Blades of Valor Page 2

  This chamber leads to two others. I know this without doubt. There will be arched windows in one. A statue of Mother Mary in the other. And, during the morning, sunlight will stream across the statue as it did so many times when I sat on the floor and reached for lazy flies and listened to …

  Thomas felt his heart skip a beat. Even in the haste of escape, the memories returned. This was no dream. No ethereal visit cut short by waking to unexplained tears nearly dry across his face.

  I sat in this very house! My mother, Sarah, spent time with me in these very rooms! How could I have forgotten?

  Sir William led them farther, to the room that indeed contained the statue of Mother Mary, then stooped suddenly and began to pry at the edge of one of the flat stones on the floor. Behind them, the heat of the rapidly growing fire spread into another chamber.

  No words had yet been spoken.

  The stone moved aside. Below it, a large iron ring was recessed into wood.

  Sir William flipped the ring upward. There was enough room in the circle of the ring for him to use both hands.

  He grunted, a sound barely heard above the snapping and hissing of the fire. He grunted again as he pulled, and an entire section of the floor lifted.

  “Take a lamp,” he instructed Thomas. “Descend and wait.”

  Thomas moved quickly across the room, grabbed the lamp base, and held it steady and level as he rejoined Sir William and Katherine. He looked into the darkness of the hole in the floor.

  “Go quickly,” the knight said. “There are steps. Katherine and I will follow.”

  Briefly, Thomas wondered if this was a trap. He did not yet trust Katherine fully. And by association, neither should he fully trust the knight.

  He considered whether to hand the lamp to Katherine, to send her down first instead.

  “Quickly,” the knight urged. “They are breaking through the door!”

  Thomas dropped through to the ground below. Almost immediately, Katherine followed. With light in hand, it was not difficult to see the descending path of the crooked steps.

  Darkness closed over them as the trapdoor lowered. The wick’s flame flickered at the sudden rush of air, but Thomas protected it quickly with his upper body, and the flame stayed alive.

  He felt a hand on his shoulders. A soft touch.

  “Thomas,” Katherine’s voice whispered.

  His eyes adjusted to the dimness, and he held the lamp high as he descended.

  “Thomas,” Katherine repeated.

  He shook his concentration away from the tunnel that grew in his vision ahead and below.

  “Yes?” he whispered back. Where did the tunnel lead?

  “Sir William,” Katherine said. “He is not with us.”

  Thomas set the lamp down, placed one hand on the hilt of his sword, and turned to move back past Katherine, one step above him.

  “No,” she pleaded. “We cannot return.”

  “And let him die alone?” Thomas asked.

  Katherine placed her hands on his shoulders as he attempted to push up the steps. “Or die together? Sir William chose to remain behind. Our deaths will only make his sacrifice useless.”

  Thomas stood one step lower than Katherine, and it brought his face directly to the level of hers. For an insane moment, Thomas forgot the fire, the mysteries, and the fight above. Her scent enveloped him as surely as her arms on his shoulders.

  Her eyes widened in the faltering light of the lamp, as if she, too, had suddenly become aware that time and circumstances had fallen away.

  Thomas felt her hands behind his neck begin to clasp as the pressure of her downward push on his shoulders eased and instead became an embrace. He swayed slightly, closed his eyes, and responded by moving close enough to feel the warmth of her breath on his lips. His hand left the hilt of his sword, and as if he had no control, moved to the back of her head to pull her even closer.

  He opened his eyes. Her eyes were closed in trust. Such beauty. It brought him an ache of joy and sorrow to think of an eternity of her love.

  Insanity! A friend above gives his life that we may flee!

  She sensed his hesitation. Opened her eyes. Broke the spell.

  “M’lady—” Thomas began to apologize.

  “Thomas—” she said in the same moment.

  They both stopped in midsentence.

  Awkwardly, Thomas stepped back and down from her.

  “Surely this tunnel leads to escape,” he said quickly. “Sir William would not have planned it otherwise. And the fire above will lead the town to panic. We must hurry to keep our advantage.”

  “And then? Do not treat me as a child. Whatever is planned, we plan together.”

  Thomas did not reply. He had no answer and for that reason wanted only to concentrate on ducking through the low tunnel as he guarded the wick of his lamp from the water that dripped from the cool stone.

  Four

  When they stopped to rest ten minutes later, Thomas was ready with his questions.

  “Tell me,” he said, determined to ignore the effect of her presence so close, “of matters of my childhood.”

  “How is it I should know?” she asked, almost aloof, as if she, too, sought to keep distance from his effect on her.

  “You … you are an Immortal.” He had almost blurted that she claimed to be an Immortal. “As is the knight,” Thomas finished. “Surely you and he have secrets in common.”

  “We are indeed Immortals,” Katherine said. “Yet the fall of Magnus forced many of us into isolation. Sir William roamed the world while I remained in disguise among the Druids of Magnus. How much can I know of his part in our battle?”

  Even now she holds back truth, Thomas thought with a trace of bitterness. And I long to trust her and hold her and …

  He forced himself to concentrate on his questions.

  “When the assassins pursued us from the marketplace,” he said, “you led us not to the inn, but directly to the house where Sir William waited. Is that not proof of shared knowledge?”

  His words echoed softly in the stone tunnel, and many heartbeats passed before she replied.

  “Yes, indeed,” she finally began. “When Magnus fell to the Druids, Sir William, your mother, and a handful of others barely escaped with their lives. England was no longer safe. So they fled, here, to the Holy Land, hoping … hoping to find help in fighting the Druids from the valiant Crusaders.”

  Had her hesitation been a shiver of cold? Or a lie? Thomas chose to remain silent, to wait for more.

  “You and I,” Katherine said, “were raised here, in the house that so troubled your dreams. We dared not return to England. Druid spies were everywhere, and to be recognized there would give them too much warning that not all the Immortals had died. When the time was right, you and I—who would never be recognized—were smuggled back to England. I, to serve in disguise as a spy in Magnus. You, to receive training in that obscure abbey from your mother, one of the most dedicated Immortals of her generation. Our hope was that you might remain unknown to the Druids—and yet be close enough to reconquer Magnus with the knowledge given to you. It was a small hope, and with Sarah’s death, even smaller.”

  Thomas closed his eyes at the name of the woman he was forced to pretend was merely his childhood nurse. She had tutored him relentlessly in games of mathematics and logic. She had corrected him with endless patience as he painfully learned to read and write in the major languages of the world. And in all those hours and days and years of instruction, she had above all favored him with the deepest love.

  “It cannot be,” Thomas whispered.

  “Thomas?” Katherine seemed to have caught the pain in his voice.

  He faltered as he spoke. “I arrived at the abbey as a child. I was old enough then so that now I can remember—dimly—those first days there. You tell me that the first years of my life were spent here. That I understand and believe, for is not my understanding of the tongue of this foreign country enough proof?”


  He paused as another memory struck him. The memory of the first moment he saw Katherine’s face in the moonlight as he and his army marched northward to battle the Scots. Nothing in his life had prepared him for that moment. He had learned—from betrayal by the beautiful, dark-haired Isabelle—not to trust appearance as an indication of a person’s heart. Yet then, in the shadows of the moonlight, he had felt as if he had been long pledged to the woman with the mysterious smile in front of him. Katherine. Known since childhood.

  And later, on the ramparts of the castle, when he had been tempted to share a kiss with her, the same certainty. What a bond they must have forged as small children, laughing and playing here in St. Jean d’Acre, unaware of the roles they must later play in a battle against the very Druids who had slain so many.

  Yet how had those childhood memories been taken from him? Should he not have remembered?

  Thomas pushed those questions aside and pursued the one thought that had first caused his voice to falter.

  “When I was a boy, Sarah raised me in the monastery to pretend I was an orphan. I discovered that money had been given for me, but the greedy pigs masquerading as men of God stole it from me and treated me worse than a slave following my mother’s death. She never explained what it meant to be an Immortal. You have only just begun to explain to me the battle waged by the unseen Druids. Both my parents were part of that battle, but it becomes apparent that I am some sort of long-awaited keystone in the fight.”

  Thomas shook his head. “I can scarcely take all of this in.” His voice grew shakier. “I have known you and yet I feel you are more a stranger to me than ever. You do not trust me. Still, we both believe in the goodness of Sir William, and he aids us both. If he seeks my death, he has sentenced you to yours as well. If he rescues me, he also spares you. What am I to make of all this tangled intrigue?”

  Silence reclaimed the darkness of the tunnel.

  Neither had a chance to compose more conversation. For above the steady dripping of water against stone came the faraway echo of footsteps. Approaching from ahead of them, not from behind, as though in pursuit.

  Sir William had sent them into a trap.

  Five

  Immediately, Katherine reached between them to pinch the wick of the lamp. Thomas grasped her wrist and held it steady before she could extinguish it.

  “This light will betray our presence,” she protested.

  Thomas thought of another time, beneath the castle of Magnus, when blind stumbling through secret passageways had nearly cost him his life, and this time, there was no eager puppy to warn him of sudden drop-offs and poisonous snakes. He did not release her wrist.

  “How shall we light the lamp again?” he asked. “Without light, we might never leave this tunnel.” He smiled. “And did not your training as an Immortal teach you the words of a wise general, now long dead?” He paused. “All warfare is deception.”

  Her answer was a silent stare. Almost as if to deny their moment of unexpected closeness earlier, she was too proud to smile in return, too proud to attempt to free her wrist from his grip, and too proud to admit unfamiliarity with the quote.

  The footsteps grew louder. Yet Katherine was more of a distraction for Thomas than the possible danger. It took effort not to reach upward with his free hand to softly touch the curves of her face as she stared with a steadiness that seemed to pierce his heart.

  So he took a deep breath and forced himself to concentrate on the conversation. “Deception is what we will practice now.”

  “Set the light elsewhere,” she confirmed. “We keep the flame alive, and it serves us by drawing our enemies to the light instead of us.”

  Thomas released Katherine’s wrist, lifted the lamp, and carried it forty steps back in the direction from which they had started.

  He set the lamp down and rejoined Katherine in the darkness.

  “You have been schooled well,” he said.

  First, Katherine and Thomas saw an approaching glow, then the light of the visitor’s lamp, yet still too far away to let them identify the holder of that lamp. The visitor’s footsteps slowed, however, and stopped almost as soon as the light had appeared.

  This stranger sees our light ahead, Thomas thought, and hesitates.

  In the next moment, that faraway light disappeared.

  The visitor chooses to approach now in darkness. From caution born of fear or of evil intent?

  No longer could Thomas or Katherine hear footsteps.

  This visitor must pass close enough to touch us. But how soon?

  Thomas nearly yelped at a sudden touch against his hand. His heart slowed quickly, though, as soon as he realized Katherine had slipped her fingers through his.

  They waited, side by side.

  Then Thomas felt, rather than heard, the nearness of a stranger, almost as if the only hint of another person was air pushed ahead in the stillness of the tunnel.

  Does this stranger walk with dagger or sword poised? Will I leap ahead into a sudden death?

  Thomas did not answer his own silent question, for he had been taught that hesitation was the greatest enemy in the moment of action in any battle. He had also been taught the advantage of the terror of noise.

  Thomas bellowed a rage that filled the tunnel as he charged into the stranger. His shoulder rammed a solid bulk. Hands were upon him instantly and Thomas punched back. Twice he hit only air, but three times his knuckles jarred against bone, and Thomas continued to roar anger as he lashed out again and again at the unseen stranger.

  They tumbled and rolled.

  The stranger was heavier, but Thomas was faster and more desperate.

  Their fight soon became silent, for Thomas had no energy to continue the roar of attack. Heavy breathing filled his face. Hands once managed to wrap around his neck, but Thomas lashed out with his knee to strike hard flesh, and the hands released with a grunt of pain, only to seek him again from the darkness.

  Thomas felt a face and tried to dig his fingers into the eye sockets, anything to gain the advantage in a fight that meant life or death.

  In response, a sudden blow pounded his cheekbone, and he fell back with flashes of light filling his eyes.

  Then dimly, he heard it.

  “Stop!” Katherine was yelling. “Both of you stop!”

  And Thomas realized the light in his eyes was now the light of the lamp that Katherine had brought closer.

  “Stop!” Katherine repeated from where she stood above them both.

  Thomas felt his opponent relax and roll away from him, so he too relaxed and struggled to his feet.

  The voice that greeted him was all too familiar.

  “Should a lion ever assume human form,” Sir William said, attempting a chuckle of humor that became a cough of pain, “that form would closely resemble Thomas of Magnus.”

  Thomas groaned and began to feel his body for broken bones. “And should humans ever assume the forms of ghosts,” he said as he probed his mouth for shattered teeth, “they would do well to imitate Sir William. For considerate humans would announce their presence to friends.”

  Sir William staggered slightly as he tried to straighten. “I saw the lamp, but no one near. I could only assume the worst and wonder how best to approach the enemies that had captured you.”

  Katherine moved forward and examined Sir William’s face for cuts. “We thought you dead,” she said softly.

  “My own face fares poorly,” Thomas hinted. “This is not the treatment that the Lord of Magnus expects.”

  She ignored him.

  “What happened?” Katherine asked Sir William. “The house? The fire?”

  “Fine, then. I shall tend to my own bruises,” Thomas announced, but still Katherine ignored him.

  Sir William wordlessly took the lamp from Katherine’s hand, returned to his own lamp, and relit it. In the circle of renewed light, he sat and leaned against the tunnel wall with a moan.

  “Join me,” he said. “In the little time before the carav
an leaves, I have much to explain, and here in the tunnel is much safer than above.”

  Six

  Katherine stepped forward and Thomas limped closer. It hurt him to sit. But it also hurt to stand. He leaned awkwardly against the stone walls and awaited Sir William’s words.

  Sir William fixed a meditative gaze upon the dancing flame of the lantern. “I wanted to lead them away from the house, but I also feared if I explained my intentions to fight and flee by another door, neither of you would agree to accept the safety of this tunnel. So I fought briefly, escaped the house, led the assassins on a merry chase before entering this tunnel by the hidden exit we shall reach soon.”

  He turned to Thomas. “As you might guess, this escape had been ready for years. The Immortals have been in possession of the house for generations—almost since the beginning of the Crusades—and have often used the tunnel for the arrival and departure of visitors who should not be seen in the town.”

  “But why here in St. Jean d’Acre?” Thomas asked. It was difficult not to continue probing his ribs for bruises, but he did not want to give Sir William the satisfaction. “We are across the world from Magnus. What significance has this town to us? Or to the Druids?”

  Sir William nodded. “The town itself has significance only because it is the traditional entry for those bound to the Holy Land by ship.”

  He let that statement hang in the silence until Thomas spoke.

  “You say, then, that it is the Holy Land that draws both Immortals and Druids?”

  Sir William nodded. “And their spies, as do ours, watch the ships as passengers enter the town. I am not surprised they discovered you so soon.”

  Thomas was given no time to ponder, for the knight continued to speak.

  “Both sides seek a great secret lost here in the Holy Land centuries ago. The search has stretched over generations. The side that first discovers the secret will have the power to destroy the other.”

  Thomas laughed softly.