Love’s Magic

by Traci E Hall

  “I suppose he left out the fact that my liege lord was Baron Peregrine?”

  Father Michael’s face lost its ruddy color.

  Nicholas longed for his small cell at the monastery–but mayhap that place was not the haven he’d thought it was. He wanted darkness. He needed time to think. His past was full of jagged pieces of half truths. Crossing his legs at the ankle, he tried to appear as if he was not overwhelmed.

  Celestia said in a husky voice, “You never answered Nicholas’s question, Father Michael–did the baron return?” Father Michael pointed to his empty eye socket. “Aye. He returned.”

  Her chin went up as if she readied for battle—Nicholas had never been so glad to have a champion—in truth, he’d never had a champion. “Speak clearly—no more riddles,” she said.”

  “Baron Peregrine came back immediately after King Richard sold Scotland to King William. He said he was missing something from the keep and demanded to know where it was. He was not forthcoming in what the object was; he seemed to think we were deliberately hiding it from him in retaliation for his neglect of Lady Esmerada.”

  What other bad news could the priest possbily have to impart?

  “That was when he heard all of Esmerada’s curse and began to believe it was true. I don’t know who told him of it first, mayhap the villagers. Though I doubt they’d have the courage to taunt such a man. When I could give him no information on his missing object—would that I even knew what it was—nor could I release him of Lady Esmerada’s curse, he grew angry. He and his men tried to burn down the church, and I stepped in front of him. He slashed at my face, and I lost my eye.”

  “The baron did that?” Celestia gasped in outrage.

  Nicholas closed his eyes, filled with sorrow and regret as his suspicions were confirmed.

  “I may have provoked him.” The priest looked discomfited. “I may have taken great relish in telling him I could not release the curse. And of telling him that his son was, indeed, his. He said he’d heard rumors, but he’d never gone to the monastery to see for himself. He was a fool, and I told him so.”

  Celestia covered the old man’s hand with her own, amazing Nicholas with her capacity for compassion.

  “I paid for my foolish tongue with my eye.”

  “I owe you gratitude, Father Michael, for protecting my husband as long as you could.”

  “The two of you are married?”

  “Aye, I am Lady Celestia Le Blanc,” she said proudly.

  Nicholas shifted. How did she do it? Her infernal optimism annoyed the hell out of him.

  “How long did the baron stay at Falcon Keep the second time he came?” Nicholas wondered if the joyous news that he had a living son was when his father decided to have him killed.

  “A fortnight, perhaps. Not longer than that. He knocked the mill down, chased away the last few stray sheep, and left. He has not been back since. Now will you tell me why you are here?”

  Nicholas looked toward the heavens. If this was all God’s plan, as Abbot Crispin had taught him to believe, he did not understand. Nothing about his past made him feel any better about his future. He moved away from Celestia, who had so proudly stated that they were husband and wife.

  The more he learned about himself, the clearer it became that his wife deserved better than he. Much better. He looked at the priest, then back at Celestia. It was time to tell the truth, and end this farce of a marriage.

  “My father sent me here on the pretext of protecting the keep from Scottish rebels. He coerced us,” he jerked his head toward Celestia, “into marriage. She’s a renowned healer. Now that I have heard Esmerada’s curse, it’s clear that the baron needs me to have a child, thereby freeing him to father living heirs of his own.”

  “A healer. Has she helped you, Nicholas? Were you injured on crusade?”

  Nicholas would rather walk back to the keep on his hands than talk any more this day.

  Celestia whispered, “Don’t give up, now, my lord.”

  He thought of the months of torment he’d spent fighting back the longing he’d had for opium and the horrible nightmares that meshed with his memories. How Celestia had reached within his spirit, to try and draw out the cravings as if they were a tumor.

  Had she helped him? Even now, her fingers rested against his skin, soothing him.

  “Aye. She cured me. Mentally, I was—well, I was not in the best of health. I was not,” he searched for the right words, “well, Father, after what I did to escape my capture. I killed. A woman.”

  Father Michael winced. “During a holy war it is sometimes necessary to stray from the commandments. Have you prayed for God’s forgiveness?”

  “Aye. But He has not chosen to hear me. I am not worthy, Father Michael.”

  The old man frowned. “Not worthy? How so?”

  He thought of his mother, who had been raped and gone mad. Her journey into madness had taken years. Would that happen to him? He had to make his father release the Montehue family from their obligation before he turned the bend.

  “I plan to kill again.”

  Nicholas knew without a doubt that he would be the one to mete out justice to his father, and he was willing to take the stain against his already blackened soul.

  Father Michael glanced from Celestia to Nicholas. “I see. Is there no other course for you to take, my son?”

  Now more than ever Nicholas knew he had to be his father’s slayer. It was balanced—a life for a life. “No.”

  Celestia removed her hand from the back of his neck, folding her fingers around her mug.

  “Celestia will never be safe so long as he breathes. He plots and schemes …” Nicholas ground his back teeth together. “For what? I still don’t know.”

  “Money, most likely–and power. Land to give his heirs.” Father Michael sighed. Now that he knew the history of his birthright, Nicholas would be content to never see Falcon Keep again.

  “You take a risk of dying yourself,” Celestia said softly.

  But could he live without seeing Celestia?

  Celestia hated the look of determined hopelessness on Nicholas’s face.

  She leaned forward and pointed at the priest with her mug. “The baron had promised King Richard a sacred relic from Saint James the Apostle as part of his vassal price toward the Crusade. We think that the baron then paid the enemy to attack the caravan, and make it look like it was a Holy Fight—all so that the relic could be ‘stolen’ and returned to the baron. Don’t you find that odd?”

  “Celestia,” Nicholas warned. But sometimes her husband was too noble for his own good. She would find the answers, for both their sakes.

  “Wait,” she said, keeping her attention on the priest. “The baron knighted his son, and sent Nicholas to lead a retinue of his own men. To protect the false relic.”

  The priest rose to his feet, excited. “The finger bone of Saint James! Of course. King Henry had given it to Lady Margaret’s father, Lord Harbotten, as payment for a piece of land or something—it isn’t important—some men hoard holy relics, thinking that it will get them closer to God. Lord Harbotten was a relic collector.”

  Celestia slid a glance toward her husband, who studied a bruise on his thumbnail.

  She continued, “So King Henry originally gave the relic to Esmerada’s grandfather?”

  Father Michael nodded. “Aye. Lady Margaret held it dear. Legend says that sacred relics, especially those from such a venerated saint as Saint James, can turn the tide in battle. Old Henry loved a good fight, but he either forgot Harbotten had the relic or else he was waiting for a worthier battle to use it.”

  “But King Richard knew enough about it to ask for the relic specifically, and he knew Baron Peregrine was the only one who could possibly have it, as Esmerada, and all her family, were dead.” Celestia tapped her lower lip with the pad of her index finger.

  Nicholas glowered. “What if the Scots, er, Brinden McCarthy, stole it?”

  “I don’t know why they would,”
the priest said doubtfully.

  “For coin, to support the rebellion, naturally. But I don’t think that’s what happened. The way I see it,” Celestia loved to solve puzzles and she felt as if this might be the thread they’d been missing, “Baron Peregrine lost the original relic. That’s what he was looking for when the monastery burned.”

  “What?” Father Michael leaned against the rickety table. “I’m sorry, Father,” Celestia said, quickly placing a soothing hand on his. “Abbot Crispin survived the fire, but the monastery is lost. He sent a secret message to Nicholas, warning him that the baron was searching for something. ‘Tis obvious it’s the relic.”

  “The baron is evil,” the old man said in a shaking voice.

  Celestia picked up Nicholas’s hand and kissed the knuckles, knowing that her next sentence would be hard for him to hear. “What if the reason he destroyed the caravan and had the relic stolen was to protect the fact that it was already gone?”

  “So my men, the men he’d given me to lead, were all killed to protect a lie?” Nicholas asked skeptically. “I don’t think so.”

  Father Michael sat back down with thud. “My God.”

  Nicholas’s fingers tightened upon hers. “He would have killed me, in order to cover up a secret.”

  “A sacred relic can’t be used for ill. The baron should be cursed a thousand times over,” the priest said, rubbing at the scar above his empty eye socket.

  “It’s my fault.”

  “Nicholas, ye’ve been sore used in this life, but you’re not responsible for your father being a blight on humanity. Ye say ye feel great guilt over killing a woman? A woman who tortured ye. Well,” the priest made the sign of the cross, “I absolve ye. Some people deserve to die, and it is our human hand that metes out God’s justice.” Father Michael continued, “If your lady is right, then no sacred relic was lost, and again, ye are absolved.”

  “And if my carelessness is at fault?”

  Father Michael slammed a fist down on the table. “I absolve thee!” he shouted. “But all the forgiveness in the world will not be enough if ye don’t forgive yerself.”

  Celestia’s chest was tight with unshed emotion. The goodly priest had told her husband exactly what he needed to hear. Whether or not the stubborn man would listen, well, that was another basket of thread entirely.

  She rubbed the pad of her thumb over the tops of his knuckles, sending what comfort she could.

  “I wanted to live,” he said quietly.

  “Did you have another choice, Nicholas?” Father Michael made sure that he had the younger man’s attention. “Did you enjoy killing her?”

  Red flags of guilt flushed Nicholas’s cheeks. “Aye, I did enjoy killing the foul, rotten whore.”

  Celestia pulled her hand free so that she could applaud his revelation. “As well you should have. Let the guilt go, Nicholas,” Celestia said, deliberately covering the new smooth skin where the scars from the manacles used to be. She shivered, thinking his thoughts with him to lessen the impact. He’d been drugged, held down in the beginning, but toward the end, he lived for the opium and the pleasure that woman had brought. Anything to forget that he was locked in captivity and tortured at the enemy’s whim. She didn’t blame him for wanting relief from the pain, and she wished he would stop blaming himself. It was only because his shame went so deep that she’d gotten such a clear image when she’d first healed him. Now she could at least soothe him for periods of time without absorbing his despair.

  “You are strong, strong enough to survive what would have killed a lesser man. Now live again, aye?” The priest reached out to pat Nicholas as if he were the four year old boy he’d known so long ago.

  Her husband was breathing like a tourney horse, deep from his chest. How long before he saw what she and the priest could see? God had not turned his back on Nicholas. Instead, Nicholas had plugged both of his ears with his fingers, unable to accept forgiveness.

  She hated to see him struggling. “It’s been a long day,” she finally said calmly, using her words and the softest touch of her fingertips to sooth him. “Bess’s death,” her breath caught in her throat, “the revelation of your past, and now you’re wrestling with something that you’ve convinced yourself is true. But it doesn’t have to be.”

  Leaning over, she kissed the side of his face. “You are so strong that you can make your life whatever you want it to be.”

  She bowed her head, hoping for their future, if he could just forgive himself his past.

  Nicholas kept his head buried in his hands.

  Enough was enough. She was a person who needed to fix what could be fixed. Celestia stood and lightly trailed her fingers over the back of Nicholas’s smooth, ebony hair. “Come. It will be dark soon, and poor Bess unburied. You have been most kind, Father Michael. You’ll stay the night at the keep? We’ve no beds, but blankets aplenty.”

  Nicholas followed her as she led the way outside. Breathing deep of the fresh air, she exhaled, wishing she was truly a witch so that she could cast a spell and make her husband happy. His expression was grim as they waited for the priest to bring around his own mount.

  He shut her out with his silence, and it hurt. “So much information, and yet still no answers. We can talk more of this later, in private, Nicholas.”

  “Enough talking has been done to last a lifetime,” he growled.

  The priest came around the side of the small house, his old horse laden with bags, the greens of a carrot dangling from the nag’s mouth.

  Celestia’s stomach rumbled, and she smacked her hand against her forehead. In all of the emotional upheaval, she’d forgotten a very important question.

  “Do you, by any chance at all, know where we can hire a cook?”

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  It was the sound of her husband’s heavy boots clomping on the stone floor as he tried to sneak out that caught her attention.

  She looked up, noticing the faint bruise on the side of his cheek. Willy said that Nicholas had lost his balance while working on the drawbridge, and that it hadn’t been the first time he’d done so. Even Petyr admitted that Nicholas was more surly than usual, and walked around in a daze. Fear for him made her angry. She but wanted a chance to help, and she was the last person to whom he would come.

  Celestia threw the hated embroidery hoop on the bench. “Nicholas, you do not need to go into the village again. We have supplies, food, and servants. In the past week you have done the work of ten men.”

  Nicholas paused in front of the open keep doors, and Celestia caught her breath as a sudden shaft of light surrounded him like a halo. She stuffed her project into a willow basket next to her chair.

  He pushed an overlong strand of thick black hair off his forehead. Celestia’s knees trembled with a spike of uncertainty. Why was being in love with one’s husband so difficult? He’d neatly managed to avoid her and the bedchamber by taking the midnight watch. He looked so tired. She was not sleeping, either, concerned as she was for his health.

  She knew he would not appreciate her worry. “I have planned a picnic,” she said.

  Panic darted in his eyes. “I am too busy to lie about and eat.”

  He was avoiding her, but she would run her prey to ground. “Nay, I have already checked with Petyr, and you can be spared for the afternoon. Beatrice has made some tasty meat pies that will melt on your tongue. I found some wild strawberries and have chilled some wine.”

  She babbled on, trying to put him at ease. “Beatrice must have been sent by Saint Martha—she’s the saint of cooks, although she couldn’t help me, more the pity—but that Beatrice. Do you know she can make a marzipan cake shaped like this very keep, all while cleaning the bed linens and dusting the corners?”

  Nicholas laughed, then caught himself and bit his lip.

  Celestia skipped up to him and shook her head. “Too late, my lord. I saw you smile.” She smoothed down his tunic sleeve. “Besides, it isn’t raining for once. I know Ceffyl c
ould use a canter …”

  She flirted with her husband like a shameless hussy. “Oh, I forgot. Maude came by yesterday while you were out hunting. She said she’d seen you in the forest, and she’d promised you some more of that jam you just loved? ”

  Obviously recognizing the danger signals, he stammered, “What else was I to say, ‘Tia? She had me pinned up against a tree!”

  “Oh, she did?” She quirked one brow up, while keeping the other straight. She knew that Nicholas wasn’t fond of the beautiful Maude, but if she had to trick her husband into a picnic, then so be it. He was too honorable to dally.

  “Not like that. Just, ah, Celestia, the woman is wicked.”

  She pointed her finger in the middle of her husband’s chest. “Mayhap she is, but she wants you.”

  Nicholas’s mouth gaped open, and Celestia stuck her fist on her jutted hip. Did he not understand how alluring his gray eyes were? His lashes, his noble nose? His body had strengthened with all of the manual labor he’d been doing, and his skin was burnished gold by the sun.

  How could he not know this?

  She narrowed her eyes, watching closely as he tried to find a way out of spending time alone with her. Celestia tapped her foot and quirked the other brow expectantly until he wisely gave in.

  “When are we leaving for that picnic?”

  Since she’d gotten her way, she decided not to hold a grudge against him for something like Maude’s unwanted advances.

  “Now. Before you change your mind.”

  Celestia called for Forrester, who brought Ceffyl and Brenin around from the stables. The new drawbridge was sturdy, and the horses didn’t shy from crossing it.

  She waited until they were each over to the grass, then turned and tossed out the challenge, “A race, my lord? Or are you afraid to lose to me?”

  Clucking her teeth, she sped off, letting Ceffyl have her head. They tore through the large field, then past the old apple grove, where a few trees had managed to grow and blossom. The sweet perfume called to her, but she didn’t stop. Instead she continued on to the grassy meadow where the old mill lay in ruins. Nicholas was right on her heels.