“Miss!” he called in his rough voice.
She turned back to face him, ridiculously relieved at the chance to check on him once more. “Yes?”
He stood in the foyer where Sister Theresa had told him to stand, his neck craned, watching her with such desolation it seemed as if she walked away with his salvation in her hands. “I never asked your name.”
“Sorcha.” As she stared through the alternating light and shadow, something about him seemed familiar. The way he stood, his legs apart as if he laid claim to the very earth, his fist carelessly clenched at his hip. The way he held his head, his chin held at an arrogant tilt. And that eye... his unblinking, wide, and mesmerizing eye... it seemed as if in a long-ago dream Sorcha had seen his eyes, both his eyes, staring at her while the hand of Death reached out... .
Sister Theresa squeezed Sorcha’s arm.
Torn from her contemplation, Sorcha jumped.
“Dear,” Sister Theresa said, “ye’re going to catch yer death of cold if ye don’t hie yerself to the infirmary.”
When Sorcha again looked at Arnou, he grinned and bobbed his head. Again he was a simple, foolish fisherman.
Yet on her chest, the silver cross burned.
Chapter 2
The next morning, Sorcha stood with her hoe in her hand and watched Arnou as he hefted blocks onto the partly built low rock wall around the herb garden. His strength impressed her; it had taken three nuns and Sorcha, all their combined power, to budge a single stone. Yet he chipped and lifted and placed without ceasing, getting more work done since breakfast than Sorcha and the nuns had all summer.
He smelled much, much better—before Mother Brigette had allowed him to eat, she’d made him bathe. He also looked very silly—his clothes had been taken away to be cleaned and when they were boiled, they’d fallen to shreds. So Mother Brigette had given him a monk’s humble brown robes. But they didn’t fit his lanky frame, so his wrists stuck out of the sleeves and his calves stuck out beneath the hem. He wore the hood hanging down his back. The rag covered his eye and forehead and lent him the clownish air of a child playing blind man’s bluff. His dark beard covered his cheeks and chin. Occasionally he looked up at the sun as if checking to see if it was still day.
Nevertheless, he toiled willingly, ate heartily, and grinned good-naturedly while waiting either for the owner to claim the boat or for Mother Brigette to grant it to him.
Sorcha wished Arnou would take the boat and row away. Yes, she needed the help in the garden, but somehow his presence contributed to her restlessness.
And why? He was just a fisherman. He knew nothing of Beaumontagne, of the palace with its long curved stairways and its marble columns, of the riding paths that wound through the mountains, of the primal woods and the thundering waterfalls. Beaumontagne...
Last night in her cell, she’d dreamed of home. She ran down endless palace corridors looking for her sisters, her father, her grandmother—and realized at last something hunted her. She had woken with her heart pounding and her senses humming. Sitting up, she’d stared at the high, small window in her door. She’d listened to the silence outside. She’d been convinced she had heard footsteps outside her cell. Slowly, timidly, she’d crept to the door.
The convent’s buildings were arranged in an open square around the courtyard, with the chapel in the center of the complex and the meeting rooms and sleeping cells fanning out on the wings. Her cell was at the end of one wing, and when she peered out she saw the gardens wrapped in darkness, the starlit night, the setting moon. The wind moved the treetops, but on the ground, nothing stirred.
She heard no more footsteps, but she would have sworn—
“What do you think of him?” a composed, French-accented voice asked.
Startled, Sorcha turned to see Mother Brigette standing on the stone walk. Mother Brigette always moved with grace and deliberation, but Sorcha must have been deep in thought not to notice her approach. Removing her large straw hat, Sorcha turned it in her hands. “He’s a good worker and we can always use help.”
“Sister Theresa thinks he’s touched.” Seating herself beneath a twisted crab apple tree, Mother Brigette indicated the bench beside her. “Do you?”
“No, not at all.” Touched? No! “He’s just... easily distracted. And he talks too much. He’s... ” Sorcha sat, also, and searched for the right word to describe Arnou. “Annoying.”
“I see.” A brief smile lit the winter of Mother Brigette’s face. “He says he’s from Normandy, and although it’s been years since I visited there, I believe that could be the peasant accent.” She sounded like a French aristocrat, her face was richly lined with experience.
“So you... do you think he’s who he says he is?” Sorcha had grown to respect Mother Brigette’s opinion in all things.
“Why?” Her gray eyes scoured Sorcha. “Do you think he’s lying?”
Sorcha shrugged uneasily. “If that boat isn’t his, whose is it?”
“That’s a question I would like answered.” Mother Brigette was thin—all the nuns were thin, for this was a poor convent—and she sat with her spine straight, never allowing herself the comfort offered by the back of the bench. “I walked on the shore this morning. There were the fresh marks of a man’s boots.”
“Boots.” Sorcha looked at Arnou’s feet. They were clad in leather clogs and he’d come with nothing except the clothes on his back. “Two men on the island?”
“So it appears.”
“But why? If there’s another man stranded, why wouldn’t he come to the convent?” But even before Mother Brigette could speak, Sorcha’s memory flew back to her dream, to the fear that something was chasing her.
“Perhaps because of you?” Mother Brigette suggested gently.
“Do you think I have to go back to... ” Sorcha hesitated.
“To the throne of Beaumontagne?” In the face of Sorcha’s astonishment, Mother Brigette smiled austerely. “Did you think I didn’t know?”
“You’ve never before mentioned my title. I’ve always wondered if you knew. If Godfrey had even told you.”
“He did not. He gave me money, a great deal of gold, and told me that you were given to fits of madness, and that I should keep you safe from yourself.”
“What?” Sorcha half rose. “Godfrey said what? He said I was given to madness? Why would he say that?”
“That is a question worth pondering. At that time, I concluded he thought it would ensure I would watch over you closely.”
“Did you?” Sorcha recalled the friendship that had developed between her and Mother Brigette during the first year. “You did!”
“I’m charged with the safety of each nun under my care, and I would never put them in danger from a madwoman.”
“I thought you spent time with me because you... ” Liked me.
Mother Brigette laughed softly. “Within the month I knew you were quite sane, and I had the added benefit of enjoying your companionship. You’re not an ordinary young woman. You’re learned. More learned than I, and I had an exemplary education. Before the revolution, I spent time in the Paris salons with philosophers and scholars. That in itself alerted me to the possibilities of your station. Then I noted that you most assiduously read the newspapers which Mr. MacLaren brings, and you cut out and keep those articles relating to Beaumontagne. From that point, it was a short leap of logic to the realization that you were an exile and perhaps one of the Lost Princesses.”
Sorcha mulled that over, then whispered, “I think it’s time for me to go out into the world.” She waited, wanting Mother Brigette to disagree.
Instead the nun smiled and nodded.
“Yet of course I can’t go.” Sorcha clasped her hands in a spasm of denial. “You need me. The convent needs me. I negotiate with Mr. MacLaren, trade our herbs for his supplies. I tend the garden. I help in the infirmary.”
“You’re very skilled, but we did all those things for ourselves before. We can do them again.”
??
?But if I leave... ” Sorcha had grown to love the nuns, and they to love her. Beaumontagne was far away in the Pyrenees Mountains. She’d never see them again.
Even without words, Mother Brigette understood. “We always knew we would lose you, and we’re not of the world. We accept loss. We expect loss.”
But what about her? What about Sorcha? “I like it here.”
“In your heart, do you believe this is the right place for you now?”
“Yes. Yes!”
“Sorcha, do you know what I am?” Mother Brigette asked. “Or rather, who I was?”
“No. I... ” Sorcha hadn’t ever thought about it. Mother Brigette had been the superior of this convent for all the time Sorcha had been here, and she couldn’t imagine Mother Brigette doing, or rather being, anyone else.
“My name was Laurette Brigette Ann Genevre Cuvier, countess of Beaulieu in Provence in France. When I was thirty-two years old, I lived in a chateau in the summer, I visited Paris in the fall, I lived at court when I pleased, I was a friend of the queen, and I wore jewels in my hair, on my shoes, and on my fingers.” Mother Brigette smiled as if the memory were pleasant, or perhaps as if Sorcha’s blank astonishment amused her.
“Of course. You were an aristocrat.” That explained so much about Mother Brigette—her education, her speech, her disciplined mind.
“I had a large family—a husband whom I didn’t love, a father, mother, and sisters whom I adored, a young son, heir to a prosperous estate and the dearest boy in the world.”
She didn’t have them now, and Sorcha braced herself to hear a terrible tale.
“The revolution swept through France in a great wave. I saw my queen and friend Marie Antoinette guillotined, as well as my husband, my mother, my father, all of my sisters. In 1795 I was under house arrest with my son, my Tallas, when the chance came to escape. I was to take Tallas and go to the coast. I told no one but Fabienne, my trusted maid, asking that she help me pack. That night when we tried to leave Beaulieu, we were captured. For a few coins and her own redress, Fabienne had betrayed us to our deaths.”
Sorcha made an incoherent sound of shock and horror.
In the same calm voice, Mother Brigette recited, “That winter I held my son in my arms as he expired in prison of a fever. I no longer cared if I lived or died. Nevertheless, I was rescued by an Englishman who put me on a ship to Edinburgh. The ship was blown off course and wrecked on the rocks of the Orkney Islands. There were other trials, but somehow always I was driven westward, toward Monmouth, and when I arrived on this island and looked at the convent, I knew I had been called to serve God. I didn’t know why, yet I’ve done my duty. In every way I could, I did His work. I’ve helped rescue more than a dozen men and women and children from shipwreck. I’ve kept you safe. So perhaps that is God’s plan.”
“I am grateful.” Sorcha’s brief rebellion against her duty faltered under the weight of such a story. “So you think I should leave the convent.”
“It’s your duty, but more than that, you have a family you must find. Family is so precious, and you can’t allow yourself to think they are stronger than you and braver than you. Perhaps even now they need you and your valor.”
Sorcha imagined those words repeated in her grandmamma’s voice, and she shriveled at the condemnation. “You’re right. I should go forth and find Clarice and Amy. But I have no courage.”
“Courage isn’t a lack of fear, but rather taking the right action despite your fear.”
Sorcha didn’t for a minute believe that.
“And everyone is afraid of something.”
“Not my grandmother,” Sorcha said with stout certainty. “Not the dowager queen.”
“The only person who fears nothing is one who has nothing to lose. Perhaps that does exemplify Queen Claudia, but I think as long as you’re alive in this world and she doesn’t know where, she has her fears, too.” When Sorcha would have argued, Mother Brigette lifted a hand in admonishment. “You underestimate yourself. When you first arrived at the convent, you were young, you had lost everything dear to you, you cowered because you were still a child. Time has passed. You’ve matured, and now you hear duty calling. It’s only natural to be afraid, but you know what you must do.”
Mother Brigette might say she’d matured, but in the face of Mother Brigette’s great and prolonged anguish, Sorcha felt inadequate. Once again, she wasn’t good enough.
“Our guest is coming this way.” Mother Brigette indicated Arnou shambling toward them.
He sidled to a place directly before them, then stood awkwardly. He pulled his forelock and bowed. He dragged his robes down as if trying to cover his muscular legs. Finally, with a triumphant grin, he knelt and looked up at them. “Greetings, Your Honors. Lovely day, isn’t it?” He looked cheerful. He sounded chatty. “A wee bit nippy, of course, but that’s to be expected so late in the year. We’ll be having a storm again before the Sabbath comes.”
“Why do you think that?” Mother Brigette asked.
“About the storm, you mean? Because I’m a fisherman. ’Tis my job.” He bobbed up and down as if kneeling weren’t humble enough.
In the sunlight, his bold features easily marked him as a lout: his nose was long and thin, his jaw was broad, his lips were well defined... and rather pleasantly pliable-looking. The rag that covered his eye and crossed his forehead was bunched and tattered, but long lashes flattered his remaining wide brown eye. If his robes fit him, if he grinned less, if he had an ounce of sense, he would be attractive... for a man who had proven himself to be a fool.
“I was wondering, Miss Sorcha, if you’d like me to dig out that old dead stump in the middle garden,” he said. “When I’m done with the fence, I mean. It looks as if someone’s already been scratching around it. I might as well do the job.”
“It’s not as effortless as you think, Arnou.” Sorcha had wanted that stump gone for as long as she’d lived here, and she’d dug for hours while it clung stubbornly to the ground. She’d sometimes wondered if the spirit of the long-dead tree returned at night to send out new roots.
“I’ve looked it over. I can have it out this afternoon,” he promised.
How easily he dismissed her toil! Irritated, Sorcha said coldly, “Indeed?”
“I’m a man who’s used to keeping busy. Might as well pay for my provisions with a little bit of labor.”
Before Sorcha could retort again, Mother Brigette intervened. “That would be lovely, Arnou. Thank you. Why don’t you go to the kitchen and get your dinner now? Tell Sister Mary Simon I give my permission.”
Arnou went into a veritable rapture of bowing and scraping, walking backward on his knees. Stumbling to his feet, he shambled away, making a beeline toward the kitchen.
Sorcha sighed in exasperation. “He hasn’t another thought in his head but food. He’s like a dog drawn to a meaty bone.”
“He exasperates you,” Mother Brigette observed. “Yet he seems to mean well.”
“He babbles so much it’s difficult to tell.” And that babbling made Sorcha clench her teeth until her jaw hurt.
“I wish you had kept secret that you weren’t a nun.” Mother Brigette’s voice held the sharp edge. “A habit provides you with protection you might not otherwise possess.”
“I didn’t tell him I wasn’t. I just didn’t tell him I was.”
“How astute of him to discern the difference.” Mother Brigette’s gaze swept Sorcha’s face and lingered on her hair. “With your coloring and your delicate features, you’re distinctive. I fear for you when you leave.”
“Perhaps the whole world has forgotten.”
“You have the clippings to prove they have not. Besides”—Mother Brigette’s face grew still—“enemies never forget.” Standing, she fixed Sorcha with a stern look. “So prepare, Your Highness. When the time comes to leave, you’ll probably be forced to leave as quickly as you can, and perhaps—”
A shout echoed through the hallowed silence of the cloister. Arnou came
running back, his feet kicking up clumsily, his fingers pointed back toward the cloister, his one eye wide and terrified.
“Fire!” he hollered. “There’s a fire in one of the cells! There’s a fire!”
Sorcha came to her feet. Smoke billowed out of the cloister, out of the high, small window in the door of one of the cells. Out of...
“No,” she said. Then, more loudly, “No!”
The smoke billowed out of her cell. It was her belongings that were ablaze.
Nuns poured from inside the convent, for fire was their greatest fear. If the thatch on their roof caught flame, it would leave them at the mercy of winter. Sister Mary Simon grabbed the filled bucket by the kitchen door. Sister Margaret ran to the well and started pumping water into the cistern. The metal clanged rhythmically. Arnou yelled and danced like a marionette on a string. Mother Brigette shouted directions and shoved Sorcha’s shoulder hard enough to wake her from her petrified state.
Sorcha raced to grab another bucket. She filled it and ran to her cell, the water splashing on her hem and shoes.
A single glance proved her worst fears were fulfilled. The room had been ransacked, her bedclothes scattered, the mattress tossed aside, the small stand toppled. Her wooden chest had been opened and dumped. In one corner, red flames licked the meager pile of her belongings and up the gray stone walls.
Sister Mary Simon had already flung one bucket on the fire. Sorcha flung another. The flames hissed as the water subdued them. Sister Mary Assisi used an iron poker to drag the paper and cloth apart. Sister Theresa and Sister Katherine stomped on each piece until even the faintest glimmer of embers had faded.
As quickly as it had started, it was over. The fire was out. Sorcha and the nuns stood panting from fear as much as from exertion. The other nuns crowded the doorway, buckets of water in their hands. Smoke curled toward the wood beams and left a dark spot on the thatch.