by Jo Beverley
Rosewell had been set up four hundred years ago to give women a place to live completely apart from the world, so they provided almost everything for themselves. They raised their own food, made their own drink and even repaired their own buildings.
Rosewell was especially designed to free them from the world of men. If anything was needed from elsewhere, it was brought here by women. Priests were necessary, but the ones who traveled here from Glastonbury Abbey were always elderly.
So how, Gledys wondered, did she construct dreams about men? About warriors? How? She realized she’d halted in crossing the compound and was looking at the tor as if it might give her an answer.
No! She turned and hurried toward the brewery.
Rosewell was like a village of wooden buildings surrounded by a palisade. The wall was not for defense, being only a little taller than the tallest sister, but to keep animals out of the gardens. Some sisters were leaving now through the open gates to work in the fields, fish ponds and orchards outside.
The true boundary of Rosewell was the circle of woodland that surrounded its lands. That was the limit beyond which no sister of Rosewell ever ventured. Those trees also blocked any sight of that outside world—except for the tip of Glastonbury Tor.
Gledys shook these thoughts away and hurried toward the open brewery door. She was blessed to have this particular work. The Lord Jesus had turned water into wine in a truly miraculous way, but the ordinary process was no less so to her. A sour mash of barley became a clear drink that nourished the body and lightened the mind. A mush of fruits became a rich, heartening wine.
She went in, greeting her superior, Sister Elizabeth, a vigorous, thin woman with a big nose. She was old enough to be Gledys’s mother, and both cheerful and kind.
“Are there any particular tasks today?” Gledys asked as she put on a large apron.
“Nothing special, dear. Get started on the new ale while I finish the yeast.” She dipped another twig in the tub of yeast and drew it out slowly so it became coated with the grayish matter and then hung it to dry. The yeast would sleep and keep its powers until it was needed. When a batch of barley mash was ready, a twig would be stirred in it, and it would come to life again.
Another miracle.
Sister Elizabeth had started the fire beneath the boiler. Gledys fed it more wood and then adjusted the trap by the hole in the roof so the smoke would escape cleanly.
“There’s a tricky breeze today,” she said.
“Tricky times,” said Sister Elizabeth. “New fighting to the east. King Stephen lays siege to Ipswich, and in retaliation, Duke Henry attacks Stamford.”
It was fortunate that Rosewell didn’t have a rule of silence, for Sister Elizabeth liked to hear news from the women who brought them supplies, and pass it on. She had reason to be particularly interested, however. She had come to the nunnery at age twelve and had clear memories of her worldly family, who were directly troubled by the present strife.
Gledys had come here as an infant and had no memories of any other home. These days, however, she was as interested as Sister Elizabeth in news of the war. Because of her knight. She hated to hear of fighting. She wanted him to be safe.
“News travels slowly,” she said. “Perhaps the fighting is over by now.”
“If it’s over there, it’ll be starting somewhere else.”
Gledys rolled out the big vat. “Duke Henry could have decided to go home. He has so many lands—Anjou, Normandy, and now with his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine he has her lands as well.”
Sister Elizabeth snorted. “Men like him never have enough.” She smiled sadly at Gledys. “Such a longing for peace you have, dear, and always have had, but I doubt England will see it soon. Eighteen years of strife have sown enough enmity that for many the original problems don’t matter anymore.”
Gledys grabbed a stiff brush and a bucket of water and wished the world were as easily scrubbed clean of its muck as this vessel.
Eighteen years ago, when Gledys had been in her cradle, King Henry had died, leaving his crown to his only legitimate child, his daughter, Matilda. She was the wife of the Count of Anjou, however. Despite having sworn to support her, most of the barons of England had disliked the thought of a woman ruling them, especially one married to a foreigner, and they’d backed her cousin, Stephen of Blois. War had been fierce for a while, but then it had simmered down to strife and local feuds, but King Stephen was weak. Many barons ruled their lands like princes, and the only law was the mailed fist.
Now Countess Matilda’s son was of an age to take up the claim, and she had given her right of succession to him. In November, Henry, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, had landed in England to lead his family’s supporters in the struggle. Ever since, England had suffered under skirmish, siege, battle and destruction. A peace had been broken; a truce had come and gone. Mercenaries roamed the countryside, pillaging when not paid. Towns burned and people died, many of them innocent ordinary folk.
Perhaps it was no wonder she dreamed of battle.
“Who brought this latest news?” she asked as she rinsed the vat.
“Marjorie Cooper, when she brought the new cask yesterday. When you were out cutting twigs.”
The cooper’s wife was generally a reliable informant. Gledys scrubbed and rinsed. “The king and the duke made peace in the winter. Why couldn’t they hold to it?”
“Because it suited neither, as you well know.”
“Yes,” Gledys admitted.
That agreement had been forced on both parties. Henry of Anjou would get the throne when the king died, but that could be years, for Stephen was only fifty-seven. King Henry had lived a decade longer than that. King Stephen would keep his throne, but deprive his own son of the succession.
“If the king was willing to hold to the arrangement,” Sister Elizabeth said, “his son, Prince Eustace, never will.”
“Eustace of Boulogne.” Gledys almost spat it. Twenty-three and steeped in evil.
“Aye, Marjorie says many of the barons who’ve supported King Stephen are going to Duke Henry’s side for that reason alone. They don’t want that young man on the throne.”
Gledys looked up sharply. “Perhaps that gives hope of peace. And Duke Henry seems to be a godly man. Remember when his troops pillaged around Oxford? He commanded that all the booty be returned.”
“Godly or clever,” said Sister Elizabeth dryly, “but either would be better than Eustace. The water’s boiling.”
Gledys set the heavy vat beneath the boiler, then went to the stores for malt.
War, active or merely simmering, had thrown England into chaos all her life, and it was hard for her to believe peace possible or even imagine what it would be like. She’d lived protected from war’s evils, but she’d heard of them: villages razed and towns burned, crops destroyed or stolen when they came to harvest. The strong oppressing the weak with no effective law to stop them, and endless feuding violence.
Peace seemed as mythical as the holy cup Joseph of Arimathea had buried on Glastonbury Tor, and as impossible to find. She’d heard that people crept to the tor by night to dig, seeking the sacred chalice and the miraculous bounty it was said to provide.
But in this day and age, miracles didn’t exist.
Chapter 2
“What happened to you out there?” Rannulf demanded gruffly as he and the squire, Alain, helped Michael de Loury out of his battered armor. Michael winced as he bent his bruised arm. He also had a headache from that last blow.
“Distracted.”
“In a battle, that’ll get you killed.” Rannulf was a rawboned, bowlegged man of fifty-six who served as Michael’s man-at-arms, but he’d been one of Michael’s trainers and never forgot it.
“I know, I know. I thought . . .” Michael stopped himself from mentioning what he’d seen. Bad enough to let his mind wande
r during a fight. If he mentioned visions . . . !
“It’s my first tournament,” he said as he flexed his body, newly freed from the weight of the mail and the heavy padded gambeson, assessing the many aches and pains that he hadn’t noticed in the getting. “I’m not used to women around.”
Alain said, “Speaking of women . . .”
But Rannulf spoke over him. “Should have thought of that. Good work on Willie Sea, though. Not many defeat him, and his ransom’ll be a pretty penny.”
Michael was pleased himself. Sir William of Seaham was ten years older and a formidable, experienced fighter. His age had counted against him in the end.
“Speaking of women,” persisted Alain, hopping with excitement, “they’ll all be hunting you after a victory like that.”
Alain was fifteen, stocky and with a snub-nosed, rough-molded face only a mother could call handsome, but he had more experience with women than Michael, who was twenty-two and handsome enough to find it a curse. Especially when his brothers teasingly called him “angelic Michael.”
But Alain’s words strangely echoed warnings given by Michael’s mother.
“Stop talking with your cock,” Rannulf growled to Alain, and to Michael: “Lie down.”
Michael obeyed and Rannulf poured oil on his hands and began to massage kinks out of Michael’s body with hard, strong fingers. It hurt, but felt wonderful at the same time. Some knights had women to do this for them. He didn’t dare.
It was all his mother’s fault. Her condition for allowing him to leave the monastery had been two vows—that he not leave England until he was twenty-five years old, and that he remain chaste until he married. At twelve, the first had bothered him more than the second, for he’d dreamed of going on crusade, but now, at twenty-two, the second gnawed at him like a wolf.
She’d sweetened it by talking about a noble purpose here in England and a lovely bride whom he would love as soon as he met her. His destined bride for whom he remained pure. The one with whom he would finally—God be praised—cease to be pure.
But she was a long time in coming.
Unless she was the demoiselle he’d sometimes glimpsed at the edge of fighting, dressed in a green gown, white veil fluttering. He’d told himself that couldn’t be so. That she was an illusion. No gentle lady would be in such a place.
But today he’d imagined her only yards away, right in the middle of the tourney.
Which proved her impossible. Chastity was driving him mad.
He’d seen no sign of his great purpose, either. Only the rough living and boredom of army camps and a murky war where no one claimed to know which side was right. He followed his father’s allegiance. That was all.
Heaven be praised for this hasty tourney. It had been the most fun he’d had in years, and would be more so if not for those vows.
On her deathbed his mother had burdened him with something else. Advice only, not a vow, but she’d been intense when she’d said, “You are a skilled fighter, Michael, but mask it. I’ve done what I could, but your skill could mark you for what you are. It could—”
She’d broken off then, perhaps to catch her breath, but perhaps for other reasons. He’d given her a drink of sweetened, watered wine and asked her to complete her words.
She’d said, “Such prowess will attract the attention of tempting women, and make your vows difficult. Not that your looks won’t do that anyway,” she’d added with a sigh. She’d taken his hand then, hers frail and hot with fever. “I could wish this hadn’t fallen on you, my dearest son, but we live in dreadful times, and as I approach heaven I begin to hope that you will be the salvation of us all.”
Michael hadn’t known what to make of that, and his heart had twisted anyway at the truth of her words. She was dying, and it would be soon. When she’d asked that he renew his vows, of course he’d obeyed. He’d kept them, too, with teeth-gritted resolution and difficulty. His chaste behavior couldn’t go unnoticed in army camps, though no one believed the full extent of it. He was thought discriminating and probably with a secret mistress, but at times men amused themselves by pushing tempting wenches at him.
Damn them, and damn . . .
No, he couldn’t even form the thought of damning his mother, but she’d left him a hard road and the nagging puzzle of her words: “I’ve done what I could. . . .” His father knew nothing of the vows or their purpose, but once, Michael had asked whether there’d been anything special about his younger years.
“Apart from your mother’s obsession with sending you to a monastery?” William de Loury had asked. “Some family tradition. Nonsense, when it was clear in the cradle that you were made to fight.” But then he’d frowned in thought. “There was the matter of your twin.”
Michael knew he’d been a twin, the other babe dead at birth. “What was special about that?”
“The other lad was born first, but died.” His father shrugged. “Nothing to that, but the midwife said something years later about your being the first. I suppose it’s easy to get twins mixed up, but it didn’t matter. One was dead, and with older brothers, neither of you was my heir.”
Michael, too, hadn’t been able to see that such a detail mattered, and yet he often remembered his mother’s reaction to his leaving the monastery at Saint Edmundsbury when he was twelve. . . .
“Turn over,” Rannulf said.
Michael rolled onto his back.
He’d expected wailing and recrimination, but when she’d wept it had seemed to be because he’d been so unhappy there. She’d said, “I truly believe this might be for the best.” He’d managed not to berate her for sending him to the cloister, and had put her gibberish down to emotion. Women allowed emotion to overturn their wits. Everyone knew that.
He let Rannulf’s ministrations clear his mind, but that opened the door to memories. Memories from only hours ago.
Wavy brown hair beneath a filmy veil, and a sweet, round face with full, soft lips, blue eyes fixed on him with concern. Her hair was strangely short, but no matter. Hair grew. Shame that her green gown hadn’t been laced to her curves, as the fashion went at the moment, but he’d still seen how lovely those curves were. The trimming at hem and sleeve spoke of wealth. But he didn’t care whether she was rich or poor.
His father would cuff him if he said that. Marriage was for lands and power.
But what had she been doing in the field of contest? He hadn’t understood it then, and didn’t now, but there she’d been, in danger of her life. Then, in a blink, she’d disappeared. He’d rushed to search, thinking she might have been knocked into the dirt, but there’d been no trace of her, and there was Willie Sea to deal with, to arrange ransom, even though Michael’s mind was a tangle.
To love an illusion made no sense, but he didn’t know what else to call the obsession that had ridden him for months now. Having seen her so close, he could think of nothing else. He felt almost drunk with it, and he needed to see her again as a man in a desert needed water.
He longed to kneel before her, to take her small hand, to lay his victories, his prowess and everything he possessed at her feet, just as the troubadours sang of love. In accord with their stories, life without her held no savor. He had to find her.
When he found her, he didn’t want the stink of battle to linger on him.
He surged up from the bed and swept his cloak around his naked body. “Attend me,” he said to Alain, and headed off to the communal bathing tent. The squire hurried along with a pile of clean clothing.
Rannulf had found quarters in the village, which had proved wise in recent rains, when the camp had run with streams and tents had let in water. It meant Michael was walking past people’s homes and shops, but after a month they were used to seeing fighting men on the way to the bathhouse. He attracted little attention other than the usual saucy comments from the women. That reminded him that there were only children, m
atrons and crones left in Allacorn village. Any nubile young women of respectable families had been sent away to safety. Good thing the army traveled with its own whores.
In the camp men called out congratulations on his defeat of Willie Sea. It all sounded good-humored, but Michael knew he’d made himself a target. Tomorrow, some would strive to defeat him for the reflected glory. He was going to have to keep winning or pay ransoms until his purse was empty.
That didn’t seem to matter.
Only his bride. His beloved.
“Sir?” Alain prompted, and Michael realized he was standing in the street like an idiot. He moved on, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from searching for her. Insanity.
But when he found her, he’d marry her, even if he had to carry her off in the teeth of opposition from her family. He was only a younger son, without land or fortune, but . . .
Alain nudged him. “To your left. The duke!”
Michael jerked back into the moment and turned to see Henry of Anjou. The duke was supposed to be in Nottingham besieging the castle, ten leagues away, not here with the force set to guard the road from the south. Lack of action near Allacorn had led to boredom and the informal tournament, but Michael wondered if the duke had come to put a stop to it. He was known to think tourney fighting a waste of time, and for his temper.
He seemed in good humor, however, joking with his entourage of barons and knights. Perhaps the siege had become tedious. The duke was well-known for his boundless energy, so it would be like him to dash over here to see the situation for himself.
He was sandy haired, with nothing extraordinary about his looks, two years younger than Michael and a head shorter, but the vibrant energy and power that infused him could take the breath away. If energy and power could win a crown, Henry of Anjou would have England, and soon.
Michael gathered his wits and bowed.