Blades of Valor (2 page)

T
homas of Magnus, far from the kingdom he had conquered and then lost, looked at the man who smiled and extended his right hand in a clasp of greeting.

The knight had changed little since the days when he and Thomas had entered Magnus and gained victory. Skin still darkly tanned, hair still cropped short but now with traces of gray at the temples. Blue eyes still as deep as they were wary. And always, that ragged scar down his right cheek.

“You are one of us,” Thomas said. “An Immortal.” Although it was a guess, Thomas spoke it as a statement.

Sir William nodded. “And one unable to decide whether to be gladdened or sorrowful at your arrival in the fallen town of the last Crusaders.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow.

“These are perhaps not the circumstances I envisioned for a joyful reunion,” Sir William said as he beckoned Thomas and Katherine inside and placed an iron bar across the inside of the door. “Yes, we are now under siege because of those pursuing you. Yet when one prays for a miracle, one does not ask the Lord to make it a convenient miracle.”

Beside Thomas, the woman named Katherine, who had slipped through the door while Thomas fended off their pursuers, lifted her veil and smiled.

Thomas gazed about the room with undisguised wonder and awe.

“I have been here before,” Thomas said. “Many times in strange and troubled dreams.”

“Find comfort that you have reason for this familiarity. You spent a part of your childhood in this house,” Sir William said softly. “Would that I had time now to explain.”

The knight’s face did not reflect his urgency, despite the recent echoes of that iron bar slammed quickly into place.

Thomas shook away his trance and laughed.

“Less than half a day ago, I stepped off ship”—furrows across his forehead deepened as he shot a dark glance at the other visitor—“and out of the chains that had held me there. A half day, yet already I’ve been forced to flee assassins, only to have you appear as rescuer—you, a person I never expected to see again. Then you tell me that I spent part of my childhood here, in a land thousands of miles away from England.”

Thomas stopped for breath. “Only a sane man would demand explanation.”

He then shrugged and smiled to rob his sarcasm of insult. “However, no person could remain a sane man under these circumstances, so do not trouble yourself. Even if we had the time.”

Katherine shook her hair loose as the veil finally fell away. The light of the lamps burnished her short, blond hair so that it appeared to be veined with bronze. Her suddenly revealed beauty drew a gasp from Sir William.

Katherine wore a long cape of purple silk, held in place at the neck by an oval clasp of silver engraved with a sword. Her neck and wrists glittered with exquisite jewelry. Yet having seen all of that—an impressive sight anywhere, let alone the depths of this ancient port town—Sir William had fixed his gaze upon her face.

“Katherine,” he marveled. “I remember you a winsome child, but this … this …” He stopped and sighed, as if struck with melancholy. “I have missed so much of your childhood. Were it but possible, I would pledge you all the treasures of the earth to turn back the hands of time.”

She laughed. “To pledge me the earth’s treasures is furthest from the mind of your friend Thomas. He much prefers threats, such as casting me from the deck of a ship at sea.”

The knight widened his eyes in mock horror, but any reply was interrupted by shouts from outside. Then, moments later, a crash sounded against the wood of the door, as if a heavy shoulder had been applied.

Two more crashes. The iron bar held secure.

Shouts again.

“By the sounds, perhaps a dozen men,” the knight said.

Another crash shook the door in its frame.

“Your crossbow will be useless at short quarters,” Thomas said, nodding at the weapon the knight had laid upon a nearby table. “Have we a place to our advantage in a sword fight?”

The knight shook his head. “Against infidel assassins, no place gives advantage.”

“I will not die quietly,” Thomas vowed.

“Nor will I,” Katherine said. “Whatever weapons we have, we share.”

“Who speaks of death?” the knight countered.

Sir William yanked an unlit lamp from a nearby shelf. He pulled the wick loose from the base and emptied the oil in a semicircle on the wooden furnishings of the room.

He then grabbed one of the three remaining lit lamps and shattered it on the ground.

Flames licked at the spilled oil, then burst into a small wall of fire.

The knight nodded grimly as black smoke began to fill the room.

“Let them fight this instead.”

Three

H
ad Thomas been able to step away from himself to observe his own reaction to the unexpected fire, he would have been slightly impressed, not at his lack of panic, but at how well his childhood training served him during times of battle. For even as the flames around them began to roar, assumptions and conclusions raced through his mind.

The knight has no intention of suicide. Therefore, he must have an escape planned. The knight wasted no time to gather valuables before setting this fire. Therefore, he must have placed his valuables elsewhere.

Yet the meaning of those two conclusions is staggering. The knight has been ready to flee this house in an instant. He has anticipated this very moment!

How? Why?

The answers, Thomas vowed, would come later. Shouting outside rose in response to the smoke that poured through the narrow window openings carved in the limestone walls of the house. Now was the time to concentrate on the knight’s instructions.

Sir William made no noise. Only gestured for Katherine and Thomas to follow. He led them through a narrow archway into another chamber of the house.

This chamber leads to two others. I know this without doubt. There will be arched windows in one. A statue of Mother Mary in the other. And, during the morning, sunlight will stream across the statue as it did so many times when I sat on the floor and reached for lazy flies and listened to …

Thomas felt his heart skip a beat. Even in the haste of escape, the memories returned. This was no dream. No ethereal visit cut short by waking to unexplained tears nearly dry across his face.

I sat in this very house! My mother, Sarah, spent time with me in these very rooms! How could I have forgotten?

Sir William led them farther, to the room that indeed contained the statue of Mother Mary, then stooped suddenly and began to pry at the edge of one of the flat stones on the floor. Behind them, the heat of the rapidly growing fire spread into another chamber.

No words had yet been spoken.

The stone moved aside. Below it, a large iron ring was recessed into wood.

Sir William flipped the ring upward. There was enough room in the circle of the ring for him to use both hands.

He grunted, a sound barely heard above the snapping and hissing of the fire. He grunted again as he pulled, and an entire section of the floor lifted.

“Take a lamp,” he instructed Thomas. “Descend and wait.”

Thomas moved quickly across the room, grabbed the lamp base, and held it steady and level as he rejoined Sir William and Katherine. He looked into the darkness of the hole in the floor.

“Go quickly,” the knight said. “There are steps. Katherine and I will follow.”

Briefly, Thomas wondered if this was a trap. He did not yet trust Katherine fully. And by association, neither should he fully trust the knight.

He considered whether to hand the lamp to Katherine, to send her down first instead.

“Quickly,” the knight urged. “They are breaking through the door!”

Thomas dropped through to the ground below. Almost immediately, Katherine followed. With light in hand, it was not difficult to see the descending path of the crooked steps.

Darkness closed over them as the trapdoor lowered. The wick’s flame flickered at the sudden rush of air, but Thomas protected it quickly with his upper body, and the flame stayed alive.

He felt a hand on his shoulders. A soft touch.

“Thomas,” Katherine’s voice whispered.

His eyes adjusted to the dimness, and he held the lamp high as he descended.

“Thomas,” Katherine repeated.

He shook his concentration away from the tunnel that grew in his vision ahead and below.

“Yes?” he whispered back.
Where did the tunnel lead?

“Sir William,” Katherine said. “He is not with us.”

Thomas set the lamp down, placed one hand on the hilt of his sword, and turned to move back past Katherine, one step above him.

“No,” she pleaded. “We cannot return.”

“And let him die alone?” Thomas asked.

Katherine placed her hands on his shoulders as he attempted to push up the steps. “Or die together? Sir William chose to remain behind. Our deaths will only make his sacrifice useless.”

Thomas stood one step lower than Katherine, and it brought his face directly to the level of hers. For an insane moment, Thomas forgot the fire, the mysteries, and the fight above. Her scent enveloped him as surely as her arms on his shoulders.

Her eyes widened in the faltering light of the lamp, as if she, too, had suddenly become aware that time and circumstances had fallen away.

Thomas felt her hands behind his neck begin to clasp as the pressure of her downward push on his shoulders eased and instead became an embrace. He swayed slightly, closed his eyes, and responded by moving close enough to feel the warmth of her breath on his lips. His hand left the hilt of his sword, and as if he had no control, moved to the back of her head to pull her even closer.

He opened his eyes. Her eyes were closed in trust. Such beauty. It brought him an ache of joy and sorrow to think of an eternity of her love.

Insanity! A friend above gives his life that we may flee!

She sensed his hesitation. Opened her eyes. Broke the spell.

“M’lady—” Thomas began to apologize.

“Thomas—” she said in the same moment.

They both stopped in midsentence.

Awkwardly, Thomas stepped back and down from her.

“Surely this tunnel leads to escape,” he said quickly. “Sir William would not have planned it otherwise. And the fire above will lead the town to panic. We must hurry to keep our advantage.”

“And then? Do not treat me as a child. Whatever is planned, we plan together.”

Thomas did not reply. He had no answer and for that reason wanted only to concentrate on ducking through the low tunnel as he guarded the wick of his lamp from the water that dripped from the cool stone.

Four

W
hen they stopped to rest ten minutes later, Thomas was ready with his questions.

“Tell me,” he said, determined to ignore the effect of her presence so close, “of matters of my childhood.”

“How is it I should know?” she asked, almost aloof, as if she, too, sought to keep distance from his effect on her.

“You … you are an Immortal.” He had almost blurted that she
claimed
to be an Immortal. “As is the knight,” Thomas finished. “Surely you and he have secrets in common.”

“We are indeed Immortals,” Katherine said. “Yet the fall of Magnus forced many of us into isolation. Sir William roamed the world while I remained in disguise among the Druids of Magnus. How much can I know of his part in our battle?”

Even now she holds back truth,
Thomas thought with a trace of bitterness.
And I long to trust her and hold her and …

He forced himself to concentrate on his questions.

“When the assassins pursued us from the marketplace,” he said, “you led us not to the inn, but directly to the house where Sir William waited. Is that not proof of shared knowledge?”

His words echoed softly in the stone tunnel, and many heartbeats passed before she replied.

“Yes, indeed,” she finally began. “When Magnus fell to the Druids, Sir William, your mother, and a handful of others barely escaped with their lives. England was no longer safe. So they fled, here, to the Holy Land, hoping … hoping to find help in fighting the Druids from the valiant Crusaders.”

Had her hesitation been a shiver of cold? Or a lie? Thomas chose to remain silent, to wait for more.

“You and I,” Katherine said, “were raised here, in the house that so troubled your dreams. We dared not return to England. Druid spies were everywhere, and to be recognized there would give them too much warning that not all the Immortals had died. When the time was right, you and I—who would never be recognized—were smuggled back to England. I, to serve in disguise as a spy in Magnus. You, to receive training in that obscure abbey from your mother, one of the most dedicated Immortals of her generation. Our hope was that you might remain unknown to the Druids—and yet be close enough to reconquer Magnus with the knowledge given to you. It was a small hope, and with Sarah’s death, even smaller.”

Thomas closed his eyes at the name of the woman he was forced to pretend was merely his childhood nurse. She had tutored him relentlessly in games of mathematics and logic. She had corrected him with endless patience as he painfully learned to read and write in the major languages of the world. And in all those hours and days and years of instruction, she had above all favored him with the deepest love.

“It cannot be,” Thomas whispered.

“Thomas?” Katherine seemed to have caught the pain in his voice.

He faltered as he spoke. “I arrived at the abbey as a child. I was old enough then so that now I can remember—dimly—those first days there. You tell me that the first years of my life were spent
here. That I understand and believe, for is not my understanding of the tongue of this foreign country enough proof?”

He paused as another memory struck him. The memory of the first moment he saw Katherine’s face in the moonlight as he and his army marched northward to battle the Scots. Nothing in his life had prepared him for that moment. He had learned—from betrayal by the beautiful, dark-haired Isabelle—not to trust appearance as an indication of a person’s heart. Yet then, in the shadows of the moonlight, he had felt as if he had been long pledged to the woman with the mysterious smile in front of him. Katherine. Known since childhood.