Patricia Ryan - [Fairfax Family 01] (55 page)

Her gaze took in his short, tousled hair, over which he wore no skullcap, and his rough traveling costume. “You don’t look like much of a priest.”

“I’m not,” he dryly agreed.

A spark of amusement flashed in her eyes. Taking this for encouragement, Rainulf stepped forward again, but she thrust the shovel at him. “Get back!”

“I won’t hurt you,” he said reassuringly.

She smiled somewhat wryly. “I didn’t think you would. It’s just that I’ve got the yellow plague, and I wouldn’t want you to catch it.”

Rainulf’s gaze narrowed on her reddened face. What he’d thought at first to be a flush of fear had not subsided, nor had the trembling of her hands. He suspected that, were she to let him touch her, her skin would be burning hot. This was how this awful disease began, he knew—with fever and chills and that strange scarlet tinge to the face and body. The pox themselves would appear later.

“Rest your mind, then,” he said. “I’ve had this affliction already. I can’t catch it again.”

Her eyes searched his face. “You’ve had this?”

“I had several interesting diseases while a guest of the Turks some years back. Smallpox—what you call the yellow plague—was one of them.” He tilted his head, pointing at the two minuscule indentations on the side of his jaw.

Lowering the shovel, the woman approached him slowly, her gaze riveted on the scars. “That’s all the pockmarks you’ve got?” she asked incredulously. “Just those?”

“I was lucky,”

“
I’ll
say.” She inclined her head toward the corpse under the yew. “Father Osred didn’t get off so easily.”

Rainulf walked over to the body and squatted down. He reached for the edge of the blanket to uncover the face but hesitated, smelling, in addition to the stench of death, the distinctive, sickening odor of the final stages of smallpox. It was an odor that conjured up vivid memories. Closing his eyes, he found himself transported back to the Levant, to that foul underground cell in which he and two dozen other young soldiers for Christ endured a year of hellish suffering. Their torment found new depths when the pox swept through their stinking hole, claiming one out of every four men and leaving most of the rest wishing they’d been taken.

Peeling back the blanket, Rainulf sucked in a breath and executed a hasty sign of the cross. The face on which he gazed was so densely covered with yellowish pustules as to completely mask its features. The poor creature’s thin white hair was the only indication of age. Had Rainulf not known the body to be that of the rector, he might even have thought it to be female.

“It’s best this way,” the woman said. Rainulf turned to find her standing right behind him, leaning on the shovel and staring thoughtfully at the dead priest. “He went blind in the end. Some of them do, you know.”

“I know.” He swallowed hard. She looked at him inquiringly, and he met her eyes, drawn to something in them that surprised and touched him. Compassion. She felt compassion... for him! Here she was, suffering from this appalling malady that killed and blinded and disfigured; yet, sensing his own grief, his own nightmare, she had it within her to feel sympathy for him.

A most strange woman
, he thought, holding her gaze. In their warm depths he saw curiosity and humor, and something else... wisdom. The wisdom of the ages.

“How old are you?” he asked.

She laughed, displaying teeth so straight and white as to be the envy of the noblest lady. Her smile was delightful, and infectious. Rainulf was actually tempted to laugh himself—odd, given that he hadn’t laughed in a very long time, and somewhat inappropriate under the circumstances. Instead, he marshaled his expression and asked, “What’s so funny?”

“You,” she said. “You’re rather an odd person, that’s all.”

“Me?” He pulled the blanket back over the body and stood. “What’s odd about
me
?”

She shook her head, grinning. “Asking my age like that, out of the blue, and before you’ve even asked my name. That’s the kind of thing
I
do.”

“What?”

“Ask the wrong questions at the wrong time.” He noticed a shiver course through her; she shook it off and smiled gamely. “Or so Father Osred used to say. He said I was like a little child, always asking questions.”

“I’m very much the same, but then, I’m a teacher. It’s in my nature to ask questions—and, of course, to question the answers.”

She nodded knowingly. “
Disputatio
.”

Rainulf was taken by surprise that this obviously lowborn woman knew the Latin term for academic debate.

She laughed again. “I know many things.”

He bowed slightly. “Of that I have very little doubt.” She was remarkably well spoken for a woman in her circumstances, in addition to being well informed about things no Oxfordshire peasant had any business knowing of. Rainulf wondered where she had learned so much.

She studied him for a moment. “I’m three and twenty years of age. And I know French as well as English and Latin, although I prefer speaking English. And my name, if it’s of any interest to you, is Constance.”

“Constance,” he repeated. “A very pretty name. From the Latin. It means unchanging.”

“I know.”

Of course
, thought Rainulf with amusement.

She screwed up her face. “I hate it. Why should one want to be
constant
, as if change were some great evil? If it weren’t for change, everything would stagnate, would it not? And that which stagnates tends to putrefy, like a river that ceases to flow. What good can there be in that?”

Rainulf stared in awe at this fragile, exhausted young woman, her eyes glazed with fever, discoursing on the nature of change. She was right, of course; change was the very fabric of life itself. And death.

“My father wanted to name me Corliss,” she continued, “but my mother wouldn’t let him, worse luck.”

“Corliss. Isn’t that a man’s name?”

She frowned indignantly, an expression that, on her, was unaccountably charming. “It’s for a man
or
a woman! And it’s much more suited to me than Constance!”

“Perhaps you’re right,” he conceded with a little bow. He nodded toward Father Osred’s corpse. “I came to give him last rites.”

“It’s too late now,” she said sadly as she rubbed her back.

“Too late for a proper job of it,” he agreed, “but I can still perform the sacrament. There are those who believe it’s useful, even when one has died unshriven.”

She nodded. “Go ahead, then.” Turning toward the half-dug grave, she added, “I’ll finish here.”

“Hold on there,” he said. “You ought not to be digging graves. You’re ill, and... well, isn’t there someone... your husband, perhaps...”

“I’m widowed.”

“Ah. I’m sorry. Was it the pox?”

“Nay, it happened five years ago. There’s no one but me to bury him, Father. The men who haven’t gotten sick yet won’t bury the dead for fear of catching what killed them. And the ones who
have
gotten sick are still too weak. I wouldn’t want to trouble them.”

“I’ll bury Father Osred,” Rainulf said. “And I’ll finish this second grave, if you’ll tell me who it’s for.”

“I thought you knew,” she said, grinning as if at a slow-witted child. “It’s for me.”

The tall priest stared at Constance as if live eels had just sprouted from her head. “You’re digging your own grave?”

“There’s no one else to do it,” she pointed out. “My friend Ella Hest has promised to come by in the morning and check on me. If I’m dead, she’ll put me in the grave and fill it in, but she’s getting on in years, so I didn’t want her to have to actually dig it.”

He frowned, clearly nonplussed. “You think you’re going to die between now and tomorrow morning?”

“I may. Others have died this early, before the pox set in. The fever gets bad, and they lose their senses. Sometimes they have fits...”

“I know.” He ran his long fingers distractedly through his close-cropped hair. It was the pale, glossy blond of a very young child. By contrast, his eyebrows and the hint of beard that darkened his strong jaw were black. His most distinctive feature, however, would be his eyes—pale green lightly veiled with brown. Looking into them was like peering into the water at the edge of a lake where it meets the shore and mixes with the earth. She saw kindness in his eyes, and intelligence, and now she saw pain as well.

His jaw clenched. Was he remembering the time when he himself had had the yellow plague? Judging from his reaction, he knew more than he cared to of this particular pestilence.

She gestured with the shovel toward the grave. “So you understand, then, why I need to finish this—”

“Nay!” He grabbed the shovel out of her hand. “I have no intention of letting you do this kind of labor while you’re so gravely ill. And you mustn’t worry so about dying.”

“I’m not worrying about it,” she corrected, “I’m preparing for it—while I’m still able to.” She reached for the shovel, but he jerked it away from her, and she lost her balance. Things began to spin, and she felt her legs crumbling beneath her.

“Constance?” His voice sounded as if he were speaking from a great distance. A fierce pain commenced behind her eyes, and she buried her head in her hands. She felt him grip her shoulders. “Constance?”

“I’m all right,” she rasped, and struggled to rise. “I’ll be fine.”

Abruptly she felt weightless, and realized he’d lifted her in his arms. “Where do you live?” he asked.

“Nay,” she protested, pushing against his broad shoulders. Quite useless, of course. She was weakened from illness, and he was clearly a strong man. He’d scooped her up as if she were but a child, and she could feel the solid muscles beneath the rough wool of his tunic.

“Where do you live?” he repeated patiently.

“Please... my grave,” she managed, as the pain in her head became blinding. “You don’t understand. I promised Ella it would be ready.”

“I’ll dig it,” he said.

“You will?”

“Of course, if it will ease your mind. Now, tell me where you live.”

She pointed.

He frowned in evident puzzlement. “The rectory?”

Constance nodded. “I’m... I was Father Osred’s housekeeper.”

She closed her eyes and felt the steady rhythm of his lengthy strides as he carried her across the churchyard and through the front door of the stone cottage. “Where’s your bed?”

“I sleep in there.”

He brought her into the bedchamber and hesitated. She opened her eyes and saw him looking at the big feather bed, the vestments hanging on the hooks, the crucifix... and then back at the bed. She saw comprehension dawn on him, but his expression betrayed no outward sign of shock or disapproval.

He sat her on the edge of the bed and glanced down at her kirtle, filthy from grave digging. “You’ll want to get out of that. Have you got a sleeping shift?”

She pointed to one hanging on the wall, and he brought it to her.

“Can you manage by yourself?” he asked. “I mean, if you need help, I can...” He shrugged self-consciously, and Constance noted with amusement that his ears were bright pink.

She smiled. “Nay, I can manage. Thank you.”

He nodded and left. Constance exchanged her dirt-smeared kirtle for the clean, long-sleeved linen shift and lay down on the bed. Every time she blinked, the ceiling beams appeared to shift and then slowly swim back into place. She waited until this strange dance had ceased, then sat up in bed and looked out through the little window at the churchyard.

She saw Father Rainulf unbuckle his belt and toss it aside, then whip his tunic off and throw it over a branch of the yew tree. Beneath it he wore a white linen shirt, open at the neck; leathern leggings bound with crisscrossed cords encased his long legs. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, revealing muscular forearms, then took up the shovel and went to work on Constance’s grave.

He worked quickly, digging with powerful, efficient movements and making swift progress. Constance watched with frank interest. Despite his intellectuality and aristocratic bearing, he struck her as remarkably virile—especially for a priest. She couldn’t help wondering if he kept to his vow of chastity or, like Father Osred and many other men of the cloth, had a mistress tucked conveniently away somewhere.

When the throbbing in her head and back became too much to bear, Constance closed her eyes and lay back down, hoping the pain would go away if she only kept still. Upon awakening later in the afternoon, however, she found it undiminished. Moreover, on sitting up, she became aware of a vexatious burning sensation, as if her entire body had been scalded in boiling water. It was also clear that her fever had worsened considerably. Wrapping a throw around herself, she got out of bed and crossed unsteadily to the window.

Father Rainulf had climbed down into the grave, and only his head was visible as he dug. She watched him until, having completed his task, he set the shovel on the ground, braced his hands on the rim of the deep hole, and leapt out with one swift, agile motion.

He had removed his shirt; even from this distance she could see the sheen of perspiration on his chest and face. He was wide-shouldered and lean-hipped, and his gestures had an easy grace that made it hard for Constance to tear her eyes away. Lifting his shirt from the ground, he shook it out and scrubbed it over his damp skin. Then he put it back on, along with his tunic and belt, and strode out of sight.