Blood of the Fold

"You mean to say that she gave you the ring almost three weeks before she died?" Millie nodded. "Why so long?"

"She said she wanted to give it to me before she slipped any further, and wouldn't be able to say good-bye to me, or be able to give proper instructions."

"I see. And when you went back after that, before she died, did she slip as she thought?"

Millie shrugged as she let out a sigh. "That was the only time I saw her. When I went back to see her, and to clean, the guards said that Nathan and the Prelate had left strict orders that no one was to be allowed in. Something about Nathan not being disturbed as he tried his best to heal her. I didn't want him to fail, so I tiptoed away, quiet as I could."

Verna sighed. "Well, thank you for telling me, Millie." Verna glanced at her desk, and the waiting stacks of reports. "I'd best be back at my work, too, or everyone will think me lazy."

"Oh, that's a shame, Prelate. Such a warm, beautiful night, you should enjoy your private garden."

Verna grunted. "I've so much work to do I've never even poked my nose out to look at the Prelate's private garden."

Millie started toward her bucket, but suddenly spun back. "Prelate! I just remembered something else that Ann told me."

Verna straightened her dress at her shoulders. "She told you something else? Something you told the others that you forgot to tell me?"

"No, Prelate," Millie whispered as he scurried closer. "No, she told me, and told me to tell none but the new Prelate. For some reason, it's been completely out of my memory until this moment."

"With all the rest, she may have spelled the message, to make you forget it for all but the new Prelate."

"That could be," Millie said as she rubbed her lip. She looked into Verna's eyes.”Ann would do things like that, sometimes. Sometimes, she could be devious."

Verna smiled without humor. "Yes, I know. I, too, have been on the receiving end of her manipulations. What is the message?"

"She said to tell you to be sure not to work too hard."

Verna rested a hand on a hip. "That's the message?"

Millie nodded as she leaned close and lowered her voice. "And she said that you should use the garden to relax. But she took my arm and pulled me close then, looking right into my eyes, and told me to tell you also to be sure to visit the Prelate's sanctuary."

"Sanctuary? What sanctuary?"

Millie turned and pointed through the open doors. "Out in the garden there's a little building nestled in the trees and shrubs. She called it her sanctuary. I've never been in it. She never allowed me to go in there to clean. She cleaned it herself, she said, because a sanctuary was a sacrosanct place where a body could be alone, and where no one else ever set foot. She would go there, from time to time, I think to pray for guidance from the Creator, or perhaps just to be alone. She said to be sure to tell you to go there and visit it."

Verna let out an exasperated breath. "Sounds like her way of telling me I would need the Creator's help to get through all the paperwork. She did have a twisted sense of humor, sometimes."

Millie chuckled. "Yes, Prelate, that she did. Twisted." Millie put her hands to her blushing cheeks. "May the Creator forgive me. She was a kind woman. Her humor was never meant to be hurtful."

"No, I suppose not."

Verna rubbed her temples as she started for her desk. She was tired, and dreaded the prospect of reading more mind numbing reports. She halted and turned back to Millie. The doors to the garden were opened wide, letting in the fresh night air.

"Millie, it's late, why don't you go have some dinner, and get some rest. Rest is good for tired bones."

Millie grinned. "Really, Prelate? You don't mind your office being layered in dirt?"

Verna laughed under her breath. "Millie, I've been out-of-doors for so many years that I've grown fond of dirt. It's fine, really. Have a good rest."

As Verna stood in the doorway to her garden, looking out into the night, at moonlight dappled ground beneath trees and vines, Millie gathered up her rags and bucket. "A good night to you, then, Prelate. Enjoy your visit to your garden."

She heard the door close and the room fall silent. She stood feeling the warm, moist breeze and inhaled the fragrant aroma of leaf and flower and earth.

Verna took a last look back at her office, and then stepped out into the waiting night.

CHAPTER 22

Verna took a deep, refreshing breath of the humid night air. It was like a tonic. She could feel her muscles relaxing as she strolled down a winding, narrow path, among beds of peeping lilies, flowering dogwood, and lush huckleberry bushes, as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the moonlight. Spreading trees reached over the dense shrubs, seeming to offer their branches for her to touch, or the sweet fragrance of their foliage and blossoms for her to inhale.