“Bring her up,” Domina Edith directed. When the servant was gone, she looked at Frevisse, who shook her head, unable to imagine what Rose might want there.
They had not long to wait before the woman returned, ushered Rose in, and withdrew. Left standing inside the door, her tawny gown a rich complement to the bright colors in the embroidered cushions on the window bench, Rose gave no sign of discomfort at being in a place so far removed from her usual ways. Nor did she stare around. Instead she came with the grace Frevisse had seen in her before, to kneel in front of Domina Edith and say humbly, “My lady, it being more seemly for me than the others of our company to come within your holy walls, I’ve come from them to ask a boon, if it be your will to grant us one.”
Her voice was as rich and charming as Thomas Bassett’s, doubtless honed from years of announcing the plays and craving pennies for her own display of acrobatic skills. Domina Edith gave no sign that she was unused to being confronted in her private quarters by landless beggars, but inclined her head and said as gracefully back, “So gracious an asking deserves a gracious giving if it is seemly and within my power.”
“The crowner has come, my lady, and we’re wondering if that means an end to our hope of performing for your priory.” Her eyes flickered from face to face as she said that, trying to see an answer to that and other things. Frevisse at least tried very hard to betray nothing. Rose looked back to Domina Edith. “So by your leave we ask if we are to perform the play as we agreed or not, to repay the goodness you’ve given us here before we depart. We would otherwise be on our way.”
Domina Edith inclined her head and said, “This holy season has lacked much of its accustomed cheer within our walls this year. A play reflecting joyfully on the season might be welcome indeed. But not in the church, where Sister Fiacre lies. It would be wrong, knowing how she felt about players”-Domina Edith was too much a diplomat to say “especially yourselves”-“to allow their mummery within her hearing.”
“I doubt she listens much to what goes on hereabouts anymore,” said Frevisse before she could stop herself.
Domina Edith quelled her with a glance, and said, “But the guesthall will do, I think. That should offend no one. Would that be suitable to your needs?” she asked.
Rose said, “I am sure it will be most suitable.”
Domina Edith looked to Frevisse. “What think you, Dame Frevisse?”
“I should think a play about the Three Kings would be edifying for us all,” Frevisse agreed. And she thought she knew what was in Domina Edith’s mind. A diversion from Sister Fiacre’s death and its fears would be good for all the nuns.
“Would this afternoon then suit you? Between Vespers and Compline as we meant it before? Could it be readied by then, Dame Frevisse?”
“If I may have the candlestands moved from the church to the guesthall, there’s little else needs doing. But we’ll need those, the hall has no western windows for the late light.”
Domina Edith inclined her head in agreement and returned her attention to Rose. “Our permission is given. And our thanks.”
Rose stood up and curtsied low.
“Your child,” Domina Edith said. “He’s better?”
Rose’s face bloomed with quiet pleasure. “With every day he’s been allowed to stay here, his strength has been returning to him. My thanks for allowing us to stay, my lady.”
“We welcome guests in obedience to God’s command,” Domina Edith answered. “And gladly, for it is written that oft shall we entertain angels unaware.” She sketched a cross in blessing to Rose, who crossed herself in return and bowed herself out of the room.
20
DAME ALYS’S COLD had begun to clear. Still croaking but her energy returned, she was taking up the slack that had crept into the kitchen during her illness. Roaming among the tables, she spent the morning harassing her workers, her large, bent spoon at the ready as she surveyed and expounded on their inadequacies.
“That’s bread dough, not pastry, you’re handling, girl! You put more muscle into your kneading, or I’ll muscle your head! We’ve eleven extra mouths now because there’s hardly a thing in the guesthall kitchen to feed them-so much for the ‘we never get guests at Christmastide’ opinion. Meg! That’s a slicing knife, not an ax. The chickens have already been butchered. You only need dice them up, not kill them all over again.”
She banged her spoon on the table beside Meg, making her jump and grow busier still, cutting the flesh of five boiled chickens into small pieces for pies. It was Sister Amicia, taking her turn helping in the kitchen by cutting up vegetables to be mixed with the chicken pieces, who burst into tears. Dame Alys stopped, hands hard on hips, to glare at her.
“And why your tears, Sister? Those are carrots, not onions, you’re slicing. And I’ve not even told you yet you’re slicing them so thin they’ll cook to nothing in the pies. Use your wits, and your time, more wisely, and stop that blubbing.”
Sister Amicia dug for a handkerchief up her sleeve. “It was your talk of butchery,” she sobbed. “It made me think of Sister Fiacre.”
Quiet spread across the kitchen. Even Dame Alys fell silent. She had never much cared for Sister Fiacre, who had flared into hysteria or crumpled into despair whenever her fumbling ways in the kitchen were pointed out to her. The nunnery had agreed long before she fell seriously ill that everyone would live more peaceably if her path no longer crossed Dame Alys’s. But not even so unhappy a spirit as Sister Fiacre deserved so ugly a death.
Sister Emma reached out to pat Sister Amicia’s arm. “Well it is to mourn her passing, but remember, she’s gone to Heaven now and everything is better for her.”
“Not Heaven yet, I’d say,” Dame Alys rumbled. “She’s her time in Purgatory to serve first and that may take her a while.”
“Oh, surely not,” Sister Emma protested. “Prepared as she was for death, and dying as she did, praying at the altar. Surely her soul is as pure as it could be.”
Dame Alys glowered. “I’ll ask your leave to doubt it. Remember, God had laid a trial on her…” Dame Alys placed a hand on her bosom with a meaningful grimace. “He’d laid a trial on her and she’d not completed it. So there’s that to answer for, at least. My guess would be she’s gone to Purgatory and her time there will be the longer, to make up for not living out her trial here on earth. And the harder maybe, too, because of it.”
“Oh, no-” Sister Emma began, but swallowed further protest quickly; Dame Alys did not bear contradiction calmly.
But beside her Meg made a protesting sound. Dame Alys swung around on her, demanding, “Now what’s your problem? If you’re about to faint, just get yourself away from that bowl so you don’t pull it over with you. And put that knife down so you don’t cut someone.”
Meg put the knife down. She was not near to fainting but trembling all through herself with a kind of fiercely suppressed anger. Through stiff lips, not quite daring to look at Dame Alys, she said, “She’s gone straight to Heaven as truly as any soul could go. She was pure in her serving God in His church, and purely praying to Him when she died, and so surely she has gone straight to Heaven to be happy and out of her pain forever. You’re the one who’s sinful-sinful to be saying otherwise!”
If one of the chicken carcasses had risen off the table and spoken to her, Dame Alys could not have been more surprised. To that moment Meg had never spoken out of turn, rarely spoken at all. They all gaped, then Dame Alys’s jaw began to work, and there was a general cringing at what was surely coming next.
But from the doorway Frevisse said in a voice all calmness, “You may have the right of it, Meg. But it’s hardly ours to say, is it? It being a matter between God and each soul as it comes to Him. And we have all been warned not to judge, in fear of our own judgment.”