Fair Weather

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  I had time to lie in my silent bed, follow monastic routine or wander the grassy slopes interrupted only by birdsong. My thoughts calmed. The convent bells divided time between peace and duty. The bell was actually a little discordant and almost unpleasant, leaving no echo. I suspected it was cracked. The bell rang for prime at dawn, the second of the day’s calls to prayer. Still warm in dreams, I ignored their insistence until they rang again at mid morning for tierce sext and break-fast, which was when I first left my room. The third peal rang for midday and more prayers before dinner, which I rarely ate. Later the bells reminded us of evening vespers as Venus rose bright white from the diminishing horizon and then for the supper that followed. The final bells sent us to an early bed, if we had a mind to it. The abbot smiled at me sometimes as we wined and dined but he did not speak to me again. Nor, strangely, did anyone ever suggest I accompany them or follow the calls to chapel. I was pleased and the days floated by on warm breezes and good food.

  It was a week before I saw the prioress. She had taken no notice of my presence in her convent during all that time which I found a little vacant of her, considering that most guests were encouraged to stay only one night. I assumed that the abbot had suggested she leave me in peace. Then I bumped into her in the long hall leading to the cloisters. She glared then blushed and swept by with a flourish of fine black skirts. Her stiff white toque over its ample chin band flounced defiant as she lifted her head, clenched her jaw and pushed past.

  I was shocked. Tilda paused mid bow, looking back over her shoulder in surprise. Then I hurried round and followed. “Blessed Mother. Excuse me.” The prioress walked faster. Tilda no longer gave in so easily. My footsteps pattered like rain on the long tiles. “I’m sorry, Mother Rosamund, but can I speak with you?”

  I wondered if, recognising me, my long ago theft of a few silver pennies could possibly have inspired such startling dislike. Tilda grabbed her arm. The prioress pulled her elbow away with force. Her eyes had dimpled into little round pebbles in the creases of her face. She was a lot shorter than I was and I looked down on the prominent bridge of her nose, the first of several chins and the furrows of her forehead. “You will never touch me again,” she said. I thought she might spit at me. “You will keep to the visitor’s quarters except at meal times. You will never address me in any way at any time. As far as I am concerned, you do not exist.”

  She turned again and marched away into the long blue shadows and I stood there behind her, shivering. I wondered if she thought I was the Abbot’s whore.

  Chapter Thirty

  I walked often in the garden, enjoying the frosty autumn sunlight. We were not impatient, Tilda and I. We accepted the gift of peaceful convalescence and I loved being alone. I made no further attempt to talk with either the abbot or the prioress. Plentiful and regular food began to smooth out more of Tilda’s angular immaturity. I had no mirror but I watched my legs curve and my breasts rise plump and firm. But I avoided peering down at the tiny dragon, so obscenely snuggling in my cleavage.

  It was October the eighteenth, day of Luke the Evangelist. The bells reminded me of break-fast and my own burgeoning appetite. I stretched from my cocoon and dressed, splashing my face briefly with the water from the big jug beside my bed, too cold for twenty first century hygiene. I could smell food. The benches in the main hall were already bustling and the first course served. I shared the wide hard trencher with the novice I sat next to, bread which would be used to soak up meat juices and later thrown out to London’s starving poor. The ale, sprinkled with cumin, sank a little scummy in the pewter cups. She was Katherine, my young friend and neighbour. We shared only meal times but it was a companionship of sorts. She would be given a new name once she took her final vows and I would never see her again but in the meantime she cut my meat and passed the salt when it came down to us, gossiped to me and made me welcome. “The Abbot? He’s a grand man. Italian of course, and that was resented at first. So many Italians are sent by His Holiness, even to the villages and they take all the stipend and the revenues and don’t even speak our language. But Abbot Bernado is quite different. He’s much loved here now.”

  There were fresh eggs from the hens who shared the kitchens and warm milk from the goats. The convent had its own bakery and the bread was warm too, unbleached brown and grainy, rye and barley. We started with turnip greens and onions in a sauce of milk. Then trout, mussels and oysters in broth, thick slabs of roast pork and poultry. Being what they called a simple break-fast, we then finished with pancakes and honey, curds and whey and oat cakes flavoured with crushed grape pulp. No stark winter rations here.

  “And the prioress? I’m a guest in her convent but she doesn’t speak to me.”

  “Oh,” smiled Katherine, “Mother Rosamund. I’m afraid she’s the one soul here who doesn’t approve of our beloved Bernado. They say she was secretly in love with the previous abbot. He was a giant of a man and very knightly, but had a shocking reputation. I wasn’t here then but he died of an infected sword wound and no one told us how it happened. A drunken brawl, according to gossip, or the revenge of a cuckolded husband, but I shouldn’t be telling you that. I just know our abbot and our prioress don’t speak to each other. We don’t care. It’s the richest convent in England. And the most powerful.”

  I walked back alone to my room, passed the alcove of privies where the late sunshine dappled the tiles and into the guest’s quarters. The first open doorway led to another passage and a meeting room for travellers. Already a fire had been lit on the central hearth. I’d never chosen to sit there before but it was a frosty morning and I approached the fire. Stools and cushions surrounded it on three sides. I sat, hugging my knees, lost in dreams. I had eaten a little too much and perhaps the ale had been stronger than usual. Once again, the heat of the fire made me drift. I pulled three of the cushions together and curled, looking vaguely through veils of flame. One cushion was a rich tapestry of herbs and flowers and in its centre was the gnarled umbrella of a yew tree. As I drifted into a shifting sleep, the woven picture seemed suddenly alive beneath my cheek. The wind shuffled the leaves and the flowers bent in the breeze. I couldn’t lift my eyes and as they closed, I saw a young man cross the passage outside the doorway. It seemed he came from my own little bedchamber, passing back into the courtyard and the cloisters. He was small and thin, dressed sombre and dark. I saw his face only briefly but I knew him.

  My body was weighed down. I felt imprisoned as though trapped by the roots of the embroidered yew. I could not have risen, even had the man come flying at me. But he did not. It seemed he did not see me. It was Uta’s cousin Malcolm.

  When I woke and could see and move again, it was night. I had lost the whole day. I was a little numb, my head hurt and my back ached. The fire had shrunk into faint glowing ashes and through the thin window parchment I could see the curled shaving of crescent moon. I clambered up like some poor thing only able to crawl and scuttled back to my cell. Sitting on the bed, I stretched each muscle, forcing myself to think. After a good sleep the night before, I had been awake only for breakfast. Then I’d slept again, somehow remaining comatose for close to twelve hours. It was unnatural. Nothing in my room appeared to have been touched and the very few belongings I kept in the chest beside my bed were as I had always left them. I was sure that Malcolm had been in my room, and somehow he had drugged me. Then I saw something fixed to my wall.

  I knew every detail of the room for I spent so much silent time there, staring at nothing. There was no furniture. There was no decoration except for a large cross above the bed. But now a small object, circular and neat, was attached to the wall at my left. I went over to examine it. It was a little wooden carving of a coiled snake which, wide mouthed, ate its own tail. I stretched one index finger and touched it. The craftsmanship was intricate and the wood dark grained and smooth. I went back and sat on the bed and looked at it. I knew Malcolm must have put it there.

  It was a cool night and there was no more than a thin
scrape of moon. A few stars hung low across the horizon, pale silver smudged behind cloud. I could hardly sleep again so I went back up the passage and out to the main hall. It stood in deep shadow, its empty benches scrubbed clean. The Little Sisters of Angelica went to bed early. The Abbot would be in his study. The main entrance was locked from the inside but the big key still hung in its place. I took it and unlocked the door, wincing as it creaked, echoing up into the rafters. I went out into the night.

  I wondered if Malcolm was still somewhere within the convent and I wondered if the abbot knew he had come here. Knowing Vespasian, he must also know who Malcolm was. Perhaps my jovial cleric with the kind eyes and the hospitable attitude was, after all, what he had accused Vespasian of being; a man capable of evil. Clutched tight in one hand and hidden in the folds of my tunic, I held the little snake chewing its own tail. I did not know what it meant but if Malcolm had put it there, I did not want it.

  Under the first trees and down the slope of lawn, the faint starlight lit the dew like silver dust. The mist hung creamy across the grass. My thin shoes were soaked and the hems of my skirts sodden and heavy though I lifted them. I pulled out the snake and held it up. Its blind eyes were open and looked back at me. I threw it as hard as I could. It spun like a toy and disappeared quickly down the hill. I trudged back to the building, slipped in through the door opening, and heaved it close behind me. I locked it and tiptoed back to my room. It was now so dark that I had to feel my way along each wall. Then I entered my room, almost fearing to find Malcolm waiting there for me in the deepening gloom. But my room welcomed only me. I sat on the bed and sighed.

  I was not tired, could not sleep and my breathing was ragged, short and tense, but I lay back on the mattress with my hands clasped behind my head. I looked out of the window, though the sky was obscured not only by cloud but by the translucence of the parchment and I could see almost nothing. I wondered what I would do with the rest of the night. Then I looked to my left. On the wall hung the little circle of carved wood in the shape of a serpent eating its own tail.

  I held my breath. I thought I might turn to see Malcolm standing there. I closed my eyes and opened them again and thought the thing might dissolve but it did not. It hung on its small peg and gazed back at me. So I got up from the bed and went over. The wood grain was exactly the same. It was the same object and not another. I went back and lay down again on the bed. I thought I might revert to Molly, but I did not. Nothing happened at all, except that the thing which I had flung into the night just minutes before, had reappeared in my room as if I had imagined everything.

  I did something then which had not occurred to me for a long, long time and I prayed. All through the horrors of Wattle’s death, the suspicion surrounding us all when little Muriel had been killed in the church and then the agony of Sammie’s murder, it had not occurred to me to pray. Tilda had never done so either. She had not asked for help from a God which frightened and alienated her. Neither of us had asked for help though sometimes we had received it in ways we had not expected.

  Now I was in a convent and a cross above my bed glared back at the small circle on the other wall, so I prayed. A little discomforted and creaky as if I needed practise, I asked any God to find me a way out from the threat surrounding me. I was terrified to be burned or flayed or whipped or raped again. I thought I might be murdered. And there was the terrible possibility not only that this might happen to me, but that it might happen twice, and in two worlds.

  Then I unhooked the coiled snake from its perch a second time, tucked it again into the folds of my skirts and went out.

  This time I took a different passage and found the way to the abbot’s study. The door was partially open and the room flickered golden with candle light and the sweet smell of beeswax. Abbot Bernado’s eyes were just visible over the rolled papers on his high desk and he looked straight at me and said, “Come in. I have been expecting you for some time.”

  Chapter Thirty One

  “The symbol of infinity,” the abbot said, “a fundamental part of the study of alchemy. Though not usually an evil sign, and I have no idea how it came into your cell. This is a house of God and not of witchcraft or magic. I cannot approve.”

  “You said it wasn’t evil,” I said. I had placed the thing on the abbot’s desk and he looked at it with dislike and did not touch it.

  “Not of itself,” he answered. “But just as you do, I would certainly mistrust its sudden appearance in your room. Besides, there are many things which are not evil, but which I cannot approve within my own house.”

  “But you said you were expecting me. If you didn’t know about this, why did you expect me to come?”

  “Because,” said Abbot Bernado, “there has been a disturbance. I felt it. I am trained as I once told you and I can feel these things. Something passed through the veils.”

  “I don’t understand you,” I said. I was standing in front of his desk, wishing I could sit down. I felt weak. I felt ill. “And you never told me you were trained in such things. Do you mean magic?”

  “Alchemy,” he said. He pouted a little. “I told you I was once Vespasian’s pupil, though that isn’t something I’d willingly admit to others. Few people know and if you repeat these words to anyone else, I will deny them. But you didn’t come here by coincidence. There are no coincidences in life, which is a fundamental teaching of alchemy. I thought perhaps you were in danger. So I told you things I would never normally speak of.”

  “Thank you,” I said since it seemed appropriate. “But it all sounds like riddles.”

  “Then sit down,” said the abbot. “Sit quietly and listen to the small part of the past I’m prepared to explain.”

  I sat on the stool by his side. He turned to face me. His breath was a little heavy and smelled of garlic but his eyes were as warm as before and I felt impelled to trust him. He inhaled deeply and puffed out his fat little chest as though he was remembering what he would rather forget. “I’m Italian, as everyone knows. I come from the great Republica di Venezia. It was where I met Vespasian. I was an aspiring prelate, studying theology. Vespasian was a young man of unusual charisma. He was travelling through Italy, coming from the University of Bologna, but drawn to Venezia as all wise men are. He was already an alchemist of some power of course, and he invited me to study with him. I abandoned theology and turned to magic.” He paused, drumming his fingertips on his knee.

  “What happened?” I asked, impatient. “What about Vespasian?”

  “I was his pupil for two years,” sighed the abbot. “I learned a great deal and became adept. Then I repented and returned to God and Christ’s mercy and that’s all I’m prepared to tell you of myself. As for Vespasian, I know very little that I care to repeat. He was the son of the Baron de Vrais then, his family were wealthy and he was heir to a title and a fortune. But when I was sent to England some years ago as the abbot to this convent, I met him again, this time as a veritable pauper with the name Vespasian. I did not ask questions. Those who dabble in the dark arts may often lose everything. He gave me few explanations, but he kept in touch. I imagine he thought he might one day make use of me. From Christian charity, I never turned him away.”

  “Thank you,” I said again. He hadn’t told me very much but it fitted neatly with what Thomas Cambio had told me that night sitting in my own living room in my other world. I got up to go.

  “You must take this with you,” said the abbot, pointing to the carved snake. He still refused to touch it.

  “I’d sooner not,” I said. “I think I saw someone. I told you. A man I hate, who must have put it in my room. Won’t you keep it? Won’t you destroy it?”

  “You cannot destroy infinity,” said the abbot. “And I will not keep a symbol of alchemy in my room.”

  Reluctantly I picked it up. It felt warm. I folded it back within my skirts. “Can I come back and see you tomorrow?” I asked. “And if I see this man again, can you protect me?”

  The abbot stared
at me in silence for a few minutes. “No,” he said eventually. “I felt a movement through the spirit veils, something that troubled me. But there’s been no other traveller here, no young man, no strange visitor. I cannot protect you from either an apparition or from pagan alchemy, and I will not have shadows threatening this sacred house. Therefore you should leave this convent immediately.”

  “I’ve nowhere to go,” I said, blinking back tears.

  “That’s not my concern,” he said. “You bring evil with you and it has no place in a house of God.”

  “If any power can protect me from evil, then surely God can,” whispered Tilda.

  The humour and light in Abbot Bernados eyes had gone cold. What had once been his charm and had inspired my trust, had entirely disappeared. “No doubt,” said the abbot, “but you have stayed here long enough. Now you must leave. And take that serpent with you.” He waved a dimpled hand at me. He wore one ring, gold and heavy and carved in the shape of a goat’s head. It gleamed suddenly in the candle light and flashed ruddy.

  “Thank you then, for all your previous hospitality,” Tilda said. She got up, still clutching the circular carving, and slowly left the room without turning around.

  Back in my room I put the coiled snake on its peg on the wall and stood at the window, looking at nothing. I was trying to make sense of matters which were simply nonsensical. Then I opened the small chest and began to pack a parcel of the few belongings I had brought with me. I did not take the wooden snake, symbol of infinity, but left it where it hung. Instead I took the wooden cross, and felt no guilt at the theft. The abbot would not give me protection, but God might. I walked the long passage from the guests’ quarters to the great hall and I left the convent, unlocking the door for the second time, and trudging out through the wet grassy slopes and back down into Grub Street towards the mire of London. I arrived as the Cripplegate was unlocked and the portcullis raised, the bells of St. Thomas ringing out from the Jewish quarter. It was the nineteenth of October.