Sir Christopher’s Quest
by Sandi Layne
Originally posted in 2008
Part the First
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The evil being – not a crone, no, but a lady of his own rank, by the holies! – tugged at the shortest chain. His armor shifted, a metallic sound that rattled the plates of steel against one another on the flared back of his cuirass. "You have betrayed those who love you," she hissed.
"I have betrayed no one!" Christopher protested, straining ineffectually against the chains that bound him. "I have fought for my king!"
"You're a faithless scoundrel and deserve to die for the pain you've caused," the woman declared, stepping away and raising both her hands to the low ceiling of the dank, candlelit cellar in his manor. "But not by me, for I have to be able to tell truth when I am asked if I have indeed spilt your blood, Sir Christopher."
She swept the candelabra into one hand and pulled the heavy oak door open with the other. "Where do you go?" he asked, his heart pounding with fear.
"Away. My carriage awaits without."
She had drugged him during the evening meal. Something, he imagined, in his wine. She must have had help to get him into his cuirass, though. He still wore the dark hose and codpiece he had donned before their meal, though she had taken his shoes.
He stared at her, furious, afraid as he had never been, but still uncomprehending. "Why?"
The superior, gleaming, vengeful smile disappeared. "You will have plenty of time to remember." After a moment, she put the candelabra on the stone floor and spoke with a whispery voice:
Until your heart remembers
Until your soul repents
You shall walk on embers
Eating your regrets.
So shall your spirit spend its time
Until all time is ended
Unless you can find one woman
Whose heart will break for you, unmended.
A virgin with no hope of more
Her tears must wet this stony floor
Else your soul wander forevermore.
Cursed you are, Sir Christopher!
While he blinked, tears in his eyes, she slammed the door behind her departure. Strangely, she left him the candles. They burnt out soon, and he lamented his fate in the dark. He was a long time dying.
~~~
Part the Second
He met other spirits in his travels. Though limited to the grounds of his ancient home, Chris did wander about, day and night, and he saw the others. Some were wicked souls, bent on harm when they could summon the energy. Others were gentle, seeking companionship. Still others did not seem to know they were dead at all.
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Times turned slowly...slowly... The little girl grew to be a singular young woman. A virgin -- he had developed, as it were, a nose for such things. Over the years, he had presented a friendly image of himself to her. He had been wandering, after all, for more than a century and he wished...oh, how he wished...to be free. To confess his sin and to be allowed to leave this place and find peace.
The girl, Penelope, had not run off as a little lass. As she grew, she would speak to him, keeping their times together secret. He was very careful not to intrude on her privacy, for he wanted her to like him.
It was something of a tragedy. His only hope in salvation was for him to break the heart of an innocent. An evil curse by an evil woman. Yet, he could not say she was unjust...no, his time of contemplation had shown him he deserved this unending stasis. And a living heart would mend, in time.
It was what he told himself in the predawn hours, as he paced the corridors of the manor.
Time was running out for him with Penelope. She was coming of age and her father was already being approached for her hand in marriage.
He waited in her chambers one evening. It seemed that, as a spirit, he could adopt whatever he chose in terms of garments. This night he dressed in his best. Full sleeves, slashed, dark hose. When courting a woman, one must impress...
The clock's hours passed and Sir Christopher grew concerned. Additionally, it was difficult for him to maintain this physical seeming for so long. At last, though, as the hour chimed eleven, he heard her step outside the door. Light, but decided.
In she came and the ghostly knight felt his hope increase. He rose to his feet to greet his lady.
But...what was this?
"Lady Penelope," he began, bowing before her in his best form. "I hope you are well?" He wasn't entirely sure. Her cheeks and lips were flushed, her hair not quite in its accustomed crown of inky braids atop her head, and her pupils were...yes...dilated.
She gasped a little, placing a hand over her heart. He was not enticed by the show of her flesh, for he felt he had moved beyond such earthly concerns. Aesthetics, though, had always appealed to him in life and so they did in death. But with Penelope, whom he had nurtured since her toddler years, he found here, at the end of their time together, that he did indeed care something for her. An echo of humanity. A whisper of longing.
Or perhaps he had only imagined it.
"Sir Christopher," she said, giggling and whispering in an odd combination. "I had not expected to see you this evening."
He had never told her what he hoped to gain by their friendship. She had accepted him as a restless spirit in her home, but never as anyone with any designs on her. "I wished to congratulate you," he decided to say. "I had heard you were balancing several young men's offers on a platter."
She smiled broadly and twirled around. "Oh...there are not several, sir," she demurred. "And only one I care to entertain..."
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Something in her voice, in her bearing, brought him close to her. He stepped to her to take her hand – and stopped.
"So I notice," he said slowly. He thought his heart had been broken almost a century before upon the realization of his great sin, but he found that even a spectral heart can feel the same pain. His anger boiled from that hurting place. "You have been compromised!" he shouted.
A window broke elsewhere in the castle accompanied by the sound of chains rattling. Penelope's flushed skin paled as she fell to the floor, near fainting. "Sir Christopher...?"
"He has possessed you!"
"I love him and would marry him!" she said in her defense, the words thin and breathless.
Christopher of Asterleigh smacked his fist on her bedpost and stalked to the door. "You are worthless to me!"
So full of venom was his voice that the walls shook as he took his violent leave of her chambers.
~~~
Part the Third
The stories started during the later years of the reign of Elizabeth I. Stories of the Knight of Asterleigh. Of the spirit that haunted the manor house of that once-maligned man. He was, mistakenly, thought to be a man who committed suicide because he wished to wed Gloriana. Elizabeth herself heard this rumor, dismissed it to those who told her, and privately wondered if someone had truly done so. Her heart would be troubled for a full month before close inquiries of her maids told her that she had never entertained a knight from Asterleigh, nor had she gone there on progress. So that worry was wiped away for her, in favor of other concerns of her reign.
Sir Christopher continued to rant. The other spirits came and went, for they were not tied to his home, but he stayed on. He heard whispers of monarchs, civil wars, and "new worlds" but he veered not from his quest. To him, all that mattered was ...peace.
Peace he strove to attain, while frightening any possibility of its attainment. Servants left, their hair prematurely gray and frizzled. Families tried to live in the manor, but only temporary tenants and caretakers were able to abide within the stone walls and carpeted corridors. Soon, there were no actual inhabitants of the manor itself, and Sir Christopher contented himself with lurking about the outbuildings, where the caretakers were.
Three hundred years since his body gave up its spirit to wander and he found a brave, stout young woman. Not altogether young, but she was a virgin, and that was what mattered. The knight was desperate and behaved outrageously to get her attention. She, however, turned a bland gaze on even his most ingratiating manifestations.
"Jane," her sister inquired, "what are you staring at?"
Christopher listened, kneeling before the pale-eyed woman. "A spirit, Cassandra. Dressed in the Lancastrian mode."
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"Lancaster!" the knight cried, rising from his penitent posture. "I was for York, I'll have you know!"
The virginal Jane shook her head and turned away from him. "Leave us, ghost. I shan't write of you, and you hold no other interest for me." With a sly smile, she looked over her shoulder. "Gothic romances are not in my line."
Something about the wise maturity in Jane's eyes snuffed out Christopher's rising ire. He bowed to her and her sister and made an exit – dramatic in its sheer silence – through the fireplace.
For a time, the stories of the hauntings of Asterleigh Manor faded. Longtime residents of the village of Asterton passed on the tales and legends heard from parents and grandparents, found in family Bibles, and read about in diaries and other letters.
"We think, though, that the poor ghost has found peace," the storyteller would usually conclude. "Naught's been heard from anyone in that place for a hundred years or more."
The estate was sold and the new owners moved in shortly before another war shook the kingdom that Sir Christopher had fought and would have died for, if he had not been murdered.
Sir Christopher of Asterleigh, however, had not found peace.
He still roamed. Any new young lady that entered the house was visited. A sister of a holy order came to stay with the resident family after another war shattered the peace of the countryside. That war was was so horrid that the knight put on his armor once more to patrol the perimeter of his land. The virginal sister of the order arrived shortly after the ferocious, screaming craft -- aeroplanes, he had heard they were called -- stopped their deadly flight overhead.
Sir Christopher approached the sister, dressed in black with a white wimple that had been out of fashion when he still lived, with a diffident expression and his hands spread peacefully. "Sister," he intoned. "Welcome to my home."
She gave a start, initially, and crossed herself. He backed away, feeling as if he'd been gently pushed. She cleared her throat. "I am Sister Catherine," she whispered. Her ageless face wary for a moment before smoothing. "Who are you and what would you have of me?"
Direct indeed! Christopher smiled and bowed. "Sir Christopher of Asterleigh at your service, sister. And what I want is peace."
"Peace is granted by the Lord of Heaven," the sister said, her voice prim but her manner accepting. "And by asking him, you may have peace."
He wanted to get angry at her, but could not. She was so...sincere. Yes, that was it. Sincerity shone in her eyes. "My good madam," he said, "I cannot ask anything of he of whom you speak. I have transgressed. I wished, instead, to ask something of you, but find that I cannot."
Without further discussion, he phased away. No drama. No tricks of art.
"I shall traverse the grounds and leave her in her peace," he decided nobly. "And perchance stumble upon some likely, virginal prospect trespassing on my grounds."
~~~
Five hundred years had passed him.
Chris noted the passage of time when he chanced upon one of the utterly pestilential tourists that would visit his house. The manor home, he saw by a sign in the front at the ancient gates, had been named a National Registry Home and was thus now preserved in the manner that Christopher best remembered, from the time when he himself had been alive and had sinned so greatly as to warrant the walk of his spirit throughout time.
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Five hundred years.
Left to no other devices, he grew whimsical. He took to haunting the gates, waiting for tourists to the manor. He would slip quietly in through the roof of their vehicles, a cool breath in a cool place, as he tried to sense the virginity of any of the passengers.
Those he did find were unresponsive to him.
A new family bought the estate. They brought with them strange, clashing sounds and odd clothing. Skirts so short that they garnered even his jaded attention.
A virgin? Among this family?
He scoffed. Would such a one as these ...these hussies! ... become heartbroken? Surely not.
Sulking, the spirit of Asterleigh disappeared again into the lower chambers, the dank cellars of the manor, emerging only on occasion. He would roar, run about the hallway, rattle his armor and pound on the doors before sinking back into silent obscurity.
Above him, the world moved and another generation came into being.
~~~
Part the Fourth
"I have sulked long enough," he moaned aloud one night. The moon was full for the second time that month. These things, oddly enough, were marked by him. Rain, thunder, the times when the sun itself seemed blackened by a terrifying shadow. All these were marked.
He leapt through the floors and dining hall, through rock and woven cloth, coming to a halt in the upper corridor. The moon's bright light angled in through the leaded glass at the end of the walk as Chris commenced to rattling doorknobs and speaking in French. On a whim.
"Oui?"
The knight halted, his seeming armor rattling as it shifted to stillness. "Parlez vous Français?" he inquired, his hand still on the handle of this particular door.
There was a light laugh and heavier steps before a bolt slid back with a click. "Well, not very well," he heard before the door opened fully to reveal a young lady in a long tunic of some sort. With a badge of a castle on her breast.
"My French is very old," he remarked, waiting to see if she would scream or faint or call for help. His meeting – and last true conversation with a living being – had been with the wimpled nun over fifty years before.
Her eyes grew round, round as wheels. "Who?" she squeaked.
Well, that was a change, Christopher said to himself. No screaming or fainting. Neither did she look completely comfortable. He went to take her hand, which was braced against the door's casing. "My lady, I am Sir Christopher of Asterleigh Manor, at your service."
And then, he sensed it. She was a maiden. Still untouched in body. Still young in heart, and – obviously – in appearance.
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The others flashed before him, most notably Penelope, but they vanished just as quickly from his memory. Here was a true one. Here was a lady he could woo and win and –
– And whose heart he could break before she released him from his tormented haunting to find peace.
He was speechless. For once in his afterlife, he had been rendered silent.
She withdrew her hand. He barely noticed. "You are the ghost," she whispered. "I have read of you."
"Aye," he said, lowering his voice to match hers. "Might I, ah, intrude upon you for a bit, my lady?"
She blinked and backed away, allowing him access. This, he knew, was important. That she had allowed him in her door. He took a quick look around. "It is much as I remember it," he told her.
"Is it?" she said, closing the door and leaning against it. "I, ah, wouldn't know. I understand that it is as it used to be, however."
"You have no fire in the room," he observed. "Are you chilled?" He saw definite signs of cool air on her body, but did not let his eyes linger. It was her heart he was interested in, when it came down to it. His flesh was dead. Dead.
"I had been under those blankets and was comfortable, sir." She stepped toward her bed and, in a rush, burrowed under the heavy quilting. "I do not wish to anger you, Sir Christopher," she said eventually, her voice muffled by batting. "But, are you really here or is this a dream? Am I hallucinating? Have I read too many history books?"
"Nay, my lady," he said, standing next to her side of the wide bed. "I am here. I believe," he went on, "that I was destined to find you."
"This is a movie. I've seen this movie," she whispered, coming slowly out of her hiding place. Her hair, illumined by the moon's bright beam through her upper window, was like pale fire. "It starred Patrick Stewart as you, though..."
"A...movie?" As much as he had listened, that word escaped him. "I do move, but I am not sure what you mean."
At last, she emerged fully, pushing the quilts down with an incredulous smile. The change was lightning-swift and it baffled as well as delighted the jaded spirit. "No, of course not. A movie is rather like a play, but done in another time and place, shown on the telly." Then, she shook her own head and wrinkled her nose. Playfully. He was sure she was being playful. "And you are far too young to be Patrick Stewart."
"I am ancient, my lady."
"How ancient, my lord?"
" I am not a lord. I'm a knight."
"I am not a lady. I'm a student."
"Your crest," he said, nodding at her tunic. "I thought it indicated royalty or nobility?"
She laughed then, a quietly husky sound. "It's just a nightshirt, sir knight."
"What is your name, then, my lady student?" he inquired. "For I must have something by which to call you."
"You may call me...Elizabeth," she said on a breath of air that he caught, somehow.
"And I am Christopher."
"Should I curtsy? I warn you, it doesn't come off in a nightshirt."
With a chuckle, he bowed. "Nay, Mistress Elizabeth. Nay. Just one courtesy would I ask of you."
"What is that?"
Greatly daring, he brushed her hair back from her high forehead. He felt her tremble, but she didn't move away. "Do not change, Mistress. Stay as you are."
She paused before offering a saucy wink. "I presume, sir, that you'll allow me to dress on occasion?" Then, she giggled.
He backed away. "Aye, as you wish. Just do not change your heart, Mistress. That is what I ask of you."
"Thank you," she said, snuggling down into her bedclothes once more.
"For what do you offer thanks?"
"You didn't frighten me. Thank you."
He had nothing to say to that, so he merely bowed and wished her a restful sleep. Before he left, through her door, he had the satisfaction of seeing her doze off, a smile on her lips.
"Well then, I have one more chance, do I? I shall guard her carefully, woo her with laughter and jests, and make her love me." Then, he grimaced before returning to his lower chambers. "Make her love me, aye. Then break her heart. For so I must, and I must steel myself against it."
The following morning, he wrote her a quick verse, with silly rhymes. Without showing himself, he listened to her laugh at them and grinned. In the evening, he lit candles in her bedchamber as well as her fire in the fireplace, and closed the draperies.
He was not disappointed.
Prowling through the house, he kept his awareness focused entirely on Mistress Elizabeth. Her laughter, her voice. He wanted to respond instantly when she spoke. This early in the relationship he hoped to develop, the appearance of desperation was essential.
And really, he was not feigning that desperation. He was desperate. Half a millenium desperate.
"Sir Christopher?"
Following her whisper, he arrived at the landing on the floor of her bedchamber, where the leaded glass window would bring in the light of the moon when the rain passed. This evening, Elizabeth carried one of the candles he had left alight for her. Her hair, he saw, was bright red, not the pale fire of the night before, and she wore a thick robe that swept regally to her toes. She looked every inch the Mistress of the Manor. Which he told her.
She dropped him a curtsy. Not quite what he had been accustomed to, back in life, but well enough done that he appreciated her effort. "Have you studied for this?" he asked politely. "Is that what brings you to my home?"
"I am here with the Preservation Society for my summer of service," she informed him. "When I turned eighteen, I asked to serve on an historical assignment, to preserve the kingdom's heritage." She moved to the window, smiling at the rain-pelted glass. "It's always been my dream to live in a manor of the historical variety."
"You, of all ladies, are welcome here," he proclaimed in a grand fashion, for she seemed to like that very much indeed. "I shall devote myself to being of service whilst you stay."
She wrinkled up her nose at him. "Now, that would never do, good knight of the manor. I am but a common student and should seek, then, to be of service to yourself."
The glib response he had prepared turned to dust on his tongue. His curse was related nowhere, so there was no chance that she would know of what exact "service" he was going to try to glean from her. "A knight always serves his lady," he finally rasped before turning from her. "Shall I escort you to your chambers?"
"Oh, thank you! And thank you for the fire! It makes such a difference in there. I had not wished to use the wood for my own comfort, you see."
"In my home, use whatever you wish, Mistress Elizabeth."
"But the caretaker," she began.
He held up a hand. "If necessary," he assured her with a smile, "I can convince him to leave you be." Then, he stared hard at her. "He is not causing you any distress, my lady?"
She shook her head. "And remember, I am not a lady."
He bowed over her hand. "On the contrary, my dear. I do believe you are."
With patience, he drew her out, hearing of her life, her family, her dreams for her future. Christopher smiled to know that she truly was a scholar at her heart, with dreams of being a professor of history, of all things. He was more than happy to share with her what he had learned in his long wandering around the manor.
One night, though, she was very serious when he came to her. It had become a special time for the two of them. He set her candles to light and caused her fire to burn. She would take some care with her apparel, sometimes dressing her hair as she saw done in the portraits about the estate.
But one night, she was subdued, her hair loose over her shoulders. "Sir Christopher," she said, "I wish to offer you an apology. You have been so kind to inquire after me, a guest in your home. I have not, though, paid you the courtesy of reciprocation, as you have told me so much of history in general that," she went on, looking abruptly into the fire in the hearth, "I have neglected to even ask. Please forgive me."
It was the opportunity he had been waiting for, building toward, wooing her to reach.
"Where shall I begin, Mistress Elizabeth?" he asked, leaning back in the chair.
She moistened her lips. "I, ah, was curious as to why you wandered, sir. You are such a good man, it seems wrong that you – your spirit – should not be at rest."
He rose and sighed. It was a story he had indeed told before over the years, but tonight he wanted to win tears from her on the stone floor of his cellar. "Come with me, my lady. Let me show you."
Mistress Elizabeth held his hand and asked no questions as he led her from her chamber. She carried a taper, which occasionally cast her shadow against the tapestry-covered walls of the staircases, if not his own dark image. He maintained silence, too, putting his thoughts in final order, and wishing he could feel a heartbeat of his own, racing in anticipation, thudding against the leaving of a very special young lady...
"Here," he finally whispered after they had traversed the dining hall, gone through the servants' passage and stood at the low door that led to the stairs that would bottom-out at the ancient door of the cellar in which he had been imprisoned, centuries before.
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The iron hinges all but screamed in protest as he opened the door for his lady.
She gasped. "It smells so...old and musty, Sir Christopher." Her face lit only by the incongruously dancing flame of the candle, she slowly took a step into the cellar prison where he had died. "Is this...is this where you...ah...passed?"
He grimaced as he eyed the place. Thick dust had collected on all the surfaces. Some of the wood had rotted away. But his cuirass was still there, chained to the wall, his bones having long since falled from it, being taken away by who knew what creatures. It had been hellish hearing them, he could still recall.
"Yes, Elizabeth," he finally said. "Let me tell you my story."
He began it with the evil woman, Margaret Dillings, who had been invited to dinner, with her cousin and protector, Lord Michael Stenham. Of course, Christopher told Elizabeth, he had had no idea that Margaret harbored ill intent. Even when she arrived alone, for her cousin was battling gout, she said, he had no suspicion.
"It must have been the wine," Chris told his lady. "She put some preparation into it and I, foolishly, toasted her health more than I should."
Mistress Elizabeth angled one brow at him. "Oh?"
"Aye," he said on a sigh. "She must have had help, I have come to believe. Perhaps Lord Stenham was not ill with the gout at all, but was waiting. My servants were bribed or drugged, in all likelihood. In any event, they never came to me though I called, later."
"What happened?" she asked, all traces of sardonic humor washed from her voice. "Were you...left here?"
He nodded slowly, describing howhe had been chained and left to die for his great sin. He shared with her his terror, remembering it still, and the pain.
"What was your sin?" she gasped, near the tears he so needed to win from her heart. "What was so very bad that caused Margaret to hate you so?" The candle wavered as her hand shook. He offered her a seat on an ancient stool, which had mocked him for days with the promise of rest, after he had blown the dust from its seat. "I cannot fathom it."
"She did not tell me, leaving me to discern it on my own," Chris shared. "And, at length, I did."
Elizabeth's gaze dwelt especially on the awkward position of the cuirass, where it was upended from the chain over the cobweb-laden bench. "What was it?" she whispered.
"I was a young man," he reminded her. "Young, adventurous, wealthy in my own right." He shook his head. "My eye lit upon a young lady. A lovely girl, really. With hair like a raven's wing and eyes of a blue so pale as to be like ice. Striking. She was a woman to arouse the passions of any man."
Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably on the three-legged stool. He wondered if it was the chill of the cellar or his tale that was making her do so. "And she aroused your passions?"
"Aye, my lady, she did. Her name was Constance. I confess to you that I did go so far as to promise myself to her. We plighted our troth secretly, you understand. And that promise went far to her agreement to ask me to her bed," he added, uncomfortable himself, now that he was sharing this with his Mistress Elizabeth.
She was his lady, indeed. In the time they had spent together, hers was not the only interest engaged. Her mind was far superior, her spirit captivating, and her person lovely to his eyes. It was not only her heart that was engaged... Whatever he had that passed for a heart, left in his soul, was melded to hers.
This was a cursed ending, indeed, to his story.
"Ah, so you deflowered her and her family was enraged?" Elizabeth asked, her eyes not quite meeting his as he tried to gauge her responses.
He knelt before her and took her free hand in his while her candle continued to burn down. "I am sorry to have to tell you these things. They are distressing to you."
"I asked, Sir Christopher," she said softly. "I wish to know about you." Then, her eyes finally met his. "And you still appear a young man, you know. Perhaps thirty?"
His laugh was thin and humorless. "Alas. Younger still than that, my lady."
There was a pause and he heard her swallow hard. "What happened?"
"I did enjoy her," he said. "More than once." He shook his head, remembering. "And then I went to fight for the rightful king of England, Henry. I was wounded, but only slightly, but during the time I was gone, I confess that I did not feel the love I had for Constance. I did not return to her immediately, but spent a month in the home of a friend. When I returned, Lady Margaret, a new widow, and her cousin greeted me as a hero. How was I to know Margaret was Constance's sister?"
"What happened to Constance that angered Margaret and made her want to kill you in such a horrid fashion?" Elizabeth's voice was thick, again, which bade well, Chris knew, for him.
He sighed. This would pain his lady, but he had to tell it. "Constance, my lady... I did not know I had sired a child with her. She never told me. Margaret said her sister had done, but I never received word, or I would have ridden the lives of horses to return to her, wed her, and give the child my name."
"Of course!"
"But no word came to me," he repeated, pressing her hand with both of his. "You must believe me, my lady."
Her whisper was sure. "I do."
"Unable to bear the dishonor, Constance hanged herself. She and the unborn child died together."
Elizabeth's gasp was full of emotion. He cupped her cheek. "I did not know, my lady. You must believe me. It was only later, as I was chained here, without food, water, light or fresh air, unable to stand, unable to sit, only able to crouch and think and cry out for aid... Only then, when my voice failed, did I stop and think of what had happened. I knew, then, that my punishment was just. I deserved Margaret's judgment. And her curse upon me."
"No... Dearest knight, no... No one deserves that. No one!" Elizabeth set her candle into the small blob of melted wax that had dropped upon the stone floor. "No one. I am so very sorry for what you endured."
He felt her tears, hot on his hand, and moved his palms from her, wiping them on the floor. "Your tears," he said, "wound me, but they heal me. Can you understand, my lady?"
"I cannot see how they heal you." She wiped her eyes and flicked the salt from her fingers. "I cannot. I do not know how I can help you, but I would do anything if I could to free you from this endless wandering. Over half a millenia! Surely enough payment for any sin."
"If I were gone," he said slowly, "I would miss you, even at rest."
"As I would miss you," she confessed. "Remember? I mentioned a movie the first night I saw you?"
He smiled tenderly at her, caressed her hair, pushing it off her forehead, as he had done that first night. "Aye, my lady. I do. A play, you said. A story similar to my own."
"Yes. In that story, the girl had to pray. To pray to the Angel of Death or some such to free the ghost. Do you require the prayer of a young lady, too, dear knight?" Her smile was small, but he saw the sincerity as well as the playfulness so much a part of her in it. "I shall do anything."
"Nothing so terrible as that," he assured her. "But perhaps worse. You have already done much...more than I deserve."
She shook her head. "What is needed. Tell me and it shall be so," she said, like the lady she was, a woman of authority in a manor. "If it is within my power."
His mouth opened to share with her the final requirement, but something in him stopped the words. He turned from her to see, again, his rusted cuirass and binding chains. He could not ask, could he?
"Tell me," she insisted quietly.
With a sigh, he repeated the curse, as it had repeated in his mind from the moment Margaret had cast it over him.
Until your heart remembers
Until your soul repents
You shall walk on embers
Eating your regrets.
So shall your spirit spend its time
Until all time is ended
Unless you can find one woman
Whose heart will break for you, unmended.
A virgin with no hope of more
Her tears must wet this stony floor
Else your soul wander forevermore.
Cursed you are, Sir Christopher!
When he finished, he turned to her. "Can you possibly be this woman, my dear Mistress Elizabeth?" At once, he almost prayed that she was not. That he would not break her heart. That she would be his Mistress Elizabeth for this season and move on. That she was not indeed a virgin, that he had been wrong for once in all these centuries...!
Tears were spilling from her eyes and running freely down her cheeks, dipping into her dimples, for she smiled even now. "I am, Sir Christopher. That woman is me."
"But I don't want it to be!" he protested as a strange, freshly-scented breeze fanned over them both. "I don't want your heart to break for me."
With a smile, she pointed to the teardrops, making dark gray circles on the floor. "Too late. Look, you're already leaving me."
He did look, seeing that his hands were becoming hazy, nigh on invisible. His voice sounded hollow to him, too, but he had to say it:
I love you, my lady.
I love you, too, my knight...
Light.
Peace.
Rest.
Sir Christopher almost laughed to himself as he felt purest contentment envelop him like a cloak after a long, chilled walk in the dark woods. But before he gave himself up to it, he glanced to a small darkness off to his left. There, fading quickly away, was a shadowy image of his lady, Elizabeth the Scholar, who would be a fine teacher one day.
His heart was not broken, but whole. No burdens weighted his shoulders. He could fly and he did, for one last look –
– To a candlelit chamber in his manor, where his lady smiled into her fire and wiped her tears away.
~~~~
Oh, I love this...truly!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Kathie!
DeleteGreat ghost story.
ReplyDeleteI loved your Sir Christopher.
Hello! Thank you. I enjoyed him very much, myself. Thank you for reading!
Delete