Original fic, The Hand of God, chapter 5

[janetlin]

Title: The Hand of God
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Dark fantasy
Summary: Isabeau d'Auvergne is a noblewoman in medieval France, whose life takes a darker turn when four men visit in the night to bestow a "gift" upon her father. Rating is for general darkness and the sensuality inherent in vampirism.

~*~

 

            When Nicolas awoke, he knew it was night. So many years of waking to darkness had given him an undeniable sense of when the sun shone and when it slept. Isabeau still lay as he had last seen her, hair carelessly spread on the white cotton of her pillow. He dressed in the dark, not hampered at all. That was something else he had grown used to since becoming a vampire; his eyes could see exceptionally without light. Once he was dressed, he looked again at Isabeau, still lying in the bed, unmoving. He took the candle and left the room in search of the baker woman. He stopped at the curtain to the room that held his three friends and the two mortals. Sounds of them waking came through the cloth. Satisfied, he left the hallway and stepped into the cooking area where the woman had first received them. The sudden light hurt his eyes at first, but he adjusted quickly and soon saw the woman walking towards him.

            “Ah, my lord, I was just coming to wake you and your friends. I trust you had a pleasant sleep, you and your lady?”

            “We did, madame, thank you.” The way she had asked about Isabeau raised questions in his mind. She saw his puzzled expression and clucked softly. Looking around to make sure no other ears would hear, she leaned close to Nicolas and whispered.

            “That girl is nobody’s wife. It takes a woman to realize it, but I knew the moment I first saw her.”

            Nicolas tried to play dumb. “She is a pure woman, madame, if that is what you’re…”

            “That she is, monsieur, that she is. Which is how I know she is not your wife. That woman has never been touched by any man, and certainly not by you.”

            Nicolas was at a loss for words. This woman had known that Isabeau was not his wife? How many other people would be able to recognize her innocence? The woman slipped something into his hand. At first he thought it was the coin he had given her the night before, but when he looked down he realized it was a small metal band. A woman’s wedding ring, simple and unadorned, but obvious in its purpose.

            “This will help you should you need to say that she is your wife again. Though, for her sake, I would not become too comfortable with that story.” She said, looking straight into his eyes.

            “I cannot take this from you…” Nicolas tried to object.

            “I do not have need of it,” she shook her head. “I have not worn it in years. It will serve her better than me, right now.”

            “Mercí, madame,” he said quietly.

            “Here, let me light that for you. That room is very dark, with no windows. My husband wanted the children to be able to see sunlight in the morning….” She trailed off as Nicolas handed her the candle, and she lighted it from one of the others standing about the room. She gave it back to him without a word, but with a knowing look, and he left, back to the room where Isabeau lay sleeping.

            She had moved since he left; she now lay on her other side. He nodded approval. She was starting to wake herself; his task would not be as difficult. He carefully set his candle down on the nightstand, and sat on the edge of the mattress. The light from the flame cast a glow upon Isabeau’s face, but it could not be mistaken for the blush of health. She had lost her coloring while she slept. He reached out for her hand, and she was cold as death. He sighed. Sometimes, vampires did not lose their sanguine humor. They continue to breathe, their skin remains pink, and blood stays warm in their veins. He had hoped that Isabeau could be one of those few. But it happened fewer times than it did not, so Nicolas was not surprised that Isabeau now assumed the stereotypical appearance of their kind.

            The feel of his hand against hers seemed to rouse her, and she stretched with a sleepy moan. She opened her eyes and looked at him, her gaze still obscured by sleep.

            “Good evening, my lady,” he smiled and kissed her fingertips. She weakly returned the smile, and then seemed to suddenly remember the events of the last night. She sat up, fully awake, clutching the coverlet to her chest. Nicolas laughed, “Such modesty? Do you not remember that you asked me to release you from your clothing last night?” he said with an impish grin.

            “I…” she looked around the room, puzzled, until her gaze fell upon her gown lying in the chair. “If you will excuse me, I would get dressed,” she said with all the dignity she could muster.

            He chuckled and backed away. “As my lady wishes.”

            Before long, the baker woman came bustling into the room. “Your man said you might need help getting dressed. Highborn ladies such as yourself are not used to dressing alone, I suppose, nor fixing their own hair.” She glanced at the simple braid Isabeau had begun. “But you should not be traveling in your finery. My daughter was of a size with you…” she trailed off as she began digging into the chest at the foot of the bed. She came up with a white muslin shift and a blue woolen kirtle. “They are not what you are used to, I’m sure, but they will serve you better for traveling than your gown, and should attract less attention. Highborn lady like yourself traveling with soldier men…”

            “They are my husband’s friends,” Isabeau said quickly.

            “Friends of his they may be, my lady, but not fitting travel companions for yourself.” Isabeau nodded silently and allowed the woman to help her dress. She brushed Isabeau’s hair and braided it in four strands, then wrapped it around her head as her own was done. Isabeau helped her secure it with pins, and by the time they were done and had walked back out into the baking room, all six of the men were ready and waiting.

            They all said their good-byes and thank-yous, and then disappeared again into the night. They rode slower this time, since the danger of being discovered by the invaders of Auvergne was left farther behind with each step. Joseph, apparently, had not needed the entire day’s sleep, and so he had gathered some information while his companions slept.

            “They say that all of Auvergne was burned to the ground. Nobody knows who the men were. They were very careful not to identify themselves with anyone or any other group. It is said that anyone who knew your father or worked for him was killed, and if any survive who do remember him personally, they are being very quiet.” Isabeau absorbed this information with little change in expression.

            “Are these men looking for those who might remember d’Auvergne?” duGhent asked, “Are those who escaped being hunted?”

            “I had not heard,” Joseph answered, then looked at Isabeau and spoke more softly. “The people are frightened, though. They do not even speak his name aloud, but in whispers. I fear for your safety, my lady. Surely, d’Auvergne’s only daughter would be a great prize for the men responsible.” All the men nodded, and Isabeau merely bowed her head in seeming resignation. From where he walked on the ground next to her, though, Nicolas could tell she was masking not tears, but a fiery anger. Good. A certain amount of anger aids in strength, and she would need all the strength she could muster.

            “Indeed,” he spoke up, “it would be wise for those among our party with ties to Auvergne to dissolve them to public knowledge.” Isabeau hesitantly pulled her father’s signet ring from her thumb. “Minstrel Caldwell,” Nicolas continued, “your very nature is that of a wanderer, so you will not be assumed to have any lasting connections to Auvergne, but my lady and her steward…”

            “Am I to remain your wife, then?” Isabeau’s voice betrayed only a hint of a snap. Nicolas thought of the baker woman’s ring inside his pouch.

            “You may play wife to any of us. It is blood relations that will be harder to feign.”

            Joseph laughed form where he rode behind Louis. “Which of us will you marry next time, my lady?”

            Isabeau looked at the party of men surrounding her. Louis and duGhent were far too old; Joseph, though he was probably of an age with her, seemed hardly more than a boy; the other three were all fine men, though none looked to be equal to her in station. She looked down at the woolen dress she was wearing. She no longer looked like a noblewoman, unless someone closely scrutinized her face. Perhaps she could seem the wife of a wandering soldier.

“I would rather play the part of a daughter,” she announced. Louis and duGhent looked at each other.

            “I am ill-suited to be anything other than a servant, monsieur. I could never presume to be her father…” Louis faded out until he was silent. DuGhent looked at Nicolas; as the one whose blood had called her back to life, he was the closest thing to a father or any family she had now. Nicolas nodded, and duGhent took his place nearest Isabeau’s side.

            Nicolas had not known duGhent as a young man, but it was not too difficult to imagine him with the brown hair he said he’d had, nor that strong face without the age lines that even the power of vampiric blood had been unable to remove. He could pass as her father, for all that people paid attention to the way an old man looked beyond the signs of his age. Except for that baker woman… which made Nicolas smile again.

            Being away from Auvergne, they traveled along the road and the men no longer held their weapons at the ready, but they still carefully watched the road and the land to either side of it. Nevertheless, they were fairly surprised when duGhent suddenly stopped and turned around. “We are followed,” he said simply.

            Nicolas presented the first reasonable possibility, “A messenger, Augúst?”

            DuGhent growled. “No messenger would travel so late unless it were direly important.” He paused for a moment, listening to the increasingly nearer sound. “And not in company. This can bode no good.” DuGhent drew his sword and began leading Isabeau’s horse off the road.

The other men did the same, and Nicolas spoke almost too quietly to hear, “It seems our supper has found us.” The three men on the ground nodded silently, and Michel traded his crossbow for the sword-breaker at his hip. They stood in the shadows and waited for the other party.

            Four horsemen drew rein in front of them. Their blades were bared and they had the unmistakable look of highwaymen. One of them spoke in a surprisingly educated-sounding dialect. “Good evening, messieurs. You must no doubt be aware of the dangers of traveling on the roads at night. If you would accept our escort, we would guard you from bands of villainous outlaws. For a small price.” The man’s grin did little to ease the thought that he would rather stab each of them in the back and take their money and valuables. He slowly looked at each person in the party, until his gaze rested on Isabeau. He nudged his horse closer. “The woman,” he said with a lascivious smirk, “will do nicely.”

            “You’ll not touch her!” Joseph cried before he could stop himself. The bandit calmly moved his gaze to the minstrel.

            “No, mon petit?” with a slight motion of his hand, he beckoned his three companions closer, “I think I shall.” Isabeau’s men sprang at the four brigands in an eyeblink, pulling them from their mounts before they even realized they were beset. Suddenly, eight men were on the ground, four of them held at swordpoint or in the implacable grip of one of the vampires.

            “You will apologize to the lady or meet your death here and now,” duGhent hissed in the leader’s ear.

            “Kill me then, old man, I will make no apologies.”

            “Then tonight you sleep in hell.” DuGhent sank his fangs into the man while his companions gasped and tried to escape their captors. But the vampires had other plans for these men. One by one, their heads dropped to the necks of those they held, and abbreviated cries were the last sounds the bandits ever made. Louis and Joseph blanched, and looked as if they wished their horse would bolt. But the animal stood immovable, and the men were too paralyzed with fear to climb down from its back.

            DuGhent stopped drinking long before his victim was dead, and looked up at Isabeau. “Come, child, take your first drink and learn the sweetness of mortal blood.” Isabeau slid off her horse and gracefully sank to the ground next to duGhent and the fallen bandit. Blood slowly and faintly pulsed out of the two small holes in the man’s neck. Seeing it stirred something inside Isabeau, and she fell upon him and feasted.

            She was unaware of time passing as she fed. All she could feel was the lifeblood of this murderer flowing past her lips and filling her with warmth. She could taste the sin in the man’s blood, and she reveled in the justice she was dealing him. She knew nothing would ever taste so sweet to her as the blood of the guilty: those who would prey upon those weaker than they. This one had misjudged her, and now would never again be able to hurt another person. Yes, she would seek these men out, and call them to judgment for their crimes…

            DuGhent laid a hand on her shoulder just as the blood passing her lips became cold. “It is done, Isabeau.” She dropped the man’s body and stood up, wiping the corners of her mouth. When her gaze fell upon Joseph, he fainted and fell off the horse. By this time, the other men had finished feeding, and came to stand behind Isabeau.

            “This one is useless to us,” Michel said, standing over Joseph’s body, “let us leave him.”

            “No,” Nicolas’ voice was soft, “he can be made to serve a purpose.” He turned to Isabeau and continued speaking gently. “Isabeau, when mortals drink the blood of vampires, it creates a bond between them. The mortals will not age so long as they drink from a vampire, and they become stronger and more powerful than mere humans. These servants prove most useful to vampires, as they can perform tasks in daylight hours that their masters cannot.

            “You needn’t drink from him, Isabeau, simply give him some of your blood, and he will be yours beyond the strength of any oath.” Here he glanced up at Louis, who had regained some of his color, though still had not moved.

            Michel pulled his dagger out of his boot and handed it to Isabeau without a word. She looked at the blade, unable to bring herself to use it. “Does he need to be awake?” she asked, hoping that the answer would afford her a few more moments to think over what she was about to do.

            But duGhent shook his head. “The blood of a vampire is very potent. Drinking it can cause most light wounds to heal quickly, and perhaps even cure illnesses. It will awaken him.”

            Isabeau took a deep breath and once more looked at the long, sharp edge of the dagger. She laid it against her wrist, but froze before she could draw it across the skin. Nicolas placed his hand over hers and applied just the tiniest force that pushed the blade through her skin. She winced, then pushed Nicolas’ hand away and let go of the dagger. She knelt beside Joseph, and opened his mouth to let her blood drip inside.

            Joseph’s eyes flew open and he pierced her with his gaze. “What have you done to me? Am I a vampire now?”

            DuGhent chuckled, “Not hardly, little one. You are now more than a man. Isabeau’s blood has created a link between you.”

            “You have given me a gift of the damned,” he said to Isabeau in a husky voice, “and I should hate you for it.” A few moments passed in silence while he stared at Isabeau and she sat there, waiting. “But I cannot, my lady,” he tore his gaze away from her and stared into the darkness, saying no more.

            She stood and walked over to where Louis still sat on his horse. She looked up at him and then paused a moment before lifting her injured arm. “As long as I live, Louis, you shall live.” She spoke gently, “Serve me as you served my father.” Her eyes pleaded with him, eyes that were her mother’s yet still too much like her father. He had loved them both. He would not abandon their daughter to an eternity alone surrounded by monsters. Slowly, he took her hand and gently kissed her palm, then moved his lips to her still-bleeding wrist and almost tenderly licked her blood. He could feel it slowly coursing through his body, like the heat from a fire seeping through clothes and skin until finally it chased away the last aches of the cold.

            Louis could understand why Joseph had said he could not hate her. She looked different, now. Some glow or aura or something only vaguely detected made him want to look at her more, until he discerned the nature of the change. Perhaps the change had merely been in him. Perhaps the gift of her blood had made him able to sense things he had not before. Perhaps he was just imagining things. None of the others looked any different, only Isabeau. He shook his head to clear it, but the feeling was still there. He mentally shrugged it off and leaned down to help Joseph back onto the horse.

            Nicolas took Isabeau’s hand again, and raised it. His tongue slid along her wrist, sealing the wound. He smiled at her, “Remember that, Isabeau. Wounds will heal of their own accord, with time, but licking them closed will heal them much faster.” She nodded and pulled her hand out of his. They all remounted with only a few muttered comments and were riding silently back down the road within minutes.

            Eventually, Isabeau spoke softly, “Where is it that we go? Or do we just ride to be away from my home?”

            DuGhent answered her, “My brother is prince of this land, and his court is held in the next town. It is there you will be further instructed in our ways.”

            Isabeau’s surprise was unmasked. “Your brother is a prince?”

            The vampires smiled and duGhent corrected her. “The realms of vampires and mortals seldom coincide. While men have one prince over the country, and several lords of smaller fiefs, vampires have princes for each of the larger cities, and some have several villages within their jurisdiction. It is to one of these that we go now.”

            “This man is prince over my father’s land?”

            “My brother is prince over much of this region. He has vassal princes in the counties and fiefs who pay tribute to him. Nicolas, actually, is the vassal prince to whom the lands of Auvergne would belong.”

            Isabeau shot Nicolas a disbelieving look. He was the vampire prince over her father’s lands? How had she never seen him before? Louis was likewise shocked. Even her father had seemed not to recognize him. Could their worlds truly be so far apart? He looked up at her with a blank expression; denying nothing and lying bare to her everything that he was. She tried to appear composed as she asked, “And are you others also vassal princes?”

            Michel and Andrés laughed out loud and duGhent’s smile reached his eyes. “No, cherie, I am merely the peacekeeper of my brother’s holdings. Michel is the eldest of our blood in Nicolas’ domain, other than Nicolas himself, and Andrés is my son.”

            Isabeau fought to keep her jaw from dropping. “Your son?” She managed to say without gaping. How on earth could duGhent have produced a man like Andrés?

            Again, duGhent simply smiled. “My child, as you are Nicolas’ child. It was my blood which called him back to life, and so he is my son.” He looked over Isabeau’s horse at the fair-haired mountain of a man who walked with an easy grace from his long legs. “A relationship unknown and irrelevant in the realms of men, but an important one in our courts of night.”

            “As Nicolas’ ‘child,’ what…how will I be received?” she asked timidly.

            “You shall be presented to the prince and then given over to Nicolas’ teaching. Until he presents you again, with all the knowledge you will need to survive on your own, you will be acknowledged only as his child.” Again, he glanced over at the Northman. “Andrés has learned well from me these past ten years. When we arrive at court, I will announce the completion of his teaching, and the court will decide whether or not they will accept him.” Andrés’ head jerked up; this was clearly the first he had heard of this possibility.

            “My lords,” Joseph asked quietly, “what will our place be, as servants to our lady?”

            “More and less than servants,” Nicolas replied. “You are under Isabeau’s care, and in a way, she is under yours. I have no other children, so you will be her sole companions.”

            “Nicolas,” Michel almost interrupted, “Isabeau is not yet recognized in court. They would think it preposterous for her to already have two retainers. Let them think that the men are bound in service to you, and you have merely appointed them as guardians over the lady. Also, our kin would be less likely to attempt stealing a servant from a vassal prince than from his neonate whelp.” Nicolas nodded, and out of the corner of his eye saw Isabeau cringe at the harsh term. Michel saw her as well and made an apologetic gesture. “That is how those at court will see you, my lady. You should prepare yourself for such comments.” Isabeau nodded, trying to accept the thought that for once in her life, people would treat her as less than she was.

            “But then why do you address me as lady?” she asked. “You say that others will not think of me as such, and your standing now far surpasses mine. Why do you still do me such honor?”

            “You are the daughter of Guy d’Auvergne, whom I hold to be the highest kind of man,” Michel explained. “Honor is due to such noble blood, and I will not deny it to you, his legacy.”

            “Still,” duGhent spoke up, “our brethren of the court will not acknowledge her as such, and their respect for you will drop if they see you doing her what they deem to be undeserved honor. We should hide it in public as much as we can.” That last was said in a quieter tone, making plain the fact that he, too, would rather address her as was her right, but necessity demanded that it be otherwise.

            They continued riding toward their mysterious destination, Isabeau dwelling in thought.             Ten years to complete Andrés’ teaching. Ten years was a long time to wait for the next step in one’s life. How long would it take Nicolas to teach her all she needed to know? How long would it be before she could begin to hunt the men who had killed her father and ravaged her home?

            She vowed it would be less than ten years.