Sweet Enchantress

by Parris Afton Bonds

  "And if I do not?”

  A frown creased a line between his brows. "To even think otherwise is folly. I had not imagined you a simpleton, mistress.”

  His attitude of male superiority galled her. "Baldwyn has an old saw perhaps you have not heard. ‘Better to have a corpse in your house than an Englishman at your door.’”

  His mouth tightened. “But I am here, am I not?” Before she could react, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. His hand anchored in her hair and tugged her head far back. His kiss was swift, harsh, and as much as a surprise to him, she suspected, as it was to her. Her palms pressed against the steely breadth of his chest, though she was uncertain her gesture was one of resistance or submission. Brusquely he released her. He started to say something, apparently changed his mind, and, turning abruptly, left.

  She pressed the back of her palm against her violated lips, vainly trying to restore some sense of herself. But all she could feel was how her chambers seemed empty without his large presence.

  CHAPTER VI

  The morning was barely past the tenth hour, but spring sunlight shone brightly on the tourney, too brightly for Dominique. For on the day when she must yield all that was dear to her, a time when she must denounce her heritage, she would have preferred gloomy overcast weather.

  A narrow lane between the galleries and field of combat permitted a few peasants a view of the tourney, while most of them gathered on the hills outside the newly erected palisades or climbed atop those village houses that had slate roofs. Several spectators had even occupied the cathedral’s bell tower.

  If she had hoped no one would turn out for the jousting, she had erred. Richly arrayed burgers, guildsmen, scribes, castellans, priests, and noblemen of all rank, some of even dubious title, graced the canopied galleries at either side of the tiltyard. Their tumultuous activities and din of voices were quieted by the arrival of men-at-arms and the Field Marshall, an older, seasoned knight, who announced the rules, inspected the ranks of each group, and proclaimed the tourney under way.

  Pennants represented knights and esquires from far away locales: Scots, Portuguese, Lombards, Flemings, Swiss, and, of course, the detestable French. Riding two abreast, they entered the gate at one end and cantered to the middle of the round field to face the galleries on one side that were adorned with scarlet-and-gold banners and bunting. In the galleries’ center was a canopied dais with arras spread on its three steps.

  Trumpets announced the entrance of the English king as he ascended the throne. Dominique had heard that two nights before he had crossed the English Channel and slipped into the Aquitaine port of Bordeaux disguised as a common wool merchant.

  He looked very impressive today in a crimson knee-length houppelande, its sable collar trimmed with jewels and in crimson boots pulled above his calves. A chaplet of pearls graced his head. His drooping mustache and pointed yellow beard were in keeping with cult of King Arthur. A train of pages and advisors waited attendance on him.

  Her eye failed to single out Paxton of Wychchester but easily located Francis in the midst of the nobles. If only she could have a few hours alone with him, but not to discourse and debate as they had in years before.

  She wanted badly to ask his help, but his influence with the pope was of little aid to her since her family had harbored heretics, and she herself had appointed a Jewess as one of her stewards.

  With Jacotte and Beatrix carrying her lengthy train, Dominique mounted the steps of the gallery opposite the one occupied by the English king. She was dressed in a splendid white gown heavily embroidered at the hem and girdled below the waist with a chain of old gold. The gown had been her mother's, as was the jewelry. A broad gold necklace overlay the fitted bodice, and a gold crown anchored a gauzy white veil that draped over her maiden’s unbound hair.

  Her chair was on a dais but pointedly lower than that of the king's, opposite hers. As she took her place, surreptitious glances were cast in her direction. Lady de Sigors, wife of the burgher Guillaume, whispered behind her hand to the woman next to her. Dominique knew the spectators were wondering just what exactly was her status at Montlimoux. First foreign troops occupied the village, and now their king had arrived. Was she princess or prisoner?

  No one was quite sure of the proper response in a situation like this and looked to her for an indication. She sat with her head high, her posture regal. She would not cower or be intimidated. Until Paxton indicated otherwise, she was still suzeraine of Montlimoux.

  Among the women in her gallery was Esclarmonde. Her tilted eyes glittered with excitement, and, with her hand pressed to her bosom, she leaned slightly forward toward the railing as the knights passed in procession, with their squires in attendance.

  Because the knights' visors concealed their visages, their shields’ emblems proclaimed their identity. Plate armor protected the vital parts of the knights' bodies. Their war horses were likewise armored, and their trappings were as elaborately decorated as the knights’ escutcheons.

  Occasionally a knight would halt before Dominique's gallery and tilt his blunted lance toward one of her ladies, signifying the wish for some sort of token from his lady-love to display on his helmet, lance or shield—a glove, her veil, a necklace. One eager lady ripped away her lightly stitched sleeve and passed it down to her knight, a not uncommon act.

  Dominique bolted upright in her chair at the recognition of one shield among the cavalcade. It bore an equilateral triangle intersected by a square—the emblem of the guild of masons, the Compagnonages.

  "Denys,” she breathed aloud. No one heard her for the shouting and acclamations, and she could only hope her riveted attention went equally unobserved.

  Such a hope was denied, for Denys reined in his charger directly in front of the dais. Gasps erupted as he lowered his lance before her. All sound faded. All eyes watched. She could never be his lady-love, and he understood this, but neither could she humiliate him before everyone. Woodenly, she removed her veil from her crown. Leaning forward, her hair falling over one shoulder, she draped the veil over his blunted lance point.

  Denys had been trained as a squire but had had little experience in actual combat. Yet there could be only one reason for his entry in the tourney: to do battle in her honor. What he hoped to gain, though, she could not imagine. Paxton was implacable, ruthless, effective, and thorough. Everything the rumors had proclaimed he would be. Everything his kiss had demonstrated.

  The procession moved on, and she sat back in her chair, tense, her gaze fastened on Denys's back, until a commotion made it known that she was once more the focus of attention. Another knight had halted before her. Again all conversation among the spectators ceased.

  This one’s blade-notched shield, she noted bore no coat of arms. "I have already bestowed a token on another knight,” she told him in a firm voice, clear enough for the ladies in her gallery to hear.

  "Then I shall take my own.”

  The arrogant way he sat in the saddle, revealed to her that it was Paxton without even hearing his mellifluous voice, muffled though it was by his helmet. She should have expected he would participate in the tourney. Every inhabitant in Montlimoux must be made aware that he was the ultimate master of man and beast alike.

  And woman.

  His horse danced closer to the railing, and Paxton leaned over it, knife unsheathed. Sun-light glittered off its blade. She pressed against the back of her chair. “Come here,” he commanded.

  "You will do your will without my cooperation." If only this once, she would thwart his intentions. She did not believe he would actually hurt her. If anything, he needed her at least for the ceremony that would cement his authority as Grand Seneschal of Montlimoux. She surmised he would most likely cut away her sleeve.

  She should have known better than to anticipate a man such as he. He leaned closer to her, and his gauntleted hand grasped her hair away from her shoulder. Before she could react, his knife began to chop at her hair, more than a forearm’
s length. With a startled outcry, she tried to pull away.

  "Be still,” he warned, "or you will look worse than a shorn sheep.”

  Not everyone, especially those in the opposite arena, could see what he was about. So when he lifted aloft his lance, with her streaming hair secured at its tip by one of his hauberk lacings, a collective gasp went up.

  She sat stunned. Willing back tears of humiliation, she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, his courser had trotted on by. She would not, could not, look at the loathsome man. Instead, she sat without moving, her unseeing eyes fixed ahead on the tiltyard. She deafened her ears to the mutterings around her but had no doubt as to their subject: speculations regarding the precariousness of her political position.

  At last, the bars of the barricades were lifted and the first course of ten knights, chosen by lots, advanced into the arena. From there, they separated and rode to the opposite and open sides of the circle’s rim, and tapped with the reverse end of their lances the shield of the opponent with whom they wished to wage battle. After that, they retreated to the far rim.

  Dominique scrutinized each shield and was relieved that Denys was not among the combatants.

  At the flourish of trumpets, the two contingents of knights sallied forth at full gallop. The horses were weighted down by chain armor and unable to jump aside. There was no recourse but head-on confrontation.

  Dust clouded the field. The thunder of lance impacting with shield echoed across the tiltyard. The violence of the mêlée imparted itself to the crowd. When the dust cleared, two horsemen had been unseated. Another had had his lance splintered. One had swerved from his charge, the sign of an inexperienced knight.

  Prepared to forfeit their wagered horses and armor, the dejected losers abandoned the field and withdrew from the lists. Amidst applause and cheering, the victors returned to their pavilions to await the final round when broadsword and battle axe could also be used if so desired.

  Another party of knights engaged in battle, then a third. The afternoon wore on. Dust stung Dominique's eyes, and fear parched her throat, but she was too tense to signal for a refreshment. The sun was hot, and perspiration streamed down her bodice. She unfastened its three top buttons. A page waved a feathered fan, but the stale dusty air didn’t alleviate her misery. She felt strangely lightheaded as her hair now fell only just below her shoulder blades.

  What she had been fearing occurred next. With nine other challengers, Denys rode out into the tiltyard. His horse cantered directly toward the great black war horse that was Paxton's. When he was directly before Paxton, Denys flouted tradition and struck the sharp end of his lance against Paxton's shield in a breach of feudal code.

  The challenger’s courage elicited a thrill of anticipated exhilaration that hummed through both galleries. Scarves were waved in approbation, and shouts of support rang out. Wagers were increased.

  The ten challengers retreated to draw up in a line at the other end. From Deny's lance tip floated her veil. From Paxton’s lance her shorn hair. Sunlight set fire to its incendiary shade.

  Trumpets were blown. Horses were spurred. Her heart thudded in tempo with the galloping hooves. Dust flurried. In and out of it, battled the ghostly figures of various knights. The shouting from the spectators was tumultuous. One by one, the knights were vanquished from the tiltyard, until six remained. The field marshal disqualified two combatants—one for striking the opponent’s saddle, the other for striking a knight whose back was turned.

  Of the four, two she recognized as Paxton and Denys. Their mounts wheeled around each other, each cavalier seeking the best opening to garner points. Breaking a lance fairly on the body of the adversary below the helmet, one point; above the breast, two points; unhorsing, three.

  Denys landed a thunderous blow that splintered his lance, and Paxton's charger recoiled on its mighty haunches. Paxton reeled in the saddle but maintained his seat. His heels dug into his mount’s flanks, and the war horse sprang forward. Dust swirled, momentarily obscuring the combatants.

  Expecting to have unhorsed Paxton, Denys was unprepared, with his broken lance lowered, when the Englishman charged out of the haze. There was no possibility that Denys could sustain the mighty blow that Paxton directed at him and remain seated.

  At the last second, Paxton's horse swerved. In the confusion that followed, no one was certain what had happened until the remnants of dust cleared.

  Paxton was seen, then, stalking across the field. He thrust his lance at one of his squires who had hurried to him and went to kneel beside a fallen man-at-arms, one of his own soldiers who had managed to remain on the field of honor with him. Immediately the king of England lowered his baton to signal a respite in the battle. Gingerly, Paxton removed the man’s helmet. Blood spilled over to tint the dirt.

  Like a bird of prey, a deep silence hovered over the galleries. Even from that distance she could feel the impact of Paxton’s gaze as it sought her out.

  CHAPTER VII

  "What happened to the knight?” Dominique paused and remembered to add, "my Lord Lieutenant.”

  They were alone in Paxton's pavilion with the injured man. Spars of sunlight shafted from the open tent flaps to fall where Paxton sat, next to the soldier stretched out on a straw-filled pallet.

  Paxton glanced up from the man to her. "Patric was struck on the upper part of his breastplate by his opponent’s lance. It glanced off the breastplate and entered his neck.”

  "The physician?”

  The visor of Paxton’s helmet was pushed back to expose his dirty and sweat-sheened face. “I sent him away. He said nothing could be done.”

  She crossed the pavilion to stand near the end of the pallet and stared at the Englishman who had highhandedly summoned her from her gallery. Like Baldwyn, even sitting as he was on the temporary, wooden-framed bed, he was nigh as tall as she. Why did his presence impose on her, as Baldwyn’s giant form never had? Because the Englishman’s beliefs threatened her feminine power as no other male ever had?

  “You want me to save him?”

  “Aye. As you did Arthur.”

  “And, should I succeed, you will banish me from your sight, as you did when I saved your cat?”

  His frown stretched the scar at his lip even deeper. “Save Patric, mistress.”

  She moved to the other side of the pallet. Her fingers pushed back the man’s chain mail collar. No bubbles of blood foamed from the deep slit of his neck. “I fear his life force is absent.”

  Paxton closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Then what I need is a resurrection,” he mumbled.

  “'Tis happened before.” He glanced up at her, his dark brown eyes penetrating, and she reminded, “The blessed Jesus Christ, among others.”

  For a long moment, he said nothing, stared hard at her. She sustained his raking gaze. "Do what you have to,” he said abruptly, rising. He left, closing the tent flaps behind him.

  In the darkened room, she sought to shift her awareness from her rational to her intuitive powers. She blocked out the roar of cheers and shouts periodically erupting from the galleries. Motionless as a rock, she sat, insensible to her surroundings.

  Concentrating only on her own breathing, she achieved that measure of serenity she sought at last. Vainly, her hands began to seek the man’s aura.

  She experienced that subtle change which made her eyes see in almost another dimension, a phenomenon she would have been hard put to explain. She searched for that vital breath that Chengke had claimed was the basis of Chinese medicine and the flowing movements of the dance of the Chinese warrior.

  Sunlight retreated from the tent. Silence seeped in. The evening grew cooler. Mildew from damp canvas clogged the stale air. Still, she worked. When, at last, she stood, she was so shaky she did not think she could cross to the tent opening.

  Outside, starlight gilded the heavens. A handful of people remained from the hundreds who had filled the galleries that afternoon. She saw anxiety in their faces— Beatrix,
John Bedford, Jacotte, Marthe and Manon, and, especially that of Baldwyn's and Iolande’s.

  Paxton stepped forward. "Patric is alive?” She hung her head and bit her bottom lip. "No. His spirit has left the body.”

  "Why could she not save my man?”

  Hugh had led Paxton to the Templar, who had been pacing the eastern ramparts. The night wind tugged at the old man’s gray hair. He shrugged his Samson-like shoulders. "I do not know how to describe what she does. 'Tis like a high-pitched, almost inaudible sound, she has told me. Sometimes, no matter how hard she attempts to heal a person, the sound cannot complete its circle from the patient back to her because—”

  "Because why?”

  He shrugged his shoulders again. "Because of a lack of faith. All I can tell you is that the patient must also subscribe to a belief in this healing gift. Your man obviously did not. My Lady Dominique claims we have enormous self-healing capacities.”

  The peculiarities of this southern society, and this southern county and it aristocracy in particular, intrigued Paxton. For the moment, he ignored his weariness. The tourney's battles had left him fatigued. He motioned toward the Templar's face. He had forgotten to be disgusted by the reddish knobs that blotched its flesh. "You subscribe to such a method of curing?”

  Baldwyn raised his hairless brows waggishly. "I subscribe by faith—should our illustrious Bishop ever inquire."

  The bishop's savoir-faire nettled Paxton. "What is he to Dominique de Bar?”

  "Her confessor.”

  "I have the distinct impression she eschews Church doctrine.”

  Paxton’s expression must have betrayed his impatience, because the Templar said, "They have been friends since childhood.”

  Paxton turned his gaze up to the scythe of a moon that stared down upon them. “Does he know of this . . . gift of hers?”