The Captive Heart (Kathleen Kirkwood HEART Series)

by Kathleen Kirkwood

  Chapter 4

  Felise’s stomach churned as she mounted the stairs to the gallery and huffed along the corridor to the bedchambers.

  Ailénor. Where was the girl? She had neither appeared at chapel nor again when the castle folk broke their fast in the Great Hall.

  Lady Ailinn and Lord Lyting grew deeply concerned, particularly when Etainn and her cousins just now revealed that Ailénor’s pallet lay cold when they awakened at dawn.

  Ailénor had to have passed through the outer chamber where she herself slept, Felise reflected. That knowledge tormented her no end.

  Entering the first of the rooms, Felise continued directly across to the one that lay beyond. She halted just inside the portal. Squinting to see better, she began to pace the chamber slowly, seeking some detail that might suggest what became of her ward.

  The oak peg that normally held Ailénor’s cloak jutted naked from the wall. The floor below it stared up just as vacant, her slippers likewise gone.

  Felise moved on to Ailénor’s pallet. The servants had yet to tidy these particular chambers, being occupied cleaning those of the higher-ranking lords first. The pallet lay as Ailénor left it, with the blanket folded back. On the floor beside it lay her rich corded girdle in a snarl.

  Felise bent to pick it up. ‘Twas the one she wore yesterday. Had Ailénor dressed hurriedly and not thought to put on the belt? Or mayhap it fell to the floor unnoticed, or she could not locate it in the dark.

  Crossing to Ailénor’s clothes chest, Felise opened it and checked through the neatly folded gowns. The ivory dress was missing.

  Felise bit her thumbnail, winnowing her thoughts, unsure this told her anything. Turning, she skimmed another glance over the room. Her gaze came to rest on young Michan who crouched by the door, his fluffy white companion filling his arms. He watched her with intent eyes, round as the kitten’s.

  Felise cocked her head to one side. “Mon petit, have you seen your soeur, Ailénor, this morn?” she asked in a milky tone, striving to mask her anxiety.

  Strangely, Michan scooted back from the portal, clutching the kitten high against his chin, half hiding his face behind it. Guilt pooled in his eyes.

  “Qu’ est-ce que c’est? What is this?” Felise’s brows parted upward.

  Going to the boy, she studied his expression. Drawing on her long experience as nursemaid to the numerous enfants of Héricourt, she placed a hand to her hip, elevated an eyebrow in a practiced arch, and partially shuttered one eye. She then began to tap her foot upon the floorboards.

  “If you know something, mon petit, you had best be out with it. Your parents grow fierce worried for your sister and will soon have the entire guard out searching for her.”

  “She is not here,” Michan asserted in a small voice.

  Felise blinked. “This I can see with my own eyes.” She gestured back to the room with an open palm, her patience slipping.

  “I mean, Ailénor is not in the keep.”

  “Not in the . . . . She has gone outside of the keep? And pray, where might she have taken herself? Do you know, child?”

  Michan avoided Felise’s eyes and took a visible swallow. “M-i-c-h-a-n . . .” Her voice climbed, drawing out his name with measured sternness.

  Ailénor went to meet Garreth. Well, I think she did.” He screwed his face and shrugged. “I heard them talking in the church yesterday. You remember, Felise. You saw him there, too.”

  Felise compressed her lips, preferring to forget. The man materialized from nowhere, though she suspected he had just been . . .

  “They agreed to meet in secret just before dawn at the stone bench in the rose garden.”

  “Did they indeed?” Felise harrumphed. She squared her shoulders and stiffened her spine. “Alors. We shall just see about this . . . this . . . rendezvous. I shall have a word with your sister and a switch for that Saxon wolf who prowls ever about her.”

  Lifting her chin, Felise marched through the portal, intent for the garden. Michan hurried behind, his kitten clutched firmly in his arms.

  Minutes later they entered the garden, only to find it empty. Piqued by the entire matter, Felise cast an irritable glance about. Where had they gotten to now? ‘Twas not a stick but a cane — a very big cane — she would take to Garreth of Tamworth.

  In the same moment Cricket leapt from Michan’s arms and scampered off behind a hedge of bushes. Michan scurried after the feline. Instantly he reappeared, his face gone pale.

  “Felise . . .” he called anxiously, his voice rising on a thread of alarm. “Felise . . .” It rose again, higher, thinner. Unable to utter more than her name, he pointed a shaky finger toward a place behind the hedge.

  Felise hastened to his side, a testament of peppery caveats and rebukes she planned to give the Saxon forming on her tongue.

  She halted abruptly, gasping as her gaze fell upon a lustrous green-blue cloak, lying in a tangled heap upon the ground. Taking it up, she found it to be thoroughly soiled as though it had been trampled underfoot.

  “Felise . . .” Michan pulled at her sleeve, uncertain but fearful. “Look at how the ground is turned.”

  Felise covered her mouth, seeing what he said to be true. “My lamb . . . non . . .”

  A grave foreboding gripped her, and she shook her head. In so doing, a gleam of sunlight caught her eye, reflecting off something hidden in the grass a short distance away.

  Felise hugged the mantle to her breast and warily approached what looked to be a metal object. Reaching down, she retrieved it. And recognized it at once. ‘Twas Ailénor’s brooch, a lavish piece gifted to her this Christmastide past by her parents.

  Nearly pricking herself on its underpin, she turned the brooch over. Her heart stopped midbeat. Dark red blood coated the pin’s shaft.

  Felise cried out. Clutching the brooch and mantle, she bustled back toward the keep, wailing for her lord and lady, Michan and his kitten heeling behind.

  »«

  Garreth watched the two men surreptitiously as he took up his skin of wine and raised it to his lips.

  He had recognized the two a while past, when they cast off their concealing hoods in the full light of day. He remembered them from two nights ago, when they tarried in the Great Hall of the ducal palace, watching Ailénor’s parents on the gallery above.

  If their sharp interest in the count and countess did not strike him as odd then, it did now as he called it to mind.

  ‘Twas equally curious that they would leave their positions in the duke’s household to sail for Ireland. Of course, considering the altercation with the head butler over their idleness in the hall, mayhap they no longer enjoyed employment at the palace.

  Garreth downed another swallow of wine and watched the soaring flight of a gull. Something rankled deep in his bones, but he could not quite lay a finger to it.

  He sifted through what little he knew. The men had paid the boatswain a hearty sum for transport to the Irish isle. That did not bespeak of men needing to scrimp their earnings for lack of a gainful position. Rather, it suggested precipitous arrangements, made with an urgency to be away.

  But an urgency to what purpose? To return to Ireland, or to depart Francia? He tumbled the thoughts in his mind.

  Garreth held fairly certain the two were of Irish blood, not only by their looks but by the distinctive Gaelic tongue in which they had been quietly conversing — a tongue he could identify readily enough, though he was at a loss to comprehend a single word.

  Now that he pondered it, the pair were apparently fluent in tongues. ‘Twas reasonable they would need to speak Frankish in order to procure positions at the palace. They certainly had exhibited no difficulty in understanding the irate butler. Just a little while past, they had addressed the boatswain, a Kent man. In that instance, the man with the disfiguring scars spoke in accented Saxon.

  As though the man heard his thoughts, he chose that precise moment to glance over at Garreth. His eyes were not overlarge and protruding like his friend’s
, but small and flat, reflecting no light in their depths — cold pebbles of jade, hard and inscrutable.

  The man shifted his gaze out over the winding Seine. If he and his companion recognized him, they gave no indication. Garreth could not recall whether either had actually taken note of him when they stood side by side in the Great Hall. Nor was he sure that it mattered.

  A small inner voice warned that it did.

  The man with the huge eyes and weak chin rose and made his way to the fore of the ship. There he relieved himself over the bow before making his way back.

  He paused before the cargo hold, scrubbed his face with his hand, then stepped down into the space and ladled up a dipperful of ale from the barrel at the mast. After slaking his thirst and recovering the cask, he made a point to ramble about the hold, pausing near Garreth’s chest and the hide-covered package beside it.

  Garreth’s brows drew together. ‘Twas not the first time one or the other visited the hold or lingered before his belongings. Did they know of the Psalter of Metz?

  How could they? he argued with himself. ‘Twas possible only if a member of the monastic community of St. Ouen had alerted them. He rejected the notion soundly.

  Another thought nettled. Earlier, when he himself visited the hold to check on his trunk and the Psalter, the men’s looks instantly darkened. They watched him closely the entire time, of that he was sure. As to why, he had yet to fathom.

  Garreth scanned the cloudless sky. The two were a grim pair. He had a gnawing feeling ‘twas a mistake for the boatswain to have taken them on. If they posed a problem, they still could be put ashore at Harfleur before beginning the Channel crossing. After that, there was no recourse till they landed in England.

  As he secured the skin of wine, he cast another glance toward his goods, sheltered just below the half deck and visible from where he sat.

  His hands stilled as his eyes alighted upon the hemp sack, projecting out about a foot’s length from behind the chest. He rubbed his eyes, sure that the day’s bright sun meddled with his vision.

  His gaze wandered back to the sack once more. It lay stock-still, as one would expect. Yet the moment before, he thought to have seen it move.

  »«

  Ailinn paced the far side of the chamber, wringing her hands in silent anguish, while Felise sat on a chair in the corner weeping into her apron, thoroughly distraught.

  Brienne moved between the two, offering what solace she could.

  Lyting brought his gaze from the scene. He carried a dark fury in his soul but counseled the grimness from his features as he crouched before Michan and questioned him for an untold time, sifting every word, every detail, for some clue to Ailénor’s disappearance.

  “That is all I know, papa. En vérité. Truly. Garreth told Ailénor he had to leave and sail for England. That upset her greatly. I think she had tears in her eyes. She said she would meet him in the rose garden just before dawn, and he asked that she give him something to remember her by. A token.” Michan concluded his tale, then wrinkled up his brows. “Did she run away with Garreth, papa?”

  Lyting squeezed his eyes shut, bowing his head as he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He no longer knew what to think or say.

  “Of course not, Michan,” Brienne soothed when Lyting did not respond. “It does not make sense now, does it?”

  Ailinn turned from the narrow window where she stood, and Lyting glanced over his shoulder, lifting his eyes to his sister-in-law. Felise stopped her sniffling.

  Finding herself suddenly the center of interest, Brienne felt a flutter to her pulse. She had said too much. Lord, she did not wish to bring up painful matters. Still, the others waited. She moistened her lips.

  “Well, it does not make sense that there is blood on the brooch and her cloak was left crumpled on the ground if she went willingly with Garreth.”

  “And what if she went unwillingly?” Lyting posed, his voice taut.

  “Surely you do not believe he forced her?” Brienne met with unconvinced stares. “The two seemed enamored of one another.” More unblinking stares challenged her. “To what purpose, then? He might be an impulsive young man but certainly not foolish. Would he kidnap Ailénor, who is not only your daughter but kinswoman to the Duke of Normandy, thus risking the wrath of William and his powerful allies, not to mention the displeasure of his own sovereign? Athelstan is not a king given to kidnapping innocent women, or condoning it. I cannot believe it.”

  “I must agree with Brienne.” Rurik’s rich voice carried from the portal as he entered. “The guards who held first watch at the main gate have verified Garreth passed through it at dawn. Alone. He bore no visible marks upon his person — no wounds, no scratches, no stains of blood upon his clothing. He appeared hale, though in a brooding mood. From other reports gathered, ‘twould seem he went straight to the docks and boarded a small cargo vessel with two other men and a boatswain, their ship bound for England. ‘Tis also confirmed no women departed the palace grounds in the first hours of dawn — noblewomen or servants.”

  “Where does that leave us, then?” Lyting gave a reassuring squeeze to Michan’s shoulder and rose to his feet.

  Rurik locked a somber gaze with Lyting. “We know Ailénor passed through the kitchens just before dawn, presumably on her way to meet Garreth. One of the cooks spied her crossing the yard in the direction of the garden. ‘Tis unclear whether she and Garreth actually met. But since he left alone, ‘tis possible she came to harm afterward.”

  “Or before,” Lyting added.

  Rurik nodded in agreement. “We cannot be certain of the sequence of events. What we know suggests she is still on the palace grounds, yet they have been thoroughly searched and the buildings turned out. The guards have accounted for all those who have passed through the gates this day, male and female alike. Those within the palace confines are being questioned. A number of wagons and carts are known to have passed out of the gates at varied times. Those are being sought. As to ships, only two others departed at dawn, upriver, bound for Paris. Again, no women were reported aboard.”

  “So, we have naught but speculations.” Lyting vented his frustration on a long breath. “If we eliminate Garreth, we must ask who else would abduct her — if she has been abducted — and why? I cannot believe they could hide her this long upon the grounds.” Lyting dropped his gaze to the floor, a muscle working in his cheek. “What enemy have I, to do so monstrous a thing?”

  “Mayhap not an enemy of yours, broðir,” Rurik offered, “but of our noble cousin. William has adversaries aplenty, both within and without the duchy. We might better ask who would seek to strike out at him in this way?”

  “But why Ailénor?” Ailinn stood before the window, her features stark.

  Lyting went at once to her side and slipped his arms about her. She sank her head against his chest.

  “Dear God, who would do this to our daughter? Why, why?” Ailinn’s voice broke with a sob, and she began to shake against Lyting.

  He felt her pain. A pain resurrected from long past for them both, but most especially for Ailinn. She’d once been abducted herself in a raid on her homeland in Ireland. Lyting embraced her all the tighter, wishing to shield her against the misery of that nightmare, remembering her great trials, for he had accompanied her into that captivity, seeking to free her as they voyaged to Byzantium. This time he vowed he would not be trammeled by inaction as he had been when he fought to save Ailinn. He pressed his lips to her hair.

  “I shall find her, elskan mín. And when I do, whoever brought her the least grief shall repent the day he was born.”

  Just then, one of the soldiers materialized at the door. “My lords, a cart has been found abandoned a short distance from the west gate. ‘Tis full of stale rushes, removed from the hall last eve. The cart passed through the gates this morn, at dawn, driven by two men. We are seeking to identify them. They could have traveled in any number of directions by now — no telling where in Francia.�
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  Lyting turned to Ailinn. Their eyes touched a single aching moment. He gave her a swift, hard kiss, then followed the soldier out the door. Rurik embraced Brienne and likewise was gone.

  Brienne moved to Ailinn’s side at the window and encompassed her with a comforting arm. Together they gazed out the narrow slit.

  “Merciful Lord, watch over them all,” Ailinn prayed, her voice breaking. “Wherever Ailénor may be, grant her Thy protection even as You did me, so many years ago.”

  Great tears stole over Ailinn’s cheeks. Tasting again of the dark terror she’d once known, a deadly cold swept through her. Fresh fear for her daughter convulsed her heart. Clenching her hands to fists, she brought them down against the window sash.

  “Oh, Ailénor, Ailénor! Where are you, my darling?”

  »«

  Ailénor parted her lashes. And met with darkness.

  She blinked and refocused. ‘Twas not a pitch-black that confronted her but an umbery brown, pricked with a hundred pinpoints of light.

  Her nose twitched at the close air and the coarse material that rasped her face. By degrees, her brain registered the musty smell of hemp, the gag in her mouth, and the bindings that constrained her hands and feet. The floor beneath her rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

  Ailénor jerked upward, her heart slamming against her ribs as she recognized the motion. Pain instantly stabbed through her head and twinged along her tender jaw. She winced and dropped back down to the hard boards, then lay listening to the rhythm of her blood pound in her ears.

  Mon Dieu, she was aboard a ship, inside a sack, being borne to she-knew-not-where but certainly away from Rouen.

  How long had she lain unconscious? How far had the ship traveled? And to where?

  Her head throbbed as questions assaulted her. After enduring several panicky minutes, she grasped hold of herself with a firm mental shake. She must rely upon her wits and clear thinking if she was to survive this ordeal.