Mystic Guardian

by Patricia Rice

  Apparently taking her silence as agreement, Trystan gripped her more gently.

  In so doing, he glanced at the window of the silversmith’s and turned a deathly shade of pale. “How did that get there?” he asked in a voice so thunderous that it should have shaken the last unripe cherries from the trees.

  Mariel turned and nearly didn’t recognize the ugly chalice in the window. Since this morning when she’d last seen it, the bowl had been polished until it gleamed silver and the blackened glass on its stem and base twinkled like rare gems.

  The blue stones winked at her.

  Eight

  “You stole the Chalice of Plenty,” Trystan roared incredulously, alarms clamoring at all his guardian instincts. “How could you steal the chalice?”

  The chalice was beyond legend—it and the Sword of Justice were the reason the gods watched over the island and its people. Without the chalice… It didn’t bear thinking. Everything Aelynn was stemmed from those two treasures. His imagination could not stretch far enough to grasp their fates without the silver bowl.

  His mate had stolen the chalice! How could that be?

  Mariel continued to look from Trystan to the window in bewilderment. For a brief—very brief—moment, he thought he was mistaken. She looked so beautiful and forlorn…

  But then he remembered she’d admitted selling a cup to buy bread for the village.

  A sudden ugly thought struck him, and Trystan gripped the arm of his pretty nemesis hard enough to bruise. “Did Murdoch send you? I swear, if you are in league with him, I will carve you into grains of sand.”

  The possibility that his ex-friend had been driven mad by his banishment loomed terrifyingly in his mind’s eye.

  “Murdoch? Is he another like you?” Still looking uncertain, Mariel pressed her slender palm to the window separating her from the blinking blue stones.

  He should have thrown her in Aelynn.

  Trystan dragged Mariel, stumbling, into the tiny shop. He had never in his life dared to touch the chalice. He had seen it once, as a child, for some ceremony where it had twinkled merrily at him, just as it was doing now. There was seldom occasion to drag the relic from its hiding place in these days of plenty. The legends spoke of dire times when the chalice ventured abroad, but not in his lifetime. A drought and a harsh winter seemed insufficient reason for the chalice to leave of its own accord.

  It contained the power of the gods, and Mariel had stolen it. How?

  Unwilling to touch the sacred object, Trystan produced his sack of coins and slammed it on the counter before the startled silversmith. “I want to buy the cup in the window,” he said in the Breton tongue.

  The smith looked anxiously at Mariel, who looked more puzzled than shaken now that Trystan hadn’t killed her. He’d correct that.

  With malice aforethought, he gripped her chastely covered nape, ostensibly in a gesture of affection and not the threat it was. “My bride tells me she was forced to sell the heirloom before I could arrive. I would like to buy it back for her wedding gift.”

  The smith shook his head sorrowfully. “I’m sorry. Lady Beloit just asked me to clean it. She wishes to give it to her fiancé. Perhaps, if you will talk with her, she will understand…” He gestured helplessly.

  He could steal it. He could simply lift the cup from the shelf and walk off. What was the worst that could happen? The smith would cry thief. The local militia would run after him with muskets— People in the line of fire would be killed. He would be interfering in the Outside World and banished for breaking Aelynn law. He was still tempted…

  “Thank you, monsieur.” The woman beneath his hand bobbed a curtsy, interrupting his dangerous thoughts. “When the baroness returns, if you will tell her we wish to speak with her about the cup, we would appreciate it.”

  She broke Trystan’s grip on her nape and walked out the door, down an unpaved alley parallel to the harbor where the sloop waited. Grabbing his purse of coins, Trystan caught up with her in a few strides.

  “Do you have any idea of what you’ve done?” he said through clenched teeth, shaken by how close he had come to doing the forbidden.

  “Obviously, I do not. I am not normally a thief. I simply thought I deserved some recompense for the insult offered me. The cup did not seem very valuable. I thought it pewter with pretty paste stones, enough to buy bread for Francine. I was quite shocked when the baroness offered more. I almost rejected her charity.” She turned down another alley leading toward the cliffs.

  “Charity?” He bit back any further roar in favor of learning what went on in that strange mind of hers. Throttling her swanlike neck and shaking her until her wits rattled was unlikely to solve the problem. “Where are we going?”

  “To see the baroness so I might explain that it was a mistake. I can return some of the coins she gave me, but she spent a dreadful amount on grain for the baker. I must think of some way to explain to Francine that I need the rest of the coins back,” she added anxiously, worrying at her bottom lip.

  Trystan refused to consider that plump lip and what he’d like to do with it. He felt like a whirling top that she kept hitting with a stick to keep him spinning. “How much did you sell the chalice for?” He had brought all the coins he possessed, but Aelynners mostly bartered, so he did not have a great number.

  She named a sum that would beggar him.

  Stunned, Trystan sat down on an oak bench outside a tavern. “How much of that have you spent?” he demanded, mentally tallying his coins and wondering if he had anything valuable to trade. He should have brought pearls, but they drew too much attention in rural areas.

  Mariel collapsed on the seat beside him, her homespun skirt looking threadbare against his silk. Even though she wore her hair demurely pinned beneath a cap, he recognized the mermaid’s wildness. The amacara Aelynn had chosen for him was headstrong and would blow him off course if he did not firmly man the ropes. His blood might still be thick with desire from the arresting memory of this maiden aroused and awaiting his possession on the altar, but nonetheless, his head still worked. He thought.

  “I bought a cartload of grain,” she murmured. “We have gone hungry for so long, and the price will only go higher before the next harvest. It cost most of my prize.”

  “Grain costs that much here?” he asked in amazement, turning her words over and applying them to his predicament. Aelynn did not normally trade for grain, so he had small idea of its value. Forbidden to interfere in the Other World, Aelynners had learned long ago not to question the merchants with whom they traded about anything other than the goods they sought. To do so tempted the soft of heart to meddle. Had the chalice decided his world had plenty, and hers, not enough? Surely the chalice wouldn’t break the law!

  “Do you think I lie?” she asked bitterly.

  For some odd reason, he did not. A fortune, for humble wheat. No wonder she looked half starved, as did most of the town’s inhabitants.

  She didn’t wear rings and gloves like the fine ladies he’d met. She clasped her bare hands in her skirt, and he could see the calluses from hard work on them.

  The gifted woman fated to be his amacara had been abandoned to survive in a primitive world without even the most basic of necessities or education. Even so worthless an ability as swimming with fishes deserved the care and appreciation of her own kind. If he took Mariel home with him, she need never scrub or farm again.

  But the task was no longer as simple as he’d thought. Now, he had to retrieve a stolen treasure and pray Dylys didn’t throw both of them into the mountain for the sacrilege.

  “If the cup is so valuable, why was it neglected like that?” Mariel asked while his mind reeled.

  How by all the gods could he explain? Of all the travesties of justice caused by abandoning the Crossbreeds, this lack of education was the greatest. “The chamber you broke into is protected by the gods,” he said. “No one except Dylys should have been able to enter, and no one but she should have been able to recognize or f
ind the sacred object.”

  She darted him a nervous look from beneath lowered lashes. “A sacred object? Irreplaceable?”

  “Irreplaceable,” he agreed grimly. Beyond irreplaceable into dangerous and unpredictable, but he couldn’t explain that to someone who didn’t wear the ring.

  “And your purse is not large enough to cover the wheat’s cost if I give you all I have?”

  “How much do you have?” he asked in resignation.

  Mariel gave him the coins she’d intended for the church. But if he did not lie… She’d stolen a sacred object.

  She tried to imagine how she’d feel if he’d stolen the rare gilded porcelain statue of the holy mother that adorned their church. She would be appalled and sickened and would miss it immensely, but she still thought feeding the village was worth the sacrifice. The clergy hoarded their wealth at the expense of their people, just as the nobility did.

  Then she tried to dismiss Trystan’s pagan gods and their profane magic, but she could not. If she had not seen and done things that did not belong to the narrow world she lived in, she might have scorned his religion, but she had talked to dolphins and knew there were wonders beyond the knowledge of a village priest. The chalice had, after all, provided loaves for many.

  “What will happen if you cannot buy back the cup?” she asked quietly.

  “Immediately, Dylys will probably have us both thrown to Aelynn,” he replied. “Over time, I cannot say precisely. The whole purpose of the Mystic Isle is to guard the chalice and the—” He stopped himself. “Let us just say that the island is a temple of the gods, and if we profane it, the gods will not be happy. I cannot predict the actions of deities.”

  She shouldn’t be concerned about some heathen idols she did not worship, but she was concerned about this honorable man who believed she’d stolen a sacred object, and that he could never return home without it. In effect, her deed held him here, away from his family, as much as he’d tried to do to her. That was a calamity she could grasp.

  Trystan counted her coins and his, and sat with the purse between his big hands, drawing his fearsome brow into a frown that should quake her to her toes. Even if she could persuade him not to kill her, he would never help the village now. A week’s worth of bread would not save them from eventual starvation.

  “How much more do we need?” she asked in despair.

  “I will need to sell the sloop to raise a sum that large,” he said in distraction, kneading the purse until she feared it would burst beneath the pressure. “I brought nothing else with me.”

  “I left some coins with my sister,” she admitted with a sigh. “It is not much. Just enough for a midwife and for the dinner our guests will expect when they arrive to see the new babe. Will that help?”

  “Not enough. She may as well keep them. The sloop is made of rare timbers and design, built for speed. It’s worth a great deal if I can find someone willing to buy it.”

  That didn’t seem probable. Even the fishermen had no coins these days. And if he sold the ship, he would have no way home.

  Another thought occurred, and Mariel brightened. “Vicomte Rochefort has a man of business who loans money against ships and the like. You can purchase it back again with a little extra for the service. We can borrow what you need, buy back the cup, and if you can look after Francine for me for a week or two, I will go with the dolphins in search of a shipwreck where I might find something of value to repay you. And then you can pay off the loan and take the chalice home again!”

  “At the rate things are happening, you will no doubt drown in your efforts, leaving me saddled with your sister and no ship,” he replied in muffled fury. “I cannot risk your life.”

  “You have a better suggestion?” she demanded, standing and proceeding in the direction of the castle, expecting him to follow. She was incapable of doing nothing.

  “It’s an improvement over heaving us into Aelynn,” he admitted grudgingly, falling in step with her.

  ***

  The old stone fortress stood high upon the bluffs overlooking the channel. Mariel tried to concentrate on the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks below while she waited outside the counting house for Trystan to return.

  It was very hard to keep her thoughts from straying to the mysterious island beyond those waters and the bed Trystan insisted awaited them. They were a dream beyond her reach. Her reality was cold and hunger and a beloved sister who would bear a child without knowing what had become of her husband in the maelstrom that was Paris these days.

  When Trystan emerged with a bulging purse of coins, she gladly set aside her gloomy thoughts. “Is it enough?” she asked anxiously.

  “Not nearly as much as the sloop is worth,” he grumbled. “We had best find some means of paying it back swiftly or his high interest will cost all the treasures of the sea.”

  “Such avaricious buzzards have bankrupted France,” she said, relieved that one problem was almost solved. “They loan money at usurious rates to a court with empty coffers. And to pay the interest, the king’s court taxes the poor, who do not have the power to refuse.”

  “You have no say in how you are taxed?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “That is scarcely fair or just.”

  Relieved that they could buy back the chalice, she waxed loquacious as they hastened toward the baroness’s quarters. “When greed and selfishness rule, fairness suffers. That will change once the Assembly speaks. France is one of the most advanced nations in the world, after all.”

  “Advanced?” he said in horror. “The moneylender wore rings that would buy kingdoms, yet people starve? And you call this advanced?”

  “We are highly educated,” she said stiffly. “In Austria, they still keep serfs in slavery. In France, we have free farmers as well as brilliant philosophers and scientists. Montgolfier has flown to the skies in his hot-air balloon. Mesmer produces magic sleep that may someday help the ill and mad. The court of Versailles is one of the wonders of the world and draws the elite of every continent. Our future is very bright, except we have experienced some bad weather and a costly war. Once the Assembly works out a means of paying our debts by taxing the nobility instead of taking it from the pockets of those who have nothing, I am sure all will be well.”

  “That seems an obvious conclusion,” he said dryly. “Why hasn’t your Assembly arranged it before now? Taxing the penniless is not a fiscally responsible policy.”

  Mariel grimaced. How did she explain the workings of government to someone who lived in peace and prosperity without apparent need of such? “The Assembly hasn’t been called in a hundred and seventy-five years,” she admitted. “The king has been badly influenced by a foreign queen and simply does not realize how we suffer. My brother-in-law has gone to Paris to represent our village, along with hundreds like him. The king will listen to his people.”

  “It seems you are a hundred and seventy-five years too late,” Trystan growled in the same manner she would expect of an angry tiger. “Did your people really think a king was some nice father who would always look after the interests of helpless children he doesn’t know and who never speak up? Have men in power ever done such a thing?”

  Mariel halted at the entrance to the three-story building containing the apartments inhabited by aristocrats who had no land of their own. She would like to learn a great deal more about the peaceful world Trystan came from. She would like to learn more about a golden god whose intelligent interest in what she had to say made her heart patter too fast. But she had her responsibilities and he had his, and ne’er the twain would meet.

  She cast her escort a telling glance to halt his treasonous arguments. “We need to have a word with the Baroness Beloit,” she murmured in her best submissive manner to the guard.

  “She is not available,” he replied woodenly.

  Defiance could land her in a dungeon, but she had Trystan at her back. With confidence, she stood as tall as the guard and looked him straight in the eye. “Chevalier d
e Pouchay’s daughter wishes to speak with the baroness. When will she be available?”

  The guard shrugged, leaned against his guardhouse, and looked her up and down as if she were a light skirt.

  Without warning, Trystan gripped her arms and set her behind him. His hand fell to his sword hilt, his massive shoulders twitched inside his civilized frock coat, and he glowered as if he would crush the insect in his path. The guard cringed in response. Mariel thought she might get used to having a magic genie who did her bidding, if she could fool herself into believing that was all he would do.

  Trystan didn’t have to say a word. The soldier eyed his wrathful expression and his sword and hastily admitted, “The baroness has left for Pontivy.”

  Trystan grabbed Mariel’s elbow and squeezed. She could hear all his questions without his speaking them. Her own heart had sunk to her sabots.

  Clenching her teeth, she dipped a quick curtsy and hurried away.

  “Where is Pontivy?” he demanded the instant they left the castle wall behind.

  “Two days journey toward Paris.” With neither horse nor carriage, they could never catch up to ask the lady’s permission. “I think we must steal the chalice back,” she admitted reluctantly.

  Nine

  “I will leave the purse in exchange for the chalice. It won’t be stealing,” Trystan declared as they hurried down the hill toward the village jeweler’s shop.

  “You will have to wait until dark. You cannot simply walk in there.” Mariel raced after him by lifting her skirts, attracting more attention than she liked, but unwilling to let an angry god stride about, smiting innocents. He moved faster than seemed humanly possible.

  She had to remember he was but a man. Except, when enraged like this, he looked as if he could blow down walls. He practically emanated golden rays. She watched a fisherman trip over his net trying to follow their progress as they raced by.