Kissing the Bride

by Sara Bennett

  “What will they do to Raf?”

  “Nothing. I am sure neither Baldessare nor Jean-Paul will hurt Raf; why would they? Their plan depends upon the boy remaining safe and well.”

  She tried to think over what he was saying. Radulf’s army, coming to Gunlinghorn. Threats to Baldessare’s wealth and power. Turning Baldessare against Jean-Paul. Aye, his words were reasoned and sensible, and although she knew she should be angry at his high-handedness in sending for the army without her knowledge—to protect her, she supposed—she could not find it in her just now to feel anything very much.

  What she really wanted to do was throw back her head and howl. And then she wanted to ride to Hilldown Castle and scream out her terror and her anger at the gates. She wanted to tell Baldessare that if he wanted her, then he could have her, as long as Raf was returned safe and unharmed.

  Except that when Baldessare forced her into marriage with him, Raf would be in his power again. She would not have saved him; she would have doomed him to a life of hell.

  Henry was still watching her face, waiting for her response. Jenova searched her memory. What had he said? That all this was his fault. It was nonsense. And then it occurred to her that he was talking about the secret she had known he was keeping from her. He was finally offering to share it.

  Jenova looked at him, really looked at him. His blazing violet-blue eyes were dull, his mouth was held tight. Pain, a great deal of pain. And guilt. Henry truly blamed himself for all this. Jenova wondered if perhaps he had cause. She knew she must hear what he had to say. Strange to think she had been so desperate for him to tell her only a short time ago. Now she wondered if it even mattered.

  “Jenova,” he murmured and took a step closer. His hand was shaking as he placed it upon her arm, and then he leaned forward and rested his brow against hers, squeezing his eyes tight shut. “Jenova,” he said, “I could not bear to tell you this before. You have a vision of me in your head, a picture of the man you believe me to be. I could not bear to soil it. I could not bear to destroy your image of me. Sometimes, I think your belief is all I have to make me feel worthy of being who I am.”

  Something in his voice, in his manner, broke through her indifference.

  Jenova rallied.

  “Tell me then,” she said, and took his face in her palms, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Tell me why Jean-Paul hates you. Make me understand, Henry. And it must be the truth. I will not have lies. Do you understand me clearly?”

  Henry gave a bleak smile and nodded. He drew away from her and sat down on the seat under the window. After a moment Jenova sat down beside him. And waited. Very soon he began to speak, his voice low and tentative, as if he were remembering an old, half-forgotten dream. As if it were something that had happened to somebody else.

  “It happened at le château de Nuit. Aye,” he grimaced, when she gave him a sharp look, “the place I said I had never heard of. Perhaps in a moment you will understand why I lied about that, Jenova. It happened many years ago. After I left your home, where I was so very happy, I went to le château de Nuit. I always think of it as walking from sunlight into darkness. For that is what I found at that cursed castle. The darkness of endless night…”

  Chapter 22

  The lumbering old wagon took him along roads that seemed devoid of all human life. Even when they passed through villages, there was not a single peasant or barking dog or waving child to be seen. All the cottages were shut up tight. It was as if the wagon were cursed, and him with it.

  Henry did not know Count Thearoux. The count was a distant cousin by marriage of his mother’s, but not one he had ever met before. As a boy who was constantly being passed about from relative to relative, Henry was used to finding himself in strange places with strangers. He managed. He was bright and confident and could normally find himself a niche somewhere. He had no choice, really, did he?

  He would miss Jenova. She was like the other half of him, and she had wept when he’d left. Henry had wept too, but in private, for he was almost a man and it was not proper for men to cry. It was Jenova’s mother who had sent him away. She had disapproved of him from the beginning, and when Jenova had shown an equal wildness to his, she had used it to declare he was a danger to their daughter. Henry thought she was probably afraid Jenova would want to marry him in a year or two, when they were old enough. Jenova had already said she had no plans to marry anyone, not until she was an old lady, but her mother hadn’t believed her. Henry smiled—well, her mother would soon find out just how stubborn Jenova could be.

  The wagon was climbing now. Above him, among the bare rocks and windblown trees, was a gray castle of thick stone with tiny windows. It looked like many other places he had seen, and he did not think too much of its repellent air until they reached the gates and passed inside.

  The horse’s clomping hooves echoed in the stillness. The wheels creaked. From somewhere above them, behind one of those little windows, a voice called out and was silenced.

  For the first time Henry began to wonder what sort of place this château de Nuit might be.

  The driver drew to a halt and, climbing down, went to lift Henry’s trunk from the back of the vehicle. Henry, too, climbed down and stood there, at a loss what to do. As he gazed about at the apparent emptiness of the place, he heard a door open.

  “Ah, Beau Henri! I have you here at last!”

  Surprised, Henry turned and found himself facing a big man with a heavy paunch, his head shaven bare, his face ugly but creased into a beaming smile.

  Cautiously Henry smiled back. “Monsieur?”

  “I am Count Thearoux. You are welcome to my home. I am sure you will make many friends here.”

  Friends? What friends? There was no one else here.

  The driver was climbing back onto his wagon, preparing to leave. Suddenly Henry did not want him to go. The man had been grumpy on the long journey, but he had shared his meager meals and seen that Henry was warm at night. He seemed like a last link with Jenova, and Henry had the embarrassing urge to cling to him.

  “Come, Henri!” Thearoux was already turning away, toward the door in the keep. Henry followed, glancing over his shoulder as the wagon disappeared through the gate and back the way it had come.

  Alone. He was all alone.

  The door swung inward with a creak. Henry walked through and jumped as Thearoux slammed it behind him. It was gloomy in here; a single torch threw wavering shadows down a long passageway.

  “I have you now,” the count said softly.

  Henry stared, thinking he had misheard, but the next moment the man gave a hearty laugh, making a joke of it, and Henry felt obliged to smile also.

  “Are you alone here, my lord?” he asked tentatively, following Thearoux’s swinging gait along the ill-lit tunnel of stone.

  “Alone? Not at all. There are others here. They are sleeping now, but you will meet them soon. Much of our work is done at night.”

  Perhaps Thearoux was mad, Henry thought uneasily. Perhaps he had come to the home of a madman. What would Jenova think when he told her of this! But then he remembered, with an ache where his heart should be, that Jenova would not hear of it because he would never see her again.

  There was a door open on the right. Thearoux did not stop or go in, he kept walking down the passage. But Henry looked in, and then paused, blinking, trying to make sense of what he saw. There was a great wheel in the middle of the room, bound in iron, and there were spikes along the length of it. The walls were hung with what looked like blacksmith’s tools. Strange long-handled pinchers, and lengths of chain, and other objects that made no sense.

  “Come on!”

  Thearoux was ahead of him, and still puzzling over that room, Henry hurried to catch up. They rounded the corner in what was, he realized, a passage that followed the inner wall of the keep. Ahead there were stairs, winding upward. As they climbed, Thearoux huffing and puffing, Henry began to hear sounds.

  Soft moanings and groanings. A ragged
breathing. Someone sobbing. And now there were doors, closed doors, bolted doors. What was this place? It smelled like…what was that smell? Henry wrinkled his nose. It smelled like the butchery at Jenova’s parents’ castle, the place where the animals were taken to be killed for the table.

  It smelled like death.

  They had reached the landing.

  Thearoux was waiting there for him. His ugly face, which Henry had thought jolly, was full of gloating anticipation. The small black eyes fixed on his.

  Henry hesitated on the stairs below, feeling the weight of that place about him, sensing that not many who came here ever left. “I want to go home,” he said, and his voice shook like the adolescent boy he was, and for once he didn’t care.

  Thearoux watched him a moment, consideringly. And then he said, “Well, you’re here now. May as well stay a while, eh? This is your room.”

  He opened a door. Inside, the room was hardly bigger than his trunk, in it a straw mattress and a candle and a bucket. A prison cell. A place of punishment. But what had he done?

  Thearoux shoved him in and slammed the door. Henry heard the bolt slide home.

  “Welcome, Beau Henri!” he cried, the jovial note back in his voice. “Welcome to le château de Nuit.”

  “Henry?”

  It was Jenova. Jenova’s sweet, melodious voice. It was like a balm, like honey poured upon a scold. The sound of it miraculously soothed the agony within him. Slowly, Henry turned his head to stare at her. He did not know how long he had been silent, how much time had passed. The solar was quite dark, and she had lit no candles. He could hardly see her face. He was not sure he wanted to.

  “What sort of place was it? Henry, what happened to you there?” Jenova whispered, as if she did not feel it quite appropriate to speak loudly. As if the picture he had painted for her was far too horrible.

  Henry cleared his throat, shifted slightly on his seat, rubbed a hand across his jaw and heard the scrape of his whiskers. When had he last shaved? Or changed his clothes? He could smell himself. He needed a bath. He had not realized that his life had begun to crumble about him like this, or perhaps he had just not cared.

  He forced himself back to that place he had never wanted to remember again, but the memories were choking him. As if she sensed his despair, Jenova’s warm fingers slipped around his and gripped, hard, giving him strength. After a little while, Henry found his voice again.

  “It was a wolf’s lair; savage and cruel. Thearoux lived there with his men, and at night they rode out into the surrounding countryside. He called them hunters. ‘We’re going hunting!’ he used to say, with such a look in his eyes. Their prey was anything they could find. Villagers, peasants from the surrounding countryside. Jesu, no wonder their doors had been locked when I rode past! They were terrified. They knew if they were caught out after dark they would be killed or raped, or taken back to the château to be tortured in that appalling room for the amusement of Thearoux and his men.”

  He blinked at her, his voice struggling past the lump in his throat. “Thearoux cared nothing for these people, Jenova. He and his band lived to commit their evil. And the night after I arrived there, Thearoux told me that I was now one of them, and that if I did not take part in their grisly hunt, then I would be their next victim. ’Tis remarkable how the conscience can be silenced when you are staring death in the face. It was I who gave the poor wretch we hunted the coup de grace that night.”

  “Oh, Jesu…”

  Henry heard the shock in her voice, but he couldn’t stop. He knew if he stopped now, he would not be able to go on. And he had to finish this. He had to tell her everything. It was like opening a vein; the blood would not be stopped once it had begun to flow out. No matter what damage it did to the patient.

  “So I rode with them.”

  “Henry, poor Henry.”

  “No, not poor Henry,” he reproved her.

  “You were thirteen years old!”

  “Maybe, but I was not the one to pity, Jenova. I was afraid, so I went with them and pretended I did not care. But that night I wept, sick to my stomach, and for many nights after. Aye, as time went on, I learned to pretend I was going to join in, and then I would hide myself away. Make out it wasn’t happening. I was a coward. Sometimes…sometimes I couldn’t hide and I couldn’t pretend, and then I saw everything. Those memories are my worst. Have you ever seen a hunt, Jenova? Of course you have! We Normans love to hunt and kill. The chase, the baying dogs and shouting men, the victim brought down and torn to pieces, or else throat cut. The blood, the endless, warm gouts of blood. Aye, ’tis a sight not to be missed.”

  Silence. Henry closed his eyes. He had quieted her at last. He was doubly glad now that he could not see her face, that the room was in darkness. He could not bear to read what was in her eyes as the full impact of what he had done weighed upon her.

  He cleared his throat, for he was not finished yet.

  “Souris and I—he was another boy a little older than me—would sometimes be sent out to flush out the kill. Or to lure some poor creature from his or her home, and lead them to their death. I would try and save them, if I could. Once I hid a boy up a tree, and Souris knew, but he said nothing. He thought it was funny, Thearoux and his hunt riding around, seeking the boy, when he was right above their heads. It amused him. I amused him. But that was why I was there, for Souris’ sake.”

  “Souris? This boy was as bad as the rest of them, then?” Her voice was a whisper in the darkness, her hand gripped his painfully hard.

  “He was one of them. They called him Souris, the Mouse, because he was small and quiet. He was Thearoux’s son by some woman in the village who had been kept at the château for his use. Souris had been spawned in evil and weaned upon murder. What could you expect him to be like? And I had been brought to the château specifically to keep Souris company. He wanted someone of his own age to play with. Thearoux had heard of me from my mother, and she had given him permission to take me in. So kind of them to arrange it between them, don’t you think?”

  “Oh Henry.”

  He did not stop, he could not stop. “My friend Souris was not like me. He did not have to pretend to enjoy the hunts, he loved them. The bloodlust shone in his eyes. Thearoux’s blood ran true in him.”

  Jenova was silent a long moment. “Why…why did Count Thearoux do such things? What reasons could he possibly have for…for…”

  “He enjoyed it,” Henry said quietly.

  He closed his eyes again, but the pictures were in his head. The dark trees and the moonlight, the running prey, the ragged breath, the yells and cries of the hunters and the howling of the dogs. And then the screams, the endless, endless screams…and worse, the silence.

  And always that doubt inside him, that terrible fear that maybe he was just like them.

  He put his hands over his face. “Jesu,” he whispered. “I watched them kill so many, so many, and I did nothing.”

  Jenova did not answer. After a moment, he knew she was not going to answer. She must be wishing him gone; she had her son to worry about. Why should she care for his miserable tale? But he might as well tell the rest before he left. It was nearly over. If only he were not so tired….

  “There was a girl. Young, pretty, innocent. She made me think of you. Until then I had been able to go on, but seeing her…remembering what my life should be like…it was the end for me, Jenova. I tried to save her, but Souris had decided he wanted to see this one suffer. He liked to hurt—he liked to hear women scream. After that I…went a little crazy.

  “I found my way to Thearoux’s den. They were all there, drunk, sated on the murder of that pitiful innocent. There were plenty of weapons in the room—lots to choose from. I really can’t remember what I picked up, but it made a mess. I hit him, hard, and the blood sprayed out. He stood up, roaring at me, and I hit him again. And again.”

  He took a shuddering breath, as if preparing himself for the worst.

  “It felt so good, Jenova. Ev
ery time I hit him I laughed. Some of the others began to wake and I swung at them, too, and it felt even better. I knew then that they had made me into one of them. I was a murderer, too.”

  Jenova made a sound in her throat. Disgust, he thought, and he had to force himself to go on. Nearly there now, he told himself desperately. Nearly over…

  “It was time to leave. I looked about me and felt sick and dizzy. Those I hadn’t…hurt were still too drunk to do much. I told myself that these men didn’t deserve to live—so I set about killing them. I made a fire—it was simple, really. It was as if I had only just thought about setting fire to some straw in the room with the wheel, and the next thing the fire was there, burning so quickly, so fiercely, that even if I had wanted to put it out I could not have. I suppose it was me who lit it, but truly I do not know for sure.

  “The fire was well alight by the time I remembered Souris—I had forgotten about Souris. I ran to his room, but he was not there. I was choking, and the fire…I couldn’t look any further. I-I always felt guilty about leaving him, despite what he was. He was my friend, sort of, and in a way he was a victim, too.

  “I don’t remember running, only that suddenly I was outside, a little hurt and a little singed, but well and alive. My head ached, with all the things in it I did not want to remember. I felt as if I had escaped from a dream, so for a time I let myself believe that was so. I walked and walked, stealing food, hiding from the peasants, until I reached a large town. No one knew me there. I stole some clean clothing and knocked upon the door of the local lord, and offered myself as his squire. Perhaps my sheer gall impressed him, for he took me in.