Jane Feather - The Diamond Slipper

They began slowly after the formal salutations. They moved around each other on the new-raked sand of the square, watching, assessing, biding their time. Michael was in no hurry to deliver the first cut that would ensure his final victory. Assured of success, he could play with his opponent, entertain the crowd.

The sun was a diffused ball reddening the horizon. Leo had become the dancing point of his rapier. He was a single eye and single will focused on the flashing silver of the opposing weapon. He had no fear. He felt nothing. He knew he had to tire his enemy. The older man would tire before he did, so he must keep him on the move, play him constantly, press him but not engage too closely.

It took Michael a few minutes to realize what was happening. He thought he was controlling the dance, but suddenly he understood that he was reacting, not initiating. It had happened insidiously, but now he felt himself pressed, as if he was being backed against a wall, yet he knew that they had the entire town square for their arena. He parried, feinted, thrust. But Leo had jumped back and the rapier merely skimmed his shirt.

Leo was breathing easily. His eyes glittered like the point 6f his rapier. Michael came in close, too close. Leo lunged, his foot slipped, and he went down to one knee. A murmur broke the concentrated silence in the square. Michael's rapier sliced through the sleeve of Leo's sword arm. But Leo was up and back with the agility of a hare. He had switched his blade to his left hand almost without Michael's being aware of it, and suddenly the prince was fighting a new opponent-a left-hander whose moves could not be easily parried.

Leo was not as quick or as sure with his left hand as with his right, but he knew it gave him an advantage, at least until Michael had become accustomed to the change. He must use those minutes.

Michael pressed forward. Had his blade sliced the skin? He could see no blood, but a nick was all that was needed. The sun seemed to be in his eyes and he blinked, feinted, backed away, trying to turn his opponent into the sun. His eyes were blurred; he wanted to wipe them with his sleeve, but he didn't have the chance. Then he had his back to the sun, and he blinked again to clear his vision. But the film remained. Leo was a dancing shape, his blade a flashing blur, and Michael realized he was fighting by instinct. Fear crept slowly over him. He shook his head, trying to dispel the haze, praying for the moment when Leo would falter, would slip. Surely he had nicked the skin? Please God, let there be a bead of blood.

Then his vision miraculously cleared. But the clarity and light were almost as blinding as the haze had been. Something was the matter with his eyes. Unable to help himself, he dashed a hand across them.

Cordelia, still petrified as rock, felt Mathilde's slight shift, her tiny exhalation of breath.

As Michael fought to banish his fear and confusion, Leo lunged, his blade at full extension. Michael, in the last minute before his vision clouded again, saw his chance. He brought his rapier in for a froisse, an attack that if delivered with sufficient power would disarm his opponent. But Leo moved with the agility of a gymnast, and their blades clashed ineffectively. Michael's arm was at full extension. He had a second to recover his balance, and in that second, Leo's riposte took his blade beneath Michael's arm, burying itself deep between his ribs. Slowly, Leo stepped back, withdrawing his point.

Michael's blade fell to the sand. He dropped to his knees, his hand clasped to the wound. Blood pulsed between his fingers.

There was utter silence in the square, barely a breath. Cordelia didn't move. It had happened so fast that her terror was still mounting even as Michael fell to his knees in the sand. Leo stood over him, the point of his rapier dark with blood.

Then, as the first moment of reaction stirred the rapt crowd, she stepped into the square and ran to the two men.

"Don't!" Leo said as she raced toward him, her eyes wild with joy. The command was spoken softly but was so full of power it stopped her in her tracks. This business was not done yet. She could not embrace him publicly over the body of her dying husband, however vital her need.

She stood still beside them, looking down at her husband, who remained on his knees, clutching his wound fiercely as if he believed he could staunch the blood, heal the wound. His eyes were strangely unfocused.

"Did I draw blood, Leo?" he asked softly. "Tell me I did."

Leo glanced at his torn sleeve. The skin beneath was unmarked. As Leo looked at his arm, Michael, with one last effort, grabbed up his fallen sword and lunged at his enemy. Cordelia kicked the blade from him with a reflex action so fast her foot was a mere blur. Michael fell sideways onto the sword, his blood clotting the sand beneath him as his own blade sliced through his shirt into the flesh beneath.

Leo looked down at his fallen enemy, searing contempt in his eyes. "Die in dishonor, Prince," he said, and it sounded like a curse. Michael's gaze flickered away as he flinched from the dreadful derision. He could feel the poisoned blade cold against his skin, blood seeping from the cut, and his eyes closed.

And then the deadly triangle was shattered as people came running. Surgeons, officials, guardsmen surrounded the dying man, who now lay still on the ground.

Leo stepped aside, his expression cold, his eyes hard as brown stones. Cordelia stepped toward him. He stopped her with upraised hand and she fell back.

Leo walked across the sandy arena to the royal awning. He bowed before the king. His voice rang out across the square.

"Justice is done, monseigneur. I beg leave to remove myself from your court."

"Leave is granted, Viscount Kierston." The king rose and left the square with his family. Toinette looked over her shoulder to where Cordelia still stood, a forlorn figure, beside her husband's body.

Cordelia had heard Leo's words and they fell into her numbed mind like drops of frozen blood. He had formally asked for leave to depart Versailles. Protocol demanded that a guest of the king's could not leave the court without his permission. But was he leaving her? He seemed a stranger to her now. After what she had seen, after what had been said between them, she no longer knew what to expect of him.

He came toward her, his face suddenly younger, his eyes bright as if all shadows had been swept from their corners. He looked as he had when she'd first seen him. When she'd thrown the roses at him and he'd laughed up at her window. An eternity had passed since then-an eternity of terror and passion and confusion. An eternity in which she'd grown so far from the child she'd been as to find that person now unrecognizable as herself.

But now she waited for him to speak the words that would bring an end to that eternity and an end to her own happiness, or mark the beginning of her life.

Leo took her wrist-the one encircled by the serpent bracelet. He unclasped the bracelet and held it in the palm of his hand, looking down at it as if lay sparkling in the rays of the new-risen sun. The diamond-encrusted slipper glittered; the silver rose shimmered; the emerald swan glowed deepest green. Precious stones that for him now held only the memories of death and dishonor. It was not a jewel that his wife would wear. Not a jewel that would accompany them into their future.

"You will not wear this again," he said. He knelt beside Michael's body and opened his still-warm hand. He placed the bracelet in his palm and closed the dead fingers over it. "Let him take the symbol of his own dishonor to his grave."

He stood up and took Cordelia's cold hands in his own warm ones and smiled down at her. The smile he had first given her.

"Come with me now, Cordelia."

She looked up into the golden eyes alight with the merry hazel glints that warmed her to the marrow of her bones. "You do love me, then?"