Fitzduane's Island, Ireland
May 29
Kathleen was in Boots's room in the Keep when she heard the faint cry, but at first did not know what to make of it and then dismissed it.
It was not repeated, and the mind sometimes played tricks in an old house when you were tired. A storm was raging outside and the wind off the sea whistled around the old stonework, and with such a backdrop, sometimes the cry of an owl or some other night creature sounded eerily human.
It was after midnight and all the guests had retired, so now she was going about the final business of the house, checking Boots. She enjoyed Boots and they had become very close. Asleep, he looked adorable. His bed was dry. He was well-covered. All was in order.
There was an unusual draft on the stairs, and the hangings over the double-glazed arrow slits blew in the breeze and the air was cold and chill. Methodically, she checked each of the slim windows, but all were closed. She had already checked the external doors, but she verified it again by looking at the security alarm repeater.
That left only the door to the fighting platform on the roof.
As she passed Fitzduane's room, she noticed his door was open and his room empty. A coil of fax papers lay on the floor by the doorway. She picked it up to put it somewhere where it would not be trodden on, and glanced at it as she did so. And her blood ran cold.
She read on. There was a handwritten note from Kilmara and it had clearly been sent immediately following a telephone conversation between the two men. It was a translation of a French police report, and photographs had been faxed with the text. The photographs had been transmitted at high resolution, and though they were in black and white and the quality was far from perfect, the essential details were all too apparent. Nausea swept over her and she felt bile rise in her throat. The papers fell from her hand, and she collapsed against the ancient oak doorway and retched.
Suddenly, the significance of that earlier cry hit home, and, near panic, she turned and ran up the worn stone stairs.
Thick heavy ice-cold rain driven by wind gusting over sixty miles an hour hit her as she emerged onto the fighting platform. Instantly, she was soaked and chilled to the bone, and temporarily blinded as her hair was driven across her eyes.
She had a sense of complete disorientation as the horror of what she had read combined with her fatigue and the violence of the storm.
She reeled backwards, confused and in shock, and then felt a violent blow against her lower back as she smashed into the battlements. A gust or rain-sodden wind hit her again and she scrabbled desperately for a handhold, suddenly conscious of where she was and the danger of being swept through the battlement crenellations to fall onto the rocks and heaving sea below.
The granite fortifications were ice cold and slippery to her hands, but she gained enough purchase to pull herself upright and regain her balance.
She swept her hair out of her eyes. She tried to shout for Fitzduane, but her cry was lost in the fury of the storm. Wind, sea, thunder, and rain combined in a terrifying cacophony.
The darkness was near absolute. Only a dim shaft of light from the stairway provided any illumination, and that was obscured by the rain and lost in the blackness of the night.
Fitzduane was there. He must be. This was where he liked to come to think, she knew, even in weather as vile as this. This is where he came to watch the sunrise and the sunsets and just to feel the force of the elements. Duncleeve and this wild land were deep in his blood.
She had asked him about it and he had tried to explain, but it was clear that words alone only hinted at what he felt.
"It's impossible to describe," he had said, with a slight smile. "I like the sheer aggression of the wind, violent and exhilarating at the same time, and the sting of the spray and smell of iodine from the sea, and the sense of being as one with all this incredible beautiful energy. And it's part of my childhood and part of what I am. And that is really all I can say."
He was an impossible man, with the spirit of an adventurer and the soul of a poet. And that was a terrifying combination in a world that was reckless with life.
But she loved him. Foolish and impossible though it was, she loved him. And that carried a burden. It was almost certainly futile, but she was responsible for this man. For the time she had, she would do what she could. Everything she could.
This is where he would come if he was deeply troubled, hurt, grieving, desperate... as he would be, because Christian de Guevain was dead and he was a friend and his death was horrible. Truly, a thing of horror.
And yet there was nothing.
The wind gusted again, this time from a different direction, and there was a crash as the door was blown shut.
Now the blackness of the night was absolute.
Kathleen went down on one knee, her head bowed, her fists clenched, as she fought panic and tried consciously to assess the situation.
It was ridiculous. She had no reason to be afraid, she told herself. Darkness in itself posed no danger, and she had been here literally dozens of times. It was not some strange cellar reeking of menace. This was no more than the flat roof, the fighting platform, of Fitzduane's Castle, and should be safe and familiar.
But she could not see. She was blind. And the storm was of an intensity that could blow her over the edge of the platform if she did not take care.
Sheer terror coursed through her as a hard, wet, snakelike body lashed at her and wrapped itself around her neck. She rose to her feet and her hands scrabbled at her throat as she fought to free herself.
A gust of wind found her and blew her backwards, and the grip on her throat tightened and she was choking.
Suddenly, her fingertips told her what her attacker was, and relief coursed through her a as she unwound the familiar rope. One end of the flagpole line had worked loose and, whipped by the wind, had caught her as she stood. Every morning, the Fitzduane standard was hoist over the castle, and every evening, at sunset, it was lowered. Boots loved the practice, and many times she had helped him with the rope. The texture was familiar, and now that she realized what it was, it was reassuring.
She could not see, but she could feel and she could think.
She used the rope to guide herself to the flagpole mounted in one corner of the platform. She could feel the painted wood of the pole and the metal of the lightning conductor that ran up one side. Now she could orient herself. Better yet, her fingers touched the casing of the external floodlight switches.
She pulled the handles down one after another, neither remembering nor caring which was the right switch for the roof alone, and the mind-numbing blackness was erased as if a curtain had been whipped aside, and within seconds the whole castle was lit up. The battlements were silhouetted. The courtyard below was a pool of light.
It was a sight from the ancient myths. The sheets of gusting rain twisting and turning made the glowing castle seem to float and shimmer. It was unreal, something from a dream.
Fitzduane stood on the other side of the platform, blinking in the sudden light as if woken from a daze. He was wearing only indoor clothing and was completely soaked.
Kathleen ran across to him and took him in her arms. His body was trembling and icy cold, and on his face was a look of utter despair.
She felt strong and certain. She had seen this man come from the edge of death through weeks of pain, and he had always endured with courage. Never before had there been even a hint of despair. But now he had been pushed beyond endurance and he needed help as never before. And she was there.
She led him off the platform and closed the heavy door behind her, and the violence of the storm was immediately muted.
She took him to his bedroom below and stripped off their clothes and stood with him in a hot shower, holding him as some warmth came back into their bodies. Then she put him into bed and lit a log fire in the old stone fireplace and soon the room was warm. But still he trembled, despite the heat of the room and the comforting weight of the bedclothes. And naked she took him into her arms and held his face to her breasts as if he were a young child. And he cried. And Kathleen cried with him until they slept.