Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 02] by Master of The Highland (html)

assorted paraphernalia of the sick and needy adorning the elaborate metal gates enclosing the raised sepulcher of St. Kentigern.
Countless lit tapers threw flickering golden light across richly carved reredos panels and into the shrine itself, but the brightly painted columns supporting the tomb’s vaulted canopy cast inky bands of shadows across the votive-hung gates, making many of the offerings indiscernible.
More frustrating still, and again for the third time, a sharp-eyed sacrist thwarted her attempt to slip out of the slow-moving line of pilgrims and edge nearer to the tomb’s well-guarded enclosure.
“Ho, sisters, keep to the prescribed processional route,” he admonished, just as she and Nella of the Marsh completed yet another tedious round of pilgrimage stations and reapproached the feretory bay behind the high altar.
Particularly harried-looking, the pallid young man trailed after her, shooing her along with his pasty white hands. “Good maid, might I suggest you return in winter—on St. Kentigern’s feast day when we open the shrine—if you are so desirous of a closer look?”
Agitation beginning to heat her cheeks, Madeline resisted the urge to argue with him. The sacrist’s haughty tone made her sorely regret her postulant garb and the limitations it put on her tongue.
Casting her gaze to the stone-flagged floor as a true sister-in-waiting would have done, she swallowed her annoyance and moved on with naught but a humble nod. “Faith, but I weary of this,” she bemoaned to Nella as, a short distance from the tomb, they paused to genuflect before a side altar. “Pinched-face stick of a man! He shall be remembered without charity.”
“Shhhh . . .” Nella reached for her hand, squeezed it. “The postulant’s robe will fool no one if they hear you brandishing the peppered end of your tongue. He doesn’t ken your true purpose and only sought to—”
“I don’t care a toad’s behind what his intent was, how many saints’ bones he can produce, and even less when they are to be put on display. I only—” She quickly snapped shut her mouth and assumed a suitably devout expression as a pult of psalm-chanting monks hushed past. “’Tis Silver Leg’s wee trinkets I seek and naught else,” she blurted the instant the cowled brethren slipped from hearing range. “That, and to see my stomach cease churning.”
“Your stomach?
“Nay, the freckles on my nose.”
Nella shot her a reproachful look. Leaning close, she whispered, “I believe I may have glimpsed one of Sir Bernhard’s little silver leg votives the last time we passed the shrine. I—”
“Are you certain?” Madeline almost forgot the discomfort roiling through her belly. “Where was it?”
“Hanging from the gate enclosure on the east side of the shrine, fairly close to the floor. I spotted it just when the sacrist made us move on. I cannot say for a surety, though. It was half-hidden behind the larger cast of a reallooking foot.”
Excitement shot through Madeline, joining the tumult of strange emotions whirling inside her ever since they’d left the last side altar. “Why did you not tell me sooner?”
“Because I did not want to disappoint you, my lady.” Nella’s brow creased as she peered at Madeline. “I wanted to wait until I’d seen it again, and was certain.”
Wrapping her arms around her waist, Madeline dug her fingers into the rough-spun wool of her borrowed cloak. Someone else’s revulsion, anger, and boundless frustration filled her breast to such a degree she could scarce breathe, much less continue upright down the crowded side aisle.
She swallowed hard, fighting to ignore the sensations. “Can you find it again?” she managed, straining to keep her voice steady.
Ever attuned to Madeline’s moods, Nella’s gaze turned sharp, but she nodded.
“Then let us make haste,” Madeline urged her friend, barely able to get out the words, for her own heart had begun to thunder out of control.
Hurrying, she stumbled on an uneven flag in the stone flooring, barely catching