black and bottomless, dilated in disbelief. Her groom was looking toward them, wanting to be sure his lord’s wife did not need him to defend her honour. He was young enough to relish such a confrontation, and he’d soon be strutting their way, as challenging as any barnyard cock. Annora had not yet moved, and Ranulf held out the combs, saying softly, “Where can we meet?”
As Ranulf had feared, the groom was bearing down upon them. Annora snatched up the combs, so hastily that her fingers just grazed his. Thrusting the combs toward the disappointed merchant, she beckoned to her servants and moved on, toward a silversmith’s booth. But Ranulf had heard her whispered words, barely more than a breath: “St Alkmund’s Church.”
Ranulf found St Alkmund’s with no difficulty; the town’s weekly market was held in its churchyard. But the churchyard was deserted now, as were the streets. The fair had turned Shrewsbury into a ghost town, for its merchants were not permitted to compete with the monks, and their shops were shut down for the duration of the fair. St Alkmund’s was made of stone and the interior was shadowed and cool; summer’s heat seemed to stop at the church door. Ranulf walked up the nave, then continued on into the choir. Logic told him that she would not follow him right away, but he was already straining for sounds of her entry. He convinced himself so often that he heard her steps, only to find the nave empty and silent, that when she finally did arrive, she took him almost by surprise.
Ranulf had moved toward the candlelit High Altar, and when he turned back, Annora was there, framed in the arched doorway of the roodscreen. Her face was flushed; even in such dimmed lighting, he could see the color staining her cheeks and throat. He yearned to touch that hot skin, had to remind himself that he no longer had the right. Fumbling for words-any words-to break this smothering silence, he asked, “How did you get rid of your servants?”
“I did not. I told them to await me in the churchyard.” Annora sounded out of breath. “When I saw that dog, I thought at once of Shadow. But I…I never imagined it was really him! And when I turned around and saw you…”
Ranulf was absurdly pleased that she’d remembered the name of his dyrehund. “I had to come, Annora,” he said, and she looked at him, wide-eyed, for an unbearably long moment before saying, quite simply:
“I’m so glad.”
Thinking back upon it much later, Ranulf could never be sure which of them had taken that first fateful step. But suddenly she was in his arms, and they were clinging tightly, with such urgency that further words were forgotten. They fused together, in an embrace so impassioned, so intoxicating, and so desperate that their return to reality stunned them both. It was the slamming of a door, a sound harmless in itself, but for Ranulf and Annora, fraught with the dread of discovery. There was a violence in their recoil, a tearing-away that left them momentarily bereft, unable to respond to their danger. Ranulf recovered first, flattened himself against the roodscreen and jerked his head toward the door. Annora drew a shaken breath, then stepped out to intercept the intruder.
The sight of a priest jolted Annora’s conscience back to life, reminding her that sinning in a church had to be one of those wrongs God could not forgive. At the same time, she was thankful that it was not her groom or her maid, for they knew her well enough to notice her agitation. But the priest was beaming, quite oblivious of anything untoward. “Lady Fitz Clement, this is indeed a pleasure. Your man told me you were within, and I did not want you to slip away ere I paid my respects.”
Annora faked a smile that would have fooled only an elderly cleric with dimming eyesight and a celibate’s innocence. “Yes, I…I wanted to light a candle for the king’s success.”
The priest nodded approvingly. “I was deeply dismayed to hear of Hugh Bigod’s rebellion, for he was amongst the most stalwart of the king’s men. Truly, the Devil is on the loose these days, ever ready to lead the unwary astray. Your lord husband…he is with you?”
“No,” Annora said, too abruptly, but she could not bear to talk of her husband in Ranulf’s hearing. “He is still in the North with the king.”
“And will return safe to you in God’s good time, daughter, never fear. Now…may I escort you back to the fair?”
“I should be delighted for your company.” Annora would have agreed to follow the priest to Hades and back at that moment, so frantic was she to keep him from entering the choir and finding Ranulf. “Father John, could you tell my man that I’ll be returning with you, and he and Joan can go ahead and meet us there, at the cook-stall? I’ll be out straightaway; I left my pater noster in the choir.”
She did not move until the priest started up the aisle, not returning to Ranulf until she was sure Father John was out of earshot. Even then, they waited for the sound of a closing door. Ranulf reached for her hard and pressed a kiss into her palm, silently mouthing a one-word question: Where?
Annora was at a loss, for privacy was as scarce as sightings of unicorns. “I do not…,” she began dubiously, and then brightened. “Of course, the leper hospital at St Giles!”
Ranulf’s brows shot upward. “A lazar house?” he echoed in delighted disbelief, and began to laugh.
“Do hush!” Annora’s fingers flew to his mouth to still his laughter, but lingered to trace the curve of his lip. “I do not mean we should meet there, for pity’s sake! Just follow the Foregate until you get to St Giles. When you reach the fence, cross the road to your right and enter the woods. You’ll soon come to a canal, the runoff from the abbey mill. Wait there for me.”
She took his assent for granted, and hastened from the choir. But when she reached the door in the roodscreen, she paused, giving him a dazzling smile over her shoulder, so full of love that his breath stopped.
Before going to St Alkmund’s, Ranulf had tethered his dogs in the abbey garth, much to their indignation. He freed them upon his return, for they’d make useful sentinels for his rendezvous with Annora. Heading back to the fairground, he bought a wicker basket, a tablecloth, a wineskin, a loaf of freshly baked bread, a pot of jam, apples, and a single red rose, the same shade as Annora’s gown.
With the dogs at his heels, he walked briskly along the Foregate toward St Giles. The lazar house was situated just as Annora had said, where the road forked off toward London and Wenlock. The hospital buildings and cemetery were enclosed by a wattle fence, but several of the unhappy inhabitants were squatting by the roadside, for they were not permitted to beg within the town. The sight of their ravaged flesh and hooded cloaks would have been an unwelcome reminder to the fairgoers of their own mortality, a grim spectre of stalking Death in its most grisly guise, not what the merchants had in mind for fair entertainment.
Ranulf’s steps lagged as the lazar house came into view. To a man about to violate one of God’s Commandments, any encounter with lepers was bound to be chilling, for many believed that leprosy was a sinner’s disease. The Church sought to combat this bias by calling leprosy a “sacred malady,” but Scriptures stigmatized the leper as “defiled” and “unclean,” and most people were more inclined to see leprosy as divine punishment than as a manifestation of God’s Grace.
Ranulf’s gaze was drawn inexorably to those hunched figures, and then he strode toward them, dropped coins into their alms cups, and wished them as cordial a “Good morrow” as he could manage. Their hoarse expressions of gratitude, as much for his civility as for his charity, followed after him as he crossed into the woods, and Ranulf felt pity’s taste in his mouth, as bitter as gall.
He soon reached the millrace, where he sprawled in the grass by the surging current, and tried not to think about St Giles and the poor wretches in need of its sanctuary. The sun rose higher in the sky, the dogs foraged in the underbrush for mice or moles, and eventually he heard the snapping of twigs, the muffled echoes of woodland steps.
Ranulf jumped to his feet as Annora emerged from shade into sunlight. There was a moment or two of awkwardness, but then Ranulf gave her the rose and they smiled at each other. When he asked how she’d escaped her “keepers,” she looked quite pleased with herself. “I told them that I wanted to give alms at St Giles. The very thought of getting within shouting distance of a lazar house turned them greensick with fright. They started babbling that even a leper’s glance was dangerous, and when I agreed to let them await me at the fair, I thought they’d both kiss the hem of my gown!”
Ranulf took her hand in his and they began to walk. They did not talk; there was no need. Without haste, they followed the millrace as it curved toward the south, leading them farther and farther from the road. The sun spangled the water, and all about them were the soothing sounds of the summer forest. They soon turned away from the millrace, moved deeper into the woods until they found a secluded, quiet clearing, shaded by trees, screened by flowering shrubs of wild holly.
Ranulf spread out the tablecloth and Annora unpacked the food, but they knew they’d not eat it. Instead,
