A Passionate Magic (36 page)

“Please, I beg you, talk to him first.”

“For your sake, I will. I trust you, Emma.
You, not Gavin. He has been my enemy for all my life.”

The man-at-arms on duty at the gate unlocked
and opened the wicket, a smaller door in the main gate, just wide
enough to allow one person at a time to pass through. Dain went
first, then Emma stepped out of the safety of Penruan’s walls. She
took Dain’s hand, and they walked together across the
drawbridge.

“Oh, my dear girl!” Mirielle had dismounted
and, with tears running down her cheeks, she hurried forward to
embrace Emma. “At least you are well enough to walk.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Emma asked, hugging
her stepmother with all the warmth she felt toward her dearest
friend and teacher. But it was Gavin who answered her question.

“We have come to rescue you and take you
home. We can protect you there.” Gavin tossed the reins of his
horse to a squire so he could also dismount and embrace Emma. Even
encased in chain mail, the circle of his arms was familiar and dear
to her, and she returned his embrace as warmly as she had
Mirielle’s, hugging him until Dain interrupted their happy
reunion.

“You intend to do what?” Dain exclaimed, one
hand on his sword hilt. “If there is some danger to my wife, tell
me what it is and I will protect her.”

“You?” The look Gavin sent toward Dain would
have made a lesser man tremble in terror. “You are the danger. I
regret ever giving a daughter of Wroxley to you. We know what you
have planned for our girl, and we won’t allow it.”

“Ill see you dead before I hand Emma over to
you!” Dain yelled, and began to pull his sword from its
scabbard.

“Stop!” Emma cried, daring to place her hands
on top of Dain’s, trying with all her strength to make him push the
sword blade back into the sheath. “I won’t allow you to fight.
Dain, you promised we would talk with them. Mirielle, please, make
Father stop threatening us.”

“
Us
?” Mirielle repeated. She looked
from Emma to Dain, a searching gaze that saw much. Then she faced
her husband. “Gavin, I do believe you ought to be quiet, just for a
few moments, and listen.”

“Father,” Emma said to the fuming Gavin, “why
would I want to leave my husband, or Penruan?”

“Because Dain is planning to kill you,” Gavin
said, biting off each word. He had not removed his helm and his
fine mouth, framed by silvery metal, closed in a line of fierce yet
controlled anger. Like Dain, he kept his hand ready at his sword
hilt.

“He most certainly is not going to kill me!”
Emma cried. “How can you imagine an honorable man would commit such
an outrage? Father, whence comes this unreasoning anger? You
weren’t this furious with Dain when the feud was reopened, or even
when King Henry commanded you to send a daughter to marry the lord
of Penruan. Why have you changed so drastically?”

“We have both changed our opinions,” Mirielle
said, “because we received a letter of warning from Dain’s own
mother, in which Lady Richenda informed us that Dain is planning to
murder you and seize the disputed land. Emma, my dear, you are
fortunate to have so devoted and honest a mother-in-law, who is
willing to defy her own son for your sake. Of course, Gavin decided
to set out from Wroxley the very next day after the letter arrived,
and I could not let him come alone, not when you might need my
skills to get you out of Dain’s castle.”

“Now we know where her messenger was sent,”
Dain said to Emma. “And to whom.”

“Lady Richenda’s accusation is completely and
deliberately false,” Emma told Gavin. “Dain would never hurt me. He
has always been kind to me.” It wasn’t strictly true, but Emma
wasn’t going to mention Dain’s coldness when she had first reached
Penruan.

“If the accusation is false, as Emma says,”
Gavin asked with his gaze fixed on Dain like a hawk measuring its
prey just before striking, “what reason would Lady Richenda have
for sending such a damning message? She must have assumed I’d try
to stop your plan. Didn’t she understand how a claim of violence
intended against Emma must inevitably lead to warfare between you
and me?”

“I am certain she did know it,” Dain said.
“When my mother sent that letter she was depending on an armed
reaction from you.”

“Of course!” Emma exclaimed. “She wanted the
feud to be reopened. After you sent her away the letter was her
best chance of accomplishing her dearest wish.”

“No doubt,” Dain added, “she was convinced
I’d win any battle fought on my own land against an opponent who is
far from home and who has with him a smaller company of warriors
than the large numbers I can quickly call up to join me.”

“Let me understand this,” Gavin said. “You
are speaking of a mother who has schemed to send her only son into
battle, to risk his life unnecessarily? Is she mad? Thanks to King
Henry’s command there was peace – uneasy and untrusting, but still,
a peace – between us, until I received that frightening
message.”

“If you knew my mother, you’d understand,”
Dain said with bitter rage. “She has made perpetuation of that old
feud between our baronies her life’s work. She claims she swore to
my father on his deathbed that she would see me the victor.
Wretched, wretched woman!” Fists clenched, face distorted, he
turned aside.

“Father,” Emma said, in an effort to divert
Gavin until Dain could recover from his emotional outburst, “tell
me who delivered Lady Richenda’s letter to you? Was it a sour-faced
man with gray hair and a nasty smile?”

“An apt description,” Gavin responded, his
attention now on Emma, just as she wanted. “He said his name was
Wade, and he declared that he had ridden at top speed with little
rest, all the way from Penruan to Lincolnshire in a matter of days,
rather than the weeks such a journey usually takes. I must say, he
looked as if his story was true. But when I offered him fresh
clothes, a bath, a bed, and food, and the chance to return to
Penruan with my army for escort, as I intended to leave the next
day, Wade refused. He insisted that it was his duty to report back
to Lady Richenda as soon as possible, and an army would travel too
slowly. I assume he reached home safely?”

“Oh, yes,” Emma said, “and promptly
thereafter he tried to kill me, and Dain’s sister, and a boy who is
my page.”

“Then his life is forfeit to me,” Gavin
said.

“You are too late,” Dain told him. “Wade’s
intended victims found a defender in a hermit who has been living
near the castle in one of the cliff caves. Wade is dead, and the
outlaws he called to his assistance are defeated in battle and
either dead or imprisoned.”

“You lead an exciting life here in Penruan,”
Gavin observed dryly.

“Lately, it has been too exciting by half,”
Dain responded.

“What of the brave hermit?” Mirielle asked.
“We must thank him for helping Emma. May we visit his cave?”

“Hermit is staying at the castle,” Emma said,
“while he recovers from the wounds Wade inflicted on him. Dain’s
sister and I have been caring for him.”

“It is a long and complicated story,” Dain
said to Gavin. “My lord, if you and Lady Mirielle are willing to
enter Penruan Castle while leaving your army behind, I would be
honored to entertain you, and I offer my personal guarantee for
your safety. If you will forbid violence on the part of your men
against mine, I’ll order the main gate opened, so your people may
freely pass in and out. I will also undertake to feed them. Thanks
to Emma’s hard work during this harvest season, our storerooms are
full. We have more than enough food laid by to supply the castle
for the entire winter and beyond. Feeding your troops will mean no
serious drain on us.”

“Which is to say, you are prepared to
withstand a long siege if it becomes necessary,” Gavin said. For
the first time since meeting Dain the hard line of his mouth
softened. Gavin reached up to remove his helm and hand it to a
squire. He pushed back his mail coif, pulled off his gauntlets, and
extended his bare hand to Dain.

“My lord, I do insist upon one condition to
your generous offer,” Gavin said. “I want to hear every detail of
your long and complicated story.”

“After you have heard the story,” Emma
suggested, “perhaps you and Dain can reach a peaceable final
resolution to a dispute that seems to me more ridiculous the more I
learn of it.”

“I make no promises,” Gavin said, “except a
promise to listen.”

“I accept that promise,” Dain said, and he
and Gavin shook hands.

A short time later the sentries on the walls
of Penruan, who of late were growing accustomed to unusual
occurrences, were treated to the sight of their lord strolling
across the drawbridge in company with his lifelong enemy. The two
men maintained a cautious distance from each other. Not so their
wives, who walked arm-in-arm, talking and laughing. Scarcely were
they all inside the bailey when Hawise, newly wed to the captain of
Penruan’s men-at-arms, threw herself into the embrace of the lady
of Wroxley for a laughing, tearful reunion.

The onlookers also noted with astonishment
the way Gavin of Wroxley clasped Hawise in his arms and told her
that she was looking exceptionally pretty, and how, upon being
introduced to Sloan, Gavin warmly shook his hand and informed him
he was a very lucky man.

“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” Todd
exclaimed in an original turn of phrase, ”I wouldn’t have believed
it.”

“Where is Lady Vivienne?” Dain asked the
first maidservant he encountered in the great hall.

“She’s in the herb garden with Hermit,” the
maid responded. “He wanted to see what Lady Emma has been doing
there.”

“Ask them to join us,” Dain ordered.

Meanwhile, Emma was giving her own commands.
The great hall was already swept and clean after the revelry of the
previous day, and preparations for the midday meal were well in
hand. Two unexpected guests at the high table presented no problem
so far as food was concerned, and the guest rooms were always ready
for visitors. But food and drink for Gavin’s army would require
considerable work from the kitchen staff. Emma gave specific
orders, with Mirielle adding suggestions, for the army came well
supplied to feed itself.

Both women were in the bailey, consulting
with the knight who was in charge of overseeing food for Gavin’s
troops, when Vivienne and Hermit reached the great hall. Thus, they
were not present to observe Gavin’s reaction when he first met
Hermit.

As soon as Emma came back into the hall, she
saw the two men facing each other. She expected Gavin to be
thanking Hermit most heartily for the way he had fought Wade to
protect her and Vivienne. Instead, she detected an odd tension
between them, and she saw a puzzled frown on Dain’s brow. Vivienne
stood close to her brother, keeping so still that her usually
flowing white robes did not move at all.

“Mirielle, come and meet Dain’s sister and
Hermit,” Emma said, taking Mirielle’s arm to draw her toward the
little group standing in front of the high table.

Earlier, during their stroll across the
drawbridge, Emma had told Mirielle about Vivienne’s magical powers,
so she was not surprised to see Mirielle smile and nod and make a
certain gesture of recognition to Dain’s sister. She was surprised
when Vivienne did not respond. Vivienne’s whole attention was fixed
on Hermit and Gavin, as if she was entranced by the very sight of
them. Or perhaps, Emma thought, Vivienne understood what was going
on between the two men.

Suddenly, Mirielle made a muffled sound. She
pulled her arm from Emma’s light grasp and took a few swift steps
to reach her husband’s side. She was white-faced, her eyes wide
with an emotion Emma could not define.

Emma gazed from Mirielle to Gavin to Hermit
to Vivienne, and then looked to Dain, hoping he would supply an
explanation for the taut posture, held breath, and rapidly rising
anger she could sense in every pore of her body but could not
understand.

”Brice,” Mirielle said to Hermit in a
strained voice, “Cousin Brice, what are you doing here?”

“Sir Brice is my cousin,” Mirielle said to
the three people who stared at her in astonishment. “He is also the
former seneschal of Wroxley. I have not seen him for nearly ten
years.”

“After so long a time can you be certain of
his identity?” Dain asked. “Perhaps it’s merely a passing
resemblance you see.”

“I know my own cousin. From Gavin’s manner
when Emma and I entered the hall, it’s clear that he has recognized
Brice, too.” Mirielle spoke as if Dain’s question was an insult. To
the silent, bearded man she said, “Tell them I am not
mistaken.”

“I am Brice,” he admitted, as if confessing a
crime, and closed his mouth on any further explanation.

“When you left Wroxley,” Mirielle said rather
sharply, “you claimed to be going on crusade. How did you find your
way to Cornwall?”

“I did travel to the Holy Land,’ Hermit said,
sounding as if the words were being torn out of him. “I remained
there for years. When I returned to England last autumn, I was sick
in body and spirit. Like a wounded animal yearning for its lair, I
wanted only to find a quiet place far away from Wroxley. So I
wandered south to the other end of England. It was a slow
pilgrimage; I had to stop several times to regain enough strength
to go on.”

“Why couldn’t you return to Wroxley?” Dain
asked.

“I understand,” Mirielle murmured before Dain
could press more questions on Brice. “I do. But Brice, your
withered arm is healed.”

“My renewed health I owe to a remarkable
local healer,” Brice explained. “My newly optimistic spirit is
Vivienne’s doing.”

“How was the arm injured?” Emma asked,
seizing on what seemed to her the simplest question of the many
engendered by what she was hearing. “Hermit, you never said how it
happened, and I didn’t want to pry into a past that was obviously
painful to you.”