Chapter 2
Unable to sleep for more than a few hours, Rose had risen in the wee hours. At a small desk working in candlelight, she bent over an aged tome, meticulously studying each page.
Sister Nessa slumbered in the bed across the room, her hearty snores vigorously competing with the storm that blew with savage gusts.
Thunder fiercely rumbled. Rain battered the rooftop and whipped against the tiny room’s dormer window.
Rose hated the thought of the storm awakening the nun.
With news that Friar Tucker would not be returning for weeks, poor Sister Nessa had taken on the burden, like a mantlet of iron about her shoulders, of caring for everyone at the abbey.
His absence weighed heavily on them both, and Lord Roxburghe’s presence at the abbey put them all on edge. Rose more than anyone.
She disliked powerful men on principle, and she doubted a lame horse had brought Roxburghe to the abbey.
He risked much coming here without his guard.
Lord Hereford was not known for even-handed justice.
And if the warden suspected Roxburgh of fomenting trouble among the Scots in an effort to rescue his brother, Hereford would have cause to arrest him.
She had seen a man hanged once by the warden’s order and she shivered instinctively at the thought.
Next to the book Rose studied sat an intricately carved wooden puzzle box she had moved within the amber glow of a half-burnt candle. With reverent care, she turned the artifact over in her palm and traced a blunt-nailed finger over the carvings and symbols she was attempting to decipher.
She had discovered the small ancient relic last month tucked in a larger wooden chest housed in the crypt with a hundred other mildew-encrusted crates.
It seemed to be part of an Arthurian legend connected to Merlin and Excalibur.
That much she had gleaned from the books Mrs. Simpson had given her.
A glance at the eleventh-century author’s depiction of Merlin holding the famed sword in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other told her the same markings depicted beneath the drawing were also carved on the box.
Interlocking circles of light and darkness and two sideways triangles touching at the corners, marks found on the Bjarkan rune, together symbolizing phases of life and great change. But what did they mean?
Rose had spent weeks cataloging the abbey’s artifacts.
Friar Tucker had handed the directive down to her to keep her out of trouble after last month’s unfortunate experiment involving lightning and the new watermill had gone awry.
The good Friar did not believe in idle hands and though he did blame her for the loss of their watermill, he had not truly punished her as harshly as he could have.
The task he’d assigned her had been a godsend, not a chore, for the crypt held the most wondrous treasures.
Relic-filled chests overflowed with rat-eaten tapestries and old dust-covered manuscripts written in languages older than Latin.
Rarely venturing beyond Castleton’s borders, Rose lived vicariously through books, seeing the world through words and pictures, always protected behind the abbey’s stone walls.
She closed her eyes, tamping down the sudden surge of foreboding, her thoughts restless as they moved away from the puzzle of the sorcerer’s box to the abbey’s guest.
A lightning flash startled Rose. Heart racing, she looked over at the bed to reassure herself Sister Nessa still slept, before blowing out the candle.
Thunder drummed again, bringing her nervously to her feet.
She shoved her arms into the sleeves of her worn woolen wrapper.
Working a sash around her waist, she padded barefoot to the window and stared into the Stygian night.
With the darkness and heavy rain, she saw nothing but rivulets sliding down the thick lead glass. Surely ’twas near dawn.
She retrieved her slippers from next to the clothes press and slipped them on.
She checked the fire in the grate to make sure it would burn for a few hours longer.
Then she gathered up the tome and dropped the puzzle box into a pocket she had sewn inside her wrapper.
As she eased the door open, the hinges groaned.
Sister Nessa’s snores stopped abruptly and Rose’s hand froze on the latch.
She cautiously peered over her shoulder.
A few seconds later, she stepped into the hallway and flinched at the snick of the door latch. Sister Nessa could sleep through a storm, but the slightest squeak of a floorboard had been known to bring the woman out of bed wide awake.
At the stairway, Rose leaned over the banister and listened for noise from below.
The last thing she wanted was run into the abbey’s male guests.
Hearing nothing, she flicked her thick braid over her shoulder and started down the stairs.
A pair of lamps dimly lit the stairway and her long shadow wobbled like a specter against the wall.
Her soft-soled slippers made no noise as she descended three floors.
Just inside the arched doorway that opened into the main dining hall, she hesitated.
Through the centuries, many of the abbey’s medieval characteristics had been retained, down to the timber crack frame, waddle-and-daub walls, and gothic stained-glass windows that poured color into the main hall on a sunny day.
Tonight lightning punctuated the darkness, casting unfamiliar shadows on the floors.
A dying fire was all that remained in the hearth from last night.
Seeing no sleeping forms on the ground, she strode to the hearth, set down the book and lit a lamp to take downstairs.
These early-morning hours belonged to her and she usually spent them in her special workroom in the crypt, one that she had made for herself, with wooden shelves to house her collection of books.
Her sanctuary was where she kept all of her tomes and where she never worried that she would be disturbed.
Only ghosts lived down there. Everyone but her claimed to have seen one.
She had just closed the metal lid when a rasp of cloth whispered from the shadows behind her. She was not alone.
She spun so quickly that her woolen robe swirled around her, then rippled softly against her legs. “Jack?” she whispered.
The boy disliked storms. She worried he might be huddling in some corner, but she could see nothing in the darkness. “Jack? Are you in here?”
Lightning briefly illuminated the room, revealing a bottle of whisky on the dining table to her right. And it was open. She lifted the lamp.
Lord Roxburghe leaned with his back against the wall not six feet from where she stood.
His dark hair hung wet and unbound past his shoulders.
The damp cloth of his fine white linen shirt defined the braided muscles of his arms and chest and opened in a “V” that showed a mat of dark hair.
He’d been outside in the storm. What fool would go outside on a night like this?
She had to have walked directly past him when she’d entered the room. How could she have missed him? She had so skillfully avoided him all last night, even volunteered for scullery duty while the other older girls served him and his men their meals.
Her panic momentarily subsided with the cock of his brow. “Jack?” The question was asked with amusement. “Am I intruding on a lover’s assignation?”
“Lover? Jack?” She laughed outright at his conclusion.
“A pet perhaps.”
“What sort of pet would I have named Jack?”
“A bird? Rabbit? A cow?”
“Jack is a boy,” she said, after a moment’s silence, “though I do not understand why it is any of your concern who I should be meeting.”
His contemplation of her remained steady.
He was toying with her, she realized. But as another flash of lightning lit the room, she noted something in his expression that surprised her, a moment of vulnerability unlike the fierce image she had of him, and she wondered what had brought him out of a warm bed on such a wretched night as this.
Then he stepped toward her. She stepped backward and bumped into the chair.
The movement drew his attention. His eyes paused on her face and made her suddenly conscious of how she must look dressed in her nightclothes, the hem of her robe several inches too short, showing off her thin ankles and slipper-clad feet.
To her horror he laughed. Then he reached for the whisky bottle, and she felt foolish for her initial reaction.
“Do you oft venture about at night in a state of undress seeking out boys?” Light glinted from the tiny silver ring in his ear as he brought the bottle to his lips.
She should walk away, except that he stood between her and the door. She held the lamp away from her face to better see his. “Do you oft stand outside during thunderstorms?” she countered.
He lowered his voice as if they were sharing a secret. “I asked my question first.”
She tasted the warm scent of whisky on his breath and resisted licking her lips. “Jack sometimes sleeps in here. I thought the noise I heard might be him. But I was not seeking him out. I am on my way to the crypt.”
He leaned a hip against the back of the aged Tudor chair, one of sixteen around the table.
“The crypt?” His eyes swept her. “Why am I not surprised? Any woman who braves books about Arthurian legends, metallurgy and electricity cannot be afraid of something as insignificant as moldering corpses. Please tell me you are not attempting to bring some poor soul back to life.”
Rose barely stifled a laugh. “And if I were?”
He studied her. “Then I would wonder how one so innocent could look upon a long-dead corpse and not feel horror by the stench alone. Death is not a becoming sight.” He took another sip from the bottle.