Claudia Dain (41 page)

He had not beaten her, not with his fists as Nicholas had done to his golden Juliane, but he had beaten against her chastity with words of soft seduction, urging her to give him what he wanted, what every man wanted of every woman. And she had. With her blushes and shy smiles, her ragged breath heated by desire, her eyes smoldering in passion and in need, he had found his way into her, her virginity his prize.

He'd had no intention of hurting her. It had been a game played out upon a wager. A game of seduction, and for his prize in prizing from her that which could never be replaced, he had won himself a dagger most fine.

Fine winning. Aye, he had been well received by his fellow knights with much laughter and drinking as they celebrated his victory over a naive girl. Aye, such chivalry, such honor among brothers in arms. Just a game, it was. Just a simple wager which he, to add luster to his legend, had to win. And so he had.

And so Mariam, dark of hair and eye, living with her family on the Street of the Tent Makers in Antioch, had swelled with child. His child. His son had been born and cast to him, and Mariam put to death for so dishonoring her Saracen kin.

Put to death.

Killed in final payment of a drunken wager.

Yet his name, his legend for seduction, had risen to the stars. Legends were ever built upon pain and deceit. It was even so with Juliane.

Juliane. Nicholas had beaten his way into her. There was no other way into her; Ulrich understood that now. For her legend would be broken upon the man who found his way inside her.

Let legends die; 'twas Juliane who mattered. He would not cast her away. She was more to him than a name, more to him than land, more to him even than life. She was Juliane, and he wanted nothing more.

"Known a man before? And am I not the man?" Ulrich said, staring hard at her. "Why else would her father have gifted me with such a prize? I bring nothing to her, yet she took me in and gave me all. And I made her mine. For she is mine," he said softly, still holding her gaze within his own, "and ever will be."

"
You
took her? You stole her virginity?" Nicholas asked, his eyes bulging.

"Nay, you fool," Juliane said, still locked in Ulrich's gaze. "I gave it to him. He is the man who melted ice. Ulrich is the one who broke the legend of Juliane le Gel. Let the world know it."

They smiled at each other at this telling of the last lie, the lie that would end the game. For them, there was no more need of lies.

"Yet first, a killing," Ulrich said with a feral smile, turning to face Nicholas.

And with the words, he struck. Nicholas, ready, met his blow, steel ringing against steel as the sun fled the sky.

The dusk was long and warm, the sun throwing up rosy banners of light like trails of blood.

She pressed herself against the wooden walls and watched them fight. Ulrich was quick and cautious, like a wolf eyeing a buck. The wolf had teeth, the buck antlers to be wary of, yet it was the wolf hunting the buck. Nicholas was being hunted. There was no other way to describe it. Recognizing that fact, Nicholas began to panic, just as the buck will panic when set upon by snarling wolves. Edward slid into the shed and stood in front of her, his shield up to protect them both. He said no word, but by his look, he was waiting for the wolf to bring down his prey.

With a baring of his teeth, Ulrich struck a slicing blow across Nicholas's midriff, exposing muscle and blood and the pale yellow ripple of shielding fat. Nicholas fell back a step, his hand to his belly, his eyes narrowed in bewildered surprise.

"You fight? You, who are all of smiles?" he said.

"It does not take frowning to kill a man," Ulrich said, holding his sword up and ready, as Nicholas held his. "I like to kill. It brings me pleasure. Especially now. With you," he said.

"I am not yet killed. Nor will be." Nicholas said, lurching forward.

Nicholas was a fair hand with a blade and strong, even with a wound to distract him, yet Ulrich was quicker and more cunning, waiting for Nicholas to bleed away more and more of his strength while he kept his careful distance. Nicholas, with time running out for him and Ulrich yet unmarked, lunged in for a blow that made Juliane gasp and close her eyes, sure that Ulrich would be cleaved in twain. But when she opened them, they battled on, Ulrich unharmed, his blue eyes steadily upon his prey, his nerve unshattered. Nicholas had expended much in that last lunge and faltered now in his steps.

It was enough. Ulrich sliced again, a handbreadth higher upon Nicholas's chest, and laid open the flesh to the cage of bone that entrapped his heart. Nicholas looked down at his dual wounds. Fatal if not tended right soon.

Fatal, then, for none here would aid him.

"Now you are killed," Ulrich said.

"I am not," Nicholas said, falling to his knees and dropping his sword, his hands clasping and trying to hold himself together, to repair what was past repair.

"You are," Ulrich said with a snarl.

"Then finish it," Nicholas said, holding his head up for the blow as one knight of valor to another, demanding a quick end.

"I have finished it," Ulrich said. "My part of it. It is my will that you bleed out your life in this dark hole to which you dragged my wife. That you lie beaten, bleeding, dying, and knowing it. That you know you can do nothing to stop it. That you suffer the fate you pressed on her. That you die without hope, without help, without—"

"Enough, Ulrich," Juliane said, laying a hand upon his arm. He was shaking as much as she. "Enough. It is enough."

"Not enough," he murmured, touching her face, skimming over her bruises with a fingertip dipped in tenderness. "Never enough."

"At least have me shriven," Nicholas said, interrupting them. "Have me buried with my father's people."

"You shall be attended," Ulrich said, not looking at him. "Would you kill him, Juliane? I give him to you."

Her heart stopped to match her breathing. Kill him? Kill Nicholas? To be given his living body upon which to feed her revenge?

A tempting thought, a thought which hovered. A chance to hurt as she had been hurt. A chance to kill.

'Twas not a new thought. She had dreamed of it while he pummeled her and forced her legs apart. Death would have been most sweetly visited upon Nicholas then. But now? When cold reason ruled more fiercely than the hot need to survive?

To kill a man?

Could she do it?

Should
she do it?

"I do not know if I can," she said.

"You would let me die by a woman's hand?" Nicholas gasped out, his hands clasping what could not be contained. The dirt around him was muddy with blood. He would die like an animal.

"She has earned this chance at you and I am honored to give it to her." Ulrich said, looking down at Nicholas. "Take his life, Juliane. Let justice come from your hand."

She could almost, almost love him, this man who made death a gift, who thought to give her a power that women were denied. This man, this Ulrich. She could almost, almost love him.

And so she did.

Why had all been of winning and losing in her mind? Why had she not seen that loving was the greatest gain of all, though hearts were lost as souls were merged into a oneness that defied cold logic? Her legend was lost, proved a lie, yet Ulrich stood tall beneath the falling of it, the broken truth not enough to make him turn from her.

When she had forged her bargain with her father, she had not known that there was no freedom within a lie. She had believed him when he told her of the joy of power, the luster of legend, the prize of freedom. But she had not been free. Nay, she had been required to play and play again within the bounds of her legend, held there by the lie of cold invincibility. Held off from warmth and passion and easy laughter, held hard to the illusion of her legend, forced to play a part that no longer fit her heart.

Her only power had been in denial and scorn. 'Twas no power that had any merit. She knew that now, long years past the moment of decision.

"Juliane?" Ulrich said, offering his dagger. "Either you kill him or we leave him here to die."

"Kill me, then," Nicholas said, looking up at her. "Do not leave me so. Have the mercy to kill me if he will not. To die so, to inch toward death, my body rotting before my soul has flown... do not leave me to that, no matter your vengeance."

"For mercy, then, and not for vengeance," she said, taking the dagger.

For mercy it would be, and so she would be quick, no doubt or delay to prolong it. Crouching down upon the bloody mud, she sliced his throat. He did not hinder her. This was quick death and painless, and he wanted it. A long slide of the dagger, the skin peeling back, red and torn, and then his life draining from him as his soul broke free of earth.

So it was that Nicholas of Nottingham met his end. So it was that Juliane sent him into eternity.

* * *

Ulrich set her carefully upon her horse and took the reins and led her out of that darkened yard where her life had crumbled under another man's foot. With Ulrich nigh and the threat of Nicholas behind her, she felt herself fading into exhaustion and despair. There was no one left to fight and no one to be strong for, and so the tears that had teased her eyes came surging forth from deep within her heart and bled down her cheeks and into her silently crying mouth.

She wept.

She wept and could not find the will to stop.

And then her horse stopped and Ulrich's arms were about her, lifting her down, holding her up, embracing, supporting, comforting. And still she wept. And wept. Too weak to hold him. Too weak to speak. Too weak to fight even once more.

"Forgive me, Juliane," he said. "Pray, forgive."

"I thought you would not come, yet all I could do was pray that you would come," she said through teary hiccups.

"I came as soon as I could learn from Conor where you had been taken. Ever will I come for you. Ever will I protect you. But pray forgive me, Juliane," he said in a rush of words blended with kisses upon her hair. "I was too slow and I was too loose in my grip on you. I should have protected you better. It is no worthy man who lets his wife be taken from beneath his hand."

"Wait," she said, shaking her head against his chest. "Wait, I cannot... Conor? Conor was in this?"

"Aye, and he is killed for it."

"By your hand?"

"Aye. And I have lost St. Ives in the killing."

"Lost St. Ives? We have lost St. Ives?" she said, shaking her head clear of foggy exhaustion and trying to make sense of this. "How? This is too much telling. I cannot follow it."

Ulrich sighed and pressed her head back onto his chest, hiding her from all the world and the growing dark and sounds of night.

"Know this only for now. I came for you, Juliane. I will always and ever come for you."

"But St. Ives lost," she said, breathing in the scent of him. He smelled like musk and the night itself, wild and dark. "You came for me with St. Ives already lost?"

"I lost St. Ives, yet I grieve not," he said, rubbing his hands down the length of her back to bring her ease. "By killing Conor without Walter's sanction, I lost the right to St. Ives for defying my liege lord. I did not care. I
do
not care. In my heart all that signified was you, and William, for he was taken too, to split my search and weaken my will to fight."

"William? Why William?" she asked, her voice sleepy.

She could not keep her eyes open and her joints felt like melting tallow. Yet there was something she should note about St. Ives. If only she could think clearly. But she could not. All she wanted was to tumble into Ulrich and into sleep.

He had come for her, and there was no St. Ives to propel him.

"Conor thought William was my son."

"William? He is no son of yours."

"Think you not? Why not?"

"He is nothing like you."

"Nay? I think him most handsome, most agreeable, and most able. For a boy of eight."

"Aye," she said, smiling against the wool of his tunic. "Nothing like you."

"Come, then," he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "You are in your strength now. I take you to Thorney Abbey."

"I want to go home," she said, her voice weak and tremulous. Her strength was gone from her, lost, as all was lost "And what of my legend and the lie that was its seed? Does it not—"

"To Thorney Abbey, where all questions and all fears will wait until you are yourself again."

"I am myself," she grumbled, feeling nothing like herself at all. She wept on, her tears flowing like salt rain, in direct opposition to her will. She could not stop.

"If you are Juliane, then I am Lunete," he said with a laugh that seemed to light her up inside, as if all the darkness of the day had not passed over her and through her. As if she was as she had been. As if there had been no Nicholas. "Come to the abbey. I will attend," he said lightly and then, with a note of heavy sorrow, he said, "You are safe now, Juliane. I will not leave you."

And on that promise, she tumbled softly into sleep.