Awaken My Fire (41 page)

Fossy had been truly shocked by the idea. "Ye think his Grace will faint away from these wounds? Because of your curse? Huh! Whatever your curse does to ordinary men, 'twill not be able to harm him—well, aye," the old man said after Roshelle pointed out that it had already put an arrow in his back, stole his consciousness and laid him to bed. "I see him lying there wounded, but I tell ye, I have seen him suffer wounds ten times as bad and rise to dance the streets by morning light. These are but scratches to his Grace! For God's sake, Wilhelm, set the lady straight. She is trembling with fear and paler than a sheet of sail." The worry in Wilhelm's eyes remained even as he tried to reassure her. All she knew was that the curse was tested nine times now.

Ten men had tried and nine men had died.

The number would be ten by morning light.

How cruel fate was to her! Since her first wedding night, she had believed her heavenly decreed chastity was a great gift—God's own grace. She had felt blessed with the gift! To keep her safe and make her strong! Because her life was for the people, and she was an instrument in their delivery to a peaceful, better time...

Until fate's cruel hand had given her a taste of his passion. One taste so that she could know the price paid for her precious chastity, and so she would spend the rest of her life with regret. The sweetness and pounding pleasure of his kisses laid alongside the memory of his grave and, dear Lord, how could she live with the knowledge—

The knowledge she had buried him?

And she had known what his life would cost her!

The room blurred again. She dropped his hand to cover her face. A wave of despair washed over her, so strong and fierce it manifested in a small, wounded cry. She did not want him to die! She would give her life to save him—

Not an idle trade. The moment the thought came into her mind, she knew it was true. She would give her life to save him...

A pale hand went to her mouth and her lips trembled slightly and she closed her eyes. Her cheeks flamed with sudden color as she thought of his kisses, the taste of his warm, firm mouth on hers, the press of his body, the skillful tease of his hands on her form and, oh, God, then, then his death felt like a cold gust of wind. A cold gust of wind extinguishing the warm light that had magically appeared in her life, leaving her alone again, stumbling through the darkness, filled with a strange longing and despair for something that never was and never could be…

How could this be? The force of her emotions made no sense to her, for just a dozen fortnights ago the name Vincent de la Eresman meant nothing more to her than the name of the older brother of the hated Lord Edward of Suffolk. Now it sung in her heart, mind, her very soul like music and, dear Lord, why had she let him kiss her when she'd known, she'd known he would die for it! Because the touch of his lips tapped the very beat and pulse of her heart.

Tears slipped unnoticed down her cheeks. Or so she thought. Until she felt the brush of his finger on her face and heard her name. "Roshelle.”

He might have called her from the great beyond. She jumped visibly, staring with a great shock. His dark brows drew an expression of wonder. "These tears are for me." The shock of his voice kept her immobile, her reaction rendered in widening eyes, more as he turned on his side to reach his hands under her arms. As if her hundred or so pounds were nothing more than a feather's weight, he pulled her effortlessly across his chest to rest on his other side. The side that was not inflamed with an angry red hole and over thirty stitches. The blue-gray skirts of her gown fanned over the bed. She swallowed, hardly able to believe this. A gentle hand came to her face. He dampened his fingers with her tears, then brought them to his mouth to taste, a gesture connected to the rising pace of her heart.

"Why, you thought I was dying."

This was said as if it were a truly fantastic idea, like fire-breathing dragons. "The curse, am I right?" He spoke in an unaffected whisper, apparently unbothered by pain or discomfort. Nay, what bothered him was the certain effect of carrying her so far, only to lose her again. Again. He was the one who was cursed and he swore with soft viciousness, realizing just what it would mean the next time.

He drew her small form against his length, his desire stirring despite the deep burning sensation where the arrow had pierced his side. His mind greeted her tears and what they meant, and this coupled with the sweetness of her scent—like an aphrodisiac, it was—the feel and memory of her incredible softness, the beckoning pliancy of her lips and heated love cries. All these things gathered and collected in his consciousness, quickly chasing the lethargy from his blood and galvanizing his heart with lascivious thoughts.

Until her blue eyes began darkening bit by bit as her mind caught up with this unlikely greeting from a man she swore, she knew, would be dead before dawn.

She could not believe what she saw on his handsome face; she just could not believe it. Desire, plain unmasked desire, and this within hours after he had lost half his blood from an arrow that had gone all the way through and another that had scraped his head and knocked him unconscious, after he had lain still and dying for hours. She saw many things as he gazed at her, but for all of these there was no fear, no penitence, absolutely no remorse.

Slowly, in a heated whisper of words, she said, "You brush with death and yet you have the arrogance to remain undaunted! Have you no fear, no remorse, at all?"

"Remorse? Oh, aye, I know remorse." His hand brushed a wave of her hair, and for a moment he seemed distracted by it. A single finger toyed with the white streak. Confusion lifted in her blue eyes as she watched this, closing them as he brushed his lips over her forehead, then let them linger at the nape of her neck. A rush of shivers passed through her, part fear and part something else she refused absolutely. She started to protest but he stopped it with a kiss. Gentle and warm, his lips tenderly kissed her, then withdrew to watch her wide-eyed outrage grow in stages. "You cannot imagine the extent of my remorse. For I can see in thine eyes what you are thinking. You are thinking such terrible things that no words will ever comfort you again. Nor will any amount of pleasure be able to overcome thy fear the next time—"

"There can be no next time!" She sat up, fury and anguish in her voice as she cried, "Fate has suspended your sentence. You have been graced with a warning. You must see this!"

Emotion blazed in his eyes and he snatched her wrist, his grip as hard and merciless as iron shackles as he pulled her back to him. "Say it, Roshelle. Why it is so different now. I would hear you say it."

Her blue eyes locked with his, filling with the pain of her declaration. “I love you, God forgive me, I love you!''

Then his mouth came to hers and he kissed her with all the force and passion brought by the emotion spoken out loud at last. He kissed her as if the sheer force of his will could possibly save them from the tragedy waiting in a darkening tunnel that was their future.

Huge billowing clouds floated over the wide expanse of the east lawns of the Flanders castle, gathering above the distant mountains and threatening a late-spring rain. A moist breeze blew from the west, drying the moisture of perspiration from the Duke of Burgundy's brow as he fought his sixth and best opponent of the day, After first the news that the assassin had failed to kill the Duke of Suffolk, and now this morning, the news that he was indeed recovering well and gaining strength each passing hour, the violence of Rodez's fury would pump enough strength to fight six more opponents. He wanted the blood of a sacrifice.

For Papillion's laughter echoed in his ears.

More and more the awful driving sound of Papillion's laughter and whispers came to him, consuming him, driving him mad. He could not seem to get rid of it. It was louder at times, then fading, and he'd abruptly realize it had almost completely vanished, only to have it return louder than before as soon as his mind searched for it.

'Twas driving him mad!

Desperately Rodez searched for a distraction. The breeze lifted the heavy crimson robes of the papal entourage as they watched, smiling and applauding, and seeing them from the corner of his vision as he parried, leaped back and struck made him grimace in disgust. The malleable fools! They had arrived to investigate the bishop's allegations of his Feast of Fools celebration, only to quickly agree 'twas the bishop's own demons that had made him see things no one else had. Standing near the corpulent pigs—how well they fed off the common trough!— was a group of textile merchants from Flanders, and three of the lesser barons with their ladies, all invited to the castle for Saint Brigitte's feast so that Terese might have new prey for her games.

She needed a distraction as well. Not only had Suffolk slipped from his grasp again, but she had been pelted by the peasant masses recently as she sojourned from the protection of the castle. Apparently, rumors rumbled through the peasantry that she practiced witchcraft, bestiality, human sacrifice, that her child was a demon sprung from Satan's loins, the new Antichrist.

She was afraid the peasants would storm the castle and catch her. She was beginning to be plagued with nightmares, drinking more and more. He was losing his grasp on her mind—

The echo of Papillion's laughter sounded louder, then louder still. "Stop it! Stop it!" He put sudden speed and strength into his strikes as his right hand pressed hard against his ear to stop the maddening echo of Papillion's amusement. "I'll kill you. I'll kill you!"

No one heard the whispered vow. He meant the words. He kept reaching the point where the only way he could stop the echo in his mind was with the blood of a sacrifice. Like now.

The knight was better than most. As he spun around, raising his sword to counterstrike, Rodez passed a barely perceptible glance and a nod to a nearby servant.

The duke's dark eyes blazed with sudden emotion as he lunged, swung and struck the unyielding metal from the surprised knight's hand. The man's gaze fell to the sword lying on the grass. The duke's servant rushed to retrieve it. The audience burst into applause. Smiling at Rodez's fine show of skill, the knight started to bow.

"The knight hath tried to kill you, my Grace! Look!" The servant raised the man's sword for the audience's gaze. "Behold the bared point."

Murmured disbelief rushed through the crowd as all focused on the raised sword. A young maid cried out, "Tis a trick! I saw thy servant take—"

The next words caught in her throat, choking her as Rodez turned his gaze back to the knight. He removed his guarded point. Magically, the knight's eyes turned into the oh-so-familiar blue eyes arched by dark wings, the blond hair turned white and Rodez beheld the man haunting his every waking hour.

"Plead your remorse before you die!"

Stunned wits turned to horrified senses, and the knight tore off his steel bonnet before dropping to his knees. "By all that's holy, my Grace! I did not bare the point—"

It was as far as his denial got. Rodez lunged, his bared sword viciously piercing the flesh. Bright red blood spilled over his hand, his senses filled with death. Women's screams drowned out the quiet laughter of his tormentor and then, mercifully, all sound disappeared in the sudden rush of activity. Women were taken away, while knights, bishops, men and lords stared numbly at the slain body. Someone motioned to a servant to call for a death cart as the duke at last withdrew his sword. With a triumphant smile, he turned away into the quiet...

Within the hour the trumpets sounded from the battlements as four war-hardened knights, dressed in rags but outfitted for war with bonnets, chest plates and shields, rode up to the castle wall at a gallop. They stopped at the open gates, laughing, drunk and boisterous with obscene gestures and threatening noises. A dozen Burgundian knights clamored to the battlements and peered down at the novelty of such foolhardy wits. "God's teeth!" The captain could not believe his eyes as he looked down.

"Who would dare? The bloody fools—" He called the order, not even wanting to bother the duke before getting rid of the mad ruffians at the castle wall. "Heat up the oil bins!"

"Aye!"

"You black-hearted lecher!" a tall blond giant of a man called up from a spinning spirited horse, his saddle decorated with the trophies of dozens of plaits of human hair. "Aye, you! Fetch this grand Duke of Burgundy. Tell him to come wait on a messenger of Arnaut de Cervole! The grand Archpriest of France!"

Whispered amazement rippled through the Burgundian knights upon hearing this wild man. The name was famous throughout France. The Archpriest Arnaut de Cervole was said to have once been a noble of Perigord and titled to a clerical benefice there, but having once lost his land and his way, he now commanded an army of brigands numbering two thousand. Normally these warring wretches kept to the coastal area between Paris and the sea, taking castles and selling them back to their owners for lucrative profits, ransacking villages, raping, burning fields when the peasants could not pay and looting the monasteries.