Knight of Pentacles (Knights of the Tarot Book 3) (17 page)

And yet, in spite of knowing this golden truth, he could not stop himself from hating vampires—especially when they wore English uniforms. Why they dressed this way had mystified him until Sir Malcolm, one of his fellow knights, explained how these mercenaries came into being.

“To beef up his forces, the Emperor of Sangpagne had their bodies collected from the battlefields of France during the Napoleonic wars,” Malcolm told him one evening over a glass of mead in the main hall of the knight’s quarters. “Their commander, however, has a different story to tell. Rather than meet his end on the field of valor, the corpulent duke struck a devil’s bargain with Constantine. Eternal life in exchange for the duke’s military expertise.”

Upon hearing this, Axel had stroked his beard in wonder. As far as he knew, there was no form of magic capable of bringing the dead back to life. “Can you tell me by what magic he manages these resurrections?”

Malcolm nodded as he tilted the bottle to refill their glasses. “Have you ever heard tell of the Cauldron of the Dagda?”

Too dumbfounded to answer, Axel had just stared at his fellow knight. The cauldron, one of the four treasures brought to Ireland by the forerunners of the faery race, had been missing for centuries. According to legend, the cauldron had the power to fulfill every wish and to restore the dead to life—only the process deprived the resurrected of one of their attributes: speech, sight, hearing, taste, smell, virtue, or empathy, for instance.

Emperor Constantine having an object of such power at his disposal was a terrifying prospect; it also explained why there were so many Sangpagnese soldiers of fortune on the market of late. Obviously, the emperor must be manufacturing these fighting forces as a profit-making enterprise—the same way Queen Morgan generated daughters to sell as sex slaves to the elves, goblins, vampires, and anyone else willing to meet her price.

A flash of white brought Axel back to the moment. The owl had broken from its hiding place among the trees and was gliding toward the cave on silent wings. It was a great gray—big, but not big enough to daunt Axel. He dove, talons extended, and caught the owl directly between the wings. Stunned by the attack, the vampire plummeted toward the ground with Axel’s claws still embedded.

In the wild, great grays and gyrfalcons were evenly matched. Full-grown males of both species weighed in the neighborhood of four pounds and boasted wingspans of up to five feet. As shifters, both were considerably larger than their natural countertypes.

When they hit, the owl rolled, throwing Axel off. Recovering his feet, the gyrfalcon shrieked and charged his opponent. The owl hissed, flapped its enormous wings, and flashed its fearsome talons.

Far from intimidated, Axel launched himself at the great gray, being careful to avoid his foe’s razor-sharp claws. A screeching, spinning, feather-flying brawl ensued. Ten minutes later, only one bird emerged from the melee.

Leaving the incapacitated owl where he lay, Axel flew back to his cave to patch his wounds and retrieve his knife. According to Sir Malcolm, the only way to kill a Sangpagnese for good was to lop off its head.

Landing just inside the entrance, he recited the incantation to restore his human form. When the transformation was complete, he moved deeper into the cave with the plan of dressing himself before returning to decapitate the owl.

His heart turned to ice when he saw the page standing there—the same dark-haired lad who’d come to fetch him the last time.

“How long have you been waiting?”

“Since just before dawn,” the young man answered. “Her Majesty sent me to bring you to her.”

Axel’s frozen heart dropped into his stomach. Did the queen already know about Jenna? He could think of no other reason for the summons. The new moon was still a ways off and it was too soon for another, well,
romantic rendezvous
, for lack of a better phrase.

“How did she seem?”

“
Seem
, my knight? I do not take your meaning.”

“What sort of mood was she in when she dispatched you?”

With a shrug, the page said, “The same mood as ever.”

This gave Axel reason to hope his circumstances were not as dire as he feared. The queen might well know nothing about Jenna, and merely wished to meet with him to share new intelligence her spies had gathered with regard to his quest. Oh, aye. That was probably all it was, and he would do himself no favors by looking guilty.

“Come, my good knight. Make haste. We must not keep Her Majesty waiting any longer than we already have—unless you wish to inflame her temper. You must know by now how much she detests being kept waiting, especially by one of her drones.”

He did know, and wasted no time putting on his second-best tunic, having left his best one at the cottage. The thought of Jenna crept in, raking his heart. If he did not return by nightfall, she might think he had abandoned her. If only there was some way to get word to her...or something to leave behind that would let her know where he had gone.

Axel threw a glance toward the embedded shelf where he kept his runes. Could he use the stones to leave her a message without arousing the page’s suspicions? Maybe, if he was quick about it. But would Jenna understand what he meant to communicate?

He had not taught her to read the runes as promised, and now regretted that failure immensely. Still, he must try. Jenna was clever. She might figure it out.

“Did the queen give no hint in the slightest about her reasons for wanting to see me?” he asked, stalling for time as he crossed to the altar.

“No, my good knight. As you must know, Her Majesty is not one to be open, especially with one as inconsequential as myself. For I believe she regards her pages as little more than dildos with legs.”

As he spoke, Axel emptied the pouch onto the altar cloth. With trembling fingers, he sorted through the gems, trying to decide which to choose. In the short window of time the Norns had allotted him, he could do little more than assure her of his regard. But at least knowing he had not forsaken her might help her endure his absence with more forbearance. He just hoped, for both their sakes, he would not be away overlong.

There was no rune to specifically signify love, so he chose
Ehwaz
—the rune of the two horses, whose glyph resembled a capital M. Viewed through the lens of a
vitki
,
Ehwaz
depicted two horses facing each other with their noses touching. Two horses harnessed together worked in harmony, as did a man and woman in an equal partnership. Thus,
Ehwaz
represented harmonious duality, trust, loyalty, and legal marriage.

The message he desired the rune to convey was: “Trust me. I will keep my promise to you. For my love is true and in my heart, we are as good as married.”

He set the rune in the center of the altar and took up the amulet into which he had carved a chain of runes to protect him from the form of magic known as
seidr
. While the charm might not repel Queen Morgan’s sorcery, it would dilute the impact of any spell she might attempt to cast over him. He placed the amulet around his neck, over the enchanted torque that kept him enslaved, but hidden beneath his tunic.

He turned back to the page. “I am ready now. Shall we be off?”

As they moved toward the portal, Axel stopped at the chamber that served as Odin’s stall and patted the horse’s rump while chanting the
galdr
for
Ehwaz
—sounds he hoped the page would mistake for affectionate gibberish. The incantation should make Jenna more receptive to the rune’s message.

Axel followed the page through the vale and across the rickety bridge spanning the loch surrounding the castle. At the other end, Lady Lilac waited once again to escort him the rest of the way.

Inside the royal bedchamber, he found Morgan outstretched as before on the chaise at the foot of her bed. Clad in a sheer robe that left naught to the imagination, she was second in beauty only to Jenna. He pushed all thought of his beloved from his mind. If Morgan was still in the dark about his infidelity, he did not want to give himself away.

“My queen.” He bowed deeply.

“My knight,” she returned with a smile.

To his enormous relief, there was no trace of hostility in her tone or her expression. She took her time looking him over—so much time that he began to feel like a lamb at a livestock market. He kept his gaze averted, lest it fall upon the dreaded Jewel of Allurement dangling from the diadem encircling her head. She had brought out the heavy artillery for this meeting. Why? He fingered the amulet under his tunic while silently reciting a
hexenspeigel
—a spell to deflect malicious magic.

When her psychic probes entered his mind, he cleared his head of all thought.

“Why do you wipe clean the slate of your mind, my knight? What is it you fear I will find?”

“Nothing, my queen. I simply seek to spare you the mundanities of my cognitions.”

“I doubt I would find your thoughts the least bit dull.” Patting the spot beside her, she gave him a captivating smile. “Can I persuade you to come and sit with me a spell?”

With a knot in his stomach, he approached her, being careful not to let his gaze fall—even for a moment—on the gem on her forehead. The Jewel of Allurement was legendary for its powers of seduction. Any who looked upon the gem surrendered his soul to the wearer. He might be her plaything, but at least he still possessed that divine part of himself.

When he was almost to the chaise, his gaze fell upon something he had failed to notice before: a pedestal beside the chaise on which an emerald goblet stood. The stemmed vessel was not merely green in color; it appeared to be turned from an actual emerald.

Axel blinked at the chalice in disbelief. Surely, it was not what it seemed to be. For an emerald of that size would be of incalculable value.

As he took his seat beside her, she took up the goblet and offered it to him. His heart clutched when he saw it was filled with golden liquid—a potion of some sort, no doubt, but for what purpose?

“Why do you hesitate, my knight? Do you distrust your queen?”

How was he supposed to answer such a leading question without further entangling himself in her sticky web? “Of course I trust you, my queen. What possible reason would I have to doubt you?”

“No more than I have to doubt you, my faithful knight.”

Her sweet demeanor no longer fooled him. She knew of his deception and meant to lure him into a trap. The goblet contained poison or a truth serum or some other elixir that would do him no good.

With a hard swallow, he made a silent plea to Odin:
Oh, all-seeing and far-wandering one, reveal to me the aim of this sorcery so that I might arm myself against its evil.

No sooner had he made his entreaty then the room began to transform. No longer was he himself or at Castle Le Fay. He was Sigurd, the hero who had pledged his love to Brunhilde, at the court of the Niflungs. Morgan was the witch-hearted Queen Grimhild, who wanted him for her daughter, Gudrun.

The vision revealed the nature of Morgan’s game. She did not mean to accuse him of faithlessness or punish his transgressions; her intention was to wipe all trace of Jenna from his memory.

He waved the cup away. “No, thank you, my queen. I have no thirst at present.”

“Not even for a taste of the finest whisky ever distilled?”

As the goblet crossed under his nose again, he breathed in the subtle aromas of smoke, peat, and leather. It did indeed smell like a very fine single-malt.

“That is quite a claim,” he said, buying time. She knew how much he liked whisky. How could he refuse the cup without tipping her off? “May I know the maker of this alleged malt without rival?”

“The master distiller is elven.” She still held the tantalizing liquor under his nose.

He should have known, as the elves made the best single-malt in both worlds. Glamoured by the whisky’s intoxicating bouquet, Axel accepted the cup and took a sip. A perfect mixture of flavors laved his taste buds. Marveling, he rolled the whisky across his tongue. As he swallowed, her hand came down on his knee.

“You see?” Her laugh tinkled in his ears like wee bells. “You have nothing to fear. Now, lay back, relax, and let me see to your pleasure.”

Wrapped in a cocoon of euphoria, he did as she bade. All his cares had floated away, leaving him with only the potent desire to serve and obey the woman beside him. “I am your humble servant, my queen.”

“I know you are, my good knight. You simply forgot for a time because you were bewitched. And now that you’ve been restored to your senses, you will not be returning to the glen. You shall remain here, under my watch, until the time comes to embark on your quest. For we cannot have you falling under that witch’s spell again, now can we?”

“No, my queen,” Axel agreed, despite having no recollection of ever encountering a witch in the glen.

Chapter 13

Wanting neither to risk her safety nor flout Axel’s orders, Jenna remained inside the cottage all day with the doors and windows locked. She’d heard the birds fighting—what a terrible racket they’d made!—but stayed put, hoping he’d return to her when it was over. When he failed to come back, she kept herself busy to avoid obsessing about the possible reasons. She read part of
Middlemarch
, baked a batch of shortbread, watched
Persuasion
on the DVR, and experimented with her new telepathic powers. Since there was no one around upon whom to practice mind-reading, she tried to find Axel across the glen, but couldn’t seem to connect with his mental circuitry.