The Apostate's Tale

Chapter 7

Every memory Cecely had willingly put away from her over the years had been returning on her like heavy vengeance ever since she had walked through the cloister door. She had begun to choke on them even before she knelt again in front of the altar or put on the heavy dreariness of the black gown. Now she was finding that among the worst of the things she had forgotten was time’s terrible tediousness here, and there were no days more tedious than these at Lent’s end, when the prayers went on forever-hours of praying every day and for what seemed more than half of every night.

How did these women keep from going mad?

Or had they already all gone mad, and that was how they could bear it?

And how long would it take for her to go mad, trapped in this narrow world among these narrow women all horribly alike in their Benedictine black gowns and Benedictine black veils, their faces tightly surrounded by their white wimples as if they needed one more thing to bind them from the world. How did they bear being tied and bound and in-held against everything their womanhood should demand was theirs? How could they bring themselves to forget so much of what it was like to be alive?

Even Johane, her own cousin, in those first moments in the cloister walk had stood staring at her as if she was a ghost or, at best, a stranger never seen before. But then Cecely had hardly known her either, she was so changed-not just older but looking as if she had gone flat, gone stale, with nothing left of her except the part that could be called “nun.” Cecily had more than half-hoped to find Johane an ally, but the little fool was keeping even more widely away from her than the others did. They all acted as if she had a disease and they might take it from her; all of them too stupid to see they were the diseased ones, with Johane as diseased as the rest and no use to her at all.

Still, and despite her own old sickness at this death-in-life that was worse with every hour she was here, she thought she was doing well enough. Maundy Thursday was past, anyway, and she had not broken into laughter when she had been sat down with the others along the cloister garth’s wall, and Domina Elisabeth had knelt in front of them, one by one, and washed their feet as Christ had washed the Apostles’ feet. She had even washed Cecely’s feet and that had been when Cecely had had to fight to hold in laughter, wanting to dabble her bare toes in the basin and flick water at the woman who had surely been hating every moment of that humiliation.

She had had altogether another urge when Father Henry-saints in heaven, even the same dull-witted priest was still here-had told her he would not give her Communion. She should have foreseen that, but she had not. This was the one time in the year when someone besides the priests were given Christ’s Body and Blood-the one time-and she was refused it because Father Henry was unwilling, he said, to “take on the burden” of her confession and penance. He said they were too much, that it was for Abbot Gilberd, not him, to deal with, her sin was so great.

The size of her resentment at his refusal had surprised Cecely. She could only hope her disappointment had masked her fury at him. She had wanted to shout into his face, “I was in love! You don’t even know what love is! You and all these withered women! I loved Guy!” Instead, she had bowed her head very low, whispered acceptance of his stricture, and kept her head bowed, hiding her face while he signed a cross over her and went away.

Still, she had got something a little her own way, she thought as she followed Dame Claire up the stairs to Mistress Petham’s chamber where poor Neddie was being kept, the sickly woman apparently willing for him to share her chamber. Yesterday Cecely had had to spend her time with him there and been able to drag only a few words out of him. It seemed he was being fed and that Mistress Petham was being kind to him, but the poor little mite had hardly talked except to answer what she asked him. He had just kept his head down and shook or nodded it for answer when he could, while across the chamber Dame Juliana fussed over the sick woman.

Two old women with one foot in their graves and their heads in the charnel house, Guy would have said, and he and Cecely would have laughed together, the way they had at his old aunts more than once.

No. Don’t think of Guy. Not now.

Think instead how she had got her own way about Neddie, making certain Dame Juliana saw how poor Neddie had hardly talked to her there in Mistress Petham’s chamber, so that afterward she had been able to ask humbly, with deeply bowed head, if he might be allowed alone with her in their time together. “In the church, perhaps?” she had asked softly. “Outside the rood screen, where we’d trouble no one. It might help him, too, when…when…he’s gone away to be a monk?” she had wavered. Dame Juliana had made a great matter of having to ask Domina Elisabeth about it. Then Domina Elisabeth, granting leave for it, made plain that Cecely should understand it was a great favor she was being given, for the child’s sake, not hers, and that she should be hugely grateful for it.

Hiding her bitterness, Cecely had humbly thanked her, but it was with hidden triumph she now followed Dame Claire into Mistress Petham’s chamber again. Neddie must have heard them coming. He was standing ready with his cloak. Cecely held out her hand to him, and he came to take it as Dame Claire, her guard today, said, going toward the bed, “I want to see briefly how Mistress Petham does. Go on to the church. I’ll soon be there.”

Cecely murmured, “Yes, my lady,” and with a flare of hot triumph at gaining even those few moments of “freedom,” she grasped Neddie’s hand and pulled him out the door.

Then came her next piece of good fortune.

Alson was coming up the stairs, carrying a covered cup of something meant for Mistress Petham.

There were so few moments to be alone and unwatched in this place. To meet Alson in one of them was almost un-hoped for luck.

Except it was not luck, Cecely realized, as Alson said hastily, looking past her, up the stairs, “I had hope she’d linger with the old woman. They’re keeping close hold on you, aren’t they?”

Cecely let go of Neddie, caught hold of Alson’s free hand with both her own, and whispered gladly, “Alson! You have the only friendly face in this whole place. They never found out you helped me, then?”

Alson let go her worried uncertainty and whispered back as gladly, “They found out I’d taken your place in the kitchen, that’s all. You never saw such a to-doing as there was when you were found gone and well away. It’s been well with you, then? Worth it and all?”

Gladness drained out of Cecely. Bleakly she said, “Until now. Now everything is…” Without she meant it to, her voice broke.

Alson squeezed her hand and said, “I know. We’ve all heard. Poor lady, to have lost him. He was such a goodly man to look on.”

Cecely nodded, momentarily wordless with her grief.

Alson looked up the stairs again. “We can’t be caught talking. But maybe later?”

“Today,” Cecely said, not about to waste this chance she had hoped for since she first saw Alson was still here. “At recreation time. In the necessarium.” There was somewhere the nuns let her go alone.

Alson’s eyes and mouth went “Oh,” with surprise, but she gave a ready little nod, and they went their separate ways.

Only at the foot of the stairs did Cecely pause to lean close over Neddie and say in his ear, “Never tell anyone that Alson and I spoke together,” giving a jerk on his hand to be sure he understood.