Free My Beloved by Karen Ranney

rarely noticed how the room had appeared the times he’d entered it. Her attention had been too distracted by the man.
    She stared down at the coffer in her hand. It was small enough to fit within her palm. A strange gift. He had remembered the recipe for her ink. She closed the silver box, held her fingers tight over it. Had he touched it? Was the warmth she felt in the metal from his fingers, or from the tightness of her own hold?
    Reluctantly, she returned to her work, placing the box in the corner, where she could readily see it. She worked through the midday meal, waving away Grazide when the maidservant would have coaxed her to the great hall. She was determined to finish the Q she had begun nearly a week ago.
    The room darkened as she worked, until she realized it was not a cloud over the sun that obscured her writing, but the fall of night. She laid the parchment page to the side so that it might dry completely and poured the ink she had not used into a small bowl. It had darkened too much to be of much use. Mixing ink was more complicated than simply pouring a few ingredients together. Gauging when the time was right to use it was just as important. A pale ink would fade too quickly; one too black would eat through the parchment itself.
    She closed the door to the oriel, was walking to her chamber when she heard Sebastian’s voice. Curious, she dropped her hand from her door and walked to the end of the passageway.
    She placed her palm against the iron-banded wood. The words seeped through the door and into her heart. They summoned her like a child’s weeping in the dark. Intellige clamoren meum . Know the cries I utter.
    She hooked her thumb in the latch, pushed upon the door. It swung open silently. Since it was so dark in the corridor there was no show of light to betray her presence.
    The door she opened was the family entrance to the chapel. She’d discovered it the first morning after her arrival at Langlinais. A carved wooden arch led to the altar, above it a large window shaped in the form of a flower, its petals crafted of opaque green glass, now black with night. Upon the white-draped altar sat two lit candles, but no chalice and plate. There were wall hangings depicting biblical scenes, a stone floor painted burgundy and strewn with rushes. But the four sets of benches that sat behind the altar in two rows were not adorned with cushions; nor was there any other sign of wealth.
    She moved into the room, pulled the door half-closed behind her. Four fluted pillars supported the roof, domed and strutted to support its pitch. She moved to one side, so that the column did not obstruct her view of the altar.
    Sebastian knelt there, head bowed. His words were repeated over and over. “ Sustinui qui simul contristaretur, et non fuit; consolantem me quaesivi et non inveni. Intellige clamoren meum .”
    She’d never heard of a prayer that beseeched as it demanded. I hoped that someone would weep with me, but there no one. I sought someone to comfort me, but found no one. Know the cries I utter .
    She should not be standing there listening to a man’s prayers. The thoughts of a soul verbalized. What she did was invasion of the greatest sort, an intrusion between God and supplicant. Yet, for a long moment she did not move, transfixed by the aura of grief and despair that permeated the room.
    For what did he pray?
    Her lips echoed the words of the Latin chant he spoke. Moments later, there was another sound, that of a fist striking wood. She jerked, startled. An oath, clear and pure as the morning call of a sparrow, echoed in the room set aside for worship. She clasped her hands together at her chin, her knuckles pressed against dry lips.
    A brave woman would go to him, kneel at his side. That woman might even ask him why he prayed the way he did, with entreaty and condemnation coming in one breath. She would place her own fingers against his lips or kneel beside him in anxious prayer in