The Miracle Thief (18 page)

Pepin lifted the sleeve to his face, where he rubbed it against his cheek. And then he rubbed it against the young lord's, smiling as he did it. He lifted it to mine as well.

Silk.

With such a smooth, soft hand.

I used to wear robes made of silk. Magnificent robes trimmed with gold and silver, embroidered with multicolored threads and scented with rosewater.

Like the young lord, I tried to push my thoughts away. I tried to ignore them. And like him too, I found myself bewitched by them. If he was possessed by some tortuous spirit, then perhaps I was possessed by my memories, which had bruised my heart, leaving it bloodied and torn.

***

Do
what
is
right; do not be afraid to speak.

I had done; I was not.

But look where my promises had gotten me. As the snow on the mountains' tops began to creep toward us, the gloomy winter's days seemed to bring the young lord darker moods. Though the spirits that seized him were terrible to behold, were it not for him, were it not for the times when he was in good humor, the hospice would have been a dreadful and cheerless place. As often as I had been able to ease his torments and calm his mind, another spell always seemed to come in its place.

He tore great fistfuls of hair from his head.

He battered himself against the table one night.

He tried to stick himself with a knife, but Sister Sybilla and I wrestled him to the ground before he caused himself too great of harm. But instead of thanking us, he only lay on the floor, weeping with misery, as if we had not just saved him from himself.

Perhaps I was a fool to think I could offer more to these poor souls than a place to sleep and a bit of food to staunch their deepest hunger. While I struggled at my new work, the abbess had her rooms refitted with hangings and draperies. She gave the most treasured of the library's manuscripts to her father, and she ordered the illumination in Saint Catherine's chapel cut again by half.

Had I saved my life by coming to this place only to see it destroyed by selfishness and greed? But what could I do? I could not leave. I had pledged myself to Christ, and I could not revoke my vows without risking excommunication. There was no escaping the abbey's gates.

It was then I first began to wonder how God could work his will when man seemed so set against him. Did no one else see what I did? Did God Himself not even care?

Anna

ALONG THE PILGRIMS' PATH TO ROCHEMONT ABBEY

Had I truly heard voices? Could it be that I was saved from my wilderness exile?

I broke through the trees at a run and came upon a group of travelers. They were men, all of them. Unhorsed, they were standing in a loose circle about a fire. Falling to my knees, I clasped the feet of the first man I reached as a great sob tore from my throat.

A hand seized me at the elbow, pulling me away from him, and I was yanked to standing.

Turning, I regarded this second man through tear-washed eyes. It was only then I began to wonder what kind of people I had come upon. They looked like no men I had ever seen. They had mustaches, it was true, but they curved upward into sharp points instead of drooping. Their chins were not clean-shaven either; each of them wore a beard. And their dress was strange: their mantles longer and secured at the waist, with furs thrown over their shoulders. Their stockings were not cross-gartered, but wrapped with swathing bands, and the man who held my arm even wore a metal helmet.

Shaking my hair from my eyes, I tried to free myself, but the man who held me only tightened his grip.

“If you please…” I tried once more.

The first man, the one whose feet I had taken hold of, seized my other arm and tried to wrench me away. I might have been glad for his aid, only the two of them began exchanging words in an unknown tongue. And the longer they kept at it, the more heated their conversation became.

“I did not mean to—” I wished they would stop pulling at me! “I am only a pilgrim.”

The first man tugged me toward himself. The second took a firmer hold on my arm and pulled back.

As I began to appeal to the others, who stood watching, for help, a third man approached. He looked stranger still with his red tunic split open all down the front, its wide edges splayed upon his shoulders. But he put a hand to each of the men.

Snarling, they both released me to turn on him.

Using my newly gained freedom, I backed away, though my knees were quaking beneath the folds of my tunic. In my distress, I looked to the others, and my eyes fastened on a familiar sight. Two clerics. “Help me!”

The younger of the two turned at me, blinking, as if noticing for the first time that I had spoken. His eyes shared the same peculiar hue of the two men who had seized me. They were a light, bright blue.

“Please, save me.”

“You are saved. They will let no harm come to you. At least not until they determine who you are.”

“I am Anna. From Autun.”

“The one man believes you to be a
troll
.” He pointed to the one who had jerked me to standing. “A
dwarf
.”

“A troll?” I did not know what that was.

“A spirit. A fairy. The other believes you are a
huldra
.”

“But, I am not either of those things!”

He nodded toward the third man, the one in the red tunic, who was beginning to check the assault of the others. “That's what he said. He says you're just a girl. But the other two are sure you must be some sort of troll.”

“But why!”

“It looks as if you must live in a cave or under the rocks somewhere.”

I looked down at my soiled tunic as I put a hand to my leaf-spangled hair.

“And you
did
come from the wood.” He spoke as if their fighting was my fault.

“Please!” I beseeched the other man, the older one. The one whose tunic was bound with a jeweled belt. “I am a pilgrim on my way to the abbey at Rochemont.”

The younger one, who wore a monk's dull robe, stepped between us. “You don't wear the clothes of a pilgrim, but if you have a letter from your bishop?” He held out his hand as if requesting to see it. “If I can show it to them, I can explain who you are.”

“I did have one, but some wolves chased me from the road, and I—I dropped it. I left it behind with all of my other things.”

“That would have been helpful, for they are trying to decide what to do with you, whether to keep you or let you go.”

“Pagans!” The older man was sending dark looks in their direction.

“What kind of people are they that they would think me some spirit? All I want is to—”

The monk looked down into my eyes. “They are Danes.”

“
Danes?
” But…but the Danes were wicked and evil, murderers and thieves!

The man in the red tunic was holding up a hand now, as if to stay them. He wiped at the sweat on his brow with a forearm. I glanced at the men who ringed the fight. There were three of them, all dressed in those strange garments, cheering in that strange tongue of theirs.

I tugged on the older man's sleeve. “Is the road nearby?”

He gestured beyond the men. “Just there.”

“And it goes to the abbey? At Rochemont?”

“Eventually. We're bound for the abbey as well.”

“The
Danes
are going to the abbey?” If the Danes were going to the abbey, then they must be intending to plunder it. God help Saint Catherine! If I wanted to pray to her, then I would have to reach the abbey before they did. As the clerics and the other men watched the fight, I withdrew. Slipping around them all, I went toward the horses and what I hoped would be the road. But at my approach, they whinnied.

Behind me, there went up a bellow.

At that great shout, I turned, but I was too late. One of the Danes had already grabbed me by the collar of my tunic. Now he pressed the tip of his knife to my throat.

As I clawed at his hand, the man in the red tunic put his own hand to the knife, seeming to offer himself in my place.

Everyone else had followed, and now they circled around us. My eyes found the monk. “What does he want?”

“He's the one who thinks you a
huldra
. He wants to cut out your tongue so you can't sing and seduce them all away into the forest.”

I shut my mouth, clenching my jaw.

The monk spoke for a moment in a quiet, even tone to the Dane who was holding me. With a malevolent look, the pagan put his knife away, and the man with the red tunic let out a great breath.

But if I had thought the Dane done with me, I was mistaken. He went around behind me and then began to pat the length of my spine.

Fearing for my life, I stood there, trembling.

The Dane grunted and then spoke.

“Your back is not hollow.” The young monk spoke the words as if some great judgment had been made, but I did not know if that was good news or bad.

The Dane returned to stand in front of me and then drew his knife again.

I dropped to my knees, hands clasped to my chest, closing my eyes for fear of what might happen next.

Someone grasped my shoulder.

I flinched.

“Rise.” It was the monk. “He wants only to see if you have a tail.”

A…tail? I gave my head a jerking shake, and then, clasping his extended hand, I stood.

The heathen circled me once more, and I felt a sudden breeze as the hem of my tunic was lifted. He said something and lifted my skirts higher.

The others laughed as the man in red protested.

Though the Dane snarled at him, nothing more was said to me, and I felt my skirts drop back into place.

The monk shrugged. “You have no tail; therefore, you are not a
huldra
.”

Now the other Dane approached, barking words at the man who held the knife.

The monk frowned. “He says you might still be a dwarf.”

“I am not a dwarf.”

“She's just a girl!” Though he seemed to be defending me, the man in the red tunic looked more frightful than all of the Danes put together; his black hair was in wild disarray, and his eyes were as raw and as red as his garments.

The Dane who thought me a dwarf came close, giving me a sidelong glance. He murmured something to the monk as he put a hand to my face.

“He says if you are truly just a girl, then you're a comely one.”

The heathen grasped me by the chin and swept my hair from my face, and then he forced me to look into his eyes. He said something to one of the others, and was soon given a cloth onto which he spit. He used it to scrub at my face. When he was done, he stared at me as a smile slowly spread across his face.

The man in the red tunic laid a hand on the Dane's arm. “She said she was a pilgrim.” When the Dane did nothing, he directed his words toward the monk. Outrage colored his voice. “Pilgrims are to be protected, not molested!”

The Dane grabbed me by the hair as he said something to the monk.

I gasped from the sudden pain.

“He asks to whom you belong.”

I answered what was true. “I belong to no one but myself.”

The older cleric's lips twisted. “You call yourself a pilgrim, but you have no letter. And now you claim to have no lord. Everyone has a lord. If you claim none, you must have run from one.”

“I did not.”

The monk relayed my words, and the Dane replied.

“He says it does not matter. He will be your lord now, and you will be his bed-slave.” The Dane's hand slid from my face down beneath my mantle to the collar of my tunic. As I twisted from him, he pulled me toward him. I wrenched away; he jerked me back. The motion tore my collar, and as he pulled at me, the tunic ripped, leaving my undertunic exposed.

I had been able, through all of the tumult, to keep my useless hand hidden, but now I struck out with it, trying to push him away as I used my good hand to gather the edges of my torn garment.

The man dropped his hold on me and staggered back with a gasp. As he pointed to my hand, the others began to mutter. Even the monk stepped away from me as he translated.

“You
are
a dwarf! You have only three fingers on that hand.”

“I was born this way.” I appealed to the older cleric, but he too fell back from me. My tunic was useless, torn beyond redemption. No matter what I tried, which way I turned, my undergarments were made plain for all to see. I dropped to the ground and bent over my knees, trying to keep myself hidden within my mantle.

The man with the red tunic stripped off his own mantle and dropped it atop me. “She's nothing but a girl. And if she's a pilgrim, she has as much right to travel to the abbey unmolested as you or I.”

As I pulled his mantle down and around me, I glanced up to see his hand, white-knuckled, gripping his knife.

The Dane saw it too, but he laughed. And then he spit into the dirt near my face and said something in a scoffing tone.

The monk helped me to standing. “He says he does not want you now, but they cannot release you. You might go back to your troll-father and put a curse on us.”

The Dane came close and murmured something into my ear.

I flinched.

The monk translated his words. “He wants to apologize. He did not realize who you were. And he promises they will let you go once they've gained the abbey.”

There was some discussion between several of the Danes, and then the one wearing the helmet broke from the others and addressed the monk.

The monk passed his message to me. “He asks: ‘Do you still claim to be a girl?'”

“I
am
a girl.”

The Dane had been watching me intently. Now he sprang forward and sliced my good hand with his knife. The man in the red tunic pushed at him as I gasped, clasping my hand to my chest. But the Dane dodged and lunged toward me, grabbing my wounded hand. Seizing it, he squeezed.

I screamed.

When blood bubbled forth, he held it high as he called out to the others.

As I reclaimed it, crying out from the pain, the monk stepped closer to examine it. “Your blood is not black. You're
not
a dwarf.”

Oh, how it stung! I cradled it against my breast. “I was born this way. It's why I journey to the abbey. To pray for healing.”

One of the Danes gave a shout, and the others followed him, leaving me for their horses. The clerics broke from me as well. As the man in the red tunic wrapped a strip of cloth about my hand, it was clear they all meant to ride away, leaving me there in the wood.

“Are you…are you going too?”

He looked up from my hand, his red-rimmed eyes awash with apology. “I must. I'm sorry. When you reach the village, stay. There should be someone there who can care for your hand.”

“But I can't. I can't stay.”

He stepped back from me. “I must go.” The sun had almost disappeared behind the mountains, and out in the wood somewhere, a wolf howled.

Another answered back.

“I have to reach the abbey!”

His mouth moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he only bowed and then went to mount his horse.

As they rode, I sprang toward them. “Do not leave me here! I'll do anything.” I had to reach the abbey. And if they left me alone on this lonely road, then the wolves would find me again, and I did not know what they would do to me this time.

The Dane wearing the helmet lifted a hand and consulted the monk. Then he stopped his horse and said something to the man who had once claimed me for his slave. That man nodded, and the chieftain called out to the monk once more.

The monk rode from his place at the back of the column toward me. “The man who first claimed you will take you as his slave. When they have returned to Neustria, he will sell you. If you promise to hide your hand until the sale has been completed, then at least then he will get something for his trouble.”

I would enslave myself to anyone who was going to the abbey. And if Saint Catherine were pleased with me, then perhaps she could intervene to have this misfortune removed from me as well. I nodded my agreement.

At my nod, the man who had claimed me pitched a parcel over to me. It was wrapped in a hide and secured with leather thongs.

“He says to carry that.”

Though it was heavy and though both my hands were now useless, I gathered it to my breast as the others laughed at me.