* * *
Tuck’s feet felt as heavy as if he wore shackles weighing as much as his own body. He paused on the north road to rest, throwing his head back and letting the afternoon drizzle cool his heated emotions. He’d run out of prayers. “Dom died too young,” he shouted to the heavens. Never before had he questioned God’s plan for any of them. Never before had he considered throwing off his mantle of responsibility.
Responsibility. Archbishop Langdon had given him permission to stay in England when all the other bishops and abbots had fled to the continent. Someone needed to listen to politics and common concerns and know what needed doing when King John and Innocent III finally made peace. Tuck didn’t think that would happen soon. Before that happened, he had responsibilities to those affected by Dom’s death.
First, he had to find the boy’s mother. He knew only that she had married a cobbler near Nottingham Castle. She’d taken her three youngest children into the marriage.
He turned east at the next crossroad and trudged onward, planning in his head what to say when he finally tracked down the woman.
The guards outside the city walls accepted his monk’s robe easily. Two questions sent Tuck to a slate cottage snugged up against the castle wall. A cozy dwelling for a skilled craftsman. An ordinary-looking man with a week’s worth of stubble and unremarkable brown hair brushing the shoulders of a leather jerkin and patched linen shirt sat at a workbench in the yard. Past the first flush of youth but not yet stooped with age, neither fat nor thin, coarse skin with a sharp beak of a nose, he could walk anywhere in England without notice. The drizzle had ceased, and he took advantage of the daylight to stitch a fine seam connecting a thick wooden sole to a leather boot—something the sheriff or one of his noble courtiers might wear.
“Good sir, I come with news for your wife. It’s about one of her children left behind at Locksley Abbey.” Tuck bowed his head and fingered his prayer beads tucked into his deep sleeves.
“Dom?” The cobbler’s wife rushed out the door of their cottage. “What’s happened to my Dom?” She wiped her flour-dusted hands on a threadbare apron. It bulged over her swelling belly. A kerchief that matched her simple skirt and kirtle covered her head, but a tendril of dark hair curled around her ear.
Dom had hair that color. And eyes that same shade of deep, dark brown.
“My condolences, mistress. I regret to tell you that young Dominick was killed this morning in an accident.”
“No! No, no, no, no. Not my Dom,” she wailed and lurched forward.
The cobbler dropped his boot and stood, catching her before she could reach Tuck with outstretched hands curved into claws.
“I gave my boy to you because you said you would keep him safe!”
“My regrets, madam. He was loved and appreciated by all of us. We still have the right to bury him in sacred ground. He was one of us and will be treated with the respect owed to him and to you.” Tuck couldn’t bring himself to mouth the other platitudes dictated by the Church. “I will leave you to grieve in private.” He bowed his head and backed away.
His throat worked at choking back the racking sobs that yanked at his chest.
Grief continued to weigh heavily on Tuck as he made his way north and east of the city to the convent of Our Lady of Sorrows. His breath became ragged, and he grew more tired each time he inhaled. But he had to finish this. When he’d advised Hilde of the loss of her brother, he would beg hospitality. A drink of water and a chance to sit. He found the side road by habit more than conscious will.
Stopping at the top of a little rise, he drew in deep breaths and a longing to fully rest. His heart had given him warning before that he aged. He had to ignore it and press on.
The square and squat building came into view atop the next rise. Isolated, lonely, grim, and ugly, no care had been given to make the convent a feast for the eyes, a promise of the beauty of life and faith, and God’s grace. It was a fortress, as much to keep strong-willed women in as marauders out. They had their own well and storage for months of extra food, if planned for and carefully managed. They could feed three villages if famine or plague struck.
He wondered if the nuns left behind had the will and the knowledge to carry on the work of the Mother Superior in caring for the less fortunate.
Another long trudge up to the closed gates of the convent, and he couldn’t lift his left hand to ring the bell. So he pulled on the tight braid of rope with his right. The untuned bronze clanked and clanged, impossible to ignore.
After too many long moments of silence, the pain in his chest eased. Tuck reached again for the bell pull, this time with his left hand, so that he faced the viewing portal fully. Another noisy reverberation. At last he heard footsteps below the ringing in his ears. The sliding wooden panel over a viewing grille opened to reveal a pinched face with a frowning mouth and eyes squinted in wrath.
“How dare you disturb the peace of this sanctuary?” a woman snarled at him.
Taken aback, Tuck jolted out of his lethargy and pulled his authoritarian abbot voice out of hiding. “Sister, I have news from Abbot Mæson. I would speak to Sister Mary Margaret. Now!”
“We have nothing to give in charity to common villeins like you.” The panel slammed shut.
Tuck sank to the ground, resting his back against the wall. What had happened here? The same thing as must be occurring all over England. Without leadership, the presence of the Church was withdrawing from their purpose, taking refuge behind high walls and shunning outsiders even when they came with word from an abbot.
Without the trappings of authority, the nun did not recognize him as an abbot, only as a wandering priest.
Was that all his life’s work was about: the sumptuous robes and jeweled staff granted him upon his consecration?
No. He was about more, about truly ministering to the people. As soon as this war between King John and Pope Innocent III ended, he would set about righting the many wrongs.
But first he must rest and allow his heart to heal.
A shadow formed between his closed eyes and the blessed sunshine.
Tuck’s eyelids fluttered open of their own volition.
“You’ve a bit o’ blue around yer lips,” an old woman said. With the westering sun behind her, he could only see an outline and knew she was a plump matron. Her crackling voice gave away her age. She held out a cup and placed it right under his nose so he could smell the warm brew.
“Just a tisane of fairy bell leaves. Three little leaves from the top of the plant, below the flower stalk.”
Tuck took the cup from her hands and cradled his aching hands around the husk of dried gourd. “What will it do for me?”
“Steady your heart. Yer needs a cup o’ it every morn afore you stir.”
“That might be a little difficult. I travel a lot.”
“Then fix it a’fore yer sleeps. Works cold or hot, better hot, but always in the morn.”
He sipped at the warm liquid and found the taste a bit bitter, but not offensive.
“Drink it up now. Won’t do you no good sitting in the cup.”
Tuck obeyed. He had a feeling not many dared cross this beldame.
When he’d taken the last few drops, the beldame pried his fingers off the cup, tucked it in the folds of her kilted skirt, and disappeared within the sun dazzle that still left spots before his eyes.
“May the Lord and his wisdom bless you, lady of the fairy bells.”
* * *
Hilde paused in gathering herbs to add to tonight’s stew. She remained bent over the bush of rue contemplating which of the new leaves she should pinch off, and which to leave so they would grow strong.
Only a few more days until the waxing half-moon rose high in the sky. The bells no longer rang the passage of time, but she knew the precise moment when her twin brother would come and relieve the hours of strict discipline. D
om always came. Without fail. For the full length of this last year since their mother had given her two oldest children to the Church, Dom had defied the rules and punishments to spend a few moments with her two times each month. They talked and laughed and recounted their lives since they’d last seen each other. The restrictive lives of convent and monastery could not separate them.
Neither of them could allow it. They’d always been together, from womb to that horrible day a year ago when Da had died and Mum faced the possibility of their happy family starving to death. She had no choice but to give the eldest of her brood of five to the Church. The cobbler for the castle was recently widowed. He was willing to marry Mum and apprentice her younger children to follow his trade. But he could not take on all five of her offspring. The younger three were too small to go to the Church. So Hilde and her twin had been ripped from their mother’s side.
Hilde’s happiness for her mother and the other children dimmed the first time she felt Sister Marie Josef’s rod across her knuckles and back.
The warm spring air shimmered around her and then darkened. A sharp pain ripped across her belly like a knife thrust. A terrible weight restricted her breaths. Her knees buckled, and she fell facedown in the dirt, her nose filled with the bitter odor of rue.
Sister Mary Margaret rushed to her side, gently enfolding Hilde in her warmth and comfort. “There, there, child, is the sun too hot for you today?”
Hilde nestled against the older woman’s lush bosom, pretending that she was back home with Mum, being cradled after stumbling and scraping her knee. She couldn’t speak. The pain in her gut expanded to crush her lungs. Gasping for breath, she allowed Sister Mary Margaret to lift her to her feet. Still bent double and clutching her middle. Hilde stumbled beside her guardian nun as she guided her to her cot.
“Rest, my girl. Take a few sips of water. Just a little for now. More later,” Sister Mary Margaret whispered to Hilde, clucking like a mother hen.
“Sister,” Sister Marie Josef said sternly from the doorway to the dormitory. “There is a visitor at the gate. He asked for you as the senior sister. I tried to turn him away, but he is most insistent and said he had news from Abbot Mæson.”
“A visitor? News from the abbot?” Sister Mary Margaret said, hands fluttering. “Oh, my. This must be important.” She made to move past the other nun who stood solidly in the way of an exit.
“He is dressed like a poor wanderer. We have no room or facilities to shelter him. I tried to shoo him away, but he refused to leave until he spoke to you. This is most improper and contrary to the Rule of our Order.”
“We owe him common charity. That, too, is as important to the Rule of our Order as isolation and contemplation,” Sister Mary Margaret said. The firmness of her tone and her chin defied the taller nun’s sternness. She pushed the disciplinarian aside, her footsteps echoing hollowly on the flagstone walkway of the inner cloister.
“Slacking off your chores again?” Sister Marie Josef stomped toward Hilde’s cot. She raised her rod high and slammed it down on Hilde’s belly.
Hilde screamed. She knew she needed to hide her pain. That was part of being a nun.
“No pain life gives you is greater than the suffering of our Lord. Pain should send you into prayer, not screaming like a child,” Sister Marie Josef said on a sneer.
“Think on how that blow echoes through your body and know that it is nothing compared to what will happen to you outside these protective walls. Out there you would be sold to the first man who offers you marriage and then he’ll rape you every night—rob you of your virtue and your chance to get into heaven every night—until he gets a son on you and you die in childbirth!”
Sister Marie Josef delivered another blow to Hilde’s knees.
Thirteen
Prepare! Elena whispered into Nick’s ear. He jerked his head up from his doze. He stood at the head of Dom’s bier during the darkest part of the night, hands folded together inside his sleeves, cowl over his head. He’d learned during his earliest years at the abbey how to sleep standing upright, sometimes with his eyes open.
“Prepare for what?” he whispered, wary of disturbing the deep stillness of the Lady Chapel. In normal times the bells would have rung to awaken him at Lauds or Matins. The bells remained silent by order of the Holy Father and King John.
The time is coming when I must ask you to do something very hard.
“As if burying my dearest friend is not hard,” he murmured.
Hard enough, but what I must ask you to do will be harder.
Movement at the entrance from the nave across the altar dais silenced his verbal questions.
Your relief has come at last. You have watched your friend through the night. Rest now. I will summon you when the time is right.
The vacancy Elena left in Nick’s mind tripped his balance. He reached out to grab the edge of the stone slab where Dom rested, clothed in his least threadbare gray robe, his prayer beads wrapped around his clasped hands.
A hot jolt ran from Nick’s fingers up through his arm to his shoulder, finally breaking a knot of tension at his nape. His senses righted, and he assumed his prayerful attitude.
“I see you’ve learned to sleep standing up,” Prefect Andrew said. “A useful skill.”
Nick raised his head, startled by the words.
“Never fear, boy. We all do it.”
“Sir,” Nick bowed his head in respect. Then he came upward with a determined thrust of his chin. In the depth of his sleep he’d thought of something important. “Prefect Andrew, Dom had a sister and a mother. They should be informed of his passing.”
“A message went to his mother. She mourns for her son privately. She gave him to the Church. He is ours to mourn publicly and to bury him.”
“Sir, his sister was his twin. They were close before . . . before he came here. I believe he visited her on numerous occasions after he came here. She should be told.”
“Nicholas, the messenger was turned away by a senior sister. Since the abbess retreated to exile, the sisters can only obey the rules of the Order with the strictest interpretation. Only they know if they told the girl.”
“Sir, I’d like to try to talk to her . . .”
“Not your place or your duty. Now go. Your time of wakefulness is over. Seek out your bed for a few hours before the day begins. You’ll want to break your fast before we dig a grave for your friend. ’Tis a hard thing to bury one so young. Rest assured, he has gone to a better place, free of pain and hunger and sleepless nights. And worry for his sister’s and his mother’s welfare. Go now.” Prefect Andrew shooed Nick away with a flutter of his hands. Then he stood where Nick had been stationed most of the night and ran his fingers through his own prayer beads while his lips moved silently in the funerary ritual.
* * *
Nick had attended plenty of funerals before, beginning with the makeshift prayers for his parents said by Father Tuck who had found him digging through the ashes of their hut. But since then most of the funerals had been old men in the abbey or barely-known villagers.
Never before had he buried a friend.
At high noon, he stood in his assigned place below the choir in the church, sorely aware of the vacant spot to his right where Dom should have stood. He lifted his shoulder and pushed his elbow outward from long habit. He met only empty space with no grunt from Dom as he roused from his latest nap. Then Father Blaine stumbled over the Latin invocation. Nick winced in sympathy. The young man had been thrust into the priesthood unprepared and years earlier than intended. Abbot Mæson needed to ensure that a second priest resided in the abbey, alongside Prefect Andrew, before he left for royal-decreed exile. The young priest recited the words by rote, never having presided over a funeral mass before.
“Prefect Andrew should be saying the words, not Father Blaine,” Henry grumbled. “We know Andrew can say it right, even if he does
n’t sing. Dom deserves better than . . . than a youngster who’s never done it before.”
“Hush,” Nick admonished. He felt the same way but knew better than to speak his thoughts.
Sure enough, Brother Theo’s heavy hands landed on their shoulders. He squeezed gently but said nothing.
Nick twisted his neck to better see the face beneath the shadowy cowl. “I know,” the man mouthed. “We do the best we can with the tools God gives us. Father Blaine needs the practice.” Then he, too, fell silent.
Nick spent the next hour wondering at the monk’s gentleness, nay, his tenderness toward his students. He put on such stern manners in the scriptorium that Nick only expected the same demeanor in everything he touched.
By the time Nick had eaten in the refectory, said prayers, and climbed into his cot, he realized the strict taskmaster, who presided over the books and the scrolls and their accurate copying, actually cared about all the boys in the dormitory. After an entire night standing watch over his friend, he couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw only Dom’s face, deathly pale, mouth open in a silent scream of terror.
He rolled onto his right side. Henry snored lightly.
With a twist and a humpf, Nick turned to his left side. Dom’s empty cot remained empty. As did the emotional hole in Nick’s belly.
He wondered briefly how Dom’s sister must feel . . . if she knew of her twin’s death.
He sat on the side of his bed, elbows on knees, face in hands. His fingers rubbed his temples, trying to alleviate the nagging headache forming behind his eyes.
He needed to sneak away and go to the Benedictine convent where Dom’s sister resided. He needed to make sure she knew that Dom had passed.
Dared he go now? ’Twas the hour Dom usually crept out to visit his sister, Hilde. Nick needed fresh air and silence to banish the physical pain of his grief before talking to the elusive postulant nun.
Walk the Wild With Me Page 10
