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Securing the leather codpiece to his soft linen undershirt with a tug of the points, Dominique then slipped his fingers over the narrow slash in the thigh of his leather braies, courtesy of the black knight. ’Twas shallow, the cut. His flesh had taken on the chill, though the wound had already healed. There was not a drop of blood on his skin or clothing—at least not of the red variety. He smoothed away the congealed iridescent liquid, rubbing it between his fingers until it became powder and glistened into the air.
The only pain he felt was that of succumbing to his opponent’s blade. A woman’s blade, for the love of the Moon! He most certainly was not accustomed to such a bold woman. She deserved to be put in her place.
No. She deserves as much respect as you wish for yourself.
Indeed, he must set aside petty male/female comparisons. Seraphim d’Ange traveled a perilous course; she deserved nothing but his support. As their path drew closer to Creil, that course would only become more dangerous.
Tugging down his jerkin and drawing his gauntlet back on his hand, Dominique then punched a fist inside his other palm to stir his blood to a faster pace. He hated the chill and was most susceptible to drafts. Especially right between the shoulder blades. Once he exposed a bit of flesh the cold crept under his skin and remained until spring. He much preferred to grow a thick bushy beard to keep in the warmth, but the damned thing would do no more than sprout a thin shadow over his chin and upper lip.
Sorry man he’d turned out to be.
“Damned faery blood,” he muttered, as he cupped his palms before his mouth and blew. His warm breath briefly touched his nose and cheeks, but disappeared all too quickly.
“Your mission is progressing nicely.”
Dominique spun around, a stealthy movement bending him at the waist and crouching him into fight position, his dagger unsheathed and flashing before his face.
“You?” He relaxed his fight stance and jabbed the dagger-tip into the snow. “Morgana’s spine, but you follow me even when I am taking a piss!”
The Oracle remained serene, an odd expression on the figure that appeared to Dominique to be a boy of perhaps nine or ten. Short spikes of palest brown hair spurted here and there, as if bed-tousled. A flat nose only made his eyes appear all the more generous. A sweet fragrance, like a fresh spring meadow, overwhelmed him always.
The wide brown gaze of innocence teased Dominique to question his beliefs every time the Oracle glimmered into form—for that is the only term Dominique could summon for the sudden appearance of the apparition—swept in on a glimmer.
But for as young as he appeared, Dominique suspected the Oracle was decades older in wisdom. And if he were really a ghost of some sort, he could have been dead for ages.
“Do you realize the black knight is a woman?” Dominique asked.
“I…did not know that until now.”
Difficult to believe, knowing what Dominique did of the Oracle.
He regarded the vision with a careful summation of his visage. Not a flinch to his smooth features, the brown eyes held a frustrating clutch on naiveté. The Oracle knew everything. He’d given Dominique the layout of Abaddon’s castle, provided him with the information that he would meet the black knight en route to Creil, had even relayed details from both battles that saw the first two de Mortes fall. Why hadn’t he informed him of this important fact?
“A woman!” Dominique jabbed the trunk of a twisted elm with his boot, not hesitant at letting the Oracle see his disappointment.
“Can you keep her safe?”
“Against Abaddon, Sammael, and Lucifer?” Dominique shrugged a fall of snow from his shoulders then lifted his chin in challenge. “Sounds like a battle already won. And not by the black knight.”
“You must believe in yourself, Dominique San Juste,” the Oracle said in his whispery adolescent timbre. “You are of the earth; Seraphim is of fire. I chose you, knowing you would be a formidable match—as well a complement—to the d’Ange woman’s fire.”
“D’Ange,” Dominique muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “An angel riding a quest against the darkest demons in France—wait! You said you did not know she was a woman. And yet—you just said you chose me to match her fire.” He raised an accusing finger on the glimmering figment. “You lie to me to serve your own selfish needs? What is the truth of my mission? Who are you, and why did you come to me?”
“You ask far too many questions, and already know the answers.”
“And you are a double-talking nuisance.”
“Have I yet steered you wrongly?”
The Oracle had first appeared to him three years ago. Dominique had been contemplating joining the English on the raid against Rouen, where Jeanne d’Arc would finally fall. No—contemplation had been all of a moment at sight of a purse gleaming with coin. He’d avoided siding with the English for years. But the coin…oh, that bright and sparkling coin.
The Oracle had appeared, insisting he go home. His mother needed him. Dominique had arrived only to hear his father’s dying words. “I have loved you so, son.”
Son. A word wrought of pure, priceless gold to Dominique’s troubled soul. Far more valuable than any English coin could offer. Yet beneath the gild lay a bronze core.
“Tell me, do you know why she quests so?”
The Oracle shrugged. Actually shrugged, which seemed to Dominique a very odd movement from one so otherworldly. “You have not asked her?”
“The woman is not one for conversation.”
“She fears adversity.”
“I am not the enemy.”
“Make her believe it and together the two of you shall triumph. She fears the same thing you fear, releasing the anger and following her heart.”
“I have no anger,” Dominique said, his jaw tightening.
“Really? Why then this mission? Perhaps it is not necessary to provide the answer you seek?”
“I am not angry about my past—only—all right! So I am angry.” He kicked at the snow, his frustration erupting in a powder of cold crystals. “It was not fair to be abandoned. To be left to my own devices in a world so unaccepting and…. and wrong.”
“You made it your own world, did you not?”
Dominique huffed. Another kick buried the toe of his boot.
“Come, Dominique, you tread too deeply in anger over such an insignificant portion of your life.”
His parentage insignificant?
Before Dominique could protest the Oracle’s suggestion, the waif of flowing robes and wide brown eyes was gone. Gone in a glimmer, a fizzle of twinkling lights and sweet scent.
“I hate it when he does that. Why can’t I do that?”
But the Oracle’s words lingered in his mind like heavy flakes of falling snow. Falling, but never landing on the ground…such an insignificant portion of your life.
No, ’twas not insignificant to his heart. To finally put to rest the decades-old question of who his real mother and father were was no little thing. He would have the answer, one way or another.
Pounding his boot heel against the elm trunk behind him, Dominique noticed the iridescent dust still coruscated from his person. He had to cast a glamour soon or risk exposing himself to Sera and Baldwin. A secret unnecessary to reveal; his mission did not rely on either of them knowing his truth.
Of course, he did not know their truths either. So many secrets. The squire—or was he a monk? And Seraphim d’Ange, the women who hid beneath a mask of male dress and bravery.
Well…he understood the need to hide. And for that reason he would not question.
Dominique pulled his cloak snug around his shoulders and flexed the muscles in his back. He’d hidden his true identity for so long he’d become accustomed to the aching need for release that always tingled between his shoulder blades. But not on this quest. He wanted the woman and her squire to accept him as an equal, not an anomaly.
Sera heard Dominique’s footsteps crunch over the hard snow behind her. Settled in for the night, she shrugged her hood down to her shoulders, allowing the heat of the blazing fire to simmer over her face and neck.
“We thought you’d been stolen away by the fair folk,” Baldwin offered from his tight little cocoon of wool cape as the mercenary landed camp.
“He thought as much,” Sera corrected. “I do not speak of such nonsense.”
“The nonsense that a man of my skill should allow himself to be stolen away?” Dominique moved close to the fire to draw heat into his chilled bones. “Or the fair folk?”
“The damn faeries,” she muttered.
“You—” Sera marveled at the muscle that tensed in Dominique’s jaw “—consider them nonsense?”
“You know naught of what you question, San Juste.”
“Ah, I see. A nonbeliever. So you believe only in what you can see?”
“Aye, but—”
“You cannot see the wind, yet it is so powerful as to fell trees.”
She regarded him with a wry smirk. No need to explain that she did believe, or to reveal her hatred for the hideous creatures. He was most likely a believer in the whimsical and magical ways of the fair folk, could have no idea of the true evil they wrought.
Dominique nodded, the movement of his hood clacking the hematite stones against one another in a canorous ring. “I shall grant you that, for the sake of peace.”
“I shall take it without your leave. Did you scan the perimeter?”
“We will be safe here in the forest for the night.”
“Your horse wanders freely,” Baldwin commented.
“He does.” Having no intention of elaborating, Dominique moved between Sera and the squire and picked up a leafless elm branch to poke at the fire. A few jabs raised a flurry of red fire sprites over the blaze in a spiral of escape. “Have you ale or wine?”
“No supplies,” Baldwin said with a shudder.
“You should have filled your belly in Pontoise,” Sera commented. If the man craved drink he could melt down snow for all she cared. “We travel light, nothing to burden our journey.”
“Just wondering,” he said, a dismissive tone to his voice. Sera gauged that he was not a man to anger easily. Unless one tried to lie to him about their identity.
She leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees, and unfocused her eyes upon the brilliant orange flames. In her peripheral view, the mercenary’s stallion did indeed roam freely. Curious. But she didn’t trouble over the reason. Instead she released a sigh and allowed her shoulders to sag. It felt good not to think. To relax before the blaze. The warmth brought a numbness that spread to her skull. This night she would not worry of what the morrow may bring.
But close, sat San Juste. Too close for the damsel to disregard.
Just one moment for my pleasure?
Very well, Sera thought, being much too tired to conjure an excuse.
From the corner of her eye, she studied the side of the mercenary’s face, as he, too, voided out on the flames. His jaw was so sharp as to be deadly. Not a single line of age creased the unnaturally smooth flesh. Though black stubble lended masculine roughness to an otherwise tender visage. Indeed, a handsome man. But she was not taken to swooning, as Baldwin liked to tease. Had Sera ever before favored a man, she had required but a look and a bend of her forefinger to bring him to her side.
That was me, the damsel cooed.
Enough then. Sera lowered her head onto her knees and closed her eyes, forcing the damsel back into the darkness. ’Twas risky to allow such thoughts.
“From where do you hail, San Juste?” Baldwin asked.
“East of Creil, but five hours on a slow horse. Deep in the Valois Wood where my father built a cottage for my mother, far away from any village.”
“Your parents await their son’s return from a successful mission?” Baldwin wondered.
“I have not been to the wood for over a year. What of you, squire? How long have you been at the d’Ange castle?”
“Let’s see…since the May Day festival, I believe. Aye, I remember sweet Margot and her plump—”
“Benwick.”
Baldwin quieted at Sera’s terse reprimand. He offered a shrug and slumped into his nest of cape and supplies.
“Did you lose parents,” Dominique wondered, “loved ones in the New Year’s ordeal?”
“I am an orphan since six. Spent all of my life living upon the discards of others, the swiftness of my fingers, and the finely tuned wit of my brain.”
At Baldwin’s boastful declaration Sera cast him the mongoose eye. And he saw.
With a resolute sigh, the squire said, “Very well, if you must know, before I became a squire, well, er…a postulant, I was…a toad-eater. Though you mustn’t hold it against me,” he rushed in. “I atone for my crimes every day. I was seeking orders, for heaven’s sake!”
“Toad-eater?” Dominique wondered. The flames danced in his dark eyes. Sera could not look away from the beguiling sight. No red demons there, only violet allure. “Are not toads poisonous?”
“Oh, aye,” Baldwin offered. Then with a wriggle of his thick brows, he added, “If you really eat them.”
“I don’t understand. You say you ate them, and then you say you did not.”
“Exactly.” Baldwin sat up a little straighter. A proud smile beamed beneath his wearied brown eyes.
Sera would allow him such pride, for she was the first to admit the man was not the sort of hardened criminal that belonged swinging at the end of a noose. He was the closest thing to family she had left. She needed family. A place to belong. A place to be loved.
The squire spread his hand open, the long fingers splaying to catch the heat. “You see, I used to work for a magician, Melmoth the Marvelous. You’ve heard of him? Known through all parts of France and England, also a small portion of the Irish Isle. Anyway, I helped him sell his elixirs at market every summer to unsuspecting dupes—er, patrons.”
“I think I begin to understand,” Dominique said. “The patrons would witness you eating a poisonous toad. You would go into convulsions or some form of grand death charade. The magician would rush an amazing cure-all elixir down your throat, therefore drawing the poison from your body and curing you before all eyes.”
“And only three sous per six drachms!” Baldwin declared in his best hawker’s voice. “I never did eat the toad. Well, there were occasions—hell, a man tends to build an immunity by slowly exposing himself to poison. I can munch a whole toad now without worry of dropping dead. Rather tasty roasted.”
Dominique leaned across the distance between he and the squire. “And just how were you such a success when I myself have witnessed your remarkable inability to cover a lie?”
Baldwin drew his hand over his eyes to simulate laying a blindfold over them. With a laugh, he announced, “I was blind!”
“That’s quite a skill, the fool that fools while acting the fool himself.”
“A skill.” The squire clutched his leather purse and squeezed the contents. A reassuring gesture. “But no more.”
“Why the change of heart?”
“For as much as I relied on the scarf to blind the fools to my dupe, it did not serve to blind me. I began to notice the lost hope, the tragedy in the eyes circling Melmoth’s stage. Their eyes were wide with the hopes of a magical cure to end all their woes, their pains. They were so much like the orphan boy that stood before them on the stage. And I was selling them snake oil. Abbe Belloc reassured me that dedicating my life to God was a noble effort.”
