Aged and frail, Cerra had died in a winter
epidemic that had also claimed Mirielle’s parents and her infant
brother. Mirielle herself had been too ill to do anything to help
them. Remembering her loved ones, she fought back a sob.
“At least I have Brice. Were it not for him,
I should have been forced into a convent, where I do not belong.
And Brice is right when he says the time for mourning my dead is
long over. Whatever the vision I saw in the crystal may foretell, I
will continue to practice what Cerra taught me, and I will face
whatever changes the future may bring with all the courage I can
find in my heart.” Mirielle’s next words, soft spoken though they
were, rang with the power of a solemn invocation. “In gratitude to
Brice, let me on this day do all I can to help him, let me fulfill
my duties with a cheerful heart and a smile on my lips—and please,
please, on this day let me not lose my temper with Alda!”
“Lady Mirielle, I did not expect to find you
on the battlements on such a damp afternoon. Dressed all in gray as
you are, a man might miss you standing there in the corner. Is
anything wrong?” The captain of the guard paused in his steady
pacing. His rather plain face was made attractive by a pleasant
expression and by his warm, intelligent eyes.
“Good day to you, Captain Oliver.” Mirielle
wished she could confide to this honest man the worry that had made
recent days uneasy for her, but it would not be fair to burden
anyone else, so all she said was, “I came here because it is a
quiet place.”
“Ah.” Captain Oliver inclined his head as if
to say he understood what, out of loyalty, Mirielle would not
reveal. “Well, then, my lady, I will leave you to the peace you
seek.” After a polite little bow in her direction Captain Oliver
continued on his late-day rounds of the castle’s defenses.
Mirielle resumed gazing through the crenel,
the opening created in the stonework for defenders to use during
warfare, through which arrows could be shot or vats of hot oil or
boiling pitch dumped upon attackers below. The merlons on either
side of the crenel were so high that she could not see over them.
Nor could she see much through the thick fog. It was almost always
foggy or raining here at Wroxley. She was used to it by now. The
weather did not matter. Her thoughts were inward looking.
She had been at the castle for slightly more
than a year, having arrived in the previous February with her
cousin Brice after he was appointed seneschal. When it quickly
became evident to Brice that Alda, the lady of Wroxley, was at best
an indifferent chatelaine, he had given that position to Mirielle.
Alda had accepted the change, saying only that it was right for
Mirielle to earn her keep by honest work. Alda then proceeded to
treat the new chatelaine as if she were a personal servant.
Mirielle was twenty-three years old and she
had been well trained by her late mother to be competent in all
housekeeping tasks. Despite the gloom that hung around it like a
pall, she had grown to love the castle and, with a few exceptions,
she liked its quiet, remarkably serious people. Considering the
path her life might have taken, she should have been content.
Instead, she worried constantly and her worry had much to do with
the relations between Brice and the lady of the castle. In
Mirielle’s opinion, there was something very wrong with Alda and
Alda’s influence on Brice was not a positive one.
“Or perhaps I am only imagining it. I am not
always correct in my evaluations of other people,” Mirielle mused,
her eyes on the enclosing fog. “Donada may be right when she says I
need a man to love, children, a family of my own to distract me
from my concerns over Alda’s behavior. I wish there were a man who
would love me as my father loved my mother, but who would ask for
me when I have no dowry? By the time Brice is able to provide one
for me, I may well be too old for marriage. More important, what
man would not fear the magical art I cannot lay aside? No, I will
not destroy what happiness I may find here at Wroxley by wishing
for a life I cannot hope to have. Nor will I criticize Brice and
Alda again, not even in my thoughts.”
She bent over to pick up a basket of herbs
she had set down on the stone walkway of the castle wall. Minn, who
had been sheltering from the damp in the folds of Mirielle’s skirt,
rubbed against her hand.
“Oh, Minn,” Mirielle said, scratching the
cat’s ears, “I wish I knew why I felt compelled to come out here
and stand for so long in the cold when I have duties inside. Alda
will be angry if she doesn’t have her bath herbs when she wants
them and I promised Donada a new supply of dried woodruff to keep
the moths away from all that woolen material she is working
on.”
With a last caress along the cat’s back
Mirielle straightened, the chatelaine’s keys at her waist swinging
on their chain, their weight familiar and reassuring. She was well
aware that she was fortunate. She had honest work to do that
benefited every person in the castle, and when each day’s labor was
done she had her secret studies, which were also of benefit to
others. Her life was useful. That knowledge ought to be enough for
her.
“Come along, Minn. I have finished
daydreaming for this afternoon. Come.” With the cat trotting just
behind her Mirielle started toward the gatehouse and the spiral
stairs that would take her down to the bailey. She cast a final
glance into the mist, thinking it would soon be too dark to see
anything.
A movement in the fog caught her eye. Two men
on black horses rode out of the mist and onto the drawbridge, which
had not yet been raised for the night. They wore black cloaks with
the hoods drawn up to conceal their faces.
Mirielle halted there on the battlements,
watching those two figures and fighting the impulse to go below and
meet them. There were good reasons why she should not obey that
inner urging. She had no idea who the men were, she could not even
see them clearly, and Brice had warned her often that it was best
to be cautious when dealing with strangers.
The larger of the two men lifted his head, as
if he were scanning the gatehouse walls for men-at-arms who might
be preparing to fire their arrows at him and his companion.
Mirielle still could not see his face, yet something about that
cloaked figure was as familiar to her as her own heart’s
longing.
The light from the torches set at either side
of the main gate flickered over the riders, making their shapes
appear to waver, just as similar forms had wavered when Mirielle
beheld them in her crystal globe. Comprehension flooded over her as
that earlier vision merged with reality. This was why she had been
unable to resist the urge to climb to the battlements and why she
had stayed there for so long. She had been waiting for him.
And then she was running for the steps,
racing down and around the narrow, spiral stairway, almost tripping
in her haste to reach the bailey and meet her fate.
Do not confuse fact with reality.
Old Welsh saying.
“Who goes there?”
The routine challenge from the gatehouse was
anything but polite to weary travelers. Nor did the facade of
Wroxley Castle offer much of a welcome. On each side of the main
gate towers bulged outward into the moat, their solid stone bulk
broken only by a few arrow slits. The torches lighting the
portcullis hissed like angry snakes when drops of rain fell on
them. In the fog and gathering darkness this forbidding entrance
was all that could be seen of the castle.
“We are two pilgrims, returning from the
shrine of Saint James at Compostela and traveling north to Durham,”
came the reply to the watchman’s shouted demand. “I am Master Hugh,
a scholar. My friend is Sir Giles, a simple knight.”
“There’s an abbey not far away, where
pilgrims are welcomed,” the watchman said. “Go there.”
“Bardney Abbey is a full day’s journey from
here in good weather. My friend is weak from an old battle wound
made painful by the dampness,” Hugh countered the watchman’s lack
of interest. “He can go no farther. We ask lodging for a night or
two, until he can regain his strength.”
“Is it truly a battle wound, or sickness?”
the watchman asked. “How can I be sure you won’t be bringing some
pestilence in with you?”
“In the name of Saint James, in the name of
God, I entreat you to allow us to enter,” insisted Hugh.
There came another voice from within, where
someone demanded to know what the problem was. This second voice
was a woman’s. She sounded slightly breathless, as if she had been
running.
“Open the wicket gate and let them in.”
“Not so fast,” the watchman protested. “For
all we know, these two innocent-looking fellows have come here with
an army at their backs.”
“If that is so, they will have a great deal
of trouble passing all their men and horses through the wicket
gate.” The woman’s voice was now tinged with deprecating humor, to
which the watchman responded with truculence.
“I won’t be responsible to Sir Brice,” he
proclaimed. “or to Lady Alda.”
“I will be responsible,” the woman said,
repeating even more firmly than before, “Tell your man to open the
gate.”
There followed a short pause before the
wicket gate, which was set into the main castle door, slowly
creaked open. It was designed to be too small for a mounted man to
pass through, so the two travelers were forced to dismount. In case
they were being closely scrutinized, the one called Giles pretended
to need the aid of his companion in order to reach the ground
without falling. On foot they led their horses across the
drawbridge and into the gatehouse. Aware that they were being
observed through ceiling holes and that the archers posted just
above the entrance would kill them without question if they
appeared to be dangerous in any way, Giles affected a sagging
stance and let Hugh deal with the horses.
“Come in, good sirs and welcome,” said the
woman’s voice. “I will see you safe to the great hall, where you
will find food and warmth.”
She stood in the misty circle of light cast
by the torches on the bailey side of the gatehouse. Giles saw to
his surprise that she was trembling and he had a quick impression
of tall, slender loveliness. The woman made a gesture with one hand
and the light appeared to dim.
Giles blinked, not sure if his eyes were
playing tricks on him. The woman he now saw before him was no
taller than Hugh and her shape was a sturdy one. In her plain gray
woolen gown and darker gray shawl, with a basket slung over one
arm, he would have taken her for a servant were it not for her
dignified bearing and her cultivated voice. He took a step toward
her and then stopped, his eyes now on the gray cat who had just
appeared from behind her to curve close about her ankles as if to
protect her.
“It is only Minn,” the woman said. “She likes
the herbs.” She indicated the basket she carried, from which
pleasant odors made their way across the few feet separating them.
Giles could smell mint and lavender along with a faint hint of
rosemary.
The woman’s eyes were gray. Everything about
her was gray except for the faint flush on her high cheekbones and
the black hair just showing at the edge of the gray scarf that
covered her head. She was a remarkably plain creature. Ordinarily,
Giles would have paid little attention to her, save to render the
politeness owed to one who had lived for many years. But his
initial impression of a different form and the present indistinct
quality of her appearance combined to catch his attention. It was
as if the woman was deliberately trying to make herself
unnoticeable, as if she wanted to blend into the mist and the
shadows. How old could she be? Giles was unable to decide, for when
he tried to see her more clearly, her features became even more
blurred.
While he stared, straining to force his eyes
to produce a sharper image of the woman, the watchman came
swaggering down the stairs from his post. He was a big, burly
fellow, untidy and far from clean. But he did know his duty.
Brushing aside the young man-at-arms who had pulled the wicket gate
open, the watchman looked the two travelers over with a decidedly
unfriendly eye.
“You must swear to me that you take full
responsibility for admitting these two,” the watchman said to the
woman, using a tone that made Giles want to knock him down for the
lack of respect he displayed toward an obvious lady.
But was she a lady? Or was she just a lady’s
servant who had learned to copy the dulcet accents of her betters?
The woman made another gesture with her free hand before addressing
the watchman.
“Mauger, I have said that I will see to their
care and I do promise to report to Sir Brice that these guests were
admitted at my word,” the woman told the watchman. “Now, come, good
sirs. It is cold here in the entrance, and the chill cannot be the
best thing for any wounds, old or new.”
“They do not enter until I pass them.” Mauger
thrust out a stubborn lower lip. “And I will not pass them until I
have seen their faces and examined the staff that’s bound to this
one’s horse. I want to see their shells, too. Everyone knows that
folk who have been to Compostela wear real scallop shells.”
“How very wise of you,” Hugh said. “No lord
could ask for a more responsible watchman to guard his castle. Here
is a shell sewn to my cloak, and another on my tunic. My face I
show you gladly, and that staff your sharp eyes noticed is but the
pilgrim’s staff I used on my long journey, for you surely know that
pilgrims approach the shrine of Saint James on foot. The wood fits
my hand so well that I brought the staff home with me, hoping to
use it again on some other pilgrimage.”
As he spoke Hugh lifted his right hand to
push back the hood that covered his head. At the same time, with
his left hand he made a gesture similar to the one the woman had
made. Giles, aware of the movement, having seen it countless times
in the past, kept his eyes on the woman, awaiting her reaction. He
saw her expression of surprise, saw the way in which she hid her
shock, and he knew that Hugh had also seen.