The Courtesan (50 page)

Many hard assessing stares tracked her progress across the room as the older guard led her up a stair to the inn’s second floor. Miri held her head high, her calm demeanor a foil for the way her heart had begun to pound. After all these years, a corridor, the mere span of a door, was all that separated her from Simon.

At thirteen, she had been far slower than other girls with regards to paying heed to the opposite sex. But a girl would have had to be dead not to have noticed Simon. He had been breathtakingly handsome with dark lustrous eyes and a cap of ebony curls. His smile had been far too kind for a witch-hunter, his eyes too apt to twinkle with good humor and hints of boyish mischief. And his hands . . . Miri especially remembered the long elegance of his fingers as he’d scratched Necromancer behind his ears and set him purring. Back when her cat had still trusted Simon as much as she had done herself.

The old guard came to a halt before a door at the end of the hall, the way barred by two more sentries. After a few low remarks exchanged with the sentries, the older guard beckoned to Miri. He held open the door for her and with a jerk of his head, indicated she was to precede him inside.

Being near Simon had always stirred a queer fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach. Miri thought she had grown too wise for such foolishness. But as she stepped over the threshold, she felt as though the butterflies inside her were going crazed.

The guard did not follow her into the room, but closed the door quietly behind her. The chamber was one of the inn’s more modest rooms, furnished with little beyond a narrow bed and a washstand. But a large table had been moved into the room, the surface littered with documents, quills, and inkpots.

Miri clasped her hands tightly together to still their trembling. She glanced around the room for Simon, hoping to find some sign of the boy she’d once known, whose tender lips had bestowed upon her her very first kiss. But the person she spied silhouetted against the windows was a stranger. Simon Aristide had not grown so much as hardened into manhood. He had always been tall, but slender. His shoulders had filled out in the intervening years, his chest broadened. He was clad simply in dark breeches and a linen shirt, the sleeves shoved up past his wrists. The shirt was open at the neckline, revealing a steel jacket he wore beneath for protection.

The black crown of curls was gone, his hair shaved so close as to be no more than a shadow on his skull. An angry scar bisected his cheek, disappearing beneath the patch he wore over one eye. The other eye that fixed itself upon Miri was dark and cold. It was hard to believe that scarcely four years separated them in age. Simon could not be more than twenty and yet he looked so much older.

The silence that settled between them was so profound Miri was uncomfortably aware of the thud of her heart, the soft sound of her own breathing. She leaned back against the door for support, unable to speak a word. Simon gestured to her to come forward. One thing about him had not changed and that was the grace of his hands.

“Mademoiselle. I am afraid I can accord you no more than a few moments of my time, so please state your business with me.”

“M—mademoiselle?” Miri faltered. “Simon, you pretend not to remember me?”

“Of course, I remember you, Mademoiselle Cheney.”

“Miri,”
she insisted.

“Miri.” Something softer flickered in his eye that gave her hope, even though the expression was quickly shuttered away again beneath his hard façade. As she approached him, his gaze raked over her. “You have changed a great deal.”

“So have you,” she said sadly.

“As you may recall, I had a little help.” Simon flicked the back of his fingers against his scar, his voice dark with accusation.

An accusation that was unnecessary to wrack Miri with guilt. But she replied quietly, “I am sorry, but you had attacked Renard. I only wanted to stop you from fighting when I grabbed your arm. I didn’t want either of you to be hurt. He didn’t want to injure you either. His sword slipped.”

She touched Simon’s cheek softly. “It broke my heart when you just ran off and disappeared into the streets of Paris after you had been so badly wounded. You should have stayed, Simon. Ariane is a great healer. She could have helped you.”

“I wanted no help from a witch. And as for your brother-in-law, I attacked Renard because I thought him little better than a demon.”

“And me, Simon? What did you think of me?”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “That all was a long time ago. What I thought is of no more consequence than my scar.”

Miri continued her tentative exploration, lifting her fingers to his head. Surprisingly, Simon made no move to stop her. She ran her fingertips over his scalp, disturbed by the feel of bristle where there had once been lustrous waves of hair.

“Your beautiful hair,” she murmured. “Why did you shave it all off?”

He shrugged. “It was a cursed nuisance, always falling across my face. When a man only has one good eye, he must guard what sight he has.”

“Or perhaps you were trying to make yourself look as grim as possible?”

Her suggestion must have struck far too close to the mark. Simon thrust her hand away. “My hair encouraged my conceit. Master Le Vis always said I was far too vain.”

“I would not have called you vain. But I would say you were aware of how handsome you were, how capable of pleasing a lady’s eye.”

“That’s not something that need concern me anymore, is it?” He peeled back his eye patch. The jagged scar continued up to his brow, his eyelid sealed closed beneath the puckered flesh. Miri could tell that he thought to repulse her.

He clearly did not expect what she did next. She strained on tiptoe and lightly brushed her lips across his scarred lid. Simon reared back, the expression in his good eye wild with a kind of longing and despair. He moved swiftly away from her, settling his eye patch back into place. But Miri had seen enough in that brief moment to give her hope, that the real Simon Aristide still existed, trapped beneath Le Balafre’s hardened exterior. Even when he addressed her brusquely, “As I said when you first came in, I don’t have a great deal of time to spare. Will you please take a seat and state your business?”

Before Miri could respond, they were interrupted by a light knock at the door.

“Come in,” Simon said.

The door opened and the gray-haired guard who had escorted Miri appeared, bearing a tray containing a roll, a bowl of porridge, and a glass of wine. “Your breakfast, monsieur, and you need not worry. I have made sure everything has been tasted.”

“Thank you, Braxton. Just set the tray over there.” Simon gestured toward a small table close to the bedside.

The man called Braxton did as ordered. As soon as the door had closed behind him again, Miri turned to Simon and exclaimed, “You—you have your food tasted?”

“A rather wise precaution, don’t you think? For a man who has come to hunt witches in a city controlled by a Dark Queen with a particular skill in poisons.” Simon regarded her coldly. “And as you well know, I have made other enemies besides.”

Miri’s chin bumped up a notch. “I am not one of them, Simon.”

“I never said that you were.” He drew up a chair close to the table that served as his desk and again gestured to her to sit down, this time with a shade more impatience.

Miri sank down, sadly shaking her head. “Having to have your food tasted, wearing armor beneath your clothes, guards at your door. What a dreadful way to live.”

“It is not by my choice.” His hands lingered on the back of the chair, his voice once more rife with accusation.

Miri did not bear it quite so meekly this time. She twisted round to frown up at him. “Yes, it is. Partly. I once gave you a chance for something far different. I offered you my friendship, my trust, and you used it to help your master Le Vis capture my brother-in-law.”

“The Comte de Renard is one of the most evil sorcerers I ever had the misfortune to meet. I had hoped to free you and your sisters from his dark influence. If I had to betray your trust, if I hurt you, it—it was necessary. I make no apologies.”

Despite his fierce assertion, Miri perceived something else in his gaze, shame and remorse. It softened some of the hurt she’d long felt over his betrayal.

“It is all right, Simon. I forgive you.” She smiled gently at him, but he shrank back as though she had slapped him.

“I don’t want your forgiveness. Is this why you have come to see me?” He sneered. “To reminisce over old times?”

“No.” Miri fetched a deep sigh. “I was at the tourney yesterday when the king announced your crusade to rid Paris of witches. I realize it is likely futile, but I hoped to dissuade you before a number of innocent women come to harm. Unless you truly have become like your late master and believe there is no such thing as an innocent woman.”

“Monsieur Le Vis was good to me. He took me in after my village was destroyed and gave me a home. But I concede there was an unfortunate strain of madness in him. I don’t hate all women or think they are evil. In fact, I am not entirely immune to the charms of your sex . . .” Simon paused, his gaze lingering over her in a bold manner far different from the sweet teasing glances he’d once given her. He’d often caused her heart to trip over itself with a girlish flutter, but this look stirred in her something more elemental, primitive. A rush of heat that both excited and alarmed her.

She flushed, folding her arms protectively over her breasts. The gesture seemed to snap Simon back to his senses. “But you ladies can prove a distraction when a man has weightier matters on his mind.”

“Such as accusing innocent women of being witches?”

“And sorcerers like the Comte de Renard. I have no bias as to gender when I am on the hunt and I assure you I have never persecuted anyone who was innocent.”

Miri tried to relax. Or at least she might have been able to do so if he hadn’t taken to prowling about the room in a manner reminiscent of Wolf. What was it about men, she wondered with exasperation, that they could never simply be
still
?

“Anyone can be tortured into being guilty, Simon,” she said. “That time your master threatened me with the ordeal by water, I was almost frightened into confessing things I hadn’t done.”

“I don’t use torture. I prefer to offer rewards for information.”

“You mean bribing citizens to come forward with accusations. Is that any more reliable than torture for obtaining honesty?”

Simon paused in his restless movements long enough to scowl at her. “People are often so terrified of witches they need some inducement to come forward. But I don’t take anyone’s word for anything. I investigate each charge carefully.”

“How does one investigate statements such as ‘Oh, that woman put the evil eye on me and now my hens no longer lay eggs, and my ancient cow no longer gives milk’?”

“Not all statements are that absurd. I have a matter that was brought to my attention only this morning.” Simon strode to the desk and snatched up a document. “The case of one Anton Deleon, an unfortunate kitchen boy at an inn who made the mistake of sleeping with a dark-haired witch. She subsequently cursed him.”

Simon held the document out to her, inviting her to read his notes. Miri shook her head, refusing to look at it. “That is completely ridiculous.”

“You would not think so if you had seen the Deleon boy. He is afflicted with a horrible disease the like of which I’ve never seen. His flesh is eating itself away.”

“If that is so, I am sorry for the poor lad, but the onslaught of illness often defies reasonable explanation. Monsieur Deleon would do far better to seek out the services of some healing wise woman than make baseless accusations of witchcraft.”

Simon tossed the document back on the desk with an exasperated look. “You have acquired all the graces of a woman, Miri Cheney, but you still are as naÏve as a child. You never could see the evil that exists in the world.”

“You are quite mistaken,” Miri replied sadly. “I have seen more than my share of the evil that men do, the violence. I have simply never understood it.”

“That is because your heart has not yet been touched by darkness. You have never learned to feel anger, to hate.”

Gazing at Simon’s hardened features, Miri shivered. “I hope that I never do.”

“I hope you never do either,” he astonished her by saying in a softer tone. “I have seen things these past years that would shatter your rainbow-colored visions of the universe. Men and women who have sold their souls to the devil a thousand times over. Many of them for the mere sake of a book.”

“A book?”

“Hunting witches is not the only thing that has brought me to Paris. I am also seeking an evil book that has made its way to our shores . . . the
Book of Shadows.
”

Miri tried not to smile, but she could not help herself.

“You find that amusing?” Simon demanded.

“Yes, I am afraid I do. Tales of some evil masterwork have been around as long as there have been daughters of the earth. The
Book of Shadows
is a myth and if you have been wasting your time trying to track it down, then you are the one who is naÏve.”

“I am not the only one searching for it.”

“Then these others are being as foolish as—” Miri checked herself. She had come here to reason with Simon, not to quarrel with him.

She tensed as he circled round the table. He seated himself on the edge so that he loomed over her, so close that she had to draw back to keep her skirts from brushing up against him. Dangling his booted feet, he leaned slightly forward to rest one arm across his knee, making her keenly aware of the supple power of his fingers, the thick muscle of his wrist and forearm. The pose was both disturbingly masculine and intimidating. What was more, she was certain that Simon intended it to be.

“Unfortunately, Miri, I think you may possibly know more of these matters than you pretend. A certain council of witches recently took place on your island.”

Miri started at the mention of Ariane’s council meeting, but she said nothing, gripping her hands together in the folds of her skirt.

“I captured one of the witches who attended, a high-strung Portuguese girl who was easily persuaded to tell me what went on at that meeting.”