The Maiden’s Tale (3 page)

He had the folded papers. It was a small room, barely enough for the two beds and the chest along the wall that served for storage and sitting both. Jane was already near enough to him that she need only reach out for them to have them and she did, snatching them with no time to pretend she did not know what they were or question how he had come by them. The priest was at her back now, his murmurous voice familiar. Quickly, not looking away from William’s deep, still-questioning look but refusing him any answers, defying him to say more, she tucked the papers into the wrist of her gown’s tight sleeve, secure and out of sight before she turned from him, made way and curtsied for the priest and escaped. What was presently most necessary was to let Lady Alice know the message was safe. Undelivered but safe. What William knew or did not know or was guessing at would have to wait for later, was something with which Lady Alice would have to deal. Jane on her part had refused to ask questions, even of herself, ever since Lady Alice had first trusted her in the matter.

But she was nonetheless asking herself one now because Eyon Chesman had not been someone who drank himself senseless at any time and most assuredly not when he had been entrusted with anything, let alone something as necessary as this message. That certainty about him had been one of the great reasons Lady Alice had chosen to use him in the matter.

So how had he come to die of too much drink?

Chapter 2

The sharp-edged wind harried the slight snow along the cloister walk, into corners and out again and into swirling patterns around their skirts as the nuns hurried through the cold and early evening darkness from the refectory to the hoped-for comfort of the warming room and an hour by a fire before Compline’s prayers and shivering bedtime. Their Benedictine black woolen gowns, black veils, and white wimples that left nothing open but their faces were small protection against the wind’s icy fingering tonight, and though by rights Dame Juliana should have led the way, they were all too much in haste to care for precedence. It was Sister Emma who was first, exclaiming as she scurried, “Mercy, mercy, mercy! If it’s this cold now, what will it be like later?” But that was a thing she always said at every winter’s beginning and no one answered her, only crowded on her heels and one another’s, hurrying each other along, bringing Sister Emma to protest over her shoulder as she fumbled with the latch of the warming room’s door, “Don’t push so!” and then “Mercy!” as the door opened into blessed warmth and firelight.

In St. Frideswide’s cloister, only the prioress’ parlor, the kitchen, and here had fireplaces, with fires allowed, by the rules, in the parlor and warming room only from October’s end to May’s beginning each year. By their prioress’ will, the rule could sometimes be slacked and sometimes had been, but it was November now, in the year of our Lord’s grace 1439, and “Even if it wasn’t time, it’s cold enough,” Sister Johane said, her hands out to the fire as she crowded with the rest toward the hearth.

Only Sister Thomasine was slow to follow. Coming last as she generally did to everything but prayers, she took time to close the door with the deliberate, considering care she gave to everything she did, then crossed quietly to join the others, Dame Frevisse shifting slightly, willingly, aside to make room for her. There were only nine of them in the priory now, few enough there was room at the hearth for all of them if they kept close together and with the cold no one minded doing that.

St. Frideswide’s had never been large but at least they had been ten until two weeks ago, until their prioress’ ill-dealing had been found out and the priory been put at their abbot’s mercy. Through the days since then, Abbot Gilberd had pried into every possible corner of the priory’s life, setting his officers to find out how wrong things had gone under their prioress’ care, how much she had misused their property, how much she had overspent of money she had meant to have but never did.

She was gone now, after more than twenty years in St. Frideswide’s—four of them as prioress—sent away last week to another nunnery where she would be no more than a common nun among strangers, with her nuns here not even told where she was gone, not even allowed to see her leave; while they were all in chapter meeting one morning, she had simply been given over to some of Abbot Gilberd’s men and taken away, with only her simple-witted servant for companion and that for kindness to the servant, who would not have understood losing her mistress rather than any other reason.

In all truth, it was a relief to have her gone, but even so her going left an odd emptiness behind it. An emptiness that was growing in St. Frideswide’s. Besides their prioress, their prioress’ aunt who had been boarding there was gone, with servant and dogs and relatives; and Abbot Gilberd had determined that little Lady Adela must go, too, a child who had been put into St. Frideswide’s five years ago by Lord Warenne, her father, to be raised and educated and to become, the nuns had not too secretly hoped though it was never promised, a nun with them some day.

“And he does pay us for her. At Lady Day and Michaelmas,” Dame Juliana had dared to say when Abbot Gilberd had told them Lady Adela had to go. They had all known by then that there was small use in protesting to Abbot Gilberd over anything, but Dame Juliana as the priory’s cellarer and kitchener had grown a little bold out of desperation at the responsibility that had come on her with their prioress’ fall and had even dared to add, though in a small voice, “We need the money, you know.”

“None better,” Abbot Gilberd had answered, a little edgily perhaps after too many hours of going over the rolls of the priory’s unsatisfactory accounts. “But just now there’s as much need for prayer here as for money, and for that you need to be rid of all distractions. The child is a distraction.”

“Only a little one,” Dame Perpetua might have said, and after all she had had the main responsibility of Lady Adela; but revelations of how deeply in trouble St. Frideswide’s was had cowed them into simply accepting Abbot Gilberd’s will.

At least he was as concerned with fully restoring the worship that had been too much slacked under their prioress’ indiscipline as with taking in hand the worldly order gone too far awry in St. Frideswide’s these past months. That much about him she could appreciate, Frevisse thought as she drew her hands back from the blessed warmth, tucked them into the opposite sleeves of her gown, and huddled them against her. That, and the fact that he was finished with them, for a while at least.

He had told them so this morning in chapter meeting, right after he had finished detailing precisely how badly off the priory was and how narrowly they were going to have to live while their finances and properties were straightened into order and, hopefully, profit again. Even what had seemed small things—such as warmed, spiced cider after Compline to comfort their way to their beds—would have to be foregone for the while. “Spices are expensive,” Abbot Gilberd had said in that case, “and your store of cider low and you have no prospect of being able to buy more of either one this year. What you have will have to last you.” And that was only one of the economies he had enjoined on them. “Your steward understands it all,” he had said. “Follow what he tells you and you should do well enough.”

That had been hard to hear—used to governing themselves, to be put under the governance of their steward. But Abbot Gilberd had turned their minds from it by going on, “With that, I think that I’ve done all that can be presently done for you. Even if more needs doing, it will have to wait. I’m summoned to the parliament meeting at Westminster and must leave tomorrow for it.” Elbows resting on the arms of his chair—their prioress’ chair—he had steepled his fingers together and looked at their waiting faces in front of him and said what they were waiting to hear. “That leaves us with only the question of who should be your prioress now.”

With the words finally said, they had all bowed their heads, awaiting his decision. In the usual way of things they would have elected their own prioress from among themselves, then asked their abbot’s approval of her and he would probably have given it, comfortably distant in his St. Bartholomew’s Abbey in Northampton. But things were not as usual and Abbot Gilberd had, as was his right, taken the question into his own hands. “With everything considered, both past and likely to come, I cannot in all conscience see fit to choose any of you to the place.”

Though they had more or less expected that, there had been some slight stirring of disappointment among the younger nuns, while Frevisse had inwardly let loose a tight-wound tension, because among the many things she did not want in life was the responsibility of being prioress. That much, at least, no longer hanging over her, she had waited in silence with the others while Abbot Gilberd continued, “Having thought on it at length and had answer yesterday to a letter making inquiry, I tell you now my choice has fallen on Dame Elisabeth of St. Helen’s Bishopsgate in London.”

The nuns had exchanged quick looks among themselves around the edges of their veils without raising their heads, silently asking if anyone knew who this was. None of them did but it had not mattered because Abbot Gilberd had gone on, “She is my sister in the world and so I know her well enough to have ample belief that she will serve both you and St. Frideswide well as your prioress.”

“Not to mention being willing to go tale-telling to him if we don’t do just as she tells us to,” Sister Cecely had later complained, when Abbot Gilberd was not there to hear her. Dame Claire had promptly pointed out with quelling mildness, “We’re bound to obey our prioress, whoever she is. We take oath on it.” To which Sister Cecely had said back, “Well, we’ll certainly have to obey this one.”

But at the time no one had said anything and Abbot Gilberd had gone on, “Dame Elisabeth and her prioress have both agreed to the choice and it would be best, I think, for her to take up the office as soon as might be. Toward that end and to help her welcome here, when I leave tomorrow I purpose Dame Perpetua and Dame Frevisse will go with me, to meet her at St. Helen’s and escort her back here.”

Startled, Frevisse had raised her head to stare at him, then turned to look at Dame Perpetua just turning to look at her, both of them silently asking each other why them?—before discipline faced them forward again and their heads humbly down, murmuring almost together, “Yes, my lord.”

Because what else had there been for them to say?

But it meant that this evening, that should have been in some ways a little pleasurable with the certainty of Abbot Gilberd’s going, was instead, for Frevisse, edged with disquiet. It was not as if she had never left the nunnery in the years since taking her vows. She had and more than once, for various reasons as good as this one. It was simply that, in this matter, she did not understand why the choice had fallen on her, and she was never comfortable with things she did not understand.

They were all beginning to be warm enough now to think of other things than how cold they were. Sister Thomasine had already gone aside to sit by herself on one of the joint stools, her beads in her hands, her eyes shut, her lips moving silently, quietly smiling at her prayers. The disquiet of the past days had never seemed to touch her very much; her prayers were always more to her than anything else, even the cold. The rest of them kept closer to the hearth, with other things than prayers on their minds, though it was Dame Juliana who actually said aloud, “We don’t know anything about her!” Meaning Dame Elisabeth. “At least we knew Domina Alys.”

“And we elected her anyway,” Dame Claire answered tersely. That their late prioress’ election had been an accident was neither here nor there now. However it had happened, it had cost them their right to choose who would be over them next, and Sister Johane said regretfully, “We should have asked Abbot Gilberd about her, there in chapter meeting, while we had the chance.”

“So why didn’t you then?” Sister Cecely demanded.

Sister Johane poked her in the side with an elbow; they were cousins and the youngest nuns, free with rudeness between themselves, and she had no need to better answer Sister Cecely’s demand because it had taken no one very long to learn the uselessness of questioning Abbot Gilberd. He questioned and he ordered and all anyone else was expected to do was answer and obey.

“She may not be like him,” Dame Perpetua suggested, vaguely hopeful. Then added, less hopefully, “Or then again she may be.”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Dame Claire said. “And you and Dame Frevisse sooner than the rest of us. How long do you suppose you’ll be before you’re back with her?”

“No one has said,” Frevisse answered. “By Advent, hopefully.”

Sister Amicia turned an alarmed look on Dame Perpetua. “You won’t be here this month!”

Momentarily puzzled looks at her changed with various speeds on everyone else’s faces to alarm matching her own. Dame Perpetua was presently sacrist and precentress, and so she had the duty of seeing that everyone’s memories were fresh on the changes that came in the services through the year, of rehearsing them ahead of time so that in the actual saying of the offices all went without trouble, for God’s greater praise and the good of their souls. The complexities of All Hallows’ and All Souls’ psalms and prayers were just ended; that meant it was time to begin thinking of Advent’s and Christmastide’s that went on for more than a month, through Advent and Christmas into the new year to Epiphany, with everyone needing practice on them beforetimes, and some of the nuns needing—Frevisse kept from looking toward Sister Emma and Sister Cecely—more than most.

“I can see to it,” Dame Claire said, but uncertainly. She was infirmarian, charged with the health of the nuns, all their servants, and the neighboring villagers. With winter now well begun, she would be constantly needed for one thing and another and busy between times making medicines; and Dame Juliana was already doing as much and more as could be hoped for from her. That left the younger nuns, with Sister Johane and Sister Cecely too new to be of use and Sister Emma too foolish…