"Hard enough," Gwen murmured.
"Aye; but her true diet was her own heart. She nurtured herself on bitterness and hatred, on thoughts of revenge and plans for dire deeds."
"I have met such as she—yet they commonly become the village wise women, learning the virtue of each herb and simple."
"Clothilda did not; she swore she would never do good to her folk, only ill to those who had cast her out. Yet she did learn the powers of the herbs, but to harm, not to heal."
Gwen shuddered. "How could such an one endure?"
Mother Superior shrugged. "Given time, she might have sought to wreak havoc on one person or more and been burned at the stake—but ere she could fulfill her desires, she was distracted."
"By what?"
"By a baby's cry."
Chapter 10
"It was not the common, lusty bawling of a babe a-hungered," said Sister Paterna Testa, "but the tearing bleat of one in true distress. Sour as she might think herself, there was some mother's instinct in her naetheless, and she followed the sound—only from boredom, as she told herself. There under an oak, seeking shelter in a hollow 'twixt great roots, sat a lass not yet twenty, gaunt with hunger, trying to give suck to a babe wasted almost as badly as herself. ..."
"Why, what a parcel's this?" Clothilde snapped, instantly furious on the young girl's behalf. "You cannot give, child, when you have no substance yourself! Nay, come to my cottage and we'll find food for you."
The girl looked up, startled and frightened, then saw another woman and began to weep with relief. "Oh, praise Heaven! Thank the kind God! I had feared I would die alone!"
"Heaven has taken little pity on you, child, and the male God whom you praise has left you to die! Nay, come up on your feet and we'll take you to better shelter than this— though not greatly so, I fear." She bent down to take the girl's arm, and the baby squalled. A flow of gentleness sprang up in Clothilde from she knew not where, and she took the babe gently from the mother, crooning and rocking it. ' There, there, little one, we'll find you gruel at least, soon enough. . . . Why, 'tis scarcely aged a month!"
The girl nodded in misery. "I hid away in the kitchens and pretended to fatness—but I could not hide the child's coming."
"Nay, I warrant not. Up with you, now." She caught the girl's arm and lifted. The lass tried to rise, then fell back with a small cry. "I cannot!"
Clothilde was instantly concerned. "Nay, you are wasted worse than I feared! Bide in patience, child—I'll take the babe to feed, then bring back soup for you!"
She turned away, the girl's strangled thanks filling her ears, and strode as quickly as she could to her cottage. The babe pawed at her breast, seeking to nurse, and something brimmed and broke open within Clothilde, something that she had not known endured. To cloak it, she filled the babe's ears with savage denunciations of the father who had left it to die.
In her cottage, she ladled soup from the kettle where it always simmered, cooled and thinned it with water, then fashioned a teat from a scrap of cloth and trickled the broth into it, that the babe might suck. So she held the child against her breast and fed it as best she might, and her feelings were so tender that she had to breathe maledictions against all the male race as she did it. She knew better than to let the babe have its fill, so she had to endure its wailing whiles she carried it, and a crock of soup, back to the mother, fearing she would find the lass fled to Heaven whiles she had been gone—and she was aghast to see the young woman slumped against the oak with her eyes closed. But at the sound of her coming, the girl stirred and opened her eyes. Then for the first time in a year, Clothilde breathed the name of God in aught but a curse, though she quickly denied it to herself, and gave the lass spoonfuls of soup while she cautioned her not to eat too quickly. The lass could not heed, of course, but gobbled every drop Clothilde gave her—and the older woman was glad she'd had the foresight to bring only a small crock of the soup. Then she gave the babe back to the lass and bade her rest, and both dropped off to sleep. Clothilde watched over them, and her thoughts 'gainst men were murderous.
When they woke, Clothilde fetched more soup, feeding the babe even as she had done before; then the lass found the strength to come to her feet and, leaning on Clothilde and pausing oft to gasp and rest, stumbled toward the hut. Time and again she would have lain down to sleep and likely never rise, but Clothilde urged her on, for night was falling fast.
They came at last to the hut and Clothilde lowered her onto her own poor heap of straw, saying, ''What is your name, child?"
The lass murmured, "Meryl," and slept instantly, and the babe was too weak to stir far, so Clothilde laid it in Meryl's arm and shooed the chickens within before the fox could come, then latched the door and blew the coals on the hearth to flame.
Thus they endured some days, the lass ever eating more soup and more, till her milk came again and the babe could have its proper nourishment. All that time, Clothilde nursed babe and mother alike, cutting up her spare apron to make linen for the child, linen that she washed as soon as it was soiled. She grumbled at the work, but secretly rejoiced, as she told us years later....
"So secretly," asked Gwen, "that even she did not know it?"
"Mayhap. And whiles the lass gained strength, they talked."
It began when Clothilde saw Meryl waken that first night and came to feed her again, grumbling, "A curse upon that foul churl who got you with child and abandoned you!"
"Oh, speak not so!" the lass cried, "for he was my one true love and would have wed me—had he lived!"
That gave Clothilde pause. She recalled what the lass had said of her labor and said, "You did speak of hiding in the kitchens."
"Aye."
"You were a scullery maid in the manor, then."
"Aye."
"And the squire espied you."
"Oh, nay! 'Twas his son."
"As I thought." Clothilde's mouth settled into a grim, straight line. "So he deflowered you, then cast you away with no thought for you or your babe, eh?"
"Nay, nothing o' the sort! He did love me, aye, and we did meet in secret for nigh onto a year—but never once did he press me for more than a kiss, and that upon the hand! 'Twas I had to raise his hopes higher." She giggled at the memory. "He was so clumsy in that, yet so graceful in all else! And he asked me to wed him, yet I did hesitate, knowing the difference in our stations."
"Wise," Clothilde sniffed.
"Yet he did woo me and court me, and assured me that he would leave his inheritance if he had to, to wed me."
"You would not wish that," Clothilde scoffed.
"Nay. I wished not to make a rift betwixt himself and his family, so told him I would wed him only if he could gain his parents' blessing—and I could gain mine."
"Aye. Your mother and father had you matched with some village swain, did they not?"
"With three, and would have rejoiced at my choosing any of them. Yet my father groaned under the squire's rule and spoke often against him—so I determined in my heart that if I could but gain my mother's blessing in secret, it would suffice."
"Men care so little for us!"
"Nay, say not so." Meryl smiled with fond memory. "Tostig cared so greatly for me that he went with the lord's army, leading a troop of men off to the war, that he might gain some money of his own and enough of his parents' pride to outshine their contempt of my station."
"A pretty fool was he! What manner of caring is this, to risk dying and leaving you lorn?"
Meryl's face saddened. "Aye, 'twas foolish, but a man in love will do many foolish things, will he not? As will a woman."