The Spell-Bound Scholar (14 page)

honored ground plan of convent and monastery alike— dormitory, refectory, cloister, and chapel—though the cloister's pillars were wooden and the chapel was of painted boards. Not for the first time, Gwen wondered if the sisters were wise to try to keep themselves secret from the monks, who would surely have aided them with funds and labor had they known.

Of course, they also might have wished to establish their authority over the women's Order, as the nuns feared. That didn't seem terribly likely to Gwen, but she did think there was a definite chance that the Abbot might have forbidden the Order to form.

Her speculation was cut short by the advent of the Mother Superior, hurrying across the grounds so quickly her brown robe snapped about her ankles. The novice trailed along in her wake, still looking scared.

The older nun came up to the gate and curtsied in greeting. "Good day, Lady Gallowglass! You honor our house!"

" 'Tis a house of God, Mother, and 'tis my honor to be herein," Gwen returned.

"Only 'Sister,' an't please you," the nun reminded her gently. "We hold no official ranks past our final vows; 'tis simply my sisters' regard that doth give me precedence. I am only Sister Paterna Testa, like to any among us."

"Your pardon, Sister." Gwen inclined her head. "I come seeking wisdom."

The nun laughed. "You, the wisest witch in the Isle of Gramarye? What wisdom might I offer you?"

"Knowledge of healing," Gwen returned. "I had cause to see, when last I journeyed here, that you and your sisters know far more than I of the healing of the mind."

" 'Tis gracious of you to say so." The nun turned serious with compassion ready in her eyes. "Has your husband gained worse hurts?"

"None new, I think," Gwen answered, " 'Tis not one of my own I seek to cure, but an enemy who might cease to be a foe if she were healed."

"What an amazingly Christian deed!" the novice ex-

claimed, round-eyed, then clapped her hand over her mouth, appalled at her own temerity.

Gwen smiled with gentle amusement. " Tis not true charity if we wish to spare ourselves trouble thereby."

"But it is true charity when the headsman's ax would be simpler and far quicker," Sister Paterna Testa said, her gaze probing and speculative.

"There are even better reasons than that," Gwen admitted, "though I do not wish to speak of them. Canst tell, Sister, why the wounds of the body heal with time and harden with greater protection of the softer flesh within, while those of the mind fester and grow worse?"

"For that they have not been well tended," the nun said promptly. She held out a hand, turning back toward the interior of the convent.

Gwen accepted the invitation, stepping through the gate with her and toward the main hall.

"You know," said Sister Paterna Testa, "that if a soldier is struck by an arrow but does not die, the barb must be cut out and the wound anointed with healing balms, then bandaged with a poultice."

"Aye, certes."

' Then will the cut flesh grow together once more and the skin seam itself over. Even thus in the mind, the barb must also be drawn out and the balm and poultice given."

Gwen looked up, frowning. "I have given what balm I may."

"Yet we may know of others," Sister assured her, "and there is yet the matter of the barb."

"Why, even so," Gwen said slowly. "Yet how can one draw out that which one cannot see?"

"Or even know is there?" The nun nodded. " Tis that which we may tell you of, milady—but anon. For the present, you have journeyed far and are surely wearied and a-hungered. Will you dine with us, thereafter to take your ease in our guest house?"

The refectory was a long hall, with cream-colored walls, a crucifix at the far end, and a picture of two women in peasant

dress, one holding a baby, one with a face that would have turned plums into prunes if the smile on it hadn't been so warm and welcoming. There was no other decoration, but the cleanliness of the hall and the huge open windows that filled it with light made it cheerful and refreshing.

Sister Paterna Testa said grace, her sisters said "Amen," and immediately broke into happy conversation. Two of the nuns and two novices rose from their places and went out of the room. They came back moments later carrying trays laden with hearty, but very plain, food.

"I trust you shall not find our company burdensome, milady," Sister Paterna Testa said as she dipped her spoon into her soup.

"I feel peace suffusing my soul already, simply from being within your house," Gwen rejoined. "But who are those dames pictured on the wall? Surely the one is not meant to be the Blessed Virgin."

"You have it; she is not." Mother Superior (for so Gwen thought of her, regardless of her claims) smiled. "She was only a peasant woman, milady, alone and forsaken with her babe—though she was far younger than she is pictured while her daughter was yet an infant."

Gwen began to understand. "Yet she was one of your founders?"

"Aye—the mother or our compassion, much as the other, Clothilda—blessed be her name!—was the mother of our strength." Sister Paterna Testa settled down to tell Gwen the story of the founders of her Order.

Morning started with a bang, one loud enough to bring Gregory out of his trance. He turned his head slowly, feeling his metabolism rise but not yet trusting it enough to leap up— and saw there was no need, for the explosion had simply been the burst of air compressed outward as his brother's body had suddenly filled the space where it had been.

The knight-errant strode up to him, grinning. "Good morn to you, brother!"

"And to you, brother," Gregory returned. "I thank you for coming to aid me."

"Though somewhat tardily," Cordelia said, rising from her bedroll. "Good morn, brother, even though you could not afford us the benefit of your company sooner."

"Ah, but if I had, I should have left Quicksilver to languish," Geoffrey said, "and you would castigate me for a careless suitor."

There was truth in that, but Cordelia wasn't about to admit it, especially since she was quite sure how Quicksilver had benefitted from Geoffrey's company and he from hers. She kept her expression of severity but said, "How say you, Geoffrey? Shall we make a lover of our ascetic brother?"

"Let me see if the game is worth the candle." Geoffrey stepped up beside the sleeping Finister and looked down. His eyes widened and he gave a long, appreciative whistle. ' This is her natural semblance, yet she chose to go in disguise?"

"She has low self-esteem," Cordelia explained.

"It must be low indeed, not to know the power of such a face and form!"

"She thought the power came from her projective talents," Cordelia said, "that men loved her not for what she was but for how she could hypnotize them into feeling."

"Not without reason." Geoffrey turned to his brother. "Even you, who pride yourself on the cold and emotionless clarity of your mind, have fallen under her spell."

"I cannot altogether deny it," Gregory admitted, "but I can at least claim not to have fallen in love with the form, for I saw her in so many disguises that I knew not which one was real."

"So it would seem," Geoffrey said. "What do you think of the true shape?"

"Far more beautiful than any image she has worn!"

Geoffrey raised his eyebrows at the emphatic tone. "So speaks a man who indeed loves the mind and heart—but how can you, if she is a treacherous murderer?"

"Because I can feel beneath the roil of confusion, anger, and hatred to the forlorn child beneath, the heart of hearts, and it is beautiful indeed."

"That deuced empathy of yours!" Geoffrey exclaimed in exasperation. "Did I not say it would prove your undoing?"

"Then rejoice that you are proven wrong," Gregory said, looking steadily into his eyes, "for it shall prove instead the making of me."

Geoffrey gave him a long, weighing look, then said, ' 'Perhaps. It shall, at least, give you reason to make yourself into a more conventional notion of manliness." He did not say whether that convention was wise or foolish, but only asked, "Have you dined?"

"Why ... I have not," Gregory answered, surprised by the question.

"So I thought." Geoffrey took a packet from his wallet and held it out, unwrapping it. "A gift from Cook to you, my lad, and freshly and expertly grilled it is!"

Gregory looked down at the huge slab of steak and blanched. "Meat!"

"I know the stuff is alien to you," Geoffrey said, "but you shall become quite attached to it, and it to you."

"But— for breakfast?!!"

"And lunch, and dinner, and belike for elevenses and tea, too," Geoffrey said, grinning but remorseless. " 'Tis high time you were introduced to a high-protein diet. Steak," he said, looking down at the slab of meat, "this is Gregory. Gregory, this is beefsteak. Come now, embrace it and make it yours."

Gregory took the steak warily, "This will make me more attractive to a woman?"

"No," said Cordelia, "but the muscles it builds within you shall." She looked at the huge slab and wrinkled her nose in disgust but said, "Eat it, Gregory. Tell yourself it is medicine."

"Well, if I must, I shall," Gregory sighed, and drew his dagger to begin cutting.

"Clothilda it was who first built a dwelling in this place, though 'twas only a cottage, and a poor one at that. It had but two rooms, in one of which her chickens roosted." Gwen frowned. "Why did she dwell alone in the forest?" "Her parents were dead and she had no husband, having been born poor and unusually . .. plain. ..."

"Aye." Gwen nodded, glancing at the picture. The woman was not merely plain but downright ugly. "Yet I have seen plain women married afore, if their natures were sweet."

"Hers was not. She was a termagant and a scold, with a sharp tongue and no pity—for she bore a grudge 'gainst all the folk of her village."

"Against the men, because none did want her?"

"Aye—because none was strong enough to stand against the vinegar of her tongue, nor wise enough to see the treasure of the spirit within her. And she hated all the women for sneering at her."

Again, Gwen nodded. It was a common enough story; people always seemed to need to have someone at the bottom of the social heap, and in a medieval society, the women determined that by who was married and who was not. Then, among the spinsters, they determined rank according to who was liked and who wasn't. "She does not seem the sort of woman who would have borne such treatment with patience."

"She was not. She railed against the other women, scolded the men, and became quite the terror of the village."

"Such folk begin to pride themselves on their loathsomeness, or seem to."

"And so did she."

Gwen nodded. "That could not endure. They would oust her soon or late."

"So they did. Someone unnamed denounced her to the priest, charging her with witchcraft. None spoke in her defense; indeed, all were quick to cry that she must needs be a sorceress. They drove her out with bell, book, and candle, and she fled here to this hillock, where the rock beneath the ground made a small clearing. Here she built a hut, then went back to steal a hen and a cockerel and scraped out a lean and meager existence with a garden and chickens, and nuts and berries to gather."

"Hard enough," Gwen murmured.

"Aye; but her true diet was her own heart. She nurtured herself on bitterness and hatred, on thoughts of revenge and plans for dire deeds."

"I have met such as she—yet they commonly become the

village wise women, learning the virtue of each herb and simple."

"
Clothilda did not; she swore she would never do good to her folk, only ill to those who had cast her out. Yet she did learn the powers of the herbs, but to harm, not to heal."

Gwen shuddered. "How could such an one endure?"

Mother Superior shrugged. "Given time, she might have sought to wreak havoc on one person or more and been burned at the stake—but ere she could fulfill her desires, she was distracted."

"By what?"

"By a baby's cry."

"It was not the common, lusty bawling of a babe a-hungered," said Sister Paterna Testa, "but the tearing bleat of one in true distress. Sour as she might think herself, there was some mother's instinct in her naetheless, and she followed the sound—only from boredom, as she told herself. There under an oak, seeking shelter in a hollow 'twixt great roots, sat a lass not yet twenty, gaunt with hunger, trying to give suck to a babe wasted almost as badly as herself. ..."

"Why, what a parcel's this?" Clothilde snapped, instantly furious on the young girl's behalf. "You cannot give, child, when you have no substance yourself! Nay, come to my cottage and we'll find food for you."

The girl looked up, startled and frightened, then saw another woman and began to weep with relief. "Oh, praise Heaven! Thank the kind God! I had feared I would die alone!"

"Heaven has taken little pity on you, child, and the male God whom you praise has left you to die! Nay, come up on your feet and we'll take you to better shelter than this— though not greatly so, I fear." She bent down to take the girl's arm, and the baby squalled. A flow of gentleness sprang up in Clothilde from she knew not where, and she took the babe gently from the mother, crooning and rocking it. ' There, there, little one, we'll find you gruel at least, soon enough. . . . Why, 'tis scarcely aged a month!"