The Blessed

by Lisa T. Bergren

  “Be at peace, m’lord, I have come to bring you the Lord’s healing.”

  “Be that in heaven or on earth?” he asked, meeting her eye as she came before him again.

  “I do not yet know. But your agony ends here, this night,” she said.

  “There have been others, others who have pledged the same.”

  “Then why allow me entry?”

  “Because you are in the company of my one great love.”

  Daria paused and considered Piero’s whispered words. “And something more. The peacock. You have been given a sign.”

  Lord Devenue looked away. His chin was strong, his eyes wide and clear, even if filled with pain and sorrow. But she was right. “For days now, I have not slept. And when I doze off, one thing has come to me in my dreams . . . a red peacock on a white background.”

  “Our Lord was preparing you, showing you that we were to come.” He did not answer. He feared believing. She had to awaken in him at least a tiny glimmer of hope.

  “We are here, Lord Devenue, to heal you. God has used me to heal many in this past year, and you are to be the next. He is always very clear in his direction. I was at Les Baux when he spoke to me about you.”

  The young lord eyed her. “It was not Anette, or one of her maidservants, who spoke of me?”

  “Nary a word. I knew not your name, but I knew where you were, and what ailed you.”

  “How?”

  “I cannot explain it. I simply knew, as if someone had whispered to me in my own dreams.”

  Lord Devenue paused, studying her with eyes that bore the ravages of pain. “So come, then. What have I to lose? I have long embraced death, prayed for it. Do what you must, m’lady.”

  “I thank you, m’lord, for entrusting yourself to my care.”

  “What shall I call you? And why travel in such number?”

  “We are on God’s own errand, traveling to Avignon to await an audience with the pope. We are the Gifted, a group of believers whom God has drawn together for his good purposes. I have the gift of healing; Gianni, the captain of my guard, has the gift of faith; Father Piero, the gift of wisdom; little Tessa here, the gift of discernment.”

  “And the others?”

  “Part of my adopted family or my guard. Necessary all.”

  “Very well. As I told the countess, I no longer have bedding or suitable accommodations for any of you. You shall have to find . . .” He wavered on his feet, as if about to fall. Gianni reached out an arm to his elbow, but the lord shook it off, turned on his heel, and walked up the stairs. “Come, healer. Do your worst and then be on your way.”

  “TO whom does this land belong? Why do they now tarry here?” Amidei asked Vincenzo.

  “The scouts report that it belongs to a Lord Devenue, once a suitor of the Countess des Baux.”

  “Once?”

  “Lord Devenue ails from the cancer and broke off their engagement some time ago. Many believed him already dead.”

  “No one knows if he is alive or dead?”

  “Nay.”

  “They could have made Avignon in a day and found much more appealing accommodations. But instead they come here with masons, stone, and mortar. They knew they were to stay for a few days, mayhap even as long as a week. Lord Devenue may be near death’s door, but I’d wager our Daria is about to change that.”

  Vincenzo said nothing.

  “I want our men to be watching the Gifted night and day, armed and ready to seize them if any opportunity arises. And while we wait, I refuse to sit here and watch while they go about the task of our enemy. We shall go to town, spread word of a meeting here, in the hills, in two nights’ time. It’s time for us to draw our faithful in again. We shall have use for them at some point. The master calls and I aim to answer.” He jutted his chin out, as if pointing with it to the mansion. “They’ll feel us here. Know we’re present. It may impede their progress.”

  “Do you truly anticipate trying to intercept them? Take them?”

  “We will toy with them, remind them of who their enemies are. We cannot take them here, not now. Not with the manpower they boast, not at risk to the count and countess of Les Baux. If we wound one of them, our enemies will triple. Our only opportunity is if they enter the right road where we can separate the Gifted from the others. At that perfect moment, should it present itself, our goal shall be solitary.”

  “Kill them.”

  “Kill all the knights. Capture and sacrifice the others. Slowly.” Abramo grinned. “If they won’t make haste and get to Avignon where I can get the churchmen to do my work for me, then I must do it myself.” He leaned closer. “But I must confess, brother, that I would not mind it at all, to feel the terror within that girl child. To see Daria broken. I believe I might give them the taste of me and our master tonight. Remind them of their weakness, the danger hovering nearby.”

  “You shall draw near? How?”

  “They fear us. We simply play upon those fears. Come, we shall gather some of the village simpletons and tonight, I shall show you more of the master than you have ever known before.”

  TESSA stood at the window with Anette, and Daria went to join them. Outside, the count and his men were already at work. They could hear men entering and exiting the rooms downstairs. The smell of cooking food roamed through the mansion. Two bonfires had been lit, and the men fed them with the broken furniture of Lord Devenue’s mansion. Only his bed and the massive dining table had been spared, it seemed. Every other piece had been torn apart, broken apart, pulverized by the raging, lonely lord. Atop the fires were massive cauldrons, holding boiling water that would be used to clean the mansion from top to bottom . . . and warm the lord’s bath.

  Daria had done a cursory exam and then demanded he bathe, that the linens atop his bed, his blankets, all would be clean before she proceeded. He also accepted a bit of bread and cheese, the first meal he had taken in some time, by the look of him. Daria took his acceptance of her demands as the tiny glimmer of hope she had been praying for. If he believed God could heal him, even in this late hour, it would be done. God had revealed his plan to heal him, had he not? Or was it as the lord had said, the final step to usher him into heaven and ultimate healing there?

  It mattered little. In heaven, Lord Devenue would know release, freedom, total peace. If that was how the Lord wished to heal him, she could abide by it. But as she glanced at the lovely countess’s face, the glimmer of hope in her wide blue eyes, Daria fervently hoped for a miracle here on earth.

  “They call him Devil Devenue,” Anette said, staring outward and swallowing hard. “He was banished from court three years past, the other nobles fearing that somehow the cancer might be a contagion, a curse upon us all. But I believe it was mostly a desire to keep his disfigurement out of courts that preferred beauty.”

  “You left him as well?” Daria asked softly. There was no accusation in her voice.

  “He banished me. Refused to see me. I could do nothing but leave.”

  “And yet you married no other in that time.”

  “Nay.”

  “You love him.”

  “Always. And forever. If you could’ve known him before, Daria . . . as he once was . . . He was a different man then. The cancer changed him. He was beset by rage. A fury like I had never seen before. It frightened me.”

  Daria nodded and wrapped an arm around the countess. “I understand. Let us see if God means to yet deliver him, here on earth. The cancer has moved in his head and affects him severely. I have seen it before. People change their ways, their manner of speech, even the way they see the world when they become so riddled with disease.”

  “Will he . . . if you heal him . . . What I mean to say . . .”

  “Will he ever look as he once did?”

  The countess nodded eagerly, hope alive in her eyes. “He was handsome, once.”

  “I know not. The cancer, it has moved bone, muscle, deformed in ways I’ve never seen before. Can you love him, even if he looks a
s he does?”

  “If he loved me. If he were kind again. If we could walk, hand in hand, along the river . . .” Her eyes searched the far hills of the Gardon. “Mayhap it could be rediscovered.” She looked to Daria, begging her to understand. “So much has transpired . . . I . . .”

  “Pay it no further heed, Anette. Let us see where God leads us all, yes?”

  The countess, eyes filled with mixed emotions of hope and confusion and fear and love, turned away, chin in hand. Daria watched her for a moment. Armand, with his love of the court and the drama that unfolded within it, would either reject such a notion out of hand or embrace it, relishing the sense of repulsion and the challenges that would present themselves in defending his brother-in-law. Daria hoped it would not come to that. And yet the lord’s monstrous deformities . . . never had she seen anything like it.

  Tessa took her hand. “Remember Old Woman Parmo, m’lady,” she said, staring intently up at her mistress.

  Daria smiled, remembering the old woman’s legs, damaged from decades of rheumatism, becoming straight. Bones in her fingers doing the same. A back, long curved into the arch of a snail, once again in alignment. Muscles lengthening beneath her fingers to match. God had done it. God had done his miraculous work through her there, in Siena. He could do it again, here.

  She leaned down and kissed the child on the cheek. “Thank you, Tess. I was giving in to doubt. You are absolutely correct. I must believe in the power of our Lord and his good intentions, then trust in his answer.”

  The child looked across the river to the densely wooded forest. “They are there. It is they that cast doubt and shadow in our direction.”

  “I know, Tess. We’re well aware of the dark ones’ presence. You are right—we must remain vigilant, standing against the pull of their dark ways.”

  “Who is there?” Anette asked. “Lord Amidei?”

  “Indeed,” Daria said. “And others. For every moment we spend in prayer to the God of light and hope, they spend another in prayer to those of darkness and despair. In him, they sow power. In him, they hope to thwart our good efforts here.”

  “Then we must summon the priest and get to prayer immediately. Especially as you do your work upon Lord Devenue. Our God is not one who cowers when threatened. Believe that, Daria. We all need to believe.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Avignon

  CARDINAL Boeri hated to keep Hasani in chains. But twice he had tried to slip away, and the last time they had caught him at the city gates. If he had made it but fifty yards farther, to the docks, Hasani would have been long gone.

  The cardinal would let Daria d’Angelo’s man go, when it best suited him. The doge, after intercepting the Turkish slave ship, had given the freed man to him, to use him as he saw fit. Slavery was an accepted practice in Venezia, but the Turks had tried to slip the lagoon without paying the required taxes. God’s own hand had delivered Hasani to the doge, and then to the cardinal. Once he was in their care, they had bound his wounds and nursed him back to health.

  Cardinal Boeri had made the mistake of telling Hasani he planned to free him, when the time was right. Now the tall, black man followed his every move with his wide cocoa-colored eyes, saying nothing but bespeaking much. Rather than accepting Cardinal Boeri’s promise of impending freedom as placation, a reason to trust the cardinal, he saw it instead as reason for doubt. It was if he knew the cardinal’s plan without being told.

  Cardinal Boeri went to the second-story portico to again see the man, pacing down below. He moved his hands as if talking to himself, but the cardinal had yet to hear him utter a word. The doge had said his tongue had been cut some time ago, a barbaric practice common in decades past. His sources told him the man had been educated alongside Daria d’Angelo, undoubtedly making the pair of them unique in all of Italia. Educating women was rare; educating freed slaves was unheard of. But in turn, Hasani had become one of the most vigilant of guards for Daria. No doubt she wondered where her trusted friend had been taken. No doubt Amidei had tried to use the event for his own devices.

  The cardinal leaned down to rest his forearms on the guard rail of the portico, still staring down at the man as he paced. Hasani did not know that the cardinal had also purchased his long, curved sword back from the slavers. He was surprised it was still in their possession—that Amidei had thrown it into the deal and that it hadn’t already been bartered off. It was back in his guest quarters, within the trunk, a fine specimen of weaponry with the ivory handle and precious, uncommonly sharp iron blade. When he freed the man, restored him to Daria and Gianni’s side, the black man’s worst fears would be assuaged. And when he handed the blade back to the man, he was confident all would be forgiven, trust in him restored and useful in persuading the Gifted to play their cards as he instructed.

  Amidei had sliced the man’s back to bloody ribbons. Had he forced Lady Daria to watch as he did so, hoping to turn her? Spies had told the doge she had been a prisoner, and the Gifted had freed her on the eve of the biggest storm to hit Venezia in decades. Tides had climbed and waves washed over walls and breakwaters until the whole city thought they would drown, as if God intended to wipe them all away. What had Amidei done to her in those weeks of imprisonment? Had he dared to whip the Duchess as he had her freed man and friend?

  Hasani moved below him, the heavy chain links dragging behind him. Cardinal Boeri shifted in agitation. This was what chafed at him. If he objected to Amidei holding Hasani, using him to try to persuade Lady Daria to turn, was he any different in holding the man to try to use him to gain the Gifted’s good graces?

  He swallowed hard. Of course it was different. Of course. Not similar at all. Amidei had only evil intentions. All the cardinal wanted was good—for the Gifted, for the Church itself. A comparison was preposterous. Preposterous.

  Provence

  DARKNESS was upon them. Lord Devenue, long without tallow or wick, had lived in dark halls, dependent upon the sun to aid him with warmth and light. Fortunately Anette had packed a crate of candles of every size, as well as a good number of cloths to make torches. Daria rounded a corner, heading toward Lord Devenue’s quarters, and walked down a long, narrow hallway, alight with three torches.

  A cold draft, more than a wind, swept through, making the torches flicker until Daria wondered if they would be snuffed out entirely, and then it reached her, so bitterly cold it was as if it carried snow, stealing her very breath. She coughed and looked up.

  And stared into the eyes of Abramo Amidei.

  Amidei smiled, but made no move forward.

  She screamed, and Gianni and Vito were beside her within three breaths, swords drawn.

  “Daria? Daria, what is it?” Gianni asked, turning her toward him. Ugo and Basilio reached the top of the stairs, Tessa hard on their heels.

  “He is here. The dark one,” Tessa said, panting, eyes wide as they searched the hall.

  “Inside?” Gianni shouted, shoving Daria behind him. “Where did you see him, Daria? Where?” he snapped back at her, moving forward.

  “There,” Daria whispered, backing up until the cold wall met her back. “He was down the hall, by Lord Devenue’s room.” The men moved forward as a group, leaving Tessa and Daria behind them.

  “Not there, darling,” whispered Amidei, lowly in her ear. Daria whirled and Tessa screamed. “Here, I am here,” he whispered again, now in her other ear. Daria turned quickly and Gianni came running.

  But Piero was already beside her. He placed small hands on her shoulders. “Daria,” he said, shaking her slightly. “Daria!”

  She glanced at him, eyes wild.

  He pulled Tessa to him with one arm and then forced the child’s face up to look at him. She was as crazed with fear as her mistress. “It is naught but an apparition. Amidei’s dark magic, nothing more. He is not truly here!”

  Vito arrived back at the end of the hall, Lord Devenue by his side. He shook his head at Gianni. Nothing. No one.

  “He was here,” Daria said,
almost shouting. “I felt him.”

  “As did I! I was certain of it,” Tessa said.

  “I experienced something similar once,” Gianni said, drawing Daria into his arms, cradling her head beneath his chin. “He is powerful, in his magic. I almost cut a man down, as I whirled upon Amidei. But he was naught but smoke.”

  “Listen to me,” Piero said, still staring at woman and girl. “This mansion now houses more than twenty-five men who will do everything to keep you safe.”

  “But how does one stop a man who moves in smoke?” Daria whispered.

  “He wants to interfere. He knows why we are now present here, at Lord Devenue’s mansion. If he can stop you from healing the lord, he can consider a battle won. We beat him, Daria, sorely, on his own dark isle. We must beat him back here. Quickly, Daria. You go to the lord and be about your business of healing. Take whom you wish with you to feel safe. I will take the others, make certain we are all safe from invasion, and utilize the others in prayer. Be at peace, daughter.” He reached out a hand and cradled her cheek. “We will inundate this house with prayer, with God’s own light.” A smile grew across his face. “And you, you shall see the greatest evidence of the Lord’s power yet.”

  Piero turned to pace between them all. “The devil opposes those most when they are doing the greatest good for God. This is not the last time that we will encounter Lord Amidei and his minions. But we shall remain strong. And vigilant. We shall not cave to fear. We shall not give in. This region will know the Lord on High because he will work through us, right now, here in this mansion. And he will use that for his own good, his own purposes. We are blessed to be his humble servants. Let us go about serving him, shall we?”

  Daria smiled. Her priest. Speaking as if he were more a warlord encouraging the troops than a theologian. But she loved him, every little bit of him. She glanced up at the ceiling, breathing a sigh of a prayer of thanks to her God. She would fill her mind and heart with thoughts of the Christ, rather than let it be taken over by thoughts of Amidei, memories . . . black memories. Nay, not those. That is what he counted upon, why he preyed upon her. She had suffered at his hands, suffered his ill intentions, his abuse. He counted on her remembering that. Remembering doubt, remembering fear. But nay, she would not consider that now.