He fumbled with the hood of his mantle. "No." He would not look at her now. "Why do you ask?"
"I was hoping you could go to Bourdeilles," she said. No. This was not true, but she must make him understand. She put her hand on his arm. His muscles stiffened under her fingers. "You cannot stay here, either, Richard." He started to speak, but stopped when gestured. "Hear me," she said. "The Inquisitor will be here next week."
He went very still. "He is coming for Jacques, isn't he?" His skin drained of color. "And for you, too?"
"Yes." So even Richard had heard of her healing circles and the work she did with Ibrahim. Well, her healing was no secret, was it? But how did Ysabel know of the work she did with Ibrahim? Father Gregory always looked the other way when Maríana went into Reuilles-la-ville. He knew that Maríana had spent a year with Ibrahim, yet he had not objected. When he said the mass, his words were always of love, not hatred. Ibrahim had told her of the danger, but she had not listened. "They are coming for my father, too."
"It cannot be." His mouth made a stubborn line.
She touched his hand. "My dear friend." Her voice broke. "I am sorry that you are here. I would rather have you safe with Beatrice, or in Brittany with your family. But if you stay here and they find that I had been here..." She raised her fingers to touch his lips and stop the argument she saw forming there. "They will torture you to find out where I had gone." His lips were warm and soft. She quickly drew her fingers away.
"I will go with you." He moved to the far side of the chamber, lifted a leather and metal helmet. Light glinted off his chain mail as he hefted it to his shoulder.
"You could go to Brittany -- leave a message that you had been called back home. You would be safe. I don't think they would follow you to Brittany."
"That is not why I am going with you, to avoid their questions," Richard said, setting his jaw. He was sorting through his shirts and stuffing them into a bag. "I am no coward."
"You don't understand," she said, then broke off as he glared at her. "If you were to come with me you could not take any of your things other than the clothes you wear. They would start looking for both of us right away if all your things are gone. It must look as if you had just stepped out for some air, or..."
"Or gone to visit one of the kitchen maids," he finished for her. "Of course, that will give us more time. I will write a note to Jean-Pierre." Dropping his helmet and chain mail upon the bed, he reached in his bag and pulled out parchment, quill and a pot of ink. She watched him. He wrote with ease, now. She remembered his struggle, the hours he had spent copying letters Johanna had written for him. "We should leave soon." He leaned down and grabbed a handful of rushes and dust from the floor, then sprinkled it on the page and shook it off. "I do not know when Jean-Pierre will return."
Tears blurred her eyes. "You may never be able to go home, you know." If he went with her, they would be after him, too. How could she do this to him?
He turned toward her, took her hands in his. "I know." His face was still again, but his eyes reached into her. Then he grabbed the hilt of his blade. "Surely I can take my sword. It would look strange if I did not. I take it everywhere I go, and we may need it." He leaned closer to her, his lips barely grazing the top of her head as she looked down.
"Then you must take it," she said. "Are you ready?" It was his decision to go. She should argue, tell him she did not want him, send him away. But she could not stop the warmth that filled her, the glow that formed around her heart.
He lifted the bag that held the food and her slippers. "We should take candles." She pushed several into the bag he held and extinguished the candle she had lit.
"I will check the stairs for the guard." Richard climbed the three stairs to the door, but before he opened it, he took her hands in his and looked directly into her eyes.
"You really do not need to leave, you know," he said. "I am sure that the Baron of Bauçais would protect you. We could just go to warn Jacques." She shook her head and Richard continued, "But I have heard that you are carrying his child... Bauçais' child." His voice stumbled over the name of her betrothed.
She looked into his clear brown-amber eyes. Did Richard really think she should stay with Henri? Didn't he want her? Was his concern only that of a friend? "It won't make any difference," she said. For the first time she wondered whose child Ysabel carried. No, she could not risk it. For the sake of her own child, she must flee, trusting that Johanna would save Louis-Philippe.
"VERY WELL, then. We will go." Richard eased the door open, peered out, then turned back to her. "The watch on the tower is not due to change for a while, I think," he whispered. They crept down the stairs. When they reached the door, he reached for the latch. She took his hands and pulled him toward the back of the hall where more stairs led to the dungeons.
He followed her into the cold darkness. As she neared the bottom, the steps grew slippery with moss and stone-sweat. The pungent odor of fungus and dried blood, of cold stone, and earth and fear surrounded her. It was pitch black.
No one had inhabited the dungeons for some time. The guard's chambers had been empty for years. It was through the guard's rooms that she led him, feeling her way along the greasy stone of the wall. She stopped at the back of the last room, her fingers searching for the lever Ibrahim had shown her. "Wait while I open the passage," she whispered.
"I am sure we can risk lighting a candle," he said. His hand on her shoulder shook.
"Not yet." She knelt, her fingers following the space where wall met floor, seeking the glyph Ibrahim had carved into the stone that would open into his tunnel.
"Where did you go?" Richard was shuffling his feet along the floor. She felt a breeze from the motion of his arms as he tried to find her.
"Be still." A loud grating and whisper of air told her the space was open. "Here." He jumped when she took his hand and pulled him to the floor beside her. "You must duck down." He bent over and squeezed through the narrow opening, his sword scraping against the sides. On the other side the air was dead, but it was drier than the dungeon. She searched along the wall and found the latch to shut the small section of wall she had opened.
"Now we can light a candle," she said. Richard pulled his flint box out of a pouch on his belt and lit the candle she gave to him. His hands still shook. The candle light danced on the walls.
He looked around, eyes wide with surprise. He stared at the stone corridor, stretching into darkness beyond their candlelight. "What is this place?"
She rose to her feet and rubbed her hands against her skirt. "Ibrahim's people built this tunnel." She lit another candle from Richard's, holding it away from her gown as the wax dripped. "My father wanted another way from Reuilles-le-château to the Irati caves." She started down the tunnel, then stopped when she saw him standing behind her, his fingers tracing the stones that formed the walls.
"These are fitted so closely together that I cannot even fit my fingernail in the joints!" He looked back at her, then hoisted the bag to his shoulder. "Who knows of this tunnel?" He was beside her now, his loping stride shortened to keep pace with her. "Where do the caves lead?"
"Father had the donjon cleared while they built it." The candles threw their shadowy silhouettes into relief on the walls, elongated black shapes dancing alongside them. "He wanted a secret way out, so only he and Guillaume know the trick to open it. Ibrahim's people all went back to Egypt after they built it. The Irati caves lead to my father's Saracen palace."
"The house with the fountain?" Richard was smiling; she could see his lips curve. "And the arched windows?"
"Have all the squires been up there?" That would be the first place they would look after they discovered she was not anywhere on the château grounds. She increased her pace, ignoring the low ache that grabbed the base of her spine.
He winced. The flame of his candle dipped, then flared. "Well, I know we were not allowed to, but anything forbidden..." His steps slowed.
"It does not matter, now." She t
ugged on his mantle, pulling him along. "We don't have much time." Anxiety put an edge on her voice. He lengthened his stride, following her down the corridor into the shadows.
Chapter 24
HENRI awakened slowly. For a moment, he thought that he was back at Montsegur. His lungs ached again with fumes of burning corpses. When he opened his eyes, he saw that some candles had been left to burn and had burned all the way down. Cursing, he leaped out of the bed and then looked around in confusion.
What was he doing in Ysabel's room? His clothes were strewn in untidy piles across the floor. He looked back at the bed. Ysabel lay sound asleep, her arms curled around her middle.
As he gathered up his clothing and started to dress, he tried to remember why he had come to her room. He was sure he had intended to tell Ysabel that he would no longer visit her. The midwife had told him just that evening that she felt it was safe for Maríana and him to wed. Maríana had stopped bleeding and the danger was past. He would not visit Ysabel any longer. Yes, that was why he had come to her. He had stood there and told her this. But Ysabel had laughed and pulled him into her room, and he had gone willingly, had moved into her embrace, taken her.
Afterward, Ysabel had started talking. He had been exhausted, drained, and could barely keep his eyes open, but he had heard her voice. She had not seemed to be speaking to him and her words had not made any sense. Her voice had risen and fallen in a rhythm, then had grown sharp with anger. Something about a list, about an agreement. She had mentioned Durand several times, and a name. It had sounded like Raheem.
Henri frowned and ran his hands through his hair. This was not his concern. There would be no more visits to Ysabel. If need be, he would use Robert as a barrier again. He left her room, walked along the empty corridors to Maríana's chamber, where he stopped in surprise. Her door stood ajar. He waited for a moment at the door, listening. Hearing nothing within, he pushed the door open and slipped inside. "Maríana," he whispered.
It was totally dark. No fire burned in the hearth, but room still held the smell of hot ashes. Henri stumbled across the floor, his feet catching on mounds of cloth that lay strewn across his path, then sank down upon the bed. He fruitlessly searched the surface for his bride-to-be.
"Damn!" Stalking over to the candle shelf, he groped across its surface, grabbed the first he could find and struck the flint to light it. A blue flash, followed by a flickering glow, showed the empty, rumpled bed. Alys was stirring on her pallet. He put his hand on the bed again. Ice settled over his heart. He turned his head as Alys sputtered and complained.
"Hush, woman." Her eyes grew wide, but her grumbling subsided. "Where is your mistress?"
Alys heaved her body off the pallet and peered over at the bed. "Perhaps she went to Johanna's chamber?"
"Go and see if she is there." He waited as Alys drew her robe over her gown and stuffed her feet into slippers, then ran his hand across the cold bed again when she went out the door. Where could Maríana have gone? She was not well enough to go far. He searched through the gowns hanging in her cabinet, then lifted the lid of her chest. Her mantle was still there. He pulled it to his face and inhaled. It smelled of her, a blend of earth and sun-kissed skin. He raised his head and dropped the garment when Alys entered the room. Her eyes were wider now, white showing around the rim.
"She is gone!" she choked. "I cannot find her anywhere."
BLUE LIGHT beckoned Richard and echoes of dripping water surrounded him. Ice formed in white strands around the mouth of the cave that joined with the tunnel Maríana had just dragged him through. The journey had seemed to take hours. Twice, Maríana had taken a false turn and they had retraced their steps. But now they stood at the mouth of the final cave.
Maríana had doused the candle, yet he could see the terrain outside clearly. It had stopped snowing. Light from the heavy, threatening clouds bathed the snow covering the rock and earth and trees in an uncanny glow. Richard stared at the slope that fell away from his feet into a shallow ravine.
Maríana took his hand. "We must go down into this," she said. "It is easier if you sit down and let yourself slide." She went first, crouching sideways and descending in a graceful skid. He shuddered, but tried to imitate her and managed to get down with most of his skin intact. At the bottom she stood holding her side and pointed upward. He swallowed.
Gleaming white walls and exquisite arched windows; poetry in stone and tile. The Saracen palace glimmered in the heavy atmosphere, seemed to float on top of the cliff before him. He had only gone there once, when he was still a squire. The elegant rise of pillars that supported the walls, the glistening white of the stone, the dancing pattern of the tiles, all of these had moved him. He had been just a boy when he first saw it and had made a vow to travel to Byzantium.
He stared at a path cut into the bare rock of Irati, winding up to the crest of the cliff on which the palace stood. Maríana started up the path, one arm still wrapped across her waist. Had she hurt herself? He moved to her side, asked if she was hurt, but she kept walking, would not look at his face. "Jacques is up there," was all she said.
HENRI STOOD in front of the central hearth, one foot placed upon a stool beside the huge oak table that stretched the length of three men across the floor of the kitchen. The head cook leaned away from him, his head lowered, mouth forming a surly streak. "You say Maríana told you she was going to her grandmother's room?" Henri repeated. This one was stubborn. What was his name? Ah, yes. Lionel. "To Johanna's room?"
"Yes, that is what she said," Lionel stated, then added, "She often went to see her grandmother."
"In the middle of the night?" Henri looked at the kitchen servants. All who had been there that night were gathered around the long oak table. Their faces appeared pale and worried. "I have just come back from Johanna's chamber. Maríana is not there and Johanna does not remember her being there at all tonight."
"You woke the dra... er, the mistress?" Lionel's eyes bulged.
Henri could see that he wouldn't get much more out of this one. When Alys told him that she could not find Maríana, his mouth had gone dry. He had gone to the knights' room, wakened Robert, gathered his men together, sent all of them out to search the buildings of Reuilles-le-château. She could not have gone far. They would find her.
Henri himself had searched the palais, questioning anyone who was still awake. Three knights had told him they had seen Maríana in the corridor after midnight. They thought she had gone toward Ysabel's room. When he heard this, ice had gripped his heart again. But Maríana could not have gone to Ysabel's room. Who knew that better than he?
Now Henri looked at Lionel again. So Maríana had come down for food. That was not so unusual, was it? And it was a good sign that she was hungry. He dismissed the cluster of servants who stood around him, thanking them for their help. It was time to search all the rooms, even if it meant waking the guests.
RICHARD followed Maríana around the palace's outside wall. When they reached the courtyard and could see the door, she stopped so abruptly that he collided with her and both fell to the ground. He lifted her in his arms, dusted the snow off her gown, again asked if she was hurt. But she still did not answer him. She stared at the door to the palace. It stood open to the courtyard. No one would leave a door open in this weather; there would soon be ice on the floors and walls. Her heart pounded so hard, he could feel it through her thick woolen gown. He must go to the door, see if it was safe. But she pushed away from his grasp before he could order her to stay. She hurried to the open door, her feet stumbling and sliding.
"Maríana! No!" He followed in her wake and nearly knocked her down again when he moved through the door behind her.
Lamps burning, three of them. And rugs upon the wall. He had never seen walls that held rugs, never seen fabric woven in such rich colors. Indigo and scarlet and gold danced in curling patterns across their surfaces. He glanced at the floor. Something lay there, just inside the door. He could not see it clearly; Maríana had stopped in fr
ont of him and stood there, trembling.
He must protect her. At his touch, she sank to the floor. He caught her as she fell, caught her before her head hit the tiles.
"Maríana!" An old man came from the arched doorway to the back. Richard reached for his sword, but the man knelt beside him, gently touched where Maríana's neck met her jaw, then peeled back her left eyelid.
Richard pushed his hand away. "What are you doing? Leave her be."
The man drew back and smiled. "She has only fainted. Do not worry." He rose and turned toward a young woman who had entered.
"Who are you?" Richard asked, then bent toward Maríana as she stirred. Her face was waxen.
"Grandfather," she whispered. She touched Richard's cheek. "It is my grandfather. You need not worry."
Maríana's grandfather leaned forward, raised her chin so her eyes fell upon his face. "Maríana," he took her right hand and chafing it, "there is nothing we can do for Ibrahim. It is too late."
She stiffened, then pulled away from his arms and climbed in an unsteady lurch to her feet. The old man backed away, nodded to the woman who prowled the chamber.
"Have you found it?" he asked.
Richard drew in a breath when the woman turned and glared at Maríana. "Not yet," she said. She turned to look at Richard. "Who are you?" Her voice was hollow.
Richard opened his mouth to speak, but Maríana answered the woman. "He is with me." She dropped to the floor beside the bundle Richard had seen when they entered. A man lay there! Richard's heart thudded in his ears. What had happened here?
"HIS BODY is cold." Maríana ran her fingers across Ibrahim's high cheekbones, across his lips.
She no longer shook, but Richard could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest.
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