Dark Maiden Read online

  Glad the bronze of her skin hid her blush, Yolande turned to the reeve. “Can he be freed quickly? I have work here and I need his help.”

  This was not strictly true but she would be glad of his company.

  “No matter, cariad. I have done it myself.”

  There had been no creak or turn of the heavy timbers of the stocks but Geraint was beside her, stamping his bare feet against the slightly frosted grass and saying to the reeve, “My lady would not say no to a jug of ale or hot spiced wine and nor would I.”

  Finally he was out of the churchyard and away from the hot-breathed matron. Geraint gripped his cup of spiced wine a little tighter, wishing he could be more relaxed.

  So why was he not? He was beside a good fire, tucking into a steaming leek porry. Three young lasses sat opposite, adoring him across the flames. Better yet, Yolande sat beside him in that curious squat-with-her-legs-drawn-sideways posture of hers, close enough that one of her long shapely thighs brushed against his. Each time the fire crackled and she shifted slightly in response, their thighs caressed in a sprightly tingle.

  We shall be sleeping together by the hearth and in sleep she may snuggle against me. He wanted more, yes, as did she, but while she worked as an exorcist, Yolande was certain she must be chaste.

  “I must labor for a time of seven,” she had said. “I wait for a clear sign and as I wait, I work.”

  He did not know what clear sign she waited for—maybe she did not know herself—but he believed her. He had seen and fought too much not to believe.

  She was deep in speech with the reeve—they were in the fellow’s house—and Michael Steward grumbled as much as any farmer, although his complaints were not of the weather.

  “What are revenants again?”

  “Michael,” said his wife, casting a warning look at their three daughters and twin sons. The boys were only seven and as bright and quick as squirrels or Geraint might have suspected them of making mischief and torment for their sisters. But these brothers and sisters indulged each other and he had no fears on that matter.

  “Mistress Steward, it is best your youngsters hear this,” Yolande was saying. “Then you may defeat it together.”

  “Revenants are spirits who will not rest,” Geraint said before the reeve’s wife had another objection. “They are departed souls who will not leave because they wish to have revenge or justice.”

  “Or they cling to a place they loved in life, or to their beloved,” added Yolande quietly.

  In an echo of the large-breasted goodwife, the reeve’s wife folded her arms across her middle. “Is this not a matter for our priest?”

  “But Godith, Father William is so old, and consider what he says concerning the rest,” Michael pleaded.

  “That all trouble is the girls’ own sins.” Godith crossed herself while Yolande sighed and stared into the fire.

  “One of those priests,” she remarked softly in Welsh.

  “Now we know why he did not summon you or come out of his house or church to welcome you,” Geraint answered in the same tongue. “A black female exorcist will be a great evil to him.”

  “And Father William has often taken to his bed this past ten days.” Michael shrugged his drooping shoulders in a gesture of hopelessness.

  “No priest here and at the darkest time of the year, when spirits and the dead gather,” Yolande said in Welsh. Geraint wished he could tip the priest out of this village and drag in another. The Archbishop of York should be able to help her and would do very well.

  “What are you saying? Are you talking about me?” demanded Godith’s youngest daughter.

  “No, my lovely.” Geraint snapped his fingers. The girl drew a new blue ribbon from her hair and exclaimed with delight.

  Yolande cast him a look. “Still up to your old tricks?”

  “You will not wear the ribbons I bought for you, so why should I not give them to these girls?”

  The three lasses, chattering like magpies, tugged more new ribbons from their hair.

  “How do you do it?” Yolande inquired as the tension in the hut vanished like a burst soap bubble.

  “You have the secrets of your trade and I have mine.” He wanted to give her more, of course—bright ribbons, bright tunics to suit her sultry looks—but so far she had smiled at him very prettily for his ribbons but not worn them. And as for tunics…she had told him quietly that an envious spirit or demon would be tempted to tear such clothes off her and he could not argue with that. She was the exorcist.

  Their eyes met. What would it be like to kiss her again, really kiss her? He need only lean forward to find out…

  His fragile dream was shattered by the reeve, who pushed himself up from the family’s low sleeping platform and said to Yolande, “I have something to show you in the lean-to.”

  Geraint gave the rest of his bowl of porry to the twins and leaped to his feet. “I will come too.”

  If Michael Steward was about to confess anything, he wanted to hear it. And he was not about to let Yolande out of his protection, whatever her skills.

  She may be the exorcist but by the pricking at the base of my neck, I would say there is danger here, a practical, knife-blade kind of risk. My kind of danger.

  She knew she and Geraint had been betrayed even before Michael Steward broke into a ragtag run outside the lean-to, galloping and gasping into the night. She knew even before the torches bloomed into fire and the stink of anxious, stale bodies crowded into her nostrils. She knew by instinct as Geraint knew. She could feel the tension in him as he stepped straight behind her, shielding her as he had so often in these past few months.

  Yolande had her bow, her sacred bow of Saint Sebastian, but no room to draw it. And she could do better by far than make these fearful people her unrelenting enemies.

  The instant before the torches were lit in the dying garden plot of the reeve’s house, she made her plan and acted on it.

  She raised her fist and called out, “I have a mandrake here and the seven herbs of Christ. If you do me or mine harm, the herbs will change into spears. The mandrake will turn into a man and you will die.” She paused, allowing her pity for the villagers’ fear to drain away. “You will die badly, believe me.”

  “Believe her,” hissed Geraint out of the gloom, keeping out of range of the flickering torchlight. “I have seen the mandrake man and it is terrible.”

  “That proves you are a witch!” shouted a woman, and one of the torches swayed as she lost her footing on the damp ground.

  “No witch may touch the seven herbs of Christ and live,” said Yolande calmly. Glimpsing a flash of white as another villager moved an arm, she stooped, plucked a pebble from the earth and threw it all in a single movement. The woman howled and dropped her dagger, where it lay gleaming.

  “You are black as Satan!” called another woman, and others in the circle echoed her cry.

  “Or Saint Maurice or the Magi,” Yolande replied.

  Godith came to the door. “How do we know you came in answer to the reeve’s call?”

  “I came, Godith, because that is my Christian duty. You need my help here.”

  “But you are black,” mumbled Godith. Encouraged by shouts of agreement, she joined the crowd.

  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 mad
e 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 o
f 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.

  Chapter Seven