The Prioress' Tale

Chapter 5

The morning Mass, like the offices and breakfast before it, was subdued under Domina Alys’ heavy eye, no one caring to chance her humor by unwary move or word. She had not come to Matins and Lauds at midnight but at dawn had carried through at a headlong pace that had warned Father Henry to be no less brisk about the Mass. In the few years since Domina Alys had become prioress, he had managed to efface himself from the priory almost entirely, spending most of his time in the village except for his necessary duties in St. Frideswide’s. This morning he managed the Mass at a pace just short of unseemly, and afterward, while he retreated to the sacristy to divest himself of his vestments, the nuns left the church to go along the cloister walk to the warming room for chapter meeting.

Frevisse walked in huddled haste with them, everyone with chins tucked into their wimples and their hands pushed up their opposite sleeves to hold on to what warmth they had left after the cold time in the church. Domina Alys had not yet given permission for the heavier woolen winter gowns to be put on, and though the day was shining with early light, the sky clear except for little feather wisps of sun-gilded cloud directly overhead-the only sky that could be seen from inside the cloister-the sun was still below the roof ridge and the cloister walk still shivering cold in shadow. Wealthier nunneries had a separate room for the daily chapter meetings, some of them most beautifully made, but at St. Frideswide’s the warming room sufficed, lacking elegance but with a fireplace that on cold mornings such as this one was much to be preferred over chill beauty.

So she was as bitterly disappointed, if not so loud about it as some, to find no fire there as they crowded through the door. Sister Amicia turned on Dame Juliana, who, as cellaress, would have to tell the servants of their failure. “Go tell them now!” she cried.

Dame Juliana shook her head miserably. “I can’t. I had to tell them not to light a fire here this morning. Domina Alys said so.”

“Why?” Sister Johane exclaimed. “It’s not fair!”

“Hush,” Dame Perpetua hissed from near the door. Domina Alys always came in to chapter meeting last and expected to find them standing silently, heads respectfully bowed, waiting for her. Dame Perpetua’s warning was that she was nearly there, and in quick silence they spread out among the low stools, to wait for leave to sit.

Sister Thomasine, as she did even when there was a fire, had already slipped to the farthest place and was standing with her head bowed, hands folded, no sign that her thin body felt the morning’s chill at all. Frevisse wondered if it were a sin to envy her that. For herself, wary of what Domina Alys’ humor might be today, not wanting to be noticed if she could help it, she tried for a place in the midst of the other women, neither too forward nor too back, but found Dame Claire, Dame Perpetua, and Dame Juliana all had the same desire. There was a momentary shifting of skirts and a scraping of stools, then sympathizing glances at each other as they realized they were at matched purposes and settled wherever they were.

The four younger nuns, lacking their wariness, were crowded to the stools nearest Domina Alys’ chair. Last night during recreation they had talked into the paving stones everything they knew or guessed about what had happened yesterday afternoon and been annoyed at Frevisse when she refused to embroider on the bare facts that she told them once and not again: a girl had been seized by Sir Reynold’s men in Banbury, had been rescued here by Domina Alys, and was now in Lady Eleanor’s keeping. Chapter meetings were for dealing with the nunnery’s daily business and they were looking forward to asking questions at length about this particular business.

Frevisse doubted it was going to be that easy. Domina Alys’ face was set this morning with a heavy-jawed stubbornness that did not bode well. Neither did her refusing them a fire. Admittedly, there were supposed to be no fires, except in the kitchen, from spring until Allhallows and they were barely to St. Crispin’s, so the warming-room fire had been an indulgence on Domina Alys’ part, one that she was within her rights to cancel if she chose. But shivering slightly, Frevisse thought that it was bitterly unfair they should lose it because Domina Alys was displeased over something that was none of their fault.

And, she promptly added with wry humor at herself, it was bitterly unfair for her to resent Domina Alys not keeping within the rules for some things and then being annoyed when she did if it led to discomfort. Diverted by how easily her own virtue could slide when she was faced with a cold room when she had hoped for a warm one, Frevisse made her curtsy with the rest as Domina Alys entered and then stood with her eyes down and hands folded in front of her, wishing she were as quiet in her mind as she hoped she outwardly seemed.

Domina Alys went to stand beside her chair, resting one hand on its high back as she looked them over with a darkly critical eye but saying nothing until Father Henry hurried in. As he took his place beside her, she declared, “In nomine Patris, et Filü, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen,” and proceeded to pray-or order-the Holy Spirit to guide and bless what they would do here. Then Father Henry read the chapter of St. Benedict’s Rule designated for the day, first in his uncertain Latin, then again in English, and made his brief commentary on the reading, to the effect that they should obey the holy St. Benedict’s Rule. With Father Henry the obvious was always his strongest point. He was deeply sincere but never profound, and Frevisse, having managed after a long effort to accept that, barely listened to him anymore, thereby saving herself much aggravation.

He finished, blessed them, and departed, and Sister Emma and Sister Amicia thrust up their hands. Domina Alys’ gaze flicked back and forth between them and then she chose to nod at Sister Amicia, who, eager as arrow from bow, sprang to her feet exclaiming, “About that girl Sir Reynold brought yesterday, was she really-”

Domina Alys snapped, “That’s not something for discussion now. Sit down.”

Sister Amicia stood staring, mouth open on her unfinished question.

“Sit!” Domina Alys ordered.

Sister Amicia sat, and Domina Alys turned a daunting stare on the rest of them. This was the time for accusations and confessions of faults to be made among the nuns, and disciplines and penances given, but today no one seemed inclined to rouse Domina Alys by either confession of their own faults or accusations against anyone else. There was only an uneasy shifting and silence under Domina Alys’ gaze while she waited for someone to begin; and when it was clear she would not go on with chapter until something had been said, Dame Perpetua ventured to suggest uncertainly that Sister Cecely might have been a little abrupt in answering her yesterday over a matter of a book that had not been put back where it should have been.

Domina Alys set her glare on Sister Cecely. “Were you abrupt to Dame Perpetua?” she demanded.

“I-I-I might have been,” Sister Cecely admitted. “Yes.” She tried to sound more certain about it. “Yes, I think I was.”

“Fifty paternosters on your knees sometime today before Compline,” Domina Alys said. “And mind your tongue better after this. And you,” she added at Dame Perpetua.

“Don’t be so careful over what’s said to you and not meant or you’ll be doing penance, too.”

Having established that she was not about to let anyone be innocent of anything, she looked at Dame Juliana and asked, “What have you to say?” to show she was ready to go on to the obedientiaries’ reports. As cellarer, Dame Juliana was supposed to see that the nunnery had all it needed of food and other necessities, and because St. Frideswide’s was small, she served as kitchener as well, with the kitchen and the daily preparing of meals under her supervision. The nunnery’s needs not only from day to day but for the months ahead was her responsibility. Frevisse suspected mat Domina Alys had appointed her to those duties, first, because of Dame Juliana’s unwillingness to impart ill news and then because she was unlikely ever to presume to challenge what Domina Alys chose to tell her about the nunnery’s accounts.

Unfortunately for Dame Juliana, that did not mean she was easy in her mind over any of it, and of late her formerly serene brow had begun to show the creases of concentration and worry. Now, at Domina Alys’ demand, she unconsciously drew a breath, let it out as a deep sigh, and stood up to answer. “There’s word… it’s being said… I’ve heard… that Yorkshire had a drier year than we did and…”

“From who?” Domina Alys demanded.

“It’s being said… among the servants. It’s talked of… in the village.”

“And what’s it to us?”

Dame Juliana blinked, gathered her words, and said in a rush, “There may be wheat for sale there. They’re saying that, too.”

“I thought,” Domina Alys said warningly, “that you’d told me we have enough to see us through the year.”

“I did. We did,” Dame Juliana quickly agreed. “But… but…”

“But now we don’t?” Domina Alys’ lowering voice warned that this was not the answer she wanted to hear.

Somewhat desperately Dame Juliana said, “We’ve used more… our need has been… greater than we expected.” Because of Sir Reynold and his men, she refrained from adding. Hands clasped to her breast as if in prayer, she forced out, “If we could send someone to Yorkshire… to see about buying wheat there… it would be…”

“Useless,” Dame Alys said with a darkening look. “Where’s the money for it supposed to come from, for one thing? Not just for buying the wheat, supposing there is any, but for paying to have it brought here. Do we have funds I don’t know of?”

Dame Juliana did not even try to answer that. She had already dared more than Frevisse would have cared to, and for the second time in hardly a month. Near Michaelmas, when it had still seemed the nunnery would have enough grain for the year but it was plain the village would not, she had hesitantly suggested the nuns might lessen their daily ration of bread, to make their stores last longer so that later they would be able to give to the village. Domina Alys had unhesitantly pointed out, “All that will do is mean we go hungry with them. Where’s the point of that? Our first duty is God’s worship and we can’t do it if we’re ill from hunger. God looks after his own. He made villeins better suited to beans than to wheat bread anyway, and if they haven’t enough, they’ll learn to work the harder next year.”

She had made it clear she did not want to hear of the matter again, or anything like it. So it was all unexpected that now she smiled instead of going into rage. “But it doesn’t matter whether there’s wheat in Yorkshire or not. I’ve promise from Sir Reynold to see that we have wheat enough and anything else we might lack before he leaves.”

Frevisse bit back the urge to ask when he purposed to leave and where he would find this sufficiency of food he promised. Everywhere they knew of close to hand had had poor harvests, Yorkshire was a long way off, even if the harvest had been better there, and she had seen no sign that Sir Reynold was well provided with money. So how was he going to keep this promise? And what would happen to them if he failed at it?

No one asked. Dame Juliana, staring at the floor, sat down without another word.

The other obedientiaries made brief reports of how matters went with each of their offices, with nothing to disturb their prioress, except from Dame Perpetua as sacristan. With the all-important order and propriety of the church and holy services in her care, she was compelled to make yet another protest against the masons’ noise during the offices, little good though she thought it would do.

“They’ve been told!” Domina Alys answered. “There’s nothing more to be done about it. Don’t bother me with it again!”

Goaded by frustration, Dame Perpetua forgot herself so far as to cry out, “But if we only knew how much longer it was going to be!”

Domina Alys slapped her hands down angrily on her knees. “As long as it takes, Dame! The work is three-quarters done. It can’t be that much longer! Now sit down or you’ll spend the day on your knees with paternosters enough to take your mind off anything else!”

Dame Perpetua sat.

Frevisse, as hosteler, was last to be called on. Eyes down, she stood up and said, “The guest halls are presently full and no one is expected to depart today. There is presently food and drink enough for them. There are no complaints to be made against anyone or about anything.”

She stopped, forbearing to add that if any travelers came now, asking the priory’s hospitality, there would be no place to put them, thanks to all the Godfreys presently there, and that as things were going, by Christmas there would be nothing to feed them either, whether there was room for them by then or not.

Domina Alys gave her a sharp nod. “Good. Sit.” She looked around at all of them. “Is there aught else?”

Her tone indicated there had best not be. Sister Amicia and Sister Emma squirmed a little, Sister Cecely exchanged a glance with Sister Johane, but no one said anything.

“Good. Then we’ll see to the matter of this girl.”

Heads came up alertly among the nuns, and not merely the four youngest. Domina Alys gave no sign of noticing it.

“Dame Frevisse, you dealt with her yesterday. Who is she? What have you learned about her?”

“She’s Joice Southgate. Her father is a draper of Northampton.”

“What was she doing in Banbury, then?” Domina Alys demanded.

Not waiting to be carried off to marry a Godfrey, Frevisse held back from answering as curtly; but Domina Alys had wanted no answer, was demanding, “Is his father as rich as Sir Reynold says?”

“I gather so. She says he’s in partnership with someone in London.”

Domina Alys nodded satisfaction with that. “She’s content enough in Lady Eleanor’s keeping?”

“When I left her yesterday, yes,” Frevisse said.

“She’s not going to make trouble?”

Frevisse forbore from asking, In what way? Joice’s refusal to marry Benet was trouble in itself and she certainly meant to go on making it. But that was something else Domina Alys did not want to hear, so Frevisse merely said, “She’s content to be in Lady Eleanor’s keeping. She understands she should not try to leave.”

“Best she keeps that understanding, too,” Domina Alys said. “Now, all of you heed me on this. Young Benet Godfrey is going to be coming and going in and out of the cloister this next day or two or so.”

Heads lifted again, with alarm or wariness or open interest. Several mouths opened, but Domina Alys cut off anything that might have been said with, “There’s no discussion of this. I don’t want to hear a thing about it”

“Oh! But…” Sister Cecely began.

Domina Alys turned on her fiercely. “I said I wanted to hear nothing! Two hundred aves lying on your face before the altar and you’ll fast until you’ve finished with them, however long it takes you.”

Sister Cecely visibly paled and shrank inside her habit. There would be no question of shirking her other duties because of the punishment. The aves would have to be fitted into what little free time there was in a day, and she might go hungry until tomorrow because of them.

Domina Alys raked the rest of them with an angry stare. “Anyone else?”

Sister Amicia’s open mouth snapped shut. Sister Emma pressed her hands to her own mouth to be sure no word escaped her. When no one else made any move at all, not even so much as a shake of a head, Domina Alys drew a deep breath and said, “Then I’ll say this once and that’s all I’d better have to say it. Young Benet will be coming in to see this Joice Southgate, in hopes he can persuade her to marry him. He’ll see her in Lady Eleanor’s room, with Lady Eleanor to watch. He’ll come and go as seems best to him and Lady Eleanor, and you’re none of you to take note of him or be in his way or find reason to speak to him or about this to anyone, even among yourselves. Do you all understand that?”

No one dared raise any question or objection or even look at one another. They did not have to see the tears running silently down Sister Cecely’s cheeks to be reminded what the wrong word could cost them. Slowly, first Dame Juliana’s head and then one by one the rest made their nods of agreement. Satisfied, Domina Alys raised her hand to bless them before dismissing them, only to be interrupted by a scratching at the door.

“What?” she demanded, and Katerin, set daily to watch the cloister’s outer door-and sweep the cloister walk while she did-should anyone come while all the nuns were shut away in chapter meeting, put her head hesitantly in and said in her uncertain way, “Master Naylor. He’s asking to speak to you.”

“Now?” Domina Alys did not try to hide her displeasure.

Katerin nodded, watching Domina Alys’ face like a dog eager to be told which way to go. Domina Alys flicked a dismissing hand at her. “Tell him to wait. I’m almost done here.”

Katerin shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “He wants to come in now. To chapter. He says.”

“Does he?” Domina Alys’ displeasure visibly deepened.

Roger Naylor was the priory’s steward, charged with overseeing the priory’s properties and the worldly matters necessary to sustain its spiritual life. He had done well enough with Domina Edith, each of them granting the other’s particular and separate skills so that they had worked together in equal respect toward the same end, St. Frideswide’s well-being.

He and Domina Alys had come to lack that shared respect, neither of them wanting to hear what the other had to say, so that his meetings with her had become infrequent and, Frevisse gathered, unsatisfactory. She could not remember when he had last asked to be heard in chapter meeting and doubted Domina Alys would allow it. Too much of what she suspected their prioress was trying to keep from them might come out if he did.

To her surprise, Domina Alys said impatiently, “Bid him come, then. Let’s be done with him.”

Nor did she have time to change her mind and dismiss them before he came. He must have been waiting barely beyond the door, because Katherin hardly disappeared before she was back with him, standing aside to let him enter, making a quick curtsy to Domina Alys and shutting the door behind her as she retreated. Master Naylor crossed to Domina Alys and bowed, first to her and then to the rest of them before looking her full in the face.

He was never a man much given to smiling, but today he looked more grim than usual. Although stewards were proverbially said to be greed-ridden, Frevisse had always found him a fair-minded man, careful of both St. Frideswide’s well-being and of the people under him. Now her unease roused toward alarm as he straightened from his bow and said abruptly, “Good day, my lady. Could you give me some guess as to how long your cousin and his men are going to be here?”

“As long as need be,” Domina Alys returned as abruptly. “Beyond that it’s none of your concern, Master Naylor.”

“It is if their score and more of horses are eating up the priory’s hay at a rate that will leave us beggared of it before Lent and some of the cattle having to be slaughtered because of it while our own horses starve.”

“God will provide,” Domina Alys snapped.

“God helps those who help themselves,” Master Naylor returned curtly.

Frevisse could not stop her own indrawn gasp at his discourtesy, and she was not alone. A ripple of alarm passed among all the women while Domina Alys stared at him, momentarily wordless, before she surged to her feet and thrust her face toward his own as she spat back, “You’d best remember, Master Naylor, that you’re here to do what I tell you to do and keep your mouth closed unless I tell you to open it! My cousin and his men and what they do is my concern, not yours!”

“Then you had best be more concerned about them than you are!” he answered.

There were more gasps among the women, and Domina Alys, in fury beyond words, swung a hand up and back for a blow at his head. Master Naylor, not flinching, flung up his arm to block it and they froze in mutual glare and rage.

No one dared stir either, in fear of what would happen if they did, until Domina Alys pulled her mouth into an angry, ugly smile and let drop her hand. “You’ve overstepped your duty, Master Naylor. Be out of St. Frideswide’s and nowhere on my lands by midday today or I’ll loose my cousin on you. Nor don’t come begging back for me to recommend you elsewhere because I’ll tell them exactly what you are and see you ruined. You’re finished here and everywhere. Go!”

He was breathing hard, his face rigid, his anger cold in his eyes, but he gave no more response to her order and threat than to turn without a bow and leave, jerking the door open and not bothering to close it after him, so that they heard his footsteps going away along the cloister, going and then gone, and no one moving in the long-held silence until finally Domina Alys heaved a deep breath and said, grimly pleased, “Good. That needed doing. I’ve wanted to be rid of him.”

Maybe too shocked to realize she was saying it aloud, Dame Juliana quavered, “But now we need a steward.”

It was true enough, although not the best of times to say it. There was no way any of them could deal with all the worldly matters of St. Frideswide’s outside the cloister while seeing to the duties they already had and all the hours of prayer, too, even if any of them had had the competence for it.

Domina Alys waved the problem aside. “Sir Reynold will recommend me someone who’ll serve us better than Naylor ever did. Someone who’ll know his place, for one thing.” The blessing she should have given them for the day forgotten, she gestured them away. “Now go on about your duties, all of you. This has gone on long enough.”

Frevisse stood up as readily as the others, no more willing than they were to remind Domina Alys of what she had left out and with an urgent need to reach Master Naylor. It was against her vows to send word to anyone outside the nunnery without her prioress’ knowledge and permission, and until now she had been able to tell herself that matters in St. Frideswide’s were not so ill that she should break them, even if she had been sure of a safe way to send a message to Abbot Gilberd at St. Bartholomew’s; and without a safe way, she was afraid of what would surely happen to her if she tried and failed and Domina Alys found her out.

But matters had changed, were worsening, with no likelihood of being better, and Master Naylor was leaving. He was no longer bound to the priory by any duty or loyalty, and if she could manage to see him before he left, say even half a dozen words to him, tell him…

“Dame Frevisse,” Domina Alys said.

Frevisse’s heart lurched heavily up toward her throat and she stopped the single pace she had taken forward. Quickly, in hopes her face had not shown something she wanted hidden, she bowed her head and said, “My lady?”

“Before you go to the guest halls, tell Lady Eleanor and that girl that Benet is coming to talk with her this morning. Tell her she’s to see him and why. Make it clear to her. We want to have this over with.”

“Yes, my lady.” Frevisse kept her voice unshaded and her frustration in check. The delay would not matter. Master Naylor would not be away upon the instant; he had wife and children to slow his going. She had time.

She also had a chance, with the other nuns crowding out the door, to be alone, briefly, with Domina Alys, not something she generally wanted, but she took the chance this time to say, “She’ll want to know if word’s been sent yet to her people that she’s here and safe. Has it?”

A moment too late and too tersely, as if in haste to be past a lie, Domina Alys answered, “It’s being seen to. Now go on.”

Frevisse doubted that was an outright lie. An outright lie was a thing Domina Alys could not help but admit, even to herself, was a sin. What it was, probably, was a forestalling of the truth, a going around it. Word was going to be sent-sometime. It would be “seen to” but had not been yet-and would not be for as long as Domina Alys could possibly delay it.