by Nina Merrill
As a weapon, it was surprisingly effective. Maillet looked up at the sound of her shriek, and the flurry of dry grass blinded him for a second.
Time enough for Napier to yank his wicked, trusted dagger from its hiding place—where, Jennie never saw—and flick it at Maillet.
Time enough, indeed. The moment stretched forever, yet, in the uncertain light, she was not sure what she was seeing. His rat-skewering dagger flew swift and true and buried itself in the side of Maillet’s neck. Maillet dropped his sword to clutch at the dagger, and Tibald half-dived like a football player saving a home-team fumble, scooping Maillet’s sword from the ground and thrusting—just once—at Maillet’s midsection from below.
“Excellent throw,” grunted Tibald from where he was slowly lowering Maillet’s twitching body to the floor.
“And in bad light, too.” Napier’s grim humor was lit with the flash of his teeth.
Jennie swallowed hard. Later she was never sure which was worse—the fountain of blood from Maillet’s neck, or the appalling sound of chain mail, cloth and flesh being pierced by a sword, but either would have been sufficient to cause her next reactions—the stagger to the side, all of her dinner coming up, and a swarming darkness filling her vision.
When she came to herself, it was to find Tibald kneeling at her side in the loft and Napier standing over them, a slow trickle of blood dripping from his fingertips.
“You’re bleeding,” she said thickly. Her stomach heaved again and she clamped her palm over her mouth.
“It’s nothing,” said Napier.
“Get up, Jeanne. We must leave, and quickly.”
“You just killed a man.”
“Yes, we did. You were admirable—an inspired battle move, to blind him with the hay. We may make an apprentice of you yet, maid or not.” Tibald rose and mostly lifted her to her feet.
“He’s dead—down there, he’s dead.”
“Yes.” Tibald walked her to the ladder. “Climb.”
“He’s down there.”
“Yes, and as you say, he’s dead. Jeanne—quickly now.”
Napier, true to form, snorted. “This is the woman you risk your life for? Discard your oaths for? This puling, whining—”
Tibald interrupted Napier’s rant before it could fully blossom. When he spoke, it wasn’t with the ire she expected to hear. It was with a softness she had never heard him use. “I worship her with my body and my soul, Alain, and I would give my life to secure her own.”
The words, and the tone in which they were delivered, shocked her nearly as much as the murder of Maillet. But if they were a terrible, beautiful blow to Jennie, they pole-axed Napier, who staggered back a step and would have fallen from the loft, if not for Tibald’s quick hand around his wrist.
“You’re leaving the order.” Napier spoke in tones of horrified realization.
Tibald nodded, his arm around Jennie’s waist, and tugged Napier forward. As he had done after she and Napier had stitched up his side, he caught Napier at the back of his neck and rested his forehead against his companion’s. “You know what our master has charged me with. I am to take the chest, and Jeanne, out of France.”
“The chest and her.” Napier’s brows drew together and he looped an arm around Tibald’s neck.
But not me… Jennie could almost hear Napier’s thoughts. How was he managing to hold in his feelings so rigidly? She wondered just how much of Payraud’s plans Napier knew and found herself frightened for the dark knight. Much as she disliked him personally, she shared Tibald’s absolute trust in the man, and because she was in love with Tibald herself, recognized the utter desolation on Napier’s face. His companion was leaving, not only the order, but Napier himself. She stood in the loop of Tibald’s arm, feeling the body heat of both men through the wool of her shirt.
“And Jeanne,” Tibald agreed. “My brother, I—”
“I’ll see you safely on your way.” Napier’s thickened tone revealed his feelings.
Jennie looked down to where Maillet lay in the mess of straw on the stable floor, not far from the wagon. Dead, so very dead.
Murdered. Or so the king will see it. Her stomach clenched again, and she moved closer to the two men. One arm went around Tibald’s trim waist, and the other circled Napier’s.
“Unhand me,” Napier said, flinching.
“You must listen to me, both of you. We will all leave France.”
Tibald drew back and stared at her. “Payraud has charged—”
“Payraud never foresaw the murder of the king’s agent. If we leave Napier behind, he will be executed for what’s happened here.” She could tell her words struck home when Tibald’s arm dropped from around her. While she had their attention, she pressed on. “Payraud hasn’t given sufficient thought to our departure. You need Napier’s skill more than you need mine. I…I will throw hay at our enemies, but Napier will dispatch them.”
“I am to stay behind—” began Napier, shaking his head.
“That’s all changed with that man lying there.” She pointed. “We must hide his body to buy time. Come and help me.” Trembling and sick, she stepped onto the ladder, made her way down to where Maillet lay, and took hold of his arm. She had to turn her head aside when her stomach threatened to empty itself again. How sterile her life had been until now. She’d seen dead bodies before, lying prim and tidy in their caskets, but never death itself, and certainly not a killing. Yet her only goal now was to get herself and her two knights safely away. No question of trying to return to Minneapolis now—she had a responsibility to attend to. She’d gotten them into this mess, and she’d do everything in her power to get them out.
Not to mention, the thought of leaving Tibald behind forever made her feel dizzy and dark inside. Her scholar’s brain flicked forward through the events she knew were to come—the Templars chased down, arrested, imprisoned and tortured, most killed. Forty years hence, the start of the Black Death that would rage through Europe and kill half its population.
Maybe, just maybe, if they were still together, still alive at that time, she could use her knowledge to save them from that, too. A grim smile curved her lips at the thought of the three of them, quarantined together in some chill Scottish stone cottage, with Napier’s wicked rat-killing dagger in demand yet again, along with her nagging to bathe frequently. How much moldy bread must one eat to be immune? How complicated was it to extract penicillin? She had no idea.
Thus her mind raced as she began to drag Maillet into the darkened stall from which he had emerged in the first place. He was heavy, but she was managing to move him, then Tibald and Napier joined her and the process went much more quickly.
“More hay,” she panted, and scrambled back up the ladder to toss down enough to cover the body. It was disorienting to think of the hay upon which she and Tibald had made such sweet love now covering the evidence of their newest mutual and mortal sin—of murder.
Tibald argued with her, even as he scooped up what she pitched over the edge. “We have our orders, Jeanne.”
“Everything has changed, and you know it.”
“You will do as I say.”
“I will not. If Napier doesn’t come with us, I won’t get in that wagon.”
At this, both men stared up at her. She put her hands on her hips and glared back. “I know Napier despises me for making you break your oath to the Templars, but I will not give either of you any choice in this matter. He’ll just have to hate me.”
“We can’t delay. The ships won’t wait. If we’re not there…”
“Napier will not delay us. You know he won’t. Besides, Napier—”
“Jeanne…” Napier interrupted. For the first time he used her name. She met his eyes.
“Napier loves you, Tibald. And for that alone I cherish him.” She gestured at the body. “Is Maillet camouflaged sufficiently?”
Napier walked away to the darkened door of the stable, breathing deeply.
Wondering what the slim, dark knight was
thinking, Jennie climbed down from the loft and waited for Tibald to come to her. She slid her arms around his neck and felt him clutch her reflexively, if awkwardly.
Tibald spoke urgently, his voice ragged with grief. He wouldn't look at Napier. “I cannot ask Alain to give up the order. His oaths give him life, as your love gives me life.”
Jennie played the only card she had left. “Then for my sake, and for his life, let us all go away together.”
“I would be glad of his sword, I admit. But the rest of it…” He shook his head. “I can’t think about it now.” His hands roamed over her back and Jennie could all but feel the shift of topic clanging in his brain. “I miss your hair.” He bent close and murmured in her ear, “Is it wrong of me to want you for myself, even now, even this moment, with Maillet lying dead in yon stall and Napier at our backs?”
“It’s not wrong,” she whispered, and when his mouth came down, she met it eagerly, and he kissed her until she was breathless and clinging to him. “I promise you—soon. For I want you also. I have a fondness for the hay in that wagon.” And the hay covering that body in yon stall, as you say.
“Jesu.” He trembled, pressing her hips hard against him, and she felt his growing excitement.
“This would indeed delay us,” she breathed against his mouth.
“True.” He kissed her fiercely one last time and then lifted her into the wagon. “Take the reins. I will lead the horse from in front until we're well away.”
“I don’t know how to drive a wagon.”
“You’ll learn.” He gave a soft laugh. “Alain—”
Napier turned, his expression hawkish and wary.
“You must hide. Come, under the hay. Jeanne will cover you.”
Napier met his gaze. “You will not want me with you.”
Tibald led the wagon to the doorway and stopped an awkward few feet from Napier. “I need you, Alain.”
“You’re governed by a woman.”
“She has been proved right thus far. Get in the wagon.”
“If you love Tibald, get in the wagon, Napier. Please.” Jennie added her plea to Tibald’s. “We cannot leave without you.”
Chapter 22
Jennie didn’t know how long they’d been traveling along the black road, trusting to the good sense of the mud-smeared warhorse drawing their wagon, but the moon was late rising. Its beams shone at an angle, throwing their nest in the hay into shadows and light. Tibald was at her side, seated upright, watching the road behind the wagon. When he fumbled in a pouch slung at his belt, Jennie watched, half-asleep, and only somewhat curious.
When his hand emerged from the mouth of the pouch, she gasped.
He held her journal, which she’d thought lost forever, taken by Payraud.
“I’m to return this to you now we are safely away from the preceptory.”
“Tibald.” Jennie didn’t know what to feel—joy and relief at the sight of her journal, or distressed that she must yet again make the decision to stay in this century. “I thought never to see that again.” She held out a shaky hand to take it from him, but he held it at his side, just out of her reach.
“I would exact a promise from you. All those long hours we spoke outside your room…the tales of your land. They have fired my soul as nothing has since I first took my oaths as a knight of the order. Jeanne—”
Napier cleared his throat, making himself known from the front seat of the wagon. Jennie squared her shoulders in irritation, hearing the hay rustle beneath her. Would the man forever interrupt any worthwhile interaction with Tibald?
Tibald glanced behind them with a small smile. “I know you’re listening, brother. That is well, for this involves you now. Since this maid wouldn’t leave Paris without you.”
“I watch our way for ruffians and king’s men. I care not for your infatuated mumblings. Nor your snoring.”
“I haven’t slept, as well you know. I watch our back trail.”
Jennie craned her neck to see Napier sitting stiffly on the bench, his garments turned inside out and back to front to hide the crimson cross beneath his cloak. He let the reins lie slack along the horse’s back, and the animal slowed its pace slightly. Jennie thought how tired it must be, pulling the wagon through the dark night, and wondered when they’d be far enough away to pause to rest and sleep. How did one conceal a hay wain, awkward thing that it was?
“What promise would you have from me, Tibald?”
Napier snorted again and Jennie compressed her lips.
“You have said that, with your book, you could return to your own place. Is that true?”
Jennie hesitated, looking up at him from where she lay. As she gazed, his look changed, melting into an expression somewhere between desire and dread. She reached up and touched his cheek. “I don’t know. I’ve tried to return home before now, but it didn’t work.”
“But perhaps with your grimoire, it may.”
“Perhaps. And perhaps not. There may have been more things at work that night than just what’s written in this journal. Without trying, we’ll never know.” She rested her fingertips lightly on his lips until he responded with a kiss against them. Her arm drifted back to her side. So much emotion roiled in her heart and mind that she could hardly bear to look at him, but because he would not look away from her, she held his gaze. Honor first, always. It’s why I love him, and I think maybe it’s why he loves me. I never knew myself to be honorable before, but in his eyes I am.
“Jeanne, I…” Tibald stopped, shifting in the hay until he was stretched beside her. The gentle spring of the dried grass jostled them together sweetly. He laid her journal upon her belly and ran his hand down her side to her hip. “Will you try to return home?”
She whispered, because she didn't trust her voice. “I’m no longer sure I want to, Tibald. The meaning of home is different now.”
He nodded, finding her hand in the hay and threading his fingers between hers. “Yes. Different, as is the meaning behind my oaths as a knight of the order. You have changed everything.”
For once, Napier was blessedly silent. There was only the sound of wood on wood, and wooden wheels turning slowly over the dust and pebble of the road, and the breaths and slow strides of the patient horse.
“If you go, Jeanne—”
Jennie waited, holding her breath. She thought she knew what he wanted to ask, but for him to unbend enough to ask a mere woman for something so immense was surely the hardest thing he had ever done.
“If you go, take me with you. I will not speak for my brother—it’s for him to speak his wishes—but I would be with you.”
He didn’t say, “I want to see the wonders you spoke of.” Me…he wants to be with me. Her heart pounded, and she didn’t try to stop the tears of joy that filled her eyes and ran down the sides of her face into her shorn, tousled hair. She cupped his jaw and pulled his head down to hers, where she could kiss his mouth until he seemed to believe she’d been too forward for too long, and took control of the kiss for himself. He must have felt her smiling as he kissed her for he lifted his head and looked down at her. His index finger traced the uptilted corner of her mouth.
“You should sleep,” stated Napier from the driver’s bench. “Soon enough ’twill be your watch. I’ll not forgo my own rest because you couldn’t leave your wench alone.” He cleared his throat and Jennie and Tibald both waited, smiling into each other’s eyes, for him to speak again. Despite his efforts, his voice shook. “We are together, we three, are we not? Whatever fate brings to us?”
Jennie nodded. But it was for Tibald to speak, and not her, though she had ultimately made the decision.
“Aye. We three, together.” Tibald spoke for Napier to hear, but had eyes only for Jennie. He kissed her once more, softly, lingeringly, with that leashed passion she remembered so well, before whispering in her ear, “Together.”
With the laugh she’d come to know, that fond, indulgent chuckle he saved for Napier and his stunts, he shifted her in the hay
so he could pillow his head against her snugly bound breasts and lie in the bend of her arm. “I will sleep now, brother. Try not to bounce through too many mud holes.”
Jennie lay still, one hand curved over Tibald’s back, the other lying on her journal. The stars were thick above her, winking and brilliant and white. The same stars that shone above Minneapolis centuries hence. She smiled up at the stars, thinking of a book on her apartment bookshelf that would go unread—and unwritten—for centuries. All for one, and one for all. Dumas and his musketeers had been wrong about a number of things, but not about honor and loyalty, friendship and love.
She nuzzled her face into Tibald’s hair, breathed deep of the scent that meant all those things and more to her, and slept.
<< The End >>