The Shielded Heart

Grateful for his intervention, Anna gave him a weak smile, wondering all the while how she might make everyone leave. The longer she waited, the more she dreaded what she must do. She sent William a pleading look and hoped he would understand what she wanted.

Bess tugged against William’s hold, but he did not release her. “There’s no need for Anna to—” She broke off when William shook his head.

“She’ll manage fine on her own. ‘Sides, Trudy’ll help her. She’s in there, isn’t she?” he asked with a glance toward the workshop.

“Yes, she’s preparing Ned’s body.”

He turned to Siwardson. “They could use some help with lugging and lifting, I imagine. Would you stay and lend your strength to their task?”

What was William thinking? “There’s no need,” Anna said. “We can take care of it on our own.”

“Of course I’ll help you any way I can, Mistress Anna,” Siwardson said, though he looked as surprised by William’s request as Anna felt.

“Thank you, lad.” William led Bess back toward the path. “Come back to the hall when you’re through, and we’ll get you settled in.”

Bess appeared reluctant to go, until her husband leaned down and murmured something in her ear, then straightened and said, “They could use your help tending to the injured, I imagine.”

“Aye,” Bess agreed. After one last piercing look at Anna, she smiled, said goodbye and allowed William to lead her away.

Anna stood in front of the door as though rooted there, uncertain what she should do next. How could William and Bess go off and leave her with Siwardson? ’Twas most unlike their usual protectiveness. Not that they’d ever had many guests at Murat to protect her from…

But then again, she’d not ever so much as seen a man like Swen Siwardson. He was young, strong and handsome, ’twas true—certainly more so than the monks of St. Stephen’s or the men of Murat—but she could see that he also possessed a sense of joy in life completely foreign to her experience.

She found the combination overwhelming.

Siwardson waited with quiet patience while she mulled over the situation, then winked at her when he caught her staring at him. Such a tide of heat washed over her, ’twas a wonder she didn’t melt all the way down to the soles of her boots from it!

“Demoiselle, you need not fear to invite me within,” he said, the even tenor of his voice serving to ease away her embarrassment. “I’m perfectly harmless, I assure you.” While she wasn’t sure she believed that statement, she couldn’t resist the smile that accompanied it. “If you’d prefer that I leave, I shall, with William none the wiser.”

“Nay, milord, ‘tis not necessary.” He’d only be here for a day or so at most; surely she could remain immune to his charm for that long. She should look upon his time at Murat as an adventure.

And enjoy it while she could, her mind taunted.

But she had no business thinking such thoughts, especially given the present circumstances. Anna smoothed her hands down the skirt of her gown to still their faint trembling and reminded herself of what lay ahead. ’Twas enough to calm her disordered brain—for the moment, at least. “’Tis kind of you to agree to William’s request, though I cannot understand why he would ask a guest to help with such a gruesome venture.” She reached for the latch and opened the door. “I’m sure that both Trudy and I will appreciate your assistance.”

Ella scampered past as Swen followed Anna into the building. He gazed about him with curiosity. ’Twas a large chamber, nearly the size of the main hall in his parents’ home, dominated by a huge forgelike hearth at one end. Shelves, tables and strange tools were ranged about the room, and a number of lanterns hung from the rafters at close intervals, especially over the massive table in the center of the room.

What was this place?

Anna led him to the table. Trudy stood beside it, bent over a body—her husband’s, he assumed, while the corpse of the other guard lay uncovered on the far side of the table. A bloodstained blanket sat neatly folded at the body’s feet.

Trudy set aside a wet cloth and looked up. “Lord Siwardson is here to help us,” Anna told her. “Is there anything you’d like him to do?” She picked up a kettle from the bench near the door and crossed the room to the hearth.

The other woman straightened, curtsied and gave a nod of acknowledgment. “’Tis good of ye to offer, milord.”

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Nothin’ for the moment, milord.” She reached out and smoothed Ned’s hair back from his battered face. “Though once I’m done wi’ the washin’, I’ll need some help raising him up to put him in this.” She picked up a large piece of linen and wiped the tears from her eyes on the edge of it. “But the mistress could use your help, most like,” she added with a nod toward Anna. Giving him a wan smile, she turned once again to her task.

Anna stood near a bench lined with casks across from the hearth, ladling water into the kettle. “I’ll take that for you,” he offered when she made to lift the pot. Though she looked surprised by the suggestion, she moved aside and let him take it to the hearth and place it over the coals.

Drawing up two tall stools, she motioned for him to take one. He pulled the two seats closer together and sat down. Anna glanced back at Trudy, still standing beside her husband. “I think we should allow her some privacy,” she said, her voice pitched low. “When I offered to help her earlier, she said she’d prefer to do it herself.” Gathering her skirts together, she hopped up onto the stool. “I thought to wait until she’s finished before I take care of Pawl.”

“It must be difficult for her, losing her husband,” Swen said. “It’s never easy when our loved ones are gone.” A vast understatement; some losses were pains that never healed.

He heard his words again in his mind, thought back over his behavior around Anna and nearly jumped off the stool to storm about the room. By the saints, when had he begun mouthing platitudes?

God’s truth, he didn’t know what to say to Anna; ever since he’d recognized her last night, his mind seemed to go blank with confusion whenever she was near.

He raked his fingers through his hair and fought a surge of self-disgust. He hadn’t had this much trouble around a woman since he was a beardless youth.

If ever.

Anna glanced at Trudy, then turned her attention back to him, her gaze thoughtful. “Yes, I can see that it’s difficult.”

A strange response. Perhaps she hadn’t lost anyone close to her. If that was so, she was more fortunate than most.

She closed her eyes for a moment; when she opened them, he’d have sworn ’twas pain that darkened them to a deep, honeyed amber.

Perhaps he was wrong.

“‘Tis probably foolish to warm the water when he cannot feel it, but I’ll do it anyway,” she said, her voice wavering a bit. She slid off the stool and took up a poker to stir the fire, staring at the cloud of sparks that rose into the air. “I thought to spare his mother and daughters more sorrow, though it seems little enough, under the circumstances.”

“It’s good of you to do it,” he said, and meant it. “Most ladies would not exert themselves so much for one in their employ. They’d have their servants take care of such a task.”

“Ladies and servants?” She laughed, though he heard no humor in the sound. The poker clattered against the hearth stones as she cast it aside and whirled to face him, her gaze questioning. “Why should I have servants?”

Why, indeed? “But aren’t you mistress here?”

Her brief burst of laughter sounded genuine this time, before she cut it off by clapping her hand over her mouth. She glanced over at Trudy with a look of guilt on her face. Trudy never even looked up. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m not laughing at you, milord, truly. But I can see that William told you nothing of our lives here in Murat.”

“Nay, he had no chance to do so before Ella came to fetch us.” He rose to stand near her, drawn by the sparkle of humor that brightened her eyes. “But you have guards to protect you, William and the others obviously hold you in high regard. Indeed, last night William said—”

“He said I was of value to the abbey. I’m sure ‘tis true. Father Michael, the abbot, prizes me highly.” She reached over and took his hand, sending that mysterious jolt of energy surging through him, and led him to an enormous steel-banded chest against the wall. He felt the loss of her touch like a pain when she released him to fumble with the ring of keys tied round her belt. “Let me show you the source of my worth to the Abbey of St. Stephen of Murat.”

The key turned smoothly in the lock; Anna raised the lid and reached inside.

The cross Anna drew forth in both hands gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the open door—as tall as his forearm was long, the polished gold embedded with all the jeweled colors of the rainbow. It must have weighed as much as the kettle she’d filled, yet she held it with an ease that mocked his earlier attempt to help her.

She looked it over for a moment, then cradled it in her arms like a child and met his gaze. “It’s meant for the altar of King John’s private chapel,” she said with simple pride.

But what had that to do with anything?

“I believe ‘tis my finest work yet,” she continued. “The engraving is more detailed than any I’ve done before, and the colors—” She smiled. “The colors are as deep and true as any found in God’s creation, though Father Michael would caution that I shouldn’t be so arrogant as to say so.”

Swen thought that the cross, while an object of great beauty, could not compare to her loveliness. “You said you’d explain, Anna,” he urged.

“I’m as much a servant as anyone else here at Murat, milord. This cross is my creation, brought forth from within my mind, created by my hands for the glory of God and the abbey.” Her fingers moved in an unconscious caress over the designs etched in gold. “This village exists so that I might do my work. Murat and all its people—especially me—and my work, belong to the abbey, to do with as God wills.”

Chapter Six

Swen’s mind reeled at Anna’s words. Didn’t she realize how strange her situation sounded?

Perhaps not, for all he’d heard in her voice was acceptance and pride, no sorrow or pain. Yet she spoke of her life as though her craft and skill were her sole reason for being.

“What of your family? You must miss them.”

Her eyelids lowered to shield her eyes. “I’ve been here a long time,” she said. “I scarce think of them now.” She cradled the cross closer. “The work is more important than one person’s feelings.”

He heard a world of loneliness in Anna’s voice and words, though he didn’t believe she was aware of it. He bit back the questions he wanted to ask. ’Twas not for him to challenge her way of life, especially considering the state of his own.

And if she defined herself by her craft, he found it no hardship to praise her through it. “Your work is beautiful,” he said. His touch gentle, he reached out and stroked the cross. Though not so lovely as you. The smooth metal glowed with warmth, but it felt cold against his skin, lifeless. ’Twas an object, nothing more.

Yet if he raised his hand to Anna’s face, he’d feel the warmth and life pulsing beneath her skin; if he threaded his fingers through the mixed gold of her hair, he knew the springy curls would twine about his fingers with a touch that felt alive.

Swen moved his hand away from the cross with more haste than grace, lest he give in to temptation and follow his wayward thought’s lead.

An act likely to shock this innocent young woman into shunning his very presence.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Trudy struggling to move Ned’s body. “’Tis time for me to earn my keep,” he said, thankful for an excuse to put some distance between them. “I’ll help her while you lock that away.”

Anna felt a surprising sense of loss as she watched Siwardson go to Trudy’s aid. She’d enjoyed showing him her work.

The way he’d looked at her she found even more than enjoyable. She had no words, no comparison, for the feelings and thoughts he sent coursing through her body with a single glance of his pale blue eyes.

When she’d taken his hand…She closed her eyes to savor the memory of that sensation. The touch of Swen Siwardson’s palm against hers had made her heart soar, like the feeling she got when she looked upon one of her finished pieces and saw her vision translated into being.

She opened her eyes, her gaze drawn to Siwardson once more. He dealt with Trudy with a gentleness and patience she didn’t expect from so large and vigorous a man. He seemed thoughtful and kind—attributes that, when combined with his looks and smile, she found all too appealing.

Anna sighed and turned away from the scene. Though she would always mourn Pawl’s death, the thought of preparing his body for the grave did not seem so frightening to her now. She’d do what she must, then get on with her work.

She laid the cross back into its nest of wrappings in the chest, trailed her fingers over the fine details etched along its length. Perhaps the attack had been God’s way to jolt her—nay, everyone at Murat—out of the quiet complacency of the way they lived. She’d always felt her work was the focus of all her yearnings, the satisfaction of her every desire. No harm could come to her, to any of them, while they carried out their duties. There was safety and solace in doing the work the abbot set before them.

She knew better than to believe that now. The outside world had violated the sanctity of their lives. The security they had known had disappeared because someone wanted the gift she carried within her.

They would not have it, she vowed. If the attack had been a warning, she’d understood the message. She would hold her gift close, prize it more highly, protect it however she must.

As for Swen Siwardson, she’d avoid him when she could, and pray he left Murat soon.

For she feared he possessed the power to destroy the entire fabric of her life.

After Swen and Trudy finished wrapping Ned’s body in a winding sheet, Trudy patted Swen on the arm, murmured her thanks through her tears and left. Since Anna lingered by the chest, he dumped out the water Trudy had used, then refilled the basin from the kettle on the hearth. He pulled a stool close to the workbench, and waited for Anna.

It seemed to him that she hesitated to join him. Finally, though, he heard the key click in the lock.

“You need not stay, milord,” she said as she joined him. “I’m fine now, and as I’m sure you could see, I’m quite strong enough to manage this on my own.” She gathered together her glorious hair and tied it back with a strip of leather. “I don’t know what William was thinking, asking you to help me with the heavy work.”

William’s intentions seemed clear to him, but if Anna didn’t recognize what he’d been up to, Swen didn’t intend to enlighten her.

Especially given her present mood; she looked capable of defending herself quite handily in word or deed, should the need arise.

Swen drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, he found Anna in this mood even more appealing.

For his own safety, the situation called for discretion. “Perhaps William simply wanted me to help Trudy, and to ease your way through this difficult task. I doubt he intended any insult to you.”

Anna grimaced. “Why must you be so reasonable, milord? It makes it most difficult to work up a grudge against you,” she added with a rueful chuckle.

“I have no intention of angering you,” he said, fighting back a smile. “And you should not call me ‘milord’—I’m no nobleman. Swen will do, if you wish.”

She took up a cloth and dipped it into the basin. “Are you not? Your horse and trappings are very fine, and William seemed impressed to learn of your association with the dragon person you mentioned.”

Dragon person? Swen could not help but chuckle when he considered Lord Ian’s reaction to that description! It had seemed to him that Lord Ian ap Dafydd, Prince Llywelyn of Wales’ Dragon, was renowned far and wide for his fierceness as the prince’s enforcer. Certainly William knew of him.

Anna must live an even more sheltered life than he’d realized.

“Recently I’ve been part of Lord Ian’s—the Dragon’s—” he added at her look of confusion “—household. ‘Tis an honor I hold dear.” He rose and helped her raise the body to remove Pawl’s tattered shirt. “But my real home is in Bergen, in Norway. My family are merchants there. We haven’t quite the same ranking of nobility as the Normans or Welsh. My family is well-placed and has some power, but we are not noble.” He shrugged.

“‘Tis proper to call you by your Christian name?”

“Aye.” In truth he cared little whether ’twas proper; he simply wanted to hear his name from her lips.

“You must call me Anna, then,” she suggested with a hint of a smile.

“You honor me, Anna.”

They worked together in companionable silence until the time came to close the winding sheet over Pawl’s face. “Should I fetch his mother and daughters?” Anna asked. “Or should I wait and ask Father Michael when he arrives to lay the men to rest?”

“The abbot is coming here?” he asked.

“William sent for him as soon as we arrived in Murat. He should be here tomorrow, to give them the last rites and to say a Mass for their souls.

“Mayhap I should ask the girls’ grandmother,” she murmured. “I don’t know—is it right for his daughters’ last sight of their father to be thus?” She gazed at the body for a moment. “I don’t believe I’d want to remember my father like this.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I cannot remember the last time I saw my parents,” she said, letting her tears fall unchecked as she met his gaze.

“You must have been very young when they died.”

She looked away and swiped at her wet cheeks. “My parents aren’t dead.”

“Do they never visit you?” Swen asked, horrified at the thought of any parent disregarding so lovely and talented a child. He avoided his family for long periods of time by his choice, ’twas true, but despite the pain he always felt when he saw them, he still could not bring himself to ignore them completely.

And knowing they were in Bergen, alive and well, brought him a sense of comfort, no matter how strained their relationship.

“Nay, I don’t think it’s permitted.”

How could anyone keep a parent from their child? “Permitted? By whom?”

“When they gave me to the abbey, I think that the abbot—not Father Michael but the old abbot—said they could not see me ever again.”

The biting remark Swen had been about to make died on his lips when he saw the pain in Anna’s eyes. She took a step back from the workbench and raised her hands to her face. “Why have you made me remember?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper. “I hadn’t thought of it in so long. I had almost forgotten…’Twas better that way.”

He hadn’t meant to cause her such pain! Swen reached for her, but she shrugged away from his hand. “Nay.” She spun on her heel and hurried to the door, her shoulders slumped forward as though she sought to protect herself from further harm.

“Anna, please—I would never intentionally cause you harm.” He pushed away from the workbench, intending to go after her.

“I think you’d better leave, milord Siwardson.” The determination in her words stopped him in his tracks. She straightened and turned to him, her tearstained face composed once more. “I thank you for your help, but I require it no longer.” Pulling the door open farther, she held it wide in silent invitation. “Mayhap I’ll see you at the funeral, if you’re still here.” Her voice and her expression both told him clearly that she hoped he’d be long gone by then.

Not a chance, he thought as he crossed the room. He paused before her, took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. “You can count on it,” he told her. His gaze holding hers captive, he bowed, then turned her hand over and kissed her palm. “Adieu, Anna.”

Chapter Seven

Anna sat alone in the darkness of her workshop after the villagers had come and taken the bodies to the church. There, they’d keep vigil over them until Father Michael arrived from the abbey to lay them to rest.

Her tears had dried up earlier, but still the ache in her heart—over the guards’ deaths, as well as her confrontation with Swen—kept pace with the tide of confusion whirling through her head. So many memories, blessedly pushed aside by the passage of time until they lurked like creatures of the night, hidden deep where remembrance would not find them.

She had not allowed herself to feel for so long! But now that the walls surrounding her childhood had crumbled into bits, she felt awash in all the emotions she had hidden away for so many years.

The sensations were almost more than she could bear.

She blamed Swen Siwardson, though she knew his innocent questions had not been intended to cause her hurt. But even before they’d spoken—aye, by his presence alone—he had caused the initial breach in her defenses.

She could pinpoint it to the moment, that instant when a tingle of awareness had snaked its way along her spine and made her turn to see what had caused it.

Groping for a flint, she struck a spark and kindled the wick of an oil lamp. The priests were wrong to blame Eve for seeking the fruit of knowledge and destroying Paradise, she thought as she stared into the tiny flame. ’Twas not the knowledge the apple gave Eve that caused her fall from grace, ’twas her curiosity about what the apple could give her.

Just so had Anna’s curiosity about Swen Siwardson caused her own downfall. If she’d never turned to face him, never touched him, never spoken more than a civil word of greeting to the stranger in their midst, would the walls around her heart still protect her?

She stood, picked up the lamp and made her way to the ladder leading to the loft. Weariness dogging her every movement, she gathered up her skirts and climbed the steep treads to her chamber.

It seemed days since she’d slept, but even after she’d undressed and said a prayer for Ned and Pawl, she could not settle. She lay upon her bed, staring at the lamp, until she thought she’d go mad.

After a time visions came to fill her mind as they had so often in the past, but these were not the usual visions of a beneficent God that she might use in her work. These scenes showed her a God of vengeance, sights to put fear in the hearts of those who would not believe.

Had even her gift been tainted?

Desperate to escape her morbid thoughts, she rose and tossed on her clothes. She knew of only one thing that could give her the respite she craved.

Taking up the lamp again, Anna descended to her workshop, tied her leather apron about her waist and immersed herself in her craft.

It seemed to Anna that the group gathered in Murat’s small church late the next morning for the funeral Mass wore sorrow and exhaustion upon their faces in equal measure. The sun shone bright through the open doors and windows, glinting off the plain silver cross, pyx and chalice that adorned the altar. They had no elaborate gold and enamel embellishments here; the objects Anna created were commissioned through the abbey. Since all the materials to make them were provided by the abbey—and Anna had no coin to purchase her own—she had not been able to create anything for the village’s own chapel.

She felt the lack most keenly today. Ned and Pawl deserved better than this simple church could provide.

The bright sunlight made her want to crawl back into the darkness of her workshop to escape its glare. She’d labored alone for most of the night, hammering copper ingots into thin sheets with a vigor that would have surprised her assistants, to whom that mindless chore usually fell.