The Raven and the Rose

Also by Jo Beverley

Available from New American Library

Regency

The Rogue's World

Lady Beware

To Rescue a Rogue

The Rogue's Return

Skylark

St. Raven

Hazard

“The Demon's Mistress” in
In Praise of Younger Men

The Devil's Heiress

The Dragon's Bride

Three Heroes
(Omnibus Edition)

The Malloren World

Seduction in Silk

An Unlikely Countess

The Secret Duke

The Secret Wedding

A Lady's Secret

A Most Unsuitable Man

Winter Fire

Devilish

Secrets of the Night

Something Wicked

My Lady Notorious

Medieval Romances

Lord of Midnight

Dark Champion

Lord of My Heart

Other

Forbidden Magic

Lovers and Ladies
(Omnibus Edition)

Lord Wraybourne's Betrothed

The Stanforth Secrets

The Stolen Bride

Emily and the Dark Angel

Anthologies

“The Trouble with Heroes” in
Irresistible Forces

The Raven and the Rose

Jo Beverley

I
NTER
M
IX
B
OOKS
, N
EW
Y
ORK

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

THE RAVEN AND THE ROSE

An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

New American Library trade edition / January 2010

InterMix eBook edition / March 2014

Copyright © 2010 by Jo Beverley Publications, Inc.

Excerpt from
A Mummers' Play
copyright © 1995 by Jo Beverley Publications, Inc.

Excerpt from
The Dragon and the Princess
copyright © 2007 by Jo Beverley Publications, Inc.

Excerpt from
A Shocking Delight
copyright © 2014 by Jo Beverley Publications, Inc.

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eBook ISBN: 978-0698-15122-2

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Chapter 1

E
NGLAND
, 1153

Sister Gledys of Rosewell was sinning again.

She was dreaming of her knight and knew she should wake herself up, but she didn't. Alas for her immortal soul, she didn't want to lose a precious moment of these visions, and her heart already raced with wicked excitement.

As always, he was fighting, clad in a long chain-mail robe and conical helmet. He wielded a sword and protected himself with a long shield on his left arm. Sometimes she saw him afoot, but he was generally on a great fighting horse in battle or a skirmish.

That didn't surprise Gledys. Strife, punctuated by outright war, had ruled England for all the eighteen years of her life, but that life had been spent in Rosewell Nunnery, so how could she create such scenes? By day she prayed earnestly for peace, so how could she dream of war so vividly by night?

Every clash of weapons rang in her ears, every squeal of angry horses, every thud of blows. Leather squeaked, metal jangled and the stink of men and horses buffeted her. Hooves cut clods from the ground, and horses breathed like bellows. When these dreams had begun the horses had spewed steam into frosty air and the men had also clouded the air as they howled with pain or roared in triumph. It was summer now, however, and the air swirled with dust and fury.

Then a chunk of earth whipped past her face and she realized she was much closer to the fighting than ever before.

Too close!

She tried to raise her arms to shield her face, tried to stumble back out of danger. It didn't work. It never did. In these dreams she was powerless to move, as if paralyzed.

A horse's massive backside swung in her direction. She flinched from its flailing tail and the shod hooves that could kill if it chose to kick. She heard screams nearby. She'd scream, too, but she could no more make a sound than she could move.

Now she was willing to escape.

Wake up! Wake up!

She remained frozen in place, her eyes unalterably fixed on one warrior, and could only pray.

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy
. . . .

It was a dream. It had to be. No one could be killed in a dream.

Holy Mary, pray for me.

Saint Michael the archangel, pray for me.

But then she wondered whether this was punishment. Punishment for her sinful attraction to her knight, and for her secret longing to escape, to explore the world beyond Rosewell.

Saint Gabriel, pray for me.

Saint
—

A great rattling thump jolted the litany out of her mind.

A man bellowed.

Someone had come off his horse. Had that been a death cry?

Not her knight, at least. Not her knight. He fought on, but now against a huge grunting man.

All angels and archangels, pray for him!

Saint Joseph, pray for him
. . . .

He was being driven closer to where she stood. Despite the danger, Gledys's frightened breathing changed to a pant of excitement. Would she finally see something of his face?
Closer, closer, come closer
. . . .

This longing was surely the worst sin of all, but she surrendered to it now, murmuring unholy prayers.

But even when he was almost on top of her she could tell little. Beneath his helmet, a hood came down on his forehead, the front part rising up past his chin, and the helmet had a piece that extended down over his nose. She could see only lean cheeks and bared teeth. Was she imagining a pleasing countenance? He wheeled his horse so that his back was to her, and she glimpsed missing teeth in the snarling red mouth of his opponent. The bigger man landed a hard blow on her knight's arm, causing him to stagger to one side.

Gledys screamed and tried to run to him, but she was still frozen. Her knight fought on, turning his shield into a weapon, slamming his opponent's sword hand with it and kicking him with a mailed boot. His horse joined in with hooves and teeth, and the din made Gledys want to cover her ears.

How had that blow to his arm not maimed him?

How was it that he could fight on so fiercely?

She realized that she'd closed her eyes, and forced them open, dreading what she'd see. Somehow, her knight's opponent had been unhorsed, but the big man scrambled to his feet and unhooked a mighty ax from his saddle. An ax! Her knight leapt off his horse to face him, laughing.

Laughing?

Yes, laughing!

Was he mad?

Mad or not, he was beautiful, even sheathed in gray metal. So tall and broad shouldered, and moving as if burdened by nothing but a shirt, leaping away from another attack on strong, agile legs. It must be a mortal sin to think of a man's legs, but she'd pay the price in hell.

Be Saint Michael
, she prayed.
Or Saint George.

It wouldn't be so terrible a sin to be fascinated by the warrior angel who defeated Lucifer, or the saintly dragon slayer. She might even be receiving blessed visions symbolizing the defeat of heathens in the Holy Land by Christian crusaders.

But in her heart she knew better, and now, watching her knight breathing hard but still smiling with a burning delight in violence, she knew it yet again. These dreams came from Satan, and the swirling chaos of men and horses was a vision of hell. . . .

Gledys blinked, realizing that her view had expanded. Now she could see many fighters, but also others behind them. People in ordinary dress, some of them screaming and yelling, but with excitement.

Spectators!

This wasn't a battle. This must be what they called a tournament, where knights played at war. Heaven only knew why. People watched for amusement, including women, some of high rank. Gledys glimpsed richly colored gowns and cloaks. Flimsy veils fluttered in a breeze and the sun glinted off precious metals and jewels. Beyond the watchers stood a stone castle on a grassy mound, where colorful pennants danced against blue sky. There were people up there, too, watching.

Why was she forced to endure this from down here?

Another man came off his horse and she remembered her knight. Was he safe? Yes! He stood his ground, although still hard-pressed by his bigger opponent, both of them breathing heavily, even staggering as if they might collapse together in a metal heap.

Gledys fixed her eyes on him by her own intent now, praying that he be safe. As if summoned, he looked past his opponent, straight at her. His lips parted in astonishment.

He
saw
her?

Gledys tried to reach out, to speak to him, but she was still mute, still frozen in place. She saw the battle-ax swing and tried to scream a warning.

Perhaps he understood, for he turned, ducking. The weapon still caught his helmet, knocking it askew, and he stumbled to one side, down to one knee.

Gledys screamed again. Knew again it couldn't be heard in her dreamworld.

He was already up, his attention glued onto his opponent as he forced the other man backward. He was younger, stronger, magnificent. He would win! But then his eyes flicked to her once again. . . .

“
Don't
,” she tried to cry. “
Don't be distracted!
”

The burly man could have killed him then, but exhaustion won and he collapsed to his knees, dropping the ax, wheezing for breath. Her knight sucked in air, too, hands braced on his knees, heaving with it. But then he straightened and turned, seeking her, seeing her. A smile lit his face and he took a step toward her.

Gledys smiled back in pure joy.

At last she would meet him.

At last!

***

“No!”

Gledys was so used to being mute, she almost shouted the word, but choked it to a mere grunt, fist stuffed into her mouth. She was back in Rosewell Nunnery in the dark dormitory.

No, not back.

She'd been nowhere else.

Though so powerfully real, it had been another dream.

She blinked up into the darkness, teeth in her knuckles to suppress a wail at being snatched out of sleep at just that moment. He'd
seen
her. He'd been coming to her. They might—oh, heaven, oh, hell—they might have touched.

Gledys clutched her nightcap. It had been a
dream
, just like all the other ones. Her knight wasn't real. His opponents weren't real, nor were the watching people or the castle. Still she grieved, as she always did when snatched out of that unreal land.

Grieved. That was the word for it. Grief as she was wrenched away, then aching grief as precious details melted from her mind like caught snowflakes melting in the palm of her hand.

Her knight. Fighting, as usual . . .

No, not as usual.

People watching. Women, even. A tournament.

A castle . . .

But even as she tried to pin such things in her mind, they slipped away, slipped away.

And were gone.

Her memory was blank, except for knowing she'd dreamed of her knight again, and one precious image. Her knight looking at her, seeing her, moving toward her. She held on to that so it would etch deep in her mind, even though it carried with it the sinful way her heart had thundered and her mouth had dried.

Did other nuns have wicked dreams? No one ever described such things at the weekly open confession, but Gledys wasn't surprised. The punishment would surely be terrible.

There was another reason to stay silent, however.

Confessing might make the dreams stop.

Despite awareness of sin, despite the horrors she saw, Gledys needed the dreams as a person needed food and drink.

She flung an arm over her eyes, blinking against the sting of tears. They should be tears of repentance, but they were of simple unhappiness. A holy heart was a tranquil heart, but since the dreams had begun, she'd lost all tranquillity. She'd ceased being happy in the only home she'd ever known and in the satisfying routine of busy days.

Instead she cherished the fragments of dreams and restlessly gleaned any detail of the world outside the nunnery. She ached for the wider world, and often wasted time looking at the only bit of it visible from Rosewell—the top of the great hill that lay a few leagues away.

Glastonbury Tor.

The conical hill rose out of flat, marshy ground and was crowned by a small monastery dedicated to Saint Michael. In itself it was a place of ancient pilgrimage, but on lower ground at the base of the tor stood a holier place—the magnificent abbey famed throughout England for its connection to Christ, and to the sacred cup used at the Last Supper. Legend said that Joseph of Arimathea, he who in the gospels had given his tomb for Christ's body, had brought the cup there.

Another legend was even more wondrous. It claimed that he was uncle to Jesus of Nazareth, and had brought the youthful Christ to England on trading voyages. They had come to Glastonbury and there Christ, son of a carpenter, had helped build a church. Without doubt a small, ancient church stood in the abbey and was said to be a place of miracles.

So holy a place and she so powerfully drawn to it, but she would never see it, never pray in that church. She was at Rosewell for life and would never travel beyond its boundaries. She hadn't taken her eternal vows yet, for at Rosewell they were taken only at twenty-five, but she would, because the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience she had said at fifteen could be put aside only with permission from the family and the abbot of Glastonbury.

Sometimes a family discovered an unexpected need for a marriageable daughter, but she'd have no such reprieve. She'd been given to Holy Church when she was weaned so that she could pray for them and their causes, following a family tradition. Nothing would change.

And why think of reprieve? Rosewell was the only home she'd ever known, and it was a tranquil place of beauty and honest work.

She would allow herself no more restlessness, no more longings for the outside world, and especially no more longings for a misty dream of a man. She forced her mind to a meditation on the blessings of a simple life, silently reciting familiar prayers. Gradually those prayers helped her return to slumber.

A cock's crow woke her to the first light of the day and the glorious dawn chorus of birds. Moments later the bell rang for morning prayer and she got out of bed. Her mind flickered to dreams, but she sternly governed it into gratitude for the new day.

She and the other sisters in the dormitory rose and dressed. She donned her robe of undyed wool over the linen chemise she slept in, knotted her belt, then tied her sandals. She took off her sleeping cap, ran her comb through her short hair and then draped her linen headrail on her head. She tugged the front to be sure it was level with her eyebrows, crossed the long ends at her throat and tossed them behind, crossed them there and brought them to the front again.

She and the others looked one another over to be sure all was in order. Once any adjustments had been made, they formed a short procession and went outside to join the other sisters for morning prayer. Facing the rising sun, they sang lauds for God's blessing of a new day. In winter this was hardship, but in summer it was Gledys's favorite office of the day.

After prayers the small community went to cleaning work, for they shared these tasks. Next they sat to break their fast, listening to a reflection on summer bounty, and then they dispersed to their separate employments.

Rosewell had been set up four hundred years ago to give women a place to live completely apart from the world, so they provided almost everything for themselves. They raised their own food, made their own drink and even repaired their own buildings.

Rosewell was especially designed to free them from the world of men. If anything was needed from elsewhere, it was brought here by women. Priests were necessary, but the ones who traveled here from Glastonbury Abbey were always elderly.

So how, Gledys wondered, did she construct dreams about men? About warriors? How? She realized she'd halted in crossing the compound and was looking at the tor as if it might give her an answer.