Maid Of Midnight. Ana Seymour

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      Chapter One

      It felt good to be mounted on Thunder again after the rough Channel crossing. Ranulf grimaced as he remembered the endless swells and how close he had come to the indignity of losing the contents of his stomach.

      This was better. He took a deep breath of crisp spring air. The Norman countryside was lushly green. A pretty brown thrush burst suddenly out of a gorse bush just ahead of him.

      Ranulf smiled. His grandmother Ellen had always said that her Normandy homeland was the loveliest place on earth, outside of Lyonsbridge. He’d visited here once before, coming home from the Crusades, but he’d been traveling with an army in chaos after the capture of King Richard. There had been little time to admire the scenery.

      There would be little time this trip, either, he thought, his smile fading. He was not here for pleasure. He’d come to find Dragon. And he didn’t intend to return to the warmth and comfort of Lyonsbridge until he could ride there with Dragon at his side.

      He knew that the others counted his younger brother as dead. Two long years had passed without word. His grandmother had secretly ordered the holy brothers to begin masses for Edmund’s soul. But Ranulf refused to believe that his brother, a fighter so fierce he’d earned the name Dragon-slayer, was dead. He would find him, no matter how long it took. He’d search every corner of this bloody continent, even if it meant riding all the way to Jerusalem.

      He intended to start with an obscure little abbey called St. Gabriel.

      Bridget clucked her tongue in reproof as Brother Francis presented her yet another habit with the hem shredded like cabbage.

      “If you all insist on continuing your tinkerings, we’ll not have a garment left to clothe you,” she said, shaking her head.

      Francis’s round cheeks dimpled. “Now that would be a sight if the bishop ever did get around to visiting us here. A bunch of naked monks, being ordered about by a girl.”

      Bridget forced her face into a frown, but her eyes danced. “Careful, Brother Francis, lest you have to do penance for such talk.” The frown turned genuine. “Who says I order you about?”

      The plump little monk looked as if he wanted to put an arm around her shoulders, but he stopped himself and said instead, “Ah, child, let’s call it directing, not ordering. And well you know that half the brotherhood would perish without you to care for us.”

      Bridget smiled. “I’ll admit to wondering at times how you all managed before I came along.”

      “The Lord sent you to us. ’Tis the only answer. We’ve pondered it these many years since the day—”

      Bridget waited, but she knew that Brother Francis would speak no further about her mysterious appearance at the abbey years ago. It had been her home as long as she could remember, but even now that she was a woman grown, the monks refused to speak of how she had gotten there.

      She had stopped asking. It was enough that the monks loved her and she them. Though she’d devoured the abbey books on life outside the secluded monastery, she was happy here. She enjoyed her overflowing garden, the bustle of the dining hall and the peaceful solitude of the monk’s walk.

      “If ’twas the Lord who sent me, it must be because he could see just how hard the White Monks of St. Gabriel were on their clothes,” she said, holding up the shredded hem and smiling at Francis.

      “Sometimes I think we put too much on you, Bridget. How one slender girl can do all the work of caring for forty careless old men…”

      “Forty dear souls,” Bridget corrected. “Who first took care of me for many years, don’t forget.”

      Francis looked doubtful. “It seems a burdensome life for a young woman.”

      Bridget gave the merry laugh that had so brightened the dark monastery halls and the lives of its inhabitants. “If it’s a burden, then ’tis one of love,” she said. “I’m fully content here.”

      Francis’s worried expression smoothed. “If Brother Ebert tears his gown again, I’ll see that he sews it himself,” he promised. “He’s so proud of his confounded bread slicer and I don’t know how many times it’s run amok.” He turned to leave, muttering as he went, “I don’t know what was wrong with pulling apart the bread hunk by hunk like we’ve always done.”

      Bridget smiled fondly at the round, retreating form. She’d told Francis the truth. She was content. It was true that sometimes, just before she drifted off to sleep, she’d have visions of a world beyond St. Gabriel. By morning the dreams would be gone.

      She smoothed her fingers over the rough fabric of the torn habit and stared into the kitchen fire. She had no intention of looking for such a world. The only way she would glimpse it within these walls was if it would come to her.

      Ranulf’s initial thought was that another bird had shot out of the brush, this time knocking off the small leather helmet he was wearing. He hadn’t brought his full armor to France. The wars were over and he had no desire for more fighting.

      Almost immediately he realized that it had been no bird that had hit him, but an arrow. Before he could so much as reach for the sword in his saddle scabbard, they were on him. Four, at least, maybe more.

      He flailed about with his arms, which were hard as an ironsmith’s hammer. Even before the years of the Crusade, the three Brand brothers had honed their strength in friendly competition, always eager to match their mettle against their siblings.

      With the sheer force of his blows, Ranulf knocked two of his assailants from their horses, but another, a big man dressed in a black breastplate and black metal wristlets, took their place. Ranulf’s gloved fist hit the black metal, sending a shock all the way back up his arm. The man brushed Ranulf’s arm away as though it were a noisome fly, then he turned in the saddle and lifted the weapon he held in his right hand.

      The last thing Ranulf remembered was the sight of a wicked star mace and an arm encased in black wristlets descending toward his head, blotting out the bright Normandy sun.

      “Brother Alois says we can’t risk having you tend the man, Bridget.” Francis’s expression was worried.

      “Nonsense. He’s been out of his head, raving, for nigh on two days. The Holy Father himself could be nursing him and he’d not know the difference.” Bridget finished stirring the mug of herbal tea at the edge of the hearth and rose to her feet. “Don’t worry, Francis, if he starts to come around, I’ll scurry back into the shadows like a little spider.”

      Francis’s smile was sympathetic. “You know that if anyone outside learned of your presence here, you’d not be allowed to stay with us.”

      “Aye, I’m well aware of it.”

      Bridget scooted around the bulky monk, making sure not to spill the tea. It was one of the rare days when the brothers’ overprotective ways irritated her. She was sure her dissatisfaction had something to do with the young man who lay unconscious in the monks’ sleeping quarters. She’d caught a glimpse of him when Brother Ebert and Brother Alois had first brought him in the previous day. They’d found him on the road on their way back from market day in Beauville.