Lion of Languedoc

by Margaret Pemberton

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

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  Contents

  Margaret Pemberton

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Margaret Pemberton

  Lion of Languedoc

  Margaret Pemberton is the bestselling author of over thirty novels in many different genres, some of which are contemporary in setting and some historical.

  She has served as Chairman of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and has three times served as a committee member of the Crime Writers’ Association. Born in Bradford, she is married to a Londoner, has five children and two dogs and lives in Whitstable, Kent. Apart from writing, her passions are tango, travel, English history and the English countryside.

  Chapter One

  ‘The witch! The witch!’ The demented cries rang in Marietta Riccardi’s ears as she fled sobbing and stumbling down the dark hillside towards the thick cover of the forest. Behind her, livid tongues of flame scorched the night sky and there was nowhere to run to. Nowhere to hide. ‘Blessed Jesu,’ she gasped, thorns and briars tearing at her outstretched hands as she ran blindly between the first of the trees. ‘Help me! Oh merciful heaven! Help me!’

  Léon de Villeneuve looked at the innkeeper with distaste. ‘ I’ve no desire for a burning. Give me another tankard of ale and I’ll be on my way.’

  The innkeeper shrugged. The stranger had the appearance of a chevalier. His doublet and breeches were of fine material and the short velvet cloak hanging jauntily from one shoulder exposed a fine sword. His bucket-top boots were of soft yellow leather trimmed with muddied lace and there was a further profusion of lace at his neck and cuffs. None of it detracted from his air of martial swagger. He was clearly not a man to trifle with, and the innkeeper had no intention of doing so. He had gold in his purse and the more he spent in his inn the better. There were no other customers. Every last man was on Valais Hill to see the burning of old Mother Riccardi. There was the granddaughter too. He smiled gloatingly. It would be good to hear that little hussy begging for mercy.

  ‘What did the old hag do?’ the stranger asked mockingly, cutting in on his thoughts. ‘Blight the crops or turn a cow dry?’

  ‘She cursed the Duvals’ baby so that it sickened and died, and she had a familiar and she flew by night,’ he added as his audience remained unimpressed.

  Léon laughed. ‘Did her familiar have cloven hooves and a horn?’

  ‘You may jest,’ he said defiantly. ‘ Pierre Vallin saw Beelzebub himself sitting on the thatch of her cottage. Black as night he was, and with a tail a yard long.’

  ‘She confessed, did she?’ Léon asked, wondering if his horse would be sufficiently rested for him to continue his journey.

  ‘Screamed it from the rooftops,’ the innkeeper said with satisfaction. ‘Leastways she would have done but old Beelzebub looks after his own. She was dead before the inquisitor had finished with her.’

  ‘How inconvenient.’

  ‘It was hardly worth the burning of her,’ the innkeeper agreed disappointedly. ‘I shan’t miss the next, though. I’d give a good few francs to see what that one looks like without her shift on!’

  Léon pushed his empty tankard away from him in disgust. The innkeeper, loth to lose his audience, no matter how disinterested, said, ‘They’ll be bringing her down for trial within the hour—have another ale. There’ll be more entertainment in Evray tonight than you’ll get for thirty leagues around!’

  ‘My pleasure lies in different directions,’ Léon said drily, striding towards the door and the inn yard.

  ‘Arrogant young bull,’ the innkeeper said beneath his breath. ‘He’ll have no trouble keeping his bed warm with his strong body and black curls.’

  Mindful of the gaunt shrew of a wife who was his only solace, he reached bad-temperedly for his mug of ale. There had been no chance for him to join in the fun tonight. His wife had seen to that. ‘There may be a passing traveller,’ she had said, tight-lipped and hard-eyed. ‘ If there is we need his custom. No sense turning away sols for the sake of the Riccardis.’ So, while the rest of his companions whooped it up on Valais Hill, he remained at his post. That his wife had been proved right did nothing to sweeten his temper.

  Defiantly he thrust his mug to one side. They would have to look for the witches’ mark on Marietta Riccardi and he wasn’t going to miss that pleasure for anyone. On the inside of the thigh was the usual place. His throat tightened at the thought. The trial would be held at the magistrate’s house and if he wanted a front seat he would have to hurry.

  Léon was already in the saddle when there came the sound of clattering hooves and raised voices. A man little older than Léon, with a cloak of velvet and a gleam of steel at his side, galloped into the yard, his horse wheeling angrily as he shouted, ‘The witch has escaped! We need fresh horses! Men!’

  In the moonlight Léon saw the fevered eyes, the cruel tightening of sensuous lips. It seemed it wasn’t only the rabble of Evray who were eager for a burning; the diamond on the gloved hand was the size of a nut. He felt a wave of revulsion. He had killed many men in his time fighting for Louis, but he had never killed a woman. Or indulged in the soldiers’ sport of rape. Women fell easily enough without being taken in front of dying husbands and crying children.

  The innkeeper rushed to his stables, frantically summoning help in saddling every available horse he had. As he did so a dark-robed figure rode into the mêlée, surrounded by a seething mass of hysterical villagers.

  ‘Get more men!’ he commanded icily. ‘Get torches! By God and all the holy angels, I’ll have that strumpet before dawn!’

  Léon laughed at the bitter frustration on the finely drawn features. ‘It looks as if you’ve been cheated of your night’s entertainment,’ he shouted across the sea of frenzied faces to the innkeeper. ‘ Perhaps the Devil does look after his own!’ and he dug in his spurs, forcing the Inquisitor’s horse to one side as he galloped out of the yard and towards the road leading south.

  The night sky was black, the moon masked by heavy cloud. Behind him he could hear the cries of the witch-hunters like a pack of baying wolves, the surrounding fields already alive with flickering torches as every man, woman and child joined in the hunt.

  He didn’t fancy the old hag’s chances. The most she could hope for was to die of fear or exhaustion before they captured her. The snake-like eyes of the Inquisitor had chilled even his hardened bones. The fire on top of the hill still glowed and he averted his gaze. He was as good a Catholic as the next man, but these rabid inquisitions turned his stomach. They were a fever that his village of Chatonnay had never suffered from and the sooner he was back there, the better.

  For six years he had been in the service of his King. His gallantry on the battlefield had soon brought him to Louis’ notice and to court, and it hadn’t been long before it was widely rumoured that de Villeneuve’s prowess in the field of war was only equalled by his prowess in the art of love. Many husbands had cause to wish the dark-eyed, gipsy-faced Léon de Villeneuve back fight
ing the King’s enemies and at the wrong end of a fatal sword-thrust. They were unlucky. Instead he became a regular member of the King’s entourage, and the only wound he received at war was a rapier thrust on his hard lean body that only served to make him even more dashing in the eyes of the ladies who were fortunate enough to find their way into his bed.

  There had been more than one masculine sigh of relief when Léon de Villeneuve had announced his intentions of returning to his home at Chatonnay. Even the ravishing Francine Beauvoir had been unable to tempt him to stay. Married to one of Louis’ ministers, she had more airs and graces than Queen Marie-Theresa herself, but to Léon she was as much a whore as the willing women in the brothels of Spain. He grinned to himself in the darkness. There would be no more whoring when he had married Elise.

  Old anger swept over him afresh. She had been seventeen when he had left Chatonnay, her hair the colour of summer corn, violet-blue eyes set in the innocent face of an angel, and old Caylus had heartlessly married her to a man old enough to be her grandfather. All Léon’s pleading had been in vain. The Villeneuves might own half the land around Chatonnay, but it was poor land and the family were impoverished. Léon was not a suitable husband for the daughter of a man who was cousin to a Duc.

  Léon’s mouth tightened at the thought of what Elise must have suffered in her marriage to the elderly, debauched mayor of Lancerre. Now she was a widow and he had ridden night and day since hearing the news, intent only on reaching her side in the fastest time possible.

  The road wound deeper into the trees, so rutted and pitted that he had to slow his horse to a cautious walk. He ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch, cursing as the rough bark caught at his hair. Then he froze, reining in his horse. There was another sound in the thick blackness, the harsh gasping of an animal in pain. It came again, a pitiful moan quickly stifled.

  ‘God’s grace,’ he whispered beneath his breath. ‘ The witch.…’

  There was the crackling of twigs and the rustle of leaves and then silence. His horse snorted impatiently, stamping the ground. He stroked its neck soothingly, waiting for another movement. None came. In the stillness the wind carried the faint cries of the witch-hunters and the ground throbbed with the distant galloping of hooves. Another five minutes and the forest would be alive with men and torches, and the terrified old woman hiding only yards away from him would be at their mercy. He swung lightly from his saddle and immediately there was a muffled sob.

  ‘Don’t run,’ he called, stepping from the track into the thick undergrowth, his eyes straining to see in the darkness.

  Marietta pushed herself away from the tree-trunk, her heart feeling as if it would burst within her as she plunged wildly away from him. There was no escape now. She had only minutes left. The horse whinnied and Marietta clutched at a last frail straw of hope. She veered sharply, running headlong back towards the track, heedless of the leaves that whipped across her face and the tangle of roots that threatened to trip her at every step. His horse! If she could only reach his horse!

  ‘Don’t run!’ Léon shouted exasperatedly. ‘Mother of God, I’m trying to help you!’

  She could see the dark outline of the waiting animal, see the bridle gleaming in the darkness, feel its warm breath on her cheek. Desperately her hand reached up, and at the same moment her shoulders were seized viciously and she was dragged to the ground.

  ‘No you don’t, you old beldame!’ Léon gasped, gripping her wrists and pulling her arms behind her back as she lay writhing face down on the leaves. He placed his knee hard into the centre of her back. No wonder the villagers thought her a witch! Any hag who could run so far and so fast was worthy of the name.

  The sound of hoofbeats was nearer now, the flicker of torchlight like fireflies in the distance. Momentarily distracted, his hold weakened. Marietta twisted on to her back, her freed hands clawing at his eyes. He rolled his full weight on top of her, grasping her wrists so hard that she cried out in pain, dragging them high above her head. Pinioned and unable to move, Marietta saw thick black hair tumbling over straight brows and dark eyes. He stared at her incredulously.

  ‘Hell’s light …’ he whispered, feeling the firm breasts beneath his chest and the long legs trapped between his own. ‘A wench.…’

  There were sudden voices and the clatter of hooves and when Léon leapt to his feet, scooping her up in his arms, Marietta did not protest. Instinct told her that her prayers had been answered. He swung into the saddle, dragging her up behind him, and with her arms tight around his waist set off at full gallop down the tortuous track.

  Marietta clung on, the pounding of blood in her ears merging with that of the following horsemen so that it seemed to her they could be only inches behind. The track swung to the left, growing narrower and shelving steeply, and still the horse kept its pace. Léon glanced behind him. The flickering torches had disappeared, all that could be heard was the relentless pounding of hoofbeats.

  He listened hard, every nerve straining. There were two horses, perhaps three, certainly no more. He spurred his own beast to fresh efforts. That meant that the searchers were concentrating on the area of forest she could have reached by foot—after all, they had no reason to think he would aid a fleeing witch. He remembered his conversation with the innkeeper and felt less sure. He had made his opinion of the Evray witch-hunters only too clear, and if the innkeeper had the wit to transfer his knowledge to the gimlet-eyed Inquisitor, then more horsemen would be following and there would be little chance of either of them leaving the forest alive.

  There was a cry of fright from behind him. ‘They’re coming! You won’t let them take me? Won’t let them burn me?’

  ‘They’ll not have that pleasure,’ Léon said grimly, glancing behind him and seeing two horsemen, their cloaks billowing in the wind as their horses swept round the last of the bends and came on at a gallop, manes flying, glistening necks outstretched.

  ‘Blessed Jesu!’ she whispered, her arms tightening around his waist. ‘Faster! Faster!’

  Léon cursed. There was no way he could outride them. His horse had already ridden many miles that day and had only had a short rest: theirs were fresh. The track sloped down suddenly and there was the glitter of running water. Léon crouched low in the saddle, steadying the animal’s head, checking the wild gallop as the horse gathered itself at the stream’s edge and leaped the wide swirl of water. He gained a few minutes’ time as the horses behind him slithered to a rasping halt at the stream’s bank, veering and snorting in dismay. Angrily their riders wheeled them round, heading for the stream again and taking it with a heave of quarters and a scramble of hooves.

  Léon felt his horse lose pace and the thudding behind grew and swelled, bursting around them as a reedy voice shouted: ‘There she is! Hold fast, sir!’

  Léon smiled grimly to himself. The voice wasn’t that of a fighting man. A horse gleaming with sweat began to draw abreast and a gloved hand grabbed wildly at Marietta, trying to drag her to the ground.

  She screamed, her arms feeling as if they would leave their sockets as she clung on with every ounce of strength she had. The animals were level now and the gloved hand, failing to unseat her, snatched at Léon’s reins. Léon struck down with such force that he nearly severed the offending hand from its owner’s arm.

  There was a cry of pain and then the second rider tried to head Léon off from the other side. Out of the corner of his eyes Léon saw a powerfully built man lean across, tearing Marietta from her hold. As Léon felt the clutching hands weaken he had no choice but to rein in, bringing his horse to a slithering halt.

  ‘The wench is a witch!’ the owner of the gloved hand shouted to him, as his burly companion succeeded in dragging a shrieking Marietta across his own horse. The nervous edge to his voice indicated that he would be only too pleased if Léon would profess his innocence of this knowledge and continue on his way without more ado. Léon wheeled around in time to see Marietta’s captor wind a calloused hand into her mane of cur
ls, half yanking them from the roots, the other reaching high under the torn gown.

  With difficulty Léon restrained himself, facing his lesser adversary first.

  ‘The Devil she is!’ he said in feigned surprise, riding up to him.

  The thin shoulders visibly relaxed. ‘Aye, so we’ll trouble you no more, sir.’

  Léon grinned at him in agreement and with the full force of his knotted fist punched him hard in the belly. There was a look of shocked surprise as the man rasped for breath, toppling sideways, his feet caught in the stirrups.

  With an oath the other lunged at him from the rear, a muscled arm encircling his throat, pulling tight against his windpipe. Half choking, Léon hit backwards with his elbow, the blow glancing off a stomach that seemed made of iron. Struggling vainly for the hilt of his sword, he could feel his eyes bulging, his tongue protruding between his teeth, and then Marietta hurtled from the horse and sank her teeth deep into the assailant’s thigh.

  With a bellow of pain the grip around his throat eased and Léon’s hands shot up and back, circling the bull-like neck and dragging the man from his stirrups and over his head with a massive heave. As he thudded to the ground Léon leapt towards him, his hand reaching for his sword.

  He was seconds too late. His opponent rolled swiftly over, scrambling to his feet, charging into Léon like a crazed bull, head low and fists swinging, before Léon had unsheathed his sword.

  Marietta saw a clenched fist slam hard into Léon’s chest and heard his grunt of pain as he hit back. Then they were locked together, lurching and swaying, the horses whinnying excitedly, one bridle held by a gloved hand as its owner backed away nervously from the fight. She saw Léon’s hand grope urgently for his sword, saw the other’s foot kick hard, unbalancing him so that they rolled and struggled in the dirt like two animals. Léon’s face was drenched in sweat, blood pouring from an ugly cut above his eye as she stood watching helplessly, her mouth dry with fear. Then, with a sob, she saw the hands groping for Léon’s throat, giant muscles bulging and straining as they sought for a hold. The fingers moved, closing tightly, squeezing…