Duval suddenly changed, his face writhing in anger. He spat into the face of his captive as he clutched the chin of the young man, shaking his head roughly. “Know this my impudent young fool, if you ever disobey me again, in any way? I will kill every child at that pathetic little orphanage!”
He shoved Ravan’s head backward into the chest of LanCoste. “And, I will not wait for your answer! Do we have an understanding? Because if we don’t, I will behead each one of them and you can sleep caged with them until you rot together!”
Ravan stared, stricken. Duval was so suddenly enraged that it caught Ravan very much by surprise.
Duval struck the young man across the face as he repeated himself, “I said do we have an understanding, because if we don’t, I will send my troops to that miserable little orphanage today!”
Ravan shook his head. “No, No! I mean yes—yes, we have an understanding.” He sobbed and dropped his head, looking at his boots. “I will do as you say—there will be no more trouble.” His eyes blurred as the tears welled in them, dropping onto his boots. He hated this weakness, his inability to change things, and hated his tears. He was suddenly swamped in grief for her, oblivious of anything else.
Duval grinned, satisfied. “Good, then we are in agreement.” He turned to go, but then hesitated. “Oh, one last thing.” He looked over his shoulder. “Kill yourself and the orphans are as good as dead. You are of no good to me injured or dead. It will be in their best interest if you thrive.” He bellowed a hollow laugh as guards entered again with food, leaving it on the settee.
Everyone left and time stood still for Ravan as the room slowly darkened. The smell of the food nauseated him. He lay curled up on the bed, not moving as he sobbed quietly. One hand held the braid of her hair, the other gently slid the ring up and down over the silver necklace. Ravan closed his eyes and finally quieted, listening instead to the soft ���whirring’ of the ring.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
†
In 1346, England was weakened by over a century of war on foreign soil. Lacking the resources to make good their temporary sieges, the English were overrun by the persistent French and despite having higher quality troops, there was one such prolonged battle at Calais in which the daughter of Edward III, Mary Plantagenet, was taken hostage. Mary was to be ransomed back to the English.
It was sometimes more profitable to ransom prisoners of sufficient means than to execute them or try them for heresy, an ever increasing phenomenon of the times. Mary fell into this category as her father was not only the battalion commander, he was the standing King of England.
Prior to Mary’s ransom, however, a young knight who’d tended her capture had fallen in love with her. Lamond DeBourbon, a knight of substantial means, paid her ransom, quelling the disparity between the sides. It was not only a kind move, it was politically very savvy.
Despite Calais ultimately falling to the English nearly a year later, De Bourbon married Mary Plantagenet and inaugurated the joining of an incredibly powerful French/English lineage. Establishment was set on both soils, and the French lands became the royal house of Bourbon in Orleans, south of Paris.
Lamond DeBourbon was, in fact, related to Charles VI who sat the French throne. So, DeBourbon exercised tremendous power in his domain. The history of this reign was marked with periods of relative quiescence interspersed with bloody and senseless savagery. DeBourbon was a good and brilliant man, but suffered from episodes of mania. Nevertheless, the domain flourished and grew.
The grandson of DeBourbon and Plantagenet’s marriage, Philippe DeBourbon, eventually married the niece of Edward the Black Prince. Edward the Black Prince was the Prince of Wales, son of Edward III and so English blood on French soil was even more firmly cemented in ‘Bourbon’.
Overall, it was like oil in water as the rule of the domain was most often with an iron fist. The Bourbon castle boasted soldiers and archers in excess of five hundred with cannon all around. The surrounding villages were taxed heavily but well protected. The commoner’s belief system became one of, ‘We will thrive—or else.’
The Bourbon estate also paid nicely to the papacy in Rome, such that the dominion did not fall too heavily under the scrutiny of the church. In fact, the castle grounds also boasted within its confines one of the largest, most ornate churches in northern France, and the castle itself was magnificent.
The surrounding countryside was fertile and rich with resources, and despite the harsh inflexibility of the ruling family, Bourbon flourished.
Eventually, the castle was ruled by Antoine de Bourbon III, who married the Daughter of the first Duke of Lancaster, Griselda Elisabeth Benedict II of Gloucester perpetuating the Anglo-French rule. After two sons died in infancy, they finally raised a third son, Adorno Benedict Antoine de Bourbon IV.
Uncannily, he held remote patriarchal characteristics. Like the first DeBourbon, he was vibrant and animated, quite small and effeminate, with a shock of snow-white hair, though he was barely twenty years old.
His thin, transparent lips held no color and when he smiled it was unreasonably lopsided, revealing a sharp incisor on the left side. His nose was long, narrow and hawk-like. He was, in fact, most resembling of an adolescent albino gargoyle as one could truthfully imagine.
Adorno was also an autocrat to excess, insisting upon lavish banquets, ceremonies, and balls at every turn. There was no detail nor expense spared on the Bourbon estate. As he matured, the young Adorno’s reputation for extravagant affairs, with bouts of sadistic and vicious cruelty, surfaced and became widespread.
Stage presentations of the rape of virgins were horribly realistic and there was a canyon dubbed Prey’s Tomb, an overlook that more than a few of the victims had ‘accidentally’ stepped from.
Adorno also exercised increasingly torturous punishments for the inability to pay taxes. These punishments were immeasurably and publicly cruel at times, seldom fitting the crime. Sometimes, the head of the household was left blinded or with one or more limbs amputated, leaving the surviving family indebted to the estate for several generations, never to escape serfdom.
The horrible taxation effectively added to the dynasty’s landholdings, but the price on the public humor was not without great damage. If ever a man was hated, truly and deeply hated, Adorno was, and deservedly so.
His lurid career as the only living heir to the Bourbon dynasty gave him tremendous power. His father became afflicted with intermittent fevers and bouts of hysteria, so his parents allowed the young man to flex his authority and tolerated immeasurable misdemeanors without obvious notice.
He swiftly rose to power and despite his youth made many of the important, though not necessarily prudent, decisions of the landholdings. His wealth was so old and ran so deeply that it afforded his rule much stability, despite his excess and poor choices. It was as if Adorno had bred Gomorrah with Elysium and the offspring was his kingdom.
Personal safety was another issue altogether. He was extremely powerful, and wealthier than most kings, but ill-liked by even his closest acquaintances. There was no safe council in the Bourbon estate. It would therefore be relatively simple to assassinate him. Then a distant, and probably English, relative would assume dominion, a thought that infuriated Adorno. He obsessed himself daily with this fear.
Adorno was not stupid; he knew his vulnerability was from within the confines of his heavily guarded estate. On several occasions, even the food tasters had died from poisoning. The loyalty that existed amongst his own army was imposed—not earned. He knew that he required protection, constant vigilance—a bodyguard. He also knew that there was no man amongst his ranks who possessed truehearted allegiance to him. His protection must from without. It must be bought.
There was a man who could be trusted to supply such a bodyguard, and only the best. He was not an easy man to enlist the service of, but Adorno had a vast coffer of wealth and money. He knew that gold could buy practically anything in any age.
This man had the r
eputation of supplying the deadliest man for the job. The man was Phillippe Censoire Benage Duval or, as anyone who knew of him, simply Duval—King of Mercenaries. He was wicked of his own right, and his mercenaries subjugated all others. Adorno coveted the thought of having one of Duval’s mercenaries as his new bodyguard and would stop at nothing to acquire him.
Assembling his knights, he ordered, “Prepare my carriage and an entourage with two hundred of my best soldiers. I wish to go to see this Monsieur Duval and I don’t want to be intimidated.” As he spoke, he squinted, scrutinizing his well-manicured nails at arm’s length.
“My lord, you would leave the estate vulnerable if you secure such a traveling militia. It is nearly half your entire army.” The man who spoke was Swiss, a pikeman who’d joined the French army as an infantry man. He was a good soldier and had risen in the royal army despite the lack of privilege or nobility. Now he was employed by Adorno’s family and trustworthy to a fault.
“Silence, you idiot! I know what I’m doing. You will enlist the peasantry to protect the vineyards and secure the forefront of the walls.” Adorno sneered, his eyes mere slits as he peered sideways at his offender. “You will do as I say!”
His first officer objected meekly, “But, my lord! You cannot take the peasants from their tasks. They haven’t the training or the time. It is planting season and—” His officer paused. He was a righteous man, employed by a tyrant but with integrity nonetheless. “My lord, forgive me, but they must work to feed their families. They are not soldiers, my lord! I sincerely implore you.” Jamner tried to temper his voice with kind persuasion, appealing to his master with palms up.
Adorno walked leisurely over to his first officer and spoke slowly as he circled him, hesitating as he walked behind him. The bigger man stood at grave attention as Adorno sniveled, “You dispute me again, Monsieur Jamner?”
“No, my Lord, I simply wish to—” For a brief moment, Jamner did not even feel the sliver fine, double-edged rondel slip between his ribs. Instead, he felt his lung catch and fail to inflate, the agonizing shift of his heart to one side as the lung collapsed. He clutched his chest.
“Good—because I cannot trust a first officer that argues my every order.” Adorno murmured sweetly, as though to a lover. He never hesitated. Turning the blade, he buried it to the hilt and caught the master vessel from the heart. Horribly, Adorno was familiar with anatomy as he had a personal hobby of human dissection, even sometimes when his victims were not altogether dead.
Jamner faltered and immediately collapsed, falling to his hands and knees, his head rolling forward. A frothy red meringue erupted from his mouth and nostrils and he plunged face forward, shattering his nose as his face planted squarely onto the granite floor. The good man shuddered and twitched. It was a remarkably quiet affair as his body instantly and silently bled into itself, the life spark fading rapidly—it was alarmingly simple and utterly obscene.
Adorno was enraptured, could not take his eyes from it.
As the man fell he allowed the body to pull itself from the blade. “What’s that?” He sneered under his breath, holding the blade up, studying the crimson coat it now wore. “Nothing to say?” As if satisfied with the way the blood appeared, almost as transparent as a fine ruby on the delicate steel of the weapon. He answered himself, “Good.”
The crimson made him think of her—specifically her lips. He walked slowly over to his second officer, ignoring the final death throes behind him.
Holding the blade delicately between his thumb and forefinger, he looked up into the face of the trembling, new first officer. Jamner breathed his final breath but a few steps away. Adorno slowly wiped the blood from the knife onto the cheek of the standing officer. “Now, Monsieur Moulin, you would not question my authority? Would you?” He said it sweetly, in almost a child’s voice as his eyebrows raised and he cocked his head sweetly to one side. With a sudden, slight flick of his hand he removed the blade from the man’s cheek, leaving an ever so tiny slice.
Moulin’s own blood beaded bright red from the tiny wound and dripped slowly, mingling on his cheek with the darker red blood of the dead man. “No, my lord,” he whispered, “I would not.”
“Good—then do as I say,” he hissed, “assemble my traveling party.” Adorno turned briskly on his heel to return to his bedchamber. “And bring Nicolette to me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
†
When D’ata's absence had been discovered, the diocese launched a search for him. His father and the church in Rome were notified.
The Baron had been furious, then fearful, at the disappearance of his son. France was in a state of perpetual, chaotic flux. There was a serious conflict within the Church—a Papal Schism that threatened to divide Europe. The power struggle existed between two Popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon, and despite the widespread corruption that existed within the church, heresy was brutally punished.
As hypocritical as Roman Catholic religion was, the young priest was still at grave risk. This could go very poorly for D’ata and would certainly reflect badly upon the Cezanne name.
The local church had reason to worry for the young priest. There was no good that could come of his flight. Should D’ata wander into the wrong township, the wrong diocese, he could very easily be taken into custody and tried immediately for heresy. He would certainly be excommunicated but perhaps even executed—made an example of.
The church dictated such ridiculous and harsh protocols as what someone should or should not eat. It would certainly judge D’ata’s infidelity harshly. Canonical rule dictated that D’ata’s marriage was to the papacy alone.
It was therefore imperative to find the young priest immediately and it should not be difficult to do. All knew where he must be going. He was most certainly looking for Julianne.
* * *
It was three months before D’ata made his way to the outskirts of Marseille and he knew he must be very cautious. The first familiar landscape was welcome and omnipresent to him all at once. He was fearful, but there was no easy way now, so he pressed forward. It was November and in southern France the first snows threatened. He abandoned his clerical robes, trading them for trousers, a tunic, and jacket that he found in a remote farmhouse.
The clothes fit well enough, baggy, as D’ata was much thinner than the farmer who ordinarily wore them. But the length was good and they were warm. He inhaled deeply the odor of another man’s hard work as he straightened the coat and buttoned it as high as it would—the top two buttons were missing. This only added to the intimacy of the garment and it wrapped more than warmth around the young man.
He whispered sincere words of gratitude to the absent farmer but felt a guilty remorse for his transgression. Theft was a new and disagreeable venture for him, so D’ata collected the eggs, chopped a days worth of wood, and milked their cow, leaving the buckets outside on the door’s stoop where the milk would stay cold.
Three hours later an urgent but satisfied priest walked steadily southwest through the forest, and a confused family of four returned to the farm, puzzling over the odd circumstances and neatly folded priest’s robes that waited for them at their home.
It was well into the night before D’ata stole silently into the stables of the Cezanne estate. It must have been close to midnight he thought. He shushed the stable dog as the familiar old hound leaped upon him. It was ecstatic to greet him and jumped up tall enough to lick his master’s face thoroughly. D’ata scratched the Alaunt hound’s long head, smiled at the animal’s enthusiasm and murmured a quiet greeting as he pushed the dog down off him.
The stable master’s quarters were halfway down the primary barn, and his boots scuffed quietly along the stone floor as he made his way toward them.
He intended to step from his past into a bright future. He denied the fourteenth century the parochial intolerance and narrow-mindedness. Youth and love gave in to a new resolve and he felt such a hopeful clarity about his decisions. This gave him a bottoml
ess source of strength. He was optimistic—and without a resource in the world.
* * *
Henri struggled to focus on the commotion that had roused him. His scoliosis twisted him most when he wakened and he’d heard the dog’s happy whining. The beast would never have allowed a stranger near and the stable master likely wondered why someone familiar was about at this hour.
The trainer chose to live in a tiny stable room close to the horses. The room was a tight space and he shared it with various saddles, pieces of harness, and bridles. Stacks of bloodline records, registrations, and sales papers rose like proud towers around his small bunk. It was warm and familiar and smelled of leather, liniment, and horse sweat.
As Henri stepped into the alley, his jaw dropped. He rubbed his eyes as he held the lamp up to spy the familiar, but thin, face that looked earnestly back at him from between the cross ties. The hound circled D’ata, wagging its tail in approval.
For a moment both stood in silence. Tears welled in the old man’s eyes as he stumbled forward to wrap his arms around his friend.
D’ata returned the gesture gratefully. Tears threatened in his own eyes as he finally held his old friend at arm’s length. “Where is she, Henri?” His eyes were urgent and full of longing.
Henri hung the lamp on a nearby hook and sat roughly down onto a straw bale. “D’ata, your parents will be so relieved to—”
“My parents are not to know of my return,” D’ata interrupted coming quickly and gravely back to the point. “Where is she?” He knelt, his face earnest as he pleaded with his friend.
When the old man hesitated, D’ata pressed him, “Henri, you know I must find her. I will do it with or without your help, and you know this is true. Where is she?”
Henri saw in the eyes of the young man something different, something new. There was the look of age that comes with maturity and pain. It saddened the old trainer that D’ata should have to wear the pressing visage that is the corruption of time; none are immune, but to see it on one so young was heartbreaking. Looking into the lean face, he rested a hand on the thin shoulder. “She is with child my son.”
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