Storm Winds (15 page)

“She won’t move.” A coarse chuckle. “You see? She doesn’t want to go back to the rest. She likes us.”

“Then carry her.”

More grumbling, then the naked woman was lifted by one of the brawnier men and carried toward the two
men waiting in the shadows. “What difference does it make? There are plenty of women to go around.”

“Rules are rules.”

Catherine tensed, her gaze fixed eagerly on the departing figures. They entered the shadows. Soon their footsteps faded. She jumped to her feet and streaked toward the open gate.

A shout!

Dear Mary, someone had seen her!

Footsteps on the cobblestones.

Please God, don’t let them catch me.

She tore through the vegetable garden.

She couldn’t hear them behind her any longer. Was it because they were running on the soft earth instead of on the cobblestones or was she not their prey?

Her heart pounded so hard she was sure it would burst.

The blood drummed in her temples.

She was running among the graves. Why had she never noticed the moss growing on the crosses looked like rivulets of blood?

Sister Bernadette. She must reach Sister Bernadette.

She heard something behind her. A laugh? She was afraid to glance over her shoulder to see.

It could have been the wind.

Oh, let it be the wind.

Gabriel’s marble wings shining in the moonlight. Sister Bernadette’s tomb. She frantically shoved the bolt aside, dashed into the crypt, and slammed the door behind her.

No bolt on the inside.

Of course not. The dead needed no locks.

She backed away from the door.

Her hip collided with the marble sarcophagus.

She scarcely felt the pain as she sank to her knees beside Juliette’s easel. The darkness pressed in on her, taking her breath.

She leaned her hot cheek against the cold marble of the sarcophagus, her gaze straining toward the door.

Protect me, Sister Bernadette. You were only ten
and eight when you died. You must have wanted to live too.

Protect me. Don’t let them find me.

Dear God,
why
had she come here? This tomb wasn’t a sanctuary.

It was a trap.

The door of the crypt swung open.

S
acre bleu
, you’ve almost got the rope gnawed through. What an industrious vixen you are.” Raoul Dupree held the lantern in his hand closer to the ropes and smiled at Juliette as he cut the bonds with his sword. “If I’d been gone only a few minutes more, you might have freed yourself. But life is filled with might-have-beens, isn’t it?”

Juliette hastened to mask her disappointment. She refused to give the
canaille
the satisfaction. “You might as well have stayed away. I’ll give you no pleasure.”

“Oh, but you will.” Dupree stripped her of the ropes and pulled her toward the door. “However, not the immediate carnal pleasure I’d anticipated. Unfortunately, I indulged my appetites while I was going about my duties. I’ll have to have time to regain my virility before I’m ready to enjoy you, Citizeness …?”
Dupree lifted a questioning brow. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say.”

“No matter. We’ll give you another name. You shall be Citizeness Justice.” His pouty lips tilted up in a feline smile. “Every court needs a symbol, and you shall be ours. I think it very fitting under the circumstances. Sweet, pure Citizeness Justice.”

“Court?”

“Let me explain. We’re going to have a trial. It’s come to the ears of the Paris commune that the nuns of the abbey, in order to help their former patroness, the queen, have turned this establishment into a bordello. They’ve offered their own bodies and that of their students to sway young, gullible patriots from fighting for the revolutionary cause and deserting to the Austrians.”

Juliette gazed at him incredulously. “That’s ridiculous. No one will believe you.”

He chuckled. “Why not? Every man here can testify there are no virgins at the Abbaye de la Reine.”

She spat in his face.

He went rigid. “I did not like that.” He reached in his pocket, drew out a lace-trimmed handkerchief, and wiped the spittle from his left cheek. “You must behave with better decorum if you’re going to survive a few hours longer.” He jerked her forward. “Every insolence will be met with punishment. Every obedience a reward. You understand?”

“No.”

“You will, Citizeness. You will.”

The golden chalice of the holy sacrament was filled to the brim with dark red liquid.

“Drink it,” Dupree said softly. “And perhaps we’ll spare the next one.”

She couldn’t drink it. They were probably lying to her anyway. These monsters would spare none of them.

She shook her head.

Dupree nodded to the man wearing a red patriot’s
bonnet bearing a tricolored revolutionary cockade. The man immediately started toward the Reverend Mother kneeling naked before the tribunal table.

“Wait!” Juliette took the cup and brought it quickly to her lips.

A cheer went up from the men in the courtyard.

The liquid smelled sickeningly of copper. Dear God, she couldn’t …

She closed her eyes and drained every drop.

“Very good,” Dupree murmured.

Juliette’s stomach rebelled. She turned quickly aside from the tribunal table and violently vomited up the contents of her stomach onto the stones of the courtyard.

“I’m afraid that won’t do,” Dupree said regretfully. “You cheated, Citizeness Justice. You’ll have to try again.”

He motioned to the man wearing the red bonnet.

The man grinned, flexed the brawny muscles of his arms, and took two steps forward toward the Reverend Mother.

Juliette screamed.

The travesty of justice was over, disintegrating into a brutal slaughter with clubs and swords. Juliette gazed at the sea of faces of the men in the courtyard as they went about their carnage. She had once told Catherine she possessed the vision to comprehend and appreciate the subtle nuances of ugliness. Now she knew that until this night she had been ignorant about true ugliness.

“Come along, my sweet.” Dupree took her elbow and propelled her toward the bell tower. “I have an impulse to enjoy you before Citizeness Justice goes beneath the sword.”

She walked beside him without speaking.

“You’re suddenly quite meek. I do hope you’re going to show a little spirit when I’m between your thighs.”

Dupree closed the door of the bell tower and placed his sword on one of the spiral steps. “Lie down.”

She stretched out on the cold flagstones and closed her eyes.

Blood.

She felt the heat of Dupree’s body as he lay down and took her in his arms.

Screams from the children. Screams from the nuns.

Blood.

Dupree’s hand closed on her breast. “Open your eyes. I want to see you looking at me, Citizeness.”

She obediently opened her eyes. He was bending over her, his cat face only inches from hers. He was smiling.

“Your eyes are glittering. Are you weeping, little Citi—”

She sank her teeth into his throat. The coppery taste was in her mouth again, but now she welcomed it.

He shrieked. He tried to shake her off his neck, but she followed him, her teeth biting deeper.

“Bitch.” He began cursing. “Animal.” He tried to lift her off but her arms closed fiercely around him in a mockery of an embrace.

The blood was pouring onto his shoulder. She shook her head savagely to tear his flesh. Then, as he gasped with pain, she pushed him aside, leapt to her feet, and grabbed the sword from the step. Dupree opened his lips to scream, but the flat of the sword came down on his temple before he could utter a sound. He slumped to the side and lay still.

Pity. She had meant to strike him with the edge of the blade.

She turned and fled out the door leading to the south courtyard which was deserted. She ran across the cobblestones to the gates, through the vegetable garden and up the hill to the cemetery.

Catherine had to be in the crypt, she thought desperately. She must have reached safety or she would have been brought to trial with the others at that mockery of a tribunal.

The door of the crypt was open.

Profound relief made Juliette’s pace falter momentarily. Catherine was always so afraid of the dark, but she
should have closed it, Juliette thought impatiently. Didn’t she realize the open door would be noticed?

“Bitch, don’t just lie there.” The sound of flesh striking flesh. “Move.”

Juliette froze. She could barely discern the heavy form of a man humping over the figure of a woman, moving rhythmically between her pale thighs.

Catherine. The woman had to be Catherine.

“No!”

Juliette didn’t realize she had screamed out the word until the stout man looked over his shoulder in startled dismay. “What! Who are—”

Juliette didn’t make the same mistake this time. The sword came down on his neck blade first. He slumped over, covering Catherine’s slender body like an obscene blanket.

Juliette ran forward, pushing his heavy carcass off Catherine. “Filth!
Canaille!”
She knelt, cradling Catherine’s still body, rocking her back and forth in an agony of sympathy. “Sweet Jesus, they’re all filth. Are you hurt?”

Catherine shuddered and didn’t answer.

“A stupid question. Of course you’re hurt.” Juliette smoothed Catherine’s hair back from her face. “But you’re safe now. I’m here.”

“Filth,” Catherine whispered. “You’re right. Dirty. I’m so dirty.”

“No, not you. Them,” Juliette said fiercely. She pulled Catherine’s gown down about her thighs and sat her up. “Listen, we have no time. They’ll be looking for us soon. We must get away from here.”

“It’s too late.”

Juliette shook her. “It’s not too late. We’re not going to let them best us. I’m not going to let them kill you.”

“Filth. I won’t ever be clean again, will I?”

“Shh.” Juliette gave Catherine a quick hug, picked up the sword again, and rose. “Can you stand up?”

Catherine looked at her dumbly.

Juliette took her wrist and yanked her to her feet. “Do you want them to catch me? Do you want them to do the same thing to me they did to you?”

Catherine slowly shook her head.

“Then come with me and do as I say.” Juliette didn’t wait for an answer but pulled Catherine stumbling from the tomb. “We have to hurry or they’ll—” She stopped, her gaze fixed on the abbey.
“Bon Dieu
, they’ve set fire to it.”

The abbey wasn’t fully ablaze yet. Only intermittent flames showed in the windows of the chapel. Well, what had she expected? This final desecration was no less terrible than what had gone before. It might even be for the best. Perhaps Dupree would think she had been butchered like the rest or burned up in the fire and wouldn’t search the surrounding countryside. She turned away, pulling Catherine through the gates of the cemetery. “We’ll skirt the road and try to make our way to the forest. Then after they’ve left we’ll walk toward Paris.”

“They’re singing.”

“It’s easier to hide in the city than it is in the open countryside, and it will—” Juliette broke off. Dear God, they
were
singing. The stirring strains of the song lent a macabre beauty to the destruction below. She knew if she lived to be an old woman she would never forget standing on this hillside and listening to those murderers singing their song of liberty and revolution.

“Filth,” Catherine murmured, rubbing frantically at the front of her gown.

“Shh. We’re too close.” Juliette pulled her forward through the vegetable garden, angling past the abbey wall south toward the forest. “Just be quiet a little longer and we’ll—”

“Wait. You’re going the wrong way.”

At the deep masculine voice Juliette whirled to face a man standing in the shadows of the convent wall. Only one man, she realized with relief. Juliette’s grasp tightened on Catherine’s wrist as she lifted the sword. “Take a step toward us and I’ll slice your heart out.”

“I have no intention of attacking you.” He paused. “You’re the Citizeness Justice that Dupree had sitting at the tribunal. You carry Dupree’s sword?”

“Yes.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No. You’re not going to stop us. I. won’t let—”

“I’m not trying to stop you.” His voice was heavy with weariness. “I’m only trying to tell you that you’re going the wrong way. Dupree’s set a watch. They will capture you if you are within a stone’s throw of this road.”

She gazed at him suspiciously. “I don’t believe you. Why should you tell me the truth if you were in the courtyard with those …” She searched for a word, but there was none vile enough. “Why are you here? Did you grow bored with slaughtering innocent women?”

“I didn’t kill anyone. I don’t—” He stopped. “I came into the courtyard just before Dupree took you from the tribunal. I was sent here to witness—I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”

Juliette stared at him in disbelief.

“I tell you I didn’t know,” he said fiercely. “I have no love for either you aristos or the church, but I don’t murder the helpless.”

“Murder.” Catherine’s words came haltingly. “They … killed them?”

“Yes.” Juliette shot her a worried glance, but the news seemed to have little impact on Catherine’s shocked state.

“All of them?”

“I think so.” Juliette’s gaze shifted to the man in the shadows. “He should know better than I.”

“I didn’t stay to count the dead.”

“You didn’t stay to help the living either.”

“I couldn’t help them. Could you have helped them?”

“You’re one of them. They might have listened to you. Why should—” A sudden shout caused Juliette to stiffen with fear.

“Hurry. Come with me.” The stranger stepped from the shadows and Juliette registered a swift impression of a man above medium height with a square, hard jaw. His eyes were arresting. They were fierce, light-colored, the eyes of an old man in a young man’s face. “They’ll probably come streaming out of the gate any
moment. I have a carriage waiting around the turn of the road about a quarter of a mile from here.”