The Wolf in the Cloister (The Wolf and the Nun Book 1)

by Emily Leverett

  She put on one of her dresses and carefully braided her hair. The nun’s habit felt a bit too much like hypocrisy. Besides, the green of the dress complemented her skin. The roses she had picked the night before sat on her desk, along with the mysterious book. Clavret had promised they would direct all their attention to opening that—it seemed the best course of action, and he had some ideas of things they could do. He had insisted, though, that she keep it, a sign of his good will. He was a witch, and a shapeshifting one, after all.

  She’d kept the book because he wanted her to, not because she needed a hostage for good behavior. She trusted him, after the late-night talk, but if her keeping the book made him feel better, so be it. She stared at the roses. Sure, her hair had been braided, but she still could wear the flowers. They had wilted very little since the previous day and would make her feel pretty. After securing the roses, she picked up the book, staring once more at the cross on the cover. But the roses were recalcitrant today, unwilling to stay in place. She shook her head, and one of the roses in her hair came loose, dangling in her face. She reached up without thinking and caught all three.

  “Ouch!” She dropped the roses on the floor. Small cuts oozed blood in the palm of her hand. The thorns were vicious, with barbed tips that hooked and tore the skin. She sat on her bed, resting the book in her lap. The cuts seemed deeper than they should be—she must have closed her fist tighter than she meant.

  Blood dribbled from her hand, splattering the cross on the book with dots of red. She grabbed the book. Her fingers brushed the cross.

  A flash of light momentarily blinded her.

  She was barefoot, and beneath her feet was lush, wet grass. The sky was black, and only the occasional strike of lightning illuminated the jagged, rocky landscape. She drew a small knife from her belt and slashed it across her hand. She dropped the knife and took a book—the magic book Marie held—from her pocket. She smeared her blood across the cover and the cross, and whispered something in Celtic, words too soft for Marie to understand. The cross on the book blazed to life. She hauled up the hem of her skirt and shoved the book into a small pocket sewn into the inside folds of her dress and hidden in the flair of her skirt. She smoothed her skirt.

  A form, black and lumbering, was illuminated when lightning flashed. In the darkness, the creature’s eyes burned green fire.

  “Brigit! Witch!” a familiar voice said.

  “You’re too late,” the woman Marie occupied taunted, and Marie’s heart spasmed in her chest. This was another voice she knew—much better than the previous one—her mother.

  A clap of thunder shook the world, and rain poured from the sky.

  More words from the monster, ones that she didn’t understand, a language she did not know. Blinding pain shot through her, and she reeled, collapsing onto the ground, and the world went black. She fluttered open her eyes. The sky was still dark, the rain falling, but a figure loomed over her. A flash of lightning, and she saw a wolf’s head, a cloak pin. A hand reached for her, and everything went black.

  Marie’s eyes opened, and she gasped for air and coughed. Her gaze darted around the room as she struggled to remember where she was. The bed she sat on, her bed in the tower, in Sarum castle. She shuddered at the vision of her mother’s death.

  Marie flipped open the book—pages and pages of writing—Latin, Celtic, Runes, French, English, and all of it in her mother’s hand. She had bound the book with her blood, and her blood—through her daughter—had opened it.

  Clavret had been there—he had loomed over her mother’s dying body. Wearing his same wolf’s head pin.

  Clutching her mother’s book, she dropped onto her bed. She choked as a sob forced its way out her throat and tears she couldn’t hold back ran down her cheeks. Clavret, looming over her mother’s body. “It wasn’t him,” she whispered through sobs. “He wouldn’t…” But the green eyes, the wolf’s head. Marie slammed a hand to her mouth and bolted up, sending the book skittering across the floor. She made to the basin on the vanity, just in time to vomit. His long, elegant fingers, that yesterday had stroked her, tickled her, had they been around her mother’s throat? Her stomach heaved again, hurling bile into her mouth. She spit it out and rinsed her mouth with water from the pitcher.

  “Calm down,” she snapped at herself. “Pull yourself together. You cast out a demon. You can handle this.” Behind her, Asta screeched, and Marie spun. “It’s okay,” Marie insisted. “I’m alright. But we need to warn the bishop about Clavret. And we have to leave now.”

  Marie fetched the monk’s habit from her trunk. Her heart stung. She had believed—really believed—Clavret was not what the bishop supposed. She gathered her few books from her desk and shoved them in the saddlebag. She scanned the room for her mother’s book and saw it, under the desk. She crouched down, and when her fingers touched the cover, a shock jolted her. “Gah!” She knocked the book away from her, sliding it halfway under the bookcase. Magic was a fickle thing. Her mother’s dying spell might have had any number of unintended consequences, but Marie didn’t have time to deal with them now.

  When she retrieved it, relieved it didn’t zap her again, she noticed the cross missing. She looked around, but it was nowhere to be seen. “Oh well.” The book was open, and she could read it. She shoved it into her saddlebag.

  She called Asta, and the ferret leapt to her and snuggled herself down in her sling. Marie secured it across her chest. She tugged the monk’s habit on over her head, flipped the cowl up into place, and left.

  She slipped through the halls and out to the main gate. She’d have to come back for Gringolet. Salisbury Cathedral was only a few miles from the castle. With luck, she would arrive there before Lord Clavret found her gone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Bleiz strolled up the winding stairs to Marie’s tower. He carried an armful of books and a mind full of ideas about exactly what he rather do with her than study. He shifted the books enough to knock. He snorted at the irony: he would be a gentleman, not an animal. After the third time without response, he finally tried the handle, and it swung in easily.

  The room looked lived in, clothes were strewn about, but felt empty. The roses she had picked lay discarded on the floor. He piled his books on her desk. Her trunk was open, and the monk’s habit gone. “Asta?” he asked the room, feeling like a fool. “Asta, are you in here?” There was no way she would leave her pet behind. He knelt down to check under the bed. Nothing. He looked under the desk next. Something small had slid under the bookshelf, and it caught his eye. He crawled over to get it, stretching his long arm until his fingers were able to drag it forward and he could grab it. He sat up. A cross, with bits of thread like it had been stitched on… The mysterious book.

  There was something on it. He sniffed it—blood. The roses on the floor. She could have dripped blood on the book. He grimaced. Maybe it was blood that opened it. The fear that she was a spy flooded him again. Even after yesterday, he couldn’t be sure. Another broken, abandoned spouse—her story had been perfect to reach his heart. Too perfect? What if she had been playing him, biding her time until she found out his secret, perhaps confirmed what the bishop suspected?

  A charge of witchcraft—that would be enough to see him executed. His ex-wife would probably show up for the trial, too. He’d never fully understood why she had kept his curse a secret. She said it was because she still cared for him, that maybe the old him, the one with a soul, could be recovered.

  He squeezed the cross in his palm. “If ever there was a time for God to help, it’s now. Please, if the cross has anything to tell me, help me hear it.”

  A flash of light and the room went black.

  Bleiz shuddered and blinked in the darkness. He’d fallen? The dirt was cold and damp under his hands and was soaking through the cloth at his knees. He sat back on his heels. His feet were bare and cold. A harsh rain pounded down on him, blurring the world around him. Each drop was like a cold spike on the bare skin of his face. He lo
oked down. His arms were covered by bell sleeves? His hands were pale and soft, with long, elegant fingers, and he wore a gold ring with a green stone on the fourth finger of his left hand. He shook his head, and the weight of a heavy braid whipped back and forth behind him.

  “Witch!” Someone spat the word at him.

  He turned and saw a man leering at him—much more was impossible to see in the darkness.

  Before Bleiz could speak, the man lunged at him, caught his wrist, and hauled him to his feet like he were a doll stuffed with hay. Bleiz tried to resist, but he couldn’t will his limbs to move. He looked down and saw a skirt, the same green color as the sleeves, and a leather belt. On a clasp on the belt, a Celtic cross hung. Not the one his little nun carried—but no doubt a sibling to hers.

  He stumbled along as this man dragged him forward, hauling him up a hill. His mind was fuzzy. There was an ache in the back of his head. He took his free hand and touched the sore spot. When he brought his hand back, red streaks of blood were being washed away by the rain. He blinked trying to clear his vision.

  “Come on!” the man snarled as he yanked on Bleiz’s arm. Something about the voice rang familiar to him, but he couldn’t place it.

  “Stop.” A voice came from his mouth that wasn’t his. His hand moved to grab the cross around the belt and tugged it free. “I said stop!” That voice again. High, but not soft. Powerful. He took the cross and slammed it onto the man’s hand.

  A yowl of pain and a flash of light and the man let go, stumbling back, his hand curled against his body.

  Bleiz suddenly understood—that voice from his own mouth, his lack of control of his body. He wasn’t here at all. The rain, the wound, were all pictures—a vision. His own panic subsided, but hers, whoever she was, did not. She was stalling, and she knew it. Whatever that man had planned was too far in motion to stop, even if she could get away.

  “Brigit,” the man wheedled. “Come now. You know what will happen if you don’t give me the rose.”

  “You can’t have it,” she said, her voice a whisper.

  “I can. I will.” He took a step toward her. “Make it easy. Give me what I want.”

  “Oh, your excellency.” Her voice dripped with scorn. “I cannot do that.”

  He lunged at her, but she dodged away. “Give it to me!”

  “I’m telling you,” she said, glee in her voice. “I cannot. Even if I wanted to, it is out of my hands. You’ll never possess it.”

  “If you die, it’s free.” He clenched his fists at his sides. “I’ll find it.”

  She shook her head. “It isn’t free. It was given to someone.”

  “You lie!” He lunged at her, faster than Bleiz would have thought possible, and tackled her to the ground. He clamped his fingers around her throat, and Bleiz felt his own breath catch.

  She coughed. “Kill me and find out.” She clawed at his arms, but it did no good. She slammed the cross against his flesh again, but he didn’t respond. “Demon,” she spat at him. Her struggles grew weaker. Black spots flashed in her vision. As the woman’s vision blurred, a figure loomed behind the man, a large creature with eyes like green fire. It seemed to shudder but was laughing at the death of this woman. He tore the cross from her hand and cast it on the ground. The woman’s eyes rolled up, and a prayer formed on her lips.

  Bleiz screamed in his own mind as the life ebbed from the body he inhabited, the darkness closing in on him. The world went black, and he jerked upright.

  He was sprawled on the floor, on his back. The cross was clutched in his right hand. He’d held it so tightly his fingers ached, and the edges had slashed small cuts in his skin. He sat up and drove his hand through his hair, patting the back of his head. He could swear he felt, for a moment, a mixture of rain and blood, but the sensation vanished as soon as it arose.

  The place in his vision felt familiar, but the darkness made it hard to say. He didn’t recognize the woman’s voice, but again, something needled at him. If Marie had seen that, well, no wonder she’d left. “That’s just as well,” he said, levering himself off the floor. “The bishop may know who that woman is. I’ve got no idea.”

  “You do, actually.” The voice was soft but firm. He spun around. A woman was sitting in one of the chairs in front of the fireplace. She waved at him. “Come, sit.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “I’ll stay right here,” he said.

  She laughed. “Lord Clavret, afraid of a woman?” She shrugged. “You don’t recognize me?” She stood. A green dress, bell sleeves.

  “The vision—you’re the woman?” he asked. “Am I going mad?”

  “Yes, I’m the woman. No, you’re not going mad.” She rested her hands on her hips. “You should recognize me, Lord Clavret. You’re the one who found me.”

  He gasped. That explained the familiarity. When he had visited Kells, there had been a huge storm. The monks had said a woman was missing, one he was supposed to meet about his curse, and so he helped them search. He found her in the rain on a hill not far from the monastery. Her eyes had fluttered open, seemed to focus on him, but they closed. He carried her back to the monastery, but it was too late. She died that night without ever opening her eyes again.

  It wasn’t until the next day when the monks examined her body in the light that they realized she had been murdered. “Lady Bridgit,” he said. “I was supposed to meet with you.”

  “About a curse, yes, I remember.”

  “Why are you in my castle?”

  “Why do you have my cross? And why is it not on my book?” Her voice had lost the friendly tone. She sounded angry.

  “It must have fallen off the book at some point,” he said, staring at it. “When I left, Sister Marie was studying it, but it was still shut.”

  “Sister Marie?” she said, confused.

  “From Shaftesbury Abbey. She brought the book to me; we were studying how to open it. The Kells crozier.” He shook his head. “It’s been stolen.”

  “That’s a problem for another day.” She scowled. “Who is this Sister Marie?”

  “She’s a nun from Shaftesbury Abbey. She’s well educated, Celtic and French, I believe, and fluent in Latin and English, too.”

  “Does she carry a talisman?” Brigit had come to stand near him, peering into his face like she might read it like one of her books.

  “She has a rosary like the one you were wearing in the vision. And a rose on a necklace. I’ve never seen her without it.”

  Brigit’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, Marie,” she said, rubbing her face, “what happened to my brave girl?”

  “Your girl?” Bleiz gaped. “She’s your daughter. She hadn’t joined the nunnery before you died?”

  Brigit’s attention snapped to him. “No,” she said. “I thought she was safe—” She shook her head. “She has the book, yes?”

  He nodded. “I think so.”

  “This book, you found it on my body when I died? That’s why you had it?” She was breathing faster now—strange that a ghost still moved, responded like a living person.

  “No.” He shook his head. “Sister Marie was given it by the Bishop Josceline of Salisbury—he seemed to think that she might be able to open it with my help. I expect that is where she has fled to, with the book.”

  “No!” She flickered like she was about to fade away. “You have got to go get her. He’ll kill her.”

  “The bishop?” He had never liked the man, but he didn’t see him as the murdering type—especially not a nun.

  Brigit put her hands on his shoulders, and an icy chill shot through him, but he didn’t dare pull away. “Josceline killed me. He must have found the book on my body. I bound it with my own blood, so only my blood could open it. He wanted my rose, too, but I’d already given it to Marie, and she was—or was supposed to be—safely in Wales, far from him and his demon. If he gets the book and the rose,” she shook her head, “he’ll be nearly unstoppable.” She leaned closer. “The only way to get the rose is to kill her—it won’t c
ome off otherwise. You have to help her.”

  Bleiz scanned the room. “She can’t have been gone too long,” he said. “I’ll get my horse and follow.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “That will take too long—it’s not very far, and she’s got too much of a head start. She may already be there. He’ll slaughter her as soon as he realizes the book is open.”

  “There’s no other way—”

  “Yes,” she said. “There is. It’s faster to cut across the countryside than it is to take the roads.”

  “On foot?” He snorted at the absurd idea.

  She crossed her arms and glared at him. “On four feet.”

  “No.” Bleiz backed away. “I can’t. I only just returned from the forest. I’ve never been able to change myself.” His heart started to race. “No,” he shook his head, “no no no no.”

  Brigit’s expression softened. “Calm down,” she said. She stepped toward him and reached for him, rested a hand on his cheek—this time her cool touch soothed. “Breathe.” She drew a breath in and blew it out. “Come on, with me.”

  He followed her breathing until the shaking stopped. “I’m—I’m sorry.” He turned away from her and walked to the window. He stared out at the courtyard. “I’m a monster,” he whispered.

  “You’re not,” she said. He felt, rather than heard, her walk toward him. “The monks told me about you. What you wanted me to do.”

  “You’re a Celtic witch. I thought you could lift the curse.” He pressed his hands down on the windowsill and leaned forward, drawing a deep breath of fresh air. “But then you died…” He trailed off. He shut his eyes and tried to will the tears back.

  “The monks showed me your talisman. I only had a moment to look at it, but a moment was all I needed. I couldn’t have lifted the curse,” she said.

  The tears fell then. She had been his last hope. If she couldn’t…

  “Lord Clavret—Bleiz—turn around and look at me.”

  He did as he was told, not bothering to wipe the tears away.