She felt her face go hot and red. To hide her embarrassment, she turned to wave to Guinevere at the top of the stairs, but the Queen had already gone.
They passed through another door and into the main courtyard of the keep. Into a crowd. Squires were brushing and exercising their knights' horses. Even this early, washerwomen carried great baskets of laundry. Pages ran messages. Servants trying to get platters of breakfast food from the kitchen to the main hall had to dodge people, barking dogs, and a flock of sheep, which had somehow worked its way up from the lower bailey. A cluster of children were trying to tag each other and bumped into everybody.
King Arthur was there, also, looking as permanently tired as his wife. He took Alayna's hand in his own. "Godspeed," he wished, and to Galen, "Our prayers go with you—a safe trip and a happy conclusion to this unfortunate matter." He gave each of their hands a squeeze. Then—and there was obviously some matter between them—"Mordred."
Mordred gave just the slightest inclination of his head.
The squire who had attached Alayna's things to her saddle stepped back, and there was nothing more to delay them.
Alayna paused before mounting and rested her hand on the sword Sir Percival had presented to her. She hoped she was not being just stubbornly prideful, that her presence wouldn't endanger Kiera. She offered up a brief prayer. Then she swung onto her horse and followed Galen and Mordred through the press of people and animals.
Knights touched sword pommels as they passed—a wish for luck—and several ladies waved and blew kisses. No wonder. Galen, his hair golden in the sunlight, looked magnificent. Mordred, darker and slighter, was a handsome youth. Together they looked like heroes from a ballad. Alayna still hoped that her pride wasn't endangering Kiera, but she spared a brief hope that, also, she wouldn't make a fool of herself.
They made their way through the lower bailey and a throng of peasants who looked at the knights with mild interest and gaped at her. By the time they got through the portcullis and over the drawbridge, Alayna was finding the crowds suffocating.
Perhaps Mordred felt the same, for he immediately set off at a gallop that they all knew couldn't be maintained for long.
CHAPTER 6
It had been long years since Alayna had spent all day in a saddle. Her horse had no trouble keeping up with Mordred's and Galen's, but by the end of the day she had to concentrate to stay on her mount. Despite her anxiety to get to Kiera she was grateful when the sun finally set, giving her the chance to rest her aching body. She was not eager for their first real chance to talk, for she feared she knew what the men would have to say.
And, in fact, once they finished setting up camp and eating, Mordred asked, with a nod toward the sword she had set down beside her, "How good are you?"
She stretched out on her side, unable to sit any longer than the time necessary for the actual eating of their evening meal. She knew Mordred must have asked Galen already. He was testing her assurance. Or the level of her pride. Two different matters, requiring two different answers.
"Competent," she answered. She didn't know what to do with her hands, and plucked at the grass before her. Mordred was buffing the breastplate he had been wearing all day. Galen was poking at the fire with a stick. Alayna said, "When we were children, I could keep up with Galen."
Mordred concentrated on rubbing a section of the metal.
But something about his manner made Alayna add, "And Galen is quite good."
"Oh, yes," Mordred agreed. "He has done well in tournaments."
Alayna considered this for a moment. "Yes?"
Galen grinned. "Despite the fact that I have beaten Mordred nearly every time we've been up against each other, he insists he's the better fighter."
"That," Mordred said, "is not exactly true. What I've told him is that battle is not a joust: no points racked up for snapped lances, no one to break things up if they get too heated. Your brother is in love with the ideals of chivalry. Tournaments, of course, are a sports' event—nobody is supposed to fight all out. Galen thinks tournament rules apply even in real life."
With a grin Galen said, "Mordred has been advocating slash and maim."
Mordred looked about to protest, but in the end did not.
Alayna's thoughts went—as they did in any free moment—to Kiera. Before the men could switch from baiting each other to badgering her, she said, "So, tell me about this wizard H albert of Burrstone, that you seem so sure has Kiera."
Mordred glanced up, but said nothing.
The campfire threw dancing shadows over all their faces.
Galen stopped poking at the fire and took a drink of ale from his wineskin. "Well, for one thing, he is perhaps the strongest wizard since Merlin is gone."
"Strongest in wizardry," Alayna asked, "or strongest in men and money and holdings?"
"Good question," Galen acknowledged, and she felt a flash of irritation at the condescension, as though she were in the habit of asking foolish questions, which she didn't believe she was. The fire had grown too hot on her arms, but she didn't move back.
"Both," Mordred finally said, when it became apparent Galen wasn't going to say anything.
Their eyes danced from one to the other—Alayna's brown, Galen's blue, Mordred's gray—each eager to read the others' reactions but reluctant to be read.
"That's one thing..." Alayna prodded, reminding Galen that he had hinted at more than one point.
Mordred reached to readjust a branch in their fire. He always chooses his words carefully, Alayna thought, and though there was nothing wrong with that, it was uncommon in one so young, and she did wonder at it.
"Merlin," Mordred said, "never concerned himself with acquiring wealth or personal glory. He did not use magic"—Alayna noticed how he practically spat out the word "magic" and wondered at that, too—"for petty personal gains or to settle grudges. Perhaps I am just used to his manner. He kept aloof, and did not use magic to inflict spiteful miseries or to affect the odds on wagers."
Galen said, "Mordred admires aloofness, as you may have already guessed."
Mordred gave a smile that was the picture of aloofness.
"And as for grudges," Galen added, "he does hold them."
"Certainly," Mordred admitted, "but I don't use magic to settle them."
"You have a grudge against Sir Halbert?" Alayna asked.
"Yes," Mordred said.
"Because he uses magic in a way of which you don't approve?"
"Because he used magic against me."
"Once," Galen told Alayna, "and perhaps."
"It is a place to start," Mordred said with yet another aloof smile. "Rather than this, we would do better to discuss our approach to Castle Burrstone."
Before Alayna could complain that she had thought he knew how to get there, Galen sighed. Loudly. "Stealth," he said as though it were an old argument, "is for thieves, and foxes in the chicken coop. Not for the righteous."
"Someone who steals a child is a thief," Mordred countered. "Does one meet a thief's stealth with chivalry?"
"We don't know for a certainty that Halbert is the culprit."
Mordred gave a grin that had nothing of aloofness in it. "Nor will we," he said, "if we approach openly, declare and challenge. That will give him more than enough time to hide away anything he does not want us to see."
At least, Alayna thought, watching her brother settle in to convince Mordred of something Mordred was all too obviously set against being convinced of, it would take their minds off her, and the question of whether she should be there.
At worst, it freed her mind once more to agonize about Kiera.
They reached Castle Burrstone two days later. Sand-colored walls were reflected in the clear water of the wide moat, and bright banners snapped in the breeze. It was... prettier was the best word Alayna could come up with ... it was prettier than she had anticipated. Was this the home of someone who stole away children? Yet she was relieved, too—in case it was the home of someone who stole away c
hildren.
Galen must have seen the surprise on her face. Grinning, he asked, "Did you expect swamps and dragons?"
Without raising his voice, without sounding alarmed, Mordred said, "Archer in the north bartizan."
Crossbow, Alayna noted. Her father would have disapproved, saying that Christian men should fight each other as Christian men were meant to: face-to-face, relying on their God-given strength and skill. Bows were for hunters, and the newer crossbows were to be used on boar, deer, and heathen Saracens.
Two knights dressed in full field armor stepped out onto the lowered drawbridge just before them. They stood with feet apart and both hands on the hilts of their sheathed swords, which were pointed—at least for the moment—downward.
"Declare and challenge," Mordred muttered, having been in the end worn down by Galen's scruples, and obviously wanting to remind them—should they get killed—who was at fault for it.
"Straightforward is the best," Galen assured them both. But she noticed that he quietly placed himself between her and the archers.
She had wavered last night, knowing that Mordred's way was safer, Galen's more decent, but they hadn't sought her opinion, and she had been glad to let them work it out, being reluctant to commit herself to either. But in the face of those guards, Mordred's arguments gained, too late, considerably more strength.
The three of them passed between the two guards, whose eyes remained perfectly forward.
In the courtyard another knight stood waiting, dressed in a simple hauberk instead of cap-a-pie armor, and his attitude was less openly aggressive.
"More archers," Alayna muttered, catching a movement at one of the archer loops above. There was no way to tell if the others heard, but they no doubt expected it in any case.
But the knight certainly didn't look as though he meant to intimidate them, and as they pulled up he even smiled at them, still mounted, in greeting. "Welcome, my Lady," he said smoothly, as if he often greeted ladies in leather jerkins and hose. "My Lords. I am Sir Denis, seneschal at Castle Burrstone. May I be of assistance to you?"
"Our business is with the wizard," Mordred said brusquely.
But Sir Denis refused to take offense. "And may I have your names to tell Sir Halbert?"
"Mordred of Orkney," Mordred said. "Sir Galen and his sister Lady Alayna De La Croix."
Denis bowed and motioned for a boy to come take their horses. Still, Alayna wasn't fooled by his meek manners. Denis might be in charge of the castle's stores, but he looked no more like the overfed, lazy steward of her father's estates than Galen did. And, for a moment, comparing his voice to one burned into her heart, Alayna thought he might have been one of the knights she sought: the one who had snarled, "Find the whelp." Then they swung off their horses, and Sir Denis turned out to be barely as tall as she—a good head shorter than any of the intruders.
They followed him indoors to the Great Hall. "I will summon Sir Halbert," Denis said, with a slight bow. He backed out of the room, still bowing, which might have been courtly manners—or suspicion, a reluctance to expose his back to them.
Alayna inclined her head in acknowledgment and forced a smile, reminding herself that these people might be innocent, no matter Mordred's conviction.
The room was large, with two entrances on the far wall, besides the one through which they had come. Heavy tapestries covered the walls. They were much richer than those at any of her fathers estates, and not as well chosen or tasteful as what shed seen at Camelot.
She moved past a picture of a dragon, quite striking in reds and golds, then paused in front of an intricately worked hanging obviously based on Greek themes. Shed studied it for long moments before realizing that in the background, behind the dancing women in white kirtles and the men playing flutes and drums, among the trees there was a human sacrifice taking place: a youth bound on an altar, with tiny stitches of red thread signifying his blood. She put her back to the weaving in time to see Galen rub his upper arms and glance nervously to each of the three entrances.
Mordred had been checking behind the tapestries—Alayna could only presume to learn whether anyone was lurking behind—but he finally seemed satisfied that they were truly alone in the room, and at last stood still.
Alayna sniffed. Somebody was burning incense. She sighed impatiently and hoped that whatever was coming would come quickly. She wanted to scream Kiera's name.
A door opposite the one by which they had come in opened. The man who entered was powerfully built, a man of about her fathers age, dressed in a dark blue velvet gown. He looked over the three of them twice before settling on her. "My Lady Alayna," he said with a bow, his voice indicating surprise and curiosity just beneath the polite manners. "Sir Mordred, so charmed to meet you again. Sir Galen."
"My Lord," the three of them said in unison.
His voice was like a coating of cream on the surface of heated milk. "Castle Burrstone is honored by your presence." That was either empty politeness or for Mordred's sake, Alayna thought. He couldn't have had any idea who she and Galen were.
Unless, of course, he knew exactly who they were.
But Halbert continued to smile at all of them, and he said, "You, of course, are most welcome to my humble home, and you are welcome to share all I have for as long as you may be in the vicinity. Yet,"—he smiled broader still, showing white, even teeth—"yet, I hope I can say without causing offense that I wonder why three such illustrious young people would choose to leave the glamour and excitement of Camelot for this quiet, modest corner of the land."
Illustrious? Alayna thought. That was a bit excessive.
His eyes kept going back to her—but that may have been because of her outlandish clothing.
"We are on a quest," Galen said with the faintest of smiles, a sign Alayna recognized as tension.
Halbert put on a look of polite interest and absently stroked the pendant he wore around his neck, a crimson jewel. It was probably worth a year's income from the smallest of her father's estates—which was not so very small.
"My sister is searching for her daughter."
Halbert turned to look at her with a concerned frown.
Alayna's hand had found its way to her sword hilt, and she crossed her arms to keep from what had to look a hostile gesture. She saw Mordred's hand clench and unclench, his fingers flexing, a nervous habit shared by many swordsmen. Galen, by the set of his jaw, looked in danger of cracking his teeth.
Halbert said to Alayna, "Then you'd like me to tell you where she is?" That seemed disarmingly direct. For a moment Alayna forgot to breathe, but then the wizard held his arm out to her. "Come," he said, "I have a scrying crystal, which sometimes helps me in such matters."
So he didn't have Kiera. Or—at least—he wasn't admitting to it. But if he didn't have her, what game was he playing at?
Alayna moved to follow him.
Galen whispered hoarsely, "I don't think you need a crystal."
Mordred also had taken a step to follow the wizard. Now he gave Galen an annoyed frown.
Alayna folded her arms again.
"Your faith in me—" Halbert started.
Galen spat on the floor.
Halbert looked as surprised as Alayna felt. "Sir knight—" he started.
Galen said, "Any villain who would steal a five-year-old child away from her family is no better than a dog."
"I?" Halbert said. He rested his heavily beringed hand on his chest, over the ruby on its chain. "You think I would be involved with abducting a child?"
Alayna was left speechless by her brother's suddenly belligerent attitude, not part of their plan at all. Declare and challenge was one thing, open confrontation and rudeness was another—especially given that all along Galen had been the one to urge Mordred to consider that Halbert may, in truth, not be the culprit.
Now it was Mordred who stepped into the awkward silence. "Sir Galen is distraught at the disappearance of his niece." He smiled apologetically at Halbert.
Galen didn
't acknowledge either Mordred's warning glare or his attempt to soothe Halbert's indignation. He demanded, "Where is she?"
"I said I was willing to help you look."
Galen said, "I can start with the upper rooms."
"Galen!" Alayna gasped, unsure what to make of this behavior that was neither characteristic nor helpful. If this was part of some plan he and Mordred had worked out between them, she couldn't see the sense of it. And—if it was—they most certainly should have told her.
Halbert had lost his smile. He said, "Sir, if you persist in this insulting manner—"
Galen leaped forward to seize the wizards throat, but Mordred grabbed Galen and held him back, looking—Alayna was convinced—as surprised and perplexed as she.
"Sir Denis!" the wizard called.
By his quick entrance, the stocky knight must have been on the other side of the door, which really was not proof of anything, but which Alayna noticed nonetheless.
Halbert said, "Our visitors have decided not to stay after all. Please escort them out." Halbert gave them a withering glare. Was he as nonplused and outraged as he acted? As bewildered as an innocent man would be? "Good day!" he snapped. With an angry flourish of his dark robes, he left by the same door through which he'd entered.
CHAPTER 7
Alayna felt as though her insides were crumbling.
Sir Denis stood by the room's main door and looked as though he was hoping for the opportunity to let his polite manners drop.
"What," Mordred hissed at Galen, "is the matter with you?"
"That wasn't the plan." Like Mordred, Alayna whispered. She tried to drive the memory of Kiera's face from her mind. That wouldn't help now. Stealth. Declare and challenge. It was all meaningless in the face of what had just happened. What Galen had caused to happen.
"You know he has her," Galen protested. "Why play that silly game about"—he mimicked Halbert's self-consciously inscrutable tone—"looking into his crystal?"