Roses in the Tempest (15 page)

Drawing silent, I glanced at my own plate of broken meats and crusts. I was glad of only the one retainer dining with us, for as it was, Alice had to stand by waiting her turn to eat, even after having borrowed the extra bowls and spoons from our servants, bless them.

We finished our repast and adjourned to Chapter where the bishop took my seat and questioned us, his retainer acting as scribe and writing all down. “Your letters, Prioress Isabella, tell of mundane matters, but do not allude to property. Have you an inventory of the household goods and property?”

“Why, no, Your Excellency.”

“And why is that?”

Dame Elizabeth saw my distress and bowed to the bishop before addressing him. “We have no inventory of the house, Your Excellency, because we are such a small and poor house. What little we have is adequately shared by all, as St. Benet said, and I know not what our Lady Prioress has but to guess that it is as little as the rest of us.”

The bishop scoured the little chapter room with heavy lids. “I see the truth of it, Dame.” She bowed again and sat, and I blessed and thanked her with my grateful glance, for I did not know how to answer the bishop in this. I was not instructed as to all that I should do as mistress of this house.

The bishop then asked each sister to tell the earnest truth about Blackladies, and all held their breath when he came at last to Cristabell.

“Dame Cristabell. Can you tell me whether the Lady Prioress runs a goodly house in fair measure?”

Tight-lipped as ever, she spoke in soft tones. “Our Lady Prioress is fair, Your Excellency, in most of her dealings, but I do have cause for concern.”

“Oh?” He glanced at me, but I lowered my flaming cheeks, unable to look him in the eye.

She glared at me, despite my years of being a mother and a servant to her. “Our Lady Prioress allows that which is not to be, Your Excellency. I have kept my council, but now, in your presence, I am forced to say.” Her complexion darkened. “Our Lady Prioress…” She switched her gaze from one nun to the next. They glanced at her with dispassion, knowing well, it seemed, what she intended. “The Lady Prioress is indiscreet, Your Excellency.”

“Indiscreet? How so, Dame?”

“She…she…” But here, the smallest tremor quivered her lips. Was she afraid of me, that I would denounce her thievery even though I told her I would not? Did she trust me so little? “She…our Lady Prioress…” Pressing her lips firmly, she licked them and started anew. “The Lady Prioress allows young girls to share our dormitory with us.” Shocked, I stared at her, unable to lower my eyes from her stern countenance. “It is not right that they sleep with us. It disturbs our slumber. We have too much work to do.”

The bishop raised a brow at me. “Is this true?”

Numbed, I nodded. “Yes, Your Excellency. We have nowhere else to put them. They have no home, no family.”

“You must find them another situation, and right quick. This house cannot support this charity. Your heart is good, Lady Prioress, but misplaced. You are allowed four nuns here and your servants, and that is all. There is no room for more. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Your Excellency. But they have come to know us well, and feel this is their home.”

“Lady Prioress. Should you comfort every wayfarer and foundling, there would be no food enough for those you shelter already. Should I remove some of your household to make room for foundlings? Would you be only two nuns here?”

“No, Bishop. I bow to obedience.”

“Well then,” he said, eyeing Cristabell. “Is there anything more?”

I waited again for her to speak, a sense of dread gnawing at my belly. She glared at me, and I saw all her intentions in those verdant eyes.

I was angered at myself. It was I who put myself at her mercy. I never should have allowed Thomas such access. It was not allowed by the Rule, yet I flouted it. She was the better nun, then, to denounce me. I welcomed it. How could there be secrets within a cloister? How live honest lives if we hid our true selves from one another?

Cristabell faced the bishop, jaw clenched, before lowering her head and shaking it slowly from side to side.

It was unexpected. Should I take this opportunity to denounce myself? I swallowed my breath, unable to decide what to do.

But it was such a little thing, Thomas’ visits. And he was such a good friend to this priory. If Cristabell thought it mete to keep quiet, then surely I must do the same.

I blushed with shame. How was it that in the span of a breath, I could change my resolve so easily? My heart was relieved, but what of my soul?

The bishop’s visit wore on us all. More so than I thought it would. I was so vexed by what might befall us that I found little sleep in the days preceding. The day after he left, I held our Chapter. The room which was normally cool even in summer, seemed unusually hot to me, and more than once I blotted the sweat from my chin with the back of a hand. “Sisters, we did well with the Bishop’s visit. He saw our accomplishments and our needs, and I think he shall be more attentive when next we ask for a necessity… But.” I drew a breath, which seemed to take an eternity. “Cristabell. Why did you tell him of Jane and Mary? You know their lot is wretched. What are two little girls to us? So we eat a little less in order to feed them…”

“I could have told him more, Lady Prioress,” she said, her head down.

“I know. But we are so few here. We four against the world. We must stand together, sharing what is in our hearts here in Chapter where it belongs. If you still harbored discontent with the girls, here is where you should have said.”

“Forgive me, Lady Prioress.” Raising her head she stared at me. “I did tell you. I did not cease in telling you. You call it charity, but I see it as disobedience. I have been a nun a long time, Madam. Longer than you, in fact, and I was taught that obedience is utmost of our vows. Who will clothe them when they grow? We can feed them from our food now, and that we have done, and I have not complained. But shall we go about naked to clothe them? You would answer ‘yes’, but I say we have done what is required. We succored them when it was needed, but now it is up to the community of Brewood to find them shelter. The village belongs to Christ, too.” Her mouth set into a thin line.

I paused and considered her sincere words. Did I wrongly convict Cristabell in the court of my mind, condemning without trial? For the issues she now raised were entirely reasonable, and I felt ashamed that I took no note of them earlier as a prioress should have done.

“Cristabell, my sister. I have wronged you.” Alice and Elizabeth snapped up their heads in surprise. “Your concerns for this house and for the Rule have oft been ignored because I falsely misconstrued their intent. I ask your forgiveness in this. And further, I concur with your assessment. The girls should find new homes with the families of Brewood unless they wish to enter a convent themselves. But it shall not be this one. For the bishop made it clear we are a house of four nuns only. Four is a good number, Cristabell. I should not want that to change.”

Her face was full of misgiving and confusion. Certainly she did not expect to be received with sincerity. It only made my heart cry out the more to her.

A flush of heat reddened my face, and I wiped a drop of sweat from under my chin. There was so much more I wanted to say to her, to make her understand, and yet a swelling headache made it difficult to concentrate. When I raised my eyes to her, it was as if I were looking at her through a rippling pond. I grasped my rosary. “So much I wish to tell you,” I said, before a tunnel of darkness consumed me.

AUGUST, 1521

Blackladies

XVI

“Covetousness is like fire: the more wood that is fed to it,

the more fervent and greedy it is.”

–Sir Thomas More

In mere moments I was there. The word came so quickly, and then I rode, yet I remember not the riding. At my insistence, I was brought to her room, a place in the convent I never before laid eyes upon. It was small and cramped, and the air close, hazy with dust. She lay very still, yet a sheen of sweat sheathed what skin of her face I could see for the wimple. “Has the physician come?” I asked, kneeling beside the bed.

“Physician?” asked Dame Alice. “We have called no physician, Lord Giffard.”

“I have done,” I answered. I longed to hold Isabella’s hand, but it lay under a light blanket. “Pray God it is not the sweating sickness.”

Alice gasped. No one wanted that malady anywhere nigh. The king himself oft left court this time of year to escape it, as well as the plague. The king reeked of vinegar, a tonic thought to keep such disease at bay. Everyone drank it or doused themselves with it. The nuns’ room was the only place that did not stink from it.

Beside Isabella’s bed, I prayed it was neither the sleeping sickness nor the plague. I prayed she would open her eyes and look at me.

“Isabella,” I whispered, hoping to coax her to consciousness. “It is I, Thomas. You must not frighten your sisters so by fainting in Chapter as you did. That was incautious to say the least.”

“Incautious…” My heart leapt, for her cracked lips opened and spoke the words. Tilting forward, I took the wet cloth from her head and softened her lips with it. “Incautious is a married man within a nun’s cloister,” she rasped. “For shame, Thomas.”

“I have come to bring you a doctor. Oh, where is that cursed man?”

“Another man in our chamber? No, no. I will not allow it.”

“You will allow what I tell you to allow, Lady Prioress.”

“No.” She shook her head against the pillow. It was an effort. “You must take me downstairs. Please, Thomas. We must observe some level of decorum.”

“You should not be moved.”

“I insist.” Grunting, she made as if to rise, but Alice gently pushed her back.

“Lord Giffard,” said Dame Alice, imploring me. “What shall we do?”

“I will carry her,” I said, and rose.

Isabella said nothing as I scooped her from her bed, bed linens and all, and carried her like a babe down the stairs. She was surprisingly light, and I feared for this, imagining it was her weakness that made her so. I vowed when she recovered I would send a cartload of barley and rye flour, and droves of fowl.

Alice greeted a surprised Dame Elizabeth, and the older nun instructed me to take her to the chapter house, it being the coolest room. I kicked open the door with my foot and trod through, looking for the best place.

“The chair,” Isabella croaked. “If I am to die, I would have it done in the prioress’ chair.”

“You are not going to die, you stubborn woman,” I hissed into her ear before setting her down into the hard chair. I knelt and rested her feet upon the footstool.

“Now go, Thomas. You should not be here.”

“The pope himself could not bestir me now.”

She gave in with a sigh and melted into the bedclothes.

We waited interminably for that damned physician, and when he arrived at last I nearly fell upon him.

“This is highly unusual,” he kept saying.

Clearly he had not my experience with convents, but his slow considerations were vexing me. “Well? Can you do something?”

“Lord Giffard, be assured. Despite this unusual setting, I shall do all I can for the prioress.”

He summoned the nuns to prepare hot water and to bring linens, and then he instructed me to leave.

“I shall not!”

“Lord Giffard. These are delicate matters. Do the lady a kindness and cease your hovering.”

“Let me take you to the chapel, Lord Giffard.” Dame Elizabeth took my arm with surprising strength, and pulled me away. Looking back at Isabella, I could see the wisdom in this at last, and I allowed myself to be led.

I stood alone in the humble chapel, staring at the rustic crucifix. I reached for the altar rail and knelt, bowing my head. “Precious Jesu, let nothing harm her. Have mercy on her. Heal her.” I further asked for blessings for Dame Alice who had the wits to call me. No ill should befall Isabella. Never in my life have I known her to fall ill. “Is it my own sin, Lord, that causes this? For I would never wish to taint her with my faults.”

After a long while on my knees I stood again, stamping back the feeling in my calves before pacing the room. What was taking so long? This damnable cloister with its gates and secrets! A person could die for lack of care in such a place. Though it might be incautious in a chapel, I nevertheless cursed Blackladies and all the houses like it. Monks! Nuns! What a foolish occupation! At least the rest of us made no pretense at piety and chastity. Too many of these houses were filled with greedy lascivious creatures, or so it was rumored. Rome took its coin and appointed its clerics—like our fair Wolsey, and what did it ever offer in return? Pregnant nuns and hypocritical priests!

Raising my head I glared at the chapel’s walls, daring it to naysay me. I swiveled my head toward the altar where I expected to see the riches of the Church in all its piracy, but saw only a mended linen cloth draped over the stone. The tabernacle was small and fashioned with dented plate, and I recalled its one silver goblet as well as its paten, not even made of precious metal. Could I truly imagine Isabella comporting with the Devil, or any of her nuns? Ashamed and looking about me at the coarse structure, I recognized that not all of England’s monasteries could be as corrupted as was said. Ill rumor, I suppose, had a way of begetting itself.

Moving toward the meager quire, I lowered to the bench, wondering vaguely if Isabella sat where I settled. A touch of spicy incense permeated the old wood and it drew out of me an unwilling glut of nostalgia for masses I had attended, for celebrations of the Lord I gloried in. I shook my head and asked of the murky gloom, “Why am I such a cynic, Lord?” Was it because I was older, more experienced? Did I know better now, like a weaned child, mature as I played my games of court? I knew how the Church trifled with lives, and souls, and coin purses. To have Isabella join their ranks…

I leaned back against the wood and glared at the dusky ceiling. Why did I torture myself this way? If she were married with a score of brats at her dugs, would I have bothered?

Gazing at the solemn statue of the Virgin, I was forced to admit with a despicable sense of myself, that I would not have. It was this very sanctity that compelled me, that if she could not be mine, then she would be no one’s. I stared at the statue of the Holy Mother, content.

It seemed I contemplated that statue a long time until I was surprised to be awakened by Dame Alice. She carried a candle, which glowed her cheek with golden light.

“Lord Giffard? Are you awake?”

“Dame.” I rose, embarrassed, having no care for the ache in my bones from sleeping on so hard a surface.

“I am afraid we forgot about you. And as you see, night has fallen. Will you sup with us?”

“How is Isabella? I mean your prioress?”

“She is well. The doctor said it was only a fever, but the strain of the bishop’s visit caused her to collapse. He recommended rest for the next few days, but I do not know if she will abide by it.”

“By God, she will!” I cried, and strode purposely to the door. Dame Alice rushed to catch up to me.

“Lord Giffard, the hall is this way.”

“What?”

Isabella’s niece gestured to me in the other direction. She was nothing like Isabella in stature or in appearance. But she was fond of her kinswoman and prioress, and in this she pleased me. I allowed her to lead me to the small hall.

It was dim inside the room with only two small oil lamps on the table. Four mean wooden spoons and wooden plates sat at the ready, with fat slabs of bread, leeks, and poached fish sitting atop the platters, while a thick barley soup steamed from the four porridgers. The other nuns joined me at table, staring at the unusual company. Dame Alice placed one set of the platters on a tray and lifted it. “I will take this to the prioress.”

It took all my strength not to rise to my feet and offer to take it myself, but I stared at the meager portions of food instead as Dame Alice made her way into the gloom of Blackladies. “Where is Dame Alice’s place?” I asked, my voice shrill in the solemn silence, noting now only three remaining settings.

Dame Elizabeth raised her head from her dish. “There are only four settings, Lord Giffard. She must wait her turn until all are fed, and then she will eat.”

“This is absurd. I do not need to eat your food, Dame.”

“But you would not insult your hosts, would you Lord Giffard? You are so generous to us, we would be pleased to offer our hospitality.”

“Generous, indeed. Yes, Dame. I recall supplying this house with decent pewter plates. All I see left of that are a few porridgers.”

She took up her spoon and delicately scooped the barley broth. “We sold them.”

“You did what?”

“Dame Isabella’s wish was to provide for the local poor. We did not need more place settings than nuns, and so we sold them for money for the poor. But she kept some of the porridgers as they are very sensible.” With a smile, she scooped more soup and slurped it from the spoon.

I said no more and ate slowly so as not to finish like a glutton, but I offered to relinquish my plate to Dame Alice upon her return.

“Did the prioress eat?” I asked leaving the bench so that she could sit.

“Yes. She ate well. She said to thank you for your kindness, Lord Giffard, in calling in the doctor.”

Dame Alice commenced spooning food onto my discarded plate while I stood by in the dark, wondering what next to do. I wanted desperately to see Isabella, but knew if I asked, I would be refused. I decided, then, not to ask. “I bid you all farewell,” I said to them. “I thank you for your generous hospitality.”

Dame Elizabeth rose. “I will unlock the gate for you, Lord Giffard.”

The damn gate! I forgot. I hoped I appeared polite as I nodded to acknowledge her.

Dame Elizabeth took me down the cloister and into the gallery of the dwelling. “The gate lies that way,” she said pointing toward an arch glowing from fading sunlight. “And the dormitory is up the stairs to your right.”

She turned to leave me, and it was then I suddenly called out to her. “Dame Elizabeth?”

“Lord Giffard, if you would see to the prioress I suggest you make it quick. We will have Vespers soon and retire ourselves.”

My gratitude must have glowed in my eyes, for she smiled once before slowly returning to the hall. I took the stairs two at a time, and found Isabella propped up in her bed gazing out the window, a rosary glittering in her hand. When she turned, she did not seem surprised.

“What conspiracy is this?” I asked.

“No conspiracy,” she said with a sigh. “It is simply that your nature has been discerned.”

“I do not know if I like that implication,” I pouted, standing at the foot of her bed. “How are you?”

“Tired. But I am well, Thomas. Thanks to you and your good care of me.”

“My good care of you, indeed. You sold my plate. The plate I bought for you.”

“For the house, surely not for me. And I thanked you for it. We got a goodly sum, and paid it out to the poor. Would you begrudge the poor their due, Thomas?”

“Isabella,” I sighed, shaking my head. “What am I to do with you? You are too stubborn to even be properly sick.”

“I have too much work to do to be sick. The good Lord knows that.”

“The Lord knows you also need to rest. I will have Dame Alice report to me if you do not take the doctor’s advice. I will come back and lock you in this room myself if I must.”

“You need not do that. But you could do me a kindness by granting a favor.”

“Anything.”

“We have two waifs among us. Little girls. You might have seen them.”

I recalled two gangly children romping in the fields outside the cloister and within its walls. “I always supposed they were the children of your servants.”

“No. They are orphans. We have been told we may no longer care for them.”

Such pain in her eyes as she said it. I did not realize the sacrifice Isabella made upon coming to this convent. Yes, she was a perpetual virgin in my heart and vowed to that end because of her own heart. But these children would be the only babes inhabiting her chaste life. How long had they been here? How attached was she?

“What would you have me do, Isabella?”

“Find a place for them. You have many estates and many servants. Surely there are those who will, in charity, take them in. Please, Thomas. They have found a home here, and now they must leave it. Imagine the sorrows they have known, and so young.”

I nodded. There was nothing I could deny her, especially when her eyes looked as they did. “Yes. I will send someone for them in the morning, if that will suit.”