Fire Dance (44 page)

"All the other ingredients are perfectly common," she said. "Saltpeter, charcoal, sulfur, tar, that sort of thing. Mayhap this 'antithesis' is the name of something that cannot be found around here. It derives from the Byzantines, you know."

"Actually, I did not," he replied, as he handed another stack of books to her.

"And as you say, those who did not know the secret invented their own versions. Rather effective ones, too. But the real Greek Fire could spread across water to set enemy ships afire, and could be shot through pipes, so that it did not threaten its users. If we could just find its trick, we might find a way to use it against Fyren. But how?"

Alain boosted her up through the hole and scrambled up behind her. "I do not understand why Fyren would want such a fearsome weapon if he is so afraid of fire."

"He always delegates such things to his subordinates. I am sure that is what he would do. But think what power one would have with such a thing. Think also, how much more useful it could be for evil purposes than for good."

"Aye. It would create enormous destruction. But I cannot see how it might be used otherwise."

"And that is why I meant never to resurrect it. Still, if we might defeat Fyren, then mayhap, we must."

He laughed. "We. I know naught of any of this. I cannot think what help I shall be, beyond the fetching and carrying."

She looked at him with her big, round, summer-blue eyes in deadly seriousness. "I shall need you to listen to me. You might be able to point out errors I do not notice."

His patience for all this wore thin, for his desire for her was overwhelming it. He stepped toward her and reached out for her, to draw her snugly to his body.

"Melisande, love," he said, "Say my name. I would hear you say it."

For that, she smiled. A smile like sunshine, for its warmth. She should have had a life of smiling. "Alain. My love," she said, and her voice became silky with her desire.

His own ignited.

"But not till you close that," he said, in answer to his own silent question. "That hole stinks of Fyren."

It became a very urgent matter to get them both back to the bed from whence they had come. But he only just had his arms about her again, when a scuffling sound beyond the door interrupted them. The door banged twice, then Chretien burst through with no more than a fleeting glance at the lovers wrapped in each other's arms.

"Rufus comes!" he nearly shouted.

"So early?"

"Aye. He forced the march through the night when he learned of Fyren. Already he reaches the bridge."

"A pity kings cannot be taught good manners," Alain grumbled, and he hastily donned the remainder of his clothing before dashing down the stairs from the balcony.

Melisande soon followed him, still pulling her kirtle over her head as she ran, scurrying through the hall and out to the kitchen to see that breakfast awaited the king and his minions. Alain would rather have had her leave such things to the servants, but she had become too used to her duties. She felt more at ease if she had a task to perform.

Today she would meet the King of England, who had meddled in her life. He wondered what Rufus would think of how his little scheme had turned out. And today, he would at last learn from Rufus how much of it had been the king's doing.

Just before Rufus rode through the gate, he called Melisande to stand beside him, and seeing her apprehension, took her hand in his. "Rufus is not as gruff as he seems, love. Do not fear."

Her bright blue eyes regarded him with something akin to suspicion as she stood silently beside him.

Rufus rode at the head of his army, trailed by his knights and foot soldiers, and after them, his household and a multitude of supply wagons with hideously squealing axles. Alain felt his eyebrows raise at the size of the spectacle. Mayhap Rufus meant to take Scotland, after all.

Alain himself took Rufus's rust-colored charger by its bridle, and Rufus sprang down from his saddle. His agility was always a surprise for such a corpulent man. Rufus was also a man of great energy, and was easily brought to enthusiasm when it came to a challenge or new idea. Alain could see in the king's eyes a wild excitement usually found only in the fervor of battle. So Rufus couldn't wait to see the results of his scheming.

"By Christ's Sweet Blood, it is good to see you, De Crency." said Rufus as he bounded up and clapped Alain on the back. Then the king's pale blue eyes grew wide beneath highly raised brows as he stared in blatant fascination at Melisande.

"My wife, Sire, Lady Melisande."

"By God, De Crency. I have made a terrible mistake!"

"Sire?"

"I gave such a beauty to you, when I should have kept her for myself?" He took Melisande's hand and raised it to his lips. "Lady Melisande, we must contrive to rid you of this husband. You would surely prefer marriage to a king, would you not?"

Melisande's face was struck with horror as she instinctively jerked back her hand to her breast. Rufus cocked his blond head, puzzled.

Time to intervene. "Ah, Sire, I am afraid the lady does not always understand such humor."

"Humor?" she squeaked weakly.

Rufus's bushy blond brows pulled into a heavy frown as he considered her again. Then he brightened and reared back into a great roar of laughter that further darkened his beefy red face.

Melisande turned deathly pale.

"Your pardon, lady," Rufus said, still chuckling, as he finally contained himself. "I've been too long in the company of men."

"Oh, nay," she insisted. "It was my misunderstanding. Of course you did not mean– "

"Oh, and there you are wrong, lady," said the king, and his eyes gleamed with his own brand of wicked mischief. "I do certainly mean you are that beautiful. I do wish I had not been so foolish to send you this poor knight, when I might have made you my own queen. But what's done is not to be undone. Alas, even I must agree with the Church on the business of marriage, and you are stuck with him."

Melisande gave the king a feeble smile, as if she almost understood. "Aye. I shall have to live with it."

Rufus roared his great belly laugh again, and squeezed her hand between both of his. "I vow, you are a jewel, lady. I do see much of your lady mother in you." A strange sadness crept over his face. "She is gone now, is she not?"

"Aye. These past three months."

"You have my greatest condolences, Lady Melisande. Know you, my dear, that I have never forgotten her, though I was but a moonstruck boy when I met her. Ah, De Crency, now there was a woman. If only I had been ten years older, she would have become England's queen, and all England the better for it."

Alain directed the king toward the hall, mentally hoping the kitchen staff had a feast set, even this quickly. "Truly, Sire? I had no inkling you had ever considered a queen."

"But if you had known her, De Crency, you would know that there has been none to compare with her, all these years. Aye, my dear, you do resemble her greatly, save your eyes. Hers were somewhat green, I recall. And your hair is not as pale, nor does it curl in tiny rings about your face quite as much as did hers. Yet your hair is nonetheless as lovely. But Alain, do not grow jealous. I shall not steal your lovely bride from you."

Then Rufus's jovial face suddenly sagged to deadly seriousness.

"Now, what is this business about Fyren?"

CHAPTER 23

As he escorted the king up the steps to the dais, Alain explained the sudden reappearance of the man who called himself the Spawn of Satan. He gave over his great chair to the king, and seated his wife between himself and Rufus.

Rufus, for all that he appeared intent on the great piles of food on his trencher, missed not a word.

"What think you, then, lady?" asked Rufus. "You do know Fyren better than any here."

"I know not, Sire," she answered tentatively, almost as if she expected a new wave of Rufus' roaring laugh to roll over her. "I did not believe him before, but always there was some doubt. Even now, for all that he appears to have risen from his grave, there is something that does not fit."

"How so?"

"I cannot say, Sire, something I know without knowing."

"Aye," said Alain, "he is more charlatan than sorcerer, I vow. Yet, we must not deny the danger he poses."

"I told you thus, before I sent you here, Alain. The lady's explanation of the ancient manuscripts tells us much. It is commonly known that the ancients had knowledge that has been lost. Many such Greek and Latin texts perished at the hands of our Norse ancestors, for whom it had no meaning. Think on it, Alain, if we had the secrets that made the Romans great."

"Among these here is Greek Fire, so says my lady."

"Greek Fire. Aye. It is said, though many things are named thus, they have not the awesome power of the genuine Greek Fire."

"They do not," Melisande agreed. "Yet, I cannot make out the complete formula. So I cannot think how it can be useful."

"The king reads Greek, do you not, Sire?"

Rufus gave a studied frown. "I know somewhat of it, but I am no scholar, and I can find none to teach me more."

"Mayhap, Sire, you might know the meaning of the missing word," Melisande said.

Rufus nodded gravely. "Tell me, lady."

"I know not how to say them, but– " Melisande drew out the odd Greek characters on the tablecloth with her finger, hoping Rufus could understand her invisible tracings. His lips silently mouthed the strange symbols.

Rufus' frown became more studied. "It cannot be an ingredient, surely."

"But what is it?"

"Antithesis. It refers to the opposite of something. If you have an idea, for example, then I present its opposite."

Melisande's hopeful face sank.

"That was also her interpretation, Sire. She hoped you knew a different meaning."

Rufus sighed. "Ah, that is the difficulty with the languages of the ancients. The scribe who copies it might mistake the word, or even one letter of it, and give it a different meaning. Mayhap, lady, if you work with the ingredients you know, an idea will come to you."

"Aye, that was my thinking, Sire," she said, and her solemn eyes nevertheless danced and sparkled.

Alain saw it in both of them, his wife and his king, as their eyes met in a common understanding. She loved the quest, the challenge of something new or impossible, and none could understand that better than Rufus.

Rufus gave no objection when she asked his leave to begin her probing in the kitchen. But Alain knew Rufus well, and knew he had an accumulation of questions beneath the facade of pleasantry. Rufus always schemed, and he needed facts to do it.

"Come show me your castle, De Crency," said Rufus.

Alain took him up the narrow stone stairs that led onto the allure, where they surveyed the surrounding pasture, village, and greening fields of oats and barley, all the way to the distant fells. Turning, they looked back on the castle itself as it rambled in apparent aimlessness up the hillside.

"I see what you mean, Alain. This place could easily be stormed from above. Although the climb would be disheartening."

"And you and I know many a foot soldier and knight willing to do it. It takes but a few men breaching the wall to make it open to all," Alain replied.