Risen (2 page)

He placed both hands palm down on
the grave, yet unwilling to part from the brother he’d so
singularly come to love. Love, that elusive, beautiful target. He
sought it his entire life—the freedom to love. There were a handful
of people whom he’d loved and who loved Ravan in return, and he was
acutely aware of the grace of this. This one, however—this
brother—this twin was the most divine of them all. He made the
ultimate sacrifice even though he’d seen him only twice in his
life, at his birth and at his death.

Overcome with the benevolence of it
all, his head was clearer than it’d ever been. He stooped and
scooped up a small handful of the damp earth. Carefully wrapping it
in a remnant of the burial shroud, he tucked it inside his tunic,
into a pocket close to his heart. Then he brushed the earth from
his hands one last time.

Finding his voice, it broke as he
whispered, “I should have known you longer.”

Ravan gazed at the stars, spoke to
where he thought—hoped—his brother might be. “May you have the
peace you have so long searched for.” Then as an afterthought, he
added, “I envy you brother. I would die for what I believe you now
have. If not by my side, then it is my sincere wish that you be at
hers.”

Turning from the grave, he
approached the horses, stepping onto the bay mare and leading the
gelding. His mount was fresh, and she pranced in place, obviously
wishing to be gone from this task and off into what was left of the
starry night, but Ravan held her just a bit longer.

As a sliver of darkest pink claimed
the horizon, he promised the dead man, murmuring respectfully to
his brother’s grave, “I shall try to be the man you believe I am.”
Then he spun and started into the breaking day, north, to
find…her.

CHAPTER TWO

†

Nicolette leaned her thin frame over
the cradle, her ebony hair falling carelessly over a starkly white
shoulder. The hand that stroked the head of the child was ghostly
pale against the complexion of the sleeping infant. It was a
peculiar picture—the willowy creature, so exotic, draped in a gown
so deeply red as to be almost black, leaning as though suspended
over the baby’s bed. She stood barefoot on the stone floor of the
castle.

Gently smoothing the soft hair of
the child, she studied the infant, her deep, green eyes passing the
length of the babe. It stirred but did not waken. Reaching for the
tiny blanket, she swaddled her son so that the night’s dampness
would not chill him. Satisfied, she rested both hands on the edge
of the crib and leaned her head to one side. It was a lovely baby,
with raven hair and soulful eyes. When she gazed at its face, it
reminded her of him.

It was the first time today that she
thought of Ravan. She did not mourn his loss, did not grieve the
unknown destiny of her lost lover. It was simply not of her
disposition to be so consumed, for Nicolette did not question the
ebb and flow of fate. Neither did she allow it to run unchecked,
for though she believed the universe could not be controlled, she
certainly believed it could be manipulated. She was fearless in
this way, and it was this odd fearlessness that frightened some a
great deal. Even so, he slipped into her thoughts on
occasion—claimed a memory from her.

No one could have predicted the
entrance of the mercenary called Ravan. He’d come into her life
uninvited, and she left his without hesitation. There had been no
other way. They were lovers; of that there was no question. Even
more, there had emerged a connection between them that could not be
denied.

But, in the end, there was only so
much that could be done. The dark one was destined to fall, and he
would have died on that fateful day had she not stepped in to spare
him. Nicolette had orchestrated as much grace as she could for him,
agreeing to marry the tyrant Adorno in exchange for allowing Ravan
to be tried by the state. After that, his end had become his own,
and word was the feared one, her lover—father of her infant son—had
swung from the gallows in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.

His memory fleeted across her
subconscious again. Even as strong as she’d been, that was a
terrible time. Leaving her lover on the cliff’s edge to become a
victim of the state, she’d been forced to return to the Bourbon
estate and wed the dreaded Adorno deBourbon. It was an arranged
marriage, and her betrothed was a despot, filthy and cruel as a
rusted blade.

Adorno had seethed with jealousy,
for the babe yet unborn was already conceived of her on their
wedding day. He knew this—knew that it was not his child, knew that
the mercenary had been between her legs. No, it was begat of him,
the heathen, Ravan, and Adorno’s intention had been to destroy the
child, rip it from her after the ceremony was
sanctified.

This was not to be, however. His
awful intent had gone unsung as Nicolette foiled his plans in a
most unpleasant way. The grisly execution was manifest on their
wedding night. She skewered him with a blade, even as he
consummated their union. It’d slipped between his shoulder blades
as he’d slipped into her. It was a perfect murder, and left the
realm free of the tyrant, Adorno.

Rumor flew through the castle,
details of the horrific event. Nicolette, awash in blood, had been
so dreadfully calm. Her husband, Lord of the Bourbon dynasty, was
discovered spitted upon their wedding bed, victim to a wicked
crime. But he’d been despised by his entire domain, and wicked as
the crime might be, nothing was more monstrous than he. The dead
ruler was unmourned and left no heir apparent. Following,
Nicolette—an English bride of a French realm for not even one
day—stepped into the role of ruler and renamed it the Ravan
dynasty.

At first the township was terrified.
Certainly the tyrant, Adorno, had been cruel beyond compare and
terribly feared, but what would become of them with their new
mistress? Could she be any better? Would she be as cruel, for
certainly it would take one as treacherous as Adorno to match the
dead master in hand and deed, to marry him?

Their fears were unfounded. In a
sweeping reformation, Nicolette restored compassion and stability
to the dynasty in a remarkable way. She immediately planned a food
reserve for lean years, forgave debt, and reduced the heavy
taxations that Adorno had burdened them with. Suddenly gone were
the cruel punishments of those taxes unpaid. There would be no more
amputations, no more rapes, no more torture. It was as though an
angel, albeit a mysterious, uncommon one, had come to rescue them.
And it all happened in the flash of an eye.

A few short months went by, and the
French domain, nestled south of Paris closer to Orleans, came to
love their new leader despite their belief that she might not be of
this world. It was true; Nicolette was unusual beyond all
reasonable speculation. The black-haired beauty, so thin as to be
almost starved and with eyes of green obsidian, rarely moved
amongst the crowds. Her voice was soft, the touch of her hand
tender, but there was a countenance about her that was
otherworldly. This could not be denied.

Some townspeople whispered that she
was a witch. Some suggested she was born of a peculiar lot, that
nothing else could explain her unconventional manners. Others
speculated she was a messenger—a mysterious angel, perhaps, come to
rescue them from Satan’s reign.

Nicolette heard the rumors but
brushed them aside as nonsense. And what did it matter? Perhaps she
was an unusual creature, but she was a welcome one if that were the
case.

And then there was the memory of the
dark one—the mercenary who’d come to protect the tyrant only to
sweep Nicolette away on a fearsome flight across the land. He’d
absconded her in the black of the night, stolen her and galloped
from the castle on a steed that breathed fire. One man was left
beheaded in his wake, another turned to stone. That’s what the
townspeople said, and they were at least partly correct.

When she returned without him, no
one dared speak the unspeakable, wonder at her awful fate at the
hands of the mercenary. To do so was to invite the wrath of Adorno,
and so all remained grimly silent, acted as though nothing at all
had ever happened. She, above all, seemed extraordinarily
unaffected by the entire affair. And then…there was a wedding day
murder.

Now, most days Nicolette was nowhere
to be seen, and on evenings she would only rarely step beyond the
castle grounds. The villagers kept watch for her as though she was
an apparition, and when she sometimes appeared, they would assemble
quickly, calling to their Lady. On these few occasions when she was
noticeably public, she greeted them with a kind but silent
expression. She would wave but, as always, disappeared nearly as
fast as she appeared, behind the walls of her keep. There she would
remain until they might next catch a glimpse of her.

This was not to say Nicolette was
not active within her court. She called her assembly frequently,
sometimes at very odd hours. Midnight would barely have perished
when the court might be summoned to her council chambers. Her
officers complained of this but never did so openly to her. That
would not have been wise. True, her hours were odd, but her purpose
and intentions were flawless.

Within a few short months, all
subversion was extinguished and treachery uncovered. She’d seen to
any discontent’s immediate elimination and soon had an elite court
with which to work. All were faithful; all were just. None
questioned the strange beauty who commanded them. Reformation
began.

Nicolette believed she had a
purpose, an obligation to those within her domain, especially those
without resources. Along with her belief in this obligation came
the realization that there was always something that could be
improved on. When an idea or thought struck her, it was her nature
to act on it at once, even if the sun was not yet up.

And then she’d born the child! The
village was elated with this news! A son, an heir to the dynasty!
This sparked a new wave of gossip, for there was broad speculation
that the infant boy was not of the tyrant, Adorno. Who then was the
father? Could it be? It must! It must be the mercenary—the fiend
who stole her! And so it was a bastard’s child and born of
rape!

But what of it? They had a monarch
now, and she was kind and beloved by all. True her lineage was
English, but they’d grown to trust her, and was this not her son?
Would this baby not be the heir of it all, inherit this vast
dynasty? Yes, it would! And so the town was thrilled with hope and
rejoiced openly in celebration when the infant boy was
born.

She remained at the side of the crib
as evening slid into night, watching. The baby was scarcely a month
old and something happened. This infant son had planted within
Nicolette the first notion of trepidation she’d ever known, ever.
This was unusual, for Nicolette’s demeanor did not follow the
emotional makeup of the rest of the world. She was neither trapped
by the laws of the Earth nor the rules of passion that life forced
onto the creatures that slogged upon it. Instead, her existence was
of another plane, or so the whispers suggested. Even so, the child
had done something to her, given her pause for his very
existence—and this set her on edge in a terrible way, for the first
time ever.

“Moulin?” she called gently as she
stroked the forehead of the sleeping baby.

* * *

Her guard, a Swiss pikeman, had been
painfully loyal to his mistress. Even when Nicolette had murdered
her husband on their wedding night, he helped to cover up the
crime. Never mind she was awash in Adorno’s blood, the dagger lying
in the bedclothes. Moulin covered the grisly face of his Lord, and
never again spoke of it.

Now he was her personal castellan,
and stood outside her door, as he always did. There was no wish, no
desire, that he would not try to satisfy for her. Even that awful
night, while his mistress had calmly washed the blood from her
hands, he set the stones that sealed the wedding chamber, locking
Adorno away in his bloody tomb forever.

“Moulin?” her heard her call again
for him.

He had a habit of doing that, of
allowing her to call for him twice before answering. And his heart
stirred instantly to hear her say his name, for Moulin was in love
with Nicolette. He was not only in love with her, he burned for
her.

Long ago, he’d seen her naked, tied
and trussed upon Adorno’s bed, and he grieved her abuse, suffering
the indignity of it even when she did not. Becoming fiercely
protective of the strange beauty who came to stay when it was
decided she would be betrothed to Adorno, Moulin was at great odds
for being unable to protect her from him—his master.

Before the wedding, it’d been his
job to free his mistress after the rapes, to unfetter her bonds. He
was immensely conflict for this, primarily because he should see
her naked after she endured the rapes, but then because of the
undeniable desire he felt for her when he saw her nude on the bed,
even in such a dreadful state as that. It gave him a terrible sense
of depravity, and he rebuked himself for this, but it never removed
the truth of it. He wanted nothing more than to have her as his
own.

Moulin suffered as he recalled those
dark events of days gone by. Adorno had raped many, but Moulin’s
service had been to only Nicolette—Adorno’s betrothed. He averted
his eyes as best he could at those instances, appalled by the
debauchery, embarrassed for her. But she never reacted as though it
was anything extraordinary. As was her way, Nicolette had almost
shrugged the events off as insignificant. It was just one of the
things about her that astonished him to his very core.