“You don’t know?” he asked, pausing in surprise. “How can you not know?”
She stopped, too. “Should I?” she asked, flustered.
He frowned at her, assessing, as if trying to change a fundamental understanding of who he thought she was. “How is life at the convent?” he asked carefully, taking a lit taper out of a candelabra and leading her into a small study. He closed the door behind them and used the taper to light a pair of reflective silver sconces on the wall.
“It’s all right,” she said, and at his invitation she sat in a straightbacked, tapestry-covered chair with wooden arms. She smoothed her skirts. “I am not as homesick as I was at first, but the schoolwork is demanding. You’re changing the subject, though.”
Instead of answering, he brought the candle he held to within a foot of her face, staring intently at her.
“What are you doing?” she asked, leaning away from the flame.
“Getting a good look at you.” He wedged the candle in a holder on the small table beside Caitlyn’s chair and sat down opposite her, his gaze still intent upon her. “Where were you born?”
“At the ends of the earth.” The answer came out of her without conscious thought.
“And where’s that?”
“Beyond the ocean,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest as if to protect herself, “and across the land of peoples you call savages.” He was treating her like a suspect, although for what crime she couldn’t tell.
“How did you get here?”
“I flew.”
He flinched in surprise. “On your wings?” he asked warily. “Or a broomstick?”
She laughed and unfolded her arms. “Don’t be silly. I—” she started, then broke off, frowning to herself, unable to remember what she’d been about to say. She could remember seeing clouds from above, and the sun rising over their tops, but she could form no picture of exactly
how
she had flown.
“Why do you keep coming to me?” he asked.
“You’re the Knight of Cups, and this is the only place I know to find you.”
He sighed in frustration. “You called me the Knight of Cups before, but what does that
mean
?”
Caitlyn blushed and didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure why she called him the Knight of Cups; the reason was lost in another part of her consciousness. All she knew was that she was drawn to him and needed to be here with him. She needed to hear his voice, to watch the expressions move across his face like clouds across the sky; she needed to be close enough that, if she reached out, she could once again run her hands through his hair. She couldn’t tell
him
that, though.
He leaned forward, his gaze intent upon hers, his hand on the arm of her chair as if confining her to its bounds. She could feel the warmth of his closeness and smell the hint of a spicy scent on his skin. His knee bumped hers, and she felt an awareness of his presence tingle over her body. She lost herself in the deep hazel of his eyes, where the flame of the candle flickered.
As if moved by a force beyond herself, Caitlyn lifted her hand and reached toward his face. A spark of surprise touched his eyes, but he didn’t move away as she lightly touched his cheek.
His skin was soft as velvet. Her lips parted on a breath, and she stroked his cheek, feeling the sharp prickle of whiskers roughening his jaw. The sensation on her fingertips was sharp and real, and it stirred awake a sleeping part of her mind.
I’m dreaming.
She blinked in surprise, her hand freezing in place.
He’s not real. This isn’t real.
“Caitlyn,” Raphael whispered, a look of wonder softening his face.
She frowned. He
felt
real. She moved her fingertips to his lower lip, and gently stroked over the full, silken curve.
Dreams don’t feel like this. I can feel the moistness of his breath. How can I be dreaming?
Raphael reached up and held her hand. “Are you the Dark One I was promised?”
“I am Caitlyn Monahan,” she said, feeling her consciousness struggle to maintain lucidity against the dream.
Do I dream, or do I wake? Am I here? If not here, where?
Her mind offered a glimpse of the couch in the Grand Salon, of Naomi reading under a lamp. The image was as distant and fragile as a dream; it felt as if it belonged to another life.
“
She
sent you, didn’t she?” Raphael asked.
Caitlyn shook her head, not understanding. “I came of my own free will. To find you.”
He nodded, as if that made sense to him in some way. “I need you,” he said.
Her breath caught in her throat. “Anything.”
“The Templar treasure,” he said. “We
have
to find it.”
Disappointment pricked at her. She’d hoped for something more personal. “So that you can take your sisters to England?”
“That’s important, but secondary. We have a more pressing need.”
“Is that why you and your cousins came to Château de la Fortune?” she asked quietly, leaning back and scolding her heart for assuming too much. “You’re looking for the treasure?”
He nodded.
“But the story may not even be true; there may not
be
a treasure.”
“There is. Bianca told me it exists.”
The name startled her. “Bianca! Who
is
she to you? How did you know her?”
For a moment his face tightened with pain, and then he clenched his jaw against it. “She was my adoptive mother.”
Caitlyn’s mouth dropped open.
“Bianca de’ Medici?”
“My own mother died when I was born; my father died shortly after he met Bianca, when I was three. She took me in and raised me as her own, when I had no one else. And now the lives of my adoptive sisters, and the eternal life of Bianca herself depend upon my finding the Templar treasure.”
“I don’t understand. Why? How?”
“There’s something I need to show you before you can understand. Come,” he said, rising and taking the candle.
Caitlyn followed him out of the room and then through the castle, down to the kitchens and cellars, Raphael pausing at each corner and doorway to be sure that no one was there to see his route. He took her to a small, dirty storeroom empty except for a few rotted wood boxes, dusty clay jugs, and the remnants of what had once been a rat.
Raphael set the candle on the edge of a box and moved the jugs aside, revealing a rusted iron ring set in a floor stone. He knelt and used the ring to pull up the stone, uncovering a shallow depression in which rested an object wrapped in oiled cloth. Raphael lifted it out and sat back on his heels, then unfolded the cloth.
Candlelight glimmered in a thousand refractions in the depths of the quartz cabochon atop the crystal chest. “This is what you almost found in the trunk, upstairs,” he said reverently. “It holds Bianca’s heart.”
Bianca’s.
Not hers. Caitlyn felt a giddy relief and stared in fascination at the richly decorated reliquary. She heard no heartbeats in her head.
“Do you want me to open it?” he asked, his voice uncertain.
She didn’t want to see it, and yet part of her
had
to. “Yes.”
He released the clasp on the lid and raised it. The heart, maroon marbled with yellow, had dried to an unrecognizable, unthreatening lump.
Caitlyn was disappointed, and repulsed. “Why on earth did you keep it?”
“Bianca told Beneto and me before she died that her heart would be in the ashes and that we should retrieve it. She said that as long as the heart was preserved she would still have a link to this earth, but that the heart would soon turn to dust unless we brought it here, to Château de la Fortune, and entombed it in the Templar treasure. If I did that, she would have the power to protect her daughters even from beyond the grave.”
“How would putting her heart in the treasure do that?”
His face showed his frustration. “I don’t
know
. I don’t think that she herself knew; she often knew things that were true, but at first glance appeared to make no sense, or have no explanation. The worst thing, though, was that she couldn’t tell me
where
in the castle the treasure was hidden.”
“Raphael, who was Bianca?
What
was she? How did she even know about the Templar treasure?”
He closed the chest and slipped it back into its hiding place. “She called herself a daughter of the natural world. Not a witch, or a heretic. She didn’t worship Satan or cast spells. She didn’t poison people. She was something that existed outside of the Church and the laws of men.”
He rearranged the jugs on top of the stone and stood, picking up the candle. “Let’s go to my chamber to finish the story; we’ll have privacy there.”
She nodded, and they hurried silently back through the castle and up the spiral stairs. Once in his room he bolted the door and then stirred the fire to life. He pulled two chairs close to it and sat in one.
Caitlyn sat in the other, then surreptitiously kicked off her shoes and pulled her feet up underneath her skirts, settling in. The firelight caught in Raphael’s bronze hair and caressed his face. She felt like she could sit there all night, if it meant looking at him.
“Bianca’s story truly starts in the twelfth century, with Simon de Gagéac,” Raphael said.
“The Knight Templar who once owned this castle.”
He nodded. “The Templars were monastic warriors, sworn members of a religious brotherhood. Simon came from a noble family and was a devout Christian who believed that he fought in service to God. He had the rank of commander in Jerusalem, and some thought he would someday rise to become grand master of the entire order.”
“So he took it seriously.”
“Yes. But that all changed when he met a young woman from a small community outside of Jerusalem, a woman named Eshael. She was not Christian, Jew, or Muslim. She and her female kin instead worshipped a goddess in rites that had begun in the mists of time. To Simon, she was a heathen. But that did not stop him from falling madly, hopelessly in love with her.”
Caitlyn smiled. “It sounds very romantic.”
“But how often do such romantic tales end in happiness? Simon’s passion for Eshael was so all-consuming that he abandoned the Templar brotherhood and his vows of celibacy and poverty. He swore devotion to Eshael and promised to take her to France and treat her as a queen. Her female kin gave her a dowry of so much gold and treasure that eight wagons were needed to carry it.
“Simon’s family later said that it had been the plan of Eshael’s kin from the beginning to send her and the dowry to France, where both would be safe from the wars of the Crusades. They said that Eshael and her kin used the ancient magic of their goddess to enchant Simon.”
“Some people say that love itself is the most powerful magic,” Caitlyn said.
“But would true love make a man go against every principle that had guided his life, and make him break vows he had made to God?” Raphael shook his head. “Simon brought Eshael here, to the château, but she would not give up her goddess and so he could not marry her. The local men were frightened of Eshael and her strange ways. There were stories of firelight in the caves that pierce the cliffs beneath the château, and the dancing shadows of local women that Eshael had converted to worship of her goddess.
“Simon’s love for Eshael began to fade; he started to see evil in all she did and all she was. The final straw came after Eshael bore him their first child, a daughter. When Simon discovered Eshael consecrating their child to her goddess, the last vestiges of his love turned to hatred. In his rage, he killed her.”
“Oh my God,” Caitlyn whispered, horrified. “What happened to the child?”
“Simon couldn’t love the girl, nor could he kill his own flesh. He sent her to distant relatives to the east and forgot about her. Simon went on to marry and have legal sons and daughters, but after Eshael’s death he was never the same. He became as obsessed with his sins as he had once been with Eshael, and he was convinced that her dowry was cursed.
“Eshael’s child eventually married and bore only daughters; that daughter, in turn, married and bore only daughters; and so on through the centuries, each daughter passing down this story as their legacy. The daughters of Eshael had a talent for midwifery, and they passed down that skill as well. Eventually, one of these daughters married a merchant from Florence, and so a descendant of Eshael was born just outside that great city. She was Ania, and she would one day become Bianca’s mother.
“At fourteen, Ania was beautiful, but there was something otherworldly about her. Ania sometimes knew the future, and people thought there was more to her healing than herbs and hot compresses. It was something in her hands themselves that healed them.
“One day while she was out gathering herbs, she caught the eye of Cosimo de’ Medici. It was the year 1535, and he was only sixteen.”
Caitlyn nodded, remembering what she’d found in her research about Bianca.