by Mary Daheim
Gazing past the soldiers, whose dicing and drinking was in no way disturbed by the newcomers’ arrival, Sorcha saw two somberly garbed men who would have been more at home in Uncle Donald’s entry hall than on a battlefield outside Paris. “They look like Protestant divines to me,” Sorcha declared as three young soldiers called out a bold, lascivious invitation. Napier glared at them, but Sorcha merely made an unmistakable gesture of disdain. “Boors,” she muttered, then waited for Napier’s reply.
“You forget, King Henri has acquired a great number of Huguenot advisers to placate those who criticized him for being under the Jesuits’ thumbs. Come,” he said, urging his horse to circumvent a cask-laden cart, “I’ll wager fifty crowns those devout divines can tell us where the King is quartered.”
“But will they?” queried Rob, still unconvinced that they would ever reach their destination.
Napier’s answer, if any, was drowned out by the cacophony of men hauling a huge contraption up to the lowest part of the wall. A fire-throwing machine, Sorcha guessed, and wondered what it must be like to live under the constant threat of invasion.
Threading their way among the now-dense gathering of soldiers, the trio drew up in front of the blue tent. Napier addressed the two men in courteous French, aware that they regarded him with grave suspicion. Sorcha discerned from their terse, yet polite, response that neither was willing to offer much helpful information. She and Rob exchanged desolate glances, but Napier wasn’t giving up so easily.
Indeed, the ministers’ reluctance only fortified his own determination. At last, he got down from his mount and took three swift strides to where Sorcha and Rob waited. “I think King Henri is in that tent,” Napier said, purposely making his Scots accent thicker than usual. “Otherwise, they would not be so evasive.” He shielded his face with his hand. “Sorcha, could you faint?”
For just an instant, Sorcha stared at him in puzzlement. Between the searing sun and lack of food and drink, it occurred to Sorcha that she could almost accommodate Napier without chicanery. Napier had turned back to the ministers and was making a little bow. He was thanking them graciously when Sorcha caught Rob’s eye and tumbled as carefully as possible from the saddle. Alertly, Rob reached out to stop her fall though he almost twisted an ankle in his stirrup. Napier cried out in alarm, then rushed to Sorcha’s inert form which rested half against Rob and half on the dusty ground.
“My Lord!” Napier exclaimed, ignoring the tongue which Sorcha stuck out at him. “My sweet bride has fainted. For the sake of the babe in her womb, give us shelter!”
The divines seemed to freeze in place, but Napier had already scooped Sorcha up in his arms, while Rob brushed dirt from his laymen’s riding garb. Only the bull-like surge of Napier making for the tent’s entrance could have dislodged the clergymen. Even as they protested volubly, Napier parted them from each other and charged into the tent.
Though the canopy protected the tent’s inhabitants from the direct rays of the sun, the atmosphere inside was fetid and oppressive. There was a mingling of other smells, too, of rose water and wine and roasted meat. Sorcha peered through the masses of heavy hair that concealed her face; her entire body gave a jerk in Napier’s arms.
A small, thin man with a large nose and vacant eyes was seated in an elaborately carved red-cushioned armchair on a makeshift dais. His lack of substance made him seem young, though the lines in his pale face gave a more accurate count of his years. His startled reaction to the interlopers was reminiscent of King Jamie, yet more languorous and exaggerated. Fleetingly, Sorcha recalled an Italian conjurer she had once seen in the High Street of Edinburgh. If this was King Henri of France, he had inherited more Medici than Valois blood.
Sorcha’s impression took only seconds; it was the two people flanking King Henri who startled her. To the king’s left stood a nun, her entire body enveloped in the white and black habit of the Dominicans; even her face was hidden by the squarish black coif. Yet Sorcha knew at once who the woman was and had to suppress a startled exclamation.
But Rob’s self-control wasn’t as rigid as Sorcha’s. An astonished oath escaped his lips as he recognized Brother Jacques standing to the right of the King. While the others in attendance gaped at Napier, Sorcha, and Rob with stunned curiosity, only the triumvirate of King, monk, and nun seemed real.
King Henri was looking vaguely at no one and yet at everyone. “Who intrudes?” he inquired in high, fluting tones. “By Saint Louis, are we to have no rest before our supper?”
As Rob moved toward Brother Jacques, the young monk wheeled around and cried out in a hoarse, terrifying voice, “You’ll have eternal rest now, wicked King of Demons!” The long blade flashed from under Brother Jacques’s robes. He fell across the king’s seated form so swiftly that not one of the French attendants could intervene. It was Rob who hauled Brother Jacques away, the white robes splattered with blood, the knife still dripping in his hand.
Napier dropped Sorcha, somehow managing not to let her get bruised. She landed on her side, scrambling among the booted feet for a clear view of the mayhem that was unfolding not more than two yards away. Rob, now joined by Napier and two effete Frenchmen, was grappling with Brother Jacques. The other royal attendants, perhaps a half dozen in all, were clustered around the King, whose piercing moans seemed to make the sides of the tent inhale and exhale with a death gasp of their own.
To her rear, Sorcha sensed rather than felt other people pushing into the tent. The two divines and a clutch of soldiers joined in subduing Brother Jacques. The tent had become so crowded, so tumultuous, that Sorcha feared being trampled. She was making a mighty effort to get to her feet when she espied the black-and-white nun’s habit flying past her. Sorcha reached out with one hand, lunging for the ankles. In a flurry of skirts and veils, the other woman crashed to the floor, her face almost level with Sorcha’s. The coif was askew, and somehow a smear of blood had stained the white wimple under her chin. Fumbling at the heavy garments, Sorcha tried to get a firm grasp on her adversary. “Athene,” Sorcha rasped, “you are as guilty as Brother Jacques! You will not escape!”
But Athene had already rolled away from Sorcha, pulling herself to her feet by gripping a silken cord that dangled from the top of the tent. Her feet kicked out, striking Sorcha in the temple. Momentarily stunned, she didn’t see Gavin Napier looming over her, his fists clenched. “Gavin!” Sorcha cried, as she shook away the sudden daze, “it’s Athene!”
Despite the uproar that still raged within the tent, Napier’s breathing was quite audible to Sorcha. She was now on her knees, her gaze traveling swiftly from Napier to Athene, who still clutched the silken rope in her hands. Though Napier’s voice was a low, harsh rumble, it seemed to ring out over the wounded King’s cries and his courtiers’ lamentations.
“Oh, no,” intoned Napier, the words making Sorcha’s head spin, “this is not Athene! This is Marie-Louise, my faithless bride!”
Napier all but stumbled over Sorcha’s kneeling form to reach out to the woman whose azure eyes blazed contempt and fury. “Pig!” shrieked Marie-Louise, who, with the added height of the coif, stood almost as tall as Napier. “Touch me and your whore dies!”
Sorcha's gaze was drawn to a foreshortened hackbut that had been hidden in the folds of Marie-Louise’s habit. Napier didn’t back off, but Sorcha knew instinctively that he would go no further. Then there was a ripping sound and a rush of air as the tent collapsed upon them. Napier was pushed to the ground under the weight of at least two soldiers who fell on top of him, but he managed to shield Sorcha with his body. In less than a minute Sorcha, Napier, and Rob had extricated themselves from the copious hangings of the tent and stood staring into a sea of incredulous, grizzled faces. Waving aside the soldier’s gruff questions, Napier pushed his way through, with Sorcha and Rob trailing behind. But even as they reached the outer edge of the circle, there was no sign of Marie-Louise. She had vanished, as if by magic.
The students who usually milled about the walls o
f Saint-Germain-des-Prés had begun to scatter as soon as word of the attempt on the King’s life filtered through the precincts of the University of Paris. Even as Sorcha, Napier, and Rob galloped within the shadow of the abbey’s ancient walls, the usually bustling faubourg was all but deserted. The adjacent Merovingian abbey had already stood for two centuries before the founding of the university over three hundred years earlier. Generation after generation of young scholars had disported and disputed on the Prés aux Clercs outside the Porte de Bussy gate into the city.
The August sun had finally disappeared behind the steep towers of the abbey walls when the trio reined up in the abbey courtyard. It took almost a quarter of an hour to locate Rosmairi and Armand d’Ailly in the common room, drinking sparkling Vouvray and sitting side by side on a settee in front of an empty fireplace. It appeared that they were the only two people in the vicinity of Paris who had not heard about Brother Jacques and the King. It also appeared that they were too immersed in themselves to care much about either monk or monarch.
“A pity,” Rosmairi murmured without much interest, the golden lashes dipping against her cheeks as she let d’Ailly take her hand. “Why must men hate when they could love instead?” She cast a demure sidelong glance at d’Ailly, who beamed his approbation.
“Because hate is sometimes easier than love,” Napier snapped, and made both Rosmairi and d’Ailly jump. “Particularly when it’s fueled by a wicked woman.”
D’Ailly, however, wasn’t put off by Napier’s bitterness. He squared his shoulders and assumed an air of dignity. To Napier, he offered the merest inclination of his head; it was Rob whom he formally addressed. “Since I am unable to speak with Mistress Fraser’s parents, I must ask you to favor me in their stead. I wish very much to marry your sister. She has,” he continued, again smiling fondly down at Rosmairi, “done me the greatest of honors by consenting to be my wife.”
Sorcha didn’t know whether to burst into tears of frustration or shake both Rosmairi and d’Ailly until their teeth rattled. How dare fate be so monstrously cruel? This was to have been the day that she and Gavin Napier announced their love to all the world. Instead, it was her sister and d’Ailly whose eyes shone with the ecstasy of mutual adoration. As for Sorcha, her whole life had been ripped into shreds inside King Henri’s encampment. Henri might die; no doubt so would Brother Jacques. But when Gavin Napier learned that the wife he thought to be dead still lived, something inside Sorcha had died, too.
It wasn’t fair to let her own misfortune ruin her sister’s happiness. Still, Sorcha was unable to greet Rosmairi’s betrothal with enthusiasm. “You scarcely know each other,” she blurted, interrupting Rob’s studied response of qualified approval.
“Our hearts have known each other forever,” d’Ailly replied with a little shrug. “Nothing else matters.”
“You’ve reflected on your vocation, I assume,” Rob said in sober tones.
Rosmairi’s pink cheeks flushed more deeply. “I reflected upon it for a year, as you know well. I don’t believe I’m intended for the cloistered life.” She darted Rob a defiant look, then turned to d’Ailly. “Fear not, we will bide our time until we’re home in Scotland and have the blessing of my parents.”
Both Sorcha and Rob expelled audible sighs of relief. “That’s wise,” Sorcha asserted; then, noting the resentment in Rosmairi’s eyes and the hurt on d’Ailly’s face, she rushed to embrace her sister. “Oh, God’s teeth, Ros, I didn’t mean to offend either of you! It just seems so … so sudden!” Sorcha felt Rosmairi tremble slightly in her arms. “I like Armand,” Sorcha whispered into her sister’s ear. “At least what I know of him.”
Rosmairi hugged Sorcha in return; then the two young women broke apart, though Sorcha’s hands remained on Rosmairi’s shoulders. “I certainly like him better than George Gordon,” she said aloud and was joined in laughter by Rob. D’Ailly, however, looked mystified, and Sorcha realized that Napier wasn’t looking at any of them. He had moved off to the end of the huge open fireplace, leaning against the intricately carved mantelpiece, glowering down at the worn hearthstone. It was Rob, rather than Sorcha, who went to him.
“This has been a momentous day in more ways than one,” Rob began tentatively. “Shall we pour wine all around and drink a toast to the happy couple?”
If Sorcha had been devastated by the events of the past hour, Gavin Napier had been all but destroyed. The hunter’s eyes shot past Rob to Rosmairi and d’Ailly, boring in on the Frenchman with an intensity that surprised Sorcha. “Who are you?” Napier demanded, leaning across Rob to speak directly to the young Sieur.
D’Ailly seemed affronted. He had regained Rosmairi’s hand but let it go to take a step nearer to Napier. “You know who I am. My full name is Armand de Gréve, Sieur d’Ailly. I inherited the title through my late father, Gaston de Gréve.”
Napier’s dark brows drew together; the sudden silence was broken by a burly monk who did his best to ignore the obvious tension while he lighted a dozen wall sconces with a flaming torch. No one moved until he had departed, though Rob wished him a pleasant evening. The burly monk grunted a monosyllabic response.
“You had a brother,” Napier said in calmer tones after the monk had left. “Raoul, I think.”
D’Ailly’s hands lifted palms upward. “Why, yes, that is so. He …” D’Ailly paused to take a deep breath, as if fortifying himself. “He died. As did my parents, in a terrible fire.”
Napier’s mouth was grim. “Set by his mistress, isn’t that right?”
D’Ailly looked from Napier to Rosmairi’s questioning face, then hung his head. “Alas, that is so. She perished also.”
“Oh, no!” The words seemed ripped out of Napier’s lungs. “She lives. I have seen her within the past hour.” He took three long strides to stand directly in front of d’Ailly. “I, too, believed she had died. But like the phoenix, she has risen from the ashes.” Napier’s blazing dark gaze was still riveted on d’Ailly’s face. “You have reason to hate her, I know. But my reason is even greater. She is my wife.”
Rosmairi let out a little cry; Rob put one hand over his face; d’Ailly appeared stunned. Sorcha, her lips working nervously, made no sound, nor did she move. More than anything, she wanted to comfort Napier with her arms, but didn’t dare. It was d’Ailly who broke the spell, suddenly galvanized into a fury almost as fierce as Napier’s.
“Mon Dieu! It is impossible! You—and that vicious strumpet? But how heartless, how evil she was! I tried to warn my brother but he refused to heed me.” D’Ailly began to storm about, hands snatching at his wavy blond hair, boots resounding loudly on the stone floor of the common room. “I vowed vengeance years ago. I never rebuilt at d’Ailly because I had not the heart. Yet there was no way to assuage my pain, no victim to hunt down.” He whirled, turning to face Napier once more. “Where is she? I will show no mercy!”
Rob, who had busied himself by pouring wine for the others, passed around the cups and intervened. Carefully, he explained to d’Ailly and Rosmairi exactly what had happened under the walls of Paris that afternoon. This time the young lovers listened with rapt attention. When he had finished, Napier had regained control and d’Ailly had simmered down.
“I would hope,” Rob said in a reasonable voice, his gaze moving from Napier to d’Ailly, “that neither of you would insist on revenge. ’Tis a sin, you know.” The hazel eyes were very solemn.
“It would be a greater sin to let such a woman live,” asserted d’Ailly. “Can you not see, even this very day, she has no doubt murdered a king?”
“She has also vanished,” Sorcha pointed out as she drained her cup and picked up an apple from a wooden fruit bowl on the long trestle table. “Frankly, I don’t see how she will ever be found. Hasn’t she been able to disappear for the past eight years?”
“She has,” d’Ailly responded slowly, “but she is not safe in France. She will go elsewhere, and I can guess that destination.”
Napier lifted an eyebrow. “You can? H
ow so?”
D’Ailly gave Napier his little self-effacing smile. “Perhaps I know more of her … history than you, since I felt obliged to search it out on my brother’s behalf. Not,” he added with a rueful shake of the head, “that it did any good. But among Marie-Louise’s lovers were numbered two of her mother’s people.” He took another deep breath before uttering their names. “One called the Master of Gray. The other, Francis, Earl of Bothwell. I suspect she will flee to their protection.”
Sorcha almost choked on a piece of apple. “Gray! And Bothwell! Aye,” she declared with vigor, “isn’t it said that Bothwell dabbles in the black arts, much as it would appear Athene—that is, Marie-Louise—does?”
“So say his detractors.” Napier’s brow was deeply furrowed. He set to pacing the length of the hearth, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. “But what is her game? Why this intrigue with Brother Jacques and the poor King?” He halted, lifting his wine cup from the place where he’d set it on the mantel. “Does she meddle in Huguenot politics? She was raised Catholic, of course ….” He drank quickly from the cup, which caught the flame of the nearest sconce and shimmered brightly in his hand. “Christ,” he muttered, pounding his other fist against his thigh, “or is it that she is set on destroying all manner of men, whether royal or commoner?”
“That she is a destructive force is without question,” d’Ailly stated flatly. “And I would wager what is left of my inheritance that even now she seeks passage to Scotland.”
“Scotland!” Sorcha all but wailed the word. “Why must the vile baggage pollute our homeland!”