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  THE LURE OF THE FALCON

  By

  Julliette Benzoni

  Contents

  PART ONE – A WIND OF FREEDOM 1779

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  PART TWO – Destiny

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  PART THREE – THE BRIDE OF TRECESSON

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Lure of the Falcon

  BOOKS BY

  JULIETTE BENZONI

  One Love Is Enough

  Catherine

  Belle Catherine

  Catherine and Arnaud

  Catherine and a Time for Love

  A Snare for Catherine

  Marianne

  Marianne and the Masked Prince

  Marianne and the Privateer

  Marianne and the Rebels

  Marianne and the Lords of the East

  Marianne and the Crown of Fire

  The Lure of the Falcon

  The Lure of the Falcon

  JULIETTE BENZONI

  Translated by Anne Carter

  G. P. Putnam's Sons

  New York

  FIRST AMERICAN EDITION 1978

  First Published as Le Gerfaut Des Brumes

  Copyright © 1976 by Opera Mundi, Paris

  Translation © 1978 by William Heinemann Ltd. 1978

  SBN: 399-12048-3

  All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Benzoni, Juliette.

  The lure of the falcon.

  Translation of Le Gerfaut des brumes.

  I. Title.

  PZ4.B483LU 1978 [PQ2662.E5] 843'.9'14 78-13154

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  PART ONE

  A Wind of Freedom

  1779

  There is something in us that can be without us, and will be after us, though it is strange that it hath no history what it was before us, nor cannot tell how it entered in us. Sir Thomas Browne

  Chapter One

  The Siren of the Estuary

  The ebb had been running for some time already. The month was September and the spring tide, strong and full, was carrying the blue-grey waters of the Blavet out into the Atlantic along with the sea water which flooded busily into the two channels of the estuary twice a day, jostling the little river aside and mingling with it to thrust deep into the Breton landscape for three leagues and more, bearing the red-sailed fishing boats proudly all the way to Hennebont.

  It was the time of day when a fat orange sun was just sinking below the dark line of the horizon, the time when waders were wheeling slowly above the river, waiting for the mud flats to emerge for them to land on. Now and then a gleaming splash marked where a gull had dived swiftly in search of supper. The sky deepened to mauve and the fat, broad-beamed boats moved sedately out towards the open sea for the night's fishing, like a stately procession crowned with a snatch of song borne on the freshening breeze.

  Gilles bent and picked up the line that lay coiled at his feet. He checked that the ten-ounce lead weight was fast and fixed a lugworm to each of his two hooks. Then, grasping the line with both hands, he whirled the weighted end round his head and sent the lead whistling out as far into the water as he could, where it sank.

  When he had cast the line and drawn it taut, holding it between two fingers so as to catch the faintest tremor of a bite, he sat down on the grass and took no further notice of it, waiting and trusting in the sensitivity of his fingers to strike when the moment came.

  The fishing fleet had passed out of sight, hidden by a bend in the stream. Only the echo of the song still lingered and but for that Gilles could have thought himself sole master of earth and sea. He loved this melancholy hour when the sun departed from one world to seek another. The water in the river became smooth as glass and the sky put on fabulous colours, like an actor decking himself in his most magnificent costume for the last act of a pantomime. One by one the daytime noises died away, until there was only the distant tinkle of the Angelus… It was always a particularly sweet and precious time of day but tonight there was something magical about it, something out of the ordinary which the boy could not define. It might have been in the great arrow-headed clouds that came with the setting sun or in the scent of the grass and the faint smell of angelica that mingled with it…

  A slight movement at his fingertips called the fisherman's thoughts back to his line. It had stirred almost imperceptibly, but not enough to matter and he was letting his mind wander again when he saw the boat.

  It was drifting, all alone, down the centre of the stream, borne seawards on the tide, a small boat scarcely deeper than a raft and empty, quite empty.

  Someone must have moored it badly, Gilles thought. He'll be upset when he finds it gone. The tide is running fast tonight…

  The little boat was certainly moving very fast. Thinking of the trouble its loss would be to some poor man, Gilles rose from his nest of grass as it came level with him and tied his line to a bush.

  He was beginning to pull off his shirt when he saw something a little way behind the boat which drew an exclamation from him. It was a head, the hair, too long for a man's, catching a ray of the dying sun and spreading like a coppery stain in the dark water.

  The boy's quick wits deduced at once what must have happened. The boat had not simply worked itself loose. The woman must have taken it but, either through clumsiness or inexperience, had fallen into the water. She might well have hurt herself, for she seemed to be gliding along on the current without the slightest movement, like one drowned. Perhaps she was already dead…

  In another second, without pausing even to pull off his shirt, Gilles plunged into the water. So perfect was his dive that it did not even disturb a tall, grey heron absorbed in the search for worms. Swimming with all his might, he sped after the ruddy speck floating along with the tide and very soon caught up with it.

  His fingers grasped the long, trailing hair, like fronds of seaweed. He tugged it towards him. There was a scream, quickly smothered as the head went under. He thrust out his arms and clutched blindly at a smooth, slippery body. He was aware of naked skin as it struggled frantically against him and the pair of them sank together below the surface.

  Accustomed by long practice to swimming with his eyes open under water, Gilles saw a youthful face grimacing inches from his own and propelled it hastily towards the surface so that it might breathe. Since, however, as was frequently the way with drowning persons, the face's owner continued to struggle, it seemed to him that he must immobilize her before she took him with her. He therefore stunned her with a quick blow to the chin, so as to be able to tow her ashore safely. Then, swimming with one arm and supporting the head above water with the other, he made his way back to the bank, scrambled for a foothold on the muddy sand and dragging the rescued girl after him, laid her down on the grass.

  He almost dropped her then, with the shock of his discovery that the girl – she could not have been much more than fifteen – was stark naked but for the long hair that fell about her, a fact of which her rescuer had been quite oblivious in the heat of the moment but which now brought an instant blush to his cheek and caused an alarming disturbance in the region of his heart. But he pulled himself together and laid the strange girl down on the grass as gent
ly as he could, then dropped to his knees beside her, trying to see if she were still breathing, and uncertain whether he should go or stay. Suddenly he seemed to hear, thundering on the evening breeze, the stern voice of the Abbé Delourme, deputy head of St Yves College at Vannes, where he was a pupil. 'The beauty of Woman is a wicked snare to entrap Men's souls and minds. Fly from women, all you who would serve God alone…'

  He shut his eyes in terror and crossed himself several times, muttering the prayer against evil spirits. But he did not run away and after a moment or two reopened his eyes.

  He knew then that if he lived to be a hundred he would never forget what he saw, for it was the first time it had been granted to him to behold a naked female form and as luck would have it the one before him now was exquisite. A far cry from the occasional glimpses he had caught down by the harbour in Vannes.

  The girls who loitered outside the shuttered houses, hailing the sailors as they passed, had a trick of whipping their gowns open to show a thigh or breast. But from the moment he had first seen what they were about, Gilles had always turned away, sickened by the heavy, sagging and frequently none too clean flesh. The sight of them bore out the deputy head's dire warnings, excepting only that it was hard to envisage them as any kind of snare. But with the girl who lay there on the sun-browned summer grass it was a very different matter, for she seemed made of a wholly different substance…

  She was all pink and gold with skin as soft as the petals of a flower. Her graceful body was as slim and fine-drawn as a thoroughbred's and her waist incredibly slender above the smooth swell of her hips and gold-shadowed abdomen. Her breasts, though small as yet, were exquisitely formed and tipped with delicate rose pink. The only faintly jarring note in the whole symphony of loveliness was where her arms and her long legs, to elbow and knee, were distinctly darker than the rest of her, as though from long exposure to the sun.

  'Some fisherman's daughter, surely,' Gilles said to himself, but he could not really think it. For one thing, he knew all the fisherfolk and their families and this pretty sea nymph was a stranger to him. For another, her shapely hands and feet, long, slender neck and the dainty little nose joined by the slightest dimple to her upper lip, with the unconscious grace of her attitude, all contradicted any such hasty conclusion. This girl had never endured the hard life of a fisher lass. She was a creature of a quite different essence.

  Quite suddenly she opened her eyes, huge, dark eyes flecked with gold, though Gilles was given little opportunity to judge their colour, being almost immediately the recipient of a ringing box on both ears which rocked him back from his kneeling position to sprawl on the grass, while the girl, shrieking like a fury, hurled herself upon him with the evident intention of scratching out his eyes.

  They struggled for a while, the youthful fury pressing home her attack and abusing him so roundly that Gilles was unable to get a word in. He succeeded in overpowering her at last, and pinned her to the ground with both hands clamped fast behind her back. Helpless but by no means resigned, she spat up into his face like an angry cat and her eyes blazed at him in a frenzied paroxysm of rage.

  'You filthy clodhopper!' she screamed. 'Let go of me this instant or I'll have the skin off your back and throw it to the hounds!'

  Her childish features were so screwed up with rage that they had ceased to look remotely threatening and were indeed simply funny. Still without releasing his grip, Gilles started to laugh.

  'You have an odd way of thanking one who saved your life, Mademoiselle!'

  His calm voice and gentlemanly speech had their effect on the youthful fury. She ceased spitting and frowned up at her rescuer through half-closed lashes.

  'Why should you think my life in danger?' she retorted, with an unconscious alteration in her tone. 'Is it no longer possible to bathe but one must needs be pounced on by some bedlamite, knocked senseless and dragged ashore?'

  'Bathe? In the estuary? On a falling tide, with the currents that there are? It was sheer madness. And you were not even swimming.'

  'No. I was letting the tide carry me. It was so delightful!'

  'Quite wonderful, to be sure. Unfortunately, that can carry you straight into the next world. Anyone else in my place would have done as I did. Where are your clothes?'

  She laughed, on a shrill note that betrayed her anger.

  'Where should they be but in the boat, of course? You have only to go after them—'

  Gilles sat up and peered through the twilight. The boat was already a long way off. Caught in a swifter current, it was almost out of sight and in another moment would have reached the open sea.

  'Not a chance,' he said absently, his gaze returning, as though drawn by a magnet, to rest on the girl's body, which she made no move to conceal. On the contrary, she stretched herself full length on the grass and yawned, revealing a pink mouth and small, white teeth.

  'There it is, then,' she sighed, and there was so much malice in her smile that Gilles suspected her of secretly enjoying the situation. 'I shall have to go back to the chateau as I am! I wonder what they will say to that!'

  'The chateau?'

  She jerked her head in the direction of the tall grey rooftops looming beyond the trees.

  'Over there! The Chateau de Locguenolé, of course! The Perriens are my cousins and I am on a visit, but since they are inclined to be a trifle stiff about such things there is nothing else for it. You must give me your clothes.'

  Her words fell on deaf ears. His fascinated eyes were following every supple movement of her naked flesh. Something strange and terrible was awakening within him, sweeping away all his preconceived ideas. The blood was beating in his throat and temples, blurring his sight and obliterating will and reason. He felt that this body had belonged to him since time began, that he must be close to it and cling to it so that they might never more be parted… His need was something almost painful, like hunger or thirst. His whole being reached out to her, yearning to seize her, to hold her and possess her.

  The sudden change in his face warned the girl. Her smile faded and she sprang lightly to her feet in an instant and withdrew circumspectly behind a bush. All that remained visible to Gilles was a discontented young face crowned with a tangle of red-gold hair, eyeing him above the blazing gorse.

  'Well?' she said sharply. 'Did you hear me? Give me your clothes, I said.'

  Gilles came back to earth so suddenly that he grimaced with the shock, as if he had physically hurt himself.

  'My clothes? And how am I to get home?'

  'I don't care. All that matters is that I shall not be obliged to return to the chateau stark naked. Quickly, now – and don't tell me they are wet, because it is of no consequence. If you don't do as I say, I shall scream so loudly someone is bound to hear! Then I shall say that you assaulted me – and you will certainly be flogged for it, perhaps even hanged!'

  Gilles shrugged, unimpressed by her threats, but he acted without hesitation. She was quite right when she said she could not go back to the chateau naked. The Comtesse de Perrien, Locguenolé's owner, was said to be a lady of such strict principles that she might well have a fit. For himself, he could wait until nightfall and then get back to Kervignac unnoticed and that would be that.

  Swiftly, he ripped off his shirt and sopping canvas breeches and tossed them over the gorse bush, leaving himself with nothing but his close-fitting linen drawers. He turned his back to the girl, feeling much more self-conscious than she had been a little while before. Weren't they for ever telling him at school that nakedness of any kind was an intolerable shame? He longed to run away but something stronger than himself held him back. Then he heard a voice say quietly:

  'You have no needy to be ashamed. You are very handsome. It is only when one is ugly that one needs to hide oneself.'

  He turned round then and looked at her and laughed with a sense of profound relief. Dressed in his clothes, which were far too big for her, she was at once absurd and charming. But she was not laughing. She was consideri
ng him with some perplexity, as though she found him a knotty problem.

  'I have not seen you before,' she said at last. 'What is your name?'

  'Gilles. Gilles – Goëlo. I live at Kervignac'

  Lord, what it cost him to bring out that name! He would have given anything, in the presence of this girl whom he guessed, for all her strange manners, to be of noble birth, to be able to style himself Rohan or Penthièvre. Worse still, he could sense from the slight pursing of her lips, the faintest shrug of her shoulders, that she was disappointed.

  'Oh,' was all she said. Then, without another word, she turned on her heel and began to run in the direction of the chateau grounds. At that, Gilles cupped his hands to his mouth and called after her:

  'And you? What is your name?'

  She stopped then and turned but in the gathering darkness he could no longer see the expression on her face. But he did sense a hesitation before her voice came to him, cold and distant.

  'I had rather you forgot it,' she said, 'but I have no right to withhold my name from you. I am Judith de Saint-Mélaine!'

  With that, she was gone, vanishing into the trees without another glance, while Gilles, feeling angry and humiliated, as well as freezing cold, turned his steps across the heath towards his own village of Kervignac, some three miles distant.

  He was by no means clear whom he was most angry with. Which one did he blame the most? Himself, for being fool enough to stun a harmless bather who had not asked him to interfere (even though she was undoubtedly putting her life in danger). Or the little red-haired harpy with no more shame than a real siren, whose smile had such charm but who had shut up like an oyster, just when she seemed on the point of making friends, as soon as she discovered he did not belong to her hidebound, aristocratic world? Or the malign fate which had brought them together only to make him more conscious, when for the first time in his life he was attracted by a girl, of the unbridgeable gulf that would always lie between himself and that lovely creature? Judith de Saint-Mélaine had been disappointed by his plebeian name. How would she have reacted had she known that it came to him only through his mother, and that his birth was illegitimate? As he pictured her pursing up her soft lips and wrinkling up her little freckled nose with scorn, or even with disgust, the boy felt a murderous anger welling up inside him. Why had God done this to him?