5
After two days with Baldwin in residence at Sept-Tours, I not only understood why Matthew had built a tower onto the house, I wished he’d located it in another province—if not another country.
Baldwin made it clear that no matter who legally owned the chateau, Sept-Tours was his home. He presided over every meal. Alain saw him first thing each morning to receive his orders and periodically throughout the day to report on his progress. The mayor of Saint-Lucien came to call and sat in the salon with him, taking about local affairs. Baldwin examined Marthe’s provisioning of the household and grudgingly acknowledged it to be outstanding. He also entered rooms without knocking, took Marcus and Matthew to task for slights real and imagined, and needled Ysabeau about everything from the salon decor to the dust in the great hall.
Nathaniel, Sophie, and Margaret were the first lucky creatures to leave the chateau. They said a tearful good-bye to Marcus and Phoebe and promised to be in touch once they were settled in Australia.
Baldwin had urged them to go to Australia and put on a show of solidarity with Nathaniel’s mother, who was not only a daemon but also a member of the Congregation. Nathaniel had protested at first, arguing that they would be fine back in North Carolina, but cooler heads—Phoebe’s in particular—had prevailed.
When questioned later as to why she’d backed Baldwin in this matter, Phoebe explained that Marcus was worried about Margaret’s safety and she would not permit Marcus to take on the responsibility for the baby’s well-being. Therefore Nathaniel was going to do what Baldwin thought best. Phoebe’s expression warned me that if I had a different opinion on the matter, I could keep it to myself.
Even after this initial wave of departures, Sept-Tours felt crowded with Baldwin, Matthew, and Marcus in it—not to mention Verin, Ysabeau, and Gallowglass. Fernando was less obtrusive, spending much of his time with Sarah or Hamish. We all found hideaways where we could retreat for some much needed peace and quiet. So it was something of a surprise when Ysabeau burst into Matthew’s study with an announcement about Marcus’s present whereabouts.
“Marcus is in the Round Tower with Sarah,” Ysabeau said, two spots of color brightening her usually pale complexion. “Phoebe and Hamish are with them. They’ve found the old family pedigrees.”
I couldn’t imagine why this news had Matthew flinging down his pen and leaping from his chair.
When Ysabeau caught my curious look, she gave me a sad smile in return.
“Marcus is about to find out some of his father’s secrets,” Ysabeau explained.
That got me moving, too.
I had never set foot in the Round Tower, which stood opposite Matthew’s and was separated from it by the main part of the chateau. As soon as we reached it, I comprehended why no one had included it on my chateau tour.
A round metal grate was sunk into the center of the tower floor. A familiar, damp smell of age, death, and despair emanated from the deep hole it covered.
“An oubliette,” I said, temporarily frozen by the sight. Matthew heard me and clattered back down the stairs.
“Philippe built it for a prison. He seldom used it.” Matthew’s forehead creased with worry.
“Go,” I said, waving him and the bad memories away. “We’ll be right behind you.”
The oubliette on the Round Tower’s ground floor was a place of forgetting, but the tower’s second floor was a place of remembering. It was stuffed with boxes, papers, documents, and artifacts. This must be the de Clermont family archives.
“No wonder Emily spent so much time up here.” Sarah was bent over a long, partially unrolled scroll on a battered worktable, Phoebe at her side. Half a dozen more scrolls lay on the table, waiting to be studied. “She was a genealogy nut.”
“Hi!” Marcus waved happily from a high catwalk that circled the room and supported still more boxes and stacks. The dire revelations that Ysabeau feared apparently hadn’t happened yet. “Hamish was just about to come and get you.”
Marcus vaulted over the catwalk railing and landed softly next to Phoebe. With no ladder or staircase in sight, there was no way to get to that level of storage except to climb using the rough stones for handholds and no way to get down except to jump. Vampire security at its finest.
“What are you looking for?” Matthew said with just the right touch of curiosity. Marcus would never suspect that he had been tipped off.
“A way to get Baldwin off our backs, of course,” Marcus said. He handed a worn notebook to Hamish. “There you go. Godfrey’s notes on vampire law.”
Hamish turned the pages, clearly searching for some useful piece of legal information. Godfrey had been the youngest of Philippe’s three male children, known for his formidable, devious intellect. A sense of foreboding began to take root.
“And have you found it?” Matthew said, glancing at the scroll.
“Come and see.” Marcus beckoned us toward the table.
“You’ll love this, Diana,” Sarah said, adjusting her reading glasses. “Marcus said it’s a de Clermont family tree. It looks really old.”
“It is.” The genealogy was medieval, with brightly colored likenesses of Philippe and Ysabeau standing in separate square boxes at the top of the page. Their hands were clasped across the space that divided them. Ribbons of color connected them to the roundels below. Each bubble contained a name.
Some were familiar to me—Hugh, Baldwin, Godfrey, Matthew, Verin, Freyja, Stasia. Many were not.
“Twelfth century. French. In the style of the workshop at Saint-Sever,” Phoebe said, confirming my sense of the age of the work.
“It all started when I complained to Gallowglass about Baldwin’s interference. He told me that Philippe was nearly as bad and that when Hugh got fed up, he struck out on his own with Fernando,”
Marcus explained. “Gallowglass called their family a scion and said sometimes they were the only way to keep the peace.”
The look of suppressed fury on Matthew’s face suggested that peace was the last thing Gallowglass was going to enjoy once his uncle found him.
“I remembered reading something about scions back when Grandfather hoped I would turn to law and take on Godfrey’s old duties,” Marcus said.
“Found it,” Hamish said, his finger tapping against the page.