The Execution (39 page)

Julianne hadn’t see the other
horseman, the one approaching her from the right. Swimming at a
downstream angle, the man caught up with her fairly easy. They were
better than half way across when the man reached her and snatched
for the animal’s reins.

“
Don’t! You’ll make him
afraid!” she screamed at the man, but he continued to grasp for the
animal.

Finally, he foolishly abandoned his
own mount, pitching himself forward, clutching for the bridle of
Julianne’s horse. This was a grave mistake for as he held tight, he
plunged the gelding’s head below the surface of the
water.

Terrified, the horse panicked,
breached, and turned belly up. Its forelegs thrashed violently at
air and water, creating a frothing, foaming torrent of animal and
river—with Julianne trapped beneath.

* * *

From the distance, D’ata watched in
horror as the foolhardy man sabotaged Julianne’s safe passage. He
saw her submerged beneath the surface as the panic-stricken animal
arced and thrust backwards, over and on top of her. The water
became a muddy foaming cyclone as the horse savagely flailed,
trying to right itself and rid itself of the human that hung from
its bridle.

Julianne was nowhere to be
seen.

“
No!” D’ata yelled and
released the tail of his own horse. He swam furiously towards the
catastrophe, his eyes searching furtively for Julianne. It seemed
an eternity before he neared where she’d gone under the water. He
caught the pale blue swirl of her skirts and saw a thin, white hand
reach up from the water as she remained beneath the murky, swirling
current.

He swam violently, his lungs bursting,
and searched furtively for her, turning around in place as he
treaded water. The horse was again swimming for the other side, the
assailant lagging behind.

Just then, D’ata felt something brush
against his hand. He dove, found nothing, and quickly dove again,
grasping at empty water, clawing into the current until he felt
cloth. He kicked hard, pulling the body to the surface. Julianne
was limp, her face pale. “Hold on my love—hold on. I have you now,
we’ll be all right,” he fought the current frantically.

D’ata swam until his heart nearly
burst, towing Julianne to the shore. At long last, his feet made
solid ground and he lunged for the bank with Julianne in his arms.
He staggered, collapsed on the bank and pulled Julianne to his
chest, turning her pale, lovely face toward his...

CHAPTER
THIRTY

†

Ravan was seriously
discontent.

This placed LanCoste in a very
troubling position. He watched Ravan closely for it was one thing
to stand beside him on the battle field, but entirely another to
see him languish at their current task.

The disdain that Ravan adopted for
Adorno was almost immediate, and LanCoste might have questioned
whether Duval had made a wise decision to send them here. It didn’t
help that there was little to do other than stand around and watch
Adorno’s lunacy, with his maddening extravagance and gaudy
excess.

“
You must do as you are
commanded, Ravan,” LanCoste was uncharacteristically talkative.
“Duval has his reasons. It is not for you to question.”

They loitered together in a gallery,
watching Adorno on the lawn, a soiree of some sort that did not
invite close quarters with the bodyguards.

Ravan stood casually, with bow ready
and arrow engaged.

In reality, Adorno was not without
considerable risk. He could certainly be killed—stabbed without
notice, or suddenly bludgeoned over the head. The killer, however,
would suffer immediate peril from the bodyguard who watched from a
short distance away. All had seen Ravan practice and none denied
his mastery at his art. His reputation spread quickly.

“
I am a soldier, not a
nursemaid. Besides, he deserves to die,” Ravan replied
matter-of-factly, nodding towards Adorno. Then, he muttered to
himself, “And this keeps me from other things.” He looked down,
idly digging the toe of his boot into the stone paver joint of the
floor.

“
That is not for you to
say. You are simply to follow orders.” LanCoste said it as though
he somewhat doubted himself in the matter.

“
Don’t worry, my friend. I will follow my orders.” He
glanced up and thought silently to himself, ‘the orders of my
heart
—
and this keeps me from them.’

However, it was only a short while
before Ravan’s thoughts were preoccupied with Adorno’s
bride-to-be.

He watched her later that afternoon.
She perched on a bench under an enormous sweet chestnut tree as
though she preferred not to step into the light. Af first, he
simply observed her, a necessary consequence of his
boredom.

As the hours drew by, however, even
from the distance, there seemed to be something very odd about this
woman, and as the event drew on, it made him strangely
uncomfortable to observe her, and yet he must.

Shifting his weight, Ravan considered
the recent events at the castle, when she’d been present, and he
was suddenly overcome with awareness of a pattern. Why did he
suffer the need to notice her as of late? Almost compelled to watch
her? Was it his imagination that she too noticed him?

Today was two months later, and Ravan
officially met Nicolette. Of course they’d passed on occasion.
Ravan had even once upon impulse murmured a ‘hello.’

She had looked at him long and hard,
her skin translucent and chalky white, her eyes piercing and deeper
than the sea, but she said nothing.

It troubled him that he’d felt the
need to speak to her.

Today, however, she had come to a ball
for a formal announcement of her betrothal to Adorno. It was a
match from birth. She was English, keeping to the tradition of the
Anglo-French alliance, and though she’d spent considerable time on
the estate, the moment had come to finalize the arrangement. Her
parents were present and Adorno was in fine form, insisting upon
excess to the utmost. The garden party was just the start of the
festivities and it was a beautiful afternoon.

In Adorno’s service, Ravan languished
and settled into a miserable existence, a job he considered not
only unreasonable but immoral. Adorno should die. He deserved to
die. In Ravan’s mind, Adorno was only an inadequate scrap of a
man—not worthy of the earth he stood on. It was his observation
that Adorno was intentionally cruel and sadistic. He’d observed the
stage plays, had seen Adorno attempt to rape a chambermaid and
then, after a moment of his own impotence, had ordered the poor
girl beaten nearly to death. Only then had the tyrant been able to
gratify himself.

Ravan experienced incredible conflict
at this. If nothing else, the fourteenth century boasted random
acts of violence. Ravan had seen more than his share of unspeakable
cruelty and brutality, but in all the campaigns that he'd fought,
violence towards a woman or child had been his extreme sensitivity.
From the pit of his being, he despised it. He’d never been guilty
of a direct act of barbarism to a woman or child, and on some
level, believed himself a better man for it.

In quick order, Ravan comprehended the
hatred that all, given enough time, felt for Adorno. On at least
two separate occasions Ravan intercepted an assassin only to
hesitate. Later, he gained brief satisfaction at the fit Adorno
threw as he had heaved the severed head of the assassin onto the
table where Adorno dined.

“
Get it away! Get it
away!” he’d shrieked.

With a shrug, Ravan dragged it
purposefully close enough to his master to smear the sleeve of his
ivory silk brocade jacket. Again, it was obvious that Adorno
savored exhibition of the macabre, but objected to any close
proximity of it to himself.

Adorno was vain about his bodyguard,
but somewhere in the back of his mind, he possibly feared Ravan.
The whole township feared Ravan. He was an alarmingly efficient
mercenary with a harrowing reputation; that is what people saw in
him. Beyond that, Ravan came across as mortally menacing. His
purposeful stride, black facade, and the desolate approach that he
took to all tasks—these things served to create a monster from the
man.

Many mistook Ravan’s silent and
ominous demeanor as detachment from compassion. Few knew his
tortured history and no one cared. Adorno looked at him as a
possession, his own personal barbarian, a leashed
sideshow.

Ravan, however, had resolved that
Adorno possessed no honor.

Later that day, he asked himself,
“What is it which binds me to this miserable assignment?” Muttering
beneath his breath, he paced the floor, back and forth outside of
Adorno’s bedroom suite. He was mentally preparing himself for the
betrothal ball.

LanCoste sat by, perhaps simply to
offer his friend company. “Hmmm...” LanCoste had moved beyond
conversation and didn’t look up from sharpening the glistening arc
of one of his magnificent axes. He drew the whetstone methodically
across the weapons edge and it gave a satisfying ring with each
pull.

“
I’m tired of this,” Ravan
protested. “I’m tired of wet-nursing that miserable tyrant—I wish
to be gone—I need to be gone.”

This comment caused the giant to give
pause and he scrutinized his younger comrade for a few seconds, but
said nothing.

Later that
evening, Ravan changed his mind entirely
,
when he met
Nicolette.

She entered escorted by her parents
and approached Adorno. She curtsied deeply and considered the dark
man who stood with his arms casually crossed, behind and off to the
left of her betrothed.

Ravan looked at her boldly and
squarely, but it was not Nicolette who first looked
away.

She was perplexing, mysterious, and
beautiful. In a strange and peculiar way, she was almost not human.
Even the way she moved was otherworldly, as though the room moved
about her instead of her about the room.

Ravan was uncertain of her
nationality. She was English by breeding, but her accent seemed
remotely Slavic. She was white, almost as snow, but her eyes were
the darkest green, through and through. She spoke French superbly,
as though she had been born on French soil.

He was surprised again at his own
undeniable interest in her. This was not like him and had never
happened before. He was again uncomfortable with a feeling he could
not seem to categorize. Ravan was deeply fascinated by her and
tonight, she seemed to notice him as well.

Curiously, Adorno appeared oblivious
to the fleeting glances the two exchanged. He seemed too
self-absorbed to concern himself with how his betrothed might
really feel about him. He'd announced his intention to marry
Nicolette Gray that evening and was reveling in the attention he
commanded. The champagne flowed freely.

Eventually, Adorno would retire, drunk
and unable to perform. In his drunkenness, he would be mercifully
impotent to cast his rage on the unfortunate wench of his choosing.
As was proper for the occasion, Nicolette would sleep on the other
side of the castle from him.

She maintained a subtle gaze upon
Ravan, even as she murmured a greeting to Adorno.

Ravan shrugged. ‘What of it? He was
simply a bodyguard—not responsible for her attentions and so again,
what of it?’

It was later, at the announcement ball
that Ravan found an opportune moment and uncharacteristically, he
approached her. He'd never done something like this, but it was as
if an odd force exacted control of him. He must speak to her, and
was not even certain what he intended to say. Perhaps, he intended
to downplay the looks they’d exchanged for some time
now.

“
I am Master Adorno’s
bodyguard, his personal soldier. You will frequently see me at your
fiancé’s side.” He bowed ever so slightly. “My name is
Ravan.”

“
You don’t belong here, do
you?” Her question was rhetorical and she did not bow back, only
stepped closer to him.

Silent, he hesitated, taken
aback.

“
You don’t belong in this
type of trade either, is that not so?” Her emerald eyes bottomless,
her face blank, she moved slowly into him as he stepped
away.

Her abrupt frankness caught Ravan very
much by surprise.

She looked him straight in the eyes,
her skin ghostly pale against the inky-black of her hair. Her lips
were blood red, even without rouge. She was for the most part,
expressionless and translucent, like an unfathomable
pearl.

“
And you, Nicolette?” he
countered. It sounded odd to him to voice her name in such a
personal way. “Do you belong at the side of one like your
betrothed?” He allowed a rare glimmer of a smile to pass fleetingly
across his lips. He was not in the least bit amused, and his
question was unusually candid and sincere.

Shrugging, she replied, “I am a woman
in the fourteenth century, what choice have I?” She spoke as though
she were a time traveler, and temporarily out of place.

“
You don’t strike me as
one inclined to conform to the state of society in current times.”
Ravan leaned his head back, eyes narrowing, curious how she might
answer him. He was shocked at how easily he spoke to her and
surprised at how she answered.