“Wearing you down?”
“Getting me to say yes.”
“Doesn’t he care that you don’t love him?”
“He says he loves me, and can’t live without me. He says if one’s love is strong enough, nothing else matters, nothing else has any meaning—that love is all that’s really important in life.” She flicked the reins and guided her mount toward the path. “Imagine that.”
Chapter 14
“What’s tonight’s disputatio about?” Corliss asked as she and Rainulf left his house and began walking up St. John Street. The August evening was warm, the sky rusty with the setting sun.
“I’m arguing against the notion of an all-powerful God.”
The air left her lungs in a startled little laugh. “Do you never worry about what people think?”
He smiled indulgently and began to say something, but stopped short, squinting at the alley across the street. “Did you see that?”
“Nay,” she lied. She had noticed the shadowy movement, but it was probably just Rad, who continued to materialize from time to time on the edge of her vision. She’d hoped her two-week absence from Oxford would cure him of the habit of following her around, but during the past few weeks she’d seen him at least half a dozen times. Twice she’d cornered him and pleaded with him to stop, but he’d stubbornly insisted that she needed his protection. The last thing she wanted was for Rainulf to run him to ground again; he refused to believe that the hulking, pockmarked peddler was harmless.
Rainulf took a step toward the darkened alley, but Corliss held him back. He looked down at her hand on his arm, and she dropped it. Since returning from Blackburn, they never touched, even casually, as if by avoiding physical contact they could pretend that all was as it had been—that he had never come to her chamber and touched her as lovers touched each other.
“‘Twas just a pig foraging for garbage,” she said.
He shook his head. “‘Twas a man.”
“Come. We’ll be late getting to St. Mary’s. You’ll have less time to spout your damnable heresy.”
“It’s not heresy,” he answered automatically.
She turned so he couldn’t see her smile, and continued walking. “The Church fathers might disagree.”
“Some would.” She heard his footsteps as he came up behind her. “Others understand my method of academic argument.”
“You’re saying there are men of the cloth who would justify an attack on the Church’s teachings?”
“Not an attack,” he said, falling in beside her as she strode quickly up St. John Street. “An argument, for academic purposes only. It’s the Aristotelian method. One argues both sides of the issue to reach a solution. In arguing the case against God’s omnipotence, we can actually affirm it.”
She shrugged elaborately as they crossed Grope Lane. “Why engage in tiresome arguments about something you know you’re going to end up affirming anyway?”
“Since when do you find disputatio tiresome?” he asked with a smile. “You come to almost all my lectures, and you absorb my teachings like a sea sponge. You obviously enjoy the mental exercise.”
“Aye,” she admitted. “I’m just baiting you for sport.”
He rolled his eyes, then narrowed them on her. “Not just for sport. You brought up all that heresy business to lure me away from that alley, didn’t you? You know I can’t resist an argument.”
She laughed. “‘Tis what makes you such a brilliant teacher. You were born to argue.”
“‘Brilliant’ may be overstating things a bit.”
Progress! There was a time when he would have insisted that he was completely unworthy to teach; now, he was simply not quite “brilliant.”
“If you’re not brilliant,” she challenged, “then how, in one short summer, did you manage to get me speaking French like a royal princess?”
“You’ve got a facility for languages.”
“But what of the rest of it? How many Oxfordshire peasants know how to calculate the velocity of a body in motion, for God’s sake?”
“You have a very quick mind.” They turned onto Shidyerd, and he nodded to a group of scholars. “The credit lies with you, not me.”
“I think not. All this new knowledge I’ve gained is knowledge you’ve given me. I’ve learned an amazing amount from you.”
He shrugged. “An amazing amount of the sorts of things one can learn simply by opening a book. Those things are easy to teach.”
“Easy for you. I don’t think I could do it.”
“Don’t underrate yourself. I’ve learned a great deal from you.”
She snorted. “Such as?”
He smiled enigmatically. “Various things. Important things. More important than fiddling with numbers and perfecting one’s accent.” He fell silent for a while, and then said, “Living with you has... it’s changed me. For the better. And... and I’ve enjoyed your company.”
She looked up at him; he wouldn’t meet her gaze.
He said, “I received a letter from Peter today.”
She groaned. Peter had written to her twice since she left Blackburn, begging her to marry him. Her responses to both letters had been the same—that although she cared for him, her affection was as that of a sister for a brother, and she must therefore decline his proposal.
Rainulf’s expression, like his voice, was strained. “He has a manor of his own, and a much better income than I would have thought.”
“We’ve discussed this already, Rainulf. Please don’t do this. I can’t bear your trying to talk me into marrying anoth—” Careful. “Into... into marrying—”
“I don’t enjoy it very much, either,” he said gruffly. “But it’s for your own good. Just think about it.”
“I have thought about it.”
“You’ve dismissed it out of hand.”
“Hardly. I have excellent reasons, and I’ve shared them with you.”
She sensed that he was relaxing fractionally, as if secretly relieved by her continued refusal to consider Peter’s suit.
“He’s a good man,” he said, but with little enthusiasm.
“Aye. He’s a wonderful man, and he’ll make some woman a wonderful husband someday, but that woman won’t be me.”
There was a pause. “He claims,” Rainulf said slowly, “to be madly in love with you. He makes quite a case for it.”
“He was madly in love with his lady Magdalen. I just look like her.”
“He insists it’s you he loves, and that he’d do everything in his power to make you happy.”
“My definition of happiness is freedom. A man’s love is the worst enemy of a woman’s freedom.”
Except yours, she silently amended. Were Rainulf Fairfax ever to love a woman, whether wife or mistress, she would still be free. Corliss knew that now. But most men weren’t like Rainulf.
They crossed High Street in silence. On the steps of St. Mary’s, he paused and regarded her pensively. A swarm of scholars hollered greetings as they streamed into the church, elbowing each other aside for the best benches. “I just want you to be safe. If anything were to happen to you...”
She indicated her masculine garb. “I’m safe dressed like this.” She thought about, but didn’t mention, the dagger secreted in her boot. “And free as well. I’ve never felt so liberated.”
He smiled wryly. “Chausses don’t make you free, Corliss. Or safe. Being male carries risks of its own. ‘Tis a false sense of liberty you feel.”
She smiled, too. “I’ll take any kind of liberty I can get.”
* * *
Rainulf and Corliss left St. Mary’s that night amid a throng of departing scholars. She’d found the unorthodox disputatio engrossing, and not in the least heretical. Rainulf was truly the most gifted teacher in Oxford; no wonder his students idolized him.
“Good night, Master Fairfax!” called one as he sprinted down the church steps, cappa flapping.
“Another triumph, Magister!” cried another. “Join us a
t the Nightingale for a pint?”
“Not tonight, boys.”
“Master Fairfax.” They turned to find Thomas coming up behind them, followed, as always, by Brad. “There’s something I don’t understand. Why is it that God can’t move the heavens with rec... rec—”
“Rectilinear motion.” Rainulf nodded toward her. “Corliss?”
“Because a vacuum would remain,” she said. Rainulf smiled, and she felt the glow of pride that always accompanied his approval.
“What’s wrong with that?” Thomas asked.
“It’s never even been established that such a thing as a vacuum can exist,” she said. “And even if it did, its nature might preclude—”
“Perhaps,” Rainulf interrupted, clearly sensing a long debate in the making, “we can pursue these questiones at my house, over a pitcher of ale.”
The boys readily took him up on the invitation, but Corliss hesitated. She cocked her head toward Victor, waiting for her with his followers across the street. “I’ve been asked to come to a meeting at St. Frideswide’s.”
“Nay!
Corliss gasped indignantly. In truth, she wasn’t particularly eager to attend the meeting—a strategy session regarding tavern prices—in part because of the late hour and in part because Victor’s fanaticism was beginning to wear thin with her. But Rainulf’s arrogance in forbidding her to go wore even thinner. Drawing herself up, she said tightly, “I’m going,” and strode swiftly away.
Behind her, she heard Rainulf tell the young men to wait. He caught up with her and grabbed her arm. She shook him off. “Who do you think you are,” she fumed, “ordering me about as if I were—”
“You’re right.”
She snapped her mouth shut.
“‘Twas a rash reaction,” he conceded. “Born of concern for you. I worry about you associating with Victor and that crowd, and it’s so late. You’d have to walk home alone in the dark.”
“Victor lives on the East End, so I can walk home with him. I’ll be safe.”
Rainulf frowned uncertainly.
“He’s a former mercenary,” she reminded him. “If anyone can protect me, Victor can. I’ll be fine.”
Rainulf raked his fingers through his hair. “All right. But come home as soon as you can. I’ll wait up for you.”
Corliss sat in the back of the church and yawned all through the meeting, wishing she hadn’t felt obliged to attend just to make a point with Rainulf. She paid little attention to the issues that were discussed and the action that was decided on. Instead, she pondered the question of what sort of decorations to paint around Rainulf’s fireplace that would complement the dancing monkeys encircling the windows.
Lions, perhaps... noble golden beasts, like the magister himself. She had just finished illuminating another signature of Chancellor Becket’s Bible, and would have time before starting the next one to sketch the lions onto the whitewashed wall. She pictured a row of them, one after the other, each gripping in its mouth the tail of his brother in front. One after the other they would march around the fireplace... marching... marching...
A hand jiggled her shoulder. “Corliss? Wake up.”
She groaned.
“Was it that boring?” Victor asked.
“Yes.”
He grinned and shook his head. “Come on. I’ll walk with you as far as the magister’s house.”
The moon was full, bathing the narrow streets in a dusky half-light. Conversation during the walk was decidedly one-sided, with Victor discoursing at length on the justification of force to attain his ends, and Corliss pretending to listen. As they approached the corner of St. John Street, she thought she heard footsteps from behind. Heavy footsteps.
Must be Rad. She toyed with the idea of confronting him. It would be unwise to do so in the presence of Victor who, at any rate, was too preoccupied with his oration to even notice that they were being followed.
The footsteps quickened. What was this? Rad never tried to catch up with her, preferring to skulk in the shadows. She turned to look back at him just as he raised a massive club and brought it down on Victor’s head.
She watched in speechless horror as the blow shuddered through Victor. He didn’t make a sound, merely collapsed bonelessly, like a rag doll tossed onto the ground. A scream welled up inside her, but her throat wouldn’t work. She couldn’t feel her legs or arms.
Rainulf’s calm voice came to her as clearly as it had during their fighting lesson in the stable yard: Don’t panic. Get away if you can.
She turned to run as the hulking brute with the club advanced on her. Was it Rad? He was big like Rad, but he wore a sacklike mask over his head.
A dull burst of pain exploded in her lower back, hurling her sideways into the street. She landed hard, the air whooshing out of her lungs on impact. When she tried to draw a breath, she found she couldn’t. Panic found a foothold, and raced through her.
Victor still lay facedown on the road, unconscious. Struggling for air, Corliss watched as his assailant tossed the club away and yanked Victor’s purse from his belt, pocketing it. Then he searched his victim’s boot, withdrawing something that gleamed maliciously in the moonlight.
A dagger. Victor’s dagger. “A taste of your own steel,” the masked man growled. “That’s what you’re needin’, you goddamn troublemaker.”
Exerting an enormous effort, Corliss managed to suck in a breath. The air seared her lungs, and she choked on it. At least I’m breathing.
The big man pressed a knee into Victor’s back, grabbed a handful of black hair, and yanked his head up. Victor groaned and blinked; a ribbon of blood ran from his mouth.
“What do you say?” His attacker held Victor’s own blade in front of his eyes. “Should I open up your throat quicklike or make it last a bit?”
“Burnell,” Victor rasped, “you bastard!”
“Guilty.” He tore the mask off. “Including the bastard part. I reckon that’s something we have in common, eh?”
My dagger! The brutal tavern keeper had his back to her. If she was very quiet...
Corliss reached down into her own boot, closed her fingers around the hilt of her dagger, and slid it out. Clutching the weapon in her fist, she crept stealthily toward the two men.
Burnell pressed the blade against Victor’s throat and chuckled harshly. “Do y’suppose I’ll get extra time in purgatory for killin’ the son of a priest?”
Victor bared his teeth. “You’ll roast in hell where you belong, you son of a bitch!”
“I’ll see you there, then.”
As Corliss approached Burnell, her nostrils flared at his ripe, greasy odor: stale sweat and rancid meat. Coming up behind the big man, she grabbed him by the neck of his tunic and held her dagger to his throat. “Drop it.”
Burnell froze; Victor grinned.
“Now!”
Burnell eased the blade away from Victor’s throat and let go of his hair...
Then he grabbed Corliss’s wrist, raised her hand to his mouth, and bit it, hard. Corliss yelped. The dagger fell from her fingers. She grappled for it, but Burnell got it first.
No!
Corliss and Victor both struggled to rise, but Burnell, laughing, was already on his feet, a dagger in each mammoth fist. He kicked Victor in the head. The young scholar flopped onto his back and groaned, then went limp.
Burnell wheeled on Corliss and kicked her in the stomach. She went down like a sack of rocks, gasping in pain.
Looking up, she saw his dark form looming over her, saw teeth and steel glinting in the light of the full moon. “You and him and them others been costin’ me money,” he growled, fumbling with the pouch on her belt. “You owe me some silver.” He tried to tear the pouch off, but it wouldn’t budge, so he jammed his fingers inside and felt around. “What the hell’s this?” he demanded as he fumbled with her little reliquary, which was all that the pouch contained. “Where’s your money?”
“I left it home,” she managed. It was the truth, but he cl
early didn’t believe her. He knelt close to her, overwhelming her with his sickening smell. Gripping both daggers in one hand and pressing them to her throat, he shoved the other under the hem of her tunic and groped along the waist-cord of her chausses for a hidden purse.
The feel of his hand beneath her tunic filled her with revulsion... and fear. If he searched her thoroughly, he might detect the lack of more than a purse. She tried to writhe away, and he flicked the blades at her throat; she felt a stinging pain, followed by a hot trickle down her neck.
“Next time I’ll slice you open.” He ran his hand over her belly...
And back again.
And paused.
Desperately she tried to skitter back, but that only brought his meaty palm directly between her legs. His eyes widened and then narrowed. “What have we here?” He grabbed her hard, and she cried out. “More to the point, what don’t we have?”
His low, sinister laughter made her insides spin around slowly. Snatching his hand out from under her tunic, he ran it over her chest, frowning in puzzlement at its flatness. Keeping one blade at her throat, he used the other to slash open her tunic. A second pass slit her shirt down the front. A third tore into the linen bindings around her chest—and her skin as well.
She screamed in pain and tried to push his hand away. He raised it and slammed the hilt of the dagger into her forehead.
Bursts of light filled her vision and a blessed numbness overtook her... but not completely. She felt him push aside the shreds of linen, heard his awful chuckle as she lay exposed beneath him. Through slitted eyes she saw him shove one dagger into the sheath on his belt and hurl the other into the hard-packed earth, where it stuck, quivering.
Then she felt his hands on her.
No! No! She thrashed fiercely and he chuckled. “You’re a live one, are you?”
He grabbed her under her arms and pulled her between two buildings. For privacy? She struggled, but couldn’t dislodge his firm grip.
The space between the stone walls was very narrow, and black as hell. He dropped her; she landed with a thud. She tried to rise, but he was there, on top of her, pawing her, groping.
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