Kissing the Bride (Medieval 4)

How had he escaped? But then Jean-Paul seemed to have a miraculous ability to escape justice.

It had been an eventful night.

He had told Jenova the worst about himself and she had not turned away from him. She had understood. It did not matter to her that in the end he had failed to save those poor souls; she had thought he was brave and strong. You were only a boy, she had said. She’d forgiven him, when he had had such difficulty forgiving himself, and her forgiveness had helped him begin his own healing.

She loved him.

After all these long years, Henry had found his place in the world. Not at court, where he had imagined that taking a new woman as his mistress every month was a good sort of life. Now he knew differently. He had not allowed himself to feel, probably not since he had left Jenova’s home in Normandy all those years ago. Now he knew what he had been missing, and he meant to hold on to it. Tightly.

“My lord! There it is!”

They were upon the clifftop, and Henry could see down to the harbor. There was the boat, one of the clumsy-looking traders, but it was still tied up to the wharf. Although the captain and crew were clearly preparing to leave, there was a problem, and Henry could see what it was.

The stallion.

Jean-Paul’s stallion resented being forced to board the vessel via the narrow boardwalk set from the wharf to the boat. One man was presently holding the reins as another was attempting to coax the animal from behind, while Jean-Paul moved back and forth, trying to urge his horse aboard through sheer force of will.

At that moment the stallion lashed out and the man behind fell, screaming, to the ground. The animal reared, clearly terrified, while Jean-Paul tried to calm it, his black robes flapping in the wind.

Henry took the track down, riding dangerously fast, feeling Lamb’s powerful body beneath him as they flew over stones and bracken and uneven ground. When he reached the sand dunes, he could see that the stallion was back on the wharf and Jean-Paul and the captain of the vessel were in close conversation. Henry pushed forward again.

The crew saw him. He could see the faces of the seamen lift in his direction as they paused in their work. Somebody shouted and pointed. The priest turned and went still, his black cloak drawn close about him, faceless behind his cloth mask. And then in an instant he had thrust his foot into the stirrup and mounted upon his stallion’s back.

“Halt!” Henry called.

Jean-Paul let the stallion dance nervously beneath him, but Henry wasn’t fooled into thinking he would not try to escape. “Henri, of course,” Jean-Paul sneered. “We meet here, at the end of the story, as is only right. Did you know that Baldessare set me free? He wanted to kill me. Why was that, do you think?”

“Souris? It is you, isn’t it? I know it is you.”

The priest tilted his head. “You know nothing.” His voice was harsh. “You understand nothing, Henri!”

“I took away your father, and you hate me for it. But I looked for you, Souris, even after you hurt the girl, I looked for you. I could not find you in your room.”

Henry was closer now. He saw Souris’ shoulders shake. Damn him! Why did he think it so funny? “I wasn’t in my room,” he said, his voice surprisingly clear, despite the wind and the mask. “I was with her. The girl. She was nearly dead, but I wanted to be sure. I wanted to see if I could make her scream one last time. I was with her when you murdered my father and burned down my home.”

Henry was chilled, sickened. He knew then that Jenova was right. He was not like Souris, he never had been. The horrors he had seen had, for a time, numbed him into thinking he did not care. Into thinking he was like Thearoux’s band, enjoying cruelty and pain for their own sake.

But he wasn’t.

As he stared at Souris, unable to answer, the priest removed his hood. The scars were obsc

enely stark in the bright morning air. Far worse than Henry had imagined, they distorted the face that should have been. It was Souris, and yet not. And then the priest turned his head, and the other side of his face became visible, and it was untouched.

Henry knew him. With a dizzy wave of recognition, he saw the boy he had hated and feared, and yet who had been his friend in all those awful months at the château.

“I was burned,” Souris said. “I thought I would die. I lay in the ruins and thought I was dying, and that you had left me to die. I knew you’d gone. Henri the avenging angel! Only you could have done such a thing as burn down le château de Nuit.”

“You should have died.” There was no pity in him for Souris, not now.

Souris held his stallion firm. The ship’s crew had finished their work, and the vessel was ready to leave. “Ho, Priest!” The captain stepped nearer, eyeing the horse warily. “We must go. If you still want to take passage with us, then you must board now. I will take you, but the beast must stay—he has injured one of my men.”

Souris gave him a bleak look. “I will not leave my horse. He is my friend.”

The captain shrugged indifferently and turned away, calling to his men to cast off.

Henry tried again. “Souris…”

Souris turned to him, and his ruined mouth was working. “I would have! I would have died! Do you know how I was saved? Oh, you will laugh, Henri, when I tell you. The villagers came, those poor creatures whose lives we had tormented for so long. They came creeping about the ruins of le château de Nuit, thinking to make certain everyone was dead. And then they found me.