Secret Heart (20 page)

“
Yes,
that would be like her,” Garit said. “Chantal would think about
you, rather than about her own danger.”

“
Finally,” Jenia said, “one of the guards pulled out his
eating knife and stabbed Chantal in her side.”

When she
paused to catch her breath and steady her voice, she heard Garit’s
soft moan of grief.

“
They
thought she was just a servant, you see, someone of no importance.
Chantal fell to the floor and lay with her eyes closed, not moving,
but the guard stabbed her a second time. I suppose he wanted to
make sure she would die. I screamed and struggled with the two men
who held me; I was desperate to go to her. When the guard who had
stabbed her bent to wipe his knife clean on her skirt, the men
holding me released their grip a little and I was able to break
away from them. No one said anything for a moment.

“
I went
to my knees and gathered Chantal into my arms. She opened her eyes.
I will never forget what she said to me.”

“
Do you
mean she was alive after those cruel blows?” Garit
asked.

“
Barely
alive,” Jenia responded. “Still, she spoke to me. She said, very
clearly, ‘Chantal, do as we agreed. Remember me. Never forget that
I loved you.’ I knew from her words that she wanted me to continue
to pretend to be her. I promised I wouldn’t forget and I said I
loved her, too. Then I kissed her cheek and she sighed and went
perfectly still in my arms. I knew she was dead; I felt the life,
the sweet spirit that was Chantal, go out of her.”

“
Oh, my
love,” Garit whispered.

“
I was
stunned by the horror and the suddenness of it all,” Jenia said
after taking a moment to steady her voice. “I couldn’t move,
couldn’t think. The guards grabbed me again and dragged me away
from Chantal’s body and out of the cell. They pulled a
vile-smelling black hood over my head, then lifted me and carried
me away. I think I must have fainted. When I came to myself again,
I was aware that we were near the sea. I could hear water slapping
against stone and heard the shuffling of boots on wood as they
carried me up a gangplank.”

The worst
was told, Chantal’s fate revealed. Jenia sagged against Roarke,
depending on his strength to keep her upright as she fought the
urge to give way to the grief she had repressed for so many
days.

“
A ship?”
King Henryk repeated, watching his queen wipe away
tears.

“
Perhaps
I should tell this part of the story as Jenia told it to Garit and
me,” Roarke offered.

“
No. I
want to hear all of it from Jenia’s own lips,” King Henryk
insisted.

“
I can do
it,” Jenia said. Gathering her strength for the final effort, she
stood a little taller. “Thank you, Roarke, for wanting to help me,
but the story is mine to tell.”

In a voice so calm that she surprised even
herself, Jenia recounted the tale she had told once before, of the
attempt by the sailors to rape her and how she had leapt from the
ship into the stormy sea.

“
I fully
expected to die,” she said. “Yet I, who cannot swim, was borne up
by the waves. As I was tossed upon an unknown shore I heard again
the words Chantal and I had used when we swore to each other that
the one who survived would demand justice and retribution from the
man who had done this to us. I believe I lived through that violent
storm by Chantal’s assistance, and that Lord Garit and Sir Roarke
were sent by her loving spirit to that particular beach to find
me.

“
They did
find me there, when I was at the end of my strength. They have
protected me since,” she said. “When they asked me to pose as
Chantal, I agreed, wanting to repay their kindness and, also,
thinking it would be the quickest and easiest way for me to reach
Calean and enter the castle, so I could accuse the man responsible
for Chantal’s death.”

“
I am not
that man,” King Henryk said. “I swear to you on my father’s grave,
and on my mother’s, that I speak the truth. I did not order Lady
Chantal imprisoned. I never ordered her murder.”

“
Sir,”
Jenia said, her admission reluctant, but firmly spoken nonetheless,
“your insistence and that of your queen and of these good men who
came here with me, are forceful arguments in your favor. I begin to
doubt what I learned to believe while Chantal and I were in that
dreadful dungeon. But if you are not the guilty man, then who
is?”

“
I’ll
swear a second oath to you,” King Henryk said. “We will discover
the man and see him punished.”

Jenia
nodded, too overcome to respond to the king’s promise. She wanted
to weep with relief that she had been heard and believed, and with
frustration that now she had no one to blame, only Garit’s
assumption that Walderon must be the villain behind Chantal’s
death.

“
Jenia,
you need to rest,” Roarke said. “You are pale as a linen
sheet.”

“
I cannot
rest until I know who imprisoned Chantal and me,” she said.
“Furthermore, I must find Chantal’s body. She deserves a proper
burial. My quest will not be completed until I see her laid to
rest.”

“
King
Henryk assigned to me the mission of finding Chantal,” Roarke said.
“I will locate her body.”

“
I’ll go
with you,” Garit spoke up, sounding much like his usual self,
though still somber with his new and terrible knowledge. “We must
find the place where Chantal and Jenia were held and locate the
cell where Chantal was killed.”

“
You are
going to need me to identify it,” Jenia said. “I know every stone
in that wretched cell. When I see it again I will not mistake
it.”

“
You are
right, of course,” Lord Giles agreed when Roarke would have
protested. “But first, Jenia, you must rest. And you, King Henryk,
need to set about convincing your nobles that Jenia’s accusations
against you were a mistake. Lord Serlion, here, and your other
advisors who have listened to the story can easily see to
that.”

Lord Giles and the Great Mage Serlion looked
at each other for a moment. Jenia had the feeling the two men were
old acquaintances, an impression confirmed by the quick smile of
understanding they shared.

“
Meanwhile,” Lord Giles continued, “Roarke and Garit and I
will set about asking questions of those same courtiers, in an
effort to learn what Lord Walderon has been doing of late. Where is
he, by the way? I haven’t seen him today.”

“
I
believe Walderon may be at Thury,” Lord Oliver said, stepping
forward.

“
My lady,
if you will allow me,” Lady Marjorie said to the queen, “I will be
glad to see to Jenia’s comfort. She’s welcome to stay in my chamber
tonight.”

“
Absolutely not!” Roarke declared. “Stay out of this,
Marjorie. And you, too,
Lord Oliver. “

“
Ah,
Roarke, in the name of heaven,” his father began.

“
I said,
stay out of it!” Roarke shouted.

“
No,
wait.” Jenia spoke up, interrupting the dispute. “Please, don’t
quarrel over me. Lady Marjorie, I thank you for your kind offer,
and I accept it. May we go now? I confess, I am ready to drop from
weariness.

“
My lord
king,” she said to Henryk, finally addressing him properly, “may I
be excused from your presence?”

“
Go,”
Henryk responded. “I will send for you when I want to see you
again.”

“
Thank
you, my lord.” Jenia offered the curtsey she should have made when
first meeting the king. As he extended his hand to raise her, she
noted the appreciative gleam in his eyes. She wasn’t sure whether
he was pleased to watch her bend her knee to him, or whether he was
amused to see her depart with Lady Marjorie.

Roarke
swore softly, glaring at Marjorie’s back as she led Jenia out of
the audience chamber. Both women had lied to him, though when he
considered the falsehoods each had told he found Jenia’s deceit
easier to forgive. Marjorie had betrayed his affection for her,
while Jenia had been fulfilling a promise made before she met him.
She had always insisted that she was on a quest, dealing with a
matter of honor. After hearing her revelation that she and Chantal
were cousins, Roarke could understand her motives.

“
Our
mothers were sisters...we were like twins,” he recalled her saying
in the garden at Auremont. She’d been careful not to name her
girlhood companion. He should have known then, should have guessed
that a close family connection between Jenia and the missing
Chantal was the explanation for their remarkable similarity of face
and form. He should have probed more deeply to find the truth she
was concealing.

She was
as courageous as any man who undertook a dangerous mission.
Roarke’s initial anger over the deception Jenia had practiced on
him and on Garit faded rapidly, to be replaced by a fierce,
unexpected urge to protect her.

She was
going to need protection. The person who had seized her and Chantal
and ordered them confined in a dungeon for months was sure to want
Jenia dead. It wouldn’t matter that she had finally told the truth
before a dozen witnesses.

Whatever
the real reason behind the imprisonment of two heiresses and the
attempt to make them believe King Henryk was responsible for their
abduction, the man at the heart of so wicked a plot would almost
certainly feel compelled to end Jenia’s life before she could say
or do anything that might, however inadvertently, reveal who he
was.

For it
was possible Jenia knew something she didn’t realize she knew, that
she had seen or overheard some vital detail. The villain could well
be thinking along the same lines as Roarke, and he would be
unwilling to take a chance on Jenia’s silence.

Garit had
suggested Lord Walderon as the villain many times while he and
Roarke searched for Chantal. Walderon had evaded their efforts to
prove anything against him. Roarke decided they ought to
investigate Chantal’s uncle again, and they ought to do so
promptly. He asked himself who else could have told Chantal’s
guards about her repeated refusals to wed the despicable
Malin?

When Lord Giles stepped forward, Roarke
forced his full attention back to what was happening in the
audience chamber.

“
King
Henryk, this situation cannot continue.” Lord Giles spoke in slow,
measured tones. “Your nobles must be able to trust and believe that
the man to whom they have sworn fealty can be relied upon to
protect their widows and children, as well as any inheritances left
to those children. The only exception to the rule occurs in the
case of treason, and so far we have heard nothing to indicate that
treason is involved here. The issue appears to be greed; in
particular, the huge estates devolving upon Lady Chantal at her
father’s death and, through her, to the man her uncle arranged for
her to marry. My lord, you dare not allow your nobles to think you
were involved in any way with what happened to Lady
Chantal.”

“
Thanks
to Lady Jenia’s rash accusations, that is exactly what they do
think,” King Henryk responded. “As always, Lord Giles, I can depend
upon you to set forth the most complex situation in its simplest
terms. I am sure you have a solution to offer.”

“
The only
solution,” Lord Giles said, “is to find and publicly punish the man
responsible for the imprisonment of those girls and for the death
of Lady Chantal. Seeing justice done will reassure your nobles –
and the sooner justice is carried out, the better.”

“
We have
a more urgent problem,” Roarke interrupted. “Perhaps, a deadly
problem.

“
My
lord,” he continued when Henryk looked at him in surprise, “may I
suggest that you order a guard to be posted immediately at Lady
Marjorie’s door, to remain there while Jenia is with her? The man
guilty of those crimes will have no compunction about ordering a
second murder. He will want Jenia dead as quickly as possible,
before she has a chance to say anything more that might cast blame
on him.”

“
You are
quite right, Roarke. I will see to the guard,” Lord Oliver offered,
adding, “It is my wife’s chamber, after all.”

“
Thank
you,” King Henryk said to him. “Your help is
appreciated.”

Roarke
gritted his teeth to hold back the objections he wanted to make. He
didn’t want his faithless father given the duty of keeping Jenia
safe, yet he could not state his objections now that the king had
accepted Oliver’s offer. Henryk would assume Roarke was being
difficult because of the breach between father and son. So he kept
quiet while promising himself he’d personally see to Jenia’s safety
before the day ended.

“
My
dearest lady,” King Henryk said, lifting Queen Hannorah’s hand to
his lips, “I thank you for your wisdom, and for your unwavering
support of me during this trying afternoon.”

“
I know
you far better than Lady Jenia does,” the queen replied with a
sweet smile, “so I never doubted that you are innocent of the
charges she made. And now, my lord, I think you would prefer me to
retire while you make plans to apprehend the villain who is truly
responsible for Lady Chantal’s death.”

Henryk escorted his queen to the door,
pausing to kiss her hand again. Then he commanded the advisors who
had witnessed the events of the last hour to go out among the
courtiers in the great hall and the corridors of the castle, there
to speak freely of what they had seen and heard.