E. M. Powell (26 page)

The poor one-eyed girl? Theodosia met Benedict’s dismayed gaze.

“Then we have no time.” He went to kick the stallion’s sides.

“Wait!”

He responded to Theodosia’s cry.

“The letter,” she said. “What if he finds it?”

“It’ll be safe for now in my room,” said Ursula. “Nobody else knows of its existence. I’ll retrieve it and find another hiding place. Now go.”

“But, Mother, what about the knights? You and the sisters are at their mercy.”

“Don’t worry on our account, child. If we’re threatened, I might be so afraid that I reveal your plans to follow Amélie to London.” Mother Ursula winked.

“Well thought through, Mother,” said Benedict.

“But what if they do you harm?” said Theodosia. “They are driven by the devil himself.”

“I’ve spent my whole life fighting the devil,” said Ursula. “He’s not bested me yet. Theodosia, the holy Thomas Becket wanted to keep you alive. I’m blessed to carry on his wish. Go, child. Now.”

Theodosia appealed to Benedict with a look, but he shook his head. “Then God bless you, Mother.” She reached a hand down to the small-boned nun, and their fingertips brushed.

“Come, Theodosia.”

She pulled Quercus’s head round and cantered after Harcos out of the stable yard.

♦ ♦ ♦

“God be with you both.” Ursula held a hand up in farewell. Once they’d cleared the gateway, she retraced her steps, even faster than when she’d run down here. The letter. She needed to get that. Then find Wilfreda.

Ursula took the stairs up to her parlor two at a time. The door at the top stood ajar. A shaft of sunlight shone through and formed a pool of light on the landing.

She slowed her last few strides. Hadn’t she closed it? Or had she? Impossible to remember, she’d left with such haste with Theodosia and Benedict.

Prepared for an encounter, she entered the room. “Wilfreda?”

Silence.

The table, littered from the lunch she had shared earlier, appeared untouched. Cautious relief replaced her anxiety. Wherever Wilfreda wandered with Fitzurse, it wasn’t here.

She hastened over to her desk. Pristine as ever. The chest sat in its usual place.
Praise be.
She’d got here in time. She squatted down and opened the lid. Her horn books. A couple of quills. Blank paper, a section of thin vellum. Two seals. Lumps of red sealing wax.

No letter. Impossible. She ran her hands over the inside of the chest, pulled the blank sheets of paper apart in case somehow it had got wedged between them.

“Looking for something, Mother?”

The male voice came from the doorway.

She shot to her feet to see the door swing slowly shut. A knight stood there, had been hidden behind the open door.

Eyes blue as the summer sky
, Theodosia had said. “But with a heart like Satan.” Ursula said it aloud.

Fitzurse merely inclined his head and held up his drawn sword. Livid red stained its gleaming blade.

Ursula’s horrified glance went to the floor. Slumped at his feet was the body of  Wilfreda, the poor creature’s one good eye taken out by the sword that had pierced her skull, a pool of blood beneath her.

Ursula’s hand flew in a blessing for the girl. “You monster.” She returned her look to Fitzurse. “You didn’t need to kill her.”

“Oh, but I did.” He stepped over Wilfreda’s body. His careless boot crushed one of her plump hands as he did so.

Lifeless as she was, she would have felt nothing, but his utter disrespect enraged Ursula to a new depth.

“Like I have to kill you.” He advanced with steady steps toward her, sword aloft. “Then Brother Edward’s little note remains a secret.” He moved between her and the door.

“What a noble warrior you are.” She scanned the room as she backed away. “A half-sighted simple girl and an old nun.” She spat the words in contempt. The fireplace. She made the few steps, flung herself to her knees, and grabbed for the iron poker.

Her hand closed around it. She went to swing it at him. A blow thudded into her shoulder. Like being kicked by a cow. She tried to shout, but no sound would come out.

She felt warm. The fire. No. This was from within. The warmth seeped across her chest. She clutched at it. Her hand came away smeared with bright red, with an unmistakable metallic scent.

Forgive me, Lord. I know I could have done better.

She half-turned onto one hip.

Fitzurse stood over her and watched her bleed out onto the floor with a calm that conveyed his pleasure.

With her last strength, she took a breath and liquid bubbled in her lungs.

“You, sir, will burn in a hell of your own making.”

His lips formed words.

But Ursula couldn’t hear them. Couldn’t hear them, because the light that poured through the window started singing.

CHAPTER 19

Theodosia’s wayworn concentration had reached its limit. The latest leg of their journey had taken them through an exposed, featureless landscape that climbed in a long incline of many miles. With rocks and stones half-hidden under thin soil and patchy snow, the horses stumbled frequently and had to be ridden with extreme caution. Heavy clouds brought ice on the wind and scudded over the moonless sky to shift the night into deeper darkness, making the going even more treacherous.

She carried with her too the added burden of her worry for Mother Ursula and the nuns of Polesworth Abbey. The Abbess had been ready to face Fitzurse with huge courage. But with such a man, courage might not be enough.

“Looks as good a place as any to stop.” Benedict’s voice made her start; he’d been quiet for many miles.

He pointed ahead with his whip.

She peered into the gloom and took her shawl from her face. “Where do you mean?”

“That small outbuilding, looks like a lambing shelter.”

She picked it out with difficulty. A short way up the slope ahead, a single-story stone building huddled against the desolate land. With a roughly thatched roof, it had no windows and a small door. A few gray-wooled sheep wandered nearby, oblivious to the cold in their thick coats as they fed on clumps of coarse grass.

“Should we not keep going?” she said as they neared it.

“We have to rest the horses.” Benedict dismounted and tethered Harcos in the shelter of the building. “Bring Quercus around the corner so they can’t see each other.”

She did as he instructed. With a quick pat to Quercus’s neck, she made her way back to Benedict.

As he pushed at the damp-warped crude door, the clouds broke and the stars cast a poor light on the stark hillside. At its summit, a huge regular mound soared heavenward, topped with a high stone wall.

“Look,” she said. “A fortification. We could ask for shelter there, send help back to the abbey.”

Benedict glanced up, shaking the door by one twisted panel. “We could. If anyone lived there. I’ve seen a fair few of those forts in my time, always abandoned.” The door squeaked in protest but gave a little. He shoved at it again. “Folk like to say they were built by King Arthur. But I think that’s so they can sleep nights. I’ve heard such places were built by the ancients, a race of giants who roamed the land before Christ, some with a huge eye in their heads, others with the legs of animals.”

The starlight disappeared once more behind the clouds, and the wind brought a fresh icy blast from the hilltop.

Theodosia shivered as if the wind came straight from that pagan world, a world without her Savior. “Then we still have no way of knowing what has happened to the Polesworth nuns.”

The door finally gave beneath Benedict’s powerful shoves. He reached in and removed an armful of straw. “The Abbess’s fake story would keep the monastery from harm. Us too, sending Fitzurse off to London.” He placed the pile on the ground, and Harcos dipped his head to eat.

“It should never have happened. I led him there, with my fool’s pride.”

Benedict picked up another pile of straw. “What’s done is done. And the Abbess was ready for him, remember?” Calling to Quercus, he went round the corner of the shelter.

Theodosia took a dubious look inside. A few heaps of straw backed up against the far wall. No floor had been laid, with the hillside’s whitish rock exposed. “I will not have peace of mind until I know they are all safe,” she said as Benedict returned.

“Then when we find your Brother Edward, you can ask him to help you with one of his letters.”

The scent of old animal waste filled her nostrils as she ducked her head below the low lintel to enter the shelter. “If we find him.”

“We will. And your mother.” Benedict came in behind her and pushed the door closed again. Its swollen wood yielded a squealing challenge as he kicked it flush with the lintel.

In the gloom of the hut, she fumbled for the pile of prickly straw and lowered herself into it. “God willing.”

Benedict settled himself next to her and gave a deep yawn. “The dawn’s on its way soon, and we need to set off then.” His hip pressed close to hers as he lay down. “We’ll get a short kip. Small mercies, eh?”

She ached to lie back too, let the straw take her tired limbs into sleep. But she could not allow it. “You can sleep. I will be staying awake.”

“What on earth for?”

“I cannot sleep beside you.”

“What do you think I’ll do?” His features were a blur in the darkness, but his voice held the edge of one insulted.

“It would not be your fault. But when you are asleep, you are open to Satan and sin. My body would be against yours, sinful and unchaste of me. The devil would call forth lechery in you as you lie defenseless.”

“I’ve never heard such cultch.” With a rustle of straw, he sat up beside her. His face close to hers, she could make out his deep frown.

“I would not expect you to understand. You are not learned in the ways which sin could find you.”

“No, I’m not. But I know my own actions and how to control them.”

“You only think you do. That is how Satan collects souls for hell. Brother Edward explained it to me many times.”

He snorted. “Then explain to me where Satan was the night at Gilbert’s.”

“You know I cannot remember that night.”

“Then I’ll tell you. I held you, all night. While you weren’t in your senses. For much of that night I slept. With you in my arms. And believe me, I controlled my actions where many men wouldn’t have.”

A hard knot gathered in her stomach. “What are you saying?”

“You were naked.”

His words stopped her breath. Naked? With a man?
With Benedict Palmer?

“And no, Satan wasn’t there. Only me, holding you to try and will warmth back into your body. I didn’t lay a wrong hand on you.”

His ignorance knew no bounds. “Of course it was wrong.” She clutched her bent knees as she fought for breath. “How could you? I trusted you; I even told Mother Ursula I trusted you with my life. Now you tell me this?”

“Faith, I should never have said a word. I got you dressed again before you woke, left your bed. You would’ve been none the wiser.”

“Then thank the Almighty I have found out. This sin, this terrible breaking of my chastity, has been on my soul for days, and I have not known a thing about it. If anything had happened to me, I would have gone straight to hell.”

“I don’t know how saving a life is a sin. But you know far more about sin than I do.” The straw crackled as he flung himself onto his back once more. “I’m going to sleep. Wake me if you see anyone with horns and a tail.” He turned over, his back to her, his anger tangible.

Theodosia remained sitting upright, hands rigid on her bent knees. Unclothed, like a wanton. Presenting an occasion of sin to him. She could not sleep now if she tried. Penance, she had to beg God’s forgiveness for what Benedict had told her. She shuddered at the mortal danger she had been in, danger she’d known nothing about. Benedict Palmer might pride himself on saving her life, but his pride was an empty, foolish one. He could have lost her immortal soul.

♦ ♦ ♦

“Saint Michael’s.” The monastic post rider pulled his mount to a stop outside the fine Southampton church. “I can’t take you no further, mistress.”

Amélie Bertrand appraised the church’s high stone tower and gave silent thanks. King Henry himself had granted this chapel, along with three others in this town, to the priory of Saint Denys. This was surely a link to her and her vocation.

“If you’ll permit me, mistress.” The post rider had dismounted and now awaited by Amélie’s horse, arm outstretched.

“I thank you.” Amélie unlocked her cramped hands from their grip on the front of the saddle and eased herself from the animal’s back, her limbs stiff from her many undignified hours upon it.

The post rider steadied her as she dropped to the ground, exclaiming to herself at having to perform such a graceless action. He untied her bag from the saddle as she looked around, the dawn light still harsh and gray. They stood at the side of the church, in a yard edged with a row of stables. Grooms and stable boys and other rough men went about their business but paid her arrival little heed.

The post rider handed over her bag with a respectful bow. “Good day to you, mistress.” He led the horses away.

Amélie drew breath to ask him for further directions but contained herself. Brother Edward had said he would find her. She would not seek the judgment of a man with the post over a holy, ordained one. Clasping her bag close to her, she walked back out onto the main street, where she joined a steady stream of people. They all seemed to be going in the same direction. Why, they must all be heading to the church, of course. Even at such an early hour, on such a cold morn. She relaxed. What a godly place indeed it was. Brother Edward would surely be among them.

But the chattering strangers walked past the high doors of Saint Michael’s as they drew level. She saw for herself the doors were still closed. Mystified, she stayed with the flow of people and turned to the right again, which brought her to the other side of the church, showing her the reason for the crowds.

A fish market, set out beneath the shadow of the looming church. That was where the folk of the port of Southampton hurried to, hurried to in their droves. The sights and sounds of its business at dawn’s break assailed her senses. Men’s coarse shouts as they unloaded the cram of carts. Raucous cries from hardened women as they squabbled over the price of slick silver fish. Charcoal fires that hissed with steam from boiling pots. A group of mangy dogs that snarled over a discarded rotten fish.