Heaven's Fire (37 page)

“Your mama,” Bertram interrupted, “is too kind by far.”

“‘Tis the truth and you know it!” Felice snapped. “You’re just jealous because all you can do is copy—”

“I am not!”

Corliss left the two to their bickering—and Thomas and Brad to their snooping—and carried the signature through the leather-curtained doorway into the back room. The completed pages of Master Becket’s Bible were arranged on the long worktable in neat stacks, ready to be sewn. She studied the stacks to determine their order, then inserted her signature where it belonged.

Hearing the leather curtain open and close, she turned. Felice, her eyes huge in the semidark chamber, stood twisting her hands in the skirt of her kirtle. “Mama found a buyer for the shop. We’re leaving Oxford as soon as Master Becket has his Bible. A fortnight from now at the latest.”

“Where are you going?”

“Up around Wolvercot,” Felice replied miserably. “To raise goats and chickens.”

“Yes, well...” Corliss shrugged. “I hope you’ll be very happy.”

“I’ll be wretched.” Felice crossed to her, her big eyes glimmering. “Heartbroken,” she whispered hoarsely.

Corliss took a step back and felt the table behind her legs. “Ah. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t you want to know why?” Felice asked in a tremulous voice.

Corliss shook her head. She suspected she knew the source of this heartbreak and had no desire to hear the sentiments voiced.

Felice closed in on her, yet still Corliss had to strain to hear her when she spoke: “Because you won’t be there.”

“Uh...” Corliss tried to sidestep along the edge of the table, but Felice clutched the front of her tunic.

“I can’t stand this,” she choked out as her arms encircled Corliss’s waist. “I might never see you again. It’s unendurable.”

“Felice...” Corliss tried to pry the young girl’s arms from around her, but she held on tight.

“I love you!” Felice blurted out.

“No, you don’t,” Corliss said gently.

“I do! I’ll wither up and die without you.”

“You barely know me, Felice. You don’t love me. You love the person you think I am—some man I can never be.” Felice had needed someone to fall in love with, Corliss realized, just as Peter had. But they’d both fallen in love with someone who didn’t even exist—an imagined, idealized lover with Corliss’s face.

Felice sniffed. “You sound like Mama. She wants me to marry Bertram.”

“Perhaps you should. He loves you.”

“But I love
you
!”

Before Corliss could react, Felice locked her hands around the back of her neck and kissed her on the mouth.

“Mmph!” Corliss wrested free, pushing Felice away. The girl lost her footing and slipped, pulling Corliss down with her. They landed on the floor, Corliss on top.

“Marry me,” Felice pleaded, gripping Corliss around the back of the head and tugging her down for another kiss.

“Stop this!” Corliss grabbed Felice’s hands and pinned them to the floor.

“Please,” Felice begged. “Oh, please

The leather curtain flew aside and Bertram charged into the room. “What the devil—!”

“Oh, hell,” Corliss moaned as Bertram seized her and hauled her off Felice. Enraged, he flung her roughly across the room. She thudded against the wall.

Bertram advanced on her, hands in fists. “You’ll pay for this!”

Felice scrambled to her feet. “Bertram! What are you going to—”

“He tried to force himself on you. I’m going to kill him.”

If Corliss had expected Felice to beseech Bertram on her behalf, she was soon to be disappointed, for the girl merely blinked like a young owl... before smiling in a very feminine and self-satisfied way. “Really? You’d really kill him? For me?”

Oh, that’s just fine
, thought Corliss as Bertram puffed himself up, trying his best to look the avenging champion. “I would and I will,” he said. “You just watch me.” Corliss tried to run past Bertram, but he grabbed her and slammed her back against the wall. “Not so fast.”

“Corliss?” Thomas swept aside the curtain and stepped into the room, followed by Brad. “Oh, here you are.”

“It’s about time,” she said.
My protectors!

Thomas frowned as he took in the scene. “What’s going on?”

“He was attacking Felice,” Bertram said.

Thomas and Brad exchanged a look. “That’s not possible,” Thomas said with a lopsided grin.

“Why not?”

Brad couldn’t suppress a gust of laughter. “It’s just not.”

Bertram turned his back on Corliss to argue the point. Taking advantage of the distraction, she darted between the men and through the doorway to the front room. Without stopping, she grabbed her satchel and ran outside.

“Come back here!” Bertram screamed as he pursued her through the unruly throng hurrying to and fro along Catte Street. She hadn’t gotten far when she felt him grab her by the back of the tunic and swing her around.

The punch—a swift blow to the stomach—dropped her like a stone. She rolled into a ball, her arms clamped around her middle, fighting the urge to vomit.

Bertram grabbed the neck of her tunic, made a fist, and hauled back, aiming for her face. She kicked him hard in both shins before he could connect. His feet flew out from under him, sending him sprawling. As she clambered to her feet, so did he.

“Leave her alone!” someone yelled.
Thomas
. He wrapped his arms around Bertram, immobilizing him. Corliss saw that a crowd had gathered.

“Don’t hurt her!” Brad pulled her erect. “Are you all right, Corliss?”

Some of the bystanders looked at her strangely. Through her haze of pain and nausea, a warning bell tolled.
Her
. They were saying her. She shook her head frantically as Thomas and Brad helped her to her feet.

“You’re
not
all right?” Brad looking helplessly toward Thomas. “Master Fairfax told us to look after her, and—”

“Shut up!” she croaked, holding her stomach. “For God’s sake...”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Bertram’s astonished gaze inspected her from head to toe.

Behind him, a breathless Felice gaped at Corliss. “Nay...”

“Aye,” Bertram said quietly. “I can see it now. The softness around the face... she’s a woman, all right.” A slow smile spread across his face, the cause of which was obvious: His rival was no rival after all.

“Nay,” Felice repeated.

The spectators whispered and gasped. Corliss heard the same words over and over: “...a woman... men’s clothes...” How long, she wondered, would it take for them to connect her to Rainulf? Would Bishop Fresney find out she’d been living with him? Would Rainulf be ruined?

Thomas and Brad groaned softly when they realized what they’d done.

Felice’s chin trembled as she stared at Corliss. She shook her head slowly, her eyes glassy. Bertram embraced her and she collapsed in his arms, sobbing. “There there,” he murmured, smiling slightly—clearly relishing this opportunity to comfort the girl who had spurned him up till now. “Come along.” He guided her back toward the shop, and they disappeared in the crowd.

Thomas looked stricken. “Corliss, I...” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I...”

“Me, too,” Brad offered.

The spectators still gawked and commented. There was some laughter, but mostly just expressions of surprise and bewilderment.

They knew now. Dozens of people knew. By nightfall, all of Oxford would know. The truth had asserted itself, just as Rainulf had warned her it would.

It was over. Just like that, it was all over.

“What do we do now?” Thomas asked her. “What should we—”

“Take me to Rainulf,” she said woodenly. “I have to talk to Rainulf.”

Thomas and Brad guided her through the mayhem of Catte Street to the corner of High, where an enormous, black-robed horde had assembled around one tall figure on the steps of St. Mary’s: Rainulf.

“...settle our differences like civilized men,” he was intoning.

“What’s civilized about
them
?” a voice called out. “After what they did to Victor, we should burn down the whole damned city!”

Rainulf gestured to someone who came to stand alongside him: Victor of Aeskirche. Corliss hadn’t seen him in the five days since Pyt and his friends had dragged him from his bed, beaten him, and thrown a noose around his neck. The sight of his once handsome face, still bruised and swollen, prompted a flurry of indignant exclamations from the assembled scholars.

“No one,” Victor said loudly, “knows better than I what was done to me.” He paused meaningfully, his piercing gaze sweeping the crowd; he was nearly as good at this as Rainulf, if a bit more dramatic. “And no one knows better than I how well I deserved it.”

A chorus of denials greeted this statement. “You deserved nothing of the kind!” someone yelled. “They’re savages!”

“And we’re not?” Rainulf demanded, scanning the audience. His gaze lit on Corliss, and for a fleeting moment he focused only on her, his eyes smiling their secret smile, as the hundred or so scholars faded into a dark, shadowy mass; and then he wrested his attention from her and continued his impassioned plea for restraint and reconciliation.

What will I say to him? How can I tell him it’s all over, just like that?
Her disguise was a disguise no longer. She had to leave him. And not just his home, she realized suddenly; she would have to leave Oxford. This was Rainulf’s city. As chancellor, he would all but own it. She could never escape him, never hope to forget him—or at least learn to live without him—if she stayed here. And her continuing presence in the community could hurt Rainulf. If she left now, it was possible that the bishop would never even find out she’d lived with him. Even if he did, he’d most likely forgive Rainulf a brief transgression; a continuing relationship with a woman would never be tolerated, though. The man she loved would be destroyed.

Saying good-bye to him would be agonizing. Would he make it even harder by trying to talk her into staying, or would he grit his teeth and send her on her way? Would he kiss her good-bye? Would he call her “my love” one more time? She hoped he would know better than to give her some trinket, as he had his Parisian conquests—some parting gift intended to soften the pain.

The pain can’t be softened. ‘Tis unendurable. I can’t bear this.

How would she ever be able to walk away from him? How could she say good-bye?

I can’t. Not to his face.

“We’ve answered rage with rage,” Rainulf was saying. “Violence with violence. Fear with fear. We should know better than that—all of us! We live in one of the greatest centers of learning in the world, during the most enlightened time in the history of man...”

As he spoke, the students gradually quieted. They ceased their restless fidgeting, their interruptions, and lapsed into a rapt silence. Rainulf spoke calmly, but with fervor and conviction. He talked of the need to abort the cycle of violence that threatened to destroy the city of Oxford, and with it, the great university that might someday flourish here.

Rainulf was in his element—not just competent, but brilliant. He shone like the sun, radiating light and wisdom and strength. Corliss basked in his glow, absorbing him as he spoke—every nuance of his deep, commanding voice; every feature of his face; the way the sun glinted off his hair; the way he gestured with his hands; and the way he stood and moved...

I’m memorizing him
, she realized.
I’m searing him onto my mind, burning his image into my very soul. That way he’ll always be with me.

“I’ve been talking to representatives of the townsmen,” Rainulf announced to his engrossed audience. “And, for the most part, they want peaceful relations with the academic community. It seems they’re even willing to compromise on the matters that spawned this whole mess in the first place. I’m going to meet with them now, on their turf—St. Martin’s Church. Victor will come with me, and I urge the rest of you to do the same, as a gesture of support. Put away your weapons and come with me. Let’s see if talk can cure what violence could not.”

Rainulf caught her eye as he descended the steps, waving to her and her companions to join him.

“Let’s go with him,” Thomas urged as the crowd began following their magister toward St. Martin’s.

“Nay,” said Corliss, “I want to go home. You go on ahead.”

Brad shook his head. “We can’t do that. We promised Master Fairfax we’d look after you.”

Corliss shot him a look. He had the grace to blush in acknowledgment of the inept job he and Thomas had done “looking after” her.

“Then walk me home,” she said. “After that, you two can go wherever you want. I’ll be safe at home.”

*   *   *

Alone in the big stone house—Luella, like many others, had chosen to leave Oxford until things cooled down—Corliss packed up as many of her clothes, tools, and supplies as would fit in her satchel. She retrieved her saltcellar of coins from beneath the bed and emptied it into her purse, which she stowed in the bottom of the satchel. Pushing aside the saffron curtains, she gazed at the huge featherbed heaped high with pillows, burning hot, sweet memories into her soul alongside images of Rainulf.