Читать книгу Stealing Midnight - Tracy MacNish - Страница 14

Chester, England

A slow, soft rain fell over the people who huddled before a stone crypt, pattering on the slate roof and dribbling down into little gullies that formed tiny muddy moats amid tussocks of grass. The earth smelled fertile and freshly turned, and the gray sky felt closely oppressive. Above them, perched on the bare, knotted arm of a tree, was a huge black buzzard, its volant wings extended in the manner of a raptor mantling its kill. The great bird watched the group as if waiting for them to open the door and reveal the bounty of carrion within.

Padraig Mullen stood without an umbrella or hat, ignoring the wetness. “Open it.”

The officials who’d accompanied him hunched underneath their umbrellas, and the one who bore the key to the crypt put up one final fight. “My lord, it is like to be ghastly by now. He’s many days dead, and will not bear the look of himself. I warn you once more—this is a sight best unseen by loved ones, and the stench is likely to make you lose your belly.”

“I’m likely to lose my temper.” Padraig turned a hard stare on the man. “I’ll see my brother, and if ’tis him, I’ll take him home for a proper burial.”

The man fumbled for the key, and as he inserted it and turned the lock, he muttered, “Seal’s been broken again, John.”

He pulled the heavy, creaking iron door open, and out rolled a wave of musty, putrid smells, mold and dust and rotted skin all together. A few of the men coughed.

Padraig stepped inside. Small motes of dusty light fell over two empty slabs, and a pile of garments were piled haphazardly between them. Bending to inspect the clothes, he saw they were torn in places. As he lifted a shirt that was finely crafted enough to have been Aidan’s, a few buttons fell to the slate floor, and a thin gold chain slithered from the bottom, landing on Padraig’s shoe.

He picked it up, turned, and faced the men who sheepishly stood in the doorway. Violence seethed in Padraig’s blood, and he wished for a sword in his hand, a pistol in the other. But holding to the control that had been as ingrained in them as their honor, Padraig remained calm. He held the gleaming gold chain up for their inspection. “I wear the match to this. ’Twas a gift from our parents.”

“The resurrection men,” one of the officials spluttered. “They are a scourge! A blight!”

Padraig noticed that the night watchman hung back, his eyes turned away from the accusingly empty slabs.

He tightened his hand on the shirt, wringing it the way he wanted to wring the necks of the men who goggled at him.

“You there,” Padraig said to the watchman, hearing the snarl in his own voice. He didn’t care. “You have three seconds to tell me who took my brother’s body.”

The watchman made a sound in his throat that burbled like a croaking groan. His eyes darted wildly. “I didna see nothing! I was ill that night, shittin’ in the privy!”

“Two seconds left.”

The man’s gaze slid up and down Padraig’s form, and he seemed to suddenly notice that the officials had stepped away from him, leaving him to his own defenses. He held up his hands. “I’ve got a family, me lord.”

“One.” Padraig’s lips flattened and he closed the gap between them. Looking down on the watchman, he could smell the stingingly sharp scent of his sweat. The man’s pupils dilated, and his breath left him with an odorous whoosh.

Padraig grabbed the man by the throat and squeezed. Letting go just the barest bit, he whispered, “I could rip your heart out, and no one would stop me.”

Then the truth came out in a rush, of the body snatchers and the crazed Welsh anatomist who paid for fresh bodies.

After he was convinced that he had gotten every bit of information the watchman possessed, Padraig strode out of the crypt and back to his waiting mount. He vaulted onto his horse’s back. The saddle, slick with cold rain, soaked wetly into his breeches, but Padraig scarcely noticed.

He lifted Aidan’s shirt to his face and held it against his eyes, as if it could block the image of his brother’s body being desecrated, piece by piece. He breathed deeply, hoping to catch a whiff of Aidan in the cool, soft linen. He could only smell dust and mildew.

A dark, killing rage became a boil in his blood, snaking through the slippery chambers of his convulsing heart, filling it with a lust for vengeance.

No one disturbed his brother’s eternal rest and hacked his body apart as if he were some common criminal. Padraig touched his chest where his medallion seemed to burn against his skin.

This Welshman had begun something that Padraig would be certain to finish.

England

Aidan Mullen took another peek at the leaden sky. He was uncertain how he’d get home, how he’d manage to send word to his family. Not only was he stripped of his garments, but also of any coin, as well. But those were problems for tomorrow. Today he could only focus on how grateful he was to be alive.

The sickness on his ship had killed scores of people, and likely there were those who like Aidan, had succumbed to a coma and were thought dead. Those sad souls had been tossed to the sea to prevent contagion; Aidan, because of his family’s titles and power, had been left to lie in his berth, stored in a crypt when his body reached his destination.

Aidan felt the pain and shivering of the remnants of sickness and cold. He reveled in those sensations; they were the stuff of life, and he was happy to feel the sting of survival.

He lifted his face to the sky and breathed deeply. A frigid rain began to fall softly, scenting the air with the clean scents of damp, mossy earth and pine trees.

How strange life is, he thought. His life, hanging by the barest thread, had been saved by the most incongruous means—gravediggers.

It brought to mind the letter he’d penned when death seemed certain.

In his mind, he thought hard about his brother, their way of communicating that neither of them quite understood. But always, as babies, as boys, and as men, they’d spoken a certain language that could not be defined or contained. It was as if energy passed between them, unaffected by time or distance. Thinking of this now, he sent a mental message, as strong as he could make it: I am well, Padraig. Do not worry, Dorchadas. I am alive.

Turning, he ducked into the tiny stone shelter that had become the makeshift home for him and his strange nursemaid.

There she was, this woman who called herself Olwyn, tending the fire. The orangey, yellow light made her fine skin glow, and turned her hair into a lustrous black lacquer framing her delicate features. That striking white streak shone like ivory set into an ebony sculpture, and Aidan wanted to touch it, to make it feel real beneath his fingers.

Instead, he dropped his fur, donned the odd garments she’d given him, and reclined by the fire. He pulled a few furs over his legs, lifted his tea, and drank deeply, draining the sweet herbal taste of it.

“’Tis raining,” he told Olwyn.

She cast a sidelong glance to the window, and he saw worry shape her features. What a face she had. It hid nothing, each of her emotions as plainly read as the written word. “I’ve no place for my mare. She’s too old to be out in the weather.”

“’Tis too small an opening to bring her in here,” Aidan said, looking at the narrow doorway and low ceiling. “Can we rig a makeshift shelter for her?”

Olwyn bit her bottom lip and gave it thought. “I’ve tarps in my wagon. I could maybe drape them over a tree branch, and tether her beneath. With her blankets on, she might be warm enough.”

“Aye, that would work.” Aidan pushed himself back to his feet. “I’ll help you.”

She frowned and shook her head. “You’re weakened and undernourished. You’ll catch your death.”

“I’ve already caught my death, aye?” He grinned at her, and when the ghost of a smile touched her face in return, he winked. “And I lived to tell the tale.”

Olwyn looked away from him, and her cheeks flushed lightly.

Aidan felt her discomfort, a palpable thing. “Am I doing something to unsettle you, Olwyn? I assure you, you have nothing to fear from me.”

She shrugged slightly, the barest perceptible movement of her shoulders. “I am unaccustomed to the company of men.”

“Oh?” Aidan couldn’t keep the grin from tugging at his lips again. He was alive, after all. Alive. He swore he would never take such a miracle for granted again. “Have you been locked in a tower, then? For certainly if there were a man within twenty paces of you, he must have wanted a chance to pay court.”

Slowly, so slowly, she turned back to meet his eyes. In the dimness of the small stone structure, he could see confusion take over her face, followed by fearful anger. She thought he was mocking her.

“Do you not know you’re beautiful?” he asked softly.

“You are far too forward.” There was a warning in her voice, but something else in her clear gray eyes. Was it hope?

“You’ve saved my life. Shall I pay you back with compliments?”

“No,” Olwyn whispered. She pulled her cloak over her shoulders, lifted the deep hood, and pulled it up until she disappeared in the cowl. “I need no repayment, and I’ve no patience for lies.”

She hurried from the hut and went out into the rain without seeming to notice it. Aidan followed her, and soon they were working together, lashing the tarps over a tree branch, tethering the old woebegone mare beneath it. Olwyn gathered large rocks and piled them along either sides of the makeshift tent, anchoring the oiled material to the ground. Aidan helped her, but she avoided making eye contact with him. When they finished, she spread thick horse blankets across Nixie’s bowed back, and gave her a ration of feed and a bucket of water.

The old mare nuzzled Aidan’s arm, and he returned her affection with a few strokes between her eyes and down her long face to the small velvety patch just behind her nose.

“She likes you,” Olwyn said, sounding surprised. “She’s usually very shy.”

“I’ve a way with animals.” Aidan gave the horse a final pat before looking up to assess the sky once more.

Turning to Olwyn, he read the worry on her face.

“We may be here a while,” he told her, his breath a cold frost in the air. “Perhaps we should set out traps. We could maybe catch a rabbit.”

“And be arrested if we’re caught with so much as the hide? Are you some sort of highborn lord that you think you can poach game without recrimination?” She looked at him as if he had sprouted ten heads. When he didn’t answer her, she seemed to take that as reply enough. “I’ve enough food that we’ll not starve anytime soon. And we’ll leave tomorrow, no matter what the weather,” she said flatly, and she turned and walked away.

Chester, England

Padraig stormed into the inn where he’d taken a room. He changed his clothes, strapped on his sword belt and his pistol belt, tossed his cloak over his shoulders. He stopped for a moment, and had the strangest sensation of having his brother’s thoughts in his own mind.

The feeling was familiar, and it made him want to weep. If he were going to still have those senses of his brother, Padraig could hardly bear to imagine his future, filled with a million tiny funerals every time something reminded him of Aidan.

Still, Padraig couldn’t help but fancy the notion, fleeting though it was, that Aidan was alive and able to send him that peculiar awareness.

Padraig, however, was not the sort of man to engage in wishful thinking. Instead, he sought out the sort of reality he could see, touch, and measure. He wanted answers, not feelings.

Heading through the dining hall of the inn, he nearly mowed down Mira Kimball, who stood in the entranceway.

Mira’s mouth formed an O, her pretty blue eyes wide. “My lord, where are you off to?”

Padraig used every ounce of his self-control to keep from pushing her out of his way. “I’ve got business to attend to, my lady. Please step aside.”

“But, my lord, I have incredible news.”

“Not now,” Padraig bit out. He couldn’t help but noticing how lovely she looked in her pale, silky gray gown, trimmed with black lace. He noticed a decided lack of tearstains, and of swollen eyes. Did she care nothing for his brother? Another thought dawned, and he narrowed his eyes. What was the girl up to? “Did you come alone? Where’s your maid?”

“Right there,” she answered, and her tone suggested offense that he would think her improper. She gestured to the simply-garbed woman who stood at a discreet distance.

Holding up a yellowed leather-bound book, Mira said, “Do you recall the letter I showed you in Warwick? Well, I had found a few of these old journals in some crates in our attic, and I brought them on my travels so I would have something to read at night.”

Padraig stared at her, slightly agog that she would continue pattering away about her family history in the light of all that had occurred. Did it matter nothing to her that Aidan was dead?

Mira continued on, her face glowing with satisfaction, “’Tis incredible, my lord. You see, I brought a carton of papers and journals from Warwick, so I’d have something to occupy me in the evenings, and it has yielded the most interesting findings!”

She held out the old, tattered book as if she were presenting it to a king. “This is the journal of Bret Kimball, the same one who your great-grandmother, Amelia Bradburn, summoned to your family’s home in Southampton. And even more intriguing is that my great-uncle was apparently promised to wed your grandmother, Camille Bradburn.”

“That’s nice,” he said tightly. Padraig moved past her.

She reached out and touched his cloak. “Are you not interested at all?”

Padraig swung back around, and the bloodlust that sang through his body must have shown on his face, because Mira gasped and took three steps back.

“My brother is gone, and my thoughts are consumed with my grief. I can’t seem to summon an inkling of interest in your petty dabbling into the past, and your insipid nattering about a marriage that quite obviously never occurred.” Padraig bowed slightly, and trying to hang onto the barest vestige of control, said, “Do not speak of this nonsense to me again. My brother, your betrothed, is dead, and as such we will not be family after all. So forgive me for saying so, but I cannot fathom what he ever saw in you in the first place.”

Mira’s face reflected her shock, but it quickly faded and her eyes took on that same glitter as the day she’d shown him her museum. It was the look of a woman who showed far less than she felt, and for that alone Padraig felt a stab of pity for her.

“Well, my lord, you’ve certainly made your true feelings known, haven’t you?” she said softly, and that shine in her eyes took on a nasty light. However, her tone was as sweet as always when she said, “’Tis my turn to beg forgiveness. Perhaps you and I grieve differently. ’Twas only a wish to distract myself from the pain of losing Aidan that had me reaching for the diversion of my hobby. I am sorry I bothered you.”

The meekness of her words did nothing to soften that light, nor did it detract from the brackets that formed at the corners of her lips. Mira Kimball was quite obviously not accustomed to being spoken to in such a manner.

Padraig mentally apologized to Aidan. This was certainly not how his brother would have wanted him to treat the woman he was going to marry.

“My lady,” he began lamely. “My own grief is making me act like a madman. Your pardon, please, for my brutish words. My brother would have called me out had he heard me speak so unjustly to his beloved.”

Mira’s expression softened; the glitter in her eyes did not. “’Twas rude of me to come to you with such triviality.”

“No, you’d had the right of it, thinking to give me a diversion from my grief.” Padraig didn’t think he’d ever lied so boldly. He gestured to several men who’d gathered out on the street, thick thuggish men in seamen’s garb. “Excuse me, my lady, but I’ve my own form of distraction to see to. Good day.”

“Make it up to me,” Mira said softly.

“Pardon?”

“You could join me for dinner.” Mira smiled invitingly. She held the journal in her hands in such a way that Padraig caught the glint of the ring Aidan had given her, worn over her lacy glove.

“My lady,” he began, but she cut him off.

“Not tonight, of course.” Her smile deepened, and she reached out to pull an invisible piece of lint from his cloak. “You’ll just owe me, my lord.”

Padraig managed to extract himself from her presence, wondering once again what Aidan had ever seen in the girl. There was something about her demeanor that discomfited him, an edge to her smiles, and that glitter in her eyes. Mira Kimball struck him as a woman whose beauty veiled a dark ugliness inside.

Dismissing the girl from his thoughts, Padraig headed outside and joined the men he’d asked to accompany him to the Welshman’s keep. There were three of them, well muscled, well armed, and well paid. Together they would see to it that the anatomist gave up his secrets.

Penarlâg, Wales

Smoke hung like a fat angry cloud over the ancient, crumbling keep, darker than the gray stormy skies. The winds blew hard, freezing, wet, and gusty, carrying whiffs of the burning bonfire to Padraig and his men.

Padraig recognized the stench; it hit him in the gut, turned his stomach, and made him instantly enraged. He kicked his mount into a thundering gallop, urging the beast on as he pulled his pistol.

The winds blew hotter as he drew closer, throwing bits of ash and bright red cinders high into the air, swirling, whipping eddies that reeked of burning human hair and flesh.

And Padraig knew with a terrible certainty that if his brother were in that bonfire, he’d slaughter the Welshman and throw his body in alongside Aidan’s. Justice would be served in their own private Gehenna.

Padraig reined in the stallion as they reached the gates to the property, but the animal had seemed to sense his bloodlust. It pranced and snorted, reared up on its hind legs, and scraped at the sky.

As if summoned by hell’s own messenger, an old man came flying from the keep. He wore ragged outer garments, outmoded breeches, and shoes made of animal skins. His hair was long and wild and silver, his black bushy eyebrows drawn into a deep scowl. He had the look of a crazed eremite, waving his arms in the motion of pushing them back.

“Begone,” he screamed. “Get off my land! Begone, begone!”

Padraig waited for someone else to come, someone to be drawn to the ruckus the man made. But there was silence behind him.

The blackstone building must have been a thousand years old, and bore the signs of years of neglect. What had once been huge ramparts were now rutted and pitted, the fallen stones returned to the earth to be slowly reabsorbed. A huge portcullis listed against one tall wall, once a daunting fortification barring entrance to an intimidating dwelling, but now nothing more than a trellis for climbing vines.

Padraig leveled his pistol at the man, cocked it, and hoped the fool was not so addled as to no longer understand mortal danger. “I know everything the night watchman in Chester’s kirkyard knew,” he warned him. “You bought my brother’s corpse. I’m here to reclaim his body.”

“Gone! She’s gone, and he with her! Where is Olwyn? My Olwyn, my girl.” The man hopped and danced like a puppet on strings, his madness causing him to tear at his hair. He suddenly stopped, frozen in mid-motion. His black eyes widened, and he looked as if he were going to drop over dead of apoplexy.

“Are you well, man?” Padraig demanded. “Do you hear me? I’m here for my brother’s body.”

“Gone,” the man whispered. “Gone, gone, gone. Everyone’s gone.”

He dropped to his knees, and rocked back and forth. His gnarled fingers slid back into his hair, slowly twisting, pulling. A long, low moan came from his throat, a strange singsong chant in his lilting Welsh tongue.

Another man emerged from the keep. He was disheveled, dirty, and had the thick nose and watery eyes of a drunk. He must have been tending the bonfire, for his sleeves were singed and his shirt bore sooty smears.

“Your brother isn’t dead,” the man said. “His body was brought here, intended for autopsy, but he was alive. The woman of the house, this man’s daughter, took him and fled.”

Padraig lowered his pistol. “My brother lives,” he said softly. He remembered the sense he’d had, the feel of Aidan, and relief had his heart thudding hard against his breast. “Of course,” he said to himself. “Aidan lives.”

“I don’t know where she took him,” the man said simply. “She has only one horse, an ancient nag that won’t take them far. She has your brother in a wagon, and took provisions.” Inclining his head to the wildly muttering madman, he added, “Mercy for him, please, my lord.”

“Forget it. I care only about finding my brother.” Padraig scanned the horizon. There was a storm coming, but it would not stop him. He’d send word to his parents and gather trackers. Wherever Aidan had been taken, Padraig would find him.