Dark Maiden Read online

  “We must leave early. Get away before the others wake. I must gather herbs, sacred herbs. Saint John’s wort and rosemary, lavender and hyssop.”

  He agreed with that, grinning as he savored the we. He cleared his throat, cutting off her sleepy list. “Sleep now, Yolande. I will help you with the green stuff.”

  “What has possessed them?”

  He did not know who they were and did not care. “We shall find out. Sleep, Yolande.”

  “I would rest in honeyman’s arms but it would not work. Men want more, want all and I cannot. I cannot give all.” She sank into the hay, leaving him more wakeful than ever.

  What a nickname! Even the little you give me, lady, stirs me. “Honeyman,” he said aloud, and smiled.

  * * * * *

  She woke him before dawn, just as the birds were stirring. “If you are still with me, we have a long way to travel and should go,” she whispered. “I will leave more gold by the hearth.”

  Swiftly, he gathered their things. Whatever she had said in her sleep last night about his senses, his wits were nagging him to leave and leave fast.

  She lowered the ladder and, before he could stop her and go first, she vanished into the swirling half-light, her bow rattling softly on her shoulders. He followed by swinging down from the loft, the pack on his shoulders bouncing painfully, the crucifix stabbing into the small of his back.

  She was at the door, wrestling with the rope hasp. Figures ’round the banked fire were sitting up, shouting. There was the glint of a drawn knife.

  Geraint scooped up her gold coin from the hearth, ran to the door, cut the rope with his dagger and dragged her outside with him. They pelted through the reeve’s garden in a shower of thrown pebbles and curses, crushing beans and peas, sprinting to outrun the lumbering pursuit.

  Yolande ran ahead of him into a field of tall wheat. She hooked him off his feet and dragged him into cover below the bobbing heads of wheat and corncockle.

  “Here.” He offered her the coin but she put a finger to her lips. Silent, they lay in the field, waiting for the searchers and hearing only a skylark high overhead.

  “Those people gave up quickly,” she said after a moment.

  “No energy for a chase.”

  Her eyes narrowed into slits. “I can fight for myself. I am no helpless child.”

  Except at night, when you rise and talk in your sleep. “Right. Next time you can open the door.”

  She chuckled, her brief anger vanishing like summer fog. “They have gone, have they not?”

  “They have never come here,” he replied at once. She was testing him again, seeing what his senses told him. To cover his amusement, he jumped up, cut a caper and drew her to her feet. She was light, her fingers warm against his. He wanted to squeeze them a little before he let her go but wanted to win her trust, so released her at once.

  She led the way and, with Geraint content to protect her back and watch her womanly dip and sway as she walked, they set out again.

  Chapter Two

  Yolande was not surprised when Geraint remained with her, even passing through a walled town where he could have stayed on and juggled and earned good money. He admired her, she knew, for his eyes were always bright when she caught him watching her. It was the kind of gentle, interested way her father had looked at her mother and it warmed her.

  She knew his attention, however flattering, was also dangerous. The crucifix was a sign she dared not ignore and she would need her full attention on what she must confront. Yet the Welshman intrigued her.

  He does not ask about journey’s end, about where we are going. Never have I known a man so easy about not being the master.

  She knew why, of course. Geraint could take care of himself.

  But I must work alone when the time comes. Will he accept that?

  He caught her eye and grinned. “Wondering about me, Yolande, I hope? I am unmarried, unbetrothed, not widowed, not plighted—”

  “Enough!” she said, waving him to silence, although she was pleased.

  “You wear a ring. It saves you questions and trouble, I suppose?”

  By an effort of will, she did not glance at the narrow gold band on her wedding ring finger. He had a touch of the fey about him, this Welshman, and saw too much. “I do not lead people on,” she admitted, keen he should know this about her. “I cannot offer a man a house, or dowry…or myself.”

  “Very proper,” he said, grave as a priest, which made her want to tickle his feet to make him laugh. He had bare feet, tough and brown as hide, but she wagered she could find one spot to make him itch…

  There was muffled shouting behind her, several voices, but it was the sudden stench of sulfur that made her gag. She turned toward the voices and raised her arms in a protective cross before Geraint. Behind her, the Welshman ripped a clod of earth and grass right out of the ground and hurled it with a massive shout. The smell fell back a little.

  “How did you know to do that?” she asked.

  “My mam taught me to scare off crows and other rubbish. Come on.” He seized her arm, shoving her forward with his shoulder.

  “I face what comes.”

  “But choose your ground, right?”

  And the cursed thing was, he was right. Geraint was right even before the group of men broke cover from a sunken way, bursting onto the larger track a sword’s length away from them.

  Something else is with them too.

  Geraint said something in his own tongue and yanked her back so strongly her feet left the ground. She stumbled, gripped his hand and ran straight off the track, making for higher ground.

  Higher ground is usually sacred ground.

  Geraint yelled more she did not understand but she saw the pale alarm in his eyes and spun ’round, striking out with her bow. The tip cut across a leering face and there was a howl. She let the bow sweep out to the farthest reach of her arm and another man screamed.

  A heavy boot scraped down her calf and her whole leg burned but she did not stop sprinting. With her quiver clashing across her back, beating her up the weed-infested slope, she panted and urged the fleeing Geraint, “Come on, on!”

  “I slow for you, woman!” he roared, and then he too turned and threw a volley of pebbles at the closing group—no, not pebbles, but coins and bits of metal.

  More howling behind them. She and Geraint pulled farther ahead of the pack. Their sanctuary was a single oak tree that marked a field boundary and once—she knew it in a chilly, flinty instant of insight—had swung with sacrifices long ago. She reached it first by a fingertip and set her back against the bark, her throat dry, her lungs wheezing and her body shuddering.

  “By the God and good within this tree, protect us,” she croaked, slipping her bow off her arm. Another breath, another moment and the arrow was notched and released.

  A man gargled, the arrow twitching in his shoulder, and fell away, rolling down the slope. Geraint yelled and drew a long dagger from his sleeve.

  Suddenly the odds of the attack had changed. The rest of their assailants hesitated, slowing, looking at each other.

  But not the one possessed. He will come.

  “Give us the darkie,” called out another. “Luck for us.”

  Geraint curled his lip. “She is not mine to give and if she were you would never get her.”

  “I have no quarrel with you,” Yolande said, wanting to give them an escape. “We are travelers and will be gone by tonight.”

  Two turned away and she breathed a little more easily. Two stepped closer and she loosed two swift arrows at their feet. Another man sat down on the hillside amidst a patch of flowering fireweed and sobbed, “Poor Edo…”

  “Drunken fool.” Geraint tipped her a wink.

  Absurdly, the wink gave her heart. She loosed another arrow, a warning shot over the waverers’ greasy heads. “Go with my blessing.”

  More turned aside, content she had granted them the elusive luck they craved. Three remained, watching Geraint.
/>   Not these men, they are men only.

  Then she smelled a foul miasma that made her close her mouth sharply and glance at her companion. Sensitive as he surely was, although he had not known it before he traveled with her, Geraint had done the same and was nimbly burrowing into his pack.

  “Not the cross, not yet. It may not be needed,” she whispered and he stopped at once, his long, tanned fingers frozen on the straps.

  The copper armlet she wore under her clothes grew chill. The world about them was slowing down, men’s mouths opening and closing as they talked, word by word. The dried Saint John’s wort she always carried in a pouch around her neck hung heavy at her throat.

  It comes—spirit, lost soul—angry for being trapped.

  “I can help you,” she said in Latin, addressing the soul directly.

  A new figure stalked forward, a beardless youth who looked excited and close to tears. Yolande lowered her bow. “Release the man-child,” she said in Latin.

  The boy stopped as if barred by an invisible hand. The foul odor increased, worse than rotting eggs.

  “Peace be upon you.” Speaking in English for the boy and others to understand, Yolande plucked a branch of oak and offered it to the spirit within the youth. “Let the strength of the tree be your refuge.”

  Slow as a summer sunset, the lad’s arm rose to hers. He touched a leaf of the oak branch, pinching it between finger and thumb.

  “Come out of him,” she said in Latin. “Come to the oak.”

  The oak leaves trembled and the boy gasped, shivering as if plunged into ice water. After the heat of the angry spirit had left him, he would be cold.

  Yolande braced herself and began to recite the creed, ignoring the yells of the bystanders as the branch of oak burst into flame. The youth swayed but did not fall. He let the branch go and was free.

  The scent of the spirit stormed into her nostrils and through its heavy stench, a name was blazoned in her mind’s eye.

  “Peace to you, Thorkill,” she said in Latin. “Go to your rest with God.”

  The soul of Thorkill spoke within her head. I cannot go yet. I died unshriven, unburied. The boy stole a dagger of mine as I lay dying.

  “I will bury the dagger in a scared place, beneath this oak, and pray for you,” Yolande promised, whispering now. “Come out,” she said again in Latin. “Come to your rest, Thorkill.”

  The last leaf of the oak burned away, scorching her fingers. She did not flinch. “Give me the dagger you stole from a dying man,” she ordered the sobbing boy.

  The lad flung the knife at her feet and ran off. She picked it up and a whiff of sulfur seeped away, leaving only the smell of her own lavender and rosemary and pepper.

  “Go home,” she told the others, but they were already moving off, not too proud to run once they had gone a few paces away from her.

  She closed her eyes and began the prayer for the dead for Thorkill.

  Geraint stayed with her. He helped her to dig a shallow pit beneath the oak. He made her a small cross of holly wood to lay with the dagger. She shrouded both in one of her hoods and prayed for the departed soul of Thorkill, easing him to purgatory.

  Only when the sun was beginning to sink did she complete the ritual. Still Geraint was with her.

  “Thirsty?” He offered her a flask as she smoothed the burial place and rose. “This here is freshly filled from a stream. I got it while you were busy.”

  “Thank you.” The water was marvelously cold.

  “Do you often get mobs following because you are different?” His blunt question surprised her into a counter question.

  “Do you like me because I am different?”

  He reached for the flask. “Only for the first half day, Yolande. Now it is your company I crave.”

  She wagged a finger at him. “In villages I am often asked for blessings or cures. I think they see me as some kind of charm, although I am by no means as dark as my father—or you, Welshman.”

  “I am a black Celt, true enough.” Geraint took another long swig. “Was your father a Celt?”

  Her throat tightened as she thought of her beloved parents, both long dead. “He was a scholar, a poet and a carpenter from the land of Ethiope.”

  “Such a talented fellow could have been a Welshman and I can give no higher praise than that. And your mother?”

  “A spinster and ale-mistress of York.”

  “Ah, a woman for me then.”

  “And yours, Geraint, your parents?”

  “Do you always speak to the dead in Latin?”

  “Always.” Going along with the sudden change of subject, Yolande sat beneath the oak tree, thinking she would not reach the abbey tonight. She was weary after her tussle with the spirit, more tired than she should be, for in the end his had been an easy passing.

  Or was she seeking an excuse to linger with Geraint, who craved her company?

  “Why is that?” he asked. “The Latin?”

  “It is the language of the mass. It honors them,” she said. She leaned against the oak. Her honeyman sprawled comfortably amidst the tree roots, eyes half closed as if he were on a bed of feathers. “How is it you understand Latin?”

  He shrugged. “Bits of Latin, some Greek, some English, all Welsh.” He rolled onto his belly and watched a black ant carrying a seed. “As a boy and after my mam died, I lived for a time in a monastery.”

  “You were a novice?”

  “Not by my choice. My da dumped me in there. I left as soon as I could.”

  “You ran away.”

  “Twice and was brought back. But the third time, after I had thumped the novice master in the face, they were keen for me to go.”

  The wind ruffled his wavy hair as she was tempted to do. She was hungry but no longer tired. Rather, she was intrigued.

  “You punched a monk?”

  “Laid him out flat in the nave.”

  She sat up, hugging her knees. “What place was this?”

  “Away to the west, a long ways from here.” He flicked the question aside. “What do you say to roast rabbit for supper? Or do you not eat flesh?” Her belly rumbled. He laughed, looking briefly as young as the youth who had been possessed. “Roast salmon then, filched from whichever lord’s stream this is?”

  “Stolen fish?”

  “I do not think the lord will miss one, do you?”

  She agreed, torn between shaking her head and smiling.

  * * * * *

  Geraint lay awake after their meal of salmon and fresh greens gathered by Yolande. His stomach was full, his woman-to-be slept with her head in his lap and he was blissful with delight.

  He was also listening in case she spoke in her sleep again tonight, but she was as quiet as a flower.

  He gently smoothed her hair. Tempting her to use his lap as a pillow had taken no arts beyond a suggestion that the oak roots were hard, and he was glad.

  As if in answer to his touch, she opened her eyes. “Still awake? Would you rather move on? Leave me?”

  “Hush—I do not leave those I care for. I am staying with you.”

  She was drowsy, for she closed her eyes again and slept.

  Geraint leaned against the tree and watched the stars.

  * * * * *

  In the morning, when she rose and stretched, she looked puzzled. “Did you speak to me in the middle of the night?”

  “Not I.”

  “Strange, I must have dreamed it.”

  “Was it a pleasant dream?”

  “Very.”

  He was not sure, but by a faint shadowing of her cheek, he sensed she was blushing. “Well then,” he said, and left it at that, checking they had all their things.

  The day started fair and bright but changed quickly to a drizzling rain. Yolande tugged a patched hood out of her quiver and hauled it carelessly over her hair, grumbling when she caught her fringe.

  “Allow me.” Geraint coaxed her hair aside and stole a gentle kiss. “You taste of sugar-cone.”

&n
bsp; Her eyes crinkled with pleasure. “Satisfied your curiosity, Mister Welshman?”

  “That too.”

  She was chuckling as they moved on again, skipping and sliding through the gray sheets of rain.

  “You are an exorcist,” he began as they picked their way through a hillside of strewn rubble and rotting thatch from a former dwelling.

  “Some call me that.”

  “And the friars and pardoners and clerics allow it? Last time I looked, women could not be priests.”

  She mopped a strand of damp hair from her cheek and kicked aside part of a fallen roof timber. “Hundreds of years ago, in a place called Whitby, there was a famous abbess who heard confessions. Customs change but God calls us all. I do what I can to help others and I am allowed to do so.” She threw him a challenging look. “The nuns of the convent were pleased I am a woman. It made solving their…problem much easier than had I been male.”

  “And you have a calling.”

  “I have a duty.”

  Geraint splashed through a puddle, mud squelching between his toes. “Pity, if you are allowed, that the mighty of the church did not give you a horse,” he muttered in Welsh. Rain dripped off his nose and eyelashes. Of all weathers, he loathed the rain.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “A curse against my clumsiness, nothing more,” he said quickly. He reminded himself that walking took longer than riding, which meant more time together, which suited him fine, really fine. “Where are we headed?” he asked after a space. He had not asked before, not caring where they wandered, but today the sky about them was as gray as a corpse and colder and the blasted rain seeped everywhere. “Have we a ways to go still?”

  Yolande strode beside him, still straight, still limber, but he wanted her warm and dry—better yet, warm and dry and in his arms.

  “I must remain a maiden,” she said as if she had read his thoughts.

  “But if your father could cast out spirits? And him a married man?” He noted the mottling of her skin and cursed his asking. “No matter,” he began, but she answered.

  “My maidenhead is a barrier to my womb, a barrier I must preserve or one of the possessed might enter me and remain.” She shivered at the notion and he did not blame her. “That is why women generally do not become exorcists. No demon can enter the womb of a virgin and grow there unless the virgin invites the demon to possess her. I must serve and do my duty as a maid for a time of seven. That is what the abbot said.”