"Good night," he says and strokes mycheek.
Then he'sgone.
* * *
Chapter 6
"Love isa smoke made with the fume ofsighs."
WilliamShakespeare
After Michel leaves, I return to my mother's fileboxes and take one that's still unopened and sift through itscontents.
About an hour in, I come across a file with a thick document inside. I look at the cover and then my heart jumps. It's a full line-by-line translation, the original French above and English below. It must have been misfiled when my mother's work was packed up after shedied.
I sit on the sofa with it in my hands, filled with guilt at reading it, but there is no way in hell I can put it down. I realize that this is a betrayal of Michel's trust. I know he wouldn't want me to read it. It's painful for him to evenremember.
I turn to the page where Michel left off and I can't not read it. I rationalize that he can read me anytime he wants simply by touching myskin.
Turnabout is fairplay.
* * *
Basilica of St. Nazaire and St. Cerse,Carcassonne, France,1224
Je me tiens dans l'ombre et je regarde mon frèreprier.
I stand in the shadows and watch my brother pray. The sanctuary is filled with the scent of incense and the candles on the altar burn down low, wax pooling on the base and dripping down the sides. With the walled city of Carcassonne now abandoned, the Basilica is under French rule and Michel has been appointed Bishop by the Pope's envoy to claim it for his own. He's been here for hours, praying, his hands clasped in front of his forehead, kneeling on the hard stone floor of the Basilica before a statue of the Madonna holding a deadChrist.
He's whispering his desperate prayer, but even at this distance I can hear every word and it breaks my heart. I thought he hatedme.
"Blessed Virgin, let him live," Michel says, his voice breaking. "Please, Blessed Virgin, hear my prayer. Intercede on my behalf. Let him have survived and escaped to some place where he is even now recuperating from hiswounds..."
Marguerite pushes past me, unwilling to wait any longer. We've been together only one short week but already, I feel enslaved. She looks beautiful as usual, her fair hair piled high on her head and adorned with pearls, tendrils falling out and cascading around her shoulders. Her skin is pale and her lips a deep red – crimson – stained with freshblood.
"Who let you in?" Michel demands when he seesher.
"Your servant, I believe," she says and motions behind her, where I stand with his servant in my arms, having just finished drinking his blood. Michel frowns and watches as I drop him to the stone floor and wipe my mouth on a sleeve before stepping over the body like it's nothing more than a sack of grain. I draw back my hood and revealmyself.
"Julien!" Michel rises from his knees, hobbling over to me, almost falling several times and I know he's been kneeling for hours, his knees bloody. He clasps his arms around me, drawing me into an embrace, his joy at my presence making my heartsqueeze.
"I thought you were dead," he says, kissing both of mycheeks.
"Iam."
"What?" Michel examines me – my face is now as pale like Marguerite's – deathly pale. My cheeks are cold. "Julien!" He reaches down and takes my hands – they, too, are like ice. "You're socold..."
"Cold as the grave, perhaps?" I can't resist saying it, unable to keep a dark note of humor out of myvoice.
Michel frowns and reaches out to touch my face. His fingers come back stained blood red. Flecks of it are on my chin and white collar. Michel looks at the servant – the man's throat is bloody – the red gash visible from where westand.
"What did you do to him?" He bends down at the man's side, reaching for his wrist to feel a pulse, but there is none. He's dead. Michel glances up at me. "You killedhim."
"Mortals are meant todie."
"Have you joined this Cathar heresy?" he says, his voice soft, filled with horror. "Has the witch possessedyou?"
I smile, purposely revealing my sharp teeth. "This has nothing to do with the Cathars orwitches."