Chapter Twenty-Two #2
He led his horse forward. The time for questioning was long gone. And Madelaine could very well be within those walls.
He waved to the sentry on duty, as he always did when entering. The man, Petrus was his name—Christien was shocked he remembered—waved back with a half-hearted effort, his expression grim.
Christien led his horse to the stables where a boy, no more than ten years of age, took it from him.
Ten years old. In modern days that would equate to child labor and the parents would be hauled in front of a judge to answer to their neglect.
In this day, the child was paying his own way through servitude.
Probably had been for a few years and would for the rest of his life.
As he passed through the bailey, Christien recognized and waved to different people, feeling as if he were having an out-of-body experience.
There were few smiles and almost no laughter.
It’d been that way at the castle because the count made it that way, but today seemed a little more somber than most. A feeling of foreboding overcame him but he shoved it away, not willing to acknowledge what his mind was trying to tell him.
Christien wanted to stop someone and ask them what day it was but that would lead to questions he couldn’t answer so he kept moving toward the castle doors. Was Madelaine on the other side of those doors?
If she was, he had to remember she wasn’t the same Madelaine of modern day, but the scared girl she’d become from living with her husband and fighting off Lucien.
Women gathered at the well, dipping buckets in while children chased each other around their legs.
A piglet squealed and took off running, its eyes rounded in terror.
The women didn’t laugh, didn’t linger to pass on the latest gossip.
Their looks were dispirited, their eyes darting around as if they were afraid.
Christien pulled open the front door and strode into the dark hall where silence hung heavy.
The count stood at the cold hearth, head bent, shoulders bowed. Lucien stood beside him, leaning close, speaking to him in earnest whispers.
Christien stepped up and cleared his throat, searching for the appropriate words. It’d been a long time since he’d had to show obeisance to anyone and he found the act grating.
Lucien’s head jerked up, his eyes flaring in panic before narrowing in hatred. ’Twas the panic that interested Christien the most.
“My lord,” Christien said in Norman French, the words flowing from his lips as if he hadn’t spent the past few hundred years speaking modern English. He bowed to the count, despising every minute of it.
The count’s eyes were red-rimmed and watery. “Sir Knight,” he said softly. The stench of alcohol rose off him and Christien stepped back.
He was uncertain of what to say, how to ask what was wrong. Except he knew. In his heart he knew what had put the grief on the man’s face. He was too late to save Madelaine.
Lucien moved toward Christien. It took everything in Christien not to step away from the foul smell of the priest.
“Her ladyship is dead.” His eyes shone with an unholy light as he watched Christien closely, waiting for a reaction.
But Christien had been prepared and he carefully schooled his expression while inside he was screaming in agony.
“My condolences to my lordship. May I ask how she died?”
“Riding accident,” Lucien said. The count didn’t look up.
Was he so upset at her death? ’Twas common knowledge he had many mistresses, including Giselle.
And Christien knew the man beat Madelaine and abused her both physically and mentally, but in this day, that wasn’t unusual.
Besides, Madelaine was more of a political conquest than a wife and the count would be worried if he lost his one connection to the throne.
“When?” Christien forced the word through a thick throat.
“A sennight ago,” Lucien said.
Christien stepped back from what felt like a body blow.
A week ago. She’d been dead an entire week.
He took a deep breath, controlling his rage and the urge to strike down Lucien.
Mon Dieu. Could he not save her just once?
His sense of déjà vu was disquieting, but he forced himself to remember his mission.
Kill Lucien and Giselle. Not because they were going to become immortal, but because they’d murdered Madelaine.
If his mission had changed, what did it matter now? Either way, they were dead.
“What happened?” he asked.
“She fell from her horse and broke her neck,” Lucien said, lacing sorrow into his voice.
More than likely she broke her neck at the hands of Giselle. Christien bit his tongue from saying what he really wanted to say. Instead he looked more closely at Lucien, trying to remember what Madelaine told him about the fight. A welt on Lucien’s temple had turned an ugly yellow and green.
“What happened to your head?” With a lift of his chin, Christien indicated the injury.
Lucien shrugged. “I was searching for the countess and wasn’t paying proper attention.”
“Is that so?” Christien suffused just enough disbelief into his voice to warn Lucien he didn’t buy the story.
For a moment, panic brightened Lucien’s eyes but he quickly masked it by lowering his lids and looking down at his shoes. “The castle is in mourning,” he said sorrowfully. “Our countess will be most missed.”
“I’m sure she will,” Christien muttered, turning away because he couldn’t stand to look at Lucien any longer. He clenched his jaw to keep from crying out at the pain inside him.
He had returned the exact same day he’d returned the first time, which meant in the next twenty-four hours he would be called back to Paris. He squared his shoulders. He had twenty-four hours to get this deed done. He would not need all of that.
Christien struggled to swallow the pork-filled meat pie. Contrary to modern belief, the food in the Middle Ages was quite delicious, well spiced and flavorful, but Christien was unable to stomach it today. Not while Madelaine’s hypocritical murderer stood at the dais reading from the Bible.
However, the men beside him had no problem eating, shoving the food into their mouths, wiping their greasy lips on their sleeves. Christien well remembered the hunger plaguing the warriors and didn’t blame them for their ill-manners.
A man plopped down in the vacant seat next to him and Christien recognized his old friend Durant de Mercier.
He grinned at Christien and slapped him on the back.
No words were exchanged for no one spoke while Lucien read in his tedious, monotonous tone.
Christien smiled back at Durant, his heart suddenly lightened by the presence of an ally in what he considered enemy territory.
Durant was an odd juxtaposition—a quiet, prayerful monk who turned vicious on the battlefield.
A wine maker from the monastery of Burgundy, Durant felt God’s call to arms and turned his back on his grapes to join the Crusades.
Christien longed to tell him that the Pinot Noir grapes he’d cultivated would later become some of the most celebrated wines of the modern era.
Of course Christien couldn’t tell Durant that and Durant would never know, for in a few days Philip’s men would round up Durant and his fellow knights and torture them for the secrets of the Templars.
Heart heavy, Christien vividly recalled the nights both during battle and between battles that he and Durant spent under the stars.
Durant would talk of his beloved vineyards and the various types of soil used to grow different varieties of grapes.
Christien had learned more about wine-making from Durant than in the entire seven hundred years of his life.
Durant ate quietly and with the manners their neighbors lacked. Christien tucked into his own food, forcing it down his throat. This would be his last hot meal for some time and he should at least fortify himself for what was to come.
“‘And I looked, and behold a pale horse and his name that sat on him was Death.’”
Christien’s head jerked up, meeting Lucien’s implacable gaze. The man was reading from the Book of Revelation. A cold feeling slithered through Christien’s veins.
The meal continued, annoying Christien as time dragged. He hated that he was bound to this table, that he was forbidden to rise and leave without permission.
Occasionally Lucien would glance at him, panic in his eyes. When their gazes locked, Lucien’s voice trembled slightly or he’d lose his place in the book. No one else seemed to notice, but Christien did and he played on the man’s fear, holding his gaze steady, letting his anger show.
Lucien dropped his gaze to the book and paused, searching for his place. He cleared his throat. “‘And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.’”
Christien winced, the words hitting a little too close to home. He desired death now and it fled from him. He pushed his food away. Durant arched his brow and grabbed the pie, devouring it as he had his own.
Movement from the corner of his eye had Christien turning to see Giselle slip into the hall and stand in the shadows.
She looked the same as she would seven hundred years in the future.
Same thick, long almost-white hair. Same translucent skin.
Same haughty demeanor even though she was less than a servant here.
She lifted her chin, appearing to ignore the lustful stares of the other knights.
They were sworn to celibacy but that didn’t mean they didn’t think about sex, and Giselle, with her low bodice and pouty lips, exuded sex.