The Silver Rose (14 page)

A trade was supposed to take place between the Comte de Renard and Simon Aristide, a bargain made to save the life of Gabrielle Cheney. Catherine had little doubt it would prove to be some kind of trap. She knew what an arrogant and ruthless bastard young Aristide was and grudgingly admired him for it. Dealing with Le Balafre’s treachery was a problem for the Lady of Faire Isle and her family. Catherine was only interested in the object of the trade, the mysterious book that the Comte had somehow managed to acquire.

As Catherine had paced her apartments, alarming reports reached her that something had gone terribly wrong at the Charters Inn. There had been a battle or some sort of an explosion. No one seemed able to tell her exactly what, only that the building had caught fire and likely would burn to the ground. As yet, there were no reports of any casualties, but the witch-hunter’s prisoners had escaped and Monsieur Le Balafre was definitely still alive.

Catherine paid scant attention to those details. She had only wanted to know one thing . . . Where the devil was Bartolomy Verducci? She only prayed the old fool had not gotten himself blown to bits on the most important mission she’d ever given him—the acquisition of the
Book of Shadows.

She had begun to consider the rash action of venturing forth to make some inquiries herself when one of her ladies-in-waiting brought her the welcome intelligence of the signor’s return. When Verducci staggered into her antechamber, his breeches and jerkin were ashen with soot. His eyebrows had been singed off, likewise the ends of his beard. His head was wrapped in a thick bloodstained bandage that prevented him from donning his cap.

At any other occasion, Catherine would have rebuked him for appearing before her in such a state, but she wasted no time on pointless preliminaries, not even asking where he had been all this while.

“Well, sirrah, have you succeeded in your mission? Did you acquire it?”
she had demanded anxiously.

Verducci held up a pouch that he attempted to present to her, but the scrawny little man collapsed at her feet. Catherine had snatched up the pouch, barely able to suppress her cry of triumph as she drew out the worn leather book. Her euphoria had lasted no more than the fleeting second it took her to crack open the cover. What she had held clutched so tightly in her hands was no
Book of Shadows.
Only a Huguenot Bible.

Catherine braced herself against the sway of the carriage, remembering the depth of her anger and disappointment. She had been sick with rage, nearly forgetting the regal bearing that had been drilled into her since childhood. She had wanted to throttle Verducci with her bare hands, only one thing staying her. The man was already at death’s door and he held the only clue to what had gone wrong.

When she had nursed him back to consciousness, the signor had been devastated when he had learned of his failure. He had wept like a mewling infant.

“F-forgive me, Your Grace. But I did acquire the
Book,
I swear it. In the chaos after the explosion, I managed to seize it all, the
Book,
the twin medallions, the r-ring you gave Mademoiselle Cheney. E-everything . . .”

Catherine could not have cared less about the ring. She had no idea what medallions Verducci was nattering on about. All she had wanted to know was what had happened to the
Book of Shadows.

Her powers had been so much stronger then. She had forced Verducci to lie still while she had pierced his gaze with her own, seeking to probe his memory. But it was like stumbling through the ash and debris of a cottage leveled by cannon fire. The old man’s wits were permanently addled by the injuries he had sustained to his head.

The best Catherine could retrieve was a blurred memory of Verducci staggering away from the blazing inn, the pouch containing the precious book clutched to his chest. Blood trickled down his brow, his eyes streaming from the acrid sting of smoke, his throat raw and parched. And then there was someone, a woman, Catherine thought, but the person’s face and form were lost in the haze of Verducci’s damaged memory.

All he recollected were hands bandaging his head, a soothing voice urging him to drink from a flask. And then nothing more until he managed to drag himself up into the saddle for the long journey to Blois.

But it had taken no great mental leap on Catherine’s part to fill in the gaps in Verducci’s memory. The old fool had allowed himself to be drugged and robbed. At the time Catherine had believed one of the Cheney sisters to be responsible, Gabrielle most likely.

The young woman always had been too clever for her own good and it would be like Gabrielle’s impertinence to mock Catherine by substituting a Bible for the
Book of Shadows.
Or perhaps there had never been any
Book of Shadows.
Perhaps it had all been a ruse concocted by the Comte de Renard to save his sister-in-law. Perhaps like so many foolish daughters of the earth before her, Catherine had merely been chasing a myth.

She had heard nothing more of the book in all these years. At least not until this morning, when Lucie Paillard had whispered her dying words in Catherine’s ear.

Catherine rubbed her pounding temples. Was it possible that she had been wrong about the Cheneys, that on that long-ago night there had been another watching and waiting in the shadows, a sorceress who had outwitted them all and walked off with the prize?

Despite the heat, Catherine shivered, her blood chilled by the thought of that powerful book in the hands of some sorceress as skilled and ruthless as herself. That would make Mistress Paillard’s talk of a coming revolution more than the ravings of a feverish girl. This Silver Rose might well prove a greater danger to Catherine’s power than all the famine, floods, civil war, and ambitious nobles put together. But if the unknown sorceress had possessed the
Book of Shadows
all these years, why had she waited until now to make use of it? The book was said to be complex, written in an ancient tongue, not easily deciphered.

Perhaps thus far all the witch had learned from it was how to grow poisoned roses. Or perhaps this woman didn’t have the book at all. Only one thing was certain. All this useless speculation did nothing but exacerbate the pain in Catherine’s head.

She had to get to the crux of this new threat and do it quickly. This Silver Rose needed to be unmasked and destroyed. But how? Any clue to the woman’s identity had died with that wretched girl. Catherine might have despaired except for one thing.

This was not the first time she had heard tell of the Silver Rose.

C
ATHERINE LONGED TO SINK
down upon her bed, command her ladies-in-waiting to fetch possets and cooling cloths for her head. But she had no time to waste upon such self-indulgence. Dismissing all her attendants, she hobbled toward the magnificently carved cabinet of Italian design that she kept in her study. The small key that opened it dangled from her chatelaine.

Catherine’s fingers were so swollen, her knuckles so stiff, she had difficulty working the key in the lock. Softly cursing her inability to perform such a simple task, she gritted her teeth until the lock sprang at last and the doors swung open. Upon the lower shelf resided a small chest in which Catherine kept a sheaf of private correspondence.

Pawing awkwardly through the contents, she dug until she found what she was looking for, a thin stack of dispatches sent by Simon Aristide that Catherine had bound together with a black ribbon.

The reports had not been sent to Catherine, but to her son. Years ago Henry had engaged Simon Aristide and his mercenary troop of witch-hunters to launch a crusade, Henry announcing a pious intent to rid France of all sorcery. Of course Catherine had known what Henry was really doing, using Le Balafre in an attempt to intimidate her, warn her off from meddling in affairs of state. Just another aspect of the game waged between her and her son, a private tussle for power.

A game that the king had eventually grown bored with, as he did with much else. The troop of witch-hunters had disbanded, the notorious Le Balafre falling from royal favor much to Catherine’s relief.

Simon Aristide was intelligent, ruthless, and incorruptible, a dangerous combination in any man, let alone a witch-hunter. She was glad when Aristide had faded into obscurity. Little had been heard from the man until these dispatches had begun to arrive about a year ago. Reports that Henry had ignored, not even bothering to break the seal.

Catherine had read and saved them more out of curiosity than anything else. It was always good to know what one’s enemy was about . . . But now, she slid off the black ribbon and perused the dispatches with new interest.

The pain in her head caused her vision to blur. She had to grind her fingertips against her eyes, holding the parchment almost at arm’s length to be able to focus. Fortunately, the witch-hunter wrote in a large, bold, and blunt hand. The first report contained nothing particularly alarming, only Aristide’s growing concern over a new coven.

“The initiation into this coven appears to involve a rite of the most heinous kind, the sacrifice of newborn babes, healthy male infants . . .”

When Catherine had first read this report, she had dismissed it as the actions of a few demented women, although she had to admit, it had given her a sharp pang. Such a stupid, senseless waste, destroying a healthy boy. She compressed her lips, thinking what such a child could mean.

If her son ever managed to produce an heir, it would do much to quiet the rumblings against him, secure the future of his throne. But when Henry bedded a woman at all, it was seldom his own wife, and the act of coupling so exhausted the king, he was obliged to take to his bed for days afterward.

“What kind of Frenchman is this?”
That was what many of his scornful subjects had been overheard to whisper about him.
“No proper Frenchman at all, but more a devious Italian like his mother.”

Small wonder that more and more of the Catholics were turning their hopes to the virile duc de Guise, while the Huguenots gave their support to a lustier Henry, the king of Navarre.

Catherine sighed, wondering what she had ever done to be plagued with such weak sons. She should have had nothing to worry about. She had given birth to four male children who had survived to adulthood. But she had already outlived three of them.

If Henry were to die young as well, without leaving an heir, what would become of her? Another nagging worry that Catherine shoved to the back of her mind as she perused the next few reports. Aristide’s dispatches to the king grew more urgent with each writing.

“. . . and I implore Your Grace to take some action in the matter and aid me in my investigations. The ranks of this coven are swelling, their power growing. These witches range about the countryside, leaving death and havoc in their wake wherever they go. What their ultimate aim is, I do not know. But I finally have a name for their leader. She calls herself the Silver Rose and waxes increasingly bolder about announcing her presence.”

Catherine squinted at the rest of the lines on the page, but they contained little more than another plea for the king to turn his attention to the problem. It was the last report Aristide had sent and it was dated over six months ago.

Had Aristide finally despaired of seeking the king’s assistance or had the witch-hunter given up his pursuit altogether? No, that was unlikely, Catherine thought as she carefully bundled up the dispatches, wincing at the twinges of pain in her hands. Aristide was a true hunter, shrewd and relentless.

Catherine had recognized those qualities in Le Balafre when he was a mere boy, apprenticed to the witch-hunter Vachel Le Vis. Unlike his master, Simon was not easily fooled. Catherine had made use of Le Vis in her battles with the wise women of Faire Isle. Le Vis had never suspected that the queen might also be a sorceress until it was too late, but young Simon had. More than suspected, the boy had known. And the clever, perceptive lad had grown up to become a formidable man. He had already accomplished what Catherine had begun to think no man ever could, vanquishing the wise women of Faire Isle, forcing the Lady herself into exile.

Yes, a truly dangerous man and one Catherine would as soon keep at a healthy distance. But the advent of this Silver Rose left the queen little choice. Stepping to the door of her study, she sent one of the pages to summon Ambroise Gautier, the most trustworthy and reliable member of her private guard.

“Find Simon Aristide and fetch that accursed witch-hunter to me,” she commanded. Lest there be any mistakes about what she desired, she added softly,

“Alive.”

Chapter Seven

S
IMON HUNKERED DOWN
, pulling weeds away from the stone he’d left to mark the grave. He paused to wipe away a trickle of sweat that threatened to seep beneath his eye patch. The sun inched below the horizon as though reluctant to yield its power over the scorched land. The air was heavy and unmoving, even here at the crest of this hill in the Loire Valley. The countryside that stretched out below him should have been lush and green, but bore the scars of the drought, the meadow grass dry as straw, the leaves in the vineyard wilted.

But it was not the heat of the day that had bothered Simon so much as the brightness of it. The sun had blazed without mercy, or perhaps it only seemed that way to him because he was unused to it. He feared that he had become a creature of darkness as much as the women he hunted.

He had traveled many weary miles during the fortnight since he’d journeyed to Faire Isle to find Miri Cheney. A completely futile journey, but he didn’t blame Miri for that, for refusing to help him. He could hardly have expected any different answer, given their history, yet the depth of his disappointment had surprised him.

Still, he had kept his promise, ridden away and left her in peace. No doubt she was glad to see the back of him, especially after the ruthless way he had dragged her into his arms and kissed her. What devil had possessed him? He’d been stewing over that question for days and still had no satisfactory answer.

Perhaps it was merely because he’d gone without a woman for so long or that he’d been feeling tired, lonely, frustrated. Or because the path beyond her cottage had been dark and storm-ridden, and she was all that was warmth, all that was light and gentleness. Whatever madness had seized him, it was over and done with. He’d never see Miri again. The thought brought a heaviness to his heart that was stupid. They had been parted for years. But at least there had always been the possibility that—

No, he was a damned fool. There had never been any possibilities between him and Miri. A witch-hunter and a woman bred amongst witches. He needed to forget her, figure out what the blazes he was going to do next.

But as he doggedly stripped the weeds away from the grave, never had his wits felt so dull and leaden. He couldn’t seem to form any sort of coherent thought let alone a plan of action. Since his trip to Faire Isle, he had lost the trail of the Silver Rose and her agents of darkness.

Of course, all he had to do was wait and no doubt the witches would find him. He was surprised they hadn’t already. Perhaps the Silver Rose still didn’t know her last assassin had failed. As soon as she did, it would only be a matter of time before she sent someone else to kill him. But he couldn’t summon the energy to care about watching his own back or continuing to track this she-devil.

All Simon’s urgent dispatches to the king about the Silver Rose and her coven had met with no response. Miri had only half-believed him. Simon wondered why he persisted in grinding himself into the dust trying to battle this evil alone when no one else noticed or cared.

The answer to that rested at his fingertips. Simon brushed aside the dirt that had accumulated on the grave marker and traced the single word he had carved in the stone, the letters a little crooked and crude.

Luc.

Simon compressed his lips at the memory of the infant who had been the first of the Silver Rose’s victims. Or at least the first that he knew of. He had found the infant not far from this spot on a frigid winter night over a year ago. At a time when the rest of the world was celebrating the memory of another male child born in a stable.

Luc had not even known that much comfort or the warmth of a mother’s touch. His mother had left him exposed on a barren hillside to freeze to death. Simon had heard tell that freezing was not such a terrible way to die, that one slipped into a state of false warmth as one’s limbs went numb. He wondered if it had been that way for Luc.

A hard lump formed in Simon’s throat that both embarrassed and annoyed him. He’d seen so much of death and cruelty, the brutal murder of other innocents just as helpless as this babe had been. He had thought himself completely toughened, immune to any feelings of compassion.

He had no idea why he had been so moved by Luc’s death or those of the other abandoned babes he’d found. But he had grieved over each of them as though they had been his own sons, the children he might have had.

The children he
should
have had if his life had unfolded like that of his grandfather and his great-grandfather before him. A good, simple existence lived out in a small village, a tidy cottage, an honest day’s toil in the fields, a loving wife to cheer him, strong sons and daughters to be a comfort in his old age.

Simon felt bemused by how damned sentimental he was becoming. It was a sign of the years creeping by, he supposed, this tendency to look back, not forward. But it was not as though he had anything much to look forward to, only the dark cold of a grave, one not even marked as well as Luc’s.

Simon regarded the marker he’d carved pensively, recalling what his old master Le Vis had taught him of the fate of unshriven babes like Luc. Condemned to an existence in limbo, forever denied the joys of heaven.

Simon wasn’t sure how much he believed that or anything else anymore. It had been a long time since he’d set foot in a church, longer still since he’d truly prayed. He felt cursed awkward, his fingers wooden as he made the sign of the cross. As he folded his hands, he was not even certain which lost soul he was praying for, the babe’s or his own. He fumbled for words that didn’t come, his thoughts as heavy and earthbound as the rock that marked Luc’s grave.

The dried grass whispered behind him. As he knelt, his head bowed, he felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder.

“Simon . . .” The voice was as soft as the touch, but Simon’s heart slammed against his ribs.

He leapt up and spun around, seizing the wrist of the person who had crept up on his blind side. He had his knife unsheathed and started to raise it when his captive cried out.

“No, Simon. Don’t!”

Simon froze, all movement, even his breath suspended as he stared in disbelief.

“It—it’s me, Miri,” she faltered, trying to shrink away from the blade he held aloft.

Simon expelled a long breath, slowly lowering his weapon as her words registered. Her reassurance was unnecessary once he was able to make out her form, squinting at her past the last blaze of brilliance from a dying sun.

He would have recognized Miri anywhere despite the fact that she was garbed in loose peasant breeches and tunic. Her long fall of white-blond hair was braided tightly, wound about her head. She’d had it tucked beneath a wide-brimmed felt hat that had fallen off when he’d grabbed her. Or maybe she had been carrying the hat when she had stolen up behind him so silently.

He might have believed she truly was some sort of fairy, the Lady of the Wood who could materialize at will, a spirit born on the winds of his imagination. Except that the throb of her pulse beneath his fingers felt warm and human, her soft skin definitely that of a woman, delicate flesh, blood, and bone. A woman he had never thought to see again.

He didn’t realize how hard he was gripping her until she murmured, “Simon, please, you are hurting me.”

He released her and sheathed his knife. Finding his voice at last, he demanded hoarsely, “Miri, what—what the devil are you doing here?”

She rubbed her reddened wrist, looking remarkably calm and dignified for a woman who’d just been threatened with a foot-long hunting blade. Instead of answering his question, she stepped past Simon to peer down at the grave marker.

“Who is Luc?”

“It is the name of an apostle.”

Miri tipped her head, leveling at him one of those clear, piercing looks. “I don’t think it is any apostle buried in that grave, Simon.”

Simon was annoyed to feel himself flush, embarrassed that Miri should have found him here, caught him in such a foolish, vulnerable moment.

“It—it is just the grave of one of those abandoned infants I told you about,” he muttered.

“Why is he buried up here alone? So far from the village?”

Simon’s jaw knotted. “Because the damned priest would not let Luc be laid to rest in hallowed ground. A bastard, never baptized, and the son of a girl believed to have consorted with the devil to boot. I had no choice but to bring his body up here and—”

“
You
buried him?” Miri interrupted, her eyes wide.

Simon felt his flush deepen. “No one else would. Even his own grandparents feared to touch him. So what the hell was I supposed to do? Leave his corpse lying about for wild animals to drag off and devour?”

“No, of course not.” Miri rested her hand on his sleeve. “You did right by him, Simon. The earth is his mother. No matter how cold, how cruel the world above, she would welcome Luc back into her gentle embrace.”

Simon had always been disquieted by some of Miri’s more pagan notions. She seemed to sense this because she said, “I am sorry. Have I offended your Catholic sensibilities?”

“No.” Actually the image that Miri painted was oddly comforting, the idea that instead of shoving Luc into cold, unfeeling ground, he had returned him to a mother’s arms. Certainly the earth was a better mother than the one he’d had.

Simon surprised himself by confessing, “I am not much of a Catholic anymore. I haven’t attended mass in years.”

“And yet you chose to name this little boy after an apostle.”

“I thought it might help if he was named for one of the saints. Maybe it would gain him some sort of concession or pardon, if the laws of heaven really are that harsh.” Simon shuffled his boots, feeling incredibly foolish for explaining all this. “As you can probably tell from what I call my horse, I’m not good at coming up with names.”

“You did very well.” She smiled at him although she continued to search his face with that look of hers he always found so uncomfortable. As though looking for something in him that Simon was damned certain wasn’t there.

He found it easier to direct his gaze to the hand that still rested on his arm. He was dismayed to see that the red imprint left by his fingers had not faded. Covering her hand with his own, he massaged her wrist, experiencing a mad urge to carry it to his lips, try to kiss the bruise away. And an even more insane urge to draw her into his arms, hold her close, taste her mouth just to be certain she truly was real and not some dream born of heat and exhaustion.

He released her hand, taking a wary step back from her.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.” Miri bent down to retrieve the hat she had lost. “You came to Faire Isle seeking help, didn’t you? And now I need yours.” She lowered her gaze, fingering the brim of her hat, a slight tremor in her voice as she added, “You see, I—I found a Luc of my own.”

Simon inhaled sharply. He recalled too vividly his own shock when he had stumbled across those scenes of infant sacrifice, pulled back the edge of the blanket to gaze at those small wizened faces. But to think of such a horror visited upon Miri’s gentle spirit. She was the kind of woman capable of absorbing another’s pain with but a look and bearing the wound of it thereafter.

Forgetting the wisdom of keeping his distance, Simon closed the space between them, cupping his hands about her upper arms. “Miri . . .”

“It’s all right,” she said quickly, looking up at him, attempting to smile. “I mean,
he’s
going to be all right . . . I hope. The babe I found was more fortunate than Luc. This one was still alive. I took him to Port Corsair to—to a kindly woman who was able to nurse him.

“Unlike you, I didn’t think to give the little boy a name. I was just so—so stunned by it all.” She pursed her mouth tightly for a moment before continuing. “I am sorry that I didn’t entirely believe all the things you told me that night. I am not so naïve that I don’t know that such ignorance exists, that there are those cruel enough to sacrifice a small, helpless babe. I just never expected to find such wickedness on my island. Not my Faire Isle.”

Simon squeezed her arms gently, resisting the urge to draw her closer, cradle her against him. How often in the past had he been exasperated with Miri, frustrated by her stubborn refusal to recognize the existence of evil, especially among those she called wise women? Gazing down at her pale face, the bruised look in her eyes, he wished he could spare her this hurt, urge her to forget. But the witch-hunter in him needed her to remember, to give him all the details she could.

“Tell me what happened,” he commanded. “Tell me everything.”

M
IRI TRUDGED
down the hill beside Simon, winding her way down the rows of a small vineyard. It was the time of year when there should have been laborers busy, trimming and binding the vines. But perhaps the owner of this field had already despaired of this year’s crop because the hillside was deserted. The small farmhouse appeared equally sullen and silent in the heat. A mastiff dozing in the yard lifted its head as Simon and Miri passed, but could only summon enough energy to emit a half-hearted woof.