* * *
—
Between the prayer offices on Monday, we’ve got our paltry morning attempts at keeping the crops going, I’ve got my work at the scriptorium in the afternoon, and in the evenings, I help with the latest spate of sick pilgrims in the infirmary. When I’m exhausted like this, my colors get fuzzy and confusing, as though someone spilled all the paint on the scriptorium floor. I don’t want to make any mistakes.
The sun lowers. I need a break and a good meal. Alice stabilizes her patients as much as she can, and we ask leave to go to the refectory.
“Just bring me a little something,” calls Joan, who hasn’t had a break in days.
Alice and I fall in step, and we hear footsteps following behind. I glance back to see Mason also going in our direction, probably hoping to sweet-talk Cook into yielding something extra for the builders to eat.
“Ave,” Alice addresses him cautiously over her shoulder. He returns a quick greeting.
“How is the chapel coming along?” she asks.
“Slower, now that they’ve got us digging graves, too,” he says. “There are only four of us now. I didn’t come here for that kind of work.”
“I didn’t exactly come here to deal with pestilence myself,” says Alice. “I wanted to write books and study physic. Edyth’s told you what we’re looking for?”
“Yes, and I’ve been keeping my eye on Agnes, anyway.” Before Mason passes us to the kitchen door around back, he squeezes my hand. His eyes are lightless. “Whatever she’s doing,” he promises, “we’ll find out.”
Ahead of us, Agnes enters the refectory with the prioress.
“You know what’s strange about that?” I mention. “The Pri usually takes her meals in her study.”
“Let’s sit apart on either end of the refectory so she doesn’t suspect us,” Alice suggests. “We’re going to catch that fox.”
* * *
—
Darkness finally falls. I sneak from the infirmary to the chapel and knock softly. Shrieks pierce through from next door, icy lightning bolts stabbing my eyes, my temples.
Mason opens the door. “This doesn’t feel terribly romantic,” I half joke.
“Come inside,” he suggests. “Maybe we won’t hear as much in here.”
“What about the other builders?”
“They’re drinking in the old shed,” he says, leading me into the chapel. “They’ll sleep where they are. Don’t worry, we’ll be alone.”
Alone. That word suddenly feels different to me. We’re alone together every Sunday night, but outside, sitting against the chapel wall, talking, kissing. Alone never had its own color until now, a new edge of magenta glowing against the background of all this fear. Mason lights a fire in the middle of the floor, and this empty chapel feels like home.
Instinctively we curl up in the bed of straw together and lie there, enjoying the quiet. I feel so safe in here, the rough stone and dust so familiar. I never was meant for sterile places or anodyne routines. I was meant for dirty hands and a homespun dress and a shaggy-haired boy who builds real fires.
You do something to me, Mason says, and that’s not a bad thing, what I do to him.
You’re different, he says, and not in ways that make him want to pull my hair or lash my back. Mason fills my mouth with white birds taking flight over the mists, over the feather spirits from the village river, with the taste of beating wings, the rhythm of my own heart.
I take off my veil and fold it under my cheek. Mason begins unbraiding my hair, and I can hear his breathing deepen. His fingers start to comb out my tangles, but I giggle at the useless effort. “Pretend I’m a wooly sheep instead, Mason,” I say, and we laugh and he buries his face in my hair, pulling me closer, kissing my neck.
“Edyth, stay here with me. Bring your things from your cell. It’s safe and dry, and I can protect you in here.”
“What if someone finds out? The last thing we need is someone deciding to take a tour and finding me in here with you.”
“You mean Agnes? She won’t. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Well then, bar the door, Mason,” I say, with unexpected boldness. “Something tells me we’re about to find a reason for her not to say a word.”
— 29 —
Prioress Margaret wasn’t in chapter yesterday. Alice hasn’t seen her, either.
“She usually helps in the infirmary after nones,” says Alice. “I haven’t heard anything—she said she wouldn’t be leaving the priory again.”
“Maybe she’s had a visitor or something,” I suggest, as Agnes de Guile takes the seat to preside over the chapter meeting.
“Prioress Margaret is feeling ill today,” the sub-prioress announces as she waves me over and hands me her books. I hate assisting her, hate touching anything she’s touched. But Felisia hasn’t left the sanctuary in days.
Why doesn’t Agnes make that damn Dragon come out of the church and do her job?
“Does Prioress Margaret have the fever?” Alice asks. Everyone dreads the answer.
“No, sisters, thankfully it’s only a bit of stomach upset. For a rapid recovery, let us pray.”
After dismissal, I take Alice aside. “Has anyone come to the infirmary for a stomach remedy for the Pri?”
“Not that I’ve seen. If the leader of our priory had a hangnail, Edyth, I would know,” she whispers. “I think the Anti-Pri’s lying. I’ll go talk to Joan.”
As I stack Agnes’s books, I casually ask: “Excuse me, Sub-Prioress? I’m helping finish the illuminations for Brother Timothy’s herbal, and a few pages seem to have gotten misplaced since it was brought to the infirmary. You wouldn’t happen to know where they went, would you? I don’t know exactly which ones they were; I’ve counted several times. I just thought I’d ask.”
“Certainly not,” says Agnes. “As though I keep track of loose papers. Isn’t that a conversa’s job?”
“Thank you, Sub-Prioress.” I bow, frustrated at not being able to find an answer that’s surely right in front of us.
One book in Agnes’s stack belongs in the prioress’s study. There’s no servant outside, so I walk in to return it.
The prioress is curled on a pallet on the floor, barely conscious, an imperfectly used bucket of vomit beside her.