Page 28

Shock flooded Arianne. She almost started forward, but the old duke, who had not seen her, began to speak, and she stayed rooted where she was, surveying the tableau as if it were a scene from some bizarre dream.

“Yes, kill me now, Julian. End this. I’ve suffered enough. I should have been struck dead the day I sent my son away. I believed you…your lies…over Nicholas.”

“I don’t want to kill you, Father,” Julian said in the quietest, most reserved tone Arianne had ever heard him use. Yet he sounded resigned. He was going to follow through!

“But there is no choice,” Julian continued. “A rebellion is under way. I must marshal my men and fight those who would cast out the rightful heir to Dinadan.”

“You’re not the rightful heir. Nicholas is.”

“You disowned him. Banished him. And Cren here claims he is dead. So it is left to me—once you are gone. And so now, lest someone find that the old duke lives still, you must needs be truly gone.”

“Then do it!” the old duke rasped, contempt in his sagging, lined face, as well as grief, a grief so great that Arianne’s heart ached for him, because she knew it was not himself he grieved for but the son he had wronged.

“At least admit to me, before I die, that you were the architect of my feud with Nicholas. You drove the wedge between us with your lies…You paid those peasants to swear they saw him attack that girl…”

“And I paid her to swear to it,” Julian said softly.

The duke groaned.

“What would you have had me do?” Julian demanded, his voice rising, shrill with hatred.

“I knew that with him here in this court, I would never have a chance to succeed you. He was the firstborn, and you favored him over me in every way besides. Outright murder would have been too risky. So I found another way.”

“Evil…boy,” the duke whispered, and despite his frailty, his eyes glinted with rage.

“Yes, it’s true. It was wicked of me, wasn’t it?

” Julian sneered. “But brilliant, too, you must admit. For that little incident never happened, my lord, none of it—nor any of the other rumors of Nicholas’s wrongdoing that I whispered in your ear.

” Julian gave a laugh so low and spiteful that it filled Arianne with horror.

“Your precious Nicholas was innocent of it all. Now at last you know the whole truth.”

“I suspected…”

“Ah, yes, you became suspicious, and that’s what forced me to arrange your death. You would have summoned Nicholas some time ago, searched for him and heard him out. You were ready to doubt me and welcome him home, so therefore you left me no choice!”

“You have no choice now, my lord,” Cren spat. “Kill him and let us go down to the fray. You must rally your soldiers and your supporters among the people. There isn’t a moment to spare!”

“You do it!” Julian shoved his sword back into its scabbard. “I cannot. He is my own father—you kill him, quickly, and then we will go…”

“No!” Arianne rushed forward as Cren drew out his sword with a billowing motion of his sleeve. She braced herself between the two men and the duke’s sickbed.

They stared at her in stupefaction, then wrath lit Julian’s face. His eyes glittered like sword points.

“What the devil are you doing here? My wife’s servant dares…”

“You mistake the matter, cousin .” With shaking fingers, Arianne tugged off her wimple, letting her hair tumble free.

“I am Arianne come from Galeron to free my brother. He is free even as we speak, Julian. He is fighting alongside Nicholas, driving back your men.” She prayed it was true as she continued imperiously.

“Killing the duke will do no good. You have lost. Your reign is over!”

“Nicholas is alive, you say?” Julian sprang forward and grasped her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh so painfully that Arianne nearly whimpered, but she forced herself to remain silent.

“You lie, it cannot be! Cren has announced that he is dead!” Suddenly he struck her across the face. “You would say anything to try to spare your brother!”

The ringing pain from his blow made Arianne blink in fury, but she faced Julian with head held high. “This is the truth! Do you truly wish to continue fighting here, with me—or are you man enough to face the battle raging all through Castle Dinadan? The choice, my brave lord, is yours!”

Arianne flung these words at him with the utmost contempt. She reached out and gripped the weak, trembling fingers of Archduke Armand, who was breathing shallowly beside her.

Cren rushed to the tiny window carved into the stone and peered down at the melee in the courtyard.

The air was filled with shouts, screams, groans, and the clanging of swords.

Arrows rained down from the watchtowers.

Even as he stared at the gallows where the executions were to have taken place this day, he saw a small, dark figure scrambling to ascend the structure.

To his chagrin, he saw it was the gypsy.

“Lord Nicholas lives! He lives! He is within the castle walls, fighting in the name of Dinadan!”

Her rallying shriek echoed even up to that high, secret chamber.

Cren spun away from the window and met Julian’s livid gaze.

“We must kill them both now, my lord, and go down to lead the knights! Our soldiers will win, and the duke’s proclamation that you are to succeed him will still carry weight.”

Julian was literally shaking with anger. “Quickly, then,” he snarled, and, having made up his mind, the utter ruthlessness of his darkest side swiftly consumed him. His sword scraped out of its scabbard.

“Dearest Arianne, you never could learn a woman’s place—you were forever trying to join in the war games of boys. Now you’ll pay the price of death for it.”

But as he advanced on her, Arianne dodged around the small table near the window, keeping him at bay on the far side of it. Breathing hard, she saw Cren rushing toward the duke, and in desperation snatched up the ceramic jug on the table before her. She hurled it at him.

It struck the back of his head, and he groaned, turning a monstrous, glaring face at her.

But the blow had only slowed him down.

“If I had a sword, I would slay you both!” she shouted as Julian started toward her again, but at that instant a hidden panel beside the bed slid open, and Nicholas stepped through.

His garments were tattered and bloody, but he looked splendid and fierce and invincible. His face was flushed, his dark hair slick with sweat, but there was an iron calm in his bearing and in his eyes that bespoke a man in control of his destiny.

Through the rent leather of his tunic, the royal medallion of Dinadan gleamed gloriously against his swarthy chest.

“I have a sword, my sweet love, and I will gladly perform that service for you.”

He seemed to have summed up the situation at a glance, but when his quick hawklike gaze spied his father lying in the bed, all color drained from Nicholas’s face.

Arianne stood frozen, terrified for what he was feeling and thinking at this moment, her heart pounding as she realized that his shock would leave him distracted and vulnerable to Julian and Cren.

“Archduke Armand is not hurt…” she began, but the words died in her throat as she caught the expression on Julian’s face.

He, too, was in shock. Shock at seeing his hated half brother alive and here. But beneath the shock was hatred, a hatred as raw and ugly as an open sore. Then the terrible rage lashed through Julian as his gaze centered on the royal medallion of Dinadan around Nicholas’s neck.

“The medallion!” he croaked. “You!” He swung his sword in a glittering, deadly arc.

“Kill him!” Julian screamed to Cren and lunged forward. Cren obediently joined the attack against the banished heir.

Arianne flung herself back to the opposite side of the duke’s bed. There was nothing in the chamber that could be used as a weapon, there was nothing she could do but grasp the archduke’s shriveled hand.

“Nicholas will prevail,” she tried to reassure him, but her lips felt numb, and her gaze was fixed in terror on the battle where Nicholas coolly faced two enemies who wielded their swords with deadly intent.

It was clear that Julian and Cren had learned their swordsmanship from a master.

There was sweat on Nicholas’s upper lip, and he was forced to thrust and dodge and parry at a furious pace as they both came at him at once.

“Julian…you cannot shed…your brother’s blood,” the archduke rasped out feebly.

Arianne would have told him to save his breath. Cren and Julian were attacking as ruthlessly as mongrel dogs fighting over a rabbit. Except that Nicholas was no rabbit.

He was a magnificent warrior, larger and stronger than both of them, and far more agile.

Though they had been well trained, he had honed his formidable skills on countless fields of battle.

His sword swept and plunged. Deftly he turned aside each vicious thrust. Then, with one mighty blow, he sent Cren’s sword clattering across the floor.

When the astrologer scrambled to retrieve it, Arianne sprang forward. This time she lifted the chamber pot and struck him over the top of the head.

He toppled to the floor, limp as an eel.

“Throw down your sword, Julian.” Nicholas’s eyes were alight with a cold fury that sent shivers up and down Arianne’s spine. “Else I will kill you now.”

“Hah!” Julian sneered and lunged forward then, with a quickness born of hate and desperation.

“You may have escaped from that prison, but you will not escape from Castle Dinadan or from me. I will smear your blood across every wall in this chamber! Die, my hated brother. Die!” The sword point glided past Nicholas’s defense and slid toward his chest.

But Nicholas leaped aside just in time and followed up with a vicious thrust of his own. With grim strength he plunged the tip of his sword into Julian’s throat.

Arianne shut her eyes against the gush of blood. She heard a single strangling gurgle, then the thud as Julian’s body hit the floor.

A racking shiver went through her.