For My Lady's Heart

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ť

Where werre, and wrake, and wonder
Bi syţe
hat
wont ţerinne,
And oft boţe blysse and blunder
Ful skete hat
skyfted
synne.

Where war and wrack and wonder
By sides have been therein,
And oft both bliss and blunder
Full swift have shifted since.

The pilgrims looked looked at the sky and the woods and each other.
Anywhere but at the woman in the ditch. The Free Companies ruled these
forests; her screeching might draw unwelcome attention. As she rolled in the
wagon rut, grinding dirt into her hair, crying out pious revelations with
shrieks and great weepings, her companions leaned against trees and squatted
in the shade, sharing a vessel of warm beer. Remote thunder murmured as heat
clouds piled up over the endless grim forests of France. It was high summer
of the ninth year after the Great Pestilence. A few yards from the sobbing
female, on the high grassy center of the road, a priest sat removing his
sandals and swatting dust off his soles one by one.

Now and then someone glanced into the dark woods. The girl had prophesied
that their party of English pilgrims would reach Avignon safe—and though she
was prostrated by holy ecstasies in this manner a dozen times a day, moved
by the turn of a leaf or the flicker of a sunbeam to fall to her knees in
wailing, it was true that they’d not seen or heard a suspicion of outlaws
since she’d joined the party at Reims.

“John Hardy!” she moaned, and a man who’d just taken hold of the bottle
looked round with dismay.

He drank a deep swig and said, “Ne sermon me not, good sister.”

The woman sat up. “I shall so sermon thee, John Hardy!” She wiped at her
comely young face, her bright eyes glaring out from amid streaks of dirt.
“Thou art intemperate with beer. God is offended with thee.”

John Hardy stood up, taking another long drink. “And thou art a silly
girl stuffed with silly conceits. What—”

A crash of thunder and a long shrill scream overwhelmed his words. The
devout damsel threw herself back down to the ground. “There!” she shouted.
“Hearest thou the voice of God? I’m a prophet! Our Lord forewarneth
thee—take any drink but pure water in peril of eternal damnation, John
Hardy!” The rain clouds rolled low overhead, casting a green dullness on her
face. She startled back as a single raindrop struck her. “His blood!” She
kissed her palm. “His precious blood!”

“Be naught but the storm overtakin‘ us, thou great fool woman!” John
Hardy swung on the others with vehemence. “ ’I’m a prophet!‘” he mocked in a
high agitated voice. “Belie me if she be not a heretic in our very midst!
I’m on to shelter, ere I’m drowned. Who’ll be with me?”

The whole company was fervently with him. As they prepared to start on
their way, the girl bawled out the sins of each member of the party as they
were revealed to her by God: the intemperance of John Hardy, the godless
laughing and jesting of Mistress Parke, the carnal lusting of the priest,
and the meat on Friday consumed by Thomas O’Linc.

The accused ignored her, taking up the long liripipes that dangled from
the crests of their hoods and wrapping the headgear tight as the rain began
to fall in earnest. The party moved on into the sudden downpour. The woman
could have caught up easily, but she stayed in the ditch, shrieking after
them.

In the thunderous gloom the rain began to run in sheets and little
streams into the road. She stayed crying, reaching out her hands to the
empty track. The last gray outline of the stragglers disappeared around the
bend.

A waiting figure detached itself from the shadows beneath the trees. The
young knight walked to the edge of the rut and held out his hand. Rain
plastered his black hair and molded a fustian pilgrim’s robe to his back and
shoulders, showing chain mail beneath.

“They ne harketh to me,” she sobbed. “They taken no heed!”

“Ye drove them off, Isabelle,” he said tonelessly.

“It is their wickedness! They nill heed me! I was having a vision, like
to Saint Gertrude’s.”

His gauntleted hand still held steady, glistening with raindrops. “Is it
full finished now?”

“Certes, it is finished,” she said testily, allowing him to pull her to
her feet. She stepped out of the ditch, leaving her shoe. The knight got
down on his knees, his mail chinking faintly, and fished the soggy leather
out of a puddle already growing in the mud. She leaned on his shoulder and
thrust her foot inside the slipper, wriggling forcefully. He smoothed the
wet wrinkles up her ankle. His hand rested on her calf for a moment, and she
snatched her leg away. “None of that, sir!”

He lifted his face and looked at her. The rain slipped off strong dark
brows and dewed on his black lashes. He was seventeen, and already carried
fighting scars, but none visible on his upturned features. Water coursed
down, outlining his hard mouth and the sullen cast of his green eyes. The
girl pushed away from him sharply.

“I believe thou art Satan Himself, sir, if thou wilt stare at me so
vile.”

Without a word he got to his feet, readjusting the sword at his hip
before he walked away to a bay horse tethered in the shadow of the trees. He
brought the stallion up to her. “Will ye ride?”

“The Lord Jesus commanded me walk to Jerusalem.”

“Ride,” he said “until we comen up with the company once more.”

“It were evil for me to riden. I mote walk.”

“This forest hides evil enow,” he said harshly. “N‘ would I haf us tarry
alone here.”

“ ‘Fear not, in the valley of shadow and death,’” she intoned, catching
his hand. She fell to the sodden ground, her wet robe clinging to the
feminine contour of her breasts. “Kneel with me. I see the Virgin. Her light
shineth all about us. Oh ... the sweet heavenly light!” She closed her eyes,
turning up her face. Her tears began to mingle with the raindrops.

“Isabelle!” he cried. “Ne cannought we linger here alone! For God’s
love—move freshly now!” He grabbed her arm and pulled her up. By main force
he threw her across the saddle in spite of her struggle. She began to
screech, her wet legs bared, sliding from his mailed grip. The horse shied,
and she tumbled off the other side. He jerked the reins, barely holding the
stallion back from trampling her as it tried to bolt.

She lay limp in the grass. As he dropped to his knees beside her, she
rolled feebly onto her back, moaning.

“Lady!” He leaned over her. “Isabelle, luflych—ye be nought harmed?”

She opened her eyes, staring past him. “So sweet. So wondrous sweet, the
light.”

Rain washed the mud from her face. Her fair blue eyes held a dreamy look,
her lashes spiky with wetness, her lips smiling faintly. The pilgrim’s hood
had fallen open, showing a white, smooth curve of throat. He hung motionless
above her a moment, looking down.

Her gaze snapped to his. She shoved at him and scrambled away. “Thou
thinkest deadly sin! My love is for the Lord God alone.”

The young knight flung himself to his feet. He caught his horse with one
hand and the girl with the other, dragging them together. “Mount!” he
commanded, baring his teeth with a savagery that cowed her into grasping the
stirrup.

“I n’will,” she said, trying to turn away.

“Will ye or nill ye!” He hiked her foot, catching her off balance, and
propelled her up. She yelped, landing pillion in the high-cantled war
saddle, clutching for security as he swung the wild-eyed horse around. The
stallion followed him, neck stretched, the black mane lying in sloppy thick
straggles against the animal’s skin. The knight hauled his horse a few yards
down the verge through the wet grass and mud. He stopped, facing stiffly
away from her into the rain. “I am nought Satan Himseluen,” he said. “I’m
your wedded husband, Isabelle!”

“I am wed to Christ,” she said righteously. “And oft revealed the truth
to thee, sir. Thou hast thy way with me against my will and God’s.”

He stood still, looking straight ahead. “Six month,” he said stonily. “My
true wife ye hatz n’been in that time.”

Her voice softened a little. “To use me so were the death of thee,
husband—so I’ve prophesied, oft and oft.”

He slogged forward. The horse slipped and splashed through a puddle,
sending water up, causing the knight’s fustian robe to cling over the plated
greaves and cuisses that protected his legs. The rain swelled into huge
drops. Hail began to spatter against his shoulders, bouncing in pea-size
pebbles off his bared black hair.

He made an inarticulate sound and dragged the stallion to the edge of the
wood, stopping beneath a massive tree. Isabelle and the horse took up the
protected space beneath the heaviest branch, leaving him with the filter of
sodden leaves above to break the hail.

She began an exhortation on the sins of the flesh and detailed a vision
of Hell recently visited upon her. From this she went on to a revelation of
Jesus on the Cross, which, she assured him, God had told her was superior in
its brilliance to the similar sight described by Brigit of Sweden. When a
hailstone the size of a walnut cracked him on the skull, he cursed aloud and
yanked his helmet from the saddle.

Isabelle reproved him for his impious language. He pulled the conical
bascinet down over his head. The visor fell shut. He leaned against the tree
trunk with a dismal clang: a faceless, motionless, wordless suit of armor,
while his wife told a parable of her own devising in which a man who used
ungodly maledictions was condemned to dwell in Hell with fiery rats forever
eating out his tongue. The music of the hailstones pattered in tinny uneven
notes on steel.

She had finished the parable and gone on to predicting what sort of
vermin they might expect to find among the infidels when the storm began to
lift, leaving the forest and the grassy verge steaming in greens and grays.
Light shone on the watery ruts in two twisted ribbons of silver. Like a
frost of snow, hail lay amid the foliage, already beginning to melt. The
knight pulled off his helmet and tried unsuccessfully to dry it on his robe.
Without speaking, he pushed away from the tree and began to walk again,
tugging the horse through small lakes beside the road, his spurs catching in
the muddy weeds.

Vapor rose from his shoulders. Isabelle plucked at her sodden robe,
holding it away from her skin as she talked. She was describing the present
state of her soul, in considerable detail, when he stopped suddenly and
turned to her.

A breaking shaft of sunlight caught him, banishing the sullen shadows. He
looked up at her, young and earnest, interrupting her eloquence. “Isabelle.
Say me this.” He paused, staring at her intensely. “If outlaws were to fall
upon us this moment, and ransom my life against—” The youthfulness vanished
from his face in a set scowl. “Against this—that ye takes me again into your
bed as husband—then what would you? Would ye see me slayed?”

Her lips pinched. “What vain tale is this?”

“Say the truth of your heart,” he insisted. “My life for your vaunted
chastity. What best to be done?”

She glared at him. “Thou art a sinner, Ruck.”

“The truth!” he shouted passionately. “Have ye no love left for me?”

His words echoed back from the forest, enticement enough to outlaws, but
he stood waiting, rigid, with his hand on the bridle.

She began to sway slightly. She lifted her eyes to the glowing clouds.
“Alas,” she said gently, “but I love thee so steadfast, husband—it were
better to beholden thee put to death before my eyes, than we should yielden
again to that uncleanness in the eyes of God.”

His gaze did not leave her. He stared at her, unblinking, his body still
as stone.

She smiled at him and reached down to touch his hand. “Revelation will
come to thee.”

He caught her fingers and gripped them in his, holding them hard in his
armored glove. “Isabelle,” he said, in a voice like ruin.

With her free hand she crossed herself. “Let us make troth of chastity
both together. Thee I do love dearly, as a mother loveth her son.”

He let go of her. For a moment he looked about him in a bewildered way,
as if he could not think what to do. Then, abruptly, he began to walk again,
pulling the horse in silence.

A cool wind out of the storm caught the knight’s dark hair, drying it,
blowing it against his ears. The breeze faltered for a moment, playing and
veering.

The horse threw up its head. Its nostrils flared.

The knight came alert. He stopped, his hand on his sword hilt. The animal
planted its feet, drinking frantically at the uneasy wind, staring at the
curve ahead where the road disappeared into deep woods.

There was only silence, and the breeze.

“The Lord God is with us,” Isabelle said loudly.

Nothing answered. No arrow flew, no foe came rushing upon them from
ambush.

“Get ye after the hind-bow.” The knight shoved his helmet down on his
head and threw the reins over the horse’s ears. As Isabelle floundered out
of his way over the cantle, he mounted. She flung her arms about his waist.
With his sword drawn he drove his spurs into the nervous stallion, sending
it into a sprint with a war cry that resounded in volleys from the trees.
The horse cannoned along the road with water flying from its hooves,
sweeping round the curve at the howling height of the knight’s battle shout.

The sight that met them was no more than a flicker of red mud and
slaughter as the horse cleared the first body in a great leap. The animal
tried to bolt, but the knight dragged it to a dancing halt amid the
stillness.

He said nothing, turning and turning the horse in an agitated circle. The
butchered bodies of their former companions wheeled past beneath his gaze,
around and around, white dead faces and crimson that ran fresher than the
rain.

Isabelle clung to him. “God spared us,” she said, with a breathless tone.
“Swear
now,
before Jesus Our Saviour, that thou wilt liven chaste!”

He reined the horse hastily among the bodies, leaning down to look for
signs of life as the animal pranced in uneasy rhythm, its hooves squelching
wet grass and gore. The looters had done thorough work. “God’s blood—they
been slain but a moment.” His voice was tight as he scanned the dark
encroaching forest. “The brigands be scarce flown.” He turned the stallion
away, but at the edge of the clearing he doubled the horse back on the
grisly scene again, as if he had not looked upon it long enough to believe.