Page 27 of Always
Sister Agnes smiled at Felicia in welcome. “I see you have been out in the garden again. Princess Constance loves being in the sunshine, does she not?”
Felicia had told me about the large garden the women grew in a hidden valley within the confines of their mountain home. Sister Katherine oversaw the many plants they cultivated for food and medicine. Felicia had enjoyed relaying to me all the things she was learning from Sister Katherine about growing a garden.
“I did not come from the garden.” Felicia spoke with a seriousness that sent a chill across my skin.
Sister Agnes’s smile faded as though she, also, sensed a foreboding.
“I went to the lookout tower,” Felicia continued. “A band of King Ethelwulf’s army is riding toward the northeastern range. Sister Katherine says they will be here within two days.”
Chapter
11
Felicia
I stood nextto Lance in the tower and peered out over the wide plains. “There.” I pointed to a distant spot on the horizon with a cloud of dust above it.
“Aye,” Lance replied without taking his eyes from the view. “I never doubted you, Felicia. I just needed to gauge what kind of contingent and how fast they’re moving.”
“No wolves this time,” Sister Katherine said from my other side. “But they will likely have someone they have coerced to lead them here.”
“I thought no one knew how to find the abbey,” I said.
Sister Katherine shook her head. “Other nuns know we exist. Perhaps one of them gave out the location not realizing the need for secrecy. Or perhaps one of King Francis’s elite guards revealed our whereabouts and the hidden pathways that lead to us.”
“Only a select few are privy to that information,” Lance said.
“It only takes one,” Sister Katherine replied sadly, touching the beads on the rosary at her belt. Her fingers were still covered from the soil of the garden where she spent much of her time, growing more herbs than I’d known existed.
I swallowed the fear crowding into my throat. “What will we do?”
Lance was leaning heavily on his cane, his face taut with pain and exhaustion from the climb up the spiral stairway that led to the tower. “We must move on and stay ahead of them.”
I admired his bravery and dedication, but how could we outrun this army? Even before Lance’s injury, the task of staying ahead of King Ethelwulf had been difficult enough. But now? When Lance could hardly walk?
The wolf’s damage to my arm was healing well. Thanks to Sister Katherine’s salves and poultices I doubted I’d even have scars. On the other hand, Sister Katherine and Sister Agnes had both agreed Lance would always feel the effects of his injury, an injury I blamed on myself. If I’d been more competent. If I’d taken the girls out of the cavern immediately. If I’d known how to defend myself better. It was my fault he’d had to save me at the expense of protecting himself.
Sister Katherine turned away from the window and crossed to a stone bench built into the opposite wall. She sat and waited for our attention. I gave her mine without delay, focusing on her slim face. Lance pivoted after a lengthy silence and then only reluctantly.
“It is time to do what we all know must be done,” she said with her gentle gray eyes.
“What is that?” I asked, not caring I was showing my ignorance.
“We must split up the princesses and take them each to separate hiding places.”
I started to protest, knowing the queen wouldn’t want the girls to be apart, but Lance spoke first. “Are there three safe hiding places?”
“Yes,” Sister Katherine said, glancing between the two of us in a way that reminded me again of the kiss I’d given Lance, of the way I couldn’t stop thinking about him, of the way I couldn’t help but admire him. His jaw was rigid and layered with stubble that shadowed the dimple in his chin. Even so, I knew it was there, had studied his face countless hours while he’d been unconscious.
He shifted, as though sensing my scrutiny, but he kept his attention on Sister Katherine. “I’ll deliver each of the girls if you but tell me where.”
“You and Felicia will take only one,” Sister Katherine said with finality as if the matter had been settled long ago. “I shall take Constance to live with a noble family who is loyal to King Francis.”
“Which family?” Lance’s question was laden with steel as though he would strike down the plan without hesitation.
“She is a friend, a young woman who once thought to become a nun but then met her husband and changed her mind. I knew her when I was a novice at St. Peter’s Abbey in Middleton and admired her. She has no connection to St. Cuthbert’s, so King Ethelwulf will never suspect her.”
“Will she be able to keep Constance’s identity a secret?”
