Awaken My Fire (42 page)

A knight called down, “Thy numbers must have swelled for you to brave an appearance here at Burgundy!"

"Aye, we've enough to take this grand castle before my eyes!" The man chuckled, his Scottish lilt thick and amazingly undaunted. "Why, we've all been pardoned by the Pope, have ye not heard? The Pope himself wined and dined the grand Archpriest, pardoned all his sins and sent us away with pockets of gold!"

So that explained their boldness ...

The Pope himself turned belly-up to the Archpriest, demon of all men in France. The captain motioned to an anxious knight, but one of the duke's favorites. The man ran off to present this news to the duke. Pages led him up the wide staircases twice, down through the halls and into one of the outer chambers of the solar. Rapid French and a knock announced his presence, and the doors opened.

The duke sat upon a red velvet cushion before the largest looking glass in France. An ornate gilt frame surrounded the glass, reflecting the arched throat of the duke and the intensity of the barber's concentration as he scraped the long smooth line of the royal throat. Though the heavy curtains were drawn back from the tall, narrow windows and afternoon sunlight poured into the room, candles lined the tabletop before the glass, their flickering light magnified and reflected back in the mirror.

Like a king upon his throne, he was surrounded by his most cherished possessions in these solar rooms. Treasures from around the world filled the lush space around him: two gold clocks, coins, enamels, new and ancient musical instruments displayed on one wall, gold vessels and spoons, the most expensive of his hundreds of illuminated books and all kinds of curiosities in the glass case against the far wall: one of Charlemagne's teeth, drops of the Virgin's milk—to be used soon in a sacrifice—porcupine quills, a giant's bones, an ancient map that showed the world round, among many other oddities.

Yet the paintings and artwork told the story of the black rose. Like the tapestry behind him: the centaur's raping of a virgin in the darkness of the forest. Or, the picture above the hearth where a fire raged: a witch's sabbath depicting the demons and the damned sacrificing the virgin—witchcraft, he believed, was the primitive expression of the black rose.

"My Grace . . ." The knight stopped, forgot what he was saying as he caught his own reflection; He had never seen himself in a mirror before! The novelty of the experience stole his breath until he saw the duke staring back at him through the glass, the flickering candlelight reflected in his dark gaze, so that his eyes looked as if they were on fire.

Scared without reason, the knight came to the point.

The duke wore black silk dressing robes, and his long unbound hair disappeared into the silken folds. No expression first registered on the dispassionate face as the barber curved the sharp edge of his knife over the unnaturally long arch of his master's neck. The guard nervously shifted his feet, afraid the duke had not heard the alarming news.

"Indeed," he finally said as the knife came away from his skin, and the barber drew an easy breath. The voice was quiet in his mind; he was enjoying his moment's peace. "Why, how strange. I thought even those mercenaries knew Burgundy at least has always been capable of defending itself."

The knife returned to the curve of his chin, so he spoke in a low pitch, like a hiss. "Well, let's send this would-be warrior a present. Dismember the ruffians but keep them alive, then send the pieces of flesh back with my good wishes."

Pleased by the order, the knight turned to leave when suddenly Rodez's hand snaked around the barber's hand, jerking the blade off his throat. "Wait!"

The knight stopped, turned and waited.

The Duke of Suffolk, the Duke of Fools...

He was probably the only other noble in all of France who would bravely stand against this army before ever paying their paltry ransom, despite the fact that he housed only four hundred knights at best at Reales. At best. A bloodbath, 'twould be a bloodbath. He would send assassins—his six best knights—to take advantage of the battle. If the duke survived the war—not likely!—but if he did, his six knights could meet him on his return to Reales. He would be battle-weary and no doubt wounded as well. Rodez might double the gold prize, too, if the mercenaries returned with his head.

"Aye . . ."

To ensure dear Roshelle did not interfere this time, or Papillion through her, he would send her a diversion, a small distraction. He had promised to come for Joan someday anyway. The time seemed suddenly past due...

The knight nervously shifted his feet again. "My Grace?"

The duke turned from the mirror to the knight, and the knight drew a sharp breath of fear as he saw, without the reflection from the mirror, fire blazing in the duke's eyes. "Bring them to me. I believe I have a better idea."

"You are afraid."

Roshelle made no response at first to the familiar voice. She was standing at the window overlooking the courtyard, watching as Vincent's personal guard returned from a hunt. Over a dozen squires, pages, and grooms rushed behind the cloud of dust brought by the ten mounted knights, all laughing, slapping each other on the back with their congratulations and success. The kitchen servants ran out to greet the men, Cisely among them. Wilhelm leaped from his horse and swung her into the air, Cisely laughing but holding her nose to stop her sneezes. There would be a happy feast on the morrow. Bags full of birds, hares, foxes and squirrels weighed down each man's back. Strung across a pole carried by Richard's and young Owens's back were two slain deer.

A buck and a doe...

Tears filled her eyes and blurred her vision.

"Aye, Joan."

"For me?"

Roshelle leaned against Joan's tall, strong frame. Loving arms came around her slender figure. Her blue eyes closed, as if savoring the moment.

Tears spilled down her pale cheeks.

She would not lie. "Aye."

For you, Joan, and for me.

Vincent had banished her from his chambers. At first his rejection had confused her and she had stood at his door, pounding, demanding he let her in and thinking it a jest, finally begging him to open the doors. Yet he had not. Wilhelm finally forced her away, without explanation.

Then she knew.

He had recovered and was gathering his strength, and the banishment was the means of saying they could pretend no more. This past wondrous month she had lived in a dream spun by this short time together, a respite from the future that threatened them, and a future she abandoned to fate. "Draw your life moment by moment, Roshelle," Papillion had once said. "Leave the future to fate." So she had drawn the one month moment by sweet moment, and he had let her play that game, so that for one month she greedily, selfishly basked in the blessing of his love.

One month to remember for the rest of her life.

Like a dream it was. The dream that could never be.

The first eight days and nights she had hovered over his bed as he slept in the midst of a bouncing fever: high, then low, then high again, but always there. Yet he ate every soup and potion she made him, and woke from restless sleep with a smile, a light in his eyes that caught her breath and spurred her heart. Aye, the desire was always there, but held hostage by his convalescence.

"I want to feel your softness as I sleep, Roshelle," he'd say as he drew her to the bed, and against his warmth. "I want to taste your breath on my lips and drink in your sweet scent, I want to fall asleep with your breast in my palm, your pulse against mine . . . Roshelle, Roshelle, I love you..." And alone in his darkened chambers, they lay together. At times they whispered secrets through the night, secrets made of laughter and tears and no consequence at all, words that defied the future. "What else would I love in Suffolk, milord?"

"What else, what else? You would love Gregory Castle. Three stories high and made of granite and stone, shaped in a perfect square with bright banners flying in the breeze from every battlement, enough room in the courtyard for a mounted regiment and enough room in its two grand halls for a gypsy circus."

Then she would laugh ...

"And you would love the endless stretch of emerald-green hills around it, the towering trees of the forest land, the cool, deep lakes nearby and the arch of bright blue sky overhead."

"What else?"

"Greedy, are we? Well, I think you would like most of all the village peasant folk."

"Why is that?"

"They are all fat."

She laughed. "As fat as a goose before Michaelmas?"

"At least . . . And I would order Mason to make you so many rich and irresponsible treats that you, too, would soon be fat."

"And would you still love me?"

Suddenly his eyes changed, the light there intense. "Forever, Roshelle, forever…"

Then it would sweep upon them, the emotional pull of their hearts, a thing so powerful it was only expressed with the tight alignment of their bodies, the touch of his lips and the caress of his hands, and she would be crying for their lost future.

Vincent, I love you, I love you...

They never spoke of it, of what would happen. How could they? He was disbelieving but always aware of her waiting fear, wanting, thinking he could end it, and all the while she only knew she would die with him…

Vincent, do not do this to me…

She had been clipping his stitches. She had just risen and wore only a pale pink robe trimmed in lovely rose-and-violet threads, her mother's long-ago robe. The rope of her hair slipped over her arm and she realized the gown had parted, for she felt its weight brush against her breast. Just as she abruptly heard the sudden stillness in the room. She looked up to see his eyes, and the force and magnitude of the desire there made, her drop the shears with stark, naked fear. She shook her head, backing away. Yet he was so strong, already so terribly strong, and he caught her wrist. "No, Vincent…" She tried to pry his hand from her. "No, please. You know, you know. Please, we must talk…”

"Words, love, are superficial now."

Someday I will come for her...

'The day you leave Reales, for instance, that would be a day. Of course, the day she leaves Reales, that would certainly be another day. Then, too, any day I am bored might be the day…'

"No rain ..." Joan's words brought her back to the present, and she smiled. When it rained and Joan was afraid, she let Joan sleep in her bed like a young child, their fingers tightly entwined.

"No there is no rain now..."

"Love is happy…"

Roshelle shook her head. "No, Joan ... not always . . ."

Confused, Joan ventured, "Bryce is happy."

The darkness surrounded her, waiting like the clouds on the horizon. She felt so frightened! She had to save him, somehow—

"I am happy."

"I am so glad for you, Joan."

"Papillion loves Bryce, too."

Papillion, where are you? I have never needed you more and yet I have never felt farther from you. Your love is gone, as if you are too far away to touch me…

"Papillion loves Bryce with me."

"Aye, Papillion loved all good and just men."

"He loves Bryce most. Bryce is blessed. Bryce has the ring."

Mon Dieu, what could she do? She had to stop him and the only way she knew how was to disappear, to flee—the one thing she could not do--

The words finally penetrated Roshelle's mind.

The hairs slowly lifted on the nape of her neck. "Joan." She said the name in a frightened whisper. “'What did you say?"

"I am happy!"

"Aye, but what about Papillion's ring?"

"Bryce's ring."

Her blue eyes searched Joan's lovely face. "Where, Joan? Where is Bryce now?"

"A-sleeping!" She smiled, pleased without knowing why, that Bryce always fell asleep after loving her. "I made him go a-sleeping!"

Confused, Joan watched as Roshelle spun around and ran from the room, disappearing in a flurry of pretty green and blue of her gown. She flew down the sunlit hall to the stairs and down the spiraling case in a swirl of color, bursting into the entrance hall alongside the lesser hall and out the doors into the bright sunlight.

The courtyard still bustled with activity. Servants rushed to the kitchens with the bloodied bags from the hunt while grooms pulled off saddles from the spent horses. Pages led their masters' horses to the trough, where four hands labored to bring up more water from the well. The piggery man talked with Mason, Vincent's chef, who tossed fresh bits of meat into the trough amidst the grunting, excited creatures. A group of Suffolk knights gathered around the free well, splashing water over their hot faces and washing, while another group headed toward the newly erected guardhouse, where they slept.

She ran past these, barely noticing Cisely and Wilhelm with the group. Liana, the dairymaid, let Derrick carry her buckets for her, and with a heated gasp, he swung the poles to avoid Roshelle's flight. Milk slopped out, splashing to the ground. "Milady!"

"Pardon, pardon, pardon!"

Roshelle did not stop. She raced into the guardhouse, a long, two-story-high structure made of wood and stone. Vincent had built it to house his personal guard and the knighted officers of his regiment. She burst inside, stopping short at the sea of faces as all gazes turned to see her there.

Vincent leaned back to conceal himself from her view.

She looked stunningly beautiful. The crinkled rich length of her hair, the front ends plaited and pulled back, dropped down a creamy, pale-green-and-blue pleated gown. The short loose sleeves of a thin white cotton chemise showed beneath the rich fabric of the unbelted and flowing length of it. Yet it was not the comely gown that drew a man's gaze but the girl in it, the anxiety and pain that haunted her lovely face and changed her anxious blue eyes as they flew about the familiar faces.

"Curse you, Vince!" Wilhelm had sworn at him. "Forget Henry's blessing and God's. To look at her is to see her fear, and a dark and terrible fear it is. To make her wait for happiness be cruel."

He saw the truth of Wilhelm's words in the faint half-moon of circles underlining her eyes. He had joined the hunting party without her knowing it, needing the fresh air and sport to regain a measure of his strength. He had carefully kept his health and recovery a secret, meaning to keep her from fear until he received Henry's blessing from England, but of course she knew. She had probably known the day he barred her from his room.

The poetry of her eyes!

He held his breath, then suddenly drew sharp. Dear Lord, how badly he wanted her! With each passing day his strength returned, his desire seemed to grow, magnify, like some great caged monster waiting to spring. His dreams were spun with the image of her blue eyes filling, not with poetry but with passion, darkening like the sea at twilight as he laid his lips to hers and slowly filled her.

There was no fear in this dream.

"Help me," she said. "I seek the goodly knight Bryce."

More than one man rushed toward her to help.

Wilhelm came in behind her, his gaze alone drawing the men to a sudden stop. "Milady!" he said all a-concern. "What causes this distress?".

"Wilhelm—I must see Bryce."

"Are ye going to press your objections—"

"Nay, not that. Please, just bring me to where he sleeps."

Wilhelm led her down the hall and up the stairs. Cisely followed. Wilhelm took the two ladies past empty bunks to the very back, where there were a few small separate chambers that gave a man some privacy. The doors to the chambers led to a long hall. Wilhelm brought them to the last door. He lifted the latch and swung it open.

A small window overlooked the courtyard. A cross hung on the wall, like in a monastery; there was a bunk and bedclothes, and that was all.

The soft sounds of Bryce's slumber filled the small space. Wilhelm watched as Roshelle reached a trembling hand to the covers and, as if afraid of a spurt of blood or a snake or some other terror, held her breath and with a sudden jerk, brought the covers away from his muscled arms.

To behold a finger that held a gold ring.

The miracle of it made Roshelle dizzy.

"Cisely?"

"Aye, I see it.”

How can it be? An English guard of Suffolk? Nay, she knew instantly, 'twas not on an English guard of Suffolk, but rather on the hand of the man who loved Joan. Papillion, help me, she had asked. And of course he had. Bryce belonged to Joan, for her protection. He would keep her safe. Roshelle could save Vincent by separating from him, forevermore; she would leave him...

So, that he might live.

To Wilhelm and Cisely, Roshelle ordered, "Please leave us now."

Confused, thinking Cisely would tell him, Wilhelm ushered her out the door. It shut. Bryce woke to discover Roshelle kneeling at his bedside, reaching a trembling hand to his. More beautiful than an angel, he thought and was glad, for otherwise he would have thought he'd died in his sleep. She reached for his hand and held it up to the light of scrutiny, tear-filled eyes marveling at the beautiful gold ring, its intricate latticework. The stream of afternoon sunlight poured through the window and hit the ring, blinding her for a moment with its miracle. In an awed whisper, she asked, though of course she knew: "Where did you get this ring?"

"Have I missed something?" he asked, dazed with his sleep and confused. "Milady, what brings you here? To me?”

"Please, where did you get this ring?"

Bryce looked down at his finger. "This? Everyone notices this.'' He smiled, ignorant of its significance. “Why, his Majesty even admired it once. This be my lucky ring, for a warring!"

"For a warring?"

To help you keep Joan safe.

"Aye. An old man gave it to me. Just like that! Took it off his finger and handed it to me. 'Twas on my first campaign here in France, some long years ago now. On the road to Go, it was. This old man begged water from my cask and once he quenched his thirst, he,. well, he stared into my eyes and for a moment I felt—"

"Pierced to the heart?"

"Aye," he said, surprised the girl knew what he meant. "Twas like his gaze cut through skin and flesh to peer upon me soul." He shook his head, not at all given to such fanciful notions, and swung his feet off the bed. "He hands me this ring and says to wear it always, that 'twill bring me luck in battle. I thought it so odd, him being a Frenchman and all, but then I thought mayhap he weren't French. Aye, he spoke with an accent, but then no, I realized 'twas more like an Italian accent, or mayhap Arabic. There was a twinge of merry old England in there, too, and 'twas queer, I heard that tongue afore. I do not know where. Well," Bryce said with the same surprise as on that long-ago day, "I assumed the old man wanted money for it, and while I know full well that skill and practice beat omens and charms any time, I figured it could not hurt. 'Twas so, so strangely beautiful! Never seen latticework like this. And by the saints, I be damned if it does not make me feel lucky the moment I put it on. So I handed over a gold piece to him, but here's the odd part: the old man just shook his head, said a fare-thee-well and continued on his way." Then he asked, "Milady! These tears? What makes you cry?"

She shook her head, unable to speak.

"What does it mean to you?"

What did it mean to her?

She stared up at his kind face. "It means that you were chosen to help me keep Joan safe, forevermore. You must swear to her safety."

For a knight to extend his protection to a woman was as good as marrying her, and still Bryce did not hesitate. While he did not understand what his ring had to do with Roshelle, or with sweet Joan for that matter, as a knight of the Suffolk guard he could do nothing less. As a man who had lost his heart, he could do nothing less. "Aye, milady." He nodded. "The maid Joan hath my protection unto death."

Roshelle kissed his ring, tears spilling on his hand. "My dear and noble man, I must share with you my burden, one I have carried so very long..."

Roshelle's mistake was in possibly imagining a man's protection was as good as hers. A woman protects her loved ones by caring for them and keeping them from harm's way, and for many years Roshelle had vigilantly seen to it. A man follows a different path completely.

"So do you see now?"

"Aye." Bryce saw any number of things, and one of them was that he would leave this very afternoon for Burgundy. "Milady, I will keep Joan safe. This I swear oath to."

Wilhelm had the task of trying to dissuade Bryce.

Vincent gave his task to Owens and Richard, and knowing Roshelle so well, he explained exactly what she would do. "First you will see her enter the chapel, where she will pray until just before the sun sets. She will return to her rooms to prepare for it. The next hour or so you will follow her about the castle as she dispenses with certain cherished possessions. No doubt, she will visit the stables to give her mare an extra bucket or two of grain and fresh water. Then she will retire to her rooms to wait for the night, wait for the hour when all is quiet and everyone sleeps."

"What then?" Owens, Wilhelm's young squire, asked.

"Just bring me word, that is all. And tell me if she does anything different."

The two young men ran off.

Much later that evening, Richard burst into the great hall, where the knights had gathered after supper. Sharp blue eyes scanned the hall for his Grace's face, but at last he was not there. "Sir, where is my Grace?"

Wilhelm looked up from the table. "He went to the river for one of his swims."

"Tis almost dark now!"

"Ah, darkness is pending only. He should be returning. Look for him on the village road.''

For no reason he knew, the great red giant turned toward the stained-glass windows of the hall where he beheld the image of a frail Christ upon the cross. The loud, boisterous talk of the men faded in his mind as he stared, measuring the pending darkness. He felt a tremor of apprehension. The last faint light of day disappeared and the darkness, he saw, was upon them.

Perhaps if he had been able to dissuade Bryce…

He thought of the ring, the story Cisely had told him. What if it did protect Bryce and gave him an advantage? What if he did slay the beast of Burgundy?

So he had sent six good knights with Bryce...

After a long swim, Vincent had stood on the riverbank watching as twilight painted the world in colors of rose and violet. Shadows lengthened, stretched by the sinking sun before disappearing altogether in the night. The air was thick and humid and hot. Not a breeze stirred, yet the moisture from his skin dried almost immediately, and as he stood on the river's edge, listening to the race of water, clouds spread quickly across the velvet sky, swallowing the faint shine of emerging stars.