'Christ, no!' Tours shivered. He had been ordered to be curious about nothing, to do nothing, to wait. His men were tight about the small moat. Above him the clouds were silvered by the thin moon.
'We wait, Captain.' He wondered who the girl was. If he rose high enough in the hierarchy of power, he thought, then perhaps he too could afford a girl like that.
They waited.
—«»—«»—«»—
Christopher Skavadale threw the gun down. 'I'm putting my own clothes on.'
Toby nodded. He was staring at his uncle. He did not look round as Skavadale left the great chamber.
He turned only when Skavadale had gone. He walked past the wounded, bleeding Marchenoir and climbed the steps to his sister. 'Is it true?'
'Is what true?'
'You and Gitan?'
She looked into his eyes. She did not know what he was thinking. She nodded. 'Yes.'
Toby frowned. He was suddenly the sixth Earl of Lazen, the head of the family, and in his voice was astonishment. 'You're his lover?'
She put defiance into her voice. 'I'm going to marry him.'
Toby said nothing for a few seconds. His face was grim. 'Marry Gitan?'
'I'm going to marry him.' She said it stubbornly. 'I don't care what the world thinks. I'm going to marry him.'
'Do you know what you're doing?'
'Yes.'
'You do? You've thought about it?'
'Damn thought!' She was angry suddenly. 'I love him!'
He seemed to sigh. He shook his head. 'You don't know what you're doing, sister, truly you don't.'
'Tell me.' She said it sharply.
'You're marrying a man of no birth.' He saw her stiffen and ignored it. 'Of no name, apart from a name given him by an eccentric Lord. A man of no fortune and no standing.' He paused. 'Isn't that so?'
She shrugged. 'I don't care.'
He put his hands on her shoulders and she shook them off. He went on in the same tone of voice. 'You're marrying the strongest man I know, who doesn't stoop to malice or cheapness. Other men judge themselves by him and find themselves wanting.' He smiled into her upturned face which slowly dawned with the realization that he had teased her. 'You're also marrying the best damned horseman in the world so I won't have to pay for his advice. And you're marrying the luckiest bastard that ever lived.' He kissed her on the nose. 'That's what you're doing. And why are you crying? You know I can't stand women who cry.'
'I'm not crying.' She hugged him.
He laughed at her. 'He even asked my permission. I thought it was most polite.'
'When?'
'After he first saw you.'
'He did?' She smiled. 'What did you say?'
'That if he was mad enough to want you, he was welcome to you.'
She laughed. Happiness seethed in her like the mountain pool beneath the waterfall, then she thought of the happiness that had been denied to her brother. 'And what will you do, Toby?'
He shrugged. 'I think I want Paunceley's job.'
'You do?'
'I shall come and visit the two of you and you can envy me.' He smiled at her. 'Or I you, whatever.' He let go of her, walked to the table, and picked from the wooden box the largest of Marchenoir's knives. He stared at it, then gave her a smile. 'But before all that, I have one more thing to do, just one.' He turned the blade so that it flashed in the candlelight. 'Perhaps you'd better join Gitan?'
She nodded. She looked at Marchenoir. He was her half-uncle, his bitterness sprung from the same mad root as Achilles' envy. She was suddenly glad that Gitan was so sensible, so strong. If the world would not accept him as her husband, then that was the world's loss.
She walked down the passage. She heard her brother say the name Lucille and she flinched as a scream echoed in the marble hall and was abruptly cut short. It was done.
—«»—«»—«»—
They left through the tunnel when midnight was past. The soldiers who guarded the gatehouse recognized Skavadale as one of the privileged friends of Bertrand Marchenoir. They knew better than to ask who his companions were.
Toby led them westward, away from the hills, going to where he had horses hidden for their escape. They rode towards the sea and the ship that would take them home. They stopped as the dawn blazed from the mountains and they turned to look behind them. The seals of Lazen hung in the sunlight, glorious and safe, and Campion, thinking of the tall, golden woman of the Nymph portrait, thought how the fortune of Lazen had been founded by love and now preserved by it.
The bright sun was shadowing the cleft in the mountain where the soldiers still guarded the shrine of the dead, the shrine of the last Duc d'Auxigny. Campion frowned. 'Why did he do it?'
'Mad,' Toby said.
'It was his duty,' Skavadale said.
'His duty?' she asked.
'He believed.'
'He was mad!' Toby said.
'So he was a mad believer. A fanatic'
Campion stared into the dawn. Like a glint of gold she could see the streak of the waterfall high in the mountains. 'Poor Uncle Achilles.' She looked at the tall, light-eyed man who was her lover. 'He must have been so disappointed in me.'
'Your footmen do slouch. It's quite true.'
She laughed. She would go with Christopher Skavadale to Lazen, she would marry, and they would breed a horse that was faster than the north wind. She held out her hand, Skavadale took it, and she leaned over to kiss him and to feel his arm about her.
She felt his skin on her skin. She was an aristocrat with the blood of kings, and he was a man. He loved her, and she knew it, and she remembered how she had felt when the Fallen Ones came forward in the shrine, and she knew that her life's dreams were safe in this man's hands as his were in hers. 'I love you.'
He laughed softly. 'You see? It does exist, it really does.'
The Earl of Lazen coughed. 'Are you two finished?'
She made a face at her brother, then turned her horse. She went to that place where all the roads begin. She rode, hand in her lover's hand, for love.
About the Author
Bernard Cornwell was born in London, raised in Essex and now mostly lives in the USA. He is the author of the Sharpe series; the Arthurian series, the Warlord Chronicles; the Starbuck Chronicles, on the American Civil War; Stonehenge; Gallows Thief; and the Grail Quest series. Susannah Kells is a pseudonym, now revealed to be Judy Cornwell.
A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels Page 40