The Legacy (11 page)

“Yes, the secret peasant leagues,” he said, picking up the thread of the conversation easily. “They claim to organize for their own defense, but some of them are becoming violent. They target Church lands often enough.”

She put her hand atop her head as the wind tugged at her scarf. “I understand many of them feel the bishops and abbots are the worst oppressors of all.”

Wolf paused, considered, then resumed walking. “Mayhap they are right.”

He had surprised her. She knew he was no Reformer, and yet he seemed to be criticizing the Church.

She turned to him. “So you do support the peasants’ aims?”

He slowed, appearing to genuinely consider her question.

“I agree with the peasants’ right to have a basic standard of living,” he offered. “I agree they should have access to common forestlands and waterways to provide for their own needs, despite the nobles’ attempts to commandeer them. I agree the nobles shouldn’t take food out of the mouths of starving families who work the land to support them. However, I don’t agree with some of the leagues’ readiness to use the name of Christ, or violence and threats, to further their aims.”

She gazed at him thoughtfully. “Now you sound like Martin Luther.”

He glared at her and picked up his pace again. “I don’t believe he and I have much in common.”

“Nay?” she asked, hurrying to match his long strides. “The peasants assumed Dr. Luther would unite with them in their struggles against the princes. They did not count on the fact he wants nothing to do with a violent revolution based on Christian principles. He believes they have nothing to gain by demanding economic concessions from the nobles in the name of the New Faith.” She stared up at the sky, trying to remember Luther’s words. She lifted her skirts and hurried alongside. “‘Though the peasant might peacefully protest his condition and ask for redress from his rightful rulers, he should not take up arms in Christ’s name and demand them,’“ she quoted, nearly out of breath now.

He glanced at her askance, noted her struggling, and slowed down to wait for her. “You seem well versed in Luther’s writings for a nun.”

“Former nun,” she stated firmly, “and yes, I have read a few of them.”

“You know it is the sort of thinking that makes men like Müntzer popular with the peasants. How does your Dr. Luther feel about that?”

She looked away, troubled. Thomas Müntzer, a former priest who advocated the violent overthrow of the ruling class, agitated in favor of a new egalitarian society. He had been operating out of the nearby city of Mühlhausen for some time. She had learned about him on her recent visit there.

“It would be fair to say Müntzer hates Dr. Luther with intensity, and the feeling is mutual.” She stopped abruptly, putting her arm out to stay him. “Oh, but let us not speak of such weighty matters today.”

She flung her arms wide, feeling wonderfully restored by the outer elements. “The sun
is
shining, the air
is
crisp—it is a day to glory in God’s creation, not man’s follies.”

He suppressed a quick smile at her outburst.

She shook a reproving finger at him. “Why do you do that?”

He looked at her, surprised. “What?”

“You try not to smile when the feeling is upon you. Why?”

“I wasn’t aware I did,” he said slowly. “Perhaps it’s because I’ve had little to smile about for a very long time.”

She looked about her in mock disbelief. “You jest. There is always something to smile about, if one but looks. See here.” She spotted a splash of yellow nestled at the base of a birch tree, and she immediately went to it.

“Look. A winter gillyflower.” She bent down and stroked the petals. “My mother used to say ‘it is a rare but happy flower that grows where it is blown.’ This is surely something to smile about.”

Indeed, when she looked back up at him, she noted a grin did tug at the corners of his mouth; however, he was not gazing at the flower, but at her. She challenged him with a smile of her own.

“Yes, yes, that’s it … you can do it!” She laughed when he finally gave up the battle and smiled broadly.

The full force of his smile hit her like a blinding light, dumbfounding her with its male beauty. She was nearly sorry she’d encouraged him thus. She knelt before the flower for several moments, stupidly gazing up at him until finally, fearing she would be made blind by his brilliance, she averted her eyes.

“Would you like it?” He moved to pluck the gilly-flower.

She stayed his hand with her own.

“Nay, leave it. Its fate is harsh enough. Let it bloom a little while it can.” She glanced down at his hand beneath her own. The contrast was striking: hers pale and slim, his darker, more robust.

Wolf pulled Sabina up but did not release her. He spread her fingers wide, and with a distracted air began to trace his thumb across her palm. The sensation made her go weak in the knees. She wished he would stop.

“Why do women like flowers so?” he asked, sounding as though he spoke to himself. “They serve no practical purpose. They grow, they wither, they die.”

That bleak look again. She wanted to reach out to him, to see him smile again. Instead, she used her words to encourage him.

“Such is life.” She lifted a shoulder. “All that is made dies too quickly. But to bring joy to others while you live, to leave the memory of your beauty and the fragrance of your life behind …”

He looked at her, his gaze arrested.

She smiled. “Why not love a flower? If it must have a purpose, then let it be that.”

“To be loved?”

She nodded. “Perhaps, after all is said and done, it is the only purpose which matters.”

He stared at her and his grip tightened, though it was still gentle. The wind pushed his hair into tangled waves.

“You speak as one who has known such love,” he finally said.

She sighed. “Rather, I speak as one who has not.” She tried to ignore the shaft of yearning that lanced through her at his touch, and carefully removed her hand from his grasp. “But we talk of flowers when there are so many other important matters to discuss.”

“Are there?” he murmured, his gaze following her as she moved away. “I’m not so certain anymore.”

Their eyes met, and the heat she had felt between them yesterday sparked again. Her body felt heavy, while her heart floated. He took her hand again, lacing his fingers with hers and leading her to the shelter of a pine, out of the brunt of the wind. There he released her.

“So tell me how you escaped from the convent,” he said, and the bittersweet moment passed.

She was both grateful and disappointed.

She supposed there was no harm in telling him the truth at this point.

“Dr. Luther rescued me,” she said.

“Dr. Luther? The same man of whom we were just speaking?”

“The very same.” At his perplexed expression, she added, “Mayhap I should begin at the beginning.”

He nodded. “Yes, mayhap you should.”

T
he wind gusted, and a lock of hair escaped from the braid beneath Sabina’s head cloth. She pushed it aside impatiently. Dead leaves drifted in a lazy circle around their feet.

“Even in the convent,” she began, “we had heard about Dr. Luther’s ninety-five theses, though we were not supposed to. Copies circulated everywhere. The sisters, only a few of us at first, would gather in secret and read them aloud for those who could not read, and then debated the ideas.

“Dr. Luther’s belief, we are saved by grace through faith alone, and not by works—it was revolutionary.” She smiled in wonder at the memory. “What I felt was like the Apostle Paul’s experience of being blinded, then suddenly able to see.”

Wolf touched her temple, and she started. She realized he only intended to brush back the hair that would not stay confined in her scarf. With a ghost of a smile, he secured the strand back into its mooring.

“Go on.” He gave her a gentle prompt. “So, did what you learn from Luther’s writings make you hate your confinement all the more?”

“Y—yes. But let me be clear. I do not hate the people of the Church. Many are good souls who serve it honestly. There are many others, however, without the will to avoid sin who take advantage of the poorest of the poor. Monks who sell indulgences to destitute mothers who can barely afford to feed their children, bishops who keep mistresses during the week with impunity, then preach about the sins of the flesh on the Sabbath.” She shook her head. “It became very disheartening.”

He leaned against the tree, once again disturbingly near. She resisted the urge to move away.

“That sort of behavior always goes on,” he said. “Whenever you have people of influence in control of the uneducated and uninformed, you will have the abuse of power. This is nothing new.”

“Perhaps not to you, but it was to me,” she said. “I have never been comfortable with cynicism. It is not in me to simply look the other way.”

“Nay.” His mouth turned up in a brief smile. “I imagine not.”

She allowed her gaze to linger on him for a moment, and then forced it away again. “Well, a copy of Dr. Luther’s writings on monastic vows fell into our hands, and that, as they say, was that.”

“I’m familiar with the work. An underground publisher printed it in Nürnberg. I had no idea the tracts made it so far north.”

She nodded. “Sister Katie and I wrote Dr. Luther two years ago and asked him about some of the ideas he raised—such as, if you were a monk or a nun being held against your conscience in the cloister, would it be right to leave and find another way to serve God?”

She hugged her arms around her against the cold. “He eventually wrote us back, urging those who felt they could no longer serve the convent to leave. He even agreed to help us if we found a way. And we did. Through an intermediary, we arranged with a local merchant to smuggle us out of the convent one night.”

He moved in front of her, blocking the worst of the wind. “Dangerous. And not altogether wise. Why didn’t you contact the baron to release you?”

She looked at him with an expression which said,
Surely, you jest.

He acknowledged this with a nod of his head. “Bad idea. Very well then, why not contact friends to remove you?”

“I had none,” she said simply. It was true.

He seemed not to know how to respond to such a revelation. Finally, he asked, “So how did you manage it?”

She grinned. “You will never guess. The merchant sold barrels of herring. Well, one day he came in with twelve barrels full of smoked herring, and the next day he went out with twelve barrels full of nuns!”

Wolf threw back his head and laughed unselfconsciously for the first time. “You were right. I never would have guessed.”

She liked his laugh; it was deep and strong, like brewed ale on a winter’s day. She looked down, scuffing her feet in the hard-packed earth, and tried to remember where she had left off her tale.

“It was very dangerous for us all, so we had to stay in the barrels until we reached Wittenberg,” she continued. “Katie nearly suffocated. But much of the travel occurred in Ducal Saxony, and Duke George had just had a man executed for trying to rescue a nun from a convent in his region.”

“You hid in the barrels the whole time?” He let out a whistle. “But it must have taken you some time to travel to Wittenberg from Nimbschen.”

“Where there is a will, sir, there is always a way,” she said fiercely. “For the first time in many years, I had the strength of character to take my courage in hand and escape the destiny designed for me by another. I swore never to allow myself to be placed in such a position again.” Her jaw clenched when she remembered how quickly she was forced to break her oath.

He moved nearer, and she felt his rough hand on her cheek. She looked up at him.

“I had no idea what the baron had done to you before we met,” he said quietly. “I hope you believe me.”

She considered him for a moment, and nodded. She did believe him. The temptation to place her trust in him was strong, but she denied it. Experience had proven a better teacher than temptation. This close to him, however, she again inhaled the combination of citrus, sandalwood and maleness so identifiable with him. The sun shone like a halo behind his head, highlighting the coppery tones of his hair.

“I dreamed about you last night.”

He reddened and dropped his hand.

What in heavens name had made her say
that?
“Forgive me. I did not mean to embarrass you.” She must learn to keep a muzzle on her mouth.

“I’m … not embarrassed.” He remained silent for a moment. “Was it a good dream?”

It was her turn to blush. She cleared her throat. “I do not remember the details.”

His shrewd glance skewered her. “Nay?”

“Nay.” She held his gaze, refusing to look away lest he brand her for the liar she was. She would confess it in prayer tonight.

A knowing gleam flickered in his emerald gaze. “What was your impression of it, then? Or is that another one of those things a gentleman wouldn’t ask?”

Now she was the one who tried not to smile. “That falls into the general category, yes.”

The look he gave her clearly said,
Coward.

“But,” she added, just to plague him, “I would say it was … pleasant.”

“Pleasant,” he repeated flatly.

“Yes, pleasant.”

“Well.” He gave her a narrowed glance. “I suppose I should be grateful it wasn’t a nightmare.” Then he circled slowly behind her, leaned over, and whispered in her ear, “I will have to try to make more of an impression next time.”

His breath feathered warm against her skin; she felt it down to her toes, which to her dismay, curled in reaction. She decided it would not be politic to reply.

“So what were your plans before the baron intervened?” He circled back around, nonchalantly changing the subject.

She hadn’t been prepared to share her plans at this point. On the other hand, mayhap if she seeded the furrows now, he might not resist her when she approached him about the issue of a dissolution. Her case before the Council would be far stronger if she could get his testimony in support of her being coerced. It would make the path toward her goal of establishing a haven much smoother.