The Marechal Chronicles: Volume VI, The Crucible: A Dark Fantasy Tale Read online

  "You, too, interest me greatly," he said, and the hand in the cauldron did not deny his words.

  Her eyes widened and her chest rose and fell as her breathing deepened. The bed sheet knotted at her bosom slipped, threatening to come undone, and it was clear that she did not care in the least.

  "Your bright hair interests me," he said.

  "Your eyes full of intelligence and guile interest me."

  The swordsman stepped to one side of Lady Keld and placed the cauldron upon a small table before turning back to her.

  "The secret contours of your body render me avid with desire to know them."

  He closed the distance between them, and for the briefest of moments he saw her eyes flicker from his own to the cauldron upon the table and then back again.

  "How shall I know if you speak the truth now?" she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

  The scarred man shook his head.

  "The only truth that matters is this one," he said, then bent to place his lips upon her own.

  At first the kiss was a tender one, begun by a man's lips that knew what it was to be gentle with the far softer lips of a woman beneath them.

  Then the kiss turned back upon him and it was Lady Keld who kissed him, obvious passion deepening her embrace.

  Alexandre smiled, knowing she would feel him do it, and before he had time to measure her reaction, she gripped him to her, then her tongue slipped between his lips, her ardor forcing her to cast aside all caution, all hesitation.

  What Alexandre felt then was familiar to him — a woman who desired to know him and know him well.

  He followed suit and their mouths became violent things, a sensual battle, a swordplay of swollen lips and wet tongues, and then they were falling backward onto a bed that received them softly, warmly, like a lover waiting to join them.

  Lady Keld ran her hands down his body, then drew them up to his throat and pushed at Alexandre.

  He broke away, rising, but when he saw her eyes grown wide with desire, he stopped. His hesitation was rewarded with her hands coming to hurriedly undo the buttons of his linen shirt, the buckle at his belt, and Alexandre did what most any man in his position would do. He carried things to their logical conclusion.

  In four heartbeats' time, nothing stood between them, flesh upon flesh. One heavily muscled and scarred, the other slender, soft and yielding.

  “And what of your husband, M’Lady?” Alexandre asked, his voice low, controlled, yet with rough edges belying his own arousal.

  “Durban is away … on business, as you very well know,” she said, unblinking.

  “I do. And I think you know that I am speaking to a larger sense of meaning.”

  Lady Keld did not flinch at the potential for reproach in what he said.

  “I’m no fool. As you say, in a larger sense then. He is my husband only in name, not in my heart. Our marriage is merely one of convenience … it inspires confidence in his business dealings with others.”

  The scarred man dropped his head down to kiss her at the base of her throat.

  “An arranged marriage?” he murmured against her warm skin.

  “If you like,” she sighed. “However, it was Durban who did all the arranging, as usual.”

  He stopped what he was doing.

  “What are you saying? Did your family not profit on your behalf?”

  Lady Keld stiffened beneath him.

  “Do you try to wound me, Alexandre? Do you throw darts at bitter memories to dampen the flames you have fanned to life in me now?”

  She took his hand and pulled him down to the darkness between her thighs, there where she burned white-hot for the scarred man.

  “If I have,” he replied, “I assure you, it was not my intention.”

  He felt how wet she had grown. Her hair was downy and soft, a garden of dark delight that inevitably led him further downward as she parted her thighs.

  Lady Keld drew in a breath of pleasure at his touch then expelled it as she spoke hard words.

  “My family is no more, Alexandre. I am the last of House Hidalgo and thanks to Durban Keld, I no longer even have the right to carry my family name.”

  “My apologies. I did not know.”

  “Of course you didn’t. How could you?” she said as she leaned forward then dropped her head to his chest, tracing the path of his scar with her tongue.

  “Keep your apologies, Alexandre.

  “It was long ago and far away, and I still take solace in that the price paid cost my husband dearly,” she murmured as she took one of his nipples into her mouth, swirling her tongue around it before pulling back to add, “Although I am sure he considered me nothing more than an investment like any other.”

  “Then he is an even greater fool than I first took him for.”

  Lady Keld froze then spoke, carefully enunciating each word.

  “He is no fool. He is malicious and underhanded and has more resources at his disposal than you realize. More than anyone realizes.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  She shrugged.

  “Nothing of great importance. You, on the other hand, are trying to glean information about my husband and his illicit activities south of the mountains. However, that is all I am prepared to let slip by my guard for now, and even this much comes at a price.”

  “Yes … I understood from the beginning,” the scarred man replied as he placed his hands at her sides, then in a single movement lifted Lady Keld like a child and turned her so that suddenly she lay beneath him.

  “There is always a price to be paid when it comes to my dealings with women.”

  She moaned as he ran his mouth down her body, ever further until she positively quivered in expectation.

  “Then pay what is due me,” she whispered.

  She felt his nod and heard him say, “Yes, M’Lady.”

  Then he was between her legs and she felt his hot breath in the instant before his lips moved to the source of warmth and wetness, that place that stole her words and made her back arch like a great hunting cat.

  Alexandre brushed against her, the musk of her desire enveloping his senses, and as she flexed her body toward him, he drew away.

  He used his lips and his tongue as he traveled the length of her inner thigh until he was at her knee. She gasped with frustration, and he smiled as he lifted her leg high to kiss the underside of her knee.

  The scarred man knew what it was to play the instrument that was the woman he found beneath him. He knew what it was to incite burning passion, to come ever so close to culmination, then to deny her the pleasure she so desperately craved.

  Withholding himself was what was required for both of them, for only then would both their pleasures approach the utmost limits of what the body itself could endure.

  Alexandre tarried upon the flesh so far away from where she desired him most to be. He tasted her as she groaned, as she tried to scissor her limbs and shake him free. To force him to come back to where he had been only moments before.

  He held himself still, mastering the man and the woman with his iron-hard resolve, and it was only when his own body trembled with stifled passion that he broke at last.

  The scarred man flowed up her body in a fluid motion like that of a cliff diver knifing into dark waters to leave no trace.

  And then he was plunging into her, diving into her, and they both cried out as they were buoyed upon waves of passion rising and falling, only to rise once again.

  Their bodies clung to one another, their mouths found no words, only lips and tongues that met in the eternal dance of lovers in darkness with the taste of their own sweat a heady spice that accentuated the moment further.

  Neither of them noticed the black hand that rose from within the forgotten cauldron. And neither of them saw it turn to them in their lovemaking, not in a fist, nor in an open palm, but with its fingers opening wide then curling with violence into a vicious claw. A gesture at once futile and diabolic, before it sa
nk down to disappear into the impenetrable darkness from whence it had come.

  At last, their bodies trembled no more and Alexandre rolled to his back beside Lady Keld.

  Cool air came to fill the space between them and neither moved, each listening to the other breathe deeply with satisfaction.

  It did not take long, and the man with a jagged scar running down his body stood up and donned his clothes, belting his sword at his waist to become the bodyguard of a noblewoman once again.

  For her part, the noblewoman said nothing, simply watching him as he dressed. Nor did she speak, holding her breath in anticipation as he bent down to her one last time.

  However, it was not for a kiss, but to cover her nakedness with a bed sheet before he walked away to resume his watch in grim silence.

  Lady Keld waited, listening for any sign from him, and when she decided there truly would be none, she rolled to her side, turning away from her protector.

  Only then did she let a single tear slip past her defenses.

  She was asleep before that tear had time to dry.

  ***

  At first light, Alexandre left his charge’s bedchamber to descend to the ground floor. There he found one of the house guards that he deemed somewhat worthy of the task he set him, which was to take up his post, but next to the noblewoman’s door and, above all, from outside, in the corridor.

  Moving quickly, the scarred man went outside and placed two other guardsmen, these with charged crossbows, with a clear view of the bedchamber’s balcony.

  His rounds of the property would not take long and as he varied his routine each day, Alexandre felt reasonably confident that Lady Keld’s security was assured.

  The manor was surrounded on all sides by a dense lawn that gave way to mature oaks and maples at its boundaries. Among the high trees, a narrow path wound along the ground like a serpent that encircled the entire property before doubling back upon itself, a beast eating its own tail.

  It had taken Alexandre no time at all to learn its least recesses, and he navigated it quickly and in silence.

  So it was that as steady as his nerves were, he was nevertheless startled to remark a shadow detach itself from a moss-covered oak and become the silhouette of a man.

  A man Alexandre recognized with a frown.

  “Do you dare to mock L’Anguille? Do you do the same of me?” Modest Klees asked as he stepped into a pool of light filtering through the tree leaves overhead.

  Alexandre shrugged.

  “And how would Cuixart Bleu feel if he heard you call him ‘L’Anguille’, or to be perfectly frank about it … the Eel?”

  The man who had sought him out then recruited him clenched his jaw before speaking with words that he practically spat at Alexandre.

  “Your frequenting the Lady is not required. Your indulgences for your proper pleasure are not required.”

  The scarred man did not shrug again. Instead he widened his stance as his hand drifted down to stroke the pommel of his sword.

  "To be perfectly clear then," Modest Klees said. "Allow me to remind you that you are to find out Durban's secrets. Those of his wife do not interest our employer."

  "I've not forgotten," replied Alexandre with a sigh.

  "My pleasure, as you call it, is to focus on the merchant's weakness and if he has one, then it is a wife who does not hold him dear to her heart."

  "Ah … I see," Modest said, then stroked his chin, taking a moment to consider what he had just heard.

  "For a drunken deserter, you surprise me once again. This is the kind of subtle manipulation that I myself might employ. And if his wife is the key?"

  Alexandre removed his hand from his sword, but rather than cross his arms as another man might have done, he let them hang loosely at his sides.

  He knew that it would be interpreted that any danger of imminent hostilities had passed. The truth was that he held himself ready for anything, and that included drawing his blade and skewering the man before him.

  "That remains to be seen. For now, I do as I was instructed. I observe with an eye toward the supposed hidden riches that you and your employer so desperately desire to tax.

  "Unlike some who prefer, instead, to peek in windows like a vulgar lecher."

  Modest Klees’ color rose, and a vein pulsed at his temple as Alexandre continued.

  “Naturally, I understand there are those for whom voyeurism is the only means they might hope for in terms of sexual adventures. For my part, however, I must ask that the situation not repeat itself.”

  Alexandre did not miss that the man before him had drawn his cloak forward and over his shoulders. Nor did he fail to notice that in so doing, Modest hid whether one of his shirtsleeves had been punctured only a few hours earlier.

  “You are a fool to think you can distract me,” Modest Klees said. “You have not yet earned our trust. For that matter, do you still have nothing to say as to why you have come to Haccia? My inquiries indicate that you were accompanied. Where is your companion now?”

  Despite himself, the scarred man winced.

  "Whatever rumors you may heard are unfounded. As to my current situation, I am most assuredly alone in every sense of the term."

  Modest Klees shook his head very slowly.

  "You lie," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper, as if he spoke more to himself than to the scarred man before him. "And before this is over, I intend to find out why."

  Before Alexandre could reply, Modest Klees turned away from him with a whirl of his dark cloak, only to walk briskly away into the shadows where he disappeared just as fully as he had appeared only moments earlier.

  Alexandre's jaw clenched, and his scar whitened with the heat of his anger then.

  I will see my sword run through that man … but not just yet. I need to know. I need to be sure.

  His entire body shook as he stormed off to continue his rounds.

  The wrath he felt was close to overwhelming all that he had planned.

  No. I want to hear him say it. Then will come the time for me to truly take my pleasure at long last.

  ***

  There was a time when a man such as he had commanded respect from every layer of society.

  Apothecary. A mixer of draughts and powders of healing. Or, someone to consult in the darkest hours of the night for more nefarious reasons.

  There was a time when the most highborn noblemen and women paid Gésier homage with countless gifts and coin of every color so that he might turn his learned prowess to their designs.

  Those of base origin did him just as well, in their own, certainly less-refined, ways.

  But those days were like the ghosts of dreams to him now. An old man in his dotage and for whom even his own memories left him doubting that any of it had ever been true.

  Gésier hated that he had been reduced to what he was then. He hated the way his knees creaked and groaned as he struggled to stand. He hated even more the creak and groan that slipped between his paper-thin lips in answer and echo to his wizened joints.

  Even the memory of standing fully upright, straight as an arrow and chest full of pride, now seemed but a ghost that had come to visit him so very long ago, its memory mocking him until even it, too, would fade away at the last.

  He swayed as he stood. His twisted fingers held as tightly as he dared to the doorframe while he waited to either crumple to the floor or to steady himself enough to take a few doddering steps across the room.

  The old man looked about himself. A single soot-covered oil lamp sputtered on a long table. The light was appropriate to his mind, not unlike what remained of his days in this world, sputtering, threatening to go out for once and all.

  But in the eventuality that that time would not come just yet, the once-respected apothecary had need of revenue just as anyone else. He required a few lumps of coal to keep him warm. A bit of barley and dried beans he might boil until both were reduced to a sodden gruel he could pretend to chew with his few remaining teeth be
fore choking it down.

  Such were the things he had to look forward to at the gloaming of his once highly-respected life.

  However, the day had come and the late hour with it at last for the return of his most recent visitor.

  Gésier had known at once the man was a vile one. He also knew that he had already been well paid to begin work on something known only to the most learned of men such as himself.

  A deposit, sir, the man had said to him just before leaving that first time and if Gésier was perfectly honest, it was not only the small sack of gold coin the man had laid down that had convinced him. It had been that the man whose eyes seemed ill-fitted to his face had spoken to him with some modicum of respect.

  Nevertheless, what he had demanded of the old man was a dark and terrible thing, requiring rare substances combined with painstaking precision.

  Only the visitor had told Gésier he expected he would have no trouble in the task he set him, for it was for the most highly skilled and none other.

  It was work deserving of the best, he had been told.

  So, of course, he sought me out.

  He had been told he would be paid thrice the amount within the sack at the moment of delivery, and it had been with those words the visitor had disappeared into the night from whence he had come and with him had disappeared any doubts that Gésier might do this thing.

  Even if, long ago, in a blurred world of fading memories, the old apothecary knew that his younger self would have been appalled at the notion of it.

  The old man had smiled a crooked smile with his paper-thin lips, then had closed the door to set to work at once.

  For the high placed ideals of a well-respected man belonged to a past that no longer had any bearing on an aged man’s present.

  Besides, Gésier thought, it would be worth it just to hear myself addressed as "Sir" once more before ...

  The old man took a hesitant step, then, gaining confidence that his legs would not betray him, he managed to make his way to the table that dominated the otherwise bare room. He did not spare a glance at the other objects on that table. Rather, he had eyes only for the window just beyond the table’s limits, a window which looked upon the filthy street outside.