by Tamara Leigh
Who crawls beneath my skin? Elias wondered. Not even when foul trickery caused him to yield Lady Beata Fauvel—now Marshal—to an unwanted marriage had he so longed to harm another. Prayer was what he needed. And assurance the boy he may have fathered was not in need of rescue.
He cinched the purse, shoved it nearer the man. “Summon her.”
CHAPTER TWO
Six months. They felt like years.
Honore of no surname lowered her forehead to the floor. Gripping her beads, she prayed, “Almighty, You are all. You see all, hear all, feel all.” She drew a shaky breath. “You can do all. I beseech Thee, wherever Hart is, turn his feet back to us. Deliver him to these walls unharmed and smiling his sweetly lop-sided smile. Bring him home.”
To give the Lord time to consider her request in the hope he might finally act on it, she waited several minutes before setting before Him others in need of grace and healing.
When the bells called the sisters to prayer an hour later, she pressed upright. Soon the chapel would fill with holy women, one of whom Honore was not and would never be. She had work of a different sort—and of equal import, she believed.
She stepped out the side door and paused to allow the sun’s heat burning away the clouds to warm places grown cold whilst she prostrated herself before the altar. It felt wonderful, tempting her to delay her duties, but she had been gone too long and Lady Wilma was generous enough with her time.
Honore bounded down the steps and headed around the rear of the chapel so she might sooner reach the dormitory. And halted a step short of colliding with a squat nun.
“Forgive my recklessness, Sister Sarah.” She bobbed her head deferentially. “I am late to—”
The nun raised a staying hand, and when Honore seamed her mouth, tapped her own lips.
“Dear me!” Belatedly realizing she had spoken louder than usual as she was in the habit of compensating for a muffled voice, Honore drew up the cloth draping her shoulders which respect for the Lord—and the abbess’s assurance He thought her beautiful—bade her lower before addressing Him.
“I was at prayer,” she said as she arranged the covering over her head. “In my haste to relieve Lady Wilma, I neglected to set myself aright.” She drew the trailing end across her lower face and fastened it on the opposite side. “I thank you, Sister.”
It was not cruelty that caused the nun to remind the younger woman of what was best kept concealed. It was kindness, Sister Sarah well-versed in the superstitions of many within Bairnwood Abbey, be they nuns, lay sisters, servants, or residents—especially those of the nobility who resided here because of advanced age, a babe whose birth must be concealed, or to escape an unwanted marriage.
“How fares your good work?” the nun asked.
“Well.” It was true, though it felt otherwise these six months.
Sister Sarah inclined her head. “I pray thee a good day, Honore.” She stepped around the younger woman and continued to the chapel.
Resuming her course to the dormitory, Honore muttered, “You must cease this grieving. It does him no good. It does you none. Hart is gone. Pray for him and leave him to God. The Lord can protect him far better than you.”
Easy to say. Hard to do. The loss of the boy hurt deeply, and worry over him nibbled at her every edge. If she did not gain control of her emotions, soon she would be eaten all the way through.
Honore jumped out of the path of a cluster of nuns also destined for the chapel. As they passed, she landed beneath the regard of a middle-aged woman bringing up the rear, she who was not yet garbed as a bride of Christ. But soon, it was told, the novice’s family having supplied the funds necessary to make an esteemed place for her at Bairnwood.
Honore held the woman’s keen gaze, refusing to be cowed by one who was her equal—or nearly so. Had Honore wished to become a nun, for a dozen years now she would have worn a habit. Instead, she had been granted her request to use the funds paid for her keeping in a way surely as pleasing to the Lord.
As the novice neared, the woman moved her eyes to the swath of material covering the bottom half of Honore’s face, then lowered her gaze further.
Honore reached up and closed a hand around the short string of prayer beads she usually kept beneath her gown’s bodice. As noted months past, it was similar to the ones hung from the girdle of the novice who was now past her.
Honore slipped the beads beneath the neck of her gown and continued to the farthest dormitory which housed the abbey’s female lay servants.
As soon as she entered the building whose northern end had been converted from a dozen individual cells to one great room a decade past, Lady Wilma moved toward her. “Settle yourselves, children,” she called over her shoulder, “else there shall be no honey milk with your dinner.”
As moans, groans, and mutterings answered her, Honore noted the woman’s anxious eyes. “What is amiss?”
Lady Wilma halted before her. “The raggedly lad was here.”
Honore drew a sharp breath between her teeth. She had hoped she would not see him again, that the abbey’s plans to render the boy’s master useless would be completed ere she was called upon to once more leave the safety of these walls.
“He said his master bids you meet him two hours ere matins,” Lady Wilma continued.
Midnight, then—a perilous hour, especially if the dense fog that had arisen these past nights returned.
“He told you are to bring twice the amount of coin.”
“Twice?” Honore exclaimed.
“For two, he said.”
“Twins?” she asked, thoughts flying to two such babes born in the village of Forkney a year past—rather, the rumor of them.
“I asked the same. The boy said he did not know.”
“Is he still here?”
“Nay, I fed him a good meal and sent him away with a coin.”
How many times had Honore offered the lad a home here? As many times as he had declined. And now he was too old to be granted sanctuary inside these walls.
She bit her lower lip. She did not want to go to the wood, especially after what had happened the last time, but she had no choice.
Lady Wilma touched her shoulder. “Methinks you ought to take big Jeannette with you.”
She wished she could. But she dared not.
Honore was no slight thing, but increasingly she felt dainty alongside the young woman who accompanied her. Lady Wilma had argued it was time to give Jeannette more knowledge of the world beyond the abbey so she was better informed in deciding her future. Still, Honore had resisted—until the lady suggested Jeannette clothe herself as a man and remain visibly distant during the exchange. The young woman’s accompaniment would make it appear Honore had a protector whilst ensuring Jeannette had space in which to flee if necessary.
Now beneath a three-quarter moon and amidst fog so thick they could hardly see their feet, Honore looked sidelong at her charge and felt a flush of pride for all she had become. When she could not have been more than one, she was set out in the wood, either due to illegitimacy, poverty, a drifting eye that frightened the superstitious, or perhaps all.
No longer the babe in fouled swaddling clothes whom Honore had hastened to Bairnwood fourteen years past, she stood over a half foot taller than her savior’s five and a half feet, was as broad-shouldered as many a man, had a figure surprisingly feminine for one of such proportion, and possessed a fairly pretty face made all the prettier when she smiled. Not that she smiled often, of such a serious nature was she.
Of further surprise to those who judged her by appearance was her intellect. Her size, wandering eye, and tongue of few words lulled many into believing her simple-minded. She was not. And Abbess Abigail knew it, encouraging Jeannette’s studies beyond writing and reading to include numbers and Latin. The abbess did not say it, but she implied a way could be found for the young woman to become a bride of Christ.
As the two negotiated the wood, Honore once more wondered if Jeannette would wish to
take holy vows were one of common birth given that rare opportunity.
She hoped not and immediately repented for being selfish and silently explained to the Lord that her work with foundlings would be much furthered were Jeannette to fully come alongside her.
Honore had help from a few lay servants and several kind-hearted convent residents—Lady Wilma for one—but more could be done. And once alterations to the abbey’s outer wall were completed, as they should have been weeks past, more would need to be done. But that was not to ponder at the middling of night in a dark wood and soon to be in close proximity with Finwyn.
Though Honore assured herself the exchange would be over soon, she shuddered.
“Are you afeared, Mine Honore?”
Mine Honore, as Jeannette had called her since first she could speak. It was the same as the others coming up after the young woman called the one whose unseemly birth denied her the title of lady. But far Honore preferred it over the loftiest title. Ever it reminded her she belonged to someone—many someones.
“A little frightened,” she admitted. “The one I meet, hopefully for the last time, is not to be underestimated. Thus, do not forget you are to remain distant enough he will not know you for a woman.”
Jeannette’s white teeth flashed in the dim. “I could become accustomed to such garments.” She plucked at tunic and chausses borrowed from a male servant who dwelt outside the abbey. “I feel all held together.”
“Are they truly so comfortable?”
“Ever so. I have naught flapping about my legs and feet, naught to hinder my stride.”
A very long stride, though Jeannette patiently kept pace with Honore’s shorter reach.
“Do not tell Abbess Abigail,” Honore said. “She will think it unnatural you are clothed as a man.”
“And sinful?” the girl said warily.
Were Honore not so tense, she would laugh. “An abbot might name it sinful, but not our abbess, especially considering your mission.”
“Mission,” Jeannette repeated. “I like that.”
As expected, Honore mused and wondered as sometimes she did why the Lord had not made Jeannette a Jean. Not that she wished it. Had her first foundling been a boy, he would no longer dwell at Bairnwood. As required, males left the community of women upon attainment of their tenth year. Blessedly, thus far all had been placed in good homes well before that age.
Fewer females were as fortunate, but as yet there was no great need. As long as Bairnwood—and Honore—could support their numbers, they were welcome to remain. However, that would not always be so, and all the sooner those numbers would become unsupportable once the man who summoned Honore became dispensable. She would have to work harder—a daunting prospect, but it was not as if she had anything else to live for or fill her heart so full.
Returning to the present, Honore instructed Jeannette that if she must converse henceforth, she ought to whisper.
The two crossed a stream, keeping their shoes and hems dry by traversing the immense rotten tree that had toppled from one bank to the other long before Honore took her first forbidden walk outside the abbey and found Jeannette. It had been two years before she dared approach the one she had seen set out the little one, but her task had become easier thereafter—until the old man took ill and his grandson determined to make more profitable what he called a business.
However, though Finwyn required greater compensation than had his grandsire, Honore had not been summoned as often since the old man’s passing. Until recently, she had thought it was because the grandson was not as trusted to discreetly dispose of unwanted babes, but that rumor about twins born to a newly widowed villager a year past made her think it could be something else. Were it—
“Mine Honore?” Jeannette forgot to whisper.
“Quiet now,” Honore rasped. “We are nearly there.”
They continued to traverse the wood until the ground rose before them, then Honore veered to the right. “Remain here. Once I am over the top, follow and place yourself between those trees so the moon is full at your back.” She pointed to the top of the rise where two ancient oaks stood like royals before their lessers. “You have only to stand there,” she repeated what had been told ere they departed the abbey, then tapped the tapered stick tucked beneath Jeannette’s belt. “Hold this to the side, its point down as if ’tis a sword.”
“I will look a fierce warrior,” the young woman whispered.
And all the more threatening amid moonlit fog, Honore imagined and hoped it would prevent Finwyn from trespassing as he had done the last time when he wrenched the covering from her face.
“No more is required of you,” Honore said. “Now I would have your word that if anything goes afoul, you will run straight to the abbey.”
“Already I gave my word, Mine Honore.”
“I would hear it again.”
The young woman sighed. “If all goes afoul, I shall return to the abbey as quickly as my legs can carry me. My word I give.”
Honore leaned up and kissed Jeannette’s cheek. “God willing, this night we shall each have a babe to sing to sleep.” She stepped back and lowered her chin. “Almighty,” she prayed, “bless us this eve as we seek to do Your good work. Amen.”
“Amen,” Jeannette said.
After ensuring the cloth covering the lower half of her face was secure, Honore lifted her skirts and ascended the rise. Upon reaching the crest, she set her shoulders back and increased her stride.
There was no disguising herself as being other than a woman, but she refused to appear meek. If Finwyn drew too near again, she would do more than slap him. She touched the stick beneath her belt that was half as long but twice as thick as Jeannette’s. In addition to coin, the knave would depart the wood with lumps and bruises. Or so she told herself, Finwyn being the first and last person she had ever struck.
I shall do so again if I must—and harder, she assured herself and set her eyes on the distant tree, a portion of whose aboveground roots served as a cradle. As the fog creeped thicker there, she would have to draw near to confirm the exchange was possible. On occasion it was not, the cradle empty due to the babe’s death.
“Lord, let the wee ones be hale,” she whispered and sent her gaze around the wood in search of movement whilst straining to catch the sound of fitful babes. Were they in the cradle, Finwyn would be watching.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw Jeannette had placed herself as directed. The young woman did look to be a fierce warrior—the moon’s glow at her back outlining her hulking figure and what appeared to be a drawn sword. She would not go unnoticed, and Finwyn would know exactly why Honore had not come alone. Hopefully, once more he would honor their agreement and collect his coin following her departure.
When Honore was near enough to see the humped roots near the tree’s base, she silently thanked the Lord. Amid the fog, two bundles lay side by side. Blessedly, neither babe was fitful, for she hated that they might be frantic and frightened.
Though careful to pick her way amongst the roots that extended a dozen feet from the tree, twice she nearly twisted an ankle, causing the coins to clatter.
When she stood before the bundles, she raised her pouch to show the one watching that she paid the price required to save two innocents, then set it in a patch of moss. God willing, it was the last payment she would make.
As she straightened, she noticed a rope tied around the tree’s trunk. Did Finwyn seek to tell her something? Might this be a threat? She considered it a moment longer, then brushed aside the curiosity with the assurance it was not fashioned into a noose. And nearly laughed at allowing her mind to wander in that direction. She did not like the man, but he gave her no cause to fear for her life.
She positioned the sling she wore over her short cloak so it draped one shoulder and rested on the opposite hip, then reached for the first bundle.
“There is naught there for you, woman.”
She stilled. Someone showed himself, and it was not
Finwyn. Counseling calm though her heart thought itself a drum, Honore slowly turned.
CHAPTER THREE
Sweeping her gaze over the wood, Honore saw Jeannette’s dark figure on the hill, moonlight appearing to radiate from her, then the one whose shadow glided across the fog, swept up over her skirts and bodice, and covered her face.
Though less than twenty feet distant, the only sense she could make of the large figure backed by moonlight the same as Jeannette’s and the ring of chain mail, was that here was a warrior.
Fifteen feet.
Grateful his shadow masked the fear in her eyes nearly as well as the cloth hid her trembling mouth, she pulled the stick from beneath her belt.
Ten feet.
She thrust her weapon forward. “Come no nearer!”
Though she doubted he felt threatened, he halted. Even without the sword and dagger hung from his waist, he could make a quick end of her. And all the more easily were he not alone.
Honore shifted her gaze past his shoulder, saw Jeannette had yet to run as instructed. But then, nothing ill had happened. At least, not that the young woman could know with certainty.
Wishing she had better prepared her for what constituted afoul, Honore said, “What is it you want?”
When the warrior finally answered, he punctuated each word as if it did not need any other to be understood. “I want my son.”
Honore nearly looked behind at the babes, but she dared not move her gaze from this man. Too, she would wager the quiet bundles were only lures—a trap set by Finwyn. Doubtless, he had learned of the abbey’s plan and thought to gain every last coin possible ere being rendered obsolete.
What she did not understand was this warrior. Surely he was not meant to kill her. Unless…