The Miracle Thief by Iris Anthony Page A

The streak from it still marked his arm. When the archbishop would not take it, he thrust it toward me.
    I side-stepped him as Andulf moved to stand in front me. But though I sought the count’s help, he refused to look at me.
    I beseeched the translator. “What does he want me to do with it?”
    â€œIt is a gift. This means you belong to him. He wants you to put it on.”

CHAPTER 9
    Juliana
    ROCHEMONT ABBEY
    I wanted to think that perhaps the new abbess’s coming was evidence of Saint Catherine’s intervention on my part. The abbess might be young, and she might be preoccupied with things other than God’s service, but had not the Almighty been known to use just those kinds of people for His purposes? And it was not unknown for churchmen to ally themselves with nobles like her father. As the Count of Bresse had said, these were troubled times.
    But the count’s presence—his silk robes, his golden finger rings—had returned me to memories of my youth. And a small, increasingly strident voice inside my heart kept insisting men’s plans often had nothing to do with God and everything to do with their own gain. But even so, it was not difficult to convince myself none of that mattered…except when I remembered I had not truly fulfilled my promise to the abbess. I had not spoken; I had not, in fact, offered to lead as she had asked me to.
    But what was I to do about it now? The new abbess had been chosen. The bishop had confirmed the choice. Both man and God had presumably acted, and done so in concert. Although in between the offices and on the way to the refectory for our meal, quite a lot of words were being exchanged between the sisters. And not one of them saw the abbess’s coming as the will of God.
    If she were a king or a pretender to the throne, I might have worried. But our abbey was not a kingdom. Our doings did not affect the world beyond our gates. And the abbess herself was not immune to God’s great design. If He had let her be chosen, then there must be some reason for it. That is the thought I clung to in order to push the other away: the idea that I was responsible, that I should have spoken. That I should have been the one sitting in her place.
    I contented myself with Saint Catherine, trying not to care overmuch for things beyond my control, but the abbess made it increasingly difficult. She was haughty. She was discourteous. She was unkind. And she brought with her to the abbey a type of company we were not used to keeping.
    Her family, her father, and her brothers, the nuns might have overlooked. I might have overlooked. But there was a young nobleman among them who, if I was not mistaken, looked on her as if she were not a nun. As if she had not given herself to Christ. I might have warned her that God is a jealous bridegroom and man a capricious companion, but she did not seek my approval nor my advice.
    I tried to coax myself from my suspicions, and truly, I had almost succeeded, when I came upon them one night after compline. In the darkness cast by the overhanging cloisters, they were entwined in a lovers’ embrace.
    I closed my eyes, fearing that if I opened them, I would confirm what I thought I had just seen. And then, starved for passion, for the sensation of desiring and being desired, I opened them and watched their frenzied gropings. And I remembered it all then: the birth of desire, of passion…and of love.
    ***
    Charles caught me while I was going up the stairs with a ewer destined for his mother’s evening ablutions. He was coming down with his retinue of nobles’ sons. I pressed myself against the wall to let them pass, but he saw me and halted them all.
    â€œJuliana! Did you hear it? Did you hear?”
    Not certain how I must respond, I curtsied as normal to give myself time to decide how to reply. “Yes…Sire.”
    â€œSire!” He chortled. “How good it is to hear that word! Finally, I am to be