“Are you a strange fancy in my mind, created by sleeplessness?” she asked above the buzzing.
The sense of pressure against the crown of her skull increased. Stepping away from a nearby hut lest the demon bring the hovel’s roof thatch and a wall down on her, she took care not to clutch at the pouch of sacred herbs ’round her neck. Fallen angels as they once were, demons wallowed in courtesy. Any spiritual act on her part, such as invoking Christ or the Virgin, might be considered unfriendly by her new companion.
And I am very glad my Welsh companion is not here with me. Sacred Mother, please keep Geraint safe, wherever he is.
“Will you show yourself, sir?”
“Why should I do that, when you are rushing off hither and thither? What do you seek, child?”
The “child” from an immortal was probably apt but she did not like it. Yolande slowed and stopped. She was within sight of Halme church, standing on a rough plot of bare earth that had been used to grow winter greens. A few onions and cabbage remained, their odor rank in her nostrils.
Thank the saints it is winter and folk are safe indoors. And I am still not certain if I talk to a demon or to my own weariness.
“I am at leisure,” she remarked, sitting amidst the greens while resisting an impulse to look to her left, the traditional, sinister side of the devil. Where did I leave my bow? She still could not remember.
“The exorcist at rest in a cabbage patch.” The perfumed voice was amused. “Christians always make sanctity so grubby.”
“Are you the incubus, sir?” A naïve question, perhaps, but demons loved to brag and sheer vanity would compel the creature to admit information that could be useful in the pinch.
“Would you not be more comfortable lying down?”
How like a demon to answer a question with a question.
“Resting, perhaps, on a beautiful bed?”
A great couch manifested close by, visible just in the corner of her left eye. Yolande knew that if she turned toward it, more cushions and rich hangings would appear on the bed. She would be tempted, oh so tempted, to slide between those silken sheets.
“To sleep and then to dream. And dream of what, sweet one?” the perfumed voice persisted. “Cariad?”
This was not Geraint. Yolande did not have to remind herself of that. He had never called her “sweet one” in his life.
She chuckled. “I will not be tricked so easily.”
“Not like Father William.”
There. Finally, a real temptation. Questions burned in her gut and on her tongue but she said nothing. An exorcist does not gossip with demons.
“I had to work ever so hard to make him look remotely handsome. Not like your man.”
Yolande recalled the impossible charisma the incubus had cast over Geraint. He had been perfect. Not daring to close her eyes in case she fell asleep and dreamed what the incubus wanted her to dream, she concentrated on the rank, real scent of the winter cabbages and the hard, dry soil beneath her bottom and legs. The earth God made for us, real and imperfect because we are real and imperfect. Our free choices make us so.
“He escaped you,” she said through tight lips.
“Surprised me, yes, but he was not so much of a challenge, not in his appearance, at least.”
Surface and appearance mattered to demons. Yolande’s left leg twitched as her booted foot went numb. She clung to the discomfort to keep her fixed, to remember she did not float on a great, cushion-strewn bed, surrounded by sweet wax candles and caressed by a loving Geraint. She was sitting in Halme village in a garden plot, beside frost-withered cabbage.
“Human females are earthier than their menfolk, much easier to seduce in the ways of the flesh but harder to win in the realms of ideas.”
“You like flesh too,” Yolande pointed out.
“Very much, sweet one. Those fresh, pretty things and their randy dreams, and ripe, well-used wives fancying other carnal delights…quite delicious. I want to lose myself in them every night until the day of judgment.”
Pig. Geraint’s face drifted before her as her mind annoyingly dredged up the mud of their last quarrel. She chewed her lip, fighting the urge to argue with both Geraint and the demon. The demon incubus for sure, since he has admitted how much he enjoys women’s flesh and dreams.
“William liked ideas,” the incubus droned on. “Our dear Father William loved the idea of secret knowledge and for a time he loved the idea of sex. He wanted to know what it was like. I helped him find out. He liked it very much for a time and then he got bored with the same female.”
Hilda had been seduced and discarded by her own priest to satisfy his fleeting curiosity. The pain of such casual cruelty twisted in Yolande’s chest and a raging anger launched her to her feet. She leaped out of the garden patch, screaming at the heavens, “He murdered her! By what he did, he murdered her!”
“And the babe within her, sweet one. Two for one, just for good measure.”
This time, grief almost knocked her off her feet but anger kept her up and moving.
“Remember where you left your bow?” the incubus tongued in her ear, sticky as rancid honey. “Why not pick it up and seek out the priest?”
“I will,” she vowed, running. “I will.”
* * * * *
Geraint followed Father William to the priest’s cottage. The man entered and crashed about inside, smashing pots and overturning the trestle, spoiling all that Geraint and Yolande had done.
Time passed, he grew colder waiting and watching, and still Father William lumbered about indoors. How many places has the fellow left to search? What is he seeking?
“Bertha!” the priest yelled suddenly and the rooks in the stand of rowans took flight in a burst of flapping wings. “Bertha, you slattern, where are you hiding?”
“Anywhere away from you, I should think.” Yolande strode to the cottage and hammered on the door.
“Just ignore me.” Geraint wondered if she had even noticed him but then she turned and he saw the bow in her clenched fist.
“Come out, you!” she shouted, jerking ’round again to kick the door with her boot. “Destroyer!” One kick and the door shook. “Rapist!” And again, a hefty kick. “Murderer!”
A piece of wood flew out from the groaning timbers but Yolande merely swatted it aside. More than that, she had not seen him. In her fury she could see nothing but the closed door, and with that knowledge a worm of fear slithered along Geraint’s spine. In all their time together he had never seen her in such a steaming rage.
“Come out, coward. I am a woman like Hilda, a woman like the blessed Virgin. Open the door!”
“And get an arrow in your groin.” Stealing closer, Geraint picked his way carefully through the stand of rowans. He did not want to be shot by mistake.
“Yolande,” he called, before she kicked and hammered afresh. “Yolande, is he worth this?”
She spun about, her mouth agape, her eyes glittering. Rage and more was in her. “Geraint, he killed her just as if he had dashed her brains out with a stone.”
“I know, cariad, but if he dies by your arrow now, cui bono?” His question, the Latin, was a tug to her learning and training, a reminder of who and what she was and one, he prayed, that would give her pause. “What will it do to your soul?” he went on softly.
She snorted. “Who benefits? The folk here would get a better priest at least.”
“But would they?” Geraint stepped out completely from the final, closest rowan and stood utterly still for a moment, letting Yolande see him. “So many priests have died in the pestilence. Father William in there, with his single error—”
Her bow arm tightened. “One mistake? One?”
He did not flinch as Yolande brought her arm up and her bow quivered at him, its string humming as if alive. He knew she was not quite herself. Somehow that incubus has sneaked through her defenses.
His throat was as dry as a desert but the performer in him was excited, his mind quick and clear. One wrong
step, one poor answer and we all go down, but I have not fallen yet.
“An error of fatal curiosity, leading to sin,” he replied quietly. “But can we judge him? Are we the Almighty, to judge?”
“Always so glib.” Yolande frowned and he crossed his fingers tightly behind his back, sweating a little in case she guessed his lie. The priest could go to the devil for him but if she killed Father William now, the act would haunt her forever.
One false step… The back of his neck prickled but he was sure, very sure—almost sure—of what he was doing. Here goes.
“I challenge you to show otherwise,” he answered.
Yolande, high and blood buzzing in her anger, answered without thinking, “Yes, yes, I take your challenge.”
“Good lass.” Swaying his hips like a prostitute, he strolled up to her.
What is he doing? asked a cool, perfumed voice in her head, but she did not really care because Geraint was so pretty, so entertaining to watch. And she trusted him. Ignoring the clamor in her blood, she waited, intrigued. What will he do next?
Geraint spun a ribbon out of the air to land like a butterfly on his reaching fingers—and planted it plumb on top of her bow.
A pink and pretty ribbon perched on a deadly weapon against sin. The notion, the image, was so incongruous, so him, that she began to chuckle.
“More, my Bathsheba. You are a woman made for laughter.” He took her bow and draped it over his shoulder then swept her into his arms and kissed her.
He was warm and tender, his mouth soft and as sensual as sweet wine pouring, his tongue tickling. In a nice—and deliberate—contrast, he coiled his arms around her like vines, pressing her against him, enfolding, cradling and pinning her. So snug they were together, she felt his arousal, his passion, but still his kiss was as warm as sunshine.
Somewhere during their kissing, her anger vanished.
From inside the hut she heard a broken sobbing. Father William, she hoped, finally poleaxed with remorse.
The rowans shook with a sudden wind and the rooks cawed. She kissed Geraint again. Sensing the chill air trembling around them, she turned.
A sour-faced, beautiful being, neither male nor female, appeared immediately in front of them in the clearing beside the priest’s house.
“I cannot stand against you both.” With this complaint, the incubus scowled and pouted like a young virgin of either sex. The winter light shimmered on the demon’s flawless skin, lit hair that at times looked golden, at times black, and revealed a lissome body clothed in a white robe. Or was the long, sweeping tunic red?
“Too much work by far to drive a wedge between you, far too much. I prefer easier tasks and more simply seduced victims. I leave this place to you instead.”
“You leave Halme in peace? Forever?” Yolande asked, her spirits soaring.
“For long enough. The place no longer interests me. Farewell.” Haughty and indifferent in defeat, the presence disappeared.
Geraint grinned, tucked her bow more securely onto his shoulder and offered her his arm. “We should go, cariad.”
He had not mentioned the presence, so had he sensed it or seen it? Had the incubus appeared to her alone?
Geraint interrupted her scramble of thoughts. “We should go,” he repeated.
“But the villagers—”
“They should do well enough, do you not think? ’Tis Christmas and all and these villagers and their weeping priest must do their best, as must we. The two ghosts are settled and Father William begins to know what he has done. As for the maids and their dreams…” He grinned and snapped his fingers. “With all the cleansing and church visiting that has gone on through this village, I should think they will sleep like babies for years.”
She had only cleansed one or two houses but she knew what he meant. She breathed in slowly. Halme village was indeed lighter and more open. The folk here appear happy and one just waved to me.
“We should be on our way,” he said.
“To where?”
“The place I know. The place I spoke of, Yolande, where all wishes are granted.” He patted her fingers and smiled. “Will you come?”
Chapter Twelve
A week later, Yolande was still puzzling her easy acceptance, but not too much. There had been no urgent calls for her, no messages, no pleas for her to exorcise this place or that person.
“Even spirits know it is Christmastime and take a holiday,” Geraint answered when she remarked on the unusual calm. “Try this roasted fruit. It is still warm and extra sweet.”
Traveling with a carter westward, always west, such exotic treats and dainties often came her way. Since Geraint merely shrugged at her questions of providence, she had stopped asking and simply enjoyed.
In many ways, lurching along the muddy, frosted roads beside Geraint, both of them lolling on a cart filled with warm bales of wool, it was a holiday for her too.
“I have not idled so much since Christmastime with my parents,” she admitted, swallowing the final morsel of fruit.
“Since you were fourteen.” Geraint knew she had lost her parents then. “You have worked as an exorcist ever after?”
“But it is not a time of seven. I am nineteen, not twenty-one.”
“I am one and twenty,” Geraint answered, “and these last six months we have both labored a year’s worth each, and with our joint work and your own earlier stuff, that makes seven to me.”
Yolande yawned in reply and settled more comfortably onto her side.
She slept her way into Wales and dozed while Geraint haggled at a farmstead for stores. Woodland, farmland, even the overweening castles of the English king who had tried to tame this land, were no more than fleeting smudges in the landscape to her as she slumbered on. Days turned to nights then days again and she could do nothing but rest.
“’Tis the good Welsh air. Suck it deep into your lungs and let it work,” Geraint said, strumming the bells on his motley in sheer good humor. Tousled and gleaming-eyed, endlessly stretching and balancing about the cart or tumbling along the track, he looked like a man plotting something—and succeeding.
“I do nothing,” he exclaimed. “I am, that is all.” As the carter’s mules ambled up a steep switchback road, he juggled and called out greetings in Welsh to men working three fields away.
“You are happy to be in Wales,” Yolande said.
Geraint shook his head. “I am a bridegroom,” he said, giving her a smile that made her forget sleep. He reached across and gently smoothed the fleeces he had earlier tucked around her. “Not far now.”
Geraint brought her to the place where, according to his blessed mam, all wishes and prayers were granted. As a boy he had believed without question. As a man he was less sure but he wanted very badly for his mam to have been right.
The carter waved and wished them both good times as he left them and Yolande raised her eyebrows at the collection of parcels scattered by her feet.
“They are for us, cariad, for we must prepare.”
She glanced at the beach, the sparkling sea, the grassy mound.
Does she sense the holiness of the spot?
“So old.” She gazed at the mound across the beach from where the carter had left them. “So many sacred earth and sky spirits. So many offerings and prayers.”
She does. Oh, indeed she does.
She turned to him, startled, looking younger than her nineteen years. “A sacred marriage,” she whispered.
She understands. His body was already ablaze with what was to pass between them.
They bathed in the sea, dressing after in the new clothes he had paid for along the way. Yolande stood on the beach, an elegant figure, combing her loosened hair.
“It feels strange to wear a dress,” she said, hastily tucking the comb into a pocket somewhere in the manner of all maids getting ready for their men. “I have not owned one for years.”
“I had them model the length from me,” Geraint admitted, his breath catching in his throat as s
he beamed. “You like it?”
“The color, it’s so bright.” She stroked the sleek scarlet gown, running her fingers down the softly flaring long skirts. She looked up at him and gave an endearing, shy nod. “I love it. Thank you.”
“You are worthy of no less.” The scarlet showed off the sheen on her skin. The gold trim picked up the gold in her eyes and the silver belt reflected the shine in them. “You are truly beautiful, Yolande.”
She ducked a second time. “I have no gifts for you.”
He wagged a finger at her. “The custom is for the bridegroom to do the gifting. You have gifted yourself and that is way more than enough, my bride.”
A relieved, quizzical look came over her and she strolled toward him across the sands. She was still wearing her boots but he said nothing.
“Green and blue for you, I see.” She brushed a fleck of sand from his shoulder. “I miss the coins and bells of your costume.”
“Perhaps this will make amends.” Suddenly, tinglingly, dry-throatedly nervous, Geraint made himself keep looking at her as he fumbled in his tunic and brought out the gold ring he had hidden there. He had bought it months ago and at times wondered if he would ever produce it. “My marriage ring, for you.”
Yolande could see the bright gold glittering in his palm. His fingers trembled faintly, and his lips, and her heart swelled inside her, knowing she caused this tension. Hating to cause him pain by keeping him in suspense, she asked gently, “Will you put it on?” And transferred her mother’s ring deftly onto her other hand.
Geraint held up the new ring and kissed it. “I give you this ring to show my love and my promise.” His deep voice was as warm as summer, the light in his eyes as intense as prayer. “I give it freely, with all my heart.”
“You have mine,” she said. “For all time.” A surge of relief, of emotion, of thankfulness, welled up in her and she could say no more. I love you, Geraint. Do you know how much I love you?
“With this ring, I thee wed,” he said formally in Welsh then English. He slipped the ring onto her finger and she swallowed a gasp at the dazed, fresh sweetness on his face.
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