“Your master is sleeping,” she said, straightening up with all the dignity she could muster. “If he should wake before I return, tell him I have gone to church.” Nodding once more to the wizard, she walked past him up the stairs.
Simon sat down on the bed, concentrating without thinking on the sound of her heartbeat as it faded, his beautiful prey climbing back to safety. He could feel Orlando just outside the door, and he hoped he would have the presence of mind to stay there—in his present state, he might even attack the wizard, given the chance. But finally she was gone. The deathly trance that was his natural, undisturbed state in the daylight hours stole over him again, sapping the strength from his body, and he sank back down to the bed like a corpse on a slab, falling back down into sleep.
Since her father’s death ten years before, Isabel had visited the Chapel of Saint Joseph only rarely. She was supposed to be the captive of a demon, after all. But she had never known the churchyard gate to be closed and barred in the middle of the day. It was a new gate, from the look of it—the timbers were still yellow. Handing Malachi’s reins to Tom, who rode on a small brown mare beside her, she climbed down and rang the iron bell. “Do you suppose Father Colin has gone somewhere?” she asked.
“I don’t know, my lady,” Tom said doubtfully. “Someone was ringing matins this morning when I was on my way home.”
The door in the gate opened a crack. “Who is it?” Father Colin’s voice demanded, sounding quite unlike him, impatient and fearful at once.
“Father Colin, it’s me.” She moved to where she could be seen through the crack. “Isabel of Charmot.”
“My lady!” He threw the door open wide and rushed out to embrace her like a prodigal returned. “May Christ be praised, you’re safe!”
“Yes, quite,” she promised, confused. “Father, what has happened? The gate—”
“Some villain let his horse kick down the old one,” he explained briskly as he let her go. “Or so the carpenter said must have happened; I never heard a thing.” He touched her cheek, a strange, haunted light coming into his eyes. “Not a sound…” His expression cleared, and the brisk manner returned. “But hurry, both of you. Come inside.”
They followed him through the gardens and entrance chamber into the chapel proper. The shutters were closed in spite of the warmth of the day, and all of the candles were lit as though for a Christmas mass. “Pray pardon the s
tench, my lady,” the priest said, closing and bolting the door behind them. “We are doing what we can to get rid of it.”
“What stench, Father?” Two peasant women were on their hands and knees before the altar, she realized, scrubbing the floor. “I don’t smell anything.”
“You are too kind, child.” He lit another rack of candles and moved them closer to where the women were working. “At first I thought a rat must have found its way into the wall and died. But then I saw the stain.”
Isabel looked at the floor. “Stain?” she echoed politely, more mystified than ever. The flagstones were irregular in color, but they had always been so, at least so long as she could remember. The bones of Romans were buried beneath them, it was said, they were so old. Perhaps they did seem a bit darker where he pointed, but even with all the candles, she couldn’t see much of a difference.
“It was much worse when we started, my lady,” one of the women said. “We could see it right well. But now…” She let her voice trail off, her eyes moving to the priest.
“But what happened?” Isabel asked. “What was— is—this stain?”
The second woman looked up, her eyes wide with fear. “Blood.”
“Hush,” Father Colin snapped, making Isabel start with surprise. She had never heard the priest speak so sharply to anyone. “Lady Isabel does not want to hear your foolishness.” The woman went back to her work without another word, and he smiled at Isabel. “Never mind, my lady,” he said. “Whatever it is, it will soon be gone.”
“I have no doubt,” she answered, though in truth she was beginning to feel rather frightened. “Father, forgive my intruding when you’re so busy, but I came to ask about Michel.” Blood before the very altar of chapel? Father Colin acting so strangely? The front gate smashed to pieces? What could have happened here?
“Ask about whom?” the priest said politely.
“Michel,” she repeated. “The Frenchman who was coming to fight the Black Knight at Charmot.”
“The Black Knight?” he repeated, sounding alarmed. “Do not speak his name, my lady, not here.”
“It’s all right,” she said, taking his arm with a frown. The women on the floor were of this very village; they knew her well, and she knew them; they were privy to the secret of the Black Knight of Charmot. “You came to Charmot to tell me Michel was coming two days ago. Do you not remember?”
“I came to Charmot?” The same strange, haunted look she had noticed at the gate had returned to his eyes. “Yes, of course… of course I did. To see your father.”
“No, Father Colin.” Tom’s eyes widened, too. “My father is dead, remember? He has been dead these ten years past.”
“Yes,” the cleric nodded. “You are a woman now.” He patted her hand on his arm and smiled. “Praise God that you are safe.”
“But I’m not safe,” she said urgently. “Michel has never appeared at Charmot; I haven’t seen him. Tom was told that he stopped at the inn by the river with his retinue and that he was coming here to seek lodging.” She laid a gentle hand against his cheek, making him meet her eyes. “Can you truly not remember?”
“You must not press him, my lady,” the woman who had said the stain was blood warned her, sitting up. “The old and the innocent forget things for a reason, things too evil to be remembered.”
“I told you to hush and clean that floor,” Father Colin ordered. “I will not have the chapel of Our Lord befouled, not while it is in my charge.”
“You see, my lady?” the woman said, doing as she was told.