Crystal Rose (35 page)

The men outside rang and pounded, even shouting when no one
came immediately to let them in. Then Ardis-a-Nairnecirke opened her bedroom
door and came softly down the stairs. The Cirke-mistress called to the men to
hold their pounding, and hastened to unbar the door (the door she kept
shuttered against her own husband and no one else). Then they were there, in
the hall, just outside the room where Iseabal stood and quivered and kept her
aidan very still.

“What do you want, gentlemen?” her mother asked, and
sniffled. “Ah, Regent Feich, isn’t it? I apologize for the delay, but . . .”

A smooth, creamy voice answered: “I’m very sorry to disturb
you, mistress, when you are in such obvious distress, but we are in dire need
of assistance from a member of this household. You are the wife of the Osraed
Saxan?”

“I . . . Yes, I’m Ardis-a-Nairnecirke. But if it’s my husband
you seek, you’ll find him up at Halig-liath, not here.” There was accusation in
that.

“I’ve met your husband, mistress. It’s your daughter I seek.
Iseabal is her name, I believe.”

“Yes, but what could you want with Isha? She’s only a young
girl—”

“A talented young girl, I’ve been led to believe. A girl
possessed of a strong Gift.”

Anger pulsed in Ardis-a-Nairnecirke’s breast. “Did Saxan
tell you that? He exaggerates, I assure you. Isha is—”

“A Taminist.”

Her mother gasped softly. “Oh, surely sir, you won’t hold
childish meanderings against—”

“Your daughter is late of Hrofceaster, as I understand it.
She has been trained by this Taminy-a-Cuinn, this self-styled Osmaer, to use
her Gift in particular ways. Ways which may be of help to me in finding Cyneric
Airleas Malcuim and returning him to his rightful place on the Throne of
Caraid-land . . . You do care what happens to Caraid-land, mistress?”

“Yes, of course I do! I—”

“Then let me speak to your daughter.”

Ardis-a-Nairnecirke was uncertain; to Iseabal, her suspicion
of Daimhin Feich was a palpable substance.

“Mistress,” Feich said in a milder voice, “I am sorry if my
manner seems brusque. Surely you understand that this is a matter of life and
death. Airleas Malcuim is in the hands of his enemies. I have reason to believe
your daughter can help him.” He paused, and Isha could feel the dark tendrils
of his aidan seeking, probing. “If she were to help me find the Cyneric, I’m
certain her childish meanderings could be overlooked.”

Relief flooded the space suspicion had lately held. “Yes
sir. Thank you, sir . . . Isha!”

Iseabal shivered, listening as her mother called up the
stairs. Supposing her to have gone to her room, she led the men to the second
floor and along the corridor. Of course, her room was empty. Other rooms were
checked, her mother called more loudly. Isha darted a thread of thought toward
the front door.

Could she escape that way? But no, Feich was no fool, he’d
left men there. She might use her aidan against them, but the thought of using
it to do violence was alien.

They were downstairs again, searching the house, her mother
saying, “I can’t imagine where she’s gone. We had a bit of a-a disagreement . . . You might check the Sanctuary.”

They did that, and Isha moved swiftly to the window and
tried to throw the catches. Her hands shook terribly and the catches were
stubborn with rust and swollen wood. Dared she use her aidan, or would he sense
her as she sensed him? He was in the Sanctuary now, discovering that she was
not. She pushed harder at the window clasps. They rattled, but did not budge.
She heard the heavy tread of boot soles on the verandah—muffled voices moving
toward the study window.

They’d heard—and now
he
was coming back through the house. Desperate, Isha tugged at the shutters with
her aidan, an inyx on her lips, her full will behind it.

In answer, the catches gave, and outside the door of her
father’s study a hungry voice said, “Here! What’s in this locked room?”

“My husband’s study,” said Ardis. “I’ve kept it closed
since—”

“Open it.”

Iseabal pulled back the inner shutters and looked out. She
could see the graveyard, moonlit and silent, and the vague figure of a man
standing not five feet from the window.

“But no one’s been in there—”

“Open it, mistress!”

In her mind’s eye, Isha imagined a shadowy figure darting
through the gravestones.
Look, you! Look!
Someone escapes!

Outside the window, a male voice uttered a muted exclamation
and the guard pulled his sword and leapt to follow the phantom.

“I’ll get the key . . .”

Isha fumbled with the window latch.

“Damn you!” Feich roared.

Something struck the door, buckling it inward.

Gasping for breath, Isha gave the window a shove and—

The door splintered behind her while her mother’s voice
cried, “Please, sir! Please!”

Iseabal whirled from the window casement, heart beating
wildly, breath catching in her lungs. A desperate thought struck her and she
grasped her aidan tightly and drew it about her like a cloak.

Daimhin Feich stood in the room, the wreckage of the door
about him on the flagged floor. He panted like a weary dog, but his pale eyes,
gleaming in the moonlight from the open shutters, were bright and searching.

“Light!” he snarled. “Bring light!”

“I’ll get a lamp,” said someone behind him, but Feich was
impatient. He pulled something from a belt pouch and held it before him. The
red crystal was aglow before it even cleared the opening of the little bag. It
sent bright, ruddy rays into every corner of the room as Daimhin Feich
advanced.

“Empty.” A younger man entered the room behind him, a lamp
out-thrust in his hand. “She’s escaped.”

“No,” breathed Feich. “Not escaped. I can feel her. Search!
Search the room!”

Three men did as he ordered, even peeking behind the open
shutters. The young one held his lamp close to the casement.

“See here, Daimhin, she’s opened the window and gone out.
Probably well away from here by now.”

Daimhin Feich strode across the room to the other man’s
side, making Iseabal, hiding behind her own fierce will, tremble at his
nearness, at the nearness of that crystal. Dear God, could he possibly miss how
the thing flared up when he passed by her? If she dared move . . .

Only her mother stood in the doorway now, but if she
twitched a muscle, the aislinn shroud might fall away. So she stayed, cloaked
in tentative invisibility, while Daimhin Feich pondered her escape.

“Idiot! No one’s escaped through this window. Look at the
dust on the sill. Hasn’t been disturbed for months. She’s here.”

He whirled again, nearly touching Iseabal, nearly causing
her to reveal herself. In his hand, the red crystal blazed with hideous
brilliance.

“You! Mistress-a-Nairnecirke. Where is your daughter?”

Ardis jumped. “I don’t know, sir! I-I’d gone to my room. She
was upstairs. I thought she’d gone to her own room. We’d been fighting, you
see—”

Feich advanced on her. “You’re lying. You’re hiding her from
me. Bring her out, woman! Bring her out now!”

“No, sir! I’d not lie to you! I-I want Isha to help you. She
must have gone out by the Sanctuary while we were upstairs.”

Daimhin Feich grasped the Cirke-mistress by the arm and
shook her. “You lie! I feel her here. She’s somewhere in this house. Bring her
out or, so help me God, I’ll make you the sorriest woman in this village.”

He let go of her momentarily and pulled a small dagger from
his belt. In the light of that wicked crystal, its blade gleamed a foul red as
if bloodied already. Ardis-a-Nairnecirke shrieked and twisted away, catching
her skirts in the ruins of the study door. He had her against the door jamb in
an instant, the dagger at her throat.

Iseabal dropped her aislinn cloak. A flash of radiance
washed from her, drawing all eyes.

“Please let my mother go, Regent Feich,” she begged. “Punish
me if you like, but don’t harm her. She’s guilty of nothing you’d condemn her
for.”

A slow smile spread across the Regent’s narrow, handsome
face. “Iseabal-a-Nairnecirke, is it? How good of you to join us. I have no
intention of punishing you, dear cailin, but rather of putting you to good use.”

The soul who refuses to
let the doubts and caprices of others deflect them from the Way of God, the
soul who is calm in the face of the unrest caused by the wielders of worldly
authority—whether they call themselves divines or Cynes or men of truth, that
soul will be respected by God as one of His own. Blessed is such a soul.

—Book of Pilgrimages
Osraed Lin-a-Ruminea

It was an odd imprisonment Iseabal suffered. She had been
terrified when Daimhin Feich’s men snatched her from her home. Her mother’s
cries still rang in her ears, even here in the quiet, woodland darkness of this
small tent. Bound and tethered to a tent pole, she was alone but for the two
guards who kept vigil outside. Feich had made no attempt to question or harm
her.

Her terror calmed eventually and she began to think, began
to reach out tentatively to her mother, to her father, to Taminy.

Her mother was still frantic, her father distraught and
angry, and Taminy . . . Taminy extended over her a silken web of calm. She, in
turn, tried to extend that same calm to her parents and received, in a flash of
aislinn certainty, a strange benediction; Saxan and Ardis-a-Nairnecirke were
side by side again, united in their concern for their only child.

After a while, she slept, secure in the knowledge that she
was not truly alone.

oOo

The girl’s father visited the camp on the heels of her
capture to beg her release. Since her mother was yet a prisoner in her own
home, Ruadh could only suppose news of her plight had reached him through some
other means . . . perhaps, supernatural ones. The thought made his skin crawl and
his back creep. Almost, he could feel spirits brushing by him, hear their
whispered conversations.

He’d suspected Daimhin had taken the girl hostage to enlist
the cooperation of her father, and was astonished when Daimhin met and
dismissed the man without questioning him. Instead of coercing, he threatened;
the girl was a disciple of the Nairnian Wicke—she would be returned to
Creiddylad for interrogation and, perhaps, trial and punishment.

The Osraed begged to be taken in his daughter’s stead, even
admitting his own connection with the Wicke, but Daimhin Feich only accused him
of a father’s love and loyalty and rejected his plea. Osraed Saxan went away
empty-handed, while Ruadh wondered what his cousin could be thinking.

“Do you really intend to try this girl as a Wicke?” he asked
when Saxan had left them.

Daimhin shrugged. “If it suits me.”

The Osraed Ladhar who, with his toady cleirach, had been
witness to the brief encounter between father and captor, was shaking so hard
his jowls quivered like a pudding.

“It had better suit you, sir. By the Spirit, you should try
the father as well! He admitted his Taminist loyalties.”

“That’s of no importance, Abbod. In the long run, his
loyalties will matter not at all.”

“No importance?” Ladhar was livid. “How can you—?”

Daimhin raised his hand to forestall the impending outburst.
“What is our most dire problem just now, Abbod?”

“Our most—? Our religious institutions are in tatters, our
people are being assailed by spiritual storm—”

“Abbod, Abbod, look closer to earth, if you would, please!
The government of Caraid-land has ceased to function—or nearly so. The Hall is
a roil and the Throne is empty.” Daimhin smiled and leaned forward in his low
camp chair. “Would you put me on the Throne, dear Abbod? Declare me Cyneric in
Airleas Malcuim’s absence?”

“Airleas is absent, as you say, not dead. Nor has he
officially abdicated. Were I to declare you Cyneric, the Houses would see to it
Caraid-land was torn into tiny, autonomous bits.”

“Exactly. Therefore, we have no recourse but to return
Airleas to the Throne, or to witness his public abdication . . . or to be assured
of his death. We have lately learned we cannot get to Airleas until spring.
What is our recourse?”

Ladhar glared at him uncomprehendingly.

“Abbod, we must bring Airleas to us.”

“Freeing heretics will aid that?”

“No. But holding one hostage might. This one especially.
Iseabal-a-Nairnecirke is one of Taminy’s special acolytes. Do you think she will
let her be lost to us?”

“You mean to draw the Wicke out?” asked Ruadh.

“I intend her to understand that if she would have her
lovely young convert suffer no harm, she must forfeit her hold on Airleas.”

“How,” asked Ladhar, “do you intend to make her understand
that?”

“I will tell her young acolyte. I suspect she will see to it
that her Mistress is informed. Simple, isn’t it? Now, gentlemen, cousin . . .” He
nodded at Ruadh. “I’ve had a most strenuous evening, which is not yet over. If
you would be so good . . .” He glanced at the entry of his opulent tent.

Neither Ruadh or his companions were slow. They returned,
each, to their smaller shelters.

They didn’t tarry in Nairne, but struck their tents the next
morning to return to Creiddylad. The Osraed Saxan and his companions tried
again to reclaim the captive girl, but Daimhin Feich turned them away.

Ruadh couldn’t help but feel a certain sympathy for the
Cirkemaster. The girl did not seem evil. At the very worst, he could only
imagine her to be misled. Though she’d shown extraordinary powers (he still
hadn’t recovered from seeing her appear out of the crystal-lit gloom of her
father’s study), she hadn’t tried to use them against the man who was surely
her worst enemy. At least, she hadn’t used them yet. Perhaps she was only
biding her time.

Ruadh glanced at her now, as she rode beside him, bound to
her saddle, her back straight with dignity. She certainly didn’t seem a
creature of deceit. Ironic, he thought, that some of those on the side of right
seemed much more unsavory than their supposedly wicked enemies.