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Authors: Parris Afton Bonds
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"What did you do?” he demanded.
She drew a fortifying breath. “ 'Tis a spiritual sleight of hand, one might say. I simply used my hands to work energy.”
"What?”
She may as well have been speaking a foreign tongue. She tried again. "When one changes energy, one changes reality. I merely lay my hands on the ill—”
"I watche d you,” he gritted, his eyes narrowed. "You did something more with your hands.”
"No, not to it s physical body. Listen, 'tis like . . . like I feel my fingertips tingling, as though fire is warming them, streaming out, making contact with . . .”
Her words trailed away as, without taking his gaze off her, he rose to tower over her. "Leave!”
His expression unnerved her. His eyes had the power to do such. Slowly, she came to her feet and backed away. She reached the door, and he warned, "Stay out of my sight if you wish to remain at the chateau.”
Pennants waving from the chateau’s ramparts proclaimed that the festivities of the Round Table were in progress. The village of Montlimoux was thronged with people, peasants and princes who had flocked to attend one of the first tournaments to be held in a long time, since the Church had prohibited that armed contest of courtesy on horseback.
That was because these combats to the death, though subject to the intervention of the host at any stage by the casting of his baton, had offended the Church ’s sensibilities. But Dominique found it difficult to understand how the Church’s sensibilities were not offended when one of its Inquisitors extracted a woman's nails or roasted a living man upon a kitchen spit.
These days the combatants would be using blunted lances and following rules that established where on the body the sword and battle axe could strike. Only a few of these combatants—knights, with their pages and squires—had found quarters with the villagers, for Paxton's soldiers were lodged in every holstery, as well as the chateau itself. Beyond the river other knights erected tents of canvas painted with their personal colors and flying their heraldic devices. Déclassé knights, those of inferior rank, slept in the open with only a blanket to protect them from the chilly April mornings.
Games, combat practice, dinners, dances, wagering, and quarrels in every language occupied the better part of that first day. For the past week, Dominique had for the most part kept to her room, emerging only when she knew Paxton was away. She dared not even visit her laboratory. Baldwyn told her that Captain Bedford turned away her vassals from the Justice Room each morning with instructions to come back after the tourney.
Time was as heavy to her as if she were with child, waiting . . . waiting. Both she and Reinette fretted from the lack of exercise and fresh air. Her maids-in-waiting, especially Beatrix, with her mind-numbing chatter, kept her company. More for the opportunity of encountering Captain Bedford, Dominique suspected, than out of duty.
Dominique awaited t hat last day of the jousting itself, when she would have to renounce her title. She knew there was no quarter from whence she could expect aid, yet she was determined not only to survive but to regain all that had once been hers. How she did not know. Now more than ever she desperately needed Chengke’s wise advice.
From her casement window, she spied the banners of the Bishop of Carcassonne. He sat astride a white caparisoned courser. Francis! So, he was also coming for the tourney. It would be another half -hour before he and his retainers could wend their way through the crowded village. A long half-hour until she saw him again.
“ Iolande, how many months since Francis de Beauvais paid us a visit?” she asked without taking her eyes off the magnificent man.
T he curly-headed minx, Manon, glanced up from her needlepoint. "Monseigneur Bishop? He is here?" The young woman's blush rendered her quite winsome, and Dominique realized she was not the only female
She drew a fortifying breath. “ 'Tis a spiritual sleight of hand, one might say. I simply used my hands to work energy.”
"What?”
She may as well have been speaking a foreign tongue. She tried again. "When one changes energy, one changes reality. I merely lay my hands on the ill—”
"I watche d you,” he gritted, his eyes narrowed. "You did something more with your hands.”
"No, not to it s physical body. Listen, 'tis like . . . like I feel my fingertips tingling, as though fire is warming them, streaming out, making contact with . . .”
Her words trailed away as, without taking his gaze off her, he rose to tower over her. "Leave!”
His expression unnerved her. His eyes had the power to do such. Slowly, she came to her feet and backed away. She reached the door, and he warned, "Stay out of my sight if you wish to remain at the chateau.”
Pennants waving from the chateau’s ramparts proclaimed that the festivities of the Round Table were in progress. The village of Montlimoux was thronged with people, peasants and princes who had flocked to attend one of the first tournaments to be held in a long time, since the Church had prohibited that armed contest of courtesy on horseback.
That was because these combats to the death, though subject to the intervention of the host at any stage by the casting of his baton, had offended the Church ’s sensibilities. But Dominique found it difficult to understand how the Church’s sensibilities were not offended when one of its Inquisitors extracted a woman's nails or roasted a living man upon a kitchen spit.
These days the combatants would be using blunted lances and following rules that established where on the body the sword and battle axe could strike. Only a few of these combatants—knights, with their pages and squires—had found quarters with the villagers, for Paxton's soldiers were lodged in every holstery, as well as the chateau itself. Beyond the river other knights erected tents of canvas painted with their personal colors and flying their heraldic devices. Déclassé knights, those of inferior rank, slept in the open with only a blanket to protect them from the chilly April mornings.
Games, combat practice, dinners, dances, wagering, and quarrels in every language occupied the better part of that first day. For the past week, Dominique had for the most part kept to her room, emerging only when she knew Paxton was away. She dared not even visit her laboratory. Baldwyn told her that Captain Bedford turned away her vassals from the Justice Room each morning with instructions to come back after the tourney.
Time was as heavy to her as if she were with child, waiting . . . waiting. Both she and Reinette fretted from the lack of exercise and fresh air. Her maids-in-waiting, especially Beatrix, with her mind-numbing chatter, kept her company. More for the opportunity of encountering Captain Bedford, Dominique suspected, than out of duty.
Dominique awaited t hat last day of the jousting itself, when she would have to renounce her title. She knew there was no quarter from whence she could expect aid, yet she was determined not only to survive but to regain all that had once been hers. How she did not know. Now more than ever she desperately needed Chengke’s wise advice.
From her casement window, she spied the banners of the Bishop of Carcassonne. He sat astride a white caparisoned courser. Francis! So, he was also coming for the tourney. It would be another half -hour before he and his retainers could wend their way through the crowded village. A long half-hour until she saw him again.
“ Iolande, how many months since Francis de Beauvais paid us a visit?” she asked without taking her eyes off the magnificent man.
T he curly-headed minx, Manon, glanced up from her needlepoint. "Monseigneur Bishop? He is here?" The young woman's blush rendered her quite winsome, and Dominique realized she was not the only female
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