Linda Barlow

by Fires of Destiny

  “No! It wasn’t what you think—” she began, but Geoffrey silenced her with an agonizing wrench of her arm. Roger didn’t seem to be hearing her, anyway. She could understand why. One look at the carnage on the beach was sufficient to explain the anguish he must be suffering, and Geoffrey knew all too well how to torment him.

  “Threaten one of the queen’s ladies, will you?” Geoffrey said. “You’re adding to your crimes. Her Grace’s troops should be arriving anytime now, to take you and throw you in prison. Will they burn you for heresy, or draw and quarter you for treason, I wonder.”

  Roger ignored this. “Where’s Alan? Was he in on this too, or did you dupe him as cleverly as you deceived me?”

  Geoffrey had given her no instructions regarding Alan. If he was still alive, poor Alan must be agonizing over what he had been forced to do. There was no reason Roger for to know it had been his brother’s confession that had betrayed them. Alan had spoken to stop her torture. The least she could do in return was protect him from Roger’s wrath. “Alan is not at fault. If you must blame someone, blame me.”

  “Why did you do it, Alexandra? For the love of God, why?”

  Although he spoke quietly, to her mind it sounded like a scream, a cry of anguish to a cruel and baffling God. She couldn’t think of an answer. A glimmer of hope sparked inside her. He would know there was no answer. He would think it through and know there was no inducement in this world that could ever have made her betray him. He would understand Geoffrey was lying and that she had been most vilely ensnared.

  But Roger didn’t understand. Surrounded by the bodies of the people he had tried to rescue, his heart thumping, his skin and his clothing splattered with blood, he couldn’t seem to think clearly. The logical part of his brain had ceased to function, and his perception had narrowed to a series of overwhelmingly brutal impressions: Francis bleeding, dying; the dissenters set upon and murdered; Alexandra admitting her crime from the shelter of Geoffrey de Montreau’s arms. It could not be, and yet it was.

  “Kill me,” he said. “You, woman. Give her a sword, de Montreau. You hold me responsible for Celestine’s death? Let justice be done, then. I took the life of the woman you loved; let the woman I love take mine.”

  The woman I love. Alexandra gasped as the tension that had been building inside her for hours reached a crescendo and burst. “No!” she screamed. Twisting, scratching, clawing, she fought free of Geoffrey’s hated touch. “No! No!” She flung herself at Roger despite the swords, the guards, the blood, despite the hands that seized her and fought to restrain her frenzy. Dimly she heard Geoffrey’s voice, Roger’s. And then another voice, an authoritative shouting of orders in English from just behind them on the bank. Horsemen, a lot more horsemen. Confusion, as the Frenchmen were set upon by armsmen with weapons drawn and gleaming.

  “Unhand my daughter,” said the voice. “And that young man, too.” Sir Charles Douglas waved a drawn sword at Roger. “You, Monsieur de Montreau, are a diplomat, not a captain of the guard. What is the meaning of this carnage?”

  “Father,” Alexandra whispered, looking up at him through her sweat-sticky locks of hair. “Oh God, Father!”

  “We have prevented an exodus of heretics,” Geoffrey declared, sounding startled to find himself face to face with Alexandra’s father. When he had called for reinforcements from the Queen, he probably hadn’t expected Sir Charles Douglas to respond. Not many people were aware of the precise nature of the role her father played in safeguarding the Queen’s security.

  “This man has proved a heretic and a traitor.” Geoffrey gestured to Roger. “We have detained him for you.”

  “And murdered English men and women in the process? It is you, sir, who will be detained.”

  The French troops backed off as Sir Charles’ men, who far outnumbered them, surrounded them. “You cannot arrest a diplomat of the embassy of France.”

  “You think not? Our two countries are now at war, and you have committed hostilities against Englishmen, monsieur. To hell with diplomacy. Seize him!” Douglas ordered his men. He turned his attention to his daughter. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  “Betraying me,” Roger answered bitterly before she could speak. “You’re all in this together, I see. Has there really been valid declaration of war, Douglas?”

  “Aye. A pretty mess you’ve landed yourself in, lad. You’ll hang for this, you know.”

  “You think so?” Alexandra recognized the strange note in Roger’s voice before it meant a thing to anybody else. Something was about to happen. She felt a flash of fear, followed by acceptance. A blanket of calm descended upon her. Let it come, whatever it was.

  The French soldiers had left a space around them. She was kneeling in the dirt less than a yard from the man she loved. He, surrounded now by English troops, was slowly rising to his feet. Two beefy Englishmen had already grabbed Geoffrey, but Roger was free, and—she saw from her vantage point an instant before anyone else—he had somehow armed himself with a short, bloody dagger.

  In that instant she could have tried to run. Instead, she stayed perfectly still and made no sound at the terrible pain that ripped through her abused arms and shoulders when Roger wrenched her into a brutal caricature of an embrace. Her hair was against his cheek, her head rested against the pulse beating wildly in his neck. And the knife was at her throat.

  “This is her doing as well as Geoffrey’s,” he said in a strangely exultant tone. “I will kill her, and take pleasure in it, Douglas, if you interfere with me now.”

  There was a very long pause. Two sets of soldiers looked to Charles and Geoffrey for orders.

  “Kill her,” Geoffrey urged. “Treat her the way you treated my sister, and when you’re finished, I’ll tell you a tale that will stop your blood.”

  But Douglas said, “I don’t believe you, Trevor. I’ve seen you bluff your way out of trouble before.”

  Alexandra felt a stinging sensation as blood welled up under the knife.

  “Christ have mercy!” her father’s voice exploded. “Take care, damn you. Have you lost your head? You’re cutting her.”

  “Tell him how she spilled every detail of my plans to you,” Roger said to Geoffrey. “Tell him how she opened her body to you in bed.”

  Surely he didn’t believe that? He had a vile temper, though. That had always been true. When Roger was angry, he tended to lose all sense of balance, and he did things in his fury that he would never otherwise do.

  “Lies!” Douglas burst out. “Alexandra would never do such a thing.”

  “So you say,” Roger said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “You think I don’t know whereof I speak? She was mine for the taking that night in the witch’s cottage. The more fool you for doubting the evidence in front of your eyes. I had her, I fucked your virtuous daughter, Douglas, and a woman who swooned more feverishly beneath my caresses I’ve never had before or since.”

  Alexandra moaned in protest as her father’s face turned crimson with choler. He cursed a string of violent oaths, looking as if he were about to leap upon Roger, which would undoubtedly result in the death of all of them. Please, God. End this web of half-truths. Dear Christ, forgive us all, Alexandra pleaded silently.

  “One step and she dies,” warned Roger. He raised his voice at the English soldiers, sounding fully as authoritative as her father. “That man on the ground there, is he dead?” He was referring to Francis.

  Someone bent to examine the body. “He breathes.”

  “Put him into that boat. Gently. And do the same with anyone else among those poor butchered people who is still alive.”

  Geoffrey raised his voice in protest, but after several moments of hard-eyed contact with Roger, Alexandra saw her father nod to his men. “Do it.”

  There were only two people left alive besides Francis Lacklin, a woman and a youth. As the three unconscious bodies were being lifted into the longboat, Roger forced his hostage to the water’s edge.

  She felt no fear. One
of his arms was clamped so tightly around her chest that she found it difficult to draw breath; the other held the knife, harshly and steadily, at her throat. Some strands of her hair caught on the fastenings of his cloak as he moved her, but although the pulling stung her scalp, she didn’t dare twist free, not with the knife there. Roger’s familiar body was hard against her, strong and capable despite all that had passed. With only a slight change in fortune, he might have been bleeding in the dirt like Francis. She felt a tiny rush of hope, born of the fact that they were both still alive.

  “You’re not taking her with you?” Her father’s voice was hoarse with stress.

  “Of course I’m taking her. How far will I get without her?”

  “Free her. You may take the boat and go. My oath upon it.”

  Roger told him explicitly what he could do with his oath.

  Douglas tried again: “You’re lying about that night in the forest,” he said reasonably. “I know you. Despite your passions, you are a man of honor. You have not touched her.”

  Roger barked a laugh but otherwise paid no attention. He had already stepped into the boat and was dragging Alexandra after him. “You there, sirrah.” He addressed one of the English troops. “Push us out.”

  “Mon Dieu, Douglas,” Geoffrey shouted, trying to draw his sword. “You think I’ll stand here and watch him escape after all I’ve done to destroy the man? My curse on you, Trevor! Don’t think you’re going to slip the net.”

  “Silence him,” Douglas snapped to his men, and Geoffrey was dragged out of range. “Release her, Roger. You know me for a man of my word. Set her back upon the strand, and I swear no one will interfere with your escape.”

  “No. Sit down, traitor. Take up the oars. You can row. Very well, as I recall. You’re going to row us out to the ship. That’s only the first of several services you’re going to perform for me.”

  “Damnation, Trevor. I beg you. She is innocent. To take out your rage upon her would be a heinous crime. Reconsider, damn you!”

  Roger laughed, a hollow, horrible sound. The little boat was afloat, and Alexandra was already struggling with the too-long oars. Her shoulders ached from the rack; she bit her lips and did her best to row. In front of her lay the still bodies of Francis Lacklin, the woman, and the young man. Behind her, Roger crouched with his knife still at her throat.

  “Trevor!” Sir Charles screamed.

  “Save your breath,” said Roger. “There’s no crime, however heinous, I wouldn’t laugh at committing now.”

  And then they were out of the riverbank surf, in deeper water, where the rowing was marginally easier. From shore, Alexandra could hear Geoffrey de Montreau cursing and swearing at Charles Douglas, calling him every obscenity in the French language. “You should have killed him. How could you let him go? You must be in league with him. I’ll denounce you to your queen. You’ll suffer for this, I vow.”

  “Shut him up, damn him,” Douglas ordered. Then he called out once more after Roger, his voice sounding strangely muffled as the distance between the longboat and the riverbank increased.

  Out of range of the archers, Roger removed the knife from Alexandra’s throat. In relief, she sank back against his knees, only to be thrust forward again. “Keep rowing. I’m not sparing your miserable life. I’m merely extending it long enough to ensure that you are well punished for this night’s work.”

  “Roger, all is not as it appears.”

  “Not another word. Shut up and row.”

  He was too near the edge to be argued with. Later he would calm down; later she would have the chance to explain. Leaning forward, trying her best to ignore the pain, she rowed.

  Chapter 25

  Alarmed shouts greeted Roger when the longboat finally arrived at the side of the Argo just as dawn was starting to lighten the sky. He was at the oars. Alexandra had been so slow and clumsy at the task that he had finally shoved her out of the way. She had crawled to the end of the boat and put her head to the chests of Francis Lacklin, the woman, and the youth. “They’re still alive,” she’d told him.

  “No thanks to you.” He had ignored her for the rest of the trip.

  Now with the rowboat banging precariously against the Argo’s hull, he called for help, and within seconds several sailors had ropes over the side and were sliding down. A rope ladder came too. “Climb it,” he ordered, jerking her to her feet.

  She stared dully at the ladder, and at the distance up to the deck, then shook her head. “I don’t think I can.”

  “Climb, you faithless bitch.”

  The seamen, who knew him well, seemed startled at the violence in his tone. Roger ignored him. With a spark of her usual spirit Alexandra said, “I don’t deserve this.”

  “No?” Roger felt a sick rage bursting inside him, a rage that would, he suspected, grow even wilder as the full implications of her betrayal sank in. He was not a particularly kind or gentle man. He had led a rough existence in the Mediterranean, and he was already beginning to feel the freedom from social constraint that was his on the decks of the Argo. Here he was master; no one ruled him, no one questioned his decisions or interfered with his pleasures. His crew obeyed his orders without hesitation. If he told them to climb, they climbed.

  “So far tonight, I have been tortured on the rack in Geoffrey’s apartments, I have descended the side of a bare stone building in a futile attempt to escape, and I have rowed a heavy boat a goodly distance with oars that were far too long for me. I can barely lift my arms, and I won’t be able to climb that ladder. But if it will give you pleasure to watch me fall and sink into the sea, I will gratify you.”

  So saying, she reached unsteadily for the swaying ladder and tried to mount it, her body crashing against the Argo’s hull as the waves tossed the longboat. Her arms were indeed trembling. Tortured on the rack? It would almost have to be true, for how else could Geoffrey have broken her? If she had been racked, however, she shouldn’t be able to walk, let alone climb.

  “Help her, dammit,” he ordered one of the seamen as she faltered. “Hoist her up there and send down some sort of litter for the others.”

  The sailor obeyed with alacrity.

  *

  At first, Alexandra realized, the anxious seamen who hauled her over the rail of the ship, gave her water, and wrapped her in blankets thought she was one of the heretics. Even the dissidents who had made it safely to the ship embraced her, praying over her and asking tremblingly about their comrades who had been left behind. A woman was begging for information about her husband, and a young boy was crying for his mother. Heartstruck, Alexandra tried to tell them as kindly as possible that their friends and relatives were dead. Their sorrow brought forth her own, and she sat among them and grieved until Roger came up behind her and pulled her roughly to her feet.

  “Very pretty, Alix. Mourning for the poor innocents you helped to murder? To think I never realized what a skillful actress you were, what a mistress of duplicity and deceit. Come, you’re a prisoner, not a refugee.” He tore away the blanket she’d been huddled in, leaving her shivering in her drenched and sodden gown. “Like a prisoner you’ll be treated. Hold out your hands.”

  She looked up at him in the light of the dawning day—Roger Trevor, the man she loved and would have died for. His beautiful eyes were cold as they regarded her. Dead. Whatever he had felt for her in the past—whatever passion, good fellowship, youthful affection or love—was gone, vanished as if it had never been. For the first time she began to fear that no explanation would ever be sufficient to undo the evil that had been wrought this night. He didn’t believe she’d been tortured. He wouldn’t believe anything she told him.

  Her eyes dropped from his face to his hands. He was holding a short, ugly length of rope. Jesu. She had a horrific vision of being tied up and cast into some hole deep in the bowels of the ship with the rats and the roaches. “Is that really necessary?” she asked as he wrenched her slender wrists together and wrapped the cord around them, binding them tightl
y.

  “Probably not. We’re nearly at the mouth of the river now, and even you won’t be able to swim the long distance to shore.” His cold eyes moved over her body in a leer that was all the more humiliating because it was so entirely devoid of passion. “Besides, I believe I’m going to like you in bondage.”

  Then he ordered her imprisoned, not in a cell, but in the master’s cabin. “When I have time, I will come to you. You can show me all the lecherous French tricks you learned from Geoffrey. They’d better be impressive, because the moment you cease to please me with your whoring ways will be the moment you meet your death. Unless I decide to turn you over to the crew first.”

  Feeling weak and sick and dizzy, Alexandra thought: This isn’t Roger and the things he’s saying to me aren’t real. None of this is real. I am home in my bed at Westmor and when I awake my mother will be there comforting me. Then I’ll get up and go over to Whitcombe Castle so Alan and I can study our Greek. In the afternoon Merwynna and I will sort herbs while she tells me stories of the Old Ones, and how they keep watch over their own. Why aren’t they watching over me now?

  “This woman is obviously ill, Roger, or exhausted,” a voice rebuked the cruel man she loved. “Whatever she’s done, she cannot answer for it now.” Alexandra’s eyes shifted to look blankly at the gaunt gray-haired man with blood on his shirt who had come up beside her. She had seen him bending over Francis Lacklin when they had hoisted him on board, tearing his clothes away, stanching his blood. He had a kind, infinitely patient face, and eyes that were sad and wise. His features swam, turning sharply familiar. “Merwynna?” she whispered as her legs gave way and the deck heaved up toward her face.

  *

  She recovered consciousness on a bed in small cabin that was surprisingly pleasant. Above her head was a diamond-paned window through which she could see the red sky of dawn. Across from her a mammoth desk was bolted to the floor in front of a veritable wall of books. There were Turkey rugs on the floor, maps and charts on the walls, and Oriental lamps and braziers, also bolted down, in the corners. And sitting beside her was the sad-eyed man.