Heaven's Fire Read online

  He bowed slightly. “Of that I have very little doubt.” She was remarkably well spoken for a woman in her circumstances, in addition to being well informed about things no Oxfordshire peasant had any business knowing of. Rainulf wondered where she had learned so much.

  She studied him for a moment. “I’m three and twenty years of age. And I know French as well as English and Latin, although I prefer speaking English. And my name, if it’s of any interest to you, is Constance.”

  “Constance,” he repeated. “A very pretty name. From the Latin. It means unchanging.”

  “I know.”

  Of course, thought Rainulf with amusement.

  She screwed up her face. “I hate it. Why should one want to be constant, as if change were some great evil? If it weren’t for change, everything would stagnate, would it not? And that which stagnates tends to putrefy, like a river that ceases to flow. What good can there be in that?”

  Rainulf stared in awe at this fragile, exhausted young woman, her eyes glazed with fever, discoursing on the nature of change. She was right, of course; change was the very fabric of life itself. And death.

  “My father wanted to name me Corliss,” she continued, “but my mother wouldn’t let him, worse luck.”

  “Corliss. Isn’t that a man’s name?”

  She frowned indignantly, an expression that, on her, was unaccountably charming. “It’s for a man or a woman! And it’s much more suited to me than Constance!”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he conceded with a little bow. He nodded toward Father Osred’s corpse. “I came to give him last rites.”

  “It’s too late now,” she said sadly as she rubbed her back.

  “Too late for a proper job of it,” he agreed, “but I can still perform the sacrament. There are those who believe it’s useful, even when one has died unshriven.”

  She nodded. “Go ahead, then.” Turning toward the half-dug grave, she added, “I’ll finish here.”

  “Hold on there,” he said. “You ought not to be digging graves. You’re ill, and... well, isn’t there someone... your husband, perhaps...”

  “I’m widowed.”

  “Ah. I’m sorry. Was it the pox?”

  “Nay, it happened five years ago. There’s no one but me to bury him, Father. The men who haven’t gotten sick yet won’t bury the dead for fear of catching what killed them. And the ones who have gotten sick are still too weak. I wouldn’t want to trouble them.”

  “I’ll bury Father Osred,” Rainulf said. “And I’ll finish this second grave, if you’ll tell me who it’s for.”

  “I thought you knew,” she said, grinning as if at a slow-witted child. “It’s for me.”

  The tall priest stared at Constance as if live eels had just sprouted from her head. “You’re digging your own grave?”

  “There’s no one else to do it,” she pointed out. “My friend Ella Hest has promised to come by in the morning and check on me. If I’m dead, she’ll put me in the grave and fill it in, but she’s getting on in years, so I didn’t want her to have to actually dig it.”

  He frowned, clearly nonplussed. “You think you’re going to die between now and tomorrow morning?”

  “I may. Others have died this early, before the pox set in. The fever gets bad, and they lose their senses. Sometimes they have fits...”

  “I know.” He ran his long fingers distractedly through his close-cropped hair. It was the pale, glossy blond of a very young child. By contrast, his eyebrows and the hint of beard that darkened his strong jaw were black. His most distinctive feature, however, would be his eyes—pale green lightly veiled with brown. Looking into them was like peering into the water at the edge of a lake where it meets the shore and mixes with the earth. She saw kindness in his eyes, and intelligence, and now she saw pain as well.

  His jaw clenched. Was he remembering the time when he himself had had the yellow plague? Judging from his reaction, he knew more than he cared to of this particular pestilence.

  She gestured with the shovel toward the grave. “So you understand, then, why I need to finish this—”

  “Nay!” He grabbed the shovel out of her hand. “I have no intention of letting you do this kind of labor while you’re so gravely ill. And you mustn’t worry so about dying.”

  “I’m not worrying about it,” she corrected, “I’m preparing for it—while I’m still able to.” She reached for the shovel, but he jerked it away from her, and she lost her balance. Things began to spin, and she felt her legs crumbling beneath her.

  “Constance?” His voice sounded as if he were speaking from a great distance. A fierce pain commenced behind her eyes, and she buried her head in her hands. She felt him grip her shoulders. “Constance?”

  “I’m all right,” she rasped, and struggled to rise. “I’ll be fine.”

  Abruptly she felt weightless, and realized he’d lifted her in his arms. “Where do you live?” he asked.

  “Nay,” she protested, pushing against his broad shoulders. Quite useless, of course. She was weakened from illness, and he was clearly a strong man. He’d scooped her up as if she were but a child, and she could feel the solid muscles beneath the rough wool of his tunic.

  “Where do you live?” he repeated patiently.

  “Please... my grave,” she managed, as the pain in her head became blinding. “You don’t understand. I promised Ella it would be ready.”

  “I’ll dig it,” he said.

  “You will?”

  “Of course, if it will ease your mind. Now, tell me where you live.”

  She pointed.

  He frowned in evident puzzlement. “The rectory?”

  Constance nodded. “I’m... I was Father Osred’s housekeeper.”

  She closed her eyes and felt the steady rhythm of his lengthy strides as he carried her across the churchyard and through the front door of the stone cottage. “Where’s your bed?”

  “I sleep in there.”

  He brought her into the bedchamber and hesitated. She opened her eyes and saw him looking at the big feather bed, the vestments hanging on the hooks, the crucifix... and then back at the bed. She saw comprehension dawn on him, but his expression betrayed no outward sign of shock or disapproval.

  He sat her on the edge of the bed and glanced down at her kirtle, filthy from grave digging. “You’ll want to get out of that. Have you got a sleeping shift?”

  She pointed to one hanging on the wall, and he brought it to her.

  “Can you manage by yourself?” he asked. “I mean, if you need help, I can...” He shrugged self-consciously, and Constance noted with amusement that his ears were bright pink.

  She smiled. “Nay, I can manage. Thank you.”

  He nodded and left. Constance exchanged her dirt-smeared kirtle for the clean, long-sleeved linen shift and lay down on the bed. Every time she blinked, the ceiling beams appeared to shift and then slowly swim back into place. She waited until this strange dance had ceased, then sat up in bed and looked out through the little window at the churchyard.

  She saw Father Rainulf unbuckle his belt and toss it aside, then whip his tunic off and throw it over a branch of the yew tree. Beneath it he wore a white linen shirt, open at the neck; leathern leggings bound with crisscrossed cords encased his long legs. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, revealing muscular forearms, then took up the shovel and went to work on Constance’s grave.

  He worked quickly, digging with powerful, efficient movements and making swift progress. Constance watched with frank interest. Despite his intellectuality and aristocratic bearing, he struck her as remarkably virile—especially for a priest. She couldn’t help wondering if he kept to his vow of chastity or, like Father Osred and many other men of the cloth, had a mistress tucked conveniently away somewhere.

  When the throbbing in her head and back became too much to bear, Constance closed her eyes and lay back down, hoping the pain would go away if she only kept still. Upon awakening later in the afternoon, however, she found it un
diminished. Moreover, on sitting up, she became aware of a vexatious burning sensation, as if her entire body had been scalded in boiling water. It was also clear that her fever had worsened considerably. Wrapping a throw around herself, she got out of bed and crossed unsteadily to the window.

  Father Rainulf had climbed down into the grave, and only his head was visible as he dug. She watched him until, having completed his task, he set the shovel on the ground, braced his hands on the rim of the deep hole, and leapt out with one swift, agile motion.

  He had removed his shirt; even from this distance she could see the sheen of perspiration on his chest and face. He was wide-shouldered and lean-hipped, and his gestures had an easy grace that made it hard for Constance to tear her eyes away. Lifting his shirt from the ground, he shook it out and scrubbed it over his damp skin. Then he put it back on, along with his tunic and belt, and strode out of sight.

  When he came back into view a short time later, he had his saddlebag with him. Squatting on the ground and unlatching it, he withdrew another white garment. Constance thought perhaps it was a clean shirt, but when he unfolded it and donned it over his tunic, she discovered it to be a surplice. Next came a black skullcap, and then the stole, which he kissed and draped over his shoulders.

  “So, Rainulf Fairfax,” Constance whispered as he uncovered Father Osred’s body and uncorked a small vial, “it would appear that you’re a priest, after all.”

  She wished she’d had enough linen—and enough time—to sew the old rector into a suitable shroud. All in all, it hadn’t been so bad living with Father Osred. In truth, he’d been good to her, even generous, and she’d actually grown to feel a certain grudging affection for him. It had pained her to see him die so horribly, and despite her fear of losing his protection from Sir Roger Foliot, she had prayed ceaselessly that God would take him into His arms and bring him peace.

  As Constance watched Father Rainulf kneeling in prayer, his image began to drift and fade. A chill swept through her, like the icy breeze from an open door in the dead of winter. She held on tightly to the windowsill as the frigid pressure squeezed the thoughts from her mind and robbed her eyes of the power of sight.

  God, please don’t let me go blind, she begged silently as she felt her body hit the floor.

  Chapter 2

  “Constance!” Rainulf knelt beside the woman’s limp form and pressed his fingertips to her throat. She blazed with fever, but she had a pulse. Carrying her back to bed, he covered her with the quilt and watched uneasily as she tossed her head back and forth on the pillow, murmuring incoherently.

  She was a strange woman—most decidedly strange. For one thing, she said exactly what was on her mind, without mincing words. Rainulf, accustomed to the complex and obtuse verbal machinations of the academic community, found her candidness both disconcerting and refreshing

  She struck him as amazingly full of life—even in the throes of this horrid disease. Everything seemed to interest and amuse her. Most remarkable was her matter-of-fact acknowledgment of the possibility of her own death—of her place in the cycle of nature. For years Rainulf had engaged in ceaseless and often tiresome debates on the nature of death. He envied Constance her easy acceptance of it.

  When she had quieted and seemed to be sleeping peacefully, Rainulf retired to the main room of the rectory—a sizable chamber, and very cheerful, thanks in large part to the colorfully decorated walls. The whitewashed stone had been painted all over with a variety of designs and patterns, often quite flowery and ornate.

  Most of the windows were covered with parchment on which an assortment of tiny creatures had been painted. Many were representations of the local fauna—leaping hares, mice stealing cheese, birds with worms in their beaks. Others were imaginary grotesques, such as a cross between a sheep and a stag, or a man with the head of a fish. There were many angels, all with hardy peasant faces and jolly smiles.

  Rainulf’s gaze was drawn to a writing desk near the largest window; such a desk was a rare sight outside the walls of a monastery or university. A sheet of parchment, neatly ruled in a double-page grid in preparation for writing, was tacked to its sloping surface. The upper left corners of each of the two pages featured sketches of elaborate capital letters embellished with haloed figures in flowing robes. An oxhorn filled with ink sat snugly in a hole in the desk’s upper right corner; next to it lay several raven’s quill pens, and a penknife. On a nearby table, he saw a large roll of parchment, and next to it, precisely arranged, a stylus, a stick of lead, a piece of pumice, some chunks of chalk, and a row of paint pots. Many priests made their own copies of borrowed books, but from all appearances, Father Osred had taken a rare pleasure in this work.

  Rainulf opened a corner cupboard and discovered it filled with more books than he’d ever seen in such a humble place. Most were old and well worn—books of Gospel, lectionaries, a psalter, collections of model sermons, a handbook of parish duties, a manual of the sacraments, and several books of instruction in Latin. It was the handful of newer-looking volumes that most attracted him, though. He pulled one out and saw that it was a missal, flawlessly penned and illuminated. Turning to the last page, he found the scribe’s signature enclosed in a wreath of twisting vines: Constance me fecit.

  Rainulf blinked and read the words again, then whispered them out loud. “Constance made me. Constance?” He glanced toward the bedchamber’s leather curtain, beyond which the ever-more-singular Constance lay in a fevered stupor.

  “Nay...” Replacing that volume, he slipped out another—a thick little breviary with minuscule writing on tissue-thin parchment—and flipped to the end. Shaking his head in disbelief, he read the words out loud: “Completed by Constance of Cuxham, 18 April 1159.”

  The largest of the newer books turned out to be the most unusual. Rather than leather, it was bound in wooden boards, which had been covered with fancifully embroidered linen, on which was stitched the title Biblia Pauperum. A Bible for the poor? On the last page he found the legend De una manu, and under it, the English translation: By one hand. Beneath that appeared the twisting vine device, enclosing Con-stance’s name and a recent date. Clearly she was proud of her work, and why shouldn’t she be? On leafing through the oversize volume, he discovered it to be an elaborately illustrated album of Bible stories, with quotations from the prophets... in English!

  Rainulf chuckled incredulously. English. She must have written this one herself. To have conceived of such a project was remarkable. To have actually executed it, in such ambitious fashion...

  A moan from beyond the leather curtain interrupted his reverie. Tucking the book back into its slot, he hurried into the bedchamber, to find Constance thrashing and yanking at her bedclothes, her flushed face glazed with perspiration, her eyes wild.

  He touched her cheek, and she shook him off, but not before he felt how feverish she’d become. He growled a raw oath and crossed himself. Rushing outside, he drew a bucket of water, found a clean cloth, and returned to bathe her face and throat as he sat on the side of the bed.

  After a while, her senses returned. She even smiled. “I can still see,” she said hoarsely, her eyes half-closed. “Father?”

  “Aye?”

  “Would you give me last rites?”

  Rainulf held the cloth over the bucket and twisted it hard in his fists, wringing out every last drop until his hands trembled.

  He drew a deep breath. “Of course,” he said as her eyes drifted closed again. “I’ll get what I need.”

  * * *

  Constance heard her name whispered. Opening her eyes with some effort, she saw Father Rainulf, once again looking every bit the man of God in his white surplice and stole. Warm yellow lantern light provided the only illumination in the room, since it was night. On the bedside table, she saw, neatly laid out on a linen cloth, the items required for the sacrament of Extreme Unction. Her heart raced, and she felt queasy. She hadn’t thought she was afraid of death, but now that it hovered so close, she wasn’t so sure. />
  His large, cool hand closed over hers, and he squeezed gently. It aggravated the burning sensation, but felt so comforting that she was loath to ask him to release her. “Are you up to making confession?”

  Constance nodded. Summoning all her strength, she confessed in a clear voice to her sinful relationship with Father Osred, but felt obliged to add, “It’s not as if I was sinning all that much. I mean, Father Osred was an old man. And old men... well...” She shrugged.

  “Yes, well...”

  “I mean, it’s been months since he’s wanted to—”

  “Yes. I under—”

  “And even before that, it was hardly what you’d even call sinning, if by sinning one means the pleasures of the flesh, because as far as pleasure was concerned—”

  “You’re forgiven, Constance. It’s all right.” His ears, Constance noted, had turned pink again.

  Father Rainulf anointed her eyes, ears, lips, and hands with consecrated oil, his expression grave, his touch gentle. At his prompting, she spoke the words, “Into thy hands I commend my soul,” and then he sat her up and supported her while he administered Communion.

  “Now sleep,” he said quietly, looking terribly sad.

  * * *

  Rainulf watched helplessly as Constance grappled with her ever-worsening delirium. It was close to midnight, by his guess. Unable to leave her in such condition, he’d decided to spend the night, but his cool compresses and whispered words of comfort seemed to be doing no good. From time to time, she regained her senses and spoke to him, as she had while he was giving her last rites, but those episodes were becoming shorter and less frequent, and he worried that, come dawn, he’d be carrying her to her newly dug grave.

  From his time in the Holy Land, Rainulf knew Moslem physicians to be more educated about smallpox than their Western counterparts. Their theory was that the blood had a natural tendency to ferment, producing waste that must pass through the pores of the skin. Certain atmospheric conditions interfered with this process, resulting in outbreaks of this cursed disease. The treatment of choice in the Levant was to sweat out the excess fermented humors.