by Avi
I did not see her again until I was taken to church for vespers. We stood side by side in the back. “Where were you?” I whispered.
“They asked me to see other nuns,” she said.
“What for?”
“Their ailments. One sister has a bad elbow. Another has a red eye.”
“Can you help them?”
She smiled shyly.
After the service the nuns filed past us as before. This time I saw many glances in our direction—all toward Troth. They knew what she had done.
5
THE THIRD DAY was much like the second. My time, as before, was spent doing tasks in the kitchen. Troth was away from me all day. I felt very alone. At one point when I carried in some wood, I was able to wander a bit about the convent and look upon the many images on the walls. I think they depicted different saints and how they found their martyrdom. There were devils, too, as well as beasts in strange and wonderful shapes.
And there were columns everywhere, made of heavy stone and ornamented with leaves, crosses, and symbols I didn’t understand.
As it turned out, Troth had visited nuns who were ill or who had pains. Then she had gone—alone—in search of herbs and plants.
“Why didn’t you ask me to come with you?” I asked when we were finally together again.
“I was able to find what I needed,” she said. “Crispin, the old infirmarian really had a good garden. It just needs tending.” She looked at me. I must have shown how I felt. “They told me you were busy,” she added gently. Abruptly she snatched my hand and kissed it.
I was somewhat soothed, but still worried.
That night, after mass, Sister Catherine brought us back to our sleeping room where we were meant to eat. The nun started to leave, only to pause at the door as if making a decision. Quite suddenly, she turned back toward us and started to speak. It took effort for her to do so, and she often paused between words, as if struggling to climb a steep way. She seemed to be addressing Troth more than me.
“I was brought here,” she began, her voice low, “when I was a girl. Young, like you. Left here when my father went off to the wars. He promised that when his obligation to his lord was done, he would bring me home to England. I waited and waited, but…he never returned. I thought he had been killed. So of course I prayed for him and remained.”
She cleared her throat and put a hand to her chest as if it hurt. “Some time later, I discovered that when he’d left me, he had paid the dowry fee. So that I would stay. He…he had never intended to return.”
I saw tears in her eyes.
“It can be hard here sometimes,” the nun continued. “And lonely. No one else speaks English. But then we speak but rarely. We do learn Latin. We study sacred texts. My sisters—there are thirty-two of us—are, for the most part, kind and loving. I try to serve Jesus and Mary with all my faith and heart that I might become perfect in Their eyes. Though I have times of great joy, there is much bitterness in me. Our abbess often reminds me of something Saint Cyril said: ‘If you can go no farther than where you are, God has shown you your destiny.’”
For a moment she stood in silence. Then she went on: “In all the time I’ve been here—I can no longer tell how long—our abbess has never taken my hand the way she did yours. Our rule says we are not to touch one another.”
She left the room quickly.
“Why did she tell you that?” I demanded.
Troth looked away. I waited. She finally faced me. “They wish me to stay here.”
My heart lurched. “Why?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
“As their infirmarian.”
I swallowed. “Will you?”
She turned from me again. “I don’t know.”
I was not sure I believed her. “And be like Sister Catherine?”
She looked at me fiercely. “She had to stay. If I remain, it’s because I choose to.”
Too upset to argue, I went to my pallet and lay down, my back toward her.
I was woken in the middle of the night by the bells. Prime prayers. Drowsy, I sat up and looked around. The moonlight seeping through the windows was as cold as the air. I shifted on my pallet, ready to go back to sleep, when I realized I hadn’t seen Troth. Sleepiness fell from me. I sat up and looked about. She was gone.
Alarmed, I got up. I pushed the door open and stepped into the long and gloomy walkway. It was open to the air, colder than the room. Looking up, I could see a glow of light—red and blue—seeping through the church windows.
Standing where I was, the moonlight allowed me to see the far end of the corridor. I saw some nuns in a line, moving away from me. Save for their shuffling feet, they made no sound. As I watched, their black gowns folded into the darkness. I supposed they were going to the church and wondered if Troth was with them. Should I follow? I was not sure what to do.
I stood still and listened. Wind slid through the corridor and caused a leaf to grate along the floor stones. Bells rang. Chanting began. I didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to go to the church.
Instead, I looked into an open space, toward what appeared to be some kind of garden. In the very center of the space was a statue, of whom I could not tell. There were also a few benches. It took me a while to realize that Troth was sitting on one of them, her blanket around her shoulders. She was leaning back, hands propping her up from behind. She seemed to be staring at the stars.
I made my way to where she sat.
“Troth…?”
Startled, she turned.
“It’s me. Crispin. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
When she said no more, I said, “What…what are you doing?”
“Wishing Aude would talk to me.” Her voice was full of yearning.
“Aude!”
“I need her to tell me what to do.”
I began to feel afraid. “About…what?” I asked.
“Should I go on…or stay?”
It took me a moment before I could speak. “Why would you want to stay?”
“I could help these people—like Aude helped others.”
I could not reply. At length I found my voice and said, “But what…what about Iceland?”
At first she did not answer. Then she said, “We don’t know where it is. What…what if we can’t get there?”
“We will,” I insisted.
“It’s not so sure.”
“We promised Bear—”
“We never promised. We decided on our own. Besides,” she said softly, “he’s gone. He can’t help us.”
Struggling against the pain I felt in my chest, I took a deep breath and said, “And…me?”
She didn’t answer.
“And me?” I repeated louder. I was becoming panicky.
“You are my dearest friend. But…”
“But…what?”
“I need to think. Maybe this is where I should be.”
All I could say was “It’s cold out here.”
“I’ll come soon.”
I stood there for a while, but when Troth made no movement and said no more, I made my way back to the sleeping room. Just as I stepped through the door, I saw the nuns returning. Feeling a swell of anger, I hurried inside.
I lay down on my pallet and drew the blanket up. I could not sleep. My heart ached too much. I kept thinking what I would do if Troth remained. This wasn’t the freedom I wanted.
I could not, would not stay in the kitchen. But I could not see where else I could work in this women’s place. I couldn’t stay in the village.
The question Did I truly wish to leave? flooded in on me. It had been so long since I’d been alone. Not since I’d met Bear. True, before I knew him, being alone was most of my life. But I knew so little then! I had changed. I had come to love others: Bear, Troth, Aude, the people in Rye. I had a bitter thought: The more love you have for others, the more pain there is in losing them.
Why must seeking my freedom be so painful?
I waited for Troth, but though I lay awake a long time, she did not come.
6
WHEN I WOKE in the morning, the first thing I did was to look for Troth. To my great relief, she was there on her pallet, sleeping.
I wanted to wake her, impatient to learn if she had made a decision. At the same time, I feared knowing what her choice might be. When she finally woke, I didn’t know what to say or ask, so said nothing.
She lay on her side, her large, dark eyes watching me. I could hardly look at her. But when I did, I was sure I understood. She was trying to show sadness. I didn’t believe it. “You’re going to stay here, aren’t you?” I blurted out.
“They need me.”
“I need you!”
“Not as much.” She sat up. “You’re angry.”
“If I said I was going to leave you, how would you feel?”
“Sad.”
“I’ll be alone,” I pleaded, though I knew it was useless.
“You’ll always have me,” she said softly. “And Bear. In your thoughts.”
“But not by my side.” I wiped tears from my face.
“In your heart,” she added.
“And…yours?” I said, barely able to speak.
“Always.”
“If you stay,” I asked her, “would you become one of them?”
“I don’t know.”
“But why stay here?” I cried.
She came and knelt before me. Took up my hand. “Crispin, I want to be where I’m needed.” She spoke evenly, with sureness. “Where I can do the things Aude taught me to do. To learn more. And Crispin, it’s quiet here. Protected. They will accept me for what I am. I can be happy. I can be free here. I…don’t have to hide my face.”
“I…love your face.”
She threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly.
“I want you to go,” she said.
“Why?”
“This place isn’t for you. Going to Iceland is what you want to do. Isn’t it?”
I could only nod.
We remained with our arms around each other for a long time.
“May God keep you,” I whispered. “I’ll go.”
I remained at the convent for two more days. Even that was far more than I wished. I wanted to leave immediately. To run away. All the same, I did not want to leave. I was fearful. Uneasy. Sometimes angry. How can you miss someone before you leave them?
As for Troth, though she tried not to show it, she was full of joy. That joy was wormwood to me. I tried to take pleasure in it, but it was too hard. Painful.
The night before I was to leave, we slept but little. Instead, we talked for many hours. We spoke of the time when she first found Bear and me in the forest. What she thought of me, and I her. How she and Aude had taken us in and treated Bear’s wounds. We spoke of Aude’s ghastly death. Our flight to Rye. The kind family there of which we became a part. Bear’s fondness for the widow Benedicta. Our sudden flight and the stormy voyage to France on the cog. How Bear died. Our wanderings. In all, I understood how much Bear and then Troth had become root and flower of my life.
“I wish we had stayed in Rye,” I said. “We would have had a large family.”
“But you shall go to Iceland,” she said.
“Maybe it’s as Sister Catherine said: ‘If you can go no farther than where you are, God has shown you your destiny.’”
She snatched up my hand and gave it many kisses. “Promise me you’ll go!” she cried. “So I’ll always know where you are.”
I attempted to smile. “What if I can’t find it?”
“You will.”
“I’ll…try.”
She smiled. “Maybe…maybe I won’t know where your feet are. But I’ll always know where your heart is.”
Then we embraced each other again and cried.
Not wishing to burden Troth with more of my sorrow, I slipped away by early dawn, while the sisters were at their prayers. Troth was already with them. I could hear their sweet, chorused voices.
Clutching a sack of food that Sister Catherine had provided, I closed the convent doors behind me. Once outside I took a deep, if broken, breath. My eyes were full of tears. The air was cold and damp, thick with a promise of rain. Below me, the wretched village lay in darkness. Beyond the convent, I seemed to be the only stirring soul.
Much of my heart wished to stay with Troth and go no farther. But she had made her choice; and for the love I bore her, I knew that I must respect it—hard as it was. She could be free here.
More than anything, I wished to go on to Iceland. Briefly I strove to imagine what my freedom would be like. What I saw—in my mind—were people full of good grace and cheer and little fearfulness, hard at work in fields of tall, ripe grain. By going there—I told myself—I would show Troth that I could be part of a world that was good and fruitful.
So it was that after making the sign of the cross over my heart, I stepped away, once more heading northward.
I still had little idea where to go. But wishing to be alone in my thoughts, I chose as isolated a path as I could find. No fingerposts or milestones for me. By the time the rising sun cast a red sheen upon the overcast clouds, I was well gone.
I was sure I had left my heart behind.
7
BY MIDMORNING ON that first day, cold, gray rain began to fall. No passing squall, either, but rain that stopped and started for many days, turning the paths I followed into running streams clotted with mud and leaves. In all of this, my torn and wet clothing proved useless. My body ached. As for the bread I’d been given, it was gone so quickly my stomach hurt as if it never knew the swell of food.
I did try to hunt, but whether it was the wretched weather or my inept skills, I failed completely. All I could find to eat were shriveled berries, bitter to the tongue. And I was dreadfully lonely.
No wonder, then, that with every step I took, I half believed Iceland would be around each turning. My resolve was made of equal parts stubbornness and hope, the kind of hope that confuses desire with reality.
But when the rains finally ceased and the weather cleared, it only turned colder. Songbirds fled. I saw no game. The biting air hurt my ears and chin. When—rare event—I met someone, I still had no language to share and could gain no knowledge of where I was or how best to go on. The word Iceland appeared to mean nothing to people.
Though my faith in Bear’s knowledge remained absolute, I lacked all notions as to which way to turn, what I should or could do. My resolve weakened. While I missed Troth greatly, I took comfort in thinking her secure and was glad she had stayed behind. It would have driven me mad to have her share my hopelessness, even while trusting me to find us safety. Nonetheless, my heart cried out for some welcome in the unloving world. I began to think I’d been a fool to go on alone, that it would have been better to drudge in that convent kitchen than perish in this cold wilderness. If I had known the way back, I would have gone.
After any number of days passed in such a fashion, I became convinced I must forgo all hopes of Iceland. For the moment, I turned my thoughts to Rye and the family of which we had been a brief part. Might not they take me in again, if not for my own sake, then for the love of Bear? The idea was balm until I had to admit I had no more knowledge of how to get to Rye than to Iceland.
In short, after so many days of wasted wanderings and useless musings, I was as adrift as a dismasted ship upon the open sea.
Utterly lost and friendless, I stumbled off the narrow forest path I’d been blindly following. What was the point, I asked myself, of going any farther? For all I knew, I was going away from my goal.
I roamed through the forest until, empty of tears and devoid of strength, I gave way to my exhaustion. Surrounded by the creaks and cracks of the darkling night, I huddled upon the ground while overhead a pale moon shrouded all in sickly light. Then a whipping wind began to lay siege to me, swirling so, it stripped last leaves from trees, turning them into shivering skeletons—much like me. Chilled
to my very marrow, I blew upon my fingers in hopes I might catch some heat.
I was too alone, worn, and hungry, and I grew colder every moment. Knowing winter had barely begun, my need to find shelter, food, and human company could not have been greater.
Sitting there, now and again crying, I began to think I’d not live for very long. Trying to prepare myself, I sought comfort in thoughts of Bear and Troth, even of Old Aude. I thought of that wretched cook I’d killed and begged his forgiveness for what I’d done. I whispered pleading prayers to my patron, the blessed Saint Giles, seeking his intercession that God might forgive my sins and touch me with some tender mercy.
Then, unexpectedly, from out of the shadowy forest came a shrill and ghastly shriek. Its high skirling made me think the worst: that some devil was crying for my blood.
The very next moment, the dreadful sound completely changed. I began to hear the sweet voices of many musical strands. The change was as shocking as when I first heard the ghastly noise. It was as if some evil thing, having shamelessly announced itself, now masked its face in sacred song, and that music wrapped about me soothingly, enticingly.
Was it, I wondered, the sound of descending angels, a miraculous gift from my Saint Giles? I recalled that it was music that first led me to Bear. Perhaps here, too, the music might be coming from kindly people. That’s to say, though at first I’d been greatly frightened, I quickly convinced myself that here was rescue. If these were people with food, by Saint Jude, I would be saved.
With the music drawing me like some enchantment, I stumbled about the woods in hopes of discovering from where it came. It wasn’t long before I spied a small flame among the trees. Added to the light was a whiff of roasting food.
Oh, how my stomach spoke!
Not bothering to suppress the sound of my steps, I charged through the woods. I soon drew near enough to observe five people sitting by a fire: two men, two women, and a boy. All were wrapped in cloaks, hoods thrown back. Four sat together on one side of the fire, while the older of the women—she had a long gray braid down her back—sat on the other. Between them they had set up a crude spit over a fire. Two birds were roasting, their oozing fat making the flames sizzle and snap while sending out mouthwatering smells.
