“But you see the rest of it?” Alys asked. “It’s not going to matter anymore that all we’ve ever had here is one of St. Frideswide’s fingerbones! It’s never done aught for us anyway. What I have now is far better than it’s ever proved to be.” All of a saint’s power to bless and protect was supposed to be as present in the smallest part of her as in the whole, but Alys had never seen any particular good come from their tiny bit of bone. She looked aside to Sister Thomasine, standing where she had stopped after following Alys up the church. As always, she was simply there, head bowed, hands folded, so lost in prayers she hardly heard anything that happened around her. A thin little nothing of a nun, that’s what she looked like, but Alys had known what she was, had always known. She had thought Aunt Eleanor would realize it now, too, but her aunt’s expression was more blank than comprehending and Alys leaned close to whisper, just between them-it was not something servant or child needed to know yet: “She’s a saint. You see it? She spoke to a madman, and despite all the powers of the devil and demons inside him, he spoke back. He answered her and asked for prayers. He’s her first miracle and if she can do one miracle, she can do more.”
She drew back, to enjoy Aunt Eleanor’s wonder, but what there was of it was too slight, too questioning. “You really mean to keep him in the church, then?” she repeated.
“In the church. Here at the altar.” Alys was beginning to be impatient. She had expected her aunt to grasp it easily, even if no one else did. “It’s done in other places.” The sick-and most particularly the lunatic-were allowed to stay at the altar or the saint’s tomb through a night or even nights and days together while they prayed and were prayed for.
Aunt Eleanor nodded, understanding that at least, but then said slowly, “In the great pilgrimage churches, yes, it’s done.”
“And it can be done here!” Alys cried, forgetting to hold her voice down. That was exactly the point. Was she the only one who could see it? “This madman is the beginning for St. Frideswide’s and he’ll stay here at the altar for as long as it takes Sister Thomasine to pray him back to his full wits!”
Softly, without raising her head, Sister Thomasine murmured, “I won’t.”
Alys turned to stare at her, blank-minded with surprise, then jerked her wits back together. Aware that everyone else except the madman was staring, too, she demanded, “What do you mean, you won’t? You won’t what?”
“I won’t pray for him to be healed,” Sister Thomasine said as quietly, still without raising her head.
Anger began to overtake Alys’ disbelief. Her voice rising, she demanded, “You’re telling me you won’t pray for him?”
She had thought after the lesson she had given on Dame Frevisse this morning no one would dare to cross her for a long, long while to come. For it to be Sister Thomasine- Sister Thomasine…
“Alys,” Aunt Eleanor said, “she’s saying she won’t pray simply for him to be healed. She will pray for him. You will pray, won’t you, Sister Thomasine?”
Sister Thomasine raised her head and looked with clear, untroubled eyes, first at Aunt Eleanor and then at Alys. “Yes. Of course I’ll pray for him,” she said simply.
Relieved, shaken, fighting the trembling that was always the aftermath of her rages, Alys accepted that with relief. But why did people have to drive her into these angers to begin with?
From the altar, Dame Claire said, “I’ve cleaned enough of the blood and dirt away to see the wound isn’t much.”
Willing to be distracted, Alys turned away from Sister Thomasine to ask, “He’ll be all right?” Reynold’s men had better pray he was.
“I’ve an ointment for it, and if the wound is kept clean, he should do well enough.”
“We’ll keep it clean enough,” Alys promised grimly. “Is he hurt aught else?”
“He doesn’t seem to be.” Dame Claire set her hand under the man’s chin and tried to raise his head. He resisted but she forced him with, “Let me see you.” There had been only scrubbing enough yet to have the wound clean, but she had shoved his matted hair back while she did it, so that for the first time his face showed, and she made him look at her while she asked as impatiently as if he were just any patient resisting her help, “Do you hurt anywhere besides your head?”
“No,” he said hoarsely, pulled free, and tucked his head low again.
Dame Claire forced the cloth she had been using on him into his hand. “Wash your face then while I find the ointment.”
He tried to resist that, too, but she warned sternly, “There won’t be prayers for someone as ungodly filthy as you are. Wash.” Not straightening up, the man fumbled with the cloth and began to rub at his face, somewhat unpurposefully.
The girl Joice shifted away from Dame Claire to hold the basin where he could use it more readily. No, Alys saw she was doing more than simply that-she was kneeling so low she could look up into his face. And Alys felt the spur of another hope. The girl had proved to be nothing but stubborn since she had come, had shown small sign that Alys could see of warming to Benet at all. Now here she was, after hardly looking at Benet, all but worshiping this dirty lump of a man. What if it turned out it had not been Reynold’s doing at all that brought her here, but God’s? What if she was meant to be here for this miracle, to be changed by it, to choose not Benet but nunhood in St. Frideswide’s? If she had the dowry Reynold said she did and she chose to become a nun…
“Alys,” Aunt Eleanor said.
Alys turned to find one of the kitchen women standing a respectful distance off, wanting to be noticed.
“Yes?” Alys said impatiently.
“The bath is ready,” the woman said, making a quick curtsy with the words. “Dame Perpetua said to tell you.”
“Good. Stay. You can help see him there. Dame Claire?”
“Done for now,” Dame Claire said, just smearing ointment on the cut. “I’ll put more on when he’s been bathed, but this will serve until then.”
She stoppered the jar and put it back in her box of medicines while Alys advanced to the foot of the altar steps and ordered, “Fellow, look at me.”
He did, for what it might be worth. He was still vile to the eye and nose and had mostly only smeared the dirt with the little washing he had done, but at least he had responded to her, and with the loud encouragement she would have used on a dog she meant to grasp at least something of her meaning, she said at him, “You understand what you have to do now? You’re going to have a bath. You’re going to be cleaned so you can stay here in the church. They’re going to take you away for your bath and then bring you back and you’ll be fed and seen to and Sister Thomasine will pray for you. You understand that?”
She was nodding at him while she said it and he was nodding back, nod for nod, so there was hope he understood, and she gestured the kitchen woman forward, ordering, “Help him up. See him out. Go with him, Dame Claire. And send someone to see what’s keeping Father Henry.”
She drew back and left them to it. The kitchen woman came readily, probably curious enough by now from what she must have heard from Sister Amicia and Dame Perpetua not to mind the smell. Between them, she and Dame Claire helped the man to stand and brought him down the altar steps. As they passed her, Alys, drawing back, saw he was shivering and ordered, “See to it he’s better clothed before you bring him back here. A cloak or something.”
“Yes, my lady,” the kitchen woman answered, but Joice quickly set aside the basin and rose, sweeping off her yards-of-green wool cloak-Reynold had to have the right of it; her people must be wealthy-as she followed them down the steps. “Mistress Southgate,” Aunt Eleanor said, in a tone meant to warn her off, but Joice swung the cloak around the madman’s shoulders, filthy though they were, enveloping him. Frightened or wary, likely, he jerked as if to twist free of it, but Joice laid a hand on his back in reassurance and even dared to meet his startled eyes in a long look before she drew aside, leaving him to go on with Dame Claire and the other woman.