The black knight stopped his warhorse before the farmhouse. He dismounted, then carefully took hold of the limp girl and lifted her from the saddle. He carried her in his arms with ease, kicking in the front door open with his metal boot. Fortunately it was not latched. Inside was icy cold and dark—but at least there was no wind here, and no snow would fall. . . .
He took care not to stumble against pieces of furniture in the room, and then found, mostly by touch, a flat piece that was either a cot or a bench, and gently lowered Percy to lie upon it.
Percy was still unconscious. He threw off his gauntlets, and it was freezing cold. First he located the fireplace, added a log, and by touch managed to find flints and start a fire in the hearth. The small feeble fire blazed forth in an angry hiss and immediately illuminated a simple peasant living room, furnished with a wooden table and two long benches on either side—one of which was where he had deposited Percy. In the corner was a low-to-the-ground wooden plank bed covered by a thick straw-filled mattress and faded quilt blanket. A few pantry shelves lined up against one wall, and a tiny dark icon of the Mother of God sat mournfully on a corner shelf.
“Girl! Percy . . .” he whispered, leaning over her, and touched her very cool forehead.
She did not respond. Frowning, he watched the shallow rise and fall of her chest. At least she breathed. . . .
Outside, his warhorse whinnied and made troubled noises, but Beltain steadily ignored him. Normally his horse would have been his first concern, but now, it was slipping to the back of his mind. Everything was slipping to the back. . . . He was suddenly numb, useless somehow, having grown abysmally still, mesmerized, looking down at Percy, plagued with indecision.
A few breaths later, with utmost gentleness he again took hold of her, and carried her bodily, this time to the low bed in the corner, and deposited her on top of the quilt-covered mattress. Her head lolled to the side, and he adjusted her loosened shawl around her, again placing his fingers, then large palm, against her icy forehead and cheeks.
Jack was still snorting outside, accompanied by the whistling wind, so Beltain went back out and quickly led Jack to the nearest barn building. There, he found a dry stall and plenty of hay. As quickly as possible he had the stallion free of saddle and harness, surrounded by clean hay, covered by a warm blanket, and settled for the night.
And then Beltain took out his folded cloak from the saddlebag, locked the barn and ran back to the main house.
Percy lay on the bed, breathing faintly, and her forehead and fingers were cold to the touch. The fire in the hearth had barely begun to warm the room, and the air was still permeated with chill.
Beltain took his long cloak, thick black velvet, and covered Percy with it. Then he quickly started removing his suit of armor, stacking the plates one by one on the floor next to his sword and helmet. Next off came his chain mail hauberk. Straining to raise his arms in the process, he winced at the dull pain from some of his slow-healing bruises near the ribs, having taken on additional new trauma from the battle effort less than an hour earlier. His thick woolen gambeson undershirt came off last and Beltain was naked to the waist, his powerful well-muscled upper body warm and exuding energy despite the residual bruising.
“Percy . . .” He took the few steps to the bed, then lowered himself before her, and placed one arm under her waist to slide her closer to the wall, to make room. Then he lay down on the outside, gingerly pausing for one instant only, to consider what it was he was doing. And then he lifted the cloak covering her and pulled her limp form against him, taking her in a strange embrace, feeling her slightly chubby body through her endless layers of stuffed outer coat, skirt, burlap and wool, and probably cotton underneath.
No, this was not going to work.
He rose up on his elbow and started removing her clothing. The shawl was simplest; he simply unwrapped her and set it aside to be used as an additional blanket. The bulky coat came off with moderate hassle—he pulled it off by the sleeves while carefully raising her up and turning her to the side. Then he took off her frozen wraparound shoes and socks and long stockings, feeling her ice-cold shock of bare feet underneath. He wrapped his palms around her feet and ankles, warming them for a few seconds. She had a coarse burlap dress laced up on top around her neck, and he untied the front and back laces at her throat, gently rolling her to her side to reach around. Her neck was barely warm, and the pulse at her throat fluttered.
As he was fiddling with her ties, Percy inhaled a deep breath and suddenly came to.
She mumbled something, and her eyelids were still closed, but a fierce joy came to him, together with a flood of relief.
“You’re back, girl!”
In reply she mumbled again, and moved her arms, weakly resisting him.
“Come, girl, fear not . . .” he spoke softly, rolling her back closer toward him. “This is to make you warm, for your own good!”
Her eyelids barely flickered, and he watched her lashes tremble and rest against her plump cheeks, observed her well-defined dark brows.
And suddenly a heat came to his cheeks.
Beltain quickly looked away from her face, and put one muscular arm under her back to raise her, in order to pull the outer dress off her shoulders. Slowly he shifted down the fabric, leaving her cotton undershirt in place; freed one nearly limp hand from the sleeve, then the other, and then let her lie back while he pulled the burlap dress down to her waist. Here, her wide hips were in the way, and he handled her plump sides while his jaw and forehead and entire neck burned with something for which he had no words. At last he found an additional tie around her waist, loosened it, and then pulled the whole dress down past her hips, holding her briefly underneath the buttocks, then letting go, in order to catch breath. . . .
His head, brow, neck, everything was scalding-hot, flaming under the skin, as the strange flush spread throughout him. . . .
Gruffly he tugged the dress off her completely, crumpled it and pushed the bundle aside. She lay in her old cotton nightshirt, barefoot. Her ash-brown hair, fine and soft like baby’s breath, came undone and scattered in waves upon the quilt-blanket. With a trembling hand he tested the coolness of her fingers and toes, and her extremities were still cold.
Beltain steeled himself and then lay down alongside her once more, in a state of hyperawareness, sensing with his bare flesh through her thin nightshirt how her skin was lukewarm. His arms came around her, drawing her close and tight against him—very tight, so that she came to again, and drew a deep breath and parted her lips in an attempt to say something. Her eyes flickered open and she saw the bronzed skin of his shoulder, felt its scalding fire against her cheek, then squirmed against him.
Her nightshirt slid partway down her own shoulders, revealing the tops of her rounded arms . . . and his unshaven jaw was suddenly pressed against plump softness, lying in the hollow of her neck and shoulder.
He stilled completely, hardly breathing, enveloping her. She too, after moving initially, seemed to grow still, and he could feel her chest rising with each slow breath. She was warming up by the second, and for some reason she was trembling.
Warmth was rising between them, resonating. It was an impossible fierce sense of one mutual skin between them, for despite the barrier of her cotton shirt their skins had become permeable, and his vigorous heat radiated at her and was returned to him. Indeed, he no longer felt the slight chill of the room on his bare skin because she had become his inner center, an extension of him, and now it was she who warmed him, down to the bones.
“Percy . . .” he whispered in a thick strange voice.
“I am warm now . . .” she replied unexpectedly. And then she shifted in his embrace. Her hands lightly pushed back against his bare chest, and where her fingers and palms touched him, tentative and fragile, he felt searing awareness. “It is all right now, I thank you . . . My Lord.”
But he could not let her go. He was molten and stilled with intensity, fixed within the moment. The strange debil
itating warmth continued to course through him, turning his limbs into lead and iron, and his breathing ragged.
The girl was a witch and she had taken his mind.
Chapter 11
Rumanar Avalais, Sovereign of the Domain, stood on the balcony of the Palace of the Sun, watching the grand square below. The balcony of heavy ornamental marble—warm cream in hue, with dark veins running in exquisite hairline cracks along each squat curving slit-column that fenced it—was the spot from which Sovereigns appeared before the populace on parade. It faced directly east, hovering a hundred feet above the façade of the Palace, before the square paved with mauve stones.
The square that formally bore the name of Trova, an ancient regal edifice that had once stood in place of the present Palace, was now commonly called the Square of Sunrise. It was at such times as the sun rose that the Sovereigns throughout the ages made important proclamations.
This sunrise was no different.
Rumanar Avalais wore a dress the color of deep ripe pomegranates. It was slim, long and flowing in the old-fashioned style of the former century before the crinoline skirt came to prominence in the royal courts. The fabric of the dress fit her hourglass shape like skin, and it cascaded below her thighs into fullness, ending in a flare at her feet. Her sleeves were bells gathered at the wrists with lace and pearls. Her hair of auburn flames was hidden entirely by a headdress of black and gold, thickly garlanded with pearls from brow to her neckline.
It was the traditional costume of war, worn by historical queens, taken out of treasury storage where it had been on courtly display for generations.
The sun rose over the gilded rooftops of the Sapphire Court, into a cloudless sky of crisp morning and its rays were cast at a right angle directly upon the balcony, so that where the Sovereign stood was only searing light.
Below, the entirety of Trova Square was filled with army formations of every scope and rank, regiments and battalions, cavalry and infantry, all of them clad in the colors of dark red and burgundy, colors of the pomegranate. The military forces that served the Sovereign and the Domain lined up always first in this square, before marching on any campaign, and were thus known as the Trovadii.
Overhead, the pale blue sky was boundless. There was never snow at the Sapphire Court; winter was mild and impotent here, with only a fresh cool edge to the wind and a sun that took a season to turn remote and disinterested, casting no true warmth, only incandescence.
With such indifferent sun in her eyes, Rumanar Avalais stood watching the square below.
At her side, only a few steps back, were three of her Field Marshals, all three decorated veteran generals. They were going to lead the Trovadii on this new immense campaign. Field Marshal Claude Maetra, an imposing stone-faced soldier in his late middle years, hailing from the austere nobility of Tanathe, was swarthy, with leathery olive skin, black hair and eyes, and the posture and demeanor of a dragon leashed in human skin. He did not take his eyes off the armies below, nor bothered to acknowledge the two other men present.
Next to him stood a much shorter man, Field Marshal Matteas Quara, of quasi-noble blood in Balmue, round and red-faced, covered with wrinkles, with fair skin and thinning hair, and a prominent gut. His expression however was satirical, with one heavy-lidded eye set in a permanent aspect of mockery overlaying sharp intelligence, and the other an eye-patch covering a hollow socket. The third Field Marshal, Edmunde Vaccio, was the youngest, energetic and brown-skinned—for he was of Moorish blood with family roots in Solemnis and adjacent Spain—handsome, slender yet muscular, and the tallest of the three.
“Your Brilliance, they are ready for your words,” spoke Field Marshal Maetra in an abbreviated dry voice used to command.
With her back to him, Rumanar Avalais said softly: “Yes, they are. But are you? All three of you?”
“We are ready, with every fiber of our being,” Maetra responded.
“Aye, we have sworn our all to Your Brilliance,” one-eyed Quara echoed him.
“We are yours,” said Vaccio simply in a soft bass.
A pause.
The Sovereign lifted her hands high. The thousands gathered in the square below immediately heeded her gesture and faded into absolute silence.
“Trovadii!” she exclaimed in a ringing voice of power that carried all through the square. “Brave and loyal Trovadii! You are unparalleled among warriors! Your valor and deeds are legend. There is no enemy that can face you and remain standing. You have protected our blessed Domain and served me thus for as long as I remember! Will you serve me thus again, this day?”
A roar answered her, as many thousand fists clad in gauntlets pointed to the sky, swords bared, and pikes were brandished.
“Trovadii!” The Sovereign continued holding her hands above her head, stretching out to them like a bird in flames, her shape blazing red in the sun, the color of ripe pomegranates burning. “Will you serve me?”
“Yes!” They cried in a million voices, and followed with another roar.
“Then serve me! I take you as mine, on this day and always!”
The roar was deafening.
“And now,” she said, and her voice was a sonorous wonder. “Now you will wait for me. Wait, and I will come to you within the hour. Wait, and together we shall march!”
She lowered her hands and turned away, while Trova Square rang with roaring voices, stomping feet, and clanging metal armor brandished in salute, until the very ground around the Palace shook.
“Come, My Lords,” she spoke to the Field Marshals. “It begins.”
As the Sovereign and her generals exited the balcony, flanked immediately by a company of guards, they were met by a spry young man who bowed before her, delivering a message of some import. Quentin Loirre had received urgent communication from Letheburg.
“Well, what is it, Loirre?” she spoke, continuing to walk swiftly, so that the messenger had to hurry alongside her.
“Your Brilliance,” he reported, “Letheburg is besieged as promised, and Hoarfrost waits for your arrival. However, there is one unexpected complication—or possibly, two—”
“What complication?”
“First, as of yesterday morning, Her Majesty Queen Andrelise Osenni is deceased. I do not mean dead and still present among us, but dead in the old way, so that her spirit has fled the body and she is going to be interred tonight. It is rumored that a young woman is responsible for putting her thus to rest. This young woman or girl had been in attendance at Her Majesty’s bedside by order of the Prince—who is now King of Lethe.”
The Sovereign stopped walking. “I see. However, a king or queen makes little difference at this point.”
“Yes, Your Brilliance. Only, there is the other incident—”
“What else?”
“If I understand correctly, Your Brilliance, Hoarfrost claims that there was someone who broke through the siege last night—someone from the city. And in the process, this someone killed several hundred of his dead men in passing. And when I say killed, I am referring to the final real manner of death, where the body collapses and the spirit is banished permanently—”
“Yes, enough—it is quite clear what you mean. Now, tell me exactly what happened.”
“The same young girl. She is responsible. There is a knight accompanying her, and they are both unaccounted for. They rode out of the city—how, the details are unclear—but they are on the move.”
“Where are they now?”
“Hoarfrost—that is, the Lady writing on his behalf—did not say, Your Brilliance.”
“And what do you think?”
Quentin Loirre furrowed his brow in effort. “It is my general suspicion, from all that has been known of this girl, that she is traveling to the Imperial Silver Court.”
For several long moments, the Sovereign did not speak. Her generals regarded her. “With Your permission,” said Field Marshal Claude Maetra. “It is no longer a question. This girl must be apprehended and brought before Your Brill
iance.”
“Yes,” Rumanar Avalais said. “She is going to be brought before me . . . soon.”
“I suggest that Your Brilliance does not send a dead man to perform this task,” added swarthy Edmunde Vaccio in his velvet bass. “Since any dead man sent to confront her would end up permanently dead. Instead, send the living.” And his rich dark brown eyes gazed at her meaningfully. Was there a flicker of hope in that look?
“Are you volunteering, My Lord Vaccio?” Her voice was suddenly like pouring honey.
“I am—with all my heart.”
“Ah-h-h. But I need you here, commanding a third of my army, Lord Vaccio. There is no man who can replace you.”
The light faded from his eyes. “I understand. And I obey.”
“With all your heart?” Her eyes were blue like heaven, laughing at him.
“With that and more. . . .”
“Then stay and serve me, dear Edmunde. I meanwhile, will send another man to do this grim but necessary task.”
“As Your Brilliance will have it.” And Vaccio gave a curt military bow.
Rumanar Avalais turned to the nearest guard. “Go,” she said, “fetch me Ebrai Fiomarre.”
He was being summoned by her, now, before the march. What significance did it entail?
Ebrai Fiomarre, raven-haired, with a darkly handsome aquiline profile, walked the Palace corridor in haste to attend the Sovereign’s summons.
He emerged in the front chambers, one of the main galleries facing east, close to the location of the parade balcony where he knew she was “performing” before the masses.
And what a performance! She was sublime, persuasive, the perfect symbol of divinely appointed imperial rule. He could imagine her speaking in that compelling siren voice, and the roars of the army crowd, mesmerized by its timbre alone, much less the impossible beauty of her. . . . It was infernally difficult to stay focused on anything else when in her presence. And she knew it well.