His heart was beating hard, strong strokes. "Yes, so it seems. Keep reading, Rosalind , there aren't many more pages."
There came a night when Blood Rock heaved and groaned and spewed rock and dirt high into the sky. Flames speared into the moonless black sky, the three bloodred moons inexplicably gone from the heavens. I heard screaming and shrieks, like demons from the deepest pits of Hell. The wizards and witches? Or the other creatures I didn't know about? Rocks tumbled down the steep sides of Mount Oly-van. I could not hear them crash at the bottom, and I feared for a moment that there was no longer a bottom, no longer a valley below. I ran to the ramparts and prepared to face my death. But I didn't die, Blood Rock did not tumble down Mount Olyvan. As suddenly as the cataclysm had begun, it ended. It was still, utterly still, as if the air itself were afraid to stir.
I didn't want to remain here and so I sent a silent plea to Taranis, the Dragon of the Sallas Pond who'd carried me to
Blood Rock, and soon he came, swooping down gracefully onto the ramparts. No wizards or witches came to bid me farewell, indeed I hadn't seen a single one after the upheaval that had shaken the bowels of the fortress. My bowels as well. Had they all died?
Taranis lifted his mighty body gracefully from the ground and winged away from Mount Olyvan. When I looked back, everything seemed as it had been. I wondered yet again at all their Celtic god and goddess names, for none of them ever seemed to worship anything at all—and at Taranis the Dragon of the Sallas Pond, who was named after the Celtic god of thunder, the god who demanded human sacrifices. Had Taranis caused the mayhem on Mount Olyvan? He was immortal, he'd told me, unlike those bedeviling wizards and malignant witches in Blood Rock. I asked him if the wizards and witches had survived. Taranis told me the creatures of Blood Rock were cowering within their individual enchantments, a cowardly lot. I wanted to ask him about my son, if he had indeed been born of Epona's body, if indeed he had ever existed, but Taranis chose that moment to dive straight toward the earth and I lost what few wits were in my head, and my bowels were again in question.
She looked up again. "Sarimund is occasionally amusing in this account. It's completely different from the other. I wonder what really happened? Or if any of it happened at all."
"Perhaps the Blood Rock wizards and witches unleashed all their powers."
"Unleashed their powers on what? The fortress? The mountain itself? On each other?"
"I don't know."
"I wonder if Sarimund "ever found out what happened. Perhaps there is a third thin volume somewhere. Oh, dear, do you think his son survived? Epona's son? Was he even born yet? This is very frustrating, Nicholas."
"Read the final pages, Rosalind."
She tried to turn the page, but it was stuck. It wouldn't part. She looked at her husband, saw he was frowning at that page. "Drat, Nicholas, I cannot turn the page. It seems stuck together with the last page. Remember with the other Rules of the Pale, I simply couldn't read the code on the final pages. With this little one, the bloody pages refuse to come free. I really would like to hurl this across the library."
Was that a rustling sound she suddenly heard?
There was a knock on the library door.
Nicholas looked ready to curse. Rosalind quickly got to her feet. "Let's see what's happening now."
It was Peter Pritchard, his young face haggard, his pale eyes ringed with shadows, his dark hair standing on end. His clothes, however, looked freshly pressed and his boots were polished. Behind him stood six women and four men in the vast entrance hall, all waiting, Peter told them, to be convinced by Nicholas to come to work at Wyverly, which was surely an opportunity only a dolt would deny—just imagine, a lifetime of tales to whisper about in front of winter fires.
"Give us a moment, Peter," Nicholas told him and shut the library door in his face. He'd forgotten. He didn't want to deal with convincing a bunch of villagers to work at Wyverly, and Rosalind saw it. She also saw his mouth, ah, his mouth, when he'd kissed her, when he'd caressed her with his mouth. She shivered, remembering how when she'd awakened, he was gone, and she wanted to howl. As she stretched sore muscles she hadn't been aware of even having, she thought about burrowing against him in her sleep, and waking to kiss him, letting him—well, she'd kissed him at the breakfast table, in a small, really quite lovely room with huge windows that gave onto the front drive, kissed him until Marigold had staggered into the room balancing heavy silver-domed trays on her arms. She'd stopped in her tracks and stared and stared, then grinned from ear to ear.
And after breakfast, when Rosalind had thought perhaps Nicholas would carry her up to his boyhood bedchamber, he hadn't. He'd brought her to the library and handed her the thin leather book. She knew this was vital, she knew it, but still—
She smiled at him now, tossed him the thin volume. "Why don't you slip out into the gardens, Nicholas, and think about this. See if you can free those final pages. Did you notice there are no more rules? Yes, you go to the gardens. Since I am the Wyverly mistress, it is only right that I deal with hiring our staff." She patted his arm. "I am very good at convincing people to do what I want."
He looked down at the book, opened his mouth, but she lightly placed her fingertips against his lips.
"The book has been hare for a very long time. It isn't going to fly out the window. Try to get the last page unstuck, though I don't hold much hope. Now, let me see what I can do. We need to get Wyverly back to its former glory. Ah, there was former glory, wasn't there?"
"There was until my father became ill, actually faced his own mortality and realized the house and lands would come to me. He moved his family to London and left everything here to rot. Not all that long ago, thank God. I was very lucky Peter Pritchard was available."
"I'm sorry, Nicholas. What a wretched old wart your father was. I wish he were here so I could punch him in the nose."
He laughed, bent down and gave her a hard, violent kiss, and took himself out of the glass doors into a small overgrown garden. He heard animals scurrying about in the underbrush. He called out over his shoulder, "We need gardeners."
She opened the library door and ushered Peter in. "Peter," she said, turning to face him, "I think I should like to speak to all of them at once. I trust you have ensured that none are ripe to steal the silver?"
"The old earl told my father, who told me, that Nicholas once stole three silver spoons forged during the time of Queen Bess so he could sell them in Grantham and buy himself a pony. The old earl, my father told me, thought it was very well done of him. The pony was treated like a prince here at Wyverly Chase. Indeed, he still resides in the stables, content to be brushed and fed carrots." Peter paused, slapped himself, and said, "I'm sorry but that has not
hing to do with the matter at hand. As best I can ascertain, we have no thieves in this bunch."
"All right, Peter, bring in our people."
"They're not ours yet, my lady, and I doubt—"
She merely shook her head at him. When they were all lined up in front of her, many looking frankly alarmed to be in the old earl's library, the rumored seat of all ghostly occurrences, several of the men trying to sneer away their fear, Rosalind smiled at each of them in turn, and said, "I am Lady Mountjoy. My husband and I are newly arrived at Wyverly Chase." She leaned closer. "Let me tell you all truthfully—I played chess with the old earl's ghost last evening, and do you know what? I beat him every time. He grumbled and threw several chess pieces across the library, but all in all, he took it well."