by Karen Ranney
A few moments later, she found what she needed. The stone was thicker behind the first flight of stairs. The space between the new masonry and the old stone was wide enough to conceal the coffer she held. Inside was her own version of the codex, with notes as to how the original had been found and the tale of the chalice. She knelt and wedged it into place, then smoothed the mortar where her fingers had rested.
Grazide frowned at her as she entered the great hall. “My lady, you are cold, and such things are not good for you. Come into the warmth and have your ale. I have told my lord that you were about the castle, but didn’t know your destination nor your purpose, and he has not stopped asking me this quarter hour.”
She pulled loose the toque from her chin, handed it to Grazide, who took it, then extended a hand to rearrange Juliana’s braid.
“Not that I wish to know, my lady, but I am counseled with your welfare. What you do is your concern, of course, but when my lord asks of me so often, I feel foolish not knowing.”
Juliana walked beside Grazide, headed for the dais. Sebastian sat there, his gaze fixed on her. She warmed at his look. They’d had little sleep last night, the hours given over to laughter and love. His sudden smile reminded her of it.
She was no longer the girl who had sat in the great hall frightened of her future. Juliana the Timid, Juliana the Mouse had been replaced by a woman who knew herself well. She loved her work, and would always be thankful for the ability to continue it. But it was no longer all that she was, would no longer be the only way she measured her life.
Instead, there was Langlinais, and the people she’d come to know and love. There was the future, promising despite the threats they faced. But above all, there was Sebastian.
She felt a surge of love for the man who sat watching her, a small smile playing over his mouth. He was ennobled not only by birth but by honor. It was not a banner or a series of tourneys won that made him a great man. It was his character, his nobility. Sebastian had sacrificed his freedom that a vassal might escape, had planned on exile rather than imperil her, had been willing to give away his birthright in order to shield her.
She would have done anything for him.
“And I told him that I’m sure you weren’t near the river, my lady, but we looked through the upper bailey and you were not to be found.”
Juliana turned, smiled down at her attendant. Her tone was soft, the words curious. “Grazide, do you never, ever hush?”
The shorter woman looked taken aback, but only momentarily. “My husband used to ask me the same thing, my lady. Why, he would sometimes sit and stare at the fire while I spoke with him, not saying one word. It might have been that he was not in the same room, for all that I saw his body. Up until the day he died he looked just so. There were times that I despaired of him ever answering me.” The rest of her words trailed off into a rambling monologue.
Across the table, she and Sebastian exchanged a look of amusement. Evidently, there were some things that never changed, despite how courageous she became.
Chapter 47
“Where will he go, Sebastian?” Juliana stood at his side atop the east tower, watching Jerard ride through the gate of Langlinais. He rode slowly, despite the cold weather, looking around him often as if to sear into his memory the sight of the home he’d known for the last seven years. Old Simon stood at the gatehouse, reached up to lay a hand upon his knee, then stepped back and watched him, as they all did, pass through the gate.
Juliana felt tears mist in her eyes. Sebastian held her hand in his, their fingers entwined. “I have given him property north of here. A section of land I won in a tourney and was going to surrender to the Templars.”
“I will miss him.”
“Loyalty is a virtue much espoused, but difficult to find. He is the most faithful of knights,” Sebastian said, watching as Jerard turned and was lost from sight.
She pulled her hand free from his, stepped back. Would he think her actions disloyal? She would know in the next moment.
“I have done something, Sebastian, of which you will not approve.”
He turned and looked at her, his lips curved in a smile. “Have you lain with another?”
She frowned, then shook her head.
“Stolen my money?”
“No, Sebastian.”
“Then what have you done?”
“Is that all that matters to you, that I might have taken your money or been adulterous?”
“In truth,” he said, one arm extending around her waist, “the money does not concern me as much as the other. I should hate to spend my days kneeling before the altar praying for forgiveness.”
“Why would you do that, Sebastian?”
“Because I would have to kill him, my lady wife.” He leaned down, kissed the tip of her nose. “Your eyes are so wide, Juliana. Did you not think I would guard those I love?”
“If I felt much the same, would you be as understanding?”
“What have you done?” His smile had not diminished.
“Copied the scrolls.”
At his silence, she modified her statement. “In truth, only the codex.”
He glanced away from her, looked out toward the north, in the direction Jerard was to travel.
“Why, Juliana?” He spoke into the distance. Was he displeased?
“Because something might happen to Jerard. Or the scrolls might be destroyed. Or, we might be besieged and need them close at hand in order to bargain.”
He turned to look at her. “Why did you not think of all these arguments before we decided to send the scrolls with Jerard?”
“Is it not better to have a copy, Sebastian? For the same reasons?”
“It was not an option I’d considered,” he said, picking up her right hand. “You were able to do this? Without pain?”
There were scars upon her hands. She could not deny their existence; she would always bear them. Nor did she have as much strength in her fingers as she had before, but that was not something she would mention to him.
“I am slower than before,” she admitted, “but it was not that difficult. Even if it had been, I would have completed it.” She stood tall before him, looked at him directly. “I will not have you harmed, Sebastian.”
“My fierce Juliana,” he said, bringing her fingers to his lips and brushing a kiss over them. “When you first came into my life,” he said softly, “I prayed for your safety, that you might be guarded against the Templars and from me. I am a knight, trained for war, and yet you would stand between me and harm.”
He touched her cheek with a fingertip. “I am not sure I agree with what you have done, Juliana, but I cherish the reason behind your actions. If there is a true miracle in my life, it is you.”
“Sebastian, how can you say that? You have been spared exile and a living death.”
“What if I had not had leprosy?” he asked softly. “What if the physician who examined me and declared me a leper was wrong?”
“You would question the nature of a miracle, Sebastian?”
“I have done so endlessly,” he admitted, looking down at her. His eyes, those lovely blue eyes of his, seemed to darken as he studied her. “I ask myself if such a thing happened because I touched the relics. Or was it the sun upon my skin for the first time in years? Or Sister Agnes’s unguent? Or perhaps because I had worn my armor, instead of that cursed robe?”
“Is it important that you know, Sebastian? What if you never do?” Her left hand cupped the side of his face.
He picked up her hand again, turned it over, bent, and placed a kiss upon her palm. His smile altered in nature, seemed to hold only the purest joy. “Then I will live each day and bless our deliverance, whatever the cause.”
He extended his arm around her, laid his cheek on the crown of her hair.
The moment was silent, the thoughts each held remarkably similar. Perhaps it wasn’t important to gauge a miracle, to mark it and record it and prove it. Perhaps the greatest wonder was the t
ouch of a hand in friendship and the joy of a heart. They belonged together, and the fact that they stood linked in each other’s arms was proof enough that sometimes events happened that defied explanation. In mind and body and spirit they were joined and would be, perhaps, until time ceased to measure the passing of decades and the onset of centuries.
You my life, promise that this love of ours that we share will last forever. Great gods, arrange for this truth to be spoken, and to say this sincere and from the depths of a loving heart, so that it is granted us to continue all our life this treaty of inviolable friendship.
Catullus
84–54 B.C.E.
Epilogue
Gertrude received the missive with mixed feelings of curiosity and alarm. Did the Lord of Langlinais wish the relics returned, then? She’d grown accustomed to having them at the convent these past months, had grown familiar with the feeling of awe she felt when viewing them, had drawn a great deal of comfort from their presence.
She opened the letter with some trepidation, but smiled as she read it.
I trust you are well and that the gift we have presented the convent has posed no problems for you.
Thank you for aiding me in providing me with inks for my beloved wife’s scriptorium. She has used them ably.
My purpose in writing to you is to commission the convent to supply my wife with a few garments of rich color and fine detail. Something to match her loveliness and enhance the color of her eyes, but with short and loose sleeves that she might continue to work in the scriptorium without them trailing in her ink.
I would like, also, a set of christening garments for our child.
But most importantly, I would beg your forbearance in sending Sister Agnes to us again, this time in August. Our child is due to be born during that month, and I wish my wife to have someone versed in the healing arts to be with her in her travail. Please assure Sister Agnes that I will assist her in any way that I can, even to the extent of remaining silent. But please prepare the good sister with the knowledge that I will not be separated from my wife under any conditions.
Gertrude smiled. Perhaps the mystery of Juliana had been solved at last. The girl’s talent might lie in the scriptorium, but her greatest blessing was the ability to love. That was evident in the tone of this letter. The Lord of Langlinais was obviously deeply in love with his wife.
The last two sentences of the letter amused her. She read it again.
Would there be any manuscripts of Ovid that you might send to me for my library? Or any works by a poet named Catullus?
She folded the letter, stood, and walked down the silent corridor, her destination the large and sunny solar where the sisters who did such things embroidered. She would deliver the commission and then arrange for the volumes to be sent to the Lord of Langlinais. She smiled again, certain that both errands would please husband and wife.
Afterword
History is littered with lies. Rumor is often converted to fact with only time as its validation. Therefore, where there was rumor, or supposition, or conjecture, I have played with “what if’s” because fiction allows for interpretation. My Beloved is as historically accurate as I can make it within the framework of my imagination.
The Cathars, also known as the Albigensian movement, were real. There were various sects of the religion, each of which varied in their interpretation of accepted belief, probably not unlike the Protestant denominations we know today. The siege against the Cathars and their ultimate fate was unfortunately real. And although Montvichet is fictional, there are historical models such as Queribus and Minerve. While there were rumors of Templar involvement in the betrayal that condemned the Cathar women and children, it cannot be proven true or false. Therefore, it must remain one of those mysteries of the ages, along with the persistent hints that the Templars actually possessed the Holy Grail.
The Poor Knights of the Order of the Temple of Solomon—the Knights Templar—are often conveyed as being heroically knightly. I believe that they were a devoted and devout group of men whose leaders lost sight of the aim for their ambition. They were for the most part misogynist, few of them were actually knights, and few could read. The expression “he can drink like a Templar” had roots in truth. But they were great fighters, and were helpful in establishing the banking, currency, and credit systems we know today. Perhaps the almost legendary aura that still surrounds them is due mainly to the way they were rounded up on Friday, the thirteenth and the Order systematically eradicated.
Hildegard of Bingen actually lived. A German abbess, she was consulted as a prophetess by heads of state. In addition to her visions, she was renowned for her musical compositions such as Ordo Virtutum (written before 1158), one of the first examples of a morality play, for her poetic works, and her studies on natural history and medicine.
One of the earliest known female scribes was Ende, who assisted in the preparation of a Spanish work of the vision of St. John the Divine in 789. Documentation from the ninth century lists a number of manuscripts attributed to women scribes, their work mostly done in convents.
Leprosy was not easily diagnosed in the Middle Ages, and was often confused with eczema, psoriasis, scrofula, skin cancers, and even allergies. Therefore, people could be—and were—condemned to being one of the living dead when their conditions were relatively minor. The Mass of Separation was also, regrettably, real.
Any errors in translating the poetry of Catullus are mine.
It is impossible to write a book using the historical backdrop of the Middle Ages without considering the impact of the Church. Not one facet of medieval life was free of its influence. The convents and the monasteries that dotted the medieval landscape achieved what could not have been accomplished by kings or emperors. By teaching the same words and practices throughout the world, the Church brought people together, gave them one set of beliefs. Faith alone had united Europe. But it was vital for the foundations of that faith to be forever considered sacrosanct and inviolate and not open to interpretation. Seven hundred years later, however, I am able to do so.
About the Author
KAREN RANNEY began writing when she was five. Her first published work was The Maple Leaf, read over the school intercom when she was in the first grade. In addition to wanting to be a violinist (her parents had a special violin crafted for her when she was seven), she wanted to be a lawyer, a teacher, and most of all, a writer.
The violin discarded early, she still admits to a fascination with the law, and she volunteers as a teacher whenever needed. Writing, however, has remained an overwhelming love of hers. She loves to hear from her readers—please write to her at [email protected], or visit her website at www.kranney.com.
Karen Ranney lives in San Antonio, Texas, where she raised two sons.
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Avon Romantic Treasures by
Karen Ranney
MY WICKED FANTASY
UPON A WICKED TIME
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MY BELOVED. Copyright © 1999 by Karen Ranney. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No
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