Sylvia (38 page)

The passage I was to read was from a text by St Benedict of Nursia written some six hundred years previously. It was upon this text that the order I was to enter was based. I began to read aloud and read for some time before the abbess demanded that I cease.

‘Where have you learned this text, Sylvia?' she demanded.

‘I have not, Magistra. I come to it for the first time now.'

‘Nonsense! You are reciting it!'

‘Nay!' I protested, forgetting to add the word ‘Magistra'.

‘Ha!' She turned the book the right way so that the letters faced me correctly. ‘See, it was upside down, you are reciting it, you know it off by heart, you cheat!' she accused.

‘Nay, if it pleases you I can read it just as well if it be upside down or the right way up, Magistra.'

I could see she did not believe me, and turning the book towards the end of its text some many pages forward, she turned it again so the letters faced me upside down. ‘Read!' she commanded.

I read the text as well as I did the former.

‘Remarkable!' she said at last. ‘Do you know of St Hildegard?' she asked.

‘Aye, Magistra, she is the greatest woman scholar who ever was.'

‘And was a nun and then an abbess,' the abbess boasted. ‘The letter from Father Paulus says that you may be another such as she. What say you to this?'

I was truly astonished – neither priest had told me what the letter contained. Now my fears, which had begun with the ridiculous eulogy at the gate with Rosa, were totally confirmed. ‘Nay, never! I could never dream of such, Magistra. You must believe me. I know not what the letter contained, but such aspirations are impossible! I hope to learn from those who are much more learned than me and to gain a small portion of their vast knowledge. If I can do this, I shall be well satisfied with my life.'

But my outburst seemed to fuel her contempt. ‘You are of peasant birth and bring us no dowry to stake your claim to learning or your right to be here! You think to further your knowledge by becoming a nun, a single peasant present who wears our habit where all the other nuns are of noble birth. I no longer doubt that you are as clever as they say. But you will never be another Abbess Hildegard! How will you take your place in manners and deportment among those of us who are more civilised than thee?'

‘I will try to learn thy ways, Magistra,' I replied, looking down at my feet.

‘Nobility is not learned, it is born! You will forever be a peasant,' she spat.

And so that night, still hungry and miserable, I started my life in a convent. After my interview with the abbess she summoned a servant, a lay sister who cleaned the lavatorium, to take me to Sister Angelica to have my head shaved.

My hair, like my voice, had often caused people to comment and I had not until that moment realised how much a part of me it had become. Frau Sarah would wash it with chamomile and brush it at every opportunity and so would the girls at Ali Baba's. It was truly my crowning glory and if I was known to be pretty to look upon, it was as much my hair and eyes that accounted for this advantage not of my making.

Sister Angelica waited for me with the shears. ‘Ah, all is vanity, my little novice, and we must all learn to be humble and not prideful,' she smirked. ‘You did not create this crown of gold and now God wants it back.' I could feel the pleasure she took in saying this.

I was determined I would not cry and choked back the tears as my hair fell in strands to the floor, a golden mat at my feet for me to contemplate one last time. I thought of the ratcatcher who had first remarked upon it when he'd found me by the stream; Frau Sarah as she fingered it and looked for lice, then gave me sweet herbs to wash it at the bathhouse and then loved to attend to it; of Fatima who had once asked me if she might have a golden lock to plait into her own beautiful hair, which shone as a raven's wing and needed no adornment. Now it was gone forever, an untidy mat that lay on the dark wet floor of a lavatorium in a convent.

‘Look now for the last time with your beautiful blue eyes,' Sister Angelica said, pointing to the golden locks upon the floor.

And if thou could you'd pluck them out as well, you bitch,
I thought, and it was this that kept me from bursting into tears. Sister Angelica was envious, not only of my looks but of my intelligence as well. It was a small comfort as she bade me wash and then put on the coarse and prickly woollen nightdress I must wear to bed.

I lay on a straw pallet with the other novices, all gently bred, who had come from their prayers of Compline and gone to bed in the dorter without saying a single word to me. But if I hoped, despite my tears, for a long night's sleep I was about to be initiated into the ways of nuns and the monastic timetable or Horarium.

This daily and nightly routine of nuns began at midnight, but three hours after we had gone to sleep, with Matins. We were barely back an hour when we rose again at three of the clock for the Office of Lauds, which occurred in the dark and required us to memorise a chant, three antiphons, three psalms and three lessons. The novices had been here but five days and had not yet learned the recitations, but knelt in the dark alongside the nuns and tried not to fall asleep. I confess I failed to remain awake and would later be punished. Then back to bed once more for two hours sleep until the Office of Prime at six of the clock when we rose and washed, then gathered at the chapter house for the day's instructions and to attend to any judicial business. Judicial hearings were when those who had been discovered to have fallen asleep during one or another of the offices or had committed the sin of disobedience or some other transgression were subjected to the rod. This was often a caning of harsh severity by the Magistra. I had been at the convent but one night and part of a morning when I received the first of many thrashings. Then came breakfast, bread and beer, followed by private mass and spiritual reading until nine of the clock in the morning, then followed the Office of Tierce, then high mass. At noon came the Office of Sext and the midday meal, vegetables and fish, salted herring or cod fresh from the sea, served with wine and sometimes bread. Meat was only served to those who ailed and had been sent to the infirmary.

After lunch we had a period of recreation, a walk in the gardens, or for me a visit to the nearby woods to sit alone and call the birds to share this precious time with me or sometimes to sing a song that was not a hymn. Then back to the dorter to rest until the Office of Nones at three of the clock in the afternoon. Then we worked at whatever we might do, embroidery, delicate spinning, the illumination of manuscripts and in my instance, because I had been granted special dispensation, study at the monastery with Brother Dominic, the great scholar and scribe. This we did until Vespers at six of the clock. Then the evening meal, broth and bread and cheese with wine or beer, eaten in silence with only gestures allowed. If milk was required then one must imitate the milking of an udder, or for broth the lifting and scooping of a ladle. Then after supper an hour to ourselves for doing mending and the like, before once again the prayers of Compline and to bed at nine of the clock.

It was for a poor sinner such as me a miserable life. Too much praising the Lord with little that was praiseworthy in our thoughts. If one must worship God so many times each day, then worship soon loses its piety and simply becomes a mumbling of memorised Latin words no longer meaningful or even thought about. I found myself far closer to God in the brief moments I was spared to tarry in the woods with the birds than I did on my knees half dead with fatigue at the Office of Lauds at three in the morning.

And then there was the great disappointment of my learning. It was only after the Office of Nones at three of the clock in the afternoon that I was allowed to study with Brother Dominic, who was too frail leave the monastery. I would run all the way and could get there in fifteen minutes. Then back before Vespers at six of the clock, another fifteen minutes spent, so that at best he would give me an hour and a half of instruction each day. It was not sufficient and I craved more learning. Nor was I allowed to read in what free time I could find within the day and if caught, as I often was, I would be thrashed severely by the abbess.

‘I shall beat the peasant breeding from you!' Whack! ‘Do you not have enough of books?' Whack!
‘
Gentlefolk do not spend their time with Latin.' Whack!
‘
Or is it Greek or Hebrew?' Whack!
‘
You will never be another Hildegard!' Whack! ‘This for the sin of disobedience!' Whack!

I endured the first month as I served my postulancy, my introduction to serve in the order of the Benedictines, then finally somehow reached the end of my novitiate year and took the Benedictine vows of stability, obedience and
conversatio morum
. Brother Dominic had made repeated attempts to have me for longer periods of study but while I was a novice the abbess had complete control and she would not allow it. But when my first year was over and I must serve three more years before I could take the nun's vows, he went to the abbot and asked that he intervene on my behalf with the abbess. The abbot was a kindly monk who claimed he had once heard me sing when he attended mass on a visit to St Mary's on the Kapitol. He asked the abbess that I might come to sing each day at the high mass in the monastery after the Office of Tierce. While couched as a request, the abbess could not refuse him and so I would take my midday meal, under supervision, with Brother Dominic and then study the entire afternoon in return for singing. At last I was getting the true benefits of study and felt that I could happily endure the harsh treatment I seemed to endlessly attract from the abbess, and the scorn of the nuns, still led in my chastisement by Sister Angelica. While she was no longer my novice mistress, she remained the thorough bitch.

If the abbess had thought that she would show me for the peasant I was in the way I comported myself and with my table manners, she was to be disappointed. I had been well trained by Frau Sarah and had entertained in a great many noble palaces and houses of the rich burghers. I had learned the ways of comportment required of a gentle lady perhaps even better than the abbess herself and was the equal in all the niceties of behaviour of any nun, no matter how highborn. I fear that with this opportunity to chastise me denied, the abbess was even further angered.

I was the first and the quickest to learn the rule of St Benedict, a text that was read to the novices each day and was in length thought impossible to learn in recitation. This reading was traditionally the sternest test for the novices, who, while highborn, knew only a little Latin and struggled greatly, while I was by now fluent and found the text quite easily absorbed. This did not help the abbess's quick temper and she would usually find reason to put me before her at the Judiciary. Yet I had refused to become compliant and to remain silent and felt that if I should do so I was denying the truth I had come to learn. She even required that I stop singing in the abbey as my voice showed up the voices of the nuns. ‘God does not want to hear thy voice as if there is no other to be heard,' she castigated me in front of all the others. ‘He wishes to hear all our praises sung to Him. You will remain silent as a punishment for such arrogance. It is enough that you sing daily at the monastery.'

My only friend was Rosa, who would often comfort me while we worked in the vegetable garden together. This was not compulsory and put a sneer upon the faces of the nuns as it clearly indicated my peasant past. But I enjoyed her company and down-to-earth nature. She was a cheerful soul and seemed to know everyone's business, and in particular their nasty little secrets, and kept me well informed on all that happened in the convent. Sometimes she would join me in the woods and I would show her how to gather herbs and make the various unguents and ointments taught me by Frau Sarah. Alas, these soon gave her an added importance and she was appointed to the infirmary and so I sadly lost her as my regular companion, although she would come to see me whenever she could. It was difficult after the courtesans and Frau Sarah to have no other female company I could trust. Gossip is a natural part of being a woman and its absence dries up the very soul. If a woman should have to choose between prayers and gossip God would be poorly served.

I have also not spoken of the urges burning within me since entering the convent. If I had thought that the night with the lute player would satisfy forever I was quite wrong. My body ached constantly for the need of a man's touch and I imagined much how I would like to repeat the lute player's night with someone else, though I knew not who. Rosa said that the miller and his son who brought grain to the convent were happy to accommodate a randy nun and named several sisters who were regularly serviced. But I had looked upon them both and heard them in conversation with the kitcheness and in my mind declared them fat, churlish fellows, thick as a pair of oxen and possessed of a sly leering. Their vacant faces were dusted with flour and a mucoid runnel ran from their broken noses cutting through to the rubescent skin below. I decided that the pleasure of my finger was, while far from satisfactory, still much the preferable way of sublimation.

It was a most curious thing that the words of the song the lute player had given me, which had at first brought me great consternation, now brought me some consolation. I would go into the woods when I could endure my longing no longer and would pleasure myself as the widow Johanna had taught me in the village that first night on the day I had met the ratcatcher. Of course the courtesans had taught me more sophisticated ways of self-pleasuring, but somehow the widow's way seemed still innocent and was a lonely woman's given right and therefore not a sin. As I went about this female right I would, feeling very sorry for myself, sing the lute player's song, ‘The Reluctant Bride of Christ'.