The Marsh King's Daughter (9 page)

'I pray you give her my deepest gratitude, and I will do so again myself when I have risen from my sick-bed,' he said with genuine sincerity, and rubbed his fingers over the luxury of the fine cloth. Then he glanced at her. 'You said that you heard tales of John in Lincoln. Was that your home before you became a nun?'

She gave him a small, bleak smile. 'I lived there,' she said, 'but I am not sure that it was ever my home.' With a sudden look of revulsion, she stood up and shook out the folds of her habit, the weave coarse and uneven in contrast to the finery he held between his hands. 'And I belong to this benighted place even less.'

Nicholas frowned. 'But I thought that

'That I had a vocation?' She laughed bitterly and raised one hand to her head. 'This is the wimple of a novice, not a full-fledged nun, and if I had my choice, it never would be.' In a single movement, she jerked the linen covering from her head and her braid tumbled down, strands of hair wisping free of the thick tawny plait.

Nicholas stared, his jaw dropping. He knew that nuns wore their hair short as a mark of respect to God and a rejection of vanity, but he had never thought for one moment that she was so recent a novice as to be unshorn. Without the prim folds of her wimple, her face was much younger and softer, and the blend of honey-bronze hair and golden-brown eyes was striking.

'My family desired to be rid of me,' she said succinctly, 'so they paid my dowry to St Catherine's and put me here to rot.' She tossed her head and her braid shimmered with movement.

Nicholas was both captivated and amused. 'What did you do to make them want rid of you?'

She ran the wimple through her fingers. 'I spoke my mind. And when my stepfather beat me for doing so, I fought back tooth and nail.' Suddenly she almost smiled. 'I set the house on fire and caused such a scandal that half of Lincoln turned out to line the road the next morning when I left for this place.'

'An unruly shrew then,' he said and grinned.

'I am learning not to be unruly.' For a moment she answered his grin, making him think that it was a long time since he had seen a girl so attractive, but the expression was swiftly quenched. 'I hate it here,' she said. 'Mother Abbess thinks that one day I will come to accept it, but then she has the spur of my dowry to goad her hope. All I have is the knowledge that there is nothing else for me - and that is enough to drive me to despair.'

Nicholas shifted uncomfortably. 'Mayhap the Abbess is right. Mayhap as time progresses you will find it easier to fit in.' He knew that he was mouthing platitudes. Listening to the vehemence in her voice, looking at her, the long braid shining in the candle-light and her head held high, it was difficult to imagine her spending the rest of her life on her knees to God.

'If I do,' she said, 'it will be because the best part of my life has withered away.'

Without warning, the curtain across the small alcove was jerked aside and a nun even more enormous than Sister Margaret filled the entrance, her arms akimbo.

'Sister Miriel, what indecency is this?' Both expression and voice were incredulous and the flashing dark eyes held a glint of triumphant malice.

'Nothing, Sister Euphemia,' Miriel said swiftly. 'My wimple was loose. I took it off so that I could arrange it properly.'

'You must think I was born this morning!' The nun drew herself up, towering over the younger woman like an enormous black thundercloud. 'How dare you play the whore in God's house! Cover your hair immediately!'

'Sister Miriel has behaved with the utmost discretion in my presence,' Nicholas interrupted as he saw the panic flare in the girl's eyes. 'Indeed, it shocks me to hear you use such harsh words against one of your own.'

'Your opinion of discretion is scarcely the convent's,' snapped the nun. She bestowed a basilisk glare on him, then swivelled again to Miriel. 'It's straight to the Abbess for you, you hoyden.' Seizing Miriel by the arm, she began dragging her away.

Miriel cast a frantic glance over her shoulder at Nicholas. He threw the bedclothes aside and started to rise, but he was dizzy and weak from his illness. The breath he gathered to argue with the older nun was squandered in a bout of coughing. By the time he recovered from the spasm and eased himself up against the bolsters, he was alone and the curtain had been very firmly drawn across. Plainly Sister Euphemia would rather he choked to death than interfere with her purpose.

Swearing to himself, he reached for the clothes, but the effort of putting them on was too much for his weakened condition and, in mid-struggle, he fell asleep.

An hour later he woke with a start. The curtain was still drawn across, but now another nun stood at his bedside. In contrast to the quivering, furious bulk of Sister Euphemia, this one was small, composed and elegant. The cross on her breast, although starkly simple, was of intricately worked silver and her air was one of authority, not menace.

Nicholas realised that he was lying half-across the bed, wearing only his shirt and braies. Quickly he drew the sheet across his loins and reached for the tunic.

'I am the Abbess here,' the nun said without preamble, her tone clear and cold. 'I do not know what went forth in here before vespers this evening, but from what I have heard, I can make an educated guess.'

'And I do not know what you heard but—'

'Please.' The Abbess stopped him with a raised hand. Her skin had the slick, transparent sheen of old age and hard work. 'Sister Miriel is our concern, not yours. Perhaps it is only natural that you should wish to defend her, but you can best help her cause by leaving this place as soon as you are able.' Her blue eyes were as clear and cold as her voice. 'It is wise, I think, if you do not see Sister Miriel again.'

Nicholas met the wintry displeasure of her stare. 'Nothing happened between us,' he said with dignity.

'I believe you.' The nun inclined her head. 'If I did not, you would be on the road even now and fortunate to escape imprisonment. I need not tell you that the punishment for seducing a nun is severe.' She pursed her lips. 'It may seem to you that Sister Miriel has little vocation, but I have great hope for her in the future if she can only be brought to our ways. The very strength of her will is the life blood our house needs to survive. It is my duty to channel it, to ensure that it works for the good of all and is not wasted in folly.'

Nicholas bowed in deference to her years and authority, but he could not let her words go entirely unchallenged. 'But you may find that you have destroyed what you sought,' he said, remembering Miriel's bitter remark that if she ever yielded, it would be because the best part of her had withered away.

The Abbess sighed. 'It is a risk I must take. You must understand that there is no place for the girl outside of St Catherine's. Her family has entrusted her to us, and for various reasons there would be little hope of her making a respectable marriage if she returned to her own community. As far as I am concerned, today's incident was just another lesson she has learned the hard way.' The nun's expression grew stubborn. 'She will come into the fold; I will not let her stray.'

She bade him frosty goodnight. Long after she had gone, Nicholas lay on his back, his arms pillowing his head, and thought about the day's happenings. They troubled him, but, like the Abbess, he had a pragmatic streak. It was a pity that the girl had been forced into the convent. He felt sorry for her, but she would not be the first young woman to suffer the fate, and it was the way of the world. Soon, as the Abbess said, he would be gone. He had his own way to make, a new life to forge. While grateful to the nuns for his life - to Sister Miriel in particular - they had no part in his future.

Closing his eyes, he turned on his side and dreamed of wealth, of salt spray in his face, and of the deck of a sleek, beautiful ship beneath his feet.

Miriel was accustomed to enduring bread and water penances. Not a month had gone by without one since her arrival at St Catherine's. For two days she was confined to a solitary cell, bare of furniture save for a thin mattress on the floor of beaten earth and a crucifix on the limed wall. The wind whistled through the barred shutters and it was unbearably cold. She wrapped the scratchy woollen bed blanket around her shoulders like a cloak and paced back and forth across the tiny room in an effort to keep warm. At one point she contemplated tearing the mattress into shreds and setting fire to it with the tiny cresset lamp that was all she had for light. It remained no more than a notion. The bracken stuffing would only give off heat for a short while, and her punishment would be redoubled. She would endure; it was only two days.

Sister Adela brought her a loaf of coarse brown bread and jug of water each morning, but Sister Euphemia was on hand to oversee the proceedings and there was little opportunity for the girls to speak.

'Are you all right?' Adela managed to whisper on the second morning as she entered the cell. She looked pale and frightened. Perceived as the novice closest to Miriel, she was being made to witness her friend's humiliation and punishment as a warning of what happened to transgressors.

Miriel forced a smile and touched her head. 'I will survive,' she said. 'It will grow back in time.' Her wimple covered the shorn spikes of hair that were all that remained of her glorious tawny tresses. Since the charge raised against Miriel by Sister Euphemia was grave indeed, the Abbess had approached St Catherine's priest concerning Miriel's punishment. Full of righteous disgust, Father Gundulf had quoted biblical verses about a woman's hair being a symbol of vanity and whoredom, and pronounced that Miriel's should be shorn to her scalp to remind her that she was God's servant.

It had not been easy. There were huge, hand-shaped bruises on her arms where Sister Euphemia had pinned her fast, although Euphemia herself walked with a limp where Miriel had put in several useful kicks. They had burned her hair on the fire, purifying by immolation that which was unholy.

'The man has moved into the guest house,' Adela added with a swift glance over her shoulder. The shuffle of Euphemia's footsteps was growing louder. 'He said to tell you that he's leaving on the morrow and he wishes you well.'

'Leaving!' Miriel cried in panic. 'But he can't, he's not well enough yet!'

'Hush, don't shout!' Adela flapped an agitated hand. 'Mother Hillary said he had to go as soon as possible. That's all I know.' She backed to the door just as Euphemia appeared.

Miriel gave the novice mistress a single frozen look and turned her back to kneel and pray at the crucifix high on the plain white wall. Euphemia eyed her narrowly before pulling Adela away from the door, banging it shut and sliding the bolt.

It was after midnight when Miriel was released from the cell to rejoin the other nuns in the first service of the day. She was so cold by now that she could not feel her hands or feet. The words of the priest passed over her head, but she managed to repeat the chants by rote. Her breath was a white vapour in the air, and by each exhalation she marked the time to the breaking of fast when there would at least be hot gruel and a hearth for warmth. And Nicholas would be gone, leaving her a prisoner in this bare, joyless world.

The thought ate at her through the interminable hours of the service. Her attention wandered and Sister Euphemia's willow switch lashed across her knuckles, but to little effect since her fingers were too numb with cold to feel the pain. She looked at the developing welt whilst she considered the punishments of shorn hair and isolation that had brought her to this moment, and arrived at the decision towards which she had been travelling for a long time.

Raising her head, she gave her responses in a voice of renewed firmness and clarity that earned her wondering looks from the other novices. Miriel paid them no heed, for her eyes and mind were fixed upon her inner vision.

The nocturnal services ended and the women filed out of the chapel to wash their hands and repair to the refectory. Miriel broke her fast and forced herself not to wolf down the bowl of grey barley gruel. She behaved with modesty and decorum, listening attentively to the sister who read out the lesson from the gospel of Matthew as the women ate. She knew that the others were speculating about her, wondering if she had finally been brought to her senses. From the glances she had received in chapel, she knew that there was a mingling of sympathy and righteous satisfaction at the severity of her punishment. Little did they know how much more speculation there would be by the day's end.

Following the meal, the nuns went about their various duties. Miriel was summoned to the Abbess's chamber and there given another lecture about applying her will to becoming a worthy nun instead of bringing disgrace and disrepute upon herself and the convent.