‘It was not my cousin I wished to see, Mademoiselle Riccardi. It was yourself.’
‘She is recovered from the fever, but will need rest for many weeks,’ Marietta said, unable to think of any other reason for his wishing to see her but concern for his relative’s health.
‘And so is not receiving visitors?’
‘She is quite able to do so when awake,’ Marietta said, pausing in front of him, wondering why he did not step aside and let her pass. His perfume was overpowering, sweet and cloying.
‘But there is no one visiting at the moment?’ His voice had a silky edge to it that was not at all pleasant.
‘No.’ She stepped forward resolutely, intent on making him give way for her. He moved his satin and silk-clad body further into the centre of the stairs.
‘You seem in a hurry, Mademoiselle Riccardi. Perhaps I may accompany you a little way?’
‘I’m quite used to riding unaccompanied.’ She wanted to be away from him. She disliked his manner, his perfume, his smile, his eyes.
His gloved hand caressed the orb of the banister, the sunlight shining full on the giant-sized diamond, making it sparkle with a thousand fires. Marietta stared at it hypnotically. She had only ever seen one diamond of that size before, and that had been on the hand of the man who had visited her grandmother. The man who had then sought her out and had her burned. The man Léon had seen in the inn yard at Evray. The man who was now seeking her. The man sent by La Montespan to silence the Riccardis.
Slowly she raised her eyes from his ring to his face. Her fear was complete.
‘No!’ she cried, trying to push past him. He seized her arm, pinioning her hand behind her back.
‘Your screams will only distress my kinswoman and serve you no good purpose,’ he said viciously as he struggled to hold her.
‘No!’ She kicked vainly, twisting, biting. The smooth leather of a thong slipped over her wrists, jerked tight so that she cried out in pain.
‘I think you will ride accompanied, Mademoiselle Riccardi,’ he mocked as he forced her, still struggling, out into the courtyard. ‘It will be a long ride, and your last.’
Marietta’s cry for help died in her throat. There was only Elise and the housekeeper and the servants. Elise was too weak to rise from her bed, even if she heard her screams and there was nothing the servants could do. The wheel had turned full circle. She would die as fate had intended, on the pyre on Valais Hill. But not submissively. Never that.
She kicked out savagely and the powdered face flinched, the lines of dissipation and cruelty deepening. It was the face of a man no older than twenty-seven or twenty-eight, yet it was a face ages old. The hideous face of death.
‘Cause me trouble and it will not only be yourself that dies, but the Lion of Languedoc also. He has harboured and protected you, knowing you for a witch: against that charge even he will be defenceless.’
As would Jeannette and Céleste, for once the de Villeneuve name had been tainted with witchcraft there would be no end to the persecution. She had wanted nothing but Léon’s safety, and to gain it she would have to pay the highest price possible—that of going to her death in unprotesting docility.
She sat her mare, her back straight, her head held high.
‘To Evray?’ she asked impassively as a goose-girl hurried her flock out of their path.
‘I think that would be—most suitable,’ he said, as if talking of an ell of cloth and not the place of her death.
She wondered if he was fulfilling his mission for La Montespan for favours in her bed or for money. Most probably for money. She knew instinctively that her own body held no fascination for him, and was grateful for the fact. That sort of humiliation at least she would be spared. Maurice’s lovers would be those of his own kind, if a man such as he was capable of love.
She wondered how he had endured charming Céleste. That must have been hardship indeed for him. And all to find out about herself! Poor Céleste, to be such a bad judge of character that she could not see beyond the slightest veneer. Lucky Céleste, for at least she was alive and would continue to be so for years and years, bearing children. Perhaps even children with the name of de Malbré.
She would not think of Léon, or of his feelings when he received Henri’s message and found her gone. Of what his suffering would be. He would recover. He would marry Elise and she would be nothing but a memory to him. Marietta closed her eyes against the pain. She had determined not to think of him, but it was impossible. He filled her mind and her heart and she would go into eternity with his name on her lips. The knowledge of his love for her would give her the courage to endure the flames without crying out for mercy.
The road they were now riding she had not ridden since first approaching Chatonnay with Léon. Maurice had long since cut her bonds, sensing her capitulation. The sky was tinged with the first hint of dusk. It had been dusk when she had sat her horse so disconsolately, facing Trélier’s inhospitable walls. Dusk when Léon had spurred Saracen back, saying ungraciously, ‘ You will be safer at Chatonnay than in Trélier’. They rested only long enough for a change of horses, and the next morning entered Toulouse, passing the inn where she had fled from Léon, cantering past the alleyway where he had caught her and kissed her.
The hours passed. Days merged into nights. There was another change of horse and yet another daybreak.
Surely that was the stream where they had sat and he had given her bread and cheese? She had not eaten for so long that she could no longer judge distances or for how long they had been travelling. Ahead of them the road was lined with plane trees, reminiscent of the drive leading to the château, and also of somewhere else. Marietta felt dizzy and sick. They had ridden down such a road, she and Léon, the morning after they had outwitted the inquisitor. It had been hot and the trees had given welcome shade, as they did now.
Her heart somersaulted and her breath caught in her throat. Ahead of them were more trees, a sea of trees. And above them, piercing the skyline, Valais Hill.
All too soon they were deep in the forest and their track became familiar, and then, before she scarce had time to gather her wits, the trees thinned and Evray was before them. And people, running barefoot and excited, were shouting.
‘The witch!’ ‘The nobleman has captured the witch!’ ‘The Riccardi wench is returned!’
They ran from every direction, clamouring around the pair on horseback as if in anticipation of a feast day.
‘The witch is back!’ ‘There’ll be a burning after all!’ ‘ Go for the innkeeper!’ ‘Go for the Inquisitor!’ ‘Marietta Riccardi is returned to die!’
‘And you let her go?’ Léon’s fury made even the Duke flinch.
‘There was nothing I could do to stop her.’
‘The Devil take you,’ Léon said savagely, wheeling Saracen around and heading furiously back to the road.
Henri spurred his horse after him, calling out: ‘Where are you going?’
‘After her, of course, you fool! To Venice!’
‘She may still be at Lancerre,’ Henri shouted helpfully. ‘She had Elise’s dress with her.’
Never had the road to Lancerre been travelled so fast. Henri’s horse, given full rein for the first time in years, skidded to a halt in Elise’s courtyard, his nostrils flaring.
‘I haven’t seen anything,’ the housekeeper was saying, clutching at the corners of her apron. ‘Madame’s cousin came from Montpellier, and now even he has gone, and without so much as a goodbye.’
Léon pounded up the stairs, wrenching open the door of Elise’s room so that Elise screamed, drawing the bedclothes up around her throat. ‘What is it? What has happened?’
The lace for the wedding gown lay across the bed.
‘When did Marietta bring the gown?’ Léon demanded harshly.
‘I don’t know, I was asleep. Oh, what has happened? Why are you looking like that?’
‘Because Marietta has gone!’
Behind him Henri’s voice calle
d: ‘Léon! Léon!’ with such a note of urgency that Elise felt she would die of fright.
He ran into the room, the nonchalant, elegant Duke de Malbré; ran in like a village boy, clutching Léon’s arm, saying, ‘Cécile is here to see the housekeeper. She’s full of the talk in Montpellier.’ He paused for breath and Léon nearly shook him.
‘What talk?’
‘That Madame Sainte-Beuve’s wedding guest is the man hunting down the She-Devil.’ Léon’s face whitened. ‘Céleste met him earlier today. Cécile saw them together.’
‘Earlier? What time?’
‘Before Marietta left Chatonnay with the gown. Before he arrived here and made his presence known to the housekeeper.’
Their eyes held while Elise clutched at her pillows, crying hysterically, ‘What has happened? What’s the matter? Why is Léon so angry? Henri! Henri! Please tell me.’
He turned from Léon to comfort Elise and she clutched at him pathetically, sliding one arm up and around his neck, oblivious of the presence of her betrothed.
‘Henri! I’m frightened! What is it? I’m so frightened! Please don’t let Léon frighten me any longer. Don’t leave me alone with him. I don’t want ever to be alone with him again!’
‘I promise you, Elise, I will never leave your side after today.’
‘Never?’ She clung to him.
‘Never.’
Léon had no interest in them whatsoever. He was already running back down the stairs. As he did so Raphael entered, brushing the dust of the road off his sleeves. One look at his friend’s face was enough to make him lose all his composure.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Marietta is being hunted as a witch,’ Léon said tersely, ‘She came here with a gift for Elise, and now both of them have gone.’
‘Both of them? I don’t understand …’ Raphael was already swinging himself back up into the saddle, determined to be included in any excitement.
‘The witch-hunter is your rival for Céleste’s affections. Elise’s cousin by marriage.’
Henri ran into the courtyard.
‘Where the devil would he take her?’ he asked. ‘Montpellier? Toulouse?’
‘No.’ Léon sat his horse, curbing his impatience for action. He must think. Not Montpellier or Toulouse. No town where he, the Lion of Languedoc, would hear of it. Paris? No, for Marietta would voice her accusations against La Montespan. Then where? Where in God’s name would he take her? Where would he have her tried and burned as a witch without causing any further speculation?
‘Did you see anyone leave Madame Sainte-Beuve?’ Henri was asking the dark-eyed goose-girl. Thin shoulders shrugged beneath a tattered dress.
‘Only the lady who nursed Madame, and a nobleman like yourself. No one else. No one who shouldn’t have been here.’
‘Which way did they go?’ Henri asked, motioning Léon to stay silent. One word from him and he would terrify the child out of her wits, and they would get no information whatsoever. The girl pointed obligingly and Léon and Henri rode off at full tilt. It was only Raphael who hesitated and asked, ‘Did you overhear anything? What were they saying?’
He proffered a gold piece. The dark eyes shone greedily as she held her hand out for it. ‘The lady asked if they were going to Evray.’
Raphael tossed her the coin, galloping after the receding figures of his father and Léon.
‘Evray!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Marietta was asking if they were going to a place called Evray.’
Léon felt a leap of certainty within him. Evray! What a fool he’d been not to think of it himself.
‘What about fresh horses, provisions?’ the Duke asked.
‘We’ll buy fresh horses as we need them and we’ll eat in the saddle. And we’ll summon every able-bodied man between here and Toulouse to ride with us.’
‘By the Mass, but this beats courting,’ Raphael said, wiping his sweat-streaked face as he rode at Léon’s side.
Léon did not reply. He had no breath for idle speech. He had thought by now to have overtaken the dandified Maurice with his protesting prisoner, but there had been no sign of them. It seemed as if they were riding as hard to Evray as they themselves were. And the minute they arrived the wood would be gathered for Marietta’s funeral pyre—if it had not been done so already.
He whipped his horse the harder, desperate for a sight of Marietta’s red-gold hair, but the road ahead was persistently empty and his fear increased minute by minute.
‘More ale!’ was the general cry as Marietta was dragged from her mare and nearly submerged by the jostling, hustling villagers.
The leather thong around her wrists tightened cruelly as Maurice pulled her after him, the gloating peasants making way for him as he strode towards the grassy track that led up the hill.
‘What about the trial? The Inquisitor waits for her.’
‘Then he’ll have to wait,’ Maurice answered grimly. He had no time for trials. The sooner his mission was accomplished and he was back on the road to Paris, the better. ‘Is the fire ready?’
‘Has been these last few weeks. No rain, neither, so should be a grand blaze!’
Twice Marietta fell to the ground, only to be hauled painfully to her feet.
‘What about the witch’s mark?’ the innkeeper shouted hopefully.
‘No time,’ was the rejoinder from his friends, and the innkeeper swallowed his disappointment and tried to forge a way to the front of the crowd, to be amongst those able to lay rough hands on Marietta as she was tugged and pulled higher and higher up the hill. She had reason to thank Maurice for his callous treatment of her on the journey: her long lack of food and water had rendered her almost senseless. The grinning faces around her seemed to swim and merge; the voices a cacophony of noise she could make no sense of.
The stake had been driven deep in the ground, the brushwood piled high around it. Her legs and feet were scratched and bleeding as, aided by willing hands, Maurice hauled her high on to the wood, slipping the free end of the thong around the stake. The sea of faces parted for a moment as the Inquisitor strode towards her, his black robes flapping in the evening breeze like a giant bird of prey. The sun was sinking fast, sucked down over the horizon in a blood-red haze.
‘The witch’s mark!’ ‘The witch’s mark!’ Leering faces taunted as torches were quickly lit and passed from hand to hand to enable everyone to see the spectacle. Maurice shook his head tersely at the Inquisitor.
‘There’s no time for anything but the burning.’
The Inquisitor asked no questions. He knew from whom Maurice had been sent, or thought he did, for the forged letter of authority La Montespan had given him bore the seal of the King himself.
‘What are you waiting for, fool? Set light to it,’ Maurice shouted above the clamour, the nape of his neck prickling with that sixth sense that so rarely let him down. It did not now, but it had come too late. From above the noise of roistering peasants came another, far more terrible noise. The thundering sound of scores of hoofbeats.
The ground beneath them shook and the bewildered populace turned from Marietta, casting frightened eyes towards their village. They were too far into France to be raided by the Dutch or Spanish. What army was descending on them in such fury? The women screamed as the riders broke from the forest, pouring through the deserted streets of Evray, galloping up the hill, swords in hands, daggers held high.
Maurice took one look and grabbed the nearest torch, thrusting it deep into the wood. There was a crackle and a surge of flames. The crowd surrounding Marietta turned to flee from the oncoming avengers, and as the smoke from the base of the pyre rose around her Marietta could see Léon mowing down all who stood in his path, his face hardly recognisable as he laid about him with his sword, urging his horse through the seething mass of scattering humanity as he strived to reach her in time. She was coughing now, choking as the smoke thickened and the first flames flared deep in the heart of the brushwood, licking nearer and nearer to her b
are feet and legs.
Maurice unsheathed his sword, cursing his lack of forethought in not bringing his horse up the hill with him. He lunged at Léon as Léon’s horse broke free from the last of the villagers. Léon’s terrified eyes were on Marietta, on the flames scorching her tattered gown, searing her feet.
The blow struck home, slicing deeply down Léon’s arm, but he was scarcely aware of it. As Maurice regathered his strength for a more fatal thrust, Léon leapt from his horse, scrambling up the now flaming wood, heedless of the burns to his hands as he struggled to set Marietta free. His knife sliced through the leather thong and with maniacal strength he hurled her free of the flames, rolling her on to the bare ground as Raphael kept Maurice at bay.
The Duke had suppressed his disappointment at finding the Inquisitor unarmed, and made do with terrifying that gentleman to within a inch of his life, whilst the men who had ridden with them hounded the villagers down the hill.
One minute Léon’s weight was on top of Marietta, rolling her over and over, his hands beating at the sparks in her hair and at the tongues of flame engulfing her gown; and then he was gone, flinging Raphael aside and crossing swords with Maurice.
They circled the blazing pyre, cutting and thrusting, Léon’s injured arm hampering him, the blood running freely. Raphael leapt forward as Léon lost his footing and Maurice’s sword flashed downwards, but he was not needed. With a kick of his boot Léon sent his adversary tumbling backwards, Maurice’s high-heeled boots skidding on the grass, his arms flailing wide in a vain attempt to regain his balance as he fell backwards into the heart of the flames.
Léon and Raphael rushed forward, grappling with his boots as they struggled to reach him and pull him free. The blazing heat drove them backwards and Marietta hid her face in her hands, unable to watch as the hungry fire devoured her enemy.
‘Come, sweet love. It’s time to go home.’
Tenderly he drew her to her feet, wincing with pain as he did so.
‘Your hands,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve burned your hands.’
‘And will a few more scars make such a difference to your love for me?’ he asked, dark eyes gleaming.
Lion of Languedoc Page 18