Flame (35 page)

Joanna was still fuming when she reached the
door that led to Margaret’s small room. Even here, Gavin had put a
couple of his men at either end of the corridor. Not to keep the
mute woman from escaping, of course, since Gavin knew that her
room, like so many others, had panels that led to the secret
passages of the tunnels. The men, she knew, were to serve as a
deterrent to others in the household from paying unwanted...or
unfriendly visits.

Acknowledging the nod of one of the men,
Joanna silently pulled the door open and stepped into the dimly lit
chamber. Just where she had left her, Margaret lay curled in a
small heap on the straw pallet in the corner. As she stepped into
the room and closed the door quietly behind her, she saw the
woman’s eyes open and stare in her direction. Even this was no
different than how she had behaved before. Still, the emptiness of
her gaze opened up to Joanna a vision of unfathomable depths of
despair.

Knowing that Margaret could hear and
understand despite her inability to speak, Joanna had been hoping
to draw her out of this death trance. Each time she’d come to
visit, she had talked to her. But she had yet to get any reaction
from the mute woman.

“I could not sleep,” Joanna whispered gently.
“And I was a bit hungry as well.” She took the couple of short
steps and reached the side of the bed. Crouching before the straw,
she spotted beside the wall a full bowl of broth and a wooden cup
half filled with some clear liquid. It filled her with a sense of
relief that at least the cook Gibby had finally taken pity on this
pour soul and sent up some food.

Placing her hand gently on Margaret’s
tightened fist, Joanna appraised the older woman’s ghostly face. “I
spent too many months down there alone, Margaret. The one thing I
prefer--now that I can walk among the living--is having someone’s
company when I eat.”

This was a lie, of course, but right now the
truth about herself was hardly important.

Joanna’s eyes again came to rest on
Margaret’s distracted face. Other than the very few spoonfuls that
she’d been able to force-feed the woman in the past couple of days,
Joanna knew that Margaret had not eaten at all.

Putting a hand behind Margaret’s head and
adjusting her own position until the woman’s head was cradled in
the crook of her arm, Joanna picked up the broth and brought it to
the dry, cracked lips.

“I don’t know where you are, Margaret,” she
said gently. “But as long as your body is still among the living,
we need to feed you some of this broth.”

She poured a small amount of the liquid down
her throat. The mute woman sputtered, made a choking sound, and
then closed her eyes before clamping her mouth shut and turning her
face away.

“She did the same thing to me.”

Joanna almost leaped out of her skin at the
sound of the voice behind her. But she didn’t have to turn to know
who it was.

The sound of Mater’s shuffling feet moved in
behind her. Rather than putting Margaret’s head back on the
mattress, though, Joanna held the woman tightly to her chest.
Frozen, she found herself wondering whom it was she was trying to
protect, herself or Margaret.

“I tried to feed her too. But she seems to
have lost the will to live.”

Joanna felt Mater’s cloak brush against her
shoulder as the abbess stood over them. There followed an eerie
silence while Joanna gently laid Margaret back down on the mattress
and ran a gentle hand over her graying hair.

“I didn’t think any of the people here would
care for her to live.”

The thickness of the old woman’s voice drew
Joanna’s eyes upward until she looked into her face. Hidden in the
shadows of the hood of her cloak, Mater’s eyes were the only things
that she could see. She shivered at their brightness.

“Surely...” she stopped and cleared her
throat, desperately wanting to hide the fear in her voice. “Surely,
Allan would care.”

“That I cannot tell you.” Mater crouched
stiffly beside her. “He was quite disturbed at her running away the
way she did. I don’t know that he has had time to think it through
so far as to realize that she needs our help.”

Joanna just nodded silently and stared at the
bowl of broth. Reaching out self-consciously, she repositioned the
dish. No matter how hard she tried, the idea of being alone in this
room with the old woman made Joanna’s blood run cold. It was sheer
foolishness, she knew, especially when she considered that for so
many months she had lived fearlessly, a disembodied spirit, in the
tunnels beneath Ironcross. But now, again among the living...Joanna
shuddered, feeling Mater’s bony hand rest on her knee.

“What is wrong, Joanna?”

“Wrong?” The sound that came out was barely a
hoarse croak. She cleared her throat. “Nothing! There is nothing
wrong!”

“Why do you fear me so?”

She had to do it. As important as her next
breath was for her body, being able to face this woman was suddenly
as important as her very soul. She slowly turned her face and
looked into Mater’s gray eyes. “What makes you think I am
afraid?”

“You’ve been to the crypt!”

Joanna felt her face burning with heat. She
didn’t dare break eye contact with the old woman; that would be an
admission to guilt. It would be an act of cowardice. But then,
there was no way she could reasonably deny having been there. She
had left plenty of proof for anyone who might look closely
enough.

“You don’t have to hide when you come to us
there.”

Joanna opened her mouth, but she had lost her
voice. Looking into her face, all she saw were Mater’s large eyes
in a halo of darkness. She felt herself beginning to shiver
uncontrollably.

“You are one of us,” Mater said thickly. “In
fact, you are more than welcome to join us in two nights. ‘Tis time
you learned.”

The full moon, Joanna screamed inwardly. She
was inviting her to be part of their fiendish ceremony at the full
moon.

“‘Tis only what you do not understand that
causes your fear. I want you to come. It will make you realize the
purpose behind all that we stand for. Behind all that we are.”

Joanna fought to gather her courage as she
looked into the abbess’s luminescent eyes. “Why not explain it to
me now?”

“I will not do it justice. And, in truth,
‘tis not my position to relay the centuries-old tales of our
ancestors without our sisters.”

“You are their mistress.”

“I’m a guide, sister. Nothing more than a
humble escort.”

“And what did you do?” Joanna asked, drawing
in a tremulous breath. “What has given you the right to such a
position?”

There was a sudden wavering in Mater’s
gaze.

“There must have been a reason for you to
leave your kin at Ironcross Castle and take your place leading the
women at the abbey.”

For the first time, Joanna thought that she
could see the wrinkled shadows of her face coming to view from
beneath her hood.

“For me to be...to feel like one of you, I
need to trust you,” Joanna said quietly. “Trust
you
,
Mater.”

Mater’s eyes came to her face. “There are
many in our flock who do not ask the truth and yet follow us in
this journey.” She slowly put a bony hand on top of Joanna’s. The
incredible heat in her touch made Joanna start, but she forced
herself to keep her hand where it was.

“But
you
, lass,” Mater continued. “You
are one who does not easily bestow her trust.”

“Not twice, Mater.”

“And have I done anything to cause you to
distrust me?”

Joanna looked steadily into the older woman’s
eyes but did not answer her. Instead, she repeated her earlier
question. “Why did these women pick you to become their guide?”

Mater lifted her chin slightly as she
answered. “Because I have shared, in some ways, in the fate of our
predecessors.”

“Shared?” Joanna repeated hesitantly. “I have
been told those crypts have been there for centuries.”

“Aye, ‘tis true. But we still share their
suffering to this day, Joanna. Some of us...too many of us...share
in their pain.”

“What kind of pain?”

“The pain...the pain that comes of man’s
lust, of his abuse and rape and murder.”

Joanna twisted around sharply and looked into
Mater’s face.

“They...they were raped and murdered? Is that
how those women died? And you?”

A silence fell between them. Mater hesitated,
and Joanna felt a rush of air on her face. She glanced quickly at
the door, but it was closed, and she turned back to the abbess.

“What happened to you?” she repeated.

“I was raped by...a man.” Mater’s voice was
pained. “I was chosen to guide our flock because, in the abbey
women’s eyes, I endured the same torment. My body, too, had been
defiled.”

Joanna suddenly felt unable to speak. A tight
knot had grown in her throat, and Gavin's earlier words slowly
started racing through her mind. Words of her grandfather’s
infidelity to the woman whom he had wed.

“Who...?” she managed to get out. “Who was
responsible?” She couldn’t finish. Instead, searchingly, she looked
into Mater’s still, inscrutable face.

The older woman looked away. “‘Tis not for
you to dwell on the past. ‘Tis not
your
guilt to carry.”

“‘Twas Duncan, wasn’t it?” Joanna felt as if
the name would choke her. “‘Twas my grandsire who raped you.”

Mater’s eyes slowly turned and focused on her
own. The sudden vulnerability that Joanna saw in their depths told
her more of a tortured past than the woman’s words could ever
convey.

“This is not your guilt to carry, Joanna!”
Mater’s voice rasped in the dim light. “You must push it from
you.”

“I cannot!” She desperately entwined her
burn-scarred fingers with the gnarled bones of the older woman’s
hand. “Make me understand. I am tired of this confusion. I need to
see the past so that I can face the present.”

“I can teach you the history of those
tombs.”

“Nay! I want to learn
your
past.
Your
connection with the blood that flows through my
body.”

“I tell you ‘tis not
your
guilt to
bear,” Mater argued.

“But do you not see that it must be mine to
bear? It always will be until I know the truth.”

Mater shook her head.

“Mater, help me,” Joanna pleaded. “Without
knowing, I have been taught to hate. Without realizing, I have put
a blindfold over my own eyes! Let me see! ‘Tis my right,
Mater!”

The old abbess took another moment to gaze
into Joanna’s eyes before looking away into the darkness. “What
more do you want to know? ‘Twas he. Your grandsire, Duncan.”

“He took you against your will?”

“He took me as he was used to taking any
woman whom he saw and fancied.”

“But there is a difference. Others, perhaps,
were willing.”

“He never understood the difference,” Mater
said softly. “As far as Duncan MacInnes was concerned, he had a
right to the bodies of all who lived on his lands.”

Joanna stared, nausea gripping her middle,
sickened at the thought that the very blood she felt pounding in
her temples was the same blood that had flowed in the veins of such
a monster.

“He took you against your will, and then he
threw you out?”

Mater didn’t meet her gaze but looked away
instead into the darkness.

“Tell me the truth, Mater,” Joanna’s voice
shook with desperation, with the need to know and to understand.
“What happened to you?”

The old woman’s eyes snapped back to hers. “I
ran away! In my struggles to fight him off, I had been beaten. I
was torn and bloody. After he left me, I could not stay any longer
at Ironcross. I would not live with the fear that at any time he
might decide to do the same thing to me again. So I ran away.”
Mater let out a shaky breath. “That night, I left the only place I
had ever lived, and crawled into the hills. The full moon shone
down on me and I wept with despair. In truth, I almost hoped that
some wild animal might find me and relieve me of my shame. But
‘twas not to be. The Lord had other plans for me. The women of the
abbey found me. They took me into their care.”

Mater’s eyes took on a faraway look as they
stared into an empty corner of the room. “They were compassionate
and strong, those women. They never asked any questions. They just
accepted me as I was.”

“So that is how you stayed and became one of
them. Became their leader.”

“You know, Joanna, I think I would have
believed my life blessed if that were all I have to tell.” Mater’s
gaze returned to fix on Joanna’s face. “But there is more. I did
not know it then, but I was with child. Duncan’s child.”

Joanna took one of Mater’s thin hands and
held it tightly between her own. “What happened to that child?”

“I...” The old woman’s voice was choked, and
it was a long moment before she spoke. “Foolish as I was, I thought
that the bairn might be better off raised as Duncan’s own. Though a
bastard, the bairn would live a better life at Ironcross than in
the ruins of the abbey among poor women who could barely manage to
feed themselves.”

“So you went back.”

“Aye. I went back. And I will die again every
time I think of it.”

There were tears now, and Joanna saw them
coursing down the wrinkled face.

“If I had thought the first time was a
penance for my past sins, this time was the punishment for even
living. When Duncan heard I had returned, that I was in the
kitchens, he came to me and dragged me into the scullery. Aye,
right out there...with the others looking on! I begged, I cried, I
pleaded with him. It all meant nothing to him. He raped me again,
and more brutally than before. And what is worse, I remember--even
as I lay sprawled beneath him, thinking my flesh had been torn
asunder--I remember thinking, fool that I was...that perhaps there
was a way to make some peace with him...for the bairn. When he was
done with me, I told him that I was carrying his child.”