Awaken My Fire (48 page)

"Tis him! The Duke of Suffolk!"

Instantly three torches were thrust into the wet ground where they smoked and sizzled in the mud. Smoke filled the air, but it would dissipate in time. Two more hoots pierced the air.

"Two knights ride with him!"

"Only two? A bloody piece of cake."

"Arm thy bows and ready thy positions!"

Six men took their places at the crest of the slope. Five men held bows, arrows strung tightly in the strings as they crouched in the surrounding bushes and trees, waiting in the darkness. Only one man held a saber, its blade razor-sharp.

The man smiled, a toothless grin disappearing in the moonlit darkness. He was to take the head, and this prize would earn him the bulk of the reward from the Duke of Burgundy.

His hand tightened around the saber.

The three riders rode at breakneck speed through the night. A galloping stampede over the well-traveled road that led to Reales. Moonlight shining from a crescent moon created fast-moving shapes and shadows, but it was but a blur in the Duke of Suffolk's mind. He felt nothing except the wind of his flight, the urgency that made his heart pound in a relentless rhythm that perfectly matched his galloping steed until—

It was only a second, one second in which the dark blur of the landscape burst into a blinding white light, which faded to the image stolen from time: Roshelle knelt at an altar of the cross. Her slim figure donned the crisp white cloth of the order, the magnificent auburn tresses spread all around her on the floor where she knelt. Shorn hair haloed her lovely face as she whispered the vows that would steal her life from him.

And then the image was gone.

His loud cry sounded through the night and instantly Wilhelm and Raymond, another of the duke's knights, drew back on the reins, slowing their mounts in fast, tight circles as they turned to Vincent.

Gustave lifted high in the air, crashing to the ground again as Vincent pulled hard on the reins, his cry echoing over the darkened landscape; loud and long he cried. The three steeds, half wild from the weariness of the relentless gallop, turned for several long minutes in frantic circles. Alarm seized Wilhelm as he searched for the danger that simply could not be seen. "Vince, what is it?"

"Assassins!" Vincent repeated the words he heard so clearly in his mind. "Beware the assassins waiting just ahead!"

For many years after, Wilhelm always claimed both he and Raymond heard Roshelle's voice as well, the melodic voice of the lady filled with death-defying urgency as she cried out to them across the many miles separating them, "Assassins! Beware the assassins ahead!"

The warning, impossible as it was, saved their lives.

Bryce prayed over Joan's grave in the rose garden.

Cisely knelt at the altar of the castle chapel outside the great hall. Candles lit the altar, above which a plain cross hung. Her eyes were red and ringed with dark circles as she stared through a blur up at the cross. She prayed with all her heart and soul.

Bryce had returned with the news that he had killed the Duke of Burgundy at last, that his death had brought a peasant revolt sweeping over Flanders as hundreds of common folks ransacked the castle, burning and looting and at last finding his mistress and her bastard child-

No, do not think of their deaths; but still the biblical prophecy echoed in her mind: the children shall inherit the sins of the father…

A trumpet sounded in the distance. Alertness broke through her heartfelt prayer and set her on edge. She wiped the tears from her eyes and turned toward the door. Far away from atop the battlement she heard the sudden cry: ''Tis him! The Duke of Suffolk!"

Cisely leaped up, gathering her gray skirts, and ran.

The gates opened just in time. A loud cheer went up. Vincent, Wilhelm, and Raymond rode into the courtyard at a gallop. Vincent swung off Gustave before he had reined him to a stop, his bad leg throbbing. Blood covered his thigh, but he did not notice. Most of his wounds had opened, torn apart by the hours of hard riding, but they were nothing compared with the mind-numbing weariness threatening to drop him where he stood. He pushed the weariness back and forced himself to stand erect. A vassal—he did not even know the old man's name—rushed to the well to draw him water as he raised his voice above the cheering to ask the only question that mattered. "Where is she?"

Like a sudden shift of a breeze, silence rushed over the waiting people and, one by one, gazes dropped to the ground. In sudden murderous viciousness, he demanded again, "Where is she—"

"Milord, milord!" Cisely appeared from the top steps of the keep. In the haste of her flight, she appeared as a gray blur. She was crying, emotionally overwhelmed with joy at the living, breathing sight of them, joy mixed with the sorrow of her loss.

She dropped to her knees before Vincent. Wilhelm seized her hand, but she would not raise up as she told him, "She saved you! She saved you. The curse is gone, vanished and vanquished, for she shall say the holy vows—"

"No! By the saints!" Vincent grabbed Cisely's thin shoulders. "Say it isn't true!"

Tears streamed down Cisely's face and she was nodding. "She has joined the sisters at Saint Catherine to take the vows that will break the curse. To save your life, milord. A small price to know you live and breathe in this world. A very small price indeed."

The dark reality crashed through his mind, body and soul, dropping him where he stood as blackness swirled through his head. He gasped for breath. He grabbed the water cask and poured it over his head and face, and with all his last strength, he denied it to the end. "Get me a fresh horse!"

The green-and-gold banner of the Duke of Suffolk's colors flapped madly in the wind of their flight. Women, carrying baskets of wares to the Orleans marketplace, leaped from their path, staring after them with awe and wonder. The English lord and his men galloped past, a look of determined urgency on their stern faces. They raced up the slight incline and rounded the bend. Seeing the city below, the Duke of Suffolk raised his arm, and the six knights behind him reined in their stallions, stopping to stare down at the city of Orleans spread below them.

Two-story-high stone houses lined up in neat rows, the rows leading from the grand castle of Pierrefonds in the center of the city where the Dauphin lived. Nearby, the enormous four towers of the Cathedral of Orleans jutted up into the clear blue summer sky, the bell tower rising in its center. To the right lay the colorful canopied tops of the marketplace, scattered around the guild building. Smaller wooden houses surrounded the outskirts. The duke's darkly intelligent gaze surveyed the scene, doubling back and back again.

Then he saw it. The Abbey of Saint Catherine.

Nestled on the green hillside on the far outskirts of the city, the abbey formed a perfect rectangle, two stories high and made of stone. Stables and a pasture spread out behind it on the green hillside, and to the right, on the other side stood the small chapel with a white stone tower.

*****

Chapter 13

“
Oh, but I must speak with her!"

"Tis forbidden, you know this." The hard lines of Bishop Gregory de Borne's face looked drawn, as if he feared a sudden blow to his head. "The cardinal has expressly forbidden it."

''Yes, but the cardinal does not know why she is doing this. You see, she thinks—"

"She thinks?" The bishop appeared mildly amused by the idea, glancing toward the heavens as if for help. Mere mortal considerations always irritated him and it pained him to ask the obvious. "What could it matter what a woman thinks? The lady thought are utterly inconsequential."

"No, oh, no," Father Herve hastened to explain. "You see, it all started when I was asked by the Duke of Suffolk's steward, a man by the name of Bogo le Wyse, to investigate this whole matter of the curse, and I—"

"That is quite enough." Bishop Gregory’s jeweled hand went to his forehead as if to hold a headache in place. Papillion had discovered Father Herve in a pie shop, of all the ungodly places, and to this day, he had trouble believing it. He shook his head; it worried him, this sinking of standards in the priesthood...

"But you see, my Grace, she thinks she has to say the holy vows to save—"

"I said, not another word!" Cold, sharp eyes focused hard, the bishop's anger plain. "I will not condescend to hear any more about that girl's evil ideation, this ridiculous curse of hers. She has been prepared. I daresay 'tis a fitting end to her pathetic story anyway. A virgin's curse indeed! Yet another of that man's delusions, I am sure. The next thing I shall hear is that the lady has pretenses of holiness because of this repulsive curse or spell or whatever it is that she has incurred." His jeweled hands came from behind his back and motioned furiously in front of his crimson robes as if he were sweeping the whole preposterous story away. "Which reminds me: I must mention to the abbess to strictly watch this girl's humility. I daresay the good abbess will have to nurture and develop that virtue by giving her all the dirty work and whatnot, cleaning out the latrines and stables and so on.''

"Dear me, I do not think the lady—"

"Yes, yes, whatever." Bishop Gregory rarely let his subordinates get a word out before interrupting them. "Do keep in mind the fortune at stake here. Practically enough for a whole tower of the cathedral, if we can increase the land yield in Normandy, that is. And the one thing I am very good at"—he smiled—"is squeezing indolence from the cotters' souls."

Father Herve watched the bishop's hand squeeze an imaginary cotter's neck and he swallowed. "For which the cotters are sure to be indebted to you, but for now—"

He cast Father Herve a scornful look and interrupted him again. "I doubt seriously the poor sods have either the delicacy of mind or the disposition to appreciate my effort, but in any case, a peasant's gratitude is nothing to me when I have God's own." And the bishop pointed upward as if Father Herve might be in doubt of the heavenly direction. "No, indeed. Well, come now, let us get on with it. My supper will be waiting."

Small beads of perspiration lined Father Herve's forehead as he followed the bishop to the altar. Dear Lord. He needed help. Papillion would not like this at all. Papillion never meant the girl to take the holy vows. To make it all so much worse, Roshelle Marie's motives were all so unnecessary.

There was no curse. There never was a curse.

He must find a way to speak to her before she said the vows. Dear Lord, dear Lord...

"Father Herve..."

The good father wiped his brow, staring at the austere altar before him. Everyone waited. The Abbess of Saint Catherine stood nearby. Two neat rows of black-robed priests streamed from either side of the altar. The kneeling sisters of Saint Catherine lined the hardwood pews, their whispered prayers sounding like the hum that clings to a beehive. Yet he stared at the right side of the church, where a neat row of solemn-faced warrior priests stood. A necessary caution, the cardinal had said, surely with the knowledge of who owned the lady's heart and fear of that man's interference. Surely.

God in Heaven, help me, Father Herve kept repeating.

Afternoon sunlight poured ribbons of color through the fine stained-glass windows that told stories of miracles. A warm stream of rose-colored light fell upon Lady Roshelle Marie St. Lille where she knelt before the bishops at the altar, as still and unmoving as a picture on canvas. She wore only the modest white robes of the sisters; this loose-flowing cotton garment was belted at the waist by a thick white rope. A small gold cross hung from her neck. The long braid of her hair made a thick and neat line down her back.

The gold shears—brought from the Cathedral of Orleans for the special purpose—lay upon a crimson velvet pillow on the candlelit altar, the hooded ceremonial vestments at the side.

Bishop Gregory’s patience stretched taut, his fist tightened dramatically at his side. Cardinal Cecile de Grair would never have permitted Father Herve to say her mass, especially knowing the lady had insisted just to irritate him. That Father Herve would sing her mass was the only condition of subjugation to the vows. A condition that probably had nothing to do with the man's gift. She probably imagined she was honoring Papillion—and therefore humiliating the cardinal, for Father Herve had been one of the few priests to defend Papillion when the time had come. As punishment for the fool's misplaced loyalty, the cardinal had sent Father Herve on a long and arduous journey to bless the holy battlefields of the Crusade in Turkey. Father Herve surprised them all when he managed to return in good health, none the worse for the rigors of an often deadly journey.

No matter now, the bishop supposed. Within the hour it would be done. The church would inherit the wealth of Lyon and Bourges, and for the price of one new novitiate.