The Miracle Thief

by Iris Anthony

  Real ones.

  Whole ones.

  And there was an expansiveness in my chest, a new, all-encompassing fullness that made me know I had been healed. I sat there, exulting at my great fortune, laughing as I opened and closed the hand that now looked just like its pair, and feeling with wonderment the bosom that had bloomed from my chest.

  I was whole!

  From the walls of the cave about me, there appeared a great host of angels. Stepping forward, one of them welcomed me in the name of Saint Catherine, extending her hand.

  I placed mine into it. “I am healed this day!”

  She smiled as if she had already known it. And then she knelt beside me. “After receiving the mysteries of eternal salvation, we humbly pray thee, that as the liquor that continually flowed from the limbs of Saint Catherine, virgin and martyr, did heal languishing bodies, so her prayer may expel out of us all iniquities.”

  Beside me, one of the host began flapping his arms. And beside him, a small girl began to intone a song.

  The woman clutched my arm. “Are the Danes…?”

  “They are all dead.”

  She smiled through her tears as she lifted her arms toward heaven. “Then we are saved!”

  ***

  After the fire’s embers had cooled, Godric was enlisted to pull the bodies from the ruined church and take them to a cellar where they would be held until spring, when they could be buried. He suggested the Danes might have preferred their bodies to be put to the flame once more, but neither the nuns nor their chaplain nor the canon could countenance such a thing. Not even for the pagans who had rained destruction down upon their heads. Afterwards, Godric aided some of the others in clearing the church while I helped the nun, Sister Juliana, who had spoken to me in the chapel. She left me in care of her charges, those I had mistaken for angels, while she went to find food for all of those who worked to clear the rubble from the abbey.

  The sun had fallen behind the mountains before I had a chance to speak to Godric. I had wanted to tell him of my healing, but as I fell in beside him on the way to the refectory, I found I lacked more than just opportunity. After all the time we had spent together, after all of our hours with the Danes, I did not know what to say to him.

  And so I slipped my hand, my whole one, into his.

  He wrapped his own around it. But then he glanced down, opening his hand to display mine. The corner of his mouth lifted as he looked over at me. There was gladness in his gaze, but as I watched, a sadness crept in beneath it. He squeezed my hand and let it drop. And it felt as if, somehow, he had let me drop too.

  The Danes’ fire had burnt the abbey. Before it sputtered out, it raced through the cloisters to the pilgrims’ dormitory, the baths, and the laundry. After our meal, the nuns turned the refectory into sleeping quarters and invited Godric, the canon, and I to lodge there.

  The room, located inside the complex and hidden from the winds and the snow, was much warmer than it was outside, and the nuns brought us furs from their treasury to recline upon and to throw over our mantles, but still I could not sleep. I kept marveling at the wonder of my hand, and I missed the man I had slept beside along the road. I would have gone to him, but somehow something had changed between us, and I did not think it right.

  The next morning, Godric and the canon vouched as witnesses before Sister Juliana to the former state of my hand, and then the canon announced he must leave to journey back to Rouen. The nuns tried to present him with a horse, but he refused it. “I came here, desiring to take the relic from you, and found I was in error. You owe me nothing, and I do not wish to compound my shame.”

  Godric stayed, helping the craftsmen as they began to frame the church. I stayed as well, looking after the children as Sister Juliana concerned herself with the running of the abbey’s affairs. The workers continued to return from their mountain hiding places, but the abbess was not among them. She did not appear that next day or the day after, either.

  On the third day, one of the laypeople who had been tasked with helping in the kitchens found her. In her haste to flee from the Danes, she must have slipped in the snow and fallen headlong into the well in the courtyard.

  Sister Juliana recounted the grisly news for us all as we sat together for our meal.

  The man who had pulled her body out stepped forward to lay the abbess’s pectoral cross in front of her.

  Sister Juliana fingered it for a moment, and then she glanced up around the room. “Again, it has fallen to us to elect a new abbess.”

  One of the nuns got up from her seat at the table, picked up the cross, and put it around Sister Juliana’s neck. “You are the only one of us who stood against the pagans. You are the only one of us who deserves this.”

  She put a hand to the cord from which it hung. “You must not do this. Not this way. The abbess must be elected by a vote.”

  The nun looked out across the tables. “Then all who agree with me may stand.”

  Godric and I stood along with the rest of the sisters.

  Tears were falling from Sister Juliana’s eyes. “I do not deserve this. I have nothing to offer you. I came to you a girl of fifteen years, who had given herself over to fornication and then left behind the child of that union. I came as one who had no other place to go, and not as one who wished to make atonement. I sought to enshrine my past, not to seek peace or redemption.”

  “And yet you stayed when the rest of us fled. So why can we not say those words Our Lord once spoke: ‘Your faith has made you whole.’”

  ***

  After offices the next morning, the new abbess came to visit the hospice. “I have always wondered why God has not chosen to heal them.”

  “Perhaps they serve God’s purpose just as they are.”

  She smiled as she looked at them. “Perhaps they do.”

  A shadow darkened the door, and Godric appeared, pack in hand.

  The abbess greeted him and then slanted her gaze at me. “So I see you leave us today.”

  I shook my head. “Not I.” I had not decided yet what I should do or where I should go.

  “I thought you came here together.”

  Godric sent a look my way before he answered. “We were companions of the road, swept up by the Danes.”

  “Can I not convince you to stay until the snow melts in the spring?”

  He inclined his head toward her. “Thank you for your offer, but my lord awaits.” Godric came forward to the table. Reaching into his pack, he brought out his collection of phials and pouches and presented them to the abbess. “For the abbey.”

  She took up one of them. “And what are these?”

  “A hair from Saint James. A filing from Saint Peter’s chains. Oil from a lamp that burned in the church of Saint Andrew. Dust from the tomb of Saint Denis. A piece of cloth upon which once rested the crown of thorns. A thread from the veil of the Holy Mother. And a sliver from the true cross.” He looked up at her and then looked away toward the fire. “I had sought from them something they could never give me, and I’ve come to realize I don’t need them anymore.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to take with you some dust from our Saint Catherine?”

  “No.” He had been gazing into the fire, but now he looked at the abbess directly. “No. Possession makes prisoners of us all; the benefit is in the coming, and the blessing comes through faith. Keep your relic. Saint Catherine’s place is here.” He turned, and we followed him out the door and to the courtyard, where one of the abbey’s horses waited.

  He affixed his pack to the horse and then took hold of the reins.

  The abbess touched my sleeve. “Do you not think your place is with him?”

  Neither Godric nor I could pretend we had not heard her, but he was the one who answered. He shook his head. “The road is no place for her, and I must travel far before I reach my home.”

&n
bsp; She turned her gaze upon me. “And what of you? Where will you go?”

  “I do not know.” I had reached the abbey; my body had been healed. All my dreams had been fulfilled, and yet, still, I had nothing.

  “Have you no family to return to? No lord to take you?”

  “I have no one.”

  Godric’s gaze rested upon me. “You could stay here.” He glanced at the abbess. “I do not think she would mind.”

  But I would. I did not wish to hurt the abbess’s feelings, so it was to her I made my first reply. “There is so much of life I still need to learn, and much I wish to see.” I hoped she would understand. I turned toward Godric. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to go with you.”

  “I am a relic hunter who no longer wishes to hunt relics. I have nothing to offer you.”

  “But I already have nothing, and I’ve discovered that is more than enough, just so long as there is you.”

  Through days of rebuilding the church and nights of heavy sleep, his eyes had lost their redness, but still there was sorrow lurking in their depths. “There are Danes in Britain, just like here, and I could not protect the last woman God gave me.”

  “I am not afraid of them.”

  He came to me and put a hand to my face.

  I leaned into it, placing my own atop it.

  He stroked my jaw with his thumb. “But why would you want me?”

  “Because I wish to love you.”

  His brow bent, and he pressed his forehead to mine. “A stronger man would leave you to better prospects, but I find I am not so strong as I have feared.”

  I looked up into his eyes. “Then perhaps you could love me too.”

  He smiled. “I already do.”

  The chaplain married us, and the abbess prayed for us, and then together we set out on the long road toward our home.

  CHAPTER 30

  Gisele

  ALONG THE ROAD TO CHELLES

  I could not move. I could not feel my hands, and I could not move my feet. Even breathing seemed impossible. As I opened my eyes, I saw why. Andulf had surrendered to sleep the same as I, and at some point, he had toppled back on top of me. I nudged my shoulder into his back to no avail. Was he—? Had he died during the night?

  He jerked in a spasm and then snorted as he jabbed me with an elbow. But at least my hands were freed.

  I tried to trap his arms to keep from being pummeled by his wild scramblings, but they escaped me. “Stop!”

  Immediately he ceased, and then he rolled onto his side. “I am sorry. I did not mean—” As he glanced down toward his thigh, I followed his gaze. The torn skin that ringed his wounds had flushed an angry red, but at least the night’s rest had stopped the bleeding.

  Bared to the brunt of the morning’s cold wind, I gathered my mantle about me.

  He tugged at the girdle I’d bound around his thigh and then picked at the knot for a moment before giving up entirely. “You shall have to loosen it.”

  I did not work for long before I realized his blood had dried upon it, fixing the knot in its place. “I cannot do it.”

  He edged up on his hip. “Take my knife.”

  Pulling it gingerly from his belt, I slipped it beneath the girdle and sawed until it tore.

  He probed the gashes with his fingers, sucking in his breath between his teeth. “You are going to have to look at it for me.”

  “Look at it?”

  He set his jaw, glancing over at me, and then resolutely fixed his gaze upon the horses. “If there’s pus, then I need to know it. But first you may have to cleanse it.”

  A scab had formed about the leaves and dirt that had filled the gashes. There was no help for it but to scrape it all out. Kneeling beside him, I used the tip of his knife to pry at the edge of a leaf. As I pulled it from the wound, ooze began to seep.

  He jerked. “Son of a skiving whore!”

  “There’s no need for such words.”

  He said nothing more, though a sweat had broken out upon his brow.

  I put the knife to the wound once more and continued with my work.

  “Bleeding, bloody Christ!”

  I set the knife down upon my thigh. “Are you quite done?”

  He shied from me and bent himself nearly in half, as if trying to protect his wounds from me. “Good God. Why not let the pagan have you? You’ll be a blight and a curse to him and all his house.”

  I folded my arms across my chest.

  He glanced up at me, loathing in his eyes. “You may finish.”

  “There’s half the floor of the forest in there, along with an acorn or two.”

  “Then you’ll have to get them out.”

  “And what do you think I’ve been doing?”

  “It hurts.”

  “You saved my life. Now, I’ll thank you to let me reciprocate.”

  He grunted.

  “I’ve nothing to wash it with but wine from your costrel.”

  “Then use it.” He folded his mouth around a frown.

  I rose and took the costrel from his courser. The hem of my tunic was black with dirt, so I poured out a measure of wine on the edge of my sleeve and used it to dab at the wound.

  “Son of a scummy, bosky, traitorous—!” He bit off his protest as I ripped a leaf from one of the scabs. The look he sent me through narrowed eyes was pure malevolence.

  I poured more wine onto my sleeve and tried again to cleanse the wound, but the forest litter clung fast. Sighing with frustration, I poured some directly onto his thigh.

  He writhed like a fish thrown from water, and wrenched himself away from me. “By the wounds of Christ!”

  I peeled another leaf away from the bloody mess. “One would think you a heathen for all the reverence you accord Our Lord.”

  “I’m not.” His scowl was deep and sullen. When he spoke, it sounded as a growl. “Go on. Finish.”

  Surely his was a dark and degenerate soul. As I scraped some more, he reached over and tore the sleeve from my hand, jerking me toward him in the process, and then he bent to scrub at the wound himself.

  “Stop! You’re going to—”

  “Might as well get it over with.”

  “But look!” He had provoked the wound to bleed again.

  “If we don’t move along soon, we’ll have more than this to worry about.” Great beads of sweat broke out on his forehead before he finally released my sleeve. “Help me up.”

  I put a hand to his thigh. “They’re bleeding again. All of them.”

  “Help me up, damn you.”

  “Don’t you damn me, you ungrateful, sorry brute! If you don’t stop cursing me, then I won’t help you at all.”

  He’d gotten to his knees with a grimace and then shoved himself back onto his ankles. Now he stood glaring down at me. “You haven’t helped me yet!”

  “I was the one who stayed by you after you fainted and—”

  “I did not faint.”

  “And I was the one helped you away from the boar when you could hardly stand on your own two feet and—”

  “I could have managed.”

  “If it weren’t for me, that boar might have made a mince of you!”

  “And who was it that led me on a merry chase from Rouen in the first place? And then tried to run away again yesterday? I wouldn’t be saddled with turned ankles and beset by wild boars if you had just done what you were supposed to!”

  “I did not ask you to come after me. I could have managed on my own.”

  “Managed! You might have managed getting your heart torn from your breast.” He scowled and then winced as he drew in a great breath.

  “Since you do not seem to appreciate how you have placed yourself in mortal danger, and because you seem to be quite capable of surviving on your own, then I shall be leaving now.�
� I could not say why I had not left earlier. He clearly had his wits back, and he was not in danger of dying, except by my hand. I hobbled to my horse, trying to be as dignified about it as I could.

  “Wait.” He put out his hand to stop me, but thought the better of it, letting it drop to his side instead. “Just…wait.”

  “Why should I?”

  “The count’s men are still out there. You would not want them to find you.”

  Then it did not matter whether I stayed with Andulf or whether the count’s men happened upon me. The consequence would be the same: I would be returned to Rouen where I would have to marry the Danes’ chieftain. There could be no other outcome. Not when that band of pagans had gone along with the canon to obtain the relic. “But if you left with them, then will they not be searching for you as well?”

  He shrugged.

  “I must surely leave and do so now.”

  “Can you not understand? There is no escape. My fidelity to your father ensures I must return you. If, by chance, I had not found you at first, then I must have continued until I found you at last. I cannot return to court unless I have you. And if by great misfortune I return without you, then you must be dead, and I must have proof, or I must know where you have gone. And if I know where you have gone, then your father will come and find you, and even your new abbess will not be able to stand against him. You cannot take your vows predicated upon a lie.”

  I did not care.

  He lurched over, muttering profanities all the way, and snatched the reins from my hands. “If you leave, then you are most certainly going to be responsible for my death.”

  “Your death!” He was as near to death at that moment as I. Though he was mean and querulous, he had none of that gray pallor I had come to associate with a mortal wound.

  “I might be fine now, but come nightfall, I expect those beasts will return.”

  “I shall leave you with a limb, ready to put to the flame.”

  “And what will I do when it burns itself out?”

  “The beasts did not come last night when the fire burned out.”

  “Because they found other meat. But they are here. They lurk in the shadows beyond those bushes.”