Entreat Me (38 page)

Every child grew up with stories about the sloe folk—those dark beings born of men’s evil thoughts, their suffering and their rage.  They prowled at night—lurking behind curtains, at the edge of windows and under beds—ready to snatch disobedient children from their home and devour them whole.  In childhood, the eleven-year old Louvaen shared a bed with the three-year old Cinnia.  Many a night she’d stayed awake long after their bedtime, one of their mother’s washing bats clutched in her hands in case she had to fight off a sloe-kin looking for a midnight snack.  She and Cinnia had grown to women and consigned those night horrors to childhood memory.  Never in her blackest dreams did she imagine they were real or that she might face a one as an adult.

When last she’d seen him, Ballard’s changes had been startling.  She’d given a fanciful twist to the bittersweet woven through his hair and around the newly minted horns sprouting from his scalp by comparing him to one of the nature gods of old.  His eyes, though, made her wary.  The last flux had permanently transformed them from the darkest brown to the yellow of pine sap with the pupils of a serpent.  She’d plucked the bittersweet, caressed the patches of skin made bark and kissed the reptilian eyes closed.  Beneath the curse’s physical distortions he was still the patient, noble man she’d fallen in love with.

This was no man.  The bark previously dotting his body in patchwork designs engulfed him now, turning him as woody and fissured as an old oak.  Tufts of bristling hair burst through the bark in random spots.  The twisting scars etched into his torso, neck and face had erupted and hardened, sliding up into his scalp until they twined with the spiking horns and topped his head in a crown of gnarled root and antler.  His arms and legs had thinned and elongated, as if he’d somehow survived the tortures of the rack with bones stretched like branches, ending in enormous knuckled hands and feet tipped with black claws dripping gore.

Worst of all, he stared at Gavin from a distorted face empty of recognition.  Skeletal cheekbones curved beneath hollowed out eye sockets housing radiant pinpoints of white light instead of eyes—light as cold and distant as stars.  He growled, a strange scraping noise neither animalistic nor human but something otherworldly.  Louvaen shuddered at the sight of the split mouth with its black tongue and rows of spear point teeth.  This was not a woodland’s monarch, but its demon.

“Ballard,” she said.

“No Louvaen, not any longer.”  Ambrose spoke across the clearing between Gavin and Ballard.  Like Mercer, he’d left the safety of the horse barricade and inched his way closer to them.  Shadows played across his morose features.  He stopped when Ballard turned glowing eyes on him.  The demon’s teeth snapped together in challenge, savage as any wolf trap.  He returned his attention to Gavin and repeated the action.

Gavin’s answered with a snarl, far less preternatural but just as threatening.  One taloned hand swatted the air, and he stamped a foot in the mud in warning.  Cinnia spoke softly behind him, still in the soothing voice that pleaded he remember who he was, remember his father.

“My love, you are Gavin de Lovet.  This is your home; we are your family.  Your father stands before you—the man who loves you, who protected you from Isabeau’s curse.”  She wheedled and cajoled ceaselessly, earning the swivel of his large bat-like ears as he listened to her and kept a jaundiced eye on the chimera who clawed the ground with his fingers and chittered strange noises from a ligneous throat.

Louvaen chanted “Remember, remember” to herself in a whisper.  Gavin was the final key to breaking the curse.  As a coarse brute driven by aggression and blood lust, his chances of recalling the person he’d been were improbable, yet he’d instinctively raced to Cinnia, guarding her from those he considered a threat.  Somewhere in there, a spark of the man burned.  If anyone could feed the flame, it was his wife.  A chance still existed to save one if not both men.

She gripped her father’s hand so tightly her fingers went numb.  They watched as Gavin closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head and opened them to reveal irises as green as spring.  A strangled cry caught in Louvaen’s throat as he stared at Ballard and garbled out two words distinct enough for them to understand.  “My father,” he said and dropped to his knees.

The same booming snap and concussive wave that had struck the castle when the two sisters declared their love for father and son now bounced across the bailey.  Mercer stumbled against Louvaen who canted sideways and nearly fell as a breaker of dizziness slammed into her.  The bailey distorted into a warped landscape, as if she gazed through a thick pane of wavy glass.  Curses, shouts and inhuman cries rose around her, along with the hissing of Isabeau’s bloodthirsty roses.  She struggled to stay upright and clear her already compromised vision.  Gavin remained on his knees, clutching his head and rocking back and forth in Cinnia’s arms.  That same distortion cascaded over him, changing him from beast to man and beast again.  Like Louvaen, Ambrose struggled to remain standing.  He held out his arms to balance himself and shook his head several times.

The distortion faded and the roses’ sibilant chorus died.  Louvaen clutched her father and peered into his eyes.  “Are you well?”

He nodded before exclaiming in a breathless whisper “Merciful gods, Lou.  Look!”

She followed his gaze and gasped.  The bat-wolf creature was gone.  In its place, Gavin slumped unconscious in Cinnia’s arms.  Louvaen whipped around to find Ballard.  Her jubilation shattered when she found him unchanged.  Still the abomination wrought by his long-dead wife’s hatred, he swayed and clawed at his gnarled crown.

Her voice broke on a sob.  “Let him go, Isabeau.  I beg you.”

There was no letting go, even with Isabeau’s power crushed.  Ballard had shouldered the curse’s damaging effects for too long.  Broken, it still held him in thrall.  She refused to relinquish hope.  Unlike Cinnia, she was not a tranquil woman with a comforting mien or soothing voice.  Nor was she Ballard’s wife, but if her sister’s methods had been successful with Gavin, the same might be successful with Ballard.  She had to try; she had nothing else.

“Ballard,” she said softly.  “Do you remember me, forest king?  I remember you, just as you ordered.”  She released her father to tap a finger against her chest.  “The shrew, the scold, the fishwife.  Who will make me gentle if you don’t come back to me?”

Time marched by with an old man’s shuffle.  Ballard blinked at her, the radiant eyes never darkening or showing a glint of recognition.  His skin remained bark; the teeth stayed sharp and his legs and arms thin and stiff as leafless branches.  Tears spilled down her cheeks.

Mercer touched her arm.  “It’s too late, Lou.”

“Shoot him, Louvaen.”  Ambrose’s stern command cracked across the bailey.  She jerked and glared at him from her good eye.  The flintlock rested in her grip, nearly forgotten and still fully cocked.  “Shoot him,” he repeated.  “And grant him the mercy he deserves.”

The pistol’s weight cramped her hand.  “Just a little more time,” she implored.  The curse was broken.  If they waited a few more seconds...

Gavin moaned in Cinnia’s arms.  Ballard crouched, snaking that black tongue across rutted lips.  The jagged twigs distending from his elbows and shoulder blades quivered, and the fur tufts hackled.  Behind her Cinnia screamed as he sprang forward, lunging for the helpless Gavin.

“Now, Louvaen!  Ambrose roared.  “Shoot him!”

She raised the pistol.  Half blind and shaking from the cold, she aimed at the leaping monstrosity and pulled the trigger.  Light burst from the pan in a shower of sparks.  She turned her face away from the bright powder flash as the pistol fired.  She caught only a glimpse of a hurtling dark shape flung backward.  A grunt and a thud from something hitting the ground followed.

The gun slipped from her fingers, barely missing her toes as it fell.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Louvaen stared numbly at the still figure huddled in the snow like so much deadfall.  The tears she’d shed had dried, and she stood rooted in place as Ambrose sprinted past her, cloak flapping behind him as he sank to his knees beside his fallen master.  Cinnia called her name, but she ignored her, along with the biting cold, her father’s gentle murmurs and the absolute silence from the thorny tapestry of roses.  Only her voice echoed in her head, accusing, relentless.  “
You killed him.
 
You killed him.
”

“Louvaen, I need you.”  Ambrose’s voice cut through the accusations like a sharp blade.”

She bristled, outrage incinerating the numbness.  She’d played executioner once.  She wouldn’t do it again.  “I’ll not shoot him a second time, magician.”

“Quit arguing, woman!  Come!”

Despite wanting to run away and screech her grief until she was hoarse, Louvaen joined Ambrose where he knelt by Ballard.  Shock made her stagger when she looked down at her lover—naked, gaunt, bloody—and very much alive.  More blood ran crimson in the snow around him and streamed through Ambrose’s fingers where his hands wrapped around Ballard’s thigh.  She’d aimed for his chest and shot him in the leg.  The sorcerer scowled at her.

“Don’t just stand there like an imbecile,” he snapped.  “Help me.”  She dropped next to him, gawking so hard at Ballard’s face that she was barely aware of Ambrose’s bloodied hands guiding hers to Ballard’s leg.  “Press tight to slow the bleeding,” he instructed.  She followed his direction while he tore a strip of cloth from his cloak and tucked it around the wound.  “Good thing you aren’t as precise with a pistol as you are with your kicks,” he said.

He motioned Mercer over.  “Louvaen’s father?”  The other man nodded.  “I’ll want your help in a moment.  Stay with Louvaen for now.  I need to see to Gavin and bring Magda from the bower.  She’s guarding the other women and is the healer here.”  He strode to where Cinnia huddled with Gavin.

Mercer settled next to Louvaen.  “You might have told me, daughter.”  He stroked her hair.  “Did I miss two weddings?”

“No.  I’m still Thomas Duenda’s widow.”

“And Ballard de Sauveterre’s mistress?”  Her silence answered his question, so he asked another one.  “Do you love him?”

Louvaen leaned down and brushed her lips across Ballard’s forehead.  “Oh yes.”

She inhaled sharply when Ballard’s lids twitched open.  Dark and liquid, his eyes stared at her with a puzzled expression that sharpened for a moment.  He wet his dry lips with a pink tongue and swallowed.  “You’re a dangerous woman to love, Louvaen Duenda,” he said in a raspy voice.  His eyes glazed over before rolling back, and he slipped into oblivion once more.

All the tears she thought dried or frozen inside her spilled down her face.  She laughed and sobbed while her father patted her lightly on the back.  Magda and Ambrose found them that way, and the housekeeper coaxed her to her feet.

She raked Louvaen with a glance.  “Girl,” she said.  “You look like you’ve been kicked by a mule.  Go to the kitchens and wait for Clarimond.  She’ll take care of you once we get Gavin and the
dominus
inside.

Louvaen balked.  “I want to help.”

“You’ll help by staying out of the way.  Now do what I say.”

Louvaen knew when she was defeated.  With a last lingering look at Ballard, she trudged to the kitchens and found them a shambles of overturned furniture and broken crockery.  The table had been flipped to its side and shoved against the wall.  Shards of a shattered wine crock littered the floor, and she picked her way carefully through the ruins to right a chair and sit down.  Gavin or Ballard must have vented their rage in the kitchen before they burst into bailey.  Louvaen slumped in her seat, exhaustion sweeping through her now that she no longer acted under the feverish impetus of desperation.  Clarimond found her sliding half out of the chair and rescued her from a thump to the floor.

“You’re in a sorry state, mistress.  Stay put, and I’ll get you settled straight away.”

Louvaen sat limply in the chair while Clarimond swept up the crockery pieces and set water to heat.  She washed Louvaen’s bloody hands and bathed her face, clucking in sympathy at her blackened eye and bruised mouth.  The clucking changed to an indignant sputter when she stripped Louvaen of her muddied night rail and saw the welts and purple contusions stippled across her left side.  “A bath will be painful, mistress,” she warned.

She shivered.  “Please, I need to bathe.”  She’d stand in an ice storm if it meant she could wash away Jimenin’s touch.  Her skin still crawled at the memory of the hours spent against him in the saddle.

Clarimond had gentle hands, but Louvaen thanked the gods when the bath was over.  Her knees knocked together; she needed to sit before she fell.  The servant dressed her in one Cinnia’s shifts and tossed a blanket over her shoulders.

“Come mistress,” she said and nudged her toward the great hall.  “Your room is unchanged.  You can rest.  I’ll bring you a warm drink once you’re in bed.”

They stepped into a whirlwind of activity.  Mercer helped a semi-conscious Gavin upstairs while Joan ran past them for the bailey, arms heaped with bandages.  Louvaen waved her father on when he halted at the mezzanine, bowed under by Gavin’s weight.  “Go on, Papa,” she called out.  “I’m well.”

She paused, drawn to the hall’s open door and those who tended Ballard outside.  Clarimond gave her a slight push.  “They’ve done this before, mistress.  As soon as I know something I’ll tell you.”

Resigned to waiting, Louvaen nodded and climbed the stairs.  She was drunk with fatigue by the time Clarimond tucked her in and turned her attention to lighting the hearth.  She barely heard the door close behind her before she fell asleep to the image of bright blood on snow and the echo of a pistol shot.

The scrape of a chair across the floor woke her, and she discovered Cinnia, gilded in streamers of watery pink light, sitting by her bed.  She placed a hand on Louvaen’s shoulder to keep her from sitting up.  “You need to rest, Lou.”

Louvaen shrugged her off.  “What time is it?”

“A little after dawn.  You slept the whole night.”

Her stomach lurched.  She only meant to sleep an hour or two.  She yanked the covers off, startled into full wakefulness by the sudden draft of cold air hitting her body.  “Where’s Ballard?”  She swung out of bed and stood, only to stagger.  Her head swam, and her side throbbed.

“You are the most stubborn woman I know.”  Cinnia left her seat and pushed Louvaen into it.  “Must I tie you to the bed?”

“Yes.”  She’d shot her lover last night.  She should be at his bedside.  Her heart pounded in her chest at the thought she might also stand at his graveside before this was over.

Cinnia sighed.  “De Sauveterre is in Ambrose’s room right now.  Magda’s taking care of him.”  She shrugged at Louvaen’s questioning gaze.  “Those nasty roses took over the entire solar, including his bedchamber.  I’ll be glad when we rake them out and burn them.”

Louvaen remembered how the roses had hissed and writhed in a murderous frenzy the night before and then went abruptly silent at the snap of the curse’s last binding.  “Are they dead?  The roses I mean.”

“Quite.”  Cinnia draped one of the blankets over Louvaen’s shoulders and handed her a cup of lukewarm ale.  Her brown eyes watered, and she raised a hand to trace a ghostly outline of her sister’s features.  “Oh Lou, your poor face.”

Louvaen shrugged and sipped her drink.  She thought her face a vast improvement from the previous night.  This morning she’d been able to open both eyes.  “Tell me what happened while I slept.”

“A lot of running up and down the stairs for things Magda needs to tend de Sauveterre.  Ambrose has been wearing a path in the floor between his chamber and Gavin’s.

“And Papa?”  Louvaen would never forget the expression on his face after he’d stabbed Jimenin.  One more reason to hate the vile tarse.  He’d forced her gentle father to kill.

Cinnia took her empty cup and set it on a nearby table.  “Well enough considering.  He’s in the kitchen right now with Joan and Clarimond.  They’ve taken him under their wings while you’ve slept and I’ve been with Gavin.”  She grinned, her eyes sparkling.  “Gavin’s himself, Lou.  Exhausted but that’s all.”  She grabbed Louvaen’s hand, squeezing her fingers.  “The curse is truly broken.”

Louvaen kissed the back of her sister’s hand.  She was overjoyed for Cinnia who now had a chance to live a happy life with a man devoted to her and to whom she was equally devoted.  Her joy, however, carried the taint of envy.  She wanted the same with the master of Ketach Tor.  Cinnia’s news made her even more determined to see him.

“Help me dress,” she said and stood a second time, more slowly.

“Lou, I don’t think...”

“Don’t argue with me, Cinnia.  If it were Gavin in his father’s place, you wouldn’t be lounging in bed either.”

With that, Cinnia bowed to her sister’s wishes.  She dressed Louvaen in one of her frocks, scowling at the too-short hem.  “You look like you pilfered a child’s wardrobe.”  Her scowl deepened.  “I can’t believe they brought you here without shoes!”

Considering Jimenin had almost brought her here without teeth, Louvaen wasn’t too indignant about her lack of footwear.  “Give me a pair of your woolens.  They’ll keep my feet warm until I can borrow shoes that fit.”

They debated briefly over her hair, a spectacular snarl of elf-locked mats.

Louvaen dodged a brush-wielding Cinnia.  “It’ll take too long.  I’m not attending a royal ball to lure a prince!  Just help me pin it up.”

They bickered the entire way to Ambrose’s rooms as Cinnia tried to mother her and Louvaen resisted the mothering.  She raised her fist to pound on Ambrose’s door.

“I’ll do it.”  Cinnia pulled her away.  “Your ham-fisted methods will guarantee he won’t let you across the threshold.”  She knocked—three light raps.  There were a few quiet moments before the door opened and Ambrose stared at them stone-faced.

Unfazed by his lack of greeting and forbidding stance, Cinnia smiled sweetly.  “Good morning, Ambrose.”

Louvaen, desperate to see Ballard, met Ambrose’s gaze.  “Please, Ambrose.”  Like Cinnia’s knock, it was a simple, restrained request.  To her surprise he nodded and stepped aside.

They passed him and entered a cozy antechamber redolent with the scents of spice and candle wax.  The room was a magpie’s nest of tables crowded with scrolls and grimoires, glass vials and bottles full of liquids or dried bits of macabre oddities.  Small heaps of herbs shared space on a sideboard with mortars and pestles of various sizes.  Garlands of garlic  and dried violets hung from hooks in the ceiling.  Coals glowed orange in a corner brazier, and from that black latten rose undulating wraiths of pungent smoke tinged blue with magic.  They had entered a sorcerer’s lair.

Any other time and Louvaen would have trampled Cinnia trying to leave.  Now her only concern was getting through the second door near the brazier.

The sorcerer motioned for them to follow as he led them to his bedroom.  He allowed the women ahead of him into a room reeking of blood, unguent, beeswax and tallow.  Even at this early hour, the chamber was brightly lit by oil lamps and candles, and a fire crackled in another bigger brazier covered by a grate on which a kettle and cauldron heated.  Magda bent over the grate and tossed a handful of herbs into the cauldron.

The housekeeper skipped the customary greeting and pointed to the bed.  “There’s a stool for you.  You can talk to him, but he won’t answer.  He hasn’t moved, even when I dug the ball out of his leg.”

Louvaen flinched at Magda’s words.

Ambrose’s bed was a smaller version of Ballard’s—high built with a canopy and brocade curtains on three sides to hold in the warmth.  Those had been shifted to the corners, giving her an uninterrupted view of Magda’s patient.  He lay along one side of the bed, bundled in covers except for one leg equally swathed in bandages from upper thigh to just above his knee.  A circular patch of blood stained the linen where she’d wounded him.  He breathed deeply, the covers over his chest rising and falling in slow rhythm.  She claimed Magda’s seat next to him so she could hear him breathe and assure herself he still lived.

She had never known him as a ruddy or swarthy man—and winter had washed them all pale—but he was ghastly against the pillows.  The curse had given his skin a wan cast.  Even with it broken, he still sported the pallor of a man who courted death.  Dark smudges bruised the thin skin below his eyes and deepened the valleys beneath his cheekbones.  His lips were bleached of color, contrasting with the shadow of a new beard.  The runic scars were gone as were most of those that mirrored the roses’ thorny vines.  The few remaining had faded to blend with the ones he’d carried home from the battlefield centuries earlier.