A Kiss in the Night (5 page)

"Linness, did you see the blessed Mary?"

"Aye. She was beautiful. I want to swim.

Her mother had nursed her until she was well enough to make the four-day journey to the abbey. In truth her mother's coughing fits made the journey slow, but Linness was glad for it, for her mother had told her many strange and sad stories that she never forgot. And they were all she had of her.

Her mother had also taught her the story they would tell the sisters. This story was made of truths and lies, all mixed up, so that first it became a confused jumble in her mind, and then, when they had finally reached the white stone abbey nestled in a valley surrounded by high green hills, Linness believed every word she told the abbess.

Only the richest and most noble families could afford the dowry the church required to accept a child into its many religious orders. The noble families who could afford the hefty fortune usually gave up one and sometimes two children to the church. The child was then educated, taught to read and write and molded to assume a place in the order, be it priest or nun. To have a child accepted was considered one of the greatest blessings. It was known as the easiest and most expedient means of getting to heaven.

Linness's mother was a poor woman, barely etching a meager living from a small plot of land and fingers put to a spindle. God had graced her with an unusually bright, beautiful, and healthy child whom she loved more than life itself. She had known death waited nearby and there was no one with whom she could leave her little girl. She had to somehow get Linness into the abbey as a novitiate before she died. Her desperation had given rise to this far-fetched plot. The blow to her head was to create a convincing bump. She'd tell the sisters her little girl was struck by lightning and lived; that 'twas a miracle they could not ignore. She hoped it was enough to win a place for Linness, and when God Himself aided the effort by taking the child, even momentarily, up to heaven, she knew it would work.

"Lightning struck me here." The little girl pointed, proud of the bump. Five nuns had already examined it before they had led the little girl down a clean corridor to the wooden door that had a cross hung on it. An older woman, The Abbess Constance, sat inside. She wore a white robe that reminded Linness of Mary. "It shot me up to heaven."

The abbess's eyes widened and she cast an uncertain gaze to her underling, standing to her side, who crossed herself.

The beautiful silvery eyes sparkled with all the attention; she beamed with pride. "I talked to Mary, who is an angel. God was there too,” she added in an afterthought.

Then the little girl's gaze had faltered; she bit her lip. "Part of that is not the truth."

"Oh?" the abbess had inquired. "Which part, my child?"

"Mary did not really talk, 'cause there is no talking." She brightened suddenly with a smile that could affect the most cynical, which the good abbess was not. "It was like thinking-talking." Her beautiful little face changed with sadness, like a capricious shift of wind. "Mary said my
maman
was going to heaven and that I must come here. Mary said you would love and cherish me.” She looked at them curiously. "Will you?"

The child would have convinced the pope of the miracle. In their three-hundred-year history the good sisters of the Abbey of Benedictine accepted their first charity novitiate. Still, they didn't know what they were getting into. Little Linness, whose name they had tried to change to Joan, without success, at first appeared so perfectly normal, a bright and charming little girl and nearly everyone's favorite. The precocious little girl with all those irrepressible questions, who was far happier in the stables or climbing the green fields for wildflowers than kneeling at vespers, was cherished and loved by all.

And so the angel's prophecy came true.

Then one winter day as they rose before dawn, after washing in preparation for morning prayers, the good sisters led their four young novices down the corridor to the galley. Linness turned to Sister Teresa and said sadly, "Good-bye, Sister Teresa. I shall miss you. Please say hello to beautiful Mary and my
maman."

"What are you talking about, child?"

"Why," she said, smiling. "the angels are coming. You shall fly up to heaven."

Sister Teresa grasped the nature of those words and dropped into a faint. She never recovered and she died two days later.

"Linness, how did you know Sister Teresa was going to heaven?"

"I do not know."

She gave the same answer after the flood she had foreseen had come, or when she knew a stranger was going to arrive, or new orders came from Rome where the pope lived. She gave the same answer after she saw the baby in Sister Carleta's womb before there had been any sign. She also innocently revealed the father when Sister Carleta had refused—Peter, the shepherd boy. She had seen them rolling in the wildflowers. The abbess had forced the two lovers to marry, knowing that becoming the wife of a poor shepherd would be a just punishment for breaking the holy vows.

By the time Linness was seven she began seeing visions from people's past. She saw the good abbess herself, crouching behind a trunk in terror as the little girl watched her father beat her mother, and she made the abbess cry when she asked if she was still scared of her mean father. She saw the bishop sleeping in a big bed with an altar boy, and after she told this to the Abbess, and her face turned ashen, she had asked if they could sleep together, too. She knew Sister Marguerite's much-loved sister died the day before the message had come. Sorrow filled her large gray eyes as her thin arms wrapped around the older woman and she told her she was sorry that her sister had died but that she was certain she was happy in heaven "'Cause Mary's there and she is as warm and good as sunshine, and Mary loves her more than you..."

The abbess herself soon took over Linness's training and she began meeting with little Linness each morning after prayers. The abbess was a wise woman, extremely pious and devout and little Linness's sight, more than anything, replenished her faith each day. She saw the little girl as holding one of God's graces; a gift to be used in service to God. That the child was sent from heaven, she had no doubt, and yet such a gift would be very harshly scrutinized if it were ever demonstrated to a larger audience. She began coaching the girl in the art of secrecy, her gentle authority and lessons given with tenderness and love.

During the winter of Linness's eleventh year, the abbess died. A simple death of influenza. Linness had not foreseen this tragedy; she would learn that her sight, while uncertain in the best of cases, was unreliable when directed at herself. Her light refused to turn inward. Instead she had developed a keen intuition to compensate, which saved her life.

The new abbess arrived from an abbey in faraway Italy. She was small and dark and spoke unintelligible French. The new abbess watched the little girl with an unveiled suspicion, which grew instead of diminished as she repeatedly heard the other sisters gushing praise for her gifts and witnessed their unnatural fondness for the girl. Linness knew to be afraid of this new woman; she knew because her intuition made her hands go cold and clammy whenever they shared the same space and she felt the penetrating stare of those dark eyes come to her.

The new abbess sent for the famous bishop, Peter Luce, a man sent to examine all unusual members of the clergy. Linness heard the worried whispers of the sisters that this bishop found Satan lurking beneath every stone, but she took comfort by the addition "If our dear Linness were not so perfectly good and pure, she might be in danger."

All fear disappeared the day she saw him. For she was still at the age when goodness and a pleasing appearance made one and the same impression. She stared at the red crimson cap over his blond curls, his bright golden eyes and stiff shoulders. He was so handsome! She had been sure he would not hurt her.

Linness still remembered their first meeting. Two sisters had stood on either side and she was comforted by their familiar friendly presence as she knelt to kiss his jeweled hand. He had stared at her beautiful young face. His hand lifted suddenly to his gold crucifix and in a voice suffused with a lifetime of anger that lifted the hairs on the nape of her neck, he said, "How does thy dark presence make my crucifix shake?"

The sisters had gasped and drawn back. Bewildered eyes shot questioningly to his handsome face. "Milord?"

"Take her away…"

The sisters had helped her escape before the trial. With nothing but the clothes on her back and at the tender age of eleven, she had left the abbey and struck out for the wide world on her own. Just as she was doing now.

For once again she had nothing and no one. Nothing but the memory of a magical night spent with a man named Paxton. A man she would never see again. A man who had forever altered the course of her life...

The sunshine fell against Linness's bare arms and legs as she walked through the forest. She felt as if she still walked in a dream made by the warmth of his huge body cradled against hers, his lips on her neck, the hot pleasure of his flesh in her womb.

Oh Lord, how love burns bright and hot!

His name was seared upon her soul, a treasure to keep and cherish and—

"Ouch!" She lifted her foot, where she felt the sharpness of a pebble. She looked down at her bare feet with dismay. She did not even have shoes now let alone shelter or food. She gathered up her unruly hair, twisting it into an unattractive knot at the nape of her neck. Paris beggars had better rags than she! Ash and dirt were smudged across her legs and arms, and no doubt her face. The late summer days were still warm, but winter would sweep upon the land soon enough.

And dear Mary, if she was with child, whatever would she do? How could she even present herself in a township looking like this? Perhaps if she bathed and combed through her hair and if she found a shawl, just a shawl...

Lost to an unpleasant contemplation of her uncertain fate, she didn't notice the slain bodies at first. She was staring at a fast-moving river, its murmur of running water sounding a pleasant backdrop to the quiet of the forest. The name of the river started with a G, she knew, and it went through the rich vineyards south of here and all the way to the sea. She had to cross this river to the other side, where the road to the Midi lay less than a mile to the north.

The other side.

She first spotted a horse, his great head lowered as he picked at the grass. Behind a cluster of trees, she saw a coach. Her silver eyes darted back and forth until she began to make out the bodies Five no, six men and, dear God, yes, a lady!

A slain woman lay on the mossy bank, her green, rich-looking traveling clothes spread in a fan over the brighter moss. Her caul rested several feet away, pointing like a sundial to the sky.

Linness rushed to the water's edge as she called across, "Be anyone still alive? Please to God, answer! Be anyone still alive?"

A chill shot down her spine as she waded in the cold water. It reached her waist and she plunged into its depth. Strong, sure strokes carried her to the opposite side, slightly upstream. Dripping wet, she rushed upon the lady.

A very young lady—she could not be much more than her own ten and five years. A puddle of blood covered her chest. She was deathly pale and frigid…cold. With a startled gasp, Linness saw the girl was quite dead. The devils who killed her had chopped off her fingers to get at her jewels.

"Oh, you poor, poor child

She rushed to a knight and caught her scream when she saw he was decapitated, She slowly approached another to see the same. Within minutes she saw they were all quite dead, mutilated, left for the night creatures to pick at. For a long moment she stared in shock at the gruesome sight, then shut her eyes tight, willing the bile in her throat down and down.

She backed away and fled into the forest. She ran until her lungs burned and her legs gave way. She dropped to her knees on the leaf-covered ground beneath the canopy of trees and with all the fierceness of her faith, she began to pray

She prayed for their souls' salvation.

Those poor, poor people.

Minutes passed, collecting into an hour, and still she prayed. But hunger acts upon meditation, and taken with her exhaustion, the cataclysmic events she had just lived through, made her slip into a deep, dreamlike state. The forest teemed with nesting birds, rabbits' cautious gazes and prickling whiskers, the silent hooves of deer, the sly scurry of a hedgehog, the rustle of leaves and the shifting of light, and all of it faded in front of her. The prayerful meditation produced a miraculous calm that settled over her weary heart. The horror disappeared. She had been given grace in understanding that each member of the slain party, indeed all of life, was received by God in heaven and granted eternal peace. God's unmerited mercy over man kind...

She didn't see Mary as much as feel her presence. The question formed in her mind. As Mary's servant, what were her obligations to the slain party? Should she bury the bodies? There were no villages nearby that might offer help, as they had all been torn asunder by the archpriest and the avenging army, but it seemed possible she could drag the bodies to the river and let the water carry them out to the sea. Should she attempt this for mercy's sake?

The vision was swift, lasting no more than a second. She saw men with strong backs lifting the slain bodies into coffins, the coffins lowered to the ground, a humble priest singing their burial mass, and she need not worry over this but for one.