was the monk, one bony hand extended toward her. Marian had not seen him there in the corner. “He is asleep. You won’t disturb him.” The monk was seated upon a rough-hewn stool and got laboriously to his feet in order to gesture to it, the only seat in the room.
Marian drew back, shaking her head. “No. I can’t. I couldn’t. Sit, Frère, please. Sit.”
The monk waited a few seconds, studying Marian’s face, and then resumed his seat with a little sigh of relief. He wasn’t an old man, younger than her father, but he moved with difficulty. When he rested his hands against his thighs, Marian saw that his fingers were gnarled, crooked as if with great effort, like hands clawing for freedom. Or mercy.
He saw her looking and smiled. “A test God has granted me,” he said gently. “A wasting illness. Would you believe I was once stout enough to fill that doorway?” He chuckled and leaned his back against the wall behind him.
Marian shifted her weight, uncomfortable but not willing to move her gaze from the holy man to the still form in the bed on the opposite wall. “Why do you laugh?”
“Because it’s funny,” he replied placidly. “To me, it is.”
Marian glanced at the doorway, wishing she could leave the old man to his prayer, but held her ground in spite of herself. “How is he?”
“The wound has soured,” said the monk. “But I have seen men live through worse. They tell me Tom has a great will. Perhaps he will live.”
“I thought it was up to God.” Marian could not help the bitter note in her voice.
“Ah.” The monk seemed unfazed by her tone. “But if his will to live sees him through another day, who gave him that will, child?” He didn’t seem to expect an answer, for after a brief pause, he went on. “His parents, I suppose, who taught him grace and duty. But who gave his parents strength to see a child through the hardships and pitfalls of life?”
Marian eyed the monk askance as he muttered on. She became aware of a soft sound now that she was still. Breath, shallow. In and out. Faint and fluttering as a butterfly. She took a deep breath, ignoring the sour smell of the air, and looked at the bed.
The wide eyes were closed, and if it hadn’t been for the wispy beard, Marian would not have recognized him as the young man she’d faced in the hall two nights earlier. His cheeks were sunken and white except for two spots of color, and his pale brow was beaded with sweat. His lips were cracked like dry mud, and the breath whistled past them in a defiant reminder that the body in the bed still lived.
“God has already spared him once.” The monk was speaking again, and when Marian glanced his way, she saw that he was watching her. “The arrow that wounded him was very close to his lungs, where he breathes. If it had been a finger’s breadth closer, he would have died there in the corridor.”
Marian wondered what she was doing there, why she had come to haunt the man she’d tried to murder. “It doesn’t seem to me a merciful act. He’s dying, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” The stool creaked as its occupant leaned forward. “I don’t claim to know the will of God, child. But if He spared this boy only to take him later, I might think perhaps the arrow missed for another reason.”
“Another reason?”
“There are two souls hanging upon each breath he draws,” said the monk softly.
“It’s still murder if he dies now,” Marian whispered, staring at the corpselike body breathing laboriously in the bed.
“Aye.” The monk sighed. “But if he dies now, perhaps he’ll go with the prayers of the one who killed him.”
Marian’s eyes burned, and she wished she could turn away, but there was nothing in the room to look at, nowhere to rest her blurring eyes except for the man she’d shot and the monk standing vigil as he died.
“Do you think it makes a difference?” Her voice was small, and she knew she was speaking sacrilege, but some part of her knew the monk would not take offense. Or, perhaps, she didn’t care.
The monk considered her question, his eyes resting on the still form of the wounded guard. “Would it make a difference if it were you?”
Marian, too, watched the wounded man. Tom, she reminded herself. Not “the guard” or “the injured lad.” Tom.