The Prioress’ Tale (22 page)

Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei… Dies diei effundit verbum . .
. The heavens tell the glory of God… Day pours out the word to day…

Not that she was much looking forward to what this particular day was likely to entail.

Quis ascendet in montem Domini, aut quis stabit in loco sancto eius?
Who ascends into the mountain of the Lord, or who stands in his holy place?
Innocens manibus et mundus corde, qui non intendit mentem suam ad vana…
The innocent in hands and clean in heart, who does not strain his mind toward things empty, toward things vain, useless, false, conceited, unreliable, cruel…

Frevisse clamped off that run of bitter words, taking her exactly back to where she did not want to go—to Domina Alys and Sir Reynold.

She thought of rising and going to the church to pray. It was allowed and Sister Thomasine frequently did it, but thought of the madman—the once-mad man—held her where she was. He had been given a straw-filled pallet and blankets on the floor behind the altar and he was probably asleep there now. Or maybe he was awake and waiting for what the day would bring him, maybe wondering at the movement of thoughts in his mind where there had been only chaos or emptiness before. What must that be like?

When the nuns had gone into the choir for Matins at midnight, he had been a featureless heap, huddled in the blankets on his bed, only the top of his now clean head and the glint of his eyes to be seen at the edge of the choir candlelight. He had not stirred while they were there. He had watched but made no move or sound and probably would do no more if she went in to pray; but even his simply being there made her uneasy. There were too many questions about him. How cured was he? Was the cure momentary or would it last? How much would he be able to tell them when Dame Claire said he could be questioned? Had it truly been Sister Thomasine’s doing? Did she even know whether it was or not, and what did she think of it? No one had been able to bring her to talk of it yesterday.

Apart from all of that, what did Domina Alys mean to make of this seeming miracle laid into her hands? Because make something of it she surely meant to do. If nothing else, she was foreseeing pilgrims with money and gifts that would pay for that miserable tower of hers…

Frevisse forced her mind away from that. Whoever ascended to the mountain of the Lord, it was not likely to be someone who interspersed her prayers with bitter thoughts against her prioress.
Domini est terra et quae replent earn, orbis terrarum et qui habitant in eo.
Of the Lord is the earth and that which fills it, the circle of the earth and those who live on it.

Better to give herself over to prayer and God’s praise, as Sister Thomasine did, than sink into bitterness over things beyond her power to mend. Leave to God how the world would go.

Unless, her mind suggested, the Lord meant for his faithful to see to his world the way worldly lords expected their men to see to their lands, with the lord holding sovereignty but his men responsible and answerable for how well or ill things went in their keeping.

If that were the way of it, it was sin to leave things to go which way they would, and she…

Frevisse shoved off the blankets. Lying there with her aching back and her thoughts for company was doing her no good at all. Madman or no, she would go to the church to pray. It could not be that far to Prime now.

In fact, she saw as she arose that the small square of sky through the high window under the dormitory’s gable was pale with early light. That meant it was past time for the bell to have rung to Prime, and she began to dress with a haste pressed by curiosity. Being late was not Katerin’s way. Given any task that she could understand, she did it faithfully for always afterward.

It crossed Frevisse’s mind to wonder why, if miracles were being done, it hadn’t been that poor woman’s wits that were given back instead of a stranger’s.

She shook away that thought as yet another run of speculation that would do no good. There were stirrings now in the other cells as others began waking out of habit despite there was no bell. Dressed, Frevisse pushed aside the curtain that shut her cell off from the dormitory’s aisle as Sister Emma from behind her own set to murmuring increasingly loud questions about where the bell could be; and as Frevisse started down the stairs Dame Perpetua said back impatiently, sleepily, “We don’t know, do we? Just dress. We’ll go see.”

Frevisse was nearly at the stairs’ foot when the bell broke into the morning’s stillness but not with Katerin’s evenly paced clanging. Instead it smashed into the quiet, clashing and banging. Frevisse startled to a stop, then flung herself forward, off the last steps and out into the cloister walk, where there was light enough now to see shapes if not colors clearly. Light enough to see it was Katerin at the bell pentice in the midst of the cloister garth, frantically jerking the bell rope with both hands.

“Katerin!” Frevisse cried. “That’s enough! We’re up. You can stop!”

Katerin looked over a shoulder at her, hearing her despite the clanging but not stopping. Frevisse crossed into the garth and to her, exclaiming, “It doesn’t matter you were late, Katerin! You can stop now. We’re awake!” Then she saw the terror on Katerin’s face and changed to urgent comforting, trying to lower and even her voice with “Katerin, stop it. There’s no harm done. You’re only a little late. It’s well enough. Stop now.” She caught her by the wrists, careful to be gentle but surprised at Katerin’s strength. “You can stop now, Katerin.”

Words always took time to reach Katerin’s wits and she struggled to go on ringing, pulling against Frevisse’s hold, until abruptly, of her own will and not Frevisse’s force, she stood still and silence clashed down around them, momentarily as startling as the noise had been. The only sound was Katerin’s panting in the stillness, before Frevisse, making an effort to speak soothingly, said very quietly, “It doesn’t matter you were late, Katerin. It doesn’t matter. No one is angry at you.”

“Dead!” Katerin sobbed.

Frevisse stared at her, trying to guess what she was trying to say. Katerin wrested a hand loose and pointed across the garth toward the stairs to Domina Alys’ parlor. “Dead!”

Suddenly cold around the heart, Frevisse let her go and started across the garth toward the stairs, not wanting to. Katerin could only think in simplicities. It had to be no more than that Domina Alys was ill. It was surely only that, not death.

Domina Alys loomed out of the darkness of the narrow stairs to her parlor, dressed but still pinning her veil into place as she came, demanding at full voice, “Katerin, what do you think you’re doing? You’re supposed to ring the bell, not smash it to pieces!” Finding Frevisse instead of Katerin in front of her, she stopped on the last step, momentarily wordless, then shifted her attack. “And you! If you’re here, why didn’t you stop her sooner?”

Frevisse, abruptly stopped at the edge of the cloister walk, hardly heard the question. Her hand shaking from more than the ice-edged morning air, she pointed aside to the passageway to the outer door.

“What?” Domina Alys demanded and turned to look.

The passage’s length was in deeper darkness than the cloister walk where the gray dawnlight was winning against the night. What lay there was as yet only a shape stretched out and lost in shadows except for one booted foot thrust a little into the walk and the beginning daylight. That would have been what Katerin saw when she came down the stairs—a booted foot and then a shape lying in the darkness where no one ought to be. And terrified of something unfamiliar, she had done the one thing already in her mind to do—she had rung the bell for people to come.

Now she was edging around Frevisse, whimpering; and when Domina Alys put out an arm toward her without looking away from the foot, Katerin went to crowd against her like a frightened child to its mother, pleading, “Don’t be angry. Don’t be dead. Angry. Dead.” Beginning to wail.

Not heeding her, Domina Alys whispered hoarsely at Frevisse, “Who?”

Frevisse went a step nearer, forcing herself. The light was steadily growing. She could see him now, enough to know him and what had been done to him. Enough that she shifted to block him from Domina Alys’ view before she answered. “Sir Reynold.”

Domina Alys started forward, shoving Katerin aside, but Sister Amicia, Sister Cecely, and Sister Emma came rushing across the garth, dressed but bareheaded, their veils and wimples in their hands, exclaiming over each other as they came, “Why was Katerin…”

“The madman, has he…”

“Fire? Are we on fire?” Domina Alys swung around on them in fury, yelling “Cover your heads! Are you gone wanton? Cover yourselves!”

Their tumble of words cut off, they crowded backward into each other, snatching their wimples over their heads, and Domina Alys, her fury as suddenly gone as it had come, swung back on Frevisse, demanding, wanting to be told no, “Sir Reynold?”

Frevisse could only stand, looking at her, not able to give her the answer that she wanted. But when Domina Alys moved toward him, Frevisse held out a hand, saying warningly, “Best not.”

More of the nuns were coming, and servants from where they slept in the kitchen, and Margrete down the stairs from Lady Eleanor’s room. For all Domina Alys heeded them, there might have been no one there but herself and Frevisse as she kept on, ordering harshly, “Let me see him.”

Frevisse moved aside.

Between them, she and Domina Alys had blocked anyone else from seeing what was there but someone caught glimpse enough now, gasped, and a hurried whispering spread from nuns to servants, with more exclaims and hurried crossings of breasts and murmured bits of prayers.

Domina Alys stood with her back to it all, staring down at Sir Reynold’s body, at first not seeming to understand what she was seeing. Then a soft moaning began far down in her throat and she drew back a slow, uneven step, her head beginning to twist from side to side in refusal of what was there. Frevisse tried and could not put out a hand to her or find anything to say. It was Dame Claire who came, took light hold of her arm, said, “My lady, come away. Don’t see…”

Domina Alys flung her hand harshly aside, roughly pushed her into Frevisse and both of them out of her way, and still with that low and terrible moaning in her throat, lurched past them toward the stairs.

No one followed her but Katerin, huddled in misery and maybe fear.

Her going left a silent gap, but only for a moment. Then servants and nuns together crowded forward, some still not sure what they were trying to see but not willing to miss whatever it was. Dame Claire and Frevisse swung around to face them, keeping Sir Reynold’s body from their view as Sister Johane demanded, “Who is it? Is he dead?”

“It’s Sir Reynold,” Dame Claire answered tersely. “Yes, he’s dead.”

Sister Johane stared at her, and belatedly, as Sister Cecely began a soft wailing that promised to grow louder, and Sister Johane’s face crumpled to tears, Frevisse realized that Sir Reynold was as much kin to the two of them as to Domina Alys. Dame Juliana and Dame Perpetua set to trying to comfort them and Sister Emma, who had joined in the wailing, while Sir Reynold’s name ran among the rest of the nuns and servants in exclaims and agitation. Some of them tried to pull back. Others tried to crowd closer. Frevisse held where she was and Dame Claire went forward, trying to persuade everyone away, nuns toward the church, the servants toward the kitchen, but no one was heeding her.

Frevisse had not seen Margrete leave, but she was coming back now, following Lady Eleanor down her stairs, Lady Adela and Joice behind them, all of them wrapped in cloaks, the girls with their hair loose over their shoulders, but Lady Eleanor’s and Margrete’s fastened back and veils pinned quickly on for decency’s sake. The crocus flame of the lamp Lady Eleanor carried was bright in the soft-edged dawn light as with a quick word to the girls, she left them on the stairs and advanced with Margrete on the coil of nuns and servants, adding her orders to Dame Perpetua’s and Dame Juliana’s with the calm expectation of being obeyed, telling the servants, “That’s enough. You don’t need to see more. Go back to the kitchen. We’ll all be wanting breakfast. Go on. You’ve seen enough for now. Move out of my way.”

Under her assurance and orders the servants sorted themselves out from among the nuns and drew back, almost convinced they wanted to go, while Dame Juliana and Dame Perpetua drove the nuns the other way, toward the church, Dame Juliana saying, “There now, we’re late for Prime as it is. That isn’t right. Come, we’ll pray for him. He needs that more than your staring at him and wailing. Go on now.”

Only Sister Thomasine went readily. The others followed less willingly, still weeping and exclaiming, so that when the church door finally shut behind them, with the servants already herded to the kitchen by Margrete, there was a sudden silence, even from Lady Adela and Joice still on the stairs, holding on to each other. Only Lady Eleanor was left, now facing Frevisse who still stood with Sir Reynold’s body mostly hidden behind her skirts; and very quietly she asked, “It’s indeed Reynold?”

Frevisse nodded.

Lady Eleanor briefly closed her eyes, drew in and let out a shaken breath, and ordered, much as Domina Alys had, “Let me see him.”

Chapter 19

Sir Reynold was sprawled forward, his head canted carelessly, gape-mouthed, staring, his body slightly twisted to one side, arms and legs loosely out as if he had made no attempt to stop what must have been an utterly graceless fall. If there had been spasming once he was down, it had been slight. Lady Eleanor’s small lamplight cast the shadows back to the passage’s far end but made no change to the darkness of the wide wound, the black, dried blood across his back.

“From behind,” Lady Eleanor said and drew back the lamp, letting the shadows take him again, for which Frevisse was grateful. The blood and the mingled smells of death, even subdued by hours and the night’s cold, were as much and more of mortality as she wanted just now.

“Margrete.” Lady Eleanor spoke without looking around, knowing she would be there. “Bring Father Henry and Sir Hugh.”