Passion's Exile

by Glynnis Campbell

"‘Tisn’t so bad here, is it, Wink?" Her voice cracked. "‘Tis...peaceful. Ye have a place in the mews with Sister Mildred’s kestrels, and I have a warm bed. Sister Beatrice keeps hens, so there are plenty of eggs for ye. And I can do just fine on barley broth and oatcakes.”

  Three-quarters of an inch.

  She gulped. "I won’t have to pray all the time. Sister Margaret says even when I’m no longer a novice, I’ll still have an hour or two free in the afternoons. We can stroll through the garden or go down to the sea. Does that sound good to ye?"

  Half an inch.

  Tears burned in her eyes. She’d been so certain he’d come. So sure that he’d keep his promise.

  Now she could see she’d been a fool. He’d never meant to return. He’d only made that vow so she wouldn’t make a fuss about his leaving.

  Lady Rosamund of Averlaigh was going to become a nun. She’d already decided against taking a husband. She couldn’t possibly love another the way she had Blade.

  She clamped her jaw to still its trembling. Tomorrow she’d take the veil. And from that day forth, she’d be a bride of the church. Thereafter, the days would be woven together like threads on a loom, one into the next, their pattern never changing, until the cloth of her life was complete. Aye, she’d be a nun...a whispering, wan, withered old nun to the end of her days.

  Wink’s talons flexed suddenly on Rose’s glove, and she frowned at the bird. But before Rose could prevent the wayward beast, Wink coiled and sprang off of her arm, flapping her wings furiously.

  Rose cried out in dismay. She should have leashed the poor falcon. Wink couldn’t fly. Not properly. The reckless bird would get herself killed.

  Then Rose looked aloft and slowly lowered her arm in disbelief. Wink wasn’t falling. She wasn’t even faltering. Indeed, she was flying as well as she ever had, high into the heavens, far from the mundane world, wild and joyful and free.

  "Wink!" A tear spilled from Rose’s eye as she smiled up at her precious pet. “Oh, Wink!”

  Wink circled the old chapel closely at first, cocking her head this way and that, gradually widening the spheres until her flight encompassed the walls of the nunnery. Then, while Rose watched with mixed emotions, she soared off, away from Rose, away from St. Andrews, toward the setting sun.

  ‘Twas best this way, she supposed. If Rose couldn’t be free, at least Wink deserved to be. Still, her eyes flooded with tears as she watched her precious falcon diminish in the western sky.

  Rose’s eyes were so blurred by tears that at first she didn’t see the horsemen descending the far west hillock. Even after she noticed them, she forced her racing heart to calm, bracing herself against false hope.

  ‘Twasn’t Blade, she chided herself. There were dozens of them. ‘Twas hardly a man coming to claim his bride. Two score, nae, three score knights crested the rise, a veritable army. They were likely a contingent of soldiers stopping in St. Andrews on their march to Edinburgh, then on to the Borders to fight the English.

  Still her foolish heart pounded, and she wiped her eyes to better see who approached with such royal bearing.

  Yet more soldiers poured over the rise, and she shielded her eyes, squinting against the setting sun to catch a glimpse of the noble knight who rode at their fore.

  The lead rider stopped all at once, and Rose’s breath caught. High above him, her wayward bird wheeled and soared in her own heaven, oblivious to the army of dangerous knights below. Then the great knight suddenly raised his gloved hand, and to Rose’s amazement, Wink dove and fluttered down, landing neatly atop the man’s wrist.

  "Blade." Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Her throat was too thick with tears.

  Mother Ellen would have scolded her soundly for picking up her skirts, clambering over the garden wall, and tearing off across the countryside like a heathen. But Rose didn’t care.

  Her beloved felon had arrived as he’d promised—his honor restored, his heart healed, and his arms wide open—and Rose felt as free as a falcon.

  EPILOGUE

  No pilgrim’s tale could be complete without a final accounting of the personages who shared the journey.

  Because ‘twas his last pilgrimage, Father Peter set in his own hand the account of what befell the company afterward. Since the beloved priest, God rest him, was long of wind and short on truth, I have taken the liberty of making brief what was once unwieldy, and—may the Lord pardon me—strained what truth I could from his elaborate history.

  The Father settled peacefully within the walls of a monastery near St. Andrews, where he spent as many hours regaling wide-eyed novices with his adventures as he did in prayer.

  Simon the palmer continued to make a lucrative, if brief, business of traveling on pilgrimage and selling relics. Within a year, the old palmer contracted a wasting sickness and died. As a matter of note, his bones were later exhumed and sold by another enterprising palmer as those of Saint Swithin.

  Drogo the cook and Fulk the butcher, having learned something of the value of a good wife, made their amends at St. Andrews and returned to their respective homes, where they were showered with greetings from their pining women, who had learned the value of a good husband. They eventually ended up in the employ of the same laird, where the resplendent feast they prepared for visiting royalty in 1406 became the stuff of legend.

  Jacob the goldsmith returned home to discover that his wife had run off with his apprentice. Hoping for consolation, he sent Brigit the widow a costly jeweled girdle, inquiring if she might consider renewing their acquaintance.

  Brigit, in a pique of ire over Jacob’s philandering ways, and having successfully caught the eye of a brawny cooper with nine children, no wife, and an appetite for good beer, thought it a grand jest to send the thing to Lettie.

  Lettie, meanwhile, greatly influenced by her visit to the holy cathedral at St. Andrews, had repented of her lustful ways and her wandering eye. When she returned home, ‘twas to renew her vows to her husband and become a dutiful wife. Thus, upon receipt of the goldsmith’s trinket, she had it melted down and made into a belt of gold links for her husband.

  The tanners, Ivo and Odo, continued much as they had since they were young lads, drinking and making merry till they grew old and their hides were as tough as their wares.

  Ian Campbell the soldier found at long last the redemption he sought at St. Andrews, just as Rose foretold. Standing before the holy shrine, he received a vision that told him to go forth unto all the lands where he’d slaughtered the innocent and make repair. So, buckling on his armor, and with the lad Guillot as his squire, he became a knight-errant, rescuing damsels, aiding the poor, and righting wrong wherever he could. Eventually he became known as Ian the Good.

  Tildy, intimidated by the variety and quality of woven goods available at St. Andrews, reported to her Highland kinsmen instead that the Lowland woolens there were far inferior, and they’d do well to make their purchases on northern soil.

  While in St. Andrews, the three scholars, Thomas, Bryan, and Daniel, made the acquaintance of a trio of sisters, daughters of a Master of Logic who was hoping to help form the first university in Scotland. The lads and lasses fell hopelessly in love, if one may consider a lifelong passionate debate between six persons of fiercely independent opinion, love.

  Mary, the miller’s daughter who disguised herself as a nun, decided, after a sound thrashing by her father and a stern lecture from her mother, ‘twas best to avoid entanglements with the nobility. She took over the inn when her parents grew feeble with age, feeding and lodging and cleaning up after the nobles who passed by, but never again did she let her heart become ensnared by their ilk.

  Ivy—Archibald of Laichloan—was accompanied home by Wilham, who afforded the boy no comfort along the way. Indeed, he threatened to make the lad wear his nun’s habit all the way to the gates of Laichloan and only spared him when the boy burst into tears at the thought. Laird John was suitably relieved at his heir’s return, Wilham was handsomely rewarded, and once Archi
bald laid eyes on his breathtakingly lovely fifteen-year-old betrothed, he wondered what madness had driven him to take up with the miller’s daughter.

  Wilham’s reward was the property of Averlaigh, which he’d purchased from Rose’s mother with the coin he’d earned for the return of Archibald. True to Blade’s predictions, a bevy of willing lasses awaited Wilham’s return, and ‘twasn’t long before he chose from among them a flower of uncommon grace and kindness who believed the sun rose and set upon his shoulder and laughed in delight at his every jest.

  And as for Pierce and Rosamund of Mirkhaugh, they lived a long and happy life filled with adventure and romance. Their mews became renowned for its fine strain of kestrels, many of them the progeny of Wink, and the hills surrounding Mirkhaugh were never without some stray child with black locks and skinned elbows, climbing trees, flying falcons, and getting into mischief. Somehow the precious whelps all managed to make it home at day’s end whenever their father’s friend Wilham came to visit, for he never tired of regaling them with lusty tales of adventure. They listened eagerly as he recounted the tournament where their father had jousted with the de Wares and told the story about their mother taming a bear in St. Andrews.

  But their favorite tale, the one he never tired of telling, was always the legend of how their mother and father met, battled thieves, survived a kidnapping, prevented a murder, and fell in love—the romance of Blade and his Rose.

  Excerpt from NATIVE GOLD

  by Glynnis Campbell

  Book 1 of the Paradise West Trilogy

  California, 1850

  Sakote had to return to the waterfall. As much as he wanted to put the white woman out of his thoughts, along with the place where she’d stolen his senses, he had to go back. The hunting pouch was a gift from his father, and the tools in it—the snares, the knives, the mountain hemp line—would take days to replace.

  So with a pouch of dried deer meat and a promise to his mother that he’d bring back woodpecker feathers for her husband’s wahiete—his crown, Sakote set off for the waterfall.

  The pouch was where he’d left it, beside the great boulder. But still his eyes searched the wet banks of the pool, looking for some sign of the woman who’d come here. There was nothing. She’d left behind no scrap of cloth, no scent, not even a footprint.

  But that didn’t mean her spirit was gone. She lived here still, in the rush of water over the stones, so like her laughter, in the green depth of the pool, like her eyes, and in the heat of the sun upon his shoulder, reminding him of the warmth of her arms around him.

  "Damn!" There were no words of anger in Sakote’s language, so he borrowed the curse from the white man.

  It didn’t matter what the elders said, what the dream tried to tell him. He must follow the old ways, the ways of the Konkow, or they would be lost. The white woman showed him another path, a dangerous path, a path he must not take.

  The sun continued to blaze upon his back, and he knew a quick swim in the pond would cool his blood and his anger. He took off his moccasins, freed his hair, and loosened the thong around his breechcloth, letting it fall to the ground. Climbing to the crest of the boulder, he took a full breath and dove into the shimmering midst of the pool.

  The bracing water sizzled over his skin as he plunged deep through the waves. The cool current swept past his body, swirling his hair like the long underwater moss, washing away his thoughts.

  He broke the surface and shook his hair back, then swam for the waterfall. It pounded the black rock like the kilemi, the great sycamore log drum the Konkow danced to, and made a mist that hid the small cave behind the fall. He climbed out onto the slippery ledge and stood up, easing forward into the path of the fall to let it pummel him with punishing force, driving white spears into his bent back and shoulders. But it also awakened his body and challenged him. He slowly raised his head, braced his feet, reached toward the sky with outstretched arms, and withstood the heavy fall of water with a triumphant smile.

  Unfortunately, the loud thunder of the fall prevented him from hearing that he was no longer alone at the pool.

  Mattie’s jaw dropped. Her breath caught.

  She’d memorized the way to the waterfall, and after sketching miners all morning, decided to make a few drawings of the pool. If she’d hoped that the Indian might return there, she knew it was a foolish hope. The fact that he had indeed come back, and in such bold display, couldn’t have amazed her more.

  What in God’s name was he doing? The Indian stood at the foot of the waterfall, as naked as the day he was born, letting the water beat him within an inch of his life and grinning all the while.

  She thought to yell out to him, to reprimand him for such indecent behavior, such outrageous liberties, such flagrant...but then the artist came out in her. She realized that what she beheld was beautiful, that he was beautiful. It was as if she witnessed the birth of a god.

  Stealthily, she perched on a rock wedged between two trees, hoping the lush foliage and her drab plaid dress helped to conceal her. She found an empty page and set to work sketching.

  He couldn’t remain there long, she knew, or else he’d be pounded into the rock. She had to work quickly, penciling in the bare bones and trusting the rest to memory.

  Sure enough, just as she finished the roughest of renderings, he brought his arms down through the fall like great white wings and dove into the middle of the pool.

  His naked body slicing through the water sent a rush of delicious fire through her. Her pencil hovered over the page. It was wrong, what she did, making pictures of him in his altogether without his knowledge. And yet, she thought, patting a cheek grown hot with impropriety, it felt so right.

  He bobbed up and flung his hair back, spraying droplets of water across the rippling surface.

  Mattie pressed her pencil against her lower lip.

  He swam forward, sluicing through the water as smoothly as a trout. Then he wheeled over onto his back and floated on the surface, boldly facing the midday sun like some pagan sacrifice.

  Mattie’s teeth sank into the pencil.

  She could see everything—the naked sprawl of his limbs, the corona of his long ebony hair, the dark patch at the juncture of his thighs, and its manly treasure, set like a jewel on black velvet.

  He was Adam. Or Adonis. He was Icarus fallen from the sky. Hera cast into the sea. As innocent as an angel. As darkly beautiful as Lucifer.

  Mattie blushed to the tips of her toes. She most definitely should not be witness to this...this...she had no word for his wanton display, but she was sure it was completely indecent. Still she couldn’t tear her eyes away. He was utterly, irrefutably perfect. And looking at him left her faint with a mixture of emotions as dizzying as whiskey and as unstable as gunpowder.

  With trembling fingers, Mattie slid the pencil from between her lips, flipped to a new page, and began to draw. Despite her rattled nerves, her hand seemed steady, for she captured every nuance of shade, every subtle contour, each flash of translucence, as if the water lived and moved upon the paper. And the man... He was so true to life that she half expected the figure to lazily pitch over and swim off the page.

  A fern tickled her nose, and she brushed it back, then leaned forward to put the finishing touches on the portrait—a few more branches dabbling in the waves, a leaf floating by his head. She decided on the title, scribbling it at the bottom beside her signature.

  Just in time. The Indian knifed under, a flash of strong tan buttocks and long legs, disappearing beneath the surface and into the green depths.

  Sakote saw the movement of branches from the corner of his eye, but gave no indication. If it was a deer, he didn’t want to frighten it from its drinking place. If it was a bear, his splashing would scare it soon enough. If it was a white man, he would have to be clever. He floated a moment more, letting the waves carry him gently toward the deepest part of the pool, watching for sudden movements through the dark lashes of his eyes. Then he gulped in a great breath and dove
to the bottom, where the water was cold and shadowy.

  He came up silently, on the concealed side of the big granite boulder, and eased his way out of the water and around the rock until he could see what hid in the brush.

  Mati.

  She wore another ugly brown dress with lines of other colors running through it like mistakes, and her hair was captured into a tight knot at the back of her head. She bit at her lower lip and leaned out dangerously far between two dogwood saplings, shielding her eyes with one hand, searching the pool.

  Sakote didn’t know what he felt. Joy. Or anger. Relief. Dread. Or desire.

  She leaned forward even further, worry wrinkling her brow, and Sakote bit back a shout of warning as the saplings bent almost to the breaking point.

  "Oh, no,” she murmured.

  The words were only a breath of a whisper on the breeze, but they carried to his ears like sad music. Mati edged between the two trees and took three slippery steps down the slope. Meanwhile, Sakote used the mask of noise to move in the opposite direction, up the rise. While she scanned the water, he crept behind her, stopping when he found the sketchbook on the ground, frowning when he saw the figure floating on the page.

  Now he knew what he felt. Fury. He glanced down at his naked body, at his man’s pride, shrunken with cold to the size of an acorn, then at its perfect duplicate drawn on the paper. And he felt as if he would explode with rage.

  He must have made a sound, some strangled snarl of anger, for Mati turned. And screamed.

  About The Author

  Born in Paradise, California, Glynnis Campbell has embraced her inner Gemini by leading an eclectic life. As a teen, she danced with the Sacramento Ballet, worked in her father’s graphic arts studio, and composed music for award-winning science films. She sang arias in college, graduating with a degree in Music, then toured with The Pinups, an all-girl rock band on CBS Records. She once played drums for a Tom Jones video and is currently a voice-over actress with credits including “Star Wars” audio adventures, JumpStart educational CDs, Diablo and Starcraft video games, and the MTV animated series, “The Maxx.” She now indulges her lifelong love of towering castles, trusty swords, and knights (and damsels) in shining armor by writing historical romances featuring kick-arse heroines. She is married to a rock star, is the proud mom of two grown-up nerds, and lives in a part of L.A. where nobody thinks she’s weird.