Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
P hilip would always remember the look on Melisende’s face in that moment. Soft as a miracle, suffused with wonder.
He kissed her, and this time she kissed him back. And not a distracted, ‘you’ve done well’ kiss. A kiss that turned hungry in an instant. She dug her fingers into the collar of his coat and he hauled her toward him, mouths and bodies crashing together. It was a triumphant, dominating kiss, and need for her roared through him.
Never mind that he’d been sated with her less than an hour ago. He would never get enough of this woman. And she wanted him with equal fervor.
But how to make her need him? Choose him, above all others?
She broke away, cheeks flushed, her eyes on the shelf and its treasure. “How will we get up there?”
Philip scanned the wall. “There are handholds carved into the stone. I can reach.”
She went to the grate, facing east, where a band of silver above the mountains promised dawn. The thick iron grate, rusty with age and wear, covered most of the circular opening, leaving only an inch or two at the bottom for liquid and sludge to escape. Not enough space to admit a person, and certainly not the chest.
“There is a path that runs alongside the castle wall and up to the postern gate. We can take the chests inside there, if only we could get through this grate.” She laid her hands on the iron bars and shook them in anger.
“It’s a portcullis,” Philip said, coming to stand beside her.
“Is it?”
“Your clever ancestors knew that every entrance point weakens a castle’s defenses, thus the grate. But they also realized there might be times they needed to admit more water through the sewer. Or, if the castle were overtaken by an enemy, slip soldiers inside.” He pointed to the arch above the opening. “I made myself familiar with all the mechanisms when I was prowling the grounds. This is a portcullis, and the winch is—ah, yes. There on the other side of this sluice, inconveniently.”
He pointed to the set of iron gears and rope hung on the opposite wall. “I imagine there are other access points than the drain in your dungeon. Your ancestors seemed to be rather clever builders—learned a great deal from the Romans.”
“We will need help carrying the chests, but who will be outside at this hour? And what if the noise alerts Carinthia or his guards?”
Philip whistled, and in a suspiciously short amount of time, a boy in a shepherd’s coat and breeches scrambled noisily down the grassy slope of the mountain. His eyes flared wide when he spotted them.
“Good morn,” Melisende whispered. “I am Melisende of Merania. My friend and I would like to leave this passage. Can you help us lift the gate?”
Whites of his eyes showing through the shadow, the boy stumbled back up the slope as fast as his feet would carry him. Philip clenched his jaw.
“Well, that explains how your dear brother knows everything we are doing. And thus departs the element of surprise.”
She leaned her forehead on the iron grate. “Now what?”
His chest clenched. He would not let her be defeated. Not when she’d at last achieved her prize.
“I find one of our men.” He pursued his lips and let out a long oo-hoo . Chilly morning air touched his face while they waited.
Melisende lifted her head. “You have a pet eagle-owl?”
“Of a sort.” After a few moments another boy slid down the slope, gravel rattling beneath his feet. One of the Huber children, Jan, whom Philip knew to be trustworthy.
The boy’s eyes widened too, but he didn’t run. “Herzogin! ”
Philip crossed the drain, consigning his boots to be ruined, and with a few heaves managed to get the winch creaking. Pushing from the outside, Jan helped lift the grate far enough that he could wiggle inside. Philip slogged back across the emptied channel and braced his damp boots into the handholds in the wall, knowing that if he slipped on the damp stone, he’d break a bone and possibly his neck in the fall, and what use would he be to anyone then?
Carefully he handed the chests down to Melisende and Jan. Two were a strain, and one very heavy. They carried them outside and set them on the damp grass of the mountain, and Philip inspected the locks.
“I don’t suppose you have a hairpin, my love?”
She tugged at her bodice and produced one of the steel pins that held her stomacher to the front of her gown, which was torn, ragged, and filthy from dungeon and sewer. “I’m reminded of how we first met.”
Philip smiled at the memory. “My clever, wonderful Melisende. You deserve to be a queen.” He took the opportunity to kiss her soundly on the lips. The Huber boy whistled through his teeth and looked away.
“Grand duchess, I hope.” She sank to her knees beside him as he worked the locks.
“Empress, at the least.” Philip called upon his ancestors to send their strength and not shame him before this woman, Jan Huber, and three simple wooden chests. “Pity the books didn’t carry the key with them. ’Tis a simple pipe key, from the looks of things. I don’t suppose you found one lying around?”
“I’d have my chatelaine about me if the nasty man who put me in the oubliette hadn’t taken my keys away with him,” she said sweetly. “But I believe there are spares hanging in the scullery. Shall I run on and fetch them for you?”
He grinned back at her taunt. “Hold a moment. I’m not worth my pay if I cannot—there,” he said with satisfaction as the lock creaked. The iron made a further groan as he prised open the lock, then the lid, heavy for its size. The chests were thick pine that had withstood age and damp, keeping the contents inside nearly as fresh as the day they’d been secreted away.
Philip opened all three lids and then stepped back to let Melisende have the first look.
The expression on her face was worth everything.
The first chest held the pieces taken from the altar of the chapel, including the vessels used for mass. Gold, or gold-plated silver, Philip guessed, delicate and ornate. A few jeweled pieces, necklaces and such, lay nestled among the liturgical linens.
The second, heaviest chest held lumpy cloth bags that were, upon closer inspection, filled with coins, gold, silver, bronze, and copper. The treasury of a kingdom.
The third chest, the lightest, held documents, some bound in leather folios atop which sat several scroll-sized leather tubes. One gave a hollow clack when Melisende shook it. Philip worked off the lid, and she withdrew the scroll inside.
Three strings fell from the rolled vellum, dangling large, impressive looking seals. The seals of an empire.
Her voice was hushed in the still mountain air, and her eyes glittered like dew on the meadows.
“It exists,” she whispered. “It’s real.”
“Open it,” Philip urged.
“I don’t dare expose it to air. Not this air. I’ll take it inside, to my chamber.” She reinserted the scroll in its holder, reattached the top, and shoved everything down the bodice of her gown, behind her loosened stomacher.
“I—” Philip didn’t dare protest. “Not a pocket?”
“Pockets can be cut.” She turned to Jan and spoke with him in Ladin. Philip was learning to recognize the musical sounds of the language, familiar but just beyond his comprehension. Melisende led the way, and they carried the three chests up to the postern gate, where a wooden door waited, barred and spiked.
“Well, that’ll keep the worst of them out,” Philip said, taking a minute to spring the rusted iron padlock.
“Thank heavens my ancestors only had to deal with attacking Lombards and Bohemians, and not spies,” Melisende said.
“Informant, if you please. After you.”
She held his hand as they stole up the stair of the gatehouse to the top of the curtain wall as quietly as possible. Her wrist was so delicate beneath his fingers, and he swore a vein throbbed beneath his fingers.
If she had the document, Carinthia would capitulate, wouldn’t he? He’d know he couldn’t win.
The duke waited for them on the broad, flat roof above the gatehouse. His bared sword gleamed in his hand, and his teeth gleamed in a murderous smile. He was past negotiating; that was clear in an instant. He meant to fight to the death.
Philip scanned the space quickly. A parapet, chest-high, ran along the outer edge of the roof, with notches for men to lean through, firing arrows. Here and there massive iron rings were fused into the stone, meant to anchor catapults or vats of boiling oil that would rain down on attackers. Each end of the parapet led to a tower, and on one side was a long fall into the enclosed outer ward and its hard-packed surface.
On the other side was an even longer, steeper fall into the rocky gorge and certain death.
“Clever Melisende.” The duke sneered. Philip’s German was improving; he could follow the man’s threat. “I’m going to keep you alive a bit longer, I think. But you.” The duke aimed the point of his sword toward Philip. “You, I will kill.”
“Andrej, no . You?—”
“You,” the duke barked, “will be quiet.” Two guards grabbed Melisende, one holding her hands behind her. The other roughly pulled back her hair and held a knife to her throat. She struggled, but she was no match for them. She’d been awake all night, as had Philip. She was running on nerves and exhaustion.
Philip curled his hands into fists and called on his ancestors again. Whatever fate awaited him, let it not be this, killed by a villain before the eyes of the woman he loved.
“Give me my sword,” he said low in his throat, “and you can kill me fairly.”
Melisende translated, her voice shaking. Carinthia laughed and gestured to another guard—how did villains always have an endless supply of minions? The third man brought Philip’s sword out of the solar, taking a moment to admire it.
Philip held the blade to his forehead, muttering a prayer, feeling like a knight of the old Crusades about to battle for the kingdom of heaven on earth. He was tired, hungry, and furious, and fighting a man heavier and likely stronger than he with nothing but Italian art, Spanish steel, and Irish courage.
Philip took his stance. “ En garde .”
Carinthia laughed. “The Italian school? Mincing and dancing. I will show you how the Germans fight.” He raised his longsword. Fighting two-handed, he would have more force behind his blows than Philip’s light but deadly rapier.
Philip would simply not have to be hit, then.
Carinthia was a clumsy attacker, using his weight and strength instead of strategy. Every parry shook Philip’s arm like a hammer striking an anvil. His blade hissed through the air when Philip ducked and swerved. The flat of the blade hit his thigh once after Philip turned away a thrust, and he nearly howled at the blow, staggering.
Below the belt. Carinthia wasn’t going to fight fair.
Melisende shouted something in Ladin. “Shut her up!” Carinthia ordered his guards, and the knife moved nearer her throat. Melisende watched him as if she were trying to pour strength into him. Trying to direct him where to strike, more like. She was a better swordsman than he, not stronger, but more strategic.
Finally, Philip landed a blow, a cut to the duke’s upper arm just below the shoulder. Enough to slow, if not to stop him.
“First blood!” Melisende shrieked. “Give over, Andrej. Let it be done. I have the patent. It is over anyway.”
“It is over,” Carinthia snarled, “when I have what should be mine.” That is what Philip thought he said, anyway. He concentrated on his attack, driving the man toward the wall. Carinthia’s blows were becoming broader as the heavy sword winded him, but he had the strength of a wild animal. He was desperate, or mad.
A muffled grunt, and one of the guards holding Melisende crumpled. Rudolf bolted onto the roof, Melisende’s sword in his hand.
Philip blinked in surprise and barely managed to duck a blow that would have taken off his head. Melisende’s cousin was as shabby as ever, but his face was determined.
“Carinthia!” Rudolf bellowed. “Yield or die.”
“Die!” The duke whirled, his face knit into a feral snarl, and with one mighty thrust sank his blade into Rudolf’s chest.
Melisende screamed as the tip of the sword emerged from Rudolf’s back. Her cousin, face transformed into shock and horror, fell backward against the parapet, hand clutched to the hole beside his heart.
Melisende lunged for Rudolf. The guard holding her grabbed for her skirts. The layers came away in his hand, just as she’d shucked them in the parlor of Fauconberg House so many weeks ago, showing her breeches beneath.
“Andrej, stop this!” Melisenda shrieked. “By all that is holy. Stop .”
“Will you give me the patent?” He raised his sword to her, the same wild look on his face.
She grabbed her sword from Rudolf’s limp hand and lifted the blade in return. “Never.”
“Then you all die.” Carinthia lunged.
The duke’s guards poured onto the roof, and suddenly, there was a melée. Philip lost sight of Melisende behind the blur of moving bodies. He heard Bruyit’s roar—Bruyit, going after men holding swords with his bare fists. All Philip could think was to beat them back so he could get to Melisende. She would never overcome the duke with strength, and one blow from his sword would sever or shatter a limb, or kill her.
But she knew that, too. In the glimpses between bodies he watched her working her opponent, dancing backward just beyond reach of his thrusts and swings. She held her sword in her left hand.
She was wearing him down, just as she’d done with Philip. Letting her opponent spend his energy early in the battle, while she bided her time.
But she couldn’t keep this up, not when she began at such a disadvantage. Philip had long ago felt his own weariness fall away in the bloodrush of battle, but any moment, his strength would give out. He moved almost without thought, falling back on his training as he slashed and thrust. He had to end this, and soon.
Melisende, driven backward, stepped over a fallen guard, but the man wasn’t unconscious. He swiped at her feet, and she stumbled. Carinthia’s sword dropped to her throat in an instant.
“Yield, and I show you mercy.”
“You should know something!” Philip shouted. Anything to distract the man before he sank his blade.
“What?” Carinthia wasn’t foolish enough to look his way.
“She’s not left-handed.”
Carinthia drew back his arm for the killing blow. Melisende tossed her sword to her right hand and grasped the knife from the guard’s belt with her left. She rose, blades crossed, and caught the duke’s blow as it fell. Her arms shuddered with the impact, but she held, then with a roar, pushed him back.
“It doesn’t matter,” Carinthia bellowed in German. “I’ll kill you, too.”
Philip lost sight of her as a new set of guards swarmed from the towers onto the rooftop—damn it, where were they coming from? Then he realized they weren’t wearing the duke’s insignia. Their crest was something else, a golden lion rampant on a field of red.
The crest of Merania and the House of Meinhardin. Allies. They fell upon the duke’s men, beating them back, rounding them up.
None of it mattered if Melisende died. Nothing would matter unless he could get to her. Philip clawed his way through the crush, staggering as bodies fell against him, pushing men aside, dodging blades and fists.
Melisende’s red stomacher caught his eye. She’d beaten Carinthia to the edge of the parapet and held her sword at his throat. The light of the sun rising over the mountains blazed a silver path through her black hair.
Her voice rose above the noise of battle, the voice of command. Of a queen. “Yield!”
A hand caught his collar, and Philip jolted backward. He turned, arms up, and planted a fist in the face of the guard who’d caught him. He turned back toward Melisende.
He found himself jerked backward again, and a bare blade came to rest before his throat.
“Surrender,” Carinthia croaked in his ear, “or he dies.”
Melisende froze, her eyes filling with horror.
“Drop your sword,” Carinthia ordered. “Both of you.”
Carinthia clamped one meaty arm across Philip’s chest, hand at his throat, while with the other he poised his sword an inch from Philip’s neck.
Philip, his fingers numb, released his sword to the stones with a clang. Melisende clung to hers, knife and blade still raised, looking too terrified to move. Her gaze darted from Philip’s face to the prone body of her cousin, slumped against the parapet at the duke’s feet. Agony entered her eyes.
“Let him go, Andrej.” Her voice shook. “This is between us.”
“Give me the patent and I’ll release him.”
Philip’s head pulsed with the force of blood rushing through it. “Melisende, no.”
With slow, jerky movements she dropped her sword, then the knife. She raised her hands to her stomacher.
“Don’t do it!” Philip shouted. Rage blazed through his body, not hot but sharp and cold. This villain could not take her prize . He could not have power over Melisende. He would make her life a misery.
“Don’t give him Merania! You said you’d make any sacrifice.”
“I said I would sacrifice myself,” she said, anguished. She pulled the leather tube from her bodice and held it up in her hand.
“Throw it to me,” Carinthia ordered.
Philip jerked backward against his captor, but stopped when the blade tapped his skin, cold and heavy. “Don’t, Melisende. Don’t make me the reason he wins.”
“I can’t lose you.” Melisende bent and bowled the leather tube toward the duke’s feet. It slid across the stones with a hiss.
“I told you I meant to kill him.” Carinthia lifted his blade for the slice.
Philip’s body reacted before his mind had finished the plan. He had one chance, and seconds to execute it.
He kicked out, batting the leather tube out of reach. His boot met the soft flesh of Rudolf’s thigh, and he braced his feet, throwing himself backwards, aiming at the gap in the parapet. Carinthia dropped his sword, flinging out a hand to catch himself, clutching the other around Philip’s chest. Philip turned as he fell, throwing his arms around the battlement, but Carinthia’s dead weight hung around him, and the man was already moving, already sliding across the hewn stone.
Melisende’s scream followed them over the edge.
Everything went slow and quiet as a superhuman awareness surged through him, that last indomitable will to live . His fingers scrabbled against the stone and across the iron ring at the base of the parapet. He caught the ring, then howled as Carinthia’s weight slammed them both against the stone, hearing bones crack.
As if in slow motion—everything seemed to be swimmingly slow—Rudolf’s face, etched with white lines, appeared in the gap in the parapet.
“ Los, du Drecksack ,” Rudolf said, and stabbed his knife into Carinthia’s hand.
The duke shrieked and fell. The scream lasted a long time before abruptly cutting off. Rudolf, gasping, reached down and grasped Philip’s coat.
“ Du,” he said. “ Komm hier .”
In the next instant Melisende’s face appeared next to her cousin’s. Philip had thought her wonder upon finding the chests the most beautiful expression he’d seen. Her face when she saw him dangling from the battlement surpassed that.
“Philip,” she sobbed, reaching both hands to him.
They hauled him up to safety. His body felt numb with shock, yet every sense was heightened. The scent of Melisende’s hair as she clutched him, smoke and neroli. The moans and groans of the duke’s captured guards, Meranian soldiers standing over them, speaking with the other Huber boy, who must have summoned them from town.
The mountain air touched his cheek, promising warmth after a cold night. Then Melisende’s lips met his, and that was all he wanted in the world. He felt his feet anchored to earth again. She was all he needed, this woman. His life.
“You were supposed to sacrifice me too,” he murmured. “Honor and bravery and all that.”
“No.” She shook her head, clutching him to her as if she would never let go. “I could lose everything but you.”
“That seems…” He rested his cheek on her head. She was warm and soft and everything. She was to be a grand duchess. She would have to sacrifice her personal wishes for her country, again and again. “Unduchessy.”
“You said something down there in the oubliette.” She pressed kisses over his face. His body was becoming less numb, feeling buzzing around the edges, pain in the mix. “About choosing you.”
“Mmm. I did.” Arousal stirred at the memory of joining with her, the wildness. Also, his hand was on fire.
“I do. I choose you.” Abruptly she dropped to one knee, kneeling elegantly on the stone, holding his unbroken hand. The sunrise picked out the green and amber in her eyes.
“Philip Devlin, of the Roscollen Devlins. You Irish Catholic spy. Will you marry me?”
“We’re already married,” he reminded her, aware that everyone on the rooftop was watching them, and so were the servants clustered in the outer ward, gazing up at them.
“For real this time.” She pressed his hand to her cheek. It was damp with tears. “In our church. And will you be my duke consort? I will give you a castle of your own, and your own coat of arms, and a suite within the palace. You will have attendants and your own carriage, and we can make your birthday a national holiday, and?—”
“Children?”
“Yes, lots of them. Merania will need heirs, and it will make my father happy. And me.”
It took some effort, but he bent his knees and joined her on the cold stone. “I’ll stay with you without all that. You don’t have to give me anything.”
She sniffled. “I want you. As my husband, my consort. I want you at my side. And I want you to have all the honors you deserve.”
He cupped her cheek. “You are enough, my love.”
“How can I be? I used you. I didn’t trust you. I kept secrets from you, even here, and you…you were willing to sacrifice yourself to stop Carinthia. To save Merania, and me.”
“Because I want you to have all that you wish for.” His heart swelled with tenderness. Her eyes shadowed from lack of sleep, but full of love for him, she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
“That’s you.” She hiccuped. “Did you say yes?”
He smiled. This magnificent woman. His. “How do you say yes in Ladin?”
“ Scì, ” she whispered.
“ Scì ,” he repeated. “I am yours, my lady Melisende. Wholly and entirely.”
“Thank God for that.” She kissed him again while their audience erupted in cheers.
Some time later he hauled her to her feet to face their onlookers. Melisende nodded regally to them.
“A proper wedding this time,” Gin called, leaning on Bruyit’s arm. “Not some hobble-jobble affair.”
Rudolf held out the leather tube. “This, I believe, is yours.”
Melisende hesitated and searched his face. Philip caught the gist of her response. “You will give it all up?”
“It will be a relief. Just give me an impressive stipend and I will retire to Vienna, live as a courtier, and only speak well of you to the emperor.”
She wiped her eyes and took the precious document. “I thought he killed you.”
Rudolf winced and rubbed his chest. “He may yet have. Bury me with my father and your mother in the valley, if he did, so the mountains may watch over my final resting place.”
Rudolf kissed Melisende’s hand and then lifted it. “Melisende of Merania!” he called out in German. “Bow if you recognize your duchess.”
“And Philip,” Melisende reminded him.
Rudolf regarded Philip with a wince. “Melisende of Merania!” he called again. “And, er, Philip.”
One by one her subjects found their knees. Even Carinthia’s guards bowed their heads, hoping for mercy. Melisende stood in her breeches and the traces of stink from the sewer, accepting their homage, while the light of a new day shone upon the valley of Merania and Philip used his good hand to wipe away her tears.