“The moon?” Gelis twisted from his arms. “How can the moon have anything to do with it?”
“Acrescentmoon, and it has everything to do with it,” he said, awe in his voice. “The answer was given me a long time ago, had I paid heed.”
He slid another glance at the moon, then back at her. “Once when I was very young, Valdar’s kitchen stores were nearly depleted,” he told her. “A harsh winter kept us from leaving the glen and Valdar’s stock of wine quickly emptied. His loss was my delight, as I was allowed to play in the wine vault beneath the kitchens.”
Gelis tucked a curl behind her ear, listening.
“The kitchen laddies and I used the empty wine barrels to build a fort and” — he paused to draw a breath — “once, while shoving them about, I came across a strange carving on the floor. One of the stone flags appeared to be inscribed with two crescent moons back to back.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran to Valdar, as always,” he remembered, his gaze seeming to look backward. “But he laughed, claiming the marks had been scratched on the stone by a barrel.”
Gelis’s brow puckered. “And you think those two crescent moons mark Maldred’s tomb?”
“I am certain of it.”
“But why?” She still didn’t understand.
“Because, my heart,” he explained, excitement beginning to beat through him, “many years later while discussing Druidic beliefs with Torcaill, he mentioned that such a device — two crescent moons back to back — was an ancient Pictish symbol of immortality.”
“And Maldred believed himself immortal.”
“That we’ll ne’er know,” he considered, “but family tradition claims he was obsessed with the possibility.”
“So you think his tomb is in the kitchens?” She looked at him, wide-eyed. “Beneath the floor of the wine cellar?”
“I do,” he agreed, his pulse quickening with the surety of it. “And there’s only one way to find out.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ronan shoved and heaved and, finally, set another wine barrel to rolling. He frowned as the thing began to trundle away, certain that each new barrel he’d tackled since the small hours was mysteriously larger, more full, and without doubt much heavier than the one before.
Now, with the new morn already growing old, he was also nigh on to believing the wretched barrels were multiplying behind his back.
A sidelong glance at Hugh MacHugh, the Dragon, and others assured him that they shared his sentiments.
To a man, they strained and labored beside him while his lady, Anice, and even young Hector crowded close. Bent and shuffling like a clutch of plague-backed crones, they moved slowly about the wine cellar, their eyes fastened on the dusty floor.
Only Valdar and Torcaill stood apart, their age and rank excusing them from participation. They stood near the stair-foot, Valdar offering ceaseless snorts and grumbles, the druid simply looking on, his softly glowingslachdan druidheachdthe best encouragement.
“ Heigh-ho!” Valdar slapped his thigh then and pointed to a large semicircular scratch on one of the floor’s large stone flags. “There be your grave marker! A barrel scrape, as I said, just!”
Ronan straightened and looked around. A score or more of hanging lamps cast a helpful gleam on the floor, but the thin haze from the smoking oil made a soul’s eyes water and burn. And with each passing hour it was getting more difficult to distinguish the natural cracks and wear-scratches on the aged stones.
Even so, his grandfather’s barrel scrape was just that.
Ronan frowned. “That is a scrape.”
“So I’ve said all along.” Valdar folded his arms, looking triumphant.
“We still have at least ten barrels to move.” Ronan ignored his grandfather’s peacocking and leaned forward to brace his hands on his knees. Weary to the bone, he gulped in a few deep and restorative breaths.
It scarce mattered that the air was stale and smoky.
The two back-to-back crescent moons carving of his boyhood memory was here somewhere.
And he’d find it or turn gray looking.
