On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) (8 page)

He eyed the lad curiously.
 
Gerard was only a handful of years younger than he was, but lately those few years had yawned like a huge, impassable gulf between them.
 
“Why do you want to fight so badly?”
 
Once he thought he had known, but now he was no longer sure of anything.

Gerard grabbed the flask from his hip and took a long swallow.
 
Water dribbled over his mouth and chin as he drank.
 
“What man doesn’t?”

“So you can safely insult me again another day?”

“Of course.”

Lamotte could not tell whether Gerard was serious or making a jest.
 
“You would have killed me that day.”

“Yes.”
 
There was no apology in Gerard’s tone – just a simple admission of the facts.

“Why do you hate me so much?”
 
The question had been seriously troubling him for some time.
 
“Why did you try to kill me?”

Gerard crouched down on his heels in the dirt and ran a dirty hand over his forehead, leaving trails of grime in the sweat.
 
“Because you are alive.”

Of all things, he had not been expecting this.
 
It made no sense.
 
“Because I am alive?” he repeated stupidly.
 
“What do you mean?”

“You are alive, and my bro---everyone else I have ever loved is dead.”

He did not understand.
 
Had Gerard loved his sister so much that her death had warped his mind?
 
“Everyone you love?
 
You sent me word that your sister was sick, but that the rest of your household had been spared.”

“Sophie was the first to fall sick.
 
She brought the plague into the household.”
 
Gerard’s eyes were glistening with tears and his voice sounded choked.
 
“One by one, everyone fell sick after her.
 
One by one, everyone died.
 
Everyone.
 
My mother.
 
My father.
 
Everyone.
 
My twin was the last to die.”

Lamotte felt his words pierce his heart.
 
No wonder Gerard had lost his light heart and friendly spirit.
 
“I had not known.
 
I am sorry to hear it.”

Gerard stared at the ground, his head between his knees.
 
He spoke quickly, as if the words were burning him.
 
“I buried them all in a pit.
 
I tossed the bodies in one after another until the pit was full and I covered it over with earth.”
 
Tears were running down his face and dripping into the dirt as he spoke.
 
“They all died.
 
All of them.
 
Even the person I had thought to marry.”

What could he say?
 
Words were inadequate to express his pity for his friend or his sympathy for the horrors he had suffered.
 
“I tried to come to help you.”

Gerard raised his head again, wiped his eyes on his sleeve and made a visible effort to regain control of himself.
 
“Better men than you are afraid of the plague.”

“The plague did not stop me.”
 
Lamotte crouched down beside his old friend and pulled open his shirt to reveal a jagged scar that ran from his breastbone to near his waist.
 
The scar tissue was red and angry, the edges knitted together in a vicious welt
 
“That did.”

Sophie felt sick to her stomach as she looked at the scar.
 
It made the cut she had given him on his arm look like the merest scratch of a wayward bramble.
 
His side looked as though it had been ripped open by a pack of wolves.
 
Certainly no sword would leave such a mess.
 
She reached out and touched the ribbed edges with a gentle fingertip.
 
“What did that to you?”

“A pitchfork.”

She wiped her dirty sleeve across her face.
 
She knew that men and soldiers did not cry, but she had not been able to stop the tears from coming.
 
She had kept her pain bottled up inside her for so long that she had not been able to stop it from flooding out in a torrent when she opened the lid just the smallest bit to let a stranger get a glimpse of it.
 
“How?”

“The roads to the Camargue were blocked and the villagers would allow none through – either in or out.
 
They feared the spread of the plague far too much.
 
I knew how you loved your sister, and I had medicines with me that the King’s physician swore were a guaranteed remedy against the plague.
 

Tears filled Sophie’s eyes anew as she thought of her brother’s death and how easily it could have been prevented, if only things had turned out differently.
 
“You tried to bring them to me?”

“I was stopped by a mob as I approached Provence.
 
They would not listen to my pleas to be allowed to pass through.
 
Why was I traveling, they demanded.
 
What was I running from?
 
What sickness had God struck me with?
 
They would not believe that I had come from a place of no sickness.
 
They would not believe that any medicine made by men would be proof against the plague.
 

“They were mad with fear; I could not reason with them.
 
I tried to ride past them, but there were too many of them.
 
They grabbed hold of me and dragged me off my horse.”
 
He gave a wry smile.
 
“I am lucky to be alive at all.
 
I thought I was a dead man.”

“You recovered well.”
 
Try as she might, she could not keep the distress out of her voice.
 
Did he know how lucky he was to have lived when so many others had died?

“A priest found me and took me in to care for me.
 
Despite his care, the wound went bad and I was sick with the fever most of the winter.
 
Even in my moments of lucidity, I could not rise from my bed.
 
I tried to find a messenger who would bring the medicines to your sister, but they thought I was raving or mad or worse.
 
At any rate, none of them would risk a journey in the middle of winter to a house with the plague.
 
By the time I was well enough to travel, word had reached me that Sophie was long since dead and that you were on your way to rejoin the regiment.”

Sophie crouched in the dirt still, her heart aching for what she had done, wallowing in the newfound sense of her guilt.
 
She had misjudged Lamotte and sought to murder him, when he had risked his life to save her.
 
He would have saved Gerard, too, if he could.
 
He had not forsaken them in their hour of need as she had thought for so many many months.
 

She rose unsteadily to her feet to make what belated amends she could.
 
“I apologize for my actions when I first saw you again.
 
I was deeply upset.
 
I thought you had ignored my plea for your help out of fear.”
 
She cleared her throat.
 
The words stuck deep down in her chest until she thought she would choke on them.
 
She had to force herself to give them voice.
 
“I take back my words.
 
It seems I had no cause to call you a coward.”

Lamotte bowed his head briefly.
 
“Apology accepted.”

She sheathed her sword with a hand that trembled.
 
“Thank you for the lesson.”
 
She had been so used to seeing him as the enemy that she did not know how to handle this sudden change.
 
Her thirst for revenge had given her the strength to struggle on when even her desire for honor could not have kept her on her feet.
 
Losing the guiding force of her life all on instant made her feel suddenly lost and alone.

She had to believe him.
 
His body could not lie.
 
She had seen his wound with her own eyes and touched the raw edges with her fingertips.
 
He had taken that wound for her.
 
For Gerard.
 
He had nearly died of it.

She had much to think about now – more than she had ever imagined possible.
 
She wanted to be alone in her lodgings with her thoughts.

She could feel his eyes on her as she strode away.
 
“Come back tomorrow,” he called after her.

She waved her agreement.
 
She would be back for another lesson in the morn, though her desire to use her new-found skill against her teacher had utterly disappeared.
 
She would learn her best so that she would bring honor to Gerard’s name.

Her brother had been right.
 
Lamotte was no coward.
 
He was an honorable man and he deserved her respect.
 
He had well-nigh died trying to bring her the medicine she needed.
 
She would not seek his death any longer.

Still, she could not afford to let him get close to her.
 
Only by holding herself aloof from her companions could she guarantee that her secret would be kept.
 
She would learn from Lamotte, but she must nonetheless avoid his friendship, as she avoided the friendship of all her fellow Musketeers.
 
She would never be his companion as Gerard had been.
 
The thought pained her even as she admitted its absolute necessity.
 
He was an honorable man, and the best fighter she had ever seen.
 
She would have liked to become close to him, to share his hopes and fears, to become a part of his life.

She understood now why Gerard had chosen him for her husband.
 
She sent a silent apology up to Gerard’s soul that she had ever doubted him.
 
Her twin had known her better than she had known herself, choosing for her with eyes unblinded by childish liking, choosing her a man she could both love and respect.
 
Lamotte was more of a man than Jean-Luc ever would have been.
 
He was a hawk, a fierce predator, to Jean-Luc’s good-natured robin.
 
Lamotte’s wife, whoever she would be, would be blessed with a courageous and loyal husband.

Her life as a man gave her freedom to do as she pleased, she thought to herself, as she lay awake on her narrow bed that evening, but it cut her off from the rest of the world.
 
She could trust no one, neither man nor woman, with her secret.
 
She had never felt so alone or so lonely before.
 
Even her ambition to do her family honor was cold comfort for her in the dead of night, when all the world bar her was asleep in the arms of those they loved.
 

Henrietta jumped into sudden wakefulness at the sound of the timid knock on her chamber door.
 
She had retired for the night some time ago and was halfways into sleep by now.
 
She turned over grumpily and pulled her bedclothes up to her chin.
 
Maybe if she ignored the noise, whoever it was would go away.

Tap tap tap, a little louder this time.

She sat up and drew back the curtain around her bed a fraction, resigning herself to the annoying inevitability of being thoroughly woken up.
 
“What do you want?”

Her maid opened the chamber door a crack and peeped through.
 
“You have a visitor, Madame Princesse,” she whispered.

Henrietta frowned at her maid.
 
The girl, though not over bright, was not usually quite so dense.
 
“It is the middle of the night and I was asleep.
 
I am not in the mood to receive anyone.
 
Tell them I am not at home.”

“But Madame…”

“No buts.”
 
She waved her hand in the air to dismiss her maid.
 
“Tell whoever it is to go away.”

Her maid squeaked with fright.
 
“Please, Madame,” she gabbled, tripping over her words in her haste to get them out of her mouth.
 
“Your visitor is the King.”

Henrietta swore under her breath – in English.
 
In the crowded quarters of the palace in St-Germain-en-Lay one never knew who might be listening.