fire.”
Yes, Gitta could feel this fire. Was it the heat of Hell?
“I have never known a girl like you.” He
His hands were on her arms. His thighs brushed her own. His face was inches from hers. Gitta’s skin sparked. She didn’t know why her clothes were not aflame.
“You are...” he breathed against her, the air hot and wet and heavy between them. “You are what I always wished for. You are everything I want. And you’re a girl.” He pressed his mouth to hers.
The kiss turned the fire to ice in her veins, and Gitta froze. She had never been kissed, never known what it was like for a man to even look upon her with desire. So this is what it was. So this is what Elise lived for.
Gitta gagged and shoved Bernard away.
He tripped over his own feet and fell, sprawling, on the stones. “Gitta!”
“Get away from me, you pig,” she said. “How dare you take such liberties with a holy woman?”
He pushed to his feet and dusted himself off. “You weren’t so very holy a moment ago,” he said with a sneer. “It’s a wonder you can still control that unicorn, since you act like such a harlot.” He grabbed her arm. “You feel it, too, don’t lie.”
“I have no need of lying,” said Gitta. “God knows all of my failings. If I was tempted, I shall ask forgive —”
His hand came down on her other arm, trapping her there with him. “
She struggled to break free.
“And now I know you. I touch you, and I feel true fire. I hold you—my soul erupts with poetry. Listen!” he cried.
Gitta began to laugh. Bernard stopped and looked upon her with surprise. She wriggled out of his grasp. “You are a most unworthy man,” she said, trying in vain to catch her breath. “You are ... not only a fool, and a scoundrel, but you are a liar as well. Does your betrothed know of your faithlessness? Does she know, at least, of your thievery?”
Bernard sputtered.
“I am not as unlearned as Elise or the other girls you attempt to ensnare, sir.” Gitta laughed again. “Your verse is not your own, and my body will never be yours to use as poorly.” She drew her dagger. “Do not come near me again.” She edged her way around him and began to back down the aisle toward the entrance to the chapel.
What a cad. And how very weak she’d been, to entertain his flattery, even for a moment. To want in that moment to know what it felt like to be desired. To be beautiful, like Elise.
She’d condemned Elise for this, but apparently she was subject to the very same weaknesses. And Elise had been trained all her life to find it complimentary, admirable. She’d been brought up for love and flattery, as Gitta had for weapons and war.
But now Gitta knew the truth. Elise de Commarque was not so very different from her. They each were far too good for swine like Bernard.
She stepped out of the chapel and ran smack into Elise.
“There you are,” said the younger girl, her golden hair concealed beneath a thick woolen cloak. “I must speak to you.”
Elise had brought a lantern, and with it, she guided Gitta to the far edge of the garden and beyond. To her left, the barn and stables, to the right, a series of low hills. Beyond lay a cluster of peasant cottages, and farther than that, the dark shadowed line of the forest.
“Where are we going, my lady?” Gitta asked as Elise led them around the side of one of the hills. Into the hill was set a crude wooden door, tied shut with a knot of rope. Elise undid the knot and motioned for Gitta to follow her down a series of earthen steps.
“These are the wine cellars,” she explained, though it was probably obvious to the hunter from the rows upon rows of bottles they passed. They crept through three chambers of these, and then Elise took a path to the left, where they passed one empty room, and then the tunnel grew narrow and short. Eventually, they hit a dead end, or what looked like one. “For this next part,” she said, “we must crawl.”
She set down the lantern and pushed aside a great rock to reveal a dark hole in the earth. She wiggled her way through, then reached back through the hole to retrieve the lantern. She peered at Gitta on the other side. “Come through.”
Gitta gave her a skeptical glance but shrugged and crawled through the tunnel, stumbling a bit as she tumbled out on the chamber floor. Elise waited, the lantern shuttered and dim, as the hunter pushed herself back up.
“What is going on?” Gitta asked. “Why have you brought me down here?”
Elise studied her carefully. “Can’t you feel it? I was sure you would. I never knew what it was before. Simply a thrill, I thought, because I was doing something forbidden. Sneaking around. But today, in the forest, I felt it again. And tonight, I put it together. I realized what it was. What it has been my whole life.”
Gitta shook her head. “I don’t understand. What are you saying? Where are we?”
Elise lifted the lantern. “My secret place.”
The walls were alive. Great dark lines swirled over the stone, delineating giant beasts and lithe human figures. Drawings of hunters chased drawings of one-horned animals around and around the inside of the cavern, tossing long spears the color of dried blood into the sides of creatures painted with broad, curved strokes. Gitta gasped as the magic rushed through her. She hadn’t felt this way since the last time she’d been within the walls of her own dear Cloisters in Rome. These paintings held the same magic as the Order. This chamber held the same magic as the unicorns.
“There were once many unicorns on this land,” said Elise. “And there were once many hunters.”
Gitta dropped to her knees, speechless with awe. These paintings were older than her nunnery, older than the Church itself. If she touched them, would they crumble like Egyptian scrolls?
“I have never shown anyone this before,” said Elise. “Not even my father.”
“How did you—”
“My grandfather’s sister,” Elise walked over to the largest of the unicorn drawings and held her hand up, a few inches from the paint. “She showed me when I was very young. This is our legacy. But it belongs to the women. The daughters of the blood, as you say.”
“Was she a hunter?” asked Gitta. “I mean, like me?”
“She was married at fourteen to a man who beat her to death by the time she was forty,” Elise replied.
“I am sorry.” The nun clutched at her cross.
“It was a bad marriage.” Elise shrugged. “And it was not her choice. We never have a choice, you see, Gitta. Not in our family. The best we can hope for is that our husbands are harmless. They can care for us or not, but gentle indifference is preferable to devoted mistreatment.”
Gitta stared at her, her face drained of color. “Elise, your fiancé—”
“I know,” Elise said softly. “You think I’m a fool, and maybe I am ignorant, but I’m not stupid. I know my fiancé is a cad whose love is fleeting, at best, and that his father sees me only as chattel. I know my cousin wishes me dead. And I know that I must cast my lot with one or the other. I have chosen life and the de Veyracs. You, who may go where you please and are answerable only to God, please do not judge me. My dog—my little Bisou—died tonight, of injuries inflicted by my cousin on a whim. I have only this cave to call my own.”
The words fell into the ancient dust at their feet, and Gitta did not speak. For she had been guilty of judging this girl, of thinking her beauty and her softness meant that her life was just as sunny. She had not looked close enough at the gilt to see that the shine hid the bars of Elise’s cage.
“Thank you,” she said at last, and fumbled in the shadows for Elise’s hand. “Thank you for showing this to me.”
They stood in silence, their hands joined, and stared at the unicorns on the wall.
