“I know,” D’ata shook his head, impatiently.
His matter of fact response startled Henri. “How could you know? Have you seen her?”
D’ata waved the questions aside. “That’s not important. I must find her, Henri. It is imperative.” He looked strangely capable in the worn and tattered clothes of the farmer.
“She is with her Uncle and Aunt in east Marseille.” Henri waved in no particular direction as he struggled to situate himself more comfortably on the hay bale. He pulled a small leather pouch from his pocket and scraped a minuscule amount of the black tar from it onto the back of his thumb-nail before folding and tucking the pouch back into his pocket.
D’ata recognized the habit, knew it was futile to interrupt him once Henri started upon this routine, and so now he waited as patiently as was possible.
Finally, Henri said, “Her father will kill you, D’ata—” he continued without looking up, spreading some of the tar across the buccal mucosa of his lower lip with the tip of his finger, “He will kill you, if your father doesn’t first.”
D’ata glanced outside towards the mansion before sitting down next to Henri on the hay bale. “I’m sorry this is so difficult for so many people.” He interlaced his fingers, rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his forehead into his hands. “I am sorry things are so complicated, but I will die if I do not find her, Henri.” His voice was a whisper, “It must seem so easy to an outsider looking in, but I cannot go on without her.”
The two sat silently for a long moment, Henri allowing the opium tar to mix with his own saliva, cutting in short time the pain that was his daily disposition.
D’ata sighed softly, oddly comforted by the familiarity of his friend’s habit. Henri had been introduced to the rare drug by a Persian merchant, a trader of linen who’d visited the estate for the purposes of business. The unusual fellow had taken a critical liking to the fine horses the Henri’s breeding program produced and in return, beside Eastern gold, he’d offered the drug to monsieur Cezanne and to the stable master. Henri had become dependent upon the relief that the unusual black tar offered him, and it allowed him respite from a disease which would have otherwise put him under a long time before now.
The younger one reached an arm around his old friend, pulling the crooked little man underneath his arm and smiled. “It’s all right, Henri. If you cannot help me—it is all right.”
Henri harrumphed, struggling to free himself from the hold of the young farmer-priest. He grumbled, finally swallowing the sweet, bitter relief, already comforted by the strange medicine. “I didn’t say I would not help you, only that I think you’ve taken all leave of your senses.”
He struggled to stand, slapping away the hand that D’ata offered. “Keep your mitts off me! What? You take me for an invalid now?” He shuffled off unsteadily towards his little room, taking the lamp with him. D’ata hesitated and Henri stopped, glancing back over his shoulder, pointing at him with one of his canes. “Well? Get off your ragged ass and come with me!”
D’ata grinned and stood, following his friend.
Merely an hour later, D’ata stole away from the Cezanne estate. Inside his shirt was a carefully scrawled map, scratched out by the old horse trainer onto a deed of sale for a long deceased horse. It would guide D’ata to Julianne.
He rode an old mare, much like the one Julianne had ridden to find D’ata three months before. The horse plodded along. Her stride was heavy and slow, her cadence immutable. The heart of the one who rode her soared as though they both had wings.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
†
The Dungeon: Two a.m.
Ravan nodded to no one in particular. The confines of the cell had been reduced to the small, safe space the brothers shared as the stories pulled them away from the terrible here and now.
Obviously, D’ata sat there with Ravan and—Julianne did not. It did not need to be spoken aloud, but the sorrow the young priest wore as his second skin was starting to make sense to the prisoner. Something had happened—something unspeakable.
It was just about then that the transition began to occur as they became human to one other. The bond which had been torn from them twenty-three years ago rose from beneath the depths of their being to claim its birthright. They were becoming the brothers they’d always been.
D’ata mourned the torture and heartache that Ravan, the child, had endured at the hands of Duval.
Ravan shifted in the straw, his mind also elsewhere as he envisioned D’ata on the outskirts of Marseille, plodding along on an old horse—in love. He was deeply lost in his thoughts about this, rubbing his chin absently, when something caught his eye from down the black hall from between the cells. “Did you see that?”
His brother looked up, pulling himself back from the dregs of the past as well. “What?”
“I don’t know—something. I thought someone was there.” Ravan squinted, peering into the darkness.
“It’s the dungeons I think. Remember that happened to me a while ago,” D’ata brushed it off.
“I suppose so. Truthfully, I should be totally mad by now.” Ravan discarded the odd moment as well.
Apparitions vanquished, the two stepped back into the pulse of their memories and were swept back into the journey of their past.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
†
Renoir never made it back to the Inn to kill the Fat Wife. The slow cranial bleed Ravan gifted him with on the practice grounds sent him sliding from his horse eight days later. The animal made its way to a farm several weeks later and learned to plow a field. Renoir, quite alive but barely able to move, could not defend himself at all when the wolves came...
* * *
Ravan fought.
Whenever and whomever Duval wished for him to fight, he fought. Day after day on the training grounds Ravan was defeated. Every time he hit the ground, he rose again until he could rise no more and LanCoste would half carry the boy back to his quarters. It was mind numbing, and it served to help Ravan displace the pain in his heart. Renoir had not yet returned with the head of the Innkeeper’s wife, but of one thing he was certain—Duval would have his way. She was dead.
In Ravan’s mind, the Fat Wife had been murdered, and it was his fault. He would not make the same mistake again, would not allow it. There were the orphans, the daughters, and the Old One to think of now. He was determined that others, including himself, would suffer long before he would allow those he loved to endure the same fate.
Ravan was isolated at the fortress. There was no outside contact, no information, and no communication. A man without mercy had forced him into a position that afforded no options. It was an imposed job, and a dreadful one. He was a servant of oppression, allowed nothing other than training, eating, and sleeping.
As the days turned into weeks and weeks evolved into months, his wounds healed and his strength returned. More seldom did the young man hit the dirt on the training grounds and, one by one, his opponents backed away. One evening, when LanCoste looked him over at the end of battle training, Ravan shook his head and returned to his quarters alone.
The boy disappeared and in his place stepped a man, his body sinewy and strong, his demeanor fierce and cold. From the outside the man was unflinching. From within, however, his heart was fractured and beyond repair.
Ravan swallowed his hatred like rancid bile, closing it away into his core, locking it into a place where it could not escape. Caged, his hatred only grew stronger, filling in short time the recesses meant for love. The salve he spread upon it was the ferocity with which he fought. It was the true armor he wore—the shell of the chain mail and plates only dressed it out.
He knew it was unacceptable to kill even one of Duval’s men, but he brutally thrashed any sparring partner LanCoste now paired with him.
In no time at all, the thin, half-starved adolescent became a tempered and polished soldier. He ate ravenously, his body greedily replacing thready sinew with heavy muscled mas
s. His reflexes became lightning quick, his hands deadly, his mercy—forgotten.
His hair grew long and he braided it into a single long rope down his back. With his maturity came a dark mask on his face, his beard adding a sinister element to his already stoic and primitive nature. Coupled with his uncanny instincts, Ravan had become in very short time Duval’s deadliest mercenary. Before long, none sparred with him other than the giant. There was no need and none were compelled to take him on.
Again he lapsed into silence, speaking only when absolutely necessary. He was alone. Even the initial friendship he thought might develop with the giant was only a splintered possibility.
In his sleep, Ravan dreamed of the Innkeeper’s wife. He would awaken confused with wet eyes and a cold, tear stained face.
As always, there was the memory of Pierre, somewhere in the shadows, watching from the corners of his memory. He wondered if Pierre had helped Renoir murder her, compounding his grisly ruminations with visions increasingly graphic as time went by. Before long, Ravan intended that revenge must be served. It was a death task, something to be completed before he died.
Sitting alone next to the smith’s fire, Ravan was tempering arrow tips when this thought of sweet revenge brought the glimpse of a rare and fleeting smile to the unhappy face of the young mercenary. Carefully he laid the barbs into the bed of coals with the smith’s tongs, allowing the metal to turn a deep, glowing red.
The fire warmed Ravan’s face on this, one of the last cold days of spring. April was gone and May was whispering softly to the trees as the boughs sagged heavily with warming snow. Winter held long this year. It had been that way for several years now, and people suffered for this as crops grew poorly. Ravan, however, didn’t notice this. All was a dark despair in his world.
Hammering the steel carefully, he looked up as another slough of snow fell from an overloaded branch to splat upon the ground nearby. The sun was faintly warm on his back and he wore only his battle leathers, his chain plating hanging nearby.
He went back to his task, intent on perfection. There were weapon smiths within the compound whose tasks were simply to make weapons. Ravan found them inadequate and rejected their work. They didn’t even rival the arrows he'd fashioned as a boy back at the orphanage.
The hammer struck again, sparks giving way to perfection beneath.
Concentrating, he created a masterpiece, whetting the edges of the arrow tip on the stone before meticulously placing it into a poplar shaft that he’d hand picked and then honed until true. The swan feathers were placed with precision, seated into the fine grooves he filed and finished with glue. Then came the filaments, wound perfectly with not one thread overlapping.
As he finished the arrow, he tested the weight and balance of it, standing casually to look down the length of it to a distant target. Methodically, he stepped out from the smith’s shed into the sunlight, pulled the yew bow from his back, and seated the arrow with mechanical precision and swiftness. Without hesitation, he let it fly. True as its maker, it rose into a speeding arc, descended like a sliver of death, and found the heart of the practice target. He did not notice as more than a few of the mercenary soldiers paused to watch in silent awe.
With his expression unchanged, Ravan turned matter-of-factly back to his work to temper the next tip. By day’s end the target would carry a quiver’s worth of the deadliest weapons ever fashioned.
* * *
Duval watched from a vantage point on the tower, nodding his approval as the young man worked. He had a month earlier witnessed Ravan effectively and methodically disable five of his best men in the courtyard. It was unnatural. He knew that none other than LanCoste sparred with the mercenary now, and no one but the giant could even draw Ravan’s bow.
“He is ready, LanCoste. It is spring. I wish to send Ravan to battle.” Duval announced as he studied his mercenary in the courtyard below.
The towering LanCoste regarded his master dispassionately and only nodded.
“I will send him to Tuscany,” Duval continued. “Charles has need of troops to defend Paris from the Jacquerie. Ravan will have opportunity to amply test the waters of his new skills.”
Greeted without response, Duval looked up into the blank eyes of the giant. “Do not fail me, LanCoste—I have invested much.”
Silence and an unreadable expression were agreement enough. The giant turned and left to prepare a battalion for Paris.
* * *
Nicolette arrived at Adorno’s massive and elaborately decorated room as per Moulin’s order. She tapped softly on the door with her fingernail and stepped elegantly into the room. Glancing slowly about herself, she again noticed the beautiful but macabre pieces of art which Adorno chose to decorate his sleeping chamber.
Nearby, on top of a dresser was a caged bird. She walked purposefully to the cage, reached within, and grasped the dove, cradling it in one hand as she went to the nearest window. Shoving at the exquisitely bejeweled rose window, she thrust open the sash, fracturing one of the stone mounts as she did.
The emerald fell twenty meters, shattering upon the stone walk below. She watched, expressionless, then released the bird. It found its wings, swooped elegantly down and disappeared into the forest below.
Leaving the window ajar, she turned and walked slowly to one of the walls, passing a pale hand over one of the paintings. There were wretched portrayals of the fall of man, beasts fornicating with humans as they descended to hell, men coupling in godless orgies.
Nicolette recognized the theme of the dance macabre and the underlying masterpiece of the works and even recognized the signature of some of the artists. She mused that nowhere was there a piece of simple beauty and paintings of children were not allowed. Nicolette wasn’t shocked at all by this and neither was she disturbed by it. Instead, she was oddly detached. It was simply an observation.
She turned from the paintings and found herself in front of a very rare floor-length Chinese amalgamated mirror. She paused, regarding the woman that gazed back at her with such uncommon eyes, darkly damp and bottomless. It was not a moment of vanity—just detached consideration.
Walking absentmindedly to the bed, she looked it over and concluded that it was all things Adorno aspired to be—ornate, enormous, and vulgar. It was immense, an imported four post Baronial Tudor of blackest mahogany with satin ropes on each post. The bedding was imported Yuan Dynasty silk, very expensive and rare. The bed skirts were finished with ermine. It was lavish and obscene, and utterly predictable.
On the bedside table was a book. She ran a delicate finger across the text of Cent Philippe de Vigneulle’s Nouvelle Nouvelles, which lay opened and face down. It would appear her master required inspiration when it came to eroticism—just another observation.
Younger than Adorno, hardly even eighteen years, Nicolette belied her youth with a very strange and otherworldly carriage. She was mystifying and provocative in an effortless way and truly seemed to be untouchable with an extraordinary detachment. She not only did not belong here—she belonged nowhere.
It was peculiar the way she shrugged to no one in particular as she pushed the rare book gently to the edge of the table, allowing it to fall to the floor. She stared at it, then stepped upon the erotic volume, cruelly breaking the spine. Nudging the damaged book gently with the toe of her slipper, she slid it beneath the bed skirting, an annoyance for Adorno later.
She knew Adorno—knew his small heart and his dirty little soul. She questioned it not, only observed it like one might observe a dreadful accident involving people you did not know.
Nicolette wasn’t like the onlookers at the executions, fascinated, drawn in, horrified and morbidly curious. She was detached and, even though trapped within his castle, wholly outside of Adorno's jealous grasp.
This queer aloofness made people whisper. It also made Adorno insanely possessive and bedeviled of Nicolette. He must own her completely. There were many he could have instead of her, and many that he did defile, but he tru
ly wanted only her.
His obsession was not lost upon her and she was well aware that it consumed him.
She turned only slightly as Adorno stomped from the bath chamber, his servants in tow.
Adorno stopped in his tracks, instantly taken aback, as he always was, by the strange and ethereal beauty standing before him. Without words, nor the notion of foreplay, he advanced upon her like a jackal. He was immediately aroused and fairly desperate for he’d been thinking incessantly about her for the past hour—since he’d murdered Jamner.
The servants hastily shuffled from the great chamber.
Nicolette knew Adorno’s timing; she knew that his ability to consummate the act wasn’t always predictable. She lifted her chin, tilting her head only slightly to examine the length of him.
Fully aware that she unnerved him, she had a way of putting him off guard, and she could do it with a mere glance.
This only served to mildly enrage and excite Adorno even further.
Without words he shoved her back onto the bed and pounced onto her, roughly and ineptly stripping her clothes from her. He flung the expensive and now torn garments to the floor. Then he tied her to the massive frame, yanking the bonds, spreading her legs far enough apart that he could see the wet and delicate folds between.
He remained totally clothed, only revealing the small and pale penis he’d forced on so many others. None, however, aroused him as she did.
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