The Execution (42 page)

Slowly, she turned. Without saying a
word, she seemed to float down from the banister and reached a hand
out to him.

Ravan took it and pulled her to him,
embracing her in a deep and passionate kiss.

She started to reach for the ties of
his trousers, but he grabbed her hand, “No—we are
leaving.”

Staring up into his eyes, curiosity
tugged at the edges of her blood red lips. Nodding and without
saying a word, she moved towards the door without even stopping to
pick up a cloak.

He held firmly to her hand and stopped
her. Looking around the room, he walked to her armoire and threw
the doors open. Rifling through the gowns, he finally snatching
from a hook a thick hooded cloak, lined with wool and edged with
fur. He flung it over his arm and started for the door. “You are
with me now,” he stated as though the whole world already knew this
to be true.

Nicolette swept from the room with
him, half running, half dragging along behind him, her face stoic
and altogether calm. The guards simply looked at each other,
confusion on their faces.

As fast they could, the couple ran
down the back stairs of the castle, spiraling down, taking the
servants routes to the ground floor. From there, they bolted for
the stable and Ravan approached his warhorse.

The magnificent animal stomped its
feet nervously in recognition and eager anticipation as Ravan
quickly bridled and saddled it. By then, there was noise from the
castle as people came awake with the alarm.

The stallion tossed its head, eyes
wide, impatient that they'd so recently ceased their murderous
campaigns to only stand about in a stall. Then, strangely, it
calmed as Nicolette reached a small hand out towards it. As he
pulled the cinch tight, Ravan glanced over his shoulder at the
animal’s strange and suddenly docile behavior, but by now, nothing
surprised him about Nicolette. It stood prancing in place as he
swung onto the stallion, his arrows quivered, his sword in its
scabbard.

“
I want you, Ravan,”
Nicolette said, looking up at him, so small, so peculiar, and
utterly at peace.

He nodded and leaned over, reaching
one arm around her waist. Hoisting her behind him onto the great
beast, he said, “Hold on tight.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist
and squeezed.

Ravan unsheathed his sword and dug his
heels into the sides of his beast.

The animal snorted, eyes rolling white
and wild. It lunged like a deranged beast from the stable into the
courtyard. Its iron hooves pounded the stone beneath, sending
sparks flying up behind them as though from a forge.

By now, word of Nicolette’s abduction
was beginning to spread throughout the castle as fast as a bad
rumor. The alarms were sounded and the four guards at the gate
stepped hesitantly into a nightmare’s path as the murderous wraith
charged down upon them.

Several of them held up spears,
uncertain how to stop the black demon, but senselessly, they were
compelled to try.

It was a fatal mistake. Ravan’s sword
was finely saw-toothed—its edges delicately splintered from the
limbs it had severed, and it remained true to its master tonight.
He halted the horse and maneuvered it easily. The stallion reared,
front legs violently pawing the air, and when it came down, Ravan
decapitated one of the men.

In one clean motion, he’d unsheathed
the sword and swept it swiftly and cleanly before returning it,
just as efficiently back to its scabbard. The others guards fell
away in horror and dismay.

The corpse stood headless for a
stunned moment before falling obscenely to its knees and tumbling,
chest forward, onto the ground.

The guards stumbled backward,
aghast.

For Ravan and Nicolette, it was a
minor inconvenience. The horse thundered from the courtyard, across
the drawbridge, and onto the open road as the decapitated head
rolled upright on the stones behind them, eyes still open with
surprise.

Back in the castle, Adorno shrieked at
his newly discovered violation, and LanCoste now had serious
problems of his own...

* * *

Flying on the wings of freedom, Ravan
chased the wind that night.

Nicolette held tight behind
him.

The warm breath of a short Indian
summer unexpectedly acquiesced in the cold of autumn, and their
flight stripped tears from the corners of her eyes as she buried
her face into the back of her lover. The magnificent horse frothed
from its mouth and lathered its chest, as its master pushed it
mercilessly through the night.

They hammered on like this for what
seemed an eternity, the moon lighting their way. From the distance,
they looked like a phantom, black and marauding, thundering over
hill and across valley.

They’d easily evaded the initial group
of men who led halfhearted pursuit after them. Ravan was trained in
maneuvering and tactics, incredibly sophisticated at just such
juxtaposition, and no horse matched the stallion. More than that,
he was born to this and it was more than natural for him. This was
what Ravan knew. It raced through his blood—flooded his
soul.

There was not a single man alive who
could give chase onto the wildness of this mercenary
tonight.

Finally, as the night closed, he
slowed the horse to a walk and rode on until the animal breathed
more slowly. He brought the horse into a dense thicket of
evergreen, the branches almost completely obscuring the sky. Ravan
slid from the horse and pulled Nicolette down into his arms. Then,
he turned and walked a very short distance away.

A small meadow opened before them. He
quickly stripped the tack from the animal, placed a sling hobble on
one foreleg of the beast and freed it. It wasn’t a real concern to
him that the stallion would run, but best not to take chances since
it had been stabled for so long.

Ravan took Nicolette gently by the
hand and walked into the meadow. The moon shown bright, low and
silver on the soft fern beds that bowed gently before them. He
looked across the valley, shimmering and softened by the velveteen
of night and swallowed, deeply overcome by the emotions which
seized his heart.

He was free! Life, death, poverty,
riches, companionship or loneliness; they all belonged to him now,
were his to hold or let go. His destiny was his own. He could live
for those he loved, but no longer would guilt make him own their
fate. This knowledge was difficult, heart-rending and incredibly
liberating. It gave him extraordinary power for it had been the
shackle Duval had held him with.

Feeling her hand light upon his arm,
he turned to see Nicolette looking not at him but across the meadow
as well.

“
It is beautiful, is it
not?” She didn’t speak about the meadow. “To break the bonds and
breathe of the free world?”

Peering down at her, he wondered about
her power, her strength. It suddenly occurred to Ravan that
Nicolette had also been a prisoner—prisoner of her station and the
time in which they lived. Only, she had not possessed the means to
escape.

Finally, he understood where her
resolve sprung from; she controlled her destiny with her mind, with
her soul. As captured as she'd been, she was astonishingly
unfettered, even when tied to Adorno’s bed. He looked down at her
and marveled at her power.

When he reached to touch her gently on
the cheek, she turned to look up at him in mild surprise, as though
she'd forgotten she was there with him. He smiled at her, began to
recognize her queer response to the universe, a perpetual flow of
soft surprise and quizzical observation.

She was beautiful, pale as the moon,
and so fragile. He marveled that she controlled the space around
her so completely, even here, far from the comforts of any village,
in the remotest wild. “I’m happy you are here,” he said.

Tilting her head, she studied him, her
expression one of faint confusion, and she almost smiled
back.

Loosening the cape from her shoulders,
she laid it onto the thick bed of ferns which bent softly at their
feet. She laid down on the cape and slowly, deliberately, she eased
her crystalline white body from its shroud and lie there,
gloriously naked and unashamed.

Nicolette lay bare before him, and yet
it was Ravan who felt vulnerable. He stood spellbound. He could not
take his eyes from the raven black hair strewn about her, the milky
white of her skin and her eternally captivating emerald
eyes.

She allowed herself a long and
luxurious moment to absorb him, hypnotizing him with her
shamelessness. “Undress,” she said.

“
I’ve,” he paused, looking
briefly across the meadow again. “I haven’t ever...”

Nicolette moved to her knees, hands
lying lightly upon them. She looked like a porcelain sylph,
mythical and magic, kneeling naked in the meadow. “I know—but I
have, and this will be faultless inasmuch.”

He gazed at her, allowing her words to
penetrate and soothe the secret, fearful corners of his
being.

“
No mistakes—there's no
such thing,” she murmured.

Apprehension faded and was replaced by
a new and growing feeling. It was exciting and inviting. He heard
the night more acutely, could feel the beating of his own heart. He
could smell her and was alarmed at the flush of warmth that denied
the cool night air.

Purposefully and slowly he removed his
armor, first the chain-mail and plates and then the thick leather,
allowing them to fall from his hand heavily to the ground. He
pulled the wool and linen shift from over his head. Last of all, he
slid the soft deerskin trousers down and stepped naked from
them.

He stood over her, his eyes spellbound
by her, perfectly comfortable in his nakedness. She allowed herself
a long and luxurious moment to scan his body, shameless, before
fixing her stare on his eyes. They were beautiful and deep, like
her own.

He knelt beside her and kissed her, a
long and devouring embrace as their breathing became one. Then, he
lay down, drawing the cape around them and as he pulled her close,
they stepped for a while from the tragedy of this world into the
ecstasy of another.

She matched his lovemaking, wild and
desperate, guiding him, and seemed to marvel at the faultless
capacity of her lover.

Night birds took flight from the
treetops and the horse pawed nervously in the distance at the
carnality of it.

By and by, she pushed at his chest,
for he was spent and too heavy for her.

He eased his sweaty body from her,
lying beside her. It had been wordless and raw, imperfect and
flawless. Above all else, it had been consummate in its
genesis.

Finally, he pulled her close and they
slept, a dreamless sleep, Ravan slept with his arms around her—one
ear listening.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR

†

It was December. The autumn had been
long and unusually warm in the Marseilles, as though the season
took pity. The snows had not yet come, so the rain fell cold and
soft, sweet and steady, like a gentle, sad weeping on the grave. It
was as though the gray skies shared the grief of those
below.

The Cezanne’s afforded a noblewoman’s
grave for Julianne. The headstone was enormous, polished white
marble and had been placed on the lovely estate grounds. The
engraving read, 'Here lies Julianne; beloved daughter and sister.
God have mercy on her soul.' There was no mention of the unborn
baby; no mention of her lover—her unholy, only love.

The rainwater ran softly down the
massive stone, filling the engravings so that they disappeared. The
stone looked oddly blank when it rained, just like the memory of
her affair with her dark prince—erased, to be spoken of
nevermore.

Her grave was nestled beneath a
willow, and nobody but little Yvette had known the willow was her
favorite tree, not even D’ata. They hadn’t the opportunity to
discover those small and sweet secrets about each other that comes
only from being with a loved one for a long time. Now the willow
branches were bare, long fingers brushing gently back and forth
above the grave.

The flowers were wilted, dead over a
month. The lone figure who lie supine across the gravesite looked
perfectly appropriate, nestled amongst the dead flowers.

He lie there in priest’s robes, arms
outstretched to either side, as though he were crucified to the
earth. His head was turned to one side, eyes open, vacant, staring
without blinking. The rain ran across his sad face, over his eyes,
across his ruined heart.

It was an odd picture, like a strange
painting where the deceased was left on top of the grave as though
someone had forgotten to bury him.

Raphael walked up to the grave, knelt
and regarded his friend for a long, sad moment before he shook his
head. He gathered the frail priest up once more and placed him into
the carriage, bundled in a blanket. Then, as he’d done so
frequently now, he brought D’ata from the gravesite back home to
the estate.