by Lucy Blue
“What manner of man are you, cousin?” she whispered, feeling a queer little shiver in her stomach as she bent closer to him. He stirred, still restless in his dream, his brow suddenly drawn in a frown, and she found herself holding her breath, entranced by his beauty, close enough to touch.
But that was ridiculous; she didn’t want to touch him; she wanted his counsel. He was a man, a noble knight, her kinsman, and her castle was in danger. He should want to help her, and he should know what to do. “Simon,” she repeated, giving his shoulder a shake.
Simon came out of his dream in a fury, blind with rage and drunk on the sudden smell of blood so close he could reach out and seize it. “Yes,” he snarled, grabbing the woman up by her arms and shoving her back against the wall, the light she held falling to the floor.
“Wait!” Isabel cried out, horrified by his reaction and stunned by how quickly he could move straight out of a sound sleep. “Simon, it’s me!” She had dropped the candle when he grabbed her, but not before she had seen he was naked, another frightening shock. “It’s Isabel.” He was holding her fast against the wall, standing so close to her she could feel her body brush against him with every breath she took. “Don’t you remember?”
“Isabel…” Her breath was sweet; her mouth was so close he could taste it, and her heartbeat was exquisite. He had never heard such a strong little heart. But she was speaking to him, saying something that ought to have meaning… Isabel; she said her name was Isabel. He fought to recover some part of his waking, still-human reason, to remember who she was and why he shouldn’t hurt her, but the demon inside him was hungry; it cared only for her blood. He had been sleeping, safe in his lair, and she had come upon him willingly, had touched him uninvited. Surely she must be prey.
“Yes, Isabel. Sir Gabriel’s daughter—your cousin, you idiot.” She had never been so close to any man before, certainly not a naked one, and suddenly it occurred to her that she didn’t really know him from Adam, and they were two full stories under the castle. Even if she screamed, no one would hear her. “I need to talk to you.” He leaned even closer, his cheek brushing against hers, and she could hear him breathing, sniffing her hair like a dog. “I…” She felt what must have been his mouth brush her ear, and mysteriously, with out warning, her knees went weak. “I need your help,” she finished, struggling to keep her voice.
The smell of her skin was unbearable, like blossoms of honeysuckle crushed in his fist, and her hair smelled like spring rain. He let one hand slide up her arm and over her shoulder to her throat, her skin like silk and warm with life, the pad of his thumb gently pressing her pulse. But slowly his mind was returning, as much as it could in the full sun of the day. Slowly he remembered who she was and why he was with her. This cavern was her home, a room under her castle. She was Isabel, the maiden with the key to his salvation. But what was she doing down here? Surely he must have warned her somehow; surely she must know to stay away. “No,” he answered, his voice like the growl of the wolf. “I cannot help you.”
“Are you sleeping?” she said softly, barely louder than a whisper, the sound of his voice dissolving the last of her bravado. “Are you still asleep?” He sounded like a man in a trance, under a deadly spell, and neither the distant, saintly man she had met the night before nor the easy, good-natured knight who had talked with her that morning would have sounded that way or threatened her like this or made her feel so strange, frightened and aching at once. The sensible woman she had always known herself to be wanted him to come back to his senses and let go of her at once. But there was another, new part of her she had never known existed, a stranger who both feared the man who held her and desired him, who trembled to imagine what he might do next and yet still ached to feel it, whatever it was.
“Yes,” he answered, touching her mouth, one hand still braced against her shoulder to keep her pinned to the wall, one knee pressed between her own. “I am dreaming.” His vampire senses could see her face even in the dark, see her blush as a rose-colored glow. “You should not have come here.” He traced the curve of her cheek down to her jaw, the flow of her blood down the fragile flesh of her throat. Her body brushed against him as she gasped, her soft breasts pressed against his chest, deliciously warm through her gown, and every muscle in his body ached to possess her, to crush her in his arms. “You must go away.”
“But…” No one had ever touched her this way before, as if she were some precious thing to be both possessed and adored. Perhaps she was dreaming as well. “But I can’t,” she answered, finding her sensible voice. “You must let me go.”
His mouth was now so close to hers, he could feel the warmth of her lips on his own, but she couldn’t see him in the dark. She could not know what held her. If she had seen him, seen the demon fire in his eyes, seen the fangs that he could feel against his tongue, she would be screaming, burning with terror alone. The desire his demon senses insisted she felt was no more than an illusion. “Yes.” He cradled her beautiful face in his hands, closing his eyes for a moment as he leaned his forehead to hers. Then he let her go.
As soon as he stepped back, the spell he had somehow cast over her, stealing her wits, was broken. Now all she felt was embarrassed. “Sleep well, cousin,” she mumbled, pushing past him to stumble to the door, tripping over that damned fallen candle as she went.
She plunged out into the tiny corridor and slammed the door behind her, leaning back against it as if to trap some terrible monster inside. Orlando was coming down the stairs, and when he saw her, he looked every bit as horrified as she had felt a moment or so ago.
“Your master is sleeping,” she said, straightening up with all the dignity she could muster. “If he should wake before I return, tell him I have gone to church.” Nodding once more to the wizard, she walked past him up the stairs.
Simon sat down on the bed, concentrating without thinking on the sound of her heartbeat as it faded, his beautiful prey climbing back to safety. He could feel Orlando just outside the door, and he hoped he would have the presence of mind to stay there—in his present state, he might even attack the wizard, given the chance. But finally she was gone. The deathly trance that was his natural, undisturbed state in the daylight hours stole over him again, sapping the strength from his body, and he sank back down to the bed like a corpse on a slab, falling back down into sleep.
Since her father’s death ten years before, Isabel had visited the Chapel of Saint Joseph only rarely. She was supposed to be the captive of a demon, after all. But she had never known the churchyard gate to be closed and barred in the middle of the day. It was a new gate, from the look of it—the timbers were still yellow. Handing Malachi’s reins to Tom, who rode on a small brown mare beside her, she climbed down and rang the iron bell. “Do you suppose Father Colin has gone somewhere?” she asked.
“I don’t know, my lady,” Tom said doubtfully. “Someone was ringing matins this morning when I was on my way home.”
The door in the gate opened a crack. “Who is it?” Father Colin’s voice demanded, sounding quite unlike him, impatient and fearful at once.
“Father Colin, it’s me.” She moved to where she could be seen through the crack. “Isabel of Charmot.”
“My lady!” He threw the door open wide and rushed out to embrace her like a prodigal returned. “May Christ be praised, you’re safe!”
“Yes, quite,” she promised, confused. “Father, what has happened? The gate—”
“Some villain let his horse kick down the old one,” he explained briskly as he let her go. “Or so the carpenter said must have happened; I never heard a thing.” He touched her cheek, a strange, haunted light coming into his eyes. “Not a sound…” His expression cleared, and the brisk manner returned. “But hurry, both of you. Come inside.”
They followed him through the gardens and entrance chamber into the chapel proper. The shutters were closed in spite of the warmth of the day, and all of the candles were lit as though for a Christmas mass. “Pray pardon the s
tench, my lady,” the priest said, closing and bolting the door behind them. “We are doing what we can to get rid of it.”
“What stench, Father?” Two peasant women were on their hands and knees before the altar, she realized, scrubbing the floor. “I don’t smell anything.”
“You are too kind, child.” He lit another rack of candles and moved them closer to where the women were working. “At first I thought a rat must have found its way into the wall and died. But then I saw the stain.”
Isabel looked at the floor. “Stain?” she echoed politely, more mystified than ever. The flagstones were irregular in color, but they had always been so, at least so long as she could remember. The bones of Romans were buried beneath them, it was said, they were so old. Perhaps they did seem a bit darker where he pointed, but even with all the candles, she couldn’t see much of a difference.
“It was much worse when we started, my lady,” one of the women said. “We could see it right well. But now…” She let her voice trail off, her eyes moving to the priest.
“But what happened?” Isabel asked. “What was— is—this stain?”
The second woman looked up, her eyes wide with fear. “Blood.”
“Hush,” Father Colin snapped, making Isabel start with surprise. She had never heard the priest speak so sharply to anyone. “Lady Isabel does not want to hear your foolishness.” The woman went back to her work without another word, and he smiled at Isabel. “Never mind, my lady,” he said. “Whatever it is, it will soon be gone.”
“I have no doubt,” she answered, though in truth she was beginning to feel rather frightened. “Father, forgive my intruding when you’re so busy, but I came to ask about Michel.” Blood before the very altar of chapel? Father Colin acting so strangely? The front gate smashed to pieces? What could have happened here?
“Ask about whom?” the priest said politely.
“Michel,” she repeated. “The Frenchman who was coming to fight the Black Knight at Charmot.”
“The Black Knight?” he repeated, sounding alarmed. “Do not speak his name, my lady, not here.”
“It’s all right,” she said, taking his arm with a frown. The women on the floor were of this very village; they knew her well, and she knew them; they were privy to the secret of the Black Knight of Charmot. “You came to Charmot to tell me Michel was coming two days ago. Do you not remember?”
“I came to Charmot?” The same strange, haunted look she had noticed at the gate had returned to his eyes. “Yes, of course… of course I did. To see your father.”
“No, Father Colin.” Tom’s eyes widened, too. “My father is dead, remember? He has been dead these ten years past.”
“Yes,” the cleric nodded. “You are a woman now.” He patted her hand on his arm and smiled. “Praise God that you are safe.”
“But I’m not safe,” she said urgently. “Michel has never appeared at Charmot; I haven’t seen him. Tom was told that he stopped at the inn by the river with his retinue and that he was coming here to seek lodging.” She laid a gentle hand against his cheek, making him meet her eyes. “Can you truly not remember?”
“You must not press him, my lady,” the woman who had said the stain was blood warned her, sitting up. “The old and the innocent forget things for a reason, things too evil to be remembered.”
“I told you to hush and clean that floor,” Father Colin ordered. “I will not have the chapel of Our Lord befouled, not while it is in my charge.”
“You see, my lady?” the woman said, doing as she was told.
“Did Michel not come here?” Isabel persisted. A sudden thought occurred to her. “Was it he who shed blood before the altar?”
The priest looked at her helplessly, tears rising in his eyes. “The Black Knight,” he said softly, as if fearful that the very walls might hear and seek revenge. “It was the Black Knight.”
“What? No…” Before she could say more, a terrible racket broke out from outside, people banging on the bell and pounding on the gate.
“Father Colin!” a rough voice cried out. “For God’s pity, let us in!”
“No,” the priest murmured, clutching Isabel’s arm. “Not again.” He looked at her, his face going pale. “Not now, while you are here.”
“That is Raymond’s voice, Father,” Tom said. “Raymond, who works our fields. He and his wife, Mary, were coming to the village today to visit his kin.”
“Raymond,” the priest repeated. “Yes… yes, of course.” He gave Isabel’s arm a final squeeze before he let her go. “You stay here, my lady. Come with me, boy.”
“Wait,” Isabel called, chasing after them. Father Colin opened the gate just as she reached them, and there was Raymond with another burly man who looked very like him—his cousin from the village, she realized, recognizing him from the last harvest. They were carrying something between them, something wrapped in a cloth. Something that looked like a person.
“What have you done?” Father Colin demanded. “What foulness have you brought to the house of the Lord?”
“She isn’t foul,” Raymond said, pale beneath his farmer’s tan. “Or she doesn’t seem to have been back when she was alive.”
They carried the body inside to the priest’s private quarters and laid it on the table. Isabel pressed a fist to her mouth as Raymond’s cousin pulled back the cloth, stopping herself from screaming. This woman was not just dead.
She looked to be about Isabel’s own age; certainly no older. Her throat had been ripped out—the very bone was exposed. Her clothes were torn to shreds all down her front as well as the flesh underneath; from across the room Isabel could make out the shadow of a rough, gaping wound in her breast. But there seemed to be very little blood.
“It must have been a wolf, we think,” Raymond said, sounding shaky and near tears. “But none of us have ever heard tell of a wolf devouring a woman’s heart straight from her breast.”
“And the rest of the flesh has not been eaten,” his cousin added. “Only the blood is gone—she hasn’t bled a drop since she was found.”
“Where?” Father Colin said, his voice sounding hollow and flat. “Where did you find her?”
“On the king’s road, Father,” Raymond answered. “Right between the ruts just outside the village, in plain sight of anyone who passed.”
“Dear God,” Tom said, crossing himself. “If I had ridden another mile, I might have found her myself this morning.”
“Mary and I found her,” Raymond said. “Poor Mary may never get over it—she’s with my mother now, and it will be more than I can do to get her to come home with me to the woods.” In truth, he looked as though he might not want to go himself. “None in the village seem to know her, Father, though from her clothes she seems a common lass. That’s why we’ve brought her here to you, in hopes that you might recognize her.”
“She was here,” the old man answered. He moved closer to the body, his hands reaching out as if to touch it, hovering in the air. “I found her yesterday morning sleeping in the garden inside the broken gate. She did not even know how she had come to be there, poor child.” He did touch the woman’s face, closing her staring eyes. “I tried to convince her to stay here with me, but she would not. She said she had to go home to her parents—some village called Kitley, near the sea, she told me was her home. She had money, a purse full of gold.” He looked up from the dead girl to the living men. “Perhaps she was robbed.”
“No thief did this, Father,” Raymond’s cousin said. “Look at the marks on her throat. ’Twas some sort of beast that attacked her.”
“A dog?” Isabel said, finding her voice at last. She thought of the dog she had seen the night before, the knowing look in its eyes as it stared at the castle Charmot. “I saw a dog last night beside the lake, a big, black dog I had never seen before.”
“A grim,” Raymond muttered. He was of old Celtic stock that still spoke of such things, spirits and demons that haunted the druids’ old wood.
“My la
dy, what are you doing here?” the priest demanded, appalled. “I told you to wait in the chapel— boy, take your lady out of here at once.”
“No,” Isabel protested. “I want to help—”
“There’s naught to be done for her now, my lady,” Tom said, taking her arm. “Please, come away. Such evil is not for your eyes.”
“But…” But what could she say? He was right; this woman was past all help.
“We will pray for her,” he suggested, steering her to the door.
He led her out of the church to the garden, and Isabel allowed it, barely noticing when he finally let her go. So much was happening so quickly, and none of it made any sense. “That poor woman,” she murmured to herself, pacing under the trees that lined the garden wall. She had seen the dead many times before, of course, but never any horror such as that. Just remembering, she felt sick, her hand going back to her mouth. And Father Colin—what could have happened to him? Even before Raymond and his cousin had turned up with the girl, the priest had sounded half out of his wits. He seemed to not remember coming to Charmot at all—he had thought he must have come to see her father. The old and the innocent forget evil, the peasant woman had said. But what evil had the good father forgotten? He spoke of the Black Knight, but that was madness, too. Father Colin knew as well as she did that the Black Knight was no one but Brautus in a devil’s armor.
But you prayed for another one, a voice whispered inside her head. Don’t you remember?