“
It would seem that men must always
fight over something,” Rosmairi said, sounding less ethereal and
perhaps aware of Sorcha’s sudden distraction. “In France, Catholic
and Huguenot quarrel. Yet it seems more confusing than at home. Who
is which?”
Sorcha resumed walking, though she turned toward the
river as a fish jumped and then disappeared under an ever-widening
halo of water. “At home, I felt people were sincere—if misguided—in
their beliefs. From what we’re told in France, religion is more
weapon than dogma.”
Rosmairi again wore her sublime expression. “How
inconsequential to spend one’s life using religion instead of being
used by it. I wonder—if I were to become very holy and extremely
wise, would Henry III listen to me as the Dauphin heeded Joan of
Arc?”
In the twilight, Rosmairi couldn’t see the vexed
glance that darted from Sorcha’s green eyes. “He might,” she
replied with some asperity, “though you ought to consider brave
Joan’s rather crisp demise.”
“
Sorcha!” Rosmairi’s hand flew to
her mouth. “You blaspheme!”
“
Rot.” Sorcha turned as the Angelus
bells sounded from both the convent and the village. She couldn’t
help but give Rosmairi an impish glance as they crossed the little
wooden footbridge that spanned a tiny stream flowing from the duck
pond down the bank into the Seine. “If you wish to advise an errant
king, you should have stayed in Scotland with Jamie.”
Rosmairi tossed her head, the white linen veil
whipping against her cheeks. “Jaimie wanted my admiration, not my
counsel.” The smug, serene aura had fled, replaced by resentment
and a touch of chagrin. “Oh, aye, he found me fetching and a sop to
his uncertain ego, but it was you, Sorcha, whose wit he
craved.”
Pausing to face Rosmairi, Sorcha stood with her hands
shoved deep into the huge pockets of her simple gray gown. Beyond
the wooded hills, the darkened sky was sprinkled with stars. “What
poor Jamie really wanted was to be assured that he could function
in the company of females. He will soon take a bride, you
know.”
Rosmairi nodded, her expression faintly rueful. “A
Dane, isn’t that so?”
“
An odd choice, it seems ….”
Sorcha stopped, as the frantic movement of a lantern across the
river caught her eye. It was just upstream from the village, near
the Chai Vieux, the abandoned quay once used for boats crossing the
Seine to the convent before the river had cut a new
channel.
“
What is it?” Rosmairi had turned,
her linen veil catching in the folds of her wimple. “A lantern, is
it not? Is someone signaling to us?”
An unwarranted sense of caution made Sorcha put a
finger to her lips. It seemed that their voices carried unusually
well on this fair summer night. “It may be. That far from the
village, no one on the island but us could see the light.” She
moved a few feet to the very edge of the bank, treading carefully
lest the ground be undermined. “Wave back, Ros. Whoever it is might
be able to see your white robes.”
Rosmairi lifted her arm, the flowing sleeve moving in
the darkness like the sail of a phantom ship. Abruptly, the lantern
came to rest.
“
Well.” Sorcha’s hands flexed
several times inside her deep pockets. “Are we to send a boat over
or wait and see what happens next?”
Freeing her veil and worrying her lower lip, Rosmairi
peered across the indolent, inexorable current of the river. There
were no sounds from the vicinity of the convent. While the rules of
the Grand Silence were not enforced on the eve of a feast day, it
appeared that the inhabitants of Sainte Vierge des Andelys had
settled in for the night. Indeed, across the way in the village
only a few dim lights could be seen behind casement windows that
had not yet been shuttered.
But the lantern near the quay had begun to bob once
more with renewed urgency. “By the Mass,” murmured Sorcha, picking
up her skirts and heading back along the bank to the path that led
down to the river, “I’ll row over to see if someone needs
help.”
“
Wait, Sorcha,” Rosmairi whispered,
hurrying to catch her sister. “If help is needed, the villagers are
closer than we are.”
“
Then whoever is waving that lantern
doesn’t want help from the village, but from us.” Feeling her way
for footholds in the darkness, Sorcha climbed down to the narrow
shingle. Moments later, her feet touched the rough pebbles. To her
right, she could see the little boat tied to a young
oak.
“
We should tell Mother Honorine,”
Rosmairi asserted, stumbling slightly as her sandals slipped on the
rocks.
But Sorcha was already in the little boat, untying
the knot that held it in place. “We can tell her when we find out
what’s going on. It doesn’t seem wise to waste time.”
Reluctantly, Rosmairi clambered into the boat,
wrestling with her robes, which had already gotten wet in the
sloshing water under the planked seats. Sorcha was pulling on the
oars, propelling them upriver against the current. Her back was to
the lantern; she had to depend upon Rosmairi to serve as
navigator.
“
The light has stopped moving
again,” Rosmairi noted, trying to find a dry place to put her feet.
“I wish the moon would come up so we could see better.”
“
It will give little enough light
when it does, being the old quarter.” Sorcha set her jaw, feeling
the tug on the oars pull at muscles grown stiff from disuse. “God’s
teeth, we should have let these cretins come to us, not the other
way ’round!”
“
We’re almost there,” Rosmairi said
in consolation. “Ah, I can see figures—two men at least, perhaps
with horses.” A sudden, frightening thought struck her; she put a
hand over her mouth. “Sweet Virgin, do you suppose they might be
thieves?”
Sorcha grimaced, as much at Rosmairi’s irrational
fears as at the ache of her upper arms and shoulders. “Do they
expect us to have loaded this beanpod of a boat with the wealth of
Sainte Vierge des Andelys? Come, come, Ros, it’s more likely
they’ve been set upon by thieves themselves.” She felt the boat
bump against an underwater snag and let go on the oars. As she
turned to look over her shoulder, a man waded out from shore. A
moment later, he had grasped the prow of the little craft in his
hands and was pulling it toward the bank.
“
Ah, mademoiselles!” He greeted them
effusively, his hand stretched out. A spate of French apologies
followed, begging forgiveness for every sin from lack of social
grace to presumption upon their good natures. Sorcha listened with
growing impatience, then put up a hand.
“
We would both forgive and forget
your importunate signaling in a moment if only you would explain
why you are here,” she informed the man in her passable French.
“Have you met with danger, or do you seek someone from the
convent?”
The Frenchman, who had long since doffed his
plume-festooned bonnet, smiled even more broadly, the even white
teeth a perfect foil for deep blue eyes and sun-streaked blond
hair. “You are foreign,” he said, more amused than surprised, then
turned to Rosmairi. “And you, so enchanting in your postulant’s
garb, are you also not French?”
Rosmairi was flushing in a becoming manner. “I am a
Scot.” She gestured at Sorcha. “As is my sister.” Pausing, Rosmairi
heard the second man stir from somewhere near the lantern, which
was beginning to dim ever so slightly. “We are puzzled, sir, as to
what you want.”
“
The game goes on too long,” said a
Scottish voice that Sorcha recognized instantly. Father Adam Napier
was seated on the ground against the bank, his crippled body
drooping with fatigue.
“
Jesu,” breathed Sorcha, ignoring a
startled cry from Rosmairi. “Father—are you all right?” She all but
knocked over the Frenchman as she fled to the priest’s side. “I’m
Sorcha Fraser,” she said, sinking down beside him. “Do you remember
me from Chartley?”
The sympathetic brown eyes brimmed with warmth as
Father Napier offered a weary smile. “If I did not, I wouldn’t be
here on a late summer’s eve.” The smile ebbed as his body strained
to seek a more comfortable position on the sandy ground. “Praise
the Baptist himself, it must be his blessed intercession that
brought you from the convent.”
The words skittered in and out of Sorcha’s brain
without impression. She was too mesmerized by the likeness of Gavin
and Adam Napier, too shaken by the assault on her senses that his
brother’s presence evoked. “Father,” she all but gasped, edging
closer, “where is he?”
The priest’s dark brows drew together. “Why,
Compiègne, of course. You seem to sense the urgency. How can that
be?”
Rosmairi and the Frenchman had drawn within a few
feet of Sorcha’s flowing hem, but she paid them no heed. “It’s not
sensed—it’s something I know.” She placed her hand on her heart.
“Here, Father.”
“
Ah.” He nodded, the fusty hood
slipping from his dark hair, which seemed a bit thinner than when
Sorcha had last seen him. “Then you will go to Compiègne at
once?”
“
Of course!” Sorcha pressed the hand
hard against her breast, feeling the rapid beating within. “Did he
ask for me?” She was breathless, her face aglow with
excitement.
“
He did, though I questioned his
wisdom.” Father Napier’s smile had faded, replaced by pain and
worry. “I tried to tell him it was useless, but he insists you can
help him. It would seem,” he added wryly, “that your brother has
great faith in your persuasive powers.”
Sorcha felt her jaw drop as her fingers clutched the
drab fabric of her bodice. “My brother?” She fell away from the
priest, her excitement withering like delicate blossoms under a
scorching sun. “Jesu,” she whispered, her hand now covering her
face. “I thought … I didn’t realize ….” As if from far
away, she heard Rosmairi kneel beside her. “My wits are addled,”
Sorcha declared with forced briskness. “Somehow, I misinterpreted
what you were saying, Father. Please explain, what troubles
Rob?”
Father Napier was fingering his beard; the puzzled
expression he had briefly worn now cleared as enlightenment dawned.
But before he offered to clarify his statement, he glanced at
Rosmairi. “So you are the other sister, my child. You bear a marked
resemblance to Rob, if not to Mistress Sorcha.”
“
That’s true,” Rosmairi replied
without interest. For quite different reasons, she also seemed
bewildered. “Forgive me, Father, at first I thought you were
someone else.” A swift, sidelong glance at Sorcha elicited no
response. “You are … Father Adam Napier?”
“
Aye. I became acquainted with your
brother through a Recollect friar, the renowned John Fraser. And I
met your sister once in England, by chance, near Chartley.” He
paused, gesturing at the Frenchman. “Please let me introduce my
companion, Armand, the Sieur d’Ailly.” The white teeth flashed as
d’Ailly made a lavish bow. “He has,” Father Napier continued with a
grateful smile for the Frenchman, “been my legs as well as my
courage for the past year or more. I fear the dampness of England
succeeded in providing me with more suffering to offer up to the
greater glory of God.”
A fleeting sense of compassion touched Sorcha, but so
deep was her disappointment and so great was her curiosity that she
could no longer control her patience. “What of Rob, Father? Is he
with your own brother, Gavin?”
“
Gavin?” Father Napier’s visage
turned deceptively bland. “I don’t believe Rob has seen Gavin since
Chartley. Or wherever it was they knew one another.” With
determination, he forced himself into a more erect posture. “At
this moment, Rob is in Compiègne, expending his efforts to deter a
most devout but misguided young monk from carrying out a dangerous,
reckless mission.” Father Napier didn’t seem to notice that Sorcha
had paled at his dismissal of Gavin’s whereabouts. “Rob tells me
you have a way with you when it comes to dealing with wrongheaded
young men—such as the King of Scotland. He begs you to join him at
Compiègne and speak with Brother Jacques.”
Momentarily, the priest’s recital about Rob and an
unbalanced monk put Gavin Napier out of Sorcha’s mind. She stared
at Father Napier, then turned to Rosmairi, who was looking equally
puzzled. “Could you explain more specifically what this Brother
Jacques intends to do? Is he bent on burning Huguenots at the
stake, or marching on Rome to make demands of the Holy Father?”
But the priest merely gave a little shake of his
head. “It’s best for Rob to tell you the rest. The less you know
until you reach Compiègne, the better.” He placed his hand on hers.
“Will you come, my child?”
“
I ….” Sorcha closed her eyes
and grimaced. “Holy Mother, how can I refuse? We Frasers keep
together, after all.”
“
We do,” Rosmairi asserted, standing
up and shaking sand from her habit. “We can get horses in the
village.”
“ ‘
We’?” Sorcha craned her neck
to look up at her sister. “But Ros, you can’t leave the
convent!”
“
I can if Rob needs me.” The fine
features sharpened. “I’m but a postulant. Mother Honorine won’t
interfere.”
“
She will have no opportunity,”
Father Napier said quietly. “You must leave now. With Saint
Christopher’s protection, you should reach Compiègne by nightfall
tomorrow. I will remain here, with the good priests in the village
church. I can then explain to Mother Honorine, and in any event, my
presence would only slow your journey.”
Before Sorcha could comment, Father Napier whistled
softly. Nearby, horses stirred in the bracken. D’Ailly vaulted up
the embankment, calling to the animals. Moments later, the little
party was in the saddle, with Rosmairi riding pillion behind the
Frenchman. They rode in silence toward the village, though as the
tall, slim spire of the church drew closer, Sorcha held back with
Father Napier.