Well. To the dungeon. But this was better. She had not really killed Ibrahim with her potion. Ysabel offered her arms to the men who came to take her back to the tower. A few penances, an act of contrition, and she would be free. She lifted her face and smiled.
JOHANNA'S chamber had the best light. Henri stood next to the broad window, looking out onto the inner bailey. Late afternoon sun warmed his face. "Can you stop this?"
Hughes des Arcis stood behind him, watching his squire stow his parchments in a black saddlebag. "I will do what I can," Hughes said. "But you must do something for me."
Henri waited, his eyes upon the older man.
"You must find Maríana de Reuilles."
That, he would not do. "We have been trying..."
Hughes held up his hand. "I know very well what you have and have not done." His lips drew together; the warmth in his face faded. "Your men found a way up the mountain, but you stopped them from going further."
"It was impassable. There was a cavern that led nowhere." Henri's hand closed upon his carving knife. "They followed it several leagues into the mountain."
"Still, other ways could have been tried. I know of your relationship to the girl," Hughes said, watching Henri's face, "but Rome is convinced that she is the key to finding something, something of great value that came down from Montsegur last year."
"I could take up the search for Antoine and Pierre again..." An image leaped into his mind. The picture of Maríana, with Jean's hands upon her.
"It is too late now," Hughes said. "When you find the girl, bring her to me."
Henri tried to still the tremor that captured his hands. "To you?"
"I will not let anything happen to her. She is much too valuable."
"Will she be safe as the people of Montsegur were safe?" Henri shot at him. A mistake. But he could not stop it.
Hughes' mouth grew pinched at the corners. "Be careful, Henri. This is a dangerous game you play. Be sure you know which side you are favoring."
Henri remained standing, hand clutching the carving knife. "What came down the mountain that night?" And why was he not told what it was?
"Something of great value," Hughes said. "Something that will help us to regain the faith and devotion many have lost in the war against the Cathars." He moved to the door where his squire awaited him, then turned and smiled at Henri. "I will not tell you what we think it is. You must work this out for yourself."
JEAN PACED the dungeon's guard room, his back hunched, his arms hugging his middle. He had his men going over the donjon stone by stone now, searching for the torture chamber. "I will find a way," he muttered. "The burning will go forward." The old hag Johanna had told him Reuilles-le-château did not have a torture chamber. But he had seen the swift hooding of her eyes when he asked her. He would find it.
"Brother Becier."
Jean turned toward the guard. It was the same man Henri had wounded. His leg was slowly healing but he was useless for most tasks. When he had finally been able to walk, Jean assigned him to the guard room of the dungeon.
"These men are back from the mountain." The guard limped aside to allow three soldiers to enter.
"Well? What did you find?" Jean snarled. He had his men going over the entire mountain, cubit by cubit. They had combed the slopes for months now, but there was no sign of Maríana de Reuilles.
"We thought we should bring this back to you right away." One of the men stepped forward, handed Jean a small bundle of cloth, smears of moist earth clinging to the material.
Jean took the bundle gingerly. "What is this?" The cloth gave way under his probing fingers to reveal a tiny corpse no bigger that the palm of his hand.
"We found it buried between the roots of a huge oak tree," the man said. "One of de Reuilles' men led us there. He told us that they had found a footprint in that very place last year when the baron's daughter disappeared."
"So?" Jean asked, his finger gently tracing the skeleton's limbs. Only a little of the flesh remained. It resembled a wizened, miniature old woman. "A dead baby?"
The man's eyes went dark. "I was told," he said, "that the witch Maríana was with child when she disappeared."
Jean's heart skipped. All the usual noise around him, the clank of the guard coming down the staircase, the murmur of his men, faded and disappeared behind the roaring in his head. All Jean could see was his beloved Henri, pumping away between the thighs of a girl, planting a baby in her treacherous womb. But he could use this, couldn't he? A small pop sounded by his left ear and the noises of the donjon returned. "Was she?" he breathed, then carefully drew the cloth back around the corpse. "We will take it to Bauçais," he said. His voice trembled. Not good. He must not let his men see this. He drew in a breath. "Now." Better. His voice was strong and steady again.
Jean marched into the palais, six of his men surrounding him, the tiny corpse nestled in his hands. Bauçais and de Reuilles were both there, seated upon the dais, Louis-Philippe leaning toward Henri. Jean stopped in surprise. How curious. He had never noticed Baron de Reuilles' eyes before, thickly lashed blue-green. Well. The way Louis-Philippe inclined his head toward Henri, there was something familiar here. Were the two plotting? He shook himself and approached the dais. Henri saw him first. His frost blue eyes stabbed Jean. "What do you want?"
Jean allowed his gaze to sweep over Henri. Still beautiful, his Henri. What would the rack do to him? The thought brought a liquid fire to his loins. He extended his hands toward Henri, the small corpse hidden by folds of cloth.
Henri reached out, took the tiny package. Jean leaned closer, watched Henri's face as he unwrapped it. Puzzlement. Henri lifted his head. Jean sighed. Bauçais had no idea what this was.
"Jean?" Henri asked. For a moment, Henri's face was naked, vulnerable. Then his mouth twisted. "Thinking of making some yellow water?" His fingers covered the corpse.
"My men found this," Jean said, eyes watching Henri's face intently, "between the roots of an oak tree. Tell us exactly where you found it," he commanded a soldier, all the while never taking his eyes from Henri.
"At the top of a large slope, right before the climb steepens. There is only one tree at the top, a huge oak. Your men found a footprint there." The man turned toward de Reuilles.
Blood drained from Henri's face. He could not shutter his pain. Jean trembled. It had been so long since he had seen Henri's agony. He would remember this. But now Bauçais struggled to regain control, to close away the torment that washed over his features, shone from his eyes.
"I know the place," Henri said. "I remember." He gently folded the cloth in place around the tiny figure and handed it to Louis-Philippe. "This should be properly buried." Henri's face was under control again, impassive. Yet his voice deepened, caught.
An urgent longing swept through Jean's groin. He suppressed a shiver. "Did you know that witches sometimes use the bodies of their own babies to cast spells?" he asked, eyes pinned to Henri's face, then he leaned in closer, drew his mouth up into a leer. "This is yours, isn't it?" he hissed. "Your bastard."
Henri's eyes ignited and he lunged toward Jean. But Jean had already fallen back. His men closed in around him.
"Wait!" Louis-Philippe grabbed Henri's arm. Henri's muscles bulged against Louis-Philippe's hold.
De Reuilles must be strong to hold the younger man back. Jean now stood behind his men. "I will send word of this find to the bishop," he said, then turned, moved toward the door. He was not stupid. Henri would kill him if he could. His lips parted. He had won this round.
HENRI REMAINED at his seat, hands clenching and unclenching in a rhythmic spasm. Jean must be going mad. No one was safe now. "De Reuilles," he said. "I must go to the bishop myself. This changes things."
"How?" Louis-Philippe's eyes followed the departing party of men surrounding Jean.
"They want Maríana. This gives Jean even more reason to go after her. And after me, as well. Jean and I... well, there is bad blood between us." Henri looked at the older man.
"I don't think I would be of any help here now. My presence might even harm you."
Louis-Philippe took Henri's arm. His eyes were shadowed, yet kind. "We do not know that what he had was your baby."
Henri could not look at him. "I know it is," he finally said. "I know."
JEAN'S HEART fluttered as he tried to keep a steady pace back to the donjon. The look in Henri's eyes before he lunged at him had started an inferno in Jean's loins. He was so aroused that he could barely speak, let alone play the outraged priest for his men. He was aware of them stealing quick glances at him from the side, and he strove to keep his face still.
Blessed Jesus, he would give all of them for one of Henri! He tried to keep his lips from curving at the thought of Henri de Bauçais and Jean Becier leading the Inquisition, of the thought of he, Jean Becier, initiating the Baron of Bauçais into the pleasures of torture.
When they entered the donjon he waved his men away. He only wanted to be alone so he could ease the hot ache that Henri had started in him. But as he climbed to his chamber, his man from the guard room called out.
"We have found something, Brother!"
Jean frowned down at him. "What?"
"Come, Brother!" The man motioned for Jean to follow him to the dungeon. "There is a door in the floor here."
Jean stepped carefully down the stairs. If he did not relieve the throbbing in his groin soon, he would burst. "Probably storage," he told the guard.
In their search for the torture chamber they had found several secret rooms filled with all sorts of dusty furniture, tapestries and even implements for tilling the soil. He looked at his men standing around a wooden door clearly visible in the floor between the two cells. Utarilla huddled in the far corner of her cell, but Ysabel was right next to the bars, straining to see.
"The door itself was buried in straw and several layers of dirt, but we dug it out." the man looked up expectantly at Jean.
Jean smiled at him. "Well, let us open it."
The man raised the trap door. Puffs of dust and clods of dirt swirled in the air.
Jean's pulse raced as the light from the man's torch swept across the angular form of the rack, the edge of the wheel. He descended into the chamber.
"Give me the torch," he commanded. When he had it in his hand, he looked around. "Close the door, and do not disturb me." The door closed with another puff of dirt, clumps of straw pattered down on the steps.
Jean lovingly stroked the rack, the wheel, the iron boot. They were all here, his favorite friends, including the thumb screw and a few gruesome implements that even he could not put a name to. He grimaced at the oily black dirt that came away on his hands when he touched the tools. Wiping his hands on his robe, he climbed on to the rack and stretched his arms out. Ah, Henri on the rack, face down, stretched to the limit of his endurance, biting back cries of pain... Jean's body shuddered with the force of the climax that finally allowed his hot and aching loins release.
Chapter 36
MIST FROM THE river rose in white streams into the gray half-light of dawn. Richard sat at the base of the path that led to the Lady's cave, his back against the trunk of a maple tree, arms wound around Maríana. His Maríana. She had not yet wakened. He had not slept at all.
He did not mind. He liked watching her sleep, liked seeing the brush of her lashes against her skin, the tremble of her eyelids. Whenever he shifted her in his arms, her lips curved in a smile. He buried his face in her hair and breathed in her fragrance; jasmine and powdered mugwort, violets and lavender. He could smell the aromatic woods Iranzu and Adelie had burned every day since the circle fire, pine-sap and ash, sticks of cedar from the holy land. He drew her closer.
Maríana had spent each day with Adelie and Iranzu, learning all they could teach her about drawing the web that would protect their valley from the world outside. He did not like to think about the danger she would face. But he could not avoid this, not now.
When the sun touched the mountain, Maríana must follow the track to the cave above, commune with the stone, somehow draw a net around Canigou. Iranzu had told him this stone radiated some sort of force. It was not fatal to the woman the stone accepted as the Lady, but it would kill anyone else. Richard nuzzled her hair and breathed deeply of her scent. She must go alone. He could not go with her.
He had accepted this. He did not like it, but he would obey. He did not understand how Maríana could enter the stone, how she could draw a net, speak with the Guardian. Yet, he accepted this, too. When he was a child, he had seen a wise woman go into the shadowed depths of a dolmen, a giant's tomb. When she came out into the sunlight, she was able to show her people how to fight the sickness that had swept through their village. He had asked the wise woman how this could happen, what she had done in the tomb. Now he lifted Maríana's hand, stared at the delicate trace of her veins, the pulse in her wrist. The wise woman had told him the tomb was a gateway to the drowned city of Ys. She had gone there, asked her questions, and had been given the answers that saved her people. He pulled Maríana's hand to his lips.
It was dangerous, this task. Iranzu had warned him, said that going into the stone would bring Maríana close to the Door to the Otherworld. The Door to Death. Adelie and Iranzu had spent days teaching her how to avoid the pull of the Otherworld, the lure to cross over. If she should cross the threshold of the Door, she could never return. Iranzu's own mother had passed through the Door and she had not come back.
Maríana was stirring, He looked at the twitch of her brows as she opened her eyes and looked into his face. Delight and wonder lifted the corners of her mouth. She grasped his head with her hands, drew his mouth to hers, traced his lips with her tongue. He groaned and deepened the kiss, pulled her up to his chest. A shaking plea escaped in a sigh with his breath. "There is no time before you must go."
"You should have wakened me earlier." Her words chided, but her voice was warm, indulgent.
Heat flashed through his groin, his breathing stopped. This was the fifth day since the circle fire. Four days of pacing, of knotted clumps in his belly, of watching smoke drift from the stone house, of trying not to think of what Maríana must do, trying not to worry. But five nights of her sweet skin pressed against him, of limbs tangled in honeyed abandon, of the dark, rich cries that poured from her throat when his hands roamed over her thighs, teased the swollen buds of her nipples, delved into the moist depths of her woman's cleft. Her breathless cries had always pushed him over the edge of his own need, had left him shaking until he could drive into her, join her in hot and shuddering release.
Fingers of sunlight touched her face. Richard held his hand over her forehead, blocked the soft fall of light. Not yet. He would not let her go yet. One more kiss. He took her mouth in his, tasted deeply of her lips, ran his tongue across her teeth, plunged into the depths of her mouth. She answered with her own wanting, pulled at his lower lip, captured, then caressed his tongue with hers.
Footsteps. Richard lifted his head. Maríana wound her arms around him in a brief hug before rising from the ground. "Grandfather, Aunt," she said.
Richard unlocked his legs and pushed up from the ground. Adelie and Iranzu stood there, faces solemn. Iranzu handed something to Maríana, something small wrapped in silk. "I want you to take this with you."
Maríana unwrapped the covering and held a gray and green chalice up in the sunlight. She traced a raised pattern that circled it. Puzzlement, then surprise chased across her face. She swiftly covered the sides of the cup with the silk, blew upon the fingers of her right hand. "What is this?"
Iranzu shrugged. "We do not know. A woman gave it to Antoine. She was from Montsegur." Maríana jumped. Iranzu paused, then continued, "Men from Rome are looking for it. They want it badly. Antoine brought it here. I want you to take it up to the cave with you."
"Of course, Grandfather." Maríana started to wind the silken cloth around it, but Richard reached toward her.
"May I see that?" He did not know why he wanted to touch it.
When he saw it in her hands, a song trembled the air, then faded. Without hesitation, Maríana handed it to him.
It was heavy. This surprised him, that something so small could have such weight. He uncovered the chalice, grasped it firmly in his palm. He felt a stirring within his heart, a gladness that welcomed him, warmed his limbs. "What?" he breathed.
Iranzu's eyes were on him. The old man nodded toward Maríana. Richard covered the cup; the stirring within him dampened, but did not die. When he placed the cup back in Maríana's hands, a flare of wonder nestled in his chest.
"Once you enter the stone, you must remember to avoid the golden light of the Door," Iranzu reminded Maríana. "It will draw you, so be careful."
Too soon, Maríana was ready, her pack slung over her shoulder. She tucked the chalice into her bag while Adelie fussed at her, brushing her gown, smoothing the hair from her brow. Richard hung back. One more embrace. He could not let her leave without holding her once more.
"Sister-child," tears stood out in Adelie's eyes, "Lady's blessings always. And return to us!" She drew Maríana into her arms.
Iranzu put his arms around both of them while Richard stood apart. When they finally broke their embrace, Maríana turned to Richard, gave him that luminous gaze he loved so well.
He pulled her toward him, enveloped her. "I will be waiting for you right here," he whispered.
He watched her climb the path, Adelie and Iranzu at his side. When she could no longer be seen, the old man and Maríana's aunt turned, started down the track that went across the river, back to their stone house. Richard listened as their footsteps dwindled, then in silence he stood in the middle of the path looking up at the mountain. Until the shadows lengthened. Until stars began to show in the sky.
YSABEL SCREAMED again, a gurgling howl that cut off abruptly. Jean released the lever that moved the leather straps ahead each notch on the rack, easing the pull on her joints. She gasped and sobbed now, her voice dropping into a moaning plea.
Door in the Sky Page 42
