Claire Delacroix (12 page)

Though he said nothing, I knew Merlyn did not believe me.

“Who else should he be?” I demanded, angered by his judgmental silence. “Who else should my mother have brought into the world? I attended her! I pulled the child from her womb. I laid him upon her belly as she died!”

I stood and turned my back upon him, feeling my tears rise to choke me. It has been years, but still I listen for my mother’s footsteps.

Merlyn cleared his throat cautiously. “When did Elizabeth die?”

I nodded without turning and my voice was low with the grief that haunted me. “Within a year of our departure from here. Childbirth at her age proved too much for her to bear.” I took a shuddering breath. “With her last breath, she pushed her son into the world.”

I remembered the anguish of losing her all too well. The silence stretched long between us and I feared that I would weep for my mother there, in front of the last person I wished to witness any vulnerability of mine.

“I am sorry,” Merlyn said quietly. “You must miss her.”

The compassion in his tone unsettled me, for I had not expected understanding, let alone sympathy. “I would not wish to meet a person who did not miss their deceased mother,” I retorted more savagely than was necessary.

“What of Tynan?” Merlyn’s tone was mild. “Surely he cannot miss the mother he never knew?”

I inhaled sharply. “Did you bring me here to provoke me?”

Silence again, pressing against my ears, challenging the veracity of my tale without a word.

“He looks like a Lammergeier,” Merlyn said.

“He looks like a child,” I snapped.

“Ysabella...”

There was a warning in his use of my name, and I knew better than to vex him further. I tipped my head back to stare at the hewn rock overhead and forced myself to speak evenly. “It is true that I do not know his exact parentage, Merlyn, though it is somewhat graceless of you to compel me to admit it.”

“And what is that to mean?”

I shrugged. “Perhaps you found my mother fetching. It is a sordid possibility, though not out of the question.”

Merlyn laughed, though there was little mirth in the sound. “Not I. I was...otherwise occupied for that fortnight.”

I felt him draw close, the warmth of the candle nearer, the heat of Merlyn yet more tangible. My own shadow loomed large on the hewn stone before me, and now was joined by his larger one. I took a shaking breath as his grip landed upon my shoulder, his fingers tight.

“You may recall that my mother was fond of your brother,” I added hastily. “She and Gawain spent much time together in those few weeks.”

“As you did.”

“I spoke to him only once.”

Much hung unsaid between us and the silence stretched long.

Then Merlyn spoke. “I suppose it is only my suspicious nature that compels me to note that neither Gawain nor Elizabeth are here to confirm or deny the tale of them.”

“Is Gawain dead?”

“No.”

“Then you might ask him when next you meet.”

“That seems most unlikely to happen.” Merlyn gripped my shoulder so tightly that I was startled. “I would prefer to have the truth from you.”

“You have the truth from me!”

“No, I do not.” His words were low, dangerous. “You lie, Ysabella, you lie to me about the boy.”

“I do not!” I flung out my hands. “Is deception so bred in your bones that you cannot imagine that others do not lie to you at every turn? Merlyn, I do not lie. That is your affliction, as I recall.”

He removed his hand, disgust in his gesture, and turned away. “Forgive me if I offend the Witch of Kinfairlie.” He turned back to face me, his eyes snapping with an anger that he held under tight control. “Will you curse me now?”

My fists clenched and unclenched, hating that he so unerringly noted the falsehood that had shaped my recent life. “I would do so if I had the power.”

“You are not a witch but you call yourself one.”

“I let others call me as much.”

“Either way, you support a claim that is not true, yet you insist to me that you do not lie.” Merlyn’s tone was scathing. He exhaled with undisguised disgust, his words harsh. “There was a time, Ysabella, when you had a thirst for the truth. There was time when you would settle for nothing less than complete honesty.”

“There was a time when I believed and trusted my lord husband. That time is gone, not my love of the truth.”

He turned his piercing gaze upon me. “Then why do you lie to me about the boy?”

“I do not.”

“You lie,” he declared through gritted teeth. His fist clenched.

“I do not!”

“You lie!” Merlyn strode away impatiently, taking the candle with him.

“How dare you assume that I lie, on the basis of no evidence at all?”

He did not grant me a reply.

“And what do you know of the virtues of telling the truth?” I cried, my voice rising with every question. “Have you not made a life of spreading falsehoods? Have you not earned a living by the cultivation of lies?”

Merlyn did not pause.

“Did you not lie to your new bride about your trade? Did you not lie about your own death? Did you not deceive me that I might come to Ravensmuir, and lie about the ceding of that title to me?” I shouted after him. “Does the inability to speak honestly not course through your very veins?”

Merlyn paused then and glanced back at me, his expression guarded. “Perhaps it does,” he acknowledged quietly, too quietly to be trusted. I took a cautious step back, though it was too late. “Let me then grant to you some advice for those moments when you lie, my lady wife, as you clearly are unfamiliar with the necessary protocol.”

I retreated another step, distrusting his ominous tone.

“Do not let your voice rise,” Merlyn said softly. “Do not challenge expectations too greatly. Do not speak overmuch in explanation, for all of these actions will reveal your dishonesty.”

I feared then for my future, for he spoke with the quick precision of one who is sorely angered. “Merlyn...”

But he continued, his tone harsh. “Choose your lies well, and with understanding of your victim. I, for example, should have been less angered that you had borne me a child unbeknownst to me, or that you had rutted with my brother, than be expected to believe some fantastic tale that the child carries no Lammergeier blood.” I gasped, but Merlyn did not pause. “It is in my nature to take poorly to any implication that I am slow of wit.”

“Merlyn...”

He drew closer, appearing larger, darker, more dangerous and more unpredictable than I could recall. He loomed over me, his eyes blazing. “And finally, when you mean to lie, ensure that your deception will not be immediately discerned. People, as a rule, do not care to be deceived. Matters may proceed poorly for you if your ruse is discovered while you are in a somewhat disadvantaged circumstance.” His gaze held mine and I panicked.

“Merlyn!”

He blew out the flame. The cavern plunged into blackness, leaving the image of his determination burned in my mind.

I gasped, then screamed his name, but Merlyn did not reply.

His boots ground on the stone, first from one direction then from the other. I guessed that he used his knowledge of the space to my disadvantage.

When he spoke, his words were bitter. “I sought you out, Ysabella, I sought you out solely because of your love of truth. I had need of an honest ally in whom I can place complete trust. I foolishly believed that person might be you.”

I struggled to locate him, but to no avail. I snatched at the air in pursuit of his voice, trying desperately to lay a hand upon him. But Merlyn could move with the silent grace of a cat when he so chose.

“I sought you out to aid me in uncovering the truth. I thought that you alone, you especially, held the truth in high regard.” I had no care for what he told me. “I thought you noble. I thought you unlike any other woman I had ever met. I thought I could trust you. And what have you immediately done - what, Ysabella?”

“Merlyn, have mercy...”

“You lied!” he roared with such volume that I feared the stones would tumble all around us. His voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, his shout bouncing off the stone on every side of me.

The darkness, though, was the sum of my concern. It made me yearn to claw my way through the very stone, to dig my way back to the light again if necessary. It made me desperate and rash and more frightened than ever I had been in all my days.

I cried his name in anguish.

“If you no longer hold truth in such esteem as once you did,” he hissed, “then there is nothing, nothing, that we might say each to the other now.”

I knew then that he would leave me there, alone in the darkness.

Forever.

“Merlyn! No!”

Not one sound reached my ears, no matter how I strained. Not one breath, not one whisper, not the rattle of one dislodged pebble.

“If I no longer hold truth is such esteem, it is your own doing!” I cried in desperation. “I have done what I had to do to ensure my survival. Merlyn, have mercy upon me!”

But there was no answer.

Merlyn was gone.

I whirled in place, uncertain which way to turn. I begged, I groveled, I cried out shamelessly for his mercy.

To no avail. By the time my entreaties finally fell silent, I could hear only the thunder of the sea and the pounding of my own terrified heart.

* * *

V

In the telling, his choice seems a cruel one. And it is true that Merlyn has been manipulative in his time, as well as demanding. But to his side, it must be credited that he never knew of my terror of the darkness.

While I was resident at Ravensmuir the first time, there was seldom complete darkness in our chamber. He lit candles when we loved, and we loved most of the night most nights. Even the night just past, the solar had been lit with the first young sliver of the waning moon diffused through the clouds. I had opened the shutters upon my arrival for precisely this reason.

Merlyn and I had not lived together long enough that he might know all of my secrets, especially those - like this one - that I protected so carefully. And even if he guessed at it, he could not have understood the fullness of my terror. He is not a fearful man himself and perhaps never understood what it meant to be terrified right to one’s bones.

Perhaps I give him more credit than is due. But the fact remains that when I managed to calm myself slightly, I noticed a light flickering in the distance.

Merlyn had left a beacon for me. Relief took me to my knees and I sobbed there for a moment before I could compose myself. Perhaps he was less cruel than I had assumed. Perhaps he yet desired something of me. Perhaps I did not care in my gratitude for his gift of the light.

Though Merlyn was the last person whose company I wished to keep in that moment, the light was lure enough. I was less afraid of Merlyn than I was of the darkness. I stood, brushed off my skirts and pursued him.

It was, without doubt, precisely what he intended me to do.

* * *

The lantern’s glow grew brighter as I made my way along the passageway. Much to my relief, the twists in the tunnel had concealed some of the light and it was brighter than I had first guessed. The sound of the waves and the smell of sea salt also increased with every step.

I had to ascend to the opening from which the light issued and was slightly out of breath when I finally stood on the threshold of what I discovered to be a room.

Merlyn was in this chamber hewn from the rock, a trio of oil lanterns burning brightly around him. He sat on a crate wrought of wood and had shed his chemise. Fitz was there, to my astonishment, though neither man glanced up at my arrival.

Merlyn winced as the manservant dressed the wound upon the back of his shoulder. It was a deep and ugly gash, and fresh blood was leaking from its corners. It had evidently opened in Merlyn’s recent adventures and Fitz clicked his tongue in chastisement as he carefully stitched it closed once more.

Merlyn had worn his chemise the night before when he came to me and I understood why. I had felt cloth beneath my fingers, but not the binding beneath. Here too was the reason for his pallor - though he had not died, Merlyn had certainly had a foretaste of his demise.

That the procedure was painful was evident only by the tightness of Merlyn’s expression. He looked more grey and more grim than he had even in the stables and my heart wrenched. I was unsettled by the sight of him being less than formidable and was glad of this respite from his perceptive gaze.

Here was a timely reminder that someone had tried to kill him. By the size of the wound, he or she had come close to succeeding. I reminded myself that what was truly remarkable was that no one had tried to kill a scoundrel like Merlyn sooner.

He had lost weight in recent years, I noted, but I looked again and saw that he was more sleek than gaunt. All sinew and strength, he was, like the dangerous predator for which his family was named.

I looked away, the hunger in my loins most unwelcome. The chamber was filled with crates, no doubt from the ship that bobbed empty at anchor, no doubt crammed with the disreputable goods with which this family continued to make their fortune.

Bolstered by my disgust, I announced my presence. “Your death blow, I can only assume?”

Neither man seemed surprised by my entry and I wondered whether I had been as unobserved as I had assumed.

Fitz grunted in reply, then frowned as he stitched the end of the wound closed. “Almost done now, my lord. Hold steady.”

Merlyn visibly gritted his teeth, then eyed me warily. “Do I detect glee in your tone,
chère
?”

One credit that I must grant Merlyn is that his temper, while fearsome, is neither violent nor enduring. He says what he must, often quite loudly, but once the storm has erupted, it quickly passes. I have never seen him strike anything or anyone. He seems to express his fury purely with volume. It was clear that his usual mood was already partially restored.

It is a trait we share. I, too, am slow to boil and loud in my temper, though it is not dangerous to others and fades quickly.