Frevisse bit back the urge to ask when he purposed to leave and where he would find this sufficiency of food he promised. Everywhere they knew of close to hand had had poor harvests, Yorkshire was a long way off, even if the harvest had been better there, and she had seen no sign that Sir Reynold was well provided with money. So how was he going to keep this promise? And what would happen to them if he failed at it?
No one asked. Dame Juliana, staring at the floor, sat down without another word.
The other obedientiaries made brief reports of how matters went with each of their offices, with nothing to disturb their prioress, except from Dame Perpetua as sacristan. With the all-important order and propriety of the church and holy services in her care, she was compelled to make yet another protest against the masons’ noise during the offices, little good though she thought it would do.
“They’ve been told!” Domina Alys answered. “There’s nothing more to be done about it. Don’t bother me with it again!”
Goaded by frustration, Dame Perpetua forgot herself so far as to cry out, “But if we only knew how much longer it was going to be!”
Domina Alys slapped her hands down angrily on her knees. “As long as it takes, Dame! The work is three-quarters done. It can’t be that much longer! Now sit down or you’ll spend the day on your knees with paternosters enough to take your mind off anything else!”
Dame Perpetua sat.
Frevisse, as hosteler, was last to be called on. Eyes down, she stood up and said, “The guest halls are presently full and no one is expected to depart today. There is presently food and drink enough for them. There are no complaints to be made against anyone or about anything.”
She stopped, forbearing to add that if any travelers came now, asking the priory’s hospitality, there would be no place to put them, thanks to all the Godfreys presently there, and that as things were going, by Christmas there would be nothing to feed them either, whether there was room for them by then or not.
Domina Alys gave her a sharp nod. “Good. Sit.” She looked around at all of them. “Is there aught else?”
Her tone indicated there had best not be. Sister Amicia and Sister Emma squirmed a little, Sister Cecely exchanged a glance with Sister Johane, but no one said anything.
“Good. Then we’ll see to the matter of this girl.”
Heads came up alertly among the nuns, and not merely the four youngest. Domina Alys gave no sign of noticing it.
“Dame Frevisse, you dealt with her yesterday. Who is she? What have you learned about her?”
“She’s Joice Southgate. Her father is a draper of Northampton.”
“What was she doing in Banbury, then?” Domina Alys demanded.
Not waiting to be carried off to marry a Godfrey, Frevisse held back from answering as curtly; but Domina Alys had wanted no answer, was demanding, “Is his father as rich as Sir Reynold says?”
“I gather so. She says he’s in partnership with someone in London.”
Domina Alys nodded satisfaction with that. “She’s content enough in Lady Eleanor’s keeping?”
“When I left her yesterday, yes,” Frevisse said.
“She’s not going to make trouble?”
Frevisse forbore from asking, In what way? Joice’s refusal to marry Benet was trouble in itself and she certainly meant to go on making it. But that was something else Domina Alys did not want to hear, so Frevisse merely said, “She’s content to be in Lady Eleanor’s keeping. She understands she should not try to leave.”
“Best she keeps that understanding, too,” Domina Alys said. “Now, all of you heed me on this. Young Benet Godfrey is going to be coming and going in and out of the cloister this next day or two or so.”
Heads lifted again, with alarm or wariness or open interest. Several mouths opened, but Domina Alys cut off anything that might have been said with, “There’s no discussion of this. I don’t want to hear a thing about it”
“Oh! But…” Sister Cecely began.
Domina Alys turned on her fiercely. “I said I wanted to hear nothing! Two hundred aves lying on your face before the altar and you’ll fast until you’ve finished with them, however long it takes you.”
Sister Cecely visibly paled and shrank inside her habit. There would be no question of shirking her other duties because of the punishment. The aves would have to be fitted into what little free time there was in a day, and she might go hungry until tomorrow because of them.
Domina Alys raked the rest of them with an angry stare. “Anyone else?”
Sister Amicia’s open mouth snapped shut. Sister Emma pressed her hands to her own mouth to be sure no word escaped her. When no one else made any move at all, not even so much as a shake of a head, Domina Alys drew a deep breath and said, “Then I’ll say this once and that’s all I’d better have to say it. Young Benet will be coming in to see this Joice Southgate, in hopes he can persuade her to marry him. He’ll see her in Lady Eleanor’s room, with Lady Eleanor to watch. He’ll come and go as seems best to him and Lady Eleanor, and you’re none of you to take note of him or be in his way or find reason to speak to him or about this to anyone, even among yourselves. Do you all understand that?”
No one dared raise any question or objection or even look at one another. They did not have to see the tears running silently down Sister Cecely’s cheeks to be reminded what the wrong word could cost them. Slowly, first Dame Juliana’s head and then one by one the rest made their nods of agreement. Satisfied, Domina Alys raised her hand to bless them before dismissing them, only to be interrupted by a scratching at the door.
“What?” she demanded, and Katerin, set daily to watch the cloister’s outer door-and sweep the cloister walk while she did-should anyone come while all the nuns were shut away in chapter meeting, put her head hesitantly in and said in her uncertain way, “Master Naylor. He’s asking to speak to you.”
“Now?” Domina Alys did not try to hide her displeasure.
Katerin nodded, watching Domina Alys’ face like a dog eager to be told which way to go. Domina Alys flicked a dismissing hand at her. “Tell him to wait. I’m almost done here.”
Katerin shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “He wants to come in now. To chapter. He says.”
“Does he?” Domina Alys’ displeasure visibly deepened.
Roger Naylor was the priory’s steward, charged with overseeing the priory’s properties and the worldly matters necessary to sustain its spiritual life. He had done well enough with Domina Edith, each of them granting the other’s particular and separate skills so that they had worked together in equal respect toward the same end, St. Frideswide’s well-being.
He and Domina Alys had come to lack that shared respect, neither of them wanting to hear what the other had to say, so that his meetings with her had become infrequent and, Frevisse gathered, unsatisfactory. She could not remember when he had last asked to be heard in chapter meeting and doubted Domina Alys would allow it. Too much of what she suspected their prioress was trying to keep from them might come out if he did.
To her surprise, Domina Alys said impatiently, “Bid him come, then. Let’s be done with him.”
Nor did she have time to change her mind and dismiss them before he came. He must have been waiting barely beyond the door, because Katherin hardly disappeared before she was back with him, standing aside to let him enter, making a quick curtsy to Domina Alys and shutting the door behind her as she retreated. Master Naylor crossed to Domina Alys and bowed, first to her and then to the rest of them before looking her full in the face.