A Passionate Magic (14 page)

“Dain arrived late at night and seemed to be
in a great hurry. Tis not at all unusual for a newly married man to
visit his wife. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he returns again
tonight.”

“Thank you for the information,” Emma said,
wishing her cheeks did not blush so easily. “Will you tell Sloan
that Blake and I are going for a walk on the moor, to gather
herbs?”

“I will, my lady. And thank ye again for the
ointment you gave me when I burned my hand a few days ago. It’s
healing nicely, as ye can see.” The guard held out his hand to show
her. “We were blessed the day you came to Penruan, my lady.”

Emma was grateful when Todd did not remark on
her decision to walk rather than ride. In the aftermath of her
passionate interlude with Dain there remained a few muscles not
soothed by the hot bath Hawise had drawn for her. Emma did not
think she could sit a horse without discomfort. How odd that she
had not noticed any pain while Dain was with her, stroking deep
inside her, luring her onward with him into a magical beauty beyond
all the dreams of innocent maidenhood. Emma’s cheeks flamed again
at the memory. Her fingers lightly touched the blue flower.

Then she noticed Todd smiling at her, almost
as if he knew what she was thinking. Emma excused herself and went
to look for Blake.

Dain did not stop at the site where the
rebuilding was almost completed. He waved to the workmen who called
out their greetings as he rode past, shouted a promise to return
shortly, and then rode on through the little village to Agatha’s
hut.

As he dismounted Agatha came to the door.
With her was a stranger, a man whose dark, uncut hair and long
beard showed graying streaks, who wore a plain brown cloak that
displayed signs of hard wear, and whose brown tunic and boots were
not in much better condition than his outer garment. The staff the
stranger held in his left hand, his broad-brimmed felt hat, and the
leather sack slung over his right shoulder told Dain the man was a
pilgrim, perhaps one of the holy hermits frequently seen in
Cornwall, who lived on the moor or, occasionally, resided in the
cliff-side caves.

“Thank you for your help,” the stranger said
to Agatha. “The pain is much less now, so I can continue my journey
to its end.”

His voice was so clear and crisp and his
accent so aristocratic that Dain looked more closely at him. There
wasn’t much to see; just dusty hair and beard, a deeply tanned
upper face, and no sign of any weapon. The man held his right arm
close to his body, and Dain saw that his right hand, which was
partly hidden by his loose sleeve, was crippled, the fingers bent
and the skin smooth and shiny, as if the hand had once been thrust
into a fire and the seared flesh had never healed properly. As Dain
often did on meeting such wanderers, he wondered what the
stranger’s story was.

After his quick but searching look at the
man, Dain did not think he presented any danger to either Trevanan
or Penruan. Listening to Agatha talk to him, Dain concluded that
she had met the stranger during her wanderings in search of herbs.
If she had brought him back to her house for treatment of some
affliction, which Dain took to be the case upon hearing the man’s
words of thanks, then Agatha was not any more concerned about his
presence in the village than Dain was.

“Your journey will not end where you expect,”
Agatha told the stranger. “Now, see that you do not forget my
directions.”

“I will remember. Thank you again,” the
stranger said.

With a slight nod to Dain, he walked away. He
limped rather badly, and the set of his shoulders indicated a deep
weariness. Dain watched him for only a moment before Agatha’s
greeting drove thoughts of the stranger out of his mind.

“Come into the garden and sit in the shade,”
Agatha said. “The day is hot again. I’ll fetch a jug of cool wine
for us to share.”

“No, thank you. The wine you prepared for me
yesterday was potion enough.” Dain followed her along the side of
the house and into the herb garden. There all of the rich and
tantalizing fragrances of high summer greeted him; thyme, and the
last of the roses, bee balm and hyssop, and mint springing thick
and green in the shade. Agatha waved a hand in the direction of the
bench, but Dain was too angry with her to sit. Planting his fists
at his waist, he glared at his oldest friend.

“What did you put in that wine?” he
demanded.

”Violets,” Agatha said, not bothering to
pretend she didn’t understand his meaning, “and a drop of jasmine
oil that was brought to me years ago from the East, a few
honeysuckle flowers, and one or two other ingredients which I
prefer not to name.”

“Why did you do it?” he asked. “You knew I
intended not to consummate this marriage between enemies, so I
could more easily have it annulled later.”

“That plan was made when you expected to be
sent a child bride,” Agatha said. “Emma is not your enemy.”

“Her father is.”

“Are you sure of that?” Agatha asked.

“I have my mother’s word on it,” he said.
“Agatha, you know I have promised my mother there will be no magic
practiced at Penruan. The herbs you put into my wine broke that
promise.”

“I did not carry those herbs to Penruan,” she
responded, with no sign of repentance. “You took them there, in
your own belly.” Suddenly she grinned at him, and for a few moments
her aged face resembled that of a mischievous child.

“Does Richenda really think she can keep all
magic out, in a land where magic abounds?” Agatha shook her head as
if in disgust at Lady Richenda’s narrow way of thinking. “Dain, the
herbs I put into your wine did you no harm. They only released you
to do what you wanted to do long before you took the first
sip.”

“Did Emma order you to offer the wine to me?
She was here, visiting you, just before you produced that jug of
tainted drink.”

“When was the last time anyone dared to order
me?” Agatha asked with a laugh. “I swear to you, Emma did not know
what I was doing. In fact, when I mentioned making a love potion
for her to give to you, she forbade me. She wanted honest passion
from you. However, I knew you to be so bound by the hatred of
Emma’s family that your mother has instilled in you over the years
that you were incapable of taking the first step toward a true
marriage unless you had my help.”

“I am not my mother’s puppet!”

“Never fear, I do know who you are,” Agatha
said. “Lad, your father died when you were much too young. There
are things you have forgotten.”

“My father died because of Udo,” Dain said
between gritted teeth.

“There has been no one to counteract the
poisonous words Richenda has dripped into your ears day by day,
year after year,” Agatha said. “No one but me. I think it’s why you
visit me so often. I am the antidote to your mother. In your heart
you know that, unlike Richenda, I have no other reason for what I
say to you than my love for you.”

“Do not speak ill of my mother.” Dain’s voice
was gentler now. He sat on the bench and leaned his head back
against the bark of the old apple tree.

“Why should I not?” Agatha asked, joining him
on the bench. “Richenda does not hesitate to speak ill of me.”

“I am weary of the conflict between you,”
Dain said. “I wish you would settle your differences.”

“It will never happen, because Richenda has
her beliefs and I have mine, and neither she nor I will ever
change,” Agatha said. “Has it never occurred to you that for a
woman who professes a strong Christian faith, Richenda carries on
an amazing number of feuds? There was the one with Lord Udo, which
she has continued with Udo’s son. There is the constant feud with
me, which has lasted nearly thirty years. And you know as well as I
that Richenda will return to Penruan as soon as she has quarreled
yet again with her sister the abbess. I see food for thought there,
lad. If I were you, I’d question the claims of a woman who quarrels
with nearly everyone she knows. And then, there is the matter of
the girl. Well, it’s best not to speak to you of that. Not yet.”
Agatha lapsed into silence.

“Nothing you have said excuses your deed,”
Dain told her. “You should not have put those herbs into my wine.
Now, thanks to you, Emma may be carrying my child.”

“I do hope so,” Agatha said. “I cannot think
of a better way to end a senseless quarrel between nobles.”

Dain considered the possibility that Emma was
with child, that her slim figure might soon begin to grow round as
his seed grew in her. The idea was so agreeable that he shied away
from it as a nervous horse shies from an adder. He believed he knew
better than to hope for anything good to come from the family of
Lord Udo. To clear his mind of the beguiling image of Emma holding
his child in her arms, he thought about Agatha s peculiar
words.

“What was that you just said about my mother
and a girl?” he asked, hoping to catch her off guard with the
sudden question.

”What girl?” she said, not looking directly
at him as she ordinarily did when they were talking together. “I’m
just an old woman whose thoughts sometimes wander. Think nothing of
it.”

Agatha’s thoughts never wandered, and they
both knew it. She was hiding something from him. Dain was going to
insist that she explain, but she took his hand in hers and smiled
at him with all the warm kindness she had shown to him ever since
he was a lonely child, and he did not have the heart to press his
question further.

The cave was exactly where Agatha had
promised it would be. With a murmured word of thanks on behalf of
the elderly herbalist, the stranger set down his sack and removed
his hat in preparation for squeezing past the rock at the entrance.
He was a good-sized man and his booted feet made firm impressions
in the damp sand of the outer chamber.

“Excellent,” he said, looking around,
appreciating the softer light inside the cave. “In here, I won’t
have to squint all the time.”

The inner chamber was all he had hoped it
would be. The stranger noted the dry rock walls rising high around
him like a solid fortress, and the opening far above through which
daylight entered and through which smoke from a fire could escape.
He saw the impressions of small, bare feet that crisscrossed the
sand as if someone had paced back and forth many times, always
stopping in the same place at the face of the rock.

“Agatha’s footprints, by the size or them,”
he said. “I wonder what she does in here, when the herbs she uses
are all planted in her garden at Trevanan, or else growing wild out
on the moors?”

With a shrug he dismissed the question and
knelt to test the water in the underground stream. He dipped his
left hand into the water and brought it to his mouth, finding it
cool and fresh to the taste.

“Yes,” he said, rising to his feet and
looking around again. He had a habit of talking to himself whenever
he was alone, which was most of the time. Talking out loud kept his
voice from growing rusty, and the sound of a human voice helped to
make his loneliness less difficult to bear. “Here I can be quiet,
and perhaps at last I will find the peace I seek. Here I can do no
harm to those I love, and it’s better for them if I never see them
again. And if I die here, this is as good a tomb as any.”

The stranger went outside to retrieve his hat
and sack and carry them into his new abode. Then it was back to the
beach once more to gather a few scarce pieces of driftwood for a
fire. He made a third trip to the beach. This time he went barefoot
and with the sleeves of his tunic rolled above his elbows. For the
sake of easier movement he left his boots and his long cloak in the
cave.

A search among the rocks at the edge of the
sea yielded mussels, and seaweed to wrap them in while cooking
them. The tide was coming in, and the stranger’s sharp eyes
detected a silvery shape within the foaming waves. Laying down the
shellfish, he waded into the water and stood still. The next wave
rolled in and the stranger bent suddenly, submerging his left arm
up to the elbow. When he straightened he held a small, wriggling
fish.

“I haven’t done that since I was a boy,” he
said, laughing in triumph. “Well, I’ll not be greedy and ask for
more. This will make a decent meal.”

A short time later the stranger sat beside a
driftwood fire laid on the dry floor of the cave, holding the
cleaned fish over the flames on a spit fashioned out of a branch he
had broken off a bush that was growing from the cliff face. The
mussels in their seaweed wrapping were done before the fish, so he
ate them first, sopping the juices from the shells with a loaf of
round bread that Agatha had put into his sack. He also had a wooden
cup in his sack, and this he used to dip water out of the
stream.

”A finer wine than many I have tasted,” he
said, and filled the cup to drink again.

His meal finished, he took the fish bones and
the skin outside and left them at the water’s edge for the sea
birds to pick over. His new living arrangements had taken
considerable time, and by now the sun was setting. The stranger
stood for a few minutes admiring the rose-and-gold-streaked clouds,
waiting until the sky turned darker and the first stars appeared
before he reentered the cave. There was just enough light still
coming through the opening at the top of the chamber to show him
the way. He spread his cloak on the sand of the inner chamber and
added the last piece of driftwood to the fire.

“That’s an indulgence,” he said. “I didn’t
see much driftwood on the beach. Tomorrow, I’ll ask Agatha where I
can find wood or peat to use for fuel. Then I’ll gather some wild
plants to eat and hope another fish swims into my hands.”

His stomach pleasantly full of bread and
mussels and fish, his bare toes warmed by the fire, he settled into
the folds of his cloak. He was weary to his bones and to the depths
of his mind and heart, but he was confident that he was safe at
last, his long wandering ended. With a contented sigh the stranger
gave himself up to sleep.