Excerpt from Wine of Violence by Priscilla Royal, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Brother! Brother!" she cried. "I must tell you one thing more!"

She stretched out her hand, struggling to grasp him, reaching for the crude wooden cross he wore on a thin leather strap around his neck.

But something seemed to hold her back; some black force scrabbled to keep her soul from deliverance.

The priest had not heard her cry. He did not see her fighting to reach him.

She must tell him. She must! After all her years devoted to God, Satan should not win her soul over such a misunderstanding, a judgement she'd made with imperfect knowledge and mortal blindness. An innocent person would be hurt, even die, if she did not. She could not have that fouling her conscience.

She fought harder to reach her confessor, twisting, crying, moaning for help.

Suddenly a hand materialized from the tapestry. It grasped the old prioress firmly and pulled her back to the ground. It was a woman's hand, and the touch was warm.

The old prioress looked up and saw St. Mary Magdalene smiling.

"Tell me, my child," the saintly voice said. "I will tell Our Lord." She gestured to the glowing man at whose feet she sat. "And He will forgive all as He always has."

The old prioress wanted to weep for joy.

"Please tell him that I accused wrongly. It was not the one we feared, but rather the other!" she gasped.

And with that, the world turned black.

II

His heart pounded. His lungs hurt as he gulped cold ocean air through his open and toothless mouth. Stinging sweat trickled down his reddened, unevenly shaven face, and Brother Rupert rubbed the sleeve of his rough robe across his age-dulled eyes.

Once he could have walked the familiar path between town and priory with ease. Now his legs ached with the effort of climbing and he had to will himself to the top of the sandy, scrub-grass covered hill.

"I'm getting old. I am getting old," he muttered, as the moist wind stabbed each one of his joints.

At the hilltop, he stopped to rest and looked back into the distance. The morning sun of early spring had burned off the thickest fog, but the walls of Tyndal Priory, a double house of priests and nuns in the French Order of Fontevraud, were mere shadows in the drifting haze.

It didn't matter. He could have shut his eyes and seen each stone of every building clearly. Since the winter of 1236, when Eleanor of Provence had come to England as the now aging King Henry's wife, Brother Rupert had been chaplain, scribe, and administrating secretary to the recently deceased Felicia, Prioress of Tyndal. He had lived at the priory long before that, however, indeed from a day in his thirteenth summer when his rich merchant father proudly dedicated him to this woman-ruled Order so favored by kings, queens, and other elite of the realm. His father might have given him to the religious life as an oblate, but the boy came as a willing and eager offering. The monastic walls provided a secure refuge from a world he found frightening, a world filled with violence and lust.

Suddenly his eyes overflowed with tears, and he wiped his gnarled fingers across them hurriedly. "Ah, but I loved you, I did, and I miss you," he said, watching as a swirling gust of mist seemed to lift his words into the sky and scatter them. "And for the sake of all our souls I will put the matter right, my lady. I promise you that."

His words were fervent with an almost prayerful intensity.

Then he sighed, stretched the stiffness from his legs and started down the hill, tentatively at first, unsure in his footing. Once protected from the sea breeze, he could feel the warmth of the sun, and his steps quickened.

His mood improved and he smiled. Indeed, in the warmth he now felt he could almost sense that the eyes of God were upon him.

Copyright Priscilla Royal 2003. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press.