Awaken My Fire (26 page)

The crowded hall was completely silent, and as the men took in the scope of her words, confusion lit on many of the faces, none the least Vincent's, his brow furrowed. While his brother's death rested with painful clarity in his mind, it occurred to him he didn't have a clue to what she was talking about.

“
I do not understand this. What are you talking about?'' Vincent asked. "What curse?"

"The curse!"

"Ah, the curse," Vincent said, as if that did in fact explain it. With feigned patience, he inquired, "And what curse is The Curse?"

What curse? What did he mean by asking that? She shot a confused glance at Cisely, who stared with the same confusion, before she asked in anger, "Would you jest about a matter of such gravity?"

"I would not."

Roshelle's face reddened in stages; her hands trembled slightly as she looked wildly about the crowded room. How could he not know? "Surely you have heard of my curse?"

"Nay, I have not."

"Yet, how, then, do you think your brother died?"

Vincent had known how to command people before he reached his sixth birthday, and by the time he reached twenty, his commanding voice had moved entire legions of warriors. Even King Henry found himself jumping inwardly at his commanding tone of voice. Roshelle did the same when Vincent said: "I will ask one last time: what curse do you speak of?"

"The curse that was placed on me forevermore, a curse that sentences any man who attempts to lie with me to a quick and certain death."

Vincent studied her, staring as he waited for some further explanation, a qualifying statement of this sudden idiotcy or a simple dismissal of this poor jest. Yet none was forthcoming. His dark gaze shot to Wilhelm, as if to verify the reality of his senses.

Wilhelm stared at the girl, his lip curving with the start of a grin. Like so many other men in the room.

"Holy Mother of mercy." One of Vincent's guards chuckled first before heated exclamations of disbelief and amazement sounded all at once, revealing the Englishmen's amusement at this grand evidence of the endless folly of Frenchmen. Wilhelm suddenly swore he would never be able to take a Frenchman seriously as long as he lived.

Vincent too, like a number of his men, had in fact heard mention of Roshelle's curse or some strange affliction of hers, but at the time he had thought the person had been referring to the girl's endless temerity. And, of course, her hair. Or, like Bryce, who was heard saying, "I did hear one of the old guard going on about some curse of the lady's. But I had thought he was talking about bleedings and woman problems and I told him I had no mind to hear such things."

Vincent's large fingers now spanned his forehead, either to hide his own amusement or to ward off a sudden, gripping headache. Holding his breath, Bogo waited so long for an explanation but he finally expelled the air in his lungs with, "What lunacy! In all my life—"

"No. Wait." Vincent held up a hand to stop him and he was smiling. "You can believe I want to hear this, despite how much control it will cost me. Milady," he addressed her, "Are you saying you believe it was this, ah, curse that murdered my brother?"

"Aye! I saw it with my own eyes! If that man would tell the truth, he, too, would say it was so. One second Edward held me tight in his arms, the next came with a burst of energy that pushed Edward to his death."

"Ah huh." Vincent nodded slightly, as if this were perfectly reasonable, an impression contradicted by an absolutely wicked light in his fine eyes. "So you believe my brother was struck by the heavens for attempting to lie with you?"

"Aye," she agreed, alarmed by this interrogation, or rather the dangerous light in his eyes, part mischief and part malice. She swallowed nervously, their unexpected responses making her as skittish as a newborn colt. How could they not have known? Dear Lord, all the world knew—

Vincent was biting his lip to keep from laughing. "Well, I'm fascinated," he told her, his statement verified by the expression in his eyes. "Truly. And tell me: just how is it your chastity came to be protected by the heavens?"

The men roared with laughter and ribald exclamations that brought even more color to Roshelle's cheeks. "A heavenly decreed chastity indeed!"

"No more preposterous than half the excuses I have heard from reluctant maids."

"Not that you would know that, Vince," another shouted merrily. "You never get to hear those excuses—"

"Much less know a reluctant maid—"

"At least 'tis a more imaginative excuse than the nag's headache!"

"If slightly less believable," Vincent added with his own laughter. Roshelle abruptly bolted, a nervous Cisely quickly following in step behind her. "Stop, milady."

Roshelle froze; without looking up, she froze.

"I am not through with you yet. And now"—he chuckled—"I'm not sure when, if ever, I will be through with you. I still want-to know how it is you came by this, ah, curse."

Stopped in the middle of the floor beneath the dais, Roshelle shut her eyes tight, wishing only that the earth would open to swallow her whole. Humiliation from these ribald taunts burned bright spots on her cheeks and she felt so strangely close to tears, which she would surely release just after she saw him in his much-deserved grave!

Never before had she needed to defend her curse. All of France knew Papillion and his curse, and they accepted it as fact. As much as the sun rising on the morrow, her chastity was forever-more. It had been challenged three times, and each time the promise of death had been inexplicably, inevitably fulfilled.

The people believed that, while Papillion had cursed her, God made the words a reality to keep her from earthly passions, leaving her strong and pure in the fight to free France. She did not know if this was true. 'Twas a grand conceit to think of oneself as chosen by God, but dare she believe it true? The events of her life did indeed point to the reality, and truly; was her God-given chastity any more or less preposterous than winged spirits in heaven, the perpetual, never-ending cycle of the sun moving around the earth or the winding that made a heart beat through a lifetime?

In a whisper she said: "You make it sound preposterous. Yet tis true! All the world knows that it is true! Papillion put the curse on me to protect me from harm on my wedding night—"

"You truly believe this!" Bogo stated it with pronounced disbelief. "And how is it, do you reason, that mere words can manifest a reality?"

"Papillion was not an ordinary man," she began, still unable to meet the light in Vincent's gaze as he listened. "Why, he could do many things others cannot. As you well know. I once saw him drop a man where he stood far across a crowded room, he has healed the wounded, made sense of the senseless, found sanity in madness. I do not know how the words manifest in reality—only that they do. Now I have had uttered the marriage vows twice, and both husbands have died soon after—"

"Did not Count Millicent de la Nevers die in the Agincourt battle?" Wilhelm asked.

"Not exactly."

"Well, how, then?"

"He died of apoplexy on his way to the battle, shortly after saying the marriage vows."

"A coincidence," Bogo said. "Surely!"

"Aye," Wilhelm said, ignoring the shake of her head. “And your first marriage. The old Duke of Normandy was thy first husband, and are ye suggesting the, ah, 'curse' killed him as well?"

"Aye," she said.

Every man there had heard many horror stories about the old duke. And while Roshelle's having been married to him sparked some large measure of sympathy for her from nearly all the men, including Vincent, Vincent's sympathy was overwhelmed by his amusement at the ever-unfolding complexities of her life.

"Yet was he not a very old man?" Wilhelm continued, thinking out loud. "As I recall, while credited with many heinous deeds, he was well into his sunset years."

"Aye," Vincent said. "So how was it he died?"

"Like your brother, he was struck down dead on our wedding night."

"And what do you mean by struck down dead? Exactly?"

The strange light in his eyes gave Roshelle pause. These questions made her nervous, so nervous. "Well, I—"

"Yes?"

"I do not know exactly. I was awaiting him for the marriage bed and, and when he came in and he saw me, he grabbed his heart as if with a seizure—"

Laughter exploded from the men in the crowded room, startling her into speechlessness. "And you think the old man's demise owed itself to the curse?" Bogo asked. "That it had nothing to do with the grandiose pretensions of an old man's excitement?"

More laughter sounded. Roshelle listened with confusion, resisting the urge to cover her ears. She didn't know exactly why she even should be embarrassed! "What do you mean by that, by grand pretensions?"

The room roared with laughter again. Vincent nearly lost the sip of water in his mouth, laughing more when Wilhelm said, "Well, how could she know that, if indeed all the men who try are struck down dead!"

“
Tis like this, milady." Bryce stood up. "An old man is like a drunk one: the mind might be willing but the flesh shrinks from the task—"

Her large blue eyes jerked from one face to the next until finally settling on Vincent's. She could not comprehend the strange light in his eyes or the smile on his lips, though it somehow made her desperate to make him see. "What about the night I was accosted by those outlaws?"

"Indeed? I believe I rescued you."

"Aye. The curse brought you to the door just in time—"

"As I recall, your screams brought me to the door."

"Twas the curse that put you in a place to hear my screams! Just as the curse gave the Duke of Normandy a heart seizure, my second husband apoplexy. Just as the curse pushed Lord Edward to his death—"

"Was not my brother drunk that night, as he was every other night I have known him?"

"Aye, but twas not his drunkenness that made him fall-"

"This nonsense is preposterous—there be no other words for it," Bogo declared, motioning with his hands as he spoke. "Rather than believe Edward tumbled to his death from drunkenness, you would have us believe that some magic words, uttered many years ago, manifest now and do not just change reality but have the awesome power to kill men?"

Roshelle's chin lifted and her bright blue eyes narrowed menacingly as she listened to Bogo's charge, an indictment of her wits, or lack of such. "All I will say is the world is full of miracles and wonders. I do not ask you to believe anything, past the truth that no matter how it happened, I did not do it willfully—"

Cisely stepped forward, clasping Roshelle's hand, and cried, "And even if she did, Lord Edward deserved it!" Her tear-filled eyes seemed to plead for understanding, desperate as she was to defend Roshelle. "Milady had no one to defend her here at Reales. She had no choice but to try herself. You don't know how she suffered him! He was a terrible, wicked man..."

These were the bravest words Cisely had ever uttered, and they sounded with impact. No man there disagreed with that, though most of the men returned to the curse and French madness. Everyone seemed suddenly to be talking at once. Bogo heatedly began explaining to Wilhelm the danger of these heretical beliefs, even from a secular framework.

Roshelle squeezed Cisely's trembling hand tightly, and knowing the courage it took to defend her, she felt a surge of love for her friend. And somehow the surge of love made her think of the imminence of her death. Her face drained of its high color, she felt a cool numbness of limbs and she realized with sudden clarity how desperately she wanted to live. Dear Lord, she would fall to her knees and beg the duke's mercy...

Gradually the room grew quiet again as, one by one, gazes turned to Vincent, awaiting his direction. Yet he seemed suddenly preoccupied. His long arms braced on the table and he appeared to be studying the tabletop, his expression concealed from view as he obviously deliberated on some weighty matter.

A weighty matter indeed. For several long minutes, he struggled to believe something. Could the men of France be this feebleminded? Was this the reason the lady remained to this day unmarried, leaving the vast wealth of her lands without the guiding hand of a lordship? No man would brave the curse—

Which could only mean that standing before him, incredibly, was a girl in fact; she was a twice-married virgin!

Anxiously Roshelle watched his response as he looked up with an expression of awe and wonder and an unholy kind of amusement. She slowly shook her head, frightened senselessly by that look. What thought made him look so? Was it the idea of her death?