Cecely instantly put out an arm, drew Neddie to her, and said, “He was under my cloak. He stayed dry, didn’t you, Neddie? And he isn’t cold either, are you, Neddie?” Neddie had been goodness itself these last difficult days, doing what he was told to do and making no more trouble than he could help. Now, never mind that Cecely could feel him a little shivering against her-but that was probably more from fear than anything-he obediently shook his head that, no, he was not cold. Cecely had told him over and over these past days that he had to be a brave boy for her. Now, as Dame Frevisse reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder, he proved his bravery by not flinching away from her touch.
For her part, Cecely glared at the woman, defying her to say his cloak was damp and that he was shivering, but before Dame Frevisse could or could not, Dame Claire said from the doorway, “Dame Juliana says Domina Elisabeth will see them. We’re to bring them up. Both of us,” she added in answer to a swift look from Dame Frevisse.
Cecely remembered where the prioress’ parlor was. Seeing no reason to wait to be taken, she pulled Neddie away from Dame Frevisse’s hand and started out of the chamber. Dame Claire, as if afraid the touch of Cecely’s skirts might taint her, stepped well aside. Pleased at that, Cecely turned toward the prioress’ stairs. Dame Juliana was standing on the lowest one, but to be out of the way she scurried back up them, nimble for so old a woman, Cecely thought, following her with firm hold on Neddie’s hand. He stumbled a little on the steepness, and she jerked to keep him on his feet. At the stairs’ top the door to the prioress’ parlor stood open. Dame Juliana was just saying, “She’s come, my lady,” when Cecely swept past her into the room. Or would have swept if Neddie had not stumbled yet again, this time on the threshold, so that she had to pause to pull him firmly upright again.
That done, she took in the room with a single quick look, judging both it and Domina Elisabeth standing beside the table in the room’s middle. Seeing it still all the same both reassured and sickened her. St. Frideswide’s prioress lived better than her nuns. They made do with no more than a narrow sleeping cell for each of them in the dorter and a shared, rarely lighted fireplace in the warming room. The prioress had this parlor, its fireplace, and a bedchamber all to herself, and because sometimes she had to receive visitors who were maybe important to the nunnery’s good, the parlor was better furnished than anywhere else in the cloister, with two chairs where otherwise everyone had only stools, a woven Spanish carpet over the table, and embroidered cushions on the bench below the wide, glassed window overlooking the guesthall yard.
When Cecely’s aunt had been prioress, there had been other comforts in the room, and a bright sense of life happening. Those and that were all gone. Everything still here simply looked older and faded and over-used. Including Domina Elisabeth, Cecely thought savagely. Her ten years as prioress had aged the woman. In the white surround of her wimple, her face was far more lined than Cecely remembered, and she looked tired.
Would that help or hinder? Cecely wondered. Had she softened or hardened with years?
It was too soon to tell, and Cecely did as she had planned, ended her swift forward movement halfway between the doorway and the prioress by pushing Neddie to his knees by a hand on his shoulder and following him down, falling to her own knees, her hands lifted prayerfully as she entreated, “My lady, I beg forgiveness! I’ve sinned and been sinned against, and I beg shelter and sanctuary for my poor child and for me the penance and punishment that are my due. In Christ’s name and in Christ’s mercy, I beg it of you!”
Tired though Domina Elisabeth might be, her voice was crisp enough as she ordered, “We kneel on both knees only to God and Christ.”
Cecely immediately struggled with her wet skirts until she was only on one knee, then clasped her hands together again, ready to renew her plea, but Domina Elisabeth demanded, “Who is the child?”
Cecely immediately put her arm around Neddie’s shoulders and drew him to her, to make plain how precious he was while saying, “The son of my shame. His father was the man I fled with. It was with his father I’ve been all of this time. If not in mercy to me, then in pity for him, I pray you…”
Behind her, Dame Frevisse said, “He’s wet and he’s shivering and he should be beside the fire.”
“He is and he should be,” Domina Elizabeth agreed. “What’s his name?” she asked Cecely with no particular kindness.
“Neddie,” Cecely returned in kind, then forced herself to say more humbly, “Edward, if it please you, my lady.”
Kindly to him at least, Domina Elisabeth said, “Edward, take off your cloak and go stand near the fire while we talk.”
Taking her arm from him, Cecely said, “Do as my lady says,” as he looked questioningly at her.
Moving as if he were sore or stiff, he stood up and went to the red-glowing coal fire on the hearth. Cecely would not have minded being there with him but Domina Elisabeth was asking sharply, not interested in her comfort, “Where is his father now?”
“He’s dead.” Cecely did not try to stop her voice’s tremble. “He died at sea two months ago. Now his cousins have taken everything and cast us out.”
Beside the fire, Neddie was fumbling with his cloak’s clasp, unable to loose it one-handed while still holding the saddlebags. Cecely was about to tell him to set them down, when Dame Claire crossed the room to take them from him, laid them on the floor, and was undoing the clasp for him as Domina Elisabeth went on coldly, “So you’ve come back to us not in repentance for your sins and your broken vow to Christ, but because you have nowhere else to go.”
Cecely knew she would have done best to bow her head to that, but she could not, could only answer steadily, “I’ve known my sin all this time, but while he lived, I wasn’t free to return.”
“He held you prisoner all these nine years?” Domina Elisabeth asked, more with scorn than honest question.
“There’s more than one kind of binding.” Cecely jerked her head toward Neddie standing close to the fire with his hands held out to its warmth while Dame Claire carefully spread his cloak over the back of the prioress’ chair to begin drying. Bitter that no one offered her like comfort, Cecely went on, “There were other babies besides Neddie. Three others. But they died. All my babies but Neddie have died. For my sins,” she added, her voice threatening to break. She struggled to hold it now, wanting to be believed on this next part. “So I want to give Neddie to the Church. He’s all I have left. I want him safe. I want him to live. While I suffer the penance that I’ve earned by my sins.”
Only after a long moment and somewhat more gently, Domina Elisabeth said, “You would have done best to go to your bishop with that wish and your repentance.”
Cecely shook her head hard against that. “Here is where I betrayed Christ. Here is where I needed to come. Your brother is an abbot. He can speak better than I can pray to the bishop for Neddie’s sake. He would even take Neddie into his abbey, wouldn’t he? If you prayed it of him?”
Whatever Domina Elisabeth was thinking she kept behind her stiff face, only finally saying, after a long pause, her level voice giving away no more than her face did, “All that is to be thought on. There are other questions for you to answer, but not now. For now, you will begin your penance on your knees in the church before the altar, begging for the forgiveness you so deeply need, while we arrange matters for your keeping and your son’s. Dame Frevisse, see her to the church. Set someone to watch her and come back to me. Dame Claire and Dame Juliana, I’d have you stay here.”
Chapter 3