Chalice of Roses
Chalice of Roses
In stores now!
NAL Trade paperback
January 2010
ISBN-10: 0451229029
Excerpt
Chapter 1
Scotland, May 1941
Jane Macrae’s heart was in the Highlands. Unfortunately, her weary body was on a crowded wartime train crawling its way north from Edinburgh. She woke from a restless, unsatisfying doze to find that the young soldier snoring next to her had a hand resting on her thigh. It was the most fun she’d had in months.
She removed his hand, grateful that she had chosen to look “fast” by wearing trousers. These last horrible months in London during the Blitz had made her a dedicated trouser wearer. So much more convenient when running to an air raid shelter or pulling survivors from collapsed buildings, as she’d done twice.
Jane was good at finding people in the rubble. If she tired of working for military intelligence, perhaps she’d join one of the rescue services.
She glanced at the window, wishing she could see the Scottish hills beyond. Railway blackout regulations required blinds over windows and painting all the light bulbs blue. The effect was eerie, to say the least. But soon she’d be home.
Closing her eyes again, she tried to find a more comfortable spot on a deeply uncomfortable seat. She was one of the few civilians on the poky train. Most of the passengers were soldiers, sailors, and airmen heading north to serve at some of Scotland’s many military installations. The young, earnest, and doomed. Damn Hitler!
Jane’s work had kept her in London for these last crazy months, and on the whole, she’d coped reasonably well with the constant threat of German bombing. But two days before, she’d been hit by a fierce need to head home to Scotland. The pure, calm energy of her family estate at Dunrath would clear her mind.
Macraes had lived at Dunrath since before the family was called Macrae. The glen had been a grand place to grow up, and not only because it had the best weather in Scotland. As the youngest of a large family, she’d been teased and indulged and taught. Those had been golden days between the wars, though she’d been too young to fully appreciate them. Such times were gone forever. But the peace of Dunrath endured, and it was calling her home.
Though the distance between Edinburgh and Dunrath wasn’t that great, the train was a slow one that halted at every tiny station in the empty hills. She kept track of them, since name signboards had been removed from most stations. It would be easy to get off in the wrong place.
Her compartment cleared out two stops before hers since that station was a transfer point. Already the peace was getting into her bones and unwinding her tension and grief. She yawned. Only an hour or so more…
Jane woke when the train lurched to a halt at the next station. This was remote moorland, with only a sprinkling of crofts and villages. She was settling down again when the door to her compartment opened and a wild-eyed lunatic surged onto the train.
Not a lunatic—a pilot. She would have known that even if the stranger wasn’t wearing a leather flying jacket like hers. Near thirty, she guessed. He was tall and tawny and fit, with a pilot’s quickness and the confidence that can seem arrogant.
But what caught Jane’s attention and brought her sharply awake was his aura. Magic blazed around him like a city in flames.
The pilot’s fevered gaze swept the compartment and locked onto Jane. Two steps brought him to her seat. “You must come with me now!” he said in a North American accent as he loomed over her. “It’s…it’s life and death.”
She jerked awake. A wise woman didn’t go off with a complete stranger, particularly one who was half crazed. Though her Guardian powers meant she had little to fear from the average man, this man wasn’t average.
But Guardians were sworn to serve, and the pilot was in need. As Jane hesitated, a flash of intuition told her that this madman was the reason she’d felt such a compulsion to return to Scotland.
"Please!” he said tautly. “Before the train leaves!”
Making a swift decision, Jane said, “Lead on.” She rose, swept her rucksack onto her shoulder, and followed the pilot into the night.
This late, no one was on duty at the tiny station. Nor were there lights or identification signs. But the familiar shapes of the hills told her she was at Glenberrie, the station before Dunrath. She knew the place well.
Jane almost fell as she stepped onto the platform in the dark. A hard male hand caught her arm. Power flared between her and the pilot with lightning ferocity. She felt seared…and in some strange, unfathomable way, bound to him.
As the train rumbled into motion, rattling the platform, Jane jerked her arm away, breaking the unwelcome connection. “What are you? And what the devil do you want?”
The fitful moonlight revealed the pilot’s face. He was as stunned as she. “I…I don’t know.” He rubbed his temple, expression baffled. “I just knew that I had to find someone, and that someone turned out to be you.”
Frowning, Jane studied him with mage vision. The hot reds of his aura had turned spiky and uncontrolled. She guessed he was unused to being a focus of magic, and didn’t know how to handle it. So where had the power come from? As it dimmed, she guessed that the pilot had exhausted his strength searching for her and was now near collapse.
Wondering what she’d got herself into, she said more calmly, “Tell me who you are and what has brought you here.”
He swayed on his feet. “You’ll think I’m barking mad.”
“It takes a lot to surprise me.” She examined his face in the fitful moonlight. He was a handsome devil. She guessed that a naturally buoyant disposition had been tempered by war. “It’s obvious you’re a pilot. What is your name?”
“David Sinclair.” The words dragged as if saying his name was an effort.
“My name is Jane Macrae,” she offered in return. “Your accent isn’t British. American?”
“Canadian. From near Halifax.” His voice eased a little as he mentioned his home. “You guessed right, I’m a fighter pilot with the RAF.”
“So is one of my brothers,” she said, feeling the familiar tightness around her heart at the knowledge of how dangerous a pilot’s life was. “Squadron Leader Jamie Macrae. Do you know him?”
“You’re Jamie Macrae’s sister?” His eyes narrowed, as if he was looking for a resemblance in the dark. “I’ve met him a few times. His reputation is well known.”
“Jamie has been lucky so far.” She prayed that would continue. Not like Philip.
“It isn’t just luck. As pilots get more experience, we get a lot harder to shoot down,” Sinclair said. “Did he give you the flying jacket?”
“No,” she said shortly. “You look ready to crash and burn. Do you have a car?”
He produced a key from his pocket. “Morris Minor. Car park.”
She took the key. “We need to find someplace quiet where we can talk and find out what is so urgent. And I need to feed you up, too.”
“How did you know I’m starving?” he said with some surprise.
Because high intensity magic burned energy like tinder in a bonfire. Going for a simpler explanation, she said only, “An educated guess.”
“But there’s no time to waste! We need to…” His voice faded into bafflement.
“Nothing will be accomplished until you’re in better shape.” She took his arm, forcing herself to control her vivid response to him. He leaned on her heavily as she led him to the steps at the end of the platform. At this hour, there was no one on duty in this isolated station. Rural Scotland closed down early, and there were no towns nearby.
The steps that led from the platform to the ground had a railing, so she was able to get Sinclair down without either of them falling. The Morris Minor sat in the car park in lonely, lumpy splendor, slewed at an angle that suggested Sinclair had been driving fast and probably recklessly.
He hadn’t locked the doors, not that he needed to here. Jane opened the passenger door and handed him in.
“Wait,” he protested. “This isn’t the driver’s side. Not like at home.”
“You’re in no fit condition to drive.” She closed the door and circled to the driver’s seat. The fact that Sinclair didn’t argue proved he was near collapse. In Jane’s experience, only a half dead pilot would allow anyone else behind the wheel of a car.
The Morris Minor was old and worn, but well maintained. As she pulled the choke, then turned the key in the ignition, she asked, “What is your rank? I’m guessing at least squadron leader, and perhaps wing commander.”
“You’re good,” he muttered. “Wing Commander. Where are we going?”
She considered taking him home to Dunrath, but it was too far. On the narrow, winding roads and driving at blackout speeds, they wouldn’t get there until the next morning. Luckily, there was a good alternative. “My family owns a small croft near here. Macraes go there when in dire need of peace and quiet.”
“Sounds good.” He slumped into the seat—no small feat given his height and the confined quarters of the Morris—and went to sleep. Finding her seemed to have relieved him of his frantic urgency, at least for now.
Jane pulled away from the station, driving cautiously. Blackout regulations required headlights to be covered except for three small slits which gave barely enough light to travel. At the beginning of the blackout, only sidelights could be used, and there were masses of traffic accidents. Since British drivers had been inflicting more harm on Britons than the Nazis were, the regulations had been loosened a little.
She hadn’t driven this route since before the war, and the narrow road required serious concentration even then. By the time she reached the small stone croft halfway up a mountain, she was almost as drained as her mad wing commander.
She parked and climbed out, then lifted the key from under a stone and unlocked the door. Inside, she checked that the blackout curtains were closed before lighting two lamps. She enhanced the flames with mage light since she liked a bright room, then returned to the car.
Opening the passenger door, she said firmly, “Come along, Wing Commander. I’m not strong enough to carry you inside.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Sinclair swung his long legs out of the Morris and managed to stand, but he might not have made it further without her help. The blasted man was heavy, and the next thing to unconscious.
The croft house consisted of a long sitting room with a kitchen at one end and a bedroom at the other. Jane had always loved the simplicity of the ancient building and the welcoming warmth of the old furniture and carpets. She hoped it helped the pilot.
Jane guided Sinclair into a Windsor chair by the kitchen table. He sat down and promptly crossed his arms on the table so he could rest his head on them.
She found herself tempted to brush her fingers through his fair, tangled hair. Turning away, she wondered where that impulse had come from.
After lighting the peat stove, she surveyed the small pantry. Macrae family policy was to keep the croft well supplied, and whoever had visited last hadn’t failed her. What would restore the pilot’s energy best? Ah, tins of beef stew.
She opened all three tins and poured the contents into a sauce pan, then pumped water to fill the kettle and set it to heat. This was definitely an occasion that called for a bracing cup of tea.
While the stew and kettle heated on the stove, she foraged further and found crackers and a box of McVitie’s chocolate digestive biscuits. A feast under the circumstances.
When the stew was warm, she poured half of it into a shallow bowl and set it in front of the Canadian, along with crackers. “Eat,” she ordered. “I’ll make tea.”
He fell on the stew as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. By the time she’d finished her own more modest portion, his bowl was empty, so she gave him the rest of the stew. As he finished it off, she poured two mugs of tea and set them out with honey and a plate of chocolate digestives. “Is your brain working yet?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you.” His voice was much stronger now. “My mother would sneer at canned stew, but tonight, it’s ambrosia.”
“Sorry there’s no sugar. Rationing. But honey is just as good.” Jane had learned to like her tea unsweetened, so she took a deep, gratifying swallow before reaching for a digestive biscuit. “Tell me everything.”
He stirred honey into his mug. “You’ll think I’m nuts, Miss Macrae.”
“My name is Jane, and you did not find me by accident,” she said quietly. “Some great power compelled you to seek me out. Neither of us knows why yet, but we will. Describe what happened and don’t censor yourself because you think I won’t believe you. The world is far more complicated than most people realize.”
“So I’m starting to realize.” He pondered, as if unsure where to start. “I don’t suppose you read science fiction?”
Jane chuckled. “Actually, I do. Jamie loves it, and I was always borrowing his magazines with those wonderfully vulgar covers.” She sighed wistfully. “He wanted to fly to the moon. Instead he’s flying after Messerschmitts.”
“Then maybe you’ll understand when I say this day has been like science fiction.” Sinclair frowned. “I guess it started when I got two weeks leave. First time off I’ve had since before the fighting got bad last summer. I hadn’t seen much of Britain, so I decided to visit Scotland to see what my ancestors left behind.”
“Since you’re a Sinclair, are you related to the Earls of Caithness?”
“Maybe, though it would be a long way back. My branch of the Sinclairs sailed to Canada a couple of hundred years ago.” He took a biscuit and demolished it in two bites. “I knew most of the clan territory is way north, but there’s a Sinclair castle near Edinburgh, and this morning I decided on impulse to take a day trip there to see it.”
“Roslin Castle?”
He nodded. “I couldn’t go in the inhabited section, of course, but I poked around the old ruins, which were pretty interesting. Then I decided to look at the chapel. As I was going inside…” he hesitated, “this is where the science fictiony stuff starts. I felt something like a…a cloud engulf the chapel. Not a real black cloud, but a sort of…of darkness of the soul.” He laughed with embarrassment. “Sorry to be so melodramatic.”
“This was Rosslyn Chapel?” Jane asked, beginning to get a terrifying idea of what might have happened.
“Yes,” he said with surprise. “You know it? I guess you would, Scotland being so small and all. Anyway, I felt as if there was an invisible flood of tar drowning the place. I could barely move. In fact, I wanted to howl like a hunting hound. Then I heard a scream, like someone being murdered. Which is exactly what was happening.” His fingers whitened on his tea mug.
“Carry on,” she said briskly. “What happened next?”
“I ran toward the scream, which came from a side chapel. A man lay crumpled on the floor and a tall, dark guy stood over him. The attacker saw me and ran off before I could get a real look at him.” Sinclair frowned. “I didn’t really see the guy run. It’s more like he just…disappeared. It was very strange.”
“What about the man who was struck down?”
“He was pretty old and dressed like maybe a gardener, but he had a face like a saint,” the wing commander replied. “There was blood all around him. Somebody had stabbed the poor old guy. But he looked up at me with this amazing smile and said something like ‘god be praised, you’re here.’ As if he recognized me.”
“Perhaps in a way, he did,” Jane murmured.
“I knelt beside him to see if I could help, but he just shook his head and said, “No matter about me, lad, my time has come. But you must save it.’” Sinclair took a deep breath. “I’ve seen plenty of death in the war, but never murder. This was—wrong. Evil.”
“Very wrong,” Jane agreed. “Did you ask what you were supposed to save?”
“Yes, but he was almost gone by then. He whispered, ‘You’ll need help,’ and caught my hand. And this is where things got really weird. I felt as if lightning was burning through me. It didn’t precisely hurt, but I felt…rearranged inside.”
“Rather like the sizzle of energy when you took my arm at the railway station?”
The pilot looked startled. “Sort of, but different. Stronger. With you, I thought it was just because you’re so beautiful.”
To her disgust, Jane found herself blushing. “It was not merely attraction when you touched me. Did the old man say anything more?”
“While I was trying to gather my wits, he gasped, ‘You must move quickly. Take my car, behind the chapel.’ And then he was gone.”
“Did you call for help?”
“This is more of the weirdness. Ordinarily I would have called the police, but this time, I just stood and went outside and found his car. It was the only one there. The key was in the ignition so I started driving. Or…or maybe I was being driven.”
He shook his head. “It was the strangest feeling. I knew who I was, but I felt compelled to head north into the wilderness. I drove and drove, never hesitating, always knowing which turn to take. I ended up at that railway station just as your train was pulling in.” His gaze was penetrating. “If you don’t think I’m crazy, can you tell me what this is about?”
Unfortunately, Jane could. It was disaster. “Brace yourself, Wing Commander. You have just been given the responsibility of recovering the Holy Grail.”