Maid Of Midnight

Bridget looked remorseful. “I’d meant to put a poultice on last night, but then I…I was distracted, I fear.”

“Will you do it yet tonight or wait until the morrow?”

“It’d best be soon. I’ll just prepare the paste and go on over to him.”

Brother Francis looked up at the darkening sky. “I’ll wait and go back with you.”

“Nay, brother. You’ve been up tending him since well before dawn. Go on to your bed. It won’t take me but a few minutes to see to him, then I’ll be safely back to my house.”

After a moment’s more convincing, Francis turned to leave, and Bridget went back into the kitchen to prepare one of her medicinal poultices of marjoram and feverfew.

Bridget had begun to study the healing arts years ago after the death of one of her favorite monks from a relatively minor injury. She’d spent nearly a month closeted in the monastery library, and then had persuaded Brothers Ebert and Alois to purchase herbs on one of their market forays. Since then, she raised the plants in her own garden, and the health of the monks of St. Gabriel had flourished accordingly.

It was dark by the time she made her way over to the monks’ quarters. As she approached the building, she felt an odd excitement at seeing the stranger again. She slipped through the tiny back door that admitted her directly into the hall next to the wounded man’s chamber.

After Francis’s sober report, she was surprised at first to see that the patient looked better than he had the previous evening. But as she approached the bed, she saw that the improved appearance was due to a heightened color that was the ominous foreshadowing of seizures and death. She’d seen it before when wounds had become poisoned.

The gravity of the man’s condition banished all other thoughts from her head, and she barely glanced at the lean body she had washed with such avid curiosity the previous day. She sat beside him on the narrow cot and removed the head bandages.

As before, he groaned at her touch, but she steeled herself to ignore the sound, and applied the poultice, pressing gently to be sure that the healing herbs would reach every part of the wound.

Under her fingers his scalp was burning. The man meant nothing to her. Indeed, if he recovered, his presence at the abbey could prove to be dangerous to her very existence. But she found herself offering up a quick prayer to St. Bridget. It seemed too cruel that death would take someone so young and so strong.

He moaned again as she rewound the bandage tightly to hold the herbs in place. “You must fight, Sir Stranger,” she whispered. “Summon to battle the healing powers of your inner soul.”

At her words, the wounded man stirred, then opened startling blue eyes and looked directly at her.

Chapter Two

Bridget gasped and pulled backward, letting the bandage slip from her hands. Her first thought was to flee, but as the head dressing started to unravel, causing the poultice to slip, she realized that she would have to finish the job she’d come to do and worry about the consequences later.

He watched her with unblinking eyes. “Are you awake, then?” she asked, hesitating.

He didn’t answer. Perhaps the head wound had struck him dumb, she thought. Or perhaps he spoke no French. She repeated the question in Latin, with the same result.

As quickly as she could, she finished tying up the bandage, though it was unnerving to work on his head with his eyes open and staring. Even in the dim candlelight, their blue was intense.

“Do you understand me, sir?” she asked.

There was no movement of his dry lips.

Bridget sat for a moment. How ironic, she thought. These were the first words she had ever addressed to someone from outside the abbey, and they appeared to have no more impact than a milkweed hitting a pond. She shivered. Perhaps she’d been born as some kind of otherworldly sprite, destined to live within the monastery walls and be seen and heard only by the monks. She’d read of faeries, but she’d never before believed herself to be one.

Could he see her? she wondered. She waved a hand in front of the man’s eyes and was rewarded with a blink. She was, at least, not invisible.

Of course, it was just as well that he couldn’t understand her, but she couldn’t hold back a sense of disappointment. She was curious to know more about their visitor. Where had he come from? What had happened to him? She rose to her feet with a sigh. Now that he appeared to be regaining his senses, she would not be able to come here again.

“Angel,” he said, the word an almost unrecognizable whisper.

Bridget stopped and turned back to the bed. She’d finished her nursing and, if the man was talking, she should leave immediately. Instead, she walked back over to the cot and sank to her knees beside it. “Can you hear me?” she asked him.

“Bandits,” he rasped.

“Aye, you were set upon, evidently, and they’ve given you a nasty gash, but we’re taking care of you. I’ve treated you with some herbs.”

Beads of sweat stood out above his lips. He appeared to try to swallow, then said, “Thirsty.”

Bridget picked up a mug of tea that had been left on the floor and brought it to his lips. When it was apparent that he couldn’t lift his head, she slipped an arm behind his neck and lifted him against her chest so that she could help him drink.

“Not too much,” she cautioned.

He took another swallow, then sank back heavily against her arm. “Thank you, my angel.”

Bridget smiled. “I’m no angel, just a maid.” Her sudden fancy about being other than human had disappeared with this very human contact. The man could obviously see her and talk to her, and she to him. It was exhilarating.

There was an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “Angel,” he insisted, then he clutched her arm with surprisingly strong fingers and said, “Help me.”

His action startled her, but she answered, “Fear not, you’re in safe hands now, good sir. No one will hurt you here.”

“Help…find…Dragon,” he said. His eyes had gone a little wild, and a dangerous flush had come over his face.

He was looking for a dragon? Is that what he had said? Bridget bit her lips. She’d read about dragons, but she’d formed the opinion that such a creature may not truly exist. “You must rest and get well. Let the monks tend your wounds until you heal.”

“Diana,” he groaned.

Bridget was confused. Perhaps it was a woman he was looking for, not a dragon. But in any event, he didn’t have the strength to lift his head, much less go on a search. And this agitation could not be helping his cure. Perhaps she should brew him one of the sleeping teas she sometimes made for Brother Alois. “Can you not rest quiet?” she asked him. “’Tis the best thing for you now.”

Bridget couldn’t take her eyes from his striking features, which were full of anguish. He was so different from the monks. It wasn’t just his youth—there was a raw strength about him that she’d never seen among the peaceful brothers at St. Gabriel.

Suddenly the hand that held her sleeve pulled her toward him. Startled, she fell against his chest. His arm came around her and, before she could react, his mouth touched hers. “I’ll find him, Diana,” he whispered.

Bridget jumped backward, one hand flying to her lips. She opened her mouth to give an indignant protest, but stopped as she saw that the patient had slumped back on the cot, his eyes closed and his mouth sagging.

She gave his shoulder a tentative shake, but he didn’t respond. Her hands were shaking. She sat a moment, regaining her composure. He’d been out of his head, she assured herself. He’d obviously mistaken her for this woman, Diana. It had meant nothing.

But, nevertheless…she walked slowly from the tiny chamber and slipped out the back door into the cool night. The man had been delirious. He was a stranger, possibly even a malefactor. But nevertheless, she’d just had her first kiss.

“You were out of your head, my son. The mind plays tricks.” Brother Francis’s voice wavered slightly at the unaccustomed need for deceit.

“No, I swear, Brother. There was a woman in this room last night.” Ranulf struggled to sit up, and looked around the tiny cell. The idea was preposterous. The monk had explained that he was inside a monastery, being cared for by the brotherhood. Yet his visions of the lovely midnight angel had seemed so real.

His head swam with pain and he lay back against the hard straw pad. “I could have sworn she was real,” he said.

Francis smiled. “Mayhap ’twas a vision sent by the Lord to guide you through your extremity. None of us thought that you would survive such a wound.” He gestured to Ranulf’s bound head.

The waves of pain were receding. “I have to survive. I’m on a mission, and my family is depending on me to accomplish it.”

His family and others, as well. The image of Diana as he had last seen her, eyes flooded with tears, flashed through his head. He’d loved her as long as he could remember, but Diana’s heart had always belonged to Dragon. And Ranulf was determined to bring him back to her.