"This is where you will live with your new companions," she said brightly. "Come now, maidens, and meet Eleanore de Montfort, who is called Elf. She is five."
"She doesn't look five," the biggest of the girls said. "She is very petite. Matilda FitzWilliam is five, and she’s far bigger."
"I am bigger than Isabeaux St. Simon, and she’s six," Matilda said, glaring at the older girl, who was ten and an earl’s daughter. "Nature makes each of us differently." She held out her hand to Elf. "You may call me Matti, for we are going to be friends, little Elf." She had round blue eyes and yellow braids.
Elf looked shyly at the other girl from the safety of Sister Cuthbert’s robes. "I was five on Mary’s Day," she said as if to reinforce the fact. "I am called Elf because I am so small. My brother named me."
"I have six brothers," Matti said, "which is why I was sent here to St. Frideswide’s to be a nun. There wasn't enough monies to dower me into marriage. I came when I was three, and my mother died birthing the last of my brothers. You'll like it here. Are you going to be a nun, too?"
"I don't know," Elf said.
"Yes, she is," Sister Cuthbert said. "Now, Matti, you will have someone to go to your special studies with, my child."
"She’s going to be way behind us," the earl’s daughter said.
"Of course she is," Sister Cuthbert said with a cheery smile. "She is the youngest and the newest of you, but I believe Elf will like her studies, and quickly catch on. You cannot expect her to know as much as you do, Irmagarde. After all, you have been with us four years now. As I recall you had no knowledge at all when you were six, and Elf is just five."
What the good sister didn't say was that she believed Elf would far outstrip Irmagarde.
Irmagarde Bouvier had departed St. Frideswide’s three years after Elf’s arrival to be prepared for her marriage to a knight some years her senior. She was to be his third wife, and he had children older than she. By that time Elf had indeed surpassed the earl’s daughter in her abilities.
"She was not the brightest of girls," Sister Cuthbert noted shortly after Irmagarde had departed in pubescent triumph for her wedding.
Outside the convent’s walls, the war raged on. In 1139 the Empress Matilda had landed in England. King Stephen was captured by her forces in 1141, and the daughter of Henry I, the granddaughter of William the Conqueror, entered London. But the empress was arrogant, and immediately imposed exorbitant taxes on the populace. Stephen’s wife, another Matilda, drove the empress from London. Finally in 1147 Henry’s daughter departed England forever. Her cause was taken up by her son, Henry Plantagenet, Lord of Anjou and Poitou in his own right, and Lord of Acquitane by virtue of his marriage to Alienor, its heiress.
In 1152 Elf was fourteen, and a novice at St. Frideswide's. It was planned she would take her final vows on the twenty-second day of June that year. This was the feast day of England’s first martyr, and Elf had decided to take his name for her own. She would be known as Sister Alban. Her best friend, Matti, would also take her vows that day and become Sister Columba. As for Isabeaux St. Simon, their other friend, she would be married in the autumn and would leave St. Frideswide’s in late summer for her own home near Worcester.
On a late spring afternoon the three girls sat out on a hillside watching over the convent’s sheep. Two were dressed alike in the gray gown all the convent novices wore. Isa, however, wore a red tunic over her deep blue skirts.
"I can't believe," she said, "that they're going to cut your hair, Elf. Mary’s blood, I've always envied it." She stroked Elf’s long pale red-gold hair. "What a sin!"
"Vanity has no place in a bride of Christ," Elf said softly.
"But you're not vain!" Isa protested. "It is a great pity you cannot be wed, Elf. I'll wager there would be men of rank who would take you even with your small dowry. You are far more beautiful than either Matti or me." She sighed. "I hate it that we're being separated in a few months. I know I grumble a lot about the convent, but the truth is it has been a lot of fun for us over the years, hasn't it?"
Matti giggled mischievously. "We've had a few small adventures."
"Misadventures is more like it," Elf said with a smile. "Keeping you two out of difficulties has been a full-time occupation. You are really going to have to change your ways, Matti."
"Reverend Mother knows how impossible that will be for me," Matti replied. "That is why I am going to remain with Sister Cuthbert, taking care of the little girls. Reverend Mother says that will help me to use up all my energies until I am too old to have any. She says we all serve God in our own way. Sister Agnes says if my voice continues to improve, I shall be a head cantrix one day. I would like that, for you both know how I love music!"
"But once Matilda FitzWilliam becomes Sister Columba," Isa said wickedly, "there can be no more visits to the dairy barn to see Father Anselm swiving the dairymaid with his big poker."
Matti chuckled. "It’s a shame you would never come with us, Elf. You can't possibly know what you're going to miss unless you can see it. I think I am making a big sacrifice now that I have seen a man and a woman together in the throes of passion. I am filled with regret that my family has not the means to marry me off to a big healthy fellow. Still, I have accepted my fate, and am the better for knowing the forfeit I make for our good Lord’s sake."
"I can't wait until Sir Martin and I can be joined in the marriage bed," Isa said. "They say it hurts to lose your virginity, but afterward it doesn't hurt at all. When Father Anselm puts his big, thick manhood into Hilda, the dairymaid, how she squeals with delight!"
"And waves her legs about until she wraps them tight about our good priest," Matti noted with relish. "Then they bump up and down until the crisis comes. I like it when he pillows himself on her nice big breasts, and sometimes, Elf, he even suckles on her like a babe at its mother’s breast. It’s very exciting to watch."
Elf put her hands over her ears. "Matti! Matti! You know I don't want to hear such things. You are very, very wicked to gossip so salaciously. If you do not cease, I shall have to tell Reverend Mother, and I don't want to tell. How I fear for your soul, Matti."
Matti reached out and patted her friend with a plump hand. "Do not fret yourself about me, Elf. Once I have taken my vows, there will be no more visits to the dairy barn, alas. One cannot serve two masters, and my master is our good Lord, not the lord of lust and darkness."
"I am relieved to hear you say it, Matti," Elf replied, mollified. She loved both these girls with whom she had been raised. It did not matter that Isabeaux St. Simon was worldly, for she would be a wife soon; but Matilda FitzWilliam was another matter, particularly as she was to help Sister Cuthbert with the little girls in the convent’s care. She had uneasily broached the subject with the nun who had raised them just a few months ago; however, Sister Cuthbert did not seem to take the matter very seriously. "But some of the girls sneak into the dairy barn to hide and watch Hilda when she sports with a lover," Elf told the nun, a worried look upon her face. "Even girls who are to take holy orders," she finished in an unhappy and shocked whisper.
Sister Cuthbert had said almost what Matti said. "But they are not nuns yet, little Elf, and they are curious as to what they will miss, if anything. Having seen the carnal act, they will either find it unpleasant and be glad to be free of such things, or they will finally understand the loss they must forgo if they are to serve God properly. There is no harm in seeing as long as they remain chaste. Most of the girls in our care go to the dairy barn at one time or another. Even I did when I was very young," she told the surprised Elf. "Do not worry, my child. Matilda FitzWilliam will be a good nun."