The Raven and the Rose Read Online Free PDF Page B

let this wit-addled old woman upset her. “Sister Wenna, let me take you to the infirmary. Sister Clarise has soothing drafts. . . .”
    â€œIt will soothe me only if you leave immediately.”
    â€œLeave Rosewell?”
    â€œAs if the thought has never crossed your mind. It calls you. Don’t deny it!”
    â€œWhat calls me?”
    â€œThe holy chalice.”
    â€œNonsense.”
    â€œVery well, the
tor
calls you. Deny that, if you dare.”
    Gledys longed to, but instead she turned as if pulled by ropes to the window that gave sight of the hilltop, where the Monastery of Saint Michael was gilded by the setting sun.
    â€œThat’s not peculiar,” she said from a dry throat. “It’s all I can see of Glastonbury, where Christ once walked.”
    â€œWhere legend says Joseph of Arimathea buried the holy chalice.”
    Gledys refused to respond.
    â€œLegend, as usual, is wrong.”
    â€œWrong?” Gledys turned, bitterly disappointed.
    â€œIt wasn’t buried; it was moved.”
    â€œMoved?” Gledys’s head was beginning to pound, but now she hoped Sister Elizabeth wouldn’t return yet. She had to know more. “Moved where?”
    â€œSomewhere beyond our earthly realm. All that questing and digging when no one will ever find it that way, and certainly no man. It can be summoned back to us only by a rare and blessed woman like you.”
    Gledys saw that tossed like bait, but she still snatched it. She couldn’t help herself. To be rare and blessed . . .
    Sister Wenna smirked.
    â€œA rare and blessed woman joined with her protector,” Sister Wenna said.
    â€œAnd if it does come?” Gledys asked, almost in a whisper. “What then?”
    â€œEvil is defeated, and peace reigns. For a while, at least, mankind being weak.”
    â€œPeace,” Gledys echoed, but then reality dropped back over her. “This is truly to be desired, but I am no such miracle worker, Sister. I’m a good and steady worker, but even there my mind wanders.”
    â€œOf course your mind wanders! You must have been feeling the summoning for years.”
    For years? Yes, perhaps that was true, and it had all become more urgent and disturbing recently.
    â€œIf I can help bring peace, why have you not come to me before? War has scourged England all my life.”
    â€œGaralarl lore has been lost or twisted since the Normans came, and those chosen to guide us have grown weak and indecisive. Families of the line no longer follow the ways, and pure sevenths are rare. It’s mere chance that you have been protected. Your family is sunk in ignorance. Which is an unlikely blessing, as it turns out. If they’d remembered the truth, they might have strangled you at birth.”
    Gledys gasped in disbelief, but Sister Wenna said, “The de Brescars are the type to see war as opportunity, not curse, but fortunately they saw advantage in the tradition of sending a seventh child into the Church. You were born just as war erupted, and they had no worldly need of another daughter, so why not? Perhaps your prayers would put them on the winning side.”
    Gledys wanted to deny that description of her family, but couldn’t. “They never ask me to pray for peace,” she admitted. “Only for victory against this enemy or that, along with requests for prayers for their own dead and maimed.”
    â€œBut you prayed for peace anyway.”
    â€œAlways.”
    Sister Wenna nodded. “As I said, sevenths have not been preserved, so there are few who are suitable, and it was necessary to wait for you to achieve womanhood.”
    â€œI became a woman three years ago,” Gledys pointed out. “Why wasn’t I called upon then?”
    Sister Wenna’s sunken eyes shifted. “Reasons,” she mumbled.
    Before Gledys could demand them, the nun said, “But now I have decided that the time for dithering