Rhiannon (26 page)

In point of fact, as she perceived up close the bottomless sadness upon his face, she gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, stricken to the core.

“Yes, as you see, I've remembered,” he said quietly. “I know precisely who I am.”

And though later she could never explain to herself exactly why she dropped to her own knees and bent her head before him as one naturally does before high royalty.

“Don't,” he whispered, reaching to clutch her hand. “Rhiannon, never do that, and never say you saw me here upon your bluff. Will you grant this boon for the sake of friendship? I'll leave directly, before the new day breaks. Within the hermit's tomb I'll pray for my soul this night, and then I will take a penitent's garb anew and follow the pilgrim's road again. Many months ago I pledged myself to follow that path forever until, upon my knees, I died and found Divine forgiveness. Or damnation, as God wills.”

She shook her head. “How . . . come you to be hid within the hermit's tomb?” It wasn't the most important of the many things she needed to know, just the first to form itself so that she could speak it.

“Your friend, the monk, stopped by my cottage earlier this night. I believe he thought to find me lunatic, but after a hellish afternoon I was finally come to myself, as you see me now. He suggested we pray together within this chapel, and as we entered he pointed out the hermit's tomb. Later, I returned alone to pray there.” He took a breath and looked down. “My good friend Aleron and I sought out the tombs of saints, you see. We took the pilgrim road together as penitents, seeking peace. Now, I must travel alone, as Aleron is . . . is gone. I have recovered his token from our pilgrimage to Saint James's tomb. He would never have parted with that sacred memento while he lived, and so I know that my only friend in the world is most certainly . . . most surely ... dead.”

Rhia swallowed. “If you wayfared together, how came you to be separated from him?”

“In Wales, upon the road to Saint Winifred's holy shrine, we were overtaken by thieves. I was hit upon the head and some Samaritan must have found me lying thus beside the road and brought me up to your bluff. I know not what became of Aleron when we were set upon, but I know he surely died looking for me. I
know
he did.”

In the set of his jaw, Rhiannon saw the grief he felt. He spoke no further, but raised one fisted hand, then opened it. The flesh of his palm was torn by the clasp of the little clammy shell. For a moment she didn't recognize the shell itself, so bloodied was it. She reached her fingers to explore his wound, worried that his hand badly needed dressing. But he flinched and brought his fingers closed over the shell again, then raised that bloodied fist and pressed it hard upon his chest, over his heart.

Shaking her head, she whispered, “I don't even know what name to call you.”

At first he made her no answer. Then, “Call me Jonah,” he said.

She nodded, then seized every bit of nerve she had. “Sir Jonah, you say you will be gone before the morrow, but that will not sit well with my mother, who has nursed you all these past days. I feel you could surely tarry one day longer, to reveal yourself as healed at last. It'll give her mind's ease.”

She bit her lip and watched him pondering how to answer.

“Another thing you should consider is the maiden who wore the shell,” she pressed. “She's dimwit, and you gave her a fright that may take long recovery.”

“I was beside myself and owe her sincere apology,” he answered quickly enough. But he stopped at that and looked down, thinking. Finally, he confided, “Indeed I owe a great debt to you and your kin, and amends to the girl. But I cannot lose another day. I must hasten to find the trail of Aleron's murderers before it has gone colder.”

So
that
was it. She squinted her eyes.“Well, by that I know you are not
all
meek pilgrim, Sir Jonah, for surely such a one would turn the other cheek and leave justice for the bailiffs of the world! No, you reveal yourself to be still a soldier, as you claimed to be while you were still fogged in your mind from your injury.”

His eyes widened at that, but then he had the grace to own up to it.

“Truly, I am not perfected yet in the gentle ways of holiness. Indeed, I once soldiered, though no more. And I
will
return to my pledged calling of pilgrimage as soon as my friend's murderers have found comeuppance at my hand.”

Rhia's heart beat fast and her eyes shone as she leaned closer. “Then, sir, you are in luck. For it was I who found the token Dull Sal wore, and quite nearby! I propose a deal to you. Tarry for just one more day and I promise to show you exactly where I picked that token from the stream. Surely that's the place your quest for vengeance must begin.”

Why, she'd just discovered within herself the moxie to spring a trap as well as ever Maddy could! Rhia was some surprised at herself—and pleased, she'd admit it.

Her astonished quarry was not so pleased. “I beg of you, show me tonight! Right
now
! To make me wait longer is sheer torture!”

She shook her head firmly, crossing her arms. “Tomorrow. Stay only one day. That's all I ask.” She then used his own earlier words to press her advantage. “Will you grant this boon for the sake of friendship?”

After a moment he sighed, and then even smiled a bit at being so cornered. She took that as agreement to her plan, and stood to go before he could change his mind.

“I leave you now to get whatever rest you may with our holy hermit. Upon the morrow, my mother will rejoice to see you journeyed back to yourself, Sir Jonah.”

She nodded him a farewell and hastened from the church, giving Gramp a similar nod while she pulled the church door closed behind her.

Gramp folded his wings and yawned a wide and beaky yawn at this sign from Rhia that all was now well, or at least well enough. Mayhaps he thought to catch a nap, as much had been aslant upon the bluff of late. Yes, there'd been constant need for his vigilance day and night, which naturally took its toll, though seldom was he thanked.

Rhiannon hurried across the churchyard and rounded the back corner of her cottage with a thousand new questions careening in her head like bats in dark rafters.

Which is why, when the mysterious woodland horse galloped past along the rim of the forest, carrying upon his back the will-o'-wisp spirit of young Primrose, it took her a long moment to realize the right wondrous sight her eyes had just by chance beheld.

Double wonder it was, in fact! The horse and the phantom child, both!

“Wait!” she called out, to no avail. She now perceived only the moonlit silvery tail of the horse disappearing as he and his ghostly rider veered through the tree line, heading back into the heart of the midnight woods.

Rhiannon stood transfixed, her eyes on the place where the silent horse and rider had parted the dense thicket. She dared not so much as breathe or twitch in the close wake of such an enchantment, for fear the faery world would take offense.

“Rhia? Did you see what I saw?”

Rhiannon whirled to face Thaddeus, who'd just stepped from the shadows she herself had come through along the nether side of their cot.

She placed her hand upon her hip and glowered at him.

“I
guess
you mean did I perceive the horse and rider. But you
may
well mean did I perceive the man who slept and now kneels within our church! How
dare
you not side with me as I begged Mam to go check on him, Thaddeus! Then, alone,
you
checked on him! I take that very, very hard! He's
my
sometime lunatic invalid. Mine!”

Her voice had risen above the whisper required by the place and the hour. She recovered herself and leaned an ear toward the house, nervously listening for ill effects. But within the cot, Granna still snored her finest, which was a good mask for any sound less than typhoon. Thus Rhia felt free to continue her complaint in a strident whisper.

“Thaddeus, you've treated me as a
child
with this!”

Thaddeus had his hands tucked into his sleeves. He looked nervously down at the knobs of his wrists and cleared his throat. “You're mistaken, Rhiannon,” he said simply. “My fear was not that you were too much child, but that you were too much . . . grown. I would worry for your safety in any man's night chamber.”

She blinked.

“Besides, folk oft regard a monk as safe confessor, if he comes alone.” He dared a glance at her from under his brows. “It's embarrassing, really, to be trusted as we are. For where gossip's concerned, all the holy brothers I've e'er met could hold their own with your Granna's cronies at the ale booth, and that's a fact.”

Rhia bit her lips. “Will you joke me from my just anger,
Brother
Thaddeus?”

“If I can,” Thaddeus admitted with a shrug. “For as you've said, you
are
my sister whilst I'm here, and I'd not have you stay upset with me.”

She sighed and gave him a begrudging smile, then grew somber.

“Thaddeus,” she whispered, “did Jonah tell you that he ripped the clamshell off Sally's shift because it had belonged to his bosom friend?”

“Jonah?” Thaddeus looked surprised. “Forgive me. I did not know his name, and now you tell it, I find it intriguing. Jonah, as you've called him, only talked with me of spiritual things. He said he'd wrestled with demons and was wearied to the bone by it. I could see he told that true. He asked me to accompany him to the chapel, and we prayed awhile, then parted ways. I was not made privy to any details of his life.”

Rhia nodded. “Even now he prays within the hermit's tomb. He says the shell is pilgrimage token, and that he and his friend Aleron prayed ofttimes at such shrines. He believes his friend is dead, Thaddeus. Murdered! He says if Aleron still drew breath, he wouldn't have surrendered that token. That's what set him to wailing when he saw the shell on Sally. Though the wailing was a boon, really, as his extreme misery seems to have burned away the foggy threads of his confusion. He's remembered himself at last.”

Thaddeus murmured, “Jonah is a very unusual name in these times. Though if you were lost at sea, then cast upon the shore in a rough state, it might suit you to take such a name for yourself.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, then but she already knows. Thaddeus shrugged and smiled. “I believe I can now find sleep, as you must, too. Just tell me one more thing, Rhia. Your granna says you gave the shell to Sally, so where exactly did
you
find it?”

She thought. “Well, I found it at the crossing of the river just where you come out of the ashy trees at the trail's end, then a little ways toward the edge of the barley field. It gleamed in the water near the nut tree, the one with gnarled roots. Why do you ask?”

Thaddeus frowned. “No special reason. Just curious is all. I bid you a good night, Rhia, what's left of it. Sleep well.”

He turned to walk back to Jim's cot, but Rhiannon hastened after him. “Oh no you don't! Brother dear, I will right now strangle you with the rope around your waist if you don't spill your thoughts!”

Over his shoulder, he said, “You'll sleep better not knowing them till the morrow.”

She reached and grabbed one dangling end of his waist rope, making to wrap it round and round his neck.

He turned, his hands raised in submission. “Well, then, Rhiannon, since you'd throttle your dear brother merely to assuage your flaming curiosity, here it is. Almund has shown me the exact place where he discovered the body of the man Jim stands accused of killing. He asked me not to reveal it to your family, in respect for your peace of mind when you pass that way. But as you plan to rough me up, I'll save my neck by telling you that it was right exactly at the gnarled roots of the large nut tree.”

She dropped the end of the waist rope and they stood staring at each other.

“Just where I found the clamshell,” she whispered.

Thaddeus nodded solemnly. “Rhia, I believe we may now call our murdered stranger by his Christian name. I'm most certain it must be ...”

“Aleron,” she finished, quietly.

Thaddeus had been right and Rhia
would
have slept better without knowing his thoughts until the morrow. A dead man with a name and a grieving friend is a different thing entirely from a gray stranger upon the butcher slab, touched by all but loved by none. He'd hardly seemed a person, then. Now, he did.
Aleron
. The name swam through her half-formed dreams, sometimes as an echo, other times as a Banshee screech.

She snuggled closer to Daisy's sharp little back, buried her face in Daisy's tree-smelling tangled hair, and then fell into deeper slumber and dreamt she was wandering down a lonely trail in dense fog, searching for her drowned father.
Aleron,
sang voices in the fog.
Your da is long gone—like Aleron,
sang the gloomy fog.

She woke from that awful dream shivering, and to warm herself she named in her mind the folk she loved, living
and
dead. For Rhia well knew that death cannot fend against love, and even the grave could not steal her father from her heart. Picturing his face, she drifted off again, this time to a short dreamless rest which ended when Daisy turned and jabbed a knee to her ribs so sharp, Rhia flinched backward, teetered for an instant on the edge of the sleep pallet, then lost that hold and landed upon the hard floor.

She came to a sit and stayed there for a few moments, rubbing her hurts. Then she remembered the intrigues of the night and forgot all the slight pains of her thump in her eagerness to start the new day. She sped to the gap in the roof twigs, but found it still very dark outside. Gramp slept on the chapel roof with his beak in his wing. And what of Sir Jonah—did he still stay cramped among the hermit's bones, or had he found it too rough and damp and made his way back to his cot? Thaddeus at least might be up and praying, as monks are said to rise before dawn for that purpose. She'd find him.