Part 29 (1/2)
Could she escape that way? But no, Feich was no fool, he'd left men there. She might use her aidan against them, but the thought of using it to do violence was alien.
They were downstairs again, searching the house, her mother saying, ”I can't imagine where she's gone. We had a bit of a-a disagreement . . . You might check the Sanctuary.”
They did that, and Isha moved swiftly to the window and tried to throw the catches. Her hands shook terribly and the catches were stubborn with rust and swollen wood. Dared she use her aidan, or would he sense her as she sensed him? He was in the Sanctuary now, discovering that she was not. She pushed harder at the window clasps. They rattled, but did not budge. She heard the heavy tread of boot soles on the verandah-m.u.f.fled voices moving toward the study window.
They'd heard-and now he was coming back through the house. Desperate, Isha tugged at the shutters with her aidan, an inyx on her lips, her full will behind it.
In answer, the catches gave, and outside the door of her father's study a hungry voice said, ”Here! What's in this locked room?”
”My husband's study,” said Ardis. ”I've kept it closed since-”
”Open it.”
Iseabal pulled back the inner shutters and looked out. She could see the graveyard, moonlit and silent, and the vague figure of a man standing not five feet from the window.
”But no one's been in there-”
”Open it, mistress!”
In her mind's eye, Isha imagined a shadowy figure darting through the gravestones. Look, you! Look! Someone escapes!
Outside the window, a male voice uttered a muted exclamation and the guard pulled his sword and leapt to follow the phantom.
”I'll get the key . . .”
Isha fumbled with the window latch.
”d.a.m.n you!” Feich roared.
Something struck the door, buckling it inward.
Gasping for breath, Isha gave the window a shove and- The door splintered behind her while her mother's voice cried, ”Please, sir! Please!”
Iseabal whirled from the window cas.e.m.e.nt, heart beating wildly, breath catching in her lungs. A desperate thought struck her and she grasped her aidan tightly and drew it about her like a cloak.
Daimhin Feich stood in the room, the wreckage of the door about him on the flagged floor. He panted like a weary dog, but his pale eyes, gleaming in the moonlight from the open shutters, were bright and searching.
”Light!” he snarled. ”Bring light!”
”I'll get a lamp,” said someone behind him, but Feich was impatient. He pulled something from a belt pouch and held it before him. The red crystal was aglow before it even cleared the opening of the little bag. It sent bright, ruddy rays into every corner of the room as Daimhin Feich advanced.
”Empty.” A younger man entered the room behind him, a lamp out-thrust in his hand. ”She's escaped.”
”No,” breathed Feich. ”Not escaped. I can feel her. Search! Search the room!”
Three men did as he ordered, even peeking behind the open shutters. The young one held his lamp close to the cas.e.m.e.nt.
”See here, Daimhin, she's opened the window and gone out. Probably well away from here by now.”
Daimhin Feich strode across the room to the other man's side, making Iseabal, hiding behind her own fierce will, tremble at his nearness, at the nearness of that crystal. Dear G.o.d, could he possibly miss how the thing flared up when he pa.s.sed by her? If she dared move . . .
Only her mother stood in the doorway now, but if she twitched a muscle, the aislinn shroud might fall away. So she stayed, cloaked in tentative invisibility, while Daimhin Feich pondered her escape.
”Idiot! No one's escaped through this window. Look at the dust on the sill. Hasn't been disturbed for months. She's here.”
He whirled again, nearly touching Iseabal, nearly causing her to reveal herself. In his hand, the red crystal blazed with hideous brilliance.
”You! Mistress-a-Nairnecirke. Where is your daughter?”
Ardis jumped. ”I don't know, sir! I-I'd gone to my room. She was upstairs. I thought she'd gone to her own room. We'd been fighting, you see-”
Feich advanced on her. ”You're lying. You're hiding her from me. Bring her out, woman! Bring her out now!”
”No, sir! I'd not lie to you! I-I want Isha to help you. She must have gone out by the Sanctuary while we were upstairs.”
Daimhin Feich grasped the Cirke-mistress by the arm and shook her. ”You lie! I feel her here. She's somewhere in this house. Bring her out or, so help me G.o.d, I'll make you the sorriest woman in this village.”
He let go of her momentarily and pulled a small dagger from his belt. In the light of that wicked crystal, its blade gleamed a foul red as if bloodied already. Ardis-a-Nairnecirke shrieked and twisted away, catching her skirts in the ruins of the study door. He had her against the door jamb in an instant, the dagger at her throat.
Iseabal dropped her aislinn cloak. A flash of radiance washed from her, drawing all eyes.
”Please let my mother go, Regent Feich,” she begged. ”Punish me if you like, but don't harm her. She's guilty of nothing you'd condemn her for.”
A slow smile spread across the Regent's narrow, handsome face. ”Iseabal-a-Nairnecirke, is it? How good of you to join us. I have no intention of punis.h.i.+ng you, dear cailin, but rather of putting you to good use.”
Chapter 14.
The soul who refuses to let the doubts and caprices of others deflect them from the Way of G.o.d, the soul who is calm in the face of the unrest caused by the wielders of worldly authority-whether they call themselves divines or Cynes or men of truth, that soul will be respected by G.o.d as one of His own. Blessed is such a soul.
-Book of Pilgrimages
Osraed Lin-a-Ruminea
It was an odd imprisonment Iseabal suffered. She had been terrified when Daimhin Feich's men s.n.a.t.c.hed her from her home. Her mother's cries still rang in her ears, even here in the quiet, woodland darkness of this small tent. Bound and tethered to a tent pole, she was alone but for the two guards who kept vigil outside. Feich had made no attempt to question or harm her.
Her terror calmed eventually and she began to think, began to reach out tentatively to her mother, to her father, to Taminy.
Her mother was still frantic, her father distraught and angry, and Taminy . . . Taminy extended over her a silken web of calm. She, in turn, tried to extend that same calm to her parents and received, in a flash of aislinn certainty, a strange benediction; Saxan and Ardis-a-Nairnecirke were side by side again, united in their concern for their only child.
After a while, she slept, secure in the knowledge that she was not truly alone.