Rhiannon (25 page)

Though they were at some distance, the man's pitiful keening still reached their ears. And within that formless sound there floated those three syllables—:
A—le—ron
. He moaned them as a child may moan its mother's name, enclosed in blubbers and boohoos.

“Ayyyy . . . ahhhyyy . . . ahyyeeeeleron!”
the wretched man wailed.

“Yes, I do hear! Aleron is a Norman name, mistress. A name given males.”

“Norman, you say?” Granna spat upon the ground. “I mighta
thunk
they'd be the root of such trouble.”

“And here's something else,” the young monk continued excitedly. “The silver shell? I believe it's a pilgrimage token. In fact, I think it's a badge from the church where the bones of Saint James are said to lie, in far Espania. Do you know where Rhia got it?”

Granna slapped her knees. “Well, not in Espania, monk! Unless she grew back the birdy wings of her great-granddames and flew there unbeknownst to us one fine night! You'll have to ask her yerself where it came from.”

Granna pulled upon Thaddeus's arm and rose.

“I'll go on home to see what the fire may have to say of all this,” she stated. “Take me there, please, then hasten back to be with the others, if you will.”

When Thaddeus had seen her safely situated beside her fire, he hurried back to Sal's, resisting the strong temptation to enter the cot of the mysterious man instead.

They sat much as before, with Rhia now finger-combing Sally's hair and with Daisy upon Aigy's lap, her eyes nearly closed and her thumb in her mouth. “I'm hungry,” she mentioned, yawning large. “Did we ever eat?”

“We did not, and we should,” Mam answered gently, putting Daisy to her feet then standing herself. She turned to Thaddeus. “I'll be glad of your escort, sir, as we take Sally home with us. It's been a hard afternoon and all, I think, are nigh exhausted.”

 
As they shared bread and soup that night, they spoke of light things, talk suitable for Sally and young Daisy, leaving matters of more import to be discussed later. Thaddeus timidly asked if he might stay with them a few days and was given wholehearted welcome by all. Rhia told the news of market, and of the rough riders through it, making the story seem a bit funny, honking geese, that sort of thing. She passed along to Granna the spidery bunion cure given her by Hilda Mopp, then she turned to Daisy. “Everyone at the ale booth asked about you. They were overjoyed that you've healed so well.”

It was decided Sal and Daisy would go along to bed in the sleep loft, with Rhia joining them up there later. Mam gently braced Sal from beneath and Rhia held her arms from above, and in this way Sal made it slowly up the six rungs of the ladder, step-together-
step,
step-together-
step
. Rhia washed their hands and faces with the rose water kept in a wooden trencher on the stool beneath the clothes pegs, then she put them both in clean sleepshifts. She settled Sal in bed and let Daisy kneel and say the bedtime prayer Mam had taught her. When Daisy finished and climbed to the pallet, she snuggled close to Sal and embraced her as she'd embraced her own sister Primrose in sleep, and Sal smiled at that and closed her eyes. Rhia, smiling herself, crept back down the ladder.

Her smile faded as she heard Thaddeus just then breaking the news to Mam and Granna of the gold brought from the earl's man to buy Jim's false confession. That cast a gloom over the entire house, of course.

“It's why I've left,” Thaddeus told them. “I couldn't dwell within walls that held such treachery. Though God may think my judgment is uninformed and hasty, so I'll take back those words, for now. It's what retreat is for, to question one's own thinking.”

“Hmmph.” Granna closed one eye and leaned toward him, gesturing hard with her pipe stem. “Too much of that sort of second thinking can garble up your brains! You saw what you saw, young monk, and that's an end to it. The vicar is as crooked as a humpbacked snake. It's no grand surprise, not to me.”

Mam sighed and rubbed her neck. “Thaddeus, you will have Jim's old cottage, if that suits. The pallet has been made up anew and the place swept out since Jim's left. Take a jug of water with you, and a candle. Upon the morrow we'll see what else may be needed, but I think you'll find it sufficient for tonight.”

She stood to get the water jug, and whilst her back was turned, Rhia shot Thaddeus a look, then cleared her throat. “Mam, should I not at least close the door of the cot next to Sal's? Or . . . maybe take the man a bowl of gruel? Thaddeus could go with me.”

Mam stopped in her work and turned back around with her hands upon her hips.

“Rhia, don't even think about it. Understand me?”

There's a way a mother says a thing with each syllable separate and grim, and that's how Mam said this, thus leaving no chance whatsoever for Rhiannon to think she could change her mother's mind. Nevertheless, Rhia took a try at it.

“Hark, he no longer howls! I'm sure he's grown peaceable again, and likely regrets the events of the afternoon. This morning I
told
him I'd be back by evening! He said he needed a friend, and I said I'd come! I
must,
with Thaddeus. Would you have me lie?”

Rhia glanced at Thaddeus and saw his lips pressed tight and his eyes lifted skyward.

“Hee, hee,” Granna snickered from her place beside the fire.

Mam wagged her finger at Rhia. “A false question, that. For his own actions have made us
all
fearful of him this night. I would rather you lie, daughter, than
lie
broken and bruised, a second victim of this man's unpredictable nature.”

“She's right, you know,” Thaddeus whispered, and that made Rhia right angry.

In fact, she could have just
spit
at all present, that's how angry she was at being treated like some . . . some
child!
Why, she'd seen the French pirate like this before, twice in fact, and had handled him just fine! A pity she couldn't mention those two events, as Mam would be all the
more
stubbornly afeared. If anyone was to get to the bottom of this outrage against poor Sal, why,
she
was the one who could do it, she and she alone! With Thaddeus as backup, of course, since it
was
right dark.

But there they were, all three of them ranged stubbornly against her well-considered plan, though she was fourteen,
fifteen
in three months!

She flounced across the room. “I go to bed then, since you have so little trust in me!” She hoped her words made them all ashamed and sorry. When no one rushed to repent, she pounded her feet upon the six rungs of the loft ladder so they'd have a second chance to consider their rude and misthought treatment of her.

Only when she stood upon the floor of the loft did she recall that since she slept downstairs these days, her sleepshift was hanging on the kitchen hook, not up here where it had used to be. Well, who cared? She kicked off her shoes and loosed the cord about her waist, then flopped in her skirt and blouse upon the pallet, pushing Daisy forward a bit with her hip to make herself some room.

 
As she ofttimes did, Rhiannon dreamt that she was winged. Over the wide water she flew, with dolphins far below, racing her shadow as they jumped through the green waves. But how came dolphins to make the low growl that suddenly gave a sense of menace to this peaceful dream? “Crrrrrrr. Crrrrrrrrrrr. Rrrrrrrrrrr-ruh.
Ruh!
”

Gramp! She came wide awake and pushed up to one elbow. Gramp seldom gave that particular sinister sound, and when he did you'd best pay attention, as it signaled something extremely dire! She slipped from the pallet and raced to the gap in the twigs.

Upon the chapel roof she saw the frowsy clot of darker darkness that was Gramp engaged in his usual vigilant nightwatch. His wings were spread in a threatening way, and he looked straight down betwixt his rough old feet.

Something went on
within
the church, then! But what, at this midnight hour?

The moon was lined up so that it shone through the nether windows of the small sanctuary and then through the two windows on this side, as well. She squinted and pushed her forehead right against the twigs, trying to see what she might of any movement inside. She could perceive nothing—no shadows, no disturbance.

And yet, Gramp stood highly alerted and gave that most urgent gruntish growl deep in his throat that was never false alarm, not ever in Rhiannon's lifelong experience.

She jerked her skirt cord tight, then took her shoes and went silent as she was able down the ladder. She tiptoed to light a taper from their candle, then opened the door slowly, slowly, so its creaking might not waken the two who slept beside the fire. Neither stirred, as Granna snored full, obscuring the small sounds of Rhia's escape and the sounds of Gramp's concerned growls, as well. To tell it true, the Devil Dogs of Clodagh might escape their hidden cave tonight and fight each other upon Mam's table, and neither Granna nor Mam would likely hear above Granna's present broadcasts.

Outside Rhia knotted her hair and put on her shoes, then scurried around the side of the cot so she could get a clear look at the church. Gramp had not moved and still gave that throaty rumble of a growl, though nothing about the churchyard seemed changed at all. She took a deep breath, and ran across to the chapel door. She paused there to look up at Gramp. Girl and bird looked hard at each other.

“Is someone inside?” Rhia whispered.

“Crrrrruk,” warned the bird.

Then Rhia figured out who the intruder to the chapel must be, and slapped her forehead. “Oh, Gramp, it's only Thaddeus! Monks must arise in the darkest part of the night to pray, and I'm sure he'd seek the church for it!”

Much fortified by this certainty, Rhia put her shoulder to the door and shoved hard.

Still, any visitor to an ancient chapel at midnight must keep company with its usual resident phantoms and saintly spirits. Rhia stepped inside and let the door creak closed behind her. The moonlight shone off the ancient stones of the walls and the floor, exposing mists that danced through the breeze she'd let in.

Mists and ghostly vapors, most certainly both.

“Thaddeus?” she whispered, and heard that little sound absorbed by the gloom.

The hermit who'd built the chapel was certainly buried down a short stairway behind a stone of granite set into the east wall. Rhia'd been shown his grave by Granna long ago, and the two of them now took flowers down to his bones each year on his name day. What was less certain was if there were other folk buried beneath the large, smooth stones that she was now walking upon. Granna's opinion was that it seemed likely, as why else would those stones be cut long as a man was tall?

Monks were buried in this floor, was Granna's guess. The ancient stories had it that monks had hidden within the chapel upon the bluff when the Northmen arrived in their fiercesome dragonboats and burned the great monasteries, seeking the golden chalices and other precious treasures kept there. Trouble was, the Northmen worked their way clear across England and eventually pillaged even this bluff. Two of Granna's great-grandmother's little sisters were killed by those bloodthirsty raiders, so wouldn't any churchmen hiding out up here have lost their lives as well? Certainly, Granna reasoned.

Sad, if the monks had indeed sought safety upon the high bluff and been killed instead. Well, any death was sad, and that was the truth of it. Though all die, of course.

Rhia shivered and clutched Mam's little cross, tapping it upon her chin and wishing she could think of something besides death and spirits, though that's never easy in an ancient church at midnight.

The candleflame flickered with some wind that came in through the wide-ledged windows. The flame did not go out, thanks be to God. Rhia wet her lips, and asked again, “Thaddeus, are you here?” Receiving no answer, she turned to go, the flesh along the back of her neck acreep with the caressing fingers of unseen things.

Her hand was upon the iron ring that would open the door and give her release, when far behind her she heard the unmistakable sound of heavy stone scraping slowly against heavy stone. Her heart went quivery so she could not get a good breath, nor could she gather the wit to pull upon the iron ring and exit. She could do naught but turn back around, hoping to find that her ears had somehow deceived her.

But they had not. The granite stone sealing the hermit's crypt was being pushed aside from within! And when it yawned wide, a bent figure slowly emerged from the ancient tomb and began to hobble toward her with one hand extended. “Rhiannon . . .”

Without a breath to protest, all she could do was hold the candle in the phantom's direction and stare wide-eyed, though soon enough she perceived with vast relief that it was
not
the ancient hermit arisen from his grave. It was rather the French pirate! He fell to his knees and knelt there swaying a bit, his hand still held out toward her.

If his keening earlier in the night had been a wild tempest, now she saw in his bearing the devastation such a storm may well leave in its wake. And yet in spite of the ragged exhaustion that showed upon his face and in his bowed shoulders, he somehow seemed more solid, more
real
than he'd been before.

She took cautious steps toward him. He was very still, the blinking of his eyes the only thing that showed he lived and breathed.

When she was but the length of a floor stone from him, she stopped and held the candle up between them to better see his face. For certain, he was much changed from the blustering play actor he'd been. He was no longer pale effigy nor frightened invalid, either one. He certainly was no berserker pirate, nor flighty scamp of any kind.