Linda Barlow

by Fires of Destiny

  Dorcas looked anxiously to Alexandra, who nodded encouragement. “Very well. If you think it best. But please try not to upset him too much. He’s very ill.”

  Shortly thereafter, Roger was in the antechamber outside the baron’s room, holding Alexandra beside him, his fingers clamped like a manacle around her wrist. “Get out,” he ordered Master Theobald, the physician, who was furtively trying to hide a bottle of aqua vitae under his robes.

  “You!” Theobald cried. “You can’t come in here!”

  “Out,” Roger repeated, his hand hovering near the dagger in his belt.

  The physician fled.

  Richard Trevor was awake. His head and shoulders were elevated on two bolsters, and he was covered with a blanket that did not succeed in disguising the gauntness of his body. Alexandra was dismayed at his appearance. The baron had changed dramatically in the year since she had seen him, and it was evident that the final dissolution would soon be upon him.

  Roger, too, was dismayed, though he did not wish to admit it to himself. His father was dying—God’s wounds, he looked all but dead already. He realized for the first time how empty Charles Douglas’ threat had been. His father could not possibly have stood trial for heresy. He would be going to his reward—or punishment—long before the Church would have the leisure to deal with him.

  The baron gazed upon Roger with an expression of dry cynicism, taking in every detail of his somewhat bedraggled appearance. He was perfectly lucid. “So you’re back, along with the young woman you kidnapped and raped. I suppose we should all be thankful she isn’t dead. What was that commotion outside the door?”

  “Your physician tried to deny me entrance. Perhaps he thought the sight of me would give you another heart seizure.”

  “My physician is a drunken ass. How are you, Alexandra, after what may be politely termed your ordeal? You don’t look particularly downtrodden and defeated, I must say.”

  “Neither do you,” she told him with a smile. It was true—despite the wreck of his body, his eyes were as vibrant as ever. She sat down on the stool beside the bed and touched her lips to his thin, frail hand. “There was no rape. I love your son and we wish to marry.”

  The baron’s thin lips—lips that were so like Roger’s—curled slightly. “So you want my blessing, is that it?”

  “No,” said Roger, coming up behind her and placing his hands on her shoulders. Men die. It changes nothing between us. “We don’t need your blessing, nor that of Alexandra’s father, who has put nothing but obstacles in our way. We’ve come to speak with you about something else entirely.”

  “Indeed? Well, since you’ve never cared about my opinion in the past, I don’t suppose I can expect you to care now. Still, I was always in favor of the match, you will recall. Or perhaps you’d rather not recall any matter in which you and I might be in agreement.”

  Trying to take his father’s bitterness with good grace, Roger simply shrugged. “Our news concerns Francis Lacklin. And the manner of my brother’s death.”

  The baron closed his eyes. “There is some connection between the two?”

  “Aye, I am sorry to report.” And succinctly, in a tone almost entirely devoid of expression, Roger told his father everything they knew.

  The baron interrupted him once or twice with questions, but for the most part he listened without comment, his control rivaling Roger’s. At the end there was a long silence. Alexandra remembered, with compassion for both men, the fond esteem in which the baron had always held Francis. She had a mental picture of the way he had greeted Francis last year on the day of Roger’s homecoming—with more warmth and affection than he had shown his own son.

  Francis had converted Richard Trevor to the Reformed faith. But he had also killed the baron’s firstborn son, the son he had loved and favored all his life.

  “I’m sorry, Father. I know this must be a blow to you. But in truth, ‘twas even more of a blow to me.”

  There was a long silence before the baron said, “You and he knew each other far better than you let on, did you not? You were friends?”

  “Aye.” Roger clipped off the syllable.

  “I realized it after hearing what had happened in London. You were working for our side all along. Why, then, did you take so violently against me?” For the first time, the baron displayed signs of genuine emotion. “Why was there such strife between us when you came home last summer? Could you not trust me? I would have been proud to know that you were one of us, that you were endeavoring to save Protestants from the stake.”

  Roger ran a rough hand through his hair. “I am not one of you. You’re mistaken if you believe that I consider myself one of the elect of God. Francis was my longtime friend. I worked with him in London for reasons of my own. My disgust with fanatical religious opinion has not changed one whit.”

  Alexandra saw the pained look that came over his father’s face and wished Roger, for once, might be more tactful. Here was a possible means of rapprochement between the two men. Please, Roger, don’t toss it away.

  Roger shifted uneasily and sent her a rueful glance. “But that’s neither here nor there. I didn’t tell you because Francis himself had sworn me to silence. Also, we did not want to endanger you. Given what happened in the end, it was just as well that you were not implicated.”

  Richard Trevor closed his eyes. He looked much more tired all of a sudden. His cheeks were sunken and his skin was an unhealthy gray. “You say Will died accidentally?”

  “So Francis told Alix. They fought, but he did not intend to kill him. Even so, it makes no difference—the outcome will be the same.”

  “There is no point arresting him for murder,” the baron said. “He is already a fugitive.”

  “I have no intention of arresting him.” Roger’s voice was grim. “This is a private matter, which must be settled privately.”

  “What do you mean?” Alexandra demanded.

  The two men stared at one another, ignoring her. “He killed your brother. You wish to satisfy our family honor?”

  “He killed my brother and he attempted to kill my betrothed wife. To say nothing of poor Ned, and Priscilla Martin. Where honor is concerned, I have no choice.”

  The baron hesitated slightly before his next comment. “You told us once that he was one of the finest swordsmen you had ever seen.”

  “He is. But I have no paltry amount of skill with the sword myself.”

  “Roger, no!”

  They continued to avoid her eyes. “I will do what has to be done,” Roger said quietly, and his father nodded. In this, at least, there was no dispute between them.

  *

  Francis Lacklin came to Whitcombe the next day. Notified of his approach by the watch he had posted on the road, Roger decided to meet him in front of the hearth in the great hall. He set several men-at-arms nearby and gave them explicit orders. Dorcas he sent to the baron’s bedchamber. Alexandra he stationed on the other side of the archway that led to the stairs—out of sight but within hearing. Then he waited, feeling sick.

  Alexandra waited too, behind the stone archway where she had once eavesdropped on these same two men. She saw Francis Lacklin enter, pause a moment, then advance toward Roger, who was seated in his father’s armchair by the fire, a cup of wine in his clenched fist. She saw Roger raise his head and meet the older man’s eyes, his face carefully expressionless, revealing nothing of what she knew he was feeling. And she heard him say, cheerfully enough, “So here you are at last, Francis. What the devil have you been doing—making converts again? Or ministering to your former flock?”

  Lacklin didn’t answer. He came up to Roger, glanced into his cup, and said, “Drinking again? I’ve never seen such a bunch of gloomy servants. Is aught amiss?”

  They had anticipated the question. Roger was supposed to reply that his father was gravely ill and Alexandra missing, but instead he said nothing at all. Is aught amiss? The muscles in his jaw clenched and he stared blankly into the wine. He imagined he cou
ld see his reflection there, his ravaged face looking out from a sea of red. His eyes closed for an instant; then he flung the silver goblet against the wall. Claret splattered like blood on the cold stone.

  “What the devil—”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Francis, stop. This paltry little tragedy has gone on long enough.” He came out of the armchair and stood face to face with his friend, his enemy. The color had drained from his face just as completely as the wine had drained from the cup. “You have failed. Alix is alive. You were careless. Next time you’d better hire an assassin.”

  Francis Lacklin didn’t move or speak for a moment, but the tension in his big body was plain. At last he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No, of course not. I could be lying. Suspicious and trying to entrap you. Grief-stricken over the death of the woman I loved and wanted to wed.” Roger’s voice was shaking. “The woman I love, Francis! Given what you’ve meant to me all these years, I could have forgiven almost anything else, but you ought to have known better than to lay hands on her.”

  “You’re ranting, Roger. Where is Alexandra? Is there something the matter with her?”

  “No. There is nothing the matter with her. Alix? Come here.”

  Feeling like an actor making a dramatic entrance, Alexandra walked through the archway into the hall and approached the two men. “Hello, Francis.”

  Lacklin whirled, his silver-gray eyes as large as coins. He muttered something under his breath; then he was coming at her, fast—for what purpose, she couldn’t imagine.

  Roger shot between them. “Get away from her!” Whipping his sword out of its sheath, he leapt at his old friend. “If you touch her, I’ll skewer you here and now.” And his blade was at Lacklin’s throat, hovering just above the throbbing artery.

  Francis paid no attention to the weapon. He was staring numbly at Alexandra. “You’re alive.”

  “Yes.” To her surprise, there was no resentment in her heart. What she felt for him now was pity. She wanted to reach out to him, offer him her hands, and tell him he was forgiven. “As you see.”

  “But how? You can swim?”

  “I have always been a good swimmer.”

  Lacklin’s big shoulders drooped and his breath came out in a sound that was almost a sigh. He was no longer coughing, she noted. He must have thrown off his cold. “I’m glad. I regretted it. Christ, how I regretted it. I am relieved to find there is some justice in this world, after all.” Then, slowly, careful of the blade that pressed against his throat, he turned back to Roger. And waited.

  “You killed my brother Will.” Roger’s voice seemed to come from some great distance.

  “Yes.”

  “And Ned, the village halfwit. You strangled him in such a manner as to make it appear to be self-slaughter.”

  “It’s true. I take no pride in it.”

  “You left Priscilla Martin for dead and tried to drown Alexandra.”

  Francis didn’t reply this time. Neither did he meet his old friend’s eyes.

  Roger was floating. He thought he’d been prepared for this, but somehow, confronted with the reality, confronted with the man himself, it was proving to be much harder than he had anticipated. Nothing was real; he was not in this cavernous medieval hall… instead he was riding the deck of the Argo under an arching vault of blue. He was standing at the side of a gray-eyed companion as they plowed through the sun-flecked sea, laughing as they sailed over the rim of the world.

  Trying desperately to refocus, Roger stared along the metal of his sword. “Draw your weapon, Francis.”

  “No!”

  Alexandra’s protest was joined almost at once by Francis’ voice, sounding bizarrely calm and normal. “I will not fight you, Roger. Not today, not ever.”

  “Then I shall kill you as you stand.”

  “Do. You have good reason, and I no longer have the slightest wish to live.”

  Roger’s sword hand trembled. Beneath his blade beat the pulse of his friend’s carotid artery. He imagined it slashed, his lifeblood spilling onto the floor. No. He lowered the sword, as if fleeing the gravest temptation. “You have most grievously offended my honor, sir, and the honor of my family,” he stated in the ancient, formal manner. “I demand restitution. God will be our judge.”

  “No, please, Roger,” Alexandra said. She grasped his arm, her fingers trembling. “In sooth there is no reason for trial by combat, if that’s what you intend. He has admitted his crimes. There is no dispute to be settled.”

  “There is my brother’s blood, crying out to be avenged.”

  “I will not stand back and watch you follow Will into the family crypt.”

  Lacklin added his own objections to hers. “I’ll fight no duel with you, Roger. You cannot force me to take up arms against you.”

  “No, I cannot force you. But you will fight me, nonetheless. You have unmanned me. For a decade you have been there, the shadow at my shoulder. My wiser friend. My older brother. My colder, more controlled adviser. The father figure I rejected as a youth.”

  Francis tried to speak, but Roger jammed the blade against his throat again. “No, damn you, this time you will hear me out. I am not the sort who takes well to domination. I have borne it meekly for far too long. Once I fled from you into a monastery, but I couldn’t shake you, could I? You’re always there, one step behind me, waiting and watching, the devil at my heels.”

  “I have been your friend.”

  “You have been my master. Friends are equal, and that is something you and I have never been. You have always had me at a disadvantage. You were calmer. More rational. More godly. More secure from the temptations of the flesh. Stronger, and more skilled with the sword. Until today, Francis. Today the scales will be balanced at last.” He lowered the sword and took a step back. “Your weapon, Francis. This is our final conflict. You will fight me. It has been inevitable since the day we met.”

  There was a long silence. At last Francis said, “You would risk your life so recklessly just to prove yourself my equal?”

  “Not to prove myself. To free myself of the long shadow you have cast upon my life. Anyway,”—Roger actually smiled—“it may not be as much of a risk as you think. I have been in constant practice. And since you were wounded, your sword arm is no longer what it was.”

  “My sword arm is fully recovered.”

  “Good. I would not wish to feel that I had an unfair advantage.”

  “You mean it, don’t you? You’re looking forward to this.”

  “I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”

  “Very well.” Lacklin’s voice was heavy. “You’ll have your fight, if it’s so important to you.”

  “No,” Alexandra said once more, but her voice was low, despairing. They did not so much as glance in her direction. The matter was already decided.

  Chapter 39

  The great hall at Whitcombe Castle flickered with the light of a dozen extra torches as the servants moved the trestle tables and benches and prepared the room for the first duel of honor to be fought there in recent memory. The two participants had stripped to shirt and hose and selected their weapons, fine Florentine rapiers of flexible tempered steel. Up on the dais, from which the family and retainers were to observe, Alexandra stood gripped by apprehension.

  Roger also was nervous. He tested the strength of his blade against his boot and wondered if he would be alive an hour from now. He hoped so, for the sake of Alix and the babe.

  Francis approached him, looking fit and strong and entirely at ease. And why not? When had he last been defeated in a trial of this particular weapon? Had he ever been defeated? Recently, in practice, Roger had scored several hits against him. But they had never had a bout in which Francis did not also score, usually in quarte—the line that guarded Roger’s heart.

  “You are certain you wish to go through with this? It’s not too late to call it off.”

  “Worried, Francis?”

&nbs
p; “Of something you and I have done so many dozens of times? No. In this you are my partner. In this I know you as well as a lover knows his longtime mate.”

  “An apt allusion, if somewhat imprecise,” Roger said scathingly.

  Francis smiled. “If I defeat you I will not kill you. I will, however, demand another forfeit.”

  “Another sheath for your sword?” Roger tossed the words off as if in badinage, but inside he was shaking. He felt fifteen years old again, and threatened. “If I defeat you, you will certainly die.”

  “Good. Life holds scant joy for me now.”

  Shortly thereafter, the two men faced each other in the ready stance. George Dawes, the baron’s master-at-arms, stood beside them, his arm raised over his head. “Any special rules?” he asked the two men.

  “First blood decides it,” suggested Francis.

  “No,” said Roger. “To the death.”

  Francis shrugged and flexed his sword. “As you wish.”

  They saluted each other formally, and then took several steps back. Roger glanced over to the dais and saw Alexandra, her eyes huge and round, her expression one of ill-concealed despair. But as he met her eyes, she smiled, and he cherished her spirit, knowing the smile was one of the braver acts of her life. He gave her a reassuring grin. Another man-at-arms had positioned himself behind her. Roger had ordered him to restrain her if she tried to interfere with the duel. I love you, I love you, he told her silently. Forgive me, but this is something I must do.

  He turned back to Francis. The referee lowered his arm, and the match began.

  Roger opened aggressively. He hoped to set a quick pace and tire his opponent. He was younger; he believed he could make up in stamina what he lacked in skill. His plan included a constant, unrelenting attack on the high lines, where Francis should be weaker now, because of his chest injury.

  As Roger attacked, Francis parried effortlessly, smiling slightly as their swords played, the blades flashing silver in the torchlight, clicking and sparking with the contact. They circled once, twice, three times, taking each other’s measure as if they had never fought before. Francis’ silver-gray eyes were wary and intent. Respectful, too, Roger realized. Despite his skill, Francis was making no assumptions about the outcome. Yet he was confident, as he had every right to be.