“You look so sweet,” he murmured, which revealed she must look the same to him. They both admired the ring then each other.
“I love you,” they said together, coming down to earth from their brief, shared paradise.
“We are wed,” Yolande said, kissing him. Finally we are wed.
“Amen to that, my Bathsheba, and we must be off to our marriage bed.” He lifted her, boots and all, into his arms, bearing her away to the green mound, the sacred place where all wishes are granted.
He laid her on the soft grass, a spot out of the prevailing wind, where the gentle winter sun shone as a blessing. He pointed to the beach, where they had left their cloaks and other intriguing bundles. “We do not eat or drink on the mound,” he said. “It would not be polite.”
Yolande sensed the dead close by, within the burial mound they lay on. “Do we leave an offering?” she asked.
His grin flared brighter than the sun. “That we shall, but later, much later.”
“Shall we be…undisturbed?” she asked in a lower voice.
“Couples who come here… They are left in peace.”
Briefly, Yolande wondered who had told him that. She sat up, admiring the sweep of the bay the mound overlooked and the empty golden beach and deep-blue sky. Old spirits, older than the mistletoe spirits clustered in the ancient oak wood behind the mound, lingered here. She prayed to them and to the Holy Virgin Mother, sensing their interest.
The dead and the spirits here are content, well content. They are for life too, most interested in life. Great Maria, that is good, but I do not want them as an audience any more than I want a passing traveler to see us.
Disconcerted afresh by the whole idea of being on view, of being spied on, she shuffled slightly away from Geraint. He merely sat upright, put out an arm and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“I can promise no man or maid will come by today, especially not today. It is the final day of Christmastime,” he remarked, squeezing her elbow. “Of course the old spirits hereabouts may have never seen a dark maid before—”
“But they have!” The answer burst from her in a flash of past insight, a brief vision of another maid, dark as herself, and a man with fiery red hair, joining in a sacred marriage on the side of the mound when it was new.
Geraint whistled low in surprise and gave her a fresh look of admiration—it seemed today she need only breathe in and out and he was admiring—but she felt the spirits, or the dead, withdraw. She sensed their approval as a glaze of warmth across her body as they departed.
Beside her, Geraint touched the mound, spreading his fingers in the grass.
“Are you wishing?” she asked.
He patted her arm in warning that she be quiet.
Yolande fought down a chuckle, lay down again and rolled over to hide her expression. She knew already that the answer of these spirits was yes.
She was married, as her father had been married, and still an exorcist.
“Your time of seven is complete,” a warm, maternal voice sounded in her mind. “Indeed, the task was never time, Yolande, but souls. Abbot Nigel was mistaken in that, but since I needed to appear to him so he would accept and support you as my exorcist, I could not then appear to you and say otherwise. I regret that visions are so often difficult for mortals to interpret, but no matter in the end. You and Geraint have brought to rest the seven souls I most wanted. Thorkill in the summer and those two poor sacrifices in the Tower, Martin of Halme and Hilda after them, and this winter the priest and Hilda’s mother.”
Father William and Hilda’s mother are not dead, Yolande could not help thinking.
“Were they not, in their hearts, until you and Geraint freed them from their angry agony? Now their souls are mine.”
“Was that my final trial?”
“Hardly, my dear, but you have done well.”
The voice ceased and she was herself again.
Great Maria! The Holy Mother herself spoke to me. To me.
Still humbled and amazed, she opened her eyes to find Geraint waiting.
“Finished your spirit gossip, have you, cariad, as I have my wishing?” Geraint remained sitting on the grass and patted his thigh, glad when she took his invitation at once and scrambled onto his lap. She was shivering but not with cold.
“We can kiss and cuddle and lie together,” she was saying, kissing his lips, cheeks, nose, fingers—anywhere, in fact. “We are married!”
“Slow, my heart, slow.” He addressed her and his thumping heart, needing no remembrance of her maiden state. Glorious, she was and lusty, shimmering like a flame in her new red gown, but he wanted no hasty coupling, not for her first true lovemaking. “Let us take our time.”
“But I do not want to wait any longer. I am sick of waiting.”
He laughed aloud at her sulky eagerness. “What are you, nine or nineteen? We have a feast of each other and it does not do to rush.”
Yolande nipped his ear lightly between her teeth, a devastating reply as he became instantly aroused, uncomfortably, tightly so. She smirked, rocking lightly against him. “Who rushes now, honeyman?”
In answer, he tilted her slightly on his knee, skimmed his fingers up her gown and stroked her behind.
“Ah, Geraint!”
“Ah, cariad.” His fingers on her warm, taut flesh made his desire ever more urgent, almost painfully so, but he reveled in caressing her. Her bottom was so full, ample and pert at one and the same time, and he adored the deep dip in her lower back before her lush curves blossomed out. Exploring and playing, he watched her flush in arousal as he slowly fondled, taking pleasure in the silky delicacy of her skin.
She sighed, her teasing hand hovering in midair—clearly forgotten as new sensations overcame her.
“Close your eyes,” he coaxed, wanting her to experience all as richly, as intensely as possible. Down came her long, thick black lashes and he kissed each eyelid, trailing his other hand between her thighs, stroking her bottom and sex together, attending to each soft, secret place.
“Geraint.” She clutched at him. “Geraint.”
He loved the way she said his name. “Do not look, beloved, not yet.” Easing her onto the mound, he longed to undress her, enjoy her nakedness, but knew that neither he nor Yolande could wait longer.
And these are our wedding clothes, this is our sacred marriage.
Swiftly, he unlaced his tunic and braies, freeing himself. Knowing well what he was about, Yolande opened her thighs, the perfume of her desire stoking his to a new burning heat.
He meant to be slow, to slide and ease, but she was so sweet and spicy, so open and yet snug, he dived into her. She shuddered from head to heel, crying something he did not understand.
“Yolande!” Appalled at his own brutishness, at the massive failure of his intent, he tried to pull out, willing himself to go soft, be limp, but she was so tight and right about him that his hips began to pump of themselves. His manhood spiked and throbbed and stormed and he plunged into her again, faster and faster.
“More!” She moved beneath him, a bead of sweat running from her forehead in a silver trail down to her breasts. “More, man!”
She is not hurt.
“Blessed Great Maria, you were right,” she gasped. “So much better… Oooh…”
He felt her release, the embracing pull of her womanly parts, saw her sweet crisis come to her again.
Relief made him wild. He lunged over and over, her moans spurring him on until the last, heart-shattering, heady brightness.
We are wed indeed.
Sleep took him and he was well satisfied.
Yolande had never felt so healthy. Inside and out, she glowed with happiness. She touched her new wedding ring then her new, slumbering husband and wondered if she was already in heaven.
“Truly, we are one,” she said aloud. The grass of the mound beneath her tickled her as if in indulgent agreement.
It was not yet noon. She was surprised it was still day, but then, what did
time matter? She brushed a curl from Geraint’s forehead and watched one blue eye open and wink at her.
“Good day, husband.”
He grinned, answering in Welsh, “Good day, wife.”
She chuckled then grew solemn. “No longer your dark maid.”
“But always my wife.” Geraint rolled her into his arms and flicked her hair. “My well-loved wife.”
Yolande ran her tongue across her teeth, startled that even after their joining and marriage she could still be shy. Yet she wanted to ask. “How well loved?”
Her husband’s arms tightened satisfyingly about her middle. “Very.”
“Prove it,” she dared.
“With pleasure.” His lips found hers as he began to do just that.
Chapter Thirteen: Dark Spring
England, the North, Four Months Later
She missed him. She wore his battered motley under her serge tunic because she missed him. She hoped she would dream of him tonight.
Blushing, Yolande decided she was being absurd. Yes, he was her husband. Yes, they were newlyweds. Yes, she and Geraint loved each other beyond distraction or reason but she should be able to manage a day and a night without him. He was away tumbling, juggling, performing as only he could. They had agreed the April fair by the great north road was too good an event for him to miss. So why, under a cloudless sky in High Woodhead, was she disconcerted by his absence?
I am not worried that he will miss me, for I know he will. Nor am I anxious over his safety. My honeyman can more than take care of himself. Still, I wish he were here with me, and a selfish thought that is.
Ashamed, she cast a nervous glance around the churchyard and made the sign of the cross, tightening her grip on her bow. The bowstring stung against her ear, another possible reproach, but at once that low buzz was replaced by a crash within the church.
Yolande sprinted toward the church door as the shouting began, praying she was not too late.
But how did this quarrel start up again? Truly, I must be distracted to have missed it.
The one good thing was that she smelled no whiff of sulfur or of the restless dead. Those within were still only humankind.
And they can still stick a knife in you, cariad. Remembering Geraint’s warning from the day before, she stormed through the open church door and bawled, “Hold! Hold off, I say!”
Sometimes her height and her appearance were a blessing. The shouting stopped, heads swiveled to watch her. She strode along the nave, allowing her great bow to bounce on her back and her boots to kick through the floor strewings. As she closed on the two factions, she kept her expression as cold as a steel blade.
“Well, sirs?” A question she never troubled to ask the restless dead but one guaranteed to prick a response from the living.
At once five arms pointed, two almost colliding against each other in the side chapel, and a chorus of “they started it” whispered through the church.
She tapped her foot. “Did I not say that we wait for the smith and the priest? I told you I have a solution.”
At once, the men studied their feet. She glowered at both sides as they shuffled a little closer to each other on the new tiles, united by the force of her displeasure.
“Good, cariad. If they fear you they do not fight each other,” said Geraint in her head, while a part of her nudged her absent husband in his absent ribs. I understand what to do, honeyman.
“Lay those chisels and axes down, please.” She folded her arms across her chest, flinching slightly. Her nipples were unusually sensitive, possibly because her monthly flux was late, but she did not want to dwell on blood at the moment. Not when this place bristles with weapons and opposing wills.
“Master Pernod.” She addressed the eldest of the men, regarding him until the graybeard pursed his lips and rocked foot to foot. “You frighten your hawk with this needless strife. See how she bates?” She pointed to the fluttering merlin dangling from the reeve’s thick wrist.
“Master Fleece.” She turned to a round ball of color and silks, chewing her lower lip to stop a yip of laughter from escaping. Master Fleece, former serf, now clothier, had perched himself on top the new stone tomb in the side chapel, dangling his dainty feet over one side like a small boy. He looked absurd but this was no jesting matter. “Master Fleece, no harm shall come to your father’s tomb. You need not perch up there. Let your kinsfolk help you down before you injure yourself.”
She glanced at some of the cousins, relieved to see them scuttle forward to assist the red-cheeked merchant. On the other side of the chapel, Pernod was re-hooding and stroking his falcon. His kinsmen relaxed their gnarled hands on their eating daggers and in one startling case—yes, she was sure of it—a scythe.
“The priest and smith are coming. Once we have done here, we can break our fast.” Yolande prayed that tempers would be sweetened after ale and bread. The priest was bringing both and he would bless her work besides. That should be enough.
Please, now that all are calm, please let no one mention the “V” word again.
A devil must have caught her anxious thought, for a shadowed figure at the back of the Pernod family group muttered, “Why not break open the tomb to be sure? These vampires are devious beasts.”
“Not needed.” Master Fleece eased himself off a wall seat and waddled up the nave. “My father is not such a creature, never.”
“And I agree,” Yolande said, wanting to be clear on the point. “I sense no evil here.”
“Save the sin of vanity and new money from Master Clothier and the sin of envy from the reeve’s family,” Geraint’s voice reminded her.
She made the sign of the cross and continued in a steady voice, before Master Pernod or his kin could interrupt. “What I do here, with the consent of your priest, will keep any revenant at bay and all souls safe. I swear it will do no harm or injury to any man, living or dead.”
The local smith, with a nice sense of timing, entered the church at that point and limped along the nave. The chains he carried, draped over his shoulders and hanging about his patched tunic and leather apron, stopped any more chatter.
“Iron to secure and to keep safe,” said the priest, stepping into his church behind the shaven-headed smith. “Yolande and I will bless these fetters when they are securely in place.”
“That should hold him,” said Master Pernod while Master Fleece looked as if he had swallowed a summer bluebottle.
“It will not harm your father,” Yolande said quickly, hoping to reassure once and for all.
“Nor his magnificent tomb.” The priest recognized the clothier’s main concern more swiftly than Yolande had done.
Father Eudo smiled at the two embittered families as if delighted with them, then lavished a warmer look on Yolande, who blushed again. Accustomed to grudging help from clerics or outright hostility, she was disconcerted to find Father Eudo so…accommodating. He had accepted her appearance in the village, although he admitted he had not sent for her, and more surprising still, he recognized her as an exorcist. He had agreed to her suggestion of using iron chains to wrap about the tomb and “secure” the body within it, without any demur, adding that he would bless her working.
Any other time and I would be cheering to the church rafters.
Between them, Yolande and the priest spread the slim iron chains around and over the ornate stone tomb.
This has been an easy task and really an idle one. Master Fleece’s father is with God and no undead or restless soul. I know that in my bones and blood. But if the priest here did not send that message to me begging for my help, who did? And why? This quarrel and jealousy over a new tomb is a human, not a supernatural, danger. I have discovered no sign of possession in any living soul here, nor in the village. I do not understand why I am here.
“Remember to make a show, cariad,” said Geraint’s voice and she raised the final links of the chain aloft, chanting the great prayer of Saint Patrick’s Breastplate. Father Eudo, stepping smartly alongside
, stood shoulder to shoulder with her and joined in the prayer, his deep voice echoing through the church.
Light blazed as they prayed, flaring on the iron. Until today, the chain had lain unclaimed within the smith’s lean-to, but she had seized on it at once and the smith had polished it up very well, only—
I need a final flourish, Geraint would say.
“Yolande.”
Geraint is here. At the sound of his voice, her heart soared within her and she turned to watch him enter. Then she saw the sparkle tumbling toward her—not her performance-hungry Welshman husband but something much more delicate and easier to catch.
She clutched the slim chain in her fist and Geraint, lounging like a cat in the sun by the open church door, gave her a bow. Father Eudo’s mouth turned down at the corners.
“My husband, Geraint,” she said quickly, announcing him to everyone before he took it on himself to cartwheel down the nave. She glanced at the snake of metal in her palm. “The gold he brings will seal our wishes and prayers.”
“Amen,” said the priest. He took the length of tiny links from her and held the gold chain high as he might the sacred host.
“Amen,” repeated Master Pernod and the rest as Yolande sent an urgent prayer of thanks to the Holy Virgin and Mother that Geraint was safe and Father Eudo still her ally.
She was less sure of Geraint himself, especially now. Her husband’s grin was a wonder to behold as he strode soundlessly over the herb-strewn tiles toward her, but he grinned when he was angry too.
Pray God not angry with me. The idea made her blink, for she was no wife for the house but his equal and a warrior of souls besides. I must have missed him even more than I thought, though let me not show it. He has a king’s conceit, which I rather like since he calls me his queen, but he needs no encouragement in pride from me.
A cleared throat from Father Eudo reminded her of her first duty. She reacted without starting and moved to the new tomb, fastening the gold chain through the links of the iron chain, stepping aside while the priest drenched tomb, chains and onlookers with holy water.
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