"Becket!" Alberre leaned closer as he shouted above the revelry. "Lady Rochelle risked her life for you."
Becket scoffed. "You are as much a fool as I, mon père." Unable to keep his gaze away from her, he glanced to where she stood alone among the celebrants, hands pressed against her mouth, tears streaming down her marvelous face. He fought every urge to go to her and pull her into his arms. He would hold her but not yet. Later. When darkness hid her incredible eyes that revealed she didn’t love him but only used him. Well, he would use her. He would pound out his rage within her tempting body.
His loins tightened. A sad ache for her swelled to painfulness within his breast, an ache he would take with him to his grave.
"Heed me, son." Alberre tugged on Becket’s arm, his mouth set in a scolding line. "Lady Rochelle forbade us to come. She planned to come alone to rescue you, then to come for us in Toulouse. We argued with her and tried to stop her, but she chose you over her own safety. Henri and his soldiers arrived to join us as we left. If anyone is to blame for Pierre being here, ‘tis I, for I insisted on joining Rochelle so that I could lead the way to the dungeon for your release."
"You merely attempt to placate me because of your misguided love for Rochelle."
"I am to blame!" Giselle snatched Pierre and Sire Spitz from Becket’s embrace, her cheeks tinged red from anger.
"I expect as much from you." Becket shrugged. "You are her mother. There is naught you can say or do--"
"Fool! In proof she did not betray you..." Giselle reached down the neckline of her bodice and pulled out--
"The brooch." Doubt escaped him on a whisper. "One of her few treasures."
Giselle shook the carved pin in front of his face in a silvery blur. "Rochelle demanded I sell this to use for food and shelter while Pierre and I waited in Toulouse, but I insisted on being here. Not having anyplace to leave Pierre, I brought him with us. Your stubborn pride blinds you to the truth."
Guilt slammed like a boulder into Becket’s righteous indignation. He had brutally wronged Rochelle. To add to his sins, he had compared her to his mother, then had further degraded her by insisting she serve him to slake his lust. Most cruel of all, he had played upon her worst fears by assuring her that any child of hers would bear Gaston’s evil. Desperate to make amends, Becket turned to beg her forgiveness.
Empty! The spot stood empty! A void larger than the universe--save for the damning emptiness within his soul.
Chapter Forty
"Curse me for loving him!" Tears dimming her vision, Rochelle stumbled as she scrambled up the hillside to her mare, reminded of when she had stumbled up the stairs at DuBois after refusing to swear fealty to Becket. If she had knelt at that moment, might he now trust her? Love her? If she had accepted his country loyalty, honored Prince Edward as her liege lord, insisted Giselle take Pierre to Toulouse...
Gaston’s daughter...descendent of evil...a truth she can never change for eternity.
A sob tore from her throat. The fiery war for the throne seemed insignificant in comparison to the burning regret that scorched her soul.
"Rochelle!" Becket’s distant shout echoed from the torch-dappled gorge.
"Oh dear God, help me!" Her fingers shook as she fumbled to loosen Falcon’s reins. She swiped the hot liquid from her eyes so as to better see the tangled leather. A glow burnished the horizon and she willed the sun to rise. No, she needed the darkness to aid her escape to the nunnery, and damn the irony.
"Rochelle!" Closer.
Heart pounding, Rochelle shoved her toe into the stirrup and mounted. Falcon sidestepped, anxious, as if absorbing her wretchedness and rebelling.
"Rochelle! Where are you?"
He’s just below the rim!
Desperate to reach the other side of the path before Becket saw her, she jerked on the reins. Falcon leapt into a gallop.
"Rochelle!" Topping the rise in front of her, Becket scanned the madness as if in a wild search for her, his magnificent body clothed only in breeches and blood, virility and power. A warrior.
Her heart lurched. Heaven help her, but she loved him. Enough to leave him. She forced Falcon to swerve a wide path.
"Rochelle!" Becket leapt, grabbing the reins. Falcon jerked to a skittish stop.
"Let me go!"
"Rochelle, forgive me!"
"For the truth?"
"The truth is that I love you. You love me."
He loved her! Her pulse surged with the confession she longed for more than her own life, as did cruel reality.
"The truth is that I am Gaston’s daughter. The truth is that I will not be with you and not have you as husband, and I will not bear your child." She yanked on the reins. Falcon reared! She flailed for her mare’s mane. A strong vise encircled her waist. She slid from Falcon’s back and against a wall of temptation.
"Release me!" She shoved away from the man she loved more than her own happiness. "I lose all my reason when you touch me."
"I lose mine when I cannot."
He spun her to face him, the heat from his hands bolting throughout her frigid body like a battering ram against her defenses.
"Truth is but a layered sphere of truths. The only one that matters is the one at the core. Our love."
"You must sire an heir! England will allow Pierre to inherit should they win, but France will not. Find a woman, any woman but me, for I am from Gaston. ‘Tis a brutal fact that will haunt me until the afterlife."
"You are from God! You are from Giselle. You are from DuBois. You are from my heart, for you are the only piece that fits into the jagged wound to make me whole again."
A cry slipped from her soul in betrayal. To hear such heart-wrenching declarations when the truth of her paternity made their union impossible seemed the deepest wound of all. Vile remembrance jerked her to Becket’s flayed skin. "Your wounds! I saw the horrid gashes on your back.” She reached out to him. “Where else did Gaston hurt you?" The reminder of who caused those injuries stayed her hand, hardened her determination.
Faint sounds of raucous celebration filtered from the castle, elation over the death of her father, surely one of the most evil men who ever lived. Her father. His evil within her veins. And she had killed him.
She caught at a sob. "We must find Giselle to tend to you. You surely are in horrendous pain." She took a step to go in search, telling herself that once Becket was occupied, she would slip away.
He grasped her wrist, halting her flight. "My injuries are negligible in contrast to the pain of surviving without you."
"Pay heed, Becket. Gaston can still reach from the grave to kill you. If your wounds fester, you might die."
"If you leave me, I will die."
Hurting with an anguish she’d not believed possible, Rochelle pressed trembling fingers over her mouth to imprison her cry of surrender.
"If I fail to convince you, ma femme, Gaston truly wins. Do you wish him as the victor of this travesty?" A shudder flowed through his body as if from regretful memories. "You wail that Gaston is your father, but at least you have Giselle for a mother. I am the spawn of Isabelle and Reynaurd, raised in spite, nursed on hatred. I am the one who refused to see beyond my own righteous indignation to the grandeur of your sacrifice."
"My sacrifice? When at DuBois during the chevauchée, even though I had spurned you, you fought to save me from being sentenced by Prince Edward. And again, when Gaston brought you in chains to DuBois, you risked immediate death by distracting Gaston long enough for Pierre and me to escape into the tunnels. At Moreau, you sought to protect me from Gaston and the Inquisition even though you believed I hated you. You loved in the purest form. You loved your enemy."
Moonlight glimmered in his unshed tears. "I discovered that my only true enemy is myself. For two decades I lacked the faith to believe God hadn’t rejected me, and yet He never gave up on me. Even though I had disclaimed Him, He still guided me to DuBois with--and I believe this in the very center of my being-- with a glorious life planned for me with
you. But set upon revenge, I refused to hear, refused to see, blinded to the beauteous offering by the ugliness within my soul, incapable of realizing a wonderment beyond my own imaginings."
To break his spell she lowered her gaze to his blood-streaked and far too tempting chest. A mistake. Clasping her fingers to keep from touching him, she forced her attention past him to the ground. She concentrated on a night-darkened clump of grass embracing a stone, as impossible a relationship as between her and Becket.
The noise of the festivities grew nearer as if some of the rejoicers climbed the path. Once they arrived on the rim, she would attempt to lose herself within the distraction and be away.
Becket released a shaky breath.
"Rochelle, God taught me that love is more important than buildings and land, revenge and power. ‘Tis not control but sacrifice. Not scorn but forgiveness. Not judgment but understanding. ‘Tis caring for the other’s welfare beyond your own."
He pressed his knuckles beneath her chin, urging her to look up at him, his fear and passion pleading from within his heart-wrenching gaze.
"J’ai t’aime, my precious gyrfalcon. I love you. Perhaps not as you deserve, but with all that is within me. You are the bright moon within the midnight of my life. Light my darkness."
"Mon Dieu, what should I do?" Rochelle closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the heavens in search of an answer. "When I think of what Giselle and Alberre have suffered, of what you have suffered, merely because my father in his greed and obsession for power, willed it. When I think of all those children who never had a chance to live..."
"Those children who died because of my mother. Naught we can do will bring them to life. Nor can we stop the two kings who betrayed us in their hunger for power." He glanced toward the East. "Look at the horizon. See the reddish glow? Smell the smoke?"
She followed his focus to what she had believed was the sunrise, breathing the acrid odor she had been too enmeshed in her agony to notice. "Oc."
"War still ravages the land and only The Almighty knows which king will be the victor. More atrocities will occur, more famines, more plagues."
He gazed down at her, and the stone wall she struggled to hastily rebuild around her heart crumbled into non-existence as her warrior fought her resistance with the weapon of persuasion.
"But I would go through the trials with you, my love, side-by-side, each supporting and guiding the other, making the unbearable, bearable. We cannot save the world, but together we can make a difference. That is how we make restitution for all the unrightable wrongs perpetrated by our forbears--to so live that we leave the world a better place than if we had not been born."
Her knight. Her noble warrior. Her savior. As the merriment flowed to the rise, taunting her of the chance of escape, she couldn’t help but absorb Becket’s excitement, his purpose as he turned again toward the glow, sweeping his hand to indicate the land.
"We will send messengers throughout this region inviting any who will to come to DuBois. We will give them food, shelter, hope. Most important, we will build churches where true men of God will offer them food for their souls. Also, if you agree, I’ve decided to make Moreau available as a monastery. ‘Tis the only way the bowels of that hell hole will be cleansed."
"Becket, I didn’t think ‘twas possible, but I love you even more."
His pain-filled look of hope met hers. "Enough to bear our child?"
She turned her back to him, hating her birth that would forever separate them.
"Rochelle, I know I do not deserve you, but I warn you, both heaven and earth will disintegrate before I will ever let you go."
She shook her head in determination as she squeezed her eyes shut to dam her falling tears so at odds with the exuberance of the people who now joined them on the rim searching the wagons as comments about food and blankets wafted from their direction. Her heart cramped. The distraction that she awaited. The escape that she hated. "I do not have the discipline to be with you and not--"
"If you insist, I’ll wear protection."
"You need an heir!"
"I need you."
His despair tore her asunder. He took her hand and pulled her to a quieter spot away from the singing and well-deserved mirth, the opposite of the direction she should be going, and yet, how could she not linger a moment more? Eternity was far too long a span to not be with him, touch him.
"Rochelle, I need you as urgently as I need my next breath. I have fought in many wars, but I swear--winning you is the most significant battle of my life."
He forced her to face him but his magnificence blurred within her tears. "Becket, I will not risk another Gaston."
"Then risk another you, although another such greatness is impossible. To prove I love you..." Trembling with soul-wrenching gravity he...
He knelt!
As she stared in shock, the rose-hued dawn burst free from the distant flames, glowing upon his blood-streaked flesh, radiating like a halo from the sin-black hair of his bowed head as he placed his warrior-scarred hands between hers.
"Lady Rochelle, I become thy man of such a tenement to be holden of thee to bear to thee faith of life and member and earthly worship against all men who live and can die..."
He pledged fealty to her! Sacre Dieu. He pledged... Ignoring all rational arguments, she dropped to her knees to join her heart, the bombazine of her gown billowing around the two of them as if to make them one.
"’Tis I, knight, who pledge my fealty to you."
"I will worship you always, my precious gyrfalcon. And I hide no more secrets from you. My soul is bared to you, now and forevermore." He cupped his shaking hands around her grateful face, sunrise-tinted tears glimmering like melted opals in his eyes. "My love for you is like a burning fire within me that will never cool. I will treasure you as long as I draw breath on this unforgiving earth, and beyond."
"Ah, mon mari. May our babe have your courage, your compassion, your strength of character."
His breath caught, then as if fearful she would change her mind, he melded his mouth with hers, hot, desperate, possessive, until all she could hear was the beat of their hearts, as one. His breath caressed her wet lips, followed by his tongue, his glorious, glorious tongue. Although she ached to hold him, she placed her hands behind his head so as not to cause further pain to this back that surely needed tending. He released a shaky sigh and pressed his forehead against hers.
"The falcon has trained the knight, my love, for you draw me to you on a tether of love and make me trill with pleasure."
Becket stood, pulling her into an embrace that quickened her pulse and heated her frozen body she once feared would never thaw.
Becket lifted his face toward heaven, eyes closed. "Merci, Mon Dieu. Merci. God, you have gifted me with blessings far beyond my deserving. Allow me to serve you. Use me to help bring wholeness to broken lives."
Becket prayed!
He glanced down at her, and the desire in his eyes near brought her again to her knees. “Speaking of bringing wholeness to broken lives, Rochelle. About our babe…”
“Your wounds, Sire Becket!” Lady Giselle’s verbalized concern drifted closer with each leaf-crunched sound. “Let me tend your wounds ere they fester. I’ve brought ointments and herbs from DuBois.”
“Finally, I can claim you as my son again!” Panting as with the strain of the uphill climb from Moreau, Sire Alberre hurried up to them, a joy in his step that matched the leap in Becket’s heart in almost unbelievable comprehension that his father still lived.
“We’re a family! We’re a family!” Becket nearly stumbled as Pierre threw himself against him and Rochelle. Sire Spitz leapt from Pierre’s shoulder to atop Becket’s head.
“Sacre Dieu! That blasted cat!” Becket’s laughter rolled out across the gorge. He wrapped one arm around Pierre and pulled him close. “You speak true, sprite. We’re a family!” The shouted ‘family’ echoed across the chasm in reverberating elation.
Pierre whirled from Bec
ket’s hold, jumping up and down on the piles of crunchy dried leaves in excited abandonment.
With his freed hand, Becket plucked Sire Spitz from his head and pressed him against his bare chest, rubbing his cheek against the fur as he lowered his face to Rochelle’s. Becket brushed his lips across hers, branding her as forever his. Nuzzling her ear, his hot breath wafted a molten trail into the core of her being as he crooned the ballad the troubadour sang the night she and Becket first surrendered to their passion.
“I’m so hungry for your love.
O, you’re whiter than any ivory statue . . . “
Becket’s hand skimmed his other hand up beneath the weight of her tresses, then teased the downy hairs at her nape, and she melted against him in surrender, knowing that no matter what life brought them, no matter which king won the crown, she assured herself of one constant - she would love him always.
“. . . to come where you undress alone
So that I can wait at your bidding
beside the bed, along the edge,
Where I can pull off your close-fitting shoes
Down on my knees, my head bent down:
If only you’ll offer me your…” He nudged her foot with his toe.
“Let’s go home, love. Let’s go home, to DuBois.”
<
Bibliography
* 20,000 Years of Fashion, The History of Costume and Personal Adornment, François Boucher
* A Complete Guide to English Costume Design and History: Costume 1066-1966, John Peacock
* A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous 14th Century, Barbara W. Tuchman, Page 106, 132, 139
* A Medieval Book of Seasons, Marie Collins & Virginia Davis, Page 81
* A Medieval Home Companion, Housekeeping in the Fourteenth Century, Translated and Edited by Tania Bayard
* A World Lit Only By Fire, William Manchester
* Atlas of Medieval Europe, Donald Matthew
* Castle, David MacCaulay
Love Thine Enemy Page 44