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According to this paean, Niall had been unsurpassed in swordsmanship and the other arts of war. There was account after account of battles he had fought, Saracens he had killed, fellow Knights he had saved. Grace felt as if she were reading a tale of a mythical hero along the lines of Hercules, rather than a Middle Ages record of an actual Templar. Granted, the Templars had been superb soldiers, the best of their time and the equivalent of modern-day special forces. But if the Templars had been such good soldiers, why had Niall of Scotland been singled out for excessive praise? She assumed she was reading actual records of the Knights Templar, and while outsiders would understandably be impressed by the great Knights, the Knights themselves would take such exploits for granted. It seemed unlikely they would aggrandize the accomplishments of one.
She scrolled down, and there was a break in the narrative. The text picked up on what seemed to be a letter, signed by someone named Valcour. He expressed concerns about the safety of “the Treasure,” and the importance of protecting this, which had worth “greater than gold.”
Treasure. Grace stretched her back, rotating her shoulders to ease the kinks. She didn’t know how long she had been staring at the computer, but her feet w
ere asleep and her neck and shoulder muscles tight with strain. There had been something about a treasure in the material she had read on Kristian’s computer, but she had been skimming, looking for any mention of Niall of Scotland, and she hadn’t read it closely. She did remember that the Knights Templar had been an extremely wealthy order, so much so that kings and popes had borrowed gold from them. Their treasure had been gold, so how could its worth be “greater than gold”?
She had been holding fatigue at bay by the sheer force of her concentration, but now it hit her again, pulling at her limbs and eyelids. Her hands were suddenly clumsy as she exited the program and removed the disk, fumbling it back into its protective sleeve. She turned off the computer and scooted back, almost groaning aloud as she stretched out her numb legs and renewed blood flow surged painfully through her veins.
Clumsily she edged herself around, propping herself up against the boxes of decorations. She could feel sleep coming, rushing toward her like a black tide of unconsciousness. She welcomed it, desperately needing the surcease. Her eyelids were too heavy to remain open a second longer. Her last thought was “Niall,” and she had a brief picture of him, tall and powerful, swinging a six-foot sword with one iron-hewn arm while enemies fell dead all about him, before she slipped completely beneath the tide.
1322
Six hundred and seventy-five years away, Niall awoke with every nerve alert, his head lifting from his pillow. A single candle guttered in its holder, and the fire in the hearth had almost burned out. He had been asleep for almost an hour, he estimated, relaxed by some energetic love play. He had heard—what? Only the slightest whisper of sound, different but somehow nonthreatening. Normally, if he was awakened suddenly he had a dagger in one hand and a sword in the other even before his eyes were fully opened. He hadn’t reached for his weapons, which meant his battle-trained senses hadn’t detected any danger.
But something had awakened him, and the sound had been near. He looked at the woman sleeping beside him, softly snoring, the noise little more than a snuffle. That wasn’t what had disturbed him.
They were alone in the chamber, the thick door securely barred, and the secret door beside the hearth was closed. Robert never came without first sending a message. But Niall felt as if someone had been there, and the sudden presence of a stranger had jerked him awake.
He got out of bed, his movements so silent and controlled that Eara slept on undisturbed. Though he could see no one was in the chamber with him except for the woman in bed, still he prowled the perimeter, trying to detect a scent, a whisper of sound, anything.
There was nothing. Finally he went back to bed and lay awake, staring into the night. Eara still snored beside him, and he began to feel irritated. He should have sent her to her own pallet after they had finished. He liked sleeping with women, liked the warmth and softness of their bodies beside him, but tonight he would have preferred being alone. He felt a vague need to concentrate on the elusive sound that had awakened him, and Eara’s presence was distracting.
He tried to remember exactly how the noise had sounded. It had been soft, almost like a sigh.
Someone had called his name.
1996
Conrad gripped the punk’s greasy hair, jerking his lolling head back. He studied the effects of his work. Both of the punk’s eyes were swollen nearly shut, his nose was a bleeding mass of crushed cartilage, and instead of missing just a few teeth he now had few left. That had been nothing more than the softening up, though. The real persuasion had taken the form of broken ribs and fingers.
“You saw her,” he said softly. “You robbed her.”
“No, man—” The words were mushy, almost unintelligible.
That wasn’t the answer Conrad wanted. He sighed, and twisted one of the broken fingers. The punk screamed, his body arching against the tape that held his ankles strapped to the chair legs and his wrists lashed to the wooden arms.
“You saw her,” he repeated patiently.
“We don’ have the money no more!” the punk sobbed, his minuscule store of courage already depleted.
“I am not interested in the money. Where did the woman go?”
“We got th’ hell outta there, man! We din’ hang around, y’know?”
Conrad thought about it. The punk was probably telling the truth. He glanced at the crumpled body behind the chair. Too bad the young black man had used very bad judgment and pulled a knife on him. Perhaps he would have noticed something this cretin hadn’t.
To be certain, he twisted another finger, and waited until the screams subsided. “Where did the woman go?” he asked again.
“I don’ know, I don’ know, I don’ know!”
Satisfied, Conrad nodded. “What was she wearing?”
“I don’ know—”
Conrad reached for a finger, and the punk shrieked. “No, don’t, stop!” he screamed, blood and mucus streaming from his broken nose. “It was rainin’, all her clothes was dark—”
“Pants or a dress?” Conrad asked. It had been raining, and if the woman had been out in it all the time she would have been soaked. He wasn’t unreasonable; he didn’t expect this idiot to notice colors at night, and in the rain.
