The Raven and the Rose (6 page)

Surely he wouldn't mind her warming herself at the fire, so she went forward and crouched down, holding out her hands. As she rubbed them, she continued to inspect the place.

Two wooden chests stood against the left wall, with shelves above holding a few wooden dishes and cups. The space between chests and bed was less than she could span with her arms and held only the fire. There were no other doors, and only two windows, one behind her by the door and one facing her.

She sent a prayer of thanks for the fire and whoever had made it. Her lids drifted down. . . . She pulled herself out of sleep. She was in danger of falling into the flames!

She looked longingly at the bed. That miraculous path had brought her here. She had been guided by a raven, as Sister Wenna had foretold.

So be it
.

She pulled back the covers, astonished to find blankets of softest wool. She pressed the mattress and found it seemed to be stuffed with feathers. Who was the owner of such luxury?

Exhaustion silenced questions. She took off her sandals, headcloth and robe and settled into the wondrous bed. It was almost too soft for one used to the hard mattress of the nunnery, but it embraced her, and the thick blanket made her instantly warm. Gledys had no time to say her nighttime prayers before she was fast asleep.

She dreamed again of her knight.

He was in a small, musty room that seemed like the dormitory at the nunnery except that the mattresses lay on the floor, set close together. Someone was snoring. The only illumination was faint moonlight through a small window. Her knight sat on his mattress, back to the wall, staring into nowhere, dressed loosely in white. He'd probably stripped down to his shirt.

Because she'd seen him earlier, she could piece together his features in the dim light. He was still as handsome and noble in appearance—perhaps more so in stillness. Gledys would have been content to simply watch him, but a soft glow appeared in front of her feet—another glowing path that wound from where she stood to him. She allowed it to lead her through mattresses, scattered bags, and satchels safely to where she longed to be.

He turned his head, startled, perhaps reaching for a weapon, but then froze. “You,” he breathed.

Gledys could manage only an inadequate “Yes.”

He slowly reached out a hand and she slowly put hers into it, swallowing a sob of joy when they finally, deliberately touched, when his fingers curled around hers. His hand was large and ridged with calluses. Hers was smaller, but not soft and delicate. Perhaps he wouldn't mind.

His fingers tightened, but gently. She knew he could crush her bones if he chose. She squeezed back, overwhelmed by a deep-rooted tenderness. It was as if she'd known him for many years and they were reunited after being apart.

“What's your name?” he breathed.

They certainly didn't want anyone to wake.

“Gledys,” she murmured. “And yours?”

“Michael. Michael de Loury.”

She spoke it silently, savoring, then asked, “My protector?”

“That would be my honor, sweet Gledys.” She heard a warm smile, but no awareness of any deeper meaning to her words.

She'd been transported here, guided to his side. He
had
to be the man she was supposed to find.

“My protector,” she said. “And protector of the garalarl. The sacred cup.”

He drew her closer, raising their joined hands to his lips so he could kiss her fingers. She shivered right down to her toes. “My lady, I will be whatever you wish me to be, for I know that you are mine. My life, my heart.” He pressed her hand against his chest. “Feel how it beats for you.”

Indeed, she could feel it, strong and fast, and her heart raced in the same way.

“May I kiss you?”

Did he not remember their previous kiss? Perhaps a godly man always asked permission.

“Please,” she said.

He drew her closer still, down onto his lap, against his broad chest. She almost wept with the sweetness of it, for she'd known no such tender embraces from a man. When he put his lips to hers, she had no knowledge of what to do, but she did it anyway.

And then they were kissing as they had before, sliding down onto his mattress, pressing close. Gledys couldn't forget that there were others around, but she couldn't stop, either. His hand explored her body, sliding and gripping, creating sensations she'd never imagined possible. She, too, explored, marveling at hard muscles and heat. And they kissed and kissed until her head swam and her body burned as with a fever.

When he pushed them apart, she knew he was wise, but when he brought her back to him, tucked against his chest, she sighed with pleasure and snuggled there.

Craak!

She started, and he whispered, “What's the matter?”

“Didn't you hear that?” she whispered back.

“What?”

“It doesn't matter.” She knew, however, that she'd been recalled to duty. She was not here to embrace, but to summon him to
his
task. “I spoke of the garalarl,” she murmured. “Do you know what that is?”

“Grarl?” he queried, mispronouncing it as she had at first. Clearly it meant nothing to him.

“The Arimathean line?” she tried.

He chuckled into her hair. “My heart, I can think of better things to do than play riddles.”

So could Gledys, but she held him off. “This is no game. Have you heard the legends about Glastonbury? That the cup Christ used at the Last Supper might be hidden there?”

He relaxed against the wall again, but his arm kept her close. “Yes, that I've heard. By Joseph of Arimathea. Is that what you meant by the Arimathean line?” His hand stroked her hip. “You will marry me?” he asked.

“Willingly,” she replied, sealing it with a kiss. “But it can't be yet.”

“Alas, I fear not. I must speak to my father and yours. I'm a landless knight, Gledys. Your family will be hard to persuade, but I will do it.”

Gledys put her fingers to his lips to silence him, to tell him such things didn't matter, and anyway, they couldn't wait for marriage. The words stuck in her throat, especially here with others nearby, even asleep.

“We will speak of all that in the morning,” she said, then kissed him again. “I'm so happy to have finally found you.”

He kissed her back. “No happier than I am to have finally found my true-love bride.”

His true-love bride.

They were together now, and tomorrow she would find the words to explain their duty. They would set off to summon the holy chalice, and England would finally know peace. But above all, she would be his and he hers, for all eternity.

Chapter 6

Craak!

Gledys grimaced at that ugly noise, but everything else was perfect. She was warm and cozy and with her knight. She opened her eyes to see bare rafters. Ah, the room where he lodged.

But when she turned her head, she realized she was alone in the bed, alone in the room, alone in the house in the woods! She sat up, trying to see something else, but it was unquestionably the isolated hut.

“No,” she moaned, covering her face with her hands. That had seemed so completely real. Every moment of it. She remembered every touch, every word. How could it have been a dream? It had been, though. She'd gone to sleep in this bed and woken in it.

But, oh, it had been sweet, and now she knew her protector's name.

She breathed it aloud. “Michael de Loury.”

Her knight, her protector, and she was his true-love bride.

According to Sister Wenna, this mission was urgent, so surely the raven and the path would take her quickly to him. She hurried out of bed and put on her sandals, only then realizing that there was no chill in the air.

Because the fire still burned.

In her weariness last night she'd not noticed that there was no extra wood in this place, but there wasn't. And yet it still burned. She crossed herself, murmuring thanks for the miracle.

She opened the shutters by the door and cautiously peered out. Dew sparkled on grass and branches, but there was no sign of any other person. She turned to inspect the hut by daylight, but there was nothing new to see, and no sign that anyone might have entered in the night to build up the fire. She was swept up in mysteries and miracles, but she had no complaint.

Craak!

She hurried back to the window and saw her raven on a nearby branch.

“You woke me at a bad time,” she said, though there couldn't have been a good one.

Craak! Craak!

Somehow she understood that meant,
Hurry up. Time to go
.

She was hungry, but there was no help for that, and she, too, wanted to hurry.

She was about to put on her habit when the raven hopped in through the window to stand on one of the chests. When she approached, it hopped onto the other. Inside the first one, she found a loaf of bread, some hard cheese and a stoppered pottery jug. She tore off a bit of the bread and found it fresh and delicious. She took down a wooden beaker from the shelf, then pulled out the wooden stopper and poured the liquid into her small jug. She took a small sip and found it to be excellent ale.

“What else do you expect from God's brewing?” Gledys said.

She pretended that she was speaking to the raven, but she was talking to hear her own voice. She'd never been alone before and the world felt empty, as if some great plague had swept God's people away. She shook herself. Soon she'd be where Michael was and among many people.

She paused, bread and drink in hand, to revisit that blissful encounter, to wonder if he, too, had experienced it. Surely it must be so. They truly had come together in a dreamworld, as they had in the tavern earlier. Which meant he would awaken as disappointed as she.

All the more reason to hurry. She found her knife and hacked off some cheese, eating quickly, anxious to be on her way. But as she turned to leave, the raven said,
Craak!

She knew she was supposed to open the other chest.

She flung the lid up impatiently, but then gasped. It contained fine clothing such as she'd never seen before, in rich shades of green, russet and yellow. On top lay a gilded leather belt with a pouch and a sheath that proved to exactly fit her knife. This clearly was also God's gift, yet she hesitated.

“I'm to change out of my habit?”

She didn't know why this shocked her more than anything else, but it did. As long as she wore her habit she was still Sister Gledys of Rosewell. Once she took it off, she would become someone else and belong in a world she neither knew nor understood.

“Do I really have to do this?”

Neither God nor the raven answered. What need, when her direction was clear? All the same, Gledys closed the lid on the clothes and sat on it.

This was the moment of no return. She'd left the only home she'd ever known and broken many of the rules she'd lived with all her life. True, any sister of Rosewell could leave the nunnery if she hadn't taken her eternal vows, but there was a process. Documents were signed to return her to her family. She would formally renounce her vows.

Instead she was following a bird and some lights to heaven knew where.

But—she shot to her feet—she remembered how in her dreams she was never wearing her habit. She'd not seen her clothing, but it felt and moved differently.

She opened the chest eagerly now and lifted out a green robe. Such soft, fine wool, almost too delicate for her work-roughened hands, and skillfully decorated around neck and sleeves with embroidered braid. Telling herself the shape wasn't much different from her habit, she put it on. The sleeves were only elbow-length, but those of her chemise reached to her wrists, so her arms were decently covered.

She buckled the fine new belt around her waist and adjusted the knife and pouch. She checked inside the pouch and found a few small coins. She'd never handled coins and looked curiously at the design. One side showed a man, perhaps the king. The other was stamped with a four-petaled flower.

What were they worth? What would they buy? The idea of approaching someone to make a purchase turned her stomach. She'd rarely met a stranger and never been in a town or market. She'd never purchased anything. She could only trust, and she needed to be on her way.

She took out a cloak of fine russet wool and found some other items beneath—stockings, garters, green leather shoes, a delicate white cloth and a plaited circlet of red and yellow cloth.

Suppressing her qualms, she quickly put on stockings and shoes. The stockings were of a fine weave and would be easily damaged. It would be a shame to walk through rough woodland in the new shoes, but God must know best.

The cloth must be a veil, but it was square, so it wouldn't easily cover her head as her usual one did. She remembered seeing the ladies at the tournament with their loose veils stirred by the breeze. Folly, but so be it.

Those ladies had had long hair to show off, however, either in plaits or hanging free. With her short-cropped hair, she was going to be an oddity. She shrugged and draped the cloth over her head and then pulled the woven circlet down on top to hold it in place.

She wished she knew what she looked like, but there was no one to tell her, or to adjust her garment or hair if they were awry. She could see only from her chest down. She spread her skirt. The green was very pretty, like the green of spring grass, and the russet and yellow made a lovely trim. It felt sinful to take pleasure in such ornament, but if this was God's will, would it not be ungracious to object? What was more, she wanted to look well when she finally met Michael de Loury in reality.

She folded her habit and placed it in the chest with her nunnery belt, then closed the lid. She glanced around the hut to be sure she'd not overlooked anything, then went back out into the warming sunshine, ready to carry on. When she looked around, however, the woodland seemed unbroken, with no sign of a path.

“Now what?” she demanded of the universe.

The raven swept down and around, and then flew into the woods. “There's no path,” Gledys protested. “That undergrowth will ruin these lovely clothes!”

Craak! Craak!

Muttering grimly, Gledys marched forward, skirts raised.

But how little faith she had. As she approached the tangled bushes, a path opened, one just wide enough for her to travel safely. There were not even branches low enough to trouble her.

Gledys laughed for joy, all doubt blown away. This was right and good, and soon she'd find her knight with no dreams or visions between them.

Perhaps even at Glastonbury Tor.

***

Gledys had not walked far when she realized that her magical path had blended with a well-worn one, and she glimpsed open fields ahead. She hurried forward, but when she emerged from the trees she halted, a new panic fluttering in her.

What noise was that? Clashes and bangs, yells and cries. Lord save her. Men were fighting nearby!

The raven swept ahead, however, and she was compelled to follow, but as the noises grew louder, her steps slowed and her heart thumped with fear. Such anger and violence in every sound. Murderous hatred.

But then she glimpsed a stone keep with pennants flying. A keep she remembered. Her heart pounded with a new beat now, and her steps speeded. This was the tournament. This was where she'd seen Michael fight!

She picked up her skirts and ran, but halted again at the sight of a mass of tents and people covering the land on this side of the castle. She tried to take it in, but she'd never seen so many people in her life, or heard such a jumble of noises, from screams to singing, clangs to music. Then she made out roofs near the castle and she realized there must be a small town of some sort there. And also a large open area to the right of the town, roped off all around, in which the men were fighting.

That must be where she'd seen Michael defeat the big man, so he might be there now, but the war camp lay like a barrier between. To get to Michael, however, she'd pass through a fiery battlefield, and so she walked on, head held high.

To her right, she saw rough-looking men caring for many horses. To her left, some jongleurs were building a tower of people for a small crowd. She was following a makeshift road between tents, the grass mostly trodden away. It passed between stalls selling food and drink, and others offering everything from ribbons to blades, and scantily dressed women offering something else entirely. Some of the stall keepers called out to her to buy, but most of the men and women just stared at her. She realized there was no one else like her here, no other finely dressed women walking by themselves. Everywhere she saw just men, hard-bitten women and whores.

Where was the raven?

Was this truly the way she should go?

A rag-swathed child ran forward to clutch her gown, whining for alms. Others appeared out of nowhere, begging, whining, plucking at her skirts. Gledys pitied them, but shrank from them, too. It was as if they'd pull the clothing off her. A woman came out of a tent that was only rags over sticks and yelled at the children to stop, but her eyes were hard. She, too, would probably tear Gledys's clothes off if she thought she could get away with it.

Gledys hurried onward, but her resolve was even stronger now. Those poor wretches must be here for what work and scraps they could scavenge, and yes, probably for what they could steal. But some of them would have been honest folk before the endless strife ruined their crops, killed their menfolk and drove them from their homes.

This was why she had been brought here—not for her personal desires, but to bring peace. To stop Eustace of Boulogne from inflicting war on another generation. She stood taller and walked firmly—but she wished she didn't have to walk this gauntlet of men.

They were drinking at ale stalls, polishing metal, or working with leather or cloth. Innocent enough, but the mass of them almost choked her, as she had hardly ever before been in the presence of men at all. The air stank of smoke, old sweat and roasting meat, but of something else as well, as if the men's cruel mouths and lustful eyes gave off a stink of their own. They didn't move to bother her, but their eyes were hungry as wolves.

Gledys quickened her pace, anxious to be free of the camp, to at least reach the thatched roofs of the village.

“My lady?”

She ignored the voice.

“My lady Gledys?”

She slid only her eyes to the left first, afraid to hope, but then relief and joy flooded through her. Michael de Loury stood staring at her, as if not sure that he could trust his eyes. Laughing, crying, Gledys ran into her knight's arms, and finally, at long last, he was completely real.

In clear daylight she saw that his eyes were very blue, his thick hair a deep honey color and everything about his face perfectly formed, even if he did have a bruise on his cheek. She wanted to soothe it with her fingers. Or her lips.

She'd have to stretch on tiptoe. . . .

Before she could, he moved her gently away from him, and there might even have been a blush on his face as his gaze flicked around. Gledys looked, too, and her cheeks heated at the grins, sly smiles and occasional frowns of disapproval. She couldn't stop smiling, however. She remembered last night, thinking it was as if they came together after being too long apart. That feeling was stronger now, for she was certain this was real.

From the look in his eyes, he felt the same.

“Let me take you somewhere safe,” he said. “Though where . . .”

Gledys smiled even more at his confusion. “With you, I'm safe anywhere.”

His smile mirrored hers. He began to draw her back into his arms, but then shook himself. “No. Not here. I share a room in a house. It's rough, but so is everything.” He frowned. “You shouldn't be here.”

Their fingers were twined now and she tightened hers. “Yes, I should. But we do need a place where we can talk. A private place.”

He grimaced. “Privacy! But my lodging is probably quiet now. Come.” He led her on toward the village, but his brow was furrowed. “Have you been here all along? Do you lodge at the castle?”

“No. I'll explain soon. But . . .” She couldn't keep silent about one thing. “Last night . . . Did you have the same dream as I?”

His eyes searched hers. “It was a dream?”

“I've only just arrived.”

He shook his head in confusion. “That can't be. I . . . We . . .”

“It was a dream,” she repeated.

“But what about the ale tent? I was most certainly awake there.”

They'd reached the first houses.