Father Ignatius crossed himself as he looked sadly at the new graves. “And still you use the consecrated ground of the old cemetery. That is most wise. Even without my blessing, they are safely in the hands of God.” He beckoned to her. “Come, Anna, and tell me who lies in each grave that I might pray for their immortal souls.”
Anna brushed away her tears and indicated the first grave, barely aware that Bartholomew strolled away from them. She supposed he could not be expected to grieve for strangers, and in a way, she was glad that he would not hear her own confession.
Father Ignatius, she knew, would not share it with another living soul.
*
Against all expectation, Bartholomew was home.
Anna had set a brisk pace to this “old burn” and had not followed a clear path. She had ducked under low hanging boughs and slipped through the bracken, her route tending ever downward. The priest had not so much followed her as walked alongside her. It was evident they both knew how to find their destination. The forest seemed to be denser and darker in this place, and Bartholomew could not hear many woodland creatures.
He realized why when they burst abruptly from the undergrowth into a clearing. Vegetation was remarkably scarce, especially given the lush growth of the forest behind them. There was a body of water that shone in the distance, its surface as smooth as a looking glass. He spied a wheel on the building at one end and realized it was a millpond.
Esme. He stared at the mill and recalled the miller and his wife, a plump woman with a ready smile, then recalled the woman who had spoken to him this very day. Surely she did not recognize him. She could not see, after all.
But she might recognize something about him.
Just as he recognized this spot. Once again, he could not have described it an hour before, but now that it was before his eyes, he knew it well.
The keep had been on this spot. The bailey had been there. The stables where Whitefoot had been born, one of eight wiggling puppies, had been over there. The miller had been a kind man with a round belly and a jolly laugh. Bartholomew could see him in his mind’s eye. He felt again the grain running through his fingers and the vibration of the mill stones as his mother visited the miller’s wife after she bore another child.
Esme.
Aye, Esme.
Memories flooded into his mind, as if a dam had been opened. Bartholomew walked like a man in a dream to one spot on the barren land and surveyed the scene before his eyes, his memory filling in the gaps. He had played on the floor in that mill, with the miller’s older boy, a child of an age with himself. Oswald. Far to the left were fields, many of which were in fallow. To his right had been the village.
The window of the solar had looked this way. His mother had held him at this window to watch the sun rise, to look over his father’s holding. Each and every day, he had come to her and as he grew larger and older, he had stood upon a stool for these precious moments together. Whitefoot had braced his feet on the sill, to look and apparently to listen as well.
He closed his eyes and could feel her heat by his side. He could smell the floral scent of her skin and hear her murmur in soft Norman French. “See, the miller is at his labor, Luc, for the wheel is turning even so early in the day. It is good for the miller to have too much to do, for then those in the village will eat well. The harvest has been good this year. See how the last of the wheat is touched by the sunlight. It is golden and ripe, ready for the villagers to make the harvest. We will have a fine feast in a week, to celebrate the goodness of the year. Look! Your father rides out to hunt, that there will be venison aplenty on the board.”
He could see the white-haired knight on his destrier below, saw now the smile on his father’s lips and the affection in his expression when he waved to his wife and son. He could remember that feast, the warmth of the hall, the sound of laughter and music, the conviviality of his father’s keep.
He recalled another day, when snow touched the land before them. “Look at the smoke rising from the huts in the village,” his mother had said that day. “There is comfort in the homes of those beneath your father’s hand, for he is just and his holding prospers because of that. His lands extend to that far hill, the one that is touched first by the morning sun.”
He felt a tear ease from the corner of his eye, for this was these were the memories he had desired above all others, but they had been elusive. His throat was tight and he found Cenric nuzzling his hand, beside him as Whitefoot had always been.
Bartholomew scratched the dog’s ears, then he turned, filled with marvel, to see Anna weeping. He was so surprised to see her show such vulnerability that he doubted his own eyes. But there could be no doubt—her cheeks were streaked with tears and she held one hand to her lips as she stared at a grave. Father Ignatius was blessing whoever had been laid to rest there, and Bartholomew wondered who it had been.
Someone Anna had loved well, it was clear.
One of her parents? A sibling? A good friend?
It did not truly matter. This warrior maiden wept, and he would console her.
*
Bartholomew came to stand silently beside Anna as Father Ignatius finished his prayer. He did not touch her, but she felt his heat close by his side.
It was odd how reassuring she found his presence. She had vowed never to rely upon a man, never to desire a partner, and yet this man, with his beguiling combination of humor and strength, struck a chord within her. She had yearned to trust him from the outset, and it was her own history that had made her distrust her own sense of what was right. Yet, as he continued to do as he had sworn to do, as he kept his word and acted with honor, Anna knew that her initial response to him had been right.
That made her want to trust him more, to share with him all the secrets that burdened her and to have one living soul know all the truths that she did.
On impulse, she slipped her hand into his, recalling how he had held her hand in that great bed the night before, as they had feigned passion.
His fingers closed resolutely around hers, giving her that enticing sense of security. Aye, a woman would be safe with this man by her side, no matter what ill fortune came upon them.
Anna found herself wanting to be that woman with a fervor that shook her with its power.
