Колин Глисон: Sanctuary of Roses

Madelyne nodded. “All are well. Most should be out of bed within a day.” She added water to a shallow bowl filled with finely chopped bruisewort leaves and stirred it with a flat, wooden spoon. She would add dried woad and the paste would be used in his poultice. “I must look at your wound, and change the wrappings.”

He grunted what she assumed was an assent, though it wouldn’t have mattered to her if he hadn’t—the poultice had to be changed. He rolled to one side and she stuffed a lumpy pillow behind his back to help him hold the position.

Working deftly, she pulled up the woolen tunic one of the sisters had found for him, exposing the neat linen bandage. Beneath, the clean slice through his flesh was an angry red line with a careful row of stitches crossing over it. Blood oozed slowly from the upper edge, but other than that, the wound had congealed and was not puffed with bad humors. Pressing it gently, she asked, “Does it pain you?”

“Nay.”

Madelyne clicked her tongue absently as she pressed the cut to be certain more blood did not come forth. Then, with a flat, wooden utensil, she spread the warm, sticky mass of herbs over the wound.

Some of the pungent paste slid down his side, over bronzed skin decorated with other, healed, wounds, into the thick, dark hair that grew over his abdomen. She tried to catch it with the spoon, but it matted into the coarse hair and clung there. With a frown, Madelyne finished covering the wound with the plaster, then lightly pressed a clean cloth over it.

“Do you not move,” she told him, turning to get a damp rag. She felt him watch her, silently and steadily, as she brought back the dripping cloth, and was again conscious of the steeliness of his unwavering gray eyes.

“Ere I first saw you, I believed I had died and thought you to be the Madonna,” he spoke, breaking the silence.

Madelyne glanced at him, a wry smile hovering at the corners of her lips. “And now, my lord?” She looked down, using the cloth to wipe away at the paste that had gathered in the hair on his stomach. His skin was warm and the ridges of muscle in his middle were smooth and hard under the cloth. When her hand brushed over bare skin, that tingle that had started in her fingertips returned. Her mouth went dry. The texture of another’s flesh had never felt so warm, so soft and hard all at once…’twas foreign and stirring and she felt odd.

“Now? Now I wonder why one as fair as you would choose the cloistered life.”

She jerked her attention from the sensation of touching his skin, raising her gaze to be caught and held by his. Pulling the cloth from his skin, she looked away and her scattered thoughts returned to order. “The freedom that we enjoy is not to be had anywhere but in an abbey.”

“Behind stone walls you find freedom?” The derision showed in his face.

Madelyne turned away to retrieve clean wrappings, and when she came back to his side, she braced herself to look directly into those stone gray eyes. “Freedom from death and warfare, aye—freedom from the life you live all the day. And we have also the freedom to learn, to read and to write, to study…and freedom from the men who would rule our lives.” Even as the tart words came from her mouth, she regretted them. She felt suddenly that if she spoke of the liberties allowed monastic women, they’d be taken away all that quickly.

He was silent for a moment, measuring her with his eyes, as her words hung between them. When he spoke at last, his tone was flat and scornful. “The good sisters have taught you well. Have you been here since birth, then? A youngest daughter sent with a dowry to the Church to ensure that her father will find his way to heaven?”

“I’ve been here long enough to know that I’ve more freedom behind these walls than not. I would never leave here.” Unsurprised that he, a man, should not understand why she chose her life, Madelyne turned back to her work table. “Rest you now.”

They would be leaving anon.

Mayhaps he would miss the serenity of the abbey, Gavin thought wryly as he sat on a large rock in the bailey. More like, he would forget it as soon as he rode without its walls.

He must return to the world, to the blackness of his vengeance upon Fantin de Belgrume…to the bleakness that awaited him, and to the anger that had become so much a part of him. No one waited for him without these walls, not even Judith—though his life had become naught but a tool to avenge her pain. Gavin would see her—and, yes, himself—vindicated, and then…aye, then he would happily succumb to the hand of death if he were so called.

A presence eased into his consciousness just as its person moved: gracefully, calmly. Gavin turned and looked up into the face of the nun he still thought of as the Madonna.

“You are well enough to ride,” she commented in her low, quiet voice. “I’ve brought you a last draught to sip ere you leave.”

She handed him a silver cup, engraved with likenesses of the roses that grew throughout the abbey. The sleeve of her habit slid back from her hand, exposing a slim, white wrist. A trio of freckles formed a small triangle on the delicate, blue-veined skin and he caught her fingers before she withdrew, turning her hand to look at them.

“Unusual.” He looked up into her startled moonstone eyes. With a finger, he traced the three beauty marks, trying to recall why such a marking was familiar. Her flesh was smooth, and softer than anything he’d touched in many a moon. He felt the thrumming of her pulse under his thumb.

Sister Madelyne pulled her hand away with a firmness belied by the decorum of her movements and looked pointedly at his cup. “Do you drink that I may return the cup to the infirmary.”

Gavin obliged, suddenly anxious to be on his way—away from the tempting tranquility of the abbey, and away from this woman whose inner peace caused her to be more beautiful than was right. The liquid tasted bitter, with an aftertaste of wood—but ’twas no worse than any other concoction she’d foisted upon him during his convalescence. He took three large gulps, then rested his tongue from the rank taste. The nun watched him, her hands folded at her waist, and he noticed a small rope of beads dangling from one wrist.

He peered at the black beads, then looked questioningly at her. “A necklet for a nun?” He was not quite able to keep the irony from his voice.

She looked down, then slipped the rope over her hand and proffered it to him. “My lord, ’tis only my prayer beads.”

He took them, fingering the awkwardly-shaped nodules. They were made of some rough black material, and a faint scent of roses clung to them. When he raised his head to look questioningly at her, he felt a momentary dizziness that evaporated when their gazes met. “How did you come by these beads?” he asked, his tongue suddenly thick. “How are they made?”

“They are formed from rose petals,” she told him. “I made them when I first came to the abbey.” Her brows drew together. “How do you feel?”

Gavin blinked, feeling the dizziness once again. “I am well,” he lied, trying to focus on the beads he still clutched in his hands. “How can one make beads from flowers?”

Her voice came from afar. “The petals are stewed for hours over a low flame.” She leaned closer, her presence surrounding him, and he felt rather than saw her fingers brush over his forehead and into his hair. “Do you feel light of head, my lord?”

“Nay,” he forced the words from his lips even as shadows dimmed the edges of his vision.

“God be with you,” he heard that calm voice say as he slipped into nothingness.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.