By skirting the dwellings at the margin of the wood Adam was able to keep the nun in sight, and when the slight figure knocked at a cottage door he was in position himself behind the same cottage. It was a matter of moments to find a crack in the planking where the daub had fallen away…
Inside, the cottage was similar in style to many peasants’ dwellings in Adam’s native Brittany: namely one large room with a fire in a central hearth. The smoke wound upwards, and found its way out through a hole in the roof. To one side of the fire a hanging lamp illuminated the scene. A string of onions and some dried mushrooms dangled from the rafters. By twisting his head, Adam could just make out a rough curtain that hung across one end of the room. The curtain was made out of sackcloth, crudely stitched together. Behind the curtain someone—a woman, if Adam was any judge—cried out in pain.
At the nun’s knocking there was a scrape of curtain rings, and out strode a lanky young man with a back bent like a bow and a face that was creased into a worried frown. On seeing his visitor, the young man’s brow cleared as if by magic. ‘Lady Cecily, thank God you got my message!’
That much Adam could understand, though the young man’s accent was thick.
The nun moved to set her basket down on the earthen floor and stretched her hands out to the fire for a moment, flexing her fingers as though they were chilled to the bone—which they well might be, since she had no gloves. ‘Is all well with Bertha, Ulf?’
Whoever lay behind the curtain—presumably Bertha—gave another, more urgent groan, and two small children, a girl and a boy, came out of the shadows to stand at the young man’s side.
‘My apologies for not coming at once,’ the nun said, moving calmly towards the recess.
‘Lady Cecily, please…’ The lanky young man took her unceremoniously by the hand to hurry her along, proving by his mode of address and familiarity that St Anne’s Convent was no enclosed order.
Odd though, Adam thought, that the nun should be addressed as ‘Lady’. Doubtless old habits died hard, particularly if this man had known her before her profession and had been her vassal.
A series of panting groans had Lady Cecily whisking out of Adam’s line of sight, deep into the curtained area. ‘Bertha, my dear, how goes it?’ he heard.
A murmured response. Another groan.
Then the nun again, her voice soft, reassuring, but surprisingly strong. Adam made out the words ‘Ulf’ and ‘light’, and another word he did not know, but which he soon guessed when Ulf left the recess and hunted out a tallow candle from a box by the wall. Then the Saxon for ‘water’, which he knew.
Ulf dispatched the girl and boy with a pail, returned to the curtain, and was gently but firmly thrust away, back into the central room. The curtain closed, and the young man took out a stool and sat down, hands clasped before him so tightly Adam could see the gleam of white knuckles. Ulf fixed his gaze on the closed curtain and chewed his lips. Each time a groan came forth from behind the curtain he flinched.
Despite the gulf that yawned between them, Adam knew a pang of fellow feeling for the man. Had his Gwenn not died early on in her pregnancy this would no doubt have been his lot, to sit on a stool tearing his hair out, waiting for her travail to be ended. Well, he was spared that now. His pain was over. Richard might tease him about wanting to find love in his new bride, but Adam was not so ambitious. Affection, yes. Respect, by all means. Lust—why not? Lust at least could be kept in its place. But love?
Ulf had started chewing on his nails, a look of helpless desperation in his eyes as he kept glancing towards the recess.
Love? Adam shook his head. Never again. He had had enough pain to last him several lifetimes…
The hour wore on. More groans. Panting. A sharp cry. A soft murmur. And so it continued. Ulf twisted his hands.
The girl and the boy returned with a pail of water and were directed to set it in a pot by the fire.
More groans. More panting.
Adam was on the point of withdrawing to fetch Richard and seek entry to St Anne’s when a new sound snared his attention. The cry of a newborn baby.
‘Ulf!’
The nun Cecily appeared at the curtain, all smiles. In her role as midwife she had discarded cloak, veil and wimple, and had rolled up her sleeves. For the first time Adam had a good look at her face.
She was uncommonly pretty, with large eyes, rosy cheeks and regular features, but it was her hair that made him catch his breath. The nun Cecily had long fair hair which brightened to gold in the light of the fire and the hanging lamp. Nuns’ hair was usually cropped, but not this one’s. A thick, bright, glossy braid hung down one shoulder. Unbound, he guessed it would reach well below her waist.
A feeling of pure longing swept through Adam, and he frowned, disconcerted that a nun should have such a powerful attraction for him. But attract him she did, in no uncertain terms.
Impatiently, almost as if she knew Adam’s gaze was upon it, the nun Cecily tossed her braid back over her shoulder and held her hand out. Adam had no difficulty in guessing the meaning of her next words.
‘Come, Ulf. Come and greet your new son.’
Face transfigured with relief, Ulf all but staggered through the gap in the curtains and pulled it closed behind him.
The golden-haired nun—God, but she was a beauty, especially when, as now, she was smiling—spoke to the children by the hearth. She must have asked something about food for the elder, the girl, nodded and showed her a loaf and a pot of some broth-like substance.
The nun smiled again and, taking up her wimple and veil, set about re-ordering her appearance. Adam watched, biting down a protest as she set about hiding all that golden glory from the world.
By the time she had finished, and had flung her flimsy cloak about her shoulders, Adam had turned away, irritated by his reaction to her. Picking his way along the narrow track behind the wooden houses, he headed back to his troop.
He had learned nothing about the whereabouts of his errant fiancée, the Lady Emma Fulford, but more about his need to master the English tongue. Best he think on that—for a fine lord would he be if he couldn’t even converse with his people. As Adam approached the margin of the forest, he shook his head, as if to clear from his mind the persistent image of a slender nun with a glorious golden fall of hair.
Chapter Three
A grey dusk was beginning to fall when at length Adam and Richard rode openly to the convent gate. Mentally cursing the short November day that meant he and his men would likely have to beg a night’s refuge at the convent, Adam raised a dark eyebrow at his friend.
His heart was thudding more loudly than it had when they’d waited for the battle cry to go up before Caldbec Hill, though he’d die before admitting as much. A man of action, Adam had been trained to fling himself into battle. This foray into the domain of high-born ladies was beyond his experience, for his own background was humble and his Gwenn had been a simple merchant’s daughter. He was unnerved, yet he knew his future in Wessex hung on the outcome of what happened here as much as it had when he had rallied his fellow Bretons at Hastings.
‘I can’t persuade you to doff your mail, Richard?’ Adam asked. He was still clad only in his leather gambeson and blue fur-lined cloak. ‘You’ve no need to fear a knife in your ribs. This is holy ground. There’s sanctuary of a sort.’
Richard shook his head.
‘You will terrify the ladies…’
‘I doubt that,’