Wine of Violence

Chapter Thirty

Bedlam would have been a model of calm compared to Tyndal’s kitchen the next morning. Sister Edith stood in the middle of the room, staring at the ceiling and screaming orders, many in contradiction to others already given. Steam from overflowing pots boiled into billowing hot fog, the bitter smell of burning meat permeated the air, and a large pestle lay shattered on the floor. Two sisters were in tears over half-chopped vegetables. And the midday meal chicken escaped out the door, squawking in outrage at its proposed fate, just as Eleanor walked in.

“You are a scrawny one,” she remarked as the bird raced past her. Then, looking at the scene before her, she wondered how anything, even the inedible, could emerge from all this disarray.

Sister Edith’s face was red and her eyes squeezed shut as if she were in a bad dream from which she might awaken, if only she waited long enough.

Eleanor reached up and put a hand gently on the woman’s shoulder.

“Cook it any way you want, for the love of God!” Sister Edith screeched, once again raising her closed eyes heavenward. “Just don’t ask me another question.”

Then she opened her eyes.

“Oh, no!” she whispered as she looked down into the expressionless face of her prioress.

Eleanor struggled not to laugh.

“Come, sister,” she said with immense control. “Let us walk in the cool of the garden and talk.”

The two women walked silently out of the hot kitchen, across the cloister and through the trellised arbor into the garden filled with tiny flowers and toward the carved stone seat near the fountain. Despite the warming sun, there was a chill to the air that foretold the coming autumn storms. Sensing the change, bees buzzed with special urgency, but a butterfly or two floated almost carelessly in the air as if they cared not a whit for their fate in the darker season.

Sister Edith’s head was bowed, perhaps less from humility than from embarrassment, for Eleanor noted that her eyes quickly looked sideways when they entered the garden, as if she could not keep herself from studying the state of the lush vegetation.

“Please sit.” Eleanor gestured to the bench. The sound of the water in the fountain was as peaceful as a primeval brook running over ancient, smoothed pebbles.

“My lady, I have sinned…”

“Brother Thomas is your confessor. He will give due penance for sins of anger.”

“I have failed both you and Tyndal.”

Eleanor folded her hands into her sleeves, tilted her head, and waited.

“It was my rotation in the kitchen and I have failed in my duties.”

“Rotation? Not as a penance for anything then?”

“When Mati…Sister Matilda was taken from the kitchen, I was rotated in. Our prioress that was, Prioress Felicia, said we must all learn to do everything in the priory. In that I have been unable to perform adequately.”

“Everything? Indeed, that is not a bad idea, for the good of your soul as well as your experience. Surely you began with the basics of cooking?”

“No, my lady. I began in charge. I had been in charge of the gardens. Prioress Felicia felt it would be unseemly for me to do the base work of chopping vegetables.”

“I saw two sisters doing just that.”

“They are the daughters of knights…”

“And you and Sister Matilda are the daughters of a baron.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Would you have minded serving under women of lesser rank?”

“I want to serve God well. If I serve best chopping parsnips, so be it, my lady, but I have not done well directing in the kitchens. Even with Sister Mat…” She stopped and looked sheepishly at the prioress.

“Even with your sister’s help?” Eleanor smiled and put a hand on the nun’s arm. “Fear not. I have seen each of you struggling to help the other, but I have also seen the anger between you.”

“She will never learn not to water in the high heat of…” Sister Edith stopped as her own voice raised in indignation. “That is no more her fault than it is mine that I cannot remember how long to boil a pot of stew or the right flame for meat.”

“No, it is not, and you both must make peace. Anger is sinful whether it be between kin or with any child of God.”

Sister Edith squirmed uncomfortably on the bench. “Aye, but I still don’t know how to cook.”

“And I have a solution for that. Would you be willing to do anything, no matter how humble or unsuited to your station, to correct your faults?”

“I wish only to serve, my lady. True station exists only in the grace of God.”

“Well said! We must all remember that the twelve apostles were men of very simple birth but were chosen to sit at the right hand of God. So take the lowly task I have for you and perform it well in the spirit of those men. Will you promise me that?”

“Aye, my lady.”

“I am assigning you to the priory gardens that you may humble yourself in the earth and bring forth flowers for the glory of God and plants to feed us so that we will have the strength to serve Him better.”

“What about Matilda?”

“I am bringing your sister back to the kitchen. She has served her time in the field. And I order the two of you to make peace so that she may prepare the fruits of your work to grace our tables within the blessing of unity.”

Sister Edith cried aloud and tears flowed down her cheeks again, but both voice and tears were finally filled with happiness.