Sanctuary of Roses (11 page)

“My lord—” her shriek of mingled gratitude
and horror followed him as he started toward the small home.

Gavin was near enough to feel the blistering
waves of heat from the building next door when a hand closed over
his arm. He shook his arm to loosen the grip, and turned in
annoyance to see a familiar, soot-covered face. “Lady Madelyne!” he
exclaimed, stopping. “What are you doing?”

“Nay, my lord, you cannot go in there!” she
tightened her grip on his bare arm, seemingly heedless of the sweat
that made her fingers slip. She was dressed in a long, stained
gown, with the bulk of her hair pulled back into a thick braid.
Sweat dripped down her own face, which was flushed from exertion
and speckled with ash.

“I must see to her son,” he said simply.
“’Tis my duty. I am the lord, and I am foresworn to protect my
vassals.” He started away again.

“Nay! My lord!” Moments later, she was after
him again, carrying a bucket of water. “Wait.”

He turned, more annoyed. “You cannot say me
nay, Madelyne. I must—”

“I would not. But, here, take this to cover
your mouth and head.” She handed him a length of cloth, and he saw
that she had torn her gown to her knees. It was wet and cool, and
she helped him to wrap it around his head and shoulders, leaving a
flap to pull over his mouth and nose. “Have a care!”

Her words followed him, even over the
crackle and hiss of flame and the calls and shouts of
bucket-passers, and for once he did not ask himself why he should
have a care for his safety. Instead, he paused at what once was the
door of the house, wrapped the wet cloth more tightly over his
head, and pulled up a piece of it to cover his face.

He kicked out at the sagging door of the
house, shoving it into an interior that was dim. Smoke did not
billow out, which bespoke of the fact that mayhap the fire had not
progressed as far as he’d feared. Gavin stepped inside gingerly,
watching for fallen timbers and other pitfalls.

The house was little more than a hut, and it
did not take much effort to scan the room with his gaze, even in
the dimness of the interior. At first, he saw naught but the flames
that licked the ceiling, kissing the walls and dropping an
occasional tuft of fire onto the floor. Then, back in a corner, he
saw a large, unfamiliar shape.

Stepping over a fallen beam, he skirted the
edge of the building to avoid the fire in the center, and
approached the lump. It was a piece of the wall, and had folded
inward, collapsing onto a pallet, leaving an opening just next to
the blaze outside.

With a grunt of triumph, Gavin stepped over
a collapsed stool and, continuing to hold the cloth over his face,
used one hand to push the wall up. It sagged, bowing in the center,
but held together so that he lifted it up enough to see the two
people it had covered. Though he could not tell if they yet lived,
he dropped the cloth from his face to push the wall away, and it
fell outside of the hut, landing against the next house that
burned. The smoke suddenly speared into his nose and mouth, and
Gavin found himself needing to duck near the floor. Fighting the
cough that welled inside his lungs, he replaced the cloth over his
nose and reached to grab the woman’s arm with his free hand.

He grasped her wrist, half lifting her off
the floor, and slipped his arm around under both of her arms, then
began to push his way toward the opening where the wall had
collapsed. He was just reaching it when he realized the fire next
door was too close for him to make it out safely, and he was forced
to turn.

By now, the smoke was burning his eyes so
that they were hardly tearing any longer and he could see little
but blurred shapes. It was hot, and sweat made him and his grip
slippery and clumsy. He took several steps toward the door before
stumbling and nearly falling to his knees.

Nay, Father, do not take me now!

The thought came from nowhere, but came with
a galvanizing strength, and Gavin felt a burst of energy beat back
the fatigue he’d been feeling. He took two more steps toward the
door, and was just about to reach for the edge of the opening when
a loud crash filled the air. A sudden wave of smoke and flame
buffeted toward him, and the last thing he saw was the roof
tumbling toward him.

Eight

Fantin de Belgrume awoke with a smile on his
face.

At last, his destiny was clear. He felt
light and free and very sated, only part of which was due to the
warm body that slumbered next to him.

The only disappointment, the only thing that
kept him from being completely serene was the knowledge that Gavin
Mal Verne still lived. The mere thought of the man caused Fantin’s
insides to roil with anger and hatred—but the added knowledge that
the evil man had Fantin’s own innocent daughter in his possession
served to make him near mad with the bloodred fury that seemed to
rear in him more oft as of late.

An obsession…mayhap Rufus spoke aright. In
the dawning light of day, abovestairs and away from the beckoning
power of his laboratory, Fantin could admit that his venom toward
Mal Verne was perchance more of a distraction than it should
be.

Did he indeed allow his need to annihilate
Mal Verne sway him from his holy work? Aye, it could be true.

Yet, he could not allow the man to keep him
from his purpose, and Mal Verne, should he have the chance, would
destroy Fantin’s life and any opportunity to finish his work. ’Twas
self-preservation, Fantin acknowledged as he trailed a finger along
the sweeping curve of Retna’s spine.

As the woman next to him shifted, brushing
against him in her sleep, Fantin could not help but recall the many
times Mal Verne’s own Nicola had done the same. The woman’s body
had been sleek and sensual, and she fancied herself in love with
Fantin. He, in turn, had believed she was the woman God had
provided him in the replacement of his dead wife Anne. Mayhap not
as pure, but worthy to bed with Fantin and become one with him.
After all, God had given the earthly pleasures of coupling to all
humans, and, like his patron, The Whore Saint, Fantin did not deny
himself that release.

It had been no hardship to avail himself of
what Nicola, Lady Mal Verne, offered the first time he’d met her at
court. Fantin had had merely to give her his measured, haunting
look from the lute over which he labored with such melancholy, and
to sing of beauteous maids and the perfection of the love bestowed
upon them by their champions …and the woman had been lured in like
a mule following a carrot.

Of course, being wed with a gruff, silent,
stupid man such as Mal Verne should drive any woman to one with the
charm and striking countenance that Fantin possessed, he reflected
as his lips shifted in a self-satisfied smile. God had blessed him
well, indeed, in making him attractive to both women and men…at the
least, those of whom he
wished
to have find him attractive,
and to follow his way and support his work.

Retna opened her eyes, hazy with sleep, and
allowed the blanket to shift nearly to her waist, baring herself to
him. Fantin looked at her, the stirrings of lust returning to his
nether regions, and considered whether he should make love with her
once more before sending her to her fate in the laboratory.

’Twas a messy fate, but necessary.

This was, in fact, his weakness. The
physical coupling with a woman—any woman—who did not bear the same
purity that God had bestowed upon Fantin was the vice that he must
battle, the cross he must bear, the temptation that he must set
right. He knew he compromised his gift, his Purpose, by enjoying
the flesh of whores and women who gave their bodies to any man who
asked—true whores, or even the ladies of court, such as Nicola Mal
Verne. She had not been the pure woman he’d believed, and that had
caused Fantin much grief.

Yet, David had had his Bathsheba, and God
still gifted him with his kingdom. Aye, David’d had his punishment,
but Fantin did not fear that. So long as the Lord continued to show
him the way to the formula for the Philosopher’s Stone, Fantin
could manage any penance that might be foisted upon him.

If Anne had not perished…. Ah, Anne, his
wife, the one woman who possessed untouched innocence and was
chosen as he was. The one woman worthy of his physical love.

Fantin had searched for one to replace her
these ten summers past, and had never found one worthy of him.
Nicola had been his greatest error, enslaving him with her whoring
ways whilst causing him to believe she was innocent and pure.

Until he found the woman God meant for him,
his transgressions would only be forgiven if he removed the
temptation—the sluts, the whores—from his sight, from his life…from
this world.

Only then—when he found perfection in a
woman and needed to look no further—would he be forgiven his
transgressions.

* * *

Madelyne heard the horrifying crash as the
roof groaned and folded into the house where Mal Verne had
disappeared. She shrieked and ran toward the collapsed building as
smoke poured forth. Jube, who had shadowed her since she left her
chamber, was right on her heels, shouting for Clem and Arden to
assist. He pushed her to one side, giving her a curt command to
stay there, as he approached the rickety structure.

She stood there obediently, gnawing on her
fist, watching the three men dash toward the building. A small
crowd of women and children, led by the woman who had alerted Mal
Verne to the missing people, clustered behind Madelyne.

Jube, followed by Clem and then Arden,
stooped and gingerly pushed through the entrance to the house. They
disappeared into the smoke.

Madelyne saw flames beginning to flicker
through the roof, and she clenched her fist tighter, her attention
fastened on the building. What if all of them were lost?

After what seemed like an age, a figure
stumbled through the entrance, dragging a heavy burden, and was
followed by two more soot-blackened men, carrying a body between
them. Madelyne’s heart pushed up into her throat as she ran forward
into the circle of heat blasting from the house. The first man was
Arden, and he pulled his burden well away from the building,
letting it drop onto the ground as he sagged against a nearby tree.
One quick glance identified the lump as a woman, her skirts mussed
and torn, and her face and hair cut and bleeding.

Madelyne saw that she was being attended to
before rushing on to meet Clem and Jube, who carried what she
feared was Gavin Mal Verne between them. They staggered, choking
and coughing, with their heavy burden, to the perimeter of the
crowd of people before allowing the body to sag onto the
ground.

Madelyne was on her knees in an instant,
sinking onto the stone-covered ground next to the limp, blackened
body of Lord Mal Verne. She felt immediately for a pulse, touching
the side of his neck and gasping with relief when she found it.
Then, she placed her palm flat on his bare, scarred chest and bent
her ear near his mouth and nose to ascertain whether he yet
breathed. When she felt the rise and fall of his chest and heard
the raspy breath coming from his nose, she sat back and scrambled
to her feet.

“We must get him, and the other injured, to
the keep immediately,” she commanded unnecessarily, gesturing to a
man-at-arms she did not know. The alarm had already been raised for
the lord of Mal Verne, and two men-at-arms were preparing a litter
for him.

A sudden gust of wind buffeted Madelyne’s
shortened gown and caused the flames to billow more furiously. She
looked at the next home in line for the fire, and saw that it too
would be up in smoke shortly. Scanning the line of houses that
would be the next victims of the fire, she saw they were built so
close together that the chain would continue, flattening most of
the village if the flames were not subdued.

Madelyne looked over at the first of the
buildings to catch fire, and saw that the line of bucket-passers
had adjusted their efforts from that one to the others, since it
was long past saving. They seemed to be able to do little to
contain the blaze. Mal Verne would awaken, God willing, to find
that his whole village had burned.

Suddenly, just as she was turning away to
join the group of men carrying the injured up to the keep, Madelyne
had an idea. Grabbing Clem’s arm, she spoke rapidly into his face,
glad to see that he had seemed to recover from his rescue mission
in the collapsed building.

“If the fire is not stopped, the whole town
will burn,” she told him. “It leaps from house to house, and we
cannot stop it. Why do you not destroy the next two houses so that
the flames have nowhere to go, and then they will be
contained.”

He looked at her as if she were mad, but
then a dawning light crept over his face. “Aye, my lady, ’tis a
good thought! It is too bad for those who live in those houses, but
’tis a better option than seeing them burn.” His voice, though
rough and raspy from smoke, showed his enthusiasm for the idea.

She started to resume her walk up the path
to the walls, and he stopped her with a brief, gentle hand on her
arm. “Thank you my lady, and care for Lord Gavin if you can save
him. He may not have the will to live, but you must infuse it in
him, for he has traveled a long and hard road.” With that, he lost
the remains of his hoarse voice and became encompassed in a fit of
coughing.

Madelyne touched his arm in response. “I
shall do what I can for Lord Mal Verne. And do you come to me when
this is over and I will give you aught for your cough.” Then, she
turned away and began the trek up to the keep.

* * *

It was she, his Madonna, the first thing he
saw when he opened his eyes. Gavin’s lids were painfully heavy,
scratching over eyes that were gritted like sand, but there was
nothing wrong with his vision.