Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(67)

She’s going to help us! Mom will have to obey a summons from the queen. She’ll have no choice. Then I’ll move heaven and earth to get her out, whether she wants me to or not.

“Thank you,” I breathed. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

The queen crossed to where Phoebe and I knelt, surrounding us with her unique smell. Roses laced with a spice I didn’t recognize.

“Rise.”

Her intelligent green eyes scanned back and forth between us. “I trust Hectare with my life.” She paused, licking dry lips. “But this?” She took a step closer and looked deep into my eyes. Her voice husky with emotion, Eleanor whispered, “I wonder . . . will this world always belong solely to men?”

Slowly, carefully, without taking my eyes from hers, I shook my head. “No, Your Grace. Not always.”

Eleanor’s eyes closed. A smile edged her mouth as she sighed. “I shall, of course, not live to witness such a thing. But perhaps . . . to help sow the seeds of that glorious harvest?”

I didn’t answer, though I knew that in the years to come Eleanor of Aquitaine would endow convents and be as much of a champion for female education and rights as was possible in her era. A thought startled me as I wondered how much of that was due to this moment in time.

Smiling, I allowed all the admiration I felt for the brave queen to shine through.

The queen of England nodded to herself. “Yes,” she whispered as she departed. “Perhaps.”

“What was that all about?” Phoebe said.

“Dear physician,” Hectare called. Aaron hurried toward the bed and bowed low. “I thank you for your efforts,” the nun said. “But like me, I believe you’d as soon rest those old bones of yours? If you will but allow your granddaughter to stay? She comforts me.”

“Of course, learned sister,” the apothecary said. “I shall return on the morrow.”

Aaron left, and Sister Hectare asked Rachel to see about getting Phoebe and me a place to sleep for the night. When Rachel shut the door behind her, the nun patted the side of her bed. “Come, come, we haven’t much time.”

Hectare spoke in a voice like crinkling paper. “One of the few advantages to being very old is that one has seen so many mysteries, one can pick and choose which to believe.”

“Sister?” I paused, but my gut was telling me to speak truth to this woman. “You . . . you know who we are, don’t you?”

Phoebe’s sharp elbow jabbed into my back. What are you doing?

“More than fifty years ago, when I was but an eager young novice at the abbey at Saint Evre,” Hectare went on as though I’d not spoken, “I met a woman who had come to view one of our reliquaries.” The nun’s watery blue eyes studied us from behind her veined nose. “I was called to speak to her, as the woman’s accent was difficult to understand and the saints had blessed me with an ear for languages.”

Despite the overheated chamber, a chill skated up and down my spine. I asked in a quaky voice. “Was this reliquary decorated with a great opal, by any chance?”

I heard Phoebe’s sharp intake of breath, but I couldn’t move. Every muscle in my body strained for Hectare’s answer.

“Yes.” She nodded proudly, as if I were her student and I had come up with the correct cipher. “A stone of some repute, if the rumors were true.”

Swallowing, I pressed on. “Do you happen to remember what the woman looked like?”

Hectare’s grin showed her pale pink gums and creased her cheeks into a hundred wrinkles. “How could I forget?” she answered. “Considering I saw the same woman this very night at the feast. Black hair. Eyes that pierce. A haughty manner. And a face that had aged but little in over fifty years.”

“Celia.” Phoebe breathed the name.

“Just so,” the nun nodded. “That was her name then as it is now. She wanted that stone very much. I could see it in her eyes. To be truthful, the woman frightened me. I recommended the sisters not allow her access.”

“Bet she didn’t like that much,” I muttered.

Hectare chuckled. “No, no she did not.”

“Sister,” Phoebe asked, “do you know what happened to the opal? Is it still there?”

A flare of hope fired through me. We thought the opal in the Jews’ dagger was the Nonius Stone, but what if we were wrong? What if it was still safe in a French abbey?

As if she could read my thoughts, Hectare shook her head. “No, child. The stone was sold off many years ago, before I was even called upon to help care for Eleanor and her sister, Petronilla. I’ve tried to keep track of it, however. All these years. There was something . . . odd about it. I—I needed to know where it had gone. I think we both know where it is right now: secure in the king’s counting chamber.”

Phoebe and I sat immobile, stunned. Recently—at least in our own timeline—Celia had traveled back fifty years before this time and tried to buy or steal the Nonius Stone from the nuns. She’d failed, thanks to this amazing little woman before us. I felt an enormous tenderness and grief wash over me. Hectare was fading, and the world would be a sadder place without her.

“Sister.” I choked against the lump in my throat. “Why are you helping us?”

Hectare leaned forward and touched first my face, then Phoebe’s. “The two of you,” she said, “have a light around you that is so bright, I can barely see your features at times. It is a lavender shade that dances and flares from your skin. The black-haired woman also glows with this same light.” The wise, ancient eyes turned to me. She laid a too-cold hand on top of mine. “Like this Celia, you do not belong here.” Hectare’s scratchy voice dropped. “Or am I simply being fanciful in my old age?”