“It is done,” she and Father Eudo said together, and at once Master Pernod’s party turned on their heels and shuffled out, the reeve’s falcon still bating on his wrist.
“Will this hold them, you think?” hissed Geraint in Welsh by her ear.
“As much as the fair held you?” she asked in return in the same tongue, crossing herself as Father Eudo did. “We must hope it does,” she added in English.
Alongside her, his long lashes quivering with amusement, Geraint snapped his fingers. “Poor pickings today at the fair,” he remarked, setting all kinds of alarms running in her mind as to what he had done when not tumbling or juggling.
She half turned to ask more but Master Fleece, an apologetic ball of silk, seized her arm and spluttered his thanks.
She jabbed Geraint with her elbow to prevent a smirk forming and he said, “And I am most happy to see you too.”
“I shall join my flock outside and share out our breakfasts, lest they fall to arguing over that.” Father Eudo beamed at her again. “Join us, Yolande, when you are finished here.”
He strolled off, shepherding Master Fleece and the rest of the clothier’s kindred ahead of him, and missed the vulgar gesture Geraint made at his retreating broad shoulders.
“Husband!” Yolande tried to scold him though she spoke mainly for the pleasure of the word. She was ridiculously pleased he was back.
And now that we are alone in church, will the Great Maria and all the saints mind if I kiss him?
Geraint juggled her into his arms. Ignoring her protests, he danced her down the nave. “No lost or furious souls here, Bathsheba mine, as you well realize, and so no worry, only a priest who wants to teach you a few extra scriptural lessons.”
She laughed at him, nipping his feet with her boots as a reprimand. “I am his exorcist.”
“And a woman he desires and why not? But you are mine, Yolande.”
“He understands that, Geraint, and more to the quick, I do.”
Geraint grinned, his pleasure at being back warring with his displeasure of finding a wretched cleric leering over his Yolande, but then she laid her head against his shoulder and he was home and happy.
“My wife, my zesty girl. Most glad I am to see you safe and whole.” He kissed her, delighting in her soft, lush mouth, the way she embraced him. Tonight he would be a lucky man, as he was most nights these days unless she was working. “Come into the sunshine, wife, and let me leer at you.”
“Idiot.” She wagged a finger at him, which he grabbed and kissed. “Geraint, was that chain real gold?”
“As real as a priest’s honesty.”
“A fake chain?”
“For a fake vampire, so where’s the harm?”
She pinched his backside in another reproof and he stroked her plait.
“I like your hair this new way.”
Yolande’s bronze face was a pool of love. Oh yes, I am going to be lucky tonight. “’Tis well, Geraint, since you do it for me.” She had not yet consented to his winding ribbons through it but that would be next, he was sure.
“Come.” He pushed on the church door to lead her out then stopped, a sharp tingle at the back of his neck warning him. Beside him, Yolande shot him a glance of apology and stepped forward.
She knew, even more than he did, that what waited for them outside was real.
The hooded figure sat on the church stocks, away from Father Eudo and the others. Stepping into the brilliant April sun, Yolande thanked the priest, who in turn nodded to the tiny, still figure.
“She knows, man,” said Geraint but Yolande flinched as the stranger raised a hand.
Power, stronger than prayer, stronger than her bow of Saint Sebastian or her sacred amulets, shimmered over her skin. She snapped another step forward, shielding Geraint, who had also shifted closer, and they bumped shoulders.
The seated figure tried to suppress a giggle but failed.
“A woman!” Geraint whistled through the gap in his front teeth.
A hermit, rich in knowledge and sanctity. Yolande made the sign of the cross on her husband’s hairy arm. I also have knowledge. “Greetings, Holy Mother,” she called, feeling another crawl of power flutter over her flesh as the figure drew down her mud-brown hood. She had an ageless face, a pair of shrewd gray eyes.
“You will do,” said the female hermit. “The pair of you. No, mister, you do not need to toy with that dagger in your sleeve, and you, mistress, need not stroke sweet crosses on your man’s arm. I like that you protect each other but you have no need with me.”
“That’s a good many needs,” said Yolande.
“Agreed.” The woman smiled, showing teeth nearly as pretty as Geraint’s, and patted the stocks. “Come by me and listen. I need your help.”
Yolande compelled her suddenly restless feet not to stir and stopped Geraint with her bow arm. “May I learn your name, madam?”
“Oh, you are good, as good as I was told.” The woman cradled herself and rocked for an instant. “Very well, Yolande. I am Katherine, once a wife like you and always a mother and the hermit of High Woodhead besides.”
Katherine pointed at Geraint, who threw a handstand then juggled a fistful of daisies that became a chain.
“For you, Mistress Katherine.” He bowed so low his black curls swept the dust. “Geraint Welshman at your service, since you ask.”
“Black Celt but not black hearted. You are welcome, Geraint, you and Yolande.”
Yolande sped toward Katherine, exasperated and amused when Geraint overtook her, tumbling and cartwheeling all the way. There is a time and place, she almost said, but guessing he would have a clever answer, she slowed down instead and allowed her husband to drape his chain of daisies over the older woman’s neck and stand beside Katherine like a page. For an instant, jealousy sank its fangs into her heart but she reminded herself that Katherine was a hermit and most certainly a mystic.
“I have lived alone and chaste these fifteen years, my dear,” said Katherine, divining her thoughts. “You and your pretty Welshman are one and I do not come between wife and man.”
She shuffled along the stocks, sat in one of the leg holes, a tiny waif of a woman in a brown gown, with fading brown hair and freckles, and patted the gnarled wood. Yolande removed the bow from her shoulder and looked about for a place to prop it.
“Here, let Geraint go to the practice butt.” Katherine snapped her fingers, imperious as an empress, and Geraint swung the bow onto his back and stomped off, grinning broadly.
“He’s not angry at you,” Katherine remarked. “Curious and piqued and not a man to like authority, but he loves you and will know all our conversation when he returns.”
“I will tell him unless there is great reason not to.”
“Not a bit. But my tale will be quicker without his anxious ears and you can always couch it in the way you please later.”
Yolande, amused and disquieted in equal measure, asked gently, “How can I help, holy one? Does it concern your child?”
Katherine’s eyes widened. “Swift as a warrior, but no, my daughter, you are mistaken. My son and his wife are well and happy. This is much larger than any domestic trouble.”
Yolande bit her lips on an apology and waited the older woman out.
“Certainly he will not recognize you as an exorcist or holy warrior,” Katherine went on. “And—forgive me for telling you your trade—you will be wise not to tell him.”
Yolande flinched as her tunic scraped uncomfortably across her breasts. Katherine moved to take her hand and she allowed it.
“Warm and strong. You will need that strength, my daughter.”
“There is that word ‘need’ again.”
Katherine leaned against the upright of the stocks and looked about.
“No one is in earshot,” Yolande said.
“Father Eudo will keep the villagers away. Very well. You understand that these may be the final times, the end days?”
“Yes, I do,” Yolande said
, thinking of Geraint, who believed nothing of the kind.
“Many are convinced of it and seek to build a New Jerusalem, ready for the end of the world,” Katherine went on. “Some are building close to here, within the forest. A city of God within the northern woodlands, a Jerusalem with a sacred labyrinth, so it is whispered.”
“Whispered?”
“Yes, I do not like that word either, Yolande. This loving community is secretive and seeks to ensnare converts by stealth and soft inducements.”
Converts. A tiny drumbeat of alarm began to sound in Yolande’s head.
“Tinkers and such are discouraged, unless they wish to stay. Your Geraint would be an anathema to them. They dislike those who seek to leave.”
“So how do you know?”
“Gossip in the leaves, broken people, escapees fleeing and blundering to my hermitage for counsel and comfort. They are few and frightened but they find me and I tend them. They have a taint on them, a fog of evil.”
Evil gathering. Escapees. The drumbeat grew louder.
“Much in this New Jerusalem is worthy. Runaway serfs are welcomed. Jews and Muslims are welcomed. Property and goods are shared.”
“Yet?” prompted Yolande.
“They have acquired a leader, a hermit who appeared out of the woods one day and told them to create a labyrinth. He claims to have a new letter from the holy man Richard Rolle… I see you have heard of him.”
“I have but the man died of the pestilence two years ago. A new letter?”
Katherine shrugged. “This hermit swears regardless that the divine mystic Richard has sent him this letter. It says the end of the world is coming and they must prepare.”
“By prayer and fasting?”
“If only it were so. No, I fear by other means, by fleshly raptures. Spare me your blushes. You and your mate are married, blessed by God. The unions I speak of are nothing like—” Katherine broke off, praying swiftly, but Yolande still caught a glimpse within the other woman’s mind and the picture bloomed within hers.
A clearing in a wood surrounded by watch fires and bordered by huts and strips of vegetables. A huge pole in the middle of the clearing and men and women dancing about the pole, naked and sweating, their faces empty of expression even when they stopped cavorting and fell upon each other.
The picture vanished but Yolande understood. There would be no tenderness in any subsequent unions and no true human passion, touching and speech, only rutting.
She shuddered, scrambling to her feet, making her arms a cross to cover herself and Katherine.
“I am no more tempted than you,” the female hermit snapped, “but you should appreciate what you are up against. You above all would be a prize.”
“I am no one’s plaything.” Yolande kicked the stocks, startled by her own reaction. “Is that scene from now or your foresight?”
“What do you think, Yolande?”
Yolande almost scowled, disliking these tests, but caught herself. “I saw a maypole and it is not May Day yet.”
“Indeed. I think it is a future vision but not a good one. I have heard of acts they do already.” She stopped. “Not good.”
What kinds of acts? Yolande wondered but guessed she would get no more from the woman.
“It will be hard and dangerous,” Katherine continued, implacable as only a saint dared to be. “Finding the place may be difficult, for no runaway has been able to give me clear directions. But evil is gathering there. Too many are being hurt, crippled in their souls, for me to pretend otherwise.”
“Are they possessed?”
Her companion gave a disconcerting giggle. “That is your trade and craft, not mine, but no, I do not think so, unless the hermit himself is possessed.”
Yolande blazed at the idea and pushed it quickly away. “Does this so-called holy man of the forest take part in these raptures?” she asked, wishing she had a drink to take away the foul taste in her mouth.
Katherine pulled a face. “He watches.”
With a superior smirk, no doubt.
“And the labyrinth? What spiritual purpose does it serve?”
“Not as a journey to some holy city as a sacred labyrinth should, but I do not understand its true goal.” Katherine sighed. “Such lack of foresight troubles me.”
It worried Yolande as well, though she said nothing. She knelt on the grass before Katherine and took her hands between her own, praying her power into the older woman. “I swear, by my fealty and faith, that I shall strive to cleanse this place, this New Jerusalem of the forest.” This is the true reason why I am here.
“Or to prevent a great evil. Go with my blessing, my daughter. Go with God.”
She can read my thoughts then. “There is not much time, is there?”
“No, there is not.” Katherine leaned forward and kissed Yolande on her cheek. “Cleave to your Geraint and be a comfort to each other. Trust each other.”
Yolande blushed, hoping Katherine did not know what a “comfort” meant to her with Geraint.
“That too,” said Katherine. “Oh, and—” She stopped, her whole frame stiffening as if she listened. “Never mind, such pretty news will keep.”
Pretty? What did the woman mean?
She opened her mouth to ask but was forestalled as Katherine rose from the stocks. “Come to my little house by the wood edge, you and Geraint. I have some things for your journey. Do you set out today?”
It was another spiritual test, then. Yolande said at once, “We will, for the evenings are long.”
“Good,” said Katherine. “In these trials it does not do to be late, especially when it is a final trial.”
She walked away, leaving Yolande alarmed afresh. Is this really my final trial? Am I ready? Is Geraint ready? Will he be safe? Please let him be safe.
Chapter Fourteen
Geraint prodded their modest woodland fire with a stick, mulling over what Yolande had told him and what Katherine had whispered to him before he and Yolande—my wife Yolande—had set out to find this Jerusalem of the forest.
“More ale?” Yolande offered him a flask and another of her spicy flat cakes, smiling broadly to show she was pleased he was with her and not a bit worried about their coming quest.
You make a poor liar, Bathsheba mine, but never mind. I have a secret too and one I’ve acted on already, for Katherine is talking to the smith and carpenter of High Woodhead for me. That plan is going on already and tonight I have another in mind, and all with a female hermit’s approval.
Eating and drinking, relishing the warm flat cake, giving one last prod and check to their fire, he almost snorted. How incongruous his life was. He, a man who had never been tied down, never sought treasure, power, office or a house, had just asked the advice—the permission—of a middle-aged woman mystic. But his days were interesting and if he could keep Yolande safe…
“She said we might be a comfort to each other. Katherine, I mean.”
Is that so, my zesty wife? Geraint raised his brows and reached out, ignoring her hasty, “But you have walked a long way today and might be weary.”
Chuckling, he gathered her in, stretching out full length with her, the flame shadows playing over her pert breasts, stroking spots where his caresses would soon follow. “Did Eudo kiss you today?” he asked, gently sucking on her full top lip and watching her lashes flutter.
“Only a kiss of fellowship.” Yolande tucked herself closer into his armpit, weaving one supple, shapely leg between his.
He bit down on asking if the tree roots pained her. We are safe enough by this great pine and the tree’s old needles make a fine mattress. You would not be asking last month or last week so do not fuss. Recalling all that Katherine had said, he massaged her neck, finding and easing the knots in her bow shoulder.
“Great Maria.” Yolande’s eyes almost rolled in her head and he grinned to see her so undone.
Tonight, my queen, you will experience such a comfort from me as to forget your name. Why not? Had the my
stic Katherine not said, “When you find this evil Jerusalem and even before, you must fight these fleshly raptures with your own”?
His kind of fight, yes indeed.
“A kiss of fellowship, eh?” He tickled his fingers along her spine and flanks, closing on his final sweet goal. She returned the embrace and his ears sang with an angel chorus, his blood leaping. “A kiss like this?”
He trailed kisses over her mouth and neck.
“Or like this?” He embraced her deeply, tasting the lavender, rosemary and pepper on her. “Should I be jealous?”
“Never.” She nipped his tongue and he laughed within her mouth, sure of her and surer of himself. This was his stage and he would pamper and pleasure but tease a little first. All warriors and queens like to be teased, after all, for they forget their cares.
“’Tis well I’m not a jealous fellow or you would be my princess tonight.” He kneaded his knuckles softly along the links of her spine, his mouth drying. If she were in full queen and exorcist mood, she might buck him off and thrash him with her bow until he begged pardon. Even that rough scolding excites me, a heady dance of danger and desire, better than walking a fire pit. Even his skin crackled.
“How so?” she asked, her lips pressing softly against his—in appeal?
“Ah, yes, you English do not know the tale.”
“I am African also and not all English,” she mumbled but she did not stir her lashes or her luscious lower flanks, not even when he cupped her bottom.
He clicked his tongue in mock reproof. Still he diced with risk, strolling in his fire pit, and most agreeable it was. A few more steps to safety…
“Princess Bronwen never smiled, it is said in Gwynedd, where this tale is told ’round the campfires of a night.”
Lies, all lies, but it was a story, just his and not a bard’s.
“I smile often,” Yolande complained.
“Indeed and for sure you do, Yolande, but Bronwen was a sourpuss. Neither her parents, suitors, courtiers, maids nor bards could coax so much as a tweak of the lips from her.”
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