Beast: Great Bloodlines Converge (39 page)

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “How would you know this?”

Aramis looked sick now, his features constricted with grief. “Collins sent a messenger to find us,” he said. “Someone broke into the manse and Braxton… dear God, my brother is dead, Bastian. You must go home now.”

Bastian stared at his uncle as the words sank deep. Then, he swayed away from the man, his hands flying to his head in shock and agony.

“My father?” he repeated, choked. “Someone killed him?”

Aramis was in tears. “I do not know the details.”

Bastian’s emotions erupted. “What about my wife?” he roared. “Is she… Great Bleeding Christ, she cannot possibly be…?”

He couldn’t even finish, too horrified to voice those terrible words. Aramis blinked his eyes, tears on his cheeks now.

“All I know is that you must go, now,” Aramis practically shouted. “Ride hard for Braidwood. I will take care of Henry and the army. Bastian,
go.
”

Bastian didn’t need to be told again. Forgetting about the king, his army, Suffolk, de la Pole, and Wallingford Castle, he raced to find his white steed, the one his wife had given him. It was made difficult by the fact that tears were blurring his eyes and he couldn’t see very clearly. Martin and Andrew were running after him, having heard from the messenger what had happened back at Braidwood, so they began shouting for Bastian’s horse, trying to help the man return home.

Andrew even mounted up with him and soon enough, they were riding hard for Braidwood House. Oddly enough, they even passed Gloucester on their way back to London and Andrew was able to hold Gloucester off from following Bastian, sending him on to Wallingford Castle instead to see for himself that Bastian had not wreaked havoc on Suffolk. When Gloucester wanted to know why Bastian was riding so hard for London, one word from Andrew explained everything;
Braxton.
Shocked, Gloucester let him go.

It was the worst, and longest, ride of Bastian’s entire life.

Gisella’s eyes were swollen from all of the crying she had done over the past two days. Every time she had tried to rest following the chaos at Braidwood and Braxton’s subsequent death, she would only start weeping again when she thought of the events of that terrible night. Braxton’s peaceful death had only been part of it. The man had simply gone to sleep and had never awoken. But it was what the wicked knight had said that upset her as much as the old man’s death had.

Bastian lied to me
, was all she could think. It was a selfish thought and she knew it, but she couldn’t help what she felt. Listening to the conversation between Braxton and the man who had called himself Armand le Foix, Gisella came to understand that Bastian carried the heart of the Maid with him.

She didn’t look at it as the remains of a holy martyr and she didn’t look at it as the man being a traitor to England. She looked at it in purely the romantic sense. If Bastian did not love the woman, then why did he carry her heart? Braxton and le Foix had speculated on Bastian’s feeling for the Maid and Gisella did as well. Bastian had secrets, great secrets that he had kept from her, secrets that had cost Braxton his life. She simply couldn’t shake the feelings of betrayal and deep, bleeding hurt. Bastian’s obsession with the Maid had cost them all dearly.

But she loved the man. Aye, she knew she did, but he had not only lied to her, he carried the heart of the woman he truly loved. Surely Gisella could not compete with the memory of the Maid of Orleans. Whatever bond the woman had shared with her husband must have been special, indeed. Surely the man could never love her if he had given his heart to another.

It was those selfish thoughts that had kept her awash in tears. Braxton, meanwhile, had been left in his bed where he died but in the heat of August, he was starting to turn putrid very quickly. Therefore, Collins had been the one to send word to Bastian because a decision had to be made about disposing of Braxton’s body. His wife seemed too grief stricken to be able to do much of anything.

She was grief stricken, indeed, but for more reasons than Collins and the servants speculated. In fact, she displayed the image of a grieving relative because in spite of the smell that was beginning to grow, and in spite of all of the windows being open to try to air the room out as much as possible, Gisella had sat with Braxton’s corpse since the night he had died simply because she didn’t want him to be alone. He had been a wise and wonderful man, and she felt his loss deeply. She knew that Bastian would be devastated.

Everyone at Braidwood felt the loss, too, including Sparrow. She and Braxton had developed a lovely friendship but she wept in the privacy of her chamber for the man. Gisella was upset enough and Sparrow felt she had no right to display her grief. She, too, had heard what le Foix had told Braxton and what the men had subsequently discussed. She knew her friend was heartbroken and she did all she could to help. It was difficult being in love with someone who had evidently loved someone else and lied about it.

But life moved on. On the dawn of the third day after the incident, Gisella awoke to noisy birds on the eaves outside of her window. She lay in bed for a few moments, unsure of how long she had really been asleep. It seemed like only a few minutes but at best it was a few hours. She had not slept well the past three nights with so much on her mind. As the sun began to rise, it was time to face the day.

Depressed, her movements lethargic, she climbed out of bed and called for warmed water from the serving wench who usually slept in the alcove in the corridor outside her room. Stepping into the dressing room where her garments were hanging on pegs, she pulled forth a pale blue linen surcoat and an equally lightweight shift to wear beneath it. The humidity from the river was growing worse as the month merged into September and she was sweating so much that she’d had the servants wash her shifts daily so they would not smell or become stiff.

The warm water eventually came and she dressed for the day, braiding her heavy hair and wrapping the braid around the back of her head and pinning it with big iron pins. Gazing at herself in the dressing table mirror, she noted that she looked particularly pale and drawn. There were circles around her pale blue eyes. All she could see was disappointment and heartache in her features so she stopped looking at herself. It was too difficult to take. Perhaps she shouldn’t have felt betrayed or lied to. It was the husband’s privilege to do what he wanted to do. Still, Gisella had thought she and Bastian were on the way to having something very special. It made her heartsick to think that she had been wrong. Pulling on her leather slippers, she crossed through the connecting dressing room and opened the door into Braxton’s chamber.

The smell hit her the moment she entered the room and she gasped, her fingers going to her nose to plug up her nostrils. She looked at Braxton lying on the bed with his hands on his chest, thinking he was an odd shade of green. They simply couldn’t leave him out another day, not even to wait for Bastian, who was probably in the middle of his war against Suffolk. Opening the chamber door, she sent the serving wench for Collins. Decisions, unfortunately, needed to be made.

As she wait for the majordomo, Gisella’s gaze remained on Braxton, thinking he looked very lonely lying there on the bed, so she went to sit by the bed as she had been doing since his death, her fingers pinching her nose shut because the stench was so bad. But eventually the smell overwhelmed her so she moved back to the doorway that opened into the corridor, breathing in some of the fresh air.

As she stood in the doorway, trying not to become ill, Sparrow emerged from her chamber across the hall. Sparrow smiled at her and moved in her direction but as she came close to the open door, the smell of decay hit her as well and she put a hand to her nose.

“God’s Bones,” she hissed. “He smells terrible!”

Gisella nodded, her gaze moving to Braxton’s slightly greenish face. “I know,” she said. “We must bury him today with or without my husband. Collins has already contacted the priests at St. Bartholomew where the entire de Russe clan is buried. It is where my husband’s mother is buried as well. After we break our fast, I will send Collins to the church again to tell them to prepare for burial mass at sunset.”

Sparrow sighed sadly at the sight of her gaming companion. “Poor old man,” she said softly. “But, in a sense, I am not sad for him. He is with his wife now, is he not? A reunion in heaven is never a sad occasion.”

Gisella’s gaze was fixed on Braxton. “How wonderful to love someone so much that you would be eager to join them in the afterlife,” she said quietly. “I am sure my husband cannot wait to be joined with the Maid. I will therefore spend the afterlife alone.”

Sparrow watched the woman as she walked back to the chair next to Braxton’s head and sat heavily. There was no life in her these days, no joy. It was a terribly heartbreaking thing to watch.

“I will spend it with you,” she said, grinning when Gisella smiled weakly. “I will not leave you alone, I swear it. I will hang on to you for eternity.”

Gisella’s smile broadened, the first smile she’d displayed in almost three days. “What silly maids we will be, romping through the fields of Heaven,” she said as Sparrow giggled. But Gisella’s smile soon faded. “I had hoped to spend it with the man I love. It is unfortunate that he loves another.”

Sparrow’s smile faded as well, unsure what to say to her friend to comfort her. She was trying to be as optimistic as possible but, given the circumstances, it was difficult.

“Gigi,” she said softly. “Bastian will be home soon and he will be quite sad with the death of his father. Mayhap… mayhap you should wait to tell him what you know about the Maid.”

Gisella shrugged. “He will want to know what happened the night the Armagnacs broke into Braidwood,” she said. “That is what Sir Braxton called them, wasn’t it? Bastian will want to know who they were and what they wanted. I will have to tell him about the conversation Armand le Foix had with his father. I cannot withhold that information.”

Sparrow nodded faintly. “I know,” she said. “But… but you must be strong, Gigi. You must take your hurt out of this situation. If you become angry with him for not telling you the truth, the results could be terribly damaging. He told you that the Maid meant nothing to him. It is possible he told you the truth.”

Gisella’s head shot up, her pale blue eyes blazing. “Then why does he carry her heart with him?” she wanted to know. “Why did he not tell me he carried her heart? Why did he keep it from me? Others knew – men who came here to steal the heart from him, so it is not as if it is a great secret. Other’s knew. But I did not know and I feel like a fool.”

She looked away, down at her hands, and Sparrow could see that she was struggling with her tears.
Poor Gigi,
Sparrow thought.
I wish there was something I could do for her
.

“I will go and see if our morning meal is ready,” Sparrow said gently. “I will return shortly.”

Gisella merely nodded her head and Sparrow fled down the corridor, passing the broken windows and the broken doors, smashed by the Armagnacs as they ransacked the house. A few local carpenters had been hired to come and make repairs, but they had not yet arrived at this time in the morning.

Sparrow descended the staircase, catching sight of the big reception room on her right. She could see through the door, into the room where the card deck still sat on the card table and the Chess set was still on the big feasting table. Nothing had been moved, everything was as she and Braxton had left it. She wasn’t sure those things should ever be moved. The raiders from the other night had taken some valuable pieces from the reception room but they’d left the games untouched as a tribute to the lives they disrupted.

Sparrow came to the bottom of the steps, gazing into the reception room with some sadness. Shaking off the grief, she turned for the dining room with its door to the kitchen beyond when she heard horses out in the courtyard. Curious, she went to the entry door, opening it in time to see two big knights come to a halt in the courtyard. She saw the big white stallion and she didn’t have to look any further. She knew that Bastian had arrived.

Sparrow didn’t know why she felt like weeping at that moment, but she did. She stood in the doorway, rooted to the spot, as Bastian practically ran to the front door with another knight on his heels. He was without his helm, his long dark hair slicked with moisture, running with armor on his body dragging him down, indicative of his level of angst. She found herself looking into a very pale, very anxious face.

“Lady Sparrow,” he said with pale lips. “I have come. Where is my wife? Is she well?”

Sparrow nodded, feeling tears sting her eyes. “She is well,” she said. “You received our message?”

Bastian’s pale face grew even paler and he exhaled a massive sigh of relief, so loud and powerful that he ended up slumped against the doorjamb. After a moment, he wearily pulled off a glove and wiped a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes, struggling to regain his composure.

“I received a message that Braidwood was attacked,” he said. “I received word that my father was killed in the attack. But my wife is well?”

Sparrow nodded. “She is quite well,” she said, seeing the utter relief in the man’s face with the news that Gisella had not been injured in the assault. “She is with your father. She has sat with him since the night he died. She has hardly left him.”

Bastian stared at the woman, digesting her information. He was so incredibly brittle that it was difficult for him to control any emotion he may be feeling. All of it seemed to be bleeding out of his pores with no way to stop it. His eyes welled as he looked at Sparrow, exhaustion, relief, and gratitude finding its way to the surface.

“Where is she?” he asked hoarsely.

Sparrow pointed up the stairs. “In your father’s chamber.”

Bastian didn’t ask any more questions. He bolted up the stairs as fast as his weary legs would take him, making his way to his father’s chamber, feeling more emotion than he could possibly imagine. He wanted to take Gisella in his arms and he wanted to see his father. Nothing else seemed to matter to him at that moment. He jogged down the hall, singularly focused on his father’s chamber, unaware of the broken doors and destruction as he passed by. All he cared about, all he wanted to see, were his wife and his father. All else was a blur.

Reaching his father’s chamber, he rushed inside and was hit by the stench of death. He’d been around enough warfare to recognize the smell of the dead so he wasn’t bothered by it. The first thing he heard was his wife’s startled gasp at his appearance and his gaze fell upon her, sitting in a light blue dress next to his father’s bed. She was healthy and whole, if not a bit pale. But she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Then, his gaze moved to his father’s corpse on the bed, lying upon the mattress and covered with a fine blanket. He would have looked as if he were merely sleeping but for the greenish tint to his skin. Bastian stared at the man, the tears that had been welling in his eyes now spilling over. He couldn’t stop them. Weakly, he stumbled to the end of the bed, grasping the canopy pole for support.

“Father,” he breathed. “God, then it is true. He is really dead.”

Gisella watched her husband weep silently at the sight of his father. His tears brought her own and she struggled to quickly wipe them away. She was filled with sorrow at the sight of him. Sorrow for the passing of Braxton and sorrow for the lies Bastian had told her. She didn’t know what to think or how to feel, so she simply lowered her head. She found that she couldn’t look at him because she was fighting off her instinct to run to him.