The Apostate's Tale

Chapter 27

The day that in the morning had been half clouds, half fair, was now, in the late afternoon, gone all to clouds. A glooming gray twilight filled the church, deepening to thick shadows in the far corners of nave and choir. Only the altar existed in light, haloed by a dozen bright-burning candles on tall stands behind and beside it, with four candles in their gleaming brass-gold holders standing on the altar itself, sheening the gold and scarlet of the letter filling half the page of the missal standing open there and flickering gold from Abbot Gilberd’s long-cuffed, gold-embroidered glove as he moved his free hand in benediction over the nuns gathered before him in this hour before Vespers. In his other hand he held his abbatial crozier, the foot of the staff set firm against the stone step of the altar, the carved, curved top rising above his head.

All of the nuns but not their prioress were there, a cluster to either side of him, hands folded into their opposite sleeves, heads bowed, seeming in their black gowns a deepening of the church’s shadows save for the white of their faces and wimples.

Abbot Gilberd ended his deep intoning of the Latin words and lowered his hand. The nuns did not stir, but now Domina Elisabeth and Father Henry, equally dressed in black, came forward from the far end of the choir stalls into the light, a frightened-eyed Alson between them.

She had been given chance to take off her kitchen-apron and wash her hands and face, but that was all. Nor, if Domina Elisabeth and Father Henry had done as Frevisse suggested, had she been told why she had been taken from the kitchen and brought here. She had to know she was in some manner of trouble. How much she guessed was impossible to tell, but by the way she sank to her knees when Domina Elisabeth and Father Henry stopped in front of Abbot Gilberd at the foot of the altar steps and let her go, her legs must have only barely been holding her up until then; and when Abbot Gilberd said grimly, “Alson Pye,” she made a soft moan and crouched lower on the stone step.

“Alson Pye, look at me.”

Alson whimpered and lifted her head, her shoulders still huddled, her fear naked on her face.

Standing with the other nuns, Frevisse felt pity for her and, unreasonably, regret for having brought her to this. Or maybe it was simply regret that the whole miserable matter was come to this-to terrifying a poor woman who had not had sense enough to keep out of it.

But this had seemed the most direct way to an end of it all.

Cecely had not known Symond Hewet knew her secret when she came back here. If she had, she would never have come, no matter what she lied about it now. So she had learned it after she came here. How? Not from Abbot Gilberd. To be certain of that, Frevisse had asked Domina Elisabeth, who had said the matter had not come up in his questioning of her.

Then it had to have come from someone else, and the only time that Frevisse knew for a certainty Symond’s part in it all had been said aloud for anyone to hear had been in the guesthall after the Rowcliffes came. And when she set to remembering who had been there to hear it besides the Rowcliffes and herself, there had been Tom Pye. Tom who talked sometimes with his sister Alson. Alson who sometimes sat for guard outside Cecely’s door with no one to know what was said between them then. Alson who had had part in Cecely’s flight nine years ago.

Frevisse had been stopped by the gap between those pieces and how Cecely could have persuaded Alson to set Tom on to poisoning two men. She had already settled in her own mind why Cecely would want them poisoned. Master Breredon was so the Rowcliffes would be accused and, at the least, be sent away. Symond Hewet was for plain revenge. What had slowed her in untangling it all was that she had kept looking for the sense behind it all, when there was no sense. Or not sufficient sense. And that was Cecely, who seemed to have so little common sense behind almost everything she did. How else could she have come to the thought that poisoning two men was a reasonable thing to do?

Yet poisoning them had made sense enough to Alson and her brother, too, because it had to have been Alson who took something from the infirmary, and Tom who put whatever it was into the two men’s food or drink. Frevisse could see no other way of it.

Why Alson and Tom should be such fools still escaped her. That could only be found out by bringing them to confess.

The trouble there was that, when accused, they would both, surely, deny it all, and there was no proof to hold up in front of them, to force them to the truth.

Besides that, nine years ago Alson had convinced them all, with her weeping and denials, that she was innocent of knowing Cecely meant to escape. Frevisse now very much doubted her innocence, and if Alson had lied so well then, she might lie equally well now. And so there was this gathering in the church, and Abbot Gilberd in Father Henry’s white and gold Paschal cope standing on the altar step, towering over Alson as he demanded at her, deep-voiced with authority, “Alson Pye, do you believe in the salvation of your soul?”

Alson’s head trembled in a desperate nod.

“Alson Pye, do you believe in the damnation of your soul?”

Alson froze, then trembled another nod.

“Then rise, Alson Pye,” Abbot Gilberd ordered. “Come forward, up these steps, and lay your hand on God’s consecrated altar.”

When Alson did not immediately rise-maybe gone too weak with fear to do it-Father Henry took her by one arm and gently raised her to her feet, and when even then she stayed rooted where she was, he urged her forward, lifting as much as guiding her up the two steps to the altar. There she slid from Father Henry’s hold onto her knees again and huddled forward, her head deeply bowed, her arms clutched against herself, her clenched hands pressed between her breasts.

“Woman,” Abbot Gilberd ordered, “lay your hand on the altar.”

Alson gave a shuddering sob and huddled lower.

“Father Henry,” Abbot Gilberd ordered, and Father Henry bent over her, pried her right arm away from her, and stretched it out to the altar. Her arm was rigid and resisting, and her hand stayed clenched. Father Henry bent close and whispered something to her until, still unwilling but finally obedient, she opened her hand and laid it, trembling, against the front of the altar cloth, another sob shuddering through her.

Above her Abbot Gilberd said, “Now I will ask you certain questions, woman, and as you hope for your soul’s salvation rather than the flames of eternal Hell, you will answer me truly. Do you understand?”

With a whimpering sob, Alson nodded that she did.

“First, have you, in these last few days past, talked with the woman called Sister Cecely?”

Alson managed, faintly, “Yes.”

“Has she asked you to do things, and have you done those things she asked of you?”

Alson began to whimper.

“Have you?” Abbot Gilbert demanded.

Alson whispered, “Yes.”

“What were those things she asked of you, that you then did?”

Alson’s whimpers turned to outright sobs. Through them, she cried, “To take medicines from Dame Claire!” The last of her will crumbled. Still sobbing, she wailed, “She wanted me to steal one of the strong potions. But they’re in little bottles and little boxes. Dame Claire would know if I took any of those. So I took other things, bits of this and that. Just a little, little bit of some of the herbs she keeps on the highest shelf. Strong ones but not the worst ones. Not the worst ones like she wanted me to! I’m sorry!” Overwhelmed by her sobs, she grabbed her hand away from the altar and covered her face with both.

With no sign of pity, Abbot Gilbert ordered at Father Henry, “Her hand.”

Father Henry took Alson’s right hand again, dragged it back, and pressed it to the altar again, and held it there. Sternly, Abbot Gilberd demanded down at her, “What did you do with what you took?”

“Nothing!” But even Alson knew the foolishness of saying that, and before Abbot Gilberd could challenge her, she gulped and gasped, “I put some in that man’s…those men’s food. I did that.”

“We know for a truth you were never near those men’s food,” Abbot Gilberd said. “This is your soul we’re trying to save, woman. Who helped you?”

Alson broke into full sobs again and tried to twist her hand free of Father Henry. Abbot Gilberd bent, placed his own right hand over both of theirs, and pushed them hard against the altar. Very near her ear now, he demanded again, “Who, woman?”

Alson froze, staring fixedly at the back of the abbot’s glove, its gold embroidery glinting in the candlelight.

“Who, Alson?” Father Henry said gently. “You have to tell. For his sake as well as yours.”

Alson moaned, then gasped out, “Tom. My brother. I talked him into doing it. God forgive me. God forgive us.”

Abbot Gilberd freed her and straightened. “We pray he may.”

Father Henry freed her, too, and she covered her face again and huddled completely down into a bow-backed heap on the altar step, brokenly sobbing.

Frevisse looked at Domina Elisabeth. Now was time for the question to which Frevisse had prompted her. If she did not ask it, then Frevisse would, because it had to be asked; but Domina Elisabeth took a step toward the altar and said in a voice that matched the abbot’s in stern demand, “Alson, nine years ago, after Sister Cecely fled, you told us that she asked you to take her turn at kitchen duty that day without she told you anything else. You said you knew nothing of what she planned. Was that the truth?”

Alson shook her head.

“Speak out, woman,” Abbot Gilberd said. “Are you saying you lied then, too?”

Alson straightened and swung around, still on her knees and fumbling for balance on the altar steps, trying to answer him and tell Domina Elisabeth at the same time, suddenly fierce the way a cornered animal was fierce when all hope was gone. “She said she was going to meet this man of hers in the orchard. She said he was leaving and this would be their only, last chance to be together. Just a little while, she said. Just a little while and nobody would know. That’s what she told me! Only then she never came back. And I thought how happy she was going to be and how much trouble I’d be in if I told I knew about the man. So I said I didn’t, and everyone was angry at me anyway, but not like you would have been if you’d known! Then she came back, and she said if I didn’t do what she asked of me, she’d tell how I’d known everything about her leaving, even though I didn’t. I swear I didn’t! Then you’d throw me out. So I did what she said to do. Only everything’s gone wrong!” she wailed with a freshened flow of tears.

No one showed sign of being moved by her misery. Abbot Gilberd gestured toward one of his men waiting at the far end of the darkened nave. A moment later the west door opened, and a few moments after that two more of his men brought in Tom Pye.

Alson, seeing her brother, gave a gulping sob, crouched lower on the altar step, and went very still, as if that might make her invisible. Tom, brought there under guard, had to know he was in some kind of trouble, and by his defiantly lifted chin and stiff face Frevisse guessed he had been maybe ready to out-face whatever it was; but when his guards brought him to a stop at the rood screen and he found himself confronted by abbot, priest, nuns, the candle-lighted altar, and-his eyes fell on her last-his sister kneeling there in abject, open misery, Frevisse saw all the defiance go out of him.

“Oh, Alson,” he said.

Briefly, sparing nothing, Abbot Gilberd told him everything to which his sister had confessed. Visibly wilting between his guards, Tom did not try to bold it out. Instead, he pointed at Alson and cried, “It was her doing! She said it would be a good thing. She said that if I didn’t do it, that woman would tell how Alson helped her run off. She said she’d lie about it, and then Alson would be in trouble again. I only did it because she told me to!”

Adam, disgraced in the Garden of Eden, had made the same defense, Frevisse thought.

It was not an excuse that had improved with age.

Abbot Gilberd’s men took Alson and Tom away. Father Henry went with them while at Domina Elisabeth’s bidding the nuns moved to take their seats in the choir.

Frevisse, for one, was more than willing to sit there in silent thought for the while until Vespers. What they had just done-what she had done-to Alson had left her shaken. Needed though it had been to have the truth, to have so deliberately torn a woman open, to have ruined her life and her brother’s…

Domina Elisabeth, instead of stepping up into her own stall at the choir’s end, was stopped beside it, her head bowed, her brother beside her, his tall abbatial crozier still in one gloved hand, his other hand resting on her shoulder. One by one, all her nuns, not yet all into their places, stopped where they were, staring, until Abbot Gilberd said, “Be seated, dames.”

They finished taking their places but went on staring at their prioress and abbot. Frevisse wondered if the others felt the same sick worry and wondering what came next that she suddenly did, but giving them little time to wonder, Abbot Gilberd said, “A parting of the ways has come, my ladies. After long talk and much prayer together these past days, I have granted your prioress’ request to relieve her of her office and allow her to return to the nunnery from whence she came.”

Domina Elisabeth did not stir, but while Frevisse, Dame Claire, and Dame Thomasine stayed silent, there were exclaims among the others and heads turning and accusing looks at Dame Perpetua and Dame Margrett because they must have heard something of this while keeping their prioress company in her parlor.

“They were under my order to say nothing, hint at nothing,” Abbot Gilberd said, bringing instant quiet and all the nuns’ attention back to him. “As for your prioress, she came to you in your need twelve years ago. She has made well what was ill. She has made strong what was weak. The good to you has been great. The cost to her has been heavy. She is weary and has asked for rest. That I have granted her. In two days’ time you will hold election for your new prioress. I bid you pray well between now and then, that your choice be acceptable in the eyes of God.”

Or, more to the immediate point, acceptable in the eyes of Abbot Gilberd, thought Frevisse. His was the final word on who became prioress in a nunnery under his care, unless things went so badly that the bishop himself had to settle matters, God forbid. It had been the disasters brought on St. Frideswide’s by a very ill-chosen prioress that had forced the abbot to use his authority and bring his sister from a London nunnery to be their prioress, trusting none of them to the place. Now he was saying he trusted them again to make their own choice. What he did not need to say was: And woe to them if they chose ill again.

Mercifully, the bell rang for Vespers, silencing them all. Abbot Gilberd took his hand from his sister’s shoulder. Head still bowed, she went to an empty stall at the bottom of the choir, slipped into it and to her knees. Abbot Gilberd signed the cross toward her bowed head and then at them all. Then he left, disappearing into the shadows of the nave, and after an uncertain moment Dame Juliana unsteadily began the Office. The other nuns unevenly followed her.

The familiarity soon steadied them, but they went forward at an almost gabbled haste, so that Frevisse, who would have preferred to make the Office last as long as might be, found no peace in the prayers and psalms and all too soon was leaving the church with the others. Supper was next, with no chance to talk then either, only for long looks and wondering head-shakes at the head of the table where Domina Elisabeth was not, having stayed in the church when they left.

Frevisse was not looking forward to recreation’s hour, when talk would burst out freely. The talk about Cecely and Alson and all of that was going to be bad enough, but now it would be mixed with exclaims over Domina Elisabeth. Frevisse was not ready to face all that, and by the time the nuns rose from their places along the refectory table and rapidly said final grace, her set intent was to escape directly from the refectory to the church.

She was forestalled as she reached the refectory door by Malde coming to her and saying in an almost frightened, too loud voice that she was wanted in Domina Elisabeth’s chamber. The others all turned to stare at her. She walked away from them quickly and walked faster as the gabbling started up behind her, aware that she would now be among the things they exclaimed over.

Her way took her past the closed door of Cecely’s cell, now guarded by one of Abbot Gilberd’s men. It was unsettling to see a man simply sitting there in the cloister, neither coming nor going. He stood up respectfully as she approached. She gave him a nod as she passed, but her thought was on Cecely in that lightless room beyond the shut door. Under the clouded sky, night was coming fast; even what little light let in through the slit of a window would soon be gone and then she would be alone in unrelieved darkness with nothing but her thoughts and maybe prayers, although Frevisse had doubt about the prayers of someone who had tried to kill a man because of her hurt feelings. Without prayer, all that Cecely had were her memories-now mostly of losses-and her anger. And even anger must be a cold comfort in that room.

Frevisse slowed as she reached the prioress’ stairs and unwillingly went up them to scratch at the door and enter at Domina Elisabeth’s bidding. Domina Elisabeth was standing near the small fire burning on the hearth; Abbot Gilberd was seated in the tall chair that was usually hers. The shutters had been closed across the window against the on-coming night, but several lighted candles showed the remains of their supper on the table, and Luce from the guesthall standing in the shadows beside the door. The abbot must have brought her with him from the guesthall, that Domina Elisabeth not be alone with him, but he said now, “You may go, woman,” and Luce dropped a curtsy and slipped behind Frevisse and out the door with a quickness that said she was grateful to leave.

“Come forward, dame,” Abbot Gilberd said. “Join us.”

Retreating into her nunhood, tucking her hands into her opposite sleeves and bowing her head, Frevisse obeyed, going forward to stand beside Domina Elisabeth.

“In our haste to bring an end to these poisonings,” Abbot Gilberd said, “there are some questions that have gone unanswered. Master Rowcliffe has ceased to go on at me about his stolen deeds. Do you know why that is?”

Toward the floor but firmly, Frevisse said, “Because they’ve been returned to him, my lord.”

“By your doing?”

“Yes, my lord.” As he had surely known before he asked the question because he must have overheard her in talk with Cecely.

“Your explanation for doing so without asking my leave or word for it?”

Not trying to judge either his displeasure or anything else, she answered straightly, “Sister Cecely had hidden the deeds with her son. He gave them up to me because he understood that neither he nor she had any right to them. Because they are Master Rowcliffe’s, I returned them to him. To make an end of at least one of the troubles.”

“You did not see fit to consult with either your prioress or myself about it. You simply did it.”

Her gaze still on the floor, Frevisse said, “Yes, my lord.”

As Abbot Gilberd’s silence drew out, she wished she had tried for humble rather than firm in her answer. She also wished she had not bowed her head quite so deeply; she could not see either his face or Domina Elisabeth’s, to read between them what they might be thinking. All she could do was wait, and only finally and slowly did Abbot Gilberd say, “That was, probably, well done. With his deeds returned, he should be satisfied to leave Sister Cecely to us. It might have been better to keep them, until we were sure he’ll make no trouble over our claim on the boy, but what’s done is done.”

Frevisse forgot humble and looked at him. “The boy? Our claim on him?”

“I believe there is property that comes with him, and that his mother intends to give him to the Church,” Abbot Gilberd said.

“I believe she intends no such thing,” Frevisse said, just barely keeping sharpness from her voice. “That was simply another of her lies, and now that she’s been thwarted in everything she intended here, she will surely never consent to such a thing.”

“Her consent has no part in this. By all her vows, she is the Church’s. That makes whatever she has gained likewise the Church’s.”

Did that include her shame and the burden of her sin? Frevisse wondered sharply, and with her gaze unlowered, she said back at him, “I think it likely that, insofar as Edward is concerned, there are lawyers enough to contest that as would drag the matter through the courts for years. His little manor is not worth that much.”

She was guessing. She did not know that much about either Edward’s manor or the church’s law in such a matter, but she was offended by thought of Edward being wrenched even more hither and thither for no better reason than whatever use people could make of him. So she looked at Abbot Gilberd as if she knew whereof she spoke and waited to see if he knew better.

If he did, he did not say so, only looked back at her through a long moment’s silence and finally said, “Something must be done with him. He cannot be left with her, the more especially where she is going.”

Frevisse flashed a look at Domina Elisabeth who had been standing with statue-stillness through all this exchange, but it was Abbot Gilberd who answered her unspoken question with, “My sister has persuaded me, yes, that to leave Sister Cecely here would be too great a burden on St. Frideswide’s. She will be removed elsewhere. But neither do I think you wish to have the boy left on your hands.”

“Let him go back to his family. That is where he belongs. Enough of ‘the sins of the father’ have been visited on him,” Frevisse said. “Let him be done with the sins of the mother, too.”

Abbot Gilberd regarded her in silence through another long moment, then nodded slowly. “Yes. Sometimes the simplest way is the best way.”

Frevisse held back from saying that usually the simplest way was the best way. And in this matter, anyway, the simplest way was also the kindest. It was unkindness and the tangles that people made in their lives that led to misery, and with thought of misery, she asked, “What of Alson and Tom Pye?”

Abbot Gilberd looked to Domina Elisabeth. “We have been considering them,” he said, in a way that suggested they had been disagreeing, too.

Speaking for the first time since Frevisse had come in, Domina Elisabeth said, her voice tautly controlled but threatening to break, “I don’t want the trouble of law brought on them and all that will come from that. I just want this all to be over and done with.”

Beyond the words Frevisse heard the weary strain that must have been behind much of what Domina Elisabeth had said and done these past months. When she had sent her plea for help with Cecely to her brother, she must have likewise sent word of her own plight. That had been why Abbot Gilberd had come himself-in answer to his sister’s plea for herself, rather than for the small, sad matter of an apostate nun.

But the small, sad matter had grown into something large and ugly with the poisonings of two men, and for all that she must have been holding herself together by plain force of her will for who knew how long, her will was beginning to break apart under the threat of yet more trouble when all she wanted was an end to it all, and Abbot Gilberd did not help by saying, “I doubt that Symond Hewet or Master Breredon will be willing to simply let the matter end. Not with what they’ve suffered.”

Domina Elisabeth looked as if she were about to burst out that she did not care what they had suffered, but before she could, Frevisse said, “You might ask it of them, my lord. It could be pointed out to them that Master Breredon came here falsely, ready to do grave wrong in helping Sister Cecely away. And Symond Hewet, too, did no little wrong in keeping his cousin’s secret.”

“That they were poisoned could very likely be counted to outweigh both those matters,” Abbot Gilberd said.

“Then you could point out to them,” Frevisse returned, “that any prosecution of the Pyes would require both Master Breredon and Symond Hewet, as well as the Rowcliffes as their witnesses, to return here or to wherever else the trials were held for who knows how many times or when. Upon thought, they may well find that the inconvenience of that and the open telling of their own guilts that would come with any trial outweigh their need for justice against the Pyes. Since, if there is no trial, the Church is willing to forego its rights against them in the matters.”

“Is the Church willing to forego its rights?” Abbot Gilberd challenged.

“That would be the simplest way to have this done and over with, my lord.”

Abbot Gilberd regarded her with narrowed eyes and the fingers of one hand drumming on the wooden arm of the chair for a discomfortable length of time before he finally said, “Yes. Again, the simplest way may very well be the best.”

Determined to return to humility, Frevisse bowed her head and murmured, “Yes, my lord.”

Her hope was that he would now dismiss her. Her fear was that he would not. Nor did he but after another pause asked, “Why, dame?”

Keeping her eyes down and truly not understanding his question, she said, “‘Why,’ my lord?”

“Why do you care what happens to this Tom Pye and his sister?”

She paused over her answer before saying carefully, “Because what they did was done more from foolishness than evil.”

“What they did was evil. If either man had died, it would have been more evil,” Abbot Gilberd said.

“But it was evil from foolishness, not evil from the heart. Alson is small-witted. For all she says now that she was forced to it by threats, she may have truly thought she was doing Sister Cecely good service in making Master Breredon ill, to have the threatening Rowcliffes sent away so Sister Cecely might have chance at flight again. Having done that, she probably thought herself trapped into doing more. Nor does her brother being persuaded to it, too, surprise me. He doesn’t see things further than what he’s told.”

“He did the poisonings skillfully enough,” Abbot Gilberd said sharply.

“I never said he was a fool.” Just barely Frevisse kept sharpness from her own voice. “The poisonings-those were done with what he has-low cunning.”

That was the trouble with all this tangle, she thought bitterly. There had been low cunning in plenty but a grievous lack of good sense.

She remembered to add, “My lord,” and lowered her head again.

That meant she did not know where Abbot Gilberd was looking through the long silence that followed, but it ended with him saying, apparently to Domina Elisabeth, “This will suffice? That I see to everything, save you deal with the Pyes as you see fit, if I persuade the Rowcliffes to forego the law?”

“Yes,” Domina Elisabeth said wearily. “I’ll deal with them if you see to all the rest. And to Mistress Lawsell.”

“Ah. Mistress Lawsell.” Abbot Gilberd sounded no happier at thought of her than Frevisse felt, but it seemed he accepted her along with the rest of the burden Domina Elisabeth was setting down, because he next said, “Yes. Her, too.” He rose from the chair. “Now I shall leave you to your rest, dear sister. Dear sisters,” he added, including Frevisse.

He murmured a benediction over them both while making the sign of the cross in the air, then left, and Domina Elisabeth moved toward the chair where he had been, the prioress’ chair, where every prioress of St. Frideswide’s through the years had sat in her turn; but her step was so unsteady-as if merely moving was almost too much to ask of her body-that Frevisse put a hand under her arm and helped her the few steps until she could sink gratefully onto the chair’s cushion.

She gestured toward the room’s only other chair for Frevisse to sit, too, and Frevisse did, wishing Domina Elisabeth had dismissed her instead, but Domina Elisabeth, with her head leaned against the tall back of the chair and eyes closed, said, “What am I to do with the Pyes? Even if the Rowcliffes don’t demand the law on them, I’ll have to send them away. Alson stole from us and suborned her brother. He poisoned two men. How could they be such fools? They can’t stay here, and I can’t give them a good word to take with them. What could I say?”

“That they’ve been good workers,” Frevisse offered. “That much would be true about them.”

“That they’ve been good workers but will follow any stupid plan that’s offered them?” Domina Elisabeth shot back with a little anger-fueled sharpness.

“If all you write is that they’ve been good workers, whoever thinks to hire them will wonder, then, why you’ve let them go, but at least you’ve not turned them off with nothing for all the years they’ve served well here.”

“And it will let them say they left by their own choice if they want to lie further and…” Domina Elisabeth broke off, made a frustrated gesture with both hands, and gave up, saying with all her weariness returned on her, “It just goes on and on. It never stops. One trouble after another. I am so tired of it all. So tired.”

She was; but she was also being rescued by her brother and would soon have her longed-for rest. Frevisse wondered whether, if it had been someone other than his sister who made the plea, Abbot Gilberd would have agreed to her resignation and all else she wanted.

But she was still prioress for now, still bound by duty, and Frevisse asked, “What of Elianor Lawsell? Where is she? Gone back to the guesthall for the night?”

“On the abbot’s word, she’s been given a bed in the infirmary.” Domina Elisabeth shut her eyes. “One more trouble.”

Frevisse looked at her tired face and how slackly her hands lay on the arms of the chair. There was no doubting how near to the end of her strength Domina Elisabeth was, and Frevisse brought herself to say, “I shall regret your going from us. You’ve served St. Frideswide’s well.”

The faintest of smiles curved Domina Elisabeth’s mouth. “I’ve sometimes thought you did not approve of me, dame,” she murmured.

Sometimes Frevisse had not, but she answered honestly, “That doesn’t mean you’ve not done well. Only that I was wrong.”

Her eyes still closed, Domina Elisabeth gave a single small laugh. In the silence then the fire whispered among its coals and there was the tat of rain at the window glass beyond the shutters. Frevisse was waiting to be dismissed or for Compline’s summons, whichever would let her leave here, but into the quiet Domina Elisabeth said softly, “There is strong likelihood that you’ll be elected prioress in my place. You know that, don’t you?”

Frevisse strangled back her instant, urgent need to refuse even the thought, able only after a long moment of struggle to say evenly, “No. Nor do I wish it.”

Domina Elisabeth held silent, letting the knowledge lie there between them that once a nun’s vow of obedience was given, “wish” had nothing to do with “duty” except insofar as a nun should wish to do whatever duty was given her. Instead, finally and far too quietly, Domina Elisabeth asked, “On which of your sisters, then, would you rather lay the burden?”

The stroke of the bell calling to Compline saved Frevisse from answer.