Lion of Languedoc

by Margaret Pemberton

  It was doubtful if Léon would have recognised the face in the light of day, but the huge diamond on the black-gauntleted hand was unmistakable.

  ‘Food and drink, and quick about it,’ its owner said curtly to the innkeeper, and then to one of his companions. ‘Of course she’s here. This is the nearest town of any substance. We’ll have her before nightfall.’

  It was an elegant face. The fair hair carefully coiffured, the moustache and pointed beard immaculately trimmed, and with light blue eyes cold as steel.

  Léon left his ale untouched, striding out into the yard for his horse.

  ‘He’s not through feeding yet, sir …’ the groom began, but Léon wasn’t listening. He was already outside the yard trotting briskly down a street thick with chattering peasant women and street traders. None of them was disposed to move out of his way. The sun was shining, the stalls were heavy with red apples and golden pears, plums and pumpkins and great bunches of summer flowers.

  Farmers and shepherds seeking an afternoon’s entertainment, thronged the street, blocking his way.

  He could see the flame of her hair as it whisked out of sight down an alleyway and he cursed at the shawled women, their overflowing baskets on their arms, who prevented him from giving chase. It seemed that every housewife in the district was doing her shopping, and that every cat and dog and shouting child in the vicinity had nothing better to do than stand in the way of his horse and refuse to move. Losing the last shreds of his patience, he forced his way through relentlessly, getting plenty of abuse for his pains and upsetting a large basket of carrots so that they spilled across the cobbles, much to the glee of the children who snatched at them greedily.

  The alley was so narrow that there was scarce room for his horse. Marietta gave a cry and ran faster, hurtling past a surprised pedlar as shutter after shutter flew open so that the occupants of the houses could see what the commotion was about.

  ‘Let me go! Let me go!’ she shrieked as he galloped up to her, his hand catching the flying mane of hair.

  ‘I wish to God I could,’ Léon said sincerely, swinging down from his horse and pinioning her against the wall. ‘But you’ll come with me till we’re further from Evray and take the horse and gold. I don’t want your death on my conscience.’

  He was pressed close against her, breathing harshly, his eyes blazing. Savagely he grabbed her wrist, uncomfortably aware of the ribald comments of the pedlar.

  ‘They’re at the inn looking for you. You stand no chance unless you leave immediately.’

  She needed no more persuading. He thrust Saracen’s reins into her hands.

  ‘I’m going back for the other horse. Wait for me here in the alleyway.’

  ‘What if they come while you are gone?’

  At the sight of her frightened face he forgot that she had just ruined his clothes, made a fool of him in public and brought him twice within an inch of death.

  ‘They won’t,’ he said confidently, and to his surprise and hers kissed her full on the mouth before striding back through the crowds for the horse.

  Marietta raised a hand to her bruised lips, her heart racing, but not with fear. She could never be afraid if Léon was with her. Why had he kissed her? Only minutes ago he had admitted he was about to marry. Did a kiss mean so little to him? The pressure of his lips on hers still burned. It hadn’t felt like a kiss of no consequence. She stared after him, her cheeks scarlet.

  Léon swore at himself for a fool. By the time he reached the inn yard he had convinced himself that he had kissed her merely to comfort her and that it had given him no carnal satisfaction at all. It wasn’t an argument that would have stood up to scrutiny, and knowing that he thrust it to the back of his mind and concentrated on getting the horse out of the inn yard before either he or it were recognised.

  Inside the crowded inn he could see the fair-headed man standing impatiently, a chicken leg in one hand, a tankard of ale in the other. It wouldn’t be long before he resumed his search.

  Léon tipped the stable boy handsomely and forced his way through the crowded streets to where Marietta anxiously waited. At the sight of him, broad-shouldered and sitting his horse with careless grace, Marietta’s heart skipped a beat. Hastily she mounted Saracen, wincing at the discomfort that sitting gave her. She wondered if he would have treated the girl he was to marry in such a cavalier manner, beating her in public. She doubted it, and felt a wave of jealousy.

  Léon was too preoccupied to notice Marietta’s physical discomfort. The man he had seen at the inn was no ordinary witch-hunter. If he would go to the trouble of travelling so far in search of Marietta he would go further. But why? Not for the mere pleasure of burning her. Perhaps her grandmother had passed on to her secrets that were of value—but if she had now was not the time to ask about them.

  The street-seller grabbed his basket of carrots protectively as they rode by, glad to see the back of them, while the rest of the populace took a few moments from a busy day to gaze appraisingly at the well-set young man with the unruly curls and the maid with slanting green eyes riding straight-backed by his side.

  With the city walls behind them, Léon and Marietta rode their horses to the limit, only when it was impossible for their mounts to continue further did they stop. The sun was beginning to sink: soon it would be dusk. Léon leant his back against a solitary tree and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

  ‘We’ll not be able to travel any further for a good while. The horses need rest.’

  ‘So do I,’ Marietta said, sinking weakly beside him. Some yards away the horses grazed by the flower-filled banks of the Garonne, the sound of the rushing water soothing to Marietta’s ears. ‘Are we safe now? Will they follow us?’

  ‘They won’t follow us if they didn’t see us,’ Léon said practically. ‘They’re intent on searching the town. That should occupy them until tomorrow and a little longer, with luck.’

  ‘What then? Will they come this way?’

  ‘Further into Languedoc? I doubt it. You’re safe now.’

  ‘How did the Inquisitor get another horse so quickly?’ Marietta asked. ‘We left him miles from anywhere.’

  ‘It wasn’t the Inquisitor who was searching for you. It was another man—the one I saw demanding more torches and horses in the search for you at Evray.’

  ‘Another man?’ Marietta looked at him blankly.

  ‘Young and fair-haired and richly dressed.’

  She paled. ‘That must be him. The man who came to my grandmother to demand her secret.’

  ‘Why should he be searching for you?’

  Marietta stood up and walked slowly the few yards to the bank of the river. ‘Because I know all my grandmother’s secrets. He’s searching for me so that I will tell him what he most wants to know.’

  ‘But poisons are commonplace,’ Léon protested. ‘I was there myself when Madame, the Princess Henrietta of England, was poisoned at court by having diamond powder sprinkled on her strawberries instead of sugar.’

  Marietta gave a little laugh. ‘ She may have been poisoned, but it wasn’t with diamond powder.’

  ‘How would you know?’ Léon asked amused. ‘ You weren’t at court and I was.’

  ‘Particles of diamond powder or ground glass are sharp enough to damage the stomach, but the Princess Henrietta would have been conscious of them on her food before she swallowed. Such things are for suicides, not murders.’

  Her words held conviction. Léon tried again.

  ‘Then it could have been the chicory water that was poisoned. She no sooner put the cup down than she was in agony.’

  Marietta looked at him pityingly. ‘ The only poisons that would act so speedily are mercury salt and oil of vitriol, and both of those would have burnt her mouth. It’s my guess the Princess’ death was due to natural causes.’

  ‘Then you’re the only person in France who thinks so,’ Léon said good-naturedly. ‘Though I still don’t see why our fine-feathered friend should seek out you and
your grandmother with such determination. In Paris a visit to any one of a hundred alchemists would give him all the poisons he desires.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Marietta said, returning and sitting at his side. ‘It wasn’t the secret of poison alone that he wanted. It was something much rarer.’ She paused. ‘My grandmother knew the secret of protection against poison. That was what he was after.’

  ‘There isn’t one,’ Léon said firmly. ‘I’ve been at court long enough to know that. Anyone with that secret would make a fortune!’

  Marietta gave a sad smile. ‘Exactly, and that is why my grandmother was murdered.’

  Léon stared at her. ‘You’re not telling me that your grandmother knew of a drug to make a man immune to poison?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s why he searches for me. There can be no other reason.’

  Léon’s black brows drew together sharply. Paris was rife with talk of astronomy, alchemy and sorcery, and it was dangerous talk.

  ‘If she did know, it’s best not spoken of.’

  A deep purple haze crept over the lonely countryside. He sighed. There was no shelter in sight and the horses were exhausted.

  ‘We must sleep here till first light.’

  She nodded acquiescence, lying down beside him as darkness fell. His cloak was not sufficient to cover them both, especially as he had left a prudent two-foot gap between his body and hers. He sighed again. Prudence would have to go to the winds. He couldn’t freeze to death. He moved nearer her, slipping his arm around her shoulders, saying: ‘It’s too cold to sleep apart.’

  She made no protest as he drew her into the circle of his arms, so close that she could feel the beating of his heart against hers. She covered his hand with her small one, wishing that he had not felt it necessary to explain away his gesture as a practicality. Wishing he would kiss her again, as he had in the alleyway.

  For the second night Léon fell asleep with the faint smell of lavender sweetening his dreams. Her closeness gave him a ridiculous sense of pleasure. He told himself it was because he was lonely for Elise and strove to think of blonde hair and shy, violet-blue eyes instead of flashing green ones that were as easily roused to anger as to laughter. He failed, and comforted himself with the thought that it didn’t matter. Tomorrow their ways would part. He would never see her again.

  Marietta found that it was warmer if she put her arms around Léon’s waist and rested her head on his broad chest, and Léon saw no reason to object to such a pleasing arrangement.

  Chapter Three

  Marietta half opened her eyes, a ray of sunlight warm on her face, Léon’s head heavy on her breast. Tentatively she fingered the dark curls, wondering if he powdered them when at court. He would have no need of a wig. The thick hair, shoulder-length, sprang pleasurably beneath her palm.

  Léon half awoke, feeling the warmth of her body beneath his cheek. For a fleeting minute he thought himself in a Spanish brothel as his hand tightened around a hand-span waist. His eyes half-opened, narrow with desire, and he bent his head to kiss her. Instead of the anonymity of a painted and rouged face he saw green eyes he remembered only too well. He recoiled as if he had been struck.

  ‘God’s truth! What kind of strumpet are you?’

  ‘I’m not a strumpet,’ Marietta said furiously, scrambling to her feet.

  ‘Then you’re fast turning into one!’ Unsatisfied desire made him harsh.

  ‘It was you who was forcing your attentions on me!’ Marietta pointed out as she mounted Saracen, trying to hide her humiliation.

  ‘God forbid!’ Léon strode over to the Inquisitor’s horse. ‘ It was thanks to you that I had to spend the night in the open instead of in a comfortable bed. I was doing nothing more than keeping warm.’

  ‘By putting your hand in my bodice?’ Marietta asked scathingly.

  An angry flush heightened his cheeks as he vaulted into his saddle.

  ‘If I did so, rest assured I was asleep and not conscious of it,’ he said cruelly. ‘I’m on my way to marry a woman I’ve loved for years. It’s hardly likely I would molest the peasant girls I pass en route!’

  ‘I can’t speak for the others, monsieur,’ Marietta said sarcastically, ‘but you certainly tried to molest me!’

  ‘One kiss,’ Léon scoffed, ‘and an accidental kiss at that.’

  Marietta trembled with fury.

  ‘You should think yourself lucky to have gained so much. I’m a Riccardi, not a simple village girl to be tumbled in the grass by anyone who pleases!’

  ‘For the last time, mademoiselle, I do not please!’

  ‘Good, because your attentions, conscious or otherwise, are decidedly unwelcome!’

  ‘Then good day, before my very proximity should bring on a fever,’ Léon retorted witheringly. Angrily, they glared at each other from their mounts.

  Marietta felt a surge of tears that she couldn’t control. Before Léon could see them, she dug her heels in Saracen’s side and galloped headlong away from him. At the sound of pounding hooves behind her she urged the horse faster.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ Léon’s hand reached across for the reins, and at his master’s order to halt, Saracen duly obeyed, whilst Marietta kept her head firmly averted as she dashed away her tears with the back of her hand.

  ‘That horse,’ Léon said, his voice dangerously quiet, ‘happens to be mine.’

  ‘Then take him!’ Marietta leapt to the ground, staring up at him with her hands on her hips as if the loss of a horse miles from anywhere was only the merest inconvenience. She was blissfully unaware that without Léon’s cloak she might as well have been naked from the waist upwards. Léon was aware of it, and as suddenly as his anger had been aroused it fled. He threw back his head and roared with laughter. She had hardly a rag to her back and she was looking at him, Léon de Villeneuve, the Lion of Languedoc, as haughtily as Francine Beauvoir would have looked at her lowest menial.

  His laughter did nothing to improve Marietta’s temper. As he showed no inclination to leave his present mount and had just appropriated Saracen, she swung on her heel, walking with her head held high, God alone knew where.

  ‘That way lies the sea,’ a deep timbred voice called after her enlightingly.

  She clenched her fists and altered direction.

  ‘That way is to the mountains.’

  He was riding his horse at a walking pace behind her. She could feel Saracen’s breath on the nape of her neck. Her nails dug deep into her palms.

  ‘And that way is a good day’s ride before you would find so much as a cottage.’

  ‘Then you’d better be on your way,’ she retorted tartly. ‘The morning’s half spent already.’

  ‘So it is,’ Léon agreed affably. ‘ Get on your horse. I’ll keep to my promise and not leave you until we reach somewhere you can stay.’

  ‘Your horse, not mine!’ Marietta kept on walking, not trusting herself to look at him.

  ‘I would have thought the ground very painful to bare feet,’ he continued conversationally.

  Marietta bit back the word that rose to her lips. It was not one her grandmother would have wished her to use.

  Léon, reflecting that at this pace he would never reach Chatonnay, swung from the saddle and, before Marietta realised his intention, spanned her waist with his hands and lifted her on to Saracen’s back. She tensed herself to spring defiantly once more to the ground and Léon’s eyes held hers, the sun-bronzed face uncompromising.

  ‘If you do, rest assured I shall leave you. I’ve wasted enough time already,’ and he rode away from her at a gallop.

  Marietta paused fractionally. She had a horse again. She could ride in another direction: to the mountains or the sea. He was already some distance away from her and showed not the slightest sign of turning to see if she was behind him. His threat to leave her had been no idle one. She had not the slightest doubt that he would leave her in this sun-baked wilderness without a second thought. And only yesterday she had been fool enough t
o respond to his kiss! Her cheeks burned with humiliation as she dug her heels in Saracen’s side and raced unwillingly after him.

  Léon, aware of the loss of pride that following him had cost her, remained sensitively silent as they cantered across a treeless landscape striped with vineyards. On their left the Garonne shone golden in the sun and they slowed their horses to a canter as the heat increased.

  ‘It’s very beautiful here,’ Marietta said, unable to hold on to her anger any longer.

  Léon’s mouth softened. He loved Languedoc fiercely.

  ‘It’s a welcome change from Versailles.’

  ‘Don’t you like court life?’ Marietta asked curiously.

  Léon reflected on the beautiful and loose-moralled ladies who had made his life so pleasant over the last few years. Of the balls and banquets, the hunts and spectacles. Just when it had begun to pall he wasn’t quite sure, but even before he had received news of Elise’s widowhood he had known that he would leave. The fawning servility of the nobles vying for the King’s attention sickened him. As a favourite of Louis, Léon had been besieged by those hoping to use him as a stepping-stone to the King’s presence. He had been offered bribes of money and other bribes, for the noblemen of Versailles thought nothing of offering their wives’ amorous services in return for a good word to the King from Léon. And the ladies had been nothing loth. Léon had spurned them as contemptuously as the gifts of money, and in doing so had made himself many enemies.

  He had been uncaring. He had been at Versailles at Louis’ special request, and because his Sovereign was a shrewd judge of men. The Lion of Languedoc was no sycophant. He had earned his nickname on the battlefields, and even Louvois, Secretary of State for War, valued his judgment. Louis had given him leave to return to Chatonnay and marry, ordering him and his wife to return to court immediately.

  Léon had no intention of obeying his King’s command. He was sure that once he had left Versailles Louis would forget him, surrounded as he was by so many others eager for his favours. He would be able to retire to the obscurity of Chatonnay and live life as he chose, his own man and not at another’s beck and call, even if that other were the most powerful king in Christendom.