Anna of Byzantium (21 page)

Eventually the flat plains turned into hills, and the hills into rocky mountains. There was no longer anyone to stare at me as I went past, so I kept the curtains open and watched the mountains as they grew nearer. But the closer we got, the less I liked the view. The mountains were hard and gray; they looked like cold shoulders turned against me. I pulled the curtains again and slept as much as I could to pass the time.

The horses labored climbing up the slopes, and on the way down the brakes were set against the wheels to prevent the beasts from being run over by the carriage. Up, up, up, and then down, down, down, until finally there were several days of more up than down.

On the afternoon of a particularly wet day, one of the grim-faced women assigned to travel with me said with distinct satisfaction, “There is your new home.” I looked out and saw that we were pulling into the courtyard of a large gray building, made of stone and wood. The nuns who were gathering to see the newcomer wore habits of the same color, and any hair they had was covered by gray scarves. They blended in well with their surroundings. I descended stiffly from the carriage, and, followed by the two women carrying the possessions I had been allowed, I entered the convent.

And here I stay. Two years have passed since my arrival, and since I am only seventeen, many more years will pass before I move on to my next home, which will be the grave.

t is cold here. Despite the concession of a fire each day, and the warm clothes allowed me, I never feel entirely warm. The only place where I can forget the cold is in the copying-room. Lately, after many weeks of irksome practicing under Sister Thekla, I have been given some actual documents to copy. They are private family papers, copied over for use in a lawsuit. It almost makes me laugh to see the petty matters in which these local lordlings are engaged. No Comnenus would lower himself to squabble over an inheritance, or over ownership of land. We would just take what was ours, or die in the attempt. Or be sent into exile.

In the months I have been writing here in my room, and enduring Sister
Thekla’s tutelage in the copying-room, I have learned the names of some of the nuns. The little novice with the runny nose is Honoria. She was sent here as a tithe, she tells me. The peasants often vow one tenth of all they own to God, and since she was her parents’ tenth child, they dedicated her as a nun. She is not unhappy with their choice, having grown up with the knowledge that this is what her life would be. Besides, she tells me, it is much more comfortable in the convent than in the farmhouse where she was born, and here no one beats her.

Others of the nuns have different reasons for being here. One, something of a celebrity in the small community, fled marriage with a man of superior rank to dedicate herself to Christ. The others speak of her with awe, as someone who had the courage to stand up to her father. Most were simply the younger daughters in a family with no means of providing a dowry for all the girls, and so had to come here for lack of any other way to live. A few, like Sister Thekla, are widows, and hold the novices, who have come without any knowledge of the world, in some contempt.

Mother Superior often summons me to her room, where there are comfortable chairs and a few rugs to keep the cold of early spring from one’s feet. She is an affectionate person who treats all the sisters as her daughters. She calls me to her room on some pretext, but then keeps me there talking about history, about my mother, about the Franks who overran our country during the Crusade, about anything she can think of. She is more educated than the rest of them (except Sister Thekla), and I think her mind is as starved as mine for intelligent conversation.

Lately I have been attending some of the nuns’ services. At first a few curious glances turned my way as I sat on my bench, but now they seem accustomed to my presence. I find their singing soothing. A few evenings ago they sang a hymn I did not remember having heard before, either in the palace or here. The melody was unremarkable, but the words were unusual. The next morning I asked Mother Superior what it had been. She called over Sister Theodora, the choir-mistress, and put my question to her.

“It was about Mary the Egyptian, whose feast-day it was yesterday,” she answered. “If you like, Sister, you may borrow the hymnal and read it for yourself.”

I nodded assent, and Theodora left, reappearing a few minutes later with her hymnal. She turned to a page marked “April 1: Mary the Egyptian,” and I read:

I admired the warlike imagery of the opening. I knew all about fighting my passions as though in a battle. At the bottom of the page was the name Kassia.

“Kassia,” I said.

“A nun,” Theodora replied. “She lived hundreds of years ago and wrote many hymns and verses.”

“I have heard of her,” I said. I asked no more questions, and Theodora, accustomed to the convent’s rule against unnecessary conversation, volunteered no more information.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that there were fewer women than usual at the table one evening. Mother Superior noticed my inquiring look and after the meal was over she said to me, “I’m afraid that some of the sisters have been taken with an illness.”

“What kind of illness?” I asked.

“They ache in all their joints and are unable to take nourishment,” she replied.

“Are they feverish?” I asked.

“Yes, but not severely,” she answered.

“May I see them?” I asked. She hesitated. “I have some skill in medicine,” I told her, and after considering for a few minutes, she nodded and led me to the infirmary.

There, four nuns lay on little cots, three of them asleep, the fourth praying. I walked down the row, took their pulses, felt their foreheads for fever, and looked into the eyes and mouth of the one who was awake. Then I turned to the mother superior.

“It is nothing serious,” I told her. “The important thing is for them to take in liquid. Not wine, but water, or if they can keep it on their stomachs, weak broth. Have them take a tiny sip, then wait a few minutes, and then take another. In that way their stomachs should be able to stay easy and not spew it all forth again.”

The infirmary nun was listening eagerly, and when the mother nodded to her she bustled out of the room, I suppose to tell the kitchen nuns to prepare broth.

“They should continue to rest,” I went on. “Do not bleed them, but make them stay in bed until they say they feel well, and then one day more. This fever returns easily and is more difficult to get rid of the second time.”

“I thank you, daughter,” she said.

In a few days, the four sisters were about their duties again, and a fifth who had taken ill recovered much faster than the others for having been started on my regimen earlier. The sisters started coming to me with their little ills (due mostly to boredom and inactivity), and I even started to treat the beggars who gathered in the courtyard seeking aid from the convent. The convent library had a few medical books, some of which were new to me, and I read them eagerly, immersing myself in study the way I had not done since the days when Simon and I would spend long hours in the library together. His round face appeared suddenly in my mind as I came upon a book he had once urged me to read, despite my reluctance. The book had looked dry, and was so old that the pages were brittle and hard to handle.

“Sometimes wisdom is hidden in an unattractive form,” he had told me. I had rolled my eyes at the triteness of his words, and he had laughed. “And sometimes truth is hidden in clichés!” he had added. It was my turn to laugh, and I had picked up the book, studied it, and learned a great deal.

I felt a jolt when I realized that for the first time since
my exile I had thought of Simon without pain. Where was he now? I wondered. Was he thinking of me, too? Or had he been killed at my brother’s orders?

Soon the villagers were looking on our convent as a kind of infirmary, and would bring me the ill and injured to receive aid. Yesterday, I had more than usual to deal with. Aside from the ordinary colds, fluxes, and scrapes and bruises, I had two wounds to treat. With the coming of spring, the farmers are working past their fatigue, and often make mistakes. I treated a deep gash from a scythe on a young man’s leg, and set the arm of a boy who had fallen from a tree where he had been egg-hunting.

After I had received their thanks and their blessings, I watched the last of them depart through the gate. From the courtyard, I could see out to the fields. Spring was not yet in full flower, but the day was warm. On an impulse, I followed the peasants through the gate to stand on the grass immediately outside the convent walls. At first I felt giddy at not being enclosed by walls, but told myself not to be silly, that ordinary people stood out in the open every day. After a few minutes, I felt more relaxed, and looked down across the fields. What I saw delighted me. Far off, tiny figures were bending low, planting. Horses pulled plows, and the sound of birdsong reached my ears. The mother superior joined me, her hands tucked in her wide sleeves.

For a few minutes we stood in silence. Then I said impulsively, “It looks just like Sophia’s favorite picture!”

“Who is Sophia?” she asked.

I didn’t know how to answer. Finally, “A friend,” I said.

“And what was her favorite picture?”

“An illustration in one of my mother’s psalm-books,” I explained. “It showed a spring day, with people planting, just like this. And over the city …” I stopped. I knew it was foolish, but before I could stop myself I had craned my neck to look back over the convent. Of course, there was no golden-winged angel hovering there, just as there had not been over the palace all those years before. But for a moment I had thought I would see one.

returned to my room to find an unexpected pleasure: a letter from Maria. It was brief, and she was obviously writing cautiously. No doubt my brother had someone read letters before allowing them to be sent to me. She said she was well, and happily establishing herself in her new home several days’ ride from Constantinople, where her husband’s family resided. I missed her and could tell, even from her carefully worded sentences, that she must miss me too. I was somehow comforted by the thought that even if I had remained in the palace, I would hardly have seen her again, given her new home and my duties. So circumstances would have separated us, even if John had not.

I had barely finished the letter and folded it back up when Mother Superior sent a sister with word that I had a visitor. I was sure this was another patient, and was raising myself wearily when the nun said, “No, she’s coming here,” and stood back to admit a small figure wrapped in a brown cloak, the hood pulled up to keep the wearer from the cold of the spring evening. The woman pulled her hood off her head, and a pair of familiar brown eyes beamed at me.

Sophia. Sophia had come. I reached out for her hands, suddenly blinded by the tears stinging my eyes. For once I was glad I was no longer a princess and had no need to hide what I was feeling.

“I am glad to see you,” I said.

“And I you,” she answered.

“What brings you here?” I asked.

“After you—left,” she said, and I smiled inwardly at the discretion of that neutral word, “Malik and I came to this region to live with Malik’s brother. I have only just heard that a princess was living in the convent and knew it had to be you. The mother superior says you still have no maid, so I am here to offer you my services.”

I looked around the meager room. Sophia’s gaze followed mine, and surely she could see that there were no chests of silken robes to keep in order, no huge, roaring fire to stoke, no meals to arrange on a tray. I indicated my linen gown, and my simply dressed hair. She smiled, remembering, no doubt, how I used to complain at the hours it took to plait my hair into dozens of tiny braids and wind them in complicated patterns across my head.