Tessa shuddered, imagining the Spanish women clustered in some sunny room, their fingers flying over their work as they laughed and chattered about their husbands, their lovers, their round-cheeked children, as all the while their delicate hands plied their needles over the robes that were to garb the damned.
Those who watched were the flower of their society, but something in their heedless acceptance of human suffering horrified Tessa in a way that even the violent madness of the mob at Gnarlymeade had failed to do.
She glanced at the other robes. The flames on the boy's garment spiraled down toward the earth, like obscene tongues, proclaiming that he had repented and was to die before the fire touched his flesh.
Two captives wore the garments of penitents, white robes adorned with a huge cross. They were to prostrate themselves before the gathered masses, confess their sins, and be forgiven. They had no doubt groveled before the tribunal and acceded to all the demands of the relentless inquisitors. They would emerge from this day stained with their shame, marked forever by their crimes against the church, but alive. Alive.
And Tessa could not find it in herself to blame them for buckling to the dread tribunal's will, but she had contracted some of Rafe's sense of honor in the time she had known him—caught it like the pox or the plague. She prayed that when she felt the searing heat of the flames she would still cling to that steely courage.
"It is time."
She flinched inwardly at the harsh bellow, her fingers clenching in the folds of her robe in an effort to steady their trembling. She stiffened her spine and compressed her lips with resolve, then was surprised to see one of the accused, the aged Spanish nobleman, drawing near her. His craggy features were touched with approval, his brown eyes holding a glint of strength.
"Are you the English witch we were told of?" he asked. "The one who wove spells about the king?"
Tessa nodded.
"I overheard the guards talking about your words to this illustrious tribunal. They said you told the inquisitors that if you were a witch you would have cast a spell to unlock the prison doors." A laugh breached the Spaniard's lips, the sound strangely heartening. "If you know of any sorcery that might aid us in escaping now, it would not come amiss. Perhaps you could stir up a bat-wing brew and make us vanish? Or change us into birds? Falcons, perhaps. It would give me great pleasure to pluck the eyes from the cursed men who condemned me. What do you think, mistress?"
One thick gray brow lifted, and his eyes twinkled.
"I fear my supply of bat wings is depleted," Tessa said.
"Ah. Well, then, we will just have to amuse ourselves by thinking the ways we will haunt our accusers after we become one with the spirits of the night."
Tessa cast the man a stiff, yet grateful smile, knowing he had sought to distract her, but nothing could dull the panic slicing through her as she saw the wrought-iron gate swing open, felt herself being prodded forward.
"English witch!"
The crowd shrieked their hatred for the English enemy they had within their grasp, the symbol of the nation that had shamed them. Tessa gritted her teeth against her terror, half afraid that the crowd would burst into the violent frenzy that had inflamed the mob at Gnarlymeade and that these dark-eyed Spaniards would forget the pomp of the auto-da-fé and fall upon her, ripping her apart with their own hands.
She felt the old man struggle to hold his place beside her, his bent shoulders a small shield against the hatred of the crowd. And she prayed that this gallant Spanish nobleman would die swiftly this day.
"Burn her! Bride of the devil! Burn her!"
Tessa's gaze flashed to where a haughty Spanish matron cried out her hatred, the faces of those crowding the lane mingling into a vision of sheer horror.
"Vultures," the old man muttered. "Hungry for human sacrifice to their God. And they think the Aztecs are savage!"
But even the kindly Spaniard's efforts to ease her terror no longer had any power to dull the hysteria battering against into her courage as she fixed her gaze on the stakes to which they would soon be chained. Beyond them, she could see three men she recognized as her judges. They sat on a bench in the center of the platform. One face, however, was missing—that of Lucero Encina.
Was that God's one small mercy? To spare her from dying beneath her enemy's gloating gaze? Or was Encina lurking nearer the flames, the better to revel in her death throes?
She glimpsed the flickering orange and red torches that would serve to set the pyres ablaze; they glowed in iron holders near the stakes. And it was there that she saw him, his robes flowing about him. His hands were folded prayerfully before him. Would the vile inquisitor put the torch to her pyre with his own hand? Would he glory in the terror in her eyes as the dried tinder caught fire, as the flames crept up to curl their fingers about her?
Merciful God, just let it be over, Tessa pleaded silently, forcing her eyes to shift away from that evil visage, away from the dais crowded with spectators, away from the piles of wood awaiting the flames. She struggled to fill her mind instead with treasured memories, images of Hagar's face, beautiful and young, and of her father's merry grin, and it seemed as if her mother's gentle hands were reaching out to Tessa, soothing her.
Mama, help me through this, Tessa pleaded inwardly. Help me. I don't want to die.
But there was no comforting whisper even from the sea winds, no hint of gentle laughter as Hagar told her to banish her fears.
Only a bright-winged bird swept by overhead, its green plumage a splash of color against the sky. Tessa watched it winging away from the earth, a single shining beauty, and she knew in that instant how Hagar would have delighted in it.
Aye, and she would have delighted in the strong will of the child she had plucked from the sea. Tessa thrust her jaw out, stubborn resolve surging through her as she vowed she would not let fear and the ugly eagerness of her tormenters fill these last minutes of her life with evil. She drove the sound of their cries from her ears, barring any sound from entering the shell she had enveloped herself in.
Shutting her eyes, she drew from some well of courage she had not known she possessed. She envisioned Rafael Santadar's beautifully carved features, remembered the wonder of his touch. She traced in her mind the scar that had marked his throat, the scar she had kissed a hundred times. She felt again the sweet, heavy weight of him as he pressed her down into the soft feather tick. And she fingered the memory of his words, his laugh, his voice, rough with passion: "I love you..."
"Peace, my daughter, for the love of God!" The deep, annoyance-laced voice startled Tessa from the welcome ease her thoughts had given her, snapping her back into the dirty lane, the whirling mass of faces thirsting for her pain. She glared at the one who had spoken—obviously more than once—in an attempt to gain her attention. It was only another infernal priest dripping in vestments, a hood drawn low over his features, a prayer book open in his hand.
For an instant she felt a strange surge of hope and fear as her eyes fought to pierce the shadows veiling the holy man's face, but when she glimpsed a hawk-like nose and a mouth too wide to be Rafe's, she sank deeper still into hopelessness.
"I want only to be left alone," she said through gritted teeth.
"No, child. Take comfort in God's word," the man urged her, thrusting the prayer book toward her. "For the sake of your immortal soul."
"My soul is already damned, Father." Tessa let her loathing drip from her voice. "So you can take your accursed God, his word, and my immortal soul and—"
Tessa's words died upon her lips, silenced by shock as the priest muttered a most impious oath and rammed the book against her hip with decided force.
A bruising pain throbbed through her, and she uttered an oath of her own as anger, despair, and terror mingled in a flash of raw temper. Her hand whipped out to strike the book from the priest's sun-browned hands—when suddenly her gaze locked upon the page the man held open.
Her heart slammed against her ribs, and for an instant she
could not breathe as she stared down at the device of the stag courant—the St. Cyr crest, penned crudely on a sheet of vellum.
Rafe! Sweet God!
She turned her gaze again to the face of the priest, her confusion deepening as she stared at a pair of exasperated but amused brown eyes, and a mouth battling valiantly to keep an appropriately somber expression.
"Who..." Tessa began to ask, but the man raised one long finger in caution.
"I am called Father Bastion."
"Bastion?" In that fleeting instant the memory of Rafe's anguished tale of his ship's destruction flashed through Tessa's mind, and she remembered the story of his most cherished friend, the friend who had died at sea, the friend whose death had carved lines of guilt and grief across Rafe's face.
A wild dizziness washed through Tessa, and she feared she would ruin whatever plans Rafe had made by fainting. "But Bastion is dead," she breathed.
The priest's shoulders shook, and Tessa could see his face redden with the effort it took him to stifle his laughter. After a moment he managed to say in a most sober voice, "So little faith, my daughter? Do you not believe in miracles?"
"Nay." Tessa met that merry gaze, all her fear evident in her face, her terror for Rafe and for his friend. "The time is past for miracles. It is too late. Look around you!" Her eyes swept the crowd which was still clamoring for the destruction of the English witch. It was as if, by burning Tessa, they could somehow glut themselves on enemy blood, though they had been robbed of Elizabeth Tudor's own.
The dais was thronged with Spanish grandees, their armed retainers milling about upon magnificent caparisoned horses, and the streets were so packed with people that there was no route for a hasty, desperate flight.
"Please," Tessa whispered. "Don't risk your life. Don't let Rafe throw his away."
Her words trailed off as the crowd about them thinned. The solemn procession began as the victims trailed into the open square.
Tessa drew a deep breath, the smell of the burning torches singeing her nostrils as she passed scarce an arm's length from Encina and heard the man's low, cruel laugh.
"Now you will die, witch." The words skated chill across Tessa's skin. "Die..."
She started to hurl her own bitter scorn back at Encina, but in that instant the entire crowd seemed to erupt in a crazed frenzy. Wild cries assailed Tessa's ears.
"Burning is too good for her. She is Satan's own! Let us take her! We shall avenge our soldiers!" In a crashing tide of humanity, the spectators who had lined the streets spilled into the square and thrust themselves through the meager barriers that had barred them from the execution site.
Tessa screamed as the mob charged toward the cluster of prisoners. It was as if she had been engulfed in an old nightmare. She was drowning in the horror of Gnarlymeade again. She heard the Spanish nobleman curse, saw Bastion fling his prayer book to the ground, and felt his hands close about her arm.
But it was too late. The mob was already flooding over her. Harsh hands were tearing at her hair, her robe. She heard hoof beats pounding toward her, heard shrieks of fury and pain. Then suddenly a hurricane seemed to sweep her up and fling her high.
Terror wrenched through her as she cracked hard against an object that drove the breath from her body, and she caught a glimpse of the glistening black haunches and thick, rippling mane of a horse now beneath her. One of the members of the mob had dragged her astride it, holding her in his grasp. Desperately she struggled against those binding arms as other hands tried to drag her into the morass of vicious faces.
"Hold still, you little hellcat!" her captor shouted into Tessa's ear, biting deep into her terror, shattering it into joy, fear, stark relief, and fury.
Her gaze slashed up as the horse reared, and through the tangled mass of her own hair, Tessa glimpsed the blazing indigo eyes of its rider. Rafe.
No avenging god could have displayed more fearsome splendor or such stark resolve. But even if Rafe could trample the mob of spectators, Tessa knew he could never reach the open street beyond. The mounted men she had seen flanking the dais were even now charging toward them, swords drawn, while menace even more threatening surrounded them.
Screams of rage reverberated through the mob, and she expected that both she and Rafe would be ripped from the horse at any moment. The beast bolted toward a breach in the mass of people, and Tessa suddenly saw what looked to be a fiend from hell barring the horse's path.
Torchlight shaded Lucero Encina's face in grotesque patterns. The inquisitor's eyes were maddened with hate and rage. Both of his hands were clasped about a flaming brand, wielding it like a cudgel.
Rafe cursed as the stallion shied away from the blazing torch. The huge beast reared and pawed the air, nearly hurling Tessa and Rafe from its back in terror. And in that instant Tessa saw the inquisitor's mouth slacken with ecstasy and triumph.
Somehow Rafe managed to keep his seat on the horse's back as the thrashing animal's hoof cracked into Encina with a dull thud, sending the blazing torch tumbling from his hand.
That single second seemed to spiral out into eternity. The flaming torch streaked like blood down Encina's white robe, leaving a writhing stain of flame.
Tessa saw his eyes widen with horror as his hands clutched at the burning robe. But it was as if Satan himself had worked some sorcery upon those flames. Encina's rippling white robe had suddenly ignited and burst into a searing mantle of death.
Even the frenzied mob fell back for a moment, stunned by the hideous spectacle Encina had become. Inhuman shrieks split the air as the inquisitor writhed in agony, his hair aflame, his features contorted.
Rafe wheeled the stallion away from the spectacle, urging it away from the scene—the pyres, their stakes lancing the sky, the dais burdened with those hungry to watch the death of others, the inhuman mass of agony that had been Lucero Encina.
Tessa buried her face in Rafe's doublet as the inquisitor's shrieks fell still. Horror pulsed through her, mingled with a savage joy that the man who had condemned so many to such a hideous fate had himself fallen victim to the flames.
There was the sound of more hoof beats, and she heard Bastion's jubilant cry. "We've bested them all, Rafael! May Encina roast on the devil's own spit!"
Tessa clung to Rafe, as he drove his horse forward at a killing pace, Bastion a few lengths behind, and she was stunned to glimpse a wondrous empty space about them.
Freedom?
It had seemed too great a miracle even to hope for, and yet in that instant it was within their grasp.
"We've made it, wildwitch. We have bested them." She heard Rafe's growl of triumph, felt him drive his heels into his horse's sides in an effort to spur it to even greater speed.
The stallion surged forward, catapulting them onward, until they lost themselves in a countryside as rugged and untamed as Tessa's own cliffs, terrain that would shield them from their pursuers for days to come.
* * *
It seemed they had ridden an eternity before Rafe drew rein, halting inside the garden of a small abandoned hermitage. Tessa had long since drifted into an exhausted sleep in his arms, even Bastion's jaunty banter having faded to weary silence. But as Rafe's gaze swept the house and the wild hills surrounding it, he knew this destination had been well worth the arduous journey.
The night was dripping violet shadows down the craggy stones, enveloping all around them in a sweet haze of peace that seemed to blot out all of the horror and ugliness of the cruel world lurking beyond this rugged slope. It was as if the spirit of Brother Ambrose still wandered about his beloved wild lands, welcoming any in need of haven.
As they dashed across the Spanish hills, Rafe had felt a ribbon of memory, a sense of safety, drawing him to this place where he had known such pain and such joy. It was a place to rest, if only for a little while. A place to heal.
"Is she all right, compañero?"
Bastion's soft inquiry prompted Rafe to gaze into Tessa's ashen face, and his heart twisted at what he saw.
The mad race across the countryside, mingled with the terror of facing what she had thought to be her death, had left scars on her delicate, waiflike features. The skin that had been rose-blushed with health was now waxen, and her slight form, even in sleep, trembled against him with remembered fear.
Rafe could almost see the images that tormented her still. Taking great care not to disturb her, he eased himself down from his saddle and carried her inside.
"Rafe..." His name was scarce a breath upon her lips. "Was so... scared. I thought—"
"Hush, love," he soothed her, shuddering inwardly at how close to death she had come. "Did I not promise I would come for you?"
"You took... your bloody time."
Rafe was startled as a roar of laughter sounded close to his ear, and he turned to glare at the grinning Bastion.
"Don't rail at him, Tessa," the younger man said. "I all but had to chain him to a wall to keep him from charging into that cursed prison. I made him wait till the time was right. Patience, I fear, has never been one of Rafael's greatest virtues."
Rafe carried her inside and eased her down onto the musty bed. Gently, quickly, he made her comfortable so she could drift into sleep. But even after he knew she was at rest, he could not bring himself to ease her from his arms. He was loath to relinquish the pure pleasure of threading his fingers through her silky hair.
How long he stayed there beside her he did not know, but suddenly he was aware of his friend's eyes regarding him. Bastion's merry face was touched with a most unaccustomed solemnity.
"So," Bastion said softly, "it was not just another of the phantom's noble quests, this wresting of an innocent from Encina's flames. It seems you have a new heart's mistress, Rafael."
"She is going to be my wife as soon as... " Rafe let the words trail off, but Bastion would not be evaded.
To Chase the Storm Page 21
