Sons of the Wolf (22 page)

It took me nearly an hour to cover the distance between the house and the old abbey, although I ran until I got a stitch in my side. The ground was rough; I fell twice, scraping my hands rather badly the second time. It was necessary for me to double back on my tracks, since the ruins were to the south, and I went as cautiously s possible, concealing myself between rocks and trees. Perspiration ran down my body and immediately chilled. Julian was right, I thought hysterically; I shall have a cold-if not something worse.

From the time I left the house until I reached the ruins, I was moving like an animal, by instinct; I do not recall a single coherent thought. Fear drove me; anxiety filled my brain; I did not even pause to wonder what Julian would do when he found me missing or try to plan what steps I would take next. But at last I stood behind one of the tall willows, now desolate and bare, that overshadowed the roofless walls of the ancient church; and necessity brought back some measure of sense.

With an unpleasant, if minor, shock I realized that time had passed too quickly. It was late afternoon; the clouds were clearing and the sun was far down the west. Although the day was bright, it was bitter cold, and the sunlight did not warm me mentally or physically; it had a chill, pale-yellow light that outlined every blade of grass with merciless clarity. I would have preferred clouds and fog.

I knew that, even if I abandoned a search which might well prove fruitless, I would not reach Middleham before dark. It would take me all night to walk there-but I could not walk all night, not in that bitter cold. My stomach was empty too. I had forgotten to eat dinner, and there had been no way of packing food even if I had had the sense to think of it.

Resolutely I thrust despair away. I would go as far as I could; perhaps I might find a cottage where shelter or transportation could be procured. If not, I would simply walk until I dropped. That fate was preferable to the one that awaited me at Abbey Manor. And since an hour could make no difference now, I would spend that hour searching the ruins. They were, as I had realized, an ideal place of concealment for a captive girl.

And among the ruins the most likely place was the block of rooms which had once been the cells of the monks. I knew from my explorations that they were still solid. One of them could easily be made habitable, for a short time at least.

As I stood behind the trunk of the tree, peering out at the ominous piles of gray stone, the only sound was the beating of my own heart. No wind moved the chill air; the birds had long since gone south; crickets and insects and small animals slept snug in their burrows. I told myself that the silence was good for my purpose; I could hear any human movement, however slight. But I did not like that abnormal hush. It seemed as if something had cast a spell over nature itself.

So I hesitated, afraid to delay, yet afraid to step out onto the last stretch of open ground that separated me from-what? From the picture I had been trying all day to keep from my mind. It would no longer be denied. It leaped up, fully limned and detailed, before my inner vision-a picture of Ada struggling in Francis' arms. Wolfson always misjudged her; she was no terrified rabbit; she would have fought her seducer tooth and nail. But her girl's strength was useless against Francis' bulk. He was a man of violent temper; her resistance might anger him; he might have struck her or even-

"No," I said. I said it aloud, though there was no one to hear. He would not do that. He would not hurt her. But wasn't that precisely what he had set out to do? I put my hands to my head, as if I could reach into my skull and obliterate that vision.

And, after all, I told myself, after all my dramatics I might find nothing. Ada might not be here. I looked out again on the ruins. Nothing moved. I might have been gazing at the engraving in the guidebook.

I was about to venture forth when I heard the sound. It felled me to the ground, flat as a fallen pillar, and sent the breath rushing from my throat in a soundless gasp. It was only the distant neigh of a horse-but I thought first of Julian, then of Wolfson speeding homeward in his rage. . . . The sound was repeated, and then those he spent with Ada in her favorite pursuit came to my rescue, thought I knew that particular neigh. Cautiously I raise my head.

Beyond the ruins, behind a row of trees, there was flash of black-a black so complete that it gleamed like , raven's wing in the pale reddening sunlight. I dropped head onto my clenched hands and breathed again. The he was not Julian's or one of Wolfson's grays-it was Ada's beloved, vile-tempered Satan, exiled to a far pasture sine David's departure.

Then I saw the smoke. It was no wonder I had not seen it before; pale gray against a graying sky, it was more a quiver in the air than a shape. But the sight of it set the blood leaping in my limbs. Someone was here. Fires not built to warm chilly rabbits or cold stone.

The grass was brown and brittle, but high. I was already prostrate on the ground, so I stayed there, crossing yards that separated me from the cells on hands and knees. A watcher might have seen movement, might even have seen the black of my cloak through the pale-dun stems, somehow I felt safer close to the ground.

The empty doorway that gave entrance to the cells gaped dark and forbidding. I saw that the cobwebs which normally hung across the frame were gone. That meant someone had entered-or did it? Do spiders die in the winter? It was a ridiculously irrelevant question, but it cheered me enough so that I stepped into the darkness without hesitation.

There was a faint light inside-light that was weakened by its long journey through small barred windows, across empty rooms, through half-closed doors. I waited until my eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was no one in the corridor which stretched out to right and left. The doors of the cells looked just as they had the last time I was there. It would be necessary for me to check each door in turn.

I started out to my left and had not gone ten feet before I did encounter cobwebs-a thick mass of them, right across my face. Ordinarily I would have gasped and retreated; now I clawed them away absently, more concerned with the message they gave me. Nothing had passed this way for a long time.

The right-hand portion of the corridor was now my goal. The first few cells were obviously empty. The doors were either missing altogether or crazily ajar, hanging by the rotted shreds of hinges.

The fifth cell was different.

I knew at once this was what I had been looking for. The door was solid and firmly in place. More-a bolt and catch, shining in the gloom with the look of new metal, closed it from the outside.

There was a small barred window high up in the door. I stood on tiptoe to peer through before touching the bolt. If Francis was within, I had to come upon him without warning. As I strained to see through the high window, my hands were already searching through my reticule for a possible weapon-a silly performance, for I had nothing which would serve that purpose. I would have to go back outside, find a rock or heavy stick. . . .

The room was as dim as the hour before dawn. One small window admitted a beam of sunlight, but it was masked by creepers and weeds and by thick bars, and the light died before it reached the corners of the small stone cell. In one of those corners was an object which drew my straining sight. A low bed. On it lay a huddled form hidden by blankets.

My hands tugged frantically at the bolt. No one else was in the room; Ada was alone, ill, unconscious, perhaps dying. I forgot that Francis might be somewhere about. The bolt slid smoothly; I flung the door open and rushed in.

The huddled form was covered, even to the face, with blankets. But on the pillow there was a gleam of golden hair. I snatched at the blankets and pulled them down-and then I dropped to my knees, staring and staring and staring. . . .

The occupant of the bed was not Ada. It was Francis.

His face was masked by dirt and dried blood; long scratches marred cheeks and forehead, as if he had been dragged, face down, through brambles. One arm was roughly splinted and bound to his body by filthy bandages. A faint growth of beard covered cheeks and jaw. His eyes were closed and his breathing shook his whole body.

I saw it all in one comprehensive glance, but my mind quite refused to take it in. I watched with vague interest the movements of my own hands as they brushed the tangled hair off his brow, settled the blankets up around his shoulders, touched his cheeks.

My body knew the thing my stubborn mind had refused to see. The wonder of that discovery drove everything else out of my head. Ada was gone as if she had never existed; even Wolfson's menace was forgotten. I never thought, until much later, of one possible explanation for Francis' situation. The scratches on his face might have been made by fingernails. If Ada had been able to lay hands on a weapon, such as a poker, she might have broken his arm, and then-it would be like Ada-bound up her enemy's wounds before fleeing out onto the moors-anywhere except back to the house.

I never thought of this. I did not think at all. I only I knew he was here, hurt and ill, and that was the only thing I in the world that mattered. I said his name and bent over to touch his lips with mine.

He stirred and I drew back, alarmed by the heat of his skin. His eyes opened, but they did not see me. His uninjured hand reached out, groping; I took it in mine.

"Ada," he said, so faintly that I had to bend close to hear. "Still here? Run . . . little fool. Before he comes ..."

The effort exhausted him; his heavy lids drooped and fell. I knelt by his side, rubbing his hand mechanically, but I felt as if the winter chill had penetrated my heart. He loved Ada. How could he help it? Those few words, spoken in the truth of delirium, had cleared him even as they betrayed his feelings. His injuries had been incurred in her service. He had tried to save her-save her from his father, from—

It was beautifully timed; but then he has, as I ought to have realized, an innate sense of the dramatic. The truth came to me just as I heard the gentle, deliberate cough from the doorway behind me. I turned, knowing full well what I would see.

Alone, Wolf son could never, for all his strength, have spirited Ada away and forced her into a hidden prison. He had spoken of his son. I was the only one who had mentioned Francis by name, and it had amused Wolf son -oh, it would amuse him!-to let me think that. Perhaps he meditated some plan whereby Francis would take the blame and Julian get the credit for a noble rescue. God knows what he had in mind; only a devil could plumb the depths of that devious brain.

Of course it was Julian, all along.

He stood smiling at me, leaning in that graceful girlish way of his against the doorframe.

In the next seconds I created, and discarded, three desperate plans. He stood barring the only exit from the room. I am bigger than Ada, but no stronger; certainly I was no match for Julian. There was no use pleading with him, no threat I could conceivably make. . . .

Of course it was Julian-with his love of the little luxuries that made life worth living, his "gentlemanly" disinclination for honest labor, his fear of his dominating father, even his sympathy for those abominable hounds. Everything had pointed to him; everything I knew about Francis should have absolved him. After the incident with David, after watching the sure, gentle surgeon's hands at work, I should have known that he would never refuse to assist an injured man. Julian had not been injured; he had been pretending, just as he would have pretended, later, to come to Ada's rescue. No doubt he had some scheme in mind to persuade her that marriage with him was the only way of escaping from the gypsies' plot.

With his pleasant, meaningless smile Julian extended one hand to me. I hesitated, but not for long. A struggle would have been degrading and useless.

I put Francis' limp hand on his breast and rearranged the blankets. It was an act any humane woman might have performed, yet Julian's smile widened, and I knew with a stab of terror that I had made a dangerous mistake. How long he had been standing there I did not know, but if he realized the truth . . .

Well, if it was done, it was done, and any decent person would have said what I said next.

"Let me stay here, Julian. He needs care. The room is not even heated. He will die if you don't-"

"It is chilly, isn't it?" said Julian cheerfully. "No place for you, Cousin-with your nasty headache."

He laughed. I stopped several feet away from him, contemplating seriously one of the plans I had already discarded as impossible. It would have been a great satisfaction to claw at his face.

He saw my intention-I was making no serious effort to conceal it-and he straightened. As his right hand came into view, I saw that he was holding his riding crop.

"Why, Cousin, how badly you think of me." Julian's eyes followed mine; with an ostentatious gesture he dropped the whip and showed me his empty hands. "I won't hurt you, Harriet, even if you fly at me. I shall simply enfold you in a firm but painless embrace. Come, do fly at me. It might be fun."

"Julian. For the last time, let me do what I can for your brother. I won't fly at you or try to run away. I'll do anything you say."

"Would you?" He stared at me speculatively, his smile no longer pleasant. "We'll discuss that possibility later, Cousin. Just now, you have a long wait. You shall be comfortable whether you want to be or not.''

The peremptory hand was as white and well tended as a girl's, but I knew its strength. There was nothing to be gained by further speech; I had lost enough ground as it was. In a silence I hoped was contemptuous I went toward him. At the last moment he moved aside and I swept through the doorway, my head high and my heart aching.