by Traci E Hall
“Would that I knew. But this …” He gave the hidden relic a pat. “This was a sign, ‘Tia. I should never have let my feelings for you distract me from my purpose.”
She bit her lip to keep from crying out. How was it that he had the power to hurt her so badly? “And what of the baron?”
He clenched his jaw, and Celestia winced as she heard the bone crack. “I will leave by morning’s light.” He punched his left fist into his right palm and lowered his voice. “I knew that nothing good could come from caring for you, or any of this.” He flung out his arm, encompassing the entire keep.
It was clean, organized, and looked much improved, thanks to Nicholas’s caring and hard work. Still, he negated everything with a dismissive wave. “Saint James will forgive me, aye, the instant I return the relic to his tomb. I’ll walk, crawl if need be, to make amends. Mayhap this means that I need to forget vengeance, lest it drive me as mad as my mother was.”
Celestia’s heart broke in two at the naked hope on Nicholas’s face. How could she compete against God?
He was leaving her.
She felt it deep within her being. Some of his despair had worn onto her, and now she ached with it. Celestia had known the day would come, yet still the hurt was almost more than she could take. Losing her healing gifts could not be nearly as debilitating as this awful wrenching of her heart.
Damn love. Damn minstrels, for they sang of this, too.
She blinked back those stupid, female tears and met Nicholas’s imploring gaze straight on. “Of course you should go. If your responsibilities can’t convince you to stay here, then who am I to try?”
His eyes narrowed into slits of iron.
Flipping her hair back as though she didn’t care, she hefted her chin high. “Just the woman whom you married out of honor. Your father forced this union, and again your damnable honor kept you from trying to make a blessing from a curse.”
Her voice broke, and her good intentions fell to the ground. “If you make it back from your pilgrimage, Nicholas, then I tell you now, I will not be waiting like the docile good wife.” His gray eyes widened. “I may take a lover to satisfy these feelings you have awakened in me. Yes, a lover.”
Nicholas stepped back, his hands fisted before him.
“I may not even live here at this stinking keep. I hate it! There is no love here. The only happiness in this hole was what I felt for you. So go, then. I shall get over you in a trice.” She snapped her fingers beneath his nose, then turned and ran for all she was worth.
“Celestia, wait!”
She was gone as if she’d never been there, yet the deep hurt in her eyes was forever branded in his mind. Nicholas couldn’t breathe past the sudden ache in his chest. His eyes burned, and the relic weighed heavily in his tunic.
Pressing the jeweled box closer to his heart, he agonized over going to Celestia and soothing her, as she had soothed him so often. He could beg her to wait for him to come back, a whole man, one healed in spirit as well as body.
But he had no right to do so.
He’d been honest with her. He’d been honest in his desire for revenge.
Sighing, Nicholas wondered if he was moving too fast. He’d promised Saint James the baron’s heart on a gold platter. If he returned the relic without the pledged death, he was, perhaps, failing another test of faith.
Celestia threw the bolt on her chamber door, knowing quite well that Nicholas wouldn’t even try to open it. She picked up her sewing basket and withdrew the new tunic she’d been pouring her love into. Bess, she quickly caught another sob in her throat, and Viola had been making matching tunics for the other knights. She sniffed and held the garment up to the candlelight.
The fabric was ruby red, a perfect foil for Nicholas’s midnight hair. She’d pricked her fingers many times applying the silver trim to the hem, but she had wanted to do herself. She’d had Willy draw her a falcon, and she’d used it to create a pattern of the bird with its wings outstretched in flight. To think and she’d hoped Nicholas would want it for his personal insignia.
All she had left to finish was the gold embroidery on the talons.
She sniffed again, gathered her needle and thread, and bent to complete her task. How could she let her husband travel to Spain in hand-me-down tunics? A man as proud as Nicholas needed his own colors.
Her eyes were sore from bad light and unshed tears, but the tunic was finished by dawn’s arrival. She packed a knapsack with Nicholas’s essentials, and carefully folded the crimson fabric inside. Celestia straightened her shoulders and rubbed her weary back, then firmly told her breaking heart, “This is the last thing I will ever do for that man.”
Nicholas adjusted the saddle over Brenin’s back. He was alone in the courtyard of the keep, and as dawn broke, he noticed that the work they’d done was beginning to show. The dirt was raked, the firewood stacked, the stables clean.
Satisfaction welled within as he fed the stallion an apple he had collected from the kitchen, along with the food he’d need to start his journey. He carried the relic safely within his tunic.
Father Michael had already gathered his parishioners inside to eat a small meal before the opening of the north tower and the banishing of his mother’s supposed ghost. The urge to stay was overwhelming, but after creating such a scene last evening between he and Celestia, it wasn’t possible. Not if he wanted to hold on to his pride. Nicholas would leave quietly, without fanfare or trumpets. It felt like he was sneaking away.
He had left written instructions for Petyr regarding Celestia’s well-being.
Brenin’s nose tickled his palm. “Sorry, boy. That’s all I have for you. Are you ready?”
Nicholas knew, deep down inside, that he’d avoided speaking to anyone of his quest because it would take very little to convince him to stay here at the keep.
He wanted to stay. “Fine,” he sighed aloud and Brenin chuffed in sympathy. “Maybe I’m curious about this ‘haunted’ tower.” He told himself that this was not his home, Celestia was not his soul mate, his men were not his to command.
It wasn’t working.
More than salvation, he wanted his wife. He never wanted to see such heartbreak on her face again.
“Ouch!” Nicholas clasped his hand to his aching head then looked down. His knapsack lay at his feet. He’d thought to leave it here, since he hadn’t dared to breach the locked door of Celestia’s chamber.
He’d tried once already, thinking to get her approval, but the knob hadn’t turned and then he’d heard her crying.
Nicholas could withstand torture and take on ten knights at a time, but those tears made him tuck his tail and run.
He tapped the sack with his toe and looked around. Where had that come from? Alone in the courtyard, he looked up and saw the very person he had been thinking about waving gaily from the window at her chamber.
His heart tripped over itself with joy. She’d ask him to stay, surely. “Did you throw that?”
“Aye.”
He grinned, forgiving her his aching head.
She stuck her tongue out. “I want no reminders of you here, so I thought I’d help you pack.”
His temper grew, and he clenched his fists. “Did you have to throw it so hard?”
“I know how stubborn you can be. I simply wanted to gain your attention.”
“You have it!”
“I wish that were true. Good-bye, Nicholas. Safe journey.”
Nicholas stayed rooted to the ground and watched her disappear into the confines of their, her, chamber. Then he foolishly waited for her to come back so that he could drink in the sight of her, hoping she would ask him to stay. But after a few moments, he realized that she was not returning.
He picked up the knapsack, mounted Brenin, and left the courtyard without looking back. Why did he feel like a coward?
Brenin’s steady gait left him time to contemplate his actions. Was he doing the right thing? The honorable thing? He remembered Celestia’s earnest questi
on last eve. Why exactly had the relic been in Grainne’s possession? How had the poor wise woman come by the holy object of Saint James? Mayhap he needed to swallow his pride and think before leaving Celestia alone, with Bess’s murder unsolved and Viola’s attackers uncaught.
His pride.
It was getting in the way of doing the right thing. “Let’s head for home, Brenin.”
He heard hooves pounding behind him, and his heart leapt with anticipation. Had Celestia come after him? He grinned like a love-struck fool as he turned the stallion around. He and Celestia could make the best of their situation—what had she said?—they could turn the curse into a blessing, and turn the pilgrimage into a thing of love instead of hate.
Hope died. “Petyr—what are you doing? You are supposed to be back at the keep, taking care of Celestia. I left you instructions.”
“I’m wasting time, chasing after your pathetic hide, that’s what I’m doing.” Petyr brought his horse to a halt, the horse’s hooves kicking a little dirt on Brenin. “Here,” he tossed a wrapped packet that Nicholas caught with one hand. “Yer wife said ye forgot it, again.”
He opened the folded cloth and inside was his mother’s rosary. The worn wooden cross seemed to pulsate with warmth, and heat flooded his face as he remembered that his wife was quite used to him acting the fool. She’d remembered that he’d forgotten the talisman when he’d left on crusade, and she thought to protect him. Could she love him?
“I read your instructions, my lord. You are making a mistake.”
Nicholas put the rosary around his neck, carefully tucking the cross beneath his tunic. “I am going on pilgrimage, Petyr. It is a journey I need to make alone.” Or with Celestia.
Petyr scoffed, his fair skin turning red. “Pilgrimage? Escaping from your duties, more like. Your wife scares you because she makes you feel. You enjoy wallowing in your self-pity. Holdin’ everyone at arm’s length. So you suffered in the Crusades. Lah-de-dah. Well let me tell you something, me lord Nicholas.” Petyr’s horse came nose to nose with Brenin, who snorted and rolled his eyes back.
“You weren’t the only one to suffer. My brother was one of the men in the ambush on your caravan who died. It was you leading those men, and you who led them into a trap. Aye, I see the guilt still eats at ye.”
Nicholas swallowed the bile in his throat. Sand, sun, blood. Men’s—screams, hoarse and gruff before they were silenced forever.
“Would that my brother could have been returned to me, I doubt that he would have spent his remaining years lamenting his captivity—nay, methinks he would be kissing the ground for his very life.”
Dizzy, Nicholas pressed his knees into Brenin’s barrel chest. His voice was barely a whisper as he met Petyr’s stern blue gaze. “How can you not blame me for your brother’s death?”
Petyr hawked and spat. “It was a trap. I never heard of you. It was rumored, very softly, around Peregrine Castle that the baron had to have God’s worst luck when it came to babes and wives. And that somewhere he had a grown boy—nobody knew where.”
Nicholas couldn’t move as Petyr unraveled another knot in his history. “It wasn’t ‘til the night he thought ye dead that he drank too much and spilled the secret of your identity.”
“You believe in the curse?”
“I’m surprised if that evil bastard only has one curse heaped upon his oily head.” Petyr laughed, but Nicholas heard no joy in it.
“He let go another secret, too. That old relic ye were willing to die for? It was fake.”
Nicholas gritted his teeth until it hurt.
Petyr puffed out his chest. “Well, my Lord Nicholas, this is the last of me secrets. Your father, Baron Peregrine, bought my loyalty with coin. My brother and I were fostered at his castle, and raised to be knights. I,” he grinned, “held on to honor, believing in right and wrong under God’s law. Me brother, now, rest his soul, he believed right was the side that paid the most.”
Unsure of where Petyr was going with this, Nicholas leaned over to rub his calf, as if easing a cramp, and palmed the small blade he’d hidden there.
Petyr’s brow furrowed. “Before he left on that damn Crusade, he told me that not all things were what they seemed. He thought he was bloody funny, but would not explain the jest. He told me,” Petyr looked Nicholas straight in the eye, “that he would come back from Crusade a richer man than Midas.”
Brenin sidestepped, and Nicholas grasped the reins with his left hand, as the blade was still palmed in his right.
“Now what do you think he meant by that?”
Nicholas’s head was reeling. “The relic I found is the true relic. It must be returned to Spain and Saint James.” What does the man really want?
Petyr flung his leg over his horse and dismounted, and then he drew his sword. “Ye’re bloody well deaf!” the blond knight shouted up to Nicholas. “Not to mention single-minded and stubborn. Come, let me beat some sense into you.”
“You would draw a blade on your liege? You swore fealty to me, Petyr. You go against your knight’s oath of honor.” Nicholas, goaded by anger, jumped from Brenin’s back, slipping the blade back into his boot and taking his sword instead.
“For your own good, my lord.” Petyr didn’t back down.
“Are you friend, Petyr, or foe?” Nicholas grinned, defending the first blow. “I’m tired of you always telling me what to do.” With a roar, he attacked, his sword upraised, the relic strapped against his chest. It felt invigorating to be a warrior, to hold a sword and fight. Peace was good. Battle was great.
Petyr blocked the blow, then came at Nicholas with an answering growl. His blade of fired iron slid down Nicholas’s sword and bit into the handle. Nicholas tossed the blade off, his eyes narrowing as he acknowledged the worthiness of his opponent before backing up, and positioning for the next attack.
“I’m older than you, and methinks a great deal wiser. Try again, pup,” Petyr said with a huff.
“By a year, if that much.” Nicholas lunged, his sword aimed for Petyr’s heart. Petyr sidestepped and whacked Nicholas on the back of the shoulders, sending him to his knees in the muddy forest.
Nicholas regained his footing, fire in his blood. Lunge, turn, attack. But not to the death. He swung, bloodying Petyr’s sword arm. Back and forth, until each had bones as soft as dough.
Blood trickled down the side of Petyr’s golden face. Nicholas had a slash in his thigh. With a wheezing laugh, Nicholas called a truce so they could catch their breath.
“Are ye willin’ to finally listen to reason?” Petyr heaved.
Nicholas slumped against a tree. “I’m too tired to move.”
“Good. Ye fight well for a man who has been mired in the past. I can see why you survived the ambush. Who trained ye, at the monastery?”
Nicholas wiped his sweaty brow. “Sir Edwin Palster.”
“That explains much. He was a great warrior, one of the baron’s favorite knights.”
“What happened to him?” Nicholas wiped blood from his forehead.
“Died. Riding accident, his horse threw him, or so the baron said. It was but those two and me brother who rode into the forest that day, and just my brother and the baron who came out alive.”
“What was your brother’s name, again? I’ve each man’s face carved in my memory, and I don’t remember one who looks, or spoke, as you.”
Petyr chuckled. “Bernard.”
“Bernard?” Nicholas widened his puffy left eye and searched Petyr’s face for a family resemblance.
“He had dull brown hair, Lord Nicholas, and was a short bit of a runt. I was the beauty in the family.”
“Modest, too.” He remembered the knight, and Petyr’s description of his brother was apt. Bernard had always made the hair on the back of his neck rise; Nicholas recalled that, as well. “He was to kill me? And return the fake relic, but instead he was killed and the fake relic sent back to the baron, along with the note for my ransom. I’m sorry, I think.”
Petyr s
hrugged and grinned. “His heart was as stubby as his legs, and he followed the baron like a puppy. Now,” he scratched his chest, “if I were you, and I had a wife like the Lady Celestia awaiting me at home, I would want the quickest solution to me problem. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to go all the way to Spain unless I was ready and my family safe.”
Nicholas eyed him dubiously from beneath a fall of hair. “More advice. I’d hoped I’d beaten you enough to keep you quiet.”
“And I must have knocked ye stupid. The baron is at the heart of all of this. Not Saint James … You said that Grainne Kat had the relic. Where did she get it? Think! Why were the baron’s knights killed, after being tortured? Were they, perhaps, looking for something? The relic, mayhap?”
Nicholas groaned and got to his knees, his thigh throbbing. “I am a selfish fool. As if the state of my soul could be saved if I left Celestia, and those in my care, in danger. I am an idiot.”
“Aye,” Petyr agreed with a bloody smile.
“Where is he, Petyr? Where can I find my sire?”
“Now ye’re usin’ your noggin'! I’ve brought the map, and there’s a shortcut through the trees, here. We can be there in a hard day’s ride.”
Nicholas nodded as a warm feeling spread from the rosary against his skin throughout his entire body. It was as if his mother was giving him her blessing for finally doing the right thing.
“You can find the truth ye seek, and be home to your wife in less than three days.”
“She might have a lover when I come back,” Nicholas stated, knowing he would throttle whoever dared to touch his wife’s lovely form.
Petyr started to laugh. “The Lady Celestia sent me after you, imbecile. She explained you were taking the true relic to Spain, but that she didn’t trust you to get there without falling over your honor, whatever that means.” Then he pulled out a crimson tunic with silver and gold trim. “She gave me this.”
Nicholas stared at the gold falcon in flight. “She made that for you?” His heart pounded in protest.
“You are stupid, God help you. Look in your knapsack, the one she brained you with.”