Authors: Jennifer Horsman
The Duke of Suffolk's appearance had an immediate effect on the rampaging and stampeding outlaws as they attempted to still and quiet their mounts in order to stare up at him. A formidable presence Vincent was, his unconventional height and steely strength donned in an austere expression of his unparalleled status: he wore a rich dark blue tunic that sported expensive brass breastplates and black leather shoulder pads, all belted, with black breeches and tall black boots. He wore no weapons, but then he did not need any for he might have worn a crown for all the aristocracy expressed in the contempt and displeasure he directed at the wild men.
Wilhelm stepped behind him, just as threatening.
"God's teeth," the boldest man shouted from atop a beige stallion, with a narrowing smile. "If it is not the high-and-mighty duke himself!" He laughed and the others with him, causing the restless horse to leap forward.
"Aye. You stand before the Duke of Suffolk, assaulting me and mine with your vile presence here at Reales. And yet you must know men die for less." His voice thundered down. "I would know why."
The man raised his hand to shield the bright sun from his eyes as he boldly met Vincent's gaze. "Tis a simple matter, milord. You must endure my company or Reales will be attacked by the army of the archpriest.''
"The archpriest... Oh, thank God." Roshelle's relief felt intense and heady. The archpriest's army of brigands traveled from castle to castle, demanding money to stave off an attack. They were no threat to Reales. Vincent had plenty of money to pay them off and get them on their way again.
"How much do you think they will demand?" Cisely asked.
"Who knows?" Roshelle shrugged. "Vincent is so very rich, they could ask for anything."
As whispered amusement swept through the waiting men of Suffolk, Vincent conferred with Wilhelm.
"Why! The men laughing?" Cisely asked.
Roshelle studied the scene below. More and more men of Suffolk rushed into the courtyard. She spotted the good captain John joining a group of his friends. They conferred in whispers that erupted in laughter, shakes of heads.
A warning chill shot up her spine.
The four lawless knights grew restless with the wait, their confidence melting away as Vincent shook his head and said, just loud enough for all to hear, "No, Wilhelm— too bloody a spectacle. I prefer a good, clean hanging. Aye, a painless death, but—"
Suddenly Roshelle was running.
She emerged in a burst of dark blue colors from the open side doors of the keep. The stunning beauty of the girl brought a sudden silence through the crowd as she briefly took in the changed circumstances: a number of Suffolk guards had inched closer to the mounted men, so that at last fear had worked into their faces. They had thought they'd be allowed to return to relate the duke's message back to the archpriest—even the refusal. They were suddenly uncertain.
More uncertain as Roshelle dropped to her knees, her skirts fanning behind her over the stone steps, the length of unbound hair over that as she looked up at Vincent. "Pay the ransom, milord!"
She saw the devil's amusement in his eyes as he stared down at her. "Pay them? I will not! I mean to hang them!"
"No! No! You are so rich!" She held tight to the cloth of his breeches, her heart, mind and soul put into the plea. "Tis nothing to you! You can just pay them and they will go away—"
A low, threatening rumble rose from the ranks of his men, eager to give these outlaws a measure of English rule and then get on with this battle. For the maid Joan's death had put them in a somber black mood. English civility and pragmatism were at last disgusted with the bloody and murderous result of the French chaos and anarchy.
The rumble grew.
Thinking to get her out of the way, Vincent reached a hand around her arms to lift her up but stopped and froze as he heard the outlaw's low, vicious chuckle: "You would do well to picture that beautiful lady backside to the ground with her thighs spread—"
A dagger sliced fast through the air, piercing his flesh before the last words were finished. All gazes flew from Wilhelm—who knew Vincent was unarmed at the moment—to the man as he cried out in a grunt. The man seized the handle of the dagger and tore it from the muscle of his arm.
With an animal like fury, the man roared and only because he knew he was separate from his death by moments, "You cannot win! You are outnumbered four to one!"
"Please to God," Roshelle cried, tears streaming down her face, and she knew, she knew. "This is how you will be taken from me! I beg you!" She was clinging to his leg, blinded by her tears, when she felt his powerful grip seize her arms, lifting her up and into Wilhelm's arms to take her away.
"Milord!"
Vincent turned to the urgent cry, spotting John standing on the well wall to watch. He followed John's gaze to the man's horse. Trophies made by a woman’s plaits—two long and familiar gold braids--decorated the saddle.
Wiping her eyes, panicked, Roshelle followed his stare and screamed. John withdrew his sword from its sheath and tossed it through the air. With a well-practiced catch, Vincent caught the pommel in a deadly grip as he came quickly down the stairs. The man watched in mounting alarm as, with violence in his gaze, the Duke of Suffolk approached the man's horse. A hand snaked out to catch the leather straps of the bridle to steady his horse's fear. The man withdrew his sword, but twenty raised sword responded.
Only Vincent’s mattered. Vincent caught a plait at the tip of the blade and raised it in the air. So that the last thing the man saw before Vincent plunged it through his heart was a blinding streak made of Joan's hair.
Blood spurted over his hands as he withdrew the blade. The horse lifted in fury and fright, neighing as its hooves crashed back to the ground and the lifeless body dropped to the mud. He never even gave the order before his men acted and the other three men were surrounded and slain.
"Prepare for battle!"
A cheer went up, drowning out Roshelle's cry as she felt the sharp sting of the blade pierce her heart.
For it would be her death, too.
The battle raged beyond the castle walls.
Hooded, wearing a sober gray day dress, Roshelle knelt in prayer in the chapel. Tears rolled unnoticed onto the cold stone of the floor. Imagining the worse, she tried desperately to quiet and focus her thoughts on the stillness of the place, a stillness interrupted only by the soft labored breath of a handful of other people praying for the men of the Suffolk guard as they waged war with the army of the Archpriest. Somehow, she had to stop the relentless march of time that would steal him from her.
For she knew with the certainty of her next breath the simple fact: she could not live knowing he did not.
Papillion, help me; show me how to save him now. "Forever, Roshelle, forever.”
Aye, I love you forever .
He would die! For loving her, he would die. The curse which kept her safe and alive—the very force that bought her the time and fortune to at last come to know his love!— would now turn darkly. The curse would lead him to death. As it had killed so many times before, but this time she would die with him.
Papillion, help me…
Gradually, oh so slowly, she began to feel the warmth and light of his grace.
The penetrating warmth stilled her raging heart. She felt her emotions quiet, abating like a receding moonlit tide, and in their place, the warm light grew. This warmth reached through her fear to gently envelop and soothe the weariness of her soul and answer her prayer. The light imparted a message, and with it, understanding and salvation.
The white tower.
He will be saved and the curse broken at last.
Without the magic and force that made the curse and changed her fate, she would never have lived to know his love. She had been kept safe and alive so that she at last came to know his love. To know love, however briefly, was to never regret. There would be no regrets. For she'd have the gift the rest of her long life to cherish the memory of their love.
She woke as if from a dream. The light was gone and the world came into sharp focus. Tears still filled her, but a different kind. Tears of gratitude as she turned to face the east.
A place where her peace waited…
The Duke of Suffolk stood on the uppermost hillside, surveying the scene below. Any man with a shovel was offered one ducat apiece to dig the mass graves, along with the unusual order that they might keep any booty found on the dead before they were tossed into the graves. English battle law. Dozens of gray-robed Benedictine priests from the nearby abbey moved somberly over the massive piles of bloodied bodies.
The Duke closed his eyes and above the whispered Latin drone of priests, the scraping of the shovels and the English liege song, he heard the melody of her voice say the parting words, "I will give my life for yours, my love. I wait for another lifetime."
No, she wouldn’t leave him, he tried to tell himself over and over…
"Milord?"
Two Suffolk captains waited for the Duke's order. Which did not come. The men turned, then followed Vincent's gaze to the valley below, where the battle had been fought and won. The much better trained and armed English soldiers had met and soundly beaten the brigand army. Vincent and Wilhelm themselves had slain the man called the Archpriest. Yet the Duke stared unseeing into the scene drawn from the conclaves of hell.
Twilight was settling over the land; the setting sun dipped behind the hills faraway. The count of English dead lay at seventy-two and stayed, the number ablaze in his mind. Like the wretched scent of death.
Wilhelm and Owens, his squire, and a number of his knights, along with their squires, climbed up the hillside to him. Vincent drew a sharp breath, a stab of pain as he thought of his young squire. Dear Richard.
Wilhelm and he had fought back to back as they always did, and in the heat of the battle, as the scent of blood and death filled the air and the ground was saturated with the mangled bodies of the slain men, as the bloodlust pumped furiously through his veins, from the corner of his vision he had caught sight of young Richard, his sword raised. The boy never saw the man with a halbert charging from behind. Vincent's warning sounded too late.
Too late; it had always been too late, she said.
Squires were not allowed to fight until their knighthood, but Richard had been only one month away from his vows and spurs. The young man had fallen to his knees begging for the privilege to fight at his duke's side. The thought of the boy's sweet mother, Lady Eugene, the Baroness of Colmar, had made Vincent say an unequivocal "No." The boy would no doubt have plenty of days to fight, and he said no, so he would never have to meet with his mother to tell her the words that make up every mother's worst fear: "Madame, your son…"
The boy had known Vincent would forgive him for disobeying his direct command and joining the battle, if only he had lived.
"Milord?"
Vincent turned to the two waiting captains. "Mount two more patrols for the area west of Rouen," he said. "The order stands: all men fleeing are to be slain on sight." He would afford no one the opportunity to regroup and rearm and fight another day; not one Englishman more would see his death from these beasts.
"Aye!"
The men left as Wilhelm came by his side, his arm bandaged, but a slight wound considering. Wilhelm placed his good arm on Vincent's shoulder as their eyes met, the unspoken love of a lifelong bond powerful and deeply felt. Vincent closed his eyes for a moment and said, "I am afraid."
Wilhelm knew without words what Vincent feared, and there was good reason. "Owens and Robert are bringing up fresh horses now, but, Vincent—" His eyes blazed with sudden intensity as he gave Vincent the news. "Bryce has returned to Reales. The Duke of Burgundy hath been killed by that good man's just sword. The castle at Flanders was soon swarmed by the peasants, and the word is the mob killed your sister-in-law and her infant son."
A wave of relief nearly made his knees collapse and would have, except for the one thing, the only thing, that mattered to him now. "Roshelle?"
"The lady waited for Bryce to return to have the mass sung for Joan. They spent the day consoling each other, but-"
The darkly intelligent eyes blazed with emotion as he waited.
"The lady has left for Orleans."
The dead Duke of Orleans had left a last order, paying the well trained assassins in advance. The long wait was finally over; a loud and strange bird call sounded in the night.