“I do eat some things, my lady,” Simon said, trying not to smile. “But never meat, and never in company.” He had trained himself long ago to not mind the smell of mortal food, though in truth the sight of eating still made him feel rather queasy. “I do not wish to keep you from your supper,” he hastened to assure her. “Please, sit down—”
“No,” Isabel cut him off, her irritation growing stronger. She had thought she’d missed having a nobleman in the castle, but now that she had one, she wasn’t quite so certain. Half a moment through the door, and this Simon was already graciously inviting her to sup at her own table as if it were all up to him. “In truth, I am not hungry.”
“You need not fast on my account,” Simon protested.
“In faith, I do not.” Innocent she might be, Simon thought, but this was no simpering child. The cold intelligence he had first heard from the battlements had returned full force to her tone, and a spark of temper flashed in her eyes, quite at odds with her delicate appearance. “Hannah,” she said, stopping a serving woman. “Set a place for Master Orlando and see he has his fill. My cousin will join me in the solar.”
“Wait, my lord,” Orlando protested, alarmed. “I must stay with you.”
“You need not fear me, master wizard,” Isabel said, amused in spite of herself. The dwarf seemed in a proper panic. “I will not feed him honey cakes as soon as your back is turned.”
“It isn’t that, my lady,” Simon said. “Orlando is sworn to assist me in my quest, and he knows much of my visions—”
“More than you know of them yourself?” she interrupted, turning to him with wide, innocent eyes.
Her challenge was unmistakable. “No, cousin,” Simon answered, meeting Orlando’s eyes over her shoulder. Their best hope for success in this deception was to win this lady’s trust, and with it access to the catacombs the priest had spoken of. The wizard nodded slightly. “Of course I will speak with you alone.”
“Is he your keeper, then?” Isabel asked as they mounted the stairs and Orlando went to the table.
“No, he is not,” Simon answered. “But I think sometimes he forgets.”
He followed her to the solar, a surprisingly spartan room compared to the cozy hall. A servant had come with them to start a fire in the hearth, but the chill would be stubborn with the stone walls bare of any hangings. Two heavy chairs and a weaver’s loom were the only furnishings, and these were covered in dust.
“We have little use for this room since my father died,” Isabel explained, wiping off a chair. “But we can speak privately here. The hall is full of eager ears, and we have had a rather trying day.”
“Most great halls are, I’ve noticed,” Simon agreed. “But why has your day been so trying?”
“You saw the Black Knight, did you not?” she said with a strange little smile. “Would you not call him worrisome?”
“Indeed.” He looked at the half-finished tapestry on the loom. “This is nice.” It depicted a maiden in a forest, taming a beast—a popular subject for the past hundred years. But this maiden’s hair was red, not gold, and the beast that rested its head on her lap was not a unicorn but a wolf. “Did you weave it?”
“Me? No,” Isabel said with a laugh. “My mother was the weaver, not me. I have no talent for it.”
“Your mother is dead as well?” Simon said, coming to join her.
“She died the same day I was born.” She heard pity in his tone, and she would not bear it, not
from a stranger, kinsman or not. Your pride will be your downfall, lady, Father Colin was fond of telling her. He was probably right. But she was her father’s daughter, the lady of Charmot. She would not be pitied. “I did not know her,” she said coldly.
“Then I am more sorry yet,” Simon answered, sitting down.
“Why?” she asked him with a brittle smile. “What is it to you?” She stared into the flames on the hearth, purposely looking away. In this brighter light, he seemed even more beautiful than he had in the courtyard, his skin more perfect and pale. She had read of saints whose godly habits gave them an angel’s appearance. But what did she need with a saint? “Tell me of your vision, cousin,” she said aloud, still watching the fire. “What did you want from my father?”
“Better you should tell me, cousin,” he answered. “Who is this Black Knight?”
“Why?” she asked again, turning to him. “What will you do to rid me of him? Pray him away?” For a moment, he saw fear behind the temper in her eyes, then her expression softened. “He let you pass; that is enough.”
“Is it?” Simon said as she turned away again. For the first time in a decade, he felt something he had thought was gone, a sympathy deeper than a monster’s useless pity. This Isabel was brave and pretty; she could pretend to be heartless and cold. But inside she was frightened; he could sense it—frightened nearly to despair. If he had still been the man he was once, he wouldn’t have been able to help himself; he would have put his arms around her and promised her the moon and stars to make her smile. But he wasn’t that man anymore. He was a vampire. He had no protection to offer her, only a threat more terrible than she could guess, much worse than whatever might be threatening her now.
“Perhaps it was your holiness he feared,” she said with the slightest touch of sarcasm, interrupting his thoughts. “As I told you from the battlements, they say he is a demon loosed from hell.”
“And well I might believe it, having seen him.” She looked back to find him watching her, his deep brown eyes seeming to penetrate her soul.
“But he has never tried to hurt me, or anyone else at Charmot,” she went on. “He only comes when a stranger appears—you and your Orlando are the first to pass through our gates since my father died, ten years ago and more.”
“Ten years?” Simon repeated, surprised. Father Colin had spoken of Sir Gabriel as if he might have been alive; it had never occurred to Simon to think he might have been dead so long.
“Yes,” Isabel nodded, getting out of her chair, the walls too close around her suddenly, as if the tiny room were shrinking. “And he never spoke of you at all, my lord, never mentioned our having any kin, in Ireland or anywhere else.” She turned back to him. “I assumed I was alone.”