Draycott Everlasting: Christmas KnightMoonrise Page 35

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  What fun it has been to watch Hope and Ronan’s adventures at magical Glenbrae House. I have been tantalized by Ronan’s story for several years now, and it was exhilarating to see this tough, principled warrior in action, fighting for the woman of his heart!

  If you’re interested in reading more about the kind of life Ronan might have led in his own time, be sure to find Chronicles of the Crusades, edited by Elizabeth Hallam (New York: Weidenfeld Nicolson, 1989), which records the rich sweep of drama, betrayal and danger of those who followed the call to take up the cross on Crusade. For more technical details about the soldiers of Ronan’s time, nothing can beat the Osprey Men-at-Arms series, in particular Armies of the Crusades by Terence Wise (London: Reed International Books, 1978).

  For those of you curious to learn what a knight wore under his hauberk and chain mail (hey, inquiring minds want to know!), you’ll find it all in the Osprey series.

  Interested in details of military life in the thirteenth century? Try The Medieval Soldier by A.V.B. Norman (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1971). For medieval life recorded in all its rich, unforgettable detail, read Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).

  Even today Macbeth remains one of Shakespeare’s most hotly contested plays. Likely the work had already been much abbreviated by the time of its first printing in the folio of 1623; worse yet, the additions of another writer were probably already present. A significant number of passages are corrupt and others do not meet the craftsmanship of the master playwright who finished King Lear during that same period. Immediately struck by possibilities, I have explored the theme of “what if”: What if a folio prior to the 1623 printing existed? What if that folio contained uncut and unadulterated text approved by Shakespeare himself? But what if that text was stolen and hidden by a very clever thief?

  You know the rest.

  Just don’t ask me where the idea for Banquo came from. Maybe Gideon.

  If you have enjoyed Christmas Knight, I hope you’ll drop by my Web site at www.christinaskye.com for excerpts of my upcoming books, reader contests, historical recipes and a backstage peek at the heroes and heroines I have come to love like dear friends. While you’re at the Web site, take the haunted abbey tour—if you dare. Adrian will be waiting for you! And don’t forget to send me e-mail at skye1800@aol.com.

  For all those of you who ask about stories for Adrian and Nicholas: yes, they have already been written. Nicholas’s story appeared in the Avon anthology Haunting Love Stores. Adrian’s magical story appeared in the anthology Bewitching Love Stories. These and all my other Draycott books (Hour of the Rose, Bridge of Dreams, Bride of the Mist, Key to Forever and Season of Wishes) are available. Each book is a haunting mix of danger, romance and otherworldly interference by Adrian and Gideon. Let me know what you think!

  Ever since Adrian and Gideon swept into my life seven years ago, nothing has been the same, and Draycott Abbey just seems to grow more beautiful with every passing year. I hope Adrian and Gideon have brought a bit of magic and high adventure into your life, too.

  Now it’s back to work for me. I’ve got a brilliant heroine who has completely messed up her life and a man who is sensational at everything except what truly counts: believing in his own heart. What a roller-coaster ride this Draycott Abbey book will be, I promise you. Watch my Web site for more details.

  Meanwhile, as the Wishwell sisters have foretold, “The page is turned, the mystery clear.” Enjoy the Highlands and all the magic of Glenbrae. I hope you find every joy during this special and wonderful season.

  With warmest wishes,

  Christina Skye

  Moonrise

  PROLOGUE

  Draycott Abbey

  Southern England

  Winter Solstice

  MOON RISING.

  Darkness creeping over high stone.

  He could delay no longer….

  Shadows draped the parapets as a ghostly figure emerged from nine-hundred-year-old walls of granite. Fear followed him, coiled tight. Fear always hovered close on this night when he faced the thought of what lay ahead.

  And the grave harm he could cause.

  Yet no harm would come here on Draycott Abbey’s high parapets. Never had a mistake stirred any creature in the night, alive or dead. So why this deep uneasiness?

  Adrian Draycott, the guardian ghost of Draycott Abbey, scowled at the mist that drifted over the crenellated towers. His duty was clear. The words were locked in his memory, and he was prepared for all challenges and intrusions. He had never failed before, nor would he fail this night.

  Yet his fingers trembled beneath the weight of his duty. Clearing away all distractions, he focused his will.

  The ritual began in silence, cast in images, framed by intention. As the working of his magic grew, Adrian took force from the very stones he had guarded so fiercely. As on every Winter Solstice, his words would soar, casting out the old year’s ills and then weaving an intricate new spell of protection over all who lived within the abbey’s walls.

  Hold in the circle.

  Hold to the light.

  None to cut, none by might.

  Fair winds before morning and bright dawn to follow.

  Hold in the circle.

  Hold to the light.

  The words came low, chanted in the old Norman French learned at his father’s knee, chanted as Adrian had always chanted to summon the full power of his being for the task that was his alone. Every year the old vows had to be cast away, and new vows reforged, woven with words of power and protection.

  Now the time had come again. Adrian raised one hand, lace cuffs fluttering in phantom winds. The words filled his throat, echoed over the cold rooftop. Power blazed.

  Hold in the circle…

  The energy rose from the stones, climbed through what little physical body he retained. Sparks flashed. Silver eddies crossed the roof, dancing in the purple twilight.

  Hold to the light…

  A bird called out over the rolling downs. The moon’s cold edge dimmed behind racing clouds. Without warning something struck at Adrian. He spun up, into the chill air, drawing lines of power into a shield.

  Too late.

  A savage force slammed him back against the abbey’s cold stones. His senses screaming, he was tossed flat, caught in waves of pain. Space seemed to bulge, then tear, while dark images streamed past, spewing from the middle of the parapets.

  What had he done? Adrian thought wildly. How had he erred? Was some fine detail forgotten or a portal overlooked?

  But no, every phrase and gesture had been offered correctly. The words were given, the four corners cleared. Old fires put to the damp and new fire lay ready to claim in the last minutes before the old year’s gates closed forever.

  Cold struck at the bone.

  Too late…

  Energy boiled up, swallowing Adrian. Vainly he tried to hold sight of the working of his magic, but his eyes were blurred. Mars trine Uranus was a difficult time, to be sure. Yet never had he expected this kind of violence. Something brushed against his booted leg and he saw the keen amber eyes of a great gray cat, face to the darkness.

  “Gideon, do you feel it?”

  The low meow was sharp.

  “Aye, worse even that what happened in 1540. I’ll need your help, old friend. This is something I have never—”

  The stones of the roof shook. The abbey’s great clock stopped in mid-peal, surrounded by yellow fumes. Cold gusted, filling the air.

  The voice that rumbled through the darkness made Adrian stagger.

  “Well met, my old friend,” the harsh whisper came. “My liege. My deepest friend.” The voice grew closer. “My betrayer.” A figure in chain mail stepped through the hole boiling in the middle of the roof. His sword gleamed silver in the moonlight.

  Adrian felt the whole structure of his abbey shift, time and space distorted. “Stay where you are.
Whoever you are, you are not of this place. Not of this time. I order you gone with all the power of cross and fire.”

  “Cross and fire. How quaint.” The figure’s laugh seemed to play over the yellowing fog. “And you gave all the opening I required when you took down your old circle of the last year.”

  “Only for a heartbeat,” Adrian whispered.

  “But a heartbeat is all one requires to enter. A single heartbeat to whisper a lie and rip out a heart. To kill the thing you love best.”

  “Wild talk with no meaning.” Adrian launched a spiral of silver energy, only to see it swallowed instantly by the noxious fog. “Who are you who treads on abbey ground?”

  “What, no recognition? You’ve lost your skill at spells, my friend.”

  “What man calls me friend and then attacks my land?”

  “You don’t know this voice? You don’t remember Navarre, who once ran fleet to your bidding, whose sword was your sword by blood oath?”

  “Navarre,” Draycott whispered, unable to believe the word. He had dreamed, just for a moment, but to see his oldest friend again seemed impossible. Navarre had vanished in the Holy Land, dead in battle.

  “So many centuries have passed…”

  The warrior removed his metal helm and their eyes met, hammered darkness to restless silver. Adrian saw limitless hatred in Navarre’s colorless, cold eyes.

  The Wolf of Navarre, the defender of Acre and the Crusade’s most fearless fighter, stepped onto the abbey’s roof, into the strangeness of the twenty-first century. Without fear, he stood straight and pulled the darkness around him like a cloak while he surveyed the abbey’s distant moat. He faced the clean sweep of the wind, rich with roses, frowning. “My first smell in seven hundred years.” He drew a long, savoring breath. “I should have known you would have your roses close by.” A smile twisted his lips, as hard as the scar that marked his eyebrow from the final siege at Acre.

  1291.

  A year of rare courage and madness. Nights of brotherhood. But days that ran red with too much blood, Adrian remembered grimly.

  Something dug at his neck. Moonlight glinted on cold Damascus steel where the point of the great broadsword traced his skin.

  The warrior spoke harshly. “Do not move, betrayer. Not by nerve or muscle.”

  And it was so.

  “Do not magick. Do nothing save listen and then obey.”

  Adrian tried to move, but to his horror he was frozen. “Pie Jesu, how can you—”

  “Silence! How long have I waited for this sweet revenge.” The black-clad knight turned slowly. “Your abbey will fall, stone by stone by my hand. Nothing will be left save ash and gravel. Not even dreams will remain to warm you. When I’m done, no memories will remain, nor a soul to enjoy them with, for I’ll have your soul, too.” The first limestone merlon quivered on the roof and then tore free. A gray parapet crumbled.

  So much hatred.

  But Adrian’s harsh cry was blocked, soundless beneath Navarre’s curse. Even the great gray cat pressed at his foot could not hold against the power of his oldest enemy. Dark waves poured out of the unsteady, throbbing hole.

  The moon seemed to stop in its course, the wind howling.

  Frost glinted, where none had stood before.

  “You have one night to study on all I’ve said, Draycott. One passing of moonrise and moonfall to regret your deceit. Then I’ll have this house and all inside it, including your soul. Everything that you hold dear will be scattered to the four winds.”

  Adrian felt the force of hatred seeping like smoke from the dark figure before him. “Why?” he growled.

  “Because you took everything of worth from me, all that I loved and then even my life. Now I will return that favor.”

  The guardian ghost of Draycott Abbey fought to hold back the images streaming from the black hole that gaped above the roof. Directly over the abbey’s heart, Adrian thought in horror.

  Suddenly he felt his energy fading, the power of his attacker too great to measure. Yet he made one last effort to calm and convince. “I took nothing from you, Navarre. I looked for you without cease, but you were lost. I searched the waves of wounded and I searched every ship. Already on that last midnight your own anger had destroyed anything of worth in your life. You’d sent her away the night before, driven in anger to ask the help of strangers.”

  “Stay,” Navarre hissed. “Not her name. Not from your lips, betrayer. I saw you with her that night in the old spice market.”

  “You are mad. I was within my household all the night, preparing for the desperate voyage home, just as you should have been.” Adrian’s voice was filled with reproach, but Navarre did not appear to notice.

  “And you meant to take her with you, of course. While I lay half-dead, covered by sand that dripped with too many slain Crusaders’ blood.”

  “This is a lie. I saw her not. It was you who had already cast her out.”

  “A fine explanation to cover your own rank sins, Draycott. But I’ve had enough of your talk. You have until moon’s rise. Consider your perfidy well and all you will lose. When I return, I will strip everything away from you.”

  The knight raised his sword, icy in the moonlight. The wind howled. A black dome of space roiled above the abbey’s heart.

  And then the Wolf of Navarre was swallowed up by the night.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Eight centuries before…

  Acre

  The Holy Lands

  PHILIP OF TYRE, bastard son of the King of Jerusalem, whispered to himself as he worked. The city was in a desperate mood, caught in a nightmare following the siege.

  Now the Sultan’s forces hammered at the gates of the stronghold.

  But Philip had little interest in Crusaders or holy war. In his great stone house near the market quarter, all was still. His thoughts were on revenge.

  On lust too long denied.

  The only thing he cared about was her, unmoving under his hands. With deep satisfaction he retied the woman’s knots, making sure they were secure. When the elixir wore off, she would fight him with all her strength.

  But then it would be too late. None of her screams would pass from the thick leather box where he had locked her. For months he had labored over the details. Now before the next rising of the moon she would be his.

  His and no other’s. Her two champions gone, old friendships shattered forever.

  “Three ships rock at anchor. Three ships grand. Fly with the wind and ever west.”

  He whispered the words as he smiled down at her, her eyes opening in confusion from the drug that still had her locked in its grip.

  So beautiful, he thought, touching the raven-dark hair that felt like silk. A full mouth to make a man harden in lust. Oh, how well he would train her, breaking her to his will.

  How sweet to see her fear.

  “You will not hate me soon, my sweet.” Philip, the bastard son of the king, scraped her tender cheek with his nail, drawing a bead of blood. “You’ll do all I ask and more.” Then he closed the lid. “Soon,” he whispered.

  And slid the iron bolt home.

  HE HAD FOUND THE MAN three fortnights earlier.

  That night his plan had taken final shape. The traveler was a mere barrelsmith, but the king’s hated bastard saw the potential in the stranger’s face, with features so similar to that of Draycott’s imperious lord.

  Here lay his revenge.

  Here lay the key to his feverish hopes for the past two years, a way to strike at the arrogant Navarre through his beautiful ward.

  The traveler was pleased to accept Philip’s summons and more than happy to enter into a small intrigue, at the price of twenty pieces of gold.

  Well dressed with his head beneath a knight’s helm, the traveler walked in the route specified, passing the woman in the market and entertaining her in warm conversation, also as planned.

  Anyone watching would assume the proud Lord of Draycott was about his usual business, speaking with t
he ward of the Wolf of Navarre.

  And that was just as Philip had planned that anyone think.

  “So simple to see friendships torn apart,” he murmured pleasantly. “So easy to see all hope trampled. Navarre will not be so haughty now.”

  He watched his two oldest servants lift the heavy leather trunk. If something moved inside, carrying the muffled sound of a scream, the servants were far too well trained to comment or care.

  The ship was waiting, face to the wind.

  Tomorrow Marianne of Navarre would be his, body and soul, plundered as the Holy Lands had been.

  He turned away, touched a white damask-cloth napkin to his lips. The night was filled with sounds of approaching looters. He surveyed the empty room and bade his silent farewell to a life that was no more.

  He lifted his sword and his pouch of gold and followed the trunk down to the stinking waters of the harbor and a new life.

  The desert

  Half a day’s ride south of Acre

  THE GREATEST OF THE Templars, the finest warrior of Outremar, lay unmoving, covered by sand. His proud steed had been taken, his sword ripped away.

  His body shattered.

  And now the Wolf of Navarre opened his eyes to darkness—and agony. His left shoulder was broken and his sword hand…

  Too painful to think of it.

  Tendons cut.

  Bones crushed.

  Gripping his side, he took a wracking breath and staggered to one knee, feeling the hot wind whip his face. He was alone, both Hospitallers and Templars gone, swept away before the force of the Sultan Khalil. Navarre stared at the horizon, all blackness with neither star nor moon, a mute testimony to the evil of men’s hearts.

  He closed his eyes on a shudder, remembering how he had seen the woman he loved in warm conversation with his oldest friend. How his servant had seen them enter the inn just beyond the spice market.