The Courtesan

by Susan Carroll

  Remy seldom spoke of his past glories, but Wolf had heard enough stories of the deeds of the great Scourge. It thrilled him to imagine Remy brandishing his sword, striking terror into the hearts of his foes as he boldly led the charge in countless battles.

  But Wolf knew from the things that Remy muttered in his sleep that it was those selfsame battles that tormented the captain’s dreams. That and what had happened on St. Bartholomew’s Eve. Wolf had seen many dreadful things himself the night of the massacre, but he possessed the ability to banish anything too grim from his mind. Not so the captain. He felt things too deeply. That was often the way with such quiet men.

  Bad enough that Remy was haunted by his memories, but now the evil witch Gabrielle must needs turn up to devastate the captain to the depths of his noble soul. Remy declared he was cured, but Wolf did not entirely believe it. In fact, he suspected that the nature of the captain’s bewitchment might have been the worst spell any woman could put upon a man.

  Love.

  Remy was a proud, reserved man and Wolf had learned a long time ago not to plague him with questions. But Wolf was a shrewd observer and he greatly feared that the captain had believed himself to be in love with that Cheney witch. So what had happened tonight to finally break the spell? Wolf had his suspicions about that as well. They had both heard the tales circulating around town, about the enchanting Gabrielle, the most bewitching courtesan in all Paris. The gossip had made the captain ferociously angry and he had refused to believe it. As for Wolf, he had accepted the rumors with a philosophical shrug. The stories had done the lady no harm in his eyes.

  Wolf might fault the lovely Gabrielle for being a witch, but a courtesan? Women had a need to do what they could to survive the same as men. Perhaps even more so, being barred from so many more respectable ways of gaining a livelihood.

  In many ways, Wolf thought that he was far worldlier than his captain. Wolf had grown up in the streets of Paris and Parisians tended to take a more liberal view regarding sexual liaisons than did the folk from the provinces. Not only was Remy from the wilds of Navarre, he was also a Huguenot. The captain did not assault Wolf with strictures from the Bible as many Protestants were wont to do. But as a breed, Huguenots did harbor sterner opinions about sin. The captain was a deeply honorable man.

  Discovering that the lady he adored was a courtesan would have crushed the captain more surely than acknowledging she was a witch. Ah, love. Wolf shook his head darkly. At least that was one misery that Wolf had been spared in his perilous eighteen years of life. Perhaps if he had had some experience of that dire enchantment, he might be able to come up with some words of wisdom to comfort his friend.

  Remy remained immobile on the edge of the bed, his eyes clouded as though he was still lost in the dark haze of that witch’s making. Wolf shuffled over to Remy and said gruffly, “Things will improve for you, Captain. I have heard it sometimes takes awhile for a man to shake off the full effects of being bewitched. But at least you are finally free of that terrible woman. Surely that is cause for rejoicing.”

  Remy angled a look up at him, his grimace a poor substitute for the captain’s usual quiet smile. “I daresay I’ll rejoice tomorrow. I am too bloody tired tonight.”

  Though it appeared to cost him some effort, the captain rallied, straightening slowly to his feet. “You take the bed, lad.”

  “Oh, no, m’sieur—” Wolf started to protest.

  “I said take the bed. I never sleep well anyway and one of us must get a good night’s rest, for tomorrow we commence our mission.”

  Wolf had opened his mouth to argue further, only to promptly close it. Their mission. In all this turmoil over cursed houses and treacherous enchantresses, Wolf had nearly forgotten the reason that had brought him and Remy back to Paris.

  The quest to save the Huguenot king of Navarre from his imprisonment at the Catholic court of France. Wolf espoused no particular religion himself. As far as he was concerned, each man could go to the devil in his own way. But rescuing the king of Navarre was important to Remy. Therefore it was important to Wolf.

  Wolf suddenly realized that the captain was staring at him with an assessing frown. “Martin, you do remember my initial reason for seeking out Mistress Cheney?”

  “To get her to carry a message to the king?”

  “Yes, but she has refused. She will not help us.” Remy’s jaw tightened. “In fact, she will do her best to hinder the rescue. She intends to bewitch the king and keep him for herself.”

  “Mon Dieu!” Wolf exclaimed. No wonder the captain was looking so grim.

  “Do—do you think she will use her sorcery against us?” Wolf faltered.

  “She may use any means at her disposal, but Mistress Cheney will not prove the worst of our enemies. We will face a sorceress of far more formidable and evil power.”

  Wolf shuddered, realizing full well whom Remy meant. Catherine de Medici, the Dark Queen. One could not live in Paris for any length of time without hearing terrible tales of the Queen Mother of France, cruel, hard, and ruthless. Well, she was after all an Italian and a foreigner and one knew no good could ever come of that. The Dowager Queen was said to be especially adept at the dark art of concocting potions and poisons.

  Remy placed both hands on Wolf’s shoulders, peering intently into his face. “If you have had second thoughts, if you decide you no longer want to be involved in this dangerous enterprise, I will quite understand.”

  Wolf realized what the captain had been leading up to with all this grave talk. He felt his face flush a hot shade of red. After Wolf’s pathetic performance outside the Maison d’Esprit, the captain doubted his mettle. Wolf was so humiliated he wanted to fling himself out the window and dash his useless brains upon the pavement below.

  He regarded Remy with a look of mingled hurt and shame. “Oh, m’sieur, I am sorry I failed you before. But I vow upon the graves of all the men who could have been my father, I will never do so again. I will brave the worst of curses, fight the most dread of witches. I will follow you into hell itself—”

  “All right. All right, lad. I believe you.” Remy gave Wolf’s shoulders a bracing squeeze. “I am glad you are still willing to help me, for your knowledge of the ways of Paris is far greater than mine. I am relying upon you, my clever Wolf, to help me find a way to get inside that palace and reach my king.”

  “I will, Captain. I will. I will lurk outside the gates and snuffle out every bit of information. I will tunnel like a mole beneath the Louvre if I have to or—or scale a ladder to the highest towers.”

  “Well, just don’t break your damn fool neck,” Remy said. The captain’s expression lightened for the first time since his return.

  Wolf grinned back at him. But as Remy strode past him to snuff out the candle, Wolf had to duck his head to conceal how deeply moved he was. No one had ever trusted or depended upon Wolf for anything before. But Nicolas Remy, the great Scourge himself, had said that he was relying on him. Him, Martin Le Loup, humble thief and pickpocket, street rat of Paris. Tears pricked Martin’s eyes and his chest swelled with such pride, he thought his heart would burst.

  As Remy extinguished the candle, Wolf quickly finished undressing and bounded into the bed with a lighter heart. He nestled into the pillow and closed his eyes, his head swimming with visions of glory, all the heroic deeds he would perform fighting at the captain’s side, the tales that would circulate over the wine cups in inns all over France. Tales of the great Scourge . . . and his Wolf.

  Long after Martin had sunk into slumber, Nicolas Remy lay stretched out on the pallet, his hands propped behind his head, staring at the patterns the moonlight made upon the cracked plaster of the ceiling. As Martin’s soft snores filled the room, Remy deeply envied the lad his ability to lose himself in such blessed unconsciousness. Martin slept the sleep of the just and untainted conscience. But then why shouldn’t he? Martin’s flaws and sins were all minor ones. He had no blood on his hands, no one’s death to repent. At least not ye
t.

  One of Martin’s gangly legs dangled off the side, his dark hair tumbled across the pillow. At such an unguarded moment, he appeared less like the swaggering man of adventure he fought so hard to portray and more what he was, a boy who had somehow survived his rough-and-tumble upbringing in the streets of Paris. Not only survived, but emerged unscathed with an astonishingly romantic and optimistic soul.

  Martin had endured enough hardship and peril in his short life and the rescue of Navarre was not Martin’s cause, not his king. Remy should do his best to get Martin to clear off. His mouth tightened grimly because he knew he wouldn’t. He would make use of Martin in the same hard way he had used countless other lads in the past, marching them into the mouth of cannonfire to be blown to bits, leading them to die in some furious charge against the enemy’s columns and all to claim one more costly victory.

  Remy only had to close his eyes, lose himself in sleep, and he knew he would see their faces, battered, bloodied, some of them scarce sprouting their first beard. Many times he had been able to hold his terrible dreams at bay by thinking about Gabrielle, but now—

  Remy’s lips thinned, fighting to banish her from his mind. But soft as the moonlight that stole through the narrow window, her image came to him. Just as she had been that day in the woods, her sunlit hair tumbling down her back, her graceful white feet whispering across the grass. Gazing up at him with jewel-blue eyes that could at one moment be bright with laughter, the next subdued with melancholy.

  His lady fair, the best and brightest of his memories. Now remembrance of her was only a source of torment because Remy could not stop himself from imagining other men doing what he had been too cursed honorable to ever do. Fondling her full ripe breasts, tumbling her naked body back into the sheets, parting her legs.

  Had Gabrielle’s eyes blazed with fire? Had she emitted little cries of pleasure? Had she looked at them the same feverish way as she had done Remy after kissing him so passionately tonight? Remy flung one arm across his eyes as though by doing so he could blot out the taunting pictures of Gabrielle in another man’s arms. But the names pounded through his head . . . Duclous, Penthieve, Lanfort. How coolly Gabrielle had reeled off the list of her lovers, filling Remy with the kind of black killing fury he’d only ever let loose upon the battlefield. He had wanted to find each one of those bastards, take up his sword, and hack them into bloody ribbons.

  And as for Gabrielle . . . Remy had never laid rough hands upon any woman before, but he’d come so close to shaking her until her teeth rattled, while he roared.

  Damn you, Gabrielle! How could you do this?

  He well understood the poverty, ignorance, and desperation that could drive women into selling their bodies for a few coins, but Gabrielle had no such excuse. She came of a good family, one that loved her. Her father’s fortune might have been lost, but she had a generous and wealthy brother-in-law in the Comte de Renard, able to supply her every want. What reason could Gabrielle possibly have for pursuing the life of a courtesan except ambition and greed?

  But that simply didn’t fit with his memories of the girl he’d known that summer on Faire Isle. Like a golden enchantress Gabrielle had seemed, a faery queen far too fiercely proud to surrender her heart or her body to any man. And yet by her own admission, she had already taken her first lover, even then.

  How could the same girl who could paint such a tender portrait of her little sister, who could show such compassion and kindness to a wounded soldier, be the same woman Remy had met tonight? Cold, ruthless, and scheming to become the mistress of a king.

  Remy would never have believed it if he had not heard it from Gabrielle herself. What a blind, stubborn fool he was. He wished he could despise her, simply learn to forget, but that was the most damnable part of this whole thing.

  Despite everything he still wanted her, still hungered for her in a way that was nigh unbearable, the ache in his heart as well as his loins. Remy gritted his teeth and tossed restlessly from side to side. He sought to divert his thoughts by planning what he would do tomorrow, his first steps toward the rescue of his king.

  Dragging himself to a sitting position, Remy stretched out his arm, groping beneath his pile of clothing for the precious pouch he never let far from his side. He cupped the small leather sack in his hands, the feel of it heavy and reassuring, weighted as it was with gold. The funds that Remy had gleaned during the past few years by the sweat of his brow and the steel of his sword.

  He loosened the drawstrings and shook several of the coins out into his hand, his heart swelling with a fierce satisfaction. It was not a fortune, but it would be money enough to buy weapons and horses, hire mercenaries or bribe guards. More than enough to plot the rescue of a king.

  Or to purchase a woman.

  Remy caught his breath at the wayward thought, fighting to suppress it. But the coins gleamed in the moonlight as temptingly as the golden tresses of Gabrielle Cheney’s hair. So what was the asking price of a Parisian courtesan these days? How much would it take to possess Gabrielle, keep her for himself?

  Remy stared at the coins glittering in his palm a moment longer, then shoved them hastily back in the pouch. The blood rose in his face and he was sickened by his own speculations. Not only was the thought of buying Gabrielle revolting to him, it was impossible as well. No matter how much money Remy acquired, he was certain that no mere captain would ever satisfy her.

  No, Gabrielle wanted a king . . . Remy’s king, to be precise.

  Well, he would be damned before he ever let Gabrielle have Navarre. Remy tucked the sack of coins back under his discarded doublet and then lay back down on the pallet. Despite his resolve, Remy’s brow furrowed as his doubts nagged at him. Could Gabrielle succeed in so seducing Navarre that even if Remy did find a way for the king to escape Paris, Henry would not want to go? Remy greatly feared that she could.

  After all, Gabrielle had beguiled Remy into forgetting his duty for the length of a summer and she hadn’t even been trying. And as for Navarre, well . . . Remy recollected a young prince who could be brave in battle, who even showed signs of being an astute ruler for the Huguenot people except for one fatal weakness.

  Women. From the tender age of fourteen, Navarre had found the charms of the ladies as irresistible as they seemed to find him. His fascination with the fair sex had often rendered him lax about more important duties such as pursuing his studies and paying heed to matters of state.

  Had the indolent young prince changed at all since he had become a king? Remy could only hope so or Navarre would never be any match for Gabrielle’s charms. She’d slay him with but one dazzling smile.

  Remy nestled his head deeper into the bolster, reflecting that the sooner he got Navarre out of Paris, the better. He needed to have his wits about him, get some sleep. But even as weariness tugged at him, Remy felt the old sinking dread, knowing that as soon as he closed his eyes, they would come for him, the ghosts of his past. All those enemies that he had slain, the men that he had lost in battle, returning to stare at him with bitter and accusing eyes.

  Right beyond them would be those other poor souls from St. Bartholomew’s Eve, stretching out wraithlike hands to pluck at him with their desperate cries. His fellow countrymen, the men, women, and children he had sworn to protect and failed. And if it were a truly bad night, he would come, the demon man, his heavy battle sword drenched with blood, his lips pulled back in a death’s-head grimace of savage joy at the slaughter.

  Remy stirred on the pallet, his brow beading with cold sweat, his thoughts flying instinctively toward Gabrielle. But she was gone, his maiden of the island, his enchantress, his protecting angel. A dream, no more. That was all she had ever been and now she was lost to him forever. Remy closed his eyes, surrendering to the inevitable.

  His demons would have him this night.

  Gabrielle whimpered and tossed on her bed, trying to fight against the nightmare, struggle back to wakefulness. But it was of no use. The silken sheets beneath her bod
y vanished, transforming into dried straw prickling against her skin. She was back in the hayloft of the barn, stifling, all but crushed under the weight of Etienne Danton.

  “N-no, Etienne,” she protested, twisting, trying to turn away from his greedy mouth pressing against her neck. She shivered in revulsion at the flicker of his tongue against her skin.

  “P-please stop. I—I don’t want to—”

  “Oh, yes, you do,” Danton panted, his breath hot against her face. “You want it right well enough, you hot little witch. Why else have you so been tempting me?”

  “No. I didn’t want—didn’t mean—” Gabrielle choked on a cry of protest as Etienne pawed at her breast, his fingers clamping down hard.

  “Stop! You are hurting me.”

  But Danton ignored her, his fingers hooking in the neckline of her bodice, the sound of ripping fabric assaulting her ears.

  “I said, stop!” Gabrielle shrilled fiercely. Doubling up her fists, she struck out wildly at his face, her heart pounding with a mixture of anger and mounting fear. But Danton seized her wrists, roughly pinning them over her head. This man she had believed she had loved, her knight, her champion using his brutal strength against her.

  Etienne leered down at her, his lean handsome features contorting into an ugly mask of lust, transforming before her very eyes into a devil, a monster. Gabrielle felt her gown being shoved up, her legs being forced apart.

  “No!” she cried, bucking to get away, straining to free herself, but it was useless. Danton’s heavy weight bore down upon her. She panted. She could scarce breathe. She felt something hard thrust at her woman’s core, followed by a hot, searing pain.

  “No!” But this time her cry came much fainter, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. Danton’s body pounded into her, driving Gabrielle mercilessly against the rough straw, the hard planking of the loft floor.

  The punishment seemed to go on and on as though it would never end. Gabrielle lay broken beneath Danton, just praying for it all to be over soon.