"No, your Lordship. He just said 'people.' He said 'enemies of the lord wizard.' He said he would give us a signal. Or you would."
Halbert narrowed his eyes at the man. "When did he say all this?" he demanded. "Between the time they arrived and—"
But Barth was shaking his head. His voice was quavering. "A week ago."
A week ago—Alayna thought—was even before Kiera had been taken.
Even Halbert, who didn't know that, was dubious. "A week ago?" he repeated. "Denis has only been in my employ for a fortnight."
Barth said, "Then, when I heard the sounds of fighting, when I looked and saw Sir Denis dead and you nowhere to be seen, I feared—"
Halbert made an impatient gesture. "Go. You are dismissed."
The man scrambled to his feet, still bowing even as he backed toward the door. But he hesitated and asked, "By 'dismissed'—"
"From service," Halbert clarified. "I do not want men in my employ who take another's orders and do not question them even if they go contrary to everything you have ever heard from me. Go."
"Yes, your Lordship," the man said, backing out of the room. "I beg your Lordship's pardon."
The guard who had fetched him also exited, closing the door behind him.
"So," Mordred said evenly, as though resuming a conversation started only a moment before, "tell us how Sir Denis came to be seneschal of your estate in two short weeks."
Halbert said, "My former steward died, suddenly. By mischance..." He paused, considering, weighing, and then finished, "Which, now, I realize may perhaps not have been chance at all." He paused again, as though in reflection, and Mordred said, "And Sir Denis...?"
"Denis," Halbert said, "was recommended to me by my nephew Sir Bayard."
"Oh, Bayard," Mordred said.
But what it was Mordred knew, or thought he knew, he didn't share, and after waiting a long moment, Halbert opened the door of the room and gestured for one of the servants. To Alayna and Mordred, he continued, "And I find it inconceivable that Bayard would recommend a man such as Denis proved to be." To the servant, Halbert said, "In my room, among my papers, is an opened letter from my nephew that bears a seal of red wax with the impression of three ravens, arranged in a row. This should be near the top of the papers. But look you farther down in the drawer also for any other letter from Bayard. Fetch and bring both letters here." Once more to Alayna and Mordred, he said, "We will see if this is truly in Bayard's clerk's hand, and if it is Bayard's seal."
Mordred turned from Halbert as though to look out the window. As far as Alayna could tell, he was sulking and being stubborn, not wanting to admit he was wrong. For how could Halbert be evil, how could he be against them, if he had ... She had to admit it: He had raised Galen from the dead.
The servant came back, bearing two letters. Halbert took the papers and, holding one in each hand, set to scrutinizing them.
"Ah!" he cried in a moment. "Look you here." He handed one of the papers to Mordred. He poked at the blob of sealing wax. "Do you see how—"
Alayna was leaning around Mordred for a closer look when he gave a startled cry as the page burst into a thousand red sparkles. He jerked his hand back as though to drop the paper, but it had already disappeared.
Halbert stepped back with a startled oath.
"Are you injured?" Alayna asked, for Mordred was looking at his hand the way someone might after touching a hot kettle—in the moment between realization and pain.
"No," Mordred said, but he rubbed his hand against his leg.
"Are you certain?" she asked, demanding his attention rather than letting her mind settle on what she had just seen.
"I am unharmed," he said testily, but still without conviction.
"There is magic involved here," Halbert said.
"No!" Mordred gasped. "In a wizard's own home?"
His sarcasm and provocation finally needled Halbert into annoyance. "Not my magic, you fool. I was about to show you." He held up the remaining letter. "The ravens here are exactly straight because that is the way they are embossed on my nephews seal. What I was about to show you with the other letter was that the ravens did not line up. Someone drew them into the wax separately, by hand. That letter was a forgery. Bayard never did send Denis here."
"So," Mordred said—he was still rubbing his hand as though it tingled or burned—"someone with enough magical power to destroy the forgery, but not enough magical power to create a truly convincing forgery, arranged to have Denis here ... Why?"
"Probably something to do with you." Halbert nodded to include Alayna.
"Oh, aye, probably," Mordred said.
This time, Alayna did kick him, the side of his foot, anyway. Halbert may not have seen that, but he had to hear her when she told Mordred, "He's trying to help. Somebody has hurt his household, too, killed his former steward, misused his trust." She found herself picturing Halbert's former steward as looking like old Ned, whom she had not yet had time to mourn. She said, "It would also explain why Galen acted so strangely in Halbert's Hall. He was bespelled."
But all Mordred said was "Perhaps," and he turned away from both her and Halbert.
"Why," Halbert asked, "did you come here? You said your daughter was missing..." He glanced from Mordred to the bed where Galen yet lay, entirely still. Not quite a statement, not quite a question, he finished, "You thought I had her."
"Yes," Alayna admitted.
"Why?"
"Because..." She took a deep breath and just said it. "Because she has magical ability."
Halbert's eyebrows shot up.
"We thought a wizard might seek her because of that."
"There are a number of wizards," Halbert pointed out. But he didn't question why they had chosen him. Alayna was going to tell him that other parties had gone out to question other wizards, but before she had a chance to he said, "And one of them, apparently, is my enemy, too." He looked from her to Mordred. "I have a scrying crystal," he said, which he had already told them—it seemed so long ago. "I will get it. I will bring it here,"—he emphasized the word, and he looked at Mordred while he said it—"where you can watch me use it. We shall see, together, whether we can find this poor, lost child. And learn who is trying to get to me through her."
CHAPTER 9
As soon as Halbert left the room, Alayna turned on Mordred. "What is the matter with you?" she demanded. She bit off what she'd been about to say, that he was acting almost as unreasonably as Galen had in the Great Hall.
Mordred looked at her with that infuriating impenetrable expression.
Galen was alive—despite all reason. And a wizard was going to help them find Kiera. They would succeed. They would, she knew it. Yet there was a little voice that intruded on her feeling of well-being, that insisted, What now? Desperate to still that voice, she said, "He looks better, don't you think?"
"Yes," Mordred admitted—grudgingly, she thought, reluctant to be in Halbert's debt.
He stepped over to the bed.
"Let him sleep," she started, just as he leaned over to prod Galen. "He needs to gather his strength."
"Galen," Mordred said.
In any case, Galen gave no sign of reacting.
Mordred looked annoyed: She couldn't tell whether at Galen or at her. He said, "You know—"
But just then the door opened, and Halbert came back in. He had what appeared to be a jagged piece of quartz. It had the shape, roughly, of a short, squat, squared-off candle, rising from a jumble of candle parings. The upright portion was clear, the rest milky. This he set down on the chest at the foot of the bed. Then he came to stand by Alayna. "Still asleep?" He touched Galen's shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. She was willing to let him try, because he, better than she or Mordred, knew the limits of the healing spell he had performed. "Sir Galen," Halbert called.
Galen groaned and turned slightly. Alayna was so relieved, she almost missed his words. "The girl..." he mumbled, "get the girl..."
Alayna leaned closer. "Which gir
l, Galen?" she asked. "Do you mean Kiera? Yes, we're going to get her, as soon as you regain your strength."
Far from reassuring him, her words seemed to agitate him. Fool, she chided herself. She hadn't meant to imply blame, but of course Galen would take it that way, fretting that he was delaying them.
"Galen," Halbert commanded.
Her brother's eyelids fluttered open.
"You're safe. You are among friends. Your sister, Alayna, is here. And Sir Mordred."
Galen glanced at each of them in turn, and Alayna grasped his hand.
"Why don't you sit up?" Halbert eased him up, then said to them, "He'll probably be a bit stiff and confused at first."
And, indeed, Galen looked dazed but unworned.
She gave her brother's cold hand a reassuring squeeze and he smiled vaguely at her. Is his hand supposed to be that cold? she asked herself.
"He is doing well," Halbert assured her. "Truly he is."
"Truly," Galen repeated solemnly, and Alayna laughed with relief.
Mordred removed Galen's battered breastplate from the chair where he had set it down, and put it on the floor with more of a clatter than was probably necessary. He placed the chair in front of the clothes chest and straddled it, his arms across the back, watching Halbert.
Halbert's smile was tight. "So," he said. "As Sir Mordred has indicated, it is time we begin."
He pulled the shutters closed over the window, making the room ... not dark, but darker.
Toland didn't need darkness for his spells, Alayna thought. Then she remonstrated with herself. It was unfair to criticize beforehand. Wait and see what would happen.
Halbert took a candle off the nightstand and placed it on the chest at the foot of the bed, in front of the crystal. He touched his finger to the wick of the candle and it burst into flame.
Toland could do that, Alayna thought.
"Do you have anything of your daughters?" Halbert asked Alayna. "Preferably a lock of hair, but anything that was hers will do,"—Alayna was shaking her head—"or that she had contact with?"
"Nothing," she told him. "Everything was destroyed in a fire."
Halbert looked disapproving, but he said, "Then put your hands about the crystal, and call her name." He gestured, indicating for her to surround the crystal with her hands.
Alayna knelt before the chest and—reaching around the candle—wrapped her hands around the crystal.
"Call her name," the wizard repeated.
"Kiera," she said. She watched Halbert, expecting him to tell her she was doing it all wrong. Was she supposed to shout the name, as though summoning Kiera from a distance?
But he seemed satisfied with a normal tone of voice. He said, "Picture her in your mind."
Alayna did, fervently.
"Move your hands." Once again Halbert gestured, this time his hands separating and moving down, forming a ring with his fingers.
Alayna did as he indicated, her hands encircling the rough, sparkled base from which the clear crystal jutted.
"Concentrate on the shadow the candles flame casts on the crystal. See your daughter in that. Picture her."
The picture that her mind formed was from that last morning in the barn: Kiera turning, looking up, her face covered with tears and filled with pain and sorrow.
It was better than no image at all. After only a year, Alayna missed Toland, dreamt of him almost every night, but could only rarely and fleetingly picture him in her waking thoughts.
"Kiera," the wizard said, as though sensing the momentary shifting of her concentration.
Kiera. Alayna pictured her, in the barn. She stared at the facet of the crystal where the candle flame threw its shadow. Kiera was within that shadow, Alayna told herself. She tried to get her eyes to pick out Kiera's features, caught a glimpse of her wild, ginger-colored hair in the flickering movement of the flame, saw a glint that might have been Kiera's eye reflecting the light of the candle, followed a curve that might have been either an angle of the crystal, or a cheek. Like staring into a dark corner. Like forcing sense out of something half seen in the night. Kiera. Alayna drew Kiera's face out of the shadow. Saw the hair, the eye, the cheek.
Someone in the room took in a breath, shifted, but Halbert's voice, steady and calm, said, "Kiera."
"Kiera," Alayna repeated, and the image of her daughter solidified, appeared captured within the crystal, caught constantly in the act of turning, looking up, waiting expectantly for her mother to make things right. Or chastise her. Or disregard her.
"Kiera," Halbert said, louder this time, more commanding, and now he was the one who was moving, who was stepping not quite in front of Alayna—but up to the crystal.
The image of Kiera shifted again. She was no longer in the barn. The wall behind her was stone: Kiera was sitting on a bed, her arms folded defiantly in front of her. Alayna recognized that stubborn look. A woman—a servant? Alayna assumed she was a servant by the way her hair was tied up in a kerchief, and by the way her sleeves were rolled back and her apron smudged with food stains—a woman sat on the bed next to Kiera, holding a bowl, offering a spoonful of something. Kiera wouldn't look at the woman, the bowl, or the spoon. The woman moved the spoon closer, Kiera turned her head, and the spoon ended up in Kiera's hair. Kiera jumped up, unsettling the bowl so that it spilled. The woman scrambled to clean up, never—apparently—reprimanding.
Halbert made a gesture with his hands, opening and closing his fingers. Slowly the picture of Kiera moved, as though Alayna was backing away.
"No!" Alayna cried, tightening her fingers around the base of the crystal. The rough surface of the base pressed into her hands.
"Shhh," Halbert said, distracted, as though to calm a skittish animal.
Alayna fought to hold the image of Kiera. Someone—it had to be Mordred for Galen was still in bed and Halbert hadn't moved, except for those damn fingers separating them away from Kiera—someone placed hands gently on Alayna's shoulders.
Farther and farther back they seemed to drift from Kiera, so that now they saw more of the room, its tapestries and pillows; now they saw all the room—not a prison, thank God, not a prison. Now they floated out through the window. And still they backed away, though any true observer from this vantage would be a hundred feet off the ground, for the window was in a tower and the tower was part of a castle; and then they were traveling, still backwards, over a stream, over sheep fields, over a forest, into a town, past a cathedral...
"Montford," Mordred said.
The picture rippled as though water had been poured over it, and dissolved.
"Kiera," Alayna whispered, sure her heart was going to break.
"That's the cathedral at Montford," Mordred said. "The castle must be—"
"Bel Bois," Halbert said.
"Bel Bois," Mordred agreed.
Halbert turned eagerly to Alayna. "Obviously she's being treated well and is unharmed."
"This image we have seen," Alayna said, hardly trusting her voice to work: "is it a true image?" Halbert was nodding, but she needed more reassurance. "Is it what actually is happening—now, not in the past, not in the future?" Halbert was nodding his head or shaking it at all the right times.
Halbert reiterated, "For whatever reason she was taken and is being held, she is unharmed."
Mordred still had his hands on her shoulders. She felt light-headed, loose-kneed—possibly from the disorienting backward flight Halbert's crystal had taken them out the window and across the countryside, or possibly just from relief. Mordred's solid presence may well have been all that was holding her up.
"Who has her?" Alayna asked Halbert.
Behind her, Mordred—who obviously knew, for he had named the place—added, in a silken purr, "Seeing, Lord Halbert, as you do not?"
His continuing plaguing of Halbert, his inability to take the man at his word, filled Alayna with annoyance, ballast that at least made her feet feel more solidly planted to the ground.
Fortunately Halbert was too excit
ed to take offense—pleased with himself, Alayna guessed, that his magic yielded such positive results. "Sir Edgar of Bel Bois," he told Alayna. "I didn't see Sir Osric in my crystal, but they're cousins, and one never strays far without the other."
"Is Bel Bois near here?" Alayna asked.
"We can be there by vespers."
"Can we now?" Mordred purred, just the slightest stress on the "we."
Alayna finally turned, but couldn't read anything from his face.
"I believe I could be of assistance," the wizard said. The model of modesty? Or was Mordred's constant goading as irksome to him as it was to Alayna?
"Yes, please." That was Galen, his voice thick and unnatural. He cleared his throat, and sounded more like himself. "I would feel better for it. Wouldn't you, Alayna? In case any of us needs to be pulled back from the brink of death again?"
"Yes. Certainly." She looked to Mordred for confirmation, but he had gone to open the shutters.
Alayna felt a surge of resentment. "Is Galen fit to come," she asked Halbert, "do you think?"
The wizard nodded. "Don't concern yourself about him. We just have to worry how we can best enter Bel Bois Castle."
"Why should you be willing to help us?" Mordred asked.
Alayna was ready to hit him, but Halbert only said, "Because without me you would never succeed." He moved to the door. "I'll be ready as soon as I change into riding clothes. There is clothing in that chest that should fit you, Galen." He swept up Galen's breastplate. "I will have another of these sent up from stores. This one is useless now." It had belonged to their mother's father, but Alayna bit back her complaint. The wizard was right.
It would take meticulous hammering out to fix the hole, hammering that in all likelihood would dangerously weaken the metal. Galen, to whom the armor belonged, said nothing, and neither did Mordred, who had spent all that time cleaning the blood off it. Who was she to complain? And by the time she had worked all that out, Halbert was already gone from the room anyway.
Galen got out of bed, with uncharacteristic lack of modesty. Alayna quickly turned her back.