Isbe doesn’t know what to say to that at first. “I assure you, I’m not clever enough to have invented any of it. It’s all too serious and all too real.”
“I realize that. It was only a dream,” William replies, though he seems to be saying so as much for his own benefit as for hers. “It’s just . . .”
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“No, tell me what you were going to say,” she presses.
“I can’t shake the feeling, Isabelle, that there’s something you haven’t told me.”
“You think I’m lying to you?” Isbe asks, truly surprised.
“Maybe not,” William answers. “I just have a sense that there’s more to you than I yet know.”
“Well, of course there is. We’ve only known each other a short time.”
They pause for a moment, their breath coming and going and neither one saying anything.
Then William grabs her hands. “I should have done this before, when you first asked me.” He guides her palms to his face.
The gesture is startling, but Isbe eagerly seizes the opportunity to scan his expression, to memorize his features, to fully take him in. Her fingers dance lightly across his full lips—much more pronounced than Gilbert’s. His eyes are big and widely spaced. He has a prominent forehead. A regal forehead. His skin is smooth . . . except for a slight scar along his jaw.
“Like I mentioned,” he whispers, by way of explanation, “my brothers weren’t very nice.”
They sit there in the unlit guest quarters, a room hardly larger than a closet, Isbe taking in what he has said, and not said.
Finally she breaks the silence. “You’re probably wondering why I woke you.”
She hurriedly explains that she needs him to scan through the convent’s stored documents, and to her relief, he readily agrees to help. “I won’t be falling back to sleep anytime soon anyway,” he says. She can’t help but wonder if it’s more than that—maybe he’s the one who longs to pretend he’s someone else. Maybe he’s the one who was looking for a reason to flee from his life in search of more.
They spend awhile carefully combing through stacks of correspondence in the scriptorium—a room that tickles her lips with the taste of dust and worn hides—but fail to find any letters from the Delucian court.
Isbe is beginning to feel frustrated. “Let’s try another tactic. Perhaps there’s something about Mother Hildegarde herself that we can dig up. About her past, before she came to Isolé.”
“What is it, exactly, that you’re hoping to uncover?” the prince asks.
“It’s like I told you. I have reason to believe the prioress knows secrets relating to the late king, my father. Secrets that she might decide to hold over the palace in the future.” It’s not a complete lie, but Isbe isn’t about to reveal the whole truth. The fact that she doesn’t know her own mother’s identity is humiliating and private. It doesn’t concern William in the slightest.
“Well, I’ve found something interesting. It doesn’t pertain to King Henri per se, though,” he says, handing her a piece of folded vellum.
“What does it say?”
“It’s a . . . well . . . a sort of medical—or metaphysical—analysis.”
“Of?”
“Of Mother Hildegarde.”
“Read it to me,” she demands, quickly biting her lip in an attempt to hold in her impatience.
William mutters to himself as he reads, sharing the highlights. “It seems a doctor was summoned to bear witness to the mother’s miraculous capabilities. Withstanding extreme circumstances, handling fire while exhibiting no bodily harm, fasting for many days without visible effect, that sort of thing.”
“And?”
“Well, it seems the doctor decided that the prioress displays an inability to experience pain. He concludes here that this is a viable explanation of the miracles . . . and that it’s also most likely she is barren.”
“Mother Hildegarde is barren? Are you sure?”
She hears William folding and unfolding the vellum. “I’m not sure of anything. I’m only reading to you what I see here. The doctor believed her to be incapable either of feeling pain or of bearing children, that’s what it says.”
“It’s true,” says someone from the doorway. It takes Isbe a second to place the asplike voice.
“Sister Genevieve.”
“Everyone knows Mother Hildegarde couldn’t have children of her own before she came here,” she says. Isbe has the impression that each of the nun’s statements is another fly lapped up by a forked tongue. “It’s one of the reasons she entered the fold and began taking in orphans. She was married once, before, you know.”
Isbe swallows. “We didn’t mean to pry, we were only . . .” But she can’t think of a proper excuse. She shifts her weight, wondering if the nun is going to report them to the reverend mother and have them thrown out into the cold.
Instead, Sister Genevieve says, “It’s all right. Visitors are often intensely curious about Mother Hildegarde. She is quite extraordinary. However, if you have any questions, you may ask them of her directly, during daylight hours.”
“We’re sorry to have disturbed you,” William says. “We didn’t think anyone would be awake at this hour,” he adds.
There is the briefest of pauses before Sister Genevieve replies. “I happened to have heard a noise and needed to check that an animal had not gotten into the granary. We’ve had a problem with rodents.” She clears her throat lightly. “It would be my pleasure to escort you back to your sleeping quarters now,” she says, calmly but firmly.
Isbe steps toward her, and Genevieve holds out her thin arm to guide her.
It’s only once Isbe is back among the sleeping orphans, lying on her mat and drifting off to sleep, that she pinpoints what has been bothering her since Sister Genevieve discovered her and William in the scriptorium. Certain oddities.
First, Genevieve had appeared silently, unaccompanied by the faint crackle of a lantern’s burning wick. Though perhaps that’s not so peculiar. Maybe the nuns are taught to conserve oil.
Second, she had claimed to be checking the granary for rats, but didn’t Mother Hildegarde explicitly say their granary was empty? Still, it’s possible the prioress had been exaggerating.
However, the third peculiarity is what has Isbe quite convinced that the sister, despite her divine oath of truth, was lying: the scent on the nun’s hands. They smelled like fresh dirt. Like rust. And like blood.
25
Aurora
“Marigold?” But the girl really is gone, and Aurora’s voice, disembodied, echoes through the woods.
The sun has set; darkness has risen. The night surrounds Aurora now, throbs with that same anticipation it always has, making her yearn for Isabelle. For home. For Heath. For everything to be different than it is. For something to begin. For something that she has already, inexplicably, lost.
A hand clamps down on her shoulder. “A beauty like you shouldn’t be wandering the night alone.”