The Apostate's Tale

Chapter 10

In Frevisse’s years in the nunnery there had been sometimes an Easter made difficult by illness among the nuns, or by bitter weather, or by worldly worries that could not be kept at bay. This Easter, for a blessing and despite Sister Cecely, went as beautifully as the best had ever done. During Prime, as they were saying, “Hic est dies quem fecit Dominus; exsultemus et laetemur de eo”-This is the day that the Lord made; we are joyful and glad in it-the rising sun struck through the choir’s eastward window, flooding light-multi-hued scarlet and azure and golden-the choir’s length, over the altar shiningly covered with its white altar cloth now Christ had risen, over the polished wood of the stalls, across the black and white clad nuns in their ordered rows. More than one of them lifted her head and turned her face toward the light, the psalm not faltering, instead taking on new strength, as if fed by the light and all the promises of hope and life that came with it.

Later even Father Henry’s familiar Easter homily-of how, just as each dawn the sky colored with the promise of the coming sun, so they must color their lives with holiness for the Coming of the Son who has been and ever will be-seemed somehow fresh.

Besides that, because the nunnery’s hens had begun to lay again when winter was done, and because Lent’s fast was over, there was a boiled egg for each nun at breakfast, causing many small sounds and sighs of delight along the refectory table.

Just thus, Frevisse thought with an inward smile at her own savoring of her egg, were the soul’s need and the body’s mixed together, inseparable until death.

The one pity of the day was, of course, Sister Cecely. Frevisse had feared her presence would taint everything, but set against the day’s glories, Sister Cecely was such a small thing that she barely mattered. It helped, of course, that Domina Elisabeth took on herself the duty of watching her, sparing Dame Amicia her turn for today at least and thereby removing Sister Cecely as much as might be from their midst.

Domina Elisabeth also took on herself the care of Dame Thomasine, who was gone so far into prayer, was so glorying in the day’s glory, that it seemed her body hardly had existence for her. Except that Domina Elisabeth took her by the arm and led her to meals, she would probably not have left the church at all.

Seeing to both women meant that Domina Elisabeth, rather than being able to give herself up to the pleasure of the day, spent it dealing with the two outermost ways of nunhood-Sister Cecely and Dame Thomasine-and that was a pity, because surely their prioress was as ready as all the rest of them for the end of Lent. Certainly Frevisse found during the late morning Office that her Lenten-fasted stomach was answering the wafting smells from the kitchen on the far side of the cloister with an ache stronger than her heed of the psalms, but for once she did not care, and the meal, when they at last sat down to it, was everything that could be hoped for. Besides the lamb roasted in a sauce of garlic, rosemary, pepper, eggs, and its own drippings, there were a cheese tart thick with eggs and heavy cream, small, soft rolls of the last of the year’s fine white flour, with butter to go on them, and a fig pudding rich with almonds, raisins, honey, and ginger.

After that it was just as well the afternoon was given over to ease until Vespers, with leave for the nuns to spend the time as they would in the cloister walk and the garden and the orchard. Even Sister Cecely, having been allowed to sit at the far end of the refectory table during dinner and given half-portions of everything, was let off her penance in the church, to spend the time with Domina Elisabeth in the prioress’ parlor. Frevisse thought that probably made the afternoon more a penance than a pleasure for Domina Elisabeth. Then she willingly forgot Sister Cecely altogether, went to walk for a time in the orchard, and afterward-giving way to the satisfaction of a full stomach and her tiredness-sat and drowsed in the garden’s warm sunshine for a while.

She awoke from an unremembered dream to find herself with what seemed a quite unreasonable urge to return to the church. Surely she had spent enough hours there of late that she did not need more just now, she thought, and stayed where she was until-more fully awake and finding the urge did not leave her-she looked at it and found it was not duty moving her to it but joy. She was so suffused with happiness that she needed to be closer to the heart of it, and she rose from the bench, a little stiff with having sat still so long, and obeyed her desire.

At this hour of so sun-filled a day, the now-shadowed church seemed almost of another world, and Frevisse paused just inside the door from the cloister, to let her mind and body take in the quiet waiting there, to give it chance to reach into the deep places of her self, balm and blessing together. Candles still burned at the altar. After the blackness of the past few days, their brightness and the glowingly white altar cloth made plain how light and life could come out of darkness. As expected, Dame Thomasine was there before her, kneeling at the altar as straightly upright as one of the candles and probably burning, Frevisse supposed, with an inward flame as strong as their outward ones. Dame Thomasine lived in a state of prayer and grace that Frevisse could deeply respect and wonder at while nonetheless admitting-if only to herself-how much she was frightened by the thought of so much losing herself. That fear was a weakness she had prayed against without yet fully overcoming it, and yet sometimes, in her deepest praying, she brushed close to how it must be for Dame Thomasine and for a brief breath of time felt the wonder and freedom, the unbounded joy there was there, beyond the bounds of all the world’s seeming. And whatever her fears, afterward she always hungered to be there again.

Only as Frevisse moved forward, away from the door, did she see Elianor Lawsell in the nave, kneeling just beyond the rood screen. Or not so much kneeling as crouching. There seemed little that was prayerful about the way she was huddled down, one hand spread over her face, hiding it, the other stretched out and pressed against the screen. Another pace, silent-footed in her soft-soled shoes, brought Frevisse near enough to see the girl’s shoulders were unevenly shaking, surely with crying.

Frevisse sighed. However unwilling she was to the duty, she went around the rood screen, now deliberately not quiet-footed. The girl grabbed her hand back from the screen and began wiping at her face, her head still bowed, but when Frevisse lightly touched her shoulder and she looked up, tears were still coursing freely down her cheeks, nor did she seem ashamed of them, wiping at them more defiantly than as if hopelessly trying to hide them as Frevisse asked, “Is it as bad as that? You want so little to be a nun?”

The girl gasped. “No!” Still on her knees, she grasped at Frevisse’s skirts with one hand while wiping away yet more tears with the other. “Please. No. Don’t think that! I’m crying because I’m so glad. To be here. I’m praying I never have to leave!”

Frevisse leaned over, took her by the elbows, brought her to her feet. “You want to be here?”

The girl clasped her hands together. “I want it so much!”

Frevisse let her go, took a step back, tucked her own hands into her opposite sleeves, and said with what she hoped was a balance between sternness and sympathy, “Your mother brought you here in hope of this, but…”

“No,” Elianor interrupted fiercely. “She brought me here in hope I’d see how drearsome and over-burdened a nun’s life is. But it isn’t!”

“It can be,” Frevisse said quellingly. “It often is.”

“Everyone’s is,” Elianor returned. “You can’t tell me they aren’t.”

“I won’t. But this is not what your mother wrote to our prioress.”

“It wouldn’t be, would it?” Elianor returned scornfully. “No. What she wants is for me to give up my hope and settle for whatever husband she’ll choose for me.”

“She’s a widow?”

“My father finds it easier to let her do as she will,” Elianor said bitterly. “He says the matter is between us. Between my mother and me.”

“And if, after this while here, you still don’t agree with her, what will she do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Punish you? Force you?”

Elianor lightened into sudden, silent laughter. “When our quarrel started, she threatened to beat me, even to lock me up until I ‘behaved.’ I went to our priest. He laid order on her that I’m not to be forced in any way. I’m to be ‘persuaded’ or else allowed my choice. She was very angry about that.”

Frevisse could well imagine she would be.

“It’s not as if I were depriving her of all hope of marrying a daughter well,” Elianor said. “My sister can hardly bear the wait for a husband and household of her own. She’ll do everything Mother asks of her, once I’m out of her way.”

There were a number of questions Frevisse wanted to ask, but it was not her place to do so. This matter was for Domina Elisabeth. But there was no need to disturb her peace today, and Frevisse settled for saying, “Tomorrow ask Father Henry for leave to speak alone with Domina Elisabeth. Your mother will have to allow that at his word, and he’ll give it. That will put the matter between you and our prioress.” Who would not be pleased at having been misled by Mistress Lawsell.

Hope, relief, and gratitude bloomed in Elianor’s face. She looked as if she would have kissed Frevisse’s hand in thankfulness, but Frevisse kept her hands firmly up her sleeves, gave a short nod, and gladly escaped to the other side of the rood screen, going, as she had first intended, to kneel down at the altar and give herself into prayer.