Lion of Languedoc (24 page)

He turned from Léon to comfort Elise and she clutched at him pathetically, sliding one arm up and around his neck, oblivious of the presence of her betrothed.

‘Henri! I'm frightened! What is it? I'm so frightened! Please don't let Léon frighten me any longer. Don't leave me alone with him. I don't want ever to be alone with him again!'

‘I promise you, Elise, I will never leave your side after today.'

‘Never?' She clung to him.

‘Never.'

Léon had no interest in them whatsoever. He was already running back down the stairs. As he did so Raphael entered, brushing the dust of the road off his sleeves. One look at his friend's face was enough to make him lose all his composure.

‘What's the matter?'

‘Marietta is being hunted as a witch,' Léon said tersely, ‘She came here with a gift for Elise, and now both of them have gone.'

‘Both
of them? I don't understand …' Raphael was already swinging himself back up into the saddle, determined to be included in any excitement.

‘The witch-hunter is your rival for Céleste's affections. Elise's cousin by marriage.'

Henri ran into the courtyard.

‘Where the devil would he take her?' he asked. ‘Montpellier? Toulouse?'

‘No.' Léon sat his horse, curbing his impatience for action. He must think. Not Montpellier or Toulouse. No town where he, the Lion of Languedoc, would hear of it. Paris? No, for Marietta would voice her accusations against La Montespan. Then where? Where in God's name would he take her? Where would he have her tried and burned as a witch without causing any further speculation?

‘Did you see anyone leave Madame Sainte-Beuve?' Henri was asking the dark-eyed goose-girl. Thin shoulders shrugged beneath a tattered dress.

‘Only the lady who nursed Madame, and a nobleman like yourself. No one else. No one who shouldn't have been here.'

‘Which way did they go?' Henri asked, motioning Léon to stay silent. One word from him and he would terrify the child out of her wits, and they would get no information whatsoever. The girl pointed obligingly and Léon and Henri rode off at full tilt. It was only Raphael who hesitated and asked, ‘Did you overhear anything? What were they saying?'

He proffered a gold piece. The dark eyes shone greedily as she held her hand out for it. ‘The lady asked if they were going to Evray.'

Raphael tossed her the coin, galloping after the receding figures of his father and Léon.

‘Evray!' he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Marietta was asking if they were going to a place called Evray.'

Léon felt a leap of certainty within him. Evray! What a fool he'd been not to think of it himself.

‘What about fresh horses, provisions?' the Duke asked.

‘We'll buy fresh horses as we need them and we'll eat in the saddle. And we'll summon every able-bodied man between here and Toulouse to ride with us.'

‘By the Mass, but this beats courting,' Raphael said, wiping his sweat-streaked face as he rode at Léon's side.

Léon did not reply. He had no breath for idle speech. He had thought by now to have overtaken the dandified Maurice with his protesting prisoner, but there had been no sign of them. It seemed as if they were riding as hard to Evray as they themselves were. And the minute they arrived the wood would be gathered for Marietta's funeral pyre—if it had not been done so already.

He whipped his horse the harder, desperate for a sight of Marietta's red-gold hair, but the road ahead was persistently empty and his fear increased minute by minute.

‘More ale!' was the general cry as Marietta was dragged from her mare and nearly submerged by the jostling, hustling villagers.

The leather thong around her wrists tightened cruelly as Maurice pulled her after him, the gloating peasants making way for him as he strode towards the grassy track that led up the hill.

‘What about the trial? The Inquisitor waits for her.'

‘Then he'll have to wait,' Maurice answered grimly. He had no time for trials. The sooner his mission was accomplished and he was back on the road to Paris, the better. ‘Is the fire ready?'

‘Has been these last few weeks. No rain, neither, so should be a grand blaze!'

Twice Marietta fell to the ground, only to be hauled painfully to her feet.

‘What about the witch's mark?' the innkeeper shouted hopefully.

‘No time,' was the rejoinder from his friends, and the innkeeper swallowed his disappointment and tried to forge a way to the front of the crowd, to be amongst those able to lay rough hands on Marietta as she was tugged and pulled higher and higher up the hill. She had reason to thank Maurice for his callous treatment of her on the journey: her long lack of food and water had rendered her almost senseless. The grinning faces around her seemed to swim and merge; the voices a cacophony of noise she could make no sense of.

The stake had been driven deep in the ground, the brushwood piled high around it. Her legs and feet were scratched and bleeding as, aided by willing hands, Maurice hauled her high on to the wood, slipping the free end of the thong around the stake. The sea of faces parted for a moment as the Inquisitor strode towards her, his black robes flapping in the evening breeze like a giant bird of prey. The sun was sinking fast, sucked down over the horizon in a blood-red haze.

‘The witch's mark!' ‘The witch's mark!' Leering faces taunted as torches were quickly lit and passed from hand to hand to enable everyone to see the spectacle. Maurice shook his head tersely at the Inquisitor.

‘There's no time for anything but the burning.'

The Inquisitor asked no questions. He knew from whom Maurice had been sent, or thought he did, for the forged letter of authority La Montespan had given him bore the seal of the King himself.

‘What are you waiting for, fool? Set light to it,' Maurice shouted above the clamour, the nape of his neck prickling with that sixth sense that so rarely let him down. It did not now, but it had come too late. From above the noise of roistering peasants came another, far more terrible noise. The thundering sound of scores of hoofbeats.

The ground beneath them shook and the bewildered populace turned from Marietta, casting frightened eyes towards their village. They were too far into France to be raided by the Dutch or Spanish. What army was descending on them in such fury? The women screamed as the riders broke from the forest, pouring through the deserted streets of Evray, galloping up the hill, swords in hands, daggers held high.

Maurice took one look and grabbed the nearest torch, thrusting it deep into the wood. There was a crackle and a surge of flames. The crowd surrounding Marietta turned to flee from the oncoming avengers, and as the smoke from the base of the pyre rose around her Marietta could see Léon mowing down all who stood in his path, his face hardly recognisable as he laid about him with his sword, urging his horse through the seething mass of scattering humanity as he strived to reach her in time. She was coughing now, choking as the smoke thickened and the first flames flared deep in the heart of the brushwood, licking nearer and nearer to her bare feet and legs.

Maurice unsheathed his sword, cursing his lack of forethought in not bringing his horse up the hill with him. He lunged at Léon as Léon's horse broke free from the last of the villagers. Léon's terrified eyes were on Marietta, on the flames scorching her tattered gown, searing her feet.

The blow struck home, slicing deeply down Léon's arm, but he was scarcely aware of it. As Maurice regathered his strength for a more fatal thrust, Léon leapt from his horse, scrambling up the now flaming wood, heedless of the burns to his hands as he struggled to set Marietta free. His knife sliced through the leather thong and with maniacal strength he hurled her free of the flames, rolling her on to the bare ground as Raphael kept Maurice at bay.

The Duke had suppressed his disappointment at finding the Inquisitor unarmed, and made do with terrifying that gentleman to within a inch of his life, whilst the men who had ridden with them hounded the villagers down the hill.

One minute Léon's weight was on top of Marietta, rolling her over and over, his hands beating at the sparks in her hair and at the tongues of flame engulfing her gown; and then he was gone, flinging Raphael aside and crossing swords with Maurice.

They circled the blazing pyre, cutting and thrusting, Léon's injured arm hampering him, the blood running freely. Raphael leapt forward as Léon lost his footing and Maurice's sword flashed downwards, but he was not needed. With a kick of his boot Léon sent his adversary tumbling backwards, Maurice's high-heeled boots skidding on the grass, his arms flailing wide in a vain attempt to regain his balance as he fell backwards into the heart of the flames.

Léon and Raphael rushed forward, grappling with his boots as they struggled to reach him and pull him free. The blazing heat drove them backwards and Marietta hid her face in her hands, unable to watch as the hungry fire devoured her enemy.

‘Come, sweet love. It's time to go home.'

Tenderly he drew her to her feet, wincing with pain as he did so.

‘Your hands,' she whispered. ‘You've burned your hands.'

‘And will a few more scars make such a difference to your love for me?' he asked, dark eyes gleaming.

‘Nothing could make a difference to my love for you,' she said, gazing up into the face that she had thought never to see again.

‘And yet you told Henri you were leaving me.'

‘Only because of Elise. Because of what I heard the Abbé say.'

‘And so you would ruin Elise's happiness, as well as mine and Henri's, all for a few overheard words?'

‘I wanted to preserve Elise's happiness.'

‘Then let her marry Henri, for she desires nothing else.' His voice thickened. ‘And I desire nothing else but you, Marietta Riccardi.'

He bent his head and kissed her and then, eternities later, Raphael said, ‘I have a horse for Marietta.'

‘She doesn't need one,' Léon answered. ‘We'll leave Evray as we did before, only this time will be the last.'

‘And the Inquisitor?' Marietta asked as she mounted Léon's horse behind him. ‘ What of the Inquisitor?'

‘You need have no further fears of him,' Henri said grimly. ‘He thought you a genuine witch sought by the King himself, an idea I have disabused him of.'

‘And all those men? I thought it was Louis' army, the way they charged up the hill.'

‘They are in a way, for they are some of the men I can always call upon to fight for me in the King's cause.'

‘Where are they now?'

‘Doing what soldiers always do. Enjoying themselves.'

From the village came the distant sound of carousing and female laughter. Gently he spurred his horse into movement, and Henri and Raphael followed them down the hillside and once more into the forest where he had first found her. The moon rode high and the sky was thick with stars, the night air warm and heavy with the scent of wild rosemary and jasmine. Her arms were around his waist, her head against the reassuring broadness of his back.

‘I shall have to start another lace gown when I return to Chatonnay,' she said dreamily.

In the darkness Léon smiled. ‘You'll have no time for such fripperies. I intend to marry you immediately, even if it means you wearing nothing but your shift for the ceremony!'

She giggled, her arms tightening around him. ‘That wouldn't please her at all! She wants a gown of
pointe de Venise
lace. A
full length
gown of
point de Venise
lace.'

‘Who does, sweet love?' he asked in an amused voice as fireflies danced a farandole in the darkness around them.

‘Oh, just someone,' Marietta said, her lips curving in a secret smile as she thought of their merry-faced granddaughter with the dimples in her cheeks. ‘Someone who would be most indignant at having only a shift for her wedding gown.' And she closed her eyes in contentment as they cantered steadily southwards.

First published in 1981 by Mills and Boon

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Copyright © Margaret Pemberton, 1981

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