Phillipe panicked and ran. He bolted blindly through the trees, swatted by branches and scratched by thorns. His pursuer crashed through the brush after him. At last he burst out of the woods into the clearing, pulled himself up short with a gasp of relief. He turned, looking back—
Moonlight gleamed on the razor-sharp blade of the sickle in Pitou’s hand. The farmer’s eyes shone maniacally as he brought it down in an arc toward Phillipe’s head. Phillipe threw up his hands, crying out.
A ghastly snarl filled his ears as something huge and black sprang past him. Phillipe gaped in disbelief as an enormous wolf struck Pitou down, its fangs tearing at the farmer’s throat. He stood for an endless moment staring, as Pitou struggled futilely in the vise of its jaws. Then he turned and ran to the barn. “Sir! . . . Come quickly, sir! . . . Wolf! . . . Wolf!” He crashed through the entrance, flinging the barn doors wide. “Sir! You must come!” Navarre was nowhere in sight. Phillipe slid to a stop, spun around desperately. Navarre’s longbow rested against the barn wall in a shaft of moonlight. Phillipe grabbed it up, snatched an arrow from the quiver, and ran to a wide crack between boards. He peered through, sweat trickling into his eyes. Outside the screaming had stopped, but the snarls continued as the wolf crouched over Pitou’s body, finishing its grisly work. Phillipe wiped his forehead on his sleeve, and nocked the arrow in the bowstring. Taking aim at the wolf, he tried to draw the bow. His arms strained until they shook; the heavy arch of wood barely gave. He relaxed his grip, panting; realizing, exasperated, that the bow belonged to a man twice as strong as he was. He raised the bow again, throwing all the strength of his panic against the unyielding wood. Slowly, the bow began to arch.
A hand draped in black reached past him and flicked the arrow from the bowstring.
Phillipe spun around. “But sir! There’s a . . .” He broke off, struck dumb by the sight before him.
Navarre’s black-and-crimson cloak shrouded the ethereal figure of a slender young woman. Beneath the folds of its hood her skin was as white as alabaster in the moonlight, her hair shone like silver; her luminous green eyes studied him with a strange fascination, as if she had not looked on another human face in a long time. He stared back at her, because he had never in his life seen a face as beautiful as hers. The beauty was not so much in the perfection of her features, he thought, as it was in the radiant spirit that shone in her eyes. In her hand she held the golden blossom of a sunflower, twirling it between her long, delicate fingers as she smiled back at him in gentle bemusement. “I know,” she said, and for a moment Phillipe couldn’t even remember what it was she knew.
The wolf howled in the yard outside, a wail of bitter desolation. The woman’s eyes flickered toward the sound, her face filling with a strange emotion.
“Who . . . ?” Phillipe whispered, trembling.
The woman only turned away, passing him silently as she drifted toward the barn’s entrance.
Phillipe flung up a hand. “Don’t go out there! There’s a wolf! The biggest one you ever saw! And a dead man!” She seemed not even to hear him. “Miss? My lady? Please!” Phillipe cried helplessly, as she disappared through the doorway.
Phillipe shut his eyes, bowing his head as he waited, breathless with dread, for a scream which did not come. Slowly he opened his eyes again, blinking toward the empty doorway. He slumped against the barn wall, his damp hands tightening on the smooth wood of Navarre’s bow. “Maybe I’m dreaming,” he murmured. “But my eyes are open. Which means that maybe I’m awake and just dreaming I’m asleep. Or more likely—maybe I’m asleep and dreaming I’m awake and wondering if I’m dreaming . . .”
The shining woman’s voice floated softly through the doorway. “You are dreaming.”
Phillipe slapped himself hard in the face and leaped to his feet. He ran across the barn, flung himself up the rickety ladder into the loft. Scrambling through the hay to the star-filled rectangle of the loft opening, he lay flat on his stomach, looking out and down.
Below, in the silver wash of moonlight, he saw the woman move slowly out into the yard. The cloak billowed behind her in the breeze that stirred the leaves. Pitou’s body lay still at the far edge of the clearing, by a lean-to woven out of sticks and branches. The wolf watched from a distance as the woman went to the body and stood gazing down at it. Phillipe could not tell what her expression was. She leaned over and covered the dead man with his cloak. Then she turned to look at the wolf, her eyes filled with anger and grief that Phillipe somehow knew had nothing to do with Pitou, or what the wolf had done to him.
The wolf was a huge one; Phillipe guessed that it must weigh over a hundred pounds. Its thick, coal-black fur was limned with silver, like the woman’s hooded figure. It began to drift in her direction as she stood waiting serenely in the moonlight. Phillipe clenched his fist, bit down on it.
The wolf circled the woman warily, drawing closer, edging away, its fur ruffling, its wild amber eyes never seeming to leave her face. The woman smiled, the way she might smile at a beloved friend. She put out her hand, beckoning the animal to her. The wolf approached cautiously, sniffing. Its dark-stained jaws opened; Phillipe stopped breathing.
The wolf took the woman’s arm in its jaws. But the glistening fangs drew no blood. The jaws closed ever so slightly, in what was almost a caress, then let her go. She knelt down, her arm gently circling the animal’s neck. The wolf shuddered under her touch, then hung its head in docile acceptance of her affection.
Phillipe pushed himself away from the opening, unable to bear what he saw any longer. He sat in the straw, trembling again, harder than before. Looking up into the darkness, he whispered, “I have not seen what I have seen, Lord. And I do not believe what I believe.” He had heard endless stories of magic and witchcraft, but he had never seen it happen with his own eyes. Fear of the known was terrible enough—“These are magical, unexplainable matters, and I beg you not to make me part of them . . .” But even as he prayed for deliverance, he knew that it was already far too late.
C H A P T E R
Seven
Marquet had ridden through the day and the night without rest, running three horses into the ground, barely stopping long enough to get a fresh mount at the guard posts along the road. At last, early in the morning of the new day, he saw the walls and towers of Aquila rise ahead of him on the plain, still miles away. He lashed his sweating horse with his quirt and galloped on.
Navarre was back—news more important than even Phillipe Gaston’s neck or his own. Marquet rode grimly toward the city gates, clattered across the bridge and into Aquila at last, nearly riding down the guardsmen on duty. He galloped on through the streets without stopping, entered the sunken passageway that gave private access to Aquila Castle. Navarre was back, looking for vengeance—and the only man who had more to fear from Navarre than Marquet himself was the Bishop of Aquila.
Back in the hills, Phillipe and Navarre rode together through the new morning at a considerably slower pace. Phillipe watched silently as the hawk fluttered up through the trees, gaining speed as she soared into the open air. Ever since dawn, when Navarre’s gauntleted hand had roused him, Phillipe had been trying to find the courage to tell the other man what he had seen in the night. A part of his mind wanted simply to believe it had never happened, while another part flinched from the thought of Navarre’s acid scorn when he tried to describe it to him. But the part of his mind that knew what it knew desperately wanted some affirmation or denial.
Navarre reined in the stallion unexpectedly as they rode into a small, peaceful meadow. He dismounted. “We’ll stop now. I need sleep.”
Looking down at him, Phillipe saw the deep lines of exhaustion on Navarre’s drawn face. Navarre walked away, dropped heavily to the ground beneath the shelter of a tree. Phillipe realized that Navarre must not have slept at all last night. He had never heard Navarre come back into the barn, through all the long hours when he had sat rigidly awake in the hayloft, staring into the darkness, listening to every eerie c
reak of the ancient boards . . . counting the seconds until morning. Then, somewhere just before dawn, his beaten body had surrendered to its needs, and he had fallen asleep so deeply that Navarre had had to shake him awake.
Phillipe still had no idea where Navarre had gone all night, or what he had been doing. But he was sure Navarre’s disappearance and everything else were somehow related. He was even more certain now that Navarre was mad, if not possessed; and after all he had witnessed in the moonlight, he had no intention of asking him any embarrassing questions. But now he suddenly saw the opening for his own uncomfortable subject. He slid down from Goliath’s back and crossed the meadow to Navarre’s side. “I could do with a bit more sleep myself, sir. After last night’s goings-on.”
Navarre settled himself more comfortably among the fallen leaves, eyes shut, totally disinterested.
Phillipe hesitated. “That wolf could have killed me, but he tore out the farmer’s throat, and left me alone.” The thought struck him that it was almost as if the wolf had intentionally saved his life. In the morning there had been no sign of Pitou’s body; but the bloodstained ground at the edge of the clearing bore mute witness that Pitou’s death, at least, had been a reality.
Navarre yawned, his eyes still closed. This morning he had frowned, his face darkening with an unreadable emotion, when Phillipe had pointed out the proof of his narrow escape. But then Navarre had simply turned on his heel, striding wordlessly back into the barn to saddle his horse. The fact that they did not even stop to cook breakfast but ate dried meat and journeycake in the saddle as they rode was all that told Phillipe the incident had even registered with Navarre. Disappointment and his own reluctance had kept him silent the rest of the morning . . . until now. “There was more,” he said. No reaction. He took a deep breath. “There was . . . a lady. Like fine porcelain, with glowing jade eyes. A heavenly apparition from some faraway land.” The land of his dreams. As he remembered her face again, his words overflowed, “And her voice! The dulcet tones of an angel—!”
Navarre’s eyes popped open. “She spoke?” he said.
Phillipe nodded eagerly. “I asked her if I was dreaming. She said I was. Then, and this sounds impossible to believe . . .”
Navarre shut his eyes again and rolled over, turning his back.
Phillipe glared down at him. “I’m not insane,” he said, his voice rising. “You must believe me when I tell you these things.” His words tugged at Navarre’s shoulder.
Navarre looked up at him, smiling sympathetically. “I do believe; I believe very deeply . . . in dreams.”
Phillipe’s face fell. “I see.” He began to turn away, defeated.
“This lady of your dreams. Did she have a name?” Navarre asked.
Phillipe turned back. “Not that she mentioned. Why?”
The smile was still on Navarre’s face. “Since I’m about to fall asleep myself, I thought I might conjure her up for my dreams. I’ve . . . waited a long time to see such a lady as you describe.”
Phillipe stared at him, more curious and more nonplussed than ever. He glanced away again as the hawk swooped down, landing on Navarre’s saddle, as if she had been summoned by some unheard call.
“Now get some sleep,” Navarre ordered. “The bird will alert us if someone comes.”
“Heellp! Heellp!” The scream of a parading peacock echoed through the ornamental gardens of Aquila Castle like the cries of a terrified child. Marquet entered the courtyard like the Grim Reaper, sending the bird scuttling ignominiously aside. Friars and clerics glanced up from their muted conversations as Marquet strode past, oblivious to the beauty of this oasis of luxury in Aquila’s desert of poverty.
At the far side of the courtyard Marquet spotted the Bishop’s bodyguard and secretary; he angled past a sparkling, tile-walled fountain and headed in their direction. The Bishop sat beneath a mulberry tree, in intimate conversation with a striking young woman whose white, feather-decked gown mimicked the peacock’s spreading plumage. The Bishop dropped a tidbit from the elaborate table of delicacies beside them into the woman’s open mouth, like a man feeding a bird. Her laughter echoed through the garden. Behind them a young nun played a gentle tune on a lute; she broke off her song as Marquet approached their table without slowing down. The other clerics turned to stare with distaste at the sweat-soaked beast destroying the serenity of His Grace’s garden.
The Bishop looked up from his conversation to see his Captain of the Guard materialize incongruously before him. His face grew rigid with displeasure as he held out his hand. Marquet bent to kiss his emerald ring, and a bead of grimy sweat dripped onto the Bishop’s perfect white robes.
Marquet grimaced. “My apologies, Your Grace.”
The Bishop gazed coldly at him. “Have you found the criminal Gaston?”
“He . . . is not in my custody at this time,” Marquet mumbled.
The Bishop’s frown deepened. “And yet you impose yourself upon this garden, unshaved, unwashed . . .”
“Navarre has returned,” Marquet said bluntly.
The Bishop stiffened, feeling as though lightning had touched him. He glanced at his mistress, his face tightly composed. He nodded politely to her, excusing himself, and rose to his feet. “Walk with me,” he said to Marquet.
He led Marquet along tile-edged walkways toward an unoccupied corner of the courtyard. Marquet outlined the encounter at the inn curtly, not meeting his stare. “The criminal Gaston travels with him. My men are combing the woods.”
Together. They are together. The Bishop looked away with hooded eyes. It was a bad omen. Navarre had risked his life to save Gaston. It could only mean that Navarre knew the thief had found a way out of the city; a weakness in Aquila’s defenses. A way out was a way back in. For his own safety, he must make absolutely certain that they were both destroyed.
He glanced back at Marquet again. “And the hawk?”
“Your Grace?” Marquet asked, his face blank.
“There should be a hawk,” the Bishop said, with a little too much insistence.
Marquet nodded, suddenly remembering. “There is. Trained to attack. It unhorsed Fomac.”
The Bishop smiled thinly, unable to disguise his satisfaction. “Yes . . .” he whispered. “This hawk would have . . . spirit.” He looked up again, and Marquet tensed at the abrupt change in his expression, “The hawk is not to be harmed, is that understood?” He held Marquet’s gaze relentlessly, his voice falling away to a harsh whisper. “You see, the day she dies a new Captain of the Guard will preside at your funeral.”
Marquet nodded mutely, understanding that much perfectly.
The Bishop smiled again, at the fear and the confusion in his captain’s eyes. Always keep them unsure. He turned in the path and led Marquet slowly back toward the garden entrance. “We live in difficult times, Marquet,” he said conversationally. “This famine has prevented the people from paying their proper tribute to the Church.” He gestured at the palace rising above them. “I raise their taxes only to be told there’s nothing left for me to tax. Imagine.” He stopped abruptly, searching Marquet’s face again with sudden, fanatical intensity. Marquet stood still, riveted by his gaze.
“Last night the Lord Almighty visited me in my sleep,” the Bishop said softly. “He told me that Satan’s messenger traveled among us. And that his name was Etienne Navarre.”
Marquet stared at him, his brutal face transfixed. He dropped to his knees, kissing the Bishop’s ring again.
“Go.” The Bishop gestured toward the gate. “To break faith with me is to break faith with Him.”
Marquet rose and hurried to the exit, a man on a holy mission of extermination.
The Bishop turned to his secretary, waiting a few paces behind him. “Get me Cezar,” he said. He had to be completely sure.
Navarre started out of a deep sleep as a sound he recognized almost instinctively set off alarms in his subconscious. His eyes snapped open; his body, tensed for instant action, lay obediently still. It was
late afternoon already. His searching eyes found the hawk perched above him on a tree limb, perfectly calm, her head cocked curiously as she watched something below.
The sound came again—the whoosh of a broadsword through the air. Navarre raised his head and smiled. Resting on his elbows, he watched the young thief swing his broadsword again, with a look of vicious triumph, hacking at invisible enemies. The boy needed both hands just to lift the sword, and he staggered with every swipe of the blade, its weight and momentum dragging his small body around. Navarre pushed up onto his knees.
Phillipe chopped another attacker in two as he battled his way through the treacherous ambush toward his helpless lady love. Any other man would have been hopelessly outnumbered, but he was the Black Knight, who fought with the strength and skill of ten. He raised his sword for another blow—
And was spun around, as a black-clad arm wrested the sword effortlessly from his grasp.
Navarre drove the sword into the earth between them and sat back in the rainbow of fallen leaves beneath the tree. “This sword has been in my family for five generations,” he said quietly. “It has never known defeat in battle.” His blue eyes met Phillipe’s brown ones with faint reproach, but he smiled. His hand reached out and caressed the sword’s hilt.
It was a thing of beauty, as Phillipe had noted with awe and admiration. Two large jewels were embedded in the lower crosspiece, and one more partway up the handle. “This jewel represents my family name. This one, our alliance with the Holy Church in Rome.” He touched the two stones in the crosspiece briefly. “This stone,” touching the third, “is from Jerusalem, where my father fought the Saracens.” His hand stopped, his fingers exploring the empty setting at the sword’s hilt. He looked up at Phillipe.
Phillipe paled, as something far too knowing and expectant filled Navarre’s gaze. Was this what Navarre wanted a thief for—to fill that hole for him by stealing a jewel the size of a bird’s egg? Phillipe cleared his throat. “Sir . . . you don’t think that I . . .” His hands brushed his chest.
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