The Apostate's Tale

Chapter 11

Cecily fell asleep in anger and awoke the same, both when Matins dragged her from bed and again when she had to rise for Prime and truly begin the day. After all the Easter praying yesterday what harm would there have been in taking some manner of ease from the Offices now? She valued Easter as much as anyone should, but she had always thought the hours spent at it here in the nunnery were beyond reason, and this morning, kneeling at the altar yet again in this farce of “penance,” she thought it more than ever.

She could only hope that Master Breredon was satisfied he had done his duty to God and be willing to have her and Neddie away as soon as might be. He had after all been right about Easter not being the best of days to make her escape; she had not counted on Domina Elisabeth’s attending to her all the day, and what a misery that had been. But Master Breredon had not known that would be the way of it and he had better not refuse the next chance that came. Tomorrow Sister, no, Dame Thomasine would have a turn at keeping watch on her. There was a woman so unbrained with holiness she probably could not keep watch on a wart on her thumb. All Cecely need do was get word to Master Breredon of when and get her hands on Neddie at the necessary time, and this miserable place would be behind her again. Tomorrow for a certainty, before she ran mad, she thought grimly.

It was a pity she needed Master Breredon’s help at all, and a pity that her need had brought her back here. Still, the place had served its purpose. She had not known how long she would have to wait for him to come. She had needed somewhere safe for her and Neddie, where Master Breredon would be surely able to find her, as well as somewhere no one would think to look for her. St. Frideswide’s had served all those purposes well. Now soon, soon, soon she would escape from here as readily as she had done before and never be dragged from bed in the middle of the night for prayers or see any of these dreary women again. Mercy of the Lord! They didn’t even have sense enough after Lent’s lacks and Easter’s rigors to make merry the way most people did!

Kneeling on her aching knees, her hands clasped so hard her fingers hurt, Cecely had sudden, sharp memory of her Easter Monday last year when the three of them had ridden out together to watch the games and merriment in the village, Neddie on Guy’s saddlebow, safe between Guy’s arms, her riding pillion behind them, an arm around Guy’s warm waist. His summer doublet when she rested her cheek against it had smelled of the southernwood and rosemary it had been stored with through the winter, and one of the village women had given her a garland of spring flowers to wear around her neck. When old John Jankin’s feet went out from under him in the tug-rugget and he’d pitched backward, knocking down the whole line of men along the rope behind him, she had laughed herself near to falling off the horse, had had to grab hold of Guy’s belt to save herself.

They had been so happy together. Not just then but so many times. It was unfair, it was wrong that he was dead. Wrong that she had to endure this place again. Wrong that she and Neddie had to be here. Wrong that she had to deal with Master Breredon. Wrong and wrong and wrong! The only grief there had been between her and Guy in their years together had been their lost babies. Now he was gone from her forever. How was she supposed to love God when he’d taken away from her what she loved most in the world? How was she supposed to love God when he was so cruel?

Cecely found tears of anger and grief were washing warm down her chill cheeks, and she raised her head, lifted her gaze to the altar. There was no point in wasting those tears. Dame Amicia, her keeper today, was in chapter meeting with the other nuns, but there was a servant standing somewhere behind her, keeping watch. Let whoever it was report she had cried. Domina Elisabeth would probably think it was in contrition and sorrow for her sin and be glad of it.

But what had been between her and Guy had not been sin, Cecely thought angrily. They had been so happy. How could their happiness have been sin?

Someone laid an uncertain hand on her shoulder. She looked around and up, startled. It was Alson. Alson! Sent to watch her just when Cecely needed her most!

Eagerly Cecely grabbed her hand and pulled her down beside her.

Frevisse, when the morning’s chapter meeting was done, went to see how things were in the guesthall and was in time to see Father Henry waving farewell to his aunt and her friend as they rode out of the yard with laughter and promises to be back come Michaelmas. Frevisse joined him in a final wave as they disappeared through the gateway and said to him as he turned around, “You’re fortunate in your kin, Father.”

He was smiling. “I am indeed.”

“As they are fortunate in you.”

Father Henry looked at her in open surprise. “Are they?”

“They are. As St. Frideswide’s is in having you for our priest.”

She was as surprised to hear herself say that aloud as Father Henry seemed to be at hearing it, and she left him standing there, still startled, as she went on to the guesthall.

Happily, the two widows were not the only guests leaving today. As Frevisse came into the hall, little Powlyn and his parents were almost readied to go, taking with them Dame Claire’s assurance their child was fully on the mend. On Dame Claire’s behalf, Frevisse took their thanks and a thank-offering for the priory, promised the nuns’ prayers for them and their child, and saw them away.

After that she spoke briefly with Mistress Lawsell and Elianor, saying nothing about yesterday.

Like the Lawsells, Master Breredon preposed to stay on a few days more. Indeed, Ela said that with the widows gone, he had already made bold to ask to move into the guesthall’s best chamber with his two servants. As he had been so generous with his Easter gifts to the nunnery, Frevisse made no pause over agreeing to that and made a point of going to thank him again for his gifts and to ask how his servant did.

“Much better,” Master Breredon assured her. “Ida is a favorite with my wife, so I’m as grateful to your infirmarian on my wife’s behalf as Ida’s husband is on his.”

Frevisse accepted his thanks on the nunnery’s behalf and said it was pity he had had to spend Easter away from his home. He agreed but said some things could not be helped.

Sext took her back to the cloister before she was finished in the guesthall, and it was afternoon before she was free to return and take council with Ela in the guesthall kitchen not only on how food was lasting for the present guests but-more worryingly-how they would fare if other guests came.

“We’re that low on flour, there’ll have to be more grain ground if there’s to be bread after tomorrow,” Ela said. “A bit of meat wouldn’t come amiss. What’s left of the ham won’t last long. Some lamb or mutton, maybe?”

“Send to ask Hamo.” The nunnery’s shepherd. “If there’s sheep to spare, I suppose it will have to come to here. We can go on with fish in the cloister a while longer.” Frevisse held back a sigh at the thought of more fish after all the fish there had been through Lent. Besides that, the priory’s fishponds were somewhat over-fished just now, so the nuns would likely have to make do with the last of the dried stockfish from the bottom of the last of the barrels laid in last autumn. Spring was always a difficult time for food.

“Still,” she said hopefully, “the cows are in good milk. If nothing else, we can oat-pottage everyone in cloister and guesthall alike when all else fails.”

“We’re nearly out of oats,” said Ela.

They settled on deciding that Frevisse would bring the matter up in tomorrow’s chapter meeting, to be talked over and decisions made there. Ela made no secret of being glad she would have no part in that. Frevisse held back from admitting she wished she could avoid it, too. Instead, she thanked Ela for her good, steady handling of the guesthall’s guests and servants.

“Oh, aye,” Ela answered, making a grumble of it but her pleasure at the thanks showing through. “Well, there you are. It’s less trouble in the long jog to handle things and people well from the start.”

Frevisse left the kitchen, going up its outer stairs into the yard. The morning was become softly warm, the sky strongly blue between light streamers of scrubbed-white clouds, and she paused a moment, her face turned up, eyes closed, to the gentle sunlight, pleasuring in the brightness and warmth. But only briefly. At the sound of soft-soled, running footsteps she opened her eyes and saw Sister Helen running through the gateway from the outer yard where no nun had any business being and most especially not alone.

All her momentary ease falling away, Frevisse started toward the girl, not sure whether to be angry or-now that she saw the girl’s frightened face more clearly-alarmed. Certainly Sister Helen looked glad rather than guilty to see her, running to her so headlong that Frevisse caught her by the arms to stop and steady her. Sister Helen grabbed her arms in return, gasping to catch her breath, giving Frevisse time to demand, “What were you doing out there and alone? What’s the matter?”

“Dame Johane,” Sister Helen gasped. “I was with her. Someone from the village was hurt. He was bleeding. His friends brought him. They sent someone ahead and we went out to meet them. We did. In the outer yard.” She paused her rush of words to draw a few quick breaths, starting to steady but her grip on Frevisse’s arms bruising as she made to pull Frevisse toward the cloister door, saying more urgently, “But there’s men come. Riding in. Dame Johane said I should come to warn everyone. We have to…”

“Yes,” Frevisse said. She could hear the horses now, coming at a hard trot, and she began to move toward the cloister door without Sister Helen’s pull. Before she and Sister Helen were to the door, six men rode through the gateway. They had the dusty look of hard travel on them, were plainly in haste about something. They had no bared weapons in hand, though, which was to the good, and it being too late to reach the cloister door, Frevisse stopped herself and Sister Helen with a tight, steadying grip on Sister Helen’s arm and ordered under the clatter of shod hooves on cobbles, “Stand calm. Just stand calm,” then let go of Sister Helen and tucked her hands up her opposite sleeves while lifting her head and setting her face to a quietness that did not match the hard beating of her heart.

Beside her, Sister Helen drew a gasping breath and fumbled her own hands into her sleeves. Whether she was able to feign an outward calm to go with it, Frevisse could not see because her gaze was fixed on the lead rider now drawing his horse to a stamping halt a few yards in front of them. He was a firm-built man of late middle years, in plain doublet and high boots for riding, with his clothing and horse all of good quality. He was not wearing a sword, only a man’s usual dagger, and some of Frevisse’s alarm at his harsh coming eased a little. The men had come in haste but not ready for violence, it seemed.

With her black veil and Sister Helen’s white one, he knew which of them was senior and demanded at Frevisse, “A woman and a small boy. Are they here? Have they been here? Come within the past few days? Do you still have her here?”

“God’s blessing on you,” Frevisse said firmly, hiding her mind’s immediate and angry turn toward Sister Cecely. She looked a little sideways to Sister Helen. “Sister, please, if you would, tell Domina Elisabeth we have new guests.”

Blessedly quick-witted enough not to question or hesitate, Sister Helen made a quick half-curtsy to her and retreated to the cloister door. The man made no effort to stop her but said sharply at Frevisse, “If they’re here, I’ll find out. You can’t keep them hidden forever.”

Purposefully misunderstanding him and hearing the cloister door shut behind Sister Helen, she answered, “We keep no one here against their will, sir. Sir-?”

“Master Rowcliffe. John Rowcliffe,” he answered impatiently. “A woman called Cecely. I don’t know what else she might call herself. It better not be Rowcliffe. And a boy. She used to be a nun here. So it’s said.”

Before Frevisse could form an answer that would win Domina Elisabeth a little more time to ready to face this man, he gave way to his impatience, swung down from his horse, threw his reins to a younger man on a horse beside him, and went past Frevisse to the cloister door. She did not try to get in his way. There was only so much she was willing to do to guard Sister Cecely, and getting in his way was not part of it.

He had a leather-gloved fist raised to pound on the door’s thick wood when the man who had caught his thrown reins said, “Ease down, John. Give the woman chance to answer you.”

Master Rowcliffe spun from the door. “Well?” he demanded at her. “Is she here?”

“Sister Cecely has returned to us, yes,” Frevisse answered evenly.

“What of the boy? Is he here, too?”

“There’s a child with her that she says is her son.”

The second man laughed. “‘Says is her son.’ She knows Cecely.”

“Then she’s here!” Master Rowcliffe made that an accusation.

Frevisse could not see where accusation came into it, and before she could answer, a third man, much younger than the other two, sitting his own horse the other side of Master Rowcliffe’s, said to him calmingly, “So we don’t have to carry on like madmen. We’ve overtaken her. She won’t slip away again.”

“By Saint William’s bones she won’t!” Master Rowcliffe snarled.

Having had time to look at them all, Frevisse judged the three men were likely related. They resembled each other in face and garb and good horses. The three other riders, hanging a length or more to the rear, looked by their clothing and lesser horses to be servants, probably ready to give aid if needed but equally willing to leave the shouting and all the rest to their betters-and very willing to be distracted by the guesthall’s two servants, Tom and Luce, just come up the steps from the guesthall kitchen and starting across the yard toward them, carrying trays laden with wooden cups.

Frevisse sent a quick prayer of blessing toward Ela for the distraction. Men with a welcoming cup of ale in hand were less likely to be reaching for weapons, and she reached for a cup from the tray of the servant coming to the two men nearest her, saying with forced outward calm, “Thank you, Tom.”

Tom ducked his head in answer. He was trying to keep his face servant-straight but she could see the unnerved fright in his eyes and she gave him the slightest of smiles, hoping to reassure him. The nunnery did not need its servants going useless with fear.

Holding that smile, she turned back to Master Rowcliffe who had now taken a step back from the door and was glaring at it, probably adding its offence at staying closed to all his other angers.

“Master Rowcliffe?” she said courteously, holding the cup out to him. “If you would do us the honor?”

He swung around. “What?” He glared past her at his companions, all of whom already held or were reaching for cups of their own. He hesitated, but courtesy won over ire for the moment and he took the cup from her, mixing muttered thanks with, “This makes no difference.”

“Still,” Frevisse said quietly, “if you’re not pounding on the door, someone may be the more likely to open it to you.”

Small snorts of laughter from his two companions earned them Master Rowcliffe’s glare before, unwillingly, a smile tugged at his own mouth. He drowned it with a long gulp of ale, then held the cup out for Tom, still standing nearby, to take and said, “Right then, Symond, and yes, Jack. She won’t get away again and there’s no need for me to carry on like a madman.” He switched his look to Frevisse and demanded, “I want to see her. And the boy. Is he well?”

“He’s well,” Frevisse said. She moved past him to the cloister door, adding, “For the rest, you would do best to speak to our prioress about it.”

Before he could answer that, she knocked lightly at the door and to her relief it immediately opened. Master Rowcliffe started to stalk forward, and the younger of his two companions began to dismount as if to follow. Before Frevisse could say that allowing Master Rowcliffe into the cloister was as far as she was ready to go, the other man put out a hand to him, bidding, “Stay, Jack. Leave it to your father for now.”

Master Rowcliffe looked over his shoulder and nodded agreement with the man who must be Symond, and Frevisse, thinking that explained something of who the men variously were, went into the cloister, letting go the smile she had been keeping on her face. Sister Margrett, standing with her hand on the door’s latch, whispered as she went past, “Should I bar it?”

Not knowing if Master Rowcliffe heard that but having to suppose he did, Frevisse said, clear-voiced, “No need. They’ve come on reasonable business and mean no harm.” Except perhaps to Sister Cecely, and Frevisse had to admit, if only to herself, that just at this moment she would not mind harming Sister Cecely herself for having brought this on them. Whatever this was.

Frevisse could not help the sharp suspicion that, whatever it was, right was more probably on Master Rowcliffe’s side than Sister Cecely’s, and trying to curb the anger simmering under that thought, she led Master Rowcliffe into the cloister walk, where she came to a startled stop, confronted by St. Frideswide’s nuns gathered in two groups, one to either side of her, standing at the near corners of the cloister walk, barring any further way into the nunnery without they were dealt with first.

There were not many of them, admittedly, even when Sister Margrett slipped past to join those on the right, but grouped in the walk’s shadows, garbed alike in black and white and standing all together, with Domina Elisabeth one pace ahead of those to the right and all their heed and hers fixed and stern toward Frevisse and Master Rowcliffe, their offered challenge was enough to pause anyone.

Frevisse felt Master Rowcliffe come to a full and startled halt behind her. She turned back to him, to see him holding up his empty hands in token of surrender even while his gaze searched among them for Sister Cecely. Frevisse had looked for her as quickly as he had, but she was not there, and he brought his heed back to Domina Elisabeth and said with the care of someone meaning to stop a quarrel, “My lady, I mean no harm here. I swear it. I’ve only come seeking someone who’s done me wrong.”

“If so,” Domina Elisabeth said sternly, “then you should have come with less show of anger, frightening us all.”

Frightened was not what they looked. Defiant, yes, and ready to be openly angry if pushed to it. But frightened? No. Domina Elisabeth had made good use of the time that Frevisse had gained her, and Master Rowcliffe bent his head to her and said as if he meant it, though choking a little on the words, “For that I apologize. I was in the wrong.”

Domina Elisabeth accepted the apology with a gracious single nod of her head. “Let us talk peaceably then,” she said. “If you’ll come with me.” She moved forward, toward the stairs up to her parlor, adding, “Dame Frevisse, come with us. The rest of you thank God that all is well and return to your tasks.”

Since no nun should be shut away alone with a man, someone had to go with Domina Elisabeth as she led Master Rowcliffe up the stairs to her parlor, the chinging of his spurs on the stone steps a harsh, strange sound in the cloister. Frevisse followed them willingly, sorely wanting to hear all of what Master Rowcliffe had to say, not whatever shortened version might come to chapter meeting tomorrow.

In the parlor there was evidence of the flurry Master Rowcliffe’s arrival had brought on, but he probably took no particular note as Domina Elisabeth said with a nod toward the desk standing where the light from the window fell well, “If you would, my lady.” While Domina Elisabeth crossed to the tall-backed, carven chair that had been every prioress’ since St. Frideswide’s was founded, Frevisse went to the desk to stopper the inkpot there and wipe clean the pen that Domina Elisabeth had dropped in her haste. A black spatter of ink from the cast-down pen marred the clean surface of the page she had just begun to write on but Frevisse thought a little careful scraping would make that right.

Meanwhile, Domina Elisabeth sat, said, “Now, sir, what do you claim is your quarrel with us? And your name, if you please,” making a gracious gesture that gave him leave to sit in the room’s other, lesser, chair, facing her from the other side of the fireless hearth.

Her manner and that she had sat and begun to question him before giving him leave to sit were all meant to make clear who held authority here. Maybe not sure how he had been put so completely wrong-footed in the matter, he sat, then answered, respectfully enough, “I’m Master John Rowcliffe. I come from near Wymondham in Norfolk. I’ve no quarrel with you, my lady.” He scowled. “Not unless you mean to protect her.”

“Protect whom?” Domina Elisabeth asked evenly, making him work for it.

“My late nephew’s whore.”

Domina Elisabeth’s eyebrows rose and Master Rowcliffe said defensively, “Well, that’s what she was. Now he’s dead. Drowned two months ago, along with another nephew of mine. I’m left their executor, and she’s run off with what isn’t hers to take and my nephew’s son. You’re welcome to her. Sure as sinning, I don’t want her back. But I want back what isn’t hers to have!” He went sullen, having to know that outburst put him in the wrong again. He cast an angry look, as if it were her fault, at Frevisse where she now sat on the bench below the window, her hands folded on her lap. Then back at Domina Elisabeth, he said, “This is where she came from. She’s come back here, hasn’t she? From what this woman says, she has. I want to see her.”

“Where she came from?” Domina Elisabeth asked, dangerously quiet.

Seemingly not hearing the danger, Master Rowcliffe lost hold on his patience again and burst out, “Saints’ breath, woman! She was a nun! Now she’s run back to the hole she bolted from!”

“You knew she was an apostate nun?” Domina Elisabeth said coldly. Because a nun or monk who forsook their vows was supposed to be thereafter an utter outcast, neither sheltered nor protected by anyone but given over immediately to the law, for the law to give back to the Church for discipline and penance. To have known his nephew had a nun for his paramour and done nothing about it…

“Of course we didn’t know! Guy sang us some song about her being a poor orphan of good family but no fortune about to be forced into a brothel, and how he had rescued her.”

“You believed that?” Domina Elisabeth asked, echoing Frevisse’s own doubt.

“Why not?” Master Rowcliffe returned. “It was the kind of idiot thing Guy would do, given the chance. Besides, he was of age, with income of his own. Who he married was his business, not ours. They were clearly besotted with each other and we left them to it.”

“When did you find out the truth about her?” Domina Elisabeth asked.

“A week ago, if that much. After she ran off. I’d have let her go and good riddance, but she took Edward with her.”

“He is her son, isn’t he?” Frevisse put in.

“He is, poor whelp.”

“How did you find out about her past?” Domina Elisabeth asked. “She surely didn’t tell you.”

Master Rowcliffe gave an angry snort. “Last year, when my fool nephew had had just about enough of her, he told-” He seemed to think better of saying who had known Cecely was apostate and yet done nothing about it until now. “He told someone, who told us after she disappeared. We didn’t have anywhere else to look. Or we had too many ways to look, but thought we’d try this one first. So here we are. Now, where is she?”

Domina Elisabeth answered coldly, “You cannot take her from here. Our abbot has been told…”

“Saint Apollonia’s teeth! I don’t want her! You’re welcome to her. What I want are the deeds she stole. And Edward. What’s she going to do with him, kept in here? I want my nephew’s son, and I want those deeds. After that, she’s all yours. I wish you joy of her.”

“Word of her has been sent to our abbot,” Domina Elisabeth said, yet more coldly. “We’re awaiting answer from him. You are welcome to wait with us. This is plainly something not to be settled on your word or mine alone.”

She stood up. Perforce, so did Master Rowcliffe and Frevisse.

“In the meantime”-Domina Elisabeth started toward the door-“you surely wish to speak with her. I’ll take you to her now.”

Openly off-balanced by her suddenness, Master Rowcliffe followed her from the room and down the stairs, and Frevisse again followed them both. Only in the cloister walk, going toward the church, did Master Rowcliffe recover enough to say at Domina Elisabeth’s back, “I’m not here to make trouble. I don’t want anything from her but what’s rightfully mine. That’s all I’m here for. You understand that?”

Without looking back at him, Domina Elisabeth said, “I understand I have heard something of Sister Cecely’s side of the matter and something of your side. Beyond that, I look forward to hearing what you have to say to each other.”

So did Frevisse.