Authors: Susan Carroll
T
HE CONVENT OF
S
T.
A
NNE’S
was situated above the town on a gentle rise of hill. But the bells calling the sisters to prayer had long ago been silenced, the stately stone buildings bleak and empty beneath the lowering gray skies. The convent had been closed many years ago, the sisters dispersed to other orders—at least those who had been fortunate enough not to be charged with heresy and witchcraft.
The only sign of habitation was the smoke curling from the caretaker’s cottage nestled in the shadow of the convent walls. It was there that the other ghost of Faire Isle dwelt—Marie Claire Abingdon, once the formidable abbess of the convent and closest friend of Evangeline Cheney.
The cottage was rather humble surroundings for a woman who had wielded such power, the daughter of a powerful aristocratic family, accustomed to command the elegancies of life. But Marie Claire had managed to make the place her own, colorful braided rugs scattered over the rough stone floor, the shelves that should have held a peasant’s crockery laden with her books. A large cage occupied one corner of the room where her two pet ravens croaked and preened their glossy feathers.
A cozy fire and a branch of candles did much to dispel the gloom of the day. Although the wind whistled and rattled the slate tiles of the roof, Miri felt safe and comforted, seated at Marie Claire’s small table near the hearth. Like Ariane, Marie Claire possessed a calming aura, although it still gave Miri a jolt to see the woman no longer wearing her habit.
The absence of her flowing robes and wimple made Marie Claire seem somehow diminished, more vulnerable. Her advancing years were beginning to tell upon her, her soft white hair thinning, her posture a little bowed, but her countenance still bore those marks of strength that had made one exasperated bishop label her “far too willful for a nun.”
As Marie Claire fetched a simple repast of bread and cheese from her cupboard, Miri regaled her with the grim happenings in the square that morning. Marie Claire listened gravely but an odd smile played about the woman’s mouth when Miri said, “. . . and those women were so angry, so beyond reason, especially Madame Alain. I have nothing like Ariane’s manner of authority. I have no idea how I persuaded them to relent.”
“Don’t you?” Marie Claire threw her a fond glance. “It’s those fey eyes of yours, child. They shine a fierce light into the darkest corner of a person’s soul. Make one feel mighty ashamed, want to do better.”
Miri shook her head at what she could only think of as pure nonsense. “However it happened, I was relieved to save Carole from a severe beating.” She added ruefully, “Although that was all I was able to do for her.”
“Yes, she’s rather a belligerent little creature,” Marie Claire said as she carried the food over to the table.
Miri eyed the amount of bread and cheese Marie Claire had heaped on her plate, doubting she could consume the half of it. She never seemed to have much appetite these days. But to please Marie Claire, she nibbled at a piece of bread.
As Marie Claire filled two pewter cups with a robust red wine, she remarked, “I have warned Carole myself many times. She would do far better to remain quietly at home and mind that sharp tongue of hers.”
“Is that what the daughters of the earth have come to on this island?” Miri asked sadly. “Living quietly, minding their tongues, trying to be invisible? You surprise me, Marie. That was never how you behaved.”
“No and look where it got me.”
“You now regret how you lived your life?”
“A woman can’t get to be my age and not have some regrets, child.” Marie Claire sighed as she settled herself into the chair opposite Miri. “I fear I was always too strong-willed. First rebelling against my parents’ efforts to marry me off to some aristocratic dolt. Then as abbess, defying the archbishop, insisting on running St. Anne’s on my own terms, reading books the church had clearly forbidden. Am I sorry that I didn’t make more effort to curb my intellect, to be more meek and biddable?”
Marie Claire’s mouth crooked in a wry smile. “No, not entirely, though I think I could have learned to be a trifle more—er, diplomatic and discreet. That is all that I tried to counsel Carole. That sometimes a little caution is best.”
She trained her shrewd gaze upon Miri. “The same advice I would give to you, my Lady of the Wood.”
Miri had raised her glass to take a sip, but she set it back down with a sharp click. “Oh, lord, you heard about that. You must have been speaking with Madame Greves.”
“Madame Greves and quite a few others. You set most of the island abuzz when you brought the Pomfreys’ cow back to life.”
“I did no such thing. The cow was indeed unconscious, but bringing it round was no great matter.”
“No great matter! Miri, I am told the poor beast suffered from milk fever, which is well known to be an incurable disease.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Miri said indignantly, “if the world had not become such a superstitious and ignorant place that people have become afraid to consult the ancient texts wise women compiled centuries ago. But no, I perform a simple procedure and am suspected of being a witch.”
She spread her hands in appeal. “But what else could I have done, Marie? The Pomfreys are poor folk. They could not afford to lose that cow. Should I have just refused to help, let that poor animal perish? And her with a newborn calf.”
Marie Claire sighed. “No, you could no more deny aid to a sick creature than Ariane could turn her back on an ailing child. Just be as careful as you can and remember, you still have powerful enemies.”
“If you mean the Dark Queen, her battles were with Ariane and Gabrielle. I doubt she even remembers the existence of a third Cheney sister.”
“Trust me, my dear, Catherine de Medici has a long memory. She never forgets anyone or anything that might prove a threat to her power.”
“That hardly describes me. The Dark Queen would have far more reason to be wary of
you,
Marie. You were the one who was able to plant a spy in her very court.”
“That was a long time ago. Now I am an old woman of no power or consequence. Most of the world believes me long dead.”
“Forgive me, Marie,” Miri said hesitantly. “But I doubt your pretense has really fooled anyone. At least not here on Faire Isle.”
“No, most of the local people are quite aware of who I am, but they tolerate my presence. Even Father Benedict says nothing when I creep into his church to hear the mass. But he is a kind young man, a good shepherd who would rather coax a wayward lamb back into the fold than see it slaughtered for straying.”
Marie Claire smiled and took a long swallow of wine, but there was clearly something else weighing on her mind, something that filled Miri with an inexplicable sense of apprehension.
Marie Claire ran her finger over the rim of her cup, silent for a long moment. “Miri . . . I have been reluctant to tell you this until I was sure. But I have had another message from a friend of mine, a wise woman living in Saint-Malo.”
Marie Claire paused, released a long breath before saying, “He is back.”
There was no need for Miri to ask who Marie Claire meant by
he.
Her stomach clenched so hard it hurt. She wrapped her arms across her middle.
“S-simon Aristide?” she faltered. “But he has not been heard from in years.”
“Nonetheless, he has been spotted prowling about Brittany. Le Balafre is far too distinctive a figure to be mistaken. He appears to be traveling alone, no army of witch-hunters at his back, but that does not make him any less dangerous.”
“You need hardly tell
me
that.” Miri shot to her feet, struggling to conceal her agitation. She paced over to the cage and thrust crumbs of her bread through the bars. With a flutter of wings, the ravens descended from their perch and pecked greedily at the crusts with their long beaks.
Wolf birds . . . that was the other name for Marie Claire’s beloved pets. Predators.
Just like Simon.
Except that that had not always been true. Miri’s mind swept her back to a long-ago midnight upon a rugged cliff amidst the towering circle of stone giants and the flare of torchlight. The night winds had teased the dark curls spilling over Simon’s brow, a startling contrast to his milk-white skin . . . the most beautiful boy she had ever seen.
“
I thought all witch-hunters were old and ugly,” she had said in dazed accents and Simon had flashed his irrepressible smile.
“Odd. I have always believed the same about witches.”
“But I am not a witch.”
“I never said you were,” he had responded in a gentler tone.
And Simon hadn’t . . . at least not then. Becoming aware that Marie Claire was addressing her, Miri thrust aside her troubling memories of the past.
“. . . and perhaps now you will understand why I am so concerned about the reputation you are getting as this Lady of the Wood. I fear that Simon Aristide has never given up searching for your family since you all fled Faire Isle. Not that I am afraid he would harm
you.
He always harbored a certain tenderness where you were concerned.”
“Tenderness? The man is not capable of such an emotion, although once . . .” Miri trailed off. Once she had believed that there was so much good to be found in Simon, that he was merely lost, misguided, wounded. If she could have coaxed him out of his darkness, she could have healed him. But her experience of injured animals in the wild had led her to the painful understanding that some creatures were damaged beyond even her ability to help, a flat empty look in their eyes. She had seen that look in Simon’s face. The man no longer had a soul.
As she fed the last of her bread to the eager ravens, Miri was struck by the full import of Marie Claire’s words. She spun about to regard the older woman intently. “If you are not worried that Simon would harm me, then what
are
you afraid of?”
Marie Claire shifted uncomfortably, avoiding Miri’s eyes, but Miri read her silence all too well. She felt the blood rush into her cheeks, a hot sting of guilt and shame.
“You fear that if our paths crossed, I’d be weak enough to trust Simon again. Perfectly understandable. I put my family, you, this entire island at risk because I believed in him.” She swallowed hard. “I—I was even foolish enough to fancy that I loved him.”
“Oh, my dear.” Marie Claire crossed the room and caught Miri’s hands in a gentle grasp. “That was not foolish. There is a great virtue in trying to find the best in people. No one is entirely black of heart, not even Aristide.”
“How can you speak one word in his defense?” Miri cried. “After all that he cost you, the closing of the abbey, your position, almost your life?”
“That was not entirely Aristide’s doing. The church never cared for uppity women and I am afraid the sisters of St. Anne’s were always too independent for the archbishop. His Eminence had long wanted to disband our order.”
“And Simon’s witch-hunting gave him an excuse.”
“His Eminence never really needed one. And as for Aristide, rather than threatening my life, he saved it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you never wonder how I managed to escape from St. Anne’s with the place surrounded by witch-hunters and the king’s soldiers? It was only because Aristide allowed it, calling off the guard long enough for me to get away.”
Miri blinked, a little stunned by Marie Claire’s revelation of this softening on Simon’s part. She scowled, struggling to dismiss it. “It was just a careless mistake on his part.”
“Monsieur Le Balafre is not a man given to carelessness.”
“Then—then he must have been hoping that if he let you go, you would lead him to the rest of us.”
“Then why did he make no effort to follow me?” Marie Claire countered.
“I don’t know,” Miri replied miserably, drawing away from her. She had already wasted far too much time and heartache trying to sort out the contradictions of her acquaintance with Simon Aristide. The boy who had been so kind and gentle with her, who had seemed like her friend. The arrogant young man who had intimidated and threatened her, warning her that he meant to destroy her brother-in-law, that he would be just as ruthless to her if she sought to prevent him. Simon had always hated the Comte de Renard, suspected him of the worst kind of sorcery. But when he had had his opportunity to kill Renard, Simon had deflected the shot because Miri had been in the way.
Gabrielle had always been wont to complain,
“Why can’t the blasted man make up his mind to act like a proper villain and be done with it?”
Miri entirely agreed with her. It would have made despising Simon so much easier and far less painful.
As though determined to compound Miri’s confusion, Marie Claire went on, “To give the devil his due, there is one other thing that I will always be grateful for. When the writs of arrests were sworn out, he took great care that your name should never appear.”
Miri stiffened. Marie Claire might be grateful for that, Ariane and Gabrielle as well. But it was one of Simon’s actions that Miri found most unforgivable.
“You’ll never know how much I resent him for that,” Miri choked. “That my sisters, my good brother-in-law Renard, you and so many other women on this island should have been charged with sorcery, while I alone was spared because of some whim of Simon’s.”
Miri tried to fight her anger, the emotion poisonous to her, but it coursed through her like a dark tide. “I hate him,” she said with fierce intensity as though trying to convince herself as much as Marie Claire. “I have never hated anyone else in my life, but Simon forced me to loathe him. I hate him for what he did to my family, my friends, and most of all, for what he did to this island. There used to be a wild sweet spirit that lived here and Simon destroyed it. I should have shot him that night in Paris but I was too weak. But believe me, if I ever get another chance, I’ll know how to deal with the villain.”
“Oh, hush, child.” Marie Claire cradled Miri’s face between her hands, a deeply troubled look creasing the older woman’s brow. “This kind of talk is not like you.”