Sweet Enchantress (26 page)

CHAPTER XIX

"Paxton has deserted you, my dear. You should have the marriage annulled."

"I carry his child, Francis!"

He tried to keep his smile gentle. Despite her girth, her face was thin and drawn, with shadows darkening her eye sockets. "A small detail for the pope.”

Her mouth' crimped in annoyance. "Our child is no small detail.”

She was concentrating on embroidering the laying-in pillowcase for the coming childbirth and so missed the way his own mouth curled downward. He reached down and placed his hand over hers, stilling it. "Dominique, let me care for you.”

She stared at his hand then raised her
puzzled gaze to his. “What do you mean by that, Francis?”

“
Let me take care of you.”

“
I have always been able to take care of myself, you know that.”

"But now with the c
hild coming. . . .”

“
Baldwyn and Iolande are like my own parents. They will care for—”

“
They are old. Who knows when they might die?”

"Francis, I enjoy my independence. I do not think your suggestion would work. Besides. . . .”

"Yes?”

A tiny smile curved h
er lips. "Besides, I do not think it would be wise to subject your vows to such temptation.”

“
Are you implying I might finally succeed in seducing you?”

Her laugh was short. “
I am implying the temptation of riches. You know, those legendary Albigensian treasures buried here and all that.”

“
Touché," he said, smiling. “Now, I must take my leave, but think on what I have said, will you not?”

She nodded toward the window. “
The rain is turning to snow. Why not stay the night?”

“
Esclarmonde will be expecting my return."

She rose and crossed with an awkward grace to the portable iron brazier used for heating. He could tell she was choosing her
words carefully. "I am told that your sister spends more nights away now than at your residence.”

The muscles in his jaws t
ightened, and he forced them to relax in an easy smile. "’Tis time she found herself a mate. I just would not have chosen a
routier
for her.”

"Denys is a soldier now, Francis, not a brigand.”

"That may be so, but it does not ease my trepidations.” His sister was a part of him. As she strained away, so, too, could he feel part of himself straining away. He would remedy that, anon. "But that is beside the point I wished to make. I ask you give consideration to my suggestion, Dominique. You and I, we are Montlimoux. The blood of my afterbirth nourished its soil, as did yours. 'Tis time we reunited with Montlimoux. Your child is Montlimoux.”

She rubbed her temples. "When you speak such, I
—I have trouble following your mean- mg.

He stared hard at her. "You did not use to.”

"That was before. . . .”

When she did not finish, he said, "Before the foreigner possessed you. Anon, the snow will make traveling difficult. I must go.”

He took his leave, and, entering the protection of his litter, pulled the curtain closed against the blowing snow. From his cloak, he withdrew the missive he had been carrying with him for months now. He waited until his litter bearers had steadied their gait, then unfolded the letter.

The dim, afternoon light m
ade reading the blood-red words difficult. Besides, he knew them by heart. In his mind's eye, he could see all the alchemical and astrological signs and their conjoining.

He smiled, his lips thin and bloodless. At last, the time was propitious for using he
r missive. Mixed with sulfur, ash, and a child's urine, the shreds of the letter would draw all the characters, as if in a Mystery Play, to center stage.

From Edward’s flagship, Paxton surveyed the enemy invasion. It was dauntingly large, including not French but also Castilian and Genoese vessels, as well as Saracen corsairs.

Most of
Edward’s vessels were cogs, merchant ships designed for carrying cargoes which ranged from wool to wine and from livestock to passengers.

The Mediterranean galleys
of the French possessed oars which gave them superior speed and maneuverability, and placed Edward at a considerable tactical disadvantage. The one thing in favor of the English cog was that, while it was hardly a warship, it made an excellent troop transport, a boat for all kinds of weather and especially suitable for plowing the North Sea

"There are so many ships, their masts look like a great forest,”
Edward grumbled.

“
Tis not the ships that will decide the battle,
Monseignor
.” Paxton said softly, “'tis the people.”

Dominique would have said the same. He had learn
ed much from her. She was a mermaid, a sylph, an undine, a nymph, a charlatan healer.

Abruptly, he
put her from his mind. “Philip's twenty thousand men on board are largely press-ganged, and few of them have even seen a battle. They are frightened fisherfolk, burgees, and longshoremen. Our soldiers will make the difference when all 'tis said and done.”

His prediction appeared shaky, because once the two fleets clashed, the first casualty was a fi
ne English cog, which was carrying a great number of countesses, ladies, knights’ wives, and other damsels who were going to see the queen at Ghent. With the sinking of the cog, the screams of the drowning ladies in their heavy skirts was maddening. In every cry, he heard an echo of Dominique's voice, its pain that tore apart his dreams every night.

The battles by sea were fiercer than those by land. Here, there was no fleeing, no remedy but to fight and abide fortune and prove one
’s prowess. He feared not death but Dominique and her magnificent feminine power. Ultimately, he knew he feared most that surrender of self.

An iron cloud of quarrels from crossbows and arrows from long bows darkened the sky.

When the king’s flagship hauled alongside a Castilian ship, the English soldiers had difficulty in boarding safely because the sides were so tall. The battle aboard the Castilian ship rang from morning until noon, and Paxton was in the thick of the mêlée. His white boots were covered with blood. His anger, his fear, all were channeled into the act of destruction. "Dogs of unbelievers,” he cursed his enemy, swinging his bloodied sword along its murderous path. "Whelp of a she-wolf," he cursed himself.

Eventually, his prediction proved true, with th
e English archers shooting two and even three arrows for every one crossbow quarrel fired by the French. The French squadron was overwhelmed, and the corpse of its admiral was swung from the yardarm of the king’s flagship. Many of the enemy jumped overboard, their wounded being thrown after them. The sea was so full of bodies that the water appeared blood-red to Paxton.

The coming of dusk went unnoticed, so bright was the light of the burning ships. The victory was a great one for the English. Yet, when dar
kness fell Paxton was not among the celebrants. In his quarters, he sat ill and wretching. The violence of the day had turned his mind.

As the witch had turned his mind. By the body of Christ, he missed her and, aye, loved her. But he was relieved to be aw
ay from her. She would do anything to keep Montlimoux.

Hi
s sorceress.

Esclarmonde snuggled against Denys’s side, trying to absorb the warmth of his big body. His ruffians and freebooters slept not far away in a field of charred stubble. The night air was chilled, the ground on which they lay was chilled, and her heart was chilled. Would she never know warmth?

She had thought by running to Denys he would protect her. From what? From herself? She knew now she would never find that protection.

She stared up at the full moon. Thin streamers of black drifted across it. A full moon was said to expose misdeeds. Was Francis accountable for his? The brother she had loved so consummately, so completely, appeared to be two different men. No, not two men. Man —and beast. One loving. One fiend. Would he let her come back home? Would he take her into the safety of his arms again once she had accomplished what he demanded of her?

The ravages of war began to intrude on Montlimoux's pastoral beauty, its flowered hills and tree-sprinkled meadows.

These days Baldwyn made certain that guards patrolled the chateau
’s watchwalk night and day. From the north came occasional news of the English forays of heavy cavalry that left the land and its people devastated. English forays often led under the brilliant and incisive generalship of Paxton of Wychchester.

Here, on
the boundaries of Edward’s principality of Aquitaine, a farm was burned out, its corn ricks and wine vats smashed; there, on the river road, a trade caravan was ambushed; a village church plundered, its priest beheaded, his head used as shot in a catapult.

Death and rebirth.

Dominique felt that with the birth of her child would come her own rebirth; that somehow she would take joy in life once again. The birthing of this child was ravaging her body worse than any war. Once her accouchement began, she concentrated solely on surrendering to the pain.

Again and again, she left her bed to seek out the birthing s
tool, but her stomach's contractions were not enough to force the babe out.

“
A syrup of the red poppy will ease your pain," Iolande said, stroking Dominique’s sweat-dampened hair.

"No. No, I want to be fully . . .”
She paused and caught her breath at the sharpness of the next pain. Her hand twisted the bed sheets until the veins stood out like a road map. “. . . fully conscious.  All of me partaking . . . in this welcoming.”

The hours of labor faded one into another, each moment passing and stealing with it her
strength. Her thoughts could not push beyond the fog closing around her.

"Will she die?" she heard Baldwyn ask but could not detect Iolande's reply.

What she did hear was her own inner voice. Soon, you will cross the bridge from birth, to death, reaching all selflessness.  What she wanted was rescue; rescue as the angels did.  The heavens shook, and the sky cracked.

At the earliest hour of morning, the first
squall of a newborn pierced the chateau’s stillness.

Iolande and Baldwyn stared at each other in unspoken horror. Baldwyn was the f
irst to break the dead-calm of the silence. He spoke in a hoarse whisper. "Twins! What will happen?”

His question galvanized the old Jewess into action. “
What you are thinking is nothing but an old wife’s tale!” she said, taking a swaddling cloth to the first babe, who cried lustily. "You and I both know Dominique. These boys did not have two separate fathers.”

"I know Paxton. He would be merciless if he even
wondered if Dominique had betrayed him with another man.”

She passed him the first infant and began
cleaning the mucus from the second. "What would you do, leper? Kill one before word gets out?”

The big man winced from the blow of her words. "You know I could not
—”

"Or, mayhap,
select one to give away to a peasant's wife to raise to manhood? Are you daft?" Her gnarled hands worked rapidly. There was still Dominique to be cared for. The birthing had gone hard for the slender-hipped young woman, and she slept, soothed by the hand of the poppy drug Iolande had given her after the birthing.

"Listen to me, old woman!”
he thundered.

"Hush, you will frighten the babes!”
She thrust the second infant in his other arm. The sight of the giant cradling the two tiny bundles brought a smile to her prunish lips. Her mouth twisted. "You make a respectable grandfather, Baldwyn.”

He glared down at her. "That is the first time in t
hirty years or more you have addressed me by my given name.”

“
Well, then ’tis time I did so.” She busied herself with the cleanup of the bloodied linens and afterbirth.

“
Then 'tis time we make ourselves official grandparents. What say you?”

She darted him a gruff look. “
What are you talking about?”

“
Marriage, old woman.”

Her eyes softened. "My name is Iolande.”

The suckling of Chretien produced a most pleasurably achin
g sensation in Dominique’s engorged breast. She smiled down at her infant son. His skin was as fresh as dew, his eyes as dark brown as . . . as spring's sparrow, perched on the stone windowsill. Outside, one would never know that spring was imminent. The grass was white and withered, as she often felt.

Except when she gazed upon her sons. Her sons and Paxton's. She pressed her nipple to free it of the tiny mouth and passed Chretien to a waiting Iolande, who grumbled, "You would be better changing yourself t
o a cow if you mean to nurse both.”

After Iolande left
with Chretien, Dominique bent over the second cradle and lifted out Rainbaut. He was a rainbow, with the fat, rosy cheeks and the endless blue eyes. They met hers so artlessly and acceptingly. She studied the tiny hand that curled around her finger and the fine wisps of hair that crowned his head.

Such a tenderness, a total selfless love, would well inside her that she wondered how she had ever felt her life was complete. The villagers were distressed t
hat she had chosen no nurse from among them to suckle her children, but the earth mother in her demanded this privilege for herself.

Chretien and Rainbaut slept more hours
than they were awake, and she was left with her memories of their father too much of that time. If it were not for Francis’s diverting visits, she suspected she would go crazy. Some said she already was, because she did not accept Church doctrine and believed in supernatural powers, benign though she believed they might be and available to anyone.

The crazy chatelaine of Montlimoux.

She was anticipating a visit from the bishop this very afternoon for the twins’ baptism on the morrow, so when she heard the noises in the corridor outside her chamber her face lit up. Her pleased expression faded when Esclarmonde opened the door first, with Francis behind her.

Dominiq
ue could not control her resentment nor her tongue. "Your visit is unexpected, Esclarmonde. Doubtlessly, you have come to see Paxton’s children, but I—”

Her words faltered when the bishop closed the door and lowered the hood of his cassock to reveal
—not Francis—but Denys. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. But by the sudden icing of her veins, she knew exactly why he had come.

He pushed past Esclarmonde and, before Dominique realized his intent, snatched Rainbaut from her arms. The infant cried out in protest at the separation from his mother.

She started to scream for help, and he snarled, "Do so, and I will have Esclarmonde baptize the babe with my dagger.”

She stared up into the face of her friend, not even recognizing it, so distorted was it by hate. "Denys, you cannot mean this!”

Her expression gloating, Francis's sister reached to unsheathe the Italian dagger. "This should silence your scream, Dominique— and the howling cur Denys holds.”

"No,”
Denys ordered. "The babes come with us. Sooner or later, Paxton will have to come on bended knee to me—if he wants his infants alive and whole.”

Over
whelming fear for her children hammered at Dominique’s heart. The fear swelled in her chest and burst upward through her head, blinding her and filling her throat so that it was like a dream where one tries to scream and cannot. "Please—oh, dear heaven, Denys—please, have mercy on my sons!”

"Paxton
’s sons.”

"You cannot take my babies! What has happened to you, Denys, to destroy all the goodness within you?”

“This!” He held up his stump, pitifully scarred and reddened. His cruel smile held the bitterness of one who has suffered greatly and not learned why from the experience. "But, mayhap, we can arrange an exchange. Do you think Paxton might lay down his life for those of his sons’?”

The infant
was crying lustily, and Dominique could only hope the cries would bring someone. “He cares naught for his children.” Or he would not have deserted her, her heart cried out, while another voice reminded her she was the one who had ordered him to leave.

“
He knows naught of his children,” Esclarmonde said. Her smile was as sharp-edged as the dagger she held near Rainbaut.

"You are wrong, Esclarmonde. I penned him a missive about
—"

"My brother has the missive. You see, I
found it after you and Paxton left the office that night of the reception.” Her mouth formed a spiteful curl. "From what I witnessed that evening, it would seem that you and I have something in common after all, Dominique—rejection by Paxton of Wychchester. Do you think Martine keeps his camp bed warm these days?”

The demented gleam in Esclarmonde's eyes spu
rred Dominique into action. She sprang from her chair, screaming, "Give me my baby!”

She would have wrenched Rainbaut from Denys, but Esclarmonde got there first. Her knife plunged downward, and she shrieked, "I baptize the bastard!”

In that heartstopping moment, all seemed to slow down to Dominique: the knife plunging, Rainbaut crying, Denys's mouth angrily shouting something at Esclarmonde.

Next Denys veered away, taking R
ainbaut out of the knife’s reach. The knife continued its journey all the way to Denys heart. He staggered, and Dominique tried to support both him and her baby, between them. As she lowered them to the floor, Esclarmonde watched, transfixed by the scene. Then she whirled and ran from the room.

"Denys!”
Dominique begged. "Look at me.” His eyes were open but they would not meet hers. She had encountered that resistance often in the ill, especially the elderly, who were bent on dying. "Do not give up, Denys, my own. Fight the darkness!"

At his si
de, Rainbaut wailed, but she ignored her baby and begin tearing away at Denys’s doublet and blood-wet shirt. Bubbles of blood pumped from the wound, a small one to inflict such a horrible result. She pressed her hand over it, feeling the blood seep between her fingers. She pressed and encanted and affirmed, knowing all the while that her efforts were useless.

Her chil
dhood friend did not want to remain in this form.