Maid of Midnight

by Ana Seymour

  Both monks regarded her gravely, shaking their heads. “There’s no way for you to see him, child,” Francis said gently. “I’ll give you a fair report.”

  Bridget bit her lip. The monks at the far end of the shed were watching the conversation. Sometimes it was difficult to tell the brothers apart at a distance in their identical habits, but she could somehow always recognize Brother Cyril. He was not plump like Francis, nor tall like Ebert, but there was just something about him, the way he moved, his energy and determination. Whereas most of the order were relaxed and happy, Cyril always seemed to be moving impatiently from one task to another. Bridget suspected that much less work would get done at the abbey without Brother Cyril’s pushing.

  Cyril and two other monks were working around the big furnace, but Bridget knew that including them in the debate would not help her cause. The monks were united in trying to protect her from the outside world.

  “Is he of right mind?” she asked Francis. “Has he told you about himself?”

  “Aye, he tells me his name is Ranulf.”

  “’Tis a Saxon name.”

  “Aye. He’s English.”

  Bridget hid a little shiver of excitement. The man was not only from outside the walls of the abbey, he was from outside of Normandy itself. He had traveled the world, crossed the water. She had a fierce desire to talk with him. An hour or two in his company would no doubt teach her more than a month in the abbey library. It was impossible, of course. But at least she could see the man again.

  “I’d like to check the wound myself,” she said. “I’ll wait until he’s in a sound sleep tonight, then I’ll just slip in and change the dressing. If I’m gentle, he shouldn’t wake.”

  “’Tis a foolish risk to run for the sake of a stranger,” Ebert observed.

  “The stranger is nonetheless one of God’s children, is he not, Brother Francis?” She appealed to the monk she knew to have the least resistance to her pleadings.

  “Aye, but…”

  “And therefore deserves no less care than the worthiest of saints. Is that not in the Rule?”

  Though every waking minute of the Cistercian life was supposedly ordered by the sacred set of laws called the Rule, none of the monks of St. Gabriel were too well versed on exactly what the holy proclamation contained. Francis and Ebert exchanged a bewildered look, and Bridget seized her advantage.

  “’Tis so, exactly,” she exclaimed. “I’ve read it myself, and as a dutiful, if unofficial, daughter of this abbey, it’s my place to abide by its teachings. I’ll go to the stranger tonight while he’s in a sound sleep. If he wakes up, he’ll think it’s his angel come to see him once again.”

  “Child, we cannot—” Francis began.

  “It’s settled, then,” Bridget interrupted, and before he could continue his argument, she spun around and skipped lightly out of the building.

  Henri LeClerc, Baron of Darmaux and Mordin Castles, sat in his high-ceilinged receiving chamber at Darmaux and glared at the man in front of him as if he were some kind of bug that had crawled out from one of the cracks in the drafty stone wall.

  “I didn’t tell you to kill the man, Guise,” he said. “I told you to find out why he was asking directions to St. Gabriel.”

  Charles Guise, sheriff of Beauville, did not flinch at the baron’s scathing tones. “You were right, mi-lord. The man was obviously a fighter. He put up more resistance than we had anticipated and I thought it best to get rid of him at once.”

  “You thought?” LeClerc stood and walked toward the sheriff until his odd violet eyes were only inches from Guise’s. “You’re not in my service to think, Guise. Now we have no idea what this English knight was doing here or how much he knew about the abbey.”

  The sheriff met LeClerc’s gaze. “As I said, he was a warrior. We may not have been able to take him alive.”

  “Five of you? Against an unarmed knight? Do I have nothing but mewling babes working for me?”

  Spit from the baron’s vehement words flew into Guise’s face, but the sheriff appeared to take no notice. “I’m sorry milord is displeased,” he said.

  LeClerc made a sound of exasperation and stalked back to his chair, sitting down heavily. “We should probably talk to our holy friend at the abbey to find out if he knows why the man was headed there.”

  “It’s some time before our monthly meeting, and we’ve agreed not to approach him on the abbey grounds.”

  “I don’t care how you manage it, just talk to him.”

  “As you wish, milord.”

  “What have you done with the body?”

  For the first time, Guise looked uncomfortable. “It seems to have been…misplaced, milord.”

  LeClerc’s eyes narrowed into two violet slits. “Misplaced,” he repeated slowly.

  “Aye. After the skirmish, we rode away and by the time I had reconsidered the matter and sent some men back to dispose of him, the body was gone.”

  All the fury had disappeared from the baron’s tone as he said in silky tones, “Which means, my dear sheriff, that you aren’t even sure that the man is dead.”

  “Oh, he’s dead, all right. I can’t imagine a head hard enough to survive the blow I gave him.”

  In the same deceptively soft voice, the baron continued, “I want this man found, Guise. Dead or alive.”

  “Aye, milord,” the sheriff acknowledged with a bow.

  “I suggest it be soon.”

  Guise’s palms began to sweat. “Aye, milord,” he said again. Then the baron waved him out of the room.

  It had been easier to daydream about another visit to the sick man than it was to carry it out, Bridget realized as she stood in the little hall outside Ranulf’s cell. What if he wasn’t asleep? What if he awoke and this time realized that she was no holy creature but a flesh-and-blood woman?

  What if he mistook her for the unknown Diana once again and tried to repeat his kiss? The thought sent a rush of blood to her cheeks.

  With the warm poultice cooling in her hands, she took a deep breath and stepped into the dark room. Her candle flickered a dim light over to the bed. Bridget gave a small sigh of relief as she saw that not only was the patient breathing in deep sleep, he was flushed with the night fever. Her ministrations could again be explained away in the morning as a dream.

  She sat next to him on the bed. In spite of the fever, he looked better. The sunken shadows around his eyes were gone. She’d read that the Saxons were a fierce people. She’d wager this man could be fierce enough if pressed. She could read his strength in the broad line of his jaw and the power of his shoulders. Her gaze drifted to his full mouth. His lips on hers had not been fierce at all. They’d been tender and warm.

  She straightened her shoulders. She had no business thinking about that kiss. Biting her own lip against the memory, she briskly began unwinding the bandage around his head. He moaned and half opened his eyes.

  “Shh,” she whispered. “It’s all right. I’m here to help you get better.”

  “Angel,” he rasped.

  “Aye, ’tis your angel come to tend you once again. Close your eyes and sleep if you can.”

  But his eyes opened wider. “You’re not Diana,” he said.

  He’d got that much straight, at least. “Is Diana your wife?” she asked.

  With obvious difficulty, he shook his head and whispered, “She’s to be…Dragon’s wife.”

  “Nay, I’m not Diana. And there are no dragons here, sir, so you need have no fear. You’re safe inside the abbey and we’re going to see that you recover.”

  “Angel,” he said again.

  “I’ll be your angel, if you like,” she said. She pressed the poultice in place and made quick work of binding him up. He winced once but stayed still. When she had finished, she sat back and smiled at him. “It’s much better, though the fever rages yet.”

  He reached up and grabbed her hand. “Who are you?” he asked.

  The sudden clarity in his blue eyes unnerved her. �
��I thought we’d settled that,” she said. “Didn’t you say that I was your angel?”

  His gaze moved slowly from her face to the place where her plain linen gown framed the soft skin of her neck and chest.

  “Aye,” he answered slowly, his voice growing stronger with each word, “but I was mistaken. If heaven had angels such as you to offer, my beauty, men would be falling on their swords in droves just to reach there.”

  All at once Bridget felt as if she were the one with a fever. Her cheeks flamed.

  “There’s the proof of it,” Ranulf continued, gesturing weakly toward her face. “Angels can’t blush.”

  The remark was so absurd that Bridget couldn’t help a tiny laugh. “How do you know that, sir? I don’t recall any such prohibition in the scriptures.”

  “They’re holy creatures. They don’t suffer from such human frailties as embarrassment or—” he stopped to study her, his eyes growing even more intense “—or shyness. Which is it that tints those fair cheeks so prettily?”

  These were not the ravings of a delirious man, Bridget realized, in spite of his fever flush. This man was as sane as she and totally aware of her presence. She stood in alarm, the discarded bandage falling heedlessly to the floor. “I pray you, sir, close your eyes and sleep. On the morn you will remember that an angel tended you this night, and if you remember anything else about our encounter, I would ask you to put it out of your mind.”

  He reached for her hand. “Don’t go, please. Be my angel, then, and I won’t question you further, I promise. Just sit by me awhile longer and let me look at you.”

  His grasp was weak, and she could have easily slipped her hand loose, but instead she let him pull her gently back down to the bed. “I must go,” she whispered. “You need rest.”

  For the first time, she saw him grin, a boyish, engaging smile that made the breath catch in her throat. “Ah, fair maid, they say to look upon beauty can be a more powerful cure than any herbalist’s powder.”

  Once again Bridget’s face flamed at the unaccustomed comment on her appearance. Her discomfiture made her answer sharply. “Who says such nonsense?”

  “My grandmother Ellen, for one. And she’s been healing the good folk of Lyonsbridge for three score years.”

  Each moment she continued talking to him compounded her risk, but her curiosity prickled. “Lyonsbridge? ’Tis your home?”

  “Aye. It’s in England, but my grandmother is Norman. She grew up here in Normandy.”

  Bridget tried to picture this Norman woman. What would it be like to travel to a strange land, to make a home there and raise a family? “Is your grandmother a healer?” she asked.

  The man hesitated a moment, then said, “She tends her people as the lady of the estate.”

  Bridget’s eyes widened. So this man who lay abandoned and helpless in their abbey was not an itinerant wanderer, but the grandson of a lord. That meant that there would no doubt be inquiries. If she and the monks didn’t get him well and send him on his way soon, people might come to St. Gabriel looking for him.

  She pulled her hand away from his and stood. “You’ve talked too long, milord,” she said stiffly. “I must insist that you sleep.”

  “I’m no lord, angel. My name is Ranulf Brand. And since we’ve established that you’re not one of the heavenly host, I’d like to know your name, as well.”

  Bridget shook her head. She could not tell this man her name. Outside these walls she had no name; she didn’t exist.

  “Won’t you tell me?” he coaxed.

  She shook her head again, more vigorously, then turned and fled the room.

  Chapter Three

  Like a moth drawn to the brightness of the fire, Bridget found herself obsessed with a dangerous desire to see the stranger again. She wanted to ask him all about his home across the water—this Lyonsbridge. She could only begin to imagine all that he could tell her of life outside the walls. But the monks had guarded the secret of her presence all these years. She didn’t dare expose it. She would not see the Englishman again, she told herself firmly as she mechanically performed the morning chores. She would not even venture near the monks’ quarters until he was safely away from the abbey.

  But she could not rid herself of the memory of his blue eyes and teasing smile. His words ran over and over through her mind. Her ears rang with the sound of his deep voice as he’d called her “angel.”

  At midday she gave up the idea of getting in a good day’s work and wandered across the courtyard toward the church. Her conscience told her that she should spend the rest of the day on her knees begging the Lord’s forgiveness for being ungrateful for the life she’d been given. But instead, she turned away from the church door and went to the attached building, which housed the abbey’s collection of manuscripts. As usual, the library was empty.

  It was a poor collection compared to the great monasteries in other parts of Europe, but it contained the expected religious texts, which were dusted by one of the monks each month and rarely, if ever, read. The brothers of St. Gabriel were more interested in the scientific volumes, and these they kept out in the work shed, where they would be readily accessible.

  Bridget sometimes thought of the library as her own private sanctuary. She’d read every single book many times, but she returned most often to a special cupboard that contained volumes deemed unsuitable for perusal by the brotherhood. She’d been nearly fifteen years old before she’d dared look inside. Once she’d begun, however, the books had become her favorites. She read the tragic Greek myth of Orpheus who had traveled all the way to the underworld to find his lost Eurydice. She sighed over the love poems of Ovid. But she was most fascinated with the tales of the great English king, Arthur, and his bold knights.

  She took out the volume and began to read, though she could as well have recited the words by heart. Was Ranulf a knight? she wondered. They’d found him stripped of all possessions, but if he was from a noble family, surely he had come on horseback. He did have the strength of a warrior, she thought, flushing as she remembered the night she’d stripped away his bloody tunic.

  Eagerly her eyes raced over the familiar words. Lancelot had come from the continent to England to join Arthur’s fabled court. There he had found love with beautiful Guinevere. Now this knight, her knight, had come from England to the continent on his own noble mission. Would he too find love? Bridget smiled at her own fantasy.

  The knight lying in the monks’ quarters dressed in one of their habits had nothing to do with the legendary Lancelot. Nor would a poor girl raised in a forgotten monastery have anything in common with the fabled English queen.

  “Bridget! Are you in here?”

  Brother Francis’s voice interrupted her dreaming. Quickly she closed the wooden cover of the big book and slid it back on the shelf. “Aye, I’ve been studying,” she said, jumping up from the stool and going to meet the monk at the door before he could pay too much attention to the corner of the room that had been occupying her attention.

  Francis’s face was grave, and Bridget’s first thought was of the patient. “Is he worse?” she asked in alarm. “Has the fever heightened?”

  Francis shook his head. “Nay, he’s better. That’s the problem. He’s on his feet, even, and swearing to Alois that he intends to search the monastery until he finds the lovely nurse who has cured him.”

  Bridget winced. “Didn’t you tell him I was part of the delirium?”

  “Aye, sweet mischief maker. But this time he’s too sure of his own faculties. He’ll not hear me.” He gave her a reproving gaze. “I told you ’twould be foolish to go to him again.”

  Bridget tipped her head, considering. “Well then, you’ll have to tell him that I was a maid from Beauville whom you brought here to tend him. Send him there to search for her.”

  “I’d have to tell a falsehood—” he began.

  “Forgive me, Brother, but how many falsehoods have you told these many years to keep my presence a secret? One more will do nothi
ng to alter the toll, I wager.”

  “I’ll think on it,” he said. “But for the moment, I’m to bring you to Alois.”

  Bridget groaned. Alois was the abbot of St. Gabriel. He had always seemed to Bridget to be a fair man but, unlike Francis, he had absolutely no sense of humor. She knew that his reprimand for her actions would be much more severe than Francis’s gentle chiding.

  “The stranger himself said that I may have saved his life,” she told Francis.

  “Aye, child. We all know that your medicines can work wonders, but ’tis the other that has raised Brother Alois’s concern.”

  “The other?” Bridget asked.

  Francis averted his eyes and stumbled over the words as he explained, “This man—the, um, patient—he’s claiming that he kissed you.”

  As it turned out, Bridget had had to face not only Brother Alois, but also Brother Cyril, the abbey prior, and Brother Ebert. She might have expected Ebert, since he was the brother who, by common consent, had most to do with the outside world. It had been Ebert who had first found the wounded stranger on the road, and Ebert was the monk who most often rode to the city when the necessity arose for some item that the monks could not grow or create themselves. Most often this meant something for one of the monks’ inventions.

  The three awaited her arrival sitting side by side on the high trestle bench in the small sacristy at the back of the church. They wore identical habits, since Alois refused to distinguish himself from the others by wearing abbot’s robes. Bridget knew she had nothing to fear from them, but at the moment they resembled three vultures perched on a log.

  Francis stood next to her as she stopped in front of them.

  “My child,” Alois began. “You have been our charge these many years, and every one of us in this brotherhood has vowed to protect and care for you.”

  “I know, Brother, and I’m sorry if I’ve caused—”

  Alois held up a hand. “’Tis no fault of yours, Bridget. The fault was ours for not realizing how difficult it would be to keep you from the world now that you’ve grown into a—” the abbot stumbled over the words “—into a mature woman.”