Chalice of Roses

by Jo Beverley

  He surged up from the bed and swept his cloak around his naked body. “Attend me,” he said to Alain, and headed off to the communal bathing tent. The squire hurried along with a pile of clean clothing.

  Rannulf had found quarters in the village, which had proved wise in recent rains, when the camp had run with streams and tents had let in water. It meant Michael was walking past people’s homes and shops, but after a month they were used to seeing fighting men on the way to the bathhouse. He attracted little attention other than the usual saucy comments from the women. That reminded him that there were only children, matrons and crones left in Allacorn village. Any nubile young women of respectable families had been sent away to safety. Good thing the army traveled with its own whores.

  In the camp men called out congratulations on his defeat of Willie Sea. It all sounded good-humored, but Michael knew he’d made himself a target. Tomorrow, some would strive to defeat him for the reflected glory. He was going to have to keep winning or pay ransoms until his purse was empty.

  That didn’t seem to matter.

  Only his bride. His beloved.

  “Sir?” Alain prompted, and Michael realized he was standing in the street like an idiot. He moved on, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from searching for her. Insanity.

  But when he found her, he’d marry her, even if he had to carry her off in the teeth of opposition from her family. He was only a younger son, without land or fortune, but . . .

  Alain nudged him. “To your left. The duke!”

  Michael jerked back into the moment and turned to see Henry of Anjou. The duke was supposed to be in Nottingham besieging the castle, ten leagues away, not here with the force set to guard the road from the south. Lack of action near Allacorn had led to boredom and the informal tournament, but Michael wondered if the duke had come to put a stop to it. He was known to think tourney fighting a waste of time, and for his temper.

  He seemed in good humor, however, joking with his entourage of barons and knights. Perhaps the siege had become tedious. The duke was well-known for his boundless energy, so it would be like him to dash over here to see the situation for himself.

  He was sandy haired, with nothing extraordinary about his looks, two years younger than Michael and a head shorter, but the vibrant energy and power that infused him could take the breath away. If energy and power could win a crown, Henry of Anjou would have England, and soon.

  Michael gathered his wits and bowed.

  “Michael de Loury,” Duke Henry said in his gruff voice. “Your father holds Moreborn Castle in Herefordshire.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Michael, impressed by the man’s ability to remember such details. He didn’t know whether Henry of Anjou had the right to the throne or not, but he’d support him anyway for his brains and fighting prowess.

  “You’re the talk of the camp, de Loury. I don’t normally approve of tourney fighting, but bored men are troublesome, and skills must be practiced. De Bohun and I will field parties in tomorrow’s melee.” He shot a sharp glance at one of the lords around him, and Michael wondered if there was more than friendly rivalry there. “I’ve wagered money, and I intend to win. Will you be in my party?”

  Michael had no choice but to bow again. “I’m honored, my lord.”

  “Good; my side must win. Make sure it does.” The duke moved on and Michael did, too, but so much for his mother’s advice to mask his abilities.

  “An honor!” Alain declared excitedly. “You’ll really show them tomorrow. You’ll leave the rest in the dust.”

  “If God wills,” Michael said, beginning to see the bright side.

  He had the attention of the future king of England, but to make anything of it he must fight his best and ensure that the duke’s party won. Success could put his feet on the path to greatness, and perhaps his bride’s family wouldn’t be so reluctant to approve the wedding. It went against his mother’s warning, however, and he’d always suspected that she’d seen problems other than the attention of tempting wenches.

  Why was his life so complicated? Other men could embrace the chance for glory and progress without doubt. Lucky Henry of Anjou had been born to a great destiny and encouraged to it from a young age. His mother hadn’t tried to lock him away in a monastery. The Countess Matilda hadn’t demanded vows before letting him loose into the world. She hadn’t died before telling him the full meaning of it all.

  Michael wiped off a scowl before entering the crowded tent, which was thick with noise and steam—and temptation. Women in light, damp clothing moved amid the communal tubs bearing ewers of hot water, drying cloths and oils to massage knotted shoulders.

  He shed his cloak and climbed into a tub, congratulations on his victory over Willie Sea swirling around him like the steam. Should he cover himself with glory tomorrow or not?

  He might not get the chance. He saw Sir William of Seaham, furred like a bear, glaring at him from another tub across the room, silently threatening retribution.

  After the simple midday meal, Gledys returned to the brewery with Sister Elizabeth, easily following the rule of appreciation. Summer was in full richness and the gardens inside the wooden palisade billowed with blossoms worked over by insects, and ripe seedpods ready to burst and provide flowers for the future. The air was full of perfume and green growth. Summer was so lovely that she wondered why God had created winter. She’d heard there were lands to the south where winter didn’t exist.

  There she went again, questioning God’s wisdom. It was surprising that He didn’t strike her dead, especially when her other sins were added to her tally.

  “Stop staring at the tor,” Sister Elizabeth said. “You’ll never get to go there, and that’s that.”

  Gledys looked forward again, bowing her head. “I know, but it’s so close, and we’re attached to the abbey there. And both abbey and tor are holy. People make pilgrimages there, so why are we barred from it?”

  “Because we live a holy life here. Come along.”

  Gledys followed, but said, “What if it’s true that Christ himself was once at Glastonbury? That makes it as good as the Holy Land itself.”

  “Just stories. It’s not in the Bible.”

  “The Glastonbury priests sometimes talk about it.”

  “Good for business,” said Sister Elizabeth cynically.

  Gledys knew that was true. In these troubled times, religious foundations competed for pilgrims and the gifts they brought.

  “Work, Gledys. There’s all that fruit to be crushed.”

  Gledys obeyed, applying a big pestle to a tub of blackberries, but she didn’t think Saint Joseph was so easily dismissed. She couldn’t remember whether his being a tin merchant was in the Bible, but if so, he could have sailed to this part of England. If he knew Jesus of Nazareth well enough to give over his tomb, it was possible he’d taken him on journeys, wasn’t it?

  The old church definitely existed—the one said to have been built by Christ himself. Some of the sisters who’d come here at an age to remember had seen it: a small, very old building where miracles occurred.

  The famous thorn tree existed, too.

  It bloomed every Christmastide, which was a wonder in itself, and a flowering sprig was brought to Rosewell every Christmas Eve. It was said no other such tree grew in England, so it had to be a miracle, and what other explanation was there than the one legend provided—that it had grown from Joseph of Arimathea’s staff when he thrust it into the ground while resting?

  But none of this explained her own fascination with the tor. When she looked at it, her heart ached with longing and she felt as if she might fly there if she only allowed herself. Her feelings were so similar to her longings for her knight that she wondered whether there was some connection. But he was fighting near a castle.

  Then she realized something odd: She saw him in dreams when she was asleep in the dark, but he was always in daylight. Moreover, in her dreams, she wasn’t wearing her habit or her sleeping shift. She wasn’t sure wh
at she was wearing, but knew it wasn’t that. When she tried to pry open her memories to discover more, of course she failed.

  So frustrating! But did these oddities prove her experiences were merely dreams?

  Or did they prove that she had holy visions?

  “Work, Gledys!” Sister Elizabeth said sharply.

  “Your pardon,” Gledys said, and returned to her task.

  Michael tried to resist the insanity, but he spent the evening searching for his bride, even though it meant running a gauntlet of envious congratulations, snide comments and eager whores. Eventually he gave up and accepted an invitation to drink with Robert de Warin god. He needed refreshment, and Robert was a friendly knight who was part of the castle garrison. That was one place Michael hadn’t searched as yet.

  Michael turned the talk to what ladies were in residence there.

  “Lady Ella and her attendants,” Robert said. “And a couple of young daughters.”

  “Her ladies?”

  “She sent her younger attendants off with her older daughters, wise lady that she is. No need to court trouble.” He eyed Michael. “We all know you’re particular, de Loury, but stick to whores. Safer in the end for landless men like us.”

  He left and Michael considered his words.

  Landless men. That was what he was, and such men could not marry, but land could be won through a great man’s favor.

  He drained his pot. Tomorrow he’d leave every opponent in the dust, and then he’d fight with heart and soul to put Henry of Anjou on the throne.

  He would win his bride.

  Chapter 3

  In late afternoon, Sister Elizabeth was summoned to a meeting with the abbess and cellarer to go over inventory. Gledys was set to record supplies on tally sticks. As she notched the sticks, she gave thanks for a job that took concentration and stopped her mind’s busy whirling. She was tallying the supply of bungs of various sizes when she felt someone behind her. She turned quickly, wondering at the same time why she should feel alarmed. There was no one in Rosewell to fear.

  But this was a stranger. She was a nun, but dressed in black rather than the unbleached wool of the Rosewell habit. The hunchbacked old woman obviously needed the staff in her right hand, and her neck curved painfully as she looked up at Gledys. What had brought her on a journey to Rosewell?

  “Sister, may I serve you?”

  “My name is Sister Wenna, and I come from Torholme.”

  Gledys felt a tingle of excitement. That was the nunnery close by Glastonbury Abbey, situated at the base of the tor. “It must be a special honor to be so close to the abbey, Sister. It is such a sacred place.”

  “It was sacred before the time of Christ.”

  Shocked, Gledys protested, “Nothing was sacred before Christ.”

  The woman clicked her tongue impatiently. “Why, then, do people revere it?”

  “Because of Joseph of Arimathea. Because our Lord might have visited there.”

  Another impatient click of the tongue. “Why did Saint Joseph and our blessed Lord visit there?”

  Gledys stared at such an extraordinary question but she grasped one thing. “They did? It is known?”

  “Yes, they did,” Sister Wenna said, but as if that were irrelevant. “The question is, why? Because it was a sacred place even then. It and the tor. As you know.”

  “I?” Gledys took a guilty step backward. “I know nothing of such pagan matters. It’s unholy.” Was Sister Wenna an apparition of Satan, come to tempt her even more?

  As if reading her mind, the old woman crossed herself. “Sixty years I’ve been a nun at Glastonbury, so don’t think me a tool of the devil. Many places in England were worshiped before Christ by our ancestors.”

  “Not by mine,” Gledys said firmly. “My family is Norman.”

  “Half Norman. Your Gascon grandfather was given the lands and widow of a man who died at Hastings. Don’t you know that?”

  Gledys was startled into stammering, “N-no. I have never been told any details of my ancestry, and a sister of Rosewell is not curious about such things.”

  Sister Wenna’s straggly gray brows rose, as if she knew of Gledys’s sinful curiosity. “Know now: His wife, your grandmother, came from a special family.”

  “Special?” Gledys asked. “In what way?” This conversation was disturbing. She wished Sister Elizabeth would return. She wished evening weren’t creeping in, turning sunlight into fire.

  Instead of answering, the old nun demanded, “What do you think of Glastonbury?”

  “Nothing!” Gledys exclaimed in instant denial, but then she tried to cover guilt with babble. “I came here as an infant, so if I was taken there then, I don’t remember it. It’s my family’s tradition: All seventh children are given to the Church. . . .”

  “Yes, yes, I know. The blessed seventh of the garalarl line.” When Gledys gaped, she shook her head. “You don’t even know that? Well, there’s no time to explain. You are summoned—”

  “By Mother Abbess?” Gledys asked in alarm, moving toward the door. “Why did you not say so?”

  “No!” The old woman grabbed Gledys’s sleeve.

  “Then by whom?” Gledys pulled back, but was afraid of hurting the ancient, knobby fingers. “What do you want, Sister Wenna?”

  “Peace,” the old woman said fiercely. “And you can bring it.”

  “What?”

  Sister Wenna let Gledys go and leaned heavily on her staff again. “Listen to me. You are of a sacred line, with roots thousands of years old. Thousands! Long before the time of Christ. All through history, new growth has grafted to the mighty trunk as earthly powers and beliefs come and go, but the ancient sap rules. Every land has these mysteries, but not all have kept the knowledge alive, and they pay the dreadful price.”

  The old nun sagged, her back a painful arch.

  “Sister Wenna, would you not like to sit? There’s a bench outside in the sun.”

  The woman ignored her. “The sap, the sacred power, flows through the females, so when Joseph of Arimathea married a woman of our ancient line he blended one mystery with another. Deliberately, I’m sure. Thus we often now call it the Arimathean line. To acknowledge your descent from a saint is no sin.”

  Gledys considered the implication with alarm. “But to claim descent from . . . what did you call it? The grarl line?” Perhaps it was in the harsh English tongue, now used only by peasants.

  “Garalarl.” It came out like a guttural snarl.

  “Garalarl?”

  “The garalarl is a sacred vessel that blesses with abundance. The name is also given to the bloodline that serves it. The powers flow through all of the line to some extent, but only a seventh child of a garalarl woman can respond when the cup summons. If male, he will know how to protect the chalice and its maiden. If female, she will know how to bring the chalice into this world. She will be a garalarl maiden, like you.”

  “Me?”

  “You are a garalarl maiden, and you are summoned—”

  “Where?” Gledys broke free of the old woman’s claw.

  “Wherever the raven leads.”

  Gledys rolled her eyes, wondering why she’d let this wit-addled old woman upset her. “Sister Wenna, let me take you to the infirmary. Sister Clarise has soothing drafts. . . .”

  “It will soothe me only if you leave immediately.”

  “Leave Rosewell?”

  “As if the thought has never crossed your mind. It calls you. Don’t deny it!”

  “What calls me?”

  “The holy chalice.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Very well, the tor calls you. Deny that, if you dare.”

  Gledys longed to, but instead she turned as if pulled by ropes to the window that gave sight of the hilltop, where the Monastery of Saint Michael was gilded by the setting sun.

  “That’s not peculiar,” she said from a dry throat. “It’s all I can see of Glastonbury, where Christ once walked.”

  “Where legen
d says Joseph of Arimathea buried the holy chalice.”

  Gledys refused to respond.

  “Legend, as usual, is wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Gledys turned, bitterly disappointed.

  “It wasn’t buried; it was moved.”

  “Moved?” Gledys’s head was beginning to pound, but now she hoped Sister Elizabeth wouldn’t return yet. She had to know more. “Moved where?”

  “Somewhere beyond our earthly realm. All that questing and digging when no one will ever find it that way, and certainly no man. It can be summoned back to us only by a rare and blessed woman like you.”

  Gledys saw that tossed like bait, but she still snatched it. She couldn’t help herself. To be rare and blessed . . .

  Sister Wenna smirked.

  “A rare and blessed woman joined with her protector,” Sister Wenna said.

  “And if it does come?” Gledys asked, almost in a whisper. “What then?”

  “Evil is defeated, and peace reigns. For a while, at least, mankind being weak.”

  “Peace,” Gledys echoed, but then reality dropped back over her. “This is truly to be desired, but I am no such miracle worker, Sister. I’m a good and steady worker, but even there my mind wanders.”

  “Of course your mind wanders! You must have been feeling the summoning for years.”

  For years? Yes, perhaps that was true, and it had all become more urgent and disturbing recently.

  “If I can help bring peace, why have you not come to me before? War has scourged England all my life.”

  “Garalarl lore has been lost or twisted since the Normans came, and those chosen to guide us have grown weak and indecisive. Families of the line no longer follow the ways, and pure sevenths are rare. It’s mere chance that you have been protected. Your family is sunk in ignorance. Which is an unlikely blessing, as it turns out. If they’d remembered the truth, they might have strangled you at birth.”

  Gledys gasped in disbelief, but Sister Wenna said, “The de Brescars are the type to see war as opportunity, not curse, but fortunately they saw advantage in the tradition of sending a seventh child into the Church. You were born just as war erupted, and they had no worldly need of another daughter, so why not? Perhaps your prayers would put them on the winning side.”