"As for you-madame has enemies. Who among you is prepared to stand for her when milord cannot?" Those with some grasp of English translated the question for the others.
"Mais il est debout," Thomas protested, pointing at Matthew. Philippe took care of the fact that Matthew was upright by clipping his son's injured leg at the knee, sending him onto his back with a thud.
"Who stands for madame?" Philippe repeated, one booted foot placed carefully on Matthew's neck.
"Je vais." It was Catrine, my daemonic assistant and maid, who spoke first.
"Et moi," piped up Jehanne, who, though older, followed wherever her sister led.
Once the girls had declared their allegiance, Thomas and etienne threw in their lot with me, as did the blacksmith and Chef, who had appeared in the loft carrying a basket of dried beans. After he glared at his staff, they grudgingly acquiesced as well.
"Madame's enemies will come without warning, so you must be ready. Catrine and Jehanne will distract them. Thomas will lie." There were knowing chuckles from the adults. "etienne, you must run and find help, preferably milord. As for you, you know what to do." Philippe regarded Matthew grimly.
"And my job?" I asked.
"To think, as you did today. Think-and stay alive." Philippe clapped his hands. "Enough entertainment. Back to work."
Amid good-natured grumbling, the people in the hayloft scattered to resume their duties. With a cock of his head, Philippe sent Alain and Pierre out after them. Philippe followed, taking off his shirt as he went. Surprisingly, he returned and dropped the wadded-up garment at my feet. Nestled within it was a lump of snow.
"Take care of the wound on his leg, and the one over his kidney that is deeper than I would have wished," Philippe instructed. Then he, too, was gone.
Matthew climbed to his knees and began to tremble. I grabbed him by the waist and lowered him gently to the ground. Matthew tried to pull free and draw me into his arms instead.
"No, you stubborn man," I said. "I don't need comforting. Let me take care of you for once."
I investigated his wounds, beginning with the ones Philippe had flagged. With Matthew's help I cleared the rent hose from the wound on his thigh. The dagger had gone deep, but it was already closing thanks to the healing properties of vampire blood. I packed a wad of snow around it anyway-Matthew assured me it would help, though his exhausted flesh was barely warmer. The wound on his kidney was similarly on the mend, but the surrounding bruise made me wince in sympathy.
"I think you're going to live," I said, putting a final ice pack into place over his left flank. I smoothed the hair away from his forehead. A sticky spot of half-dried blood near his eye had captured a few black strands. Gently I freed them.
"Thank you, mon coeur. Since you're cleaning me up, would you mind if I returned the favor and removed Philippe's blood from your forehead?" Matthew looked sheepish. "It's the scent, you see. I don't like it on you."
He was afraid of the blood rage's return. I rubbed at the skin myself, and my fingers came away tinged with black and red. "I must look like a pagan priestess."
"More so than usual, yes." Matthew scooped some of the snow from his thigh and used it and the hem of his shirt to remove the remaining evidence of my adoption.
"Tell me about Benjamin," I said while he wiped at my face.
"I made Benjamin a vampire in Jerusalem. I gave him my blood thinking to save his life. But in doing so, I took his reason. I took his soul."
"And he has your tendency toward anger?"
"Tendency! You make it sound like high blood pressure." Matthew shook his head in amazement. "Come. You'll freeze if you stay here any longer."
Slowly we made our way to the chateau, our hands clasped. For once neither of us cared who might see or what anyone who did see might think. The snow was falling, making the forbidding, pitted winter landscape appear soft once again. I looked up at Matthew in the fading light and saw his father once more in the harsh lines of his face and the way that his shoulders squared under the burdens they bore.
The next day was the Feast of St. Nicholas, and the sun shone on the snow that had fallen earlier in the week. The chateau perked up considerably with the finer weather, even though it was still Advent, a somber time of reflection and prayer. Humming under my breath, I headed for the library to retrieve my stash of alchemical books. Though I took a few into the stillroom each day, I was careful to return them. Two men were talking inside the book-filled room. Philippe's calm, almost lazy tones I recognized. The other was unfamiliar. I pushed the door open.
"Here she is now," Philippe said as I entered. The man with him turned, and my flesh tingled.
"I am afraid her French is not very good, and her Latin is worse," Philippe said apologetically. "Do you speak English?"
"Enough," the witch replied. His eyes swept my body, making my skin crawl. "The girl seems in good health, but she should not be here among your people, sieur."
"I would happily be rid of her, Monsieur Champier, but she has nowhere to go and needs help from a fellow witch. That is why I sent for you. Come, Madame Roydon," Philippe said, beckoning me forward.
The closer I got, the more uncomfortable I became. The air felt full, tingling with an almost electrical current. I half expected to hear a rumble of thunder, the atmosphere was so thick. Peter Knox had been mentally invasive, and Satu had inflicted great pain at La Pierre, but this witch was different and somehow even more dangerous. I walked quickly past the wizard and looked at Philippe in mute appeal for answers.
"This is Andre Champier," Philippe said. "He is a printer, from Lyon. Perhaps you have heard of his cousin, the esteemed physician, now alas departed from this world and no longer able to share his wisdom on matters philosophical and medical."
"No," I whispered. I watched Philippe, hoping for clues as to what he expected me to do. "I don't believe so."
Champier tilted his head in acknowledgment of Philippe's compliments. "I never knew my cousin, sieur, as he was dead before I was born. But it is a pleasure to hear you speak of him so highly." Since the printer looked at least twenty years older than Philippe, he must know that the de Clermonts were vampires.
"He was a great student of magic, as you are." Philippe's comment was typically matter-of-fact, which kept it from sounding obsequious. To me he explained, "This is the witch I sent for soon after you arrived, thinking he might be able to help solve the mystery of your magic. He says he felt your power while still some distance from Sept-Tours."
"It would seem my instincts have failed me," Champier murmured. "Now that I am with her, she seems to have little power after all. Perhaps she is not the English witch that people were speaking about in Limoges."
"Limoges, eh? How extraordinary for news of her to travel so far so fast. But Madame Roydon is, thankfully, the only wandering Englishwoman we have had to take in, Monsieur Champier." Philippe's dimples flashed as he poured himself some wine. "It is bad enough to be plagued with French vagrants at this time of year, without being overrun with foreigners as well."
"The wars have loosened many from their homes." One of Champier's eyes was blue, the other brown. It was the mark of a powerful seer. The wizard had a wiry energy that fed on the power that pulsed in the atmosphere around him. Instinctively I took a step away. "Is that what happened to you, madame?"
"Who can tell what horrors she has seen or been subjected to?" Philippe said with a shrug. "Her husband had been dead ten days when we found her in an isolated farmhouse. Madame Roydon might have fallen victim to all kinds of predators." The elder de Clermont was as talented at fabricating life stories as was his son or Christopher Marlowe.
"I will find out what has happened to her. Give me your hand." When I didn't immediately acquiesce, Champier grew impatient. With a flick of his fingers, my left arm shot toward him. Panic, sharp and bitter, flooded my system as he grasped my hand. He stroked the flesh on my palm, progressing deliberately over each finger in an intimate search for information. My stomach flipped.
"Does her flesh give you knowledge of her secrets?" Philippe sounded only mildly curious, but there was a muscle ticking in his neck.
"A witch's skin can be read, like a book." Champier frowned and brought his fingers to his nose. He sniffed. His face soured. "She has been too long with vampires. Who has been feeding from her?"
"That is forbidden," Philippe said silkily. "No one in my household has shed the girl's blood, for sport or for sustenance."
"The manjasang can read a creature's blood as easily as I can read her flesh." Champier yanked at my arm, pushing my sleeve up and ripping the fine cord that held the cuffs snug against my wrist. "You see? Someone has been enjoying her. I am not the only one who wishes to know more about this English witch."
Philippe bent closer to inspect my exposed elbow, his breath a cool puff over my skin. My pulse was beating a tattoo of alarm. What was Philippe after? Why wasn't Matthew's father stopping this?
"That wound is too old for her to have received it here. As I said, she has been in Saint-Lucien for only a week."
Think. Stay alive. I repeated Philippe's instructions from yesterday.
"Who took your blood, sister?" Champier demanded.
"It is a knife wound," I said hesitantly. "I made it myself." It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either. I prayed that the goddess would let it pass. My prayers went unanswered.
"Madame Roydon is keeping something from me-and from you, too, I believe. I must report it to the Congregation. It is my duty, sieur." Champier looked expectantly at Philippe.
"Of course," Philippe murmured. "I would not dream of standing between you and your duty. How might I help?"
"If you would restrain her, I would be grateful. We must delve deeper for the truth," Champier said. "Most creatures find the search painful, and even those with nothing to hide instinctively resist a witch's touch."
Philippe pulled me from Champier's grasp and roughly sat me in his chair. He clamped one hand around my neck, the other at the crown of my head. "Like this?"
"That is ideal, sieur." Champier stood before me, frowning at my forehead. "But what is this?" Fingers stained with ink smoothed over my forehead. His hands felt like scalpels, and I whimpered and twisted.
"Why does your touch cause her such pain?" Philippe wondered.
"It is the act of reading that does it. Think of it as extracting a tooth," Champier explained, his fingers lifting for a brief, blessed moment. "I will take her thoughts and secrets from the root, rather than leaving them to fester. It is more painful but leaves nothing behind and provides a clearer picture of what she is trying to hide. This is the great benefit of magic, you see, and university education. Witchcraft and the traditional arts known to women are crude, even superstitious. My magic is precise."
"A moment, monsieur. You must forgive my ignorance. Are you saying this witch will have no memory of what you've done or the pain you've caused?"
"None save a lingering sense that something once had is now lost." Champier's fingers resumed stroking my forehead. He frowned. "But this is very strange. Why did a manjasang put his blood here?"
Being adopted into Philippe's clan was a memory of mine that I didn't intend Champier to have. Nor did I want him sifting through my recollections of teaching at Yale, Sarah and Em, or Matthew. My parents. My fingers clawed into the arms of the chair while a vampire held my head and a witch prepared to inventory and steal my thoughts. And yet no whisper of witchwind or flicker of witchfire came to my aid. My power had gone entirely quiet.
"It was you who marked this witch," Champier said sharply, his eyes accusing.
"Yes." Philippe offered no explanation.
"That is most irregular, sieur." His fingers kept probing my mind. Champier's eyes opened in wonder. "But this is impossible. How can she be a-" He gasped and looked down at his chest.
A dagger stuck out between two of Champier's ribs, the weapon's blade buried deep within his chest. My fingers were wrapped tightly around the hilt. When he scrabbled to dislodge it, I pushed it in further. The wizard's knees began to crumple.
"Leave it, Diana." Philippe commanded, reaching over to loosen my hand. "He's going to die, and when he does, he will fall. You cannot hold up a dead weight."
But I couldn't let go of the dagger. The man was still alive, and as long as he was breathing, Champier could take what was mine.
A white face with inkblot eyes appeared briefly over Champier's shoulder before a powerful hand wrested his lolling head to the side with a crack of bones and sinew. Matthew battened onto the man's throat, drinking deeply.
"Where have you been, Matthew?" Philippe snapped. "You must move quickly. Diana struck before he could finish his thought."
While Matthew drank, Thomas and etienne pelted into the room, a dazed Catrine in tow. They stopped, stunned. Alain and Pierre hovered in the hallway with the blacksmith, Chef, and the two soldiers who usually stood by the front gate.
"Vous avez bien fait," Philippe assured them. "It is over now."
"I was supposed to think." My fingers were numb, but I still couldn't seem to unwrap them from the dagger.
"And stay alive. You did that admirably," Philippe replied.
"He's dead?" I croaked.
Matthew removed his mouth from the witch's neck.
"Resolutely so," Philippe said. "Well, I suppose that's one less nosy Calvinist to worry about. Had he told any of his friends he was coming here?"
"Not as far as I could determine," Matthew said. Slowly his eyes turned gray again as he studied me. "Diana. My love. Let me have the dagger." Somewhere in the distance, something metal clattered to the floor, followed by the softer thud of Andre Champier's mortal remains. Mercifully cool, familiar hands cupped my chin.
"He discovered something in Diana that surprised him," said Philippe.
"I saw as much. But the blade reached his heart before I could find out what." Matthew drew me gently into his arms. My own had gone boneless, and I offered no resistance.
"I didn't-couldn't-think, Matthew. Champier was going to take my memories-extract them from the root. Memories are all I have of my parents. And what if I'd forgotten my historical knowledge? How could I go back home and teach after that?"
"You did the right thing." Matthew had one arm wrapped around my waist. The other circled my shoulders, pressing the side of my face against his chest. "Where did you get the knife?"
"My boot. She must have seen me pull it out yesterday," Philippe replied.
"See. You were thinking, ma lionne." Matthew pressed his lips against my hair. "What the hell drew Champier to Saint-Lucien?"
"I did," replied Philippe.
"You betrayed us to Champier?" Matthew turned on his father. "He's one of the most reprehensible creatures in all of France!"
"I needed to be sure of her, Matthaios. Diana knows too many of our secrets. I had to know that she could be trusted with them, even among her own people." Philippe was unapologetic. "I don't take risks with my family."
"And would you have stopped Champier before he stole her thoughts?" Matthew demanded, his eyes blacker by the second.
"That depends."
"On what?" Matthew exploded, his arms tightening around me.
"Had Champier arrived three days ago, I would not have interfered. It would have been a matter between witches, and not worth the trouble to the brotherhood."
"You would have let my mate suffer." Matthew's tone revealed his disbelief.
"As recently as yesterday, it would have been your responsibility to intervene on your mate's behalf. Had you failed to do so, it would have proved that your commitment to the witch was not what it should be."
"And today?" I asked.
Philippe studied me. "Today you are my daughter. So no, I would not have let Champier's attack go much further. But I didn't need to do anything, Diana. You saved yourself."
"Is that why you made me your daughter-because Champier was coming?" I whispered.
"No. You and Matthew survived one test in the church and another in the hay barn. The blood swearing was simply the first step in making you a de Clermont. And now it's time to finish it." Philippe turned toward his second-in-command. "Fetch the priest, Alain, and tell the village to assemble at the church on Saturday. Milord is getting married, with book and priest and all of Saint-Lucien to witness the ceremony. There will be nothing hole-in-corner about this wedding."
"I just killed a man! This isn't the moment to discuss our marriage."
"Nonsense. Marrying amid bloodshed is a de Clermont family tradition," Philippe said briskly. "We only seem to mate creatures who are desired by others. It is a messy business."
"I. Killed. Him." Just to be sure my message was clear, I pointed to the body on the floor.
"Alain, Pierre, please remove Monsieur Champier. He is upsetting madame. The rest of you have too much to do to remain here gawking." Philippe waited until the three of us were alone before he continued.
"Mark me well, Diana: Lives will be lost because of your love for my son. Some will sacrifice themselves. Others will die because someone must, and it will be for you to decide if it is you or them or someone you love. So you must ask yourself this: What does it matter who deals the deathblow? If you do not do it, then Matthew will. Would you rather he had Champier's death on his conscience?"
"Of course not," I said quickly.
"Pierre, then? Or Thomas?"
"Thomas? He's just a boy!" I protested.
"That boy promised to stand between you and your enemies. Did you see what he clutched in his hands? The bellows from the stillroom. Thomas filed its metal point into a weapon. If you hadn't killed Champier, that boy would have shoved it through his guts at the first opportunity."
"We're not animals but civilized creatures," I protested. "We should be able to talk about this and settle our differences without bloodshed."
"Once I sat at a table and talked for three hours with a man-a king. No doubt you and many others would have considered him a civilized creature. At the end of our conversation, he ordered the death of thousands of men, women, and children. Words kill just as swords do."
"She's not accustomed to our ways, Philippe," Matthew warned.
"Then she needs to become so. The time for diplomacy has passed." Philippe's voice never rose, nor did it lose its habitual evenness. Matthew might have tells, but his father had yet to betray his deeper emotions.
"No more discussion. Come Saturday, you and Matthew will be married. Because you are my daughter in blood as well as name, you will be married not only as a good Christian but in a way that will honor my ancestors and their gods. This is your last chance to say no, Diana. If you have reconsidered and no longer want Matthew and the life-and death-that marrying him entails, I will see you safely back to England."
Matthew set me away from him. It was only a matter of inches, but it was symbolic of so much more. Even now he was giving me the choice, though his was long since made. So was mine.
"Will you marry me, Matthew?" Given that I was a murderer, it seemed only right to ask.
Philippe gave a choking cough.
"Yes, Diana. I will marry you. I already have, but I'm happy to do it again to please you."
"I was satisfied the first time. This is for your father." It was impossible to think any more about marriage when my legs were still shaking and there was blood on the floor.
"Then we are all agreed. Take Diana to her room. It would be best if she remained there until we are sure Champier's friends aren't nearby." Philippe paused on his way out the door. "You have found a woman who is worthy of you, with courage and hope to spare, Matthaios."
"I know," Matthew said, taking my hand.
"Know this, too: You are equally worthy of her. Stop regretting your life. Start living it."