rich it was touchable, like candlelight reflecting on velvet, air heady with the taste of evaporated wine and honey. The desire to be as close as possible to her, to her light, her scent, her soul overwhelmed me. It didn’t matter that I was mad at her for leaving the safety of the convent. It didn’t matter that she as good as told me to go to hell and leave her alone. I had almost seen my death today at the hands of a dozen guardsmen, all because she decided to take a stroll. And here I was again, tempting death to protect her. The poets would say it was true love and have me come to a tragic end. Father would say I was bewitched and have me come to a fool’s end. I didn’t want to come to either end--I wanted my warm bed with Safire in it and no drunkard’s ghost or queen between us.

  I sighed. I needed to figure out a way to get a message to Father. I was sure the queen's guards watched the embassy. Maybe if Rankin went out into the city, I could somehow intercept him and have him deliver the message. With some uninterrupted time and Rankin's help, surely we could devise a foolproof plan. The tension in my gut eased a bit. Father and I might not enjoy each other's company much, but he was certainly good to have around when I was in a predicament. Thank God he had come to Sarneth.

  Hooves pounded the cobbles, first a distant, thudding echo, sharpening to a loud clatter as they neared the fountain. I tensed. Oh hell--they had horses? I couldn't outrun men on mounts. When had they gotten horses? I didn’t know the watch used mounts in the city. Perhaps it wasn’t the watch. Midmarch teemed with hundreds of thousands of souls--why did I assume that everything vaguely threatening here related to me or Safire? The horses passed the fountain, the sound of their hooves fading as they continued up the street. I blinked once, took a deep breath, and then bolted blindly for the end of the street furthest from the fountain.

  My mad dash came to abrupt halt when several hooded men holding swords stepped out of the shadows in front of me. I wheeled around and tried running back the way I had come, on the lookout for anything I could climb. Rainspout . . . I leapt at it, the leather of my gauntlets gaining me purchase as I gripped the first set of brackets, then the second set. I hoisted myself up, scrambling for a foothold. My foot found something solid finally, something that gripped like a vise. A hand . . . Next I knew, I was flat on the snowy ground, the wind knocked out of me so completely that I forgot to breathe. Those bastards had ambushed me--I had never imagined there were so many of them after me. After me and Safire . . . the darkness contracted when someone kicked my side.

  When I came to, the ground seemed to turn under me, the stars swirling in a silvery spiral overhead. I watched for a moment, mesmerized, before I angled my head and retched on somebody’s boots. Good enough for him, the ambushing bastard.

  “Damn it!” someone swore in Sarns, and I felt a sharp pain in my lungs as one of the soiled boots connected with my chest. I coughed, then wished I hadn’t. Drawing breath made the pain bright hot as the sun. All appeared blinding white, even the backs of my eyelids. I groaned.

  “You aren’t fit to clean the prison slop buckets, Hector. You just kicked your only salvation in this guard,” someone said. Even through the white haze of pain, I recognized that voice. Toscar.

  “It’s what he deserves, my lord, after the nasty trick he pulled with that chandelier,” Hector retorted, his voice breaking. “Piert’s still abed, and the apothecary says he’ll have headaches and speak nonsense the rest of his life. And what about Balthasar, dead by Piert’s own blade . . .”

  “I warned you about this one, but did you listen? No. Is it his fault that four of you couldn’t handle guarding one prisoner? No. You made this entire guard look like a pack of fools when you let
him escape, and I’ll have all your commissions for it. Acteon, Georg, tie Hector and take him back to the armory. He’ll spend the night in the stocks.”

  There was a scuffle of boots, then Hector’s curses, fading into the night as Acteon and Georg escorted him away. I heard it all, but I could see nothing. Through the flashes of pain, all I could see were boots. An army of boots around me. I must be dangerous, to have so many guards after me.

  “He still lives, my lord,” one of the other men said, and I felt another foot prod my side none too gently.

  “Good,” Toscar said, his tone short. “Why don’t you kick him again? Do you want to lose your feet as well as your clumsy hands?”

  “But my lord, he’s alive. I thought . . .”

  “Yes, he’s alive, not through any effort of yours. It’s good for you he’s young and tough. Rasmus, tie him before he recovers.”

  One of the shadowy figures knelt then and picked up my arms, binding them together with a long cord. I tried to punch him but found my limbs strangely unresponsive. Finally I jerked one fist loose, but missed his jaw by a foot or two, punching futilely at the sky overhead. My back and side hurt so badly that tears sprang to my eyes, and I let my arm drop, let him tie it. My body was just as sluggish as he bound my ankles.

  “Damn you,” I spat in Corcin finally. Once loosed, my invective poured out like bile from a gut wound, my rational mind unable to staunch the flow in time. “Damn you, Toscar--did anyone ever tell you the hounds of hell are former lapdog courtiers? How does it feel, wearing Her Majesty’s jeweled collar? I bet it weighs on your neck like lead. How does it feel, fetching on some woman’s command? Perhaps you’re accustomed to it, you do it so well.”

  Toscar chuckled, a thin sound. “Temper, Merius, temper. Your father would be most displeased at your loose tongue.”

  “My lord, would you like us to gag him?”

  “That won’t be necessary--just get him to the coach.”