“I would ask you to forgive my behaviour last night.” He held up a hand to curtail her premature response. “You entered my chamber when you should have not, but I frightened you, made you think that I cared not for you. My feelings toward you are unchanged. I had a waking nightmare, as I do most nights, and that is why I sleep alone. It is for your protection.”
He waited. Her dainty teeth chewed on her lip.
“What do you want from me, Gervais? My love? My body?”
“All these things,” he said emphatically. “But at the moment, your forgiveness.”
“Then I give it. But that is not itself sufficient. No more lying to me. Why do you have these strange dreams and why do they alter you?”
He rose and slipped onto the chair behind him. He wove his fingers together and hung them loose between his knees. Could she understand the nature of the beast? Was it possible for her to calm it?
“Marriage will be my salvation. In that fate, I pin my hope,” he confessed.
“Salvation from what? You speak in riddles. Love is what marriage should bring, yet you make no mention of it.” Haughty Matilda had returned, which was not unexpected. She held his gaze steady in her own. Over a matter of weeks, she had matured, and grown in womanly abilities, but still she was ignorant of the world beyond her upbringing. Only the spell at the convent had enlightened her sufficiently for Gervais to believe she might pass the trials needed for her to become his wife.
“I find it hard to tell you. I am a man of few words when it comes to explaining my mind, my reasons for acting so unnatural last night. I am not a fully formed man, not in the way you understand. Part of me has been taken and I cannot reclaim it, not without your help possibly. I don’t know, to be honest, if marrying you will work out. I pray in my own fashion, that I
can discover this love you pine for, and hope it will bring me peace.”
Matilda laid open her palms. “For God’s sake, just tell me. What is it that you are? A knight? A soldier? A hunter?”
“All three. I am also... a Zalim, a beast.” He watched the strangeness of his words form puzzlement on her face. She neatly furrowed her trimmed eyebrows and frowned.
“I don’t understand,” she said, as he expected. “You are like any man, I believe.”
“In my flesh. But my soul has been given away.”
Her face fell, downcast and saddened. “You are the devil’s—”
He chuckled. “No, no. At least, not as he would like, I’m sure. For the devil would not be happy that I imprison myself in my room, or that I have forsaken my fellow Zalims, and have given up the hunt.”
She rolled her eyes a fraction, then brought them back to his observant stare. “I wish I knew of what you are speaking. Do you want my love or not?”
“I do,” he said humbly. “But first, you must read something. It is fortunate that you can both read and write, as many of your fair sex have not learnt to do.”
“My father, and my mother in her kinder days, were both insistent that I am educated. But the convent only gave me a psalter to read.”
“Then you will find my story different.” He rose. “Go to my private solar, and there on my writing table, you will find a few sheets of my writing. Read them. I shall wait here for you.”
She hesitated, then with a shrug of her taut shoulders, she left him. It was some time before she returned.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I belonged to a mercenary brotherhood—the Order of Zalim, which not only trained the best fighters and huntsmen, but excelled in the pursuit of women in the form of secret games. The purpose of the hunt is to capture willing women, young courageous virgins or unmarried maidens with stout hearts and vigour. The winning knight was entitled to her as a prize for as long as he wished. Women, some of noble rank, volunteer; some are proposed by fathers hoping for a good match with a knight of the Order, for the brethren are of warriors of repute, and rich, too. The Order’s hunts are organised once or twice a year and take place across the eastern provinces in wild places. Occasionally the Order is called to a city, and the hunt is permitted by the city burghers who have sons wanting to join the Order and wish to avail themselves of the Grand Master. There is always a feast afterwards during which the losers drown their sorrows and the winner exhibits his prize, and not always in a manner that is not fitting to the lady’s rank. But she cares little given the prestige of the hunt.
As for the nature of the hunt. We knights are given clues to follow, which invariably leads us to a castle, or a forest or isolated coastline, and there we track down the woman and if a hunter sees her, he can claim her as his. Initially I, a young man, thought it a heartless barbaric game, but when I discovered the daughter of one of the duke’s esteemed courtesans had contacted the Order and proposed herself as a prize, I decided to take part in her hunt. I won and took the woman as my mistress, and since she had an accomplished, worldly mother to educate her, I learnt much from my mistress. We parted company, so that she might choose a husband for love. For you see, the hunt does not bring love, only a hunger for more. A hunted woman is highly desired by men, for though she is no longer a virgin, she has been claimed by a Zalim. No man can match a Zalim; they can only try, and hope she will love him.
I participated in several hunts, winning two more, gaining a reputation as a worthy Zalim. You must be assured that the women are suitably chosen; whether virgin or not, it is their guile and willingness that is coveted. I then discovered informal hunts were taking place involving some of the Order’s less accomplished knights. To my shame, and driven by an unresolved need in me, I joined one hunt in a dark forest that covers the eastern boundaries where the steppes meet the woods, and discovered the woman chosen was inexperienced.
She was hunted naked, her body painted. Sadly, I was caught up in the thrill, hungry for the excitement of winning her. As I gave chase, the guilt consumed me, altering me. A cruel baron, one who tortured his captives, and whom the Order shunned, snatched her just before I had her safely in my hands. She was an innocent, and tricked into participating, and I pursued the baron and rescued her before the man ruined her. The fight resulted in mortal wounds for the baron. The beautiful girl was grateful and willingly offered herself to me, but I refused, realising the beast she had awoken in me was one I could not control if I continued these hunts. Such is its nature; it takes away a man’s reasoning, and brings no joy to him without the thrill of the hunt. I took her to her grateful family, who offered me a place to stay while I considered my future.
I decided to leave the Order and return to my old company of mercenaries. However, the Order is for life, and I was drawn to return by haunting dreams of the hunt, the nightly visits of the Zalim, and anonymous letters insisting I fulfil my destiny. I avoided the Order, a risk I was willing to take. Rising to a high rank in a company of mercenaries helped me learn to control the beast in me, and throughout those long campaigns, I grew wiser, and kept to casual lovers to help my urges.
But the Order’s demands tempted me with one pursuit in a city, and not a wild forest, and I believed it would satisfy my appetites without unleashing the full nature of the Zalim. The quest was a lady of a noble house, whose father was also a member of the Order. I learnt in the days before that a good friend had joined the Order and would be in the hunt. I tried to persuade him not to take part, knowing how the Zalim took hold and would not let go, but my friend was besotted with the young woman, who was equally caught up in the thrill. I chose not to participate directly but watched my friend’s back as the hunt became increasing desperate and violent in the streets and rooftops of the city. When my friend reached the house where the girl was hiding, he was ambushed by four other knights, led by the son of the baron I killed. Their revenge was to throw my friend off the roof. He died in my arms, leaving me guilt-stricken. In anger, I chased after the men, preventing them from reaching the woman and killed them all. And so I came to find her first, and therefore she was my prize. She expected me to claim her there and then, as is the tradition, and I was nearly overcome by the beast, but at the last moment, I saw in her eyes that what I feared. She was in lust, not love, and I was no longer willing to take what was not mine. I abandoned my fighting life, and accepted the reward of this castle that had been awaiting my retirement and the fall from the Order’s grace.
Then I met you, Matilda. My heart has awoken to new feelings, emotions that no Zalim can master. I have hope again.
She clutched the paper in her white-knuckled fist and stormed into the hall where Gervais waited by the great fireplace and oriel window.