“Or raise rents, my lady! Indeed, we could raise rents!”
“Brother Simeon, if the crops have been so poor, then the farmers will also suffer from deprivations. I do not think raising their rents is compassionate.”
“Their souls, my lady. They will think of their immortal souls and gladly give more money to our house of God.”
“Our souls should face a little less comfort more easily than those used to the world, good brother. In fact, I believe it would be better for us to consume less food and wine than to deprive those we have promised God to care for.”
“But our strength. We must keep up our strength to better serve Him…”
“Brother, I will make no decision until I have toured our lands and spoken to those who rent as well as to those who manage and work the grants. Perhaps something has not yet been brought to your attention that will save us all from such severity.”
“My lady, Prioress Felicia left all such things to…”
“I am not the good prioress and, as you know, I am not from Tyndal. The people who serve us and those who gain from us are as unknown to me as I am to them. It is unwise for any of us to remain so ill-acquainted.”
“You will need a horse, my lady. It will take me a little time to find a suitable one.”
“I need a donkey, brother. I am a small woman and a nun. A horse is both too big and too grand. Our Lord rode a donkey into Jerusalem. I will follow His example.”
“But to find such a creature…”
Gytha put down the wine ewer. “I know where you can find a good beast, my lady.”
Eleanor smiled. “I thought you might, my child.”
And as Brother Simeon looked down, Eleanor noted that his face had turned the shade of one of his beloved red wines.
Chapter Twenty-One
“What an odd group we make,” Thomas muttered as he glanced at the small cluster of dark-robed religious. They were all assembled outside the thick wooden door of the thatch-roofed house belonging to one Tostig, brother of Gytha.
When Brother Andrew first told Thomas that Prioress Eleanor Wynethorpe of Tyndal Priory had decided to buy herself a braying, gray-bristled donkey for riding forth into the world, he had roared with laughter. Then he remembered the story of one fine bishop, and Thomas changed his mind.
The bishop in question, dressed in richly dyed vestments of soft-woven cloth and seated on a horse of rare breeding, had ridden into a mob of querulous farmers. With the arrogance common to both the aloof and the ignorant, he had assumed that such crude creatures would be suitably awed by his eminence and cease their silly arguments over his increased rents. Instead, they had pelted him with offal, vegetation rotten beyond recognition, and unidentifiable animal parts. Later, his chief clerk, dressed in duller clothes, had walked with impunity into the village and negotiated a compromise that was acceptable to both the lowly farmers and the clerk’s high-minded master.
Even now the story made Thomas smile, and he nodded with respect toward his wisely humble prioress just as the door to the cottage swung open on its leather hinges and Gytha gestured for the assembly to enter. As he approached the door, Thomas sniffed nervously. There was a strong scent of farm animals in the air, but the smell was the fresh, earthy one of healthy beasts. He would not have to wade through aged cow manure. No matter how long he lived on this forsaken coast, Thomas knew he would never quite become a man of the soil.
***
The space inside Tostig’s house was small, but the floor was planked and strewn with sweet-smelling straw and herbs. There was no window to let the daylight in, but a centrally located stone hearth both warmed the damp air and provided enough light to see and move about with ease.
The master of the place stood in front of a dark wooden table near the hearth, his arms folded. Tostig was a straight-backed, muscular man in his early twenties, his hair long, thick, and golden like his sister’s, but there was none of her gentleness showing in his blue eyes. After scanning the faces of the priory visitors with contempt just barely concealed, he looked down at Prioress Eleanor and bowed with an easy grace.
“I am honored, my lady. Your visit brings a blessing to my home. I would offer some refreshment, but I am a simple man and do not have things that you and your attendant monks are accustomed to. There is only a rough ale, not wine, and coarse bread to give you and your companions. The cheese, however, is a goodly one.”
Eleanor noted that his smile at her might have been somewhat genuine, but his words to the party as a whole were spoken in a tone edged with brittle sarcasm. Then Gytha bent over and whispered in her ear. Eleanor burst out laughing.
“Your sister tells me that I should ignore your ale but take your bread, which she has baked herself, and your cheese, which she says is famous in the town.”
“My sister is rightly proud of her baking, but the bread is still unsuited to the tender mouths of noble folk,” Tostig said as he shot Gytha a glance gentled with love and humor.
Brother Simeon shifted from foot to foot, his nose wrinkling in exaggerated disapproval at the smells of the cottage. “Perhaps we needn’t bother with refreshment, my lady. We came only to look at donkeys.”
Brother John’s green eyes sparkled with ill-concealed laughter as he looked at the receiver. “Indeed we have, brother, but I have heard of Tostig’s cheese from our annual fair, as you must have as well.” He turned to Eleanor. “It sells out on market days and is gaining fame abroad, my lady, or so I have heard from travelers who have stayed with us.”
Eleanor looked at Thomas, who was watching the interchange between novice master and receiver with interest, and then she turned to Tostig with a mischievous smile. “Brother Thomas and I are new to this part of England,” she said. “We would be delighted to accept your offer of ale, bread and cheese. Perhaps our good Brother Simeon has vowed to fast today, but I believe the rest of us would be grateful for your hospitality.”
Gytha happily ran off to serve the guests. As Tostig offered Eleanor and the monks seats on the bench behind him, he lowered his head so she could not see his reaction to her acceptance of a hospitality he thought would be rejected. For all his obvious dislike of the priory visitors, however, Eleanor felt a modicum of tolerance, even warmth, exhibited to her.
Indeed, the fare served would be considered too plain for a manor house, Eleanor thought, as she ate what Gytha had put before her. Nonetheless, the flavors of the ale, cheese, and bread when eaten together were wonderful, especially after the flavorless meals she had suffered since her arrival from Amesbury. As to ale, she had rarely drunk it. Her family and those she had been raised with at Amesbury much preferred wine to this very English beverage. After the initial shock of its bitter taste, however, Eleanor found she rather liked it. It was lighter than wine, yet warmed the stomach well, and it suited the nutty bread and the robust, marbled cheese served with it.
She looked up to see Gytha and Brother John studying her with smiles twitching at the corners of their mouths. Turning to Gytha first, she pulled her eyebrows together in a slight frown.
“You were wrong, my child.”
“About what, my lady?” The girl looked worried.
“I must either stop teasing you, Gytha, or you must learn when I am.” She put her hand on the girl’s arm. “Everything is all right. I only meant that you were wrong about the ale. It is delicious. Indeed, whoever brewed this is superior in the craft.”