Sweet Enchantress

by Parris Afton Bonds

  Watching the play of his expression, she suddenly realized he could just as easily murder her, dispose of her body in such a way it would appear that she had been set upon by brigands, and resume his place in court. Had he not murdered Elizabeth?

  His pulse hammered at the base of his muscled-striated neck, and his temples were a road map of throbbing veins. A weakness that was relief washed over her when, after a long moment, he bowed curtly. "As you would have it—mistress.”

  Mustering the shreds of her dignity, she swept pass him and out of the room—and out of his life.

  Autumn at Montlimoux triggered restless peregrinations in Dominique. Heavy with child as she was, riding had lost some of its pleasure. But then, everything even the sunlight had lost its pleasure for her. Was autumn’s sunlight hazier with that last rendezvous with summer? And was this pain in her chest, was that what was meant by an attack of the heart?

  The court at Avignon had adjourned in favor of Paris, and Esclarmonde and Francis had recently taken up residence at a stately home in the village of Montlimoux. Curiously, Dominique was reluctant to seek out Francis. Like a hermit, she avoided society, wanting only the healing balm of nature.

  During her excursions into the countryside, as on this day, she was unfailingly accompanied by Baldwyn and several guards, at his insistence, because the month before, King Edward, Duke of Aquitaine, had formally claimed the French crown and had launched a war against northern France.

  Somewhere on French soil was Paxton with his army. Apparently, Martine was not with him but had followed King Philip's court to Paris. Paxton had used her for information just as he had used Dominique herself.

  For his part, King Philip had sent troops to southern France to raid the Duchy of Aquitaine. Lighting brands, the soldiers had set fire to every house suspected of English sympathies.

  “Word is even about,'' Baldwyn said, “that the French are disrupting the main lines of transport and communications in and out of the duchy, as well as laying waste to the rich vineyards. Being this close to Aquitaine, I think it wise we ride no further today, my Lady Dominique."

  With a sigh, she reined in her palfrey near a salt pan in a closeby marsh. “’Tis always the innocent people and the land that suffer the consequences of war.”

  "The Albigensian Crusade all over again. As the peasant says, ‘What cannot be cured must be endu—' ”

  He broke off, sawing in on the reins of his mount. On the crest of the next hill was silhouetted a line of horsemen. Immediately, they moved out, with one unmistakably in the lead. "Christ's thorns!” Baldwyn said, and reached out to haul in Dominique's reins.

  "The English?” she asked.

  He shook his head. "I do not know, but 'tis trouble that is coming, that I am certain!”

  As a unit, she, Baldwyn, and the three guards pivoted their horses around, flurrying dust. Frantically, she urged her palfrey into a gallop. Their party streaked for Montlimoux’s ramparts. Their pennants waved in the far distance. Too far.

  She strove to keep her seat, but her ungainly form made it difficult. She bounced more than rode as part of the animal. Baldwyn kept a worried eye on her. The jolting was sending small waves of pain through her. The babe. She could not lose this one!

  She spared a quick glance behind. Their pursuers were gaining on them. Baldwyn saw this also, and saw the wrenching pain reflected in her face. "We shall not outrun them, my Lady Dominique!” he shouted. "We face them and fight?”

  Grim-faced, she nodded.

  The old Templar chose well their battle-ground, a plateau backed by a dense growth of trees. The heavily armored horsemen would have to scramble up the rocky slope in order to reach them. Baldwyn, with the three guards, formed a wall of blades to protect Dominique.

  When their pursuers were close enough to make out, Baldwyn spit into the dirt, and said, "’Tis the French!” The French were almost as formidable and as destructive an enemy to the people of Languedoc as the English, and he cast Dominique an inquiring glance. His rheumy black eyes were full of his abiding love for her and his intentions, should she accede to his unspoken question.

  Knowing what lay in that question, she nodded. She would accept his sword as a death instrument. The clanging of armor and swords unsheathed recaptured her attention. Sunlight glinted off the French soldiers’ armor and conical helmets, for a moment blinding Dominique. Then a maniacal laughter reached her. Chills crawled up her arms and spine. "Denys Bontemps!” she breathed.

  “Baldwyn Rainbaut!” he shouted. "Surrender my fair maiden Dominique to me.”

  "A Templar never surrenders, Denys. You know that.”

  "I know that we shall chop all of you down like withered grapevines to get to her, so stand aside, old man.”

  Mayhap, she knew that Baldwyn could not hold out forever; mayhap, she was merely tired of the warring—the warring in the countryside, the warring within herself—but she cried, "Enough!” and slipped between her defenders to confront Denys just below her.

  His gaze fastened on her extended belly. "’Tis true then, what Esclarmonde says. You carry the English bastard’s child!”

  Esclarmonde? "Since when do you murder for the French, Denys?”

  Bitterness had left its ravages on his once- handsome face. His sunlit smile was now little more than a sneer. "I could run that unborn babe through with my sword, Dominique, but 'tis not you I wish to kill.”

  The malice in his tone made her shiver. "Guard your time closely,” he continued. "I shall return for the life of Paxton's child.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  "Paxton has deserted you, my dear. You should have the marriage annulled."

  "I carry his child, Francis!"

  He tried to keep his smile gentle. Despite her girth, her face was thin and drawn, with shadows darkening her eye sockets. "A small detail for the pope.”

  Her mouth' crimped in annoyance. "Our child is no small detail.”

  She was concentrating on embroidering the laying-in pillowcase for the coming childbirth and so missed the way his own mouth curled downward. He reached down and placed his hand over hers, stilling it. "Dominique, let me care for you.”

  She stared at his hand then raised her puzzled gaze to his. “What do you mean by that, Francis?”

  “Let me take care of you.”

  “I have always been able to take care of myself, you know that.”

  "But now with the child coming. . . .”

  “Baldwyn and Iolande are like my own parents. They will care for—”

  “They are old. Who knows when they might die?”

  "Francis, I enjoy my independence. I do not think your suggestion would work. Besides. . . .”

  "Yes?”

  A tiny smile curved her lips. "Besides, I do not think it would be wise to subject your vows to such temptation.”

  “Are you implying I might finally succeed in seducing you?”

  Her laugh was short. “I am implying the temptation of riches. You know, those legendary Albigensian treasures buried here and all that.”

  “Touché," he said, smiling. “Now, I must take my leave, but think on what I have said, will you not?”

  She nodded toward the window. “The rain is turning to snow. Why not stay the night?”

  “Esclarmonde will be expecting my return."

  She rose and crossed with an awkward grace to the portable iron brazier used for heating. He could tell she was choosing her words carefully. "I am told that your sister spends more nights away now than at your residence.”

  The muscles in his jaws tightened, and he forced them to relax in an easy smile. "’Tis time she found herself a mate. I just would not have chosen a routier for her.”

  "Denys is a soldier now, Francis, not a brigand.”

  "That may be so, but it does not ease my trepidations.” His sister was a part of him. As she strained away, so, too, could he feel part of himself straining away. He would remedy that, anon. "But that is beside the point I wished to make. I ask yo
u give consideration to my suggestion, Dominique. You and I, we are Montlimoux. The blood of my afterbirth nourished its soil, as did yours. 'Tis time we reunited with Montlimoux. Your child is Montlimoux.”

  She rubbed her temples. "When you speak such, I—I have trouble following your mean- mg.

  He stared hard at her. "You did not use to.”

  "That was before. . . .”

  When she did not finish, he said, "Before the foreigner possessed you. Anon, the snow will make traveling difficult. I must go.”

  He took his leave, and, entering the protection of his litter, pulled the curtain closed against the blowing snow. From his cloak, he withdrew the missive he had been carrying with him for months now. He waited until his litter bearers had steadied their gait, then unfolded the letter.

  The dim, afternoon light made reading the blood-red words difficult. Besides, he knew them by heart. In his mind's eye, he could see all the alchemical and astrological signs and their conjoining.

  He smiled, his lips thin and bloodless. At last, the time was propitious for using her missive. Mixed with sulfur, ash, and a child's urine, the shreds of the letter would draw all the characters, as if in a Mystery Play, to center stage.

  From Edward’s flagship, Paxton surveyed the enemy invasion. It was dauntingly large, including not French but also Castilian and Genoese vessels, as well as Saracen corsairs.

  Most of Edward’s vessels were cogs, merchant ships designed for carrying cargoes which ranged from wool to wine and from livestock to passengers.

  The Mediterranean galleys of the French possessed oars which gave them superior speed and maneuverability, and placed Edward at a considerable tactical disadvantage. The one thing in favor of the English cog was that, while it was hardly a warship, it made an excellent troop transport, a boat for all kinds of weather and especially suitable for plowing the North Sea

  "There are so many ships, their masts look like a great forest,” Edward grumbled.

  “Tis not the ships that will decide the battle, Monseignor.” Paxton said softly, “'tis the people.”

  Dominique would have said the same. He had learned much from her. She was a mermaid, a sylph, an undine, a nymph, a charlatan healer.

  Abruptly, he put her from his mind. “Philip's twenty thousand men on board are largely press-ganged, and few of them have even seen a battle. They are frightened fisherfolk, burgees, and longshoremen. Our soldiers will make the difference when all 'tis said and done.”

  His prediction appeared shaky, because once the two fleets clashed, the first casualty was a fine English cog, which was carrying a great number of countesses, ladies, knights’ wives, and other damsels who were going to see the queen at Ghent. With the sinking of the cog, the screams of the drowning ladies in their heavy skirts was maddening. In every cry, he heard an echo of Dominique's voice, its pain that tore apart his dreams every night.

  The battles by sea were fiercer than those by land. Here, there was no fleeing, no remedy but to fight and abide fortune and prove one’s prowess. He feared not death but Dominique and her magnificent feminine power. Ultimately, he knew he feared most that surrender of self.

  An iron cloud of quarrels from crossbows and arrows from long bows darkened the sky.

  When the king’s flagship hauled alongside a Castilian ship, the English soldiers had difficulty in boarding safely because the sides were so tall. The battle aboard the Castilian ship rang from morning until noon, and Paxton was in the thick of the mêlée. His white boots were covered with blood. His anger, his fear, all were channeled into the act of destruction. "Dogs of unbelievers,” he cursed his enemy, swinging his bloodied sword along its murderous path. "Whelp of a she-wolf," he cursed himself.

  Eventually, his prediction proved true, with the English archers shooting two and even three arrows for every one crossbow quarrel fired by the French. The French squadron was overwhelmed, and the corpse of its admiral was swung from the yardarm of the king’s flagship. Many of the enemy jumped overboard, their wounded being thrown after them. The sea was so full of bodies that the water appeared blood-red to Paxton.

  The coming of dusk went unnoticed, so bright was the light of the burning ships. The victory was a great one for the English. Yet, when darkness fell Paxton was not among the celebrants. In his quarters, he sat ill and wretching. The violence of the day had turned his mind.

  As the witch had turned his mind. By the body of Christ, he missed her and, aye, loved her. But he was relieved to be away from her. She would do anything to keep Montlimoux.

  His sorceress.

  Esclarmonde snuggled against Denys’s side, trying to absorb the warmth of his big body. His ruffians and freebooters slept not far away in a field of charred stubble. The night air was chilled, the ground on which they lay was chilled, and her heart was chilled. Would she never know warmth?

  She had thought by running to Denys he would protect her. From what? From herself? She knew now she would never find that protection.

  She stared up at the full moon. Thin streamers of black drifted across it. A full moon was said to expose misdeeds. Was Francis accountable for his? The brother she had loved so consummately, so completely, appeared to be two different men. No, not two men. Man —and beast. One loving. One fiend. Would he let her come back home? Would he take her into the safety of his arms again once she had accomplished what he demanded of her?

  The ravages of war began to intrude on Montlimoux's pastoral beauty, its flowered hills and tree-sprinkled meadows.

  These days Baldwyn made certain that guards patrolled the chateau’s watchwalk night and day. From the north came occasional news of the English forays of heavy cavalry that left the land and its people devastated. English forays often led under the brilliant and incisive generalship of Paxton of Wychchester.

  Here, on the boundaries of Edward’s principality of Aquitaine, a farm was burned out, its corn ricks and wine vats smashed; there, on the river road, a trade caravan was ambushed; a village church plundered, its priest beheaded, his head used as shot in a catapult.

  Death and rebirth.

  Dominique felt that with the birth of her child would come her own rebirth; that somehow she would take joy in life once again. The birthing of this child was ravaging her body worse than any war. Once her accouchement began, she concentrated solely on surrendering to the pain.

  Again and again, she left her bed to seek out the birthing stool, but her stomach's contractions were not enough to force the babe out.

  “A syrup of the red poppy will ease your pain," Iolande said, stroking Dominique’s sweat-dampened hair.

  "No. No, I want to be fully . . .” She paused and caught her breath at the sharpness of the next pain. Her hand twisted the bed sheets until the veins stood out like a road map. “. . . fully conscious. All of me partaking . . . in this welcoming.”

  The hours of labor faded one into another, each moment passing and stealing with it her strength. Her thoughts could not push beyond the fog closing around her.

  "Will she die?" she heard Baldwyn ask but could not detect Iolande's reply.

  What she did hear was her own inner voice. Soon, you will cross the bridge from birth, to death, reaching all selflessness. What she wanted was rescue; rescue as the angels did. The heavens shook, and the sky cracked.

  At the earliest hour of morning, the first squall of a newborn pierced the chateau’s stillness.

  Iolande and Baldwyn stared at each other in unspoken horror. Baldwyn was the first to break the dead-calm of the silence. He spoke in a hoarse whisper. "Twins! What will happen?”

  His question galvanized the old Jewess into action. “What you are thinking is nothing but an old wife’s tale!” she said, taking a swaddling cloth to the first babe, who cried lustily. "You and I both know Dominique. These boys did not have two separate fathers.”

  "I know Paxton. He would be merciless if he even wondered if Dominique had betrayed him with another man.”

  She passed him the fir
st infant and began cleaning the mucus from the second. "What would you do, leper? Kill one before word gets out?”

  The big man winced from the blow of her words. "You know I could not—”

  "Or, mayhap, select one to give away to a peasant's wife to raise to manhood? Are you daft?" Her gnarled hands worked rapidly. There was still Dominique to be cared for. The birthing had gone hard for the slender-hipped young woman, and she slept, soothed by the hand of the poppy drug Iolande had given her after the birthing.

  "Listen to me, old woman!” he thundered.

  "Hush, you will frighten the babes!” She thrust the second infant in his other arm. The sight of the giant cradling the two tiny bundles brought a smile to her prunish lips. Her mouth twisted. "You make a respectable grandfather, Baldwyn.”

  He glared down at her. "That is the first time in thirty years or more you have addressed me by my given name.”

  “Well, then ’tis time I did so.” She busied herself with the cleanup of the bloodied linens and afterbirth.

  “Then 'tis time we make ourselves official grandparents. What say you?”

  She darted him a gruff look. “What are you talking about?”

  “Marriage, old woman.”

  Her eyes softened. "My name is Iolande.”

  The suckling of Chretien produced a most pleasurably aching sensation in Dominique’s engorged breast. She smiled down at her infant son. His skin was as fresh as dew, his eyes as dark brown as . . . as spring's sparrow, perched on the stone windowsill. Outside, one would never know that spring was imminent. The grass was white and withered, as she often felt.

  Except when she gazed upon her sons. Her sons and Paxton's. She pressed her nipple to free it of the tiny mouth and passed Chretien to a waiting Iolande, who grumbled, "You would be better changing yourself to a cow if you mean to nurse both.”