But his eyes were disturbing. The eyes of a fool, the eyes of a madman. The eyes of a trickster. They were an odd shade, a golden shade like sunlit honey, like a cat’s eyes, and they stared at her, had stared at her with an odd, knowing expression, since she first, unwillingly, entered the litter. It was almost as if he could see beneath the heavy layers of clothing she wore. Almost as if he could see beneath her perpetually calm, soothing smile.
“I crave pardon, my lady,” he murmured, looking not the slightest bit chastened as he leaned back in the litter. “There are some that say the touch of a fool is a special blessing.”
“How many ladies of the court have you managed to convince of that dubious fact?” she asked tartly, still feeling the unexpected warmth of his hand as it had brushed her face.
His smile was unrepentant. “More than my fair share, my lady.”
“Well, you can forget about me, Master Nicholas. I’m certain you’ll find more than enough willing ladies at Fortham Castle, but I won’t be one of them. Save your blessed touches for those who ask for them.”
“Ah, but those who ask are not necessarily those in need. And doesn’t a new-made widow need succor? You’ve been admirably valiant in hiding your grief, but I must assume that beneath your calm exterior your heart is torn in pieces.”
Guilt flamed through her, and she lifted her chin to stare at him in her most quelling fashion. He looked far from quelled. “You mock me, sir. It is not in my nature to weep and wail.” A lie, of course. She’d wept noisily and lengthily when she’d first come to Moncrieff, until the tears slowly dried up.
“You are most dignified in your sorrow, my lady,” he said with only the trace of irony.
“And you are the most annoying—” She caught her breath and her temper, shocked at her sudden loss of composure. After a moment she spoke. “Master Nicholas, you do bring out the very worst in me,” she said in a deceptively calm voice.
“It’s a gift,” he murmured sweetly.
“My husband was almost fifty years my elder, and he’d already buried two wives when he married me. He had little interest in a young girl, and I was too young to care much about being married. I hadn’t seen him for more than three years when he died, and while I mourn the loss of any good Christian soul, I cannot say that I feel a particularly personal grief at his passing.”
“Though you don’t seem best pleased at being dragged from your home,” Nicholas pointed out. “So how old were you when Victor of Moncrieff took you to his bed?”
She stiffened. “Why do you ask?”
“He must have been a particularly clumsy man to make you so afraid of another man’s touch.”
“I’m not afraid of any man’s touch!” she shot back, knowing it was an outright lie and proud of it. “I simply don’t like being pawed by . . . by underlings.” She was appalled the moment the harsh words were out of her mouth. Seldom did she allow her emotions to betray her in such a manner.
But he merely smiled at her. “I shall do my best not to paw, my lady,” he said gently. “How old were you?”
“Old enough,” she said shortly. “I did my wifely duty without complaint.”
“And did you enjoy it?”
It took her a moment to realize that the litter hadn’t begun to move after its full stop, and she almost wept with relief. Pushing open the curtains, she scrambled to the rough ground below, her cramped legs almost buckling beneath her. Nicholas was still lounging negligently on the cushions, watching her.
“Did you, my lady?” he persisted in his warm, musical voice.
“Did she what?” Sir Richard leaned forward on his horse, a disgruntled expression on his face. “Has that creature been disturbing you, Lady Julianna? I’ll have him horsewhipped if he’s offered you insult, and face the king’s displeasure gladly.”
It was a tempting offer, and she knew perfectly well that Sir Richard would have been happy to wield the whip himself. She glanced back at her unwelcome traveling companion, but his face was blank, expressionless, unworried at his possible punishment.
“He’s offered me no insult,” Julianna said, half wondering at her instinctive lie. She glanced around her, recognizing the cloistered walls of an abbey. “Do we rest here for the night?”
“We do. We’ll make Fortham Castle by nightfall tomorrow if God grants us decent weather. In the meantime the good brothers will provide shelter. We’ve been given the honor of providing escort to the abbot, Father Paulus. He will be blessing Fortham Castle with his wise council till Christmastide.”
She turned her back on the litter, on Master Nicholas, quite resolutely. “Perhaps the abbot will prefer to ride in the litter. I find I’ve been longing for horseback.”
Sir Richard emitted a short, heartless laugh. “I don’t doubt it, my lady. But even a holy father could be driven to murder by that creature. If I can secure another mount, you will ride the rest of the way, but I can make no promises.”
The jangle of bells signaled the descent of Nicholas from the wretched litter, and Julianna’s back stiffened instinctively. “You could always bind and gag me,” he suggested affably.
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” Sir Richard said coolly. “Lady Julianna has only to say the word . . .”
She couldn’t do it, tempted though she might be. She glanced back at the fool from beneath half-closed lids. “I was taught to be charitable toward the afflicted, Sir Richard,” she murmured. “Master Nicholas is, despite his mental infirmities, only a poor Christian like the rest of us.”
The sound of bells accompanied something that might have been a cough, might have been a snort of laughter from the wretched creature. Julianna wasn’t about to find out. She moved away from him with as much haste as she could muster. “If I might have some privacy to refresh myself . . . ?”
One of the plump, berobed friars came forward with swift grace. “You do our house honor, my lady.”
“I’ll eat with the abbot tonight, Brother Barth,” Sir Richard announced. “I’m certain Lady Julianna would prefer rest and solitude.”
Anything was preferable to more time spent with Nicholas, so she simply nodded.
“And Master Nicholas can be kept anywhere safe and clean,” Sir Richard continued.
“Master Nicholas will spend the evening in repentance,” Nicholas announced in suitably humble tones. “I can sleep in the straw near the altar, happy to be near my Redeemer.”
Brother Barth beamed at him. Sir Richard narrowed his eyes in doubt, but Nicholas simply ducked his head meekly.
“My lord’s own wish is my dear art
For promised longing draws my heart.”
“Very nice,” Brother Barth murmured. But Julianna had the sudden strange notion that Nicholas and Brother Barth might have been talking about entirely different lords—one of this earth, one of heaven.
It was no longer her concern. The room she was given was small and spare and clean, and she soon dropped down on the narrow bed, weary in every part of her body. She was past sleep, past hunger, capable of doing nothing but lying still, staring into the gathering dusk.
The only sound was the rich tolling of the abbey bells, calling the monks to prayer, a far cry from the delicate tinkling of the fool’s silver bells. Common sense told her she’d be welcome to join, but exhaustion kept her still on the pallet. Besides, Nicholas had said he would spend the night in prayer. The very thought of trying to concentrate on her prayers while Nicholas stared at her out of those strange eyes was unsettling indeed.
And she had no doubt he would stare, simply because he would know it bothered her. He was, in fact, a strange blessing. His presence was so annoying he’d given her no chance to dwell on her current misfortunes. Her peaceful life had been shattered, and yet she’d had no chance to mourn it. Which was just as well. She’d learned as a child that we
eping and bewailing one’s fate brought nothing more than a headache and a swollen face.
It was Brother Barth who brought her dinner tray to her. The food was simple—cheese and brown bread and honey ale. Julianna realized she was famished.
“Eat, my child,” Brother Barth said. “I’ve been instructed to bring the dishes back to the refectory when you finish, and the good abbot doesn’t like his orders disobeyed. If you prefer, I’ll wait in the hall . . .”
“Please keep me company. Can I offer you any of this . . . ?”
“I’ve already eaten, my lady. And the abbot tells me I eat too much as it is.”
While Brother Barth’s impressive bulk couldn’t provide much argument, Julianna developed an instant dislike of anyone who would criticize the gentle old monk. “The abbot,” she said, reaching for the loaf of bread. “He’ll be coming with us to Fortham Castle, you said.”
“Aye, my lady. And I’ll be there as well, to assist him.” There wasn’t even a hint of anything in the friar’s voice, and yet Julianna couldn’t rid herself of the notion that the abbot was not a well-beloved soul.
“He’s a good man, is he not?” she inquired, breaking off a hunk of bread.
“It is not my place to judge. The abbot is a man of highest principles. Helping him is an honor I never dared hope for.”
And would gladly do without, she thought. Things were going from bad to worse. “What abbey is this, Brother Barth?” she asked, changing the subject. “I thought I knew every holy order within a few days’ ride from Moncrieff.”
“We’re a very small, very poor order, my lady, though the abbot has great plans for us. This is the Abbey of the Martyred Saint Hugelina the Dragon.”
“Saint Hugelina? I don’t remember her,” she admitted. “Was she truly a dragon?”
“Only after she was devoured by one. It was a blessed miracle.”
“Indeed,” she said piously, ignoring her own doubts as to the existence of dragons.
“But nowadays no one pays homage to the old saints. Hugelina dates back almost to Roman times, and people prefer to forget the old ones. They like their saints modern and up to date. We do our poor best to cherish her sacred memory. The abbot has pledged his life to the task of making Saint Hugelina’s Abbey a showplace of modern piety.”
“God grant him success,” Julianna murmured, wondering how a priest’s ambitions allowed time for an extended stay at Fortham Castle. Indeed, it was none of her business, and she should learn to control her curiosity.
“The abbot’s easy enough to get along with, my lady,” Brother Barth said. “Just be dutiful and silent, and he’s unlikely even to notice you.”
“And that would be for the best?”
Brother Barth’s sad eyes met hers. “Yes, my lady.”
He would say no more, and she was wise enough not to push. She had been warned, most clearly, and by the time Brother Barth left her, exhaustion and anxiety were taking hold of her.
It was dark in the cell, with only the one tallow candle to light it, and Julianna lay back in the narrow bed and stared at the stone walls around her, at the wavering candlelight as it cast eerie shadows on the walls. If the abbot were even near as difficult as he sounded, the time spent at Fortham Castle loomed even more unpleasantly. It was bad enough that she was being taken back to bear her mother company. Far worse that she came to a household that included a difficult priest and a maddening fool.
She wondered if the abbot had run afoul of Nicholas yet. And which one of them had triumphed.
With any luck, she would travel the last day of the journey out of reach of Master Nicholas’s prattling. With any luck, lightning would strike her before she even reached Fortham Castle, and she would no longer have to worry about facing the mother she had once loved more than anyone else in the world.
She hadn’t thought she would sleep, but she did, soundly and well, until a horrifying sound ripped her into terrified wakefulness sometime in the pitch dark of night. She heard it again—a great, gasping scream, like a soul in eternal torment—and without thinking she tore out of bed, slammed open the thick wooden door, and started out into the dimly lit stone corridor in search of the poor tortured creature.
Chapter Three
THE STONE FLOOR was icy beneath her bare feet, and her thick linen chemise flapped about her body as she raced down the corridor. It sounded as if some poor creature was being slaughtered, and she raced toward the sounds with no concern for her own safety or her less-than-decorous apparel.
The screams were coming from the small chapel at the end of the corridor, but as she reached the closed, heavy oaken doors, the sound was cut off abruptly, the resulting silence both deadly and deafening.
She didn’t hesitate. The heavy iron ring was cold in her hand, but the massive doors were well hung, and they swung open with little more than a touch, illuminating a strange tableau.
The screaming woman was no woman at all, but a very pretty, effeminate monk who was still making soft, high-pitched, squealing sobs. The sight of Julianna in her chemise was clearly the final straw, for he threw his hands over his face and ran sobbing from the room, skirting her as if she carried the plague.
Brother Barth was there as well, his normally placid face creased with worry, and it was no wonder. Standing in the middle of the chapel stood Nicholas Strangefellow, stark naked.
At least, she presumed he was naked. Brother Barth had wrapped some sort of cloth around Nicholas’s lean hips, just barely preserving his modesty. Nicholas didn’t seem to appreciate the assistance.
He gave the hapless monk a stern glare. “I told you, I don’t want anything to come between me and God, little man,” he said. “Not even clothes.”
“Blasphemer! Spawn of Satan!”
She hadn’t seen the other man in the darkness of the small, candlelit chapel. She turned, but the shadows revealed only another shadow, darker and more ominous. “What is that strumpet doing here?” the voice from the shadows continued. “Remove her, and have that madman flogged!”
“But my lord abbot,” Brother Barth protested, following Nicholas as he stalked toward the shadows, the material still draped discreetly around his torso. “I’m certain this can all be handled sensibly if you would just—”
“He mocks us, and he mocks Christ,” the infamous abbot intoned, emerging from the shadows. “And that Jezebel’s in league with him!”
Julianna looked around the chapel for Nicholas’s slatternly accomplice, but there was no one else present, and she realized with shock that the abbot was accusing her of strumpetry. It was so absurd that she should have laughed, but now didn’t seem the time for merriment.
Nicholas turned to look at her, cocking his head to one side like an inquisitive bird. A sparrow . . . no, a falcon, she thought, mesmerized. And she was a juicy little rabbit.
“Not my doxy,” he said softly, “though I’m hopeful for the future.”
She should have turned and run the moment she opened the chapel door. She had no cause to be here, and the presence of a nearly naked man was enough to fill her with an uneasy horror. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen one before—as lady of the manor she’d tended the ills of her people, and in the countryside modesty was of little value. And she’d seen her husband, more than she’d ever wanted to.
She lifted her chin and met Nicholas’s mocking gaze. He wanted to make her run, to blush, to hide. She remained where she was, too stubborn to retreat.
“I heard screams,” she said. “I thought someone was being hurt . . .”
“Very noble and tender-hearted of you, my lady,” Nicholas murmured. “I’m afraid I shocked the young brother.”
“You are a monster, sir,” the abbot said in a hissing voice. “When we arrive at Fortham Castle, I’ll see you hanged!”
“I doubt it,” Nic
holas said sweetly. “King Henry has a fondness for me. He would be much displeased if anything were to happen to me.”
The abbot moved closer, into the light, turning his back on Nicholas as he came within inches of Julianna. He was the same height. Their eyes met, the dislike and displeasure in their colorless depths making her shiver in the cool night air.
“You tremble, my lady,” he said. “I don’t doubt that you tremble, from shame and from sinfulness. Go back to your cell and repent what your eyes have seen and your wicked mind has dreamed.”
Her wicked mind had dreamed absolutely nothing, but she had enough sense not to inform the abbot of that fact. He was wraith-thin with a round, protruding belly. The skin stretched over his knobby bones was like parchment, but his eyes blazed. If her future was to contain this fiery zealot as well as the madman standing naked, then the sooner she found her way into a convent the better.
“You’d best go,” Brother Barth said urgently, still holding the cloth around Nicholas’s hips. “I assure you, everything will be fine.”
“Why don’t you strip off your clothes, my lady, and we can commune with God together?” Nicholas murmured in saintly tones. “The straw is a bit scratchy, but you can lie on top of me—”
“Fiend! Lecher! Defiler of purity! You should be flayed alive!” Father Paulus was shaking with emotion.
Nicholas glanced at her measuringly. “I don’t believe she’s pure, Father, since she is, in fact, a widow . . .”
But the priest had already stormed from the chapel, obviously in search of someone to help him punish the wayward madman.
“Thank God,” Brother Barth murmured with a sigh. “Father Paulus does tend to take things too much to heart. Lady Julianna, let me escort you back to your room.” He took a step toward her. Without his helpful assistance the cloth began to slip, and he immediately jumped back, pulling the loose folds back up around the fool.
“I can find my way by myself, Brother Barth,” she said in a deceptively calm voice. “As long as I’m not needed here . . .”