Any Price (23 page)

The lure of an almost untouched medieval kitchen was too much for Landor. He’d excused himself from the search on the grounds that he must prepare lunch and had spent his time in the kitchen instead of looking around the castle. He had a personal problem with all the dust and dirt in there.

There were no modern appliances except a hand pump protruding from the floor by the back door. Amazingly it worked with minimal groaning, producing what appeared clear well water. The cooking hearth boasted a number of hooks at varying heights from the fire pit. It even had a small oven cubby beside it with a space for a separate fire under that. It was an advanced cooking center for its time, able to handle the preparation of a feast.

They hadn’t brought kitchen supplies and there certainly were none here. That didn’t mean Landor was helpless as he set about putting the place to rights. He quickly fashioned a broom in the old way by lashing bushy twigs to a straight stick. Among the twigs he’d included several mint cuttings from the ancient herb garden still struggling outside the kitchen door. Sweeping was relative with the crude implement but the smell was lovely. It was reminiscent of the days when rushes were often spread over castle floors with herbs in them for a pleasant scent.

There were marks scattered around the kitchen floor where other heavy pieces of furniture had once sat but the spaces were empty. The empty spaces meant there was less to wash down but it still felt wrong. The room was spare, crude compared to his normal surroundings, yet as he worked, he became aware of an air of deep contentment, which seemed to feed a feeling of offense at the ancient theft.

Landor’s anger mounted at the ones who’d stripped her long ago. He’d not realized the extent of his possessive antagonism until he was interrupted by Celina’s gentle laughter in his mind.

“The three of us feel the ancient welcome here. It’s the home of our northern sisters, Landor. The spirit of acceptance and shelter remains. Calm down, brother. The offense was long ago.”

“You think the building holds emotions?”
he laughed back at her.

“
In this case, yes. Something here retains everything. We can feel it,”
Celina agreed.

Kenna joined Celina.
“That’s a very good way of putting it. We can feel much more than we can see. It’s empty and still jammed full of everything.”

“We need to find a way to access it,”
Lore commented.
“Some key it wants to give us. Anyone see anything?”
Responses were negative.

Landor had found a few rough stools and some communist-era chairs, which he’d cleaned and set around the far end of the table from the hearth.

His efforts in the kitchen made it warm and inviting. A space that welcomed them as the dusty searchers made their way there. The tray piled high with sandwiches was the first thing they saw as they entered the room.

Seating was basic but functional. Kenna sat on one of Lore’s thighs since there were not quite enough stools. Landor didn’t require one as he couldn’t stop cleaning. Yuri didn’t want one. He went to the windows often. It was a habit and not really necessary since he was in constant contact with the two men outside. Boris, Celina and Julianna sat and munched with Lore and Kenna. Mariska and Janos sat on a wide window ledge that would have been an early indoor greenhouse shelf.

“Did anyone see an engraving? Over a door, on a mantel…in a hearth?” Kenna asked as she watched Landor sweep out the huge kitchen fire pit. It was big enough for him to stand in while bending a bit. A woman Kenna’s size could stand in it easily. Everyone looked at her, puzzled. She pointed down the table to where Landor worked. “Like that one?”

Slowly standing in surprise, they all moved to the hearth and stared at the figure being uncovered on the blackened stone floor. The sweeping revealed an engraved image of a woman with a sword. She stood behind the sword, her hands resting in its hilt, its point at her widely spread feet. The engraving was relatively faint but not difficult to make out as Landor uncovered her.

She wasn’t wearing period dress. She was attired in high boots, pants of some type and a vest that outlined an unquestionably female figure. Her chin was slightly raised as she seemed to regard them. Behind her streamed long hair as if a wind stirred it. The engraving was not simple or rough. It was a faithful rendition of a woman who could almost be felt.

All of them looked from the floor to Celina and back. The resemblance was disturbing. The carving was very feminine but not delicate. The faces were hauntingly similar.

“Why would such a lovely engraving be hidden in the one spot nobody in the twelfth century would ever see it?” Kenna asked quietly. “In that time, the kitchen fire was never allowed to go out, not even in summer. It was the fire from which all others in the castle were started. They used to leave a pageboy to tend it all night. That hearth would never have been swept. It was shoveled around the edges as ashes were pushed aside but the center, never clear so this work of art could be viewed.”

“That woman doesn’t look very twelfth century to me,” Celina added as she studied the flowing lines.

Kenna grinned at her new friend and sister. “She looks ready to kick ass. The sword is vicious. Look at the hooks near the hilt. Pull that out of someone and you’ve gutted them.”

Lore stood behind Kenna with his arms loosely around her waist as he stared at the engraving. “The heart of any home is the kitchen. Especially in a society like the Keepers where there are no true class lines. That would be something none of the nobles outside Keeper society could understand. The beating pulse of a kitchen would have been the hearth. It never went out, never stopped burning,” Lore’s voice was quiet, almost reverent as he worked through his thoughts aloud.

“The baby Annedrine carried was certainly important but since her entire family was not wiped out, if she and the baby died, it’s logical that first daughter would have gone on. Annedrine would have known that because of the Egyptian experience. Annedrine was telling her successor where to find this when she screamed the phrase at her lover, ‘The Key rests under my heart’,” Lore stated. “She wasn’t talking to Alex I at all. It was someone in the audience. There was someone else who knew what she was talking about and took the secret with her to the grave.”

“Not exactly,” Mariska spoke up from the window seat where she and Janos had remained. Everyone turned to look at them as the old couple smiled. “The woman did not take this to her grave. It has been in her family. We guard the Gray Lady and wait the return of her true daughter, but we are always close to the Key. Ready if it falls on us.”

“You?” Kenna turned, pulling out of Lore’s hold to go to Mariska. Kenna sank to her heels in front of the older woman and took one of her fragile hands in her own. Both of them beamed as the connection between them hummed. Kenna knew she had distant relations here, in fact all Keeper members had to be related to her or Celina somehow, but Mariska was different. Like Julianna, her connection was personal, direct and familial.

“It’s so very nice to meet you, Grandmother Mariska,” Kenna said with tears in her eyes. “You could have told us to begin with.”

“I had to be sure the Gray Lady wanted you to know.” Mariska smiled into Kenna’s eyes. “She must make up her own mind.”

“It’s a building. It doesn’t have a mind to make up,” Kenna chided. “And how is it your English has suddenly improved?”

Mariska’s eyes twinkled. “I have learned from the Gray Lady, best not to reveal all at once. Better to wait and see. You will see. Has she told you where the blade is, my lady?”

“Blade? You know what that engraving is and think the sword is real?” Kenna asked.

“Of course I know what that is. It’s a depiction of The Lady’s Blade,” Mariska informed her. “At least that’s what we’ve been told for generations. I always assumed that meant the sword was here somewhere.”

Kenna sighed. “Words can mean many things. Interpreting ancient statements is tricky, especially when there is no written record. It’s hard to tell what a direct statement is and what is a clue to some other meaning.”

Mariska patted Kenna’s cheek. “You, dear, have to figure that out. I’ve puzzled over it all my life. I don’t intend to spend another minute worrying about it.”

Kenna stood and looked at the hearth. “Another puzzle. That’s all we’ve managed to find, more questions.”

Lore turned to study the hearth as well. “I’m sure the original statement held all the clues needed. Or at least the queen thought it did.” He stepped into the fireplace, having to bend, he carefully examined the edges of the engraving. There weren’t any seams visible as Lore circled the depiction. The huge slab of rock the lady was carved into appeared to extend under the edges of the upright walls of the hearth.

Kenna returned to stand before the hearth also. “All the clues we need?”

“Symbols were big back then, right?” Landor suggested as he scooped up the last of the soot and dumped it onto a sheet of newspaper he’d retrieved from the limos and placed in front of the hearth. He turned around and found everyone gazing at him. “I mean, everything was a freaking symbol and the people were very superstitious. Could the words be arranged in a different order to say something else?”

“Yes, Hungarian words are spoken in a different order than most other languages,” Julianna agreed. “This has always been a hardship for me. English puts the words in the wrong place.”

“Oh my God! Why didn’t I think of that? Hungarian is one of the world’s linguistic mysteries,” Kenna added as excitement coursed through her. “It’s not related to any of the Romance or Germanic languages that surround it. Its origins have always been unclear. Destroying all documents is a habit these people started a very long time ago.

“Early Hungarian history was recorded in runic writings carved into stone, clay, leather and wood. But in 1000 A.D. when Stephen I was crowned the First Christian King of Hungary, he ordered all reminders, objects and writings of the pagan era be destroyed. As a result, very few runic writings have survived. Look at the sword. Down its blade run a line of runic symbols. Can anyone read them?”

Boris stepped into the hearth and squatted by the carving. “That may be runic running down your Lady’s Blade but the hilt is inscribed with hieroglyphics. And the writing on the blade is exceedingly close to glyphs from the most ancient artifacts we’ve been able to uncover in upper Egypt. I’ve never seen anything like it, almost a dialect of earliest Egyptian.”

“Oh!” Kenna exclaimed in excitement. Her linguist heart thrilling to the thought of discovering the link scholars had long sought to connect Hungarian to its origins.

Boris glanced at her as she squatted on the other side of the carving beside Lore’s legs. “Don’t let your internal geek get too excited, my lady. If we do find a link this way, you can’t write a paper about it.”

“No, of course not. It’s just, well, it is exciting on the intellectual level.” Kenna reached out to touch the carving.

“Wait! Don’t touch it!” Bois barked, grabbing her wrist before she could lower it.

Kenna froze and frowned. “What?”

“The symbol there at the top of the hilt.” Boris released her wrist and pointed to the one he meant, but his hand did not come anywhere near the stone. “It’s a hieroglyphic that’s used as a death warning not to touch or enter a place. Egyptians only used it on the most sacred places. It is the last warning before the deadly traps start. Normally only seen above the door to tombs and the internal sanctums of the oldest temples. The death is not only physical but also a curse on your soul into the afterlife if you ignore it.”

Lore reached down and simply picked up the crouching Kenna and stepped out of the hearth with her.

“Wait,” Kenna protested. “I didn’t touch it.”

“He said deadly traps.” Lore let her stand beside him.

“Boris. Come out of there,” Celina exclaimed.

“No, no. This is a warning. Remember these are symbols and not exactly words. The meaning encompasses whole concepts. This symbol warns the wrong type of creature not to go in. However, there is no place to go in here.” Boris glanced around the hearth again as if he was looking for a door. “I need to study the rest of the symbols. They seem mixed with runes. I would guess that was done to make the interpretation of the message exact. This may be one of the oldest direct instructions ever found.”

“Ha. Now whose inner geek is showing?” Kenna taunted from her spot outside the hearth. She was leaning in as far as Lore’s arm would allow her.

“Then write it down and get out of there!” Yuri ordered in exasperation. “We must return. Thomas will be landing soon and we need you alive a little longer, Boris.”

Celina handed her brother a pad and pencil from her ever-present secretary’s valise.

“Did I mention that the antidote will make him very ill?” Boris asked as he carefully copied the markings on the sword. “Thomas might not thank me when it’s over. Besides that, we have no way of knowing if he’s been poisoned. The antidote might kill him, though I doubt it. On a smaller body, the danger is greater. There is also the possibility that the poison is not what I think it is.”

“What?” Julianna and Kenna exclaimed in unison.

Boris shrugged as he continued painstakingly copying the markings. “It’s a risk either way. We can wait and see if he dies or give him the antidote. Giving him the antidote does not ensure he lives. The enemy is old, but the practitioner is not. A man of this century might not use old methods. It could be something else entirely.”