Yet no apparition appeared.
Whether the voice he heard was from heaven or hell, the deed was done. Redemption and, aye, vengeance were at hand. At last.
At the end of the corridor, he tossed his torch onto the floor and then swept rapidly down the stairs, his footsteps making no sound as he eased out of the keep and into the black, moonless night.
Soon someone would rouse.
Soon an alarm would sound.
Soon it would be over.
And justice, at long last, would be served.
CHAPTER ONE
Castle Calon
January 12, 1289
M
orwenna moved upon the bed. Her bed?
Or another’s?
Lifting her head, she saw the glowing embers of the fire, red coals casting golden shadows upon the castle walls. But what castle? Where was she? There were no windows, and high above the walls, past creaking crossbeams, she spied the night sky, dozens of stars winking far in the distance.
Where was she?
In a prison? Held captive in an old, forsaken keep whose roof had blown away?
“Morwenna.”
Her name echoed against the thick walls, reverberating and turning her blood to ice.
She twisted on the bed and stared into the shadows. “Who goes there?” she whispered, her heart thudding.
“’Tis I.” A deep male voice, one she should recognize, whispered from the dark corners of this seemingly endless chamber. Her skin crawled. With one hand she clamped the bedding to her breast and realized that she was naked. With the other hand she searched the bed, fingers scrabbling for her dagger, but it, like her clothes, was missing.
“Wh-who?” she demanded.
“Don’t you know?”
Was he teasing her?
“Nay. Who are you?”
A deep chuckle from the gloom.
Oh, God!
“Carrick?” she whispered as he appeared, stepping into the light, a tall warrior with broad shoulders, deep-set eyes, and a chiseled chin. She couldn’t trust him. Not again. And yet a thrill pulsed through her veins and erotic images stole through her mind.
He stepped closer to the bed and her heart pounded, her mouth suddenly desert dry. She couldn’t help but remember the feel of his sinewy muscles beneath her fingertips, the salty taste of his skin, the male smell of him that had always stirred her.
“What are you doing here? How did you get in?” she asked but realized she didn’t know where she was.
“I came for you,” he said, and she trembled inside.
“I don’t believe you.”
“You never did.” He was close to the bed now and leaned even nearer. Her heart thudded as he slowly pulled his tunic over his head, and the fire glow caught his sinewy muscles as they moved. “Remember?”
Oh, yes . . . yes, she remembered.
And cursed herself for it.
“You should go,” she told him.
“Where?”
“Anywhere but here.” She forced the words out.
His smile flashed white. Knowing. Oh, he was a devil. Isa was right. Morwenna should never have allowed him close to her, let him into this room without a ceiling
.
But you didn’t. You don’t even know where you are. Perhaps you’re his captive and this is your prison cell. Could it not be that he is keeping you here as his slave, to minister to him, to lie with him, to do his bidding?
“If you won’t leave, then I will,” she said, her gaze sliding away from his face to search the floor and the pegs near the door for her clothes.
“Will you?” he taunted, settling onto the bed next to her and running a finger down the side of her jaw. Her skin prickled in delight. Her blood rippled with lust. “I think not.”
“Bastard.”
He laughed at her, ran his finger ever lower, pushing aside the bedclothes, baring her breast, watching the nipple pucker under his perusal. Though Morwenna knew she was making a devastating mistake, she turned her face up to his, felt the warmth of his breath against her skin, knew that she would never be able to resist him. A deep warmth invaded that most intimate of regions and she sighed as he worked his way lower, callused fingers trickling down her willing flesh.
Lowering his head, he placed a kiss upon her bare abdomen.
She moaned, heat pulsing through her body. Then she sensed they were not alone, that unseen eyes were watching their every move. Someone or something with evil intent.
From where? The open ceiling where she saw stars shooting across the heavens . . . or closer? In the room with them?
“Morwenna!” Someone was calling her, but she could not be disturbed, not when this man she had loved with all of her heart had returned. “Morwenna!”
“Morwenna!”
Her eyes flew open.
The dream evaporated like a ghost chased by morning’s light.
The dog at her feet gave out a disgruntled snort.
“God’s teeth!” She sat straight up in bed, pushed her hair out of her eyes. It had been a dream. All just a cursed dream. Again. When would she ever learn?
There was no one in her chamber, no mysterious warrior about to seduce her, no old lover returning. She was alone. And yet . . . something felt amiss, like a breath of wind in a sealed tomb. Her skin prickled as she drew the bed linens close.
“What a ninny,” she muttered, forcing herself to breathe normally.
She was in
her
bedchamber at Castle Calon, in
her
room, in
her
keep, the one her brother Kelan had entrusted to her. She glanced about the large chamber with its vibrant tapestries and whitewashed walls. The ceiling, rising high above the crossbeams, was very much intact, the fire in the grate burning embers, shutters on the windows allowing only a few gray wisps of the coming dawn inside. Nothing was disturbed. Even the dog, a cur she’d inherited when her brother had assigned her to Calon, had been sleeping soundly, his snoring ruffling the fur of the rabbit coverlet tossed carelessly over the foot of the bed. She was letting the old rumors about the keep being haunted bother her; that was it.
“Lady Morwenna!” Isa’s frantic voice echoed through the hallways.
Morwenna started. Her dog, suddenly wide awake, sprang from the bed to bark wildly as if the old deaf thing was sounding an alert.
“Hush, Mort!” Morwenna commanded.
The beast lowered his speckled head and growled in low disobedience.
A thunderous knock erupted on the door. “M’lady?”
“Coming!” Morwenna yelled, irritated at the urgency in Isa’s voice. The old woman was forever concerned about the future, her ancient eyes imagining danger and darkness in every corner. Morwenna threw on her tunic and raced across the fresh rushes to the door just as the pounding resumed upon the thick oaken panels.
“What is it?” she demanded, unlatching the door and pulling it open to find Isa’s face colorless, her lips tight. Beside her in the darkened hallway stood one of the huntsmen. Jason, a tall, gangly man with bad skin and teeth to match, was worrying his hat in his hands. “What’s wrong?”
“A man was found outside the castle gates,” Isa said, breathless. Strands of once-red hair were visible beneath her cowl and her ice blue eyes blinked nervously. “Near dead, he is, and beaten to within an inch of his very life.” Her eyebrows knitted together and her thin lips tightened. “The attack was so savage that no one . . .” She took in a deep breath. “Not even his own father would recognize him.” Isa shook her head and her cowl slid to her shoulders. “I doubt he will live another day. Tell her, Jason.”
“ ’Tis true,” the huntsman admitted. “I found him while chasin’ down a stag just before dawn. Stepped over a rotten log and there he was, covered with leaves and dirt, barely a breath left in him.”
“So where is he now?”
“In the gatehouse. Sir Alexander thinks he could be a spy.”>
“A near-dead spy,” Morwenna clarified.
Isa nodded, and she looked as if she wanted to say more but held her tongue.
“Has the physician seen him?”
“Nay, m’lady, not yet,” Isa said.
“Why not?” Morwenna demanded. “Nygyll needs to examine the man immediately.”
Isa didn’t reply. Her feelings against the physician were strong.
Morwenna ignored them. “Have the wounded man brought into the keep, where it’s warm. Mayhap he can be saved.”
“ ’Tis unlikely.”
“But we shall try.” Morwenna’s gaze swept the corridor to land on the door of a room now unoccupied. “Take him to Tadd’s chamber.”
“Nay, m’lady,” Isa said swiftly. “ ’Tis unsafe . . . only a few doors down from you.”
“Did you not say he is near death?”
“Aye, but you cannot trust him.”
“You, too, think he’s a spy?”
Isa nodded, her wrinkled face becoming more so as she thought. She glanced at Morwenna, worried the hem of her sleeve with gnarled fingers, and then looked quickly away.
The hairs on the back of Morwenna’s neck rose. “There is something you’re not telling me,” she said and remembered the feeling in her dream, that she was being watched from unseen eyes. “What is it, Isa?”
“There is trouble brewing, something I sense but cannot yet envision.” The old woman suddenly gripped Morwenna’s forearm and her eyes were instantly dark as midnight, her pupils dilated as if she had, indeed, just experienced one of her premonitions. “Please, Lady,” she whispered, “ ’tis your safety I fear for. You must not take a chance.”
Morwenna wanted to argue but couldn’t. Too many times in the past Isa’s premonitions, her visions of the future, had proved true. Had she not declared that the potter’s wife would have triplets, all boys, and die with the birthing of the third one? Hadn’t Isa predicted the lightning strike in the bailey at Penbrooke, and within a fortnight, the tree in the bailey’s center had been cleaved and charred from a bolt that narrowly missed Morwenna’s brother Tadd? Then there had been the mysterious death of a merchant’s wife. Isa had sworn the woman had been poisoned, and when all was said and done, it was proved that her husband had, indeed, forced the poor woman to drink hemlock because he’d discovered that she’d been bedding the miller. For most of her sixty-seven years Isa had been able to see things others could not.
“Fine,” Morwenna said. “See that the man is brought into the great hall, where it’s warm, and have someone . . . Gladdys, open the hermit’s cell in the north tower. ’Tis large enough for a pallet and has a grate for a small fire. Get the fire started and sweep out the vermin. Then make certain that the man’s wounds are cleaned and that the physician examines him before he’s moved into the tower.”
Morwenna pretended not to notice the shadow of distrust that passed through Isa’s clear eyes at the mention of Nygyll, the castle’s physician. Isa and Nygyll had never gotten along and barely tolerated each other. Nygyll considered himself a man of reason, a practical if God-fearing man, while Isa believed in spirits and the Great Mother. Nygyll had been with Castle Calon for years, while Isa had moved here with Morwenna less than a year ago.
“It may be too late to save the injured man,” Isa reminded Morwenna.
“Then send someone for the priest.”
There was another nearly imperceptible tightening of the corners of Isa’s mouth. “The priest will not be able to help—”
“Did you not say the wounded man was near death?” Morwenna reminded her. “He may be a man of faith. Should he not have a priest’s blessing and prayers if he’s about to die?” Morwenna didn’t wait for an answer. “Send someone to find Father Daniel. Have the priest meet us in the great hall.”
“If you wish.”
“I do!” Morwenna snapped.
The hunter took off at a fast clip and Isa, too, hurried away, presumably to carry out Morwenna’s orders. Her long cape billowed behind her as she hastened to the stairway, where, before she disappeared, she glanced over her shoulder at Morwenna, her old face knotted in worry. She appeared to want to argue further, but she reluctantly descended.
“By the saints,” Morwenna whispered once she was alone again.
Sometimes Isa seemed more trouble than she was worth. Considered odd by most who met her, she had helped raise Morwenna and her siblings. A faithful servant to Morwenna’s mother, Lenore, during her lifetime, Isa was now steadfastly at Morwenna’s side.
“Fie and feathers,” Morwenna muttered as she walked deeper into her room, tossed a mantle over her head, and stepped into her shoes. She’d just made her way out of her chamber, Mort at her heels, when a door creaked open and Bryanna poked her head into the hallway. Sleep lingered in her blue eyes and her curls were a tousled dark red mass around her head. “What’s happening?” her sister asked around a yawn. Though sixteen and nearly four years younger than Morwenna, the girl often seemed a child.
“A wounded man was found near the keep. ’Tis nothing,” Morwenna said, hoping to stop the tide of Bryanna’s ever-rampant curiosity. “Go back to bed.”
Bryanna wasn’t to be easily deterred. “Then why all the noise?”
“Because of Isa. She is certain the man is a spy or enemy or something.” Morwenna rolled her eyes. “You know how she is.”
“Aye.” Bryanna stretched one arm over her head, but she seemed no longer to have slumber on her mind. “So what is to be done with him?”
“What do you think?”
“Questioned and fed. Mayhap cleaned a bit.”
Morwenna nodded and kept the news to herself that the man was about to expire. What purpose would it serve to tell Bryanna about his condition? Until Morwenna had seen the man herself, she decided she would seal her lips. As it was, gossip about the wounded warrior would travel lightning fast through the keep and Bryanna wasn’t known for her ability to keep a secret.