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“Sir Morvan.”
The blaze subsided. He turned to see Ascanio approaching. The armor was gone but he still looked more knightly than priestly. He wore a friendly expression and not the suspicious one from the village. Sitting on the grass near the rock, Ascanio said, “I have come to ask if you want to confess.”
“Under the circumstances, I think that I had better.”
“Probably so.”
It did not take long. There had been little opportunity for his normal sins during the months of running from the plague. He included a litany of earlier ones of the flesh, in case he had forgotten them at previous times. The priest kept silent when he was done.
Morvan finally spoke, to break the confessional mood. “You are from Italy? How came you here?”
Ascanio's pose relaxed, and he became a knight again. “Two years ago I decided to take the coastal pilgrimage route to Santiago. I stopped at an abbey called Saint Meen. There was trouble in the area, with free companies raiding villages. I convinced the abbot to form a defense and hire some men.”
“It was good advice.”
“They had a sister abbey for women a few miles away. Fifteen nuns and some girls. Brigands attacked it. One of the girls, no more than sixteen, knew something of weapons. She held the men off with a crossbow, wounding four including the leader, and the others fled.”
“Lady Anna? Did they turn her out after she saved them?”
“Nay. The abbess had been frightened witless. She asked my abbot for a man to train the girl further. He sent me.”
“The world has truly turned upside down. So you, a priest, were sent to teach a novice nun weaponry?”
“She was not a novice. She had taken no vows yet. What was the abbess to do? This civil war has made Brittany a lawless land. Unprotected women are safe nowhere, not even in an abbey. Word that the place was armed could perhaps deter the overbold.”
Morvan shook his head in amazement. “It is a strange story, but then these are strange times. So you went?”
“Aye. She had hunted as a child and her bow eye was superb. She did not need my help there. We just worked with the sword.”
“Is she any good with it?”
“She is skilled and quick. But armor weighs her down and extended swordplay in it requires more strength than she has.”
Morvan pictured that. The image was not nearly as fantastic as it should have been. “Why did you both come back here?”
“After her father died in battle, her brother requested her return while he attended to some business in Avignon. When he came back, however, he was sick with the plague. The town priest would not attend, so she sent for me. When I arrived, she wanted me to shrive him through the closed door.” He shrugged. “I confess that I considered it. But I made her let me in and together we helped him to die. Then we waited.”
“You did not get sick. Are you blessed?”
“Just fortunate.”
“She was not.”
“Nay. But no one else died. This was in March. Then in June it reappeared, and it hit like a wave. One quarter of the town perished. One in five on the estate lands.”
“I have heard worse.”
“As have we. Even so, it is difficult to be grateful after such a curse.” He rose to his feet. “Now I must go see to your men and other duties. Someone will come to you later.”
Come to see if he was dying yet.
He walked with Ascanio toward the camps. “Do you stay to protect her? Until she returns to the abbey?”
“She protects herself. But there are no knights here— the few remaining died—so, I have stayed for a while. Until the young duke appoints a warden, or until the boy Josce earns his spurs.”
“Then she will return to the abbey?”
Ascanio shot him a penetrating glance. His eyes showed the memory of what he had just heard in the confession. “She will return. She is resolved.”
In any other circumstance it might have been a warning instead of a flat statement of fact.
But there was no need to warn a dead man.
CHAPTER 3
ANNA BENT HER KNEES and scooted forward so the water would cover her shoulders. Only God knew when she would have time to bathe again. The next week promised to be one of sleepless nights and duty-packed days.
She ducked her head and rinsed the soap from her wet curls, then stood and wrapped the towel around her. She moved the stool to the fire and began the horrible process of combing through the snarls made by wind and water.
When she was young an old servant had done this, loudly bemoaning the condition of her hair every day. Then she would cluck over the bruises Anna's adventures had raised and, when she thought Anna wasn't looking, shake her head over the body itself. A lot of people did that, for she was always much larger for her age than other girls, and even most boys. For as long as she could remember, she had expected startled looks when people met her.
Only her father hadn't seemed to find her grotesque. The last Roald de Leon in a line of Roalds, he had been bigger than life and full of the Viking blood of the first Roald, who had planted a fortress on this cliff rock. He had found joy in her size and strength, and had shown delight in her horsemanship and good bow eye. The only attention she received from him came because of her un-womanly skills.
She went to a trunk and found some clean clothes. After dressing she returned to the fire to let her hair dry, combing through the curls so that they wouldn't be too wild. As always she did this herself, without the aid of a mirror.
There had been no mirrors at the abbey either, but she had ceased looking in them long before she entered that world of women. She knew what she looked like, and as a young girl had seen her lack of beauty in her mother's regretful eyes as surely as she had seen it in her own reflection.
When people glanced with astonishment at her height and face now, it mattered not to her. Beauty would avail her nothing in the life she would have, a life delayed only briefly by her current duties at the estate. She looked forward to returning to the abbey. A world that suited her waited there.
The light told her that the sun was setting, and she went to the gallery. A glorious sky greeted her as she stepped out onto the covered balcony. Blues and pinks and purples streaked the sky, and the sun itself appeared as a huge orange circle skimming the edge of the horizon. The air filled with color and the light transformed the sea. It was the sort of beauty that showed God in all of his magnificence in the world, and her spirit stretched and melted into it as the sun finished its slow descent.
She glanced down. A solitary figure sat on a rock by the cliff's edge, his arms resting on his knees, his body poised in reflection. From her perch, Sir Morvan appeared desperately isolated and vulnerable.
Her heart wrenched with astounding empathy. She might have touched his soul for an instant, so profound was her understanding. The spike of connection assaulted her as if her separateness had disappeared, absorbed by the glory filling the sky.
It frightened her, and she was grateful when it quickly passed. But its power echoed in her emotions as she watched Sir Morvan. Had they told him that she was supposed to be touched by the angels? She doubted that this knight would believe such nonsense, but if he chose to because it gave him hope she wouldn't argue the point.
Two hours later, Anna sat at the high table nibbling her supper. The meal was symbolic of their lives. In reverse of normal practice, the meat was plentiful and the bread sparse. Animals of the hunt had survived the summer's neglect, but the fields had not. The household's grain had to be rationed carefully.
As the noise in the hall flowed around her, she tried to calculate how she would arrange to nurse Sir Morvan and still manage the estate. There were horses at the stud farm that needed her hand, that needed to be trained and sold in order to buy grain for the villages.
The horses promised to be their salvation. Their farm bred and trained the best in Brittany. Secluded and accessible only by secret paths, it had been safe from
brig-ands and thieves. Just as well, for she could spare only two men to protect it.
Her sister Catherine tapped her arm for attention. “Tell Josce that I'm right. I said that Sir Morvan is the most handsome man on the estate, with eyes like a dark angel, and he doesn't agree.”
Anna looked past her younger sister's delicate, pretty face and cloud of fair hair. On Catherine's other side Josce fumed silently. “Don't tease him. I know girls think it is a game to make boys jealous, but it isn't worthy of you.”
Catherine rolled her eyes. “You are always so serious, Anna. You have to be the most dull sister in the world.”
“Perhaps I'm just a sister with a lot to do. Are you getting the women on with the Nativity sewing?”
“Aye. There will be new clothes for everyone.” Catherine turned away to flirt with Josce. He lowered his sandy head and whispered something in her ear. He also nibbled that ear.
They were sixteen and old enough to marry. It was what her father had wanted and what the estate's future required. Then La Roche de Roald would pass through Catherine to Josce. Perhaps she should just let them marry and forget about obtaining the duke's permission. He was only ten years old, after all, and over in England. Neither he nor his guardian, King Edward, had responded to her letters, assuming that they had even received them.
The question of the estate's future was a weight that never left her shoulders, and this evening it pressed heavier than ever. She needed to settle things. La Roche de Roald needed to be secured to a Breton lord, so that it did not get swallowed by either France or England in these squabbles and alliances over titles and land. The plague had given them a perverse security, but chaos stirred on the edges of their world, threatening to engulf them.
Ascanio entered the hall and approached her table. “One of us must bring Sir Morvan food. The servants were too frightened to leave it near the shelter.”
She ordered a servant to place food and wine in a basket. “You have not eaten. I will go. I had planned to visit him this evening anyway.”
That was not entirely true. She recognized her duty to visit him, but had been trying to justify not going. Being close to the man unsettled her. Riding back to the castle, she had sensed that large presence, and it had put her on her guard the whole time. It was foolish, of course. He represented no danger and appeared to be an honorable knight. Still, he unaccountably made her wary.
She sent for her cloak and a box from her chamber, then took the basket and headed out.
CHAPTER 4
MORVAN SAW ANNA AS SOON as she passed through the portal. He stood at the entrance to the shelter watching the night sky, identifying the constellations that had been taught to him by his tutor when he was a boy.
He had known that she would come. He had been waiting for her.
Her hair had been combed into something smoother and less wild, and a band of silver circled her forehead and tamed it further. She had changed into a blue long-sleeved tunic that fell just past her knees, leaving a glimpse of hose-clad legs above felt shoes.
“I have brought you supper,” she said.
Morvan held open the canvas and she swept inside. He moved the table and chair near one of the cots by the fire as she set aside the box she'd been carrying.
“Will you join me?”
She shook her head but accepted some wine. She settled into the chair, back stiff and knees together. He could barely keep his eyes off her as he set out the food. She sat like a queen. Like an ancient warrior queen.
She leveled that gaze at him. He realized that it wasn't so frank and confident as he had thought, but contained a guarded caution.
“Sir Morvan, I do not know you well. If you would prefer to be alone, I will leave. But if you desire company, I will stay a while.”
“I would have you stay.”
He sat on the cot and picked at his food. The silence stretched, and he was grateful that she made no attempt to fill it with witless chatter. This woman was not afraid of quiet. She would not speak until she had something to say. In the meantime the mood was companionable and relaxing.
He looked at her on occasion while he ate. The blue tunic fit better than the afternoon's clothes and she had removed her cloak, but her form still looked ambiguous, as if her woman's body took refuge beneath the loosely shaped wool. Her lovely face wore a mask of serene calm. In a curious way her arrival had made this death house a friendly and natural space. He felt more ease than he had experienced in many months.
“Where is your home?” she finally asked.
He would have her stay, but not to talk about him. On the other hand, she had a right to be curious. After all, he'd made it a point to find out about her.
“My family lived in the north near Scotland. An estate called Harclow.”
“Lived?”
“Fourteen years ago, during the Scottish wars, our lands were besieged by a lord from across the border. My father died defending the castle. I was a boy at the time. It was left to me to surrender in order to save my mother and sister. We went to King Edward, who was campaigning in the north, and he gave us refuge. He had been my father's friend.”
She waited for him to continue. He paused a long while, then relented. “My mother died soon after. Edward took my sister and myself into his household.”
“You lived at court?”
“When of age I went into service with Sir John Chandros. Later I became one of the King's household knights. But most of those years were spent at court.”
“What was it like?”
“It is a false place with false people. Your future hinges on a word, a gesture.”
She looked straight at him and he looked straight back. Her eyes were almond-shaped, and her brows angled like the wings of a falcon in flight.
“Did a word or a look unhinge your future?”
Damn, but the woman was sharp. “Three years ago I fell out of favor with the prince. Around the same time I realized that the King would not help me regain our lands. When the army went to Normandy to fight the French king, I rode with Edward, but I knew that I would not return to the court with him. I earn my living by my sword now. It is honorable.”
She sipped her wine thoughtfully, holding the cup with both hands. Her rod-straight back had not moved an inch.
“Did you have many tournaments and jousts at the court? I have heard that many kings no longer permit them because they waste knights. Fewer men to die in their battles then.”
“Spoken like a woman, my lady.”
“You think so? This woman would like to fight in such a festival. One where all weapons are used. Jousts rely on the lance too much. Do you favor the lance?”
“I prefer the sword, but the lance is still considered the most chivalrous weapon.” He couldn't believe that he was discussing weaponry with this woman, and thoroughly enjoying himself doing so. “Which weapon do you favor?”
“The bow. The coward's weapon. I am a woman, Sir Morvan.”
“I would say that is obvious.”
“Hardly. Many people don't notice. Even you at first.”
She had missed both the compliment and the appreciative look he had given her. Utterly oblivious to both. Amazing. “The longhouse was dark. I saw what I expected to see.”
“Most do. It is very useful. When I ride alone, strangers see what they expect to see too.”
“Do you do that often? Ride alone? It is dangerous. The roads are full of displaced soldiers and peasants. With the war and the plague—”
“I have duties to perform, and too few men to always bring an escort.”
She had finally relaxed, and her long, lithe body had fallen into sinuous lines. He noticed again that the legs visible below the tunic were slender and shapely. Firm straight shoulders balanced the gentle flare of her hips. He wondered what her breasts looked like. The rest of her seemed beautifully proportioned to her height.
“You find me amusing, don't you?” she asked, misunderstanding his scrutiny. “The clothes and
sword. My questions about tournaments. You think that I am a girl playing at being a man.”
“I find you unusual.”
“Unusual. A kinder word than most would use.”
“Does that offend you?”
“Not at all. I do not care what people think. A woman who looks like me must learn that. Unusual. Not a bad word. Still, you do not approve.”
“You are very brave. Who can disapprove of that? Still, I am accustomed to women being protected.”
“Aye, protected. And commanded. They go together, don't they?” She turned her head to the fire for a moment, and then looked back and deliberately changed the subject. “You intend to try and regain your lands still.”
“It has been my hope.”
“But each year that passes, it becomes more unlikely.” She said it like she was finishing his own thought, and she was, but it was a thought that he rarely admitted to. Still, he found that he couldn't summon any anger.
Since she had come he hadn't felt like he was with a stranger, but rather in the company of an old friend. That first long silence had been filled with an oddly familiar connection that had gotten deeper as they spoke. Every passing moment had served to ply an invisible cord, like a tether between their souls.
Was it her frankness? His need for distraction? All he knew was that his sense of this woman's spirit was heightened. The air in the shelter was heavy with a peculiar intensity. An intimacy. He felt raw and oddly free.
“Why do you wear men's clothes?” he asked, much preferring to talk about her than himself.
She raised her eyebrows in amusement. “Why do you wear men's clothes?”
“I am a man.”
“Nay. You wear them because they suit men's work. That is why they are men's clothes. I find myself doing men's work now.” She smiled. It was a nice smile. It animated her face. She didn't smile often these days. He just knew that. “They were my brother's garments. I began wearing them to work with our horses. Then, with the death, gowns became impractical. I didn't come home with many gowns anyway.”