The witch had grown silent, cocking her head at the girl, as if considering.
“And the golden-haired boy?” she finally asked.
Phoebe felt her eyes widen. “You leave Louis alone!” she started screeching herself. “If you touch one, just one of his golden hairs I’ll find you! I’ll hunt you down! I’ll...!” she paused a moment, wondering what one did to witches to destroy them. “...burn you and your tower to the ground!”
Tempeste leaned her head back and chortled at that.
Which abruptly made Phoebe feel very small. She was shaking. Like a leaf. She could feel it. She took a deep breath. She forced her voice to quieten. “I mean it.”
Tempeste was cocking her head to the side again, considering.
Phoebe continued. “I may not know now. But I will find a way. Someday. You leave Louis alone.”
Tempeste snapped in return. “Then leave Tristen alone!”
“Fine!”
Her chest heaving, Phoebe stared at the witch. Did she hate her? No. At least not yet. She certainly didn’t like her. That was clear.
Tempeste was silent, too. She didn’t move. It was difficult to tell with the mist in front of her, but Phoebe guessed that the witch was thinking of her as well. Wondering.
Where it came from, Phoebe never knew. Years later, she couldn’t have told herself why precisely she had done it. The courage, the foolish bravado, the need to get some kind of revenge in some small way. Whatever it was, she couldn’t help herself.
She blurted out, all in a rush, “He doesn’t love you. You’re just making a fool of yourself. He won’t follow your fireflies anymore. Takes a girl who’s known him as I long as I have to tell.”
Instantly, she realized that she had gone too far. She waited for lightning to strike her down, or something equally disastrous. Indeed, the witch’s shoulders were rising, as if she were taking a deep breath before unleashing her curse. And then, surprisingly, they slowly fell.
Phoebe waited, trembling.
Finally, Tempeste spoke with a snake-like hiss to her voice that made Phoebe shiver. For years, she never forgot the sound. “You know him well, do you? Do you know that Sir Tristen used you to spy on your castle? That at this moment, he is reporting everything he saw – the Guard, how many, what weapons, your silly boy leading them because the Master of the Guard is away with his best fighters – all this to Bertrand du Guesclin that they may sack Chateau Brionde, to burn it all down, to rob, to pillage and rape!” her voice peaked on the last word in a bitter note of triumph.
Phoebe went sick thinking of how she had told Remi about the Master. “No!”
“What do you think he was doing on top of the castle while you were making calf eyes at him?” the voice hissed. “Hmmm?”
Phoebe froze, in disbelief. It couldn’t be. She shook her head. It was just one of Tempeste’s tricks. She said it aloud. “This can’t be! Remi would never...!”
Tempeste chuckled, shaking her head. “Remi died a long time ago. He’s Sir Tristen now. All mine! Enjoy your last few glasses of life, kitchen slut.” And her laughter roared louder, her head thrown back, her body heaving with mirth.
The witch was laughing so loudly that Phoebe could hear her chortles as she clambered up the bank and ran as fast as she could to the castle not looking once over her shoulder.
*****
Finally, her chest heaving and wracked with pain, she threw herself at the base of the castle walls and, frantic, considered what to do.
There was so much to think about. Sir Tristen? Remi was a knight now? Why hadn’t he told her? But then, she had to allow, he hadn’t told her all that much anyway. Just about learning how to fight. She thought some more, trying to remember everything that he had said. About joining some band. He had never mentioned du Guesclin’s name. Even Phoebe knew to fear that name. He was a Breton, who had preyed on every rich castle in Brittany that he could. Preyed on his own people. His soldiers were infamous for raping the girls they captured. Oh, Remi! She teared up. What have you done?
If only the Master hadn’t...? But there was no profit in that errand. She knew that, having debated the whole question for years. Remi was hungry. Remi got caught stealing bread. Adalene had the Master beat him within an inch of his life and throw him out of the castle. Remi had left. End of story.
Until now.
And now a spy! She couldn’t believe it. She refused to believe it. This was just one of Tempeste’s tricks again to keep her away from Remi. The thought of him throwing up after making love to her intruded into her thoughts. She wondered about that. She knew that she should be thinking about whether to warn Louis and the Guard what the witch had said, but she couldn’t help it. Throw up? Honestly throw up? As in being so sick from the touch of her that he had to puke? That thought made her really mad. No, she abruptly realized, that thought made her furious. She wasn’t trash. She wasn’t some tavern slut who gave herself to any new man each night. She wasn’t! She was even pretty. She knew she was. Or, at least, she liked to think so.
She certainly wasn’t as pretty, as beautiful, as Tempeste, she allowed, grumbling to herself. The castle’s safety intruded again on her thoughts, but she shoved it aside. She had to work this out, she thought. Remi had said that Tempest was... She wasn’t sure. There was something in his voice that captured a sense of awe about the witch. Probably just an enchantment, Phoebe grumbled. And, then, a sunbeam struck inside her mind: as was her beauty! Of course! Much happier now, Phoebe toyed with the idea of how witches got rid of their pimples.
Yes, she was sure of it now. Tempeste was a fake. Or at least her loveliness was. Phoebe’s wasn’t. She was naturally pretty. She didn’t have to work some spell to make men think she was pretty. She hugged herself for a moment with relief.
Okay, she grinned, so far, so good. Now what?
The thought of Remi as spy made her groan aloud. Inside the kitchen, she heard a dish break. Which made her start, her heart hammering. She had missed serving dinner! Oh, Saint Genevieve, she was going to get beaten for sure. She gulped several times, her breath short. What could she say, she frantically wondered? She couldn’t tell some story about a witch in a river pool. That would make Adalene strike her harder. Besides, even then she would have to tell all about Remi...
The thought of him brought his smile back to her. His warm smile, his happy smile. The smile that greeted her when she first saw him, as she was tackling him to the ground next to the practice yard. Not the raging animal that he had become when fucking her so hard, so deep that it hurt so bad, making her clutch him in horror, in fright, just wanting it all to end.
She sighed. She was getting back on her inner whirligig. And that was helping no one. She took a deep breath and tried to stop thinking of herself so much.
Cutie flashed right in front of her eyes. It couldn’t be her! Could it? She held her breath and held out a hand to see if the bird would come back. Sure enough, after several quiet moments of still breathing, she heard the same little cheep cheep. Then, a flash of tawny wings later and there was Cutie, perched on her knuckles, warbling her birdsong, then pecking lightly at her fingers, looking for a bug to swallow. Phoebe smiled.
“Twig!”
And Cutie flared away. She groaned.
For once, she just told him. Flat out told him. “Isn’t there any way I can get you to use my name? My real name?”
Silence followed.
She looked over at him. God, he was so good-looking! Louis stood there, one hand on the kitchen archway, the muscles of his hip thrusting out. Her eye traced the knee boot down the curve of his calf to the foot.
“I didn’t see you in the Hall, so I came looking for you,” he said, venturing a step toward her.
“Well, you found me.”
He stopped at this, uncertainty staining his features. She looked away. He was such a boy compared to Remi. To Sir Tristen, she groused to herself.
He was hesitating. She thought of simply telling him to go away, that she
wanted to be alone. And then the really quite amusing thought danced through her mind that on the day, at the moment she finally got his attention, she didn’t want it anymore.
She had to smile at that. Maybe she had grown up quite a bit this afternoon. Odd.
She could hear him taking another step toward her. Her anger flared.
“Oh, why don’t you go fuck Marguerite or something!” Then, stopped, alarmed at what she had just blurted out. Then, just as swiftly, she decided she didn’t care. “It’s all over the castle that you are, you know.”
She looked at him. And was stunned to see horror on his face.
“But...but...” he stammered. “Oh, Saint Denis!” He walked over to her and sank to the ground.
He sat there for a few moments, saying nothing.
She was intrigued at this. She certainly didn’t expect that reaction. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, also keeping a weather eye out for Cutie, hoping her new friend would return.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “Did Etienne...?”
She was confused. “Etienne?”
“Was he mad?” he looked anxiously at her.
Oh, Saint Genevieve, she thought! What was she supposed to do with this? He fucks the tanner’s daughter and now he’s worried about what his friend will think of him? Louis may be a boy, but she never thought him a snob. But, he hadn’t fucked her, she reminded herself. Right?
And then the whole story had come out, much to Phoebe’s bemusement. Etienne’s crush on Marguerite – the plan which he quickly realized was an awful mistake – the flowers he had stolen from a neighbor – Etienne getting drunk – how she had tricked them into doing several day’s work all night for her – her offer that came only after Etienne had passed out – his refusal that he tried to make really polite, really respectful only to earn her scorn and the slammed door – him lugging Etienne home to pour him into his bed in his mother’s hut.
“Well.” That was all Phoebe could think of to say.
They sat there silently for a while. Her heart began singing a gently happy tune somewhere. She couldn’t remember when it had begun. She hardly cared. All she could make out from the words was that Louis had missed her in the hall and had come looking for her. She sighed.
“Is that why you dumped the slops on me?”
She froze, then blurted out, “You deserved it.”
“Why?” he asked. “I refused her. Both because of Etienne and...”
And...? She looked at him, waiting, her smile trying really hard not to break out wide in the open.
He looked away. “And...she’s not for me,” he finished, a gruff note to his voice.
She nodded, looking away so he couldn’t see the happy grin that she couldn’t suppress anymore.
“I...uh...” he began.
She improvised. Taking his hand, which surprised him she could see, she turned to him. “Louis, I want you to listen to me. What you did, with your plan, was wrong. You deserved to have the slops dumped on you, no matter how the night turned out. Okay?”
He looked down. His cheeks were burning with embarrassment, she could see with delight.
“Remember, it’s you...men,” she said, correcting herself just in time, “...who stuff yourselves like sausages into us girls. Not the other way around.”
He nodded again, looking down further. Then, finally, off into the distance.
She squeezed his hand. “Okay?”
He responded, nodding, “Okay.”
She gave him a peck on the cheek. Which made him smile and her heart laugh.
*****
Night had fallen. There was no sign of Cutie, but she didn’t care. The moon was already rising, very low in the sky. Above, she could already count three stars. From the kitchen, they heard the cast iron pot get thrown, its characteristic clunking an echo outside the walls. That was the sign that Adalene was in a furious rage.
Phoebe swallowed nervously.
Louis was watching her. He took her in his arms! “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll talk with her.”
Phoebe felt a molten glow fill her entire body as she rested in his arms. Still...
“I can fight my own battles,” she murmured, trying to sound tough but wanting this moment to last forever.
He chuckled. “I’m sure that you can. But you’ll win more easily if you have a teammate.”
A teammate? She had to think about that. Boys, men she corrected herself, didn’t team up with girls. Maybe he meant something else. She didn’t care.
“Okay,” she lazily responded, then all at once she thought of Remi, du Guesclin and the coming battle.
She sat up. “Louis, I need to tell you something,” she began. And out it came, a much whittled down version. At least a little. Kind of. She had gotten as far as Remi was riding with du Guesclin when Louis was already on his feet pulling her up.
“I’ll meet you at the Master’s hut!” he shouted and he was gone.
A moment later, she heard the alarm bell, high in the Keep begin its solemn tolling. Dong! Dong! Dong!
She didn’t want to run the length of the castle walls to meet Louis at the gate. Then, she suddenly chided herself, feeling foolish. Chateau Brionde abruptly had a lot more to worry about on this night than whether Phoebe had served the soup in the Hall. Ducking her head anyway as she threw herself through the kitchen archway to the quick glance of Adalene’s amazed look, and several paces later she was through running along the hallway to the front of the castle. Adalene hadn’t even bothered to shout, she thought with a grin.
Then, as the reality of du Guesclin’s horror about to descend on everything she cared about began to flood into her mind, all her mirth trickled right out of her.
In the front, she saw Louis gathering the Guard, Harcourt standing near him, asking him an urgent question as the others stood around. The faces didn’t show alarm, just perplexity, confusion. And not a few had wry smiles on their faces. A couple looked downright annoyed.
She cried out to Louis. As one, the Guard looked up at her, waiting. Several shook their heads at the sight of her. One leaned over, nodded to Louis, and made the jerking off motion with his hand. His companion smirked. Harcourt shouted up to the Guard on the walls, making a cutting motion across his neck. The alarm bell abruptly stopped.
All at once, it hit her. They didn’t believe a girl. She slowed her run to a walk, then slowly descended the steps down to the practice yard. Not one of the Guard moved out of her way. She had to walk around the edges, feeling her heart sink with every step.
Halfway, she could hear Louis protesting. “Okay, fine! Scratch the pickets out in the fields. At the least, let’s double the lookouts on the walls.”
“But the Master would have said something,” Harcourt was pleading with him. Phoebe noticed that Harcourt had dropped the “sir” that he had been using when addressing Louis in the Master’s absence. “He would have warned us.”
He looked at the Guard, who were looking at Louis with a mounting disgust.
“But surely you remember Remi!” Louis exclaimed.
Harcourt paused in confusion. He looked over at the Guard.
Louis shook his head, grabbing the Guardsman’s shoulder. “The man at arms from this afternoon?” Harcourt gestured with both hands raised, shrugging.
Louis continued, “Come on, man! He worked in the kitchen.” Harcourt shook his head.
Louis looked to Phoebe for help. “Right?”
Who looked down. What could she say? That she had learned this from a witch she had talked to through the river whose word she only believed because her childhood friend had been so uncharacteristically brutal when raping her in the Hall?
What was there to say at all?
* 10 *
Tristen sneezed from the dust, smothering it carefully in his mailed hand. His band and its horses were tromping up pollen from the summer wildflowers blooming along Forest Brionde’s edge. As conflicted as he felt about this attack, he couldn’t help but
feel a sense of pride that the Commander had given him leadership of one of the strike teams, West.
The attack plan was simple. On the signal, strike teams West and East took out the lookouts on the top of the Keep and as many of the Guard manning the outer walls as possible. Then, leaving remnants behind to keep lobbing fire arrows into the village and the castle, the rest of the strike teams penetrated, using grappling hooks and scaling the outer walls to create mayhem within. In Tristen’s case, that meant sprinting to the rear of the castle as quickly as he could to enter the kitchen and spirit Phoebe out. Safe. That was why he had asked for the west side when the Commander had given him a choice as part of his reward. The kitchen archway, meat smoker, oil jars, wood piles, and everything else Adalene had set up behind the castle was closer to the west wall.
Meanwhile, the Commander would be doing what he did best. Triggering the signal, then loudly sowing as much confusion at the castle gate as a distraction to help the two strike teams do their worst. Eventually, his own team would hack their way through, find the castle strong box, throw some large-titted girls, sides of beef and casks of ale on horseback, then fall back to the rendezvous point in the forest. Gaspard had heard a rumor that, unusual to this raid, the Commander had orders direct from the King to pit the head of the chateau’s lord on a spike on the castle’s walls before leaving. Tristen was looking forward to seeing that.
And the signal to begin it all? They were using the three pot-de-fers that the Commander lugged around with them, one to a horse each. The vase-shaped iron cannon came up to Tristen’s hip when stood upright. Giuseppe, the Venetian, had responsibility for them. They were his babies. He filled them with gunpowder hauled on a fourth horse and loaded each pot’s opening with wooden bolts mounted with iron arrowheads and smeared with tar. Then, while his assistant lit the tar on the arrowheads, the gunner fed a red hot wire through a hole drilled into the bottom of the pot setting the gunpowder within on fire. What followed was a terrifyingly large boom, followed by arcs of fire screaming through the sky to bang against the wall of a castle. It never did any damage. But it sure scared the hell out of the defenders making them think that Lucifer himself was knocking on the front door. Gaspard swore that Giuseppe had learned to use the pots in Hungary, wherever that was, from a knight who had fought the Mongols when they had invaded a hundred years ago. But then people said that about everything that was new or different. The Mongols brought it.
Chateau of Desire (Chateau of Love Book 1) Page 9
