Gonji: A Hungering of Wolves (24 page)

Wilf looked over at him but said nothing. Claire Dejordy clopped up slowly on her steed, eyes shining with evident gratitude, but something troubled her. She seemed eager to speak to Wilf when his present concerns were laid to rest.

Monetto grabbed the hem of Wilf’s shirt, which dangled out from under his jack. “Still wearing Genya’s embroidered shirt, eh? You can have her add ‘I survived St. Pierre’ to this. Hey,
babcia
—old granny!”

Monetto had spotted Nagy in his woman’s garb.

“Nice dress! It suits you.”

Nagy shook a fisted pistol at him. “Never mind, smart-ass,” he railed. “This goddamn thing saved my life. Begging your pardon, ladies.”

Good-natured laughter broke out, muted quickly in deference to the ghastly carnage strewn about them. Shuddering, weeping townsfolk huddled over wounded and dead kinsmen.

“Where’s the woman you got those from, Nick?” Monetto persisted, lowering his voice. “Is she wearing
your
clothes?”

“Shut up, Monetto,” Nagy grumbled.

“Just make sure you get them back so that we don’t take
her
along when we leave instead of you.”

“All right, enough,” Wilf said, commanding their attention. “Let’s get everyone back into their regular armament. We’ve got to talk. Oh—
danke,
everyone, for being so alert.”

“Hey,” Monetto said, dismissing it with a wave, “we were getting ready to do something about these jackals even if you
hadn’t
come back so soon. Just wanted to make sure first that they didn’t have any monsters along. You know how Simon attracts them.” He quickly wished he hadn’t said it when he saw the look Wilf and Claire exchanged. “I’ll get the men moving…”

A graying man in a grimy doublet, his face cut and bruised, approached Wilf and shook his hand firmly.
“Merci, monsieur.
When you and your men arrived, we had reason to suspect you. That’s the reason for our lack of hospitality. Now our town is yours to command. And should you need fighting men, you’ll find many willing souls. Rebellion is a sad necessity in these times, I fear. I am the local magistrate, Jean Boisvert. Please, call me Jean…”

Introductions were made.

“Merci,
Jean,” Wilf replied at length. “Your people are probably more useful here than along with us. We’ll stay long enough to help you fortify this town. Then we must move on.”

“You are, are you not,” Boisvert asked, “indeed members of the Wunderknechten, engaged in the fight against this hated Farouche Clan?”

Wilf pondered his answer. “We’re men on a mission of sorts,” he allowed. “But we withhold our affiliations for now. Obviously, we can’t disguise our…lack of sentiment for the Farouche.”

Their attention was drawn to Monetto again, who scaled the wall of the town hall building in spectacular fashion, repeatedly using his versatile axe for hand-and footholds as he ascended. He struck the wolf-crest pennon that fluttered above the town and raised in its stead the banner of the First Rumanian Hussars, assembled by Gonji during the storied Vedun campaign. Shrugging to see Wilf’s scornful look, Monetto called down: “Hell, nobody knows what it means around here anyway. And this
was
our first foreign action.”

“Fly it till we leave, then it goes with us,” Salguero called up.

“Naturally.”

When Wilf was at last alone, Claire dismounted and walked beside him. “Wilfred,” she opened, her voice choked with anxiety, “what do you think about what Jacques Moreau said? You know—about the Farouche telling him they had brought home a ‘prodigal son’? Do you suppose they’ve caught Simon?”

“How did you know about that?”

“Friends…in Lamorisse.” She folded her arms in front of her as they strolled.

“Nein,
I doubt it. I know your man too well. He is not so easy to catch. That’s why I didn’t trouble you by telling you this nonsense.” He sniffed as if there were no reason for worry, hoping the air he’d affected hadn’t been too patently casual, too clearly a ruse. Then:

“You know,” he went on, thinking aloud, “I hope these friends of yours are trustworthy enough to say nothing of your return…”

The town quietly buried its dead and re-fortified against reprisal. Two days later, a scout pounded into St. Pierre bearing the news that the garrison of Lamorisse had been turned out in search of the
Teutschen—
the “Teutonic” highwaymen—by order of Serge Farouche.

An hour later, Wilf and his band departed at a gallop, leaving behind the promise to make St. Pierre a permanent part of their tactical planning.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Faye Labossiere sat at the window of her bedchamber in the small cottage on the outskirts of Lamorisse. She stared out into the rain-rattle, sharing the mourning of the dripping pinaster trees at the edge of the forest.

“You don’t have to pretend sleep, Reynald.”

Labossiere peered over his shoulder at his wife. “I was just…wondering whether you were going out tonight.”

Her shoulders hitched imperceptibly. “That’s insulting, even to me. It’s pouring out there. You must see me as…truly desperate.”

“Not so very,” he said. “Confused, maybe. Your soul is troubled.”

She chortled, shifted her position at the window.

“You know,” Reynald said, turning now to lean his head on an arm, “it seems to me you haven’t been out at night for a long time now. Every great change begins with a…”

“Don’t lecture me, Reynald. I’m not a child. You’re not my confessor. I’m beyond that. It wasn’t an act of God that keeps me home these nights.”

“What then?”

Her lips quivered. “A—a man came to me one night. I
think
it was a man. A man like—like these lords of the province. Strange and powerful. He told me he’d kill me if I didn’t become a dutiful wife again.” She laughed coldly. “Maybe it
was
an act of God. Or maybe
you
put him up to it.” She glanced at him, knowing it wasn’t true. “Does that make you happy—that I’ve been frightened back to your bedside?”

“Non,”
he said softly.

She turned to gaze bitterly out the window again. “I’m so tired of being afraid. I can’t live in fear. With a man who turns his own fear of life into a game of self-sacrifice. That’s what drove me to them, Reynald. I was tired of being so afraid and having no one to shield me from it. No one…strong. Do you hate me?”

“Non.”

Angry tears welled up, brimming her eyes. “You’re too drunk to feel anything so strong as hatred. But even that would be more welcome, I think—to be hated—than to feel your man’s pathetic surrender. You talk about change—look at yourself, for Christ’s sake—” She swiped the back of a hand across her eyes.

“Faye,” he said blearily, “I could tell you things about me as a young pup. Things you’d find strong and worthy, that I just find…regrettable.” His head slumped onto the pillow. “I don’t want to win you…with memories of wickedness—”

“Spare me,” she said sharply.

For a time, neither of them spoke. Then Faye recalled something. “I have heard they’re looking for Claire Dejordy. Do you know what for?”

“You would probably know before I did,” he replied blearily. “With your…
friends
in high places.”

She shot him a hostile glance. It was as close to a censure of her actions as he ever ventured anymore. She knew it was futile to try to inspire him to argue. “Well, I
don’t
. She’s been gone for so long now. Probably in a grave somewhere, if she’s lucky.”

“Non,
they won’t find her,” Reynald said in a voice murky with the onset of sleep. “She’s well hidden—” His eyed jacked open, sobriety rushing through him, searing him with guilt. “I mean…wherever she is, she’s probably in hiding…”

Faye was staring at him, her eyes like penetrating beacons on a fog-swept sea.

Reynald began to sweat. It was only tenuously that the secret Wunderknechten had accepted his contentious presence. And now—had he compromised their purpose? They hadn’t been completely comfortable when he’d been around during discussions of Claire.
What had he done?

But then Faye was looking intently out the window again, her attention drawn by something in the rain. She seemed to wax pensive a moment, then she rose, a deliberate resolve informing her bearing.

“Your Wunderknechten are committed to making trouble for the Farouche, aren’t they?” she asked. And when he didn’t respond, she added: “Maybe I’ll see what I can…find out.”

She retrieved her capuchin from a closet.

Reynald swallowed, hard and fearfully. “Faye, please don’t go out again. Never again.”

Her eyes narrowed to hear the pleading in his voice. “Stop living in fear, Reynald. There are other ways. Stay here and pray that
I
don’t succumb to some…act of God.”

“Faye!”

But she was gone, and Labossiere cared not to follow.
Dared
not to follow. And he hated himself for his cravenness.

* * * *

Marchioness Aimee de Plancy’s hand trembled as she lit the votive candle at the small altar reserved to the Blessed Virgin. The palace chapel was dim in the dawn light that filtered through the rose window. The stillness amplified the sound of her every movement, the rustle of her skirts, the soft creaking of wood beneath her knees.

She was glad for the sounds, for they smothered the guilt in her stricken soul. She felt empty, hypocritical, her motions performed out of habit. She wondered whether Heaven’s vaulted fastness could be breached by her hollow efforts at penitence.

Footsteps sounded out in the corridor. The shuffling gait of her father, who once had strode with a majestic grace that had made a little girl feel proud and special. The daughter of one of the most powerful nobles in France.

Aimee genuflected and then joined her father at the archway to the nave. He averted his eyes from the chapel sanctuary, searching the floor as he spoke.

“Hurry, now, my dear,” he said, rubbing his hands against the morning chill that permeated the lower reaches of the palace. “Your husband has returned. You must make ready for him. Attend on him.” He was old and tired; yet even for that he seemed inordinately pale.

“Oui, mon pere
—
”
She cut her words short when she saw the smug look of the servant girl who had accompanied the duke. She was doubtless as pleased as anyone to know that Blaise had returned, and happy that Aimee had taken note of it. The marchioness despised her, but she could not dismiss her; the girl was one of Blaise’s favorites among the servants. Once a scullion, she’d been plucked from the kitchens by Blaise, elevated to the level of personal groom. By the cut of her tawdry garments and the panache with which she carried herself, she arrogantly flaunted the broad latitudes of her…duties.

But Aimee wasn’t surprised by it. She’d grown accustomed to Blaise’s way. He was so virile, so thoroughly captivating; and that was, after all, the way of court intrigue and dalliance. In Europe and everywhere else, so it was said. Noble entitlement. They all understood. Even her father didn’t object. For wasn’t he grooming Blaise to follow in his footsteps as the next Duke of Burgundy?

A silly notion, that—Blaise needed no grooming. He was
born
to command. It mattered not that he wasn’t born of
this
earth. His powerful presence and indomitable will could be wasted on nothing
less
than command. The way he sapped the wills of others with a simple look…Since his accident, his surviving eye seemed to serve him with twice the paralyzing power he’d exercised before.

Aimee begged her leave of them and cast the insufferable servant a single impenetrable glance before seating herself in the vestibule to think. She looked to the tall crucifix above the chapel’s main altar, feeling distanced from her former Christian devotion. Feeling foolish. She was abruptly reminded that she hadn’t even been
married
in the traditional Church ceremony.

When Brother Anton of the Order of Holy Piety had begun his lengthy sojourn with them, who would have guessed that his mission had been that of
matchmaker
? That it would have resulted in Aimee’s complete infatuation with, and subsequent marriage to, the monk’s nephew Blaise? The ceremony had been an eerie rite in which the Holy Names could not be mentioned, ostensibly out of the pious reverence of Blaise’s arcane Christian sect. The
cure,
the court priest,
had raised a great hue and cry, but then he’d been mysteriously won over. Higher objection had followed: that of the monseigneur himself. But then he had suddenly disappeared without a trace. And so none remained to object.

Only Aimee. And whether by the charm of Blaise’s seduction or some still more sinister spell, she’d been swept into wedlock with this strange man fashioned of carnality and willpower, magic and illusion.

Terror and guilt vied for supremacy in Aimee’s stricken soul. She was afraid of Blaise’s insatiable appetites, of the shapes in which he’d seduced her. And she was gnawed by guilt over the brutalization she’d allowed in her life; the overturning of every genteel sensibility she’d been taught; the perverse things she’d done and permitted in the name of sensual delight.

There ensued a gradual, sickening pang of revulsion. Self-loathing. Nothing could be done for it; she was Blaise’s pawn, neither better nor worse than anyone else at the palace in Dijon. He commanded her completely.

Except…except for that single night of rebellion that was her soul’s last bastion of self-respect. The night when he’d let her imbibe the best of the wine steward’s wares—something he never liked. It was one of the
few
pleasures of the flesh he didn’t indulge in. But that night he’d allowed it and had even drunk a small quantity with her.

It had been a preparation for a new level of unthinkable carnality—the exchange of each other’s blood. He’d cut himself during the height of their ecstasy, then bidden her to partake of his hot, red blood. She’d been so revolted that she’d immediately sobered, her stomach purging itself. And he’d not been able to arouse her again that night. He’d left her bed in a fit of pique.

But the next night he’d come again and, as usual, had his way with her…

The reverie was suddenly dashed. She smelled the musky scent Blaise projected. Felt the power of his presence before he reached the chapel vestibule. He stood without, casting her a grave look that enjoined her attention upon him. He would not enter the chapel.

Aimee rose and slowly ambled out to greet him.

Blaise stood gazing into the depths of her eyes, as if searching her soul. He riveted her in place with the hot gleam in his undamaged eye. Even the patch he wore over the ruined orb did nothing to detract from his rampant sexuality. There was a moment’s ambivalent urge. She knew not whether to embrace him or flee.

“Another devotion to the paradoxical Virgin Mother?” he asked coldly.

She felt unclean, ignoring the question. “Did all go well…with your father, I mean?”

Blaise sighed. “My father was in an ill humor, as is his wont. I’m afraid that his judgment is more impaired with each passing year. That’s the way of those who don’t maintain a fine edge of cold dominance. The older they get, the softer they get, it seems. And my father has allowed sentimentality to soften him. You see, he’s taken to gathering strays into the pack, foolishly hoping to glory in the bloated numbers of those he would call sons.” His head cocked as if in curiosity, and he smiled at Aimee. “I’ve begun to ramble. I’m tired. It’s been a trying fortnight. I trust you’ve missed your husband’s ministrations.”

She felt herself nod, anticipation now quickening her pulse.

“That’s good. But I’ve other things to attend to for the nonce. Come to my chamber this evening, my darling. About nine bells.” And with that he departed, leaving Aimee at once relieved and stung. She’d grown so accustomed to the tug of conflicting feelings deep inside that she scarcely took notice any longer.

Later, that afternoon, feeling unfulfilled and eager to be with him, she swallowed back all internal alarms, all the scolding of her withering pride. She adorned herself in a fetching gown, scented herself with an aroma from the Far East, and affected what Blaise called her “eager ingenue demeanor.”

Emptying her heart and soul of their blandishments to defiance, she hurried to Blaise’s private wing of the palace. The sentries on duty glanced at each other uneasily but admitted their nominal mistress.

She found Blaise in a parlor near the baths, stripped to the waist, his arm draped round the shoulders of a youth who served as his
valet de chambre.
He wore an expression whose promise she knew well, as he whispered into the frightened boy’s ear.

He was mildly startled to see her. Disengaging from the valet and drawing near to her, Blaise ran the nails of a long-fingered hand down her cheek.

“Lovely,” he said in a sultry voice, “but I distinctly remember telling you to stay away until evening. Do you no longer obey your husband?”

“Blaise…milord—
s’il vous plait
—I am your
wife.
Have you no—”

“Hush. Aimee…you must exercise
bienseance.
Decorum. Servants are watching. Do not stoop to fawning. You are a noble and the wife of one. Never forget that. Now…run along. You will want to take a meal soon. And then…relax before we enjoy each other’s company.”

She turned away without responding, her cheeks coloring. She stepped lightly into the corridor complex, breaking into a tearful run as she exited to the garden in the northwest courtyard. The one her father resorted to when he needed repose.

Aimee felt as if a stranger now lived in her body. She didn’t know what had become of the woman she’d been raised to be. Something ugly stirred within her. Something new.

Change had come so swiftly in Dijon. She was wise enough to know that things could never again be as they once were. They could only change again.

She sat on a bench beneath the gently soughing branches of a beech tree, sobbing for a time. Her nails dug into her palms, the tears hot on her cheeks as her anger vented itself. She presently dried her eyes, serenity following the catharsis. Her head clearing, she began to recall a prayer she’d heard once about change.

Something about the courage to change the things one could…