The Silver Rose Read Online Free PDF

life. But Marie Claire had managed to make the place her own, colorful braided rugs scattered over the rough stone floor, the shelves that should have held a peasant’s crockery laden with her books. A large cage occupied one corner of the room where her two pet ravens croaked and preened their glossy feathers.
    A cozy fire and a branch of candles did much to dispel the gloom of the day. Although the wind whistled and rattled the slate tiles of the roof, Miri felt safe and comforted, seated at Marie Claire’s small table near the hearth. Like Ariane, Marie Claire possessed a calming aura, although it still gave Miri a jolt to see the woman no longer wearing her habit.
    The absence of her flowing robes and wimple made Marie Claire seem somehow diminished, more vulnerable. Her advancing years were beginning to tell upon her, her soft white hair thinning, her posture a little bowed, but her countenance still bore those marks of strength that had made one exasperated bishop label her “far too willful for a nun.”
    As Marie Claire fetched a simple repast of bread and cheese from her cupboard, Miri regaled her with the grim happenings in the square that morning. Marie Claire listened gravely but an odd smile played about the woman’s mouth when Miri said, “. . . and those women were so angry, so beyond reason, especially Madame Alain. I have nothing like Ariane’s manner of authority. I have no idea how I persuaded them to relent.”
    “Don’t you?” Marie Claire threw her a fond glance. “It’s those fey eyes of yours, child. They shine a fierce light into the darkest corner of a person’s soul. Make one feel mighty ashamed, want to do better.”
    Miri shook her head at what she could only think of as pure nonsense. “However it happened, I was relieved to save Carole from a severe beating.” She added ruefully, “Although that was all I was able to do for her.”
    “Yes, she’s rather a belligerent little creature,” Marie Claire said as she carried the food over to the table.
    Miri eyed the amount of bread and cheese Marie Claire had heaped on her plate, doubting she could consume the half of it. She never seemed to have much appetite these days. But to please Marie Claire, she nibbled at a piece of bread.
    As Marie Claire filled two pewter cups with a robust red wine, she remarked, “I have warned Carole myself many times. She would do far better to remain quietly at home and mind that sharp tongue of hers.”
    “Is that what the daughters of the earth have come to on this island?” Miri asked sadly. “Living quietly, minding their tongues, trying to be invisible? You surprise me, Marie. That was never how you behaved.”
    “No and look where it got me.”
    “You now regret how you lived your life?”
    “A woman can’t get to be my age and not have some regrets, child.” Marie Claire sighed as she settled herself into the chair opposite Miri. “I fear I was always too strong-willed. First rebelling against my parents’ efforts to marry me off to some aristocratic dolt. Then as abbess, defying the archbishop, insisting on running St. Anne’s on my own terms, reading books the church had clearly forbidden. Am I sorry that I didn’t make more effort to curb my intellect, to be more meek and biddable?”
    Marie Claire’s mouth crooked in a wry smile. “No, not entirely, though I think I could have learned to be a trifle more—er, diplomatic and discreet. That is all that I tried to counsel Carole. That sometimes a little caution is best.”
    She trained her shrewd gaze upon Miri. “The same advice I would give to you, my Lady of the Wood.”
    Miri had raised her glass to take a sip, but she set it back down with a sharp click. “Oh, lord, you heard about that. You must have been speaking with Madame Greves.”
    “Madame Greves and quite a few others. You set most of the island abuzz when you brought the Pomfreys’ cow back to life.”
    “I did no such thing. The cow was indeed unconscious,