Assisted by that image, Aline addressed her prayers to Christ and His mother, said now to have remained a virgin despite her motherhood. As she prayed, however, her mind wandered around the subject of virginity and virtue.
She knew in her heart that goodness did not equal virginity, whatever the priests might say. Her mother had been a very good woman despite bearing eight children, and Lord Hubert was as good as one could expect a man to be despite siring them.
Galeran was good too.
Raoul de Jouray, however, was anything but. . . .
Angrily, she thrust the thought of that man out of her mind.
Perhaps it was lewd enjoyment of sex that sapped a person's goodness. But she knew that her parents had taken pleasure in their bed, and she was sure Jehanne and Galeran had, even since his return.
Now the Church said that virginity was the ideal state all men and women should aim for, even within marriage. The abbess of St. Radegund's supported that view strongly, but Aline didn't think many ordinary people did. For a start, it was a daft way to organize a community that needed children.
She was disturbed from her thoughts by singing, and realized the monks were arriving for compline, the service before nightly rest. She looked across to watch the column of cowled figures arrive in the chapel, and so saw Raoul de Jouray kneeling not far away.
At least he was securely on the other side of the grille.
She stared at him, expecting him to look at her, to do something that would constitute an attack, but he seemed completely absorbed in prayer. She continued to watch him warily until the beauty of the familiar, floating music caught her and she prayed with it for peace and security during the coming dark.
And for freedom from lewd thoughts.
When the service ended and the monks began to leave, she looked again at Raoul. But he had gone.
* * * * * In the morning he came to help her check her horse. "I hope you slept well, Lady Aline."
"Very well, thank you. And you?"
"Restlessly, to think of you so close by." She was standing close by her horse, and in checking the girth, he managed to let his hand slide down to touch her hip.
Aline stepped back. "At Heywood we were somewhat closer, I think."
"You felt closer last night, perhaps because we are in an alien world."
She moved around to put the whole bulk of the horse between them. Being short, she could not see anything of him other than his boots. "This is not an alien world to me, Sir Raoul. I am used to religious houses."
"But it is a place that is strange to us all, quite different from your home or your cloister."
Aline decided she'd made a tactical error. Hearing just his voice seemed more intimate than standing close by his large body.
"As the days go by," he continued, "everything will become stranger still.
Thus, the familiar - the people you are with - will seem more intimate, more necessary."
Aline ran her hand restlessly down the horse's rough-silky neck. "You are depending on this strangeness to make me seek you out?"
"I am depending on it to bring about changes. I have traveled often, Lady Aline, and this always happens. The traveling group, no matter how disparate they seem to begin with, become close. A company. Almost a family."
She ducked under the horse's neck to face him. "It is quite possible to detest a member of the family."
He met her smile. "How true. I must introduce you to my grandfather one day. But by the time we reach London we will all be closer than ever before, whether bound by love or hate."
He led the horse over to the block so she could mount. Once seated there, and with a rare advantage of height, she asked, "What were you doing in the chapel last night?"
He looked up, not so very far below her after all. "Praying, Lady Aline."
"You said you would be there to pursue your attack on me."
"Attack." He frowned. "Picture me rather as a petitioner at your gates."
Quite casually, he laid his hand on her thigh. "Beseeching you to open and let me in."
"Last night," she said, all too aware of her spread thighs, "last night you asked me nothing. . . ."
"Perhaps last night I was seeking aid of your overlord." His hand did not move, but it was as if it moved. She could imagine heat pouring from