you pay me now?”
“I’m a Prioress, not a fool. You’ll get your money when you return. If you succeed. Now, will you do it?”
The girl’s happy hum still buzzed in his ear. What was one more sin to a God who punished only the righteous? Besides, the Church didn’t need this one. The Church had already taken enough.
He nodded.
“Sister Marian also goes to the shrine. She knows nothing of this. She wants the girl to fulfill her vow and return to the order.”
“And you do not.”
The Prioress crossed herself. A faint shudder ruffled the edge of her robe. “She is a foundling with the Devil’s own eyes. He can have her back.” Her smile was anything but holy. “And you will be His instrument.”
Chapter Two
“Look. There he is. The Savior.” Sister Marian’s words tickled Dominica’s ear. She whispered so no one would overhear the blasphemous nickname for the man who, like the true Savior, had raised a man from the dead.
“Where? Which one?” Dominica did not bother to whisper. The entire household had gathered in the Readington Castle courtyard to witness the blessing of God’s simple pilgrims before they left on their journey. The sounds of braying asses, snorting horses and barking dogs assaulted her ears, accustomed to convent quiet. At Sister’s feet, Innocent barked fiercely at every one of God’s four-legged creatures.
“Over there. By the big bay horse.”
She gasped. He was the man she had seen through the Prioress’s window.
He certainly did not look holy. His broad shoulders looked made to stand against the real world, not the spirit one. Dark brown curls, the color of well-worn leather, fought their way around his head and onto his cheeks, where he had begun to grow a pilgrim’s beard. His skin had lived with sun and wind.
Then he met her eyes again. Just like the first time, something called to her, as strongly as if he had spoken. Surely this must be holiness.
With an unholy bark, Innocent dashed across the courtyard, chasing a large, orange cat.
“I’ll get him,” Dominica called, too late for Sister to object. It was going to be difficult to keep Innocent safe among the temptations of the world.
Her first running steps tangled in her skirts, so she swooped them out of the way. Fresh air swirled between her legs. Laughing, she scampered around two asses, finally scooping Innocent up at the feet of a horse.
A large bay horse. With a broad-shouldered man beside it.
The Savior was taller than he looked from a distance. A soldier’s sword hung next to his pilgrim’s bowl and bag. Something hung around his neck hid beneath his tunic, not for the world to see. A private penance, perhaps.
“Good morning,” she said, bending back her neck to meet his brown, no, green eyes. “I am Dominica.”
He looked at her squarely, eyes wary and sad, as if God had given him many trials to make him worthy. “I know who you are.”
At his glance, her blood bubbled through her fingers and around her stomach in an oddly pleasant way. “Did God tell you?” If God spoke to her, He must certainly have lengthy conversations with one so holy.
He scowled. Or repressed a smile. “The Prioress told me.”
She wondered what else the Prioress had told him. The dog wriggled in her arms. She scratched his head. “This is Innocent.”
The smile broke through. “Named in honor of our Holy Father in Avignon, no doubt.”
That, she was sure, the Prioress had not told him. Dominica raced on, not giving him time to wonder whether the name honored the Pope or mocked him. “We are all grateful to you for bringing the Earl back from the dead,” she said. “Did he stinketh like Lazarus?”
“Pardon?”
“The Bible says ‘Lazarus did stinketh because he hath been dead four days.’
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You did not hear about Lazarus’s stench in one of the Abbot’s homilies.”
Best not to tell him she had read it herself. “At the noon meal, the Sisters read the Scriptures and let me listen.” She waited for a sign of anger. Could one so touched by God discern her small deception?
“The story of Lazarus hardly sounds appetizing,” he said. “But, yes, we both did stinketh by the time we got home.”
“Of course, the Earl had not been dead for four days when you brought him back to life.”
The amusement leaked away and his green eyes darkened to brown. “I did not bring him back from the dead. I simply would not let him die.”
Dominica thought this a very fine theological distinction. “But you had faith in God’s power. ‘He that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live.’”
“Be careful who you believe in. Faith can be dangerous.”
His words, bleak as his eyes, seemed as simple and as complex as scripture. She remembered the end of the Lazarus story. It was after the Pharisees learned what Jesus had done that they decided he must die.
“You know my name, but I do not know yours, Sir…?”
“Garren.”
“Sir Garren of what?”
“Sir Garren of nowhere. Sir Garren with nothing.” He bowed. “As befits a simple pilgrim.”
“Have you no home?”
He stroked the horse’s neck. “I have Roucoud de Readington.”
“Readington?”
“A gift from the Earl.” He frowned.
Why would he frown at such a wonderful gift? Readington must value him highly to give him such a magnificent animal. “And you are at home on a horse?”
“I have been a mercenary, paid to fight.”
“And now?”
“And now a palmer,” he muttered, “paid for this pilgrimage.”
Dominica was not surprised to have a palmer on the journey. She was surprised that it was The Savior. “What poor dead soul left twenty sous in his will for a pilgrimage for his soul?”
“Not a dead one—yet.”
He must mean the Earl of Readington himself, she thought, relieved. The secret was in good hands, if she would only stop asking questions. “Forgive me,” she said. “Keep the secret of your holy journey in your heart.”
“I am no holy man.”
Her question
