by Darci Hannah
“That’s devious.” I let myself indulge in a languid smile, then added, “And also dangerous.”
“It is,” he admitted. “After the events of this morning, however, I find that I feel like living dangerously.”
“Do you mean that?” My voice was soft yet hopeful. “Do you really mean that? You must know that I have no wish to cause you further distress.”
The muscles of his stomach quivered as a short burst of deprecating laughter escaped his lips. “ ’Tis far too late for that, my heart,” he replied. “You’ve been causing me distress longer than you can imagine. I’m a warrior, Isabeau, trained since I was a wee lad to endure the harshest conditions, to battle the fiercest enemy, and never once have I questioned the purpose of my life; never once have I questioned the strength of my faith. This morning I was on my knees questioning both.”
“Oh, Gabriel,” I uttered, recalling so vividly the image of him alone in the clearing, on his knees with head bowed before the hilt of his sword—a vision of an archangel. Remorse arose and overtook my selfish joy.
“Don’t be sorry,” he admonished gently. “God answers us in strange ways. And I received my answer the moment I saw Kilwylie’s man draw his sword. In that one instant I felt a clarity I’ve never before known. I’ve seen my closest companions fall beside me in battle, Isabeau, and every time a comrade takes a lethal blow, a little piece of you dies with him. You mourn privately, you pray for his soul and his next of kin, you grab hold of his memory, and you carry on—the cause carries you on. But back there, back there it was different. I let a man get past me, a man intent on killing you, and the thought of living in a world without you in it was incomprehensible. Utter devastation. I felt a void so dark and empty it made hell look appealing by comparison. A world without you in it, Isabeau, is a world I won’t inhabit. I can’t inhabit. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand? I have been running from you all my life. I became a Hospitaller because I knew you could never love me—and if on the off chance you did, it could never be. I’m a man without land or title. I’m a bastard. Five years ago I removed myself from the temptation to battle a cause more noble than love. I lived with like-minded men and sailed the Mediterranean fighting the enemies of Christendom. I was happy, and Julius mocked me for it. And now the devil has brought me back here—I still don’t know how he managed—to face my deepest fear. I have faced it and I have failed miserably. I have lost the battle. I love you and I cannot help that. And now it all makes sense in the senseless sort of way these things do—in the senseless sort of way Julius delights in. He has an uncanny way of finding a man’s weakness, and once he does he strips you of all dignity and brings you to your knees begging for mercy. And you beg and you plead and you teeter on the edge of madness until mercy appears. Julius is alive, and I rejoice to hear it. Because I now understand what he was trying to tell me all those years ago. He was telling me that I alone was born to protect you.”
“You were born to love me,” I corrected softly, my body trembling from that powerful truth. “Just as I was born to love you.”
We traveled awhile longer and came upon a farmhouse, where Gabriel bought some bread, cheese, cold chicken, and beer from the goodwife. She was a kindly old woman and pleaded that we stay with her and make free use of her food and a place by the fire, for one look at us likely told her we were in desperate need of both. Yet Gabriel, in his gentle and patient voice, politely declined her invitation. Because we needed solitude. We needed to be alone, and we were desperate to find a place where we could give in to our tempered desires. It was with great restraint that we continued, traveling another five miles under the torture of our warm and eager bodies pressed tightly together—under the torture of my insatiable hands traveling over his taut and trembling skin. We could no longer deny that we were two souls whom God, Julius, or Fate had destined to be together. And fate? once said Homer. No one alive has ever escaped it,/Neither brave man nor coward.…/It is born with us the day that we are born. I was not supposed to have read the Iliad. I was not supposed to have done a great many things, including what I was doing now. But I embraced the notion of Fate as I embraced Gabriel, and took comfort in Homer’s immortal words.
We finally came to a halt before an old, abandoned croft that was nestled in a wooded glen and overgrown by years of wild vegetation. Gabriel had remembered it from his youth, and at that particular moment there could not have been a more charming dwelling in all of Scotland. Moss and lichen grew thick over the stone. The dirt floor and rafters gave up the essence of a lifetime of previous fires whose remains were still visible in the sooty hearth. There was only the one room, dark and squalid, with a little table and bench in the corner, a pile of logs stacked against the far wall, and a gaping hole in the rotting thatch. Yet on the other hand it was private, and dry, and we couldn’t dismount fast enough to get inside the neglected fieldstone walls.
Out of necessity we made a fire, and I watched as Gabriel’s strong and steady hands became increasingly clumsy as he rushed through a task he had performed a thousand times before. I knelt beside him, handing him kindling and steadying his trembling hands until at last a glorious blaze sprang from the wood. The fire cast the pale walls in a rosy glow as warmth penetrated the room. Gabriel’s eyes, like living sapphires, held mine, bold and unwavering. There was no hesitation now, no second thoughts or regrets. He was completely mine, and he burned with a hunger and urgency that matched my own. Smiling, I took his hand and held it to my face. “Are you, Gabriel St. Clair, Knight Hospitaller and devout brethren of the order, my lover?” I asked, alluding to the message he sent to Sir George.
“God as my witness, I am. Yet you deserve so much more than that.”
“I do,” I agreed softly, knowing exactly what he meant. For a young, unmarried woman of my status did not run off with a man like Gabriel St. Clair, monk or no, without facing some consequences. He knew that. It was partly the reason he had proudly flaunted his fallen status and mine in the face of Sir George Douglas. There would be public scorn and the wagging tongues of half of Scotland to face unless we were to be married. And marriage was one way to repair such a scandal. “And, thankfully, I happen to be rather good at getting what I want.”
“And don’t I know that too,” he uttered endearingly, helplessly, and then brought his lips over mine.
I breathed deeply, indulgently, while lying in the shelter of Gabriel’s arm. Beside me, his sun-bronzed body warm and naked, he was completely at ease basking in the afterglow of our urgent and replete lovemaking. I watched his chest rise and fall with the steady rhythm of a body deep in sleep, and marveled at the thought that he could actually be sleeping so soon after such vigorous activity. I was wide awake—deliciously relaxed but wide awake—and I smiled at the thought of him sleeping. I rolled deeper into him, unable to resist nuzzling the tender skin below his earlobe, and then to kiss it. A warm and wonderful sound escaped his lips.
“Are you awake?” I whispered.
“No,” he replied to the ceiling. I looked at his noble profile. His eyes were still closed, but his lips were smiling. “I’m dreaming. It’s a familiar dream. I know the ending, but it’s sweet all the same.”
“I know the ending too,” I said, and propped myself on an elbow so that I could look upon the face that I had truly believed only lived in my dreams. That he was beside me was beyond comprehension—a miracle that I would never take for granted. There was still a halo around his head, only this one was fashioned not in my imagination but out of a tangle of our bright hair—my fine, pale-apricot strands blending harmoniously with his richer, thicker, sun-bleached umber. His smiling lips were begging to be kissed again. I was not one to resist such a vision. “And it is sweet,” I agreed. “I was just thinking how nice it would be to stay here forever.”
“I was thinking the very same. I could fix the place up, I suppose,” he offered, opening one eye a crack. “Would you have Bodrum living in here too, or do we put him outside with the rest of the bea
sts?” I looked at the horse—a pale shadow against a backdrop of mottled, earthy hues—now hobbled and resting peacefully. His ear twitched.
“He’s docile as a house cat—smarter too—and easier on the upholstery. He definitely deserves a proper stable, though, for what we’ve put him through.”
Both eyes opened, round, blue, and guileless. “We? You were the one making all the noise, my heart. The poor lad’s trying to rest, after struggling for hours under the excess weight of you, and here’s you purring away like a cat at the cream. I bet his ears are twitching from the heady ring of it. I know mine are.” His lips curled into a purely devilish grin.
Horrified, I covered my mouth and saw Bodrum’s ear twitch again. The timing was too perfect, and to Gabriel’s delight, I burst into giggles. “You’re terrible! That’s not at all what I meant!”
“I know. But I couldn’t resist. I’ve never claimed to be a saint, you know, only a monk … which is not at all the same thing.”
“And you’re not a very good monk either,” I gently admonished, and leaned down to brush my lips against his yet again, letting him know how thankful I was for that small wonder.
He cradled my face with his hands, weaving his fingers through my drying hair. “That, my heart, was not my fault. I place the blame fully on you,” he softly teased. “And when I go to the preceptory at Torphichen, and stand before Sir William Knollis to return my black mantle and renounce my oath, as I know I must, I shall claim the reason for my change of heart regarding the order is that I was corrupted by an angel. One look at you and he’ll believe it.” Although his mouth twisted in wry amusement, his eyes were serious. I frowned, for Torphichen was the home of the Order of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem in Scotland, and the thought that Gabriel had already made the decision to renounce his vows was sobering.
“Are you really going to turn in your mantle and your eight-pointed cross?”
“I’d be living a lie if I didn’t. And don’t think there are those who aren’t living such a lie, because there are. But I won’t be among them. I prefer to live honestly.”
“Indeed,” I said, my voice filling with tenderness. “And I’m glad of it. I only hope this is truly the right decision for you. I couldn’t be happy knowing you had second thoughts on the matter or any regrets.”
“Oh, I’ll have regrets,” he said plainly. “And I’m certain you’ll give me reason to have second thoughts a time or two as well. And by the end of the year you’ll likely be riding to Torphichen yourself pleading with old Knollis to return my mantle and send me back to Rhodes, I’ll be that much of a pain to you. But I won’t go. Because I love you,” he whispered passionately. “And you love me. And that’s more than most folk ever get in their lifetime. I have been corrupted by an angel—sweetly, lovingly, joyously corrupted. And I embrace that fact. You, Isabeau my love, have been corrupted by a monk. Let’s just say, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when you try to explain that one to the priest.” He flashed a glorious smile, pulled me down beside him, and began sweetly, lovingly, and quite joyously corrupting me again.
We slept like the dead and awoke in the late afternoon, thoroughly refreshed and ravenous. After pulling an intrepid mouse from Gabriel’s pack, we delved into the food bought off the goodwife without ceremony, including the remainder of the tangy little apricots—sharing every morsel—feeding each other until we were sated and fortified with strong beer. Outside, the rain had begun again; inside it was warm and dry, but we knew we would need to leave the safety of our little haven soon, and to understand what was going on and where we were heading. We assumed that Sir George held Blythe Hall and that Julius was being held at Hume Castle. The mention of Julius prompted me to ask Gabriel after the nature of their relationship, and why he believed Julius was the one who had lured him back to Scotland.
“Don’t get me wrong, Julius didn’t bring me here directly. I haven’t seen your brother for over a year now,” he said, and took another sip from the flask. “What I meant was that I’m here on his behalf.”
“You haven’t seen him in over a year?” I remarked. “But Julius has been gone longer, much longer, than a year.”
He looked at me a moment, studying my face with his summer-sky gaze, and then his eyes shifted to the fire. They moved about again, and I could see that the mention of Julius had sent him into eye-roving, disconcerted thought.
“Tell me,” I gently commanded, taking hold of his hand and demanding his full attention. “I need to know what’s going on, Gabriel. Tell me everything, for there are pieces to this puzzle I cannot figure out on my own. Why does Sir George hate Julius so? Why this shameless play over the king? Where has Julius been these four years, and where is my father? And most important, why have you come here now?”
He dropped his gaze to our entwined hands and, with a long, cathartic sigh, relented. “My relationship with your brother is complicated. We met, as I told you, when we were boys. We had been as close as brothers, but we had a falling-out one day, before the rising of ’88, when things were heating up with the nobles. Our falling-out, as I might have alluded to earlier, was mainly over you. But there were other factors too, for instance, the division of the nobles, and whether to support the king or the prince. I had no stomach for any of it, largely because it didn’t matter to me. I had no hope of making a name for myself here either way, but like all idealistic men, I did want to make a difference in the world. The one skill I have, Isabeau, is that I can fight, but I didn’t want to feed my sword with the blood of my own countrymen. With the help of Sir Oliver, my half-brother, I took my sword and left Scotland, in possession of a letter of recommendation to present to Pierre d’Aubusson, the Grand Master of the Order on Rhodes.
“I was happy there, truly I was,” he continued, his eyes soft and distant. “I ate well, slept soundly, prayed daily, and fought the Turks. What more could a man ask? I even made a name for myself in the Hospitaller galleys, where my talent for naval tactics blossomed. I spent most of my time at sea, and was glad of it … until one day, nearly three years ago now.” He looked at me, and I saw the dark shadow of the memory pass behind his eyes. Reflexively, my hand closed over his, for he was lost in his memory and I wanted him to understand that I was there with him.
“I was in the Aegean,” he continued softly, “battling a particularly wicked Turkish pirate, a soulless creature by the name of Curtogoli Reis, the name meaning ‘son of the wolf’ in Turkish, who was wreaking havoc on Christian shipping in the area. Curtogoli had a sizable fleet, seventeen galleys, and we had slowly reduced their number, but we could never seem to trap his flagship. However, three years ago, after some lucky sailing and bold maneuvering, I finally caught him.” He looked up to see if I was following.
“The Turks, Isabeau, make a practice of using Christian captives to row their ships, knowing that a man of God—a Hospitaller—would think twice before taking so many Christian lives. I abhor killing Christians as much as I abhor killing hounds, but sometimes it has to be done. And on this day the price to be paid was inconsequential. I had battled him far too many times to care, and I wanted to see him swinging at the end of a rope at all costs. So, after a hellish battle, we took his ship. But a man like Curtogoli does not give up the ghost so easily. Seeing that all was lost, he set fire to his own ship—purposely trying to kill the Christians he had chained to the oars. It was just another nasty tactic, and I fought to ignore the screams of the dying men as I made ready to take him. It was then that the devil smiled and said he had a friend of mine. He pointed to where the fire was, and who did I see through the black smoke, chained to the bench? Julius. I wouldn’t have recognized him but for the eyes and hair. And of course his sharp tongue. He never lost the use of that cursed gift.”
This news, this stunningly horrific news of what had befallen my beloved, wayward brother, caused my eyes to well up with tears, and they coursed down my face unchecked as I asked, “What … what happened?”
“What happened? I
let the old pirate go and fought like hell to save your brother’s life is what happened. Later, long after Julius had recovered, we caught Curtogoli Reis again. Julius had made a friend during his cruise, a quite remarkable young Venetian by the name of Dante Continari.”
“I know him!” I cried, wiping at tears. “He was the man who stole my silver! He was the man who returned my sheep!”
“Your silver? Your sheep?” His quizzical look was disarming. “The silver I can imagine, but why, pray tell, did Dante have your sheep?”
“It’s a long story—it’s been a busy week,” I replied weakly, recalling the incident with mild affection. “Julius and his men stole my sheep, kidnapped my shepherds, robbed Blythe Hall, sheared my sheep, and then that dark, rapacious Adonis returned both my naked sheep and my very drunk shepherds. That was all before they kidnapped the king, of course.”
Gabriel, with the awestruck grin of a child beholding the sights and sounds of his first fair, nodded as if he understood. It was remarkable, because I didn’t even understand it myself. “I didn’t know his name. Dante …,” I mused, committing the name to memory and thinking of him and my brother chained together in slavery. I couldn’t even imagine the horror of it, yet just knowing he hadn’t been alone—that Julius had had another beside him—was somehow comforting. It also helped explain the bond between them. “Anyhow, Dante’s here. In Scotland.”
“Of course he’s here,” Gabriel said, as much to himself as to me. “Julius saved the young man’s life. Dante perfectly worships the ground he walks on.” He gave a short, rueful laugh then and added, “Don’t we all? I didn’t see him though. He wasn’t with Julius when they attacked Kilwylie and his army. Julius saw me; I know he did. But I didn’t see Dante. I was puzzled by it, but …” He thought for a moment, and then, as if arriving at some sort of remarkable conclusion, he swore under his breath. “Forgive me, but this is good news. I mean, it’s not exactly good, but it’s enough to give one hope.” He looked at me then, willing me to understand, and then, like a capricious wind, his brow furrowed as his lips pulled into a pensive and troubled grimace. “The bond between Julius and Dante is very strong, but together they can be dangerous. While it’s true that Julius saved Dante’s life, Isabeau, both men were badly mistreated during their captivity. Very badly, and old Curtogoli, when they caught up to him—as they eventually did—was instantly sorry that he had ever come across Julius Blythe. I was with them,” he uttered. “They were employed on my galley. ’Tis only natural for a man to want revenge, but.… I was about to intervene on Curtogoli’s behalf—until I learned from the pirate’s own lips that he had been paid by a Scotsman to take your brother.”
