Gossamyr (24 page)

He twisted, resting his back against the flaking birch trunk near
where she stood. "I had not thought of that. Rhiana will have
forgotten the father a two-year-old once knew. As Lydia forgot when
she took another husband. But I have not had the years to forget. No
one deserves to die so cruel a death. Dragon fire." He
shuddered.

Gossamyr slid her hand into his. They stood there, looking into
one another's eyes—close, but for the mortal propriety.

Yes, you do forget, she thought. You forget a promise to never
love again, the feel of your lover's embrace and the power of his
kiss. You forget. And you desire.

The twosome stood twenty paces from the large wooden doors. Great
cuts hewn into the weathered pine gave Gossamyr to wonder who had
tried to hack their way inside. The road, rutted and muddied from the
procession, sucked at Fancy's hooves. An ominous calm fell over her.
Mere wood and mud to welcome her to so great a city? This mortal
kingdom be not so frightening!

"As much as I know I am being led to Paris—and must
proceed—I don't particularly care to pass through these gates."

"Why your reluctance?" she asked Ulrich.

"Do you know how many people die in this city? Every day?"

Gossamyr shrugged. She pressed the staff to her cheek. Smoke
littered the air with a heavy odor.

"How many die in Faery a day?" Ulrich asked.

"Not many. One or two every season."

"Well, it is many here in Paris. Plague-like proportions."

"Ah."

"So you understand?"

"No." So there were dead people—oh. "Sorry,
Ulrich. Do the souls assault you from all angles?"

He tugged his cloak up over his face and gave a yank to bring
Fancy around.

"Will that help?" she wondered.

"Pray that it will, but likely not. Now, mount Fancy."

Gossamyr bristled as Ulrich shoved her up onto the mule's back.
"What are you—unhand me!"

"Time to follow my plan, Faery Not. We will find safe passage
through the gates if we appear a couple. You must humble yourself and
give me that staff."

She gripped the staff as Ulrich struggled with it. "This is
mine, soul shepherd."

"Please, fair lady, step down from your proud pedestal for
but the time it takes us to pass through the gates."

Two guards stood at either side of the gate, fully armed, pikes
longer than her staff in hand. They did not question but she could
feel their eyes behind the metal bourquinettes taking in all. "Very
well." She released the staff. "But you guard that—"

"Yes, yes, with my life. As if I've not already a
life-threatening task with this bedeviled horn riding my back. You've
the wimple?"

"I think I left it by the stream."

"And your hair is all ascatter."

"The sigil is too heavy to hold."

"Not bone. Here, take my cloak."

"But your protection?"

"Cloak, or no, if there is a lost soul about, it will find
me. Tuck back your hair into the hood. You should have twisted it
into plaits."

'I don't know how." Catching Ulrich's bestartled gape, she
merely shrugged. "Lady's maid."

And though Ulrich muttered something like "spoiled fairy
princess," she ignored him.

"One must be ever alert for thieves, brigands or worse—your
fellow countrymen," he instructed. "You are far too pretty
not to draw attention." He clicked a sound to Fancy and they
were off.

Pretty? The compliment lit a sizzle in Gossamyr's breast. He
thought her pretty? Proved almost as favorable as exotic.

They were allowed entrance through the gates at the Porte St.
Jacques with little more than a question of their intentions. Come to
visit relatives was Ulrich's cool reply. His sister was to cook for
his ailing uncle. (Much better than the excuse of luna-touched,
Gossamyr thought.) And not a moment too soon, for the sun had fallen
behind the horizon and the pale scythe moon was beginning to glow in
the gray sky. Heavy chains were laced across the iron-studded pine
gate, keeping out all until morn.

Leading Fancy away from the gate and toward a tavern that bustled
with shouts and feminine calls, Ulrich made to hand the staff over to
Gossamyr, but she passed him by.

"There be a postern gate to pass through before the
Sorbonne," he said.

"How many gates?"

"Just the next one. It may already be closed for the night. I
wager there are no rooms between here and there,"he called
ahead, sensing she did not care. He had decided Gossamyr would curl
up and sleep at the base of a tree should it be necessary. She was a
woman of the earth, forged of the land. He wondered how she would
fare in the big city of Paris. She did carry no sword or dagger.
Though this big stick served her well, and those spinny things did
lodge quite neatly into a man's skull.

So he had revealed himself complete to the half faery. She had not
condemned, nor had she commiserated. Yet they had stood there holding
hands. A simple act swollen with promise.

Did she fancy him as he had begun to fancy her?

Had he no fealty to Lydia? The bruise on his cheek yet ached. He
could not fault his wife's fears. Had he loved Lydia? Or was it as
he'd explained to Gossamyr—the first time he'd witnessed
Lydia's indifference to Rhiana his love had only grown for the child.
So much he'd given to love a woman who no longer appealed to him.
Lydia's refusal to see the joy and innocence of her own child had
troubled him. He did not know her suffering, but indeed, it had
cooled his ardor for her.

And now he had found another who stirred his desires. He was old
enough to be Gossamyr's sire. Or should be. He still felt a man of
six and twenty. The Dance had not aged his body or his mind. Should
not his desires remain young?

Or did he simply replace his innate need for the feminine with
whatever was to hand? He had never denied himself the simple
pleasures, nor his love for sparkly things. Pity, the rogue faery did
no longer twinkle.

"Be you hungry?" she called as she tripped ahead along
the cobblestones. "I could consume an entire rabbit, and the
ears to boot. Do hobble the horse, Ulrich."

"Do hobble the horse, Ulrich," he mimicked at her
retreating back. Attractive, yet bossy. She sauntered off in search
of said rabbit. "What am I, a servant?"

Ulrich quickly hobbled Fancy to a hitching post and rushed after
the half faery into the smoky ill-lit darkness of a rousing tavern.
The place was round in shape and filled to the curves with all sorts
of men, wench and even a child or two. He choked at the haze of
humanity and soot clouding the air. But it did smell delicious—
lamb, no mistaking.

Rubbing his palms together in hopes of some fine belly-timber, he
picked out a flash of pale hair. Faery hair.

A lone woman in rumpled undergarment parted the crowd to lift a
tankard of ale would startle more than a few, yet Gossamyr mastered
the room within minutes. Shouts settled to grunts and soon the entire
tavern stood around the rumpled and uncoiffed visitor.

Feeling the air verily harden about him, Ulrich sensed this was
not a good silence. He also knew Gossamyr had as little clue she was
the item of interest as she had known what she was doing earlier when
she'd stroked her fingers through his hair. Pity she had the
instincts of a faery, swift and deadly, but mute to human intention.

Looking about, Ulrich noted he was relatively ignored. All eyes
were on Gossamyr, pale strands of her hair hanging messily over her
shoulders. So pretty. So...naive.

King Henry's coat of arms, bearing the Tudor rose, was displayed
on more than a few tabards. Englishmen.

"Not bone."

Now, to grab the girl and run, or figure a way out? Ulrich scanned
the room, his eyes falling on the beams overhead.

Warm ale served in a dirty cup. Oh, but this was splendid.
Refreshing after their evening lingering outside the gates to Paris,
her nerves heightened for fear of the unknown mortal forces that
savored a dangerous match more deadly than a herd of bogies. Behind
her, meat sizzled on a spit, and her mouth watered to test such fare
for it smelled delicious. Not rabbit, but her hollow belly would not
protest.

Drawing away the pewter tankard from her lips, Gossamyr looked up
to the circle of dark and weary eyes. The room had silenced and all
looked upon her. What? Was she dribbling?

"Sister." A man a full head taller than she stepped
forth from the line of gawkers, his meaty hands at his hips where she
assessed a dagger on one side, and at the other, a leather-wrapped
mace. "We don't often see a woman of your calling in our humble
inn. And drinking so heartily."

Gossamyr peered into the tankard of piss-warm dregs. Did not nuns
consume ale? Surely mead was hard to come by in this mortal realm.

A thick scar gashed her inquirer's cheek. A gouge of flesh had
long been removed from the curve of his right ear. Both wounds looked
recent, for remnants of dried blood crusted his flesh. Straight black
hair cut in a bowl shape exposed pale skin where the sun had not
touched. The arms on his tabard were dirty and streaked with brown
blood. A rose decorated the sinister half of his coat of arms.

Do not travel the sinister curve!
Always Mince had preached
against Gossamyr traveling the sinister to the Spiral marketplace.
And the one time she had taken it? Carriage door flying open, and her
body springing free, she'd almost fallen to her death.

Feeling a prinkle of discomfort ride her spine—an imminent
fall?—Gossamyr straightened her shoulders. Thick trails of her
hair clumped upon her shoulders; the cloak hood had slipped from her
head. Not bone. Ulrich had fastened her staff to Fancy's flank.
Outside. So eager had she been to quench her thirst, she'd merely
strolled right in, blind to defense. Disenchantment had softened her
prowess.

Not bone at all.

Now the glint of all manner of weapon, from sword to dagger to the
ugly mace and even a deadly curved scimitar, appeared from sheath and
in hand. Shinn would remand her for her half wits. Were these the
bloodthirsty Armagnacs or the English?

"Bit of hard times come to you, Sister?" Her tormentor
lifted her loose hair with the tip of his grease-shined dagger.

"Er...God grant you a good eve," she said, and bowing
shortly, backed up. Only to discover the half curve of men's faces
was, in reality, a circle that surrounded her. Torchlight flickered
in admonishing licks. She scanned the crowd, finding no gentility in
the dark, greedy eyes, only a hard curiosity. Mayhap even lust. A
foul look that had not a morsel of love in the glinting pupils. "Er,
may your God look upon you with faith?"

The tickle of a sword tip lifting her gown at her ankle alerted.

But not to action. She could yet leave this establishment as
peacefully as she had entered. Her peripheral view took in the
whispers of two wenches who sat upon a nearby rough-hewn wood table,
their heads pressed together in shared whispers and their bosoms
exposed in jiggling display.

"The lady wears no shoes," a man behind her commented.

"Indeed, hard times." The man with the mace tilted his
head in question. "Doesn't seem right, a nun all alone, without
protection."

Gripping the wood cross dangling about her neck, Gossamyr thought
to seek out Ulrich, but did not. Unnecessary to endanger him. If he
were lost in the crowd then more the better. Someone had to guard the
alicorn.

"I can protect myself, monsieur. Now, if you please, I will
be leaving."

She turned, ultra-aware the man with the mace stepped closer
behind her. Before her loomed yet another wall of man. A scar cleaved
his cheek into a crater and his right eye was but a white marble.

Danger. How she did enjoy the prinkle it rippled up her spine. But
she would not smile, no, that would only provoke.

"Step aside," she said firmly.

"The woman demands Sir John Casson, lieutenant of His
Highness's royal army, step aside?"

Giggles from the women sprinkled over the silence like
mischievously spread faery dust.

What Gossamyr wouldn't give to conjure a trace of glamour. Blight!
Half a dozen mortal men should not prove any more difficult than a
few large trolls.

Slapping an ax in the meat of his palm, the man cracked a brown
grin. "Two coins," he said, and looked beyond her to the
mace man.

"Three," she heard from behind.

"I will give you ease, my lady!"

"Four, and you can hold her down," called out from the
crowd.

They were...bidding for her debauchery?

And the melee began. Shouts for five and six were matched by the
man with the mace by ten sous. One promised a corn-fed fowl along
with his coin.

What manner of vile creature were these people? Did they not
revere their holy sisters? Was she not worth at least twenty gold
pieces?

A glint of silver captured her notice. One of the women had handed
a dagger to another liveried man and nodded.
Do the deed.

A
hand grasped her around the waist. Gossamyr lunged
forward and spun out of the clench, grabbing the handle of an ax as
the heel of the blade hit the man's palm. Using the wooden handle to
steady herself, she kicked up and behind and caught the mace man in
the jaw with her heel. Using surprise to her defense, she easily
plucked away the ax and spun it in her fingers, landing the heavy
heel of the steel blade in her palm. The metal did not burn. Bone. A
twist of her wrist slapped the handle between the eyes of the scarred
man.

Then, as if the floodgates had cleaved wide, all men poured in
upon her. She feared no man in combat. It was the many, many blades
and assorted weapons that would hamper her. Had Shinn known she would
encounter such opposition? The fetch had been strangely absent since
passing through the gates to Paris.