Evil lurks beneath your skin . . .”
Elise jolted upright, dripping with sweat. Her eyes flew open to the faint light of morning. Her heart pounded, and her body trembled. She sucked air past the terror lodged in her throat, past the bitter taste in her mouth. The dream was the same . . . no, different. She closed her eyes. Images washed over her.
Smoke—billowing, acrid. Shadowy figures, black hoods, circling, chanting. A shrill screech echoes in the cool meadow. Black-clothed figures drift to the writhing girl, younger than her. Strapped . . . naked. The girl shrieks, begs. Elise feels cool, damp grass. Freedom! Run! Angry shouts chase her. She jumps a creek, slips, falls into icy darkness. Satan comes. His shimmering mail and horns reflect the fire. Shadows obscure his face, yet his eyes glow, boring into her . . . his hands reach for her . . .
She blinked, reliving a terror as familiar and tangible as her own skin. Her sister slept soundly next to her, and Hortense snored in her adjacent bed. Elise forced herself to breathe, to calm the pounding in her chest, the cold, green terror prickling through her body. But, this time, as the torchlight in her dream flickered, she had seen the devil’s full face. That infinitesimal memory vanished instantly. She wiped tears from her eyes and struggled to remember something about the devil. That, too, was gone.
She rose from her bed and dressed. Grabbing a candle, she slipped past the single torch at the top of the stairs, down to the main hall. Picking her way between sleeping bodies, she stopped at the hearth to light her candle from the embers and went into the chapel.
Darkness surrounded her in this tomb-like, windowless room where she faced God’s cold, dark silence. She held the candle high, so its light cast a halo on the floor. She walked toward the altar, listening to her fear, believing she stepped into the very battlefield between God and Satan. To her, each step was a trial by ordeal, as if she walked through a pack of snarling, howling demons that would test her resolve, make her flee, and prove she was unworthy of God’s attention. And she feared God’s attention, believing He would punish her for annoying Him.
Yet, her nightmare drove her here. Her heart drummed loudly in her ears, terrified more by the shadowy fragments of her dream than by the demons residing in the chapel.
At the altar, she dropped to her knees, fixing the candle in a pool of hot wax she spilled on the cold stone floor. She raised her gaze to the arches above, to the wooden cross, and spread her arms in supplication. Daunted by shadows across the vaulted ceiling, she silently repeated her special prayer once, twice, ten, twenty times. Tears dripped down her cheeks.
“Heavenly Father,” she said aloud, her voice sounding belligerent to her ears. “Have pity on me,” she whispered. Not wishing to offend God, she spoke silently through her heart. Heavenly Father, power of eternity, who have ordered all things in your heart, by whose word all things are created, have pity on me.
She paused, struggling for words. This vision haunts me. Release me from this visitation. If there be evil in my soul, cast it from me. Forgive my sins. She looked up at the shadowed arches, the dream still flickering across her memory. Shaking her head to clear the dream, she took a deep breath and remembered: she was betrothed to an angry stranger, she would leave her sister. Brian’s caution and Thierry’s promise warned her. She was a pawn in a dangerous game between Eustace and William and Philip.
Please . . . please guide me.
Suddenly, it felt arrogant to ask anything of God. She dropped her arms to her sides, distressed that so simple a movement echoed loudly in the chapel. She waited, hoping to hear God’s answer, imagining the devil behind her, reaching for her. She watched the narrow flame of her candle rise steadily in the still chamber. Her stomach growled, her knees ached. She crossed herself, rose, and slowly, cautiously turned to find no demons. She left the chapel, feeling . . . abandoned.
If it had been me,” Brian Dubec said, his sword poised to thrust. “I would have taken her to my bed the moment she arrived.”
Walter, already staggering from the beating Brian’s men had given him, held his sword in his sweating palm. “A man without honor.”
“Honor!” Brian said, slashing his sword against Walter’s. “I call it stupidity. But . . . you’ve . . . always,” he emphasized each blow, “been slow . . .”
With a rapid exchange of clashing swords, Brian forced Walter to back up step by step until one of Brian’s men tripped him from behind. Walter went down hard, and they all laughed. He rolled to his side to defend himself as Brian charged and swung his sword again, knocking Walter’s weapon out of his hand and into the air. It landed nearby, and one of Brian’s men retrieved it.
“Behold, Walter Arquesson, a high-born maggot!” Brian said. His men laughed.
They’d been careless, Walter thought, wiping the blood dripping down his face. Brian had left a trace of the beating this time.
Three years ago, without land, income, sword, or priestly garb, Walter had decided to seek his fortune with the Normans in Sicily—and then Elise and Marie had arrived. He could not leave these two innocents at the mercy of his degenerate father and cursed Eustace for dangling his nieces before such a lascivious and cruel creature.
But last spring, when preparations were underway for the invasion, Walter had tried to join Eustace’s forces, hoping to prove himself worthy and gain some minor subsistence. Neither Eustace nor any other noble would take him as squire, page, or even as a mere groom. Brian delivered Eustace’s rejection with gleeful contempt. “You have no future. Change your name, Walter son of Arques, and tend the land—if you dare. I doubt you’d last a week behind a plow.”
Stripped of everything that had at one time distinguished him from the rabble, Walter now possessed only two things he valued: his chess set and the glorious past his noble name had once evoked. He would relinquish neither.
But with Elise’s betrothal, the world intruded upon this small crumbling sanctuary. In the presence of men united by oaths, Walter felt his stinging isolation. The doors of privilege had been slammed, bolted, and barred against him. He was breathless at the totality of his loss.
Now, Walter rolled to his feet. “Are we finished today?”
Brian’s sneer faded behind a deadly glare.
Walter refused to cower, refused to run. He would not break. His noble bearing infuriated Brian the most, and Walter wielded his composure like a weapon despite nearly daily thrashings. As Brian raised his blade again, Walter looked forward to his next lesson, for these encounters taught him how to duck, feint, thrust, fall—and survive.
A servant ran up to Brian but stopped abruptly, sensing danger. Brian lowered his weapon and glowered at the servant.
“The Countess requests a word, sir,” the boy said quickly.
The English have plows.” Tristan looked at her as if she were a dullard.
“I’m sure they do,” she said, calmly annoyed at Brian’s smirking grin as he let Tristan lead the challenge. She had summoned Brian to hear his views on transporting the heavier items, such as the heavy-wheeled plow.
“My seneschal,” she said, “uses the new heavy plow to till virgin, arable land beside the woods. The plow has increased crop production.”
“Fine,” Tristan retorted. “Let your seneschal drag it to your new home!”
For days, Elise had been packing for her journey. Nearly all her tangible wealth would travel with her or be sent in subsequent shipments. Daily trunks and crates arrived from Fontenay, filled with plate, jewels, gold and silver coins, braziers for interior heating, furnishings, and hangings. At Boulogne’s market, she had purchased dyestuff imported from the East, the finest Persian wool dyed expensively in deep blues, reds, and greens, and the best ermine, sable, and mink she could find to make winter clothing for her husband and herself. She found silks sent north from the Normans who controlled the Sicilian silk works and bought finely woven flax and linen cloth, a new upright loom, spindles, needles, and precious scissors.
Anticipating the coming winter, she had packed beeswax, molds and new dipping racks, seeds, cooking and forging implements, and now she had turned to the tanning vats and the heavy plow.
“Brian says my husband builds a new castle, that his demesne is isolated and located on the frontier near the Danelaw.” She reminded Tristan of the need to plant a kitchen garden or expand the winter crops. “I do not intend to starve my first winter,” she said. “And neither will the villagers.”
Roland reluctantly agreed to take the heavy plow. Brian suggested they take a couple of two-wheeled carts to carry the larger items, which would be reassembled when they reached their destination. “We’ll buy packhorses, oxen, and more carts when we arrive,” he assured Roland.
Pleased, Elise decided to take new horse collars and harnesses, and other items likely absent in a crude, primitive land.
As the days passed, Roland prepared his ships for the journey. Dubec and his men grew restless. They hunted and traveled to coastal villages, seeking manly pleasures elsewhere. The women raced through their preparations.
The bulk of Elise’s richly embroidered clothing and jewels were packed away, except for a single chest that would house her wedding attire. Her travel attire, chosen for simplicity and durability, consisted of linen and wool tunics with little or no embroidery and thick woolen mantles. She selected hooded leather cloaks lined in wool and fur, and several pairs of sturdy shoes for winter comfort. And every evening, Hortense made sachets of wormwood and mint to place between the furs to keep them free from moths, while Elise and Marie sewed coins and jewels into her clothing. A precaution.
One day, a servant carrying a tooled-leather case followed Marie to the solar. “It is our tradition, Elise,” she said. “The eldest always keeps the family book.” Marie unfastened the straps and carefully pulled back the skins. This rare book—equivalent in value to an entire manor: fields, meadows, woods—was about the size of a saddle and a foot thick. It had been in the family for generations. Salvaged from their destroyed home, they had taken it with them to Abbey Clarion, and with them again to Boulogne.
Elise traced her fingers across the thin wooden covers chiseled with crosses at each corner and hinged with leather straps. A rectangular groove had been carved on its face, framing the picture painted in the carved depression. On a thin coat of plaster, God sat on a throne surrounded by angels, the saints, and Jesus at His feet. As if the Scriptures were imbued with the Holy Spirit itself, Marie blew softly across the maple brown background, once representing the golden glow of heaven.
“It’s darker than I remembered,” whispered Marie in awe. She slid her hand across the still-visible green and red robes now nearly black.
Elise stared at one face, so like her mother’s, faintly glowing, despite the spiderweb cracks and dark paint, as if she peered out through the veil of memory. Elise caressed the gentle face softly with her finger, feeling the plaster crumble. “Woodworms,” she said, indicating the needle-sized holes, squiggled tracks, and powdery residue.
Marie and Elise lifted the cover from the folios.
“Here.” Marie pointed to the names of their parents written on the thin vellum. “The priest will enter your names after the ceremony.”
They turned the sheets arranged in quires, flesh side to flesh side, hair side to hair side. The tiny script had faded in places to a pale brown or faint gray. Free from mold, the book smelled faintly of crushed pine needles. The gold leaf and richly colored illustrations were still crisp and vibrant as if newly assembled. They closed and rewrapped the book, setting it carefully inside Elise’s most prized possession: a large wooden chest hewn from a solid tree trunk and handsomely carved.
Another day, Elise looked over a few gifts she would take to her betrothed. She knew so little of the man who now ruled her life. Perhaps her gifts would ease his fury at the marriage. Perhaps he would accept her as an ally. She felt confident that the wooden serving platters, bowls, trenchers, and mazers all richly carved and trimmed with a matching narrow band of silver would enhance her husband’s stature.
Picking up the brooch, she felt almost afraid. She’d asked the silversmith to create a clasp for her husband’s cloak, imagining a wolf engraved on silver. Instead, he gave her an odd piece of amber, not yellow like her necklaces, but black, the size of her palm with streaks of red in its fiery depths. Her fingers slid over the cool surface where the smith had etched a leaping wolf so perfect it startled her, even now. As she moved the piece against the light, she felt the power of enchantment, for the wolf seemed alive. Blazing red eyes glowed. Sharp teeth snarled at her, a lean, skeletal body twisted in attack as his long tail curled low near clawed hind feet.
Edged in a tooled silver band, the wolf could be worn as a brooch or a pendant. Deciding to give it to her husband when she knew him better, she attached the silver chain to the brooch and slipped it over her head, tucking it beneath her clothing. She hoped this gift would enchant him as it had charmed her. Immediately, she crossed herself begging God’s forgiveness for her heathen thoughts.