The Rose Of Lorraine Part 23

"But how was that?" Bella prodded bluntly.

"'Twas different," Clarise hedged. "Suffice to say, you and my Lord Chandos had not spoken a civil word to one another in years."

"For how many years exactly?" Bella asked appalled.

"Milady, I beg you, none of this is my concern. 'Twas a very long time, milady, but you wouldn't want to go back to that. Aren't you happier now that there is peace between the two of you?" "You call this peace? That my husband's friend feels he has the right to strike me? What I want to know is where did everyone in this b.l.o.o.d.y castle get the idea that Lady Chandos had a beating coming?" Bella turned around to see Clarise's eyes for the answer to that. The woman clamped her lips together and would say nothing more. In her eyes Bella saw fear. There would be no answer forthcoming.

"Never mind," Bella said and settled her neck back on the towel folded over the rim of the tub. "Answer me this, if you will. Is there any particular reason Sir John and I have quarrelled in the past that caused our estrangement?"

Clarise was clearly wary of saying anything, but she did offer, "Milady, you have always questioned Lord Chandos' devotion to duty for the king."

"Well, that should hardly be a problem now. I have sworn allegiance to Edward as well."

"So you have," Clarise said. In the silence that followed, Bella listened to the brush crackle against the tangles in her hair.

"I wish all the people in this castle would have to speak the gospel truth for one full day," Bella complained.

"If they did, milady, you would not like it," Clarise replied.

"Ha!" Bella countered testily. "You'd be surprised to know what I like and do not like."

All at once Bella knew she'd had enough subservient companionship for one day.

"You know what, Clarise?"

"No, milady."

"I have to give Sir Graham credit for one thing. He's the only person in this b.l.o.o.d.y castle with the b.a.l.l.s to speak his mind."

To herself, Bella admitted the man had also had the courage to step forward and protect a child he thought was being abused. In that light, considering his motives from hindsight, Bella couldn't fault him.

He just had the wrong woman and his facts wrong.

Bella climbed out of the tub and wrapped herself in a length of linen towelling, taking care as she blotted her face dry. "You may go, Clarise. I want to be alone. Why isn't there a mirror in this stupid room? I need a mirror."

Clarise gave Bella a queer look and marched across the room to the escritoire. She took the inkstand off

of it and lifted the top.

Bella stared at the tilted top on that piece of furniture as if she'd never seen it before in her life. It wasn't an escritoire like she had thought for weeks now. It was a lady's vanity table...a stupid lady's vanity table!

How blind could she possibly be? On the underside of the raised top was a polished mirror. Below that were sections and compartments full of jars of unguents, perfumes, oils, powders, and creams. A blasted vanity of all things!

Without another word, Clarise curtsied and left.

"Holy Mother of G.o.d!" Bella whispered aloud for her own ears only. "Christ, and Him crucified, how many other things am I wrong about?"

Bella hadn't seen her face since checking her makeup just before she'd left the Claridge Hotel. She had

even begun to doubt her own ident.i.ty--thinking maybe it hadn't been her body that had gone through time--just her spirit. But there in Lady Isabella's polished silver mirror was Bella's own familiar face. Even battered, she knew each feature reflected back at her. She was still one and the same Sarah Isabel Saint Pierre Wynford.

She looked at the damage Sir James' fist had caused and found it wasn't nearly as bad as it felt. Her upper lip was swollen and that extended into her cheek. Her eyes weren't going to turn black and blue like they had years ago after a car accident. The worst of it must have been the nosebleed. She knew from raising a child, noses bled easily.

Before she closed the top, she examined Lady Isabella's possessions inside the vanity. There was a miniature of a pale-haired woman opposite a portrait of Comte Saint Pierre. Lady Isabella's parents thirty years ago, most likely. Bella fingered a crocheted hairnet, a tangle of silk ribbons and a porcelain pot containing earrings.

"Where are the little treasures?" Bella asked, snooping under pots and jars, searching for the items that any mother would have kept tucked away in her private stash.

Back home in Texas, Bella's vanity contained scads of tucked-away tokens of Iain. Painted rocks, pressed flowers, shoe-lace key chains, crude cards and Valentines, even baby teeth had been saved just because they were Iain's.

"Did you hate your children, Lady Chandos?" Bella asked. "Did you treat those sweet boys as cruelly as Sir Graham claims? How could you?"

Bella didn't want to believe she was that naive and blind. She looked at a vanity and saw a writing desk. She looked at three sons and a handsome husband and saw a loving family. How many other crucial things had she made face value judgments on...wrong judgments...flawed judgments?

Henri had said incredulously when he'd shown her his puppy, "I thought you only liked cats." Robin avoided her, and when he could not, came across defensive as all get out. Geoffrey, the child who was the image of her own dear son, had yet to come voluntarily within five feet of Bella.

Not one son sought her out in the evenings to share a story of the day, to be tucked in bed, to show a hurt or seek comforting.

"Henri came to me with his sunburn." No sooner had she said that out loud than Bella admitted the truth. The little boy had been seeking his father and had received from Sir John the soothing and rea.s.surance he'd needed.

"And I took that to mean Sir John was a more involved father than Ari. Ha! I should have seen it as a sign the child and his mother weren't involved at all! G.o.d! Why did you put me here? I was on the outside of life right where I was?"

Not one son had ever said, I love you, Momma.

The pure cruelty of such a horrible fate tore at Bella's heart. All she'd ever wanted in life was to love and be loved in return. How could G.o.d have played such a cruel joke on her as to show her this family and never let her become part of it.

This could not continue. Bella could not possibly live on the fringes of all relationships involving the children and Sir John. She had to be an active partic.i.p.ant. Nothing else was tolerable.

Bella found something to wear, dressed and brushed her hair then French braided it out of her way. After she put on dry stockings and shoes, she crossed the solar, seeking both Geoffrey and Henri.

The door to their bedroom was open. Henri's wet shoes sat on the windowsill. Geoffrey's shield, battered helmet and wooden sword were dumped on the window seat.

Bella also looked in the room next door where Robin slept. That chamber was identical to the first. An unglazed window and simple day bed were its main features. Robin had the addition of a prie dieu and a suit-tree that support his polished armor as well as a soldier's trunk to hold all of his possessions. That was open.

Inside the trunk was the sword King Edward had given Robin for his birthday and Bella saw a crossbow and a shield. Other than that, Robin's chamber was no more individualized than a monk's cell--a reflection of the youth's personality--austere and serious-minded.

Bella closed Robin's door and glanced at the door centered in the opposite wall. Since arriving at this castle, she'd entered this alcove exactly three times. Once fleeing Sir John. The second time, to give Geoffrey the sweet he'd been promised to come down from b.a.s.t.a.r.d's drop and the third to hand Henri over to Meggie.

She harbored a curiosity about what lay behind that third door, suspecting that it was Sir John's retreat. No one was around to object to her appeasing that curiosity, so she crossed alcove and firmly pushed the heavy, iron-strapped door open. Then she stood under the arch rendered speechless as a half-wit.

A stunning display of sunlight poured into the large chamber through a trio of stained-gla.s.s windows that ought to have belonged in a church.

Two, three minutes pa.s.sed while Bella remained poised on the door sill, drinking in the uncommon sight, wondering why such a thing of beauty was tucked away in a private room where no one could ever see it.

The theme was the quest for the Holy Grail. In the center panel a golden chalice floated above a mountainous landscape. The smaller panels continued the allegory. On the right, a band of pilgrims and mounted knights traversed green foothills on a Holy Crusade which ended triumphantly in the dry and arid hills of Jerusalem on the left panel.

Bella felt another strong surge of deja vu rush through her veins, confirming the fact that she had stood on the threshold of this chamber before, captivated by the image and beauty just beyond her reach.

Bella didn't doubt for a moment that she'd seen this image before...somewhere. Where, in what museum, book, magazine, film, or video she couldn't say.

She came from an age inundated by visual imagery. What deserved more introspection was the feeling that she'd stood here often, many, many times, admiring that image--coveting it. She knew full well she'd never been here in her life.

She tried to dispel the weird sensations by turning her attention the rest of the chamber. Below the stained gla.s.s, wooden shutters opened for air circulation. A window seat was made comfortable and inviting with long bolsters and tapestry pillows.

The walls soared above her head, joining in a vaulted ceiling. The arches and columns of the vaulting and stone walls had been lime-washed. Parquetry squares of bleached and stained oak made up the glossy floor.

A marble fireplace dominated the south wall. Before the hearth a polar bear skin rug stretched out its full length. The animal's n.o.ble head and fierce expression had been captured forever by a skilled taxidermist.

Above the mantelpiece ranged a collection of trophy heads and weaponry; battle axes, halberds and swords. In the corner there was a standing wardrobe next to a wooden suit-tree supporting a full suit of gilt-embellished armor that would only fit one person--Sir John.

So this is where John spends his nights, Bella thought. As in Robin's room the wall to the right of the door bore only a crucifix. Set some five feet from that was a scarred prie dieu.

A bed not so ostentatious as Bella's dominated the north wall. A painted screen folded back in the far corner, exposed a deep copper tub. Like Bella's room, this one had more s.p.a.ce than furniture. A table and chair occupied center stage before the windows on which a clutch of scrolls nestled inside a basket next to writing tools.

Three leather-bound books rested to the right of the felt deskpad. Those books exerted more pull on Bella than gravity, bringing her across the threshold into Sir John's domain. Her fingers itched to touch the written word.

She sat at John's chair and took the topmost volume in hand, opening it so that daylight flooded the page.

The book was readable--in that same curious way Chaucer's Old English could be read--given time and studious effort. Yet, the discovery of books delighted Bella. After some perusal, she realized she held the castle's daily ledger wherein every hogshead of ale, hide of leather, skein of wool and so on was tallied.

Sir John regularly reviewed his stewards accounts, checked their figures, and made notations in his own hand on the margins. That must have been his occupation this morning prior to the hunt. Bella had seen him briefly at breakfast, when he had excused himself, saying he had accounts to attend until the hunt master sounded his horn.

Spellbinding as Old English was, Bella put that ledger aside and took up the second volume. This, she discovered immediately upon opening it to the page marked by a silken ribbon, was a Bible, the New Testament handwritten in Medieval French.

That it wasn't Latin came as a big surprise. Bella knew that the Bible had not been translated into English until Henry VIII had authorized a printing. Wait a minute, she reminded herself, that was the printed Bible. Certainly hand-written translations in various languages had been available to those with the means to commission them.

The script was Gothic, precisely styled calligraphy. The top of the ribbon marked page was sub-t.i.tled chapter 5, the Beat.i.tudes of St. Matthew. Bella's brow furrowed as she struggled to read the formal French with her awkward, very idiomatic Alsatian. Her forefinger reverently trailed down the lines, following the Sermon on the Mount.

The bottom corner of this parchment page was dog-eared, softened and grimed by frequent touch. Clearly, this was a favorite pa.s.sage of Sir John's. The last lines on the page, verses 31 and 32 Chandos had marked with red ink brackets. Verse 31 had been underlined.

Bella tangled several minutes with verse 31, looking for the gist and context of the underlined words. Abruptly, she snapped the volume shut. Her head jerked up and she glared across the room at the standing suit of armor. The literal translation looped in startling clarity in her head, but saying it out loud made it a travesty.

"Whoever puts away his wife, let him give her a written notice of dismissal."

The balance she knew by heart for she spent many an hour seeking insight from the Bible over her troubled marriage to Aristotle.

"Whoever puts away his wife save for immorality, causes her to commit adultery."

The legs of the chair sc.r.a.ped as Bella got to her feet. She put the New Testament on top of the ledger, backing away from Sir John's writing tools and personal papers. He wanted to get rid of her...that's why he didn't seek her bed and avoided her at all costs.

The chamber had changed atmosphere in the blink of an eye, as though a dark cloud had pa.s.sed over the sun and dimmed the light from the window. Battle axes and deadly blades on the south wall now looked shadowed and sinister. The suit of armor seemed to come to life, menacing and fierce. Every wild animal bared its teeth in an echoing silent growl that only Bella could hear.

Turning abruptly, she stumbled past a bed she'd never been invited to share--and never would share--ever! Shaking, caught in an emotional upheaval brought on by the cruelest cut of all, Bella ran for the open door.

She should have never crossed that threshold. As the eavesdropper never heard anything good said about them, so the curious were caught by their own folly. Bella ran from hers, knowing it was high time she put distance and s.p.a.ce between herself and Chandos. She was only kidding herself thinking she could worm a niche in John de Chandos' world.

Wait until he heard the latest--today's fiasco at the well. Chandos probably couldn't wait to find some convent to lock away his mad wife.

It was time Bella took control of her own destiny and forced her way back to the century she truly belonged. Now, this very moment, she would find the means to escape Chandos Enceinte.

Lorette whickered softly as she raised her head above the bubbling spring, calling to Bella.

"It's all right, Lorette. You'll be fine here," Bella a.s.sured the placid horse. She knotted the leather lead securely to a barren oak. The gra.s.s was plentiful and Lorette was a.s.sured of a never-ending supply of fresh water overnight. "Come morning someone from the castle will find you."

Bella walked down the gentle rise toward the crumbling stone walls. Her thoughts were still caught up in her own escape. It hadn't been as hard to accomplish as she'd had imagined it would be. All she'd had to do was wait for the next meal to be sounded. With the encampments surrounding Chandos Enceinte, one woman and a horse going out the gates went unnoticed by the hundreds of hungry men surging inside to be fed.

Sundown was still a few hours away as Bella strode purposefully through the unbarred gate of the priory. The crumbling walls were painted with hex signs, skulls and crossbones, warning people away.

She could well see why. The uneven ground was pitted. Mud holes and water filled ditches were half covered by bracken and tangled undergrowth. For all that the priory was holy ground with a cross still erect above the sunken roof of its chapel, it was ill kempt, abandoned and ghostly.

"The question is," Bella stopped near the weathered walls of the old church and searched all around her. "Which of these G.o.dawful pits is the Well of Souls?"

She turned back to shield her eyes from the sun and study what certainly must be Offham Hill. In the far distance, she could see the pennons flying atop the castle and King Edward's standard declaring for one and all that he was in residence at Chandos Enceinte.

Bella grumbled, "Bet he'll be glad to see the last of me."

Doubts continued to plague her. Surely it must take some serious mumbo jumbo to flip through time. How could she possibly do such a thing herself when the only magical words she knew were abracadabra and open sesame?

Nonetheless, she vowed to give it a try. If the Well of Souls was powerful in and of itself, maybe she only had to be there, touch something special. She circled the ruins, avoiding the obvious mudpits, looking for some sign that would tell her which hole in the earth was the one she sought.

As she rounded the priory's tumbled down stables and granary, she came to a stone wall separating the yard from the cemetery. It was dotted with broken headstones, shattered crosses and abandoned wagons--a gruesome eerie place.

A shiver worked across Bella's shoulders. Her eyes darted right and left, where was the well? She climbed onto an upended cart and shading her eyes from the glare of the sun and discovered another curiosity. Standing stones.

Three of them thrust skyward, seven to eight feet out of the earth, straight and towering sentinels of pagan times mixed amid the graves of early Christian priests.

"Well, no wonder." Bella said as she jumped back down to the earth and hurried inside the cemetery. Weren't modern archaeologists always discovering that time after time, the new religions took over the old religion's sacred places? Sure as her name was Bella, they were.

"Wow," Bella pushed her hair back to her shoulders, caught up her hems and skirted the last obstacle in her way. She had her right hand up, just about to touch the first stele when the d.a.m.ned thing spoke.

"Isabel! What do you here?"