Heaven's Fire

by Patricia Ryan

  No! God, no!

  He grabbed her knees. She focused all her strength on keeping her legs together, but he wrenched them apart and knelt between them. By what little moonlight penetrated the dark passage, she saw him untie his braies.

  Don’t panic! Again she heard Rainulf’s voice of cool reason: Go for the nose... use the heel of your hand.

  She cocked her wrist and whipped it down. It connected with a soft crunch, and he howled.

  “Fuckin’ bitch!” He slapped her hard across the face. “I’ll teach you.” Breathing harshly, he lifted her tunic and fumbled with the cord that secured her chausses.

  Or you can break a finger, Rainulf had instructed. Here’s how...

  Reaching down, she grabbed one of his hands, located the little finger, and snapped it sharply. His roar of pain filled the alleyway. Yet she was too confined to escape. She couldn’t move, couldn’t maneuver in a space that was no wider than her opponent. Squeezing out between Burnell and the wall was impossible, so while he cradled his hand, moaning, she retreated quickly...

  Only to find another wall at her back. On three sides of her there was stone; on the fourth, Burnell. Oh, God, no... She scrambled to her feet.

  With a bellow of rage, he rose and charged her.

  She ducked, grabbing him around his thick waist; she felt the wide leather belt, the sheath... the dagger! Her hand closed around the weapon’s hilt a split second before his would have. She yanked it out and rose. What now? Where do I strike? Taking advantage of her moment of indecision, Burnell seized her wrist and twisted. She felt her fingers open. No, no...

  With a guttural cry of triumph, he took possession of the dagger and pointed its tip at her bare chest. “You’re a plucky little wench, I’ll give you that. You think you’re invincible, don’t you?”

  Ah, you’re invincible now, are you? Rainulf had said. Right before she’d...

  Yes. Do it.

  She hooked her leg around Burnell’s, and they went down together, limbs tangled, grunting. They grappled savagely in the dark, confined space. She groped for the dagger. Burnell wrested it away and rolled on top of her as she flailed at him.

  And then he cried out, a long, harrowing shriek that echoed and echoed off the stone walls.

  What... ?

  He rose over her, quivering. She heard a wet, strangled gurgle and saw the dagger sticking out of his throat.

  Jesus!

  Eyes wild, he grabbed the weapon with both hands and yanked it free. Something warm and wet pulsed onto her. He collapsed on her, jerking as the blood pumped out of him, soaking her.

  “No!” she pushed against him. But it was no use. His twitching body pinned her down; his garbled cries filled her ears. She tasted his blood in her mouth.

  She closed her eyes and raised her voice in a long, hoarse scream.

  Suddenly she felt his weight lift off her. She opened her eyes, and he wasn’t there anymore.

  Rainulf. He stood over her, stricken with horror. “Corliss! Oh, God!” He crouched, touching her gingerly. “You’re hurt! What did he—”

  His voice caught in her throat as his hands traveled from her face to her chest, encountering her shredded garments and bare skin, soaked with blood. His fingers brushed one of the dagger cuts and she winced.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he rasped, gathering her in his arms. “Corliss. Oh, God.”

  A sound from behind made them both turn to see Burnell lurching out of the alley with his hands clutching his throat, his braies around his ankles. Rainulf stiffened, his face contorting with hatred. A dark, unsteady figure—Victor, clearly still dazed—lunged at Burnell, but he managed to throw him off and stumble away.

  Victor started after the wounded tavern keeper, but Rainulf yelled, “Let the bastard go, Victor! He’s done for.”

  “Oh, no,” Victor moaned, staggering into the alley. “Corliss?”

  “She’s hurt,” Rainulf managed. “Badly, I think.”

  “She?” Victor peered down at her, his eyes widening in the dark.

  Corliss pulled the two halves of her shirt together with trembling hands. “It’s not that bad.”

  Victor looked stunned, whether from the blows Burnell had dealt him, or the revelation of her true sex, she couldn’t say.

  Rainulf glared at him. “This is your fault, damn you.

  For a moment, Corliss thought Victor was going to argue with him, but after a moment’s hesitation, he closed his eyes and nodded.

  “Do some good for once,” Rainulf ground out. “Go fetch a surgeon.”

  “Which one?” Victor asked.

  “Will Geary,” Rainulf said as he lifted Corliss in his arms and stood. “He’s got a shop on Pennyfarthing Street. Bring him back to my house. And for God’s sake, hurry!”

  Chapter 15

  As Rainulf carried Corliss back to the house, she began to shiver in his arms. “Everything’s all right,” he soothed. Insipid words; nothing was all right. Corliss was hurt. He didn’t know how badly, and he dreaded finding out.

  At his front door, he called, “Thomas! Brad!” Two sets of footsteps pounded down the stairs, and the door swung open. Rainulf muscled them aside and bounded up the steps with Corliss, ignoring their horrified gasps and offers of help. They’d told him the screams he’d heard must have been student horseplay; thank God he’d gone to investigate.

  “Magister!” Thomas exclaimed as they followed him, stumbling over their feet and each other as they clambered up the stairs. “What happened?”

  “Burnell attacked her.”

  He heard them hesitate on the stairs, and could sense their bewilderment. Her? Rainulf winced inwardly, wishing he’d had more presence of mind than to slip up this way, not once, but twice. But could he hope for presence of mind when the woman he loved had been...

  The woman he loved.

  God help him.

  In the well-lit main hall, he paused to look down at her. “Corliss. Oh, Corliss.” She was covered with blood, covered with it, especially her upper body. The remnants of her shredded clothes were saturated with it, although it seemed to have stopped flowing; it stained her face, matted her hair.

  Please, God, let her be all right, he prayed, with more pure, simple faith than he had felt in years.

  He strode into her chamber, shouting commands over his shoulder, which the young men hurried to obey: “Unfold that blanket on her bed. Bring me a bowl of water and some clean cloths. And a brazier. She needs warmth.”

  Wrapping her in the blanket, he lay down beside her and enfolded her in his arms. Her trembling had grown into a convulsive shuddering that racked her body, as if a great hand shook her in its grip. “There now, it’s all right,” he murmured inanely as he stroked her hair, her face. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her temple, holding her as tightly as he could.

  She freed her hands to grip his tunic. “It’s not that bad,” she whispered shakily. “It’s not—”

  “Shh, it’s all right.” He kissed her cheek, her hair. “It’s all right. Rest.”

  He glanced up to find Thomas and Brad exchanging a look, their expressions a mixture of astonishment and concern.

  “Go outside,” Rainulf told them. “Watch for Victor and the surgeon.”

  A pointless assignment, but one they eagerly accepted, colliding with each other in their haste to get downstairs. When they were gone, Rainulf gently drew back from Corliss. She clutched at him with palsied hands.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her as he dipped a cloth in the water and wrung it out. “Just lie back. Yes, like that.”

  He carefully dabbed her face with the wet cloth, breathing a sign of relief to find it uninjured, except for a knot on the side of her forehead. For the second time since he’d met her, he silently thanked God that her face—that extraordinary, singular face—had been spared.

  Rinsing out the cloth, he bathed her throat, blotting cautiously when he discovered the nick at its base, already scabbing over. He swore under his breath, imagin
ing the fear that must have consumed her to be at the mercy of that animal. “He had a knife?”

  “Victor’s dagger,” she rasped. “And mine.”

  “Yours? You’ve been carrying...” Obviously she had. He grimaced and shook his head.

  Her eyes clouded with anguish, and she squeezed them shut. “You were right. I was a fool to buy that dagger.” Her voice quavered so badly, he could scarcely understand her. “I—I didn’t know what to do with it. And-and he took it away from me, just as you said he would. Oh, Rainulf, I’m sorry.” Her quaking worsened. “I’m sorry.”

  “Shh...”

  She shook her head violently, her eyes glassy. “It’s all my fault. I should have listened to you. I shouldn’t have had anything to do with Victor. I shouldn’t have gone out at night. I shouldn’t have bought that—”

  “Nonsense.” He took her face between his hands and forced her to look at him. “None of this is your fault. You’re not to blame. What happened was no one’s fault but Burnell’s. He’s a monster.” Or was a monster. Chances were good that even now he lay dead on some dark side street.

  Rainulf dipped the cloth in the bowl again, parted her torn clothes slightly, and pressed it to her bloody chest. She sucked in a breath. “Easy,” he said. “I’ll be careful.”

  As delicately as he could, he wiped the blood off her skin, revealing a long, shallow cut running halfway down her chest. He hissed a low oath.

  “He kn-knew I was a w-woman,” Corliss said. “He wanted to... he tried to...”

  “But he didn’t. Did he?”

  She shook her head. “Nay, you came just in time. I fought him, but he was too strong for me. I broke his nose and his finger, though.”

  He took her in his arms. “Good for you. You did well. I’m proud of you.”

  Was that the only cut on her chest, he wondered, or were there others? How badly had the son of a bitch hurt her? “I need to get this tunic off you.” He unbuckled her belt and threw it on the floor, then eased her out of the ruined wool garment and tossed that aside as well. Her bleached linen shirt, once snow white, had turned the brownish red of drying blood. He left it on out of deference to her modesty, but ripped it open the rest of the way, pulling out and discarding the shredded strips of linen that had bound her breasts.

  He pushed aside the bloodied halves of the shirt, exposing more of her chest. Taking up the wet cloth, he cleaned the blood off, relieved to find no more wounds. He rinsed the cloth out again and passed it under her shirt at her waist, smoothing it up her side and over a breast. She shivered and threw an arm across her eyes.

  “Did he cut you here?” She shook her head. “Anywhere else?” he asked as he tended to the other side.

  “Nay.”

  Thank God, thought Rainulf, realizing her injuries were far less than he’d supposed. Most of the blood must have been Burnell’s.

  “But...” Corliss began.

  “Aye?”

  She turned her face away. “He-he touched me,” she whispered brokenly. “He t-touched—”

  “Oh, Corliss.” He dropped the cloth in the bowl and wrapped her in his arms, breathing against her hair, “It’s over. It’s over. He can’t hurt you anymore. He’s probably dead by now.” That was Rainulf’s only consolation, the only thing that kept him calm and sane in the face of what had happened to Corliss. His rage toward Burnell was pure and savage; the bastard deserved to pay for his brutality with his life. Was it un-Christian to take satisfaction in his death? He felt a moment of guilt—a stab of self-doubt: What kind of man am I to rejoice in the death of another? And then Corliss’s voice came to him: Save your doubt for the lecture hall, where it belongs. Don’t turn it in on yourself.

  How right she’d been. How wise she was. Wiser in many respects than he.

  He threaded his fingers through Corliss’s hair and kissed the glossy black waves. Her trembling had abated, but not gone away entirely. He rubbed her arms and back, murmuring a litany of comforting words. It would have killed him, he realized, had anything happened to her. She’d gotten inside him, become a part of him. How had that happened?

  He heard voices from the street, and then the door opening; footsteps on the stairs. “Will’s here.”

  He sat up and pulled the two sides of her shirt together.

  “Stay here with me,” she pleaded.

  He smoothed her hair off her face. “Of course.”

  The leather curtain parted, and Will hurried into the chamber, bag in hand; Rainulf had a fleeting glimpse of Thomas, Brad, and Victor in the main hall. “They told me someone was hurt,” Will said. “Corliss? What happened, boy?”

  Corliss glanced uneasily toward Rainulf. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Can I trust you to keep your counsel about something, Will? Something important?”

  “Of course.”

  “The young woman who disappeared from Cuxham—Father Osred’s housekeeper, Constance ...”

  Will nodded. Rainulf took Corliss’s hand.

  The surgeon blinked. His eyes grew round. His mouth opened, then shut, then opened again. And then he laughed in astonishment. “Well! I’d just about decided you preferred boys, and here you’ve been hiding your mistress in your own home, dressed as a—”

  “She’s not my mistress,” Rainulf hastily corrected, squeezing Corliss’s hand. “I took her in to protect her.”

  “From Pigot?” Will asked.

  “Is that his name?” asked Corliss. “The madman who finds runaways for Sir Roger?”

  Will walked around the big bed, sitting on the opposite side from Rainulf. “That’s what they call him. I don’t believeit’s his real name.” He shook his head. “Every man, woman, and child in Cuxham trembles at the mention of him.”

  “Is he really mad?” Rainulf asked.

  The surgeon moved aside the oil lamp on the night table, set his bag down and opened it. “Quite. So you’d best tread carefully, both of you.” His gaze took in Corliss’s chausses, and he smiled. “Although I see you have been. Very clever, young lady.”

  “Thank you.”

  Will scrutinized Corliss’s face, lightly touching the lump on her forehead. “Have you any marjoram in the house?”

  “I think so.”

  “Mix it with honey and use it as a poultice on this—and any other lumps and bruises you may have sustained.”

  Corliss nodded. Her trembling had let up, but she was parchment pale, and her eyes were pools of sadness.

  “Is this the only cut?” Will asked, indicating the small gash on her throat.

  “Nay.” She parted her shirt just enough for the surgeon to see the long dagger wound that marred her chest.

  He frowned. “Vicious bastard.” He grinned sheepishly at Corliss. “Pardon the language. I don’t quite think of you as a woman yet.”

  “That’s all right,” Corliss mumbled. Rainulf didn’t like the lack of spark in her eyes, the apathy in her expression. It was so unlike her. Even under the most trying of circumstances—even when she’d been ravaged by smallpox—she’d retained her... sense of herself, her love of life, her irrepressible humor. But now...

  Rainulf shook his head. She was just a shell that looked like Corliss, but didn’t have Corliss inside it. There was more of Corliss in him right now than there seemed to be in her.

  “This will sting,” Will warned her before cleaning her wounds with something from a small flask. She gripped Rainulf’s hand painfully as the surgeon sponged on the fluid, apologizing all the while. “These cuts aren’t very deep at all,” he assured her. “Although I’ve no doubt they hurt. They should heal quickly, without scarring. Don’t bother bandaging them—just keep them clean. I’ll leave this salve for them.” He placed a small jar on the night table. “That’s all I can do.”

  Will packed up his things, then patted Corliss’s cheek. “Be careful out there. I’ve seen this Pigot’s handiwork.”

  “So have I,” she said quietly.

  They exchanged a grim look, and then Will rose.
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  “What do I owe you, Will?” Rainulf asked, taking out his purse.

  The surgeon waved his hand in dismissal as he crossed the chamber. “Don’t be an idiot, Rainulf. I wouldn’t take your silver.”

  “You have a right to payment for your services,” Rainulf persisted. “I insist.”

  Will whipped aside the leather curtain; the three young scholars, seated at the table, turned to look. “You can pay me by taking good care of Corliss.” He directed one last look toward the woman on the bed. Rainulf saw the frank interest in his gaze and felt a little knife thrust of jealousy. Did every man who met her fall in love with her?

  “I will,” Rainulf assured his friend stonily. “Rest assured of that.”

  Will nodded, and Rainulf thought he detected a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. He knew Rainulf was jealous.

  “Send for me again if you need me,” Will said. “I’ll come at a moment’s notice.” He grinned as he disappeared into the stairwell. “Anything for Corliss!”

  Rainulf swore Victor, Thomas, and Brad to secrecy, then sent them home. Returning to the bedchamber, he found Corliss staring at the canopy above her, expressionless.

  He sat on the edge of the bed. “Are you all right?”

  She mumbled something shakily that sounded like “He touched me.”

  Rainulf leaned closer. “Who? Will?”

  She sat up and looked down at herself with an expression of revulsion. “Burnell.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she closed her eyes tight. “I can feel his hands on me. Everywhere he touched me, I can feel his hands.”

  Rainulf encircled her with his arms. “He’s gone, Corliss. He’s dead.”

  “I can smell him,” she choked. “I can smell him on me. And his blood... I’ll never get it off.” Staring in horror at her bloody arms and chest, she began to shake again.

  He held her tightly. “You can wash it off, Corliss. All of it, the blood, the smell... and then he’ll be gone. You can wash him off with soap and water.” She shook her head, but he was insistent. “Yes. I’ll heat up some water for a bath. ‘Twill work. You’ll see.”