Authors: Carolyne Cathey
"You have no power
over me, Gaston. You may torture my body, but you cannot touch my soul."
Gaston merely grinned at
Becket. "I relish such definite affirmations. The crushing of them makes
the pleasure even more enjoyable. To show you how easy..." Gaston
gestured to a guard. "Lady Rochelle wouldn’t have come alone. Have the
grounds searched. I’m certain you’ll find a dark-haired lad with large, ebony
eyes who answers to the name of Pierre. Bring him here, along with any others
you think worth torturing. Kill the rest."
Dear heaven, the worst
just worsened
.
"Wait!"
Père
Bertrand grasped the guard’s jupon to delay him, then gleamed at Rochelle with
hope in his eyes. "Did you bring Pierre? Is he here?"
And worsened.
Becket snarled like an
animal about to attack. "Surely you didn’t bring Pierre. I can
understand you choosing DuBois over me, but if you dared risk Pierre’s
innocence for this insanity, I will never forgive you. Never."
And worsened, still.
How to answer without
endangering her loved ones even more? Without losing Becket’s love?
Impossible.
"Pierre is...is
...with Griselda and Jacques." Not really a lie. And yet the only way
Becket wouldn’t discover her contorted truth was if he died. She had trapped
herself into losing Becket no matter the outcome. Perspiration drizzled
between her throbbing breasts that would never again feel his scorching touch.
Sire Becket pierced his
torment-filled gaze into hers as if searching her innermost being for the truth
and wanting desperately to believe her.
"Lady Rochelle, I
know in my heart you would never risk Pierre’s life, thus I trust you in this.
But only in this."
Guilt burst past her fear
like a deluge of water to drown her unsteady spirit. She had the same as lied
about the only matter in which he dared trust her.
"Never again
interfere with my orders." Gaston knocked
Père
Bertrand’s hand
aside from his restraining hold on the guard’s jupon.
Père
Bertrand sank into a sickening grovel at Gaston’s feet. "Don’t kill
Pierre! I’ll do aught you ask, just don’t kill the boy."
"If you want Pierre,
then condemn these two, and now."
In the image of a vulture
who smelled carrion,
Père
Bertrand fairly flew around the end of the
table to his bench.
"
Père
Bertrand!" Sire Becket stepped forward as far as his leash allowed.
"Gaston’s promise of Pierre is not worth your betrayal of Rochelle, for I
pledge my doomed life that she has hidden Pierre where you will never find
him."
"You believe
her?" Gaston’s sarcastic chuckle rumbled from his chest. "For your
asininity, I
will
don you in jester’s cap and bell-tipped
poulaines
.
‘Twill make a laughable sight--as you burn."
"
Oc
, Gaston, I
believe her. No matter how she might feel about me, she would never endanger
Pierre. Not even for DuBois."
A door banged open.
Torchlight wavered from a gust. Footsteps shuffled in behind her.
Sire Becket glanced up,
then blanched. Fury and anguish distorted his features.
Rochelle spun, then stared
in horror.
Pierre.
He stood between Griselda
and Jacques amidst the captured Languedocs, clutching Sire Spitz against his
chest. Where were Henri and the other soldiers? Slain? May God forgive her.
Becket never would. And never would she forgive herself.
"Rochelle!
Becket!" Eyes wide with fear, Pierre darted toward them.
Gaston burst into
laughter. "Becket, you love-sick fool! She sold all of you for DuBois.
Now...feel the hatred. Feel it burn within you, for eternity."
Becket lunged to the end
of his neck chain, but Gaston snatched Pierre from the floor as the
leg-bandaged Sire Spitz yowled and tumbled to the rushes.
"Let Pierre
go!" Rochelle leapt and grabbed for his arm.
Gaston whirled and thrust
Pierre out toward
Père
Bertrand. "Dangle, dangle."
Rochelle grasped only air
and she fell, her hands and knees slamming onto the floor as
Père
Bertrand leapt to his feet, face aglow with rapture.
Gaston chuckled.
"Not yet, Bertrand. Not until the Council rules against Becket and
Rochelle."
Père
Bertrand pounded on the table. "I call for a vote!"
"
Non
!"
Rochelle tugged her skirt from under her feet and reached out for the screaming
Pierre.
Gaston swung him from her
grasp. "Touch him and I’ll slit his throat. Everyone, stay back."
Horrified, Rochelle
glanced at Sire Becket. He glared at her with a hatred as hot as molten rock,
the neck chain as taut as the corded muscles in his neck, the metal collar
cutting into his flesh as he strained against his tether. Then his eyes went
hard, cold, chilling to icy stones of ebony.
"Damn your lying
soul, Lady Rochelle. Satan had best beware your ambitions else you’ll soon
replace him."
She felt flung into hell,
alone, freezing within the flames, her eternal torture the excruciating guilt
for all the suffering her bad judgment had caused others.
Pierre’s cries sliced like
daggers into her guilt.
Blood beaded where Gaston
pressed the knife against Pierre’s throat. "I repeat, Council, do not
think to try me. ‘Tis obvious no enemy awaits without these walls. There is
no document to prove heresy and no one who will dare accuse me. No one."
A sob wrenched from
Rochelle’s breast. Gaston had won.
"I will witness,
I will swear
Against this man
who grayed my hair,
Who scarred me,
robbed me, told me all,
Then shoved me in a
deadly fall."
Rochelle’s gaze flew to Griselda as she
limped across the floor. Her mother dared to risk Pierre’s life? Rochelle
jerked her attention to the knife.
Torchlight glinted on the blade while
Gaston shook his head as if denying the truth of Griselda’s identity. He waved
the dagger towards his soldiers. "Guards! Seize her! She spouts
gibberish."
"Gibberish,
Gaston? Then why your fright?
Mayhap a ghost now
fills your sight."
"Nonsense. You are naught but
Griselda."
"’Tis with
glee, yet too, with shame
I give you my
authentic name,
The one before you
sought my life..."
Griselda straightened her falsely-hunched
back and lifted her chin.
"Giselle
Rochande
Christine…
"
She sneered and nodded to Gaston.
"...your
wife."
Gaston turned the color of ash. The dagger
clattered to the floor. Rochelle moved to snatch it, but a soldier lunged and
swiped up the weapon, stuffing the blade beneath his scabbard belt.
"His wife?" Becket’s mother
came from stone to life. "But he..."
"Killed me? He did push me off a
cliff. Like Sire Becket, I survived. For this moment."
Gaston laughed in obvious regained
control. "You mean so as to die by fire? How idiotic a goal."
Griselda, rather Lady Giselle turned to the
council in confrontation, and Rochelle swore to lovingly care for her beautiful
mother forevermore—if they survived.
"I testify to the legitimacy of the
document." Lady Giselle clasped her hands as if for strength.
"Because I knew how to cipher, Gaston forced me to pen the bargain that
sealed Sire Alberre’s fate, an act of cowardice that will haunt me into the
afterlife. I watched as Gaston, Reynaurd and Bertrand signed their
names."
"You are naught but a bothersome old
crone who has but moments to live." Gaston thrust Pierre in front of
Père
Bertrand like a prize. "Give a verdict, and now!"
"A vote! A vote!"
Père
Bertrand pushed to his feet and motioned for the Council to gather round,
mumbling, then slashing his hand in the air for emphasis. The men nodded their
assent! Then to Rochelle’s greater horror,
Père
Bertrand squealed with
anticipation and rushed, hands outstretched, to where Gaston held his ill-won
prize.
Gaston jerked the flailing Pierre aside
like a squirming Matador’s cape. "Not yet, my drooling friend. Not until
the verdict."
A nightmarish blend of Becket’s
profanities, Pierre’s screams, Gaston’s threats,
Père
Bertrand’s squeals
and her own staccato-like sobs of hysteria swirled in what surely must be the
beginning of her eternal damnation. She had failed in saving them, but by the
Holy Rood, somehow some way, she would stop
Père
Bertrand from molesting
Pierre.
Shaking with fear and fury, she scanned the
chamber, her gaze locking on her dagger held prisoner behind the nearby guard’s
leather belt. How to retrieve the weapon?
King Charles of Navarre laughed where he
still remained within the huddle. The Council nodded again, then Charles
glanced at Rochelle and smiled. Bile stung her throat. He had bargained for
her. She should have allowed Henri to attack. She should have—
"I curse you all to perdition!"
Sire Becket flung out his hands and knocked aside the men who attempted to
restrain him. "How could you, Rochelle? May you burn in hell."
"I already do."
"Silence!" The monk clapped his
hands for attention and the remaining members retook their seats.
"Guards, constrain Sire Becket and Lady Rochelle."
She stumbled as the guard grasped her arm,
the odor of garlic and wine pungent within her nearing hysteria. Rochelle’s
stomach heaved. The hilt of her own dagger pressed against her back as if
mocking her impotence.
Père
Bertrand hovered near
Pierre, fingers flexing as if hardly able to keep from touching him. Pierre’s
cries were but piercing reminders of the brutality he would soon suffer.
"You will not have Pierre!" Sire
Becket thrashed against the sentries who held him prisoner.
Père
Bertrand clapped his
hands. "Oh, but I will! He’s mine! He’s mine!" Clearly unable to
contin himself, he ran his hands over Pierre’s body as if in a caress of
anticipation.
"Help me, Rochelle! Make him
stop!"
"Oh no. Dear God, no." With a
strength and speed that surprised her, Rochelle snatched the dagger at her
back, slashing at the guard’s hand to gain release. She charged for
Père
Bertrand.
A yank on her hair snapped back her head.
Gaston cursed as he ripped the dagger from her grip. The sharp edge of a sword
pressed beneath her chin. A brief wish of her beheading sliced through her
mind. At least she would not witness the impending cruelty against her loved
ones.
"Cease!" The monk shoved to his
feet. "Guard, lower your weapon until I say otherwise." With a
frustrated sigh, he sat again, then glanced both ways along the table.
"Are we still in agreement? And do you allow me the pleasure of speaking
for all?"
The entire greedy, horrible, revolting
group of them nodded their assent. She hated them all.
Père
Bertrand grinned at
Gaston, euphoric. "Rochelle and Becket are as good as dead, Gaston. The
land is yours. The boy is mine."
Pierre blurred in her vision as she tugged
against the sentries.
"The Inquisition has a verdict."
The monk cleared his throat. "However, I have a few more questions for
the records so as to justify our decision. Sire Gaston, when at DuBois, Sire
Becket admitted heresy?"
"Indeed, Brother."
"Then, pray tell me. Why torture him
after
his admission?"
Gaston’s smiled widened as if in pride.
"For being a heretic."
The monk shifted his attention to
Père
Bertrand. "About this boy. ‘Twould appear your interest is other than
spiritual."
Père
Bertrand stilled his
obscene caresses, then smoothed his robes as if to straighten out his image.
"I but seek to rid Pierre of the demons causing his seizures."
"Ah." The monk nodded as if in
understanding. "Most now believe the seizures are caused, not by demons,
but by trouble from within the brain. Next time, you might take that theory
into consideration."
"Next time?" Rochelle stared at
the monk, appalled. "You give him a next time?"
Ignoring her, the monk winked at
Père
Bertrand. "The lad is a beauty, for certain."
"Extraordinary, your holiness. His
eyes--"
"Later. ’Tis obvious he is not your
first. Aid me in my own cause. Tell me how you succeed in encouraging
gullible young boys to do your will."