Gisborne: Book of Pawns

by Prue Batten

  ‘Thank you,’ I said and followed in Sister Thea’s determined footsteps.

  We proceeded at a measured pace and because the remains of the earlier mists had dissolved, I had time to observe that the walls continued further than I imagined. There was a hedge across the end of the herb garden and through a withied gate I could see the ordered rows of a vegetable garden and the longer pasture and wildflowers that underlay an orchard of trees. Everything around me was touched with an odd luminescence; I would thereafter call it God’s Light as it was gentle, soft as light touching a pearl. The fragrance of herb and the sounds of bees again stirred the embers of envy in my troubled soul.

  We progressed through the cloister and its west-facing end was hung with roses that were heavy with buds. I was so busy looking at everything, at the carved pillars, at the Roman numerals above various entrances, that I hadn’t realized good Sister Thea had led me through a narrow door. Only the change in the ambience, the diminished sounds of the ever-present bees and birds, made me look up. The cell wrapped around us, more sparsely furnished than the Prioress’s. A narrow cot, as though it were a child’s, sacking laced in a frame; a brown woven blanket, a crucifix hanging on the whitewashed walls. But my eyes rested longest on a cut-down wine-barrel lined with a piece of fine linen and from which steam eddied.

  Sister Thea backed out of the room and the door barely clicked, leaving me to walk to the tub to trail my fingers through the hot water. I looked around to the bed and noticed a small folded pile that I had thought might be an extra blanket but on examination proved to more thoughtful largesse. Linen undergarments lay neatly folded and I wondered what the Sisters imagined as their work-roughened hands lay them down.

  But surely they must wear something similar.

  Although I had heard of an abbess who wore rough woven fabric flush against her skin as a form of penance on a daily basis. Ah, not for me scratchy wool and God’s forgiveness, I was sure. I sifted through the rest of the folds and found men’s hose and a chemise, a clean tunic, a leather belt and a hood of wool that would cover my head and shoulders admirably – and a small pile of folded cloths.

  I flushed, thinking on something that had been forgotten as we travelled.

  My courses had not appeared in all the time we journeyed, a factor due entirely to the tension of the journey, I was sure. But over the last few days, a vague ache had spread from my lower back and settled in the lowest part of my stomach. In a fever as I remembered the night I lost my valued virginal state, I ripped the filthy clothes from my body and threw them into the corner of the cell.

  The water had drops of fragrant oil in it and it lay on my skin so that when I brought my arm to my nose, I was transported to the enclosed garden in Cazenay, a place of summer sun and warm delights, where worry was an anathema and the trials of the world were the stuff of a troubadour’s song. It was a garden of petals, pollen and poetry and my mind floated in the memory for a moment.

  A coffer was pulled to the side of the tub and there lay a piece of soap, rough to be sure, but smelling sweet and with flower petals embedded deep in the impure block. That such a small place as Saint Eadgyth’s could provide me with such a thing was worth a prayer and as I sank below the surface, hair and all, I thanked God.

  The water lapped around me, its perfume doing more to lift my spirits than the idea that in a short time I would be clean. I lathered my hair and scrabbled fingers back and forth, scrubbing away dirt from the leagues we had covered and then I sank again below the surface, rinsing, running hands through until every strand squeaked. My skin demanded the same treatment and I took the bar of soap and slipped it everywhere, stripping the sweat and grime and then I lay back to enjoy the last of the water’s warmth, twisting my hair and flipping it out over the edge of the tub. But I kept the bar of soap in my palm as its fragrance was a comfort – so valuable a thing, that little sliver of soap.

  Valuable.

  The word pierced my mind.

  Value.

  The scales began to fall away from my eyes in much the same manner as the dirt had just sloughed off my skin.

  How valuable?

  I could see Gisborne backing away from my questions.

  And no wonder.

  Guy of Gisborne was a spy.

  A spy who traded information for wealth. That must surely be how he survived when neither Cecilia nor my father had given him money.

  But Ysabel, he provided not just for your safety but for your every need. Does it matter?

  I wondered if it did. But then I remembered the constant appearance of his cousin, Halsham, and suddenly it did matter because if information went to Halsham, there was no doubt it was used for ill. I could not see the dishonourable knight using it to push King Richard’s cause. Of course not. It would be used to feather Halsham’s nest and lift him to a position of status in the eyes of the king until he himself had the position of power that he craved. And Gisborne wove in and out of it all like a masterful gameplayer.

  What information is he selling? What does he barter?

  I shivered.

  The water had chilled and the grime sat on the surface in a slurry of murk. I grabbed a spare strip of linen and stood, wiping goose-pimpled skin, wringing hair out and wrapping it in the strip. The tub lining had an unsightly tidemark and I spared a thought for what the Saint Eadgyth’s nuns would need to do to return the linen to its pristine state. The pain in my lower back persisted despite the bath but I was clean, the dirt of my travels gone and I was glad as I pulled on the men’s clothing. Underneath the pile lay a wooden comb, an honest little tool carved with simple fingers. Nothing like my own which had a scene of Diana the Huntress and a hound carved into its handle, but honest nevertheless.

  Honesty.

  I took up the comb and dragged it through the knots as the sweet bell above the Priory rang for Sext, my belly rumbling a base accompaniment.

  On leaving the cell, I expected to see the nuns weaving from the garden or the scriptorium to the frater but all was still except for the trailing echoes of the bell. I trod the gravel path in the direction of the refectory, damp hair heavy on my shoulder, but as I looked at the clean edges of my fingernails, I sighed. I should be indulging in this new purged state, stripped of dirt and sweat, but instead the cleanliness jarred with my awakening of earlier. As I began to dwell on likely perfidies, a movement to my side caught my eye and Sister Thea drifted into view, smiling benevolently and indicating I follow.

  We moved to the wall on the other side of the garden where the Prioress’s room stood under the protection of the colonnaded cloister. As we walked our footsteps echoed in the pristine silence of the place, Sister Thea’s leather soles a hard tap, my own boots a softer sound. I glimpsed an open door and saw four desks in rows of two underneath a tall horn-covered window. Sheets of parchment lay on each surface with pots of colour, quills and reed pens and I longed to divert, to stay a moment, to gaze at the richness of the illumination and the skill of the copying. The smell of the inks drifted out but Thea urged me on and within two more paces we reached the kitchen and frater from which a pleasant fragrance of new baked bread eddied. Thea stood back and I entered and seven veiled and wimpled heads lifted.

  They were curious, have no doubt, but in less than a blink, six of the seven resumed eating, the Prioress’s presence enough for them to observe priory etiquette. I sat next to the Prioress and she passed me a thick crust of the warm bread and a bowl of the pottage. I ate in the curious atmosphere of the room where the only sounds were of fabric rustling as an arm moved, or a muffled cough from an irritated throat, a scrape of a sandal on the stone blocks of the floor. Rough wooden platters were shifted occasionally and wooden beakers filled with water, the sound of the chuckling stream from pitcher to mug like the sound of the purest voice in the choir in this quaint silence.

  Odd and intrusive then, when the Prioress said to me, ‘Speech can disturb us in our devotions and exercises our resistance to temptation far more than is n
ecessary. I thank you for observing our silences. We do speak but only when required as you will see. When you are finished you may leave us. Our Sisters will work in the gardens or in the scriptorium until None when we would see you in the Chapel.’

  The Sisters’ heads had lifted at the sound of the Prioress’s voice and I watched their eyes swivel from her to me, almost as if they anticipated temptation at its most virulent. When I merely nodded and smiled my acknowledgement of what had passed, I swear there was a tangible sigh of regret in the room. The Prioress stood and the nuns followed in single file like a duck and her babies. I moved in their wake but then headed to the garden paths and thence to the orchard where life seemed less constrained and I could breathe and sigh audibly without guilt.

  I wondered if the nuns realized that they had created heaven on earth in their little orchard. Thick pasture and wild flowers dragged at my feet and the trees bent toward me, heavy with the promise of fruits. I dared not pick anything and instead enjoyed the fragrance of the place as I searched for a quiet place to sit and sift through my thoughts. At the end of the orchard pale headstones gleamed and I headed toward them as if the dead and honoured may shed light on a confused mind.

  There were not many tombs and they were simply carved. Here a nun’s name and a date. There a prioress’s with a little more sculpted flourish. But the last drew me to it like a beacon and my heart stopped and I dropped to my knees, my fingers tracing the letters one by one.

  ‘Ghislaine of Gisborne,’ it read and the tears sprang to my eyes.

  ‘I know your son, my lady. I have been his charge these last weeks. He has been diligent and chivalrous … you would be…’ I stopped as the tears rolled unchecked.

  Maybe it was that I spoke to his mother or even just to a mother. Maybe it was that all those hurts immured deep inside me were in need of acknowledgement and who better to understand and acknowledge hurt than a mother.

  As I knelt by the headstone, my fingers went from tracing the chiseled name to rubbing back and forth over the mound that was her resting place. A path had been scythed, winding around and through the stones, but on the mounds themselves the grass had been shorn like a sheep’s fleece. Underneath my palm, the nap was smooth and cool, a little damp from the mizzle. I had a vision of Sister Thea working diligently with a pair of shears at each mound.

  My conversation continued, ‘I know your nephew as well, my lady; the one you might call Robert or even Rob; the one I call Halsham but whom I would prefer not to acknowledge at all. He has come far, I tell you, but he is suspect. Whilst your son is a man of whom it is possible to be proud, I fear your nephew, who holds you, Lady Ghislaine, in the highest esteem, is not.’

  I looked around and noticed a branch hanging low from a hawthorn, its leaves a fierce green. There were some chamomile daisies close by and bright blue flowering rosemary and I picked some sprigs of each and joined them with the greenery of the hawthorn, tying everything around with a twine of ivy that clung to the priory wall. Laying the offering against the headstone, I knelt again.

  ‘Your son has all the intellectual breadth of a scholar, Madame, and at any time I feel sure he could make his mark honestly but he struggles with bitterness. Born of the plight that struck you and he and left you homeless; that took his heritage and your life.’

  In my mind I could see Guy curling around me in the shelter of the ruined woodsman’s hut as I trembled after Wilf’s and Harry’s deaths. I remembered his breathing and how I sought to slow mine to match his and how his thumbs traced hypnotic and calming circles over my knuckles. My eyes filled but did not spill.

  ‘You see, my lady,’ I said. ‘I worry. He hitches his cart to Halsham’s horse. He chooses deception and cunning instead of…’ I stopped and sighed. ‘It’s what he chooses. It is the way of it.’

  I heard the ringing of the bell for None. Looking up, I could see Sister Thea standing at the hedge, an arm raised to shield her eyes from the sun which rested lower in the afternoon sky

  ‘Watch over him, my Lady of Gisborne. Guide him and help him make wise choices. I ask not for me…’

  Sister Thea moved toward me and I scrabbled the tears from my cheeks, pushing myself off my knees, the marks of my body now a moulded intaglio on the grass.

  I ask not for me.

  ‘… but for him.’

  I turned away. A feeling of separation pulled at me. I didn’t want to leave, as if in that one moment I had at last found someone who could help me through my confusion. I could hear the rustles as Sister Thea’s robe caught against grasping plants, her approach filled with haste and I recognized perturbation in her manner.

  She took my sleeve and pulled me behind her at a jogtrot to the cloister, clipping along the colonnade until we reached the chapel door, sidling into the space beyond as the bell’s echoes reduced themselves to the overwhelming silence that was Saint Eadgyth’s.

  Flickering candles along the walls lit the gloom and apart from one narrow arched window in the Norman style and filled with glass, there was little either to commend the architecture or to allow light to enter; but the window was unstained unlike so many of its noble counterparts. It was set high in the wall above the altar and allowed one to observe the moving and changing panoply of the heavens and on this day a small beam of sunshine slipped through and fell in a gleaming path to the simple altar where a brass cross stood flanked with two large candles.

  Unlike my soap which had been rendered with a perfumed oil and filled the air with its aroma, the candles were mere tallow and the smell wound through the others within the chapel - of unwashed bodies and woolen robes, of female odour, of bad breath close by. This was a plain priory devoted to God and the simple life. In larger houses and abbeys, I had heard of the escapades of the nuns, of baths, cosmetics, hair feathered across a forehead beneath the wimple, of self-indulgence on an obvious scale. Saint Eadgyth’s was different and whilst the odour was not pleasant, it was possible to understand why it existed at all.

  Profound quiet thundered around my ears. I could hear my heart beating, could hear the nuns breathing and for a reason I couldn’t identify, I felt uneasy. Beside me Thea sat calmly upright on the bench, her eyes fixed on the narrow window. The Prioress knelt directly in front of the altar on a cushion and she too stared at the window. I looked around and realized all the nuns looked upward and I was struck by the beauty of the image, as if they expected God’s or the Virgin’s love to come streaming down on the strip of sunlight. I had no such faith and wished the meditation was over, whatever prayer they made. I squirmed and took deep breaths, feeling hot crammed between Sister Thea and another whose feet were less than a comforting sight when I looked down.

  Sister Thea must have sensed my disquiet because she nudged me gently and nodded to her lap. With one hand she passed me an end of a slim knotted cord. As I watched her in prayer, she closed her eyes and her fingers slid over the other end and at each knot she would pause and her lips would move. I looked at the grubby end she had passed me and ran my fingers over the whipped cord from one knot to the next.

  Unaccountably I began to think on a simple prayer.

  ‘Protect Cecilia, Lord,’ One knot.

  ‘Protect Marais.’ Another knot.

  ‘Protect all those in Cazenay.’ Another knot.

  ‘Care for Wilf’s and Harry’s souls and those of their families.’ Another knot.

  By this time I had almost reached Thea’s hands as she sat blithely pursuing her own devotions. So I slid my fingers to the bottom of the cord again.

  ‘Bless Lady Alaïs, my mother.’ A knot.

  ‘Bless the Lady Ghislaine.’ Another knot.

  I took a breath and stared at the window and as I closed my eyes could only see a pair of storm blue eyes gazing back. I bit my lips and as my fingers slid to the last knot I prayed in the silent way of Saint Eadgyth’s - ‘Father, bless Guy of Gisborne and protect him.’

  A movement in front drew my attention and I opened my eyes to see the Pr
ioress stand, cross herself and turn to walk to the door. The nuns followed two by two, leaving Thea and I to bring up the rear as she slipped the estimable cord and her hands beneath her tunic. I smiled my thanks and she turned away and went toward the frater whilst I went to my cell. The sky had the vivid tinge of dusk about it and I realized how tired I was. Knowing the expectation was that I should attend each devotional - Vespers, Compline, Vigils, Lauds and Prime - before Guy collected me, I resolved to sleep as best I could.

  I slept deeply, and at each of the bells I barely reacted to the sound so that Thea’s hand would shake me gently. I would roll off the cot, totter after her in the shadows and enter the fusty smelling chapel. At Compline the window showed nothing but a strip of dark against the deep shade of the stone walls and I closed my eyes to doze rather than pray. At Vigils and despite my best intentions, I found myself slumped on Thea’s shoulder but she was kind and betrayed no disappointment at my worldly manners.

  She passed me her little cord and I followed my self-styled prayer circuit but it led to musing on Guy’s face and I gave up and just counted my chilled toes … again and again. This was the test and I had failed miserably. There was not a shred of the religious soul in my body and I knew how false it would be to become a nun and that I would do a religious house no favours by my presence … moneyed or otherwise.

  At the end of each devotion I would crash back down onto the cot which squeaked and groaned, and freezing cold, I would swaddle myself as tightly as if with a death shroud. Each time, despite the cold and the discomfort, I would fall asleep thinking on my future.

  Finally the bell rang for Prime and this time I met Thea in the cloister, feeling guilty at her absurdly pleased expression. At the end of the devotional, we followed the Prioress to the frater and I sat with a huge sigh, an empty platter lying in front of me. But the Prioress once again passed me a piece of crusty, fragrant bread and some cheese and on the table was a pile of polished apples whose red and white stripes were the only colour in the room. For liquid refreshment we had ale – a shock when I expected the spring water of the day before. The light in the room was bright and the air fresh, as if the nuns were excited to begin a new day.