Mystique (40 page)

“Eduard holds Alice somewhere in the caves of Scarcliffe.”

B
enedict was outraged when he learned of the stratagem. “What do you mean, you are not going to pay the ransom? For the love of God, my lord, you cannot leave my sister at the mercy of Eduard of Lockton. You heard his message. He will murder her.”

Dunstan clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Ease your mind, Benedict. Sir Hugh has dealt with men of Eduard’s nature many times before this. He knows what he is doing.”

Benedict banged his staff on the floor. “But he says he will not give that crystal to Sir Eduard.”

“Aye.”

Benedict turned on Hugh. “You’ve said yourself, the green stone has little value. ‘Tis only a symbol. Part of an old legend, you said. Surely my sister’s life is worth more than that devilish stone.”

Hugh did not look up from Calvert’s plan of the caves. “Calm yourself, Benedict.”

“I thought you had some tender feelings for Alice. You said you would care for her. You said you would protect her.”

Tender feelings
, Hugh thought. Those words did not begin to touch the emotion that he was struggling to control at this moment. He raised his eyes slowly to Benedict’s taut, anxious face.

“The stone is worthless, as I told you,” he said quietly. “That is not the point.”

“Sir, you must pay the ransom,” Benedict pleaded. “He will kill her if you do not.”

Hugh studied Benedict in silence, wondering how much to tell him. He glanced at Dunstan, who shrugged. Nothing would be gained by lying to the youth, Dunstan’s expression said.

“You do not comprehend the situation,” Hugh said quietly. How did one explain to a woman’s brother that his sister’s life hung by the merest thread? For that matter, how did a man deal with the fact that his wife was at the mercy of a murderer?

Hugh forced himself to set aside his own fears. He would not be able to do anything for Alice if he indulged himself in horrible imaginings and bleak visions of a future without her.

“That’s not true,” Benedict raged. “I understand exactly what is happening. My sister has been kidnapped by Eduard of Lockton, who has demanded a ransom for her return. Knights demand ransoms of one another all the time. Pay it, my lord. You must pay it.”

“‘Twill do no good,” Hugh said. “If I leave the green stone at the old village ditch, as instructed, ‘tis certain Eduard will murder Alice.”

Dunstan nodded soberly. “Sir Hugh is right, Benedict.”

Benedict stared, bewildered, first at Dunstan and then at Hugh. “But … but he has asked for a ransom. He says he will free her if it is paid.”

“This is no joust or friendly tournament where ransoms are part of the sport.” Hugh went back to his study of the cave map. “Do not make the mistake of believing that Eduard of Lockton will play this game by the rules of honor.”

“But he is a knight,” Benedict protested. “He took part in the jousts at Ipstoke. I saw him.”

“With this act Eduard has proven that he is no true knight,” Dunstan muttered.

“Until now he has played the part of a cunning fox who hides in the brush until he spies an opportunity to seize what he wants.” Hugh traced a passageway with the blunt tip of his ringer. “On the jousting field he is tame enough. There are too many people watching him there. Too many true knights who would be outraged if he were to cheat or act dishonorably. But this is a different matter.”

“What are you saying?” Benedict demanded.

“He has gone too far.” Hugh propped an elbow on the table and rested his jaw on his fist. “Seizing Rivenhall was one thing. He knew that I did not care what happened to that manor. If circumstances had been different—” He let the sentence hang, unfinished, in the air.

Benedict’s expression was one of grim comprehension. “You mean if Alice had not ridden to Rivenhall’s defense you would not have done so yourself?”

“Aye. If she had not taken it upon herself to save that manor Eduard could have had it with my best wishes. He knew that. But this … this is quite another matter.”

Some new element was at work in this business. Hugh grappled with the possibilities. What did Eduard know about the green stone that made him willing to risk the wrath of a man whom he had, until now, treated with wary caution?

What did Eduard know about the crystal that made him willing to risk death to obtain it?

For the instant Eduard had seized Alice, he had signed his own death warrant. He must surely be aware of that fact.

“This most certainly is quite another matter.” Benedict slammed a fist down onto the table. “What makes you so certain that Eduard will kill Alice if the ransom is paid?”

“In kidnapping Alice, he has challenged me directly.” Hugh frowned as he studied another passageway. “That means that for some reason he no longer fears me enough to be governed by caution. If that is the case, then he is no
longer a fox but a boar. And no creature is so dangerous and unpredictable as a boar.”

Benedict froze. Everyone knew that a boar was the most savage of beasts. Only the most skilled of hunters pursued such quarry. Endowed with a massive, heavily muscled body, great tusks, and mindless ferocity, it was capable of killing both a horse and the man unlucky enough to be in the saddle. The most valiant hounds could not bring it down without the aid of an entire pack of strong dogs and the arrows of the hunters.

“What are you going to do?” Benedict finally asked in a voice subdued by shock.

Hugh rolled up the small sheet of vellum on which Calvert had drawn the map. “I shall do the only thing one can do with a wild boar. I shall hunt him down and kill him.”

K
atherine’s somber eyes met Alice’s. “After Sir Matthew’s death, my cousin spent most of my inheritance and was unable to contract another suitable marriage for me. He allowed me to enter Scarcliffe Convent. I saw little of him over the years and I was very glad of that fact.”

“You were happy in the convent?”

“As happy as a woman of my temperament may be.”

In spite of her predicament, Alice felt a measure of sympathy. “Prioress Joan told me that you suffer from bouts of melancholia.”

“Aye. The work in the gardens is good for those afflicted with such humors, however. And I take satisfaction in mixing my herbs. For the most part I have been content.”

Alice shifted uncomfortably on the hard stone floor of the cavern. She had been sitting in the corner of the vast cave with Katherine for what seemed an age. Quiet conversation with the healer was the only thing that was keeping her from succumbing to the fear that threatened to envelop her.

She was vastly more anxious tonight than she had been the day she braved Eduard in Rivenhall Keep.

The difference lay in something other than the obvious
fact that on the previous occasion she’d had Dunstan and a contingent of Hugh’s men-at-arms at her back. It had to do with a change in Eduard himself. A terrifying change.

There was a frenzied quality about Eduard tonight, an air of violent desperation. Alice sensed that he was far more dangerous this time than he had been when he had attempted to take Rivenhall. Then, he had been wary of Hugh. Tonight his eagerness to obtain the green stone seemed to have driven out all sense of caution.

To Alice’s relief, Eduard had left the cavern a short while earlier. He had taken a torch and moved off down a dark passage with the confidence of a man who knew his way about the maze of tunnels.

This was the third time that Eduard had left the caves to spy on the old village ditch.

It seemed to Alice that the walls of the cavern were pressing closer. A torch propped against one wall burned low. Soot from the flames darkened the stone above it. The flickering shadows grew steadily darker and more dense.

A series of clicks on the stone floor caused Alice to glance across the chamber. Fulton and the other man, whose name, she had learned, was Royce, sat cross-legged, playing at dice. Their weapons were close at hand.

“My game,” Fulton growled, not for the first time. He had enjoyed a series of wins.

“Bah. Give me the dice.” Royce grabbed the small bone cubes and tossed them onto the stone. He glowered at the results. “By the entrails of the Saints. How do you come by all the luck?”

“Let me show you how to play this game.” Fulton reached for the dice.

“Sir Eduard should have returned by now. I wonder what keeps him?”

“Who can tell?” Fulton rolled the dice. “He
is in
a strange mood tonight.”

“Aye. He cannot think of anything except that damned green stone. ‘Tis unnatural, if you ask me. Everyone knows the crystal has no great value.”

“Sir Eduard believes that it does.”

Alice hugged herself as she looked at Katherine. “It grows late.”

Here in the bowels of the caves it was impossible to determine the position of the sun, but the passage of the day was apparent in other ways.

“Aye.” Katherine clasped her hands together. “‘Twill no doubt be finished soon. We shall both be dead and Eduard will have the green crystal.”

“My husband will rescue us,” Alice promised softly.

She recalled that she had once made the same vow to Emma. Poor Hugh, she thought with a wry and extremely fleeting amusement. He was always having to make good on her promises.

Katherine shook her head sadly. “No one can rescue us, Lady Alice. The roots of the herb that poisoned the past have borne evil flowers.”

“No offense, Katherine, but occasionally you do have a way of depressing one’s spirits.”

Katherine’s expression grew more morose. “I prefer to deal in truth and fact. If you wish to comfort yourself with false hope, that is your affair.”

“My mother was a great believer in the power of hope. She considered it as important as medicine. And I have every hope that my lord will deal quite satisfactorily with Eduard. You will see.”

“You certainly seem to have great faith in the power of your husband,” Katherine muttered.

“You must admit, he has not failed me yet.” Alice straightened her shoulders. “And if you think that Eduard is any match for Sir Hugh, you are wrong.”

“I myself have never had any reason to put my trust in men.” Katherine was clearly resigned to a sad end.

Alice concluded she would have no luck attempting to change Katherine’s bleak attitude, so she decided to change the topic instead. “Do you know who stole the green crystal from the convent a few weeks ago?”

Katherine twisted her hands together in her lap. “I did.”

“Your?”

Katherine sighed. “When Eduard learned that the crystal was the key to discovering the Stones of Scarcliffe,
he sent word that I must take it from its vault. He … made certain threats.”

“What sort of threats?”

“He promised to poison someone from the village or one of the other nuns if I did not obey him.”

“Dear heaven,” Alice whispered.

“I dared not take the risk. I did as he instructed. Late one night I took the stone and gave it to a man whom Eduard sent to the convent gate to collect it.”

“Why did Eduard wait all these years before he tried to steal the stone?”

Katherine lifted one shoulder in a small, dismissive gesture. “He only learned of its true value a few months ago.”

“When he discovered that Calvert of Oxwick had concluded that the Stones of Scarcliffe actually existed?”

“Aye.”

Alice frowned. “That incident occurred at about the same time that Sir Hugh received the fief of Scarcliffe.”

“Eduard was pleased to know that the loss of the green stone would cause Hugh much trouble, but that was not the reason he bid me steal it. The simple truth was that after learning that the Stones were more than a mere legend, he quickly become obsessed with discovering the treasure.”

“What happened after you gave the green stone to Eduard’s man?”

“The fool betrayed Eduard.” Katherine’s lips thinned. “He made off with it, determined to discover its value for himself. But when he could not learn its secret, he sold it to a peddler. From thence it came into your hands and finally it was restored to its rightful owner.”

“In the meantime, Calvert was here, using his guise as a monk to search these caves at his leisure.”

“Aye. Eduard realized that the monk had learned much about the caves and would prove useful. He struck a bargain with Calvert. He made the monk his partner. Eduard promised to find the green stone while Calvert searched the caves.”

“But Eduard murdered Calvert.”

Katherine nodded. “Aye. I’m certain that he intended
to do so from the start, once he had what he wanted. But when Sir Hugh recovered the green stone and locked it away in Scarcliffe Keep, Eduard and Calvert quarreled.”

“Why did they quarrel?”

“Calvert accused Eduard of failing to fulfill his part of the bargain. Eduard went into a rage and concluded that the monk was no longer of any use. After Calvert was dead, Eduard realized that he would have to try a different stratagem.”

“So he kidnapped me,” Alice whispered.

“Aye.”

“He is a fool.”

“Nay, he is a vicious, dangerous man,” Katherine whispered. “Indeed, he has always been evil. But tonight I see something else in him. Something that terrifies me.”