Striding up to du Guesclin, careful to keep a nonchalant spring out of his step, Tristen bowed, then stood to attention.
du Guesclin’s lips were working over each other in a constant chewing motion, as if he didn’t know which pejorative to deliver first.
Suddenly, Tristen couldn’t help it. The ballads of battle were too loud in his ears. Failing to let the huge beaming grin break out, he quipped, “You did order me to stop fucking castle skanks, my Lord.”
Who chuffed loudly, then looked to the sky. His fingers were tapping his hilt in frustration. The Guard were also pointedly looking elsewhere. Not a one appeared happy to be here. du Guesclin settled for a long, slow, narrowed look at his protege.
Who sighed. “I will pink him.”
“Thank you.”
The Guard sighed as well. A few grins broke out. One even reached out to slap Tristen on the back, only to stop at the furious gaze of the Commander on him.
The nobles, who had been watching largely in dignified silence, broke into subdued mutters. A number were half-turning and looking to their rear, at the Boulevard du Palais entrance to the Hall. Others followed their gaze. In the distance, at this far end of the Hall – the opposite entrance he had chosen – the crowd was parting. “Make way for the Honorable, the Brave, the Courageous Duke de Berry!” a cry was heard. Probably the Duke’s seneschal or some paid minstrel.
Tristen waited. As did the Commander at his side, his fingers tapping out some rhythm on his hilt that only he understood. Tristen wished he would relax and have some fun with this. He certainly was.
Eventually, the crowd parted enough to reveal the Duke wearing a gorgeous purple hose over dark blue breeches and knee boots, his rapier hung from a holster of dark brown leather. The hose might have been dark, even imperial in note, but it did little to hide the man’s growing paunch. Tristen made a note of how that paunch would likely over-balance him in lunges, but kept an expression of careful respect on his face. None of the Duke’s attendants were carrying leathers for him to don, to protect his chest. Tristen shrugged. Either way was fine.
The Duchess, also in imperial purple, was flushed, excited. Her eyes were wide circles of exhilaration, her lips scarlet smears on her teeth pulled back in giggling glee. In fact, looking at her now, noticing her cheeks painted with scarlet blobs under her white ringlets spilling down to her neck, the dark purple of her gown clearly not her color, he suddenly realized that soft pink was, indeed, her color and wondered what he had ever seen in her. He heard the witch chuckle and, irritated, shook his head clear of the noise.
The Duke’s seneschal, clad in a purple gown of a softer hue, stiff with pride, moved forward. Beyond him, the Duke was flushed as well. The Commander stepped a pace or two away, denoting a neutral stance. How much more formal this duel was, Tristen mused, as he noted that the Duke was having problems breathing regularly. His chest was puffing out, then deflating in jerks.
His man was speaking. “I, Lucien, Steward of Chateau de Berry and Seneschal to the Honorable Robert, Duke de Berry, do present my master’s defiance and demand for justice on this hallowed ground.”
The Commander raised an eyebrow, then stifling a grin, turned to Tristen.
Who was having trouble not floating into the air. His fingers were flexing. His knees were tensing, his abs tautening, his shoulders loosening. Saint Denis, even his toes were wriggling! He settled for a quick nod, while taking another deep, slow breath.
The Commander nodded in return and, growling, intoned, “The challenger has given troth merely to wound in this duel as a symbol of honor satisfied.”
Tristen – they all – could hear the Duke’s loud sigh as the seneschal nodded with a flourish to his temple at the Commander.
Only to hear the Duchess’ shrill cry, “To the death! For the honor of Chateau de Berry!”
The Hall went silent.
Tristen was too busy humming his favorite snatches from the Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, at least what he could remember of them, to pay attention. Like William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings, he just wanted to get on with it. Abruptly, he realized that as the Duchess started to repeat her cry, for the third time now, the seneschal was speaking to the Commander. du Guesclin raised his eyebrow at Tristen again. He nodded and started to back a few steps to slip out of his leathers and into an en garde.
Looking down, he felt the Commander’s iron grip on his arm. du Guesclin was quietly ordering him, “Make it last, lad. He’s a Duke and worth forty knight’s fees to the King yearly.”
Tristen twisted his head around on his neck to loosen it up, tossing his leather armor to a sweet-looking lady-in-waiting with large teats, wearing a soft peach blossom gown. From the look of her appreciation at being singled out, he decided that she wouldn’t be wearing that gown much longer. Glancing at his opponent as he raised his rapier’s point toward the Duke, he saw with amusement that the jerky breathing had returned. It suddenly dawned on him that something about the man’s chest was odd as he awkwardly settled into an en garde, his rapier held before him. The chest looked a bit stiff for hose. He couldn’t be wearing leathers under that hose, could he?
Oh, well. The Commander was already raising his own sword between them. He barked out something that sounded vaguely like “Commence!” And Tristen was moving. A quick lunge that tore a nice long rip in that beautifully imperial hose, right along the Duke’s left shoulder, heart-height. Then, two quick leaps at him, terrifying the man, Tristen could see, as the Duke scrambled backward out of the way. Someone, a man-at-arms? Moved him to his right, helping him negotiate the floor better. That was good, Tristen thought. Use the space. Make it your friend. Make way for those falling grains of sand. Otherwise, the Commander will serve my nuts to me, broiled, on a plate.
Deciding that a bit of swashbuckling might well be in order to hasten the turning of the glass, Tristen slowed his following lunges down, exaggerating his starting foot’s leap into the air, watching the Duke maintain the distance between them. Then, Tristen darted a quick leap to the side, whirling his blade above him in wide circles to end in a classic pose he had seen once in a Muslim mosaic in Aix: his left foot in front, exposing his heart, his left hand with the pointing finger out in front of him straight at his opponent, the point of his rapier only just above it for his sword was pulled back above his head with the hilt, indeed, hovering over his right shoulder, way in the rear. The peach blossom breasts practically swooned with delight. As did the Duchess, Tristen saw out of the corner of his eyes.
So was the Duke, happy to see such an easy opening at last. A bit of nervy spittle clinging to the edge of his lips, he jumped at Tristen, his point eagerly reaching out for the heart.
Which wasn’t there. For Tristen had moved, a slight twist of the hips to his right followed by a swift slash to the Duke’s hip. And there, through the hanging fabric, for all to see was the Duke’s leather armor. A muttering began in the crowd. It was one thing for a mountebank such as Sebastien to cheat. He was a Burgundian, after all, wasn’t he? But the Duke de Berry?
The noble’s cheeks went white with rage at the realization that he was undone, unmasked. Furious now – or was it the desperation of the damned as the Commander liked to say – he came at Tristen. Darting, weaving, lunging, slashing, cutting. Tristen was only too happy to let him. It ate up more of those falling grains of sand. He parried and parried and parried. Circular, diagonal, box-trapping (but letting go at the last instant) parries as he moved, swerved, spun, reeled on and on and on.
He was waiting. He realized that now. For what he wasn’t sure.
The Duke was tiring. He was panting. His belly proving his undoing, having to be carried around as useless, sluggish weight in such an elegantly fluid dance of death.
Finally, spinning once more, Tristen saw what he had been waiting for. du Guesclin gave a nod. A quiet one. A small one. So infinitesimally minute Tristen doubted anyone, even the Guard standing next to the Commander, noticed it.
; But it was enough.
Stepping through one more twirling parry, Tristen reached up and nicked the Duke in the throat. He kept going, striding two steps, then one more to avoid the fountaining blood, splashing out around the noble as he fell to his knees, his rapier falling with a clang to the tiled floor, his hands grasping, clinging uselessly at his neck.
Turning slowly around to face the Duke, Tristen was amused to see the leading nobles of the land averting their eyes from the death of one of their own, while their wives eagerly craned their necks to capture with their eyes every spurt, every jet of the Duke’s life energy pouring out around him on the floor.
“Sir Tristen,” the Commander was addressing him. “Do you find satisfaction of honor in this encounter?”
Beyond du Guesclin’s shoulder, he could see the Duchess staring at him with a lust so nakedly staining her features, that Tristen found the sight, surprisingly, sickening. He turned and ignoring even the peach blossom teats, walked out of the Hall.
* 7 *
Tempeste lay back on the bed. Aluin was snuggling against her belly, a new feeling for her. His face – his whole body – radiated a gentle pink now. His muscular biceps crossed his chest above those gorgeous abs, the brawny sinews of his hips and thighs glowing beneath them. All, ludicrously, the hue of a sweet dahlia or pink rose. Even his pubic hair was a slightly darker shade of pink. He was smiling up at the ceiling, watching a flock of robins that he was making fly in a tight circle over their heads, their red breasts heaving with exertion as they flew on and on. His powers were clearly growing. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about the fact that they were lying in Tristen’s bed after one of their hours-long fuck sessions. She wasn’t sure how she felt about him gently touching her cheeks every time he came inside her now.
It made her feel...odd.
Just as, finally, relenting about the absurdity of his pinhead on top of such a muscular physique, she had helped him refashion a new, larger one. It suited him better, this new Aluin. Though she never explained about Thomas Aquinas and proportion when it came to beauty. Why, she could not say.
The whole affair was becoming more and more of something akin to eating too much blancmange, a cream sweet that she adored. Wonderful at first, then not quite right at seconds, then awful much later.
In any case, his experiments in hues were becoming a bit too much, so one day she simply asked him to retain the golden locks look for his hair. Delighted, he had immediately agreed. Henceforth, his hair was long, flowing, golden locks that seemed to draw her touch again and again. Slowly running her fingers through them, making her sigh with..she was not sure what. Warmth? An inner glow? Contentment?
Whatever.
Just yesterday she had found herself forgetting to brew some bishop’s lace tea, which she drank most afternoons to avoid getting pregnant – a technique she had learned from the writings of the classical Greek Hippocrates.
Whatever (again).
Clearly, something was up with her mind. What, she did not know. Suddenly irritated at the way he was thoughtlessly using the robins, she growled, “You’re exhausting them. You should let them go free.”
With scarcely a mutter, Aluin set them loose. They tumbled about mid-air for a moment, then, feeling the light breeze from the open window, frantically scattered for it before their world turned upside down again. Realizing that Aluin’s powers had grown to the point where he no longer needed to utter a spell aloud to help him focus his mind only made her more uneasy. Turning from him, she snapped, “Having control over another living thing means taking responsibility for its safety, you know.”
She had twirled down to the stables on the first floor of the Tower before it dawned on her that she used to hate it when Enchanteur used to carp that wisdom at her. Saint Genevieve! She was becoming her master!
Suddenly frustrated beyond her ability to control, she picked up a calf with her mind and prepared to smack it into the wall. Tristen’s eyes flashing in front of her own made her pause long enough to hear the startled, alarmed bellowing of the calf. She gently set it back on all fours, then wandered over to the calf to stroke its flanks until it settled down to eating again. Then, for penance, she did something she hadn’t done in years. She milked its mother by hand.
It was fun, in a way. She got out her old stool and bucket, set them down under the mother’s side. Aluin had clearly milked the cow that morning, as was his job. But a little puffiness in the sac showed that more was there to be had, now that it was late afternoon. She bent her head under the ponderous tan belly of the Jersey cow and, her hands on a pair of its teats, began squeezing and pulling down. After a few squeezes, sure enough, a jet of milk pissed out of the teat to hit the bottom of the bucket with a satisfying thwack. Tempeste grinned. To think that she used to hate doing this every morning!
After several long pulls, filling the bucket, she set about walking around the stables, checking the animals. What she was looking for, she could not say. She wasn’t certain that she was looking for anything. Maybe it was that they felt comforting. The goose honked, surrounded by its squawking goslings. The chickens were busily scratching the dirt for seed that Aluin had laid out that morning. Probably using Alajistu, the moving spell, she thought, darkly. Then wondered why. Maybe it was that he was coming along so much sooner than she had. She couldn’t put her finger on it. It was too confusing. So, she went over to the cat and its kittens, pulling them into her lap and scratching them each behind the ears and on the belly, listening to each’s distinctive purr. One, a little gray tabby, was nursing a paw and kept licking it. Tempeste looked more closely and saw a thorn deeply embedded between the pawpads. Using Alajistu herself, she very slowly, very carefully pried out the thorn while holding the kitten, who was mewling the more loudly, the more the thorn came out. Finally, Tempeste yanked with her mind, a quick jerk, flinging the thorn across the stable. The kitten resumed purring while licking the wound and settled into her lap, already deciding on a nap.
Her heart was moved to tears. Or, at least, her eyes were. She hadn’t experienced such a feeling of...what?...gratitude?...since she was a little girl. Back in the days on the dirt farm in Brittany when she went by her given name, Jeanne. The days before she had so happily, even proudly, attended her father to the Great Market at Rennes only to find herself sold by him to cover his gambling debts. The customer who bought her? Enchanteur. Her life had changed forever.
In the early days of using the cauldron, she had asked Enchanteur to show her the farm at which she had grown up. Only to learn that – instead of the tear-stained mother, pining away for her lost Jeanne – she saw a mother who had moved on. Who had forgotten her only daughter. After a while, Jeanne had stopped looking, not wanting to. Not even thinking about her family, anymore. Instead, she had focused on Palais de la Cité, at Enchanteur’s suggestion. And she had never gone back.
She heard a thumping on the stairs and sighed. The boy wanted attention again. Saint Genevieve! He was as needy as...this kitten who, seeming to understand that she was about to move, was settling in deeper than ever, his purring growing to a louder buzzing, almost like twenty bees swirling around back in the days that she used to simply sit in the garden and wonder, as Enchanteur had ordered her to – or was it asked – contemplating the significance of the world with all its beauty, all its ugliness combined in one.
After she had made Tristen rape his childhood friend, reaching through the portal and nudging his mind – taking his confused erotic excitement and attraction to that bitch Phoebe, turning it into something wicked, something cruel – because she was so angry, so intimidated, so afraid of the sweet girl’s blonde freshness that made her feel like a scathing, ugly hag, an open wound – to destroy all that pure innocence, much like crushing a newly-opened flower in her fist – Tempeste had had to sit in the garden for hours. No, even days. Weeks. It was the first time that she had been truly ashamed of herself. Of her misuse – of her a
buse – of her power. She swore that she would never do that again. She often wondered what she would do, should she see Tristen fucking some girl again someday. But then, she never had, for she had never seen Tristen after that. He had fled her awareness, never to return.
And now the boy was sleeping with her, fucking her, in Tristen’s bed. Every night. With that gorgeously perfect specimen of male flesh, like an Olympian god of classical Greece or Rome. With those flowing locks that touched her deeply within whenever she caressed them. Whenever his voice caressed her.
This had to stop.
Right?
She heard another thump.
Fine!
She set the tabby down, ignoring its protesting mewling, let it rub against her ankles for a moment then twirled up to Tristen’s – the top, she corrected herself – room. And gasped.
Chateau of Passion Page 7