Dark Maiden (10 page)

Mother of God, I grow weary of this complaint. For so many, I am either a luck charm or an evil. And Geraint is blacker hued than I, at least in the summer.
“I have touched relics of the saints that are darker.” She grinned, knowing her teeth and eyes would show very white and bright against the torches. “Come, shall we say the creed together?”

“But Godith is right. How do we know you are not sent by them?” protested a third voice, high as a shrilling bat.

“By Christ, they are all women here,” muttered Geraint, and Yolande caught the strain in his voice. He would fight any man but females he revered.

“Fear not, honeyman,” she whispered. “Not one is possessed and I can deal with the rest.”

To Godith and her cohorts, she made the sign of the cross and recited the first line of the Lord’s Prayer in Latin. In English she said, “No demon can do that, believe me.”

“And believe me, my heart, when I say you should convert these women quickly,” said Geraint beside her. “Before we are burned to a cinder or torn limb from limb would be best.” He switched to Welsh. “You have never used mandrake in your life.”

“You are not the only one who can make a feint,” she replied in the same tongue.

“Take care you do not do so with me,
cariad
, is all I ask.”

She chuckled, keeping her laugh fat and easy while she scanned the big eyes and fluttering fingers that hovered ’round the crackling torches. This group was made up of women, even as her Welshman had said, but she was too wary to be charmed by the novelty of it.

A mother wolf or otter will fight harder for her young than for her mate. I must be most careful here.

She sang the creed, very slowly, in Latin. When Godith joined in, she crossed to her and took the torch from her. The knot of anxious mothers stared again at her.

“Touch me. I am no spirit,” she said when she had finished the creed. “My father was from Ethiope, a land blessed by sunlight. Part of my color is from him.” She glanced across their stretching heads at Geraint, who rubbed his neck and looked aggrieved now that attention was off him.

I could fight these fierce little sparrows, Geraint, so you must not fret for me, but ’tis better that I win their trust.

“Why do you wear men’s stuff?” called one.

“Because she is too tall for anything else, Margery,” answered Godith, and the whole troop giggled and brightened.

They brightened more when Yolande said, “I regret it is the truth. I am not dainty and fine as you.”

A few lips twitched in smug satisfaction. Geraint folded his arms and stepped into the shadows.

Yolande pretended to tuck the “mandrake” and seven herbs into her tunic and spotted a nursing mother in the group.
By the Virgin Mary, she is younger than me and already has a babe.

Squashing down self-pity and keeping the spitting torch well out of range, she held one of her crosses before the mother’s baby. When the infant grabbed the cross and sucked on it like a bone, the women sighed.

“How old is she?” Yolande asked.

“Almost two years, God be thanked,” came the answer, from several women at once.

“I would like to be a mother,” Yolande admitted. This time she dare not catch Geraint’s eye, lest her desire and need show too greatly. “I must remain chaste in my work.”

“Like a nun?”

“Even so.” Yolande swung around, checking her audience, and decided to take a risk. “Demons can only enter where invited or where there is a spiritual weakness.”

“Our priest calls it sin.”

Indignant tongues echoed the woman’s complaint and Yolande judged it time to admit more.

“The dreams you and your daughters are having are no sin but they are spiritual attacks. I can help you to repeal them, although you should know this—not one of you has sinned. The sacred bond of marriage protects wives and chastity protects maids from deeper penetration.”

As she said the last two words, Yolande felt carnal, all-too-easy-to-imagine pictures of herself and Geraint flooding her mind, but none of her female audience noticed.

The women, with Godith leading the charge, were too busy talking about dreams and incubi.

Geraint stood in the cold and let their chatter wash over him. Yolande had not spoken about wives and the protection of marriage before. In all the months of their traveling together, living together, she had never mentioned it. He could not decide if he was hurt, indignant or amused by her omission.

Does she think I would not truly offer her marriage? Does she think I fear wedlock with her? Does she think I would not keep marriage vows? Does she believe I would take her chastity before we were wed and our union sanctified?

Still gripping the flaming torch like a fiery sword, she was kneeling before an old dame. She put her ear to the woman’s belly then clasped the woman’s bony fingers and whispered reassurance. Her hair spilled onto the semi-frozen earth and he longed to scoop it up from the dirt, lift her up in his arms and bear her off.

He had known beautiful women before but none like Yolande. She was tall for a woman and slender as a willow but it was her deep, warm eyes that always captured him. For all her rough, dingy tunic, leggings and boots, she was as fine as a queen in scripture. He saw her as a consort to Solomon or David, his own Queen Bathsheba, who smelt of herbs and spices and whose life glittered with energy. Her ripe lips were softer than down and lush as strawberries—he knew, for he had filched kisses from her as often as he’d dared.

If she is afraid I would be tempted, she is right. Were we betrothed, I could not wait to lie with her and to join with her.

But it was Christmastime and the priest here was an ancient fool so he must wait a little longer.

Soon, my Bathsheba, soon as I can, I shall be taking you to a church door and not taking no for an answer, whatever this mystery of “time of seven” means.

His own vow cheered him and he began to listen again.

“A shadow comes to me when everyone is asleep and caresses my breasts in a most tingling, sweet way. When I move or make a sound, he goes away.”

“Every night I dream of a beautiful young man with long, plaited black hair. His member is hard and cold. It touched my thigh once and I screamed. The young man vanished and I did not dream of him again for three nights.”

“My dream is of a man with a blond beard and dark hair. In my dream, he tickles my feet and says they would be prettier with cloven hooves.”

“What am I to do? Instead of doing their work, my girls spy on men and ogle youths and touch their own private places. They tell me they have dreamed of their future husbands and cannot wait. The eldest is not sixteen.”

Yolande listened to the women of Halme and understood why the reeve had sent for her, even if his wife suspected she was the enemy.

“Do you harvest rye here?” she asked during a lull. She knew that damp rye could sprout a mold or spores that would induce visions, sometimes violent, sometimes lascivious, but her question was met by puzzled stares. The villagers did not grow or eat rye and had never seen it.

“Do you gather woodland mushrooms?” Fly agaric was used by witches to fly or to predict the future but in unlearned hands it was dangerous.

“We only use the big field mushrooms here,” answered Godith firmly, “and the white puff balls.”

“Both very good eating,” dropped in Geraint from the darkness.

And what
, Yolande wondered,
is he making of all these dreams and confessions?

“But my lady must still ask. Sometimes natural things give strange outcomes and can yield stirring dreams.” He chuckled and one of the remaining bells on his bedraggled motley chimed as his shoulders shook. “I have dreamed of the second coming after a supper of goat’s cheese.”

Godith, ruffled, looked like a startled owl. “This is no jesting matter!”

“No indeed, good dame,” said Geraint swiftly, with a meekness that convinced everyone but Yolande, who bit hard on her lower lip.

“How may we sleep at night unmolested?” Godith went on. “We are ground down by it.”

As I am ground down by chastity.
Yolande licked her lips and told herself to be patient. She was waiting for an answer, not from Geraint but from another, and hoped to receive word very soon. First she should give the womenfolk of Halme her full attention.

“For how long has this been happening?” she asked.

This time she hoped to have an answer but it was not to be. As Godith drew breath to reply, Yolande began to cough. The gusts of approaching stink were fouler than a city midden, and drawing nearer.

By the stench, this is one of the angry, restless dead for sure, and one riding within a living mortal, or the spirit would have been here within the blink of an eye. But who is possessed?

Without making a cry, Geraint fell heavily. He hit the ground and lay still, no longer the graceful tumbler she knew.

“Geraint!” The woman in her longed to rush to him, to save him. As an exorcist, she had to stand firm, recite the Shield and Breastplate of Saint Patrick and swing the sacred bow from her shoulder, ready for battle.

The village church bell tolled once, a thin summons to worship, and at once the silent, unseen presence and its possessed host withdrew. She sensed it going, trailing whiffs of sulfur in its wake.

“Geraint!” The village women were also darting to the prone figure but Yolande reached him first. She rolled him over.
If he has died because of being with me, I will never forgive myself. If he is fooling, I’ll murder him.

He was as pale as a corpse and far from fooling. When she touched his clammy face with trembling fingers, he gave a great shudder and sucked in breath desperately, like a newborn.

“Something attacked me,” he complained in Welsh. His eyes glittered and he sat up, reaching for her. “You are untouched?”

“Completely.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Godith in English. “What is happening? Did your servant slip?”

“Something like,” answered Yolande, aware others rarely smelled the scent of the restless dead, and grateful in that moment that few did so.

“Why have you drawn your bow?” Godith persisted.

“I thought I saw a rabbit. My mistake.” Yolande swiftly unstrung the bow, wishing she and Geraint were alone for the moment.

Geraint was a sensitive, like her, and said in Welsh, “It thought I was the exorcist, not you. A poor choice and next time I shall be ready, oh yes.”

I will be ready also.
Yolande made the sign of the cross as Geraint hauled himself to his feet. Nothing that threatened her man could expect mercy from her.

“A male entity or revenant for sure,” Geraint said.

“I am thinking there are surely two restless dead, possibly more than two,” answered Yolande with a heartfelt sigh. “And of different natures. There is so much trouble here, Geraint. Worse, I begin to fear something is deeply amiss with the priest.”

Geraint yawned. Since his brief time as a reluctant novice in a monastery, he did not like clerics and certainly never worried about them. “You will find it, or them.”

“Or they will find us.”

“Even better. We will be ready.” Geraint, sprawling by the reeve’s hearth as if it were the softest of feather beds, was too comfortable to be anxious. Replete after a supper of bread and honey, he pushed the pot of ale across the beaten earth floor to Yolande.

“Rest,
cariad
. The reeve and his lads are out tonight with their sheep and the womenfolk are all in church at your suggestion, even the babes. Nothing will reach them there.” He yawned and, rolling flat on his back, stretched his arms above him. “We have this place to ourselves.” A home of his own, even an adopted one, was a novelty, but one he liked since Yolande was with him.

And was she resting? Not a bit, unless scouring floors and scrubbing tables and beds could be counted as slumber. She had said she needed no help, thanks, and so he left her to it, enjoying her speed and nimble fingers. Had he been scrubbing alongside her, he would have had cobwebs in his hair and soot on his nose but she was still as neat as a fresh pin.

“What now?” he asked as she leaped onto a sleeping platform. She had already beaten the rough mattress and shaken the blankets outside.

“Sacred herbs.” Yolande dropped a stream of delicate dried flowers and stems into the heart of the bed.

Geraint took another slurp of ale and stared at the web-free roof beams. “You will do this in all the huts?”

“In the homes of those who will allow it, yes.”

She was otherworldly yet canny enough to start with the reeve’s house and he approved that but could not resist a tease. “Even if you delay their Christmas?”

“Better that than a plague of dreams.” She propped her bow and quiver against a barrel of dried peas, directly opposite the door and within easy reach.

“Expecting company?”

“Just in case.”