Here was the reason for all else. All the duties and rules and limits of her life were for this-these times of prayer when she could reach beyond life’s limits toward God and joy and the soul’s freedom.
But Vespers came to its end, trailing into quietness, and for once Domina Elisabeth did not immediately rise but stayed seated, her head bowed in thought or further prayer for a long moment more. Beyond the rood screen, such folk as had come to the Office from the guesthall and among the servants rustled and shuffled into movement, away to their suppers and, for the servants, what evening duties they might have. The nuns, perforce, waited for their prioress.
Such a wait was unusual. Domina Elisabeth brought to the Offices the sense that they were owed to God much like a business debt, a repeated daily payment for his blessings. Seeing it that way, she always saw to it that her nuns made their payments on time and well, and when the payment had been made, she always promptly moved herself and them on to their next duties. That was why there was now a moment of poised waiting and then, when she did not stir, a slight head-turning among her nuns, enough to look past the edge of their veils, first toward Domina Elisabeth, then at each other.
Frevisse, finding herself doing it, stopped and set her gaze firmly on her hands folded together on her closed breviary. Of all weeks, this one before Easter, with the wonder of Christ’s sacrifice of his earthly life for the sake of mankind’s eternal souls and then his resurrection in promise of mankind’s resurrection into God’s forgiveness and love, was the one most likely to draw extra prayer from even the least prayerful, and Domina Elisabeth was far from being that. Still, whatever prayer-or thought-holding Domina Elisabeth now was brief. Only Dame Amicia had actually begun to shift restlessly in her place before Domina Elisabeth lifted her head, put out the candle beside her, came briskly to her feet, and stepped from her place to lead them from the choir and to their supper.
Chapter 5
While the nuns filed out, Cecely stayed on her knees in the choir stall but dropped her hands from the slanted ledge and breviary in front of her to hide how tightly they were clenched together. Of all the weeks to come back here, this one had to be the worst. Not that she had had much choice in the matter. This was how things had played out and here she was, but she had forgotten how long the Offices were in Holy Week. Long enough on ordinary days, they were hideously longer now. Add that to the hours Domina Elisabeth looked likely to keep her kneeling penitent in front of the altar and she was likely to die of the tediousness, if not of her knees’ pain and her back’s ache, before this was over.
Now the church was empty, dark except for the small glow of the lamp above the altar and what slight gray light came through the small, high windows. Everyone else was gone. That meant she was freed to go, too. Domina Elisabeth’s order had been plain: when the nuns were gone to supper, then she could go, too. Her stomach growled at her as she climbed to her feet. She stepped from the stall, made a low curtsy to the altar, and left the choir, going out into the cloister walk where, as she expected, a nun was waiting for her. Dame Juliana, she thought. Older than Cecely remembered her and grown more grim with her years in this place, the way they all seemed to have done. She did not even nod to Cecely, just turned and walked away, expecting Cecely to follow her, as if Cecely could not find her own way to the refectory. St. Frideswide’s was too small a place for anyone to forget where anywhere in it was, no matter how long they had been gone, but after all Dame Juliana was her guard, not her guide, and Cecely followed her silently through the deepening gray twilight, around the cloister walk to where the refectory door stood open to a yellow glow of candlelight.
Dame Juliana paused to wash her hands in the waiting bowl of water on the stand beside the door and dry them on the towel there, then stood aside while Cecely did the same. The water must have been hot when it was first set here. It was barely tepid now, chilling quickly in the evening air. It chilled her already cool hands, too, so that she barely dried them in her haste to tuck them under her arms and against her body to warm them. Dame Juliana’s look at her reminded her that was unacceptable, and Cecely grimly folded them together humbly in front of her and bowed her head. Satisfied, Dame Juliana led her finally into the refectory.
Did nothing ever change in this place? This room, too, was the same as it had been nine years ago. Open-raftered to the roof and with plain-plastered walls, it was hardly different from a well-made barn except for the nuns’ long table stretched down the room’s middle with benches along both sides and a stool at one end for the prioress to over-watch what were laughably called meals. Single candlestubs burned at either end of the table, casting a deceptive sheen over the tabletop’s scrubbed boards, while in a far corner a taller candle was set at an upper edge of a long-legged, slant-topped desk where a nun stood alone, waiting to read aloud while the other nuns ate. The rest of the nuns were standing with bowed heads at their places along the table. No one looked around at Cecely as she followed Dame Juliana into the room, though Cecely thought there was here and there the glint of an eye shifted toward her, curious.
They should be curious, she thought. They had never dared anything but being here. She had dared to go out into the world, had loved, been loved, and even if she was back here now, she had all that to hold to and remember, while all they had was a bare-roomed, comfortless nunnery, each other’s dull company, and their prioress’ heavy hand over them.
Dame Juliana led her to a dark corner at the far end of the room from anyone and with a small gesture silently bade her stand and stay. Discomfited that she was not going to be allowed to sit and knowing she would not be allowed to lean against the wall either, Cecely tried to keep her irk hidden as Dame Juliana joined the other nuns along the table. Not that anyone was looking at her now. They were all thinking too hard toward their supper as Domina Elisabeth gave thanks for what they would receive.
It was excessive thanks for not much, Cecely thought. This being Lent and food scant, every meal was desperately looked forward to. Not that there were that many meals, or what could be called meals. Something to silence the stomach in the morning, one true meal at midday, then a slight something for supper. Her own stomach was growling again. She could only hope she wasn’t going to be made to watch them all eat before she was given food, too.
Domina Elisabeth finished thanks, the nuns sat down, and two servantwomen came in with laden trays, to set a cup of something and a portion of dark, unbuttered bread before each nun, with Domina Elisabeth’s no larger than anyone else’s, Cecely noted. What was the point of being prioress if you couldn’t have more or better than your nuns? But very likely she would have something else in her room, with no one to know it, Cecely thought resentfully.
Her stomach roiled more, and she had the frightened thought that maybe she was going to have no supper at all but be made to fast until tomorrow; but when everyone else had been served, had begun to eat and the reader to read, one of the servantwomen came back silent-footed from the kitchen, bringing to Cecely a thick-cut piece of heavy, dark bread and a wooden cup. Cecely took them eagerly, but the servant kept hold, so that Cecely looked at her and found her looking back with both worry and question. More than that, Cecely knew her and said on a breath that was barely a whisper, “Alson!” She held back from a smile only because someone might be watching but knew what Alson was silently asking and shook her head in a small “no.” Alson, with her back to the room, dared a small smile at her before ducking her head and hurrying out, leaving Cecely not quite so barren with loneliness as she had been. She after all wasn’t without a friend in this place. That was more than she had dared to hope for.