We Speak No Treason Vol 2 (34 page)

The chapel, like my room, needed repair. Fearful light chinks gleamed through the tower masonry. It was cold, like all such places, with a smell of stale incense and onions. The nuns filed into their stalls on either side the nave. I knelt alone, heart-heavy, a little way behind the old corrodian. I saw Juliana come in, redly flurried, wiping her mouth; I looked nervously for Dame Bridget and saw her not. Madame’s dog, unwearied by close of day, rollicked up and down the aisle, hunting a mouse behind the roodscreen. The pock-faced nun brought in her pet bird, unholy jay; it shrieked and chattered, drowning the voice of a fat little priest. And never had I heard an office taken with such scant regard of form or meaning—he rampaged through as if reciting for a wager against all the other scattered clerks in Christendom who might be saying the same words at a steadier pace.

Did
he
, perchance, hear Compline at this hour? Or was he, unthinkably, past hearing?

The chaplain’s assistant was a fair young man, too well-favoured ever to have taken orders. A rufus, his tonsure like an auburn crown. It was better when he began to sing, after his master had tripped and staggered through the versicle, throwing whole pieces to the four winds, starting a line, forgetting it, and leaping gaily on to something halfway down the page; riding the versicle out like a night-hag, while I tried vainly to follow his whim in my missal. But when the red-haired young man took up the reading, his voice was rich as well-brewed mead.

‘I will lay me down in peace and sleep; for thou, O Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety,’ sang the nuns in response.

O Lord! Make him, dear Lord, to dwell in safety. If means my own life’s taking.

In the choir, someone belched, said audibly: ‘My belly’s afire, that I vow.’ My growing godly vision curled and died like a scythed flower.

‘Into thy hands, O Lord,’ sang the chaplain’s assistant, pure and high.

‘For thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth,’ replied the nuns, half-voiced.

‘Gloria!’ screamed the jaybird—was it the jaybird?—hopping fiendlike along the back of my stall.

Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. I stayed, kneeling low, while the chaplain threw his outer vestment over one of the candles and scuttled away as if he had instant business at the other end of England. His fellow priest followed more leisurely, and the nuns, a chaos of mirth and black plumage, tramped down the nave and were gone, presumably to their beds in the dorter. So in quietness I took the breviary and murmured my own Compline, missing out naught, and added the
nobis quoque peccatoribus
, the Great Intercession, for the living—and the dead.

Then I saw the Cross, a stain stretched out before the altar, dark in the waning light. A feigned vision, for it moved, dissolved before my eyes, reared to a kneeling posture, sobbing, fell down again, spreading human arms against the stone. I heard the murmured words of penitence, while the light faded more, bats beat against the clerestory and I grew sad to be witness. After a time, the nun arose, gathered her habit around her and came lightly down the nave to where I sat in silence. Her wimple had slipped back from her face, and a little of her cropped hair was visible, tiny curls like you would see on the head of a young page, or the back of a yearling lamb. Tear-tracks lined her thin cheek. She was about twenty. Rising, I asked her pardon.

‘’Tis naught,’ she said, twining her rosary. She had a mouth flower-soft, gentle eyes.

‘The others know, so why not you?’ She looked closer. ‘You are the London lady,’ she said. ‘Young. Young,’ she repeated thoughtfully, ‘fair, and kindly by your countenance. God grant, child, you never bear such as I.’

She bent and gave me a light kiss, a courtly salute with true warmth in it, then said: ‘My name is Adelysia,’ and, shockingly: ‘And my soul is for ever damned.’

Moments passed, then I said: ‘Jesu have mercy on it,’ trembling for her. She stood, steadfast, sadly smiling, and I whispered: ‘Is there no penance... to absolve you?’

‘Daily,’ she answered, and took a little scourge from her girdle, flicking it around her neck where a rich welt glowed, instantly.

‘If... you are penitent...’

‘God’s mercy?’

‘Surely, His infinite mercy.’

‘You do not know my sin,’ she said almost gaily.

‘’Tis not my affair,’ I said, leaving the chapel. She came with me, like a quiet wind.

‘The Queen’s Grace sent you, did she not? Will you be happy here?’

How could I be happy, I asked her, when I would fain be elsewhere? And it seemed this was a peaceless place, with one and the other. Little Edyth... the nuns who bickered like alewives, comported themselves like madwomen.

‘Come,’ Adelysia said, taking my arm. ‘Walk in the cloister-garth until bedtime. The air will soothe you.’

I was moved to her. In all her own distress, she cared for my comfort.

‘The nuns act so,’ she said, as we trod the succulent green sward, ‘because they have lived and slept, eaten and prayed together for so long that when they quarrel, it is as if they rage against their own selves. Their chatter is like that of birds, the birds they bring into church, wanton and senseless and over quickly. If, with a knife, they could change each other’s countenance, they would be passing glad. But it is all like little dogs barking, little children fighting. Truly, they are good women.’

‘The Prioress...’

She tucked her arm close to mine. ‘Dangerous,’ she said softly. ‘High born and wilful, and sailing close to the wind. As for Juliana, she loves and hates. She plans to be on the winning side, come the reckoning. There are men like that, too,’ she said in a changed tone.

‘And Dame Bridget,’ I said. She stopped walking, became still as the carved gravestones by which we paced.

‘She... has
l’accidie
,’ she whispered.

Dame Joan had spoken of this, and I was curious.

‘
Accidia
, in the Roman tongue,’ Adelysia said, looking across at a grove of yews. ‘
Accidia
. The most deadly thing upon God’s earth. Born of sadness and boredom, and melancholia. Men go mad because of it. They lose their faith in thrall to it. And, because of it, eventually they perish, and die, and are everlastingly consumed.’ Her eyes grew enormous and dark.

‘There was a monk, not far from here,’ she continued. ‘A holy man, who for no reason save that he had been in cloister fifty years, contracted the sinful malady of
accidia
. He dreamed o’nights that he drowned in the waters of Hell (for there is water in Hell, along with the lake of fire) and daily he was cast down into a pit where God could not reach him. Shut off from God and the Saints, he came no more in church. They found him in the fishpond, where the weeds shrouded him.’ I could not answer. My brow felt very cold.

‘After thirty-eight years, Bridget comes no more to Church,’ said Adelysia. We paced on. I looked uneasily at the troutstream, saw, horrified, a giant toad leap clumsily across the green. The child! O God, should I perchance do penance?

‘What is your sin, Sister?’ An unpardonable question, born of frenzy.

‘Later, later,’ she said, not offended. ‘Guard against
accidia
, lady. It is allied to Tristitia, and Sloth. And...’

‘Yea, Sister?’

‘And there is also Wanhope,’ she said, her voice dull. ‘That comes of too much outrageous sorrow.’

Wanhope. Ah, a good word. Too much outrageous sorrow. My lord, my lord. There was a maid once... with nut-brown hair. She loved me, Frank—and I, enamoured for a space, dishonoured her. Mind you those revels, the twelve days of Christmas? An easy light o’ love, she even chased me to Fotheringhay...

Wanhope. A good word. A word to bring madness, replace fond memory with a lie. Call back, then, the obedient horses of the mind...

‘Jesu! You are fair!’

‘I wonder, am I worthy of such love?’

‘Sweet heart, my true maid, you brought me much joy and comfort.’

Ah, Wanhope, can you bring me Richard back?

‘I loved, and lusted.’ It was Adelysia speaking, not my thoughts. ‘Saw you the young chaplain... with the sun girdling his head? Sunset-red, his hair. I lust, and love.’

‘And he?’

‘He pursues me. Even when he offers me the Host, his eyes lick mine. I am in mortal sin.’

In the dusk, she saw my questioning look.

‘Nay,’ she said bitterly. ‘But in my soul I’ve lain with him, I’m guilty. Thank God my father is no more. He gave much gold for my profession when I was six years old. It was his pious wish. Pray Jesu he does not see me now. Apostate, and at heart, a whore!’

We had reached the end of the cloister, and the arched portal of the guest-house. A dark figure filled it, at whose sight Adelysia sought her crucifix. Dame Bridget stepped out of the shade. She had done with weeping.

‘You’re penitent?’

Adelysia’s voice, a breath, answered: ‘Yes, Dame, as ever.’

‘There is no salvation,’ the other said. ‘There is none to save us. I have sought one, listened for his voice, and heard silence. This day, clearer than ever. Black, eternal depths.’

‘And that, I cannot believe,’ I said. Adelysia turned and looked at me, miserably clutching at my hope.

‘You, Dame, have also sinned, no doubt,’ Bridget said, ice and stillness. ‘But this one, guilty of apostasy, heresy, foul lusts... know you, Sister, what the Fiend has in store?

Black waters, that do not purify, for all that they burn as they freeze. Living weeds, which wrap around the soul and drag it down. The demons of the undersea, slimed, crawling monsters. Sharp beaks to rend and tear... No warmth, no pity... Sister, hear me out!’

‘
Ab omnibus malis. Libera nos, Domine
,’ said Adelysia fervently. Once, long ago, Anthony Woodville had returned to Grafton Regis full of miracles, having been at St James’s tomb in Compostella. Among other things he spoke long of a painting he had seen in Spain. He crossed himself while talking of it. For this portrayed the fleshly lusts, the just reward to follow, and obscene tortures of the damned so dreadful... the act of love itself a torture, made so by fire and sharp instruments. There were men stripped of the wayward flesh, white ribcages with witches feasting within, flames kindled in their bowels... women pierced by flowers like swords... men strung on viols, impaled by harpstrings... the devil-dance in full flood...

Yet all great men had lemen. Even Kings, anointed by the Chrism.

I came out of my stark dream. Adelysia wept, and I guided her to the dorter, while she clung upon my neck. To comfort her and quiet my own fear I said softly:

‘I too have loved.’

‘But you are not a nun,’ she said sorrowfully, and touched my lips as she melted into the dark.

I stumbled towards bed. I would ask the Prioress for a penance, for my sake and the child’s, and above all, as surety for the life and deliverance of my lord. Somehow I knew that he lived. Had he been dead, I would have known that, too. I would do penance, whatever Dame Johanna gave me.

My cell was transformed. Edyth had been, was still there in fact, and she had brought every conceivable form of bed covering for my pleasure, three or four blankets, a moth-chewed fur, her own meagre cloak. And, in the corner neatly arranged upon a hempen bag, were sweet herbs for my well-being. Agrimony for the eyes, aloes for the heart (full dangerous), the sloe’s fruit for the bowels. Saffron for the eyes, flowers of the valley lily, also for the heart, rose petals, rue, the King’s Evil root for kidney pains, dried elderberries for a fever. She had an infusion of ginger hot for me, and she herself was in my bed, to make it warm. Having heard my whispered need for medicines, she had acted upon it. If Edyth was witless, may all my friends be simple in the head.

In the night she cherished me, slipping away twice to ring Matins and Lauds, and did her utmost to shield me from the damp; yet I know it was in that place began the rheumatism which plagues me now.

The snow was drifted halfway up the window. Sacrificed on its summit lay a sparrow, stiffly dead. Snow scurried like powder under a sharp wind, heaping the corpse with white. Across the moor that same wind raged and cracked branches made brittle by the ice of weeks. A few of the sheep had ventured near to the house and stood mournfully nestled together, their thick wool hanging matted almost to the ground. They stood out dark against the snow. Even the trees seemed to be crowding closer, too. Behind me, the Prioress chafed hands by the fire. I could still feel her eyes upon my body.

‘Now I know why you asked for a penance,’ she said softly, and blew on her fingers.

She had been loath enough to give it to me, four months earlier. First, she could not find her book, in which were set out the statutory penances for this and that; then, she vowed it was passing awkward, the rules for a nun not being applicable for a corrodian, and further... which was where I broke in, heartrent, and babbled something about asking his Grace the Bishop when he next descended on us. Whatever my words, she flew straightway into great agitation and gave me answer in the next breath. I was to fast for three days; come last into church for a month, during which time I was to say seven psalters. And, as my sin was
de lapsu carnis
(all I would tell her) I could go barefoot the length of the cloister for seven days, upon the hour of None. All this I did, and the nuns came peeping, open-mouthed, as if at a miracle. And as I walked I prayed for his deliverance, and the stone was not even chill beneath my soles. Edyth walked with me. I could not stop her. She had taken the notion to grip my garment by its side, one fold pinched between her fingers.

‘In truth, you’re my shadow,’ I told her in amazement, on the sixth day. She shook her head vigorously.

‘Say not so, lady,’ and looked afraid. ‘Dame Bridget speaks of a shadow. ’Tis evil. ’Tis within us,’ she said, hissing-breathed, and as I was growing sick from Bridget’s dreadful talk, I said hastily: ‘Then you’re no shadow, little one.’

‘I pray for you,’ she answered.

‘Then you’re my beadswoman.’

Now the Prioress studied what was no longer secret.

‘They did not tell me, lady, that your dower was meant to feed two mouths.’