"Please, don't argue. I'm feeling better now. Let's get out of here. We can stay
with friends, in the city."
"We can't leave just now, pet," said Katrina soothingly. "You heard your
brother; the wards are up. We can't leave the Tower till tomorrow morning. But
we're perfectly safe here. Nothing can get to us."
"It'll be all right, Holly," said Arthur. "I won't let anyone hurt you."
David shot him an exasperated look, and turned back to Holly. "We'll look after
you, darling. It's obvious who the killer is. It's that damned freak Jamie told
us about earlier. All we have to do is track him down."
"No! That's too dangerous. He might kill you!" Holly gripped his hand hard, as
though to physically restrain him from leaving. David smiled and patted her hand
comfortingly.
"There's nothing to worry about. The freak doesn't stand a chance against all of
us. Isn't that right, Arthur? Marc?"
Arthur smiled, and nodded vigorously. Marc turned and looked at them directly
for the first time. "We don't know for sure that the freak is the killer. We
have no hard evidence, one way or the other. The killer could be anyone. Perhaps
even one of us."
There was a long pause as that sank in, and then one by one the others began
looking round the room, their gaze lingering on some faces longer than others.
"After all," said Marc, "what do we really know about each other? Even the most
ordinary person can do terrible things, under the right conditions. People
you've known for years can become strangers in a moment, transfigured by a
single insight or a hidden motive. Who is there you can really trust, when you
come right down to it? Some days you can't even trust yourself."
"You have to trust someone," said Arthur. "And better a friend than a stranger.
Take yourself, for instance. We don't know a single thing about you, except for
what you've chosen to tell us. You could have all kinds of secrets, for all we
know."
"Oh, honestly, Arthur," said Katrina crushingly. "If Marc did have something to
hide, he wouldn't have brought up the subject in the first place, would he?
You'll have to excuse Arthur, Marc; his mouth tends to say things before his
brain can catch up. Anyway, I think you're barking up the wrong tree, dear. I've
known Jamie and David and Arthur for years, and they don't have a malicious bone
in their bodies."
"But Alistair, though; that's different. He claims to be just a distant cousin,
but he seems to know an awful lot about Family history. He knows things even I
didn't know."
"I wish the Guardian were here," said Holly. "I prayed for him to come."
"Yes dear, we know," said Katrina. "But you shouldn't take Family myths so
seriously. Most of them are just legends and fireside tales that have grown in
the telling."
"The freak turned out to be real," said Holly stubbornly. "So why not the
Guardian too?"
"Personally, I have to say I've got a few doubts about Richard," said David
thoughtfully. "He seems awfully full of himself, for a minor cousin from Lower
Markham. I didn't even know the Family had branches in that part of the world.
What about you, Marc? You ever run across either Richard or Isobel before?"
"Never," said Marc flatly. "Their arrival here was a complete surprise to me."
"Now, don't you dare start picking on Richard," said Katrina. "Just because he
comes from Lower Markham. We've always known that some parts of the Family have…
gone down in the world. And remember, he's one of the few people to stick by us,
even after he found out about the Secret."
"Yes," said David. "Interesting, that. Why should he and his sister be so loyal?
Why come all this way, with winter so close?"
"Presumably, he expects Duncan to make it worth his while in the will," said
Arthur.
"Could be," said David. "But that might not be his only motive."
"What other motive could he have?" said Katrina.
"Why don't we ask him?" suggested Marc.
"Yes," said David. "Why don't we?"
But just then Jamie strode forward into the middle of the room and called for
everyone's attention, and all conversation died quickly away.
"My friends, I regret to say it, but we can't simply barricade ourselves in here
and wait for the wards to go down tomorrow morning. We have a duty and an
obligation to find the freak and put an end to its miserable existence."
"But no one's been able to find the bricked-up room for centuries," objected
Katrina.
"I've been thinking about the problem," said Jamie, "And I've come up with an
idea. Based on certain comments and internal evidence in the notes my father
left, I'm pretty sure the freak's cell has some kind of window. Presumably not
very large, but enough to allow light to enter. So, I propose we make a tour of
the Tower, floor by floor, opening every window and hanging out a marker of some
kind, until we've covered them all. Then we go outside and take a look.
Whichever window remains unmarked has to be the freak's cell. Shouldn't be too
difficult to find the room, with that to point the way."
"It might just work," said Hawk. "It's simple and straightforward. I like it."
"Wait just a minute," said Fisher. "Did you say go outside the Tower? I thought
we were all trapped in here by the wards?"
"The wards do not become operative until some ten feet beyond the Tower," said
Jamie patiently. "And no, I don't know why. The wards themselves were designed
hundreds of years ago; I just raise and lower them, as and when needed. Now, if
there are no more questions, I think we should make a start."
"Obviously we can't all go," said Alistair. "The women will have to stay here,
and someone will have to remain with them, to protect them."
"Right," said Hawk. "And the smaller the search party, the better. No point in
risking anyone we don't have to. The freak could be out there anywhere, just
waiting for a chance at us. This has to be volunteers only, and people who can
look after themselves in a fight. I'll go, for one. Who's with me?"
"You do like to take charge, don't you, Richard?" said Jamie.
"Sorry," said Hawk. "I'm just… eager to make a start. But of course you're in
charge. You're the MacNeil."
"That's right," said Jamie. "I am. So I'll decide who goes and who stays. Since
you're so eager, Richard, you can be part of the group, along with Alistair and
myself. How about you, Arthur? Are you any good with a sword?"
"Not really," said Lord Arthur. "Sorry, Jamie, I'm not really up to heroics. But
I'll do my best to protect the ladies while you're gone."
"I'd better stay too," said David Brook. "There ought to be one person here who
knows one end of his sword from the other."
"I'll go with you, Jamie," said Marc. "I'm fairly proficient with a sword, and I
hate being cooped up."
"Mister Brennan and I will be happy to accompany you, sir," said Greaves,
stepping forward with the minstrel. Jamie smiled, but shook his head.
"No offense, but I think we'll make better time without you."
"As you wish," said Brennan flatly.
"Don't sulk, Robbie. It doesn't become you. I'd take you if I coul
d, but speed
is of the essence, and I think you'll be more useful here. In the meantime,
barricade the door behind us once we've gone. Make it sturdy enough to keep the
freak out but not so heavy you can't dismantle it fast if we need to get back in
here in a hurry. Well, no point in hanging about, is there? We might as well go.
Unless there's anything you want to add, Richard?"
"I don't think so, Jamie," said Hawk courteously. "You've covered everything I
can think of."
"Then let's go," said Alistair. "We've got a lot of ground to cover."
There was a quick murmur of goodbyes. Jamie took Holly in his arms, and she
hugged him hard for a moment before pushing him resolutely away. Hawk pulled the
chair away from the door, listened a moment, and then carefully eased the door
open. A quick glance up and down the corridor revealed nothing but familiar
furniture and the occasional shadow. Everything was still and silent. He stepped
out into the corridor, sword in hand, followed by Jamie and Alistair and Marc.
The door closed quickly behind them, and there was the sound of furniture being
piled against it.
Hawk looked at Jamie for orders, and Jamie hesitated a long moment before
nodding to the left. They set off down the corridor, alert for any sudden sound
or movement. Despite all that had taken place it was still early in the day, and
the corridor was bathed in bright golden sunlight. From out an open window Hawk
could hear gulls keening and the distant crash of waves on the rocks far below.
Jamie moved over to the window and draped one of the curtains so that it hung
out over the windowsill. They continued on down the corridor, swords at the
ready, keeping a careful eye on every door they passed. The quiet grew heavy and
oppressive, and Hawk's skin prickled uneasily. He hadn't liked breaking up the
group, but he could see Jamie was determined to have his way, so he'd gone along
with it. But he still didn't feel right about it.
The last time he'd been in a situation like this had been in the sorcerer
Gaunt's house. People had insisted on going off on their own, despite everything
Hawk and Fisher did to stop them. Most of them had died horribly. He was damned
if he'd let that happen again. But there were limits to what he could do in
Tower MacNeil; Jamie wasn't about to let him take control of the situation, no
matter what. Richard was a minor cousin from Lower Markham, and should
accordingly know his place and keep his mouth shut. Hawk smiled sourly. He'd
never been very good at that.
He hefted his sword unhappily as they walked along. With only the one eye left,
Hawk's depth perception was shot to hell, and his swordsmanship was only a
shadow of what it had once been. It didn't affect him so much with the axe. An
axe has many qualities and virtues all its own, but subtlety isn't one of them.
With an axe, as long as you can see your opponent, you can usually hit him. And
a man who's been hit with an axe does not grit his teeth and fight back, as
sometimes happens with a sword wound. A man hit solidly by an axe tends rather
more to being thrown to the ground with the impact, bleeding copiously and
screaming for his mother. Admittedly an axe isn't much use as a defensive
weapon, but Hawk never had believed in fighting defensively. He was much more
comfortable with an all-out attack, backed up by dirty tricks. Hawk looked
disgustedly at the narrow dueling sword in his hand. If it came to a fight, he'd
probably be better off throwing the damn thing like a spear.
He scowled, and then winced as a stab of pain flared up around his glass eye.
The damn things always made his face ache after a while. The last doctor he'd
seen had told him the pain was all in his mind, to which Hawk had angrily
retorted that it was all in the eye socket, and what was the doctor going to do
about it? The doctor had recommended a change to a less stressful occupation,
and presented Hawk with an inflated bill, which Hawk refused to pay.
The tour of the ground floor was accomplished without incident. The windows had
all been marked, and there was no sign of the freak anywhere. The large rooms,
designed for entertaining were easy to search, and the open, well-lit corridors
offered few hiding places. Jamie led the group up the curving stairs to the
first floor, which was mainly bedchambers and bathrooms. Everything was still
and quiet, the only sound their own echoing footsteps. Hawk felt like a child
sneaking through his parents' quarters while they were out.
The endless quiet and occasional false alarms began to gnaw at Hawk's nerves,
but he just shrugged it off and kept going. He had to set a good example to the
others, who were all starting to show signs of strain. Jamie was getting jumpy,
and showed an increasing tendency to check things twice or even three times
before he was satisfied. Alistair's scowl was deepening, and he'd taken to
hefting his sword impatiently, as though anxious for a confrontation. And Marc
had withdrawn so far into himself he seemed to be walking alone through the
empty corridors.
The rooms were lavishly appointed, and would have interested Hawk greatly under
different circumstances, but as it was, each gorgeously finished room blended
one into another as the tour continued. The first floor passed in a blur of
stairs to the second floor. Hawk began to wonder if they'd underestimated the
freak. They'd all been talking about him as though he were nothing more than an
animal, all instinct and ferocity, but that was wrong. The freak was a man, and
cunning enough to hide his dead victim in such a way that the body wasn't found
till hours after the murder. The more Hawk thought about that, the less he liked
it. It was more than possible they were doing exactly what the freak wanted:
wasting time trying to find his lair while he planned ways of attacking them… or
those they'd left behind…
The second floor consisted of servants' quarters; clean and fairly comfortable
but essentially nondescript. The only exceptions were Greaves's and Brennan's
rooms. The butler's room had a bleak simplicity that suggested he spent as
little time there as possible. Everything was neatly lined up and squared off as
though for inspection, and Hawk knew without having to be told that woe would
betide any maid who moved anything an inch out of place while dusting. Brennan's
quarters, on the other hand, were littered with a lifetime's collection of
keepsakes and souvenirs, most of them military in nature. There were daggers and
swords mounted on the walls, and trinkets and mementoes brought back from a
dozen campaigns. Hawk looked them over briefly, and frowned as he realized how
dated they were. It was as though Brennan's life had come to an abrupt halt when
he came to the Tower; that there was nothing from his new life worth the
keeping…
The third floor was storage; endless storerooms packed with the accumulated
clutter of generations of MacNeils. Few of the rooms had any windows beyond the
narrowest arrow-slits, but Jamie marked them as best he could, and they moved
&
nbsp; on.
They tramped wearily up the final set of stairs and stepped out onto the open
battlements. Hawk took a deep breath as the cold wind hit him, blowing away the
cobwebs of fatigue from his mind. The view was magnificent, from the dark
labyrinthine sprawl of Haven to the great jagged cliffs that surrounded it, to
the vast expanse of the open sea. Gulls hung on the sky far above them, keening
on the rising wind like lost souls banned from heaven or hell. Hawk felt he
could stand there forever, just drinking in the view.
Alistair stared about him with obvious nostalgia, while Jamie was predictably
blase, having seen it all before. Marc, on the other hand, looked once at the
sea and the cliffs, and turned away, apparently uninterested. And then he looked
out over Haven, and couldn't tear his gaze away. Hawk shrugged inwardly. No
accounting for taste.
Finally Jamie led them back down through the Tower to the ground floor. There
was still no sign of the freak anywhere, and Hawk could sense they were all
beginning to relax a little. The general feeling seemed to be that the freak
would have attacked them by now if he was going to. Hawk distrusted the feeling.
The freak was up to something, he was sure of it; something so obvious Hawk
couldn't see it for looking. It was as though the freak didn't care whether they
found his lair or not… which would seem to suggest he'd found a better place to
hide. Hawk scowled ferociously and chewed at his lower lip as Jamie led them
through the entrance hall and out the main door.
The gusting wind caught Hawk's attention again, and he looked around him. Even
after the unobscured view from the battlements, he'd still been half expecting
to see some shimmering mystical barrier cutting the Tower off from the rest of
the world, but everything seemed perfectly normal. The cliff edge stretched away
before him, and the wind ruffled the long grass on either side of the trail that
led back down to Haven. A sudden thought struck him. He only had Jamie's word
for it that the wards were actually there. If by some chance Jamie himself was
the spy's contact, what better way to draw attention away from himself and
Fenris than by concocting the story of the murderous freak? Or could Jamie be
Fenris? Either way, it would explain why the spy had headed straight for Tower