A Flame Run Wild (48 page)

* * *

The west battlement was murky with a pre-dawn mist, the far towers barely visible. Dragged hurriedly along by Louis, Liliane stumbled on the damp stone rampart lining the thick, creneled wall. Beyond the wall, the meadow lay in the darkness, fading slightly at the horizon to dimly silhouette the copse.

On the rampart near the drawbridge clustered a mass of bowmen; in their midst, his fat bulk protected by the wall, Jacques peered through the crenelation down into the mist. Clutching his for cloak close against the morning chill, he turned at Louis's footsteps, then squinted at Liliane. "You are wanted, my dear." He waved at an indeterminate point across the moat. "Toss an endearment to your husband, so he will know you are intact."

Louis shoved Liliane forward. Her hands icy on the stone wall, she called out in a strong voice, "Alexandre, begone! You have naught to gain here but our jeers . . . and an arrow in the back!"

"Rest easy, my loving wife," a cool voice returned mockingly from the mist. "I did not come for you."

Instantly, Louis directed the bowmen to pinpoint Alexandre's voice. Five arrows were fired into the darkness. A moment later and many yards distant, Alexandre laughed. "Ah, Louis, you were ever sporting."

With an angry flick of his finger, Louis redirected the archers and another volley of arrows were loosed. Having again relocated, Alexandre teased, "Good fellow! At this rate, I shall soon collect a dozen full quivers."

Jacques sharply slapped down Louis's hand as it raised. '' Have done, you fool! The light will come soon enough!"

Liliane felt Louis tense, not only with the urge to snap back at his uncle, but because he had heard what she did—an unmistakable note of tension in Jacques's tone. The only reason that a man with a garrisoned castle at his back had to fear a man alone would be the anticipation of reinforcements arriving for his adversary.

Alexandre sniffed Jacques's unease, as well, for he grimly concentrated upon rousing it as his only weapon. "Come now, milords, twould be best to bargain while you still have tongues left in your heads. King Philip was in a nasty mood when I left him arming this side of Avignon."

Louis stared at Jacques. "That's why you're a'quiver!" he hissed. "You learned that Philip was a day's ride away! Both of us will:be bound for the block!"

"Be silent, damn you," spat Jacques, "and let me find out what the variet wants!" He peered gingerly around the abutment. "What exactly have you in mind, Milord de Brueil? Not that it matters, for Philip is arming to take Aquitaine, not this paltry place."

"His majesty has altered plans," retorted Alexandre. "He dislikes ambitious traitors at his back." His voice seemed to drift about, for wary of the archers, he stayed on the move. "I want you out of Castle de Brueil, you old vulture, and I want my heir. If I do not get them, you are going to be sitting atop a pile of rubble come Sunday, with your guts in your laps."

"That is uncivil of you," purred Jacques, "and most premature."

"Come first light," Louis snarled over his uncle's shoulder, "You will be the one knitting with his entrails."

"I am not so easy to snag as all that, toad, as you have learned by chasing me this past many days. Besides, if you do anything rash to me, Philip's irritation is bound to be unleashed on you. Difficult to be diplomatic with your peckers stuffed in your teeth, hey?" Alexandre's tone lost its forced gaiety. "Now trot down my wife and pack yourselves back home."

Louis turned furiously upon his uncle. "'You've done it this time! You must have turned senile not to make sure that Philip was in the north!"

"There was not time!" Jacques snapped. "How was I to know that he would leave Paris so soon after returning from Palestine? I had to strike while the moment was right."

"A moment she set!" Louis whirled on Liliane. "You arranged this mess, you bitch!"

"I had no idea that Philip was in the neighborhood," retorted Liliane. "Answer for your own messes."

Just as Louis started to strike her, Jacques jerked her to the open crenelation, then with startling strength, lifted her to stand up on the wall. A lone, slender figure in the flaring torchlight, she shook, almost losing her balance as Jacques clutched her skirts. "Brueil, if Philip attacks, Liliane dies. I shall throw her off this battlement onto the rocks. You had better call off your royal greyhound."

Alexandre held a tense silence, although he had known that Jacques must resort to just such a course. With her hands tied behind her back, Liliane might fall accidentally. He had damned well better speed the negotiations.

"A traitress is nothing to me," he bluffed. "Do as you please with her." He saw Liliane's face twist in pain at his words, and for a moment, he feared she might throw herself from the wall.

"You want the brat she'll drop, don't you?" snarled Louis. "What if she's breeding the next Count de Brueil?" Alexandre forced his voice to stay steady. "I can sire more heirs. Shall we end this farce and get on with your evacuation?"

Jacques was sweating now. Liliane saw it, as did Louis and Fremier behind him. The cleric murmured something to Louis, and she saw a calculating gleam appear in Louis's eyes.

"Yes, Fremier," he murmured thoughtfully, "I mink now would be a good time to reconsider many things."

"Be silent! We reconsider nothing! Keep your incessant whining to yourselves!" Jacques ordered sharply. He turned back to Alexandre. "I do not buy your tale, Brueil. Either give yourself up, or your wife and child come down."

As Jacques restated his position to Alexandre, Fremier fretted nervously, trying to speak. Louis tugged Fremier aside and whispered to him. Fremier's face twitched, then he shook his head. Louis bent his head to the little man's ear and whispered something else. Finally, tremulously, the cleric ventured to Jacques's elbow.

"Milord, you have taken no account of my contribution"—as Jacques turned on him with incredulous anger, Fremier's voice rose higher—"my claim in this. Your niece did nothing but foil you at every turn with lies and treachery. "I was my doing that spoiled her plots. I want the gold you promised now. I wish to leave Castle de Brueil at once."

"Leave then, you insignificant flea, and be damned to you," wheezed Jacques, impatiently brushing the cleric aside.

Fear and horror settled on the little man's face. Suddenly realizing that Jacques had never intended to reward him, Fremier's voice became strident. "My money, my lord. I have been loyal these many years. You must pay me—"

"By God, you sniveling, little swine," roared Jacques, at last losing control of his goaded temper, "I have you to thank for lying reports that lined your own pockets! Be off and be grateful that I don't hang you!"

The cleric's face went white, then turned red with rage. "Call me swine, you great pig! Trample upon me as if I were nothing! Give me my due, I say!"

With a great thrust of his massive hand, Jacques sent the cleric crashing onto his backside. "Throw this trash over the rampart," he ordered the guards curtly. "I have had enough of him!"

But before the guards could move, Fremier lunged at Jacques's throat, his poignard swinging high. Jacques tried to fling him off, but the poignard plunged into his chest even as a tall Norseman shoved through the guards and snatched up Fremier. He lifted the small kicking man and hurled him, still squealing in rage, over the rampart. His shrieks were abruptly silenced by the black rocks below.

Jacques had fallen back upon the wall, his chest painted with scarlet. A fastidious man, he was both disgusted and horrified by his own blood. For a long moment, he stared at Louis, who met his eyes with a brutal lack of emotion. Then his head came about like a striking snake. "Brueil!" he screamed. "Surrender now or Liliane follows that pig!"

Alexandre knew, better than to hesitate—the game was up. Jacques was panicking and behind his gloating expression, Louis must be as well. If they were pushed any further, Liliane would die—Liliane, who was obviously no traitor. Liliane, who had taken the blame for what the broken man on the rocks had done. To save her now, he had one last chance that he must play within the enemy grasp, even as it tightened into a death grip.

"Lower the drawbridge," Alexandre called, as if defeated. "I am coming in."

"No!" shrieked Liliane. "Go! For God's sake, go!"

"Sorry, darling." For everything, he added under his breath, and mostly for what must happen next.

The drawbridge creaked down, and as the first light softened the sky, Alexandre entered Castle de Brueil.

By the winch, the gate guards disarmed him as Jacques was laboriously helped down from the battlement. Although Jacques was breathing heavily, his panic seemed to have gone and he had allowed the Viking to put a temporary bandage on his wound. Alexandre saw the pink froth at Jacques's lips and wondered if he realized that the wound was mortal; Louis certainly did, although his fleshy face showed only concern.

By the pearl-gray light, Liliane's paleness made her seem ethereal. She had regained her composure, but fatigue and fear had taken their toll. She looked at him only once as they bound his hands behind him, and then turned away as if the sight of him were somehow unbearable. By the faint light, Alexandre saw Louis's marks on her face. I shall kill him, Alexandre thought with deadly calm. Whatever else happens, Louis dies.

Supported by Louis and the Viking, Jacques greeted Alexandre with a detached friendliness that suggested his pain, but was also the demeanor he adopted when he was about to dispatch someone. Once his decision was made, Jacques often behaved as if the doomed party had already ceased to exist. "Come, come, Alexandre," he murmured with an effort, "do not look so grim. I have merely claimed two hostages instead of one; that is all. Who knows, by the end of the week you and your Liliane might be free as birds. Isn't that right, Louis?" His vague smile turned on his nephew. "We must go into the hall, break our fast . . . have a little entertainment. All this dickering has left me with a sharp appetite."

For what? wondered Alexandre as Louis patted his uncle reassuringly on the back. I would sooner walk into a cannibal feast.

After Jacques was carried into the hall and settled in the high chair, he heaved a sigh and peered nearsightedly at Alexandre. "I am just trying your chair, mind you. Power can be so fleeting"—he slid a rheumy glance at Louis—"but the young rarely anticipate defeat on the eve of the victory they have gained. That has been your flaw, Alexandre. Your father, brutal as he was, understood power, but you who have held little of it, rarely exercised what you possessed. Never waste whatever control you have of time, particularly when time is short—"

"Uncle," Louis interrupted solicitously, "you must have your wound tended. Will you retire to your chamber?"

"And leave this chair to your ambitious backside?" Jacques smiled at him fondly. "You have not the shanks for it, boy. Bring me a glass of wine and have patience. Grow a little round, instead of blunt." As Louis sidled off to order the wine, Jacques waved at Liliane. "Come here, my girl, and stanch this fountain in my breast. I would not grow faint too soon. After all"—he cast his idle stare upon Alexandre—"your husband would have us wait upon the king." As Liliane reluctantly inspected his wound, he continued, "When do you suppose that Philip will honor us, Count Alexandre?"

"By noon ... if it does not rain."

"It might rain," observed Jacques. "Then again, the moon might stream sunbeams like a whey-pressed cheese and the sun might rise at night." He patted Liliane's hand as she bound his wound with the strips that one of the guards brought. "Mightn't it?"

"Where you are going, Uncle," she said mildly, "you might see anything."

"Sly boots. You know what I know, do you not? It would be a kindness to take you with me rather than leave you to Louis. He does not deserve you." His big hand tightened on her wrist. "You do not deserve to be meekly surrendered to Philip. You have been very naughty, my clever girl."

With the trembling Kiki aboard his shoulder, Louis returned with the wine, and Jacques languidly took the goblet from his hand. "Almost as naughty as Louis ... on one of his more imaginative days. You really ought to be punished. ... "He started to quaff the wine, then hesitated. "Ah me, I lack my mouse. Liliane, would you?" He saw her blanch and Alexandre start to move forward. "No, not good for the baby. Louis, dear boy, do the honors."

Louis looked startled. "I filled the goblet myself, Uncle; it's quite safe."

"Oh, I daresay, but I am much too old to give up my little habits. Indulge me."

After tossing Kiki to a nearby tabletop, Louis readily took the cup and downed a gulp. "There, you see." He held out his hands. "I am still upright. Would you like me to give some to Brueil and see if we both start to twitch?"

Jacques idly watched Kiki creep beneath the table. "Why not? You would like to go out together. You could claw at each other all the way down to hell . . . unless Alexandre is bound for the other place, which I very much doubt. You are not in a state of grace just now, are you, Milord de Brueil? The Lord bids you forgive your enemies, but you are itching to cut some throats." Jacques waved a careless hand. "Drink, Brueil. My mouse is not so neat, but much quicker."

Louis held the goblet to Alexandre's lips and Alexandre turned his head away. "Hold him," ordered Louis. Alexandre aimed a knee at Louis's groin that would have wrecked him had Louis not dodged h with his thigh. He put down the cup, took off his heavy buckler and wrapped it around his fist, slamming it into Alexandre's stomach. Alexandre doubled over, stunned with pain.