The Sorceror's Revenge (11 page)

             
‘Melloria is in a refuge.  I cannot visit her and nor can you.  It is forbidden and you would be excommunicated as I told you.’  Beatrice hesitated.  ‘If you wish I will tell you where to find Iolanthe.  She was placed with a woman to care for her but I fear she is unhappy.  I have been told she screams and cries for her mother.’

             
Robert’s pulses raced.  If he had Iolanthe he would have the power to force Melloria to return to him.

             
‘Tell me…’ he said hoarsely.  ‘I shall take her home with me.’

             
‘You must promise me that you will give her up to Melloria if she asks?’  Beatrice looked troubled and he sensed that she regretted her offer.  ‘She is your child…and I am not sure that my sister truly knows her own heart.  But you must promise not to use her to force Melloria to come to you sooner than you allowed.’

             
‘I promise on all that I hold sacred.  Melloria may have the time allotted, but afterwards she must return to me.  It is her duty, as my wife.’

             
‘Yes…’ Beatrice inclined her head.  ‘Melloria does have her duty as your wife.  I shall not deny you have the right to make her return to you – but I beg that you will not force her.’

             
‘You have my word.’

             
Robert’s eyes gleamed as Beatrice handed him a piece of paper.  He could hardly contain his triumph.  Melloria was his.  He would give her the time he had promised, but after that he would come and take her – by force if necessary.

13

Melloria looked around the tiny cell that would be hers until her child was born.  Bare and cold, it contained few comforts save her books and needlework.  In this isolated hermitage there were only a handful of nuns, all of whom had taken a vow of silence.  They communicated with her by means of signs but not one word was spoken.  Her meals were served to her in her cell.  She was allowed to sit at the back of the chapel for prayers, and hymns, which was the only time the nuns made a sound, but the remainder of her days and nights were spent alone.

             
It was what she had requested.  She needed time to pray and come to terms with the tragedies that had happened to her.  Beatrice had hidden her from Robert, giving her true sanctuary until after her child was born. Yet she feared what was to come for here there would ben no family to help her, no physician would be called.  Only the nuns would attend her and they were untrained in the arts of midwifery.

             
‘My poor babe…’ Melloria’s eyes were moist with tears as she thought of what must happen when Nicholas’s child was born.  She could not keep her child, because Robert’s anger would know no bounds if he ever discovered the truth.  To keep her babe safe she had agreed to give it up once a good woman had been found to take it.

             
‘There are women who can never have the happiness of holding their own babe in their arms,’ Beatrice had said to comfort her.  ‘Think of the joy you will bring to someone, Melloria.  You have your Iolanthe and she will be restored to you once your time of confinement is done, and if God wills it Iolanthe’s twin may be found.  You know that Robert would not accept Nicholas Malvern’s child.’

             
‘Yes, I know it.’ Melloria replied but her heart wept bitter tears.

             
Iolanthe had screamed and cried when they gave her into the care of the woman who would look after her until Melloria could claim her once more.

             
‘No, Mama. No…’ she cried and wept as her mother placed in the woman’s arms.  ‘Papa…Iolanthe want Papa…’

             
Her cries cut Melloria to the heart but she could not take her child into the retreat with her and there was no other way.  Robert could visit the convent at any time and demand to see her so she must retire to a hermitage where he would never find her.

             
‘You will watch over her?’ Melloria begged her sister.  ‘You will not forget her?  My poor child will be so distressed at losing both her father and mother but I can no longer hide the fact of my condition and if Robert were to see me...’

             
‘He might kill you and the babe.  Iolanthe would lose her mother forever and that would be a worse tragedy.  You have spoiled her, sister.  Most children spend their lives in the nursery with servants and scarcely see their parents.  Had you lived at the castle it would have been that way.  You know this is for the best.’

             
‘Yes.  It is what I must do.  I have no choice.’

             
Melloria had shut her ears to Iolanthe’s screams but she had wept bitter tears alone.  Sometimes she dreamed that her daughter was lost to her.  She wandered alone in a dark place where the sun never seemed to shine and there was no love and no relief from the pain of loss.

             
‘Nicholas my love…’ Melloria whispered.  ‘Where are you now?  Do you wander the underworld alone and lost in the darkness – or are you alive?  Do you think of me as I think of you?  Shall I ever see you again?’

             
Alone, in her self-imposed isolation, Melloria studied the journals she had brought from Malvern.  Her understanding and admiration of the mind that had written such serious ideals and theories grew as the long days turned into weeks and the time passed.

             
Her confinement was very close now and she would give life to Nicholas’s child, but whether she would survive the birth she did not know.  Giving birth to Robert’s children had almost killed her.  She had survived because Nicholas had brought her through with his skill and devotion but this time there would be only the silent nuns to help her.

             
‘Give me strength,’ she prayed.  ‘Nicholas’s son must live.  I pray that one day he will return and know that I gave him a child…’

* * *

Melloria gave a cry of despair as she read her sister’s letter.  Robert had tried to force her to give her up to him but she had resisted.  She had given him Iolanthe instead.

I beg you will forgive me, sister, but he has the right to his child, as he has the right to demand that you return to him.  I do not see what else you can do once your time of confinement is over.  You must do your…

             
The letter fell from Melloria’s hand as the pain struck.  She doubled up, gasping as she knew the child was coming…coming sooner than it should.

             
‘If my child dies I shall never forgive you,’ she muttered as she panted, her teeth barred in a grimace of pain.  ‘Nicholas…Nicholas…why are you not with me?’

             
Tears trickled down her cheeks.  She had almost died when her twins were born, but Nicholas had saved her.  The pain was nearly unbearable but she thought the child was coming quickly, perhaps too quickly.

             
Her hand reached for the bell to summon help.  The sisters would know why she had rung it and they would come to her.

             
‘Give me strength,’ her lips moved in prayer.  ‘Let me bear a living child and let me live.’

             
She was not sure whether it was to God she prayed or Nicholas.

             
‘
Relax, Anne.  Breathe deeply and push.  The child is small.  You shall not die this time.  I am with you.
’

             
‘Nicholas…’ Anne smiled and the pain eased.  She lay back on her couch and began to pant and to push when the pain came.  ‘Nicholas, my love…’

             
He was with her.  She could feel him, feel his touch soothing her, his love surrounding her. It was as if he were in the room, encouraging her and caring for her, and her courage returned.  When the nuns came her waters had broken and the head was already through.

             
She looked at the child as it was drawn from her body, leaning forward to see.

             
‘What is it?  A boy or girl?’

             
The nun did not answer, merely holding the child so that she could see.  She had given birth to Nicholas’s son.  Lying back against the pillows, she closed her eyes.

             
‘You have a son, Nicholas,’ she breathed.  ‘You have a son…’

             
Tears trickled down her cheeks and into her mouth. She could taste the salt.  One day Nicholas would return and then she would tell him.  The child would be hidden but he would find it and take it to his heart.

             
She had given Nicholas a son and they both lived.  What came in the future must be faced.  She had a son…

14

The summer had been hotter than anyone could recall and the foetid air was heavy with the stench from the open ditch that ran through the main street of the village. Here lay the rotting corpse of a dead dog, decaying vegetables and all manner of filth washed there by the rain of the early spring.  Now all had turned to a foul soup of thick slime that harboured rats and bred disease. As dusk fell, the figure wrapped in a dark cloak to cover the gown of a nobleman moved along the street, calling from house to house with the medicines, food and fresh water he brought each night.

             
Sickness haunted the hovels in this noisome place, and in almost every family there was at least one person whose body was beginning to show signs of the terrible rash that was the sign of a fearful sickness.  As yet no one had died here but the apothecary knew that it was only a matter of time before the Grim Reaper took his dues.  The apothecary had treated as many as he could, but there were too many of them now and soon the dread disease would spread to the townsfolk.

             
In France that year as the heat intensified disease and sickness had spread from city to town and town to village.  In most cases no one visited to alleviate the suffering of the poor.  People shrank from a disease they thought a curse of the Devil.  Some prayed, others drank until they forgot their fear, others just lay on their beds and died.

             
As the first rays of dawn heralded yet another hot day, the apothecary began to walk up the hill to his house.  Surrounded by high walls with an impressive iron gate that was opened only to trusted friends, there were thick woods hiding the house within from curious eyes.  No one knew the name of the man who had come to live there after so many years of the house standing empty.  Some said he was a rich nobleman, some said he was a clever physician, others whispered that he dabbled in the black arts but no one knew his name.

             
Within the sunlit gardens behind the house there was a pool.  The apothecary thought of the cool water where he could wash away the stink of his night’s labours.  There would be no unwelcome visitors waiting for him this night.  Never again would he leave his home vulnerable to attack.

             
His thoughts were dark as he rubbed at his temple.  The headaches, which had almost destroyed him, still came frequently to plague him, but his mind was now as clear as it had ever been.  The mists of uncertainty had lifted. He knew who he was and what he had lost and one day soon he would have his revenge.  He would take back all those things that belonged to him – no matter if it cost him his immortal soul.

Part Two

15

Rome, in the year of our Lord 1258

Night had fallen over the sleeping city and the Appian Way was bathed in shadow, a full moon playing hide and seek amongst dark clouds that heralded a storm before dawn.  For days the dust from roads baked hard by oppressive heat had choked the air of Rome.  Even now when the temperature was blessedly cooler, there was a feeling of heaviness in the atmosphere. The stench of decay, from the rotting corpse of a donkey at the side of the road, assaulted the man’s nostrils, making the gorge rise in his throat.  To an observant rat feeding on the feast the corpse provided, he must have appeared nervous, stopping, as he did every few minutes to glance back over his shoulder, as though he feared he was followed.

             
Count Rinaldo Santos was not a man given to roaming the streets alone at night but the message had been clear.  If he wished to learn the secret he had sought for so many years he must come to the catacombs of Saint Callixtus this night, and he must come alone. His heart thudded as he walked swiftly, his churning emotions a mixture of fear and excitement.  The catacombs had once been the burial place of saints and those who wished to lie close to them so that they might enter the gates of Heaven more easily.  Even before the Christians had chosen to bury their dead in the soft volcanic rock beneath Rome, others had built their tombs here.  Far beneath the city a maze of tunnels and crypts held the bones of pagans and Jews as well as saints and churchmen. However, the ancient burial grounds had been largely abandoned in the tenth century. For at least three centuries now other places of rest had been preferred but there were some that visited in secret and darkness and more than one victim of murder lay undiscovered in the labyrinth of tunnels.