Claudia Dain (49 page)

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"Yet again, she has come to you," Father Abbot said kindly.

Tea, Father," the novice Benedictine answered, his head lowered and his hands clenched into fists well hidden in his long sleeves.

Father Abbot looked upon the novice with concern. Almost nightly the succubus came to him, the demon sent from the Evil One to test the resolve of a man's vow of abstinence. Never had Father Abbot seen such struggles in all his years at the abbey; the resolve of the man who stood before him must be great indeed to so compel the demons of darkness to attack. And he was attacked.

Richard was a man driven.

He had appeared at their gates a little more than a year ago, just past Whitsunday, his face solemn and his manner urgent. He would give himself to God in holy service, binding himself to the Benedictine Rule for the remainder of his life, his life now strictly ordered spheres of work and prayer and sleep. He had come willingly—nay, urgently. He had pledged himself to God with the eagerness of a man being pulled from the fire, as were all who sought divine grace in a world of sin and corruption.

His fervency had not diminished once inside their walls.

He held himself to a higher and harder standard than even the Rule dictated. He battled an inner demon, one which he had brought with him into abbey life and had not done him the courtesy of remaining in the outside world. In his battle, work was his ally, sleep his enemy. He carried dressed stone for the new infirmary on his bare back. He was the oxen for their plowing, the hand that did their hoeing, the arm that scrubbed the chapel floor. He had the skill of reading, but it was a skill he undertook only when forced.

Such labor would make any man dream of sleep, yet Richard did not sleep. His succubus lay in wait for him when e'er he did sleep; Father Abbot could understand why he avoided slumber when such battles awaited him in his rest.

The same?" he asked.

"Yea, Father," Richard admitted. Yea, she was the same. Dark of hair and pale of skin, her eyes clear windows to his own destruction; always the same, always the same result. She defeated him with her softness and her smoothness, her blatant femininity her most potent weapon. He could not drive her from him, not with prayer, not with labor, not with seclusion. No matter the obstacle he built against her, she slipped into his dreams with a smile of victory. She knew her power. She knew his weakness. In a match of strength, he was out-manned. Yet he did fight and would continue. He had no choice but to resist her.

He knew not how to do anything else.

"You work too strenuously," Father Abbot said. "She preys upon your exhaustion."

"I but buffet my body, as Saint Paul did, to master it," Richard argued.

He must have his labors. He must. She pursued him in the daylight, her vision before his eyes, unless he drove himself hard, punishing his body to control his mind; yet he could not confess such to Father Abbot. Father Abbot could not know the depth of his failure and his sin.

"A worthy goal. Is it working?"

Richard kept his eyes on his lord's hem, his manner submissive, his heart determined. "It is helping."

Father Abbot considered his charge. Richard had come to them with a heavy heart; a year of service had done nothing to lighten it. Only sin pressed upon a man so, sin unconfessed and therefore unforgiven. Nothing could help a man but he confess it.

"You endure buffeting on every side, Brother Richard, yet is the Lord not a mighty tower? You have only to present yourself, a living sacrifice, to Him, your sins confessed, to be saved."

"I have confessed. I do confess," Richard said stiffly.

Yet not all. Clearly, not all. Richard's was a soul in torment, his agony suffered silently and alone. Among the novices he was feared, a constrained and powerful man who held himself aloof. Aloof from God? Nay, he pursued God most fervently, yet he pursued Him with a caged heart. The only one who could slip past the barriers of Richard's defenses was his succubus; an unpleasant truth and one wholly unacceptable.

"I will continue to pray for you, Richard, and what you will do is work in the scriptorium until I give you leave to return to the fields." Father Abbot could see the rebellion in Richard's posture, yet he held his tongue; none could say that Richard lacked self-control. "Let us pray that God will have His way with you, your heart and mind devoted to His win."

"Yea, Father, I pray it most earnestly," Richard answered, his head bowed. "As do I, Richard. As do we all."

Chapter 1

Spring 1155

Her dark hair flew out behind her as she rode, a heavy weight of glossy mane that the wind lifted easily in her wild ride. She would have enjoyed it, the freedom, the speed, the wildness of it; she would have enjoyed it, if not for the death that had precipitated it.

The road was muddy, thrown and broken by the horse she rode as swiftly as she could. The trees embracing the road were dark with recent rain and bright with the shrill green of new growth. The world shouted its life after a long, frozen sleep, and she could savor none of it. She had to ride. She had to find refuge in a spring world suddenly thrown back into the death of winter.

Her father was dead. She was alone and unprotected in a world that tolerated vulnerability not at all. She searched for safety.

"Are we pursued?" she shouted forward to Edmund, her voice almost lost against the wind.

"Nay, not yet," he said over his shoulder.

She wanted to rest in his assurance, to find even a moment of safety, but she could not. Edmund was young, only a squire. He could not talk her into a place of refuge, she could only ride there, as on wings.

"Should we not ride for town, Lady? The abbey—"

"Nay, we ride for the abbey," she shouted, the wind cold in her throat, stinging her eyes to tears.

She would find safety in the abbey. The monks, though no warriors, would bar the gates and keep the world away from her. None would take her from the abbey.

Richard was at the abbey.

She ducked her head against the wind and sniffed away her guilt. Aye, guilt; she could admit it to herself. She rode hard for the abbey in a world gone swiftly hostile so that she could find refuge in the place that harbored Richard.

She was not doing as her father had instructed.

Dying, his voice a whisper against the echoes of eternity, he had told her to flee. Flee the home she cherished, flee to her betrothed, to safety, to a marriage that should have taken place long years since.

Her betrothed was not at the abbey. Richard was at the abbey.

And within her own walls were knights who would eagerly pluck a maid unprotected and make her their own, claiming her lands as they laid hold of her body.

Crying, she had listened and understood the danger she now faced. An orphan with property and income was not safe in the world; she needed a protector, either father or husband. She had neither as of an hour ago. She had buried her face against her father's chest and felt his last breath shudder out of him; Father Langfrid had prayed for her father's soul as it began its ascent to heaven, urging her to flee, promising to make the burial arrangements and to handle all until she could return, married and safe. She had walked calmly from her father's chamber to the stable and ridden out of Dornei with all the serenity of death, her panic cloaked as close about her as armor. Edmund she trusted, though he was a man. Edmund accompanied her. In an unsafe world, a woman who rode alone was a fool.

She was no fool, though she did not ride to her betrothed. She rode to the man she trusted above all others, to the man whom she knew better than her prayers, to the man who had ridden away from her and not once come back.

Richard was at the abbey.

Like an answered prayer, the abbey walls rose tall and gray against the soft afternoon sky. Alone in a field, far from the town, the Abbey of Saint Stephen and Saint Paul was a refuge of stone in a green, growing world. Monks worked in the fields and walked in shuffling steps within the high walls that sheltered them from the cares of the outside world. She wanted to be sheltered in just the same fashion. The bells rang just as Edmund announced them to the porter. He had to let them in before the afternoon prayers of None; she could not wait here, in the open, so plainly seen and so easily taken.

Edmund was firm, but he was young. The porter hesitated.

Please, Brother Porter," she said, "It is refuge I seek. Will you not grant me sanctuary?"

His dark eyes widened at the word, and he opened the gate, admitting them. Isabel rushed in ahead of Edmund and only let out her stilled breath when the bar was closed against the heavy wooden gate.

She had mentioned sanctuary; she had not mentioned Richard.

What would a monk understand of reckless and unlawful love?

"My thanks, Brother," she said softly, not allowing her eyes to search the courtyard for Richard.

"Is it sanctuary you seek, lady?" Brother Porter asked.

"Yea, Brother...?"

"Anselm I am called," he answered.

"And I am Lady Isabel. Brother Anselm, I seek sanctuary within your walls, if you will have me."

"Father Abbot alone may grant sanctuary," he said calmly, "but you are welcome until he may speak with you. It is now None. Perhaps you will be comfortable in the guest house until the good father can come to you?"

Thank you, Brother Anselm," she answered, head bowed as he led the way to the small stone guest house. Edmund took the horses to the stable with a quick nod in her direction. She smiled his release. They were safe now. At least for the time. Let Edmund go his way.

The guest house was simple and secure, the floors dry and clean, the door snug; Isabel smiled in momentary contentment until the sound of the men at their prayers drifted to her on the clean spring air. Could she hear, in that mélange of male voices, the deep notes of Richard at his prayers?

"Your pardon, Lady Isabel, I must attend," Brother Anselm said, backing out with a shy smile and closing the door behind him. Alone, she could hear the rising voices, deep and resonant, voicing their prayers to God.

Which was what she should be doing instead of listening for the voice of a man forbidden to her.

Isabel dropped to her knees, glad for the cold, uneven stone floor, glad for the chill that encased her damp feet, glad for the distraction from the voices raised in holy anthem just within the courtyard. God must be met within the bounds of sacred prayer with a whole and undivided heart and with a soul yearning for perfection. She had neither. Yet, she prayed. Perhaps God would hear the prayer of a cold and beleaguered orphan, even as He would not heed the prayer of a disobedient and wayward woman.

For such she was, to love a man not her betrothed.

To love a man who had betrothed himself to God.

Richard.

Why could it not be Richard who had been chosen for her while she lay within her swaddling? The answer was clear as spring rain: Richard was not the eldest. Her father, and his, would not have made such a bargain. And, as much as she yearned for Richard, neither would she have. She was the sole heir to Dornei, Wiselei, and Turvestone. Her dower lands were Braccan and Hilesdun. She was a woman well propertied. Her earthly function was to marry well and produce heirs who would strengthen and increase what had already been achieved. Richard would inherit nothing. He was third born and destined to make his own way. He had made it in a monastery.

It had not been expected. He had done well in his knightly training, excelling at all he tried; he could have achieved something on his own, by his own hand and with his own sword. He had cast all down and walked into the Abbey of Saint Stephen and Saint Paul without looking back. Without coming back.

It should not matter. She was betrothed to Hubert. She was beyond ripe for marriage. But she had not ridden to Hubert. She had ridden to Richard.

She was unnatural in her desires, this she knew.

She needed to repent, this she also knew. But instead of repentance and tears, there was the knowledge that Richard was near. Richard was close. She might see him if she went in to worship. Isabel kept her knees firmly on the uneven floor. She needed repentance more than she needed Richard, none needed to tell her that, yet Richard was her hunger.