Unicorn Vengeance

by Claire Delacroix

  “You do not even deny it!” she cried. Fury snapped unbridled in Genevieve’s eyes, and with a sudden burst of strength, she pushed him away and leapt from the horse. Wolfram snatched at her to no avail, the way she winced when she landed making him wince in sympathy.

  But no interest had Genevieve in his sympathy.

  “You!” she shouted as she wagged one finger up at him. “You stole away the last of my family, yet you calmly expect me to accept your aid. What manner of idiot do you fancy me to be?” The color rose in her cheeks and her voice grew louder, yet Genevieve granted Wolfram no reprieve.

  “How could you imagine that I could sleep easily with you standing guard over me? Ha! A fine jest that is! As likely as not you would slip something foul into my wine one day and leave me to expire!” Genevieve swung her lute around viciously as she turned and stalked toward an Odo who clearly listened avidly. Wolfram felt his face heat, but he dared not open his mouth to defend himself.

  What defense had he, after all? The lady called him to task for a deed he had committed in truth.

  “Well, no fool am I.” Genevieve turned back to Wolfram and jabbed a finger through the air toward him. “Whoever ‘tis that you might be! No interest have I in your assistance. Odo will help me instead.” With that, Genevieve turned and stalked away. That she limped slightly as she walked did naught to dissipate Wolfram’s certainty in her anger.

  Odo? Surely that man was at the root of Genevieve’s predicament!

  “You would instead employ the aid of a minstrel when all the king’s court hunts you?” Wilfram forced himself to ask mildly. Genevieve fired a glance of such loathing over her shoulder that Wolfram nearly flinched.

  “I suppose you find yourself better outfitted to aid me?” she demanded, her contrary opinion evident enough to leave Wolfram’s ears burning.

  No small thing was it for her to insult his talents, however angry she might be. He could aid her more effectively than Odo, and well had he thought she had the wits enough to know it. Sparks were struck within him and anger lit with a dull glow. Wolfram urged the horse to stroll in pursuit of her as he forced himself to compose a telling argument.

  Not that she would appreciate the effort. Well it seemed the woman made judgments and decisions with an impulsiveness that made him cringe. Solid logic she would not recognize should she trip over it on the street.

  “Aye,” he retorted sharply. “Aye, I do know myself to be better equipped to aid you, and well should you.”

  “Aye,” Genevieve observed sourly. “A killer is the kind of man of whom I have dire need in this moment.”

  “A song, no matter how fetching, will gain you little if the king’s hounds set their teeth in your hide,” Wolfram snapped. “You might well be pleased to see something die at my hand in that circumstance. Could your minstrel stomach the task?” Genevieve flicked him a glance filled with more fear than she likely wanted him to see. “Could your minstrel have seen you to safe haven these last two nights?”

  “At least I could sleep through the night assured that morning would not find a dagger in my back,” she snapped in return. Wolfram cocked a brow high.

  “Well had I thought the dagger was your weapon of choice,” he accused softly.

  Genevieve’s eyes flew wide and she gasped as she turned to confront him. The color drained from her face as she evidently saw that Wolfram knew the fullness of what she had intended to do.

  “Mayhap we have something in common, after all,” Wolfram purred, enjoying that he had the upper hand, for the moment at least. Well enough he knew it would not last, and when Genevieve inhaled sharply and bolted, he was prepared to give pursuit.

  “I cannot travel with you.” She tossed the words hastily over her shoulder as she ran, but Wolfram was not finished with their discussion as yet. Blessed stubborn, Genevieve was, but Wolfram knew his determination would outweigh her own.

  He was right and he knew it. He aimed not to cease arguing until she knew it, as well. Curse the woman for being so determined to ignore what he said!

  “You cannot travel without me and survive,” Wolfram observed as he dug his heels into his horse’s side. The beast cantered after Genevieve as she tried to hasten toward Odo.

  “I can and I will,” she declared as he rode alongside. Her breath came in short spurts and she shot him a glance ripe with fury.

  “And where would you go?” Wolfram inquired mildly.

  “Home.” Genevieve bit the word out viciously.

  “Montsalvat? A choice of meager appeal, in truth,” he commented.

  That captured her attention fully. Genevieve halted abruptly and clutched her lute close with one arm while she propped the other hand on her hip to confront him. Wolfram pulled the reins and the horse stepped sideways at the abrupt change of pace, tossing its head once or twice before it settled.

  Once again they confronted each other, and the air crackled with tension. Odo was close enough to hear their words now, and Wolfram hoped that man would throw his argument on the side of good sense. Who knew what whimsy a minstrel might find compelling? Well it seemed that this lutenist was determined to cling to a path of little merit.

  “Why?” Her demand hung in the air between them.

  “But think upon it, Genevieve,” Wolfram urged, leaning forward. “‘Tis the first place they will seek you out.”

  She lifted her chin stubbornly and he knew she would argue the point. “Nay, they will not. ‘Tis too far.”

  Wolfram snorted. “Aye, ‘twas clearly too far to send me,” he commented dryly.

  “‘Tis not such a leap of intellect to connect Munsalvaesche with Montsalvat,” Odo added.

  Genevieve looked between both men with evident frustration, her expression slowly changing to dismay. Her color rose angrily and she fired a hostile glance in Odo’s direction. “‘Tis all your fault, if they would seek me out now,” she accused.

  Odo arched a skeptical brow and folded his arms across his chest. “Aye, ‘twas I who demanded you declare your identity before all,” he commented.

  “No risk was there in that, surely,” Genevieve protested. “I am but a woman and no threat to any man’s power.”

  “But young enough to bear spawn to an ambitious man,” Odo declared flatly.

  Genevieve’s eyes widened and she turned to Wolfram.

  “I do not think they will leave the matter be,” he said gently when she seemed to be waiting for his conclusions. “Accept my aid in this.”

  His last words went unheard as Odo interjected. “You should have known better than to come to Paris and draw attention to yourself,” that man accused. Genevieve gasped but Odo merely shrugged. Wolfram saw rage light her eyes before she turned and savagely punched the minstrel in the belly.

  “Fool! Addle-pated idiot! How dare you sing of my family in the king’s own court and jeopardize everything! How dare you reveal me that I cannot return home! How dare you meddle with my life! How dare you steal everything away from me that I have known!”

  “I thought it but a tale!” Odo cried as he tried to defend himself. Only the fact that Genevieve resolutely held her lute out of the fray, leaving her with but one hand to attack, granted the minstrel any chance at all. Wolfram leapt from his saddle to aid.

  “A dangerous thread of truth there is in all of it!” Genevieve insisted. “How could you do this to me? How could you risk everything for naught?”

  “I knew not who you were!” Odo declared. Wolfram captured Genevieve’s arms and trapped her back against his chest. She struggled futilely, then took refuge in spitting on the minstrel.

  “No excuse is that! Have you no idea what has been risked?” Wolfram felt a wet splash of tears on his hands but he knew she would welcome naught of any comfort he might try to grant her.

  “All is revealed,” Genevieve whispered tearfully, and it seemed that her resolve crumpled in acknowledgement of the truth. Her anger was spent, but Wolfram felt the knave for having to tell her the truth. The two men
’s gazes met helplessly as she sagged against Wolfram. “But where else might I go?” she asked through her tears, her voice so quiet that she might be asking herself.

  “We cannot linger here,” Odo said carefully.

  Genevieve flicked a venomous glance in his direction. “Thanks to you,” she charged, with some vestige of her former anger. “Though why you speak of ‘we’ I cannot fathom. Do not imagine that I would have anything to do with either of you at this point.”

  “You have little choice, should you desire to leave Paris alive,” Wolfram observed in an undertone. Genevieve stiffened against him, and he watched her chin rise defiantly.

  “Even I am hard-pressed to believe my best option lies with a murderer,” she snapped.

  “I for one do not mean to stay here,” Odo said with an evenness that Wolfram imagined cost him dearly. What was his intent? Wolfram narrowed his eyes skeptically, though the way Odo met his gaze again was reassuring.

  “Nor do I,” Wolfram agreed. Though Genevieve’s expression was mutinous, well did he know that she listened avidly to their planning.

  “It seems that my little troupe has an engagement elsewhere,” Odo murmured.

  Ah. There was an idea with appeal. “They will be watching the city gates,” Wolfram observed cautiously.

  Odo smiled a thin smile, but his intent gaze never wavered from Wolfram’s. “No one takes note of actors and acrobats,” he said quietly. “Come join my troupe. We will leave the city, though I know not where we might head.”

  Genevieve granted Odo a venomous glance. “And why should I accept your aid?” she demanded.

  Odo shrugged, though his gaze burned bright. “‘Tis clear a debt is owed from me to you. Among my kind such things are not taken lightly.”

  ‘Twas enough reassurance for Wolfram, though he well knew Genevieve still harbored doubts.

  “We should go to Metz,” Wolfram offered impulsively. Both of his companions glanced to him in surprise, but he looked only to Odo. “The Templar knights have been arrested within all of France. ‘Tis over the closest border and in the opposite direction of Montsalvat.” And a place of memories for him, but neither of them needed to know that.

  “I like your thinking well,” Odo agreed.

  Genevieve spared an arch glance in Wolfram’s direction. “Mayhap you should simply return to your Ville Neuve,” she suggested coldly. Wolfram shook his head.

  “I cannot return there,” he said flatly.

  “All of us are marked,” Odo confirmed. “Logical it seems in truth to venture forth together now that our destinies are entwined. ‘Twas only luck alone that saw me escape the court unscathed and I would not tempt fate by remaining overlong in Paris.”

  “Think whatsoever you will,” Genevieve commented frostily, “but no intention have I of venturing anywhere with either or both of you.”

  “Do not be a fool, Genevieve,” Odo muttered.

  Genevieve tossed her hair and stepped quickly out of Wolfram’s grip, the very image of the impetuousness of the fair sex. “I will take my chances alone,” she asserted with bravado.

  “No chance have you alone,” Wolfram argued flatly. “‘Tis as simple as that. Should you choose to live, you must make your way with us.”

  Genevieve’s eyes snapped. “I will do no such thing.”

  “A promise did you make to me,” Odo said in a low tone that told Wolfram the other man knew he had Genevieve cornered. She regarded the minstrel warily, her manner doing naught to dismiss Wolfram’s suspicions.

  “You would not,” she murmured threateningly. Odo merely nodded, clearly well pleased with himself.

  “I will and I do,” he asserted boldly, and his expression became more assessing than Wolfram had yet seen it. “One condition to be named later did you promise me, that you might play where you chose. This condition I name as your accompanying our party to Metz.”

  “You cannot do this thing,” Genevieve murmured angrily.

  Odo cocked a brow. “I do this thing for your own welfare alone,” he maintained.

  “I will not,” Genevieve argued. Odo’s gaze flicked to Wolfram, but he had already stepped behind Genevieve again. Should she defy them, ‘twas good to know they were both so bent on seeing her safe, one way or the other. He would toss her over the back of his horse to see her away from Paris, if need be.

  “Yet again, I am compelled to ask you if your word is worth naught,” Odo said silkily. Genevieve swallowed carefully and glanced from side to side as if seeking some escape.

  Genevieve looked as though she might have said something else, but Wolfram reached down and firmly captured her hand within his. Soft ‘twas and he closed his fingers resolutely around it, as though to show her somehow that he intended to let naught happen to her.

  To his astonishment, the tension seemed to filter out of her at that contact.

  “To Metz and no farther,” she stated weakly. Odo nodded.

  “Then shall we be even,” he agreed. Genevieve was not so resolved to their will that she refrained from a sardonic snort.

  “I should think we would be markedly more than even,” she muttered. Too relieved was Wolfram that she had finally agreed to take offense at her tone.

  “We shall have to sell the horse,” he said, forcing himself to think of practical matters. Odo spared the beast an assessing glance and nodded.

  “Aye, too fine is he for our kind. Attention we do not need, and the coin will be of aid. Well might it be long before we can busk again.” Odo glanced to the clear blue of the sky, and Wolfram scowled at the lateness of the hour. When the two men’s gazes met again, they nodded as of one accord.

  “We should make haste,” Wolfram said. Odo nodded again and set a quick pace toward the far side of the square. Wolfram kept Genevieve’s hand firmly trapped within his own as he led the horse in Odo’s wake, surprised that she seemed to have naught more to say.

  Well did he expect that that might change once they were safely outside the city walls. Indeed, he more than expected it—he dreaded as much.

  Chapter Eleven

  Just after a chilly gray November dawn, in a dark corner of the château on the île de la Cité, a bargain was struck.

  The Master of the Temple of Paris was awakened by the sound of a key turning in the lock of the cell he had occupied these two weeks. The room was yet shadowed and filled with the dampness of the night, but the import of that sound could not be mistaken.

  Visitors. His heart leapt, his defiant mood not in the least improved by his incarceration in the company of rats. Loudly had he cried for justice in the early days, vehemently had he demanded the summoning of ecclesiastical authorities, stridently had he demanded to be released as a man of honor on his own recognizance.

  His demands had fallen on deaf ears.

  Mayhap until now.

  The Master shoved to a sitting position and straightened his belted, plain linen tunic just as the door swung open. A bevy of brightly burning lanterns were shoved into the room so hastily that he blinked at the unexpected light. Wicks were left long, the lamps crowded together on the table close afore him so that he was forced to squint at their brightness.

  Well he knew this trick, for he had used it oft himself when he wished to keep his identity unknown. The Master narrowed his eyes and peered through the light as best as he was able. He detected a guard on either side of him, most assuredly to keep him from bolting. The dancing flames effectively deterred him from leaping forward and the solidity of the stone wall behind him severely limited his options for movement.

  He thought he detected a tall shrouded figure sweeping into the room and taking his place behind the bright flames. Just out of sight his interviewer was, and the Master grudgingly acknowledged that man’s experience.

  “Something have you that we desire” came a muffled voice, evidently pitched low, that the Master might not identify it.

  Immediately he thought of the Temple treasury, and resolve grew hard within him. Never woul
d he reveal its whereabouts to the crown. Never under any terms. Property of the Order alone were those riches, and the Master would surrender their guardianship to none but the Master of the Temple of Jerusalem himself.

  And then only if that man was as determined to keep them to the Order as he.

  Certain he knew what was at root, the Master remained stubbornly silent.

  “Well do we understand that you wish to be released on your own recognizance,” the voice continued unhurriedly. “And as a man of honor, we well know that your pledge to remain within the Ville Neuve is a reliable one. But we would have something in exchange. A proof of your good will, shall we say.”

  When it seemed some response was awaited, the Master nodded understanding warily. Truly Philip ventured too far this time. Surely the Pope would slap him down and call him to order. Surely this affront could not pass unchallenged.

  But two weeks had passed and the Master had heard naught from Rome. He wondered in this dark moment whether the Pope was as firmly held under Philip’s thumb as he had long suspected.

  If so, that boded naught good for the Order.

  “But two requests have we, and well it seems to me that they are so insignificant as to be laughable. A trinket of your loyalty, if you will. Surely this can be construed as no more than a formality between men who understand each other.”

  The Master braced himself for the worst with that disclaimer, but deliberately kept his expression benign. If ever he saw release from these walls, he would personally ensure that Philip sorely regretted this travesty.

  “A woman there is with whom we would speak,” the voice continued reasonably. The Master was so astonished at this that he doubted he was entirely successful in concealing his surprise. His visitor’s next words confirmed as much. “Aye, well might you scoff at such an objective, for ‘tis but a whimsy of the crown. The king wishes but to offer his hospitality to the lady that he might have converse with her.”

  The Master raised a brow. Little doubt had he that he could venture a solid guess as to who this woman might be. And he heartily doubted that converse was within Philip’s goals. “Hospitality the likes of mine?” he asked skeptically, and was rewarded with a low chuckle.