Whether he intended to hit Mariel or reach for his weapon, Trystan didn’t take time to discern. He shoved the point of his rapier against the guard’s waistcoat, forcing him backward so Mariel could race after Nick, who dodged toward the door.
Finding Trystan a larger target for their frustration, the duc’s men closed in.
Acknowledging the fruitlessness of attempting to escape while avoiding violence, Trystan grudgingly released the captain from his blade point. With regret, he watched Mariel flee his protection and dive into the crowd. She still did not trust him.
Donning his best bored expression, he twirled his foil menacingly while he waited for events to unfold. He could have out-leaped, outrun, and out-dodged an entire bevy of armed soldiers, but he had yet to decide whether Nick’s earlier warning of approaching soldiers was a cause for concern. Until he understood the boy’s admonition, he preferred to keep his interference minimal and his abilities hidden.
Whistling tunelessly, Trystan arced his rapier in the direction of the captain who dared attempt to grab his arm. Startled by his speed, the captain stepped back and gestured for his men to seize their prisoner. Insouciantly, Trystan unsheathed his sword with his left hand and circled both weapons in broad sweeps, forcing the guards further back.
“I suggest you ask the bride and groom to come forward before you take a step closer, gentlemen. I do not go anywhere I do not wish to go, and we will mar their lovely wedding with bloodshed should you attempt to force me to do otherwise,” he said in a voice of reason.
“This is the duc’s home, and we are under his command,” the captain replied roughly, gesturing for his men to do their duty.
Such feudal loyalty did not bode well for national affairs, but unconcerned with French tribulations, Trystan amused himself by switching sword and rapier from hand to hand, nicking at buttons and cuffs, the lacings of breeches, and any object that dared intrude upon his defined limits, swinging about as necessary to prevent them from coming up behind him.
The bachelor melees on Aelynn made this clash of wills a picnic. He chuckled as one of the guards tripped over his overlarge breeches when they fell about his ankles.
Slicing elaborate figure eights in the air with his steel, Trystan maneuvered the soldiers into a position of his choosing, with his back to the table. Satisfied his exit route was in place, he sat on the table’s edge wielding his weapons, carelessly crossed his legs, and swung his foot. “Sorry, gentlemen, but I do not bow to the orders of any man,” he explained generously.
A shout from the door, followed by Mariel’s shriek of disagreement, pumped alarm through Trystan’s blood, shattering his unruffled demeanor. In a single swift bound, he reached the table top to investigate the disturbance.
The guards had caught Nick—and his amacara—at the gate.
His blood boiled at the sight of one of the men daring to grab Mariel’s waist from behind, hauling her from her feet. But the addlepated soldier failed to secure his prisoner’s arms. In a movement almost as swift as Trystan’s own, Mariel reached behind her and grabbed her captor’s testicles, apparently twisting hard enough that even Trystan winced at the guard’s scream of agony.
His mate was no weak woman, and he grinned with foolish pride as she escaped her captor. Trystan saluted her with his sword as she stalked in his direction, angrily swishing her silk skirts, unencumbered by any man’s hand. Nick didn’t fare quite so well, but he swung fists and feet as the guard holding him hurried after Mariel.
Although he might seriously consider throttling her later, Trystan smiled in satisfaction at Mariel’s approach. She had finally recognized that she was safer with him.
When the baroness and the chevalier emerged from the mob to join them, Trystan returned to the floor. Still holding both his weapons at an angle that defied anyone’s approach, he shoved his way to Mariel’s side. He raised his eyebrows at his host and hostess while Mariel smacked the hand of the man holding Nick. The man dropped the boy, and with a look of shock that a mere woman could and would use such force, he cradled his injured hand against his coat.
“Now, we will sort this out, will we not?” Trystan asked casually, hiding his pleasure at Mariel’s protective instincts. “I have decided to shelter the lad until I have been given good reason to do otherwise. Anyone who dares lay another hand on him will have it sliced off. And if anyone…” He glared at the offensive creature who had dared touch Mariel. “If anyone dares to so much as touch a finger to my wife, I shall remove his balls. Are we understood?”
Still shivering at being so basely manhandled, Mariel snorted at Trystan’s audacity. He was the one surrounded by armed and uniformed guards, outnumbered twenty to one, and he was giving orders? She’d consider him quite mad, except she hadn’t missed his swordsmanship. She had never seen such a skilled display in her life.
Watching from afar, she’d seen Trystan amid the mob’s chaos, appearing as nonchalant as if he were taking a pleasant walk. Not a lace or hair out of place, he’d casually wielded his deadly weapons and held off an army. Even now, he seemed no more than a languid aristocrat, playing at fencing, until one looked in his eyes and saw the glint of steel reflected there.
She’d think him a pirate or one of the old king’s musketeers did she not know better, and foolishly, she thrilled at his unyielding strength. She didn’t care to see the bloody mess he’d leave behind should anyone be dim-witted enough to defy him. She stood quietly, clasping Nick’s shoulder, allowing Trystan to handle their captors.
Belatedly, she was recognizing her companion as far more than a sailor but less than a god. She might have an argument to pick with the arrogant princeling, but she’d prefer to keep his strength and nobility on her side.
“That’s my ward,” de Berrier argued. “I demand that he be turned over to me at once.”
The new Lady de Berrier brightened as she studied Nick. “Your ward? Why did you not say so? I had no idea, Marc. What’s your name, child?”
“I’m not a child,” Nick protested. “I’m fifteen. And I’m not his ward.”
Mariel hugged his thin shoulders. He squirmed but did not pull away. “His father was killed by militia. He has a right to suspect anyone in uniform.”
“Killed?” Lady de Berrier looked around her, much as a bird blinks and turns its head to study its surroundings. “Has someone found the murderers?”
“It was a mob, madame. I did not wish to concern you over such matters,” de Berrier replied. “It is just such a mob I wished to prevent by ordering the gates barred.” He gestured at the drunken throng now dancing awkwardly to a tune the musicians had struck up. “The times are unsettled and events can escalate rapidly.”
Both Mariel and Lady de Berrier followed his gesture, nodding attentively at the sight of satiated women sitting on the floor, leaning against the tables, and blissfully stuffing grapes and nuts into their mouths. Shabbily dressed men roared and pounded each other on the back, jovially quaffing wine from bottles and punch from bowls.
The elegant nobles who had once adorned the hall had for the most part slipped away. A few of the younger ones had joined the party and were as merrily lifting bottles as their impoverished counterparts.
“Yes, I can see where feeding a mob is a messy thing,” the lady agreed, blithely misunderstanding her new husband. “We shall have to reimburse the duc for the cleaning. How very silly of me.”
Mariel elbowed Trystan to reprimand his grin of appreciation at the lady’s quick wit, but the mischievous amusement in his expression revealed something of the boy he must have been before duty and responsibility carved his face into stone. Her heart nearly knotted at seeing this side of him that he so closely guarded.
“The boy is wanted for poaching,” the captain of the guard reported, ignoring the family squabble. “Poachers are hung to discourage others from committing the offense.”
Mariel wrapped her hand over Nick’s mouth and pulled him back into her skirts before he could shout his protests. Drop
ping his pretense of disinterest, Trystan straightened into the fine-honed weapon that he was, and menacingly raised his rapier to the captain’s throat.
“The boy was with me. Find another poor poacher attempting to feed his starving family. Take yourself off and do something useful, like preventing those fools from raiding the cellars.” He nodded toward a few inebriated young men who were slipping down a corridor into the castle, and lowered his rapier as the captain’s gaze followed his nod.
Alarmed first by the threat of Trystan’s weapon, and then by the sight of the vandals, the captain shouted, sending half his command racing across prone bodies and around dancing bacchanalians. Then, relieved of the blade point at his throat, he swung back to Trystan and drew his sword with renewed authority. “I will present the boy’s case to the duc when he returns. Until then, he is remanded into my custody.”
“It would be amusing to see you try to take him from me,” Trystan replied with a wicked smile that did not hide the deftness with which the point of his rapier pressed into the captain’s sword hand.
“King’s soldiers are coming. Up river from Quimper,” Nick muttered so only Mariel and Trystan could hear. “We must leave.”
If the king’s soldiers had killed Nick’s father, Mariel didn’t think it wise to await their arrival. Praying she had assessed Celeste’s character rightly, as well as her influence over her new husband, she turned to the new Lady de Berrier. “My lady, Nick is heir to a fortune, and there are those who would see him parted from it. We do not have the means to know friend from foe. We would rather take him with us than leave him to fend for himself. ”
“Nonsense. If he is Marc’s ward, he will go with us. I have always wanted a son. Come along, dear, let’s find you a nice new suit of clothes.” Celeste marched between raised swords, took Nick’s shoulders, and steered him past the astonished guards. “A bath, first thing,” she stated, wrinkling her nose. “Do not concern yourselves. He will be safe with me.”
No one questioned her ability to take care of the boy. The steel in her voice rivaled that of Trystan’s sword.
Unable to contradict a baroness, the captain stood with jaw dropped, letting them go.
Nick sent a panicky look back to Trystan and Mariel, but a disturbance at the front of the hall drew all eyes in a new direction.
Twenty-two
Did she imagine it, or had Trystan just snarled at the sight he could see above the heads of the crowd? Mariel thought she could sense a dangerous energy pulsating around him, as if he would begin to glow any minute. Mostly, he kept his strengths hidden by playing the part of languid aristocrat or merchant, but she knew him for what he was, and the menace in that disquieting growl did not bode well for someone.
Distracted from Nick’s plight, she followed Trystan’s narrowed gaze to a ripple in the crowd nearest the doors. She heard no tramp of soldiers’ boots. No phalanx of uniformed men entered. But someone was cutting through the crowd like a shark through the sea—one man, commanding attention with his aura of danger.
Peering around Trystan’s broad frame and bristling menace, Mariel stared at the second most striking man she’d ever encountered.
The stranger couldn’t be called conventionally handsome. He carried himself like a man who knew his worth and reveled in it, but he was not as tall, broad, or muscular as Trystan. He was dark and lean as a lone wolf, with a blade-thin nose, hollowed cheeks beneath high cheekbones, and thick mink-colored hair that he had clubbed at his nape without bothering to powder or pomade. Although he wore the royal blue of a king’s soldier with only a cloak pin for adornment, he had the air of a man sporting silk and diamonds.
Mariel caught her breath as he came closer. He had Trystan’s eyes, except black-lashed rather than golden brown. She watched the uncanny change of color from grim gray to mocking blue as he caught her stare—and saw her eyes, changing hue just as his did.
Body tensed, Trystan blocked her with his brawny arm, then placed himself between her and his adversary.
“What do you here?” Trystan demanded, or Mariel thought he demanded. The words weren’t ones she knew, but she seemed to understand them. The advantage to having unique abilities herself was that very little of what others did surprised her, so she concentrated on the conversation and not the anomaly.
“I could ask the same, old friend,” the newcomer replied with dark amusement. “I thought my senses fooled me when I felt you here. Did you come to tell me I have been found innocent?”
He’d felt Trystan’s presence? That did not make sense in any language Mariel knew.
“Not likely,” Trystan said gruffly. “Dylys did not suppress you entirely then.”
Mariel heard the underlying relief in Trystan’s comment, although on the surface, he was caustic. Was that disappointment flashing through the other man’s expressive eyes? The atmosphere seemed taut with emotion, but she could not discern why.
Before she could feel sympathy for his obvious pain, the soldier’s gaze became hard, menacing, and he responded with an obscene gesture. “We will not talk of that or we must talk of why you are interfering in the events of Others. I believe only I am allowed that sin.”
Following this conversation from behind Trystan’s right shoulder, Mariel saw the dark soldier nod toward Nick and the baroness. “He might have died had you not interfered. There is no telling what will come of his survival.”
“What did you intend his death to achieve?” Trystan asked acerbically.
The question drew the soldier’s attention back to them. “It was not my men who murdered the boy’s father. My squad was there to stop the hot-headed radicals who are up in arms everywhere. They blamed his father for their taxes, held a tribunal, and called for his death as justice. The killers have been incarcerated.”
“You came from Quimper to tell the boy that?”
Mariel could tell from Trystan’s voice that he didn’t believe that for a minute. She wished she understood the currents of the conversation as well as she did the words.
“The woman. She understands.” The dark man nodded in Mariel’s direction. “Dylys will banish you, too, if she finds out you’ve sworn vows with a ringless Crossbreed.”
“Leave Mariel out of this. Why are you here, Murdoch?”
For a moment, the soldier looked uncertain. Without the mask of hauteur, he seemed almost human, but he hid the weakness swiftly with a sardonic expression and curt bow.
“I thought perhaps you had a message for me. Forgive my foolishness. I haven’t quite got the knack of forgetting my friends yet.” He nodded at Mariel and spoke in court French. “A pleasure to meet you, mademoiselle. Be assured, your young comrade will be safe with his guardian. Your cousin is a far stronger woman than she appears.”
Shocked that he addressed her with such familiarity, and that a stranger could know her enigmatic cousin better than she, Mariel could not hope to reply. She spoke Breton, not the language of the court. Not well, at least. Even though she’d understood the words he and Trystan had exchanged, she could not possibly reply in either tongue.
The man called Murdoch did not seem to require an answer. With a sharp bark of command, he set the guards scurrying to protect the corridors from vandals and thieves.
Then he turned to Trystan with a dark look of foreboding. “The future I predicted has been embarked upon. The chalice is out in the world where it is destined to be. It will not return to your hands tonight. Or ever. You were my friend in the past, so I will warn you this once. Go home, while you still can. From now on, we work toward different purposes.”
Spinning on his heels, Murdoch strode out as swiftly as he’d entered.
The concerned man who had fascinated her these last days suddenly reverted to the rigid board she’d first met on the island, a grim authority with a nasty duty to perform.
“I must leave you with your cousin,” Trystan said stiffly. His blank gray eyes concealed his considerable restraint, but his mighty fists and tensed muscles projec
ted danger. “I cannot let the chalice fall into Murdoch’s hands. If it is already on its way back here, then it should not take me long to intercept it.”
“How could he know about the chalice?” she asked in an undertone when Trystan grasped her elbow to steer her after the baroness and Nick.
“He shouldn’t know,” Trystan said through clenched teeth. “Once, he had the Sight, but Dylys suppressed his powers. When gifted, Murdoch had the combined abilities of all of us, but he is irrationally unpredictable. He should know nothing.”
“He seems to know everything,” Mariel pointed out, resisting his tug. “And I need to return to Francine. As you said, I will only be a hindrance if I accompanied you inland.”
Far better than before, Mariel could sense Trystan’s grief at losing the precious object, and his fear that it would be lost forever. She hated that the chalice might be lost, and she could not help him, but already, she was feeling the weakening she’d experienced yesterday. Why had her mother never told her of her limitations?
Because her mother hadn’t known anything of their heritage. They had to learn by themselves. For that, alone, she should resent the arrogant Aelynners.
She could have died had Trystan not known what was wrong with her.
What if Francine’s baby was born with some special ability? It might die if Mariel didn’t know about limitations and weaknesses.
Panicking, Mariel grabbed Trystan’s arm and dragged him to a halt. “Your people? Do they have midwives? Can I bring one to Francine?”
He looked at her as if she were crazed. “What are you talking about?”
“My sister! Our mother was of your kind, so Francine’s child might be also, right?”
He hesitated, his wooden expression softening with thought. Then he froze up again. “It’s no matter. Crossbreeds survive if it is meant to be. Treat the child as any other. Now let go so I might ask your cousin to look after you while I’m gone.”
Her temper flared, and Mariel swung her fist into his massive upper arm. Trystan didn’t flinch, which made her even more furious. “My cousin is newly married. She has just taken on Nick. And I am going home.” She assumed Nick had left the pony and cart where they’d hidden them. She hadn’t had a chance to ask before the newlyweds hastened him off.
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