"With respect, dearest Aunt, I must decline." While others might see this woman as both frightening and formidable, Eleanor found only warmth in her. Beatrice had reared her niece with as much sweet love as if she had been the child of her own body, yet neither had ever pretended that the devotion of an aunt could replace that of a dead mother. Nevertheless, the love between them was profound.
"Meat is allowed under The Rule," Beatrice replied. Her tone suggested that further argument would be pointless.
"Might you not compromise with a beef broth, my lady?" Sister Anne interjected, her eyes twinkling with a mischievous look. "Should you choose not to do so, I believe you and your donkey would be of the same mind."
The two women, who had been looking at each other with a certain familial stubbornness, blinked and turned wide-eyed toward the sub-infirmarian of Tyndal.
Eleanor laughed with a merriment few had heard since her illness.
Beatrice's expression changed into one of confusion. "Donkey?" she asked. "An ass that speaks? Or, if such a miracle did occur, how could the beast talk with any reason?"
With affection, Eleanor squeezed her aunt's hand. "I'm afraid I have disobeyed one of the Commandments and shown disrespect toward a parent. I named my fine mount after my father. When Sister Anne wishes to tell me that I am being obstinate beyond reason, she reminds me that the donkey would agree with the position I have taken."
The novice mistress put a hand over her mouth.
It was a gesture Sister Anne had seen her own prioress use, but one that rarely succeeded in disguising the underlying laughter.
"Irreverence," Beatrice said, "but not disrespect. I know how much you love your father." She turned to Anne. "There is truth in the donkey's naming. As you may have noticed the winter you were at Wynethorpe Castle, my brother possesses a fair share of mortal obstinacy, a quality which I most certainly lack!" The sparkle in her eyes betrayed the jest hiding in her words, but her look now shifted to concern as she looked down at Eleanor. "You will agree to the broth?"
"I shall willingly concede on that but would not eat meat otherwise."
The sub-infirmarian of Tyndal and the novice mistress of Amesbury looked at each other in silent conference, and then replied in unison: "Agreed."
"Your failure to eat much of anything since your arrival has troubled me, child. I fear you have not recovered any of the health you lost."
"Health is difficult to regain after such a hard fever, my lady," Anne replied. The words may have been intended as an explanation, but the tone expressed her own ongoing worry.
"Not my lady, rather sister. I hold no high rank at Amesbury," Beatrice said absently, still scrutinizing her niece.
"You are the temporary head of this priory now," Eleanor replied, nodding approval of Anne's courteous use of title.
"Only because our sub-prioress died just before Prioress Ida was obliged to travel abroad for some weeks on priory business." The novice mistress flicked her hand, as if the responsibility had landed on her like a pesky fly, and continued the study of her niece.
Eleanor shifted uneasily. Under Sister Beatrice's careful examination, she felt like a little girl again, one who could hide nothing from this aunt. Of course, she had felt as weak as a babe after her illness and needed her aunt's strength and comfort. Why else had she returned to Amesbury Priory if not to be pampered like a child, regain her woman's strength, and seek advice on a sin that deeply troubled her?
"Prioress Ida will name a successor when she returns," Beatrice was saying to Anne.
"Might you not…" Anne's gesture suggested an advancement in position.
"Never. I was quite clear that I would only take on these duties because there was no other reasonable choice. When our leader returns, someone else must be named sub-prioress, and I shall remain novice mistress, a position I have held for more years that our prioress has stood upright upon this earth." Beatrice's thin lips twitched with amusement at some private thought.
Her aunt's words suggested an admirable monastic humility, but whatever she willed had the force of a king's edict. Perhaps more so, Eleanor thought, now that the current occupant of the throne was rumored to be dying. In any case, her aunt had not grown meeker since Eleanor had left for Tyndal. For all she knew, Sister Beatrice had arranged for the election of the current prioress to head Amesbury after the death of Prioress Joan. That would not surprise her at all.
"Enough said on temporal matters." Beatrice caressed her niece's cheek. "Sister Anne and I have decided that your diet should not only include this broth to restore your humors to their accustomed balance but also a tonic. Your sub-infirmarian has mixed a most interesting one with lichens.
The sound of running feet interrupted the conversation. As the three women looked toward the Chapter House, they saw the face of a very young novice appear at the doorway.
The girl glanced around in evident distress. When she saw the threesome, her eyes grew round with relief. "Sister Beatrice!" she shouted, raised the hem of her woolen robe up around her knobby knees, and bounded toward the novice mistress.
Just before the girl skidded to a halt in front of her, Beatrice straightened herself into a model of proper sternness. "Soft!" she said. "You are no longer in a castle filled with warriors and hounds. This is a priory, dedicated to God, a God that loves hushed speech…"
The girl's manner instantly grew solemn as befitted the gravity of a messenger. "I ask forgiveness, Sister, but Brother Porter is very upset. He said I must beg you come to the gates with due haste." The child stopped, gulping air as if she had been holding her breath along with the message from the moment she had been sent to find the acting prioress.
Beatrice laid a calming hand on the girl's shoulder. "Slowly, now. Tell me what has happened."
"The ghost! Last night he saw it!"
"Brother Porter?"
"Nay! Wulfstan has come!"
Astonished, Eleanor stared at her aunt. "Ghost?"
"Satan, it seems, has given our founder leave to trouble us." Beatrice hid her hands in the sleeves of her robe. "Queen Elfrida's spirit has returned from Purgatory."
Chapter Two
Brother Thomas longed to weep, but his eyes remained dry. They stung as if he had rubbed them with salt. Had he no tears left, he asked himself, or had he become like the woman known only as Lot's wife?
He had always assumed God had turned that insubordinate creature into a pillar of salt for defying Him. Now he wondered. Might He have forbidden Lot's family to look back on the annihilation of their city out of mercy, knowing that mortals could not survive the grief such slaughter of loved ones would bring? If that was the truth of the tale, Lot's wife had not turned to salt for her sin of disobedience. Instead, the cause was her infinite tears of unbearable sorrow.
As he now mourned his own bitter loss in utter silence and with no hope of comfort, Thomas was beginning to understand what this unnamed woman might have suffered. "Must it ever be so?" he whispered as he seated himself, cross-legged on the ground. Pounding his fist into the forgiving earth, he pressed the back of his head into the rough bark of a tree and shut his aching eyes.
He had not wanted to come to Amesbury Priory and had fought against doing so, but his black-clad spy master refused to yield or compromise.
"I cannot go to Amesbury!" Thomas had cried out, still gasping from the other news the man had brought.