Good, thought Cecely. If anyone was watching, it would not look her fault he stopped to talk with her.
Better yet, no one bustled forward to interfere, so chance was they were as unnoted as she hoped. She stood up, drawing Neddie up with her, and curtsied. Master Breredon gave her somewhat of a bow in return, and said quietly, to suit where they were, “Mistress Rowcliffe.”
“Sir.” She pulled Neddie from where he was half hidden behind her skirts, still clinging to one of her hands with both of his. He had always been such a bold little boy that she did not know what to make of all this hiding and clinging, but she wasn’t having it from him just now. Just now she needed him to be as presentable as possible, and she turned him by his shoulders to face forward, saying bracingly, “Neddie, this is Master Breredon. You remember Master Breredon, don’t you?”
Stupidly, Neddie shook his head that he did not, but at least he kept his head up, looking Master Breredon in the face; and Master Breredon all unexpectedly sat down on his heels, bringing him more to Neddie’s height, and said, “It’s unlikely that he would. There’s been too much happening to remember everything, hasn’t there…Neddie?”
Neddie nodded, then whispered, “Edward.”
“Edward? That’s your name?” Master Breredon asked. “That’s what you want to be called?”
Neddie nodded again.
“Edward it is then,” Master Breredon said, as solemnly as if they were making a pact between them. He stood up, lightly touched one of Neddie’s shoulders, and said to Cecely, “You still hold to your purpose?”
“If you hold to yours,” Cecely said. Master Breredon’s dark green surcoat over a deeply brown tunic was trimmed around collar and arm-slits with beaver fur. She had always admired his furs and now had to resist the urge to reach out and stroke these, their rich softness so contrasted to all the nunnery’s stale harshness. He had wealth and used it well. That was one reason she had chosen to deal with him, and keeping to business, she said, “I’m too closely watched today for anything, but tomorrow…”
“Tomorrow is Easter,” Master Breredon said quickly.
“So the nuns will be over busy with prayers and things. Tomorrow is when they’re most likely to forget me.” She wondered how he could be slow to see the good chance that gave them.
“But it’s Easter,” he insisted. “That’s not a day for doing this manner of thing.”
Cecely was held speechless for a moment. St. William! She had not counted on him being that narrow! But too much depended on his willingness, and she swallowed down her anger that he could be so stupid-she had chosen him because she thought him well-witted-and said, smiling in a way meant to warm him to her, “Monday then, yes?”
“Monday,” he agreed. “Your man will bring me word of when and how, the way he did this?”
“Yes,” Cecely said, wondering, What man? He must mean Alson’s brother. Why had Alson told him? Damnation and the devil! The more people who knew, the more chance someone would say something they should not! But she and Master Breredon were out of their time. A nun was moving beyond the rood screen, easily able to see them if she looked this way, and Cecely said quickly, “He’ll bring word, yes. I must go.”
She made him a quick curtsy, and before Master Breredon had finished his return bow, was pulling Neddie away with her, back toward the choir, seeing now that the nun was that unblessed Dame Frevisse and she was surely looking their way. Distrustful, prying woman. Why wasn’t she still at her praying?
There was only time to snap in a sideways whisper at Neddie, “Tell her nothing,” squeezing his hand hard to be sure he understood, before they were to the rood screen where Cecely gained a little time by pausing to curtsy toward the altar before going aside to where Dame Frevisse stood, her face hard with suspicion, devils take her.
Chapter 9
Frevisse did not know why she had left off her praying and turned to see what Sister Cecely was doing. Holy Week’s little sleep and Lent’s last fasting had her light-headed with weariness and hunger; it was maybe simple restlessness rather than suspicion that paused her praying, rather than the wave of unease that seemed to flow around even mere thought of Sister Cecely. Sister Cecely had been a trouble to St. Frideswide’s from her first coming here-trouble enough that, in truth, St. Frideswide’s had been the better, in some ways, for her being gone. She and her cousin had been there only because their aunt, prioress for a time and ambitious for the priory, had persuaded her family to send the girls to be novices. By force of her will and unwise indulgences, she had seen the two of them through to taking the final vows that made them fully nuns, but when Domina Elisabeth succeeded her as prioress, the full measure of Sister Cecely’s ill-suitedness had begun to show itself. Always careless of the Offices, she had become resentful of all her duties and skilled at drawing not only her cousin Sister Johane into her slackness but several of the lighter nuns.
And then one spring day she had disappeared.
Fear that some manner of mischance had come to her had vanished when Domina Elisabeth’s stern questioning had brought the servant-girl Alson to tearfully admit she had taken Sister Cecely’s place in the kitchen so that Sister Cecely could meet someone in the orchard. No, Alson did not know who. Well, maybe a man. Yes, all right. A man. She was going to meet a man. No, Alson did not know what man. No, truly she didn’t. And no, no, and no, she didn’t think Sister Cecely was gone off with him. Sister Cecely had said she would be back before anyone but Alson knew anything about it!
Suspicion had of course turned on the well-featured young man who had left the priory the same day she had, but since it was not the guesthall servants’ business nor the hosteler’s, then, to deeply question those who stayed there, there had been uncertainty about even his name-Ratcliffe, maybe?-and no thought about where he had come from or where he was bound. He had not had much talk to any nunnery folk, and while he might have spoken more to his fellow guests, the few there had been were as gone on their ways as he was. There had been search made for him and her of course, at first nearby and then with questions farther afield with help from Abbot Gilberd when he was appealed to. One report of a woman who might be Sister Cecely was had from a village miles east of St. Frideswide’s, along with word that she had been riding pillion behind a man, looking glad to be there. If that was her, it had been the last that was known. Not much beyond there, she and this man would have reached Watling Street, the great north-south road that could have taken them to London in one direction, to almost the border of Wales in the other, and in the great flow of travelers along it no report of them had been found, and that was the end of that.
What had not ended then had been the close scrutiny both Abbot Gilberd and Bishop Lumley turned on the priory. The scandal and the retributions attendant on it that had brought Domina Elisabeth to be their prioress had already scoured the nuns to their souls. Both their faith and the priory’s accounts had been investigated in length and breadth and depth, and although Sister Cecely’s flight had not brought the accounts into question again, the nuns had once more had to undergo strong questioning, with Sister Johane, as the apostate’s cousin, taking the brunt of it. It had been an angry, unhappy time, and yet Frevisse thought that Sister Johane, in having to defend herself, had only then found out how much she truly wanted to be a nun, and surely in the years since then she had grown and deepened in her place here, become Dame Johane and nearly as skilled at healing as Dame Claire was.
As for the servant Alson, Domina Elisabeth, believing her plea that she had not known Sister Cecely meant to flee and seeing no point in dismissing a heretofore good servant from the cloister, had forgiven her for her foolishness and let her stay.