The Prioress' Tale

Chapter 25

In the warm midst of the afternoon the cloister lay quiet again, as if there had never been other than sunlight and peace inside its walls. Standing beside the church door, gazing at the frost-killed garth and trying to empty her mind of anything but stillness and prayer, Frevisse whispered, “Exaudi, Domine, preces servi tui.” Hear, Lord, the prayers of your servant. Prayers for peace, however momentary; for sanctuary, however brief; for mercy, however undeserved.

Behind her the door opened and closed so gently there was hardly sound from it, and Sister Thomasine came with barely a hush of skirts to stand beside her.

“Is she still there, the same?” Frevisse asked.

Sister Thomasine made a small nod.

“And Katerin?” Frevisse asked.

Again the small nod.

To Sir Hugh’s answer, made as carelessly as if he were unguilty, Domina Alys had stood staring, only staring, not at anything, even him, only at nothing, at a terrible nothing bare of anything that should have been there-rage or grief or disbelief-and then had said to no one, out of that nothingness, empty of any feeling, “I have to go pray,” and gone past them all as if no one was there, along the cloister walk and into the church.

Katerin had followed after her and there they still were, Domina Alys stretched out face down on the floor in front of the altar, silent, motionless, her arms spread out straight from her sides, with the small movement of her breathing the only sign she was alive, while Katerin crouched nearby, drawn up into as small a ball as she could manage, arms wrapped around her updrawn knees, as silent as her lady and rocking slightly, very slightly, back and forth.

No one had chosen to disturb them, not even Abbot Gilberd. He had come into the cloister as Sir Hugh was giving his sword over to Benet, and to Frevisse’s relief Roger Naylor had been with him. That had meant there was less need of explanations than there might have been, though explanations enough were needed. Less welcome was the sight of Sir Walter Fenner crowded among the men behind him, ready to make a fight of something if he could. But Abbot Gilberd had proved to have a quick way with facts. He had sorted through what he needed to know just then and sent Sir Hugh away under guard of some of his men and Benet, refusing Sir Walter’s offer, to take him in charge and to the sheriff with, “No, Sir Walter. My thanks, but it will be best, I think, if I see to my men taking Sir Hugh to the sheriff. For now all the present wrongs in the matter have been done to the Fenners. I’d like to keep it that way.”

That had been blunt enough that Sir Walter had had no quick reply, and Abbot Gilberd had given him no time to think of one but went on briskly with, “This is all secondary to what’s brought me here. I’ll see to it being given over to civil law as soon as may be. Sir Hugh can be conveyed directly to the sheriff by my men for a beginning, as soon as they can be horsed and gone. The rest of the Godfreys I’ll bind over to keep the peace until the justices can deal with them, and then they can take themselves home. Today for preference. Sir Walter, you and your men shall be my guests here tonight and leave tomorrow.” When the Godfreys would be well gone, he did not add but did say, on the chance Sir Walter missed the point, “I trust I will not have to bind you over, too, to keep the peace? You understand the matter is now for the law to see to?”

It required little acquaintance to know Sir Walter’s character; it required a great deal of confidence to handle him with the assurance that Abbot Gilberd did. Sir Walter had darkened an unbecoming shade of red but said, grudgingly, that he understood.

“And so you don’t mind swearing to it, do you?” Abbot Gilberd had said, and Sir Walter had sworn and been dismissed to see his men kept his oath along with him.

Abbot Gilberd’s questions after that to those of them still there in the cloister walk had been short and few and left him in full enough understanding of how things were to say, “Tell-it’s Dame Juliana who’s presently cellarer?-tell her the nunnery is in her charge until I’ve finished with the Godfreys and made sure of the Fenners giving no trouble. I’ll speak to you all after Vespers, before Compline. Matters outside should be well enough in hand by then to leave me free for it. But first your prioress.”

Sister Thomasine, her head bowed, had said gently, “She’s praying.”

“Well, she should be,” Abbot Gilberd had said in a tone meant to curb tongues that had no business wagging.

Sister Thomasine had lifted her head to look at him and said softly, “It might be best, my lord, to leave her there for now.”

And Abbot Gilberd had paused, looking back at her, then said, “It might be, yes. Let her stay then until I’m ready for her.”

He had left then, taking Master Naylor, Joliffe, Edmund, and his men with him. Joice had gone to Lady Eleanor who must know something from watching from her chamber window and now would have to know the rest. Frevisse and Sister Thomasine had gone to the gardens where Dame Juliana had had the nuns at work clearing the last of the beds for winter, having given up all hope of bringing the day back into line; and explanations had gone on until dinner. Even then, before they could eat, Frevisse had had to tell it all again, to everyone-nuns and cloister servants gathered together in the refectory-along with Abbot Gilberd’s warning he would talk to them later. That had given rise to talk that had seen them through the meal and would see them through the afternoon, so that when they had finished eating, Dame Juliana-wide-eyed with the strain of responsibility now officially given-had set the servants to scrubbing the kitchen and taken the nuns into the gardens to walk and talk themselves into exhaustion.

Exhaustion was something of which Frevisse already had enough, and when she had seen Sister Thomasine slip away from the others, toward the church, she had quietly followed, not to the church but simply into the cloister walk to be alone awhile.

Now she had been alone that while and was glad of Sister Thomasine’s coming, of something more than silence and her own thoughts, even though now she had asked her useless questions about Domina Alys there seemed nothing more to say.

It was Sister Thomasine who offered quietly, “The minstrel wants to see you.”

For a moment, bound up in other thoughts, Frevissse did not follow where she had gone, then said, “Joliffe? Where? In the church?”

Sister Thomasine nodded.

“He spoke to you?”

“He asked if he could see you.”

“Come with me,” Frevisse said and turned to go inside.

Domina Alys still lay before the altar and Katerin was still near her, unchanged, unmoved, from the two hours and more ago that Frevisse had last seen them. When she had crossed herself to the altar, she paused, looking at them, and then said low-voiced to Sister Thomasine beside her, “Is there anything to be done for her, any help we can give?”

“Our prayers,” Sister Thomasine said simply, sounding surprised she had needed to ask.

But, yes, she had needed to ask, Frevisse realized to her shame, because prayers and Domina Alys did not go together in her mind, except to pray for patience to endure her, and that was not going to be enough now. Prayers for Domina Alys-possibly the hardest thing she could be asked to give and therefore the most necessary-for her own sake as well Domina Alys‘.

Bowing her head, she made the first of what would have to be a great many, for both of them.

Joliffe was where she thought he would be, behind the choir stalls, sitting on the wall bench near the door into the tower. He rose to his feet as she and Sister Thomasine approached, bowed to them, then smiled at Sister Thomasine and asked her, “Here for propriety’s sake?”

To Frevisse’s surprise, Sister Thomasine smiled back at him, a small smile but warm, agreeing with him.

“On the chance that if Abbot Gilberd hears she’s been talking with a man,” Joliffe went on, “she can say she wasn’t alone with me.”

Sister Thomasine made a small nod. That was exactly why Frevisse had asked her to come but she did not much care to be discussed as if she was not there and said, “Your Sir Walter was here before his time.”

“A matter I mean to mention to him when I collect my pay,” Joliffe answered. “The word I sent him and Sir Reynold’s yesterday raid together moved him faster than planned. It was only good luck your abbot was on the move, too, thanks to Master Naylor, and crossed his path in Banbury.”

“God’s will,” Sister Thomasine murmured. When Joliffe and Frevisse looked at her questioningly she said, “God’s will our abbot was there. Not luck.”

“God’s will,” Joliffe amended. “Your pardon, my lady.”

“My prayers,” she said and smiled at him again, her small, shy, rarely seen smile now given to him twice.

He smiled, too, but then another look came into his eyes and he shifted from merely looking at her to something more intent and said, “You’re fasting too much.”

“Oh, no!” Sister Thomasine seemed shocked at the thought. “It’s only been for penance, for…”

She hesitated, seeming not to know how to say it.

“For what?” Frevisse asked. “Penance for what? You’ve done nothing to need penance for.”

“For all of us,” Sister Thomasine said. “For everything that’s been so wrong. For Domina Alys because she…”

Again she could not find the words.

“Because she couldn’t do it for herself?” Joliffe asked.

Sister Thomasine nodded gratefully. Frevisse, suddenly seeing something she should have known before, asked, “And your praying for so many hours beyond…” Sense, was the word that came to mind. She changed it to, more simply, “… what you used to do, is that for Domina Alys, too?”

“Because of the offices,” Sister Thomasine agreed. She looked down as if admitting it embarrassed her. “They’ve been so spoiled of late. We say them so wrong. I’ve been saying them again afterward.”

Frevisse drew in a shocked breath. According to the Rule, a mistake made in the offices was to be corrected then and there by whomever had made it, but that was all. For Sister Thomasine to take on all the failed offices Domina Alys had brought down on them, to say them all over again, alone, when none of it was ever her fault…

Sister Thomasine was looking at her anxiously, explaining, wanting her to understand, “It’s so the perfection of prayer won’t be broken, you see.”

And suddenly Frevisse wanted to cry for how far she was, herself, from that entirety of heart and mind and soul.

Joliffe, holding to the point where he had begun, said, “But the fasting. How far do you mean to take it?” Too far? he did not say aloud. To the death, the way some holy women did-

Sister Thomasine turned her gaze to him in open dismay. “Oh, no! That would be wrong!” Refusing the possibility more strongly than Frevisse had ever heard her speak of anything since she had taken her vows. “I’d be no use to anyone here if I were dead. God let me come here to pray and be of use. I can’t go until he says so.”

“Nor drag your body toward death with hunger in hopes he’ll take you sooner than he wants to?” Frevisse asked.

“Nor that either,” Sister Thomasine said, sounding almost impatient at their doubting.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Joliffe said but lightly now, teasing her. Unexpectedly, she started to smile back at him again and ducked her head to hide it, as if as taken by surprise at it as Frevisse was. Joliffe turned back to Frevisse. “As for you, besides saying farewell”-which was more than he had done the last time he had left St. Frideswide’s-“I wanted to warn you it looks like your Abbot Gilberd is going to scour your priory from top to bottom. You’d best be braced for it.”

Frevisse had already feared as much but it was worse to hear it said. “You’re saying that our ‘rescue’ is going to be as bad as our trouble has been?”

“Very likely.”

“What about you? Are you going to be able to leave here clear of any trouble? Sir Walter won’t give you away?”

“I told him my fee was double if he did. So far as everyone is concerned, he came here on a chance report from a chance peddler, nothing to do with me. I’m a mere wanderer who happened into this in all innocence and proved of noble use to Edmund in his peril. He’s already told in great detail how much a help I was to him, bless the man, and it’s planned I’m to ride out with him-the abbot is loaning us horses-when he leaves in maybe an hour to see Mistress Joice back to her loving family.”

“Who may reward you further for the help you gave him?” Frevisse asked dryly.

Joliffe laid an earnest hand over his heart. “I can only hope. For just now, I’m going to go suggest to Master Porter what manner of agreement he might try to make with your abbot over wages and unfinished towers and things. Supposing it’s possible to make agreement with your Abbot Gilberd. He seems to have come with a great many decisions already made.” He bowed lightly and was turning away toward the boarded doorway as he spoke, adding over his shoulder for parting, “I don’t envy you the next few days.”

“I doubt you envy me anything,” Frevisse said after him.

Joliffe turned back, with a look on his face that was disconcertingly like too many of Sister Thomasine’s-deep and quiet and with nothing hidden in it and yet nothing there that Frevisse could clearly read. “Oh yes,” he said most quietly after a moment. “There are things I envy you. Believe me.”

Then his laughter flashed up across his face and he fell back, made them both a deep, elaborate bow, swung around and was gone into the tower, the door dragged shut behind him.

Carefully gathering her mind back to itself, Frevisse turned to Sister Thomasine and slowly, finding her way, said, “You didn’t mind talking to him. To Joliffe. A man and a stranger.”“

“Oh, no,” Sister Thomasine said simply.

“Nor mind the madman being in the church, when we thought he was a madman.” Another man, another stranger, when ever since she had come to St. Frideswide’s, Sister Thomasine had kept from any dealings with any man that she could possibly avoid.

“I knew he wasn’t mad.” That was what she had said before-that he had not felt mad to her. Then what had she felt of Joliffe that she had accepted him, too?

And almost Frevisse asked, how she felt to her, then knew she did not want to know and said instead, “We’ve let go two offices so far today. Do you think there’s time for us to say them now?” Now, in the silence and the waiting before Vespers and whatever Abbot Gilberd would bring down on them. Here, with Domina Alys lying stretched out below the altar in what Frevisse hoped, for her soul’s sake, was the deepest of prayer.