The Wolf in the Cloister

by Emily Leverett

  “We do?” He looked confused.

  “Well,” she said, putting her hands on her hips, “the crozier is missing.” She pursed her lips—a spark of fear flashing in her eyes. “And I doubt that is the last that we will see of Hardouin. And right now you and I are incredibly ill clothed in the middle of a labyrinth that many people saw me go into with the…former…bishop. I doubt he’s going to be seen again. It would probably be best if I did not return to Sarum with you. No one knows you were here, and you can sneak away through the countryside, yes?”

  “I can,” he said, “but I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone.”

  “I can take care of myself. I’ll walk back through the church and tell the monks the bishop has commanded me back to the abbey. You can send my things, including my horse, along in a few days. I will work on my mother’s book, and, after a suitable time, we can meet again. Clearly Josceline,” she sneered at the name, “was using us to find the missing crozier—we likely need to finish that work without him.”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. “That will work.” He stepped closer to her. “But I will miss you.” He leaned in and kissed her, and she let him, twining her arms around his neck.

  Finally she broke the kiss and stepped back. “I will miss you,” she said. “But we can’t do this.” She waved vaguely at the space between them. “It’s distracting, and it’s dangerous. For both of us. I’m afraid I have to go back to being the good nun, and you—”

  “Have to go back to seeming the cad.” He caught her hand and kissed it. “I promise to only be seeming.”

  “I will hold you to that.” She grinned at him.

  He nodded and stripped off the monk’s cowl. He closed his eyes and transformed again, back into a wolf. The wolf’s head pin, still safely on the string, glinted in the sunlight.

  Marie put on the cowl and followed Clavret back to the entrance to the labyrinth and watched as he sprinted across the open fields for the woods at the edge of the cathedral property. He paused, looking back at her once before disappearing into the trees. She watched a long while after he had disappeared.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said to herself. “You’ll see him again soon.” She tucked the bishop’s knife away beneath her cowl and wiped away as much of the blood from her hand as she could. She snatched a couple roses from the bushes as an excuse for the cuts. She clutched her mother’s book to her chest and turned toward the cathedral.

  TO BE CONTINUED

  Acknowledgments

  There are a lot of people who contributed to the story of Marie and Bleiz, too many to name, but I'm still going to try.

  Thanks to John Hartness at Falstaff who gave me the chance to write romance.

  Thanks to Melissa McArthur who is the best copy editor and proofreader I have ever known and who leaves the most encouraging comments.

  Super special thanks to Lucy Blue, my editor at Falstaff Crush, who had more confidence in me and my characters than I did, and without whom Marie and Bleiz would have a much less exciting relationship. She's taught me so much about the genre and about writing in general, and I can't wait to work with her again!

  Thanks to Mastertype, a game I played on my Apple 2e as a kid, for teaching me to type so well that I can, in fact, write sex scenes with both eyes closed. Editing them remains a different story.

  Thanks to Oliver for supporting my disappearing into my office for hours at a time to write.

  Thanks to Sarah for encouraging me to believe in my writing.

  Finally, thanks to my Carolina Hurricanes family, and my D&D group, Jack, Justin, Dan, and Erica, who have given their time so that I have yet another wonderful way to have stories in my life.

  About the Author

  Emily Leverett is a writer, an editor, a medievalist, and an English professor. Her historical romance series, The Wolf and the Nun, combines her love of both urban fantasy and medieval literature. The first novella, The Wolf in the Cloister, will be followed by The Enchanted Rose in August 2020.

  She also co-writes the modern-day changeling fantasy the Eisteddfod Chronicles with Sarah Adams (Changeling’s Fall, Winter’s Heir nominated for the 2019 Imajinn award for Best Fantasy Novel), and Traitor’s Spring (out in 2021). Recent editorial projects include and Predators in Petticoats with Margaret McGraw. Her current scholarship examines medieval romance in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels in the co-edited anthology Terry Pratchett’s Ethical Worlds with Kristen Noone (out in 2020). She also writes on Shakespeare in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic.

  As a professor, she teaches Shakespeare, Chaucer, Medieval Romance, Composition, and Grammar. She loves diagramming sentences, often while drinking English Breakfast Tea any time of day. She lives with her spouse and their cats in North Carolina where they are avid Carolina Hurricanes fans.

  She can be found at emilylavinleverett.com.

  Also by Emily Leverett

  Co-Written with Sarah Joy Adams

  The Eisteddfod Chronicles

  Changeling's Fall

  Winter's Heir

  Traitor's Spring (coming soon)

  Edited Collections

  Predators in Petticoats

  Lawless Lands

  The Weird Wild West

  Contributor

  Terry Pratchett's Ethical Worlds: Essays on Identity and Narrative in Discworld and Beyond

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  Notes

  Chapter 9

  1 Whoever gets knowledge from God, science,

  And a talent for speech, eloquence,

  Shouldn’t shut up or hide away;

  No, that person should gladly display.

  When everyone hears about some great good

  Then it flourishes as it should;

  When folks praise it at full power,

  Then the good deed’s in full flower.

  Copyright © 2020 by Emily Leverett

  Cover Design by Natania Barron

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.