The Silver Rose (27 page)

“He tried.” Simon paused in currying Elle, troubled as he often was by the memory of those long-ago days when he had been Le Vis’s apprentice, wanting to please the man who had saved his life and yet disturbed by so many of Le Vis’s teachings.

Coming out of the stall, Simon absently ran his fingers over the bristles of the brush. “He said as a good Christian and true Catholic, I should despise all heretics, condemn them to burn in hell. He made me feel so confused, I spent hours praying over it.” Simon gave a mirthless laugh.

“Believe it or not, I did actually still pray in those days. I wanted to be a good Christian as Master Le Vis preached, but his tenets were so different from the gentle doctrine I had learned from my father.

“He was astonishingly more tolerant than most of the folk in our village, perhaps because he had some experience of the wider world. He oft told me how my grandfather had been to the wars in Spain and how his life was saved by a very kind and skilled Moorish physician. And once when my father traveled to a fair in another village, he himself was set upon by brigands and rescued by a Jewish merchant.

“Jews and Moors . . . Master Le Vis would have condemned them all, along with the Huguenots, no matter how brave or kind. But my father was always wont to say if there are so many roads to a city like Paris, just think how many more there must be to heaven. We don’t need to all follow the exact same path to get there in the end.”

Simon suddenly had a vivid image of Javier Aristide sitting by the hearth as he had imparted his simple wisdom, the big man’s work-roughened hands busy with his whittling. His father’s hands had seldom been idle, always fashioning something, a new leg for a broken stool, a wooden bowl for his mother, or some whimsical carved animal for Lorene. For the first time in years, the memory was more poignant than painful.

He didn’t realize he had allowed his thoughts to drift off until Elle nudged him with her nose, coaxing him to continue his brushing. Miri was gazing up at him, with a soft light in her eyes he wished he deserved.

“Don’t look at me that way, Miri Cheney,” he warned.

“What way is that?” she asked.

“Like you think that I am in any way like my father. I am not. I helped the Maitlands simply because—because it suited me to do so. I can hardly hope to prosecute the Silver Rose if others are blamed for her crimes. I am no hero.”

“I doubt the Maitlands would agree. When I think of what could have happened to them—” Miri shuddered. “These religious conflicts are terrible enough without anyone deliberately sowing more discord. If that is what this Silver Rose is trying to do, then the woman truly is a monster. When will all this senseless cruelty between Huguenots and Catholics ever end? I—I worry so much about Gabrielle and her family.”

“I wish I could tell you that you have no cause,” Simon replied somberly. “But from what I overheard that night at Chenonceau, the war is only going to get worse. If the Dark Queen is not able to check the ambitions of the duc de Guise, he will gain complete control of the royal army and march on Navarre, try to crush the Huguenots once and for all. You might want to warn your sister.”

“I am sure Remy is fully aware of the danger and will make sure his family is protected, but I will send word to them at first opportunity—” Miri broke off, her face suffusing with a telltale flush. Ducking her head, she stammered, “That—that is, I would warn Gabrielle if I knew where she was. Which—which I don’t.”

What a poor liar she was. But in a world full of people far too gifted at dissembling, Simon found Miri’s transparent honesty one of her most endearing traits.

“You might try dispatching a message to their farm in Pau,” he suggested.

When Miri’s head snapped up, her eyes widening with consternation, he added, “I have known for a long time where Gabrielle and her Huguenot captain fled, but I had no interest in pursuing them. It was the Lady of Faire Isle and her sorcerer husband who eluded my hunt.”

“Now that you know Renard doesn’t have the
Book of Shadows,
you no longer have any reason for searching for him, do you?” she asked.

“With or without the
Book,
the Comte is still alarmingly well versed in black magic.”

“Renard would never use his knowledge for any ill purpose, Simon.” Miri said, her face upturned to his, her lovely eyes anxious and pleading. “You must believe me.”

He wished that he could. He regretted ever mentioning Renard. Like casting a pebble into the serene surface of a pond, it threatened to disturb the newfound harmony between them. Simon had known few times of peace in his life, especially with Miri, and it was all the more precious to him for that. He compressed his lips and found himself making a concession that he’d thought he never would.

“Should I ever cross paths with Renard again, I—I will do my best to turn away and leave him be. For your sake.”

“He’s a good man, Simon. I would rather you did it for his.”

“Ah, now you ask entirely too much of me. He is the grandson of the notorious Melusine, the witch who passed so many of her dark skills onto others, including the hag who destroyed my village.”

“You cannot blame Renard for that. That would be the same as if—as if I blamed you for being raised by a witch-hunter.”

“Le Vis didn’t raise me,” Simon snapped. “But he did save my life.”

He tensed as he always did when he was obliged to defend Le Vis. He had struggled in vain before to justify to Miri what he often had trouble justifying to himself, why he had spent so many years in service to a madman.

“You think Le Vis a monster and he gave you reason. There were times when his fits of madness came upon him that I, myself—” Simon broke off, checking the dark memory. “But there were other times when he could be the most patient of teachers. He taught me Latin and Greek, how to read, write, and cipher, skills such as a mere peasant boy could never have hoped to acquire.

“But beyond the education, I owed the man my very survival. I—I don’t know what that blasted hag threw down the well that night, but a plague struck of such virulence, it spread throughout our village and the surrounding lands, including the estate where I worked in the stables. As word carried, we were cut off by the rest of the world. The closest anyone would come was a nearby hill where food was left, food that few had the strength to eat as everyone I knew died off one by one.”

Simon swallowed hard as he stumbled back into the darkest part of his past, a place that he seldom revisited. “In my own family, my father was the first to go, then my mother. Lorene was the last, so out of her mind with fever and pain, she didn’t even know me anymore, but I held her in my arms until the end.”

Elle lipped at his sleeve, tugging to gain his attention, rubbing her head against his sleeve. He patted her absently and moved away, sagging back against the opposite wall as he concluded his tale.

“I was so weak myself by that time it took me the better part of a day to dig her grave and she—she was such a wee slip of a girl. After I finished burying my sister, I just collapsed into a ditch alongside the road. For some unknown reason, I was spared the ravages of the plague.”

Miri had heard him out in silence, only her eyes speaking of her sorrow. But she drew closer, gently touching his hand. “That is the way it happens sometimes, Simon. My mother, who was unusually gifted in treating plague victims, often remarked upon the wonder of it, how some people seemed completely immune. Even with all of her knowledge of ancient medicine, she never understood it. Maman only thanked God that it was so.”

“I don’t know whether my being spared was the work of God or the devil. All I know is that I lay there by the roadside waiting to die and that was where Le Vis found me. No one else was willing to venture near a place cursed by a witch. He was the only one who dared to come.”

“My mother would have dared, and believe it or not, so would Renard.” Miri pressed his hand. “I am glad Le Vis saved you, Simon. I am grateful to the man for that much, but oh, how I wish you had been found by anyone else but him.”

“Believe me, my dear, so do I,” Simon replied bleakly. It was the first time he had ever admitted that to anyone, even himself. But these past few days with Miri, he had found himself examining parts of his life he had kept locked away for years. It was those fey eyes of hers, reaching deep inside of him, shining light into the darkest corners of his heart whether he was willing to let it happen or no.

She seemed to sense how hard this was for him, when he had shared as much as he was able. When he fell silent, she didn’t press him for more details. Moving closer, she brushed back a tangle of hair from his brow, stroked her fingertips over his forehead in the same calm quiet way she had soothed his mare’s fear of thunder.

But there was little to be done for a man when the storms were all in his own soul, Simon thought. He should have eased away from her, but there was so much comfort, so much warmth in her caress and he’d felt cold and isolated from the rest of the world for so damned long.

She ran her hand through his hair, the ends still damp from his own efforts to wash away the sweat and dust of the road. He grimaced, scarce able to imagine what a gargoyle he must appear, between his scarred face, unkempt beard, and tangled black hair. When her fingers snagged on a knot, she patiently worked it free.

After the grim discussion they had been having, Simon tried to lighten the mood by teasing her. “I hope you aren’t getting any ideas about prettifying me the way you did Elle. It would be well beyond your power, my dear.”

“I have no intentions of trying to tame you, Monsieur Aristide. Although I do wish I could persuade you to get rid of this.” When Miri tugged at the string that secured his eye patch to remove it, he stiffened, catching her wrist to stop her.

“No.”

“But, Simon, it can’t be comfortable for you to wear that thing all the time. Your skin needs to—to breathe and it is not as though I haven’t seen your wound before. You showed me that time in Paris, remember?”

“Only because I was trying to intimidate you, make you feel guilty.”

“It worked. Quite well, I might add.” She tried to laugh, but it was a soft, sad sound. Her lashes lowered to conceal the unhappy look in her eyes, just one more shadow he had put there.

He gentled his grip, taking her hand in his. “I really was a complete bastard to you, wasn’t I? Whatever I said to you back then, it was my own bitterness and nasty temper talking. You never did anything to me to feel guilty about.”

“I was the one who interfered in your duel, the reason Renard’s sword broke through your guard.”

“But I was the one who challenged him. When a man draws a sword, he’d better be prepared to accept the consequences of his actions. You very likely saved my life that day. Renard was a far better swordsman. He might have killed me if you had not tried to stop the duel.”

“Or you him. He was weakened from the ordeal of his imprisonment in the Bastille. That day is one of the worst memories of my life. I—I have never dealt well with anger or violence. It makes me sick to the soul and—and being forced to watch you and Renard go at each other like that, not wanting either of you to be hurt. You cannot imagine what that was like for me.”

He could not have. At least not then. He had just been informed that his master was dead, cruelly cut down by the Comte de Renard. Le Vis, the man who had become everything to Simon, his only family, his protector, his teacher. Simon had felt as alone as he’d been after his village had been destroyed, lost, frightened, and angry. Needing to channel his rage and terror against someone, he chose the sorcerer Renard, whom Simon already blamed for trying to turn Miri against him.

But he had managed that well enough on his own, Simon reflected. Caught up in the dark turmoil of his own anguish, he had given little thought to Miri, the pain he would inflict upon her by fighting someone she cared about, forcing her to take sides, tearing her heart in two.

He squeezed her hand. “Miri, I am sorry. I will never put you through anything like that again. I swear it.”

It was a damned rash promise to make, as rash as drawing her closer. But he could not seem to think beyond the need to banish the hurtful memory, drive that bruised look from her eyes. He did what he’d ached to do for days, wrapped his arms about her and held her close. She resisted for only a moment before melting against him, burrowing her face against his shoulder.

They clutched each other, the only sounds the cozy rustlings of the other creatures in the barn, another faint rumble of thunder from the darkness beyond. It struck Simon that it had been like this with Miri ever since he’d known her, a few quiet stolen moments before the next storm broke over their heads.

This could only be but one more of those moments, he thought sadly. And he held her all the tighter for that. She finally stirred, raising her head. When she reached up with trembling fingers to ease away his eye patch, this time he didn’t stop her.

It was difficult not to turn that half of his face to the shadows, avoid her earnest regard. It had been a long time since he’d inspected himself in the mirror, but when he had been a foolish boy, mourning the loss of his looks more than the loss of his eye, he had bitterly studied his own reflection, memorizing the shape of his scar. The ugly pucker of raised flesh that sealed his right eye closed.

He had learned to use that deformity to savage effect over the years, to intimidate, to terrify, to repulse. None of which he wanted to do to Miri. Nor did he wish to arouse her pity. He flinched when she gently touched his scarred eyelid.

“I need to make you some of my special salve for this,” she murmured.

“I’m a little past any hope of healing, don’t you think?”

“You have made it worse than it has to be, chafing your skin by wearing that patch too much. I want you to leave it off—at least when we are alone together.”

“All right,” he agreed, trying to sound indifferent. Vanity. It was only stupid vanity and Le Vis had always accused him of having far too much of it. It was one of the few things his late master had been right about.