Sweet Enchantress (20 page)

CHAPTER XV

Observing Dominique as she ministered to Hugh, who lay coughing with the ague, Paxton supposed he should be filled with admiration at the demonstration of her skill and her compassionate touch.

More often than not, though, he found himself dismayed and a trifle uneasy at the continuing
revelations of heretofore undiscovered facets to her. It was unsettling enough that she read and wrote as well as any man and that she made him earn his victories at chess. Quite indomitable, willful, incorrigible, she challenged his forbearance.

Clearly, she was a pagan. Her
interest in alchemy was a conjuring of nature’s dark secrets best left alone. Those trances she went into, calling them "meditation periods,” confounded him. Before their marriage she had been intriguing but now he found her a vexation.

Yet the idea of an
yone else possessing her was . . . he pushed the thought from his mind.

Overcome
by the reek of the mustard poultice she applied to Hugh’s chest, he fled the boy’s room and headed for the Justice Room.

John's mailed steps caught up wit
h him in the corridor. "Denys is at it again. He and his
routiers
looted a pack train from the Mediterranean this time.”

Paxton rubbed his jaw with the heel of his hand. The knife had shaved dully this morning but then the shaving had been by perforce a hu
rried act.

"Last week,”
John continued, "he set fire to the granaries in the hamlet of Briebaux.” Still that urge to turn and see if Arthur followed. Paxton missed that hissing ball of fur. When he apprehended Bontemps, the
routier
would this time pay with his own life for killing Arthur. "Get together a contingent of men,” he told John. "I shall set out after sunrise, at the ringing of the prime bells.” The Justice Room was doorway deep with petitioners. He sighed. He had thought he was blessed with patience. Patience to wait stealthily for the stag to drink from the pond. Patience to wait for the enemy to make that one false move. Patience to outwit a chess opponent, to sacrifice small pawns, for the capture of the opponent's queen.

Yet this kind of waitin
g was a trial of endurance that taxed him to the limit. Listening to the haggling, the mundane and petty complaints for hours on end when he wanted to feel the sunlight on his skin and stretch his kinked muscles in a round of jousting or chopping firewood wore on him. Was he truly qualified to rule a fiefdom justly?

Dominique taxed his patience also. The wench was becoming prone to throwing things more often. He supposed her volatile temperament was due to his child she carried. An image of her, silhouetted
against the light of dawn in their bedchamber, taunted him even in that crowded room of peasants and bourgeoisie: her belly softly rounded; her breasts full, straining with her milk. On his tongue, the taste would be tart and tantalizing. So tantalizing he could not forsake those generous breasts this morning in time to sit through a proper shave.

When midday arrived, he abruptly ended the administr
ative tasks in favor of preparation for the forthcoming expedition. Forsaking the noonday meal, he went to find the blacksmith sweating over his fire.

Bertrand's smile displayed his missing teeth. "You be needing a lantern forged for whiling away your nights with the chatelaine, messire?”

He chuckled. "No, I shall need forged a pair of spurs by the morrow's sunrise, Bertrand. Knitting needles have sharper points than these spurs' rowels.”

Dominique appeared in the doorway. Dust particles floating in the sunlight made her seem as if she were a shimmering apparition. "I learned from Baldwyn that in the Justice Room
today you confined the miller's wife to the stocks for adultery.”

Her terse tone told him she was highly annoyed, which puzzled him. "Aye, that I did. Better a period in the stocks than to cut off her nose or to lash her naked through the streets.”

She put her hands on her hips. "Alieson was only getting her revenge on her husband. The miller has been taking his pleasure with every willing woman in the village for months now.”

He found his temper growing shorter than a burnt candlewick. "A wife without
chastity is a criminal blot on the husband’s escutcheon.”

Her eyebrows shot up. She put her hands on her hips. “
So, you are saying that female virtue is the counterpart to male honor?"

“
I shall not have my decisions in the Justice Room questioned, even by you.”

“
You, sire, are insufferably highhanded!” She dared criticize him before a vassal. In England, a man would throttle a woman for such disrespect. He could not understand her, this strange woman. His teeth clenched. The blood in his ears pounded out his anger. He drew a deep breath that helped check his runaway fury. Without a glance at her, he stalked past her and out of the stables.

That night he did not sleep in their bed-chamber but stayed below in the Great Hall, drinking with his men and falling aslee
p on a proffered pallet. His last thought before sleep caught up with him was that his wife was an affront to his masculine ego. She may have been accustomed to ruling her domain, but he was now Grand Seneschal of Montlimoux —and she was his wife.

Clearly,
he would have to see that Dominique mended her ways.

Nothing was going right these days.

Dominique
’s fiefdom was no longer the peaceful countryside it once was. Violent winds and heavy rainstorms harassed the county, the granaries were being overrun by rats, and, worse, Denys was sowing dissatisfaction among the peasants. This time, Paxton had sworn not to return until he had Denys in chains. She wished Denys would abandon this vow of revenge and take sanctuary in another country.

More importantly, she fretted for Paxton's safety, and chaffed at how they had parted without reconciling their differences.

The problem was, their differences were so great that reconciliation was an improbability. This man to whom she was joined mentally, physically, and emotionally . . . there had to be a bridge of light to reach him spiritually as well. With such a union, she was sure they would experience a rapture greater than any bliss brought them by the joinings of their bodies.

But how did you com
municate with a man who was aware only of his physical body? Who did not realize that fighting weakens while harmony strengthens?

And why did she have to love him as she did?

She tried to tell herself that he was a soldier, trained for violence and brutality, but she had to acknowledge that he had brought to fruition many of the plans she had conceived for Montlimoux, that he had a humor that always caught her off guard, that he was sometimes capable of tenderness though he would deny it vehemently.

Well, s
he had had enough of her misfortunes. She could only be thankful that the Summer Solstice was upon them.

Finished w
ith her herb-gathering, she collected her straw basket. When she went to rise from the garden row, she winced at the sudden stitch in her side. With a gasp, she pressed her hand against the pain. Most likely, she had been kneeling in an ungainly position.

"What is it?”
Iolande asked, coming up from behind her.

She sighed. “
Either you are becoming lighter on your feet in your old age or I am becoming less in tune with my surroundings.”

The old woman
’s eyes peered at her from beneath their hooded lids. "You are in pain?”

"No longer. Truly.”
With a tender smile, she placed her hand on her swelling belly. "Just a stitch in my side, that is all. That I would willingly endure a hundredfold for the sake of the babe.”

Only then did she notice that Iolande
’s mouth had taken on a tighter grimace than usual. If eyes could ache, the old woman's eyes looked as if they did. She touched her nursemaid’s brittle wrist, its skin veined with purple. "You have always wanted your own child, have you not, Iolande?”

She sniffed like a sweating wrestler on fair da
y. "A child? Nothing but a whelp with a snotty nose and a dung-smeared bottom.”

"If what you proclaim is true, then why did you care for me so lovingly?”

The old woman’s mouth crimped downward. "Duty. 'Twas my duty.”

"I do not believe you. I believe you wa
nted a child so much your insides were torn with the wanting.”

Silent tears blurred eyes already blurred by age. The old woman stared at nothing but the past. "Yes, my insides were to
rn. Torn from repeated raping.”

Dominique gasped, but Iolande appeared no
t to hear. Her knotted fingers interwound around each other in a slow dance of emotional pain. "I was young, not yet of twenty years. And pampered. I was descended from a royal family of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Nothing more than a name, really. But our fortress at St. Jean d'Acre rivaled those of Languedoc. Then one afternoon, a party of crusaders stormed our gates. Because we were Jewish, we were agents of Satan. Or so the one said, the one who first raped me.”

"Enough!”
Dominique cried, blocking her ears with her hands and shutting her eyes.

The old woman continued in a bitter tone. "I was locked in a tower room for almost a year. The crusaders brought me food and watched while I relieved my bodily functions
—and availed themselves of me when they pleased. Their brutality ended any hopes of childbearing. The savagery of those Holy Wars, God damn the popes and their self- righteous adherents!”

Dominique was weeping raggedly. She threw her arms around the woman. "I love you, Iolande!”

The old woman shrugged her off. "As I said, babes are a nuisance.”

"You have not forgot 'tis Summer Solstice?” Baldwyn asked.

Dominique
sighed and laid aside the manuscript of Marie de France's poems. Her romances were full of Celtic atmosphere and made use of Arthurian materials, but Dominique was nowhere nearer understanding her English husband. "No, I have not, Baldwyn. I shall make my appearance in the village for the celebration. I swear.”

Summer Solstice was the longest day of the year, and for as long as the
Provencal people could remember, the occasion had been celebrated. The longest day of the year was looked forward to as a source of joy and renewal. Come eventide large bonfires would be lit. In the square of Montlimoux the villagers would gather to laugh and dance and wait for the ruling comtessa to pass among them, distributing coins and fruit.

This evening, for the first time in centuries, a man and not a woman should have been presiding over Summer Solstice, but Paxton had not returned. So Dominique do
nned the best of her looser fitting tunics and, with John at her side, her maids-in-waiting, and retainers riding behind, rode down to the village square.

"The Celtics of our country celebrate this day, also,”
John told her, as they watched the flames leaping high, the firelight dancing eerily over the faces of the villagers. "But it has a more mystical value.” He grinned. "Spirits and that sort of knavery.”

"You do not believe in the mystical?”

In his narrow face, his eyes seemed to reflect the dance of the fire, and their blue centers were as heated, for his gaze had often turned back to Beatrix, riding demurely behind them. "I do not accept the rumors that sorcery is the wellspring of thy power, my Lady Dominique, if that is what ye mean.”

"Tis no sor
cery, John,” she said gently. “’Tis the power that comes from within me . . . from within you. The Divine gift. You have merely forgotten the gift.”

He genuflec
ted, and his voice was as impassioned as the horror of his expression. "Ye know, my Lady Dominique, I shall guard your very life with my own, but I beg ye not to speak as ye do.”

She began to feel that sighing was about the only thing she could freely do these days. She seemed to have not one iota of control of her reactions. How could this have come to
pass, how could she have handed over the reins of personal power so easily?

With the merriment of the festivities, the evening went quickly enough, and soon it was time to return to the chateau. Everyone in her party was yawning and yearning for their beds
. All but she.

Once she closed her chamber door on John, she s
ummoned Baldwyn to her. The Templar’s massive body lent reassurance to her nocturnal objective. "I have fresh mounts ready, my lady.”

She nodded. "Midnight is rapidly approach
ing. The night was lovely, with stars marking the passage of time across the vast heavens. The heaviness began to slip from her as she and Baldwyn made the trek to the traditional ceremonial site for the de Bar Summer Solstice. A rocky, climbing path and tall firs hinted at the higher elevation that made the stars seem within a distance of a mere fortnight’s journey.

She would be there sooner. Tonight, in fact.

The air was fragrant and cool, cool enough to build the bonfires. Together, she and Baldwyn gathered branches and twigs and piled them in small mounds that formed a path across the moonlit clearing. By striking a fire iron against flint, the Templar lit fires. Soon smoke spindled upward from each mound. Crackling and snapping of the wood punctuated the silence of the deep night.

The two sat and watched the play of the flames, watched until the mounds burned low and flickered to embers. The heat they gave off was still enough to warm he
r face. Soon the embers disintegrated into hot ash, pulsating with energy. That energy was the life force, the bonfire the symbolic energy cleanser.

"Ready?”
Baldwyn asked.

She nodded.

He hefted his bulk from the ground and crossed to his mount to remove from his saddle the short rake he had brought along. While he racked the glowing cinders, she removed her leather slippers and hose. Minutes later, he was finished raking. He had leveled the red ash into a glowing, carpeted walkway.

She stood at one end of
the walkway and closed her eyes. A circle of pastel, a lovely, lovely purple, began to expand on the backs of her lids, filling her inner vision. From within the circle, a white light began its own expansion so that she was completely filled with its purity. A serenity spread through her, insulating her and her unborn child from harm. In that blaze of white light, she came in contact with her spirit, surrendered her will.

The transformation was beginning as was her fire walk. Her state of mind transcended h
er body, transcended pain, refused to register painful signals. How long it took her to transverse the cinder carpet, she had no idea. She simply knew when she reached the far end, a glorious feeling suffused her. Smiling, tears in her eyes, she opened her arms wide and whispered, "I am! I am!”

Whether the fire walk put an end to the random misfo
rtunes, as was claimed the ritual could accomplish, she did not know. But she did indeed feel renewed. Overflowing with joy and good will, she turned to glance back along the cinder carpet she had walked, and then looked back to Baldwyn.

She found him
—and alongside him John. Then her gaze collided with Paxton’s.

His anger blazed across the intervening distance. Her serenity destroyed, she avoided the cinders as she w
alked toward the three men. Paxton was already striding toward her. His every step was like a thudding hammer on her heart. When he was almost upon her, she said, "You do not understand what you witness—”

His hands shot out to grab her shoulders. He shook
her so hard her head snapped back and forth. "Have you lost your mind? If you ever had one. The peasants are right. You are not normal. You are not like everyone el—”

She jerked away. "Even a common serf should know that what the mind thinks is possible
—is!”

"The fact that I had been a serf did not bother you enough to keep you from my bed or to keep me from siring my child in you!”

"You fear woman’s life-giving power,” she taunted him. "For whoever can give life can take it away!”

Pain and fury contorted h
is face. His hand lashed out, and she staggered with the impact and fell to her knees. The hot cinders barely had time to sear her palms, before Paxton was scooping her into his arms. "Dominique,
ma mignon
, I am so—"

Whatever he had been about to say was c
ut short by Baldwyn's massive hand clamping on his shoulder. "I shall take my Lady Dominique.”

Hampered by the burden of his wife, Paxton could only shrug off the hand. "She is my wife, Templar. I shall care for her.”

John stepped in between the two. "Hold off, both of you!”

Something of the anguish in Paxton
’s face must have reached through to Baldwyn. "See that you do, Englishman. ‘Tis your life in balance.”

On the return trip, she rode cradled in Paxton's arms. The hard, steady beat of the horse
’s hooves commingled with that of his heart to echo through her ear, pressed against his chest. The thudding reverberated through her body to fill her, fill her so completely there was nothing else but him. This warrior was the man she was destined to love.

When th
ey arrived at the chateau, he carried her into their bedchamber and gently lowered her onto their bed. Iolande pushed past him. "You are all right?” the old woman asked and took her hand.

Dominique winced, and Paxton rolled his eyes. "She burnt her hands,
Iolande.”

The Jewess shot her a puzzled look.

"I lost my balance,” Dominique explained. Gingerly, Iolande turned over Dominique's palms. Blisters bubbled the flesh. “I shall make up a salve.”

After Iola
nde departed, Paxton said, "Dominique, I let my anger get the better of my will. I ask that you—”

She shut off the flow of his words with her finger. "Not now, please. Words . .
. They are nothing. You are a soldier, a warrior, a fighter. A man of action. Later . . . show me what it is you want to tell me.”

H
is eyes darkened with the agony her words inflicted. He took her hand and kissed the burnt fingertip she had held against his lips. "Later, then.”

Later brought tremendous pain ripping through her. In a feverish haze, she felt Iolande
’s cool hand on her forehead, she sensed Paxton at her side, but the pain in her stomach overwhelmed all else.

She was losing the babe. Their babe. She could not even be four months into her term. She overheard Iolande saying, "The babe did not take hold. It was not meant to be
. . . .” Then darkness was all around Dominique. Stifling air. Disagreeable voices. An argument. Paxton closing the windows for her health, Iolande battling to keep them open. An exchange of words about leeches and bloodletting. Iolande’s adamant refusal.

From afar, she heard Paxton
’s voice now. The one word: "Witch.”

She tried to deny it, but no words would come. She tried to fix her will, to affirm her perfect health, but the blood ebbing out of her drained her of all strength. Then
at last, at last, blessed oblivion.