He renewed his grip and put his bare feet to the cold, gritty stones of the wall. With agony chasing each increment of ascent, he climbed. As he topped the edge, his hands began to slip. “I can’t hold on…”
Isidora caught the clothing at the scruff of his neck and pulled until she fell backward and Lucien landed on top of her, his face resting cozily on her bosom. For a moment neither of them moved.
Oh, God. What a time and place for such a happen-stance. She had revived him with her basket of fruit. Only too well. She smelled clean. Like freedom. Like a woman. For one delirious, beastly instant he nearly moved against her. But even if he stank, he wasn’t an animal. Not yet.
“Lucien!” She shook him as best she could. “Get up!”
He opened one eye. Of course, he had almost forgotten. She had made it clear that she wanted no part of him. He eased himself off of her and immediately wished he could lie down again.
“Oh, Isidora. I’m going to be sick.”
“Not now. We have to go.”
Taking command of himself, Lucien agreed. “All right.” He grimaced and sat clutching his stomach.
“Here, put this on.” She unfolded a garment from the bag she carried and helped him pull it over his head.
“Oh, my God.” His hands smoothed the red cross sewn over the breast of the white surcoat. “Templar’s garb? Where did you get this?”
“It is my father’s.” She hurriedly scrubbed at his face with the cloth from the basket.
“But—”
“There is no time, sir! Just do as I bid you!”
He stumbled and lurched down the corridor, sucking on the lemon as he went.
“Sir Lucien, you will have to straighten up and walk properly. If anyone sees us, keep going, as if your business is done. If they question you, just freeze them with an arrogant gaze—you are quite good at that. I will follow behind you, as a servant might. Now go left, then take the first right turning and then right again, and I will show you the passage.”
The merest breath of air announced a side opening. With that hint of freshness, for the first time, Lucien began to believe this scheme might actually work. He forced himself straighter, composing his face into what had once been a habitually haughty expression, as Isidora had so kindly pointed out. But no more.
“How know you this way, Isidora?”
“Shh! I am privy to a few things worth knowing.”
Lucien’s mind churned. The Templars had more secrets than the Pope had ducats. So a hidden passage was not surprising. But her father, Deogal the Learned, his teacher of the arts of alchemy—was a Templar? An ex-Templar, no doubt. All that mattered now, Lucien thought, was that he had a chance to see the full light of day once again.
“Where are we going?”
“Your place is arranged on a ship to Cyprus, then to England, once you are out of here.”
He paused in astonishment and turned around to face her. The expense should have been far beyond her means. “How?”
She gave him a shove. “Never mind! Just go! Get as far away from FitzMalheury as you can.”
“What about you? I think I have proven myself worthless to him, but you—”
“I am staying here with Father.”
A lump formed in Lucien’s throat. “I will send you compensation, Isidora, as soon as I may. But I do not want to leave—”
“You must. Your family is powerful. They can help you. Father is not well. There is nothing left for you here.”
Lucien came to a halt and caught her hand. It was compact but strong, her skin soft except where her pens and brushes had calloused her fingers. “How so?”
She pleaded with her dark eyes. “Lucien, what does it matter? I can help you, now, in this moment only. You can do nothing to help him, ever. So go while you can. It is what he wants. It is what he commands.”
Nothing? Ever? A command to go? With the bitter finality of those words, all Lucien’s other troubles faded. His studies under his beloved master were at an end, just when he might be close to the knowledge he sought…to the cure he sought…for the agony he had caused his mother…for the agony inflicted upon her long-lost daughter, his own beloved twin, Estelle. He had failed to protect her, just as he had failed to protect Palban—though at least Brus had gone home with both legs intact.
There had to be a way to find the Elixir, even if it meant struggling on his own the rest of his life. Or so he still hoped. Slowly he let go of Isidora’s slim fingers and returned to trudging up the corridor.
Chapter Five
Wales
Saint Crispin’s Day
October, 1202
“B y the Rood, you don’t much resemble an excommunicated outlaw to me.” Lucien raised an eyebrow at his friend, Raymond de Beauchamp, who sat by the central fire with a contented, plump baby in his lap.
“Nor do you look much like an overeducated horse’s arse to me, Lucien, though we both know it to be God’s honest truth,” Raymond said agreeably, and planted a kiss on the baby’s head.
Raymond’s squire, Wace du Hautepont, sat cross-legged on the floor beside him, mending arrow fletches. At his master’s remark, the young man looked up from his task and grinned at Lucien. The lad had filled out and looked like a grown man, nearly ready to become a knight. Lucien grinned back at him.
“Well, I must admit, fatherhood has sweetened your temper, Raymond. Has it not, Ceridwen?”
Raymond’s lady paused in her refilling of Lucien’s bowl of mead and glanced fondly at her husband. “Indeed it has not. But who says his temper ever needed sweetening?”
At Raymond’s resultant growl of laughter, Lucien looked heavenward in mock supplication. “The pair of you make me positively ill. Such a rogue does not deserve your devotion, Ceridwen, nor your defense. As I have said before, Raymond, you are a lucky man.”
“Aye, I know it full well, Lucien. Here, hold Owain while I show this wench my gratitude.” Raymond stuffed the child into Lucien’s arms and caught Ceridwen, neatly turning so that his body shielded her from view.
Lucien, quite unused to infants, peered into the baby’s round blue eyes. The child’s soft weight was unexpectedly satisfying. Black curls—obviously Ceridwen’s contribution, since Raymond was blond—peeked out from the tiny linen coif he wore, and his cheeks were round and red.
The wee thing chortled, grabbed fistfuls of Lucien’s hair and yanked. “Oy! What have you taught him to do?”
“Eh?” Raymond released a breathless, blushing Ceridwen, who came to Lucien’s rescue.
“He ever escapes his swaddling.” She swept up Owain with expert confidence and recontained him in his wrapping.
Raymond sat in his chair once again and placed Lucien’s mazer back into his hands. “So, Lucien, when are you going to follow in my footsteps?”
“Steal Ceridwen away from you, you mean?”
“Nay,” Raymond said gently. “When will you give up this dry path of…of metallurgic sorcery you have chosen and attend to the stuff of life? Alchemy is for old men, Lucien, who have nothing else to do—or lose. You have lands to defend, crops to grow, and it is high time you took a wife.”
Lucien sighed. His bitter disappointment in his ongoing alchemical failures since returning from the Holy Land ran deep. It had been nearly five years. Knowledge