Merlin's Booke Read Free

Geoffrey opening the door startled the abbot, but Blaise, without further assurances, began his confession. His voice grew stronger as he talked.
    â€œIf this be a sin, I do heartily repent of it. It happened over thirty years ago but not a day goes by that I do not think on it and wonder if what I did then was right or wrong.
    â€œI was confessor to the King of Dayfed and his family, a living given to me as I was a child of that same king, though born on the wrong side of the blanket, my mother being a lesser woman of the queen’s.
    â€œI was contented at the king’s court for he was kind to all of his bastards, and we were legion. Of his own legal children, he had but two, a whining whey-faced son who even now sits on the throne no better man than he was a child, and a daughter of surpassing grace.”
    Blaise began to cough a bit and the abbot slipped a hand under his back to raise him to a more comfortable position. The sick man noticed Geoffrey at the desk in the far corner. “Are you writing all of this down?”
    â€œYes, brother.”
    â€œRead it to me. The last part of it.”
    â€œâ€¦ and a daughter of surprising grace.”
    â€œSurpassing. But never mind, it was surprising, too, given that her mother was such a shrew. No wonder the king, my father, turned to other women. But write it as you will, Geoffrey. The words can change as long as alteration does not alter the sense of it.”
    â€œYou may trust me, Brother Blaise.”
    â€œHe may—but I do not,” said the abbot. “Bring the desk closer to the bed. You will hear better—and have better light as well—and Blaise will not have to strain.”
    Geoffrey pushed the oak desk into the center of the room where he might closer attend the sick man’s words.
    When Geoffrey was ready, Blaise began again.
    â€œShe was his favorite, little Ellyne, with a slow smile and a mild disposition. Mild disposition? Yes, that was her outer face to the world. But she was also infernally stubborn about those things she held dear.
    â€œShe had been promised before birth to the Convent of St. Peter by her mother who had longed for a daughter after bearing the king an heir. All his by-blows had been boys, which made the queen’s desire for a daughter even greater.
    â€œWhen Ellyne was born, the queen repented of her promise at once, for the child was bright and fair. Rings and silver candlesticks and seven cups of beaten gold were sent to the church in her stead. The good sisters were well pleased and did not press for the child.
    â€œBut when Ellyne was old enough to speak her own mind, she determined that she would honor her mother’s promise. Despite the entreaties of her mother and father and the assurances of the abbess that she need not come, she would not be turned aside from her decision.
    â€œI was, at that time, her confessor as well as the king’s. At his request I added my pleas to theirs. I loved her as I loved no other, for she was a beautiful little thing, with a quick mind I feared would be dulled behind the convent walls. It was thought that she would listen to me, her ‘Bobba’ as she called me, sooner than to another. But the child shamed me, saying, ‘Can you, who has turned his life entirely toward God, ask me not to do the same?’ It was that question that convinced me that she was right for, you see, I was a priest by convenience and not conviction. Yet when she said it, she set me on the path by her side.
    â€œShe entered the convent the very next day.”
    Blaise paused, and the abbot moistened his mouth with a cloth dipped in a bowl of scented water that stood on the table. The scratch, scratch, scratch of Geoffrey’s pen continued into the silence.
    â€œShe was eight when she entered and eighteen when the thing came to pass that led me to Osney—and eventually to this room.”
    Abbot Walter moved closer to the bed.
    â€œI was in my