His face was hidden by the hood. "What is your ailment, my friend?" she asked, as she had asked all the others.
"I have a headache," the man said, his voice rough and hoarse.
"How long have you had it?" she asked. What had Ibrahim taught her about headaches? They could mean nothing at all or be very bad. If a headache persists and vomiting is present, well... .
The man's voice cut across her musing. "Since this morning." He coughed.
Good, it was not likely to be serious. "Where does the pain start?" she asked, her fingers rummaging the depths of her pack.
He pointed both fingers up to his temples, still hidden by the hood.
She pulled her hands out of her carrying pack. The last of her supply of ground black willow bark and marjoram was in a tiny packet. Not much, but enough for a headache that had only started that morning. "Take this powder mixed in water," she told him. "Your headache should be gone soon." He took the small package. "If it does not, please send for Iranzu or Leila. They would know where to find me or could send word to Jacques."
He took her hand and kissed it. His touch started a trembling that traveled up her arm. Who was he? He raised his head and the hood fell back. Henri's icy stare caught her. She snatched her hand away. "Games, monsieur?"
He threw back his cloak, exposing the white cross on his tunic. The people who had not yet left the courtyard immediately scurried away. "See," he said. "I have frightened them away." A smile softened the tight lines on his face. "I should have stayed hidden."
"They are right to fear French lords dressed in the garment of the crusade against Cathars." Maríana sealed her pack and stood. "Toulouse is not so far away." He flinched, then visibly caught himself. Curious. Why had what she said startled him?
He looked down. "I would like to pay you."
"But no one..." Well, why not? He was a baron. She could give whatever he paid to Iranzu and Leila. "Very well."
"I have no gold with me now, but it is a fine day. Would you do me the honor," he swept his arm in a regal bow, "of joining me for a meal in the meadow by the lake?" He took her hand, brushed aside a tendril of her hair that had wandered onto her cheek. "I got the food from a merchant around the corner." He leaned closer. "I am sure it is quite good."
She averted her eyes and stepped back. "What do you have for this meal?"
He stood regarding her silently, then said: "Fresh bread, sliced roast pig, dried fruit."
She did not speak.
"At least you could instruct me on how much of this to take." He gently shook the packet of marjoram and willow bark.
She looked up. Perhaps she could discern his purpose if she spent time with him. He was her cousin. What could happen? "Well then, let us go."
Chapter 14
YSABEL FUMED. She had taken the mannikin off and had it baptized by a drunken, defrocked priest in a filthy hovel in Reuilles-la-ville. She'd soaked for hours in the tub last night, to rid herself of the vermin she had picked up just from being near the slavering idiot. Now that she did not need to hold the mannikin close to her body and was free to dally if she wanted, she had hoped to spend the entire day with her Henri and what did he do? He ran off to that accursed town! She savagely stabbed the mannikin again and again, delighted to hear its screams of pain. Finally, she tired of the game and wrapped it up, burying it in the depths of her cabinet.
As she dressed for dinner she thought idly of returning to the town and asking the old woman for a love charm. Then she stared at herself in the polished silver mirror. Why do that? If she could make a powerful charm like the mannikin, how hard could it be to make a love charm? She sat in a daze for a moment, then rose from her seat and tore around her chamber, feverishly gathering the materials she thought she would need for a love charm. She would make Henri want her again. After measuring and cutting a piece of red silk from an old gown, she went over to the early-blooming roses she had her servants pick for her every day.
Red, the color of blood. She picked the petals off a deep red rose. These would do. She chose the finest three petals and placed them on the little square of silk. It needed blood, too. She stuck her finger with her sewing needle, wincing a little as she squeezed some of her own blood out onto the rose petals.
It needed some of his blood, too. Blood that binds, blood that binds. And something else. She needed something Henri had given her, something from him. She pulled everything out of her chest, then picked up and discarded several things, an old shoe, a bracelet, a ring.
"Of course!" she exclaimed. "The ring he gave me when we were children -- I still have it!" She tore into her jewelry until, with a cry of triumph, she held up the small ring of gold Henri had given her so long ago.
Sitting on the floor with the contents of her room strewn about her, she placed the ring in the center of the square of silk and gloated over her love charm. But it was incomplete. Blood. She needed Henri's blood, too. The old woman said that blood was the most powerful. She looked at her charm again. That old hag had better be right!
HENRI BLINKED his eyes, then turned his head to see the squat stone walls of his cell at Fornault Abbey. How did he get there? The short, cadaverous figure of the Abbot was bending over him, eyes gleaming. Henri tried to rise, struggling against restraints that bound him to his bed. "It is for your own good, Henri." The Abbot tested the strength of the leather straps that held him, and ran his fingers lovingly over the other restraint that had been anchored to Henri's body when he had first arrived. "You must learn to control your passions." The Abbot turned to leave, then stopped at the door. "It is the only way." He left the room.
Henri's jaw ached from clenching his teeth. It wasn't so bad during the day, when his thoughts were his own. When the sun reigned he found it easy to control his reactions, his emotions. When the Abbot sent beautiful young nuns from the convent in to tend to him, he concentrated on numbers, filling his head with figures so that his body did not have a chance to respond. When the Abbot sent in boys to look at the leather restraint attached to his body and he saw their pitying eyes, he nurtured his scorn until he could flay them with a few well-chosen words. He took a curious pleasure in these small victories.
It wasn't that bad during the day, but the nights! He simply could not govern his dreams. Night after night he fought to stay awake. He drove slivers of wood under his nails, he paced the floor, he made himself stand up straight so that he could not sleep. Night after night, he failed. His dreams were filled with women. Women he had known, the young nuns the abbot had sent in, Ysabel... .
He ground his teeth again. Ysabel was the reason he had been sent to Fornault Abbey, although it was not her fault. His mother had flown into a rage when she had found Ysabel and Henri together in his chamber. His father had accepted his mother's decision to send Henri to Fornault Abbey and he had been taken there the very next day.
The minute Henri arrived, the Abbot had him bound and placed the "belt" on him, a leather restraint with small metal spikes facing inside that fitted over his male parts, allowing him to urinate, but stabbing him if he became aroused. Henri removed it the first week -- it was difficult, but he managed -- and all that got him was an even more painful version of the belt, tighter and more difficult to remove.
Since then, he learned to avoid the pain by concentrating on his studies, on Latin, on numbers -- numbers were best to quell his arousal. But he could not control his dreams and now the Abbot had taken away his ability to stay awake by tying him to his bed. Henri tried to bite off the leather straps, but only succeeded in tearing the skin on his wrist. He was defeated. He wouldn't cry, though. No, he wouldn't give them that.
He had heard other young boys who had been taken to the Abbot's rooms, heard them cry out in pain. After they came back to their chambers, they huddled on their beds, weeping in misery, but none ever spoke of what the Abbot had done to them.
"This is a man of God," Henri told himself. "It is for my own good." But when the dreams came and he woke screaming in p
ain, Henri cursed. He cursed them all -- the Abbot, the brothers, the Church, God Himself. He hated and hated, and his rage took on a color, a form all its own.
He imagined horrible things -- dismembering the Abbot slowly, bit by bit, so that he remained alive, but crippled. Yet the best, most satisfying image, the picture that would not stop the pain when he awoke from one of his dreams of women and felt the restraint's iron grip, but would make the pain bearable, was of him holding the Abbot's severed penis in his hands, forcing it down the Abbot's throat, choking him.
HENRI CRIED out, jumping up from his bed, his body soaked in sour sweat. He was panting, staring at the billowing curtains that divided his bed from the others in the long room. As he watched, the curtains fluttered again, then settled and hung straight from the rod that held them. Running his hands through his sweat-dampened hair, he made himself sit on the edge of his bed, breathing deeply to still his pounding heart.
A candle still burned on his table. He should move it before the curtains billowed out again with the breeze that had set them moving. The flame would set them alight. He stood and reached for the candle, then stopped. He had not left it burning when he went to sleep.
He placed the heel of his hand against his forehead and pressed between his eyes. A headache. The abbey dream. Just a dream. He stood and poured water from a jug into his basin, soaking a cloth to drape over his aching eyes. The water in the basin trembled. A single drop of red pattered on the surface, then sent pink fingers streaming.
"What?" He lifted his arms and saw a small cut on his wrist that was bleeding. "How the devil did I do that?" he wondered aloud, wrapping a dry cloth around it.
YSABEL FLEW down the passage toward her chamber. She opened the door and slipped inside, sighing in relief.
That was too close. Henri had almost caught her. Muffled, cackling laughter of the mannikin rose from the depths of her cabinet. "Shut up," she said, her voice muted. She had entered Henri's curtained area in the knights' room simply to obtain some of his blood -- just a little. All the knights were sleeping. And Henri had not moved. He had remained still when she lit the candle and drew the blanket off his body. He had not moved when she cut him. She held the small vial under the lamp she had left burning in her room. Yes, that should be enough for the charm.
But she had been denied the kind of love she wanted for such a long time that she had not been able to resist running her hands gently over Henri's body, feeling the firmness of his muscles, the expanse of his belly and on down to his loins. He had not moved when she cut him, but the gentle touch of her hands along his glorious body had started a shaking in his limbs. A shaking that her own body answered. Damn! Her hands still shook. She moved with grim purpose to the love charm and poured Henri's blood over the ring and the rose petals. He would be hers tonight.
HIS HEAD was splitting apart, pounding with the blinding pain he had been prone to suffer since leaving the abbey. Perhaps that was why he dreamt of the abbey again. He groaned aloud as the pain intensified, then fumbled in his pouch for the packet of herbs Maríana had given him. A few grains of powder trickled into his hand.
Not enough. He sat on the edge of his bed, holding his head. Maríana, he must wake her. He could not wait for morning; he needed relief from this now. He threw a robe over his naked body and stumbled out of the curtains surrounding his bed. His body shuddered as he staggered down the passageway to Maríana's chamber.
A THUMPING on the door, followed by soft groans, tore her from her sleep. Maríana pulled a robe over her gown and cautiously opened the door. She saw Henri leaning weakly against the wall, one hand holding his forehead and the other clutched around his middle. A cloth wrapped tightly around his wrist was stained with blood. "Henri!" she cried, then pulled him into the room.
Wrapping a rag around her hand, she grabbed a flaming ember from her hearth and used it to light her Saracen lamp. Then she led Henri over to the divan against the window and seated him there. He rocked back and forth, retching. Retrieving the night basin at the side of her bed, she got it to him just in time for him to empty his stomach into it. He hung over it, gasping.
Maríana rubbed the back of his neck firmly and said in the measured, soothing voice she had developed to speak with the people she tried to heal, people who were all in pain of one sort or another, "I want you to stay here on the divan while I get my pack. The basin is still here if you need it. Will you be all right if I leave you?"
He nodded weakly, so she stood and, wrapping her robe more firmly around her, moved across the room to her store of healing herbs. "Black horehound, meadowsweet, manzanilla," she whispered, drawing out the packets. "Right." She looked over to where Henri huddled miserably on the divan.
With a snort and grunt, Alys woke and sat up in her small bed, then yelped when she saw Henri, now reclining on the divan. Maríana frowned at Alys and held her finger at her lips. "This knight is very ill. He has come to me for healing. If you wish to help, you can come over and soak some cloths in the water by the bed. If you don't want to help, then stay out of my way." Alys sputtered, but subsided when Maríana glared at her.
"Where is the pain?" Maríana asked him.
"In my head again."
"And it is so bad that it made you sick in your belly as well?" When he nodded, she sat looking at the packets she had selected. Maybe she should send for Ibrahim. It could be something very serious. But she sat gazing at him, at the dark lashes covering his gold and blue eyes, the fine, proud forehead, the high planes of his cheekbones. His body rocked slightly against the pain.
Yes, it could be serious. But she could heal him. What could Ibrahim do that she could not? As she rubbed Henri's neck, she remembered their time at the edge of the lake; his eyes had warmed whenever he looked at her, but were always darting around, scanning the shore. His hand never strayed far from his sword.
"A soldier's reflex," Henri had told her when she asked why his eyes assessed the crowd, why his hand forever hovered over his sword. "It never leaves you." His lips had spread in a smile that did not reach his eyes.
But her father did not cling to his sword when he was in Reuilles-la-ville, and he was a soldier, too. She had asked Henri of his most recent campaign. He had told her, "I served Hughes des Arcis." Then his eyes became opaque. Even she could not penetrate the blanket that covered his thoughts. And he kept his distance from her.
She could do it. Ibrahim did not have to know. She raised her hands, then paused, staring at Henri. It would do no harm, would it? Ibrahim had said she could, if there were no other way. She had already given him the marjoram and willow bark. Drawing a deep breath and putting her hands on either side of Henri's temples, she closed her eyes and did exactly what she had promised Ibrahim she would never do. Henri's pain had dropped his guard. He could not keep her out. She felt her way into Henri's body and climbed into his mind.
And saw the bald head and black robes of a priest bending over Henri. A very young Henri. This priest had yellow teeth that showed when he grimaced. He was stroking Henri's groin, something was attached there. Something that was hurting Henri. What was it? Now young women dressed in the robes of the convent were coming into the room where Henri lay. The priest stepped back as they moved around the boy that Henri had been. Then the priest nodded and the women started to stroke Henri's body. Henri was holding himself rigid, but his eyes were frantic. The priest stood back from them but watched avidly, his eyes gleaming. And Henri screamed... .
She wrenched her hands away. Henri was still in the grip of his pain and did not notice her trembling. She sat still a moment, choking on the image she had received of a young man barely out of boyhood being tortured for his body's own natural responses. Drawing in another deep breath, she looked into him again. There were no yellow-gray flares, no muddied orange that would indicate disease. His body was still sound and healthy. This illness had its origin in his emotions and spirit, but had not damaged his body yet, though if left unchecked, it might.
She
clutched the packets of meadowsweet, marjoram, and manzanilla. A mixture would help him, of course, but it would take time and would not stop future headaches from torturing him. He opened pain-glazed eyes. She could take away his pain, but he must free himself of the guilt and rage that shaped it. The healing was there, within his reach, if he were willing to face it. She tore open the packets and mixed the herbs in a cup of boiling water Alys had brought over. He would believe this was what healed him. She stirred the liquid with her little crescent blade, wiping the bitter mixture off when she was done. She had already disobeyed Ibrahim to help this knight. What harm could her touch do? He would think the herbs had stopped his pain. And if her touch guided him to the root of his torment, he would not know it was she who took him there.
"Henri, here," she spoke softly to him. "I need to lift you so that you can drink this." She pointed to the cup. He grimaced.
"At least try a little. You remember the willow bark and marjoram you had this afternoon? That helped you, didn't it?" He nodded weakly. "Well, at least try a little of this. You must help me get you up so you don't choke."
He slowly raised his upper body so she could hold the cup for him, and stoically drained the entire cup of bitter liquid.
She set the cup on the floor and gathered her energy as Ibrahim had taught her, using her breathing and her ability to form pictures and images in her mind to unlock to powers that were always there waiting. Placing her fingers lightly on Henri's temples again, she massaged them gently, so that Alys would not wonder what she was doing. Then she spoke the words of healing under her breath and felt her hands burning, as the energy was accepted into his body. Good. He wanted to be healed.
While she put away her carrying pack, she saw him sinking into a deep, natural sleep. Pulling some large pillows Ibrahim had given her over to the side of the divan, she made a cozy nest for herself close beside him. Alys' eyes grew wide and she started to cluck, but Maríana silenced her with a direct stare.
Door in the Sky Page 20
