Ah, and his face. She lifted her hand and
lightly traced the near perfect symmetry of his features. His was the kind of strange
beauty no mortal man embodied and no mortal woman could resist. Truly he was a magical
being, for only magic could have created such an artful line from brow to chin--she
caressed his cheek and let her fingers trail to the long, masculine curve of his jaw. Or
create such a mouth to make even a maid think of a kiss. Her fingertips brushed his lips.
He smiled, and she felt color suffuse her face. Amazing, that she
could blush even in death. Clear as night, his eyes teased her, sparkling with an inner
light like the stars sparkling around his head. Never had she seen such stars. The cosmic
orbs danced both high and low in flaming shades of yellow, red, and blue, leaving trails
of fire in their wakes. The sheer dazzle of him in his heavenly firmament left her
breathless with awe.
"Sweet prince of the tylwyth teg," she whispered,
thoroughly taken with him. Death had been the choice of wisdom, after all, and not the
final act of a coward.
Dain's smile turned wry. Silly chit, to mistake him for something
even half so pure and noble as a prince of the faerie folk. Though had he been elfin, he
was sure he could have found salvation in the adoration shining in her eyes, for the old
stories said elves lived in the hope of gaining a human's love.
He had long since abandoned any such aspirations himself, but he
knew he engendered lust with ease, and he saw that, too, in her eyes. Poor, untried
virgin. He would do his best to return her untouched to her Mychael and spare her the more
interesting pastimes available to those with adventurous natures.
"What's thy name, chérie?" he asked in his most
mellifluous voice, honey sweetening his words to draw her out.
"Ceridwen," she whispered. "Ceridwen ab Arawn. And
yours?"
He hesitated for only a moment. "Dain."
"Dain." She repeated his name on a soulful sigh, and Dain
couldn't help himself; he grinned. Vivienne could take lessons from this one.
"Where is your Mychael, little one?"
"Strata Florida."
His grin faded. Just his luck. He'd been given the keeping of a
Welsh maid with the name of a white monk rather that a rich lord on her lips. Then again,
hadn't a prince of Powys, Rhys ap Gruffudd, granted the Cistercian monks large tracks of
upland grazing all the way to Rhayader? Surely over the years even the most ascetic of
orders had managed to accumulate some profit on such bounty.
But would they part with it for a woman?
He mulled over an answer to that for more than a minute and
couldn't quite turn it to his liking. Women and holy men didn't mix nearly as well as they
had before Gregory VII had cleansed the church of "fornicating priests."
"Dain." She spoke his name again in a dreamy voice,
infusing it with a good deal of wonder, and wonder she might. What was he going to do with
her?
"Is Mychael your uncle?" he asked, hoping for an abbot.
"Brother," she answered.
Worse and worse. The brother of one so young as she could hardly
have had time to advance in the church--and yet there was the chemise. Someone coddled the
girl.
"Wherever did Ragnor find you, chérie?" he asked,
absently caressing her from her cheek to her ear and letting his fingers slide into the
softness of her hair. He didn't really expect an answer to his questions, and he certainly
didn't expect the one she gave.
"On the Coit Wroneu." she sighed and turned her face into
his hand. "Running for my veriest life."
His gaze narrowed, and his fingers stopped their aimless, sensual
wanderings. "From whom?"
"Mine own cousin." Her tone became distressed and angry.
She lifted her face to him. "The Thief of Cardiff, Morgan ab Kynan. May God curse his
knave's soul for the hypocrisy of his sins." Her voice broke with a sob, and she
closed her eyes to hold back a fresh round of tears.
Anyone with a heart or a care would not have bothered her further.
Dain had neither, not when she'd spoken Morgan's name. Here was a story too rich to miss,
of how a Welsh prince and thief of unsurpassed skill had lost this rare jewel, and even
more intriguing, how much he'd be willing to pay to get her back.
"Aye, Morgan's a sinner." He commiserated with her,
knowing his words were far from the truth. The only sin he could lay at his friend's door
was that he'd never told Dain of his precious cousin, not that their meeting would have
been more opportune under different circumstances. Dain had forsaken good opportunity with
highborn virgins when he'd put down his sword and taken up more esoteric apparatuses.
"With no heart," she added, the tears running freely down
her face.
"Aye, no heart, not a trace," he agreed, then added in an
offhand tone, "What do you believe to be his most heartless deed?"
Her lips trembled, so sweetly it took an act of will not to lower
his own to still their fluttering. "The deed that would leave me ground to dust
between the Boar of Balor's jaws."
"Carado--"
Her eyes flashed open. "Shh," she admonished him,
pressing her fingertips to his lips. "Don't speak his name. 'Tis said the sound is
enough to call him forth."
Dain refrained from laughing aloud, even though he remembered many
a morn when yelling at the top of his lungs had not been enough to call Caradoc forth from
a night of drink. If the maid believed such was possible, she had heard rumors he had
missed.
"Sweet Ceridwen, why would the Lord of Balor want to hurt
you?" He couldn't bring himself to call his old friend "Boar."
"No bride of the Boar of Balor will survive her wedding
night," she said in a hushed voice, her eyes growing even larger, if that were
possible.
Dain felt his lips twitch with the makings of a grin. "Maybe
'tis the alliteration they cannot abide, chérie."
"Mayhaps," she agreed somberly.
Then it hit him, the significance of what she'd said.
"Morgan takes you to Balor as a bride?"
"Aye."
Ragnor would be dead within the month and Morgan probably soon to
follow, Dain thought, after Caradoc stripped the flesh from Ragnor's bones and staked him
out in the wilderness to die. One did not abuse the betrothed bride of a powerful lord
without penance being paid. One did not lose a bride, either--and for certes one did not
go plying rose oil between her legs.
The thought gave him pause, and he
was taken with an urge to check her again, to make sure he'd done no damage.
"But no longer," she said,
her hand trailing down the front on his tunic. A beatific smile played about her mouth.
"Now that I have died and come unto you."
Before he could assure her that she
had not, he felt her fingers tangle in his hair and exert gentle pressure, pulling him
down.
"A kiss of peace, sweet
prince?" she asked. "To welcome me into paradise?"
She was not very strong, yet somehow
was strong enough to have her way, drawing him ever closer. Her gold-tipped lashes drifted
down, giving him a moment to reflect on the doubtful wisdom of his next action--but a
moment wasn't nearly long enough to stop him.
Their lips met, hers sweetly,
innocently closed, expecting the blessing of a saint. He couldn't have delivered that even
if he were nobly pure of heart, for when his mouth touched hers, instinct usurped his
reason.
Warmth was his first sensation, then
softness, then something more. For all she gave Edmee did not kiss, and there was much
he'd forgotten--much he'd missed. He parted his mouth to trace the curve of Ceridwen's
lips with his tongue, and was rewarded with a sigh.
The resonance of that sound set up a
vibration very near where his heart had once been. Their breaths mingled and became the
same, flowing from one life to the next. The luxuriance of the ether filed his senses and
went straight to his head, finer than wine, more potent than his deadliest draught. She
tasted like a woman, every woman, all women, a rich mélange of flavors he couldn't begin
to absorb. They ran through him, rousing a wildness he had long thought broken to his
will.
With that realization, he dragged his
mouth away from hers, his blood racing faster that he would have admitted to anyone. In
contrast, the woman below him was the picture of peace, drifting off to sleep with a smile
on her face, blissfully unaware of the havoc she had created in less than a minute, with
less than conscious effort.
Dain knew he was a charlatan. He also
knew when he was in the presence of someone else who wasn't what she seemed, though in the
maid's case, he couldn't put a name to what he'd felt in her kiss.
He reached out to touch her, but
caught himself and drew his hand back. Her hair had dried into a cloud of haphazard curls
and was spread out around her like the light of God, an illumination surrounding her
small, bruised face. Further down, the remains of a thick, damp braid lay in disarray
beneath one of her arms. She needed someone to tend to her, but he had done all he
dared--mayhaps more that he should have dared. Nothing remained but for him to find Morgan
and arrange for her return.
A smile twisted his mouth and a soft
curse escaped him. She was to be the bride of Caradoc, and through the grace of God and
Dain's own rough magic, nothing had transpired that would keep her from fulfilling those
vows.
You can now order THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE and DREAM STONE from amazon.com.
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see the Internet Web Site at http://www.bdd.com.
Cover art - & copy; Ciruelo Cabral
Maps - Jackie Aher
Copyright 1997 Glenna McReynolds ISBN 0-553-57430-2
