The Protector (4 page)

His tired spirit rose and stretched in response to the view. Like something out of his control, it grew until it
contained his body and not the other way around. In an unnatural silence profound for its stillness, his invisible self reached out and touched the beauty, feeling it as something physical. In that instant of breathless transcendence, another presence met his in the glory. It was human, not godly, of that he was sure, for he at once knew its essence even if he did not know its name.

It was a stunning moment of connection that ended almost as quickly as it came, but which contained a sense of infinity while it lasted. Its passing left him suddenly more alone than before, and more aware of his separateness, and drenched with painful resignation.

So, it would end here. The Fitzwaryn name, ennobled by the Conqueror himself, would die in obscurity on this rocky Breton coast. The lost lands would never be regained, his sister's sons would never be knights, the entire family wealth would never be more than the gold and emerald necklace buried in his bag. He would have to tell the priest about that, and ask to have it sent to his sister in London.

Would that merchant husband of hers let her keep it, or take it to finance yet another expansion of his trade? Did it matter? In a generation the family's nobility would be no more. His failure to his family's honor was the only real regret that he had about his life. He had always carried that like a glowing ember in his heart, but now it flared to engulf him.

“Sir Morvan.”

The blaze subsided. He turned to see Ascanio approaching. The armor was gone but he still looked more knightly than priestly. He wore a friendly expression and not the suspicious one from the village. Sitting on the grass near the rock, Ascanio said, “I have come to ask if you want to confess.”

“Under the circumstances, I think that I had better.”

“Probably so.”

It did not take long. There had been little opportunity for his normal sins during the months of running from the plague. He included a litany of earlier ones of the flesh, in case he had forgotten them at previous times. The priest kept silent when he was done.

Morvan finally spoke, to break the confessional mood. “You are from Italy? How came you here?”

Ascanio's pose relaxed, and he became a knight again. “Two years ago I decided to take the coastal pilgrimage route to Santiago. I stopped at an abbey called Saint Meen. There was trouble in the area, with free companies raiding villages. I convinced the abbot to form a defense and hire some men.”

“It was good advice.”

“They had a sister abbey for women a few miles away. Fifteen nuns and some girls. Brigands attacked it. One of the girls, no more than sixteen, knew something of weapons. She held the men off with a crossbow, wounding four including the leader, and the others fled.”

“Lady Anna? Did they turn her out after she saved them?”

“Nay. The abbess had been frightened witless. She asked my abbot for a man to train the girl further. He sent me.”

“The world has truly turned upside down. So you, a priest, were sent to teach a novice nun weaponry?”

“She was not a novice. She had taken no vows yet. What was the abbess to do? This civil war has made Brittany a lawless land. Unprotected women are safe nowhere, not even in an abbey. Word that the place was armed could perhaps deter the overbold.”

Morvan shook his head in amazement. “It is a strange story, but then these are strange times. So you went?”

“Aye. She had hunted as a child and her bow eye was superb. She did not need my help there. We just worked with the sword.”

“Is she any good with it?”

“She is skilled and quick. But armor weighs her down and extended swordplay in it requires more strength than she has.”

Morvan pictured that. The image was not nearly as fantastic as it should have been. “Why did you both come back here?”

“After her father died in battle, her brother requested her return while he attended to some business in Avignon. When he came back, however, he was sick with the plague. The town priest would not attend, so she sent for me. When I arrived, she wanted me to shrive him through the closed door.” He shrugged. “I confess that I considered it. But I made her let me in and together we helped him to die. Then we waited.”

“You did not get sick. Are you blessed?”

“Just fortunate.”

“She was not.”

“Nay. But no one else died. This was in March. Then in June it reappeared, and it hit like a wave. One quarter of the town perished. One in five on the estate lands.”

“I have heard worse.”

“As have we. Even so, it is difficult to be grateful after such a curse.” He rose to his feet. “Now I must go see to your men and other duties. Someone will come to you later.”

Come to see if he was dying yet.

He walked with Ascanio toward the camps. “Do you stay to protect her? Until she returns to the abbey?”

“She protects herself. But there are no knights here— the few remaining died—so, I have stayed for a while.
Until the young duke appoints a warden, or until the boy Josce earns his spurs.”

“Then she will return to the abbey?”

Ascanio shot him a penetrating glance. His eyes showed the memory of what he had just heard in the confession. “She will return. She is resolved.”

In any other circumstance it might have been a warning instead of a flat statement of fact.

But there was no need to warn a dead man.

A
NNA BENT HER KNEES
and scooted forward so the water would cover her shoulders. Only God knew when she would have time to bathe again. The next week promised to be one of sleepless nights and duty-packed days.

She ducked her head and rinsed the soap from her wet curls, then stood and wrapped the towel around her. She moved the stool to the fire and began the horrible process of combing through the snarls made by wind and water.

When she was young an old servant had done this, loudly bemoaning the condition of her hair every day. Then she would cluck over the bruises Anna's adventures had raised and, when she thought Anna wasn't looking, shake her head over the body itself. A lot of people did that, for she was always much larger for her age than
other girls, and even most boys. For as long as she could remember, she had expected startled looks when people met her.

Only her father hadn't seemed to find her grotesque. The last Roald de Leon in a line of Roalds, he had been bigger than life and full of the Viking blood of the first Roald, who had planted a fortress on this cliff rock. He had found joy in her size and strength, and had shown delight in her horsemanship and good bow eye. The only attention she received from him came because of her un-womanly skills.

She went to a trunk and found some clean clothes. After dressing she returned to the fire to let her hair dry, combing through the curls so that they wouldn't be too wild. As always she did this herself, without the aid of a mirror.

There had been no mirrors at the abbey either, but she had ceased looking in them long before she entered that world of women. She knew what she looked like, and as a young girl had seen her lack of beauty in her mother's regretful eyes as surely as she had seen it in her own reflection.

When people glanced with astonishment at her height and face now, it mattered not to her. Beauty would avail her nothing in the life she would have, a life delayed only briefly by her current duties at the estate. She looked forward to returning to the abbey. A world that suited her waited there.

The light told her that the sun was setting, and she went to the gallery. A glorious sky greeted her as she stepped out onto the covered balcony. Blues and pinks and purples streaked the sky, and the sun itself appeared as a huge orange circle skimming the edge of the horizon. The air filled with color and the light transformed
the sea. It was the sort of beauty that showed God in all of his magnificence in the world, and her spirit stretched and melted into it as the sun finished its slow descent.

She glanced down. A solitary figure sat on a rock by the cliff's edge, his arms resting on his knees, his body poised in reflection. From her perch, Sir Morvan appeared desperately isolated and vulnerable.

Her heart wrenched with astounding empathy. She might have touched his soul for an instant, so profound was her understanding. The spike of connection assaulted her as if her separateness had disappeared, absorbed by the glory filling the sky.

It frightened her, and she was grateful when it quickly passed. But its power echoed in her emotions as she watched Sir Morvan. Had they told him that she was supposed to be touched by the angels? She doubted that this knight would believe such nonsense, but if he chose to because it gave him hope she wouldn't argue the point.

Two hours later, Anna sat at the high table nibbling her supper. The meal was symbolic of their lives. In reverse of normal practice, the meat was plentiful and the bread sparse. Animals of the hunt had survived the summer's neglect, but the fields had not. The household's grain had to be rationed carefully.

As the noise in the hall flowed around her, she tried to calculate how she would arrange to nurse Sir Morvan and still manage the estate. There were horses at the stud farm that needed her hand, that needed to be trained and sold in order to buy grain for the villages.

The horses promised to be their salvation. Their farm bred and trained the best in Brittany. Secluded and accessible
only by secret paths, it had been safe from brig-ands and thieves. Just as well, for she could spare only two men to protect it.

Her sister Catherine tapped her arm for attention. “Tell Josce that I'm right. I said that Sir Morvan is the most handsome man on the estate, with eyes like a dark angel, and he doesn't agree.”

Anna looked past her younger sister's delicate, pretty face and cloud of fair hair. On Catherine's other side Josce fumed silently. “Don't tease him. I know girls think it is a game to make boys jealous, but it isn't worthy of you.”

Catherine rolled her eyes. “You are always so serious, Anna. You have to be the most dull sister in the world.”

“Perhaps I'm just a sister with a lot to do. Are you getting the women on with the Nativity sewing?”

“Aye. There will be new clothes for everyone.” Catherine turned away to flirt with Josce. He lowered his sandy head and whispered something in her ear. He also nibbled that ear.

They were sixteen and old enough to marry. It was what her father had wanted and what the estate's future required. Then La Roche de Roald would pass through Catherine to Josce. Perhaps she should just let them marry and forget about obtaining the duke's permission. He was only ten years old, after all, and over in England. Neither he nor his guardian, King Edward, had responded to her letters, assuming that they had even received them.

The question of the estate's future was a weight that never left her shoulders, and this evening it pressed heavier than ever. She needed to settle things. La Roche de Roald needed to be secured to a Breton lord, so that it did not get swallowed by either France or England in
these squabbles and alliances over titles and land. The plague had given them a perverse security, but chaos stirred on the edges of their world, threatening to engulf them.

Ascanio entered the hall and approached her table. “One of us must bring Sir Morvan food. The servants were too frightened to leave it near the shelter.”

She ordered a servant to place food and wine in a basket. “You have not eaten. I will go. I had planned to visit him this evening anyway.”

That was not entirely true. She recognized her duty to visit him, but had been trying to justify not going. Being close to the man unsettled her. Riding back to the castle, she had sensed that large presence, and it had put her on her guard the whole time. It was foolish, of course. He represented no danger and appeared to be an honorable knight. Still, he unaccountably made her wary.

She sent for her cloak and a box from her chamber, then took the basket and headed out.