Ragnelle: A Hag's Tale

Chronicler's Note - Part 2

Strata Florida Abbey, Wales
Year of Our Lord, 1539

There were more steps up that tower than I had anticipated or than I imagined possible in this old abbey.

I heaved my feet up. More than once I was tempted to stop and go back down. What was one lone woman? We had already cleared the abbey of the monks and the gold and jewels. She would descend when she was hungry and once she found the abbey empty, she would leave... Or she would starve here.

But every time I stopped, I remembered the black look on Emil's face when he threatened the hospitaller. I remembered the cold brush of wind against my back and the sudden darkness in the clouds.

Whoever this woman was, she did not deserve whatever fate he had planned for her.

At the top of many steps, I found a door. Heavy bands wrapped their way around stout oak panels. I had seen worse drawbridges embedded in the walls of German towns. A woman who valued privacy then. Or a prisoner, bound and chained.

What sick secrets had these monks been keeping hidden from the world?

Well, secrets no longer.

I set my foot to the door and struck.

With clatter of rusty iron and broken hinges, the lock gave way against my strength. Age and ill-repair had rotted it so that even my pathetic attempt was enough to force an entry through. I applied my shoulder to the rest and barged my way into the chamber.

I had expected screams. After all, when a woman lived her life holed up in this high tower, seeing no man but a skirted priest, the sudden appearance of a stranger in her chambers was bound to be a shock. Particularly when that stranger broke down her door and entered her rooms armed to the teeth.

The woman laughed.

It tingled up my scalp, as though a ghost brushed their chilly fingers on the nape of my neck. Unaccountably, I felt a rush of desire run straight from my brain to my loins. It was a laugh like lovers share, when the night was dark and the bed curtains drawn tight against listening ears. As physical as a caress, it brought to mind memories of Josephine and our too-few months together. Only the face was not quite right, somehow. Why -

I shoved the thought away. Christ and the Twelve Apostles! Was it lack of sleep or simple idiocy that sent my wits begging? I brushed the last of the wood from my shoulders and cleared my throat. That did well enough to steady my voice but nothing to reduce the flush that rose to my cheeks at the direction of my thoughts. Like all those cursed with red hair, my feelings showed themselves easily on my skin, no matter that I was a man of twenty-seven years and a seasoned soldier.

"Madam, I am here under the King's Seal..."

Another laugh. "Of course you are, cariad. Which King is it this time?"

It was undoubtably a woman's voice. The accent was of these parts but softer. It swooped and soared over the words, turning the strange question into a tease.

But I wasn't here to play the fool. I kept my voice hard.

"Under the seal of King Henry of England, madame, I order you to leave this place."

"You order me?"

A rustle from behind me. It sounded like silk - what I could imagine silk sounded like. I began to notice more about this room, things that had eluded me in my first hasty entrance. The scent of amber burning on a low brazier, the gleam of silk threads in a tapestry beside the door. Whoever this woman was, she was no simple nun.