Gayle Callen (4 page)

Reynold smiled at her, then almost laughed aloud as she stumbled again over the hem of her gown. He had never seen such a clumsy girl. Weren’t they all taught to curtsy deeply and not fall on their faces? His own sister used to amaze him with feats of grace. Remembering his family brought a chilly bleakness to the day. He only hoped he could return to the monastery before his brother discovered his absence.

He thrust aside thoughts of the family he had not seen in eight months. He was free for a short while, the day was beautiful, and he was outside the walls of St. Anthony’s. Although Lady Katherine guarded her secrets with a sincerity he found endearing, he would set her life to rights, for she needed him. The mystery of her intrigued Reynold. How could a naive woman, with a stumbling manner and a weak arm, be so feared that grown men would resort to kidnapping? And why were they so careful not to harm her?

That night, in a small grove of trees, Brother Reynold withdrew two blankets from his bottomless sack and handed one to Katherine.

She wrinkled her nose. “The night will be hot enough without that.”

“You may sleep on bare earth with the insects, if you wish.”

Katherine shivered and took the blanket. Brother Reynold irritated her. He dug the loaf of bread
from his sack, and Katherine found it even harder than before. He gave her a handful of berries he had found amongst the trees, and she resisted the urge to complain that the fruit had not been cooked, as any sensible person should know.

Still, Katherine looked down at her meal bleakly. When she had been starving after their escape, it seemed like a feast. She ate every last crumb, but she imagined roast mutton, the tray dripping with gravy as the servant ladled it onto her plate. Katherine closed her eyes and pretended.

“You will not fall asleep and choke, I trust?”

She blinked and glared at the monk.

“You haven’t told me whom to notify of your death.”

The urge to stick out her tongue was so strong that she chewed vigorously in defense.

Brother Reynold stood up, towering over her. Katherine felt a momentary twinge of fear and some nameless unease. Yet she had to trust him. The monk had proven true so far. Unless he led her other than her destination. She frowned.

“A stream runs on the far side of the trees,” he said, lifting up his sack and rummaging through it. He held up an object with obvious satisfaction. “Soap. I will bathe, and then you may do so.”

“Bathe?” Was this monk actually worried about cleanliness at such a time?

“You have heard of it, have you not?” he called over his shoulder as he stepped into the trees.

Katherine sniffed. “They tease me for my unnatural cleanliness.” The silence grew and the
darkness seemed to fold itself around her. “I bathe once a week,” she finished, then drew her knees up to her chest and shivered. Wasn’t it she who had complained of the heat?

Katherine sat unmoving as the darkness thickened and the stars glittered above the overhang of trees. The wind picked up and the grass whispered to it. The moon was only beginning to crest the hills, and with its faint light, Katherine thought she saw a black shape in the distance. She squinted, wondering if it had moved, or if she’d imagined it. Something suddenly rose from the ground in front of her and she screamed.

R
eynold bowed his head, then stood up. Already the ritual of praying at the end of the day seemed ingrained in him, even in some ways easing his soul. The soft bank of the creek was a considerable improvement over the stone base of the choir stalls for his knees. He grudgingly admitted it could be comforting to cleanse his mind and think only of peace, rather than wishing he could change the past. He had not realized how bittersweet it would feel to be in the outside world again, to remember pleasures he did not deserve and tried to forget.

He kicked off the leather boots and stockings, then pulled the peasant’s tunic over his head. The smell of the day’s exertion assaulted his senses. He was often amazed at how well he had taken to the monastery’s insistence on cleanliness. Now he could not imagine forgetting to bathe.

Reynold left on his braies, the thin strip of cloth around his hips, for the modesty of Lady Kather
ine should she feel the need for his company. He imagined the smallest squirrel could send her shrieking into the woods. He chuckled at the image of her running in fright from the open moor surrounding them. Of course, there were larger animals pursuing her, of the deadly human variety.

Uneasiness settled about Reynold like a lowland fog. Perhaps he should not linger overlong. He stepped into the waist-deep water and submerged himself, shivering. He decided that although Katherine may be naive about some things, and very foolish about others, she had a quiet courage he admired. Noblewomen seldom lived through the brutality she had experienced in the last week. Yet she had not fallen apart and demanded to be taken home to the safety of her family. Despite her fear of him and what he was—and he sensed there was a hidden reason for that—she had accepted his aid and seemed to put her distrust aside for the present.

But not enough to reveal her secrets, he thought, as he scrubbed his body with the soap. Not enough to tell him what noble cause could drive an innocent girl away from her family and future husband—what did she say his name was? John?

Reynold dived below and scrubbed his scalp. Through the gentle bubbling of the water around him, he thought he heard a sound. He broke the surface, and a piercing scream froze the blood in his veins.
Katherine
.

Something primitive took hold of him, blotting everything out in a haze of red rage. He had left a
woman with no fire to protect her from animals, for fear her enemies might spot them. All for the selfish pleasure of a bath. Reynold gritted his teeth together and a low growl of rage escaped his lips.

Katherine struggled with the man who grasped her arms, recognizing the stench of her captor.

“If ye scream again, I’ll be forced t’ hit ye, liedy,” the man grunted out, using his weight to subdue her while he tried to tie her hands together.

Katherine knew she must keep her wits about her. She silently thrashed beneath the man, feeling his suffocating weight, remembering another man atop her, another man to whom she had trusted her young girl’s emotions. The black terror of fear swallowed her whole. It was all happening again, and she was helpless to prevent it.

The man straddled her body and easily overpowered her weak arm, wrapping a length of rope about it. With her free hand, Katherine battered him, whispering, “No, no, no…” as if the words contained power. And they must have, because she heard a roar behind her that echoed over the moor and seemed to shake the earth. The kidnapper froze and looked up, his face pale beneath the moon. He was knocked from her body by a force so powerful that she screamed in terror, then crawled backwards on her hands and feet, her backside scraping the ground. When she came up hard against a tree, Katherine went limp and stared with wide, frantic eyes. The beast from the trees could only be the monk.

She had never seen a man so close to nudity before, but she guessed he was no ordinary man. Water dripped from the hard contours of his body, past the wet cloth molded to his hips. Katherine knew she should blush, but his body was as beautiful as any tapestry’s rendering of the ancient gods, every muscle bunching and straining as he pummeled her assailant. A knife suddenly glittered in Brother Reynold’s hand. With a great arch of his back he lifted it over his head, prepared to strike down the enemy.

Katherine screamed. “Brother, no! He was trying not to hurt me.”

He remained motionless, his muscles taut and straining, his broad chest heaving with each breath. Despair and anguish ripped across his face, and he looked at the knife in his hands as if it were a serpent. Just as he flung it into the dirt, the other man twisted and finally succeeding in grasping Reynold’s arms. Katherine cried out in horror. Had she stopped Brother Reynold from murdering the man, only to have her rescuer die?

With a growl, Brother Reynold dealt his opponent a blow with one massive fist. The man went limp. The monk retrieved the knife, tossed it near Katherine’s feet, called, “Wait here!” and disappeared into the blackness of the countryside.

Katherine remained huddled against the tree, watching the breathing of her kidnapper. She eyed the knife warily, knowing she would use it if she must. Every sound seemed distorted, sinister. The leaves of the tree bent over her, whispering their
menace. The dark bulk of the kidnapper twitched and she jumped. The minutes dragged by until finally Brother Reynold reappeared, leading a horse.

Katherine got to her feet, feeling immense relief and a sudden shyness. Brother Reynold had risked his life in her defense, and all she had ever done was ridicule him and his calling.

“What should we do with him?” she asked in a small voice.

“Bind him and leave him,” Brother Reynold said, and proceeded to use the assailant’s rope to tie him with his arms behind his back, and his feet drawn up to meet them.

Katherine knew she should turn away. The monk must be embarrassed by his near nudity. Yet she continued to study him, fascinated by the muscles in his back.

“I must thank you,” Brother Reynold said as he straightened.

Katherine found herself staring into the dark hair scattered across his chest. She reluctantly raised her gaze. “Thank me?”

“I would have killed him.” His voice was hoarse, and she could only guess at the emotions he concealed.

“But surely you were only saving yourself.”

“Murder is never necessary.” Brother Reynold turned to the horse for a moment, patted its side, then slapped it soundly on the rump.

Katherine gasped as it galloped away. “We could have used that horse to travel faster!”

Brother Reynold smiled. It was becoming in
creasingly difficult to think of him as a monk, the longer he stood so brazenly before her. He almost glistened under the moonlight, the faint white scars across his torso hinting at another life.

“Peasants would not be riding such a fine animal. We would arouse suspicion.”

“But I am in a great hurry.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Katherine chewed the inside of her cheek as she thought about what to say. She didn’t know him, couldn’t possibly trust a stranger with royal warnings and treachery. And what if her words implicated her father? She couldn’t risk that. She
knew
her father was innocent of the plot. She decided to change the subject. “Should not we have examined the contents of the saddle packs?”

Brother Reynold glanced skyward with a sigh. “And steal what is not ours?”

“Well surely we are allowed some…compensation.”

“Perhaps, but I have everything we need.”

Katherine sighed. “More moldy cheese.”

“Your noble upbringing is becoming quite evident. Soon you will ask for a litter and slaves to carry you about.”

She reddened. “You know that is not true. I merely wish to survive.”

Brother Reynold regarded her with his piercing eyes, shadowed by moonlight. “I understand. I should not tease you. In some ways you remind me of my sister.”

Katherine spoke sarcastically without thinking. “How comforting.”

He arched one dark brow. “You do not wish to be treated as my sister?”

“No. I mean, yes! I—” Katherine whirled away in confusion and came upon the unconscious man. She hugged her arms and shivered. “Can we not leave now?”

“Of course.”

Brother Reynold gathered his sack and their blankets, then led her through the stand of trees. His clothes and boots lay in a pile on the bank of the stream.

“Now that we are safe from your enemy for the moment, we’ll sleep here. I will see to him in the morning.”

“See to him?”

“I need to discover why he is determined to capture you.”

Katherine looked away.

“Unless of course, you wish to tell me yourself.”

She closed her eyes, feeling only the cool summer wind and hearing the soft babbling of the water at her feet. The monk’s clothes whispered together almost seductively as he donned them behind her back. Brother Reynold had saved her life—again. Did he not deserve the truth?

Katherine turned and faced him. The moon had risen higher, leaving the man in shadows that disguised his strength, emphasized his remoteness. She sat down slowly, never taking her gaze from
his immense figure. She drew her knees up to her chest and took a deep breath.

“Why did you become a monk? And why is not the top of your head shaved?”

Brother Reynold sighed heavily, then dropped to his knees beside her. It was dark and she should be frightened of him, but she wasn’t. She no longer felt that he would attack her. Instead he braced his hands on his thighs, twice the size of hers.

“Lady Katherine, you must be tired. Could not this wait until morning?”

“No, I wish to know now. Unless you feel you must keep silent…”

He shook his head, then ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. “My head has not been tonsured recently because no one insisted I submit. Most of the monks at St. Anthony’s are old. They were content with my strong back.”

She nodded in reluctant understanding. “You must have felt a calling early in life. They all seem to.”

He chuckled. “My only calling early in life was to see what the dairymaid kept hidden beneath her skirt.”

Katherine gasped, shocked, yet fascinated. She tried to imagine him as a young man, before the monastery, when girls were more important than prayers. Brother Reynold dropped onto his back, his knees raised, his head pillowed in his hands. The moon played over the contours and slopes of his body, until he seemed to rise like a shadowy mountain from the ground.

“No, Lady Katherine. You must already have guessed after tonight that I was no pious boy cloistered with the monks through childhood.”

“But—”

Reynold interrupted her, his good humor gone. “I had a younger brother who accepted our father’s decree that he should enter the monastery.” Suddenly the words he had never said aloud were trying to burst from his lungs. “He seemed destined for the priesthood. He lived in his books.”

Katherine’s voice was soft, hesitant. “What happened to him?”

“He is dead.” He made his tone deliberately harsh, hoping she would not ask for more. Reynold was desperately afraid that her sympathy would make it all come rushing from him, his culpability, his guilt.

“I am sorry,” Katherine finally said. “You must miss him.”

Reynold came up on one elbow. The anger in his voice was directed at himself, but she could not know that. She leaned back, and turned her glistening eyes away from him.

“I did not know him very well,” he said. “He was my saintly younger brother, forever sickly as a child, destined at an early age for the church. We had nothing to talk about, nothing in common. I was fostered out to a noble family, like my older brother. But he was the eldest, the heir, while I was just…his brother.” His laugh was forced. “An apt title for me, would you not say?”

“You were trained to be a knight.”

She obviously wouldn’t give it up. She laced her fingers together, staring at him, leaning forward intently. Reynold couldn’t remember a woman besides his sister actually listening to what he had to say, unafraid of his monstrous size. She only feared his vows, something he still couldn’t understand. He finally nodded to her question, remaining silent.

“Yet it is obvious that you took your brother’s place at the monastery when he died. Why did you do it if you had no calling? You do not seem like other monks I have known.”

Reynold rolled onto his stomach, nearer to Katherine, yet made no move to touch her. He reached into the stream and drank from his dripping hand, aghast that he was trembling.

“My family expected it of me,” he said slowly. “I expected it of myself.” The last he ground out in a harsh whisper, and regretted it when he heard her gasp. For a moment he relived the pain of his older brother’s fists, the shame of standing still, taking the beating, because he deserved it.

“That was it?” she said in amazement. “You relinquished your station in the world just because your parents expected you to?”

“My parents are dead. Since I am a younger son, my marriage would not bring as much to the family as my older brother’s will. But a son in the clergy can mean power for a family.”

Reynold watched Katherine lean back on her arms, her head dropping back. The trees covered them like a dark tent. She murmured, “But to give
up your whole life for your family…”

“Does that mean your betrothal was a love match, and your father remained uninvolved?”

She seemed to jump in surprise and only gave him the briefest glance. She sat up straighter and rubbed her arm. “But that is different. A woman must marry.”

“So your father did not bring you and your suitor together.”

“Of course he did, but I knew immediately that I could love him. I was fortunate he showed any interest in me at all.”

Reynold’s voice was quiet. “What do you mean?”

For a moment, Katherine forgot he was there. In her mind she saw only the great hall of her father’s castle, and the man waiting before the hearth with her father. She was fourteen, and about to meet the man who would possibly take her to wife. But the room had been too warm, and she shook so badly that her well-practiced curtsy tottered. Yet the man with the golden halo of fire behind the dark curls of his hair had smiled at her, as if her arm didn’t matter. But of course he didn’t know what she truly was, he didn’t know her sins. And he went away too soon.