Awaken My Fire (45 page)

"Do you not know?"

He tried to deny it; to the end, he would deny it.

Agony changed her eyes. "Your time is but an hourglass, turned upside down."

With vicious fierceness, he said, "No, no! 'Tis over now. Forever, Roshelle. I will love you forever—"

"I will love you forever."

Which would not save him. The idea that it was too late, that it had always been too late, made her reach her arms tightly around his neck with the desperateness with which she clung to his life. "Love me, Vincent. . . Love me as if it were the last time you ever shall."

He kissed her fiercely, passionately; he kissed her as he thrust inside her. She didn't know when the fear dissipated or even that it did, until the sensation changed, dreamlike, it changed, as he transformed her into a magnificent winged creature soaring to a place she had never been, ever closer to the edge of that cliff. Once there, he catapulted off the side, and instead of falling, he carried her through the air, intense waves of pleasure washing her mind, body and soul with him.

Her blue eyes opened again many hours later. She found herself staring off at the two entwined roses near the red embers of the fire, painted black by the shadows entering the room, by the darkness that waited for them.

Vincent read the messages from England near the firelight. Henry did indeed bless the marriage proposal and, even better, so did Louis Valois. They both assured him they would endeavor to make the negotiations with Rodez go quickly, though of course this would be a problem.

He'd no doubt lose half his fortune in the process.

Bogo wrote that he was investigating the matter of the curse, that he hoped to obtain evidence of Papillion's ruse, evidence that would even convince the lady. He wondered what this could be and, dear Lord, how badly she needed this.

"The fear, 'tis still in her eyes," he whispered with feeling as at last Roshelle slept. "I thought 'twould end when I took her virginity—"

"Aye." Wilhelm nodded, having spent the past two days, during which Vincent kept Roshelle locked away in his chambers, trying to ease Cisely's worry. "Cisely says it does not matter, that 'tis too late now." He shook his head. "I think 'tis a madness they have, after all these long years of their suffering. I suppose only time will soothe their wounds and tell them differently. Though it is strange how this curse has protected the girl all these years—"

"The curse has not protected her all these years," Vincent interrupted as he stirred the logs in the hearth, explaining, "Tis the belief in the curse that has protected her. Add in a few coincidences and the world thinks it has witnessed a miracle. What Papillion neglected to teach her was that her will supersedes any and all curses. What is a curse but a dozen words? When she gave me the treasure of her heart, she broke the curse, as if it never was—"

Wilhelm smiled at the happy thought. "Let us hope she comes to see this when you tell her you will make her your wife, that both Henry and Louis have sent their blessing. Who would have guessed that Henry would be so pleased, he would make the negotiations with Burgundy himself?"

Vincent looked over to the bed where she slept. Her long hair spilled off the side to brush the floor. Her beauty caught his breath. "I've half a mind not to wait—"

A knock sounded at the door and Cisely opened it. "Roshelle! Roshelle—" Before Vincent or Wilhelm could stop her, she rushed inside in a blur of dark gray and maroon made from her gown. "Roshelle! She is gone!"

Her blue eyes opened, dazed with sleep. "What? Cisely—"

"Joan is gone!"

Alarm changed Roshelle's face. "She is safe with Bryce—"

"The guards said Bryce left three nights ago." Cisely spun toward Wilhelm and Vincent with her accusation. "You never told us! Mon Dieu! You never said—"

Wilhelm started to explain. "We did not want you to worry—"

Cisely put a trembling hand to her forehead. "All this time I thought she was with him—but this morning when the rain stopped, I needed her and I sent Lorette to the guardhouse. The captain, John, said she left two nights ago to attend you in the village, that a woman came and got her in the middle of the night—"

Roshelle's blue eyes closed, as suddenly the cruel world came into sharp focus and the long-ago words echoed dizzily through her mind: "To know love, however briefly, is to never regret it. Someone will come to teach you this. Her name is Joan..."

"No." The denial sounded in a whisper, desperate and pain-filled. She said it again. "No, please, no…" Then she flew out of the bed. Vincent caught her arm, putting a quick brake on her flight.

"Wait, Roshelle. Easy. I will send men out looking for her—"

With a heartfelt cry, she wrenched herself from his grasp and ran from the room. She flew into the hall and down the steps. "Roshelle, wait! God's curse, girl—" Vincent stopped speaking and raced after her. Wilhelm followed and as Cisely watched them disappear, she felt a jolt of sick dread. Her very flesh went clammy with the terror as she realized what Roshelle had.

The roses, he would lay her in the roses.

Roshelle sped down the castle keep's stone stairway. Her bare feet hit the mud and she sank ankle-deep before falling. Mud covered her thin cotton nightdress. Vincent called from the top of the stairs as he rushed down for her, but she did not hear. She leaped up and ran across the courtyard and through the gates.

In her dreams, she imagined the whole castle surrounded by roses of red and white and every color in between in the place where once the moat had been, and in this dream she laughed beneath a bright, shining sun. A small but meaningful concession to this man, the Duke of Suffolk, an English lord, and to the peace over France he promised her. A peace that changed the foul waters of a moat into a rose garden, these glorious blossoms filling the castle with heavenly scents. She had started with five small bushes, and carefully, so carefully, she had buried their roots in the moist soil on the western edge beneath the battlement wall where the morning sun would shine on their dark green leaves, and with a sad joy, she had watched the tiny blossoms growing and unfolding with each passing day.

"Behold your fate, Roshelle."

Flames engulfed the roses.

Vincent froze as he came upon the scene that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Then he could not move fast enough. He rushed to the spot and bent to lift her up.

Roshelle had fallen over Joan's cold, lifeless form in the mud of a rose garden. Tears stole her vision as her hands clawed at something left in Joan's hand. With a gasp, he saw it.

Joan's hand held a black rose.

The knock sounded louder, more insistent. "My Grace—a word!"

The image of Angelique's blond beauty disappeared, dissipating as the duke gradually became aware of his surroundings. Terese's amber-gold eyes replaced the blue ones in his mind. She smiled at him as he held the jeweled goblet to her lips and she swallowed. A trickle of dark red drew a line down the side of her chin, in the slight crease of a wrinkle. Which he noticed suddenly. She was aging so fast. Why? It ruined everything. She began to look less and less like her. Like one of his tricks, the more he stared—

The knock sounded again.

"Yes?" The duke kept his eyes on Terese's face. "What is it?"

The door opened and two knights entered. They took in the strange intimacy of the sight: the tall, black-robed figure looming over the lady, enveloping her figure in black silk, so that all they could see was the swirl of her loosened blond hair about bare shoulders.

"What disaster made you interrupt me?"

"My Grace, there be a knight outside, a man of the Suffolk guard, accompanied by six others, insisting on a challenge."

The news surprised him, pricked his interest. He had so few challenges these days; he rather missed the entertainment. And a Suffolk guard to boot. "Did he say his name?"

"Bryce de Warren of Suffolk."

"Bryce de Warren." He had never heard the name before; his eyes focused hard.

The two guards exchanged glances, hesitating. "We tried to pay him off with a bag of coins, then two bags, but he would not have it."

A warning chill shot up Rodez's spine. "He wouldn't, would he?"

"Nay, milord."

"And his challenge?"

"The man says he will avenge your threat to the woman who holds his heart, that nothing less than your spilled blood will answer his charge."

"A woman? Her name?"

"Joan of Orleans."

"Joan?" Terese was very interested in this. "Who, milord, is Joan of Orleans?"

The Duke of Burgundy threw his head back and laughed, loud, and long he laughed. For at this very moment Joan would be drawn from Roshelle's protective bosom, taken a few miles away to the base of the so-called Archpriest's camp, where rutting pigs would line up until the very breath of her life at last left her body. And into Flanders arrived the equally witless idiot demanding the killing thrill of his blade through his lovesick heart.

"She is no one. Absolutely, no one."

Pleased, strangely excited, he snapped out orders. "Fetch my servants. Show our noble knight to the east lawn, where I shall join him shortly for a fine dance unto death in a May rain."

With six men behind him, Bryce waited impatiently under the sweeping branches of an old beech, watching the rain fall unceasingly from dark skies. He and the men had ridden through two days and a night of rain, stopping only last night at an inn,-where they had bought a pallet to gather their strength in sleep. The tales the good peasants told of the castle and the Duke of Burgundy only reinforced the idea that he had to do this or die in the trying. He ate a hearty breakfast, saddled his horse, cleaned and oiled his weapons, and then it was time.

He rode directly to the castle gates.

At last, when the Burgundy guards saw he and his men were not going away with a bag of coins, they led them through the castle gates, around the massive stone fortress, past gardens and stables and smoking kitchens to the east lawn in back. The rainwater had made the lawn into a lake, enough water to drown in. They said the duke was coming, and as God be merciful, the deed would soon be done.

For you, Joan, and for you, Lady Roshelle.

As the minutes passed, gathering into the hour, the banter among the knights of Suffolk quieted. The men shifted nervously from foot to foot. No one wanting to admit out loud that the only words left to say were to God. For Bryce's safety and their own. If Bryce met his death today, it would be up to each one of them in turn to answer his call for justice. So be it.

Bryce felt the rising heat of his blood chase away the chill of two long and hard days of riding in the rain. A thick, muscled hand came to his face, wiping away the wetness; his square steel bonnet might stop an arrow, but it did nothing to protect his vision from the rain.

Best to take it off. He removed it, holding it under an arm. His other hand rested on his sword.

At last he saw him.

Flanked by two neat rows of guards, the tall, princely figure emerged from the castle wall to step imperviously into the driving force of the rain, a long black cloak billowing out behind him in the wind. Bryce's heart sank as he watched the Duke of Burgundy move with an unearthly grace. The man looked very slender. It was generally believed that he, a knight of Suffolk, might hold the swordsman title for all of Henry's realm if only he weren't weighted down by the bulk of his muscles. Vince and Wilhelm both believed he was that good, and in a battle, muscles only helped, but not so in a sword fight.

Last night the peasant men at the inn had warned him:

"His speed be like a slash of a whip."

"So fast, thine eyes cannot follow it."

"The just knight hath no chance."

"For there be dark and devilish doings at that castle…”

Bryce was not afraid of dying. A knight could ask for nothing more than a good death for the just cause, and this call was far more than just. This was a Christian call and God was with him, he knew.

The Duke of Burgundy swept before him, took a long moment of assessment before he bowed. Bryce offered a slight nod of his bonnetless head, an insult. The duke straightened, a slight smile on his lips and excitement in his eyes. The excitement made the ceaseless ringing in his ears die, become a barely audible din.

"Behold, milord, the knight Bryce de Warren of Suffolk, your challenger."