by Mary Daheim
Napier snorted and shook his head. “Why not? She has defiled all else in my world.”
“And mine.” D’Ailly put an arm around Rosmairi. “Except for you, ma belle. Shall we sail to Scotland on the morrow?”
Having behaved so impulsively with George Gordon, Rosmairi felt obligated to show at least some measure of caution. “Why … we don’t know if it’s possible, Armand. We should go back to Compiègne and make arrangements ….” She appealed to Sorcha and Rob for support.
“I am going back to Compiègne,” Rob said stoutly. “I belong there, you may recall.” He forced a wan smile on his sisters. “What you others choose to do, is your own affair, of course. But I give thanks to God to be out of all this horrible mess and to seek the peace of the cloisters and the company of sane men such as Brother John Fraser.”
Sorcha tossed the apple core into the empty grate and turned inquiring eyes to Napier. “I have nowhere else to go but home,” she said in a surprisingly small voice. “I may as well join Rosmairi and Armand.”
Napier glanced down at her, but the dark eyes were so suffused with pain that Sorcha had to look away. “Aye,” he answered dully, “you may as well.”
The awful finality of his words made Sorcha’s heart turn over in her breast. With heavy steps, she made her way back to the trestle table and poured herself another cup of wine. It tasted bitter and harsh, like gall. Sorcha drank anyway, aware that it might as well be the dregs of her life that she was consuming as night came down over Saint-Germain-des-Prés—and all of France.
The cell that Sorcha and Rosmairi shared was tiny and narrow, containing only two lumpy cots and a crucifix. But darkness brought cooler air through the ancient slit of a window some six feet from the faintly dank stone floor. Rob had made the sleeping arrangements with the burly monk.
After a cold supper for which Sorcha had amazingly little appetite, the travelers had dispersed to their quarters. Rob and d’Ailly were a few doors down from Sorcha and Rosmairi; Gavin Napier seemed to have been swallowed up by the vast abbey, disappearing into its recesses like a hare gone to ground.
Despite the cooler temperature, Sorcha found it impossible to sleep. Rosmairi, however, had dropped off almost at once, and now murmured contentedly from her cot just a scant yard away from Sorcha.
The intervening hours since the horrifying moments in the King’s tent had given Sorcha the opportunity to sort out the day’s tumult. The shock of discovering that Gavin Napier’s wickedly wayward wife still lived had given way to the quest for a solution on Sorcha’s part. Surely a woman who had deserted her husband some eight years earlier could not be viewed, even in the eyes of the Church, as his lawful spouse. An annulment didn’t seem out of the question. In fact, for Sorcha, it seemed the only reasonable answer. She had waited too long, wished too fervently, to be denied forever marriage with the man she loved.
But the darkness of the night and the lateness of the hour were no allies to Sorcha’s peace of mind. She was restless, uncomfortable, and unable to relax on the unyielding pallet which served as a mattress. Her state of mind was further upset by the sudden eruption of church bells, distant in the beginning, then nearer and nearer, until the abbey shook with the ringing of its own great campanile. Rosmairi was jarred into wakefulness, sitting up with her hands over her ears.
“What’s happening? Is it morning?” She squinted into the blackness of the cell, trying to make out Sorcha, who was already on her feet. “It’s still the middle of the night,” Sorcha replied with more impatience than she’d intended. “I’d guess from that doleful sound that King Henri has passed on to his royal reward.” Absently, Sorcha crossed herself. “Damnation, I refuse to stay in this pokey place and twitch away the night.” She felt for her boots, slipped her feet into them, and banged out of the narrow cell, ignoring Rosmairi’s plea to wait.
It seemed that most of the abbey’s residents had been awakened by the mournful tolling of the church bells. Sleepy-eyed monks, looking like so many aimless ghosts in the unlighted hallway, milled about, exchanging hushed comments. It only took a few seconds before someone in authority—the abbot or his subordinate—led them away, presumably to the chapel to pray for the King’s soul. And for Brother Jacques as well, Sorcha thought, knowing that he surely could not have survived the fatal incident.
Even after the corridor emptied, Sorcha remained. Rob and d’Ailly would be awake, too, she was positive of that. But so would Gavin Napier. On silent feet, she moved down the hallway, peering on tiptoe through the small wrought iron apertures in the cell doors. The first five were empty; within the sixth, a tall, broad-shouldered form was outlined against the slit of a window, staring out at the sliver of moon that rose above the Seine. Softly, Sorcha called Napier’s name. At first, he didn’t seem to hear her. Then, slowly, almost reluctantly, he turned toward the door. “He’s dead,” Napier stated in that same flat voice he’d used earlier in the evening. “As ever, Marie-Louise has gotten her way with a man.”
Napier was making no effort to move away from the window nor to open the cell door. Sorcha pushed at the handle, which gave with only a slight rusty protest. Boldly, she entered the cell and went to stand behind Napier but made no attempt to touch him.
“I feel sorry for the King. And for poor demented Brother Jacques. But,” she went on with more fervor, “I feel even more sorry for us. They are both doubtless beyond pain. You and I are not. Will we stop living merely because that ghastly woman has come back into your life?”
Napier remained motionless, still staring at the moon. “You forget, ‘that ghastly woman,’ as you call her, is my wife. We are bound together forever in the sight of God and man.”
“Rot!” Sorcha exclaimed, not caring if she roused anyone who had managed to sleep through the din of the church bells. They were subsiding at last, though the abbey campanile still reverberated throughout the ancient stone walls. “Eight years! She wanted you to think she was dead. Don’t be a fool, Gavin. Go to your bishop, to the Pope if need be, and have the marriage annulled!”
The muscles under the cambric shirt flexed across the back of Napier’s shoulders as he clenched and unclenched his hands at his sides. “Even if it were feasible, I could not do it.” He paused, then heeled around to confront Sorcha. “Don’t you see,” he all but bellowed at her, his face suffused with pain, frustration, and rage, “the very day I resolve to fling off the past, Marie-Louise rises up to haunt me! It’s like a judgment from God!”
“From the Devil, more likely,” Sorcha declared with a vehemence as great as his own. She grabbed him by the upper arms, attempting to shake him, but achieving little more than wrinkling his already dirty, rumpled shirt. “She is like some dreadful, awful millstone. You don’t deserve to live out your life in her ominous shadow!”
Napier’s mouth twisted into a grim, mocking parody of a smile. “But I do, Sorcha. I swore before God that I would!” He lowered his voice, and his face softened ever so slightly. “It’s a matter of conscience. Do you think I want it this way?”
Sorcha dropped her hands. “Mayhap you do.” She spoke accusingly, the green eyes defying him to deny it. “After all, it spares you the effort of loving and being loved in return.” Sorcha tossed her head, the long, tangled hair swinging over her shoulders. “It seems to me, Gavin Napier, that you prefer hate to love.” Her gaze continued to hold his until, at last, she swept about and started to march from the little cell.
But Napier came after her and wrapped an arm around her waist to make her face him. “That’s not so. Not at all.” He suddenly looked very old, like a man who has fought the battle of life but knows that even though the struggle isn't over, he has already been defeated. “I beg you, don’t judge me so severely.”
“Jesu,” Sorcha cried aware that her breasts were almost touching his chest, “I will not believe there is no remedy for this wretched predicament! Will you not at least return to Scotland with me to see what my sire can do? Or seek the advice of Brother John Fraser a
t Compiègne? He is most holy and very learned.” She put her hands on his chest, kneading the fabric of his shirt in a pleading gesture.
Napier sighed deeply. “Oh, Sorcha you make it so very difficult! But all the holiness and all the learning of other men cannot alter my conscience!” He noted the desperation on her face and put a hand over his eyes. “By the Mass, I would change in an instant if I could, I swear it.” Hesitantly, he put his hand under her chin. “I need time. This has been a most terrible shock.” Sorcha couldn’t be sure if he was appeasing her or was serious. But his words were the only hope she had. She blinked several times before responding in solemn tones. “As you will. But we’ve wasted years already.”
His face seemed to shed its protective mask, like a warrior casting off his chin mail. “Saint Paul said it as well as anyone,” Napier declared, his hand still under her chin. “ ‘By the grace of God, I am what I am.’ For Paul, it meant certain things; for me, it means others. Yet the result is the same—I cannot change being the man I’ve become—solitary, inflexible, overzealous, even haunted. As a younger man, I was none of those things. I was open to life and to love, but experience taught me differently. To survive in this world, I will take no more chances where my heart and soul are concerned.” The dark eyes bore down on Sorcha, willing her to understand. “If you love me, you will accept me as I am.”
Sorcha’s brain toiled deftly through the maze of words before she abruptly pulled away from him. “Don’t quote Saint Paul’s epistles to me! They’re but an excuse, and furthermore, that great apostle spoke as a man who had undergone enormous change for the better. If he was flawed, as he admits, he was also satisfied with the man he had become. I can’t think that you have reached that same place in your life, Gavin Napier. You ask me to accept you, when, in fact, you don’t accept yourself!”
“That’s not true—nor is it fair.” Napier made an effort at calm reason, but his skin had darkened and his eyes gleamed with indignation. “I live comfortably enough in my own skin. There is no way you can guess how it feels or fits on me. Only I know that. Nor is there anything you can do to change it, even though I might wish it otherwise.”
They had reached a point where Sorcha considered further words a waste of breath. Still, she could not give up so easily. “I should think so.” Her gaze was reproachful. “Indeed, you just said you didn’t want it this way.”
Napier’s broad shoulders slumped, and he started to turn away. Yet her seemingly helpless stance, the valiant effort she had expended for them both, reminded him of that night so long ago when Patrick Gray and the Earl of Caithness had dumped her on his doorstep in Edinburgh. He had been overcome then by desire, but through superhuman restraint, he had controlled his baser emotions. Now, he wanted to make love to her even more than he had then; having tasted the bounty of her passionate nature, having only the previous day pledged to make her his wife, he was uncertain how long he could withstand the power of her love.
Nor was Sorcha obliging him by offering rejection. She remained standing before him, the big green eyes all but begging him to take her. Napier crushed her lips with his, holding her in a grasp so intense that Sorcha thought her spine might snap. His tongue probed deep into her mouth, making her dizzy with desire. She tried to pull her hands free from where they were trapped against his chest, but the kiss went on and on until both had to gasp for breath.
“Never doubt my love for you,” he muttered in a hoarse voice against her ear. “Never. Yet as you love me, don’t try to kill my soul. Remember, Marie-Louise almost killed my heart.”
Sorcha’s response was to lift her head to nip at his ear and tantalize him with her own tongue. Her hands were now free, clinging to his back, tugging at the cambric until she tore a hole between his shoulder blades. “I will not give you up. If,” she breathed into his neck, “I have to pursue you to the Indies, I will. Nothing, not even Satan himself, can keep me from you!”
Napier put his hands on each side of her face, marveling at the ferocity of her love. “I don’t deserve you. Nor do you deserve the pain I can give you.”
“Then give me pleasure now, my love.” Sorcha’s eyes glittered with wanting. “The pain can wait until later.”
Napier knew he had gone beyond the point of self-control. Recklessly, he parted the thin material of her bodice and pulled down the camisole to bare her breasts. Sorcha offered them proudly to his eager fingers, feeling the tips turn to fire at his touch. Expertly maneuvering Sorcha to the narrow cot, he lowered her body down onto the single, worn covering. He all but fell on top of her, and Sorcha couldn’t suppress her laughter. “By heaven, it’s no wonder monks are celibate! There’s no room to be otherwise!”
Napier grinned at her, suddenly restored to the youthful humor that Sorcha found as appealing as it was rare. “Let us hope the good brothers pray all night for King Henri’s soul. I wouldn’t want to scandalize them after they’ve offered us their hospitality.”
Sorcha made a gurgling sound that was meant to be agreement. But Napier was inching up her skirts with one hand while the other stroked the flat of her stomach. He tickled her navel with his tongue as he deftly continued to disrobe her. At last they were both naked, entwined together with her legs wrapped around his. She felt the hard strength of his manhood pressing her thigh and arched her body to savor the length of his lean, sinewy form. Napier sought her buttocks, squeezing them with strong, possessive fingers until he felt her quiver like a bird that has flown too far too fast. His mouth captured hers once more, taking away her breath, blotting out everything but the frantic need to be one.
Sorcha clasped him to her with an almost violent urgency as he entered her body and seemed to plunge deep into her soul. They moved together in a frenzied rhythm, the small cot rocking precariously. The moon was already setting over the Seine, but their joyful union was like a sunburst, evoking great gasps of ecstasy that left them limp and replete. Sorcha was astonished to discover there were tears on her cheeks.
With great reluctance, Napier withdrew from her, and stood up by the cot, gazing down at Sorcha with a mixture of amazement and awe. “I had told myself this wouldn’t happen.” His grin was lopsided, faintly sheepish, as he ran a hand through his dark, rumpled hair. “Was it only yesterday that we made love in that stable?”
“Jesu,” exclaimed Sorcha, “it seems like years ago!” She sat up, leaning on one elbow, surfeited by lovemaking, and suddenly sleepy. “My clothes,” she murmured, peering at the floor. “I must go back to Rosmairi.”
“Aye.” Napier handed her the garments and started to put his own back on. He was dressed before Sorcha was and, to her surprise, had put on his boots. He saw the query in her eyes and sat down next to her on the cot, where she was lacing her bodice. “I am leaving this place tonight,” he said, and recognizing that an argument was forthcoming, he put a finger to her lips and shook his head. “I could wait until Rob goes back to Compiègne in the morning, but I need to ride alone, to think alone. Do you understand?”
Sorcha wasn’t sure that she did, but was too tired to argue. “Compiègne,” she repeated tonelessly. “Why?”
“There are things I should find out about Marie-Louise. That’s where I expect to garner some answers.”
“And then you’ll sail for Scotland?” Her eyes were very wide, very steady.
Napier’s finger had trailed down her throat. “Aye. I will come to Scotland. I promise.” The hunter’s gaze was as unflinching as her own. He gave Sorcha a little smile. “I make no other promise, though. I can’t.” The smile stayed in place, obviously costing him great effort.
Sorcha nodded once, then rubbed her chin against his hand. “I’ll wait.”
Lightly, he kissed her mouth and the tip of her nose. “Until Scotland,” he said quietly, and got to his feet. Sorcha watched from the cot as he put on his dirk and picked up his gloves. She noticed the rent in his shirt and smiled ruefully to herself. At least he’d have a souvenir of their mutual passion until he arrived in
Compiègne. Yet even as he saluted her from the doorway of the cell, Sorcha felt a cold fear creep over her and wondered if, once alone, Gavin Napier might follow his conscience instead of his heart.
PART FOUR
1589-93
Chapter 21
The figures on the music box were twirling and bobbing to a repetitious tune that was giving Sorcha a headache. But the Queen of Scotland clapped her hands and laughed with delight. “Enchanting! They are James and I, is right, ja, aye, you wager?”
“I believe so.” Sorcha smiled without enthusiasm. During the first month of her attendance on Queen Anne, Sorcha had found James’s bride kindly and good-natured, but decidedly lacking in wit or depth. The King of Denmark’s daughter was tall, slender, fair haired, and white skinned, a typical Scandinavian lass. But at fifteen, she was too young to be wise, and by nature, too simple to be clever. Still, it was impossible not to like the new consort. Even Jamie, with his predilection for handsome young men, seemed quite taken with her. Sorcha had been amused by the change in him when he returned from his winter wedding in Oslo and a honeymoon in Denmark that lasted into spring. The stooped shoulders were straighter, the high voice seemed deeper, even the scant beard was thicker. Jamie was suddenly more than an unnatural boy—he’d become a husband, and perhaps a man.
To some, the change was not necessarily for the good. There were people at court, the Master of Gray among them, who preferred a less assertive, a more malleable James. There were others who preferred no James at all. It was rumored that someone, possibly Bothwell, or a certain woman known as the Wise Wife of Keith, had connived at sorcery to sink the King’s ship on his homeward-bound voyage.
Sorcha had learned of these tales that previous month, after James and Anne had returned to court. It was the first inkling that Marie-Louise might actually be in Scotland, though far from conclusive proof. Yet it had been sufficient to lure Sorcha back to Edinburgh, where she had requested and received an appointment as lady-in-waiting to the new queen.