“For two, he said.”
“Twins?” she asked, thoughts flying to two such babes born in the village of Forkney a year past—rather, the rumor of them.
“I asked the same. The boy said he did not know.”
“Is he still here?”
“Nay, I fed him a good meal and sent him away with a coin.”
How many times had Honore offered the lad a home here? As many times as he had declined. And now he was too old to be granted sanctuary inside these walls.
She bit her lower lip. She did not want to go to the wood, especially after what had happened the last time, but she had no choice.
Lady Wilma touched her shoulder. “Methinks you ought to take big Jeannette with you.”
She wished she could. But she dared not.
Honore was no slight thing, but increasingly she felt dainty alongside the young woman who accompanied her. Lady Wilma had argued it was time to give Jeannette more knowledge of the world beyond the abbey so she was better informed in deciding her future. Still, Honore had resisted—until the lady suggested Jeannette clothe herself as a man and remain visibly distant during the exchange. The young woman’s accompaniment would make it appear Honore had a protector whilst ensuring Jeannette had space in which to flee if necessary.
Now beneath a three-quarter moon and amidst fog so thick they could hardly see their feet, Honore looked sidelong at her charge and felt a flush of pride for all she had become. When she could not have been more than one, she was set out in the wood, either due to illegitimacy, poverty, a drifting eye that frightened the superstitious, or perhaps all.
No longer the babe in fouled swaddling clothes whom Honore had hastened to Bairnwood fourteen years past, she stood over a half foot taller than her savior’s five and a half feet, was as broad-shouldered as many a man, had a figure surprisingly feminine for one of such proportion, and possessed a fairly pretty face made all the prettier when she smiled. Not that she smiled often, of such a serious nature was she.
Of further surprise to those who judged her by appearance was her intellect. Her size, wandering eye, and tongue of few words lulled many into believing her simple-minded. She was not. And Abbess Abigail knew it, encouraging Jeannette’s studies beyond writing and reading to include numbers and Latin. The abbess did not say it, but she implied a way could be found for the young woman to become a bride of Christ.
As the two negotiated the wood, Honore once more wondered if Jeannette would wish to take holy vows were one of common birth given that rare opportunity.
She hoped not and immediately repented for being selfish and silently explained to the Lord that her work with foundlings would be much furthered were Jeannette to fully come alongside her.
Honore had help from a few lay servants and several kind-hearted convent residents—Lady Wilma for one—but more could be done. And once alterations to the abbey’s outer wall were completed, as they should have been weeks past, more would need to be done. But that was not to ponder at the middling of night in a dark wood and soon to be in close proximity with Finwyn.
Though Honore assured herself the exchange would be over soon, she shuddered.
“Are you afeared, Mine Honore?”
Mine Honore, as Jeannette had called her since first she could speak. It was the same as the others coming up after the young woman called the one whose unseemly birth denied her the title of lady. But far Honore preferred it over the loftiest title. Ever it reminded her she belonged to someone—many someones.
“A little frightened,” she admitted. “The one I meet, hopefully for the last time, is not to be underestimated. Thus, do not forget you are to remain distant enough he will not know you for a woman.”
Jeannette’s white teeth flashed in the dim. “I could become accustomed to such garments.” She plucked at tunic and chausses borrowed from a male servant who dwelt outside the abbey. “I feel all held together.”
“Are they truly so comfortable?”
“Ever so. I have naught flapping about my legs and feet, naught to hinder my stride.”
A very long stride, though Jeannette patiently kept pace with Honore’s shorter reach.
“Do not tell Abbess Abigail,” Honore said. “She will think it unnatural you are clothed as a man.”
“And sinful?” the girl said warily.
Were Honore not so tense, she would laugh. “An abbot might name it sinful, but not our abbess, especially considering your mission.”
“Mission,” Jeannette repeated. “I like that.”
As expected, Honore mused and wondered as sometimes she did why the Lord had not made Jeannette a Jean. Not that she wished it. Had her first foundling been a boy, he would no longer dwell at Bairnwood. As required, males left the community of women upon attainment of their tenth year. Blessedly, thus far all had been placed in good homes well before that age.
Fewer females were as fortunate, but as yet there was no great need. As long as Bairnwood—and Honore—could support their numbers, they were welcome to remain. However, that would not always be so, and all the sooner those numbers would become unsupportable once the man who summoned Honore became dispensable. She would have to work harder—a daunting prospect, but it was not as if she had anything else to live for or fill her heart so full.
Returning to the present, Honore instructed Jeannette that if she must converse henceforth, she ought to whisper.
The two crossed a stream, keeping their shoes and hems dry by traversing the immense rotten tree that had toppled from one bank to the other long before Honore took her first forbidden walk outside the abbey and found Jeannette. It had been two years before she dared approach the one she had seen set out the little one, but her task had become easier thereafter—until the old man took ill and his grandson determined to make more profitable what he called a business.
However, though Finwyn required greater compensation than had his grandsire, Honore had not been summoned as often since the old man’s passing. Until recently, she had thought it was because the grandson was not as trusted to discreetly dispose of unwanted babes, but that rumor about twins born to a newly widowed villager a year past made her think it could be something else. Were it—
“Mine Honore?” Jeannette forgot to whisper.
“Quiet now,” Honore rasped. “We are nearly there.”
They continued to traverse the wood until the ground rose before them, then Honore veered to the right. “Remain here. Once I am over the top, follow and place yourself between those trees so the moon is full at your back.” She pointed to the top of the rise where two ancient oaks stood like royals before their lessers. “You have only to stand there,” she repeated what had been told ere they departed the abbey, then tapped the tapered stick tucked beneath Jeannette’s belt. “Hold this to the side, its point down as if ’tis a sword.”