“But Easter!” Dame Amicia had wailed, probably not least because Sister Helen, presently St. Frideswide’s only novice, while lovely of voice, was still uncertain at the Offices, and those for Holy Week and Easter and Easter Week were demanding beyond even the ordinary.
But Domina Elisabeth had said back at her, “Mistress Petham has asked she be permitted to spend Easter among us. Dame Perpetua and Dame Margrett will be here when they’re most wanted,” firmly quelling any more protest.
And here they indeed were, with Mistress Petham openly in need of every care and comfort the priory could give her; and Frevisse and Dame Claire between them helped her along the cloister walk and up the stairs and into the chamber there, where-just as Frevisse had said-everything was ready, even to a nun’s undergown hung, warming, over the chair’s back near the hearth and the bedcovers turned down to air.
Mistress Petham laughed, began to cough, laughed despite it, and said as she caught her breath, “You meant it when you said everything was ready.”
“Of course,” Frevisse said, pleased she was pleased but more concerned to have her into the dry, warm gown.
So was Dame Claire, and they made short work of it, helping Mistress Petham take off her headkerchief and wimple, then quickly having her cloak, gown, and undergown off of her and the warmed one onto her. She was a little woman, much Dame Claire’s height and maybe close to Dame Claire’s age, but Dame Claire wore her years with a determined vigor, while Mistress Petham’s years were telling on her, along with whatever was ailing her. She had once been a plump little woman. Now she was tired flesh on bones, and when she sat down on the edge of the bed, it cost Frevisse no effort worth the mention to lift her legs and swing them up and around for her so she could lie back.
Mistress Petham settled against the pillows with a long sigh, closing her eyes and saying while Dame Claire pulled the covers over her, “Even a warm stone at the bedfoot. Bless you, my ladies.” She opened her eyes and smiled at them. “Now, is it warmed, spiced wine I get next, or some brew of yours, Dame Claire?”
Mistress Petham had stayed at the nunnery more than once since her youngest daughter became a nun there; she knew something of Dame Claire’s medicinal brews. This time, though, Dame Claire said, “Just now I think warmed, spiced wine is the brew best for you, to counter the cold humour of the day. My bidding is that you’re to drink it down as soon as it’s fetched to you.”
Mistress Petham closed her eyes again with another satisfied sigh and said, smiling, “Whatever you bid, my lady.”
That sent Frevisse and Dame Claire from the chamber with smiles of their own that lasted to the foot of the stairs, but they came out into the cloister walk again to find the other nuns still gathered there, clotted together in an odd, stiff silence, a few of the cloister servants around the edges, and all of them facing a woman standing as if at bay just where the passage from the outer door came into the cloister walk, her hand tight on the shoulder of a small boy clutching a pair of saddlebags to his chest with both arms.
Frevisse’s first thought was to wonder why the woman and boy were there instead of sent to the guesthall across the yard. She was just starting to wonder why everyone was standing there staring at each other like dumb-struck statues, when Dame Claire said, sounding half in disbelief, “Sister Cecely?”
And then Frevisse knew her, too.
Sister Cecely.
Gone these past nine years from the nunnery. Gone and never found. Fled, all her vows to Christ forsworn.
And now-God and his saints help them all-she was come back. With a child.
“Has anyone told Domina Elisabeth?” Dame Claire demanded.
The nuns scattered confused looks at each other, but Dame Claire could see as plainly as Frevisse did that they were all there and she ordered, “Dame Juliana, best you go.”
With a flurry of black skirts and veil, looking glad of reason to be away, Sister Juliana hurried past Sister Cecely and disappeared up the stairs to the prioress’ rooms while Dame Claire said sharply at Dame Perpetua, “Did she come with you? Where did you find her?”
“We came on her yesterday,” Dame Perpetua said in a tired rush. “At the monastery where we stopped for the night. I might not have known her but she knew me, came to me after supper.” As if crumpling under the weight of remembering that, Dame Perpetua sat down on the low wall between the walk and the cloister garth, still under the roof that kept the walk a dry place in wet weather, although the stone surely made cold sitting. “She said she wanted to come back here. I didn’t know what else to do with her. I simply…” She made a helpless gesture with one hand. “…didn’t know.”
Frevisse would not have known either, was thankful the trouble of decision had not been hers, and was more than willing to leave it now to Dame Claire who said, “Before anything, you and Dame Margrett need to be out of your wet clothes. Does someone have your bags? Go to your cells to change, then to the kitchen to warm yourselves right through. Shouldn’t the rest of you be at your work? You, Sister Cecely, and your…” For the first time, Dame Claire faltered, looking at the little boy, who had not moved at all and now only blinked, his face otherwise dead-still as Dame Claire’s gaze fell on him. A little more gently she said, “The two of you can wait in the guest parlor until Domina Elisabeth will see you.” She turned to Frevisse, starting, “Dame Frevisse…”
Sister Cecely broke in, “We need food and to change and be warm, too. Neddie does,” she amended as Dame Claire’s look came sharply back to her.
Sharp to match her look, Dame Claire said, “Dame Frevisse will see to whatever is needful.”
Which was only right, Frevisse supposed, since she was hosteler and the boy at least was in some measure a guest. So as the other nuns and the cloister servants, reminded they had other duties, began to draw away to them, Dame Margrett helped Dame Perpetua to her feet and away toward the stairs to the dorter on the far side of the cloister walk, Dame Perpetua at a slow, stiff shuffle, Dame Margrett keeping a hand under her elbow as if to steady her. Dame Claire looked after them with a worried frown that Frevisse would have matched except she was left looking at Sister Cecely and the boy, both of them looking back at her.
The guest parlor, where nuns could talk with any visitors permitted them, was there, beside the passageway to the outer door and the stairs to the prioress’ rooms, and Frevisse said more to the boy than Sister Cecely because even looking at her was difficult, “If you please to go in.” Gesturing for him-for them-to go ahead of her. “The wait shouldn’t be long.” Then she called to Sister Helen, nearest among the departing nuns, “Sister, have someone bring bread and warm milk for the child, please.”
Sister Helen bobbed her head, put up a quick hand to the white veil that marked her for a novice among the nuns, her final vows not yet taken, stooped quickly to pick up from the stone paving the pin that had fallen out, and hurried her leaving.
Her hand still held out toward the parlor door, Frevisse said, this time at Sister Cecely, “Go in,” no please about it.
Chapter 2
Among everything Cecely had willingly forgotten about St. Frideswide’s was Dame Frevisse. Always one of the older nuns, the woman had a way of never showing on her face what she was thinking. Even when the irksome rule against talking in the cloister had begun to ease while Cecely was a novice, Dame Frevisse had mostly kept to a forbidding silence that always made Cecely certain that, whatever the woman was thinking, it was unkindly.
Yet now, having seen her and Neddie into the guest parlor as if Cecely were a stranger who had never been there before, she looked down at Neddie and asked, as if it mattered to her, “Is he chilled? Should he go to the kitchen to be dried and warmed?”