The Blood and The Bloom (Men of Blood Book 1) Read online

  “The women told me of an apothecary who seems to have the ability to heal wounds. And, they say, she often goes into the woods at night, coming back only after midday the next day, her clothing covered in blood, and her face glowing with unearthly light.”

  Calleaux shot to his feet, his eyes wide. “Have you seen this with your own eyes?”

  Bowing his head as if in regret, his slowly raised his face to Calleaux, a careful mask of feigned disgust in place. “I have. I followed her one evening, late, just after the rising of the full moon. She was there, deep into the woods, dancing around a fire. Naked. Her body covered in markings. A pig’s slaughtered corpse, entrails, severed head, and hooves, scattered about.”

  The cardinal stared ahead, his eyes narrowing, his lips thin and the teeth behind them gritted.

  Willem continued. “She was chanting, raising her arms into the sky…”

  “Witchcraft,” Calleaux hissed, his expression darkening. Willem’s heart leapt in his chest, his excitement rising to rival the need pounding through him. His fabricated tale of nakedness, chanting, and blood made his manhood stir, but only because he envisioned her standing before a roaring fire, breasts thrust forward, swaying as she moved… He swallowed a moan and forced himself to focus on Calleaux.

  “I believe so, your Eminence. I ask that you allow me to capture this woman—I will interrogate her, pulling every truth from her. I will discover the depths of her depravity, and if she has corrupted anyone else in Clarendon.” God, he could see it now…she’d be draped over his footstool, writhing, red stripes crisscrossing her back, begging for the chance to tell him whatever he wanted to hear.

  Soon.

  “No.”

  Snapping his attention back to Calleaux, Willem wondered if he’d heard wrong. “No?” he asked, fighting to keep the growl from his voice. “Do you doubt my ability to administer the Church’s justice to this creature?”

  Calleaux pinned Willem with dark, knowing eyes. “I have no doubt you would punish her, but if she truly is a witch—which I doubt, she must be dealt with carefully. No. I will not have her in your household.”

  Anger twisted in Willem’s gut. This was all going wrong. He was supposed to have her, he was supposed to take her—the Cardinal was ruining everything! “Cristian, you cannot—”

  “Lord Mason,” Calleaux barked, raising a single hand to silence him, easily reminding Willem of his presumed place at Cieldon. Willem ran a hand down his face, pushing back the urge to spit in Calleaux’s eyes. “I have made my decision,” the cardinal finished, turning from Willem to glide toward the door.

  A single knock and the door was opened by Martin, Calleaux’s simpering acolyte. Willem couldn’t stand the man. As a man of distinct tastes, Willem could see right through the layman’s façade and straight to the deepest parts of him. Martin hungered for something, and it wasn’t just for little boys.

  “Martin, send a summons to Carnburg.” Calleaux’s simple command made Willem’s stomach bottom out. Carnburg…the official estate held by the captain of the Homme du Sang, one of the most fierce and faithful chivalric orders the Church had ever created. If Calleaux called for the Homme du Sang, Willem’s plans were in even greater danger of failure—they would capture her and hang her for sure. He bit the inside of his cheek, swallowing the bitter tang of blood, it calmed him, forcing his mind to focus. He should have been better prepared, should have thought of every possibility. He should have known the bastard Calleaux would force his own holier-than-all position. He’d always been hungry for power, for prestige and standing. What better than a witch trial and the excitement in would bring to turn all eyes to his eminence? Willem sneered, uncaring if the acolyte saw.

  He had to find a way to turn it to his advantage—something he’d become rather good at. If nothing else, he was an opportunist of great skill and appetite.

  “Your Eminence,” Martin said, bowing in acknowledgement. He turned to leave the room, seemingly eager to do as his master bade him, but not before Willem caught the flash of hatred in the acolyte’s eyes. Strange that the man did little to hide his malice…stranger still that the look wasn’t meant for Willem.

  Calleaux grunted, waving the acolyte off, unconcerned about whether or not his servants hated him. Willem shrugged, just as unconcerned, and followed Calleaux back to the fireplace, stopping just short of the open flames, which licked at him hungrily. He grinned. The fire was hot, reaching up, dancing in an enticing whirl of glowing oranges, yellows, and reds. The sight of the flames pulled at him, and he drank in the heat, the roll of his muscles, the burn of his flesh as the heat sank through his doublet and hose, and into his skin. He relished the pain…it helped to clear his head.

  “I will need her name,” Calleaux spoke out of the heavy silence. “The name of this witch.” Willem turned to meet the man’s steady, hideously arrogant gaze. “I assume you know it.”

  Sucking in a deep breath, Willem refused to break eye contact. He wouldn’t lose even that to a man like Calleaux. He knew that if he spoke her name aloud, giving this man what he needed to take the control from Willem’s hand, the one he wanted most might be out of his reach forever. The very though made his body stiffen, his blood turning to ice in his veins.

  Something occurred to him then, something glorious in its simplicity… He could still have her. He just needed to the opportunity to take her…

  “As always, I defer to you and your wisdom, Your Eminence,” he forced the words to tumble out in simpering tones. “The witch lives in a thatched cottage on the outskirts of Clarendon. But tell your men to remain watchful, to not underestimate her. She is a bewitching and utterly diabolical creature. The locals call her Bell Heather Caire. Your men will know her when they see her.”

  Chapter TWO

  The Whistler Wood

  Near the Village of Clarendon

  Yorkshire County, England

  1410

  The smell of damp earth and ripe vegetables hit her just as she pulled open the wood plank hatch to the root cellar. The hatch, usually hidden beneath a concealing layer of dead leaves, moss, and loose earth thudded back against the earthen mound, letting loose a blast of cold, wet air.

  She smiled at the familiar, comforting aroma. The aroma of life, roots, rich minerals, the stench of dead leaves, and the sweet smell of slowly rotting apples.

  “Och, I love the smell of a proper root cellar—the musk of the earth, the moist soil, the very arse of Druantia.”

  Bell Heather laughed and turned back to smile at her companion. “I do not think Druantia would care much for yer tone. If ye do not watch yer words, ye might end up with warts and boils…right in between yer shoulders, where ye cannot reach to scratch at them.” By Dagda’s belt, Maude was easy to tease, especially since the crone still prayed to the old gods.

  The same gods Bell Heather hadn’t prayed to since her mother died. Since her mother was murdered.

  Maude looked horrified, her thick eyebrows rose into her straight hairline, and her dark eyes widened on each side of her thin, pointed nose. “Do ye not go cursing me, girl, ye never know whose listening,” she muttered as she cast a wary glance over her shoulder into the thicket of trees behind them. She pressed her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes as if in prayer.

  Bell Heather laughed again, her bright chuckle echoing back from all sides, a merry sound in a rather dreary place. The Whistler Wood, just a twenty-minute walk from Clarendon, was said to be haunted by the spirits of fey and men alike, who died in battle on the fairy mounds just over the hills. She knew such tales were rubbish; she’d been coming to this part of the forest for more than a decade, and the root cellar they’d come to use had been there for forty years longer than she’d been breathing. Her very own great-grandfather had dug the cellar out of a small mound in a clearing just in sight of the Traegar River. If you listened closely, down in the depths of the cellar, you could hear the river rushing by.

  With the old growth trees overhead blocking the lat
e morning sunlight, the root cellar was black. But she was used to it. She knew every bump in the hard-packed dirt floor and every root hanging from the ceiling. She could navigate through the darkness right to what she needed, whether it was a jar of burn salve or a basket of onions. Today, she was after the jar of mint paste she’d made the first of the season, using fresh mint from her own herb garden. Typically, she would dry the mint and use it for tea to treat stomach ailments, but more of the villagers had been complaining about coughs. A smear of mint paste beneath the nose did wonders for clearing out lingering illnesses.

  “Quit yer dawdling, girl, and get what ye need,” Maude grumbled, casting another look at the trees. “This place always makes my knees knock.”

  Bell Heather raised an eyebrow at her. “Ye did not have to come. Ye insisted, if I remember.”

  Maude clicked her tongue. “Ye know I could not let ye come alone, not with the very Devil lurking about.”

  Bell Heather wasn’t a fool to think Maude meant the actual Devil, but the man she was speaking of was just as close to evil in the flesh as one could get.

  Lord Willem Mason, a persistent and arrogant man. All dark hair and chilling sneer.

  She fought a shudder, gripping the edge of the cellar opening. “He has not been seen in the village for more than a fortnight,” Bell Heather said, hoping to reassure her protective, watchful friend. Willem Mason had married into his lands and money. His wife, Lillian, was the only living child of Lord Abelard Shelton, a despicable and ruthless man, whose death came as a reason for celebration rather than mourning. When the old lord died, his son in law, Willem Mason, took control of the lands. Bell Heather did not care what the man did sitting in his high castle, as long as he stayed clear of her and Clarendon. It took all of a sennight before the man was tromping through the village, looking for young women to come serve in his house. He’d said it was to appease his wife… Once the girls started coming home bruised, mangled, and…hollow, Bell Heather knew the truth of whom those girls were meant to appease.

  No amount of mint paste or miracle could ever heal those girls.

  Maude grunted, throwing her long-fingered hands into the air, her wide sleeves slipping down her reed-thin arms. “The Devil hides in plain sight, girl. Ye would not see him coming until he has yer neck in his jaws.”

  A woman of broad beliefs, Maude was the only person Bell Heather knew who worshiped pagan gods and still attended mass every Sabbath. She often said it was better to be saved than skeptical.

  Pulling her shawl up over her shoulders, Bell Heather stepped down, planting a bare foot on the first of four plank steps; they creaked with her weight but held. The air around her was chilly, not such much colder than the air outside the cellar, but this air was…heavy. Continuing down, she waited at the last stair for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. The filtered light that made it into the cellar didn’t offer much illumination, but it was enough to know the cellar was just as she’d left it a week ago. She’d come to the cellar to deposit a basket of potatoes a villager had traded to her for a pouch of willow bark tea. The week before that, she’d brought a jar of heather jam she’d been given in exchange for aiding the cobbler in removing a splinter from his daughter’s thigh—the girl had been climbing a tree and fell, impaling herself with a bit of the bark.

  As an herbalist and apothecary, Bell Heather was often called upon to provide the goods others needed to care for their own. She wasn’t a healer, she did not aide in birthings or set broken bones, but she was often the one who provided salves, ointments, teas, and other such medicines to those who needed it.

  “I can hear ye thinking down there, girl,” Maude’s dry voice floated down to her, and Bell Heather smiled.

  “I will be but a moment,” she called back, her feet shuffling over the floor. She reached the first of three rough-hewn wooden shelves and grabbed a small jar from the middle shelf. She felt the weight of it, the coolness of it in her palm. Pride filled her; this was something she’d made with the strength and skill of her own hands. She’d been making medicaments since she was old enough to stand at the low table and watch her mother crush anise and basil in her mortar. She’d hum as she moved about, and young Bell Heather would watch with fascination as her mother made miracles from common plants.

  Jar in hand, Bell Heather turned and climbed from the cellar, putting the jar in the basket she’d put down to open the hatch. She picked up the basket and looped it over her arm, patting it and offering Maude a grin.

  The woman narrowed her eyes at Bell Heather. “I hope Gilly is appreciative,” she said, pointing her chin into the air with a huff.

  “I should not matter if she is. She asked for my help and I am giving it to her.” Bell Heather cared little for praise; it was the work that made it worth it, seeing the sick well.

  Maude grunted, then flipped her waist-long braid over her shoulder. “Yer just like yer mother, ye know. God rest her soul…” Maude made the sign of the cross, and Bell Heather weighed the woman’s words.

  Was she like her mother? She looked like her; hair as gold as the sunrise, eyes as green as sage, skin as fair as sheep’s milk. She couldn’t spend ten minutes in the sun before her skin turned a horrid pink color, and her hair was so fine, it wouldn’t stay bound, which was why she left it loose about her shoulders. Once in a great while, she’d muscle the hair into a knot behind her head, but she would only put in the effort for when she dyed fabrics—she’d look awful strange with murrey streaks in her hair. Aye, she looked like her mother, but could she ever live up to her mother’s legacy? A heaviness pressed down on her, and grief filled her chest. She ached, her heart crying out for the mother she’d lost just two years before.

  Oh, mother… I miss ye.

  Just then, a blast of cold air slammed into her, raising gooseflesh on her arms. A shudder moved through her, and she nearly dropped her basket. The chill moving through the trees brought with it a sense of foreboding, a warning; heralding the arrival of something…dangerous.

  “Did ye feel that?” Maude cried, pulling her own shawl over her shoulders and hunkering down against the wind. “Something’s coming, girl, I can feel it.”

  Not for the first time, Bell Heather agreed with the old woman. The trees swayed, the branches seemed to reach down to brush against her head, grasping at her with desperate fingers. She swallowed down the ridiculous fear and forced a laugh.

  “Maude, get ye back to the village if yer so frightened.”

  Maude snapped up straight, pinning Bell Heather with her stern, dark gaze. “And leave ye here? Alone? With the Devil skulking about and the very wind carrying the scent of damnation? Yer daft!” The woman stepped forward and grabbed Bell Heather’s hand, pulling the younger woman behind her as she wove her way through the trees toward the edge of the woods, right before the meadow.

  Bell Heather pulled back, digging in her heels. The woman was much stronger than her frail frame belied. “I cannot go yet. I have to find more St. John’s wort. I need to make a salve for Riora, Gilly’s youngest. She is having a belly ailment,” she announced, trying to pull her wrist from Maude’s grip.

  “What of that mint?” Maude asked, pointing to Bell Heather’s basket.

  Bell Heather shook her head. “It has done naught for her so far. I am hoping the St. John’s wort will provide the girl some relief.”

  Maude stopped and turned, holding fast to Bell Heather’s arm. “Ye are daft! Why can Mary not go picking for St. John’s wort? She is able.”

  “Gilly says Mary has not been home for nearly three weeks,” Bell Heather admitted. “Lady Mason called for her.” Which meant Mary was commanded to attend the lady, doing whatever it was the lady required. For some, it was an escape from a life of hardship and starvation, but for girls—pretty girls—like Mary, it meant she’d return to Clarendon only after Lord Mason tired of her.

  Maude clicked her tongue. “Poor girl… Poor, poor girl.”

  The woman understood what it meant to be called i
nto Lady Mason’s service. As did every villager from Clarendon to Summerton. It meant Lord Mason had grown bored of his latest acquisition.

  Making the sign of the Cross, Maude’s grip on Bell Heather’s arm loosened, but Bell Heather remained in the woman’s grasp. The warmth of the woman’s concern brought a soft smile to her face—which was quickly cut off with Maude’s next words.

  “Lord Mason wants ye, girl. Those other girls, they are just toys to him, play things to bid his time until he can get ye right where he wants ye.”

  Moving the basket further up her arm, Bell Heather pulled her other hand free and straightened her tunic dress. “If it pleases ye, I will wait to go picking until Waldo is free to come with me.” Waldo, the eldest son of the village blacksmith, was a large yet completely harmless lad.

  Maude made a sound of appeasement but Bell Heather refused to meet the woman’s gaze. She knew she’d find admonishment there. She began walking again, conscious of the woman beside her who couldn’t move quite as fast.

  They made it to the edge of the trees in silence. The meadow opened up before them, a rolling land dotted with sheep, wildflowers, and jutting rocks. It was the pride of the county and one of her favorite places…second only to the waterfall at the mouth of the river.

  Bell Heather straightened and tipped her face into the coming gloom in the sky, thick gray clouds rolled in from the west, carrying with them another rainstorm.

  “Rain’s coming,” she said off-hand, and Maude grunted. “I better get back and finish weeding the garden before the ground turns to mud.” It had been three days since the last rainstorm, which wasn’t uncommon in the summer, but she’d spent those days of sun tilling, planting in the garden, and drying herbs and fish.

  Without another word, Maude led the way across the wide meadow, and Bell Heather followed, pulling her basket into her chest; a flimsy shield against the feeling of dread seeking entry to her heart.