Was she supposed to be stupid? The woman had made it plain enough. Lips tightly together and head still low, Cecely nodded.
“If you have any question, you have our permission to ask it now,” Domina Elisabeth said.
“My son?” Cecely said.
“He is being cared for here in the cloister. You will be allowed time with him once a day. For his well-being, not yours.”
“Will I be able to speak to him?”
“You will. Briefly. Again, for his sake, not yours, lest he grieve more than need be.”
“Thank you,” Cecely whispered, trying to sound sufficiently grateful for that “mercy.”
“Now Dame Juliana will see you to your place in the dorter. You will change into the gown waiting for you there, and she will bring away your other clothing. You are to stay there, praying on your knees until your sisters come to bed. Then you may also lie down to your rest. Go now.”
Cecely stood up and curtsied to her, letting herself waver on her tired legs.
Unsoftened by that, Domina Elisabeth ordered, “And to your sisters.”
Teeth set, Cecely did. Despite they were all looking at her, not one head bowed even slightly back at her. That was to show to her how undeserving she was of even their smallest courtesy, but she did not care. It was what she had expected. What they did not know was that she did not in the least care what any of them thought or did or did not do. She had had what she had had, while they had nothing except this place and this death-in-life. Let them have their bitter disapproval. It was probably the closest thing to inward warmth they still had in them. She had been dreading the narrow, thin-mattressed bed that would be hers in the cold dorter, but even the cold dorter would be better than their eyes upon her, and she willingly followed Dame Juliana out of the room into the darkened cloister walk.
She had had and dared in her life what every one of them was afraid to have or do. Whatever their scorn, whatever Domina Elisabeth chose to give her by way of punishment, she would endure it until this was done.
If I don’t first run out of here screaming, she thought.
Not that these women meant to give her any chance at running.
In the darkness, with Dame Juliana’s back to her and no one else to see her, Cecely gave way to a small, taut smile at that thought, because what she was given and what she chose to take could be two very different things.
Chapter 6
There was silence in the warming room after Dame Juliana and Sister Cecely left. Domina Elisabeth sat down, head bowed. The rest went on sitting, some with prayer-bowed heads, others looking for something to say.
It was Dame Amicia who found words first, turning to Dame Johane to ask, “There then. What do you think of it? Of seeing your cousin again and all?”
In the white circle of her wimple, Dame Johane’s face turned a deep red that was probably distress rather than anger as she answered miserably, “I don’t know. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again. I didn’t want to see her again. Then to see her this way. See her…” She groped for the words she wanted.
“Penitent?” Dame Perpetua said, not as if that was the word she wanted to use.
“Yes?” Dame Johane agreed uncertainly. She looked to Domina Elisabeth. “Is she penitent? Or…or…” Dame Johane made a helpless gesture, as if to lay hold on the words she wanted.
Domina Elisabeth stood up. “We can only pray she’s truly penitent. We’ll pray for her, keep watch over her lest she waver, and await Abbot Gilberd’s answer. Now I suggest you use what time remains before Compline for other than Sister Cecely.”
She made plain that she was done with the matter by leaving, letting in yet another draught of chill evening air as she went out. Almost as one, her nuns left their stools to cluster to the fire’s warmth, only Sister Thomasine remaining where she was, probably drawn too far into whatever prayer-filled place she lived to take heed of whether she was cold or not, Frevisse supposed. Dame Juliana hurried in, bringing another draught, slammed the door shut on it, and hurried to join the others beside the hearth. Frevisse moved back to make place for her, shifting to stand beside Dame Claire and taking the chance to ask how Mistress Petham did. Dame Claire paused before saying, “I’m not certain. I somewhat think that, rather than ill, she’s simply worn out in body and mind. That what she needs more than medicine is rest.”
“Has her life been that hard?” Frevisse asked, not quite keeping a slight mockery out of the question. A well-off merchant’s wife did not have to deal as rawly with life and its rigors as many women did, and she surely had servants to come between her and the heaviest work.
But Dame Claire said, “I gather two of her daughters had babies this past year and were both unwell for a time afterward, so she was tending to them as well as seeing the babies were well-cared for. And a son and his family have come back from Gascony.”
“Oh,” Frevisse said, understanding. The year before last, the French had finished retaking Normandy from English hands. Then they had turned and retaken Gascony with almost the same ease, sending a new flood of fleeing English into England with everything lost behind them.
“They’ve been living with her and her husband while they settle what they’ll do here,” Dame Claire was going on. “The son and his wife and their three children all suddenly on her hands at once, while she had two ill daughters to worry over, too.”
Frevisse had no trouble seeing how, yes, a woman could be worn thin in body and mind by all of that coming at once.
“Besides that,” Dame Claire went on, “we tire more easily as the years go by, and she’s no longer so young a woman.”
Since Frevisse thought Mistress Petham was much about her own age, she slipped past any comment on that and said, “Is she in need of bleeding, do you think?”
“I think rest and the end of Lent’s fasting will do her the most good at present. She could have dispensation from the fasting but she’s refused. As soon as there’s other meat than fish to be had, I’ll see to her having strong broths.”
“There will be the ham Father Henry’s ladies brought.”
“That will be a start,” Dame Claire said. “Bless Father Henry’s ladies.”
Yet again the door opened, this time to let in Alson carrying a tray with wooden cups and a towel-covered pottery pitcher. While Sister Helen hurried to close the door behind her, she said cheerily, coming to set the tray on one of the stools, “Spiced hot cider, my ladies. Domina Elisabeth said you’re to have it.”
With pleased exclaims, they gathered around her as she took the cloth off the pitcher, letting out a plume of cinnamon-scented steam that was answered with sighs of delight all around. Lent’s long fasting was wearing badly on everyone. With meat, eggs, milk, and anything made from milk forbidden in the weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, the one full meal allowed most days came mostly down to bread, vegetable pottages, and dried or salted fish cooked various ways. That fasting was part piety, part necessity; through the latter weeks of winter into spring, food was too often scarce for most folk. Lent helped stretch what there was until the time when cows and sheep came into milk and chickens began their laying again-making a virtue of necessity, as Frevisse’s uncle had been wont to say dryly.
With a cup now clasped warmly between her hands, Frevisse sipped at the cider and smiled at the thought of her well-loved uncle, dead these seventeen years now. She paused on that thought. Could it be that long? It hardly seemed so, he was sometimes so immediate to her. Hard as it was sometimes to believe that it was forty years since her father’s death, thirty-eight since her mother’s.