Devil at Midnight (21 page)

“Something is going on,” Michael acknowledged once they were done dragging William to a more comfortable resting spot.

Christian could no longer doubt this himself. He looked down at William’s deeply sleeping body. Their colleague had curled on his side beneath the blanket Michael had drawn over him. His face was peaceful in the gray dawn light. He might have been a farmer’s son instead of a mercenary; the strain of a life of soldiering had been that thoroughly erased. Was this peace what Nim Wei meant by leaving him with a gift, and if it were, did Christian have the right to start a witch hunt?

“She
could
be drugging all of us,” Michael said slowly. “Something tasteless in the wine, perhaps. That would explain why she did not need to give William more. Or she might be working a spell. One does hear tales of such things. I admit—” He cleared his throat. “I admit I am reluctant to blame anyone for my personal weaknesses but myself.”

Christian supposed Michael would consider it a weakness to be attracted to a beautiful woman. Christian did not share this belief. Beautiful women might be a distraction or an inconvenience. Grace could certainly be both. Desiring her as much as he did might even be a sign of poor judgment. Not weakness, though. He shifted uncomfortably, abruptly unsure of this. Then he shook his head at himself. Had he not just been thinking that her company steadied him? If wanting her were a weakness, so be it. He was a man. God had made him and his desires. If the Creator disapproved of them, He should castigate himself.

“We will watch William on the road tonight,” Christian said. “Perhaps the evening after his carnal adventure will reveal more to us.”

“We can but hope,” Michael said dryly. He jerked his thumb toward the stable’s outer yard, where the oxen were dozing. “Going to stretch my legs for a few minutes.”

His tone suggested he intended more than to take a piss, which made Christian wonder just how bothered Michael was by the minstrel’s charms. Bothered enough to need a bit of privacy? But that was not Christian’s business. And chances were, it was best Michael not ignore his body’s demands right now. Mistress Wei seemed to have a nose for sniffing out the susceptible.

“Watch your back,” was all he said to Michael, at which his friend nodded.

Grace waited until he left to walk up to Christian’s side.

“Your friend believes you,” she said.

Her clear green eyes were on the open door, the intelligence in them keener than Christian had given her credit for. She might be young compared to him, but her life had not wholly sheltered her. How could it when her father’s violence had ended it? More importantly, Grace seemed to have seen the world beyond her brutal doorstep. She understood the workings of human minds.

Appreciating this more than he expected, Christian stroked the gleaming hair he could not quite touch. The weak morning light made its long waves seem darker, like rubies cast in shadow. He noticed her nose turned up a bit at the end, as if an angel had pressed its finger against the clay. The sharpness suited her occasionally tart humor.

“Michael believes something,” he said aloud. “That will have to suffice for now.”

“He believes
you
,” she said firmly. “He trusts your judgment.”

“That may be, but I do not think I want to test how far his trust stretches.”

Grace cracked a smile. “Not to witches and ghosts?”

“Maybe to witches, and possibly to ghosts, but not to my seeing them.”

“Maybe I can learn to make him see me.”

She was only half teasing. The protest that should have sprung to his lips did not. Christian had thought he wanted to keep Grace as his secret. He still did—mostly. Given his monkish past, Michael might consider Grace as dangerous as Mistress Wei. But if they were able to meet ... If his closest friend could allow himself to become acquainted with this extraordinary young woman ...

A pinching ache tightened Christian’s chest.

They would like each other; he was convinced of it.

W
hy not allow Lavaux to lead your second mount tonight?” Gregori suggested to Mistress Wei. “He is excellent with animals.”

Christian’s head jerked up from buckling his shin greaves in place. His hips were resting on a boulder beside the road. All around him, Nim Wei’s little train of hired men were similarly hooking into light armor. Though Gregori’s manner had been offhand, Christian’s weren’t the only eyes that snapped upward.

“If Lavaux is good with animals, my mother was a goat,” Charles muttered next to him. “Your father must think any man who leads Nim Wei’s horse will end up playing her stallion.”

This had been the minstrel’s pattern thus far: first Charles and then William going to her two nights running. She had selected no companion the following night, and then Charles had done the honors a second time. Hans had walked her mount after that, though he claimed not to have been bedded.
Woman only wanted to play chess
, he had said upon emerging from her sumptuous tent.
Beat me in a dozen moves, damn her eyes.

Christian was not certain he believed the gruff veteran. Hans had remained with the minstrel nearly as long as the other men. He had come out seeming absentminded rather than drunk, but he, too, had taken up Charles’s and William’s habit of caressing their necks. Christian wondered if the gesture was due to some philter she had them drink. Did the feeling linger in their throats after they lost the memory of quaffing it? Or perhaps it related to a carnal practice Christian was unable to imagine. Something about the gesture struck him as sexual.

“I wonder why my father wants her to take Lavaux.”

“That is easy,” Charles said. “She has favored only your men till now. It makes it look as if his are less desirable.”

Christian supposed this could be the reason; some of those who had not been chosen were beginning to grumble. Unfortunately, this seemed too simple a motivation for Christian’s sire. He thought it more likely that Gregori wanted to puzzle out what Nim Wei was doing, and hoped Lavaux would serve as his informant.

If this was true, would his father fare better than Christian had? William’s behavior had not cleared up the mystery. Though he mentioned his battle bruises had healed quickly, he had performed no great feats of valor. Christian thought he might have been a bit haler than usual. His appetite was hearty, and the other night he had carried two large wine butts up a slope without help. The problem was, William was so strong already that this was unexceptional. Overall, William had seemed both quiet and happy, whistling softly to himself as they tramped through the mountain-shadowed Valle D’Aosta.

Being calm and happy was benign enough, and yet it disturbed Christian. If Nim Wei were poisoning his men, what could be more ominous than her venom tasting sweet to them?

But maybe he was too suspicious. Any man might whistle, if he had been blessed with two lengthy trysts in a woman’s arms.

Christian’s thoughts of a woman’s arms were enough to conjure Grace to his side. She had slept near him and Michael in the stable, close enough to look at but not to touch. When he and Michael woke to take watch, she had still been visible, curled like a semitransparent kitten within a heap of hay. Her transparency alarmed him, but she had not faded further over time. Sleep, it seemed, did not steal her from him. It took some other power to do that.

“I could watch Hans tonight,” she offered now. “Let you know if something seems wrong with him.”

He looked at her, taking in the calm intelligence in her face. She was making his concerns her own, before he could ask her to. Heat flashed behind his eyes. Nodding curtly, he turned his gaze to Nim Wei. She had accepted Gregori’s suggestion. Lavaux was helping her swing into her saddle by forming his hands into a stirrup. Small as the minstrel was, she needed the boost. Still clad in her black velvet tunic and hose, which were as snug and neat as the first time he saw them, she rode astride like a man—one more example of her disregard for convention.

The black steed calmed beneath her when she bent to stroke its neck, the beast as firmly under her influence as the men. Christian had already observed that she was an expert horsewoman, but he suspected something other than satisfaction with her skill was behind the corners of her red, red lips turning up.

She wore the same tiny smile Hans did when he knew he was going to beat his opponent in a chess game. Apparently, Christian’s refusal of her advances weighed as nothing with her. She exhibited no doubt that the ultimate victory would be hers.

A goose walked over his grave as Grace sidled closer to him.

“She isn’t bespelling this one,” she murmured. “She doesn’t seem interested in seducing your father’s man.”

As if he had heard her, Charles broke into a laugh. “Lavaux fails again,” he chortled under his breath. He elbowed Christian to indicate what he meant. “See, she calls Philippe forward. She is inviting him to ride on her second horse, instead of letting it rest today. Lavaux’s face has gone so red he looks as though he will burst.”

Christian could read the tableaux as easily as Charles: Lavaux stiffly objecting, Nim Wei politely putting him off. Philippe appeared entertained by this, not outrageously so but enough that Lavaux could discern it. Lavaux’s fellow Frenchman seemed neither afraid nor overly eager to be in the minstrel’s proximity, which Christian took as a heartening sign.

Charles saw it differently. Finished buckling on his lower armor, he stood and tested it with a shake of his knees. “Let us pray Matthaus is not the jealous type.”

Christian held his tongue as Nim Wei’s infectious laugh drifted back to them. She was amused by something Philippe said, and he was looking just a mite flattered to have his wit recognized. Charles took note of the expression, too.

“If anyone can straighten out that bent nail, it is Mistress Wei.” He seemed undisturbed by the idea, though he had never indicated disapproval for Matthaus and Philippe’s clandestine bond.

“You do not mind if Philippe takes your place?”

Charles shrugged. “Some women are too blessed by nature to scatter their bounty on just one man.”

It was, to the word, exactly what he had said before.

“You speak as if she controlled your mouth,” Christian said.

Grace snapped her fingers. “She’s hypnotizing them,” she exclaimed—which he assumed meant the selfsame thing.

Charles tucked his orange hair more securely beneath his coif. “I am just being sensible. You would, too, if you knew the ecstasy she offered. You have only to say
yes
to her once.”

He sounded like himself and not a puppet. If Christian had not known how competitive Charles was, he would have thought nothing was amiss.

But maybe he should say
yes.
Maybe that was the path to discovering Mistress Wei’s strategy.

“No, Christian,” Grace said, clearly having read what just crossed his face. “If an experienced older man like Hans can’t remember what she did to him, why do you think you would?”

Christian looked at her, belatedly realizing she thought he would bed Nim Wei.

“I would not go that far,” he said, which caused Charles to snort and ask, “Since when?”

Ignoring him, Grace wrinkled up her nose. “I don’t care about that. If I was sure you could do it safely, I wouldn’t stand in your way.”

She did not meet his gaze when she said this. Christian rolled his lips together to hide his smile. His Grace was lying ... at least about not caring.

 

 

N
im Wei was making progress. Though Christian was not the soldier who rode beside her, he was walking close enough to eavesdrop. Even better, his annoyance radiated out from him in waves. Long centuries of practice at deception hid any sign that she was aware of him. Inside, though, her queenly nature exulted. At last, she had found the trigger that would drive Christian to action.

“The proper love object,” Philippe was saying, his smile for her surprisingly sly, “is always unattainable. That which is easily won cannot be strongly desired.”

He was continuing their conversation on courtly love, a choice of topic she found amusing, considering. Philippe might pretend a willingness to pay court to her, but a single pass through his vulnerable mortal mind told her where his true interests lay. Nim Wei turned her own coy smile back on him.

“If strength of appetite is your standard for
fin’ amors,
I can think of many circumstances that would whet it. For instance”—she drew one suggestive finger along the pommel of her saddle—“that which is forbidden often adds savor.”

She gave her companion credit for not blushing. “Some poets say if love is consummated, it is not true.”

Nim Wei threw back her head and laughed, the sound echoing off the gray mountains. “Such fainting fellows are invariably unable to hold up their end of the bargain. I say, true love is heartier fare. True love is the dish humans kill for, the feast that makes heroes of ordinary mean.”