A Passionate Magic Page 6

  “And Sloan does not believe she is dangerous?” asked Hawise. She was looking much less frightened after hearing that grown men had encountered the wraith of the moors and had come away alive, with their wits intact.

  “Sloan said only that she was beautiful and very sad. I thought she was beautiful, too,” Blake informed Hawise. Then, abruptly, he changed the subject. “Lady Emma, just ahead is the place where I thought we might begin to search for the plants you want. I remember seeing a few leaves there that looked to me like the kind of herbs old Agatha gathers, and once I met her there, collecting mosses. She told me she uses them to pack open wounds.”

  “You appear to spend a lot of time away from your duties at the castle,” Hawise said in the same severe tone she sometimes used at Wroxley with Emma’s younger brothers.

  “As much time as I can without being punished for it,” Blake responded with an unrepentant grin. “I like the openness of the moor.”

  “It’s too open,” Hawise said, looking around at the vast, empty expanse of gorse and heather.

  “In the winter it is unpleasant, when the damp wind sweeps in from the sea,” Blake said. “But in the warm weather, when the castle begins to stink and feel overcrowded, the moor is a lovely place and the breeze can be refreshing.”

  Having reached a spot where a few stunted bushes grew, Blake halted his horse and dismounted. He assisted Emma and Hawise to the ground, then looped the reins around one of the bushes.

  As soon as she stepped off the narrow path, Emma understood why Blake had stopped just there. Mosses grew around a dip in the ground where water collected when it rained. There were a few rocks nearby with lichens on them, three different kinds of ferns growing in the soggy turf, and in the shade of the rocks delicate fungi sprouted.

  “No wonder Agatha comes here,” Emma exclaimed, delighted by their find. “This little area contains more ingredients to cleanse and heal open wounds than I have ever seen in one place before. Look, there’s adder’s tongue fern. Hawise, bring one of the baskets.” She moved toward the clump of fern, intending to begin gathering there.

  “Don’t stray too far from the path,” Blake warned again. “There is bog land just on the other side of those rocks.”

  “It isn’t much of a path,” Hawise grumbled, detaching a basket from her saddle as she spoke. She squinted, looking into the distance. “In fact, I can hardly see the path. It wanders here and there, never in a straight line, and in some places it disappears altogether.”

  “The path marks out the solid ground,” Blake said, unperturbed by the criticism. “If you are wise, you will stay on it.”

  They fell silent then, all three of them on their knees to collect plant materials as Emma instructed them.

  “Don’t take too much from any one place,” Emma warned. “Leave enough root and leaf for the plants to grow back after we’ve gone. And leave enough for Agatha to gather when next she comes here.”

  Emma wished Agatha would come that day. She wanted very much to meet the healer of whom Blake spoke so fondly. But they labored alone, the only humans to be seen in all the wide landscape. There was so much to be gathered that it was a long time before Emma stood to stretch legs grown stiff from kneeling. She pressed a hand to her lower back and wriggled her shoulders. Then she turned slowly, looking toward the horizon.

  The land sloped gradually upward, so that they were well above the height of Penruan’s tallest tower. Emma was sure Sloan had posted a man-at-arms on the wall to watch over them during their expedition. If any ill befell them, Sloan would send a band of riders to their aid. It was an agreeable thought that made her feel less alone in the vast, empty moor.

  From where she stood Emma could see how Penruan was built at the edge of the cliffs, where the land broke off abruptly. Beyond the cliffs lay the sparkling sea. In other directions as she turned, all was moor, the sweep of gently undulating land dotted here and there by rocky outcroppings.

  “That looks interesting,” Emma said, shading her eyes with one hand and pointing with the other. “And not very far away, either. Blake, I’m sure we have time to ride to that tall rock and search around its bottom for plants, and still be home before sunset.”

  “No, my lady,” Blake said. “The light here on the moor is confusing your sight. That’s Rough Tor you are looking at, and it is more than half a day’s ride from Penruan. I know, because I’ve been there. I rode and rode for hours, and still the tor was as far away as it was when I first started. Some say it’s magic, that the tors recede as you approach them, but Dain has told me it is only a trick of the light.

  “Besides,” Blake finished his argument with a solemn glance into the distance, “the tors are where the outlaws live, and there are other bands than the one Dain subjected to his justice. Dain would hold me responsible if I took you there and harm came to you. No plant is valuable enough to risk meeting a brigand while gathering it.”

  “No,” Emma agreed, shivering a little at the thought of Robert, and of Dain’s grief for his son. “We don’t want to meet any outlaws. Where has the sun gone so suddenly? Just look at the fog rolling in from the sea!”

  “In this country the weather changes fast,” Blake said with a quick look at sea and sky. “My lady, we ought to return to Penruan.”

  Emma cast a final glance in the direction of Rough Tor, which had grown dark and ominous-looking in the altered light. Only one small outcropping from the main body of the tall rock shone golden brown in a single ray of sunshine that somehow managed to penetrate the thickening fog.

  At the base of that sunlit portion of the tor Emma noticed a flash of white. She stared harder, willing her gaze to greater clarity, keeping silent so Hawise would not be frightened. There it was again; a quick motion of white against the background of glowing rock, as if a long, gauzy scarf was being unfurled to catch the last glimmers of light. Suddenly the sunbeam was gone, swallowed up by the encroaching fog. The white object was gone, too, and a moment later Emma could not even see the tor.

  The misty drizzle started before they reached the castle. Emma did not mind it. There was no wind to chill her, the moisture was soft and warm against her skin, and the torches flaring at Penruan’s gate welcomed her home. Out on the moor, whoever – or whatever – had run along the base of Rough Tor in a swirl of white fabric was no doubt caught in the rain, too.

  Emma did not speak of what she had seen. Once she was in the stillroom emptying the baskets of plants and lichens, cleaning and preparing the day’s findings for drying, she began to wonder if that glimpse of flowing white was only an invention of her imagination. Neither Blake nor Hawise had noticed it. Perhaps, like the foreshortened perception of distance Blake had mentioned, the object was only a trick of the light.

  All the same, she was unable to erase the memory of what she thought she had seen, and she tucked the image deep into her mind, holding it there in case she should ever see anything similar in the future. She looked for but did not see the mysterious white object when she and her companions returned to the moor the next day, nor did she see it on the day after that.

  On the fourth day of Dain’s absence Sloan informed Emma that he had chores for Blake to do, and Hawise was complaining of a sore knee, so they did not ride to the moor. Instead, Emma spent the morning working in the stillroom.

  It did seem a shame to waste the fine weather by staying indoors, so after the midday meal she decided to discover what plants she could find along the cliffs. In answer to her persistent questioning, Sloan had told her about a steep but relatively safe path that led down the face of the cliff to the beach. According to Sloan, the path was regularly used by the lesser members of the kitchen staff, who were sent there to gather mussels and seaweed for the cook, and by a few men-at-arms who liked to fish.

  On this sunny afternoon there was no one else on the cliff or on the path. Emma kilted her skirt up above her knees, tucking the extra fabric into her belt and pulling the belt tight to secure it. Picking up the basket t
hat she was making a habit of carrying whenever she left the castle walls, she stepped onto the path. She was wearing her sturdiest pair of boots and she went down the path with surefooted grace.

  When she reached the beach she discovered the sand was soft and white, in stark contrast to the rather sinister black height of the towering cliffs. Above her on the left rose the walls of Penruan Castle, seemingly carved out of the cliff itself. Gazing up at it, Emma marveled at the imagination of the architect and the skill of the builders. From where she stood she could see the double windows of the lord’s chamber and, directly below the castle, the jagged rocks on which the surf pounded without ceasing, the sound that filled her ears each night.

  At the moment the sound of the waves was muted, for the tide was low and a wide strip of wet sand was exposed. Shells and long strands of seaweed lay scattered across the damp area. After being washed in fresh water and dried in the sun, seaweed could be stored for months. Later, it could be boiled and used in making jellies. Emma decided she would gather some of the green sea-plant to give to the cook. But first, she wanted to explore.

  The cliff curved inward from the headland where Penruan Castle stood, the curve forming the sandy cove where Emma was. To her right the high black rocks turned toward the sea again. Emma struck out for the point that jutted closest to the sea. It wasn’t far away and she quickly reached it. When she peered around the point of rock she discovered another cove, deeper and much narrower than the one directly below Penruan. This second cove boasted a stream that ran from the bottom of the cliff and flowed across the beach and into the sea.

  Looking northward, beyond yet another out-thrust point of high cliff on the far side of the cove, Emma could see a long, gleaming white beach. A few small boats were drawn up on the beach and several more boats were in the water. Figures in the boats were doing something with a net.

  “Fishermen,” Emma said aloud, realizing that Trevanan village must lay over there, behind the longer beach.

  Not being certain when the tide was going to turn, she decided against walking to Trevanan on the beach. She would go there another day, using the narrow road along the top of the cliff, for she was determined to meet the healer, Agatha. For the present, the little cove with the stream was remarkably interesting. She was sure the plant she saw growing near the base of the cliff was golden samphire, which was valuable for pickling and for preserving food. There was more of the same plant growing a bit higher on the cliff face.

  Emma hurried forward and began to scramble up the rocks, plucking the samphire as she went. Soon she discovered other herbs. She scratched her hands, broke two fingernails, and scraped both of her elbows, but she hardly noticed. Like the place Blake had shown her on the moor, this particular cove was a treasure trove of useful plants. Before long her basket was almost full. She set it down on the sand so she could slip into a crevasse in the rock and better reach one last, well-grown specimen of samphire. She squeezed a little farther, stepping into deep shadow and the cold water of the stream, and suddenly she was in a cave.

  Light filtered through the opening, and there was more daylight ahead of her shining from somewhere deeper in the cave. Evidently the stream in which she was standing had created the cave by the action of its water over many years, for the stream ran along one side of the cave before gushing out under the rock at the entrance. Emma stepped from the stream onto a floor of damp sand. All around her the smooth rock walls of the cave gleamed with moisture.

  Beyond a bend of rock just ahead of her, Emma could see daylight reflecting in the water. She could not resist; she had to find out what lay in the next chamber. She moved quickly along the upward-sloping rock.

  The inner chamber was much larger than the outer one, the roof much higher. It was well lit from a natural opening in the rock far over her head. Emma decided this part of the cave must be above the high-tide line, for the walls were dry and dry sand covered the floor.

  There were footprints in the sand. A single line of prints led from the shallow streambed directly to the rock wall, and there they stopped. It was as if the person who made the footprints had arisen from the water to walk right into the rock.

  The hair on the back of Emma’s neck began to prickle.

  Within a heartbeat she was in the outer chamber again, hurrying across it, squeezing past the rock at the entrance, tearing her gown in her haste to be away from the cave. She stumbled into daylight, into bright, clear sunshine, and she fell to her knees on the beach, gasping for breath.

  When she was able to stand again she saw that the tide was noticeably higher. If she delayed in returning to the beach below Penruan Castle, she would very soon be trapped in the little cove, stranded there until the next low tide with whoever – whatever – had left those footprints in the cave.

  Grabbing her basket, she raced for the strip of sand surrounding the outermost tip of rocks, sand that grew narrower with every wave that broke upon it. She was almost at the seaward point of the rocks when she heard a seagull screeching. Pausing in her flight, she looked up. The seagull wheeled far above her, screeching again as if to mock her irrational fear. For she was being irrational. No one was in the cave; perhaps no one had been there for years, or for centuries. She had sensed no living presence in those silent rock chambers.

  She took a deep breath of fresh sea air, chuckling at herself for her foolishness, and glanced up at the gull again, watching as it winged its way over the cliff, heading inland.

  There on the cliff top, perched dangerously near the edge, was a figure clad in white. Ghostly white draperies blew out around it, streaming on the wind. Something gleamed blue and silver in the sunlight, as if the figure was wearing a talisman on its breast.

  Emma could not tell if what she saw was male or female, but she experienced the oddest sensation that the creature was looking directly at her. As if to prove the accuracy of her instinct, the figure on the cliff lifted one slender arm in a gesture.

  Emma did not stay to discover what the gesture meant. A wave rushed shoreward, swirling around her knees, filling her boots with icy seawater. Shocked back to her full senses and to her precarious situation by the sudden chill, she turned and ran from the hungry sea, splashing through the receding water, through the next incoming wave, and the next one, running for the cliff path and the safety of Penruan.

  Emma reached the top of the cliff in a breathless state, with her gaze directed toward the place where she had seen the mysterious figure in white. There was no one on the cliffs. Not a single person. No one in all the wide vista that stretched upward toward the high spine of Cornwall until the moorland met a horizon broken only by the rocky projection of Rough Tor. With Penruan Castle at her back, Emma scanned the landscape until her ears detected a soft footstep on the grass behind her.

  “Oh!” She spun around, and when she saw who it was she took so hasty a step backward that she nearly fell over the cliff. Some of the precious samphire tumbled out of her basket and bounced down the face of the rock. Before her loomed a tall, decidedly masculine figure in a blue tunic.

  “Have care, my lady,” Dain said, catching her arm. “Come away. You are too near the edge.”

  “You startled me. I didn’t know you were home.” His eyes were the same marvelous blue-green shade as the sunlit sea below them. The wind lifted a lock of his close-cropped hair, the sun on it turning it to silver. Emma clutched her basket tightly while she fought against the urge to lay her head on his broad chest. She wasn’t sure whether the sudden weakness in her knees was the result of her mad rush through seawater and up the face of the cliff, or whether it was caused by the unexpected presence of her husband standing so close and looking so formidable.

  “What is it?” Dain asked. Her face was remarkably pale, devoid of the soft bloom of color he recalled seeing in her cheeks, and her eyes were wide with alarm, the brown irises heavily flecked with purple. Something unfamiliar and painfully sweet twisted in Dain’s chest as he searched the expression in Emma’s lo
ng-lashed eyes. He seized on the first reason that came to mind for the fear he saw in those eyes. “If you are afraid of heights, my lady, then you ought not to try the cliff path again.”

  “It’s not the height. I foolishly stayed on the beach too long and, as you can see, the tide is coming in fast. I got wet.”

  “The water only reaches to the lower section of the cliff path when there is a bad storm,” he said, wanting to put her mind at ease. “Otherwise, there is always dry sand at the bottom of the path. You were in no danger.”

  “I will remember that in the future. I’ve been gathering plants.”

  “So I see.” He spared only a quick glance for the wilted greenery in her basket. He couldn’t imagine what she thought she was going to do with the sandy things, but if they kept her occupied in the stillroom, so she had no time to meddle in the running of Penruan, then let her drag in all the plants she wanted and let her stay in the stillroom all the time.

  Dain had no intention of permitting himself to become a judge in a domestic struggle between his wife and his mother. He did not doubt for a moment that there would be war when Lady Richenda returned from visiting her sister. She had made her opinion of Dain’s marriage, and of his submission to King Henry’s will, very clear before her departure to the convent at Tawton where her sister was the abbess.

  However placid and gentle Emma’s disposition might prove to be, and from the way she had faced him down on several occasions, he doubted she would ever run from a quarrel, his mother was not going to accept the presence of another lady of rank at Penruan. Life was going to be easier for Emma, and for him, if she stayed away from his mother. Thus, his willingness to allow Emma free rein in the stillroom, where he hoped she would occupy most of her hours.

  She bestowed a trembling smile on him, and again Dain was aware of a tightening in his chest, and of a harder, more urgent tightening in his lower body.