1 The Novice's Tale Page 9

  “I have my own,” Thomasine sniffed,- pulling a bit of cloth from her sleeve.

  Isobel, noting it and the frayed edge of the sleeve, asked, “Do you have to wear so poor a habit? We sent you good cloth; did they take it away from you?”

  “No, of course not. But this suits me well enough. I gave my good handkerchiefs to Domina Edith. The ones we made before I came, remember? She said they were as fine as any she had seen.” Sharing the memory strengthened the frail bond and steadied Thomasine. She had dried both nose and eyes when Isobel said, “Did Lady Ermentrude truly say she meant to take you away from here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she say why, among all her other ravings?”

  “No. She was too drunk, I believe, to think. She had the one idea and she kept saying it. But I’ve told her again and again that I want to be here.”

  “Again and again? She’s threatened this before?”

  “Not truly threatened. She’s only teased me, very meanly. But this time…” Thomasine’s eyes widened with memory. “This time she truly seemed to mean it. And what if she still means it when she wakens? Oh, Isobel, I was so frightened!”

  “There now,” Isobel said firmly. “You needn’t be. She was just stupid with drink, and has no rights over you, whatever she means. She can’t have you out of here if you mean to stay. Thomasine, do you mean to stay here?”

  Thomasine firmed her mouth. “You never have to ask that, Isobel. I want with all my heart to be here forever.”

  “I trust you don’t mean in this particular room,” Dame Frevisse said from the doorway, “because Domina Edith has sent me to bid you come to Compline now.”

  Thomasine and Isobel startled at seeing her there, and the bell for the office began its sweet small chiming into the evening air. Thomasine convulsively gripped Isobel’s hand, as if she would refuse to go, then let her loose, and, sighing, rose to her feet. Obedience came before inclination. With what might have been sympathy in someone else, Dame Frevisse said, “You also have Domina Edith’s permission to return here afterwards and stay the night, just as you wished.”

  Supper in the guest hall was just ending, with only a few beginning to rise from their benches as Thomasine followed Frevisse out. Outside, at the head of the stairs, was the quiet-eyed youth who had helped Thomasine with Lady Ermentrude. He had not heard them coming, was standing with his face turned upward to the darkening sky, drawing a deep breath of the evening air, but was quickly aware of them and stepped aside from their way with a light bow.

  Thomasine thought Dame Frevisse would have passed him with only an inclination of her head, but he asked in his warm and pleasant voice, “How does Lady Ermentrude?”

  Dame Frevisse stopped and said, “Better, I think. She’s sleeping deeply now and is likely to recover if all goes no worse.”

  “God be thanked.” His tone matched his words, pleasing Thomasine because, though she doubted anyone had any great affection for Lady Ermentrude, it was good he knew his duty. Then she saw his gaze had gone from Dame Frevisse to herself. She stiffened, but he said gently, so careful with respect she loosed a little of her wariness, “And I hope you’re none the worse for the fright she gave you and for the other woman’s dying, my lady?”

  Her eyes wide on his face, Thomasine stared at him for a breathless moment, then looked hastily down at her hem and whispered, “Well enough, if it please God, thank you.”

  Before he could answer, if he meant to, Dame Frevisse said, “We do not have a name to thank you by,” in an inquiring voice.

  He bowed. “I’m Robert Fenner, if it please you, my lady.”

  “Thank you, Robert Fenner, for your quick help today. Now, by your leave.” She went down the stairs, and Thomasine perforce followed her, stifling her urge to glance back to see if he stayed to watch them go.

  Late twilight was deepening past blue to night as they crossed the courtyard to the cloister gate. Once inside, the rule of silence took hold and they could not speak aloud except to God. The nuns gathered in the common room for Compline instead of in the church. Frevisse, with too many other things to think on, including Robert Fenner’s face when he had looked at Thomasine, was a little bewildered to find that the office’s three psalms were finished and that she was singing with the others, “Before the last of light, we pray that in your mercy you will watch over us this night.” Then they were through, and she gathered Thomasine up before she could be away to the guest hall and guided her firmly to the refectory.

  Leaving her seated in the hall’s echoing loneliness, Frevisse went on to the kitchen. The lay servants were still there, finishing the day’s work and preparing for tomorrow’s, still quieter than usual, visibly aware of the gap where Martha Hayward had been a few hours ago. They looked up a little warily when Frevisse entered, but she only nodded to them and went about her business. She returned to Thomasine with not only the pittance of cheese and apples that were properly supper, but warmed milk and a honeyed crust of bread. Thomasine began to gesture in protest, but Frevisse raised one hand in a silent asking for obedience. A stubbornness began to pout across Thomasine’s face, but her young body’s hunger won over her mind’s demands, and with more haste than grace she took the food and ate. Having watched to be sure she finished, Frevisse gestured she would go to bed now, and that Thomasine was free to return to the guest house. Thomasine gestured that she had an errand to do first.

  Perplexed, Frevisse raised an eyebrow.

  Thomasine gestured a bowl in the air, stirred it, and made the sign for bread.

  Another milksop, guessed Frevisse, and nodded permission. It was well thought of and would comfort Lady Ermentrude if she woke in the night.

  Thomasine smiled her thanks, made a little bow, and went out.

  Chapter 6

  Frevisse was awake. Somewhere the last faint tendrils of a dream drifted and faded from a far corner of her mind, leaving no memory of what it had been. The hour was past Matins but still far from dawn, she thought. She raised her head a little, looking for the small window in the high pitch of the dormitory’s gable end. By St. Benedict’s Holy Rule all who lived in nunnery or monastery should sleep together in a single room, the dorter. But the Rule had slackened in the nine hundred years since St. Benedict had taken his hand from it. St. Frideswide’s was not the only place where the prioress slept in a room of her own, and the dorter had been divided with board walls into small separate rooms that faced one another along the length of the dorter. Each cell belonged to one nun, and sometimes each had a door, or, as at St. Frideswide’s, curtains at the open end.

  There, in a privacy St. Benedict had never intended, each nun had her own bed, a chest for belongings, often even a carpet, and assuredly more small comforts than the Rule even at its laxest allowed. In Frevisse’s, one wall was hung with a tapestry come from her grandmother’s mother, its figures stiff, their clothing strange, but the colors rich and the picture a rose garden with the Lover seeking his Holy Love. Across from it, beside her bed, there was a small but silver crucifix her father had brought from Rome.

  It was all lost in near-darkness now. Through each night the only light for all the dorter was a single small-burning lamp at the head of the stairs down to the church, and sometimes moonlight slanting through the gable window.

  As a novice, Frevisse had slept badly. She had been uncomfortable with the hard mattress and with sleeping in her underclothing as the Rule required, disturbed by the water gurgling through the necessarium at the dorter’s other end, and at being roused at midnight to go to the church for Matins and Lauds.

  Finally, over the years, she had learned to use her lying awake for prayer, or meditation, or remembering, or simply thinking. Now, waking in the night was no longer a burden but a gift for which she was often grateful.

  Now with the last whisper of the dream drifted out of her mind, she lay looking at the high gable window, trying to judge the time, but there was no familiar star or any moonlight, only the rich darkness of s
ky, so different in its satin gleam from the dead black of the dorter’s night. She pulled herself more closely into her blankets’ warmth, settling into her mattress’s familiar lumps. And found she could not settle. Whatever hour of the night it was, not only sleep but quietness had left her.

  She stirred restlessly, realizing she was fully awake. Why? She roamed through her mind and found she was wanting—for no good reason—to go see how Lady Ermentrude was doing. And Thomasine.

  Not Thomasine, her mind protested wearily.

  Ever since the girl had come to St. Frideswide’s, the talk had been of how near to sainthood she already seemed to be; even Domina Edith felt the child’s holiness enough to be in awe of it. And surely it was a rare enough thing, especially in this less-than-holy time when women came all too often into the nunnery more because they were unfit for life outside it than because they longed for God’s life within it.

  For Thomasine, pretty and well-dowered, the nunnery was no necessity. She was here by her own plain choice, and there was no denying—no way to avoid seeing—how she flung herself at her devotions and duties with utter earnestness.

  The fact that so much earnestness wore on Frevisse’s nerves was her own failing, not Thomasine’s. But that did not change the fact that she had avoided the girl as much as might be this past year. Now her conscience was telling her that she was awake and not likely to sleep again and so ought to go see how Lady Ermentrude and, yes, Thomasine were faring in these low-ebb hours before dawn.

  Clinging to her bed’s warmth a few moments more, Frevisse thought regretfully of how very rarely a sense of responsibility was convenient. Her own devotion to it came from her rarely convenient childhood. Carried along by her parents on their wanderings, she had learned responsibility as a kind of defense against their habitual lack of it, until now it had long since become a habit too strong to break. With a sigh for a virtue she often wished she did not have, she pushed her blankets away and rose into the darkness.

  By touch she dressed herself: outer dress over the undergown she had worn to bed, feet into her damply cold shoes, set in their prescribed place beside the bed, wimple and veil managed without need of a mirror after doing them so often in the dark of winter mornings. Then, doubting she would be back before breakfast, she folded her blankets neatly down to the foot of her bed as the rules required.

  The wooden curtain rings were nearly soundless as she left her cell. By the dormitory lamp and the one at the foot of the stairs she made her way into the cloister walk. There in the starlight, with no need for lamps, Frevisse paused, listening to the silence. The air was sweet with cold and the promise of a dawn not yet begun but near. The night seemed to breathe gently of its own where there was no harsher breeze to stir it. Around her the quiet stroked down the edge of nerves with which she had wakened. In her mind, to the silence, she breathed a prayer from one of the St. Gregorys.

  “Let me yield you today in its wholeness, no deed of

  darkness or shame to allow or to do, keeper of my own

  passions in service to you.”

  The guest hall was dark except for the low glow of coals on the hearth. By it Frevisse could make out a few sleeping forms humped on their pallets near what had been its warmth. Carefully she circled away from them, but someone raised his head to mumble at her questioningly.

  “Only Dame Frevisse,” she murmured back. “Benedicite.”‘

  He mumbled again and subsided. Frevisse scratched at Lady Ermentrude’s door and entered without waiting for an answer. Two lamps were burning there, one to either side of the bed, giving good light to watch the patient by while the partly drawn bed curtains kept it from her eyes. On a pallet beside the bed one of Lady Ermentrude’s women lay sleeping, softly snoring.

  Thomasine, at the prie-dieu in a corner, had turned as the door opened and was now rising from her knees. In the lamplight her young eyes were blurred with a need for sleep, but plainly she had been awake for a long while past. Frevisse noticed that she had not given herself even the comfort of a cushion under her knees and, with a small prayer for patience with her, went to the bedside.

  Thomasine joined her beside the bed; together, in silence, they stood looking at Lady Ermentrude.

  As nearly as Frevisse could judge in the lamplight and shadows, her color had faded to normal and her breathing was easy, as if she were merely sleeping instead of sunk in unconsciousness.

  “How long has she been this way?”

  “Since a little after Matins. She’s never wakened but I’ve thought her sleep was less deep.”

  “Thanks be to God.”

  Thomasine crossed herself. “Maryon didn’t think we needed to tell Dame Claire,” she added doubtfully.

  “No, I should think not, so long as her sleep is quiet and her breathing even.”

  Her assurance seemed to ease some worry in Thomasine. Frevisse moved away from the bed and Thomasine followed her. “Do you want to be here when she wakes or would you rather leave?” Frevisse asked softly. “Her mind may not be changed at all about taking you away. You can have a little sleep and I can watch until Dame Claire comes.”‘

  Thomasine shrank inside her habit. She whispered, “I want to be here when she wakens.”

  “I’ll tell her you kept watch by her most of the night, if that’s what you want her to know.”

  Thomasine shook her head. “I want to tell her I prayed for her life. Then surely she’ll see my prayers are worth far more to her than my marrying would be.”

  Frevisse privately doubted that Lady Ermentrude believed God would presume to thwart her own notions, but only said, “She may. It’s very possible.” And added to herself that in any case Lady Ermentrude, waking sober and feeling the worse for it, was unlikely to want to argue over anything very soon.

  “I’m going to pray some more,” Thomasine said doubtfully, as if asking permission. Frevisse nodded, but before Thomasine could turn away, Lady Ermentrude made a sudden, spasmed movement, half rolling to her side. The crucifix, dislodged from her pillow, slid to the floor with a clatter that in the nighttime quiet might as well have been a cannonade. Frevisse started at the noise; Maryon sat up on her pallet exclaiming and crossing herself. Thomasine stooped to snatch the crucifix up from the floor and kiss it, and as she straightened, she came level with the pillows and Lady Ermentrude’s protuberant eyes staring directly back into her own.

  Thomasine’s eyes widened with a kind of terror, and she jerked upright, crying, “Heaven bless me!”

  “Not so long as you disobey your elders, girl,” Lady Ermentrude croaked. But her gaze was uncertain, confused.

  She lost focus on Thomasine, her head moving feebly on the pillow as if she were trying to decide where she was. Maryon had risen from the pallet now but, while showing no eagerness to come near her, kept a steady eye on the proceedings. Thomasine, rooted in speechlessness, simply stood holding the crucifix out to her aunt. It was Frevisse who leaned over the bed to say gently, trying to draw her attention, “It’s all right, my lady. You’ve been ill but you’re better now. You’re safe in St. Frideswide’s.”

  Lady Ermentrude drew further in from the vague edge of consciousness and focused on her, blinking heavily. “Why are you all red? Why’s that thing all red?” She twitched one hand in feeble indication of the crucifix.

  Thomasine turned it toward herself, staring at it, bewildered. Frevisse, glancing at it, saw only its wood and the painted figure on it. “You mean His wounds?” she guessed.

  “No, I mean… I mean…” Lady Ermentrude licked dryly at her lips and lost the words.

  Frevisse quickly took up the goblet waiting to hand on the table. Careful not to jar her, she lifted Lady Ermentrude’s head slightly and held the cup to her lips. Lady Ermentrude drank, and when Frevisse had lowered her head to the pillow, her eyes went back to roaming the room. “It’s the light,” she croaked. “What are you burning in the lamp to make everything so red?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the ligh
t. It must be your eyes. You’ve been ill and this must be some last effect. You’ll be all right when you’ve slept again.” Frevisse tried to make her guessing sound confident.

  Lady Ermentrude let her eyes close. Her lips worked at words that did not come, and then she was still. Not sleeping yet, though. Her fingers pulled restlessly at the bedcover, and Frevisse had the impression that rather than sleep she was working to gather her strength and wits back to herself.

  Carefully Frevisse looked at the waiting woman and whispered, “Please find someone to go for Dame Claire.

  And tell Lady Isobel her aunt has awakened. She’ll want to know.“

  Maryon nodded and left. Lady Ermentrude opened her eyes again and said faintly, “Where’s Thomasine?”

  “She’s nearby,” Frevisse said gently. “But never mind, you should try to rest.”

  “Rest.” Lady Ermentrude’s voice was a croaking whisper. “Where’s Thomasine? All’s lost in redness here. Whatever you burn in your lamps, you shouldn’t. Where’s Thomasine?”‘

  Frevisse surrendered and gestured at the girl.

  “Here, Aunt.” Thomasine moved closer, to where Lady Ermentrude could see her. “I’m here and I’ve been praying for you to recover.”

  Lady Ermentrude focused on her, blinking owlishly as if her eyes were tender. “Praying. Yes, praying is good.”

  “Would you care for something to eat?” Thomasine took up a bowl from beside the bed. “I have milk and bread with honey for you. It will soothe your throat.”

  Lady Ermentrude appeared to wander through her mind in pursuit of the words before saying, “Milk and honey. Yes.”

  Frevisse helped lift her a little higher on her pillows, then left Thomasine the task of feeding small spoonfuls into her great-aunt’s waiting mouth. For a few minutes there was only the sound of spoon on bowl, until Lady Ermentrude said, stronger, steadier, “Ah. That’s better.” She looked around herself as if seeing the room for the first time. “What is this place?”

  “Our guest hall’s best guest room,” Frevisse said.