Dream of Me/Believe in Me (94 page)

Hawk did think this surprising but in no way saw it as cause for alarm. Hawkforte was a goodly sized manor and Krysta was becoming acquainted with all of it. She could be anywhere.

“She may have gone down to the town,” he suggested, “or she could be any number of other places. It is scarcely an hour to supper. She will appear.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Edvard said hastily. He took Aelfgyth's elbow and turned to go, but she was having none of it.

“But that is just it, my lord,” Aelfgyth insisted. “The Lady Krysta would never go off somewhere when supper is being prepared, and this the last evening before Lord Dragon leaves. She would be in the kitchens or dressing. Certainly she would not be far from either place, yet I cannot find her.”

She looked from one man to the other, the fast-rising steward she was soon to marry and the powerful lord in whose service they both were pledged. Her own audacity amazed her yet she remembered the many kindnesses of the Lady Krysta and resolved to stand her ground.

“I am telling you,” Aelfgyth said on a note of desperation, “something is wrong.”

Edvard hesitated, and Hawk looked closely at the young woman. He had never paid her much mind but he knew she had a gentle nature and now he saw that she was also intelligent.

The girl had merit, and therefore, just possibly, so did what she said.

“All right,” he said slowly. “Where exactly have you searched?”

Again, Aelfgyth rattled off the list of everywhere she had been in the past hour. When she was done, Hawk nodded. “You realize you may have simply been missing her if she moved from place to place?”

“That is possible,” Aelfgyth conceded, “yet I told them in the kitchens to send word to me if she appeared and none has come. It makes no sense that she would not go there.”

Hawk had to concede this. He was beginning seriously to wonder where Krysta had gotten off to but he was still far from alarmed. Hawkforte was extremely well protected. The Danes might be able to infiltrate spies from time to time but they could do nothing more than look.

Still, accidents could happen. At the thought that one might have happened to Krysta, his easy mood vanished.

His wife could not be found. The reason was most likely benign and she would emerge safe and sound, surprised to have been the object of concern. Three hours, Aelfgyth had said, and an hour of that spent searching for her. It was enough.

“Summon the servants,” he said. “Question anyone who talked with her today. Find out if she said anything about going anywhere.”

“As you wish, lord,” the steward said. He too looked concerned now. “Where may I report to you?”

“I'll be on the walls talking with the watch. I want to know where she went and who she was with.”

As Edvard and Aelfgyth hurried to obey, Hawk strode across the yard and took the nearest steps two at a time to the top of the walls. He found the lieutenant in charge of the watch and questioned him closely. Almost immediately, several other men were summoned and among them they tried to recall if they had seen the Lady Krysta during the day. The problem was that they were charged, sensibly enough, with keeping watch on whoever might be approaching Hawkforte, not on those already within it. Looking outward rather than inward, they saw relatively little of what went on inside the stronghold. Yet there were inevitably times when their attention shifted.

“I was just coming on duty, lord,” said a young man-at-arms. He was a bit nervous, called as he was to report directly to the Hawk, but he knew of what he spoke. “As I crossed the yard, I noticed the Lady Krysta take leave of her maid, who went on down to the town in the direction of her mother's house. Lady Krysta herself went toward the chapel.”

“Did you see her go in there?” Hawk asked.

The young man shook his head. “No, lord, I reported for duty then.”

Hawk nodded, satisfied that he had the best information
he was going to get. “Send several men out to see if they can locate that fellow Thorgold, and also, if possible, the woman called Raven.”

As the lieutenant barked orders, Hawk left the walls and walked quickly to the chapel. He found it empty save for Father Elbert. The priest looked startled to see him but recovered quickly and adopted his usual expression of vague disapproval.

“You wished something, lord?”

Reminded of how much he disliked the man, and how of late he had thought frequently of replacing him, Hawk spoke sharply. “Have you seen the Lady Krysta?”

The priest raised an eyebrow. “Here, lord? No, I have not. I see her very rarely.”

“She came this way in late afternoon.”

“I was not here then.”

“Who was?”

Father Elbert shrugged, “I have no idea.” He looked directly at Hawk as he spoke, the picture of candor. Yet he was unusually pale.

“Where is the Lady Daria?”

Was it a trick of the light or did the priest flinch?

“Again, lord, I have no idea. She is in chapel more than usual of late but not just now. May I suggest you seek her in her quarters?”

Several moments longer Hawk surveyed the priest before he decided there was nothing more to be gotten. Abruptly, he walked out of the chapel.

Daria was in her quarters. She was seated beside a window with a piece of embroidery in her lap. Why was it she always looked posed? Hawk pushed the thought aside and spoke directly.

“I am seeking my wife. Have you seen her?”

“The Lady Krysta?” Daria pondered for a moment, then shook her head. “No, I have not, but surely she will be in the hall soon. It is almost time for supper.”

Well aware of that, Hawk took his leave as quickly as he had come. In the hall, he found Edvard questioning the servants. No one had seen Krysta since late afternoon. Hearing this, Hawk's mind was made up.

“I want her found. Separate the servants into groups and start them searching.” As Edvard hastened to do as he was bade, Hawk summoned his lieutenants and gave the same orders for the garrison. With darkness rapidly approaching, dozens of torches were lit and handed out to the search teams.

In the midst of all this Dragon returned, and hearing of what was happening, he immediately joined the search. At the hour when Hawkforte should have rung with laughter and song, there were only the quick tread of feet and low-voiced murmurs of concern that slowly darkened to something worse.

H
ER HANDS WERE BRUISED. SHE FELT THEM THROB
-bing in the darkness. Her fingers were scraped and bleeding. Her legs ached and her heart beat painfully. Beyond exhaustion, Krysta sagged against the wall. For more hours than she knew, she had searched the chamber, feeling over every inch of stone trying to find something she could use as a weapon. All she had encountered was slick, damp rock and hopelessness.

Chilled to the bone, she was shivering helplessly, and the strength of her mind that had carried her so far was beginning to crack. The darkness pressed in on all sides, unrelieved, unrelenting. Daria truly had buried her alive and soon she would return to finish the job. Without a weapon, Krysta would have little chance against her.

Her face stung and with a start she realized that it was because of the hot tears trickling down her cold cheeks. So weary was she that she did not sob or in any way cry out, she simply wept silently and helplessly. Leaning against
the wall, hugging herself, she thought again of the child asleep within her.

“I'm so sorry,” she said brokenly. “I know I have to save us and I've tried so hard.”

Her voice sounded very odd in the darkness, as though it came from some source other than herself. Yet she felt less alone for having spoken.

“Daria will come back. She is mad and she means to kill us. I will fight her, even without a weapon, but we have little chance.”

She pressed her hands to her flat belly and imagined she was touching her child, a small, smiling baby with hair the tawny shade of Hawk's and eyes as green as her own. A baby who would grow to be a sturdy toddler, racing about Hawkforte, learning at his father's side until one day he, too, would be a strong man and noble leader. There in the darkness, sorrow a bottomless hole within her, she imagined she could almost see him, not Hawk yet very like him, so young and yet confident, reaching out a strong arm even as he smiled at her with gentle reassurance.

This baby who had little chance of coming into the light of the world, yet he seemed a man grown and so very real. As though she had called him into being.

Dazed, she stared into the darkness. Her eyes were open, tears still flowing from them, yet there he stood like a bright, shimmering vapor in the unmistakable shape of the man she knew to be her son.

“Falcon,” she murmured, and his smile deepened.

A sob broke from her. She stretched out her arms, frantic to touch him just this once before eternal darkness closed over them both. If only her love was strong enough to withstand death, to give him the chance to live as he was surely meant to. If only …

Yearning for her son, Krysta reached too far and
stumbled. She went down hard on her knees, gasping in pain. When she looked up again, the vision was gone.

“Nooo!”

The cry was ripped from her heart. What torment was this to show her a glimpse of a future never to be? Why this added torture when there was already so much to bear? Was God truly so cruel?

Sobbing, she struggled to rise from the floor but weakness overcame her. Why bother to stand, why keep fighting, why not just give up now? Surely death would close around her as easily as the darkness did.

Or perhaps not … for what was this just within the touch of her fingers, this solid something she had fallen beside? Slowly, Krysta lifted her head. She still could see nothing but by carefully feeling what she had just found, her despair gave way to hope. Hard within her grasp, firm and real, was what gave every evidence of being a solid iron bar of a kind that might be used on the windows of a cell. This one had no windows but there was that small opening in the door. Had it once been closed over by the very bar she now clutched?

Carefully, Krysta got to her feet. She fumbled into the darkness, finding her way back to the wall. Without it, she would have been lost entirely. Moving slowly along it, she positioned herself to the side of the door where she would be best concealed when it opened.

Holding the bar in one hand, she touched the other to her sleeping child. Her tears were gone. In their place was a smile identical to her son's.

“Thank you,” she murmured and felt her fear flow away. In its place was hard, clear resolve.

H
AWK HAD BEEN AFRAID BEFORE. ANY MAN WHO
didn't know fear in battle was an idiot and probably
a dead one at that. Fear could be good. It could stop you from doing insanely stupid things and even sometimes keep you alive for another moment, another breath, another hour, another day, another battle.

This was different. Terror ate at him, making his soul burn. He wasn't sure which was worse, the sickening anguish he felt or the rage that accompanied it.

She was gone. After hours of searching, he was convinced that Krysta was truly gone. But how and why remained unknown to him. He had questioned every guard, seeking any hint that someone might have done at Hawkforte what Udell had managed at Winchester. But that had happened at night, and Krysta had vanished while yet it was day. The guard had been vigilant as always and no one had seen anything. Not a person out of place, not a single suspicious action, not a hint that his life was about to come crashing down around him.

This was worse than Udell. Then, he had known who had taken her, the danger she faced, and what he must do. Now he knew nothing except that the pain he felt was not to be borne.

Was it possible she had gone of her own free will?

The question had first come to him hours before when he learned that Thorgold and Raven were also not to be found. He had dismissed it at once, stunned even to have thought it. But over and over again as the night wore on, the same doubt flared. Could she have lain in his arms, shared the heights of loving passion, laughed and teased, tantalized his mind as well as his body, and it all meant nothing? Had she clung to her determination that they should not be man and wife?

He shook his head, struggling to clear it. The very notion was absurd, a sick figment of his tormented imagination. Krysta loved him as he loved her. She had put aside all her doubts and fears when they wed. Besides, were that
not so he would know it, for she had no subterfuge in her. She was as guileless as clear, sparkling water.

And she was gone.

Not
of her own free will, of that he was certain. Someone had taken her, somehow, somewhere. Taken her and, he recalled as a fresh bolt of agony ripped through him, their child.

He would take Hawkforte apart stone by stone if need be. He would scour the surrounding land, put aside his love for it and strip it bare if he must, but he would, by God and all the saints, find her.

“Brother …”

He turned, seeing Daria yet not truly seeing her until he forced himself back from the dire vision of destruction he had conjured and stared into the grave face of his half-sister.

“Brother,” she said again, “it is very late. Surely everyone is exhausted, yourself included. Would it not be better to resume in the morning when there is light to see by?”

Light? There was no light and would never be again without Krysta. He was not tired, such consideration did not exist. If it did for others, so be it. It made no difference to him.

“Go to your bed.”

She stared at him and he noticed yet again the flatness of her eyes. “I only meant …”

“I know what you meant.” He did not want to be unkind. There was too much pain already to add to it. “Those who wish to do so will continue to search.”

She frowned. He wondered if it could really be out of concern for him and felt the thought slip away. Nothing in his experience with her said it could be so. Nothing.

Her husband had rebelled against Alfred and died for it. Daria had been thrown from the heights of anticipated
power to sufferance in her half-brother's household. She had no reason to want Krysta found.