Sanctuary of Roses (36 page)

He sank to his knees, there in front of her,
and began to pray.

She had never heard anything more
terrifying.

* * *

At last…at last.

Gavin heard the faint sound of scraping on
the inside of the door. He need say naught, for his men saw the
straightening of his spine and the tensing of his arms. They
shifted quickly to their places.

The door eased open and they remained in the
shadows, waiting.

“My lord!” a voice hissed.

’Twas unexpectedly a female voice, and Gavin
moved, forgetting all caution. “Tricky?” he started, leaping
through the open doorway, followed by his men.

Inside the gateway, he found himself
surrounded by swords and chain mail.

Despite the surprise, Gavin did not falter,
did not hesitate. He exploded.

His blade flashed and gleamed, striking out
with all the strength he’d harbored these last days—these days of
holding himself in check, of hell on earth, since Maddie had been
taken. These men waiting him could be no match for his rage and
need, regardless of their numbers. He would have them all for
daring to stand in his way.

Gavin was barely aware of his own men behind
and about him, brandishing weapons seeking to be as quick and
deadly as his own, slicing through mail and flesh and clanging
against more metal. His world was a blur, a mass of steel, noise,
cries and grunts—yet Gavin saw with clarity every movement he made,
every step and thrust of the blade, every shift and dodge and
swing. They brought him closer to his goal.

He didn’t know how many men he sliced or
stabbed, but when at last no one raised a blade to him, he paused
only for a moment, panting, yet not fatigued, and looked
around.

Jube and two other of his men stood to one
side, watching with wide eyes. They looked as though they’d been
there for some time, watching some exhibition or contest. Their
eyes fastened upon Gavin as though they weren’t certain ’twas truly
he…and Tricky, who’d been held prisoner by one of the Tricourten
men at the beginning of the battle, now peeked from behind splayed
fingers, peering from around a corner.

“What ails you?” Gavin shouted, infuriated
by their immobility. “Why do you stand and stare? We must find
Madelyne. Tricky—where is she kept?”

His roar prodded them into movement. It was
only as Gavin started to follow the little maid and had to step
over arms and legs and heads and feet—none of which remained
attached to their respective bodies, but were scattered all over
the ground—did he realize he had been afflicted with his own
madness.

* * *

Fantin rose to his feet in front of
Madelyne, still mouthing words of supplication. The sounds from
above had made it known that some battle raged beyond the rafters
of the ceiling.

His pleading, groveling, praising sent
squirrelly shivers down Madelyne’s spine and they coiled like
snakes in the pit of her stomach. It was eerie and nauseating the
way he continued to pray and implore God to help him, to show him
the way, to give him the Stone.

He faced her, and what she saw there made
her knees buckle as all strength drained from her body. His
countenance glowed…shone with joy and light and fervor, even as the
light in his eyes gleamed and his mouth continued to dribble the
tiny trickle of wetness from one corner. His mind had truly gone,
and madness—religious madness—blossomed within him.

What strength had he now? All the strength
that comes with righteousness, and belief and faith. Madelyne knew
the strength that came with belief. And when she saw it lining his
face, she feared it.

Fantin flitted about the room, his lips
still moving, moving bowls and jugs and jars, gripping his sword.
He found a large jug and removed the cork, trickling its contents
along the edge of the floor, along in front of Madelyne, around
Seton’s prone body and to the feet of Clem, who remained bound
against another wall.

She smelled the rancid scent of pig fat, and
felt its greasiness splash against her skirts, and watched in
horror as a gleeful Fantin seized one of the many sconces along the
wall.

“You and your father shall burn on earth as
you will burn in hell,” he told her, pivoting about as he swiped
the torch through the air, leaving an arc of smoke in its wake.
Fantin dropped the torch and the grease eagerly sucked the flames
into its trail, instantly billowing rancid smoke into the air, and
seeping along toward her.

“May God be with you,” Fantin shouted
gleefully, dashing on light feet toward the stairs after saluting
her with his sword.

Madelyne watched in horror as he disappeared
up the steps, and the flames began to eat the wooden trestle tables
and the tapestries that covered the walls. The smoke grew thicker,
the flames closer and hotter.

She pulled in vain at the irons that still
imprisoned her arms. Her fingers had long turned to ice from loss
of blood and the dampness of the dungeon-laboratory. Seton remained
unconscious at her feet, and Clem, across the room, struggled with
his own bonds.

The flames burned higher, and closer, and
Madelyne felt the heat as it struggled toward her skirts. She
kicked out and to the side, frantic, whipping her gown around her
legs, trying to move away from the pools of grease that would soon
be consumed by fire. There was naught she could do.

Gavin.

He would come soon. He must come soon.

She, too, had the strength of faith and
belief.

* * *

A door—the door to which Tricky had been
leading him—flew open, and Gavin suddenly was face to face with his
nemesis.

“De Belgrume!” he cried, leaping at the man
who’d emerged from a stairwell.

The man was prepared for him, and swung his
blade as Gavin moved. Heat sliced down his arm, and Gavin shouted
with rage and victory. Fantin had drawn first blood, but Gavin
would take the last.

With a swift movement, Fantin slammed the
door behind him and whirled, swinging his sword again. This time,
Gavin easily dodged the thrust, and returned with his own blade,
slamming against the man’s side.

“Your whore burns below,” Fantin gasped,
feinting and then thrusting in one fluid movement. “You must go
through me to reach her, but you cannot get there in time.”

He laughed, then, easily, as though he’d had
the greatest jest, and his blade met Gavin’s. Chill raced up
Gavin’s back. He’d never felt such burning rage and taste for
blood, but the man before him had a calmness…an easy humor, a glow,
that bespoke of some inner strength—much like that which had
attracted Gavin to the man’s daughter.

Sweat ran in his eyes, and Gavin dashed it
away as he rammed toward Fantin. The other man raised his sword and
their blades clashed, pressing against each other as if frozen in
mid-air, each man pushing with every bit of need and will he
possessed. At last, the metals slid, and the swords moved, freeing
them from the stalemate. Gavin didn’t waste the moment by drawing
back. Instead, he whirled, kicked, and thrust all at once, and
suddenly, Fantin was away from the door, shrieking in unexpected
pain.

Gavin propelled himself toward it, just as
his opponent lunged forward. With barely enough time to block the
move, Gavin whipped his sword and caught the downward stroke. He
still had the door, and with a massive cry, he yanked it full
open.

Fantin leaped toward him, and Gavin dodged,
but misstepped, falling through the doorway and feeling naught but
air beneath his foot. Off-balance, he began to tumble, and with one
miraculous movement, snagged Fantin’s tunic, dragging him with
him.

The edges of the stone stairs slammed into
his shoulders and legs as he tumbled down, letting his sword go to
fall before him. Gavin thumped to the floor just after the clang of
his sword, and had the moment to grab it then peer around the
chamber choked with smoke before turning to face Fantin.

When he rose to his feet, the man had lost
that aura of holiness. His face, streaked with grime, and his eyes
burning in a face of pure fury reflected a loss of control, along
with the self-same determination to win that Gavin felt.

Fantin’s movements came, then, faster,
harder, but more erratic than before. Gavin spared a look toward
the wall where he’d seen a white-garbed form through the spirals of
smoke, his heart sagging when he saw that it did not move. Fantin
took that advantage and slammed his sword with such two-handed
force that Gavin lost his grip and the weapon spun from his
hand.

Now weaponless, he felt the surge of
desperation and need, and launched himself to the side as Fantin
drove what he’d intended to be the death stroke. Gavin flipped a
stool toward his opponent, catching him in the gut, and with one
sharp, swift lurch, snagged Fantin’s sword wrist and gave a vicious
twist. The bones snapped horribly.

Fantin screamed and dropped his weapon,
whirling toward a sconce that flamed behind him on the one wall
untouched by smoke, but Gavin moved too quickly. The sword was in
his hand, and slicing into his opponent’s chest before the man
could snatch the torch.

Fantin screamed and sagged to the ground in
a hopeless pool of blood and tattered clothing. Gavin yanked the
blade from the bone where it had lodged, feeling the scrape against
cartilage, and plunged it back in with two powerful arms. He took
no chances that the man’s deep strength should come back to haunt
him.

As he turned to chamber, the sound of
footfalls down the stairs alerted him. ’Twas his name being called,
and Gavin shouted back between inhaling the thick, choking smoke.
He had no moment to wonder what had taken them so long as Jube and
the others stumbled down the stairs. They didn’t need to be
directed to the slumped man against the far wall.

Gavin launched himself over a table to
Madelyne’s side, where she sagged against the wall, her face turned
into the sleeve of her garment in an effort to keep the smoke at
bay. He registered the chains that bound her and the fallen man at
her feet, shouting for help.

The wrist manacles kept his wife tight to
the wall, and the flames licked only inches away. Gavin, his face
so tight to his skull that he could barely form words with his
mouth, gasped, “Madelyne, hold tight! Do not move!”

With every last bit of strength, channeling
every iota of the desperation and fear he’d harbored, he seized his
weapon with two powerful hands and brought it down onto the
chains.

One of them snapped loose, and Madelyne
sagged from the wall, toward, him, hanging only by her arm. He
wrapped an arm around her waist, coughing into her hair, then
released her to slam the sword down a second time. The stones held
the chains more firmly, and this side did not release. The smoke
clogged his nose and stung his eyes, and the warmth the flames made
sent waves of sweat rolling down his back, dampening his hands.

“Dear God, help me!” he cried, and slammed
the sword down again.

The reverberation sang through his arms,
into his shoulders, and down his spine as the blade pulled the
chain from the stone and crashed into the floor.

Madelyne fell into his arms, and Gavin
swooped her up over his shoulder and turned to dash from the room.
The flames had built higher, cutting a swath betwixt them and the
stairs. By the speed of the fire, he realized his entire
altercation with Fantin had been mere breaths of time rather than
the long minutes it had seemed.

With a cry, one of battle and victory, Gavin
tore toward the flames, dashing through them, feeling their heat
sear them as he leapt through and stumbled to the stairs on the
other side.

Jube stood there, waiting, and grabbed
Madelyne from his master. They pounded up the stairs and collapsed
on the floor in the great hall.

Gathering Madelyne into his arms, Gavin
inserted himself betwixt her and Jube and pulled her to his chest.
Kissing her head, her face, her mouth, he found himself murmuring
wild things that made no sense…and at last had to pull himself away
to look at her.

“Madelyne….” was all he could say before
crushing her into his arms, folding her tightly to his chest. He
shook, knowing how close he’d come to losing her…over and over
again. “God, Madelyne, I love you. I died a decade of deaths when I
learned that Fantin had taken you. I begged the king to release me,
and he did, but—”

“It was Fantin,” she told him, smothered
against his chest, coughing softly. “Tricky heard him say it, and
Clem too…he fixed the necklet for the queen, with the help of
Rohan…the king will not say another word on it, I trow.” She kissed
him at the vee opening of his tunic, her lips warm on his skin at
the indentation at the base of his throat.

“I hope you are right in that,” he told her.
“But I cannot help but agree—now that Fantin is gone, Henry will be
much relieved.”

“Gavin.” Madelyne clutched at his arm,
pulling away to look up at him, her sunken gray eyes like large
moons. “I cannot believe this…but I have just learned that my
father is not Fantin. ’Tis the markings on my wrist—Seton has them
too, as his mother, and her father….I am the daughter of Seton de
Masin, not Fantin de Belgrume!”

A rush of happiness and relief—for Madelyne,
not for himself—flooded Gavin. “Did I not tell you that there was
no madness in your blood? Only the blood of a brave and intelligent
man, my love. We have much to thank him for.” He glanced at Seton,
who, though slumped against the wall, appeared to be unharmed.

“He’ll be overjoyed to know that my mother
is not dead.”

“Your mother?” Gavin stopped, staring down
at her. “Your mother lives?” He saw the stricken look in her eyes,
and knew that she’d forgotten the lie.

“Nay, she is not dead. I could not let the
truth come out, Gavin…you understand why. But—oh, I’ve spoken
treason to the king.” Fear leapt into her eyes and she clutched at
his arms.