“Damn thought!” She was angry suddenly. “I love him!”
He seemed to sigh. He shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re doing, sister, truly you don’t.”
“Tell me.” She said it sharply.
“You’re marrying a man of no birth.” He saw her stiffen and ignored it. “Of no name, apart from a name given him by an eccentric Lord. A man of no fortune and no standing.” He paused. “Isn’t that so?”
She shrugged. “I don’t care.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and she shook them off. He went on in the same tone of voice. “You’re marrying the strongest man I know, who doesn’t stoop to malice or cheapness. Other men judge themselves by him and find themselves wanting.” He smiled into her upturned face which slowly dawned with the realization that he had teased her. “You’re also marrying the best damned horseman in the world so I won’t have to pay for his advice. And you’re marrying the luckiest bastard that ever lived.” He kissed her on the nose. “That’s what you’re doing. And why are you crying? You know I can’t stand women who cry.”
“I’m not crying.” She hugged him.
He laughed at her. “He even asked my permission. I thought it was most polite.”
“When?”
“After he first saw you.”
“He did?” She smiled. “What did you say?”
“That if he was mad enough to want you, he was welcome to you.”
She laughed. Happiness seethed in her like the mountain pool beneath the waterfall, then she thought of the happiness that had been denied to her brother. “And what will you do, Toby?”
He shrugged. “I think I want Paunceley’s job.”
“You do?”
“I shall come and visit the two of you and you can envy me.” He smiled at her. “Or I you, whatever.” He let go of her, walked to the table, and picked from the wooden box the largest of Marchenoir’s knives. He stared at it, then gave her a smile. “But before all that, I have one more thing to do, just one.” He turned the blade so that it flashed in the candlelight. “Perhaps you’d better join Gitan?”
She nodded. She looked at Marchenoir. He was her half uncle, his bitterness sprung from the same mad root as Achilles’ envy. She was suddenly glad that Gitan was so sensible, so strong. If the world would not accept him as her husband, then that was the world’s loss.
She walked down the passage. She heard her brother say the name Lucille and she flinched as a scream echoed in the marble hall and was abruptly cut short. It was done.
They left through the tunnel when midnight was past. The soldiers who guarded the gatehouse recognized Skavadale as one of the privileged friends of Bertrand Marchenoir. They knew better than to ask who his companions were.
Toby led them westward, away from the hills, going to where he had horses hidden for their escape. They rode toward the sea and the ship that would take them home. They stopped as the dawn blazed from the mountains and they turned to look behind them. The seals of Lazen hung in the sunlight, glorious and safe, and Campion, thinking of the tall, golden woman of the Nymph portrait, thought how the fortune of Lazen had been founded by love and now preserved by it.
The bright sun was shadowing the cleft in the mountain where the soldiers still guarded the shrine of the dead, the shrine of the last Duc d’Auxigny. Campion frowned. “Why did he do it?”
“Mad,” Toby said.
“It was his duty,” Skavadale said.
“His duty?” she asked.
“He believed.”
“He was mad!” Toby said.
“So he was a mad believer. A fanatic.”
Campion stared into the dawn. Like a glint of gold she could see the streak of the waterfall high in the mountains. “Poor Uncle Achilles.” She looked at the tall, light-eyed man who was her lover. “He must have been so disappointed in me.”
“Your footmen do slouch. It’s quite true.”
She laughed. She would go with Christopher Skavadale to Lazen, she would marry, and they would breed a horse that was faster than the north wind. She held out her hand, Skavadale took it, and she leaned over to kiss him and to feel his arm about her.
She felt his skin on her skin. She was an aristocrat with the blood of kings, and he was a man. He loved her, and she knew it, and she remembered how she had felt when the Fallen Ones came forward in the shrine, and she knew that her life’s dreams were safe in this man’s hands as his were in hers. “I love you.”
He laughed softly. “You see? It does exist, it really does.”
The Earl of Lazen coughed. “Are you two finished?”
She made a face at her brother, then turned her horse. She went to that place where all the roads begin. She rode, hand in her lover’s hand, for love.
About the Authors
BERNARD CORNWELL is the author of the acclaimed Richard Sharpe series, the Grail Quest series (featuring The Archer’s Tale, Vagabond, and Heretic), The Last Kingdom, and many other novels. Mr. Cornwell lives with his wife on Cape Cod. You can visit his website at www.bernardcornwell.net.
SUSANNAH KELLS is a pseudonym, now revealed to be Judy Cornwell.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Books by
Bernard Cornwell and Susannah Kells
A CROWNING MERCY*
Books by Bernard Cornwell
The Sharpe Novels
(in chronological order)
SHARPE’S TIGER* • SHARPE’S TRIUMPH*
SHARPE’S FORTRESS* • SHARPE’S TRAFALGAR*
SHARPE’S PREY* • SHARPE’S RIFLES • SHARPE’S HAVOC*
SHARPE’S EAGLE • SHARPE’S GOLD • SHARPE’S ESCAPE*
SHARPE’S BATTLE* • SHARPE’S COMPANY
SHARPE’S SWORD • SHARPE’S ENEMY
SHARPE’S HONOUR • SHARPE’S REGIMENT
SHARPE’S SIEGE • SHARPE’S REVENGE
SHARPE’S WATERLOO • SHARPE’S DEVIL*
The Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles
REBEL* • COPPERHEAD* • BATTLE FLAG*
THE BLOODY GROUND*
The Grail Quest Series
THE ARCHER’S TALE* • VAGABOND*
HERETIC*
Other Novels
SCOUNDREL* • REDCOAT* • GALLOWS THIEF*
STONEHENGE* • STORMCHILD*
And in Hardcover
THE LAST KINGDOM*
* Published by HarperCollinsPublishers
Copyright
This book was originally published in 1984 by St. Martin’s Press.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
FALLEN ANGELS. Copyright © 1984 by Rifleman Productions Ltd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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