Works/The Tale of the Defiled Convent

The fair Lydia! How could he have let her be spirited away? Sir Robert spurred his horse once again, with unusual roughness.

The ceremony had been at fault, he told himself. All the pomp and fuss and confusion ... although, he had to admit, he had enjoyed the attention paid those newly initiated into Her Majesty's knightly order. Some of the private ceremonies, he reflected, had been rather distracting.

Robert shook his head, as if to clear it, and focused on following the washed-out spoor before him. There were reasons why no other horses had passed here in weeks, save himself and the hoofprints he tracked.

As a child, Robert had seen the body of a man pulled from the bog, pushed gradually to its edges by the flow of mud-sand. The corpse had been intact, perfectly preserved. The skin had been stained brown-black, but the body was easily identified. Missing for twenty years.

Robert shuddered and concentrated on the trail. Where one horse had journeyed, another could follow. If he chased a mortal horse. He would not call himself a superstitious man, but the bog frayed his nerves.

Nearly two days. Two days since his Lydia, his betrothed, had been carried away. "A dark rider" had been the limited word of the ostler's son, sole witness to the abduction. Two days, and some of that lost to their incompetence. Scar their backsides, why hadn't they told him sooner?

But his horse was reckoned one of the finest in the North Country. By the end of a long night's travel, he and his mount had both been near exhaustion, but Robert reckoned he had reached the bogs in good enough time to catch his quarry encamped. To his surprise, there were no signs of anyone having made camp at all, only a trail into the mire.

Now dawn had long since risen. He chose his steps with care, with the pace of a slug, and cursed the mud, the weather, and his quarry. But there - ahead he sighted the edge of the bog. A stand of elms, the fresh beginnings of the road rudely interrupted. And the smell of smoke from a newly extinguished campfire.

Robert dismounted silently and crept around the small grove, peering between trees. He saw the back of a tall, thin figure, in a black cloak, wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a black headcloth beneath. The somber creature was leaning over a sleek mare, adjusting the saddle.

He drew his sword and approached from behind. He swung with a force and an aim as if to behead his opponent - but some hidden sensibility intervened, and he turned the flat of his blade, smiting his enemy with considerable weight upon the temple. His enemy cried out - a single high noise - and fell to the ground by the horse's hooves, unconscious.

That was perhaps a bit too simple, Robert thought. Suspecting deceit, he prepared to prod his foe with his sword point - but now, over the mare's back, he could see the embers of the camp fire, and his Lydia lying beside them.

He ran to her in grave concern, but saw immediately that she was merely in the last stages of sleep. Drugged, no doubt, as there were no other signs of her duress, no chains or bonds, no marks evident on her smooth fair skin. As he was preparing to wake her, Lydia opened her eyes. They widened.

"Robert?" she exclaimed. "Here?"

"Surely you didn't think I would be so cruel as to leave you to be carried away?" replied Robert, taken aback. "I should hope you would think better of me."

"Oh, no!" She quickly sent all traces of her prior expression from her face. "My ... I am overjoyed, m'lord. I had, er, merely lost hope that anyone could follow where we had gone."

"No chase is beyond hope, my fair. But, by your leave, let me fetch my steed and we can be away from this place."

"By all means," Lydia said, and rose, presumably to collect herself, while Robert left the clearing. He took his stallion's bridle in hand and walked the horse the few feet back to the campsite.

As he reentered the clearing, a heavy object of some sort hit him from behind, across the nape of his neck. He had no time for even a cry before darkness claimed him.

Robert woke with a painful lump at the base of his skull, but otherwise remarkably intact. His sword and his small money pouch were still present; perhaps more surprisingly, someone had secured his horse by the reins to a low branch. So whatever this abductor might be, he was no thief. Robert found that scant consolation, since mare, abductor and Lydia alike had long since gone - and the road left little trace of their passage.

Robert rubbed the back of his head and pondered. Truth be told, returning home was beginning to look more attractive. He had no way of knowing how long he had been unconscious, nor how far up the road his quarry now was. It was a good road - even a modest horse could make excellent time upon it, and that mare had been a fine mount. Nor had Lydia's reaction been quite as expected, which still puzzled him.

Nonetheless, was he not Sir Robert, lately knighted and in Her Majesty's favor? He was less loath to face the uncertain road than the jeers of his elder knights - bolstered old sots, he mused - in whose company he had passed the better part of the last fortnight.

Robert seemed to recall there was a small hamlet ahead, with a decent inn. His mount needed food; he also. A decision would wait until then. A few tankards, he reflected, would also not be amiss.

At the inn, ale in one hand, cold roast meat in a fresh roll in the other - beneath some of his fellow knights' contempt, he reflected, but good simple food for all that - his purpose was unexpectedly renewed.

"Aye, tha passed here early morn'," said the innkeeper's kitchen lad, in his heavy North Country speech.

"There, see, m'lord? I could've wagered you on't," said the innkeeper. "Tom here misses nothing. That'll be all, Tom. Good lad."

"Hours ago," said Robert, mostly to himself. "If only I had some idea where they were bound."

"Beg yr' pardon," creaked an old gentleman in a kilt - fourscore years old if he was a day. Leaning heavily on a shepherd's crook taller than himself, he moved slowly to the table where Robert and the innkeeper sat. "Did I hear ye to say tha rider were all in black, wi' a duster to th' shanks and a wide-like hat with a black sward behind?"

Robert blinked in astonishment, but the innkeeper seemed to take the old fellow seriously indeed. "That I did, sir. Is that worthwhile news to you?"

"Aye," the elder replied. "Yr' lady is aboot for the auld convent. And yr' rider's a lass."

"I beg your pardon?" Robert exclaimed.

"I feared as much," the innkeeper said. "You think it's so, Angus? It's been years."

The old man shrugged and crept to a table in the corner. "It's the garb, aye."

"Please explain," said Robert, mustering his patience.

"Long years ago," said the innkeeper, "five, six leagues from here, in the hills, there was a convent. St. Catherine's was it, Angus?"

"Aye," mumbled the elder around his tankard.

"Just so. St. Catherine's. Eventually, for whate'er reason, the holy sisters abandoned it, and the convent sat empty. Then, hrm, twenty years gone now, people began seeing lights in the convent. Now and again some of the occupants could be seen. They wore dark robes and wide hats, as Angus says. Frankly, the sisters had always kept to themselves, so the towns nearby assumed the nuns had just decided to come back."

"I take it they hadn't."

"Well, you judge, m'lord. Not long after that, women from towns around the hills began to disappear. Young and old alike - lasses on the first flush of maidenhood, crones long into their autumn, and some in between. Not many but enough. Soon the citizenry drew its conclusions and we went to the convent."

"With what intention?"

"To find out their intentions, I suppose. Och, I imagine we must have looked like we were out for blood. I was young then; Angus could say better. We had torches and pitchforks and the like. We were a wee bit crazed, you could say."

Robert looked to Angus, who seemed to have no comment.

"Well, the place looked unguarded, and the doors to the outer yard weren't even shut. Remember, Angus?"

"Aye. No one t'be seen."

"But as soon as the first men crossed into the courtyard, they clutched their hearts and fell dead!"

"What? Dead? Now surely .... You're having your fun with me," Robert concluded.

"I wish I was, m'lord. I do wish I was. But it's so. Eventually a lass of our town stepped up. She was a brave one. Rash, some said."

"She were a wild lass," Angus muttered.

"She would not be stayed. She walked into the courtyard and crossed right into the convent proper. Like nothing the matter. But when the next gent followed after her, thinking whate'er was there had been lifted -"

"- he dropped dead," Robert finished.

"And the lass ne'er came out. Her love watched there for days, in the wind and cold. Finally he came home."

"Aye, and crawled in a cask," exclaimed Angus sharply.

"I'm sorry, Angus," said the innkeeper. "You know it had to be said."

Angus stood up with some difficulty and leaned heavily on his staff. "Aye, so it did. But mark me, y'lordship. Yr' lassie'll ne'er be seen again, nor mine was!" He staggered out the open front door and wandered slowly down the roadway.

Robert rested his head slowly in his hands and closed his eyes, the base of his skull throbbing.

"Hist."

Robert fidgeted on the rough bedding and made a low noise.

"Hist!"

He woke with a start and sat upright. Standing before the window, blotting the moonlight, an indistinct shadow with a whisper for a voice.

"Show yourself," demanded Robert, placing his feet on the cold floor.

"A step closer and I vanish forever," breathed the figure. "Do you love your lady?"

"I - what? - of course! More than life itself."

"Very touching. But do you really? What would you do to get her back?"

"Ah, at last. Common ransom!" snorted Robert. "I suspected all along that the innkeeper's fairy stories were so much ale and wind. All right, out with it."

"I didn't say, 'What would you give,'" the figure hissed. "I said 'What would you do?' I am hardly interested in your gold. You yourself interest me only slightly more. But even so. Answer the question, I pray you."

"Anything!" Robert said. "I will pursue her to the ends of the earth!"

"No doubt. And a more misguided notion was never heard. Here." The figure tossed a wineskin to Robert. "Drink that, and you will be able to pursue your lady. Although whether you find her is not mine to say."

"Indeed?" Robert asked, casting a doubtful eye upon the container. "And who is to say whether this is some poison or other doubtful concoction?"

"Sir Robert, late of the queen's favor by proxy," the figure said. Robert heard amusement. "If I wanted to kill you would I not have done so while you slept here, drunken and exhausted beyond rouse? Do you know how much noise I had to make before you would return from the arms of Morpheus? But indeed you have cause to be wary: That potion is not without consequence."

"Said consequence being?"

"Sir Robert, oh, Sir Robert. Your brain is not at its most alert as of yet, I'm afraid. Only women may enter the convent. You, in order to enter the convent, must be a woman. That seems simple enough, does it not?"

There came a knock on the door. "M'lord, is all well?"

Robert turned, startled again by the event. "Er. Yes. I fancy I was talking while asleep," he said to the innkeeper, raising his voice to carry through the closed door. "My pardon to the house."

When he turned again, the figure was gone.

Robert hurled the wineskin at the window. It missed its target, landing on the floor just below instead. He made an angry noise, lay back upon the bed, and pulled the coverlet above his head.

Come the dawn, when Robert awoke with weary eyes, he intended to discard the wineskin, but instead picked it up and tucked it into his belt, surprising himself.

He again surprised himself, when, almost as a sleepwalker, he realized he was riding not toward his home and stead, but the opposite way, up into the hills.

He paused on horseback to reflect. He had no wish to be female. He had no faith in this concoction. There would be other women. This was a crusade without purpose. Why was he here?

He turned his horse and set off at a run in a homeward direction, as if to make up lost ground. Not ten minutes later he had slowed his horse to a walk, bothered vaguely by something he could not place, as of an insect buzzing around him. He turned the horse again. Then stopped himself.

He was not under geas; he was certain of it. No one was guiding his actions. And yet ... and yet ....

Robert allowed whatever was at the back of his mind to have rein, and continued on his original path, into the hills.

Six leagues was no great distance on horseback - a trifle - yet the hill territory was rough going, and Robert let his stallion have its head and proceed apace. The sun had passed its apex when Robert first caught sight of the convent.

An ominous structure, a small castle really, of dark gray-brown stone. Its placement at the hillside made it appear as if the convent had one day been thrust whole from the hill, an outcropping of rock forced out by the movements of the earth.

As Robert approached it, he became even more unnerved by its appearance. The stone bore no quarry marks, no sign a chisel had ever touched its surface. No blocks. No seams. Robert found himself believing his own fancy.

The inner keep was approached through a high-walled courtyard, just as in the innkeeper's tale, and as in the tale the gates stood ajar, the yard empty. Robert half thought to see skeletons upon the ground.

He dismounted. He hated to lose his stallion, but he would not condemn it to starve. He unsaddled, removed the bridle and reins. Robert knew the horse would remain until hunger overruled training, which, given the grazing, should at least stand him the night. Robert piled the tack by the courtyard wall, hoping for dry weather in the interim.

He unplugged the wineskin and drank a sip tremulously, fearing a vile flavor. To his surprise it tasted only of wine - rather bitter, but wine nonetheless. He downed it with a will.

He soon came to realize that it must have been strong wine indeed - for he felt its power more than all the many tankards of ale he had imbibed the previous night. He quickly achieved the state where standing upright was inadvisable, and sat down to prevent the earth from reaching up to trip him.

He lay full upon the ground, as the sky spun above him. He felt the pores of his skin open wide to admit the wind, and felt his flesh squirm liquidly about his bones. He felt his scalp tingle, as if his hair were expanding across the earth like creeping vines. He felt as if the entire vista was shifting and sliding, minutely adjusting itself in myriad ways.

Then he felt nothing, save joyous slumber.

Robert's first sensation was that she must have been lying in the rain; her leathers had shrunk. The jerkin felt tight below her arms and across her chest, and her riding breeches were constricting her hips unbearably.

Then she sat up and saw it was an issue of anatomy. She might well have been poured into the jerkin. With the generous measure of bust she saw before her, she would almost certainly have to cut herself out of it. She sighed. Her horse had left or been taken while she slept, the pile of tack was gone, and now her leathers - a costly expedition. Reaching for her knife, she reflected that at least her personals remained - particularly her sword.

She stood up, stepping out of her now-overlarge boots, aware in an unexpected way of her changed balance. Sawing at the armholes of the jerkin, she cut it open and shucked it over her head, disentangling it from her long hair .... I wonder what I look like? she thought. Do I want to know?

Then she cut loose her breeches. They were for riding, not battle, and had only extended to the knee; below that she wore hose, which, she realized, it was rather foolish to try to preserve without footwear. Better to remove them now and have them intact for later.

She tugged the hose down about her hips, and stopped. Of course she had known what she would find or not find there, but the sensation was nonetheless unnerving. She rubbed her now-smaller hand over the thatch of tiny black curls and put that and other thoughts from her head.

Rebelting her tunic, which fortunately hung low enough below the waist for some semblance of modesty, she reflected that her disguise could not be more complete. A barefoot woman, clad only in a belted shirt, with no sign of wealth or stature save a sword of some value, which now bounced on her hip in an entirely annoying way.

She kicked at the pile of cut-up leathers in a disgruntled manner, and stepped experimentally into the convent yard. Nothing happened. Half-expecting some bolt from the blue to strike her, she hurried across and entered the darkened doorway of the inner keep.

The long hall which lay before her was as dark as the promise of the doorway. She drew her sword - heavier now - and proceeded into it, step by careful step, as if expecting the floor to give way at any moment.

She heard a high giggle, and spun quickly, which made the person giggle all the more. As Robert's eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw an alcove to one side, just big enough for a large ornate wooden chair, in which sat a young woman, quite amused.

"Good even to you," said the young woman in a soft voice, collecting her composure. She had yellow-white hair, the color and texture of cornsilk, and pale, almost colorless blue eyes. "Sheathe you your weapon. There is nothing here which bears any violence to your person."

"I ... I would as lief continue to bear it. I mistrust this place." Robert nearly startled at the sound of her own voice - so unlike before!

"O, as do all," said the maid, stepping down from the chair. "But one learns otherwise. Such blessings! Two newcomers in the span of only days!" She hooked an arm around one of Robert's, ignoring that it still clutched a sword. "Now, you've surely been travelling, you'll be wanting a bath. Have you e'er had a bath?"

"Of course," Robert said, giving the cornsilk maid an aggrieved look. "But I am merely seeking someone. I do not care to stay."

"All who come here are 'seeking someone.' Look, outside - the dusk is upon us. Whether you care to stay or not, surely you grant that travel through the hills by night is treacherous. A bath, a good meal, then pursue whate'er you feel you might be pursuing. On the morrow." Without another word she swept off at a brisk pace, nearly dragging Robert behind her.

"You fail to understand -" Robert attempted to say, as she was swept down various twists and turns of hallway, an impossible distance it seemed. Her companion merely smiled and continued on, finally stopping at a series of fanciful Moorish arches, some with open latticework of dark woods between them, some walled. A maze of sorts.

"What is this place?" Robert inquired, for the moment distracted by the change of venue.

"The baths," her guide said, her voice muffled as she tugged her dress over her head. She wore nothing else. Robert stared, agape.

"Come, come, silly," the woman said, brushing hair from her eyes. "You can't bathe in your tunic." She reached to Robert's waist and began to unbuckle her belt. Robert slapped her hands away.

The guide stepped back. "As you will, then," she said with a sniff. "I am going to bathe. The day has been long and little breeze passes through the entry hall. Join me or not; it is is of little heed to me." She walked around the next corner and was gone.

Robert dashed out into the hall. Success! Free to find her ... his! ... betrothed and escape from this place. She dashed down the dim hallway for some distance before realizing - with a halt - that she had no idea where to begin.

She opened the nearest door. It was twice her height, oak banded with iron, and pulled as if it had not opened in years. On the far side was another length of hall.

A dark, cavernous hall as forbidding and featureless as the first. She walked down its length, with trepidation, till the first door she passed, which she tugged open with even more difficulty than the first. She peered around its edge to find ... another dark hall.

She supported herself against one wall, feeling suddenly as if she might collapse. If she managed to thread this unholy maze, what would she have gained? Perhaps she could find Lydia - but what then? Far better, she reflected, to retreat to the baths and obtain what she sought through cooperation, requests, and guile.

She sheathed her sword, which she had been holding absently the entire time; her arm felt stiff. She walked dejectedly to the baths, retracing her route with little difficulty, since the doors she had chosen were the only ones ajar. Upon reaching the Moorish maze, she rounded the corner she had seen her cornsilk guide take - and found herself completely taken aback.

She stood at the entrance to a large square room, with a high vaulted ceiling, the apex invisible in the soft light from braziers around the room's edges. The greater portion of the room's floor was occupied by a recessed pool of dark, visibly steaming water - and that pool in turn was occupied by a score of women, all comely, all in complete undress. Some sat on an inner rim of the pool, a seat of sorts below water level; some were clearly standing upright, the pool being not so deep as to prohibit this. Scattered on the floor around the pool Robert saw various garments, personals, and the like.

As the women turned to see who had entered, Robert felt her blushes - but felt also a heat from below, one which made her face burn all the more hotly for the realization of it.

Her cornsilk guide stepped from the pool, dripping. "You've returned! Fair sight indeed - you blush prettily - but nonetheless you still must unclothe. May I?" She reached again for the buckle of Robert's belt and Robert said nothing, save to incline her eyes to the ground in embarrassment.

"We bathe in the manner of Cathay here," the woman explained, leading the now-naked Robert to a shallow circular pit with a drain hole. "Before you may enter the bath, you must wash."

Filling a wooden bucket with hot water from the large pool, she poured it over Robert's head. Robert made a noise and the woman smiled. "Quick, before you freeze. Soap yourself." She held out a square wooden vessel containing soft gelatinous brown soap. Robert took a handful and began to rub her body to a lather. She had forgotten herself by the point when she soaped her breasts; the motions and sensations of cleaning herself were so natural that she near jumped from the pit when her fingers found her nipples, large and unfamiliar. She rubbed the undersurfaces of her breasts slowly, savoring the slipperiness of the soap against the soft skin. She closed her eyes and reached to squeeze one nipple. Then she heard a soft, choked giggle.

She opened her eyes and saw her guide, fist pressed against her mouth in an effort to avoid open laughter, and knew she would blush again. "No, no, prithee, pay me no mind," her guide said hastily, seeing her expression.

Robert sighed. "If you are to be my tormentor, fair-hair, then at the least I should know your name."

"And I as like," the cornsilk lass agreed. "I am called Naomi. Now you yours; fair's fair. Don't forget to wash between your legs," she giggled.

A name? What name should she give? "My name is Rosemary," Robert said, attempting to sound convincing. She reached between her legs, feeling the soft hot folds - and drew her hand away as if burned. She looked up, but Naomi was busy filling the bucket again.

"Rosemary is it, then?" Naomi said, returning. "Well met. Close your eyes -" and again Robert was doused.

Robert blinked and shook water from her hair. Naomi was already reentering the bath. Robert put one foot in the water experimentally. "Oh, it's hot!" she said. The other women giggled. "One grows accustomed to it," a red-headed lass said. "Come, sit," said another, "you'll see." She gestured to an open spot on the seat beside her.

Robert tried in vain to not stare at the fair flesh and water around her. She felt all eyes upon her, assessing her - as she had felt standing before the Queen's council awaiting the judgement of knighthood - an experience which felt oddly distant, for all of having happened less than a week before. She cast her eyes down and sat in the proffered space.

The woman who had beckoned moved in close to her, hip against hip below the water, and Naomi took the opposite side. Placing an arm around her shoulders in a gesture as much possessive as comradely, Naomi said to all, "This is Rosemary. She is newly arrived and we should make her welcome."

Robert opened her mouth to protest, although unsure what protest that would be. She was saved from resolution by Naomi's kiss - a forceful meeting of lips, Robert's head swept back and Naomi's tongue crossing her lips and teeth teasingly.

Naomi sat back and smiled broadly. "Who shall be next?"

"I," said the redhead, standing before Robert. She embraced Robert and pulled her forward into the kiss, rubbing Robert's lips with hers for an instant before meeting them.

Robert then had scarcely time to breathe, as each woman in turn welcomed her with a resounding kiss. A part of Robert's mind protested vigorously, but the forefront part merely marvelled that there could be so many tastes, so many ways to perform the same simple act.

A flask was passed around, drunk from directly - a white wine, Robert thought, taking a large and unthinking draught. The women had contrived to chill it by placing it in one of the wash buckets, which they had filled with fragments of ice. Robert wondered where ice had been obtained, but there were too many mysteries to consider at once.

The water was soothing and the wine muddling, and Robert found herself lying with head leaned back, feeling the relative cool of the stone floor outside the bath against it, while conversation passed around her like flying, droning insects. Some of the conversation seemed to be about her - Naomi seemed to be arguing with some of the other women about her - but no matter. Then she became aware the bath was emptying, and that someone had called the name "Rosemary" several times. She focused.

She sat alone in the bath. All the other women were drying themselves, using large soft cloths, or dressing. Naomi leaned above her, outside the pool. "Rosemary! Collect your wits, aye? It's time to eat."

Robert hurriedly climbed from the bath, accepting a drying cloth from Naomi. "I'm sorry. The water was so good, and I was - adrift ...."

"We said you'd grow accustomed to it," giggled Naomi. "Here, put this on. Your tunic was filthy." Naomi handed her a simple dress, of the same kind she herself wore, with neither lacings, buttons, nor stays.

"When the sun sets," Naomi explained as they proceeded further into the maze of arches, "the working day is ended. We bathe if we care to - or merely wash - then we all sup together. Beyond that the evening is ours."

"But what do you do here? What do you eat? You don't buy or sell food from anyone. Surely these rocky hills can't grow all you need."

Naomi smiled. "Too many questions to answer before supper. Here we are." They turned another corner and Robert gasped.

There were far more women in the vast dining hall than the score from the bath. Belatedly, Robert realized that had she been thinking clearly, she might have guessed this. There were easily two hundred here, all female. Robert searched the laughing, chattering faces, hoping.

There! By the far wall. Lydia! Breaking bread, talking in a lively way with the women adjacent, laughing at some joke unheard -

"Do you see someone you know?" Naomi asked, jolting Robert back.

"Er, perhaps. Time enough to discover later," Robert replied hastily. Robert had no desire to endanger Naomi's good will - after all, she told herself, she might need Naomi's assistance later, and at any rate Lydia appeared not to be in discomfort or duress. Far from it.

They sat in the first two adjacent seats that Naomi saw. Dinner was enjoyable, perhaps too much so; Robert found herself forgetting deeper concerns and abandoning herself to the flow of conversation around her. The fare was simple and plentiful; Robert would not have been able to recall what she ate.

Dinner concluded, everyone moved their separate ways at once, creating some congestion in the dining hall. Robert tried in vain to make her way over to the side of the room where Lydia sat. She found herself swept forward in a tide of women headed for a common exit, but at least by that method she was able to keep Lydia in sight. Lydia seemed to have but a single companion now; she and this other woman were engaged in some deeply felt conversation as they walked. They did not note Robert behind them, even as the crowd gradually thinned. In fact, they did not even note Robert when they entered a room together, closing the door loudly just as Robert approached it.

Robert pondered her actions. Should she enter? Wait to see if they would emerge? Knock? Mark the location well, and try later? Curl up on the floor in despair?

"There you are at last!" Naomi exclaimed. "I feared you had gotten lost. And fortuitous your path - the bedstead is but a few doors away."

"The bedstead?" Robert asked.

"Well, you have no room of your own yet, so you must pass the night with someone else. Come along." Naomi took her by the arm again and led her a short distance down the hall, opening another of the identical doors to reveal a small, dark room.

"A moment," Naomi said, and began to light candles. Robert heard no strike of tinder, but was inclined to distrust her senses; they were quite overwhelmed.

The room had a small doorless armoire with a few sets of nearly identical clothing; a high shelf on one wall bearing a few books, some miscellaneous boxes and containers; a small table with a chair, which was clearly being used as a writing-desk - and the bedstead. The bedstead held three feather beds, stacking a good two feet up from the frame; it had feather pillows as well, and the canopy hangings were rich cloth. The room would have been monastic, Robert reflected, were it not for the bedstead - a bed not out of place in a nobleman's chambers.

"Woolgathering again, are you?" Naomi stood unclothed, tossing her dress over the chair. "These rooms are quite cold, save for the beds," she said, smiling, and henceforth proceeded to climb in, sinking into the beds deeply and pulling up the blankets.

Robert blinked. Were she to enter the bed ... were she to not enter the bed ... she gave up with a sigh. She slipped her dress over her head and clambered in next to Naomi.

"Ah," Naomi breathed, pressing her body against Robert's. "See? Much warmer." Naomi's mouth found Robert's, and her tongue again tickled Robert's teeth. Robert felt Naomi's hand on her breast, felt Naomi's fingers pinch her nipple lightly. Robert inhaled sharply.

"Naomi," she stammered, unexpectedly unsure of herself, "I don't ... that is, I mean that I haven't -"

"Oh, I know that," Naomi interjected. "D'you think I'm simple? It was plain for anyone to see that you'd never lain with another lass before."

"That's not quite what I mean -" but Naomi had placed her mouth on Robert's nipple and was wetting it warmly with her tongue, lapping it like a cat drinking water. Robert lost whatever words she had planned.

Naomi's hand crept along the inside of Robert's thigh, fingers making a space to slide between Robert's legs. She found the hot folds of Robert's new private places, and pressed one finger firmly against the small, swollen bump at the uppermost extreme. Robert felt that she dared not make a sound.

"You'll like this," Naomi whispered, and rolled her finger over and around this strange swollen place, teasing it, pushing it back and forth in all directions. Robert shook at the immediate rush of sensation.

Naomi lowered her head below the blankets. With her other hand, she inserted a finger deeply into the hole Robert had been frightened to explore when washing. To Robert's surprise, once this was done it caused her very little sensation, but the combination of that presence with the repeated rubbing and play on the swollen spot made her gasp for air. She felt the muscles in her legs and back tense and release, under no control from her.

Naomi placed her mouth on Robert's nipple again, and to her own surprise Robert realized the noise she heard was coming from herself. A low, persistent, feminine moan, growing louder and higher as Naomi would - not - cease - her wonderful torment.

Naomi giggled a little, muted beneath the blanket, and moved her mouth to Robert's other nipple, increasing the speed of her teasing fingers below. Robert made a high cry, feeling a sensation familiar to her - the sensation of a climax about to crest - but feeling it everywhere, over the entire surface of her skin, as if her whole body were about to scream for the sheer delight of it.

As it happened, though, only her mouth screamed, and not for long, for she thrust her fist into it in dismay even as she thrashed out the waves of her climax, wriggling in the soft bedclothes.

Naomi suppressed a giggle. She had surfaced and was watching Robert with evident satisfaction. "I daresay you'll be a well-sought-after newcomer," she said, "if you continue in that way."

Robert woke in darkness. She felt Naomi's form beside her, snoring gently. How long had she been asleep? She remembered Naomi doing wonderful things - had there been more? Did it matter? When did the candles go out?

Robert's eyes seemed adjusted enough to the dark. She moved carefully, so as not to wake her bedmate, and pulled a dress from the chair back as she passed. She reached the hall and closed the door without detection, and pulled the dress over her head. She had taken the wrong one - Naomi was shorter than she and had worn a shorter hem; the dress was quite indiscreet. Fortunately it was sleeveless, and the bust, though tight, was adequate. She walked as softly as possible to the door where she had last seen Lydia.

She opened the door as slowly and as narrowly as she could, just enough to peek in. The room was too dark to see within. She opened the door a bit more and stole in. Approaching the bedstead, she could see a single figure in it. But was it Lydia? She drew closer.

It was indeed Lydia. She was lying, asleep, wearing a beatific smile, a smile of absolute peace and comfort. Robert sighed. Even lacking a mirror, she knew that smile. She sat on the bed. "Lydia."

"Hmrm?" Lydia sat up, rubbing her eyes, then startled. "Is ... is there some assistance I can offer? What is the cause of this intrusion?"

"Were I male," Robert said glumly, "you would be shouting to wake the whole household now."

"Were you male," Lydia retorted, "you would not be here sitting on my bed."

"Not so," said Robert. "I am Sir Robert, your betrothed, here before you transformed." She sighed. "Here to rescue you from supposed kidnap."

"Robert?" Lydia exclaimed. She studied the figure before her intently, then laughed loud. "Wonderful! The form suits you. And the skirt! Come, sit, permit me to touch those lovely legs you display to the world."

Robert felt her face warm again, as much in anger as shame. "Lydia! You are unseemly."

"Unseemly? Fie on you. You creep into my bedchamber in dead of night, dressed this way - what conclusions should I reach?" Lydia laughed again. "Do you not desire your skin to be touched, the feel of fingertips" - here she reached out to caress the standing woman - "along your legs?"

Robert pulled away. "I beg your pardon, miss. Clearly I have mistaken you for another. You can hardly be the Lydia I have sought." She turned away, for the door.

"I see then that you have no more love of the flesh as a woman than as a man," Lydia said, all amusement gone from her tone.

Robert spun. "I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, Robert. Sit, I beg you," said Lydia. "You baffle me, sir. Ne'er once did you lay so much as a wandering eye upon my form. Why was I your betrothed, Robert? What did you hope to gain? I bring little enough dowry - naught, compared to what you have already. I do not believe you desire me. Yet you follow me here, perform acts I should never have thought you capable of - and for what reason?"

Robert sat down on the bed. "You do me an injustice. To practice carnal union before we are wedded would be a sin against God, an unknightly deed. Unworthy."

"Pfaugh," Lydia replied. "You believe that? Your council of old, besotted knights - think you they do no wenching? Which is the greater sin, to couple before wedlock or to be an adulterer afterward? How felt you about receiving the Queen's favor, eh?" She grinned broadly.

Robert cast her eyes down. "You weren't meant to know of that. I was not given a choice."

Lydia reached out to Robert where she sat. "Robert - my betrothed - you fail to take my point. I do not disapprove. I knew of the favor ritual, oh, ages ago. I spoke to the Queen's proxy the night before, and wished her good grace. In truth, I hoped she might awaken your loins. Robert, had you lain with a woman e'er then?"

Robert shook her head.

"And, truth be told, had you desired to?"

Robert shook her head again, feeling the by-now-accustomed sensation of her face warming.

"You see. What future lay before me? An uncarnal, loveless union with a man who belies his own body and believes too readily the myths that others feed him?"

"That will do," said Robert, casting Lydia's hand away and rising from the bedstead. "I am not so dull-witted as you think me. I had already gathered that you struck me over the head at the campsite, that your presence here was far from reluctant. I have learned my rote, at some cost, and will away from this place now."

Robert walked to the door, and pulled it open, looking backward to Lydia as she did so. In so doing, she proceeded headlong into a figure standing just beyond the doorway. She collected herself to apologize, and found herself staring.

The figure was tall, long and thin, and in the darkness Robert found she knew the outline. "It's you, then," Robert said. "I suspected you were to be found here somewhere. Am I now like this forever? Can I be changed back?"

Her nocturnal guest from the inn spoke aloud now, not in whispers, allowing Robert to discern that the voice was a female one - a soft, low voice, which seemed somehow to carry great force. "Of course," she said. "In fact, I anticipate you. Here is another to counter what you were given." She handed Robert a second wineskin, much like the first from the previous night.

"I seem to be anticipated at all turns," Robert replied. "I wonder then why you could not simply have told all at the inn."

"You would not have believed me. Nor would you have accepted your betrothed's word at the campsite. There was no other way."

"She is no longer my betrothed," Robert said, "and my good grace to her. Thank you for your lesson. It was hard learned." Robert walked down the hall sadly, without stopping to hear a reply.

"It was poorly learned," the tall woman said from behind, raising her voice slightly. "Poorly, yea, and incomplete besides."

Robert continued down the hall.

"You don't have to drink it, you know," shouted the tall woman.

Robert made her way in the dark, feeling oddly as if she knew the passages by heart, although she had encountered them just once before. She crossed the vast dining hall, frightening now in its empty rows of tables, as if waiting for ghosts to dine.

She returned gradually to the bath. Whatever infernal engine kept the water warm had been halted for the night; the braziers likewise were cold. In a far corner she spied her sword and other personals where Naomi had cast them. Forgotten. Perhaps justly so.

Forgotten. Everything she thought she once felt was distant and false. She was already having some difficulty thinking of herself as male, remembering what the body she had been born into felt like, and worse, she didn't want to remember.

But yet neither did she feel like she belonged here, among these carnal women with their simple joys. She would never belong here. Everyone would know her to be the woman who had forsaken maleness, the outsider without a place. Everyone would laugh into their hands at her.

And what would she do in the world outside? Bed with men, hairy men who made her old self look saintly? She opened the wineskin and lifted it almost to her lips. Then she threw it with all the force she could muster. She heard it hit the far wall, its stain invisible in the dark.

Quickly, quickly, without thought, she went to the pouch on her belt and found her knife. She slid its sharp edge down first one arm, then the other, not feeling the sting at all. She cast the knife, too, from her, and stepped, dress and all, into the cold waters. She shivered in the wet clothing, only warm where she bled.

After a short time, she closed her eyes.

Thus did the passing of Sir Robert defile the former convent of St. Catherine's, believed by many to have been defiled a quarter-century before.

But it was not the way of the convent to mourn its losses. Sir Robert's untimely death lingered longest in Lydia's memory, of all who had been affected ... and even then, scarcely a year had gone by before it cast not the slightest shadow in her mind.

And Sir Robert lies buried, deep beneath the hills into which the convent halls are dug, in a grave whose stone bears a woman's name.

Copyright © February 1999. Do not distribute or reproduce.