The apostate's tale (9 page)

Vespers came, and then supper. Domina Elisabeth, mindful of the long night of Offices ahead of her nuns, saw to their supper portions being somewhat more than they had been of late and then that they had their full hour of recreation before Compline.

The early evening was warm under a clear sky, the hope of a clear Easter looking likely to be fulfilled after the days of fitful weather. Only Dame Claire and Dame Perpetua, taking their turn in vigil at the altar, and Sister Cecely at her penance with them, did not come out into the garden for the while. In their place, as it were, was Mistress Petham, come slowly, at Dame Claire’s urging and with Domina Elisabeth’s permission, leaning on Sister Margrett’s arm, her other hand resting on the shoulder of Sister Cecely’s son as if to steady herself. She sat on the bench nearest to the gate, openly grateful that she need go no farther, but her smile was full of pleasure as she looked around the garden and at the sky, like a prisoner newly freed.

The boy sat down beside her, but she patted his back and said, “You don’t have to sit with me. Domina Elisabeth will likely give you leave to walk here.”

“Better yet,” said Domina Elisabeth, “Dame Amicia and Sister Helen can take him to the orchard. He can run there if he wants. Or climb the trees.” She smiled at the boy. He stared solemnly back. “Would you like that? Would you like to go to the orchard with Dame Amicia and Sister Helen?”

“If it please you, my lady, yes,” he said. He looked at Mistress Petham. “If I may?”

“If Domina Elisabeth says you may, you may,” Mistress Petham assured him. “She’s lady here.”

His face lighted with the first smile Frevisse had seen on it. “Thank you, my lady,” he said.

Dame Amicia was already going toward the garden’s gate, smiling, too. She held out a hand toward him, and they went out of the garden hand in hand, Sister Helen following them, and not immediately but soon and now and again through the while left until Compline, Frevisse heard him laughing from among the apple trees beyond the garden wall and found herself smiling at it. It was good to know he could be a happy child despite everything. Nor did Mistress Petham look the worse for having his company, so likely he was well-mannered, too. Frevisse supposed there was good chance that before all this came on him he had had a good life, had been well-cared for and well-loved. She hoped so. However wrong his birth had been, God forbid that either blame or punishment for it should fall on him, the one innocent in it all.

The hour ended with the clacking summons, and Frevisse turned her mind toward Compline’s prayers with pleasure. This was the final readying toward tomorrow’s joy, the triumphant glory of Easter with, “
Surrexit Dominus vere
!”—The Lord is truly risen!—and through Matins and Lauds the glad, oft-repeated, “
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
” All the deprivations and contemplations and prayers of Lent would come to their fruition then, and Frevisse found she was smiling with forward-looking pleasure, because
Multi sunt qui de me dicunt: “Non est salus ei in Deo.”
—Many they are who say of me, “Safety for him is not in God.” But,
Tu autem, Domine, clipeus meus es, gloria mea
…—But you, Lord are my shield, my glory…And Easter was the glory that crowned all.

I
n Frevisse’s years in the nunnery there had been sometimes an Easter made difficult by illness among the nuns, or by bitter weather, or by worldly worries that could not be kept at bay. This Easter, for a blessing and despite Sister Cecely, went as beautifully as the best had ever done. During Prime, as they were saying, “
Hic est dies quem fecit Dominus; exsultemus et laetemur de eo
”—This is the day that the Lord made; we are joyful and glad in it—the rising sun struck through the choir’s eastward window, flooding light—multi-hued scarlet and azure and golden—the choir’s length, over the altar shiningly covered with its white altar cloth now Christ had risen, over the polished wood of the stalls, across the black and white clad nuns in their ordered rows. More than one of them lifted her head and turned her face toward the light, the psalm not faltering, instead taking on new strength, as if fed by the light and all the promises of hope and life that came with it.

Later even Father Henry’s familiar Easter homily—of how, just as each dawn the sky colored with the promise of the coming sun, so they must color their lives with holiness for the Coming of the Son who has been and ever will be—seemed somehow fresh.

Besides that, because the nunnery’s hens had begun to lay again when winter was done, and because Lent’s fast was over, there was a boiled egg for each nun at breakfast, causing many small sounds and sighs of delight along the refectory table.

Just thus, Frevisse thought with an inward smile at her own savoring of her egg, were the soul’s need and the body’s mixed together, inseparable until death.

The one pity of the day was, of course, Sister Cecely. Frevisse had feared her presence would taint everything, but set against the day’s glories, Sister Cecely was such a small thing that she barely mattered. It helped, of course, that Domina Elisabeth took on herself the duty of watching her, sparing Dame Amicia her turn for today at least and thereby removing Sister Cecely as much as might be from their midst.

Domina Elisabeth also took on herself the care of Dame Thomasine, who was gone so far into prayer, was so glorying in the day’s glory, that it seemed her body hardly had existence for her. Except that Domina Elisabeth took her by the arm and led her to meals, she would probably not have left the church at all.

Seeing to both women meant that Domina Elisabeth, rather than being able to give herself up to the pleasure of the day, spent it dealing with the two outermost ways of nunhood—Sister Cecely and Dame Thomasine—and that was a pity, because surely their prioress was as ready as all the rest of them for the end of Lent. Certainly Frevisse found during the late morning Office that her Lenten-fasted stomach was answering the wafting smells from the kitchen on the far side of the cloister with an ache stronger than her heed of the psalms, but for once she did not care, and the meal, when they at last sat down to it, was everything that could be hoped for. Besides the lamb roasted in a sauce of garlic, rosemary, pepper, eggs, and its own drippings, there were a cheese tart thick with eggs and heavy cream, small, soft rolls of the last of the year’s fine white flour, with butter to go on them, and a fig pudding rich with almonds, raisins, honey, and ginger.

After that it was just as well the afternoon was given over to ease until Vespers, with leave for the nuns to spend the time as they would in the cloister walk and the garden and the orchard. Even Sister Cecely, having been allowed to sit at the far end of the refectory table during dinner and given half-portions of everything, was let off her penance in the church, to spend the time with Domina Elisabeth in the prioress’ parlor. Frevisse thought that probably made the afternoon more a penance than a pleasure for Domina Elisabeth. Then she willingly forgot Sister Cecely altogether, went to walk for a time in the orchard, and afterward—giving way to the satisfaction of a full stomach and her tiredness—sat and drowsed in the garden’s warm sunshine for a while.

She awoke from an unremembered dream to find herself with what seemed a quite unreasonable urge to return to the church. Surely she had spent enough hours there of late that she did not need more just now, she thought, and stayed where she was until—more fully awake and finding the urge did not leave her—she looked at it and found it was not duty moving her to it but joy. She was so suffused with happiness that she needed to be closer to the heart of it, and she rose from the bench, a little stiff with having sat still so long, and obeyed her desire.

At this hour of so sun-filled a day, the now-shadowed church seemed almost of another world, and Frevisse paused just inside the door from the cloister, to let her mind and body take in the quiet waiting there, to give it chance to reach into the deep places of her self, balm and blessing together. Candles still burned at the altar. After the blackness of the past few days, their brightness and the glowingly white altar cloth made plain how light and life could come out of darkness. As expected, Dame Thomasine was there before her, kneeling at the altar as straightly upright as one of the candles and probably burning, Frevisse supposed, with an inward flame as strong as their outward ones. Dame Thomasine lived in a state of prayer and grace that Frevisse could deeply respect and wonder at while nonetheless admitting—if only to herself—how much she was frightened by the thought of so much losing herself. That fear was a weakness she had prayed against without yet fully overcoming it, and yet sometimes, in her deepest praying, she brushed close to how it must be for Dame Thomasine and for a brief breath of time felt the wonder and freedom, the unbounded joy there was there, beyond the bounds of all the world’s seeming. And whatever her fears, afterward she always hungered to be there again.

Only as Frevisse moved forward, away from the door, did she see Elianor Lawsell in the nave, kneeling just beyond the rood screen. Or not so much kneeling as crouching. There seemed little that was prayerful about the way she was huddled down, one hand spread over her face, hiding it, the other stretched out and pressed against the screen. Another pace, silent-footed in her soft-soled shoes, brought Frevisse near enough to see the girl’s shoulders were unevenly shaking, surely with crying.

Frevisse sighed. However unwilling she was to the duty, she went around the rood screen, now deliberately not quiet-footed. The girl grabbed her hand back from the screen and began wiping at her face, her head still bowed, but when Frevisse lightly touched her shoulder and she looked up, tears were still coursing freely down her cheeks, nor did she seem ashamed of them, wiping at them more defiantly than as if hopelessly trying to hide them as Frevisse asked, “Is it as bad as that? You want so little to be a nun?”

The girl gasped. “No!” Still on her knees, she grasped at Frevisse’s skirts with one hand while wiping away yet more tears with the other. “Please. No. Don’t think that! I’m crying because I’m so glad. To be here. I’m praying I never have to leave!”

Frevisse leaned over, took her by the elbows, brought her to her feet. “You want to be here?”

The girl clasped her hands together. “I want it so much!”

Frevisse let her go, took a step back, tucked her own hands into her opposite sleeves, and said with what she hoped was a balance between sternness and sympathy, “Your mother brought you here in hope of this, but…”

“No,” Elianor interrupted fiercely. “She brought me here in hope I’d see how drearsome and over-burdened a nun’s life is. But it isn’t!”

“It can be,” Frevisse said quellingly. “It often is.”

“Everyone’s is,” Elianor returned. “You can’t tell me they aren’t.”

“I won’t. But this is not what your mother wrote to our prioress.”

“It wouldn’t be, would it?” Elianor returned scornfully. “No. What she wants is for me to give up my hope and settle for whatever husband she’ll choose for me.”

“She’s a widow?”

“My father finds it easier to let her do as she will,” Elianor said bitterly. “He says the matter is between us. Between my mother and me.”

“And if, after this while here, you still don’t agree with her, what will she do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Punish you? Force you?”

Elianor lightened into sudden, silent laughter. “When our quarrel started, she threatened to beat me, even to lock me up until I ‘behaved.’ I went to our priest. He laid order on her that I’m not to be forced in any way. I’m to be ‘persuaded’ or else allowed my choice. She was very angry about that.”

Frevisse could well imagine she would be.

“It’s not as if I were depriving her of all hope of marrying a daughter well,” Elianor said. “My sister can hardly bear the wait for a husband and household of her own. She’ll do everything Mother asks of her, once I’m out of her way.”

There were a number of questions Frevisse wanted to ask, but it was not her place to do so. This matter was for Domina Elisabeth. But there was no need to disturb her peace today, and Frevisse settled for saying, “Tomorrow ask Father Henry for leave to speak alone with Domina Elisabeth. Your mother will have to allow that at his word, and he’ll give it. That will put the matter between you and our prioress.” Who would not be pleased at having been misled by Mistress Lawsell.

Hope, relief, and gratitude bloomed in Elianor’s face. She looked as if she would have kissed Frevisse’s hand in thankfulness, but Frevisse kept her hands firmly up her sleeves, gave a short nod, and gladly escaped to the other side of the rood screen, going, as she had first intended, to kneel down at the altar and give herself into prayer.

C
ecily fell asleep in anger and awoke the same, both when Matins dragged her from bed and again when she had to rise for Prime and truly begin the day. After all the Easter praying yesterday what harm would there have been in taking some manner of ease from the Offices now? She valued Easter as much as anyone should, but she had always thought the
hours
spent at it here in the nunnery were beyond reason, and this morning, kneeling at the altar yet again in this farce of “penance,” she thought it more than ever.

She could only hope that Master Breredon was satisfied he had done his duty to God and be willing to have her and Neddie away as soon as might be. He had after all been right about Easter not being the best of days to make her escape; she had not counted on Domina Elisabeth’s attending to her all the day, and what a misery that had been. But Master Breredon had not known that would be the way of it and he had better not refuse the next chance that came. Tomorrow Sister, no,
Dame
Thomasine would have a turn at keeping watch on her. There was a woman so unbrained with holiness she probably could not keep watch on a wart on her thumb. All Cecely need do was get word to Master Breredon of when and get her hands on Neddie at the necessary time, and this miserable place would be behind her again. Tomorrow for a certainty, before she ran mad, she thought grimly.

It was a pity she needed Master Breredon’s help at all, and a pity that her need had brought her back here. Still, the place had served its purpose. She had not known how long she would have to wait for him to come. She had needed somewhere safe for her and Neddie, where Master Breredon would be surely able to find her, as well as somewhere no one would think to look for her. St. Frideswide’s had served all those purposes well. Now soon, soon, soon she would escape from here as readily as she had done before and never be dragged from bed in the middle of the night for prayers or see any of these dreary women again. Mercy of the Lord! They didn’t even have sense enough after Lent’s lacks and Easter’s rigors to make merry the way most people did!

Kneeling on her aching knees, her hands clasped so hard her fingers hurt, Cecely had sudden, sharp memory of her Easter Monday last year when the three of them had ridden out together to watch the games and merriment in the village, Neddie on Guy’s saddlebow, safe between Guy’s arms, her riding pillion behind them, an arm around Guy’s warm waist. His summer doublet when she rested her cheek against it had smelled of the southernwood and rosemary it had been stored with through the winter, and one of the village women had given her a garland of spring flowers to wear around her neck. When old John Jankin’s feet went out from under him in the tug-rugget and he’d pitched backward, knocking down the whole line of men along the rope behind him, she had laughed herself near to falling off the horse, had had to grab hold of Guy’s belt to save herself.

They had been so happy together. Not just then but so many times. It was unfair, it was
wrong
that he was dead. Wrong that she had to endure this place again. Wrong that she and Neddie had to be here. Wrong that she had to deal with Master Breredon. Wrong and wrong and wrong! The only grief there had been between her and Guy in their years together had been their lost babies. Now he was gone from her forever. How was she supposed to love God when he’d taken away from her what she loved most in the world? How was she supposed to love God when he was so cruel?

Cecely found tears of anger and grief were washing warm down her chill cheeks, and she raised her head, lifted her gaze to the altar. There was no point in wasting those tears. Dame Amicia, her keeper today, was in chapter meeting with the other nuns, but there was a servant standing somewhere behind her, keeping watch. Let whoever it was report she had cried. Domina Elisabeth would probably think it was in contrition and sorrow for her sin and be glad of it.

But what had been between her and Guy had
not
been sin, Cecely thought angrily. They had been so
happy
. How could their happiness have been sin?

Someone laid an uncertain hand on her shoulder. She looked around and up, startled. It was Alson. Alson! Sent to watch her just when Cecely needed her most!

Eagerly Cecely grabbed her hand and pulled her down beside her.

Frevisse,
when the morning’s chapter meeting was done, went to see how things were in the guesthall and was in time to see Father Henry waving farewell to his aunt and her friend as they rode out of the yard with laughter and promises to be back come Michaelmas. Frevisse joined him in a final wave as they disappeared through the gateway and said to him as he turned around, “You’re fortunate in your kin, Father.”

He was smiling. “I am indeed.”

“As they are fortunate in you.”

Father Henry looked at her in open surprise. “Are they?”

“They are. As St. Frideswide’s is in having you for our priest.”

She was as surprised to hear herself say that aloud as Father Henry seemed to be at hearing it, and she left him standing there, still startled, as she went on to the guesthall.

Happily, the two widows were not the only guests leaving today. As Frevisse came into the hall, little Powlyn and his parents were almost readied to go, taking with them Dame Claire’s assurance their child was fully on the mend. On Dame Claire’s behalf, Frevisse took their thanks and a thank-offering for the priory, promised the nuns’ prayers for them and their child, and saw them away.

After that she spoke briefly with Mistress Lawsell and Elianor, saying nothing about yesterday.

Like the Lawsells, Master Breredon preposed to stay on a few days more. Indeed, Ela said that with the widows gone, he had already made bold to ask to move into the guesthall’s best chamber with his two servants. As he had been so generous with his Easter gifts to the nunnery, Frevisse made no pause over agreeing to that and made a point of going to thank him again for his gifts and to ask how his servant did.

“Much better,” Master Breredon assured her. “Ida is a favorite with my wife, so I’m as grateful to your infirmarian on my wife’s behalf as Ida’s husband is on his.”

Frevisse accepted his thanks on the nunnery’s behalf and said it was pity he had had to spend Easter away from his home. He agreed but said some things could not be helped.

Sext took her back to the cloister before she was finished in the guesthall, and it was afternoon before she was free to return and take council with Ela in the guesthall kitchen not only on how food was lasting for the present guests but—more worryingly—how they would fare if other guests came.

“We’re that low on flour, there’ll have to be more grain ground if there’s to be bread after tomorrow,” Ela said. “A bit of meat wouldn’t come amiss. What’s left of the ham won’t last long. Some lamb or mutton, maybe?”

“Send to ask Hamo.” The nunnery’s shepherd. “If there’s sheep to spare, I suppose it will have to come to here. We can go on with fish in the cloister a while longer.” Frevisse held back a sigh at the thought of more fish after all the fish there had been through Lent. Besides that, the priory’s fishponds were somewhat over-fished just now, so the nuns would likely have to make do with the last of the dried stockfish from the bottom of the last of the barrels laid in last autumn. Spring was always a difficult time for food.

“Still,” she said hopefully, “the cows are in good milk. If nothing else, we can oat-pottage everyone in cloister and guesthall alike when all else fails.”

“We’re nearly out of oats,” said Ela.

They settled on deciding that Frevisse would bring the matter up in tomorrow’s chapter meeting, to be talked over and decisions made there. Ela made no secret of being glad she would have no part in that. Frevisse held back from admitting she wished she could avoid it, too. Instead, she thanked Ela for her good, steady handling of the guesthall’s guests and servants.

“Oh, aye,” Ela answered, making a grumble of it but her pleasure at the thanks showing through. “Well, there you are. It’s less trouble in the long jog to handle things and people well from the start.”

Frevisse left the kitchen, going up its outer stairs into the yard. The morning was become softly warm, the sky strongly blue between light streamers of scrubbed-white clouds, and she paused a moment, her face turned up, eyes closed, to the gentle sunlight, pleasuring in the brightness and warmth. But only briefly. At the sound of soft-soled, running footsteps she opened her eyes and saw Sister Helen running through the gateway from the outer yard where no nun had any business being and most especially not alone.

All her momentary ease falling away, Frevisse started toward the girl, not sure whether to be angry or—now that she saw the girl’s frightened face more clearly—alarmed. Certainly Sister Helen looked glad rather than guilty to see her, running to her so headlong that Frevisse caught her by the arms to stop and steady her. Sister Helen grabbed her arms in return, gasping to catch her breath, giving Frevisse time to demand, “What were you doing out there and alone? What’s the matter?”

“Dame Johane,” Sister Helen gasped. “I was with her. Someone from the village was hurt. He was bleeding. His friends brought him. They sent someone ahead and we went out to meet them. We did. In the outer yard.” She paused her rush of words to draw a few quick breaths, starting to steady but her grip on Frevisse’s arms bruising as she made to pull Frevisse toward the cloister door, saying more urgently, “But there’s men come. Riding in. Dame Johane said I should come to warn everyone. We have to…”

“Yes,” Frevisse said. She could hear the horses now, coming at a hard trot, and she began to move toward the cloister door without Sister Helen’s pull. Before she and Sister Helen were to the door, six men rode through the gateway. They had the dusty look of hard travel on them, were plainly in haste about something. They had no bared weapons in hand, though, which was to the good, and it being too late to reach the cloister door, Frevisse stopped herself and Sister Helen with a tight, steadying grip on Sister Helen’s arm and ordered under the clatter of shod hooves on cobbles, “Stand calm. Just stand calm,” then let go of Sister Helen and tucked her hands up her opposite sleeves while lifting her head and setting her face to a quietness that did not match the hard beating of her heart.

Beside her, Sister Helen drew a gasping breath and fumbled her own hands into her sleeves. Whether she was able to feign an outward calm to go with it, Frevisse could not see because her gaze was fixed on the lead rider now drawing his horse to a stamping halt a few yards in front of them. He was a firm-built man of late middle years, in plain doublet and high boots for riding, with his clothing and horse all of good quality. He was not wearing a sword, only a man’s usual dagger, and some of Frevisse’s alarm at his harsh coming eased a little. The men had come in haste but not ready for violence, it seemed.

With her black veil and Sister Helen’s white one, he knew which of them was senior and demanded at Frevisse, “A woman and a small boy. Are they here? Have they been here? Come within the past few days? Do you still have her here?”

“God’s blessing on you,” Frevisse said firmly, hiding her mind’s immediate and angry turn toward Sister Cecely. She looked a little sideways to Sister Helen. “Sister, please, if you would, tell Domina Elisabeth we have new guests.”

Blessedly quick-witted enough not to question or hesitate, Sister Helen made a quick half-curtsy to her and retreated to the cloister door. The man made no effort to stop her but said sharply at Frevisse, “If they’re here, I’ll find out. You can’t keep them hidden forever.”

Purposefully misunderstanding him and hearing the cloister door shut behind Sister Helen, she answered, “We keep no one here against their will, sir. Sir—?”

“Master Rowcliffe. John Rowcliffe,” he answered impatiently. “A woman called Cecely. I don’t know what else she might call herself. It better not be Rowcliffe. And a boy. She used to be a nun here. So it’s said.”

Before Frevisse could form an answer that would win Domina Elisabeth a little more time to ready to face this man, he gave way to his impatience, swung down from his horse, threw his reins to a younger man on a horse beside him, and went past Frevisse to the cloister door. She did not try to get in his way. There was only so much she was willing to do to guard Sister Cecely, and getting in his way was not part of it.

He had a leather-gloved fist raised to pound on the door’s thick wood when the man who had caught his thrown reins said, “Ease down, John. Give the woman chance to answer you.”

Master Rowcliffe spun from the door. “Well?” he demanded at her. “Is she here?”

“Sister Cecely has returned to us, yes,” Frevisse answered evenly.

“What of the boy? Is he here, too?”

“There’s a child with her that she says is her son.”

The second man laughed. “‘Says is her son.’ She knows Cecely.”

“Then she’s here!” Master Rowcliffe made that an accusation.

Frevisse could not see where accusation came into it, and before she could answer, a third man, much younger than the other two, sitting his own horse the other side of Master Rowcliffe’s, said to him calmingly, “So we don’t have to carry on like madmen. We’ve overtaken her. She won’t slip away again.”