by Karen Dales
“Yes he does,” stated Fernando as he sat back onto the wooden chair. “By all the evidence, as a Chosen, he should be Destroyed.”
Jeanie gasped.
Centuries of keeping his differences secret from other Chosen finally came to an end. It was his and Notus’ worst nightmare, and it had finally come. Thankfully Notus was not here to witness. It would have broken his heart. Instead it set Jeanie trembling with the realization of what was in store and to feel her fearful presence beside him broke his heart.
“What do you want to know?” he whispered in defeat. Broken, he closed his eyes, waiting for the inquisition to begin. His back twitched painfully as if expectant for the lash, and he grimaced.
“Everything,” declared the Noble, basking in his victory.
He took a deep breath and caught it as the expansion of his ribs sent a shock of pain up his back. Slowly releasing it, he bowed his head, allowing the veil of his long hair to obscure his face. He did not know where to begin. He did not know what to say.
Witnessing the Angel defeated so thoroughly, Jeanie rose up on her knees. “Ye can see he’s no up for this.”
“I wouldn’t have had to do this if you would have made yourself available to answer my questions as you had promised,” said the Noble, contemptuously. He returned his attention back to the Angel, a conceited smile curling his lips. “Explain to me how a Chosen, if that’s what you are, can be so injured by plain iron weapons and who where those three women that came out of that demon filled fog after that bitch vampire and her lackeys suddenly disappeared.”
He snapped his head up, his eyes wide in fright. He could not believe what he was hearing. Fernando saw the three Ladies and the white faced demons in the mist?
“What?” he breathed, unable to say anything else. No one in his whole life had ever seen them, only he.
Fernando sniffed disparagingly. “We all saw you muttering at the door as the storm abated and the fog rose bringing with it the most grotesque apparitions anyone has seen. When they left three women materialized. Jeanie claims to have seen her mother and the monks are all a-buzz about having seen the Virgin Mary bless you.”
It could not be true. They could not be real. They were part of his dreams, a part of his nightmares. They were his secret shame that he withheld from everyone in his long life. No one ever knew. Not Auntie. Not Geraint. Definitely not Notus. To hear now that they were indeed real made all his experiences solid and indisputable. It gave too much evidence to the potential truth he had been denying about himself since the day he was brought in as a changeling by Auntie. His panicked breathing escalated and he shook his head in denial, staring into Fernando’s burning brown eyes. He wished he could pass out.
“Are you Chosen?” asked Fernando, abruptly.
“Yes.” The word hissed out automatically and he broke the probing eye contact again, suddenly doubting the truth of his own conviction. Jeanie’s hand reached over his lap and clasped his bandaged hand, giving it a tiny, yet painful, squeeze. He knew it was for support and love, but it still hurt. He could not face her but accepted this little bit of offered strength. “You read Notus’ journal.” His whisper was barely audible.
“As much as I could before you snatched it from me, yes.” Fernando’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying that you inherited these attributes from your Chooser?”
“No!” The word exploded unexpectedly and he gazed at the Noble sitting imperiously over him. If Fernando believed that Notus was the source then he too would be Destroyed. He could not allow that to happen. “Notus only knows about the -” he took a shuddering breath “- the affect iron has on me. He does not know about the other. No one’s known. That’s - that’s new.”
Fernando’s eyes widened in surprise and the Angel felt a wall of fear hit him as he heard Jeanie’s quick intake of breath.
“So what are you saying?” pressed the Noble. “That you’ve suddenly been able to conjure demons to do your bidding and spirits to -” Fernando closed his mouth unable to find the words.
“I - I guess so,” he mumbled. Frowning, he remembered what They told him after the demons had dispatched the vampires. Blessed Be he who is the Bridge between Life and Death. Blessed Be he who has returned once more. Blessed Be he who is the Light in the Darkness. They are now yours to command, use them wisely.
Silence crashed down between them as Fernando sat to contemplate the revelation. The Angel waited, his head bowed and eyes closed once more. He had given the Noble ample ammunition. He hoped at least Notus would be kept safe.
When Fernando broke the silence some of the harsh accusatory tones were diminished. “How is it that a Chosen can do these things and be so affected by iron? If this weren’t so serious I would almost expect I was part of one of the fairy tales Bridget loves to read about.”
“And what if it were?” ventured Jeanie, cautiously. “I mean a fairy tale?”
Disbelieving what Jeanie had said, he turned his face to see the determination written in her bruised pale face. Pulling his hand from her grasp, he wished he could have hid his face in his hands, but the bandages did not allow for that. Instead he groaned and stared into the almost dead fire.
“What are you talking about?” said the Noble, gruffly, taking in the Angel’s irritation.
Jeanie glanced at the man she loved and then back, knowing that the ambiguity of what he was before he was Chosen was a touchy topic, one that was the hardest to believe because he himself could not. Jeanie spoke slowly, deliberately choosing her words. “What if before the Angel was Chosen he wasna human? That would mean that once Chosen he‘d be different, aye? Then that would have t‘be considered, wouldna it?”
“That’s preposterous!” shouted Fernando. “You’re stretching my ability to -” He halted in mid-sentence; the appearance of the Angel closing his eyes and minutely shaking his head in defeat caught him off guard.
Feeling Fernando’s glare, he turned to face Jeanie not masking his hurt. “How? How could you?” Tears burned in the corner of his eyes.
She placed her hand on his face so much alike to how the Ladies did that it made him gasp. “Because I love ye and I dinna want to see ye Destroyed. I dinna save ye from Violet” she gave a little shudder “just so that Fernando could hae ye put down.”
“What are you two talking about?” interrupted the Noble, his ire and curiosity piqued.
“Tell him,” implored Jeanie, green eyes glimmering. “If it’ll save ye, tell him. Please.”
He opened his mouth to protest. Anguish solidified in his chest and he lowered his gaze. He wanted to refuse, but so much had been revealed, what was it to reveal this?
Slowly, in hushed tones, he did something he had never done before, not even to Notus; he spoke the story of before he was Chosen. He spoke of his life with Auntie and how and why she had taken him in and kept him from all others. For the first time he told, in detail, what had happened to him in his sacred grove when he was but a child and how the white-faced demons first visited him. He detailed the changes he had succumbed to after the attack and visitation. Speaking of Geraint caught his voice, and remembering that it was himself that caused Auntie’s violent death brought long held back tears to glimmer in his eyes and track down his face. He talked about his lonely life in the cave and what the local villagers believed him to be, but it was his detailed description of how he became Chosen and that the demons had appeared to him at that time that brought a gasp from the Noble.
“Notus has never known,” he quietly concluded, unable to meet the incredulous looks on both mortal and Chosen, “about them - about me.” Shame heated his face and he stared at his bandaged hands. “To him I was - am - someone lost who needed to be cared for, protected, and out of guilt for his broken vow and what he believes it has done to me.” He took a deep shuddering breath and continued. “Notus - Paul - continued what Auntie had hoped Geraint should have done had he lived, and wove a web of mystery around me that spoke more to the truth than he knew so as to keep o
thers away from me, to stop the questing of my nature and isolate me in an effort to protect me. I accepted this for the same reasons that I accepted and was finally made to understand why Auntie kept me apart.
“I was nameless until after I was Chosen. Paul took the name Geraint’s daughter gave me and then discarded it, denying what it meant when he found out, probably out of fear and re-created it in the Angel instead centuries later.”
“And what name was that?” Fernando’s voice was barely audible for the awe it held.
“Gwyn,” he replied automatically. “It was believed I was Gwyn ap Nudd returned. The Lord of the Dead and the Otherworld. King of the Fay. Leader of the Wild Hunt. Reaper of men.”
Silence thundered through the room until the scrape of the chair indicated that Fernando had stood. The Noble walked to the door, and halted. “I’m making arrangements for us to return to London.” He spoke matter-of-factly without turning around and proceeded to turn the doorknob.
Caught in surprise by this declaration, he lifted his head to see the Noble standing there, ready to walk out. “Fernando,” he called, thinking quickly. “The Chosen need to know about the Vampires.”
“I know,” said Fernando, wearily without turning around.
“When - when we get back, call a council.”
Fernando nodded and walked out.
Returning his attention back to Jeanie, he saw tears shimmering on her face. A swelling of fatigue overtook him and he slumped. The fever that had broken when he awoke was back and he could feel every throbbing wound.
“You came back for me,” he stated.
“Aye,” nodded Jeanie. “Fernando and I brought ye out.”
“Why?” He believed he knew the answer, but he had to hear it from her lips.
Jeanie sighed. “Because I love ye and ye would hae done the same for me - had done the same. I couldna live with the ken that it was because of me that ye died.”
Tears pooled in his eyes and he stared at his wrists. Fearful but needing to know, he asked, “How bad, Jeanie?”
She shifted her position and placed her forehead against his, telling him what Brother Absolon had said about the loss of ability with his hands and what else he had done to repair some of the damage caused by the torture. When she was done, he had no doubt that to stand before other Chosen like this would be a death sentence and there was no hope he would ever completely heal from this.
Shaking with exhaustion and fever, and emotionally drained, he lay down on his left side and fell asleep to the sound of Jeanie singing an old Gallic lullaby while she stroked his head.
Fernando leaned heavily against his closed door and scrubbed his face in an attempt to alleviate the shock of the full disclosure. It was as he had hoped and feared. He now held the key to whether the Angel lived or died, but the revelations that came with it stunned him. The questions they brought paralysed him with childhood fears of pagan spirits riding out of the night, lights leading innocent and guilty a-like to their deaths, and demons and angels fighting over the souls of men.
Pushing off the door, he began to pace around the small room.
He had discovered more than any other living being about the Angel. What was worse was that the Angel had not asked him what he would do with the information. It was as if the Angel had resigned himself to be Destroyed. To witness the complete defeat of the Angel was not what he wanted, and nor was it truly expected. There was such vulnerability in the Angel. The torture had seen to the destruction of the Angel and what Fernando now saw of the man who was Chosen, yet not. This humbled him and bound him further to a partner that he had sought out. The cloak of the Angel was in tatters leaving the real person raw and bleeding underneath.
The room suddenly seemed too small to continue pacing and he dropped onto the bed. What was he to do with the information? Once back in London Bridget would instantly know that something was wrong and he knew he was incapable of warding off her probing now that he had agreed to open himself to her. His knowledge would put her in danger as well unless he chose to keep the secret and could convince Bridget of the same.
The quandary seemed suddenly lifted at the realization that the Angel most likely would insist on joining in at the council and to do so would invite his Destruction. Katherine would make sure of that. She had always seen the Angel as a threat to her position. To see him so damaged and weakened would thrill her to no end. The Angel would be killed and Notus would be forced to watch, and Fernando reluctantly admitted that he did not want such a fate to occur.
The visualization of such an outcome shook the Noble, as did the understanding that Katherine would most likely believe that he knew about the Angel’s differences and hid them from her. Her paranoia was well known and feared. Standing up, Fernando went to the door and left his room to start the necessary arrangements to get them back to London.
Not knowing what to do with the truth about the Angel clouded his mind and fogged his emotions, leaving him angry with himself for becoming so entranced with discovering the truth about the Angel. It had not turned out the way he had expected.
Chapter XLI
The breeze pulled at his hair, whipping it around his shoulders and face. Each time the strands slapped his back he stiffened. Standing on the wharf, supporting himself on his good leg in an effort to alleviate the burning aches, he carefully crossed his arms over his chest and winced. He could feel Jeanie’s warmth beside him and knew that she wanted to help him but an arm around his waist would most likely make him buckle.
It had been humiliating enough allowing her to help him dress, padding the waist of his trousers so that the fabric would not rub. He could hardly stand the touch of the light cotton shirt and refused the jacket and cloak. He did not care that he was dressed out of season and would draw attention. The slightest touch across his back was a slash of fiery pain reminiscent of the lashes of the metal tailed scourge, threatening another immobilizing spasm.
If dressing for travel had been torture enough, riding horseback was worse. Each sway, each pounding step, drove red-fogged pain through his mind. Several times they had to stop as another fit took hold. Brother Absolon and Father Theodore both had beseeched them to wait until he was better healed, but there was no choice. Too much time had passed and they needed to get back to London, especially with what Violet had revealed to him. He had been barely conscious when they rode their horses into Calais. It had been Fernando’s suggestion that they tie him to the horse that kept him from falling into the mud-strewn road.
The revelation that the Mistress of Le Jardin had been Jean's best friend at the Inn still rocked him. It also explained why she had always seemed so familiar. Whenever he had seen her, Violet had made him uncomfortable with her stares. It was hard to imagine that it was she who had smoothly manipulated Jeanie and him. Then another thought gripped him – Violet wished to possess him even from the first time he walked into The Rose and Thorn with Jeanie. He shuddered and tried to hold himself together.
The ship bobbed up and down; making his head spin and he closed his eyes. He did not want to contemplate the journey across the Channel. He had not told Fernando about that added difference and he doubted Jeanie had either. Between the gusts he could make out the Noble talking with the First Mate, finalizing the orders and expectations. It would not be long before he would hobble painfully up the gangplank. The thought sent him trembling.
“Are ye alright?” asked Jeanie. Worry tinged her voice and she came closer, holding his sword along her front. “Ye dinna hae t’do this now. We can wait ‘till ye recover some. Brother Absolon said ye shouldna’ be walking ‘round.”
He opened his eyes and frowned at her bruised face, realizing that none of them had come away without injury. The purple tinged green and yellow marked the healing that was already making promise of the return of Jeanie’s beauty, yet now there was a strength in her eyes he had not ever seen before, tempered with horrific experience and violence. He had never wanted to see that in the springtime o
f her eyes.
“Too much time has passed,” he whispered. “There is no choice.”
Jeanie nodded and returned to stand next to him on the pier.
Closing his eyes once more, he breathed deep the moist salt scent the breeze carried and halted in mid-intake. A presence crept up on him, several in fact. Waves of curiosity and fear predominated and he knew they were Chosen.
The French, having been informed about the Vampires in a letter Fernando had sent to Hugo, now watched from darkened abodes to witness the Angel and his entourage leave their soil. Another presence over powered the others, the loathing an emotional spear directed at the Angel, and the Angel knew it was Hugo. The power of the emotion nearly staggered him, but he managed to hold his ground and he knew, somehow, that there was a new Master of Paris and Hugo had gained it.
It was not a surprise that some new ability came with his wounding, something always seemed to be given in exchange for his suffering, most often it would distinguish him farther apart from others. There was no exception this time. The conscious awareness of it came slowly with Fernando’s presence. He had at first been able to sense Fernando’s position within St. Martin’s, and then when that awareness settled he became the unwilling observer of Fernando’s emotional state. It did not make sense and there seemed to be no way to block it. One thing was certain was that the Noble did not sense the same from him.
Irritation mixed with concern stepped towards him. It was Fernando - the Noble’s talks with the First Mate complete. Forcing a deep breath, he tried to push back the mixture of emotions from all directions and opened his eyes. The feelings still buzzed at the edge of his awareness. Fernando’s tired brown eyes seemed larger in the bronze colouring the sun had bequeathed him.
“Let’s go,” stated the Noble, gruffly turning away, yelling at one of the crew to be careful with their belongings.
Jeanie lightly touched his arm. “I’ll take care of ye.”