“Yes, Sub-Prioress. I like it here—it’s very pretty.”
“Pretty. Hmm. What did you do at home? I understand your father was reeve.”
I wish he had never been given that job. Everything would have been different if he had stayed a sheepman.
“I did all sorts of things. Da ran the wool business for Saint Gabriel’s and for Lord Geoffrey. I helped him with shearing and dyeing. And my mam—she was a weaver.”
“Of course.” Agnes ponders. “People of the land. Tell me, was your mother a forgiving woman?”
I look down at my hands. “She always gave me another chance when I made mistakes. If she hadn’t, nothing would have gotten done.”
“Well said, my dear. Tell me, it’s painful for you to be here, isn’t it? I know some of your story. How alone you must feel.” I wonder how much of my story the sub-prioress really knows. I wonder why she’s bringing it up now, because something in me guesses that the look on her face isn’t exactly pity.
I turn my face away toward the dying light.
“Whatever your emotions, though, there can be no allowances for speaking to men, except the priest at confession, and Brother Timothy at work. This is a women’s sanctuary, Edyth. Should you be found with the stonemason again, the discipline will be swift. Do you understand?”
I nod, but inside I’m all sharp green needles of panic at the thought of not seeing Mason. Already I’m contriving a way to get around this.
“There are, however, two points of concern for which I brought you here, Edyth. The boy is only one of those concerns. My assistant, Felisia, has a…nervous disposition. You have seen her outbursts—her mutterings about dragons and things, yes?”
“Yes, Sub-Prioress.”
“Felisia has been our ward since she was a child. Her parents indulged her visions and did not discipline her. Once, in a frenzy, she chased one of these demons straight into the great fire in her family’s hall, right in the middle of a feast. She was badly burned. Her mother and father knew she had no future prospects, so they brought her here. She was only seven years old.”
Tears well in my eyes. That poor girl, her face disfigured and her mind broken. I feel bad for her. But I don’t know what her story has to do with me.
“Some people have that same…openness to the things they perceive. Felisia’s scars are a visible sign to all of us: that is what happens to anyone who does not tightly seal the door to anything beyond what we all see and agree on.”
She stares at me.
“I know about your trance in the scriptorium.”
A shock goes through me. “How?” Could Alice have told her? Joan?
“This priory is a small place.”
I prepare for the worst. “What are you going to do?”
“I want you to come work for me. Felisia needs some time of solitude and penance, and I can teach you to discipline your unruly mind. I will instruct you in the rules of our priory more closely, since our ways still seem so…new to you.”
A billow of peach-colored fear blurs my vision for an instant. “Do I have to leave the scriptorium?”
“No,” Agnes says. “That will still be your general assignment. You will assist me in the mornings at chapter. And, Edyth, you’ll wear the novice’s habit now. It’s only proper if you will be serving me, and who knows, you may grow accustomed to it.”
I feel Mam’s linen dress clinging to the day’s sweat and see how threadbare it’s become. Still, nothing in me wants to wear that habit. But I know I have no choice.
“You may go, Edyth. I will expect you five minutes early to chapter tomorrow.”
* * *
—
As I walk into the chapter house right behind the sub-prioress the next morning, I glimpse the jealousy in Felisia’s expression, and see clearly that a “time of solitude and penance” was not her idea. And as I see the din of voices in their usual colors, I feel like I’m in the wrong body, with the wrong eyes, more disjointed than ever before. Maybe Agnes is right: maybe she’ll help me close the door to my difference, and things won’t be so confusing.
I sit, as I’ve been instructed, on a stool to the right of the large oaken seat where Agnes takes her place. I hate being so conspicuous. As soon as I wipe my sweaty hands on my gray dress, they’re damp again. I have one job to do at the morning meeting: to hold the sub-prioress’s books and hand each to her at the proper time. I can feel Felisia’s eyes on me. I’m sure this was the last thing she expected. But that’s not for me to worry about. I’m working for Agnes de Guile now, and I make sure to steer clear of the Dragon.
— 16 —
Dusk, that moment between light and dark, when the whole world takes a breath at once, is always my favorite time of day. There’s a place there, in that gray-blue light, where all the memories are kept, as though you could go to the cupboard and take out the jar of them. I volunteer for lamp lighting, singing softly with the other women as the candelabra light fills the halls—
Fulgor diei lucidus solisque lumen occidit,
et nos ad horam vesperam te confitemur cantico.
We have come to the setting of the sun
And we have gathered to sing our evening praise.
It’s Saint John’s Eve, midsummer. After compline, when we would be going to bed, the whole community of women goes out to the medicine garden. Tonight’s the optimal night to pick the Saint John flowers, when they’ll be at their most potent. Warmth radiates from the grass, and we have our shoes off, running our toes over it, letting the earth come up into our bodies. It’s a beautiful night: the perfume in the air, the crackle of the fires being lit.
The sisters sit around the big bonfire by the gatehouse and weave flower crowns for each other, and posies to hang above their cell doors to keep the demons away. I sit apart from everyone. I prefer it that way.
“Saint John’s wort is for melancholy,” Joan instructs a group of students, never missing an opportunity to teach—even at a party. “Fennel for the stomach, vervain for the throat, and yarrow for womanly pains. The plants will yield more by autumn, so leave enough at the heart to let them recover, but tonight, take all you can.”
Alice follows Joan closely, writing everything on a wax tablet. As she passes by me, she points and whispers, “Look who’s home.”
Prioress Margaret is back from one of her many diplomatic visits to this or that bishop, and she’s seated on the throne-like chair from her study, leaning back and talking to Agnes, who sits next to her on a plain stool. Even seated, the prioress is like a poplar tree, more upright than even Lady Caxton. She doesn’t need fine silks or elaborately braided hair. She’s another kind of beauty—as though she’s distilled womanhood, slowly boiling out all the dross until she’s a column of grace.