Fire of the Soul

by Speer, Flora

  “I doubt that,” Fenella said, not deigning to place her hand into Garit’s outstretched one. She barely glanced at Lady Elgida. “Why are you here?”

  “My grandson is escorting me, at my request,” Lady Elgida answered the question. “I am here because I am your mother-in-law.”

  “Not any longer,” Fenella responded with a cool lift of her chin. “Not since Kinen died.”

  “I thank you for your kind letter that told me of my son’s death and that assured me your grief matched my own,” Lady Elgida said. “Fenella, I have come to Kinath in hope of meeting my grandsons, your two boys. I would very much like to spend a few days with them.”

  “Why?” Fenella demanded. “You’ve never cared to meet them before this day – or me, either, for that matter.”

  “I should think my reasoning is obvious.” Lady Elgida smiled at the younger woman, ignoring her rudeness. “Just look at me, child. I am growing older. I have a longing to see my son’s children before I die, to look into their little faces and discover any resemblance to their father, or to my dearest Belai.”

  “Belai and Kinen are not here,” Fenella said. “They are at Kerun City, where the royal court is presently residing. They are pages to Queen Laisren.”

  “Are they, indeed? How proud you must be of them,” Lady Elgida said, sounding as if this was the first time she’d heard of the boys’ appointment to the queen’s household. “Fenella, I’ve traveled far by sea and I am very grateful to be on land again. May I claim your hospitality for just a few days until I recover enough to travel on to Kerun? Now that I am in Kantia, I cannot return to Saumar Manor without meeting those dear boys.”

  It was a request that no lady of any castle could rightly refuse, hospitality being one of the great obligations of nobility. Still, Fenella hesitated, pursing her lips as she considered the matter.

  Calia could see that the lady was no beauty, though she was far from homely. Her reddish hair was worn in a single braid and left uncovered, not hidden beneath a coif as was the custom for married Sapaudian noblewomen. Her fair skin was liberally sprinkled with freckles. She was short and sturdy, and her grey gown was without ornament and not very becoming. But her blue eyes were clear and quite lovely. And also quite expressive. She looked at Lady Elgida with cool insolence, and then she glared at Garit.

  “We are preparing to leave Kinath the day after tomorrow,” Fenella began, plainly intending to make an excuse for refusing to entertain guests.

  “Indeed we are,” her husband said, interrupting with a smooth purpose that frightened Calia. “We are planning to travel to Kerun to attend the royal court. Lady Elgida, you and your companions are welcome to join us. Of course, you must make yourselves comfortable here at Kinath until we leave. Fenella will order rooms prepared for you. Won’t you, my dear?”

  Calia thought that Mallory’s hold on his wife’s arm had tightened painfully, for Fenella blanched and bit her lips before agreeing.

  “Of course,” Fenella muttered. “You are most welcome, my lady, and so are your companions.”

  “Excellent,” Lady Elgida said. “Thank you, my dear. And thank you, too, Sir Mallory. I am eager to hear your stories of life with King Dyfrig along the Northern Border. I’ve been told that you have been his close friend for years, since well before he became king.”

  In the uncomfortable silence that followed this speech, Garit began introducing the rest of his party, beginning with Durand as the highest ranking member. For the first time Mallory turned his attention away from Garit and Lady Elgida to the faces of his other guests. His greeting to Durand was polite if not especially warm. Then his gaze came to rest on Calia and a wicked smile lit his dark, narrow features. Calia held her breath, expecting to hear the words that would make Garit hate her. But Mallory quickly repressed the smile and merely offered a cool nod when Garit spoke her name. Anders was next, then the men-at-arms, and Mallory’s look turned cold. Calia recalled how uninterested her brother had always been in unimportant people who could do nothing to advance him in the world.

  “I look forward to seeing all of you again at the evening meal,” Mallory said when the introductions were completed. “Fenella, need I remind you of your duties to our guests?”

  “No, of course not, Mallory. Lady Elgida, Garit, will you come with me, please?” Fenella pulled away from her husband’s grasp and headed for the stairs.

  Calia stayed close to Lady Elgida. All the way up the steps she could feel Mallory’s gaze on her back. She refused to turn her head and look at him. He’d find her soon enough for a private talk. She knew she couldn’t avoid him. And he’d want something of her, something that would be to his advantage.

  Once again, Lady Elgida, Calia, and Mairne were to share a room. It was built into the twelve-foot-thick stone of the tower wall. A single, unglazed window looked over the cove, where they could see The Kantian Queen resting at anchor.

  “This castle is so cold,” Lady Elgida complained, wrapping her arms around herself. “Kinath was never so unpleasant a place when I was mistress here. Calia, you had better come into bed with me tonight, so Mairne can have the trundle bed. If she sleeps on a pallet on the floor, she’s sure to develop an ague from the chill. Mairne, I will need hot water for washing, and I’ll want to wear my warmest woolen gown when we return to the great hall.”

  Meanwhile, Garit, Durand and Anders were all, like the ladies, assigned to the same chamber.

  “Was this really your room as a child?” Durand asked Garit.

  “Yes, and it was small then, too,” Garit answered wryly. Two steps brought him to the window. The view southward along the rocky coast was the same as he recalled from his boyhood, but nothing in the room was the same. Fenella had seen to it that all of the youthful belongings he’d left behind were removed just as soon as she became lady of Kinath. She’d made a point of telling him so on his first visit after his father’s death.

  “Do you want me to signal to Captain Pyrsig to leave the cove?” Anders asked. “If it’s all the same to you, Garit, I’d rather wait until tomorrow to send The Kantian Queen away.”

  “So would I,” Garit agreed. “Something here is not right. Our host ought to have been chagrined to see me. I arrived expecting Mallory to challenge me to hand-to-hand combat for my part in his late father’s capture and execution. Instead, he hasn’t mentioned his parentage. It seems he’d like me to assume he’s overjoyed to have me as his guest.”

  “Perhaps he wants us to believe he’s a peaceful man,” Durand said, grinning in a way that showed he didn’t think much of that possibility.

  “If he’s anything like his father, he’s likely to be plotting for an accident to occur somewhere along the road to Kerun City,” Garit said. “Since Captain Pyrsig is willing to wait in the cove for two nights and a day, I’ll keep that means of quick escape available for as long as possible. Were I here alone I’d be glad to stay and deal with whatever Mallory intends, but I have to think of my grandmother and the other women.”

  “A wise decision,” Durand said. “No point in putting the ladies into danger if we don’t have to.”

  “In that case, since you have no message for Captain Pyrsig,” Anders said, “I’ll take myself off to the stables to try to locate any old acquaintances of mine who are still there. Perhaps I can learn what kind of master Sir Mallory is. Odd, don’t you think, that he’s not calling himself Lord Mallory?”

  “He wouldn’t dare,” Garit responded in chilling tones. “Not until King Dyfrig grants him lands and a title elsewhere. At the moment, my half-brother, Belai, is lord of Kinath.”

  “Aye,” Anders said with a frown, “and let’s keep it that way.”

  The evening meal resulted in the most uncomfortable few hours that Calia had endured for years. She and Mairne were seated at one of the lower tables, but even so, the tension amongst the three men and two women at the high table was apparent to her and, she thought, to everyone else in the hall.

  “What do you think
they’re talking about?” Mairne whispered. “They don’t look happy, do they?”

  “No,” Calia agreed with a sigh. She turned her head to look at Mairne, thus breaking the spell of Mallory’s amused gaze on her.

  “Wish we’d never come here,” grumbled Winn, the man-at-arms who sat on Calia’s right. He was one of the men from Saumar and he was completely loyal to Lady Elgida. “This castle ain’t no place for ladies, nor honest men, neither. Don’t you go walkin’ alone around here, Calia. Nor you, neither, Mairne. Keep one of our men with you at all times.”

  “Is that why you’ve surrounded us?” Calia asked. She had already noticed how two of Garit’s men sat to her right and three more across the narrow table from her, while Anders and a sixth man-at-arms sat next to Mairne.

  “Aye, at Garit’s command,” Winn told her. “Now, you mind what I’ve said.” Having dispensed his rough advice, the man-at-arms returned to his meal of meat and vegetable stew ladled into a bowl made of day-old bread.

  Calia took up her carved horn spoon, but she only pushed her own helping of stew around in the hard bread bowl. Aware of the way Mallory kept watching her whenever his attention was not diverted by conversation with his guests, she found that she could not swallow. She hadn’t eaten since breaking her fast aboard The Kantian Queen in early morning, so she hesitated to take more than a few sips of ale, lest the drink muddle her wits. Knowing Mallory, she feared she was going to need all of her senses to deal with him.

  “Where is Mairne?” Lady Elgida demanded. She glanced out the bedchamber window as if she expected to spot the girl on the deck of The Kantian Queen.

  “My lady, if you will sit down, I’ll remove your coif,” Calia offered. She could tell by the weary lines in Lady Elgida’s face that her mistress ought to be in bed. Instead, Lady Elgida persisted in pacing around the guest chamber like some restless, caged creature.

  “Answer me, Calia,” she snapped. “Where is Mairne?”

  “I don’t know,” Calia admitted, unwilling to say that she believed Mairne was with Anders. She tried a small diversion. “Winn sat with us while we ate, and he warned both of us not to wander around Kinath without an escort. I trust Mairne has sense enough to pay attention to good advice, so she’ll come to no harm.”

  “When I was mistress here,” Lady Elgida said, “when my Belai was lord, any woman, whatever her birth, could walk unescorted anywhere in Kinath, at any hour of the day or night, in perfect safety.”

  “Unfortunately for the women of Kinath, Mallory is not like your late husband,” Calia responded rather sharply. She was tired, too, and she dreaded the coming confrontation with her brother. She was sure Mallory hadn’t spoken directly to her or announced their relationship because he preferred to torment her, letting her fret and worry until her courage was stretched so thin it would fail when the moment he was planning for arrived.

  But Mallory couldn’t be aware of the full depth of her fear. After seeing him, Calia believed that he felt secure in his own position, but he’d no doubt think she was afraid of being exposed as the daughter of Lord Walderon. Mallory didn’t know his little sister loved Garit. That was a detail she must conceal for as long as possible if she wanted to avoid giving him any power over her – or over Garit, who might feel compelled to defend her.

  “Very well, help me to undress and see me into bed,” Lady Elgida ordered after a last glance out of the window. She slammed the shutter and latched it, closing out the night air. “If Mairne hasn’t returned by the time I’m ready for sleep, I want you to find her. I have a few words to say to that naughty child.”

  “Yes, my lady.” Calia reached for the white linen coif that covered Lady Elgida’s hair.

  Chapter 14

  A short time later, with Lady Elgida tucked beneath the warm quilt she’d brought from Saumar, Calia left the room to find Winn standing guard outside the door.

  “Stay here,” Calia told him when he would have fallen into step beside her. “See that no one disturbs Lady Elgida.”

  “What about you?” Winn asked.

  “I am commanded to find Mairne.”

  “Oh, that one.” Winn chuckled, shaking his head as if at a naughty child. “I saw her wandering off with Anders after we left the hall.”

  “That’s good news. She took your advice, Winn. She’s not alone.”

  “No, but you are. Be careful. If you’re not back here in a short time, I’ll go after you,” Winn informed her.

  “Thank you for your care of me,” Calia said to placate his sense of manly duty. “I promise, I won’t be long. I’m just going to see if Mairne is in the great hall.” Leaving the man-at-arms, Calia hurried along the shadowy corridor and around a corner to the stairs.

  As she reached the top step, Mallory appeared out of the gloom. He gave the impression of coming down from the lord’s chamber that was located on the highest level of the tower, but Calia suspected he’d been lurking in the darkness on the chance that she’d be sent on some errand.

  “Were you looking for me?” Mallory moved to block her way. “If not, you should have been.”

  Calia said nothing. She knew if she spoke, she’d reveal the telltale tremor in her voice that had always told Mallory how frightened of him she was. She clenched her hands into fists at her sides and faced him with all the courage she could gather, which wasn’t nearly enough. Mallory stood a full head taller than she and he was very strong.

  “What?” His low voice mocked her. “No tender greeting for your beloved brother? Can’t speak a word? Overcome with joy, are you? But my dear, I’ve a feeling you knew you’d meet me here at Kinath, so you must have been expecting a conversation with me.”

  “I didn’t want to come here,” she whispered. “Not after Lady Elgida told me who her daughter-in-law had married. I knew you wouldn’t want to see me, so I tried to talk Lady Elgida out of making the voyage, but she refused to listen to me. Once she had made her decision, I was duty-bound to come with her.”

  “Of course, you were. That’s my little sister, loyal unto death.”

  His contempt for her throbbed in every word that Mallory spoke and suddenly Calia was more angry than frightened. He was, after all, the brother who had conveyed her to a beguinage against her will and abandoned her there despite her resistance. No doubt he had expected her to remain at Talier, permanently out of his way and absent from whatever shred of conscience he possessed.

  “Tell me what you expect me to do about this situation we find ourselves in,” she demanded. “Shall I reveal that I am your sister, or keep quiet about it? I’ve said nothing before this because I was uncertain what you want. Left to myself, I’d never say a word to suggest we are related.” She tried to look as scornful of him as he was of her, though she seriously doubted she was succeeding.

  “So,” Mallory said, a faint smile curling his lips without any lightening of his cold expression, “Garit doesn’t know who our father was? No, of course not, for if he did, you would not be here and he would have come against me with an army. When Garit learns the truth he will want my death. And your death, too, dear sister. He will try to exact vengeance for what our father did to that silly girl he loved.”

  “Then, you don’t want him to know?” Calia prayed she had guessed correctly. If Garit didn’t learn who she and Mallory were, the two men would have no reason to fight and there’d be less chance of Garit being injured, or worse. Then she noticed the slight change in Mallory’s expression, a tightening of his lips and narrowing of his eyes that she’d seen too often during her girlhood, and she realized it didn’t matter if Garit never knew the truth. Her brother intended to seize any opportunity to hurt or kill Garit.

  “I’m sure you don’t want him to know,” Mallory answered her. “I’ve seen how you look at him, and the way he looks at you. Just wait until you see the horror on his face when he discovers that you are Walderon’s daughter – which he will learn at the moment of my choosing.”

  “Don’t,” Calia cried, fo
rgetting to keep her voice low. “Please, Mallory.”

  “You owe me a great debt, little sister. Have you forgotten all the years when I provided a home for you, protected and fed and clothed you?”

  “I haven’t forgotten what happened after we were turned out of Catherstone,” she declared, interrupting the too-familiar accusations. “You called me a burden, an obstacle to your plans to make a new life for yourself at the court of the prince of Kantia. Not once did you hint that you’d send for me after you had established yourself. On the day you left me at Talier Beguinage, you wanted only to be free of me. I suppose you were content to know you hadn’t abandoned me to sell myself or starve.”

  “You are incredibly stupid, Calia.”

  “Perhaps I am,” she said, hearing the weight of sadness in her own voice. “Cruel as you were, I loved you, Mallory, because I had no one else to love. But now—”

  “Now the time has come for you to repay me,” he said. “You owe me the respect and loyalty due to your closest blood kin. You will do as I say and you will tell me what I want to know. Begin with Garit’s intentions. Is he here to seize the castle?”

  “What, with only -?” She stopped before she revealed how few men-at-arms Garit had brought with him. Mallory couldn’t know how many armed men were waiting aboard The Kantian Queen, so she decided to say what he had already learned. “With only three women, one nobleman, a single squire, and a few men-at-arms for troops?” she amended her question with a shaky laugh.

  “Perhaps he won’t try just yet,” Mallory said thoughtfully. “Ah, but if he reaches Kerun and speaks to the king in his own behalf, that’s a different matter, isn’t it? I’ll have to stop him before then.”

  The unconcealed malice in her brother’s voice made Calia shiver. It also increased her anger. She spared just an instant to wonder if her love for Garit and her fear for his sake was making her brave, before she returned all of her attention to what Mallory was saying.