“I don’t know.” He barely glanced at the items before them, showing no sign that he recognized either one. “After he turned into a wolf and threw the second vampire out my bedroom window, I asked him to tell me what he was and how he came to be here, and he left the castle rather than give me an answer.”
“The second vampire?” Now he looked alarmed. “What was his name? What did he look like?”
“We were not properly introduced,” she answered. “As for what he looked like, I fear it would be easier to tell you what he didn’t. First he looked like Simon. Then when Simon himself appeared, he turned into another older, kindly-looking man who was a stranger to me but whom Simon seemed to know well. Then he changed into another man I believe was a brigand knight named Michel.” She glanced at Brautus. “Then for a moment, he was my father. At the end, he turned into a dog. So I truly couldn’t tell you who he was.”
“Kivar,” Orlando murmured, going pale.
“Simon said that word as well,” she said, remembering. “Is that this creature’s name?” She waited, but the wizard did not answer. “Orlando?”
“You should ask Simon,” he said grimly. “You should never have sent him away.”
“I didn’t send him away,” she answered.
“I did,” Brautus said. “Why should I not have done it? Is he not a vampire?”
“You say that word as if you know its meaning,” Orlando answered Brautus. He turned to Isabel. “Do you know, my lady?”
“I did not before last night.” She picked up the cross, remembering how happy she had been even in her fear when Simon left her for the chapel with the others, remembering the tears of blood that he had wept in her room. “I wish I did not now.” She saw pity in the wizard’s eyes, but he said nothing. “Orlando, is Simon my kinsman?”
He looked at her blandly, his face a perfect mask. “He said he was, my lady,” he answered. “I can only choose to believe him.”
“Aye,” Brautus said as a knock came on the door. “And we can choose not to.” He opened it, and Glynnis came in, carrying a tray of food.
“You should eat, my lady,” she said, watching the wizard as she set it on the desk between them. “And we thought Master Orlando might be hungry, too.”
“Thank you, Glynnis.” She filled a trencher for the wizard and set it before him, but he didn’t touch it, watching for her to start instead. “Orlando, good heavens,” she said, taking a bite of bread that tasted like sawdust in her mouth, so little did she want it. “What have I ever done to make you believe I could poison you?”
“Nothing, my lady,” he said after a moment. “Forgive me.” He began to eat as Glynnis left.
“This purse was found on the dead woman we thought was killed by the wolf,” she said, pushing her own food away. “I saw Simon change into a wolf last night. I can’t help but notice how much this resembles your other purses and bags.” He kept eating, never even glancing up. “Is it yours?” she persisted. “Did Simon… ?” The question stuck in her throat, but somehow she made it come out. “Did Simon murder that woman?”
“You know him, Lady Isabel,” he answered, his brown eyes meeting her green ones. “What do you think?”
“I want to think he did not, that he could not do such a thing,” she answered. “But I can’t forget what I saw.” He looked away. “Orlando, I understand your wanting to protect Simon,” she began again. “But you must understand that I must protect Charmot. I am sworn to it.”
He smiled his bland little smile. “And I am sworn to my master.” Brautus snorted in obvious disgust, but she remembered the words Orlando had spoken to her in this room on his first morning at Charmot. Simon is my only hope, my warrior and my salvation, he had told her. My soul is in his hands. How could she expect him to betray him? “What do you wish me to tell you?”
“Ah, now that’s an easy one,” Brautus answered for her. “Tell her how to kill him.”
“I don’t think he has to tell me that,” Isabel said. “I think I already know.” Orlando looked at him, surprised. “Sunlight,” she said. “Is that true, Orlando?” Simon had three vows that she knew of—to avoid human contact, to never eat food, and to never see the sun. The first he had broken with her fairly regularly from the first day he had arrived. The second had already been explained—as a vampire he fed on the blood of the living. But why avoid the sun? Mother Bess had said the druid gods had cursed the wolf, banishing him to darkness. “Is this why Simon can never go out in daylight?” But Orlando only smiled at her as if he hadn’t heard. She thought perhaps he looked a little paler, and he had stopped eating his breakfast. But she couldn’t be certain, and she couldn’t afford not to be. “I don’t want to hurt Simon,” she said, standing up. “But I can’t let this other demon hurt Charmot. Orlando, I want to save him, but…” Tears rose in her eyes, and she turned away, staring hard at her father’s books to keep from breaking down. That was when she saw it.
“You have to help me, Orlando.” She took the bottle from the shelf, the ruby red bottle that felt so cold to the touch. He had told her it was deadly poison, all but snatching it out of her reach. “If you don’t, I will open this and empty out whatever is inside.” She turned to find him still smiling, if anything more broadly than before. “Outside in the courtyard,” she continued. This time she was sure he had gone pale, and his smile disappeared. “In the noonday sun.”
“No!” He leapt to his feet. “Give it to me!” He tried to rush forward, but Brautus held him back. “Please, my lady, you must not.”
“Then you must help me.” He seemed so desperate, she felt horrible. It was not in her nature to threaten or torture anyone, even at such need. But he’d given her no better choice. “Will sunlight kill Simon?”
“Yes,” he admitted, near tears. “But as my god or yours may judge me if I lie, you need not fear him, my lady.”
“And why should she not?” Brautus demanded. “Because he is her kinsman?”
“No,” the wizard answered. “Because he is truly not a demon, for all he is a vampire.” He looked up at Isabel with pleading in his eyes, so powerful she felt near to weeping herself. “He would say I am a fool, but I swear on the treasure you hold that is more dear to me than life, he is just what he has always told you, a good man under a curse.”
“Orlando, I saw him,” she answered, wanting desperately to believe him. “I saw his fangs. I saw him turn into a wolf.”
“Only to protect you,” he insisted. “It is Kivar that you should fear, not Simon. It is Kivar who will take down this castle stone by stone to find the prize he seeks. Only Simon can protect you. Only he can destroy Kivar forever.”
“Why should I believe you?” Simon had tried to protect her from this Kivar; he had done everything she had ever asked to try to protect Charmot. But what of her mother’s prophecy?