Sanctuary of Roses (4 page)

Henry barely paused in his great, vigorous
strides that brought him past Gavin once again. “And how is
that?”

Gavin fingered the rough, unevenness of the
beads in his pouch. “I mislike to speak of it yet, my lord.
Until…until I’ve put all plans into place.”

“I do not rightly care,” Henry fumed, “as
long as that man is brought under control, made to pay his taxes,
and swear his fealty to me—I do not care how you do it!”

As always, it came down to the funds in
Henry Plantagenet’s mind. Despite the fact that there were other
dangers in having a madman as one of his vassals. Gavin said naught
but, “Aye, my lord. I shall.” He swallowed the last of the wine in
his cup. “By your leave, your majesty, I’ll excuse myself to see to
those arrangements.”

“Be off.” Henry waved a hand and returned to
his pacing. “Keep us informed of your progress.”

“Aye, my lord. Thank you, your majesty.”

Gavin took his leave of Henry, relieved that
the private meeting was over.

It had been no easy task to admit his
resounding defeat to the king, but now he would redouble his
efforts to stop Fantin de Belgrume. He’d declined to describe his
stay at the abbey, and the hasty, manipulative dismissal those nuns
had given him and his men—for that, too, stuck in his craw that
they should be treated with such indignity.

Fortunately, the night in which he, Thomas,
and the others had awakened in a glen with their mounts tethered
nearby had been dry and warm—else they may have taken ill yet
again. Gavin knew they had been drugged, and, indeed, knew the
perpetrator of the deed. The serene Madonna-nun, who had so
innocently given him the goblet from which to drink, had stayed at
his side, watching him with luminous gray eyes while her potion did
its work. Though he’d recognized a certain steeliness under her
calm demeanor, he’d never thought to be the recipient of such
callousness from his own healer.

Afterward, he may have thought all of it no
more than hallucination, had he not found her prayer beads tucked
into his pouch. An’ it hadn’t been until some days later ere he
remembered the markings on her wrist and realized what that might
mean.

He would seek out Judith, who served in the
queen’s court, to be certain his suspicions were accurate.

As always when he meant to speak with his
cousin and childhood playmate, Gavin’s heart weighed heavier. He
relived again those moments when Judith realized what hurt he’d
caused her. Those blue eyes had pooled with angry, accusing tears,
and her long fingers had clenched into her own arms, drawing
prickles of blood. She had bid him remove himself from her
sight.

Ere that time they’d spoken but briefly, and
though the accusation was no longer in her expression, he could see
sorrow and pain still mirrored there. He grieved with her, but he
could do naught about putting the anguish there except to have
vengeance upon Fantin de Belgrume in her name as well as his
own.

* * *

When Gavin, Lord of Mal Verne, was announced
in the queen’s court, the gossip and giggles halted abruptly and
the ladies turned to watch in fascination as the tall, rugged man
strode into the chambers. He went directly to Eleanor, kneeling to
kiss her ring, and when a slight smile cracked his hard face at
something she murmured to him, it was well-noted.

Judith, who sat in a nearby corner
embroidering on a wedding gown for one of the ladies, stood as he
rose from posturing over the queen’s hand. She walked quickly to
him, hoping to impress upon him her pleasure at his visit. Since
she was very young, they’d been friends—although Gavin was nearly
seven years older than she. He’d fostered under her father’s care,
and Gavin had been the elder brother she’d never had. This rift
between them had caused her nearly as much grief as Gregory’s
death.

“Gavin!” She smiled and stretched out her
hands to him, ignoring the interested looks cast from the other
ladies.

Mal Verne had a reputation at court that
caused a combination of attraction and trepidation among the
ladies—they either discussed ways in which to breach that iron-like
armor in order to captivate his heart, or ’twas declared that he
had no heart to conquer. He turned, and though she had warmth and
welcome radiating from her body, she saw that hesitation and
apprehension still swam in his eyes.

“Lady Judith,” he said formally, lightly
taking her fingertips in his large, scarred hands. “You look well,
as always. How do you fare?”

Disappointment swelled through her. He
looked haggard and hard, his face set as if in stone, his gray eyes
cool and flat as marble. ’Twas as if he allowed any emotion to come
to bear, he would crumble.

Judith squeezed his hands, trying as always,
to show that she’d forgiven him for that day years before…and, as
always, he did not seem to comprehend, remaining remote and cool.
“I am well, of course—how could I not be, here with the queen?”

She slipped a hand through the crook of his
elbow, drawing him away from the curious ears and eyes of the
ladies-in-waiting. “But you…Gavin, have you been ill?” She sat on
the cushioned bench in a small alcove and looked up at his towering
figure.

After a moment of hesitation, he lowered
himself to sit next to her. “Naught but a small slice in my side
from de Belgrume’s sword,” he said dismissively. “’Twas tended by a
nun in a nearby abbey.”

“You look weary.” She tried again to bridge
the span betwixt them.

“I traveled from York, and I have not rested
ere I left. ’Tis no more than that.” He formed his lips into a
half-hearted smile. “Judith, I came only to ask of you some
information—I do not wish to keep you from your duties, or your
friends.”

She swallowed and looked away. If only he’d
let his guard relax, and put aside his feelings of guilt, he would
see that she was pleased at his visit instead of being overset by
it. Since Papa’s death, Gavin was her only living relative, her
only family…and he’d refused to acknowledge it since Gregory’s
death for fear of shaming her. “I would be most pleased to help you
if I am able, cousin.”

“You were fostered for a short time with de
Belgrume’s daughter, were you not?”

“Aye, Gavin, I know that I have spoken of
that year in Kent on occasion. I was only twelve summers, and she
no more than ten. She was there for only five moons before he sent
for her to return to Tricourten. She did not wish to go.” Judith
clenched her fingers as she recalled the deathly whitening of her
friend’s face at the message. Though Madelyne spoke little of her
father, ’twas obvious she disliked—even feared—him. “’Twas only
some moons later that I learned she and her mother had drowned in
the river near Tricourten.”

“Drowned. Aye, that was the story I recall
hearing as well.” Something in Gavin’s eyes gave Judith pause, and
she looked at him more closely.

“What is it?”

“Did you not speak to me of an odd marking
on her arm? I recall your musings once that the little girl had
some unusual spots near her wrist.”

Judith nodded. “Aye. Three moles near her
wrist, just here.” She demonstrated on her own flesh. “When she
first came to Kent Castle, one of the maidservants made mention of
it and spread the talk that mayhaps she was a witch, with such
markings. But that notion was soon dispelled, for Madelyne was such
a kind and sweet girl that none could think ill of her.”

It seemed that a glint of grim humor flashed
over Gavin’s face at that, but ’twas gone so quickly that Judith
was sure she had imagined it. He spoke again. “And how exactly were
those markings placed?”

She showed him: one mole atop two that were
aligned, creating the shape of a small, tight triangle. There was
such satisfaction in his face that she suddenly realized what he
was about. “You do not mean that she lives?”

His brows drew together in a sudden show of
ferocity such that Judith was taken aback. “Aye, the wench does
live. And it shall be through her that I’ll at last get to
Fantin.”

“You’d not hurt her!” Judith forgot herself
and the fragility of the tenuous bond between them and clutched at
his powerful arm. Insult flashed over his face at her words, and
she berated herself for causing it. But she’d not see another
woman, especially Madelyne de Belgrume (if ’twas truly her of whom
he spoke) hurt.

“Nay, Judith, I’d not hurt her.” His voice
was gruff as he closed his fingers over her hand to remove it from
his arm. “But she will be a means to bring Fantin to heel.”

* * *

The rough stones ground into his aching
knees, but Fantin de Belgrume delighted in the discomfort. He would
bear any such penance or pain whilst he prayed—for any distress he
suffered now would be well repaid when his work was completed.
Indeed, Fantin preferred to pray among the evidence of this work,
there on the bare floor, within the sight and smell and feel of it,
rather than in the chapel.

He twined his fingers together in
supplication, finishing the hour of prayer that was as much a part
of his work in the laboratory as the formulas and tonics and
metallic brews were. Fantin began and ended every session in his
laboratory in concert with God, knowing that without His guidance,
he would never find the formula he sought…which had been promised
him.

’Twas fitting, that he should be the one to
receive the secret once given to the Magdalen—the fascinating,
sinful woman who appeared as three different ladies in the Gospels:
Mary of Magdala, Mary, the sister of Lazarus, and the woman who
anointed Christ’s feet with her tears and wiped them dry with her
hair.

She was a woman who atoned for her sins—a
wealthy woman, just as Fantin himself was wealthy. A wealthy woman
who sinned through sexual pleasure…just as Fantin did. The woman
from whom Christ had expelled seven demons.

Legend had it that this woman’s bones—the
bones of the Whore Saint, as Fantin preferred to think of her—were
interred near Vézelay, in France. Coincidentally, it was the
village near where his mother hailed, and was thus cause for her
devotion to the Magdalen. Legend foretold that the blood of the
woman saint ran in Fantin’s own veins—and he knew that was the
reason God had chosen him.

Pulling to his feet, relishing the pain that
shot down his left leg and knowing that soon it would never bother
him again, Fantin drew in a deep breath of pleasure and joy. The
stale, earthy smell of the below-stairs chamber tinged his
nostrils, and he inhaled deeply, drawing its energy into his
being.

’Twas not a pleasant smell, that of brewing
leaves, burning flesh and molten metal, he allowed—in fact, it was
enough to curdle one’s belly—but God had put it on His earth
apurpose. Every aspect of His creation, every being, every creature
served a role in God’s world…and Fantin himself served the greatest
of these.

He smiled, thinking on that as he returned
to the table where the last task he’d been involved in—crushing the
smooth, silky bark of a birch tree with flakes of silver and bronze
metals—remained half-completed.

For years, he’d sought the secret of the
Grail: perfect combination of chemistry that would create the
substance whose mere touch would give him Immortality. It would
change any metals to gold.

It would create for Fantin a life of power
under which to serve God.

He sought and studied and prayed to
determine the exact amounts of each element that would be required
to complete the ancient process. Metals, wood, earth,
water…fire…all or some of these elements would someday cohese,
forming that miracle which Fantin sought—that miracle which had
been promised him by his bloodline: the miracle of the Holy Grail
and what some called the Philosopher’s Stone.

Next to the bowl with curling birch bark and
metal flakes, the corpse of an adder oozed blood into another
bowl—a metal one, to hold the rich, wine-like liquid without
absorbing its essence. Another element added to the mix…mayhap, it
would be the answer this time.

The adder, Fantin reflected wisely, was the
symbol of Eve’s temptation, and a fitting conduit in his work bent
on purification and transfiguration.

His laboratory, dug beneath the stone floor
of Tricourten’s Great Hall, had been Fantin’s refuge and salvation
since he realized he was God’s chosen, and most especially since
the loss of his beloved wife and daughter. Three long tables lined
the chamber, which had more generous lighting than the hall above,
due to fifty pitch torches lit by Tavis every morn and kept burning
until late in the night.

Neat stacks of bowls—of every type of wood,
rock, and metal—heaped at the end of each table. Goblets, skins,
boxes, knives, pincers, spoons…all rested in the spot allotted to
each of them, always arranged in a manner that would be most
pleasing to God. Jars and pots of calendula, rosemary, woad leaves,
belladonna, bergamot essence, dog’s grass, ragwort, and hundreds of
other useful plants sat on shelves against the large stone wall
near the metal chains and restraints. He had taken care that the
shelves remained well out of reach of the unfortunates who might
make use of those chains—he did not wish to have his herbalry
dashed to the floor by a disturbed or frightened guest.

Fantin used a stick to prod the small fire
burning in a large metal cauldron set into the wooden table. The
bones of the hare he’d skinned earlier had turned to ash among the
sticks from an apple tree, and the charred wood glowed a wicked
orange on the underbelly of the pot.

“My lord.”

Fantin looked over at the berobed priest,
who had just emerged from the tiny chapel built into the corner of
his laboratory. His breathing quickened and sweat dampened his
palms. He moved from the table toward the monk. “Father, have you
word?”