We Speak No Treason Vol 2 (44 page)

‘He looked well,’ the Mother said slowly. ‘I have seen him before. Once. But I had forgotten he was such a fair young knight.’

I could not ask her what clothes he wore, if he were still as courteous, kind and stern of mien, if he smiled that smile which was worth a thousand weeks of dolorousness. I could not ask the Mother these things; they were of the earth. I could hardly speak. She did all the talking. I listened avidly, desperately. Richard had been and I not there to greet him. What was she saying? Talk, Mother, so I may blot it out.

‘I am pleased with you,’ she said. Wretchedly, I thought she alluded to my gift. ‘’Tis naught,’ I said.

Is there a force, I wonder, that by our own hand kills our joy? I think, nay, know there is.

‘You nursed the widow at West Gate right well,’ she continued. ‘You brought comfort to her spirit. And your hand is skilled with medicines.’

She had been a dreadful woman. Kidney stones. Only the saxifrage root had broken down the evil, and she had cursed me for my pains. The Mother was speaking. Her words made nonsense. Richard had been, and found me missing. The Mother would like to see me professed. I knew it. I knew also she would not speak of it until I did. And the townsfolk thought she carried Christian charity too far. Richard had been, and I ridden away.

‘It is not nunly to leave cloister, even to visit the sick,’ I said, all in misery, and was appalled at myself. I had criticized her, for the first time ever. O holy God! Richard had been, and I not there to meet him.

‘This is a dying House,’ she said softly. ‘Like so many others. Corruption and poverty are consuming our Order. ’Tis not like two hundred years ago, an era of saints. Therefore we must do what we can. If nuns can break enclosure to dance and drink, why should we not do likewise, to succour the sick, the dying, the oppressed?’

The Compline bell rang. Richard had been and I had not seen him.

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgine
; was he disappointed? I could get naught from Katherine, save that a dark man, in fine robes, had set her on his knee. She had sung to him.
Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelum Archangelum
, he had kissed her, he would have kissed me, in greeting and farewell, a courtly token, what would his eyes have said?... all saints, and you, Father, to pray to the Lord our God for me. ’Tis naught to him. ’Tis naught. The Mother wishes me to be professed. But will he come to me again? Will he?

The Mother took down an old book from her shelf, the Mother knew all of my sorrow. The candles burned up steadfast and white in the spring dusk. Outside a blackbird sang, hesitantly sweet, sang of his departure.

‘He came,’ I said. ‘While I was wasting prayers at Walsingham.’

‘Are prayers ever wasted?’ the Mother asked.

‘He came!’ I cried. My voice was an echoing wail of despair. It frightened me. The blackbird flew away. Will he come to me again? Ever? Never? The old rhyming words, so loosely used in poem and ballad. The saddest words in the whole world. The Mother handed me the open book.

‘This is for you,’ she said. ‘Remember this life is a transient thing. All joy, all sorrow, are as naught beyond the grave.’

Are they? Are they, in truth? If I had only seen him, not to speak, even, just in the distance, to brand his image fresh upon my mind, a buckler against the dead past, the dying future. Is it truly sin, to know such love, such longing? Passions older than the tide, and the moon that moves it. My love, my love, it is long since I lay, love-locked, in your arms! The Mother would have me professed. In charity. For my soul’s good. How can I, with these worldly thoughts? Then I read the prayer, and the sea of my trouble was engulfed in a far wider ocean, deeper than I had ever imagined...

‘Oh sweet Jesu, the son of God, the endless sweetness of heaven and of earth and of all the world, be in my heart, in my mind, in my wit, in my will, now and ever more. Amen.’

But I loved him. Naught would change that, ever.

‘Jesu mercy, Jesu gramercy, Jesu for thy mercy, Jesu as I trust to thy mercy, Jesu as thou art full of mercy, Jesu have mercy on me and all mankind redeemed with thy precious blood. Jesu. Amen.’

‘There lies comfort,’ said the Mother softly.

But not yet, not yet. Not for such as I, who found his presence in the same house an utter joy, his absence an affliction past bearing. Not with this hair, which armed me brown and gold, which he had loved and found so pleasant, which fell about me like a shroud.

I wrote in my book, the book I should not have at all. I keep it behind a loose stone under my window, the same window where Robin came each dawn to kiss and sing. I often wonder if that bird loved me for myself or for the crumbs I gave him.

I have said that the middle years are somewhat veiled. Therein, events were like an arrow’s passage through the air, a swan’s skimming flight across a lake; the air, the water, opens and closes, and all is as before. So were my years, passing without a ripple, a rustle, a sigh, not sad, not happy those days; flat and tranquil only, after Katherine went away.

In my secret book I wrote rarely, with only a little guilt at heart, for it seemed meet to mark the times thus, and I know that others have written—there was an Abbess, during the era of saints, too, who made a treatise on Fishing. Nobody held her to scorn for it; in fact they hailed her wisdom kindly.

Since Katherine went, I felt the need to do it. Even if it had been a great sin. Write, I mean. In this book, which I must burn before I die.

The blossom is out. Our orchard groans with all that pink and white. Katherine was good, courageous; she seems older than her six years. On the Hour of None they came for her, we were both in church and they waited. She cut some blossom for me, pink and white. The weight of it was terrible in my arms when she had gone. John Skelton it was, come at my lord’s command, and who better to carry a child through paths unknown? I would have liked to talk with him about the old times; he once told me of Richard’s own flight, my poor little lord, fevered and raving aboard the night boat for Burgundy. But John Skelton did not know me; why should he? Years have passed since he called me fair, at Grafton; he was the first ever to call me fair.

Kate’s sojourn here is ended. She is to live in one of Richard’s northern castles. Sir Robert Brackenbury’s young daughter shall be her companion, and under the protection of my sweet lord her father, how can she go amiss?

She will be a great lady, but our House will lack her laughter.

This evening the Mother sent for me again. She never presses me, but I know her heart. It would please her greatly were I to be professed. She fears the jeopardy of my soul. Never was woman so kind in all this world.

I combed my hair for an hour before going to my empty bed. It served to stop me thinking of Kate upon the Fosse Way. I still have a glass, it shows my hair, so bright and sheen.

John Skelton mentioned husbands. For me! It would seem that Richard is worried—a husband! I fear I laughed. I said, let them all come.

Richard’s son does well. Edward, Anne’s boy. Skelton says he is his father’s joy and pride, loved beyond measure. I know all about love.

This day parted Katherine and I, the Feast of St Barnabas, in the fifteenth year of King Edward’s reign.

Tomorrow belongs to St Giles. I asked the boy what he would like for a present, but he did not understand. He is a good boy; today he worked like two men in the hayfield. Ursula and I went down to help. We have six hirelings this year, and the sheaves were stacked by nightfall. The stubble is full of larks now, gleaning. Giles caught one. He didn’t kill it, just sat holding it in his hands. Ursula and I took our dinner by the barn, and I sewed. She still gets cross with me if I make the lozenges too wide. When I told her it was a blood-band for the Mother she made me unpick it all and start anew. She herself has begun again on the frontal—the colours displeased her, the reds were too bright. Irreverent, she called them. Would that I had her patience!

The Mother is pale today. I fear she bleeds herself too much. Some days ago I brought her a fine dish of Warden pears. Then this woman, sick of the bloody flux, came knocking at our gate. She begged the Mother’s skill. The latter made a cordial of those pears, which I hoped she herself would enjoy. It stopped the flow within hours. The woman scarcely thanked her. I thought her even contemptuous but it may have been my fancy. Sometimes I mislike these people of Leicester.

No word from Katherine. I shall not write first. She must stand alone, but it is hard. Three months now, without her.

Warden pears are ruled by Venus. They denote affection, content. They are also good for rheumatism. The Mother does not know what I suffer in that direction, or she would cosset me, and I am bound to myself to change. I think I am no longer such a faintheart, puling wretch.

I am not changed in other ways, though. When that time comes this hand will have lost its power to write. The dreams are still as fierce, there was another last night. Some are almost like visions, clearer than truth. They stay with me for hours. That is why, all this day, the hayfield shone like beaten brass and Ursula’s face wavered in the smoke of my desire.

The Hour was pleasant tonight. The Mother told me more of the
Mirror of Our Lady
. The nuns of Syon showed her that book, years past. She knows it from end to end. There is much in it, she says, for the ghostly comfort and profit of my soul. I saw her Bible. I have never seen an English Bible before, did not even know she had one. Some would think it Lollardy—that word makes me tremble. Yet she said calmly it is necessary to read thus, if only to aid our translation of the Vulgate. Sometimes I fear for her deeply. She is like one born out of her time. But Lord Jesu, how good!

He is well. One of the hirelings knows a kinsman of Francis Lovell. Second and third hand this news may be, but it tells me that Richard spends most of his time fighting the Scots. He’s not wounded. He is well.

Still she does not press me. I told her this night: wait till the husbands have come, then I’ll decide! We both laughed. But already I know the answer.

How should I marry, who have no heart?

Hard weather, for St Cecilia. The Mother makes me, Lucy and Ursula drink a posset of honey and cinnamon every night. I have finished my new flannel shift just in time, and breeches of the same for Giles. I helped him put them on—his fingers are useless for laces and delicate things. I know what it is to be cold in winter; his face is chap-covered where the spit runs down. He cannot keep a closed mouth; he talks well to me, most of it nonsense but with such a charming air. He it was who let in the first of my suitors. Mary have mercy!

Sir S. was tall. My head came up to his padded elbow. He was direct, too, put his cards squarely down, and told me his estate was not all it should be, that he badly needed a moneyed spouse and further, one who could grace his table, engage his friends and enemies alike in blithe, strategic talk, sing and play while he laboured to mend his dwindling affairs, a mistress who could make a good dinner out of slender means. There was one lord, whose favour he lusted to obtain. Woman could often succeed where man might fail. I asked him, did he know that I had borne a child? and he said he hoped I would do for him the same, strong sons to lengthen his line, not daughters, as maids were a veritable plague to dower and marry, whereupon I said, yea, behold one! at which his watery, white face reddened. We were just sitting looking at each other, he drumming on the table, his countenance unstable as water, and uneasy, when Giles, who had been told to stay without, rushed in, bearing in his hands a half-frozen robin; I put my arm about him, the better to hear his slavering tale, and the bird, like an ice-lump, in my bosom. When I looked again, the chair opposite was empty.

Lord, I could laugh! Not only at poor Sir S., halfway to London now, thinking that Giles is mine! but at Sir J., a clown in truth and far less honest. He flung himself at my feet. All the furniture shook. He likened me to Diana, said that my eyes struck him with bolts of madness, and that he would have none other but me. Then he found himself fixed, being not so young as he himself had thought, and portly. I had to raise him from the floor. I tugged and heaved; he clutched me with hands covered in reddish hair, and well-nigh brought me down too, and my hennin fell off and was crushed under his rolling, which angered me, for it was new that day...