Lilies for Love

by Felicity Pulman

  In a wave of rustling movement, everyone knelt as they passed by. The procession moved on along the back of the church, the bearer sprinkling the holy water as he passed. They came back up the nave, passing by on the other side towards the altar.

  'Who are all these people?' Janna nudged Agnes, leaning over to speak in her friend's ear.

  'That's Father Mark, the priest. He comes from St Mary's in Wiltune to celebrate the Mass. The deacon and subdeacons are in front of him, and there are some acolytes as well.'

  'Why can't the abbess celebrate the Mass?'

  'She's not allowed. Shhh.' Agnes closed her eyes and listened with a rapt expression as the priest came to a halt beside the altar.

  The priest stood with his back to everyone as he made the sign of the cross, 'In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.'

  Janna listened intently to the Mass, anxious to understand what was going on. The priest wasn't speaking in the Saxon tongue, nor were the words Norman French. She remembered again the one and only time she'd been into a church. It was new, and not nearly so grand as this one. It had been built to replace the old preaching cross at Berford, and a new priest had been appointed in place of the elderly priest who used to visit their community once a month. The new priest had prayed in what sounded exactly like this gibble-gabble. Eadgyth had called it Latin, the ancient language spoken by the Romans. Janna had asked her mother if she understood what the priest was saying, and Eadgyth had said she did not. Janna had formed the impression at the time that her mother might have understood more than she'd admitted. She'd certainly seemed to know when to kneel and when to stand. As they were doing now, Janna realised, and hastily scrambled to her feet.

  There was a moment's silence and then the nuns in the choir stalls began to chant. The church was filled with the sound of their voices. It wasn't a bawdy song such as Janna had heard occasionally in the marketplace, but it was a sound she recognised.

  She froze into stillness. As she listened, the whole world seemed to tilt and go dark, so that she was no longer aware of what was happening around her. Everything she knew from the past, everything she'd taken for granted, now had a different shape and a different meaning. She no longer knew who she was, nor who her mother had been. She was cast adrift on a vast ocean where nothing made sense anymore.

  The thread of music filled Janna's mind and left her heart overflowing. Eadgyth had sung like this sometimes when she thought she was alone. Perhaps she was hardly conscious that she was doing it. Certainly she had not expected Janna to hear her, had been confused, embarrassed and – yes – angry when Janna had once questioned her about it. From Eadgyth, Janna had learned that there was something wrong with music, with singing, something shameful. Why? How had Eadgyth learned to sing like this?

  Janna bowed her head as the answer flooded her mind. Her mother must once have been a nun! It was the only thing that made sense – and nonsense, for if Janna was sure of anything, it was that Eadgyth had no time for the church or for those who served in it. Janna remembered the embarrassment of that service in Berford. After praying for a time, the priest had launched into a tirade against women, and against Eadgyth in particular, speaking this time in the Saxon language so that all would understand the import of his words. And in the middle of it all, right in front of everyone, Eadgyth had grabbed hold of Janna and marched her outside. Although she understood her mother's anger, Janna still blushed when she recalled the scene.

  Could her mother once have been a nun? If so, it wasn't at Wiltune, for the abbess had claimed that her mother had come to seek her help. Janna knew this to be true, for Aldith the midwife had told her the same thing. But if not here, then which abbey had Eadgyth come from? More important: why had she turned against her faith, and her life in the convent; why had she never mentioned it even once to her only daughter? Had she been expelled when her pregnancy became apparent? Janna was struck by another thought. If her mother was once a nun, how on earth had she managed to get pregnant in the first place? What was she thinking? And what about Janna's father? What was he thinking, seducing a nun and leaving her with child? Had he, perhaps, been a priest himself, forbidden by the church to have an intimate relationship with a woman? That might explain her mother's shame, and also the need for secrecy.

  Overwhelmed by her discovery, by the questions that hammered insistently in her mind and clamoured to be answered, Janna sagged down onto the hard, stone floor. It was too much to take in all at once.

  A strong hand under her arm jerked Janna to her feet. Agnes. Everyone had risen, and her friend was making sure she followed suit. Janna smiled her thanks, but her thoughts were wholly preoccupied as the psalms, lessons and prayers proceeded. Whether standing or kneeling, she was blind to her surroundings as she tried to puzzle out this mystery of her mother. Never, at any time, had Eadgyth even hinted at the fact that she'd once spent time in an abbey.

  Janna's thoughts turned briefly to Agnes as, once again, her friend yanked her upright. Agnes was a lay sister at the abbey, really a servant. Could her mother also have been a lay sister rather than a nun? Janna peered down the crowded nave, past the lay sisters and servants of the abbey, the guests, pilgrims and beggars attending the Mass, trying to see the nuns more clearly. She caught glimpses of black veils and white wimples framing pale faces. She wondered which one of them was the kindly Sister Anne, the infirmarian.

  The infirmarian? According to Agnes, an infirmarian was someone skilled in the art of healing, and with knowledge of herbs. Someone like Eadgyth, her mother? Was that where her mother had learned her healing arts – in an abbey? Janna nodded. That made sense. But if her mother was an infirmarian, it meant she had taken her vows, it meant she was definitely a nun. How, then, had she met Janna's father and, even worse, come to know him well enough to be seduced by him?

  Janna was no fool and besides, Eadgyth had told her exactly how women became pregnant and bore children. She'd used their own goats and fowls as a living example, so that Janna could witness for herself how such things came about. So it was no secret what her mother and father must have done in order to bear a child. Janna shook her head in wonder. Truly, they must have loved each other dearly to defy the church in such a way.

  But they had been well and truly punished for it! Bitterness against her father welled up in Janna's mind. Perhaps he thought his duty to God more important than his duty to the woman he loved and to his own child? Or was her father someone important, wealthy enough to do as he pleased, with no thought for the consequences of his actions?

  It made Janna even more determined to seek him out, so that she could accuse him to his face and in front of his family if he had one. He must be told Eadgyth's fate. Even though Janna's knowledge of the church was limited, she knew that nuns and priests were required to lead celibate lives in the worship of God. It had not always been thus, but it was now, and Janna was coming to realise just how unforgiving both her father and the church must be to have turned Eadgyth away and abandoned her at a time of such great need. Small wonder then that Eadgyth, in turn, had forsaken the church and all that it had once meant to her.

  Blindly, numbly, Janna knelt once more, pushed down by the ever-vigilant Agnes. She was oblivious of the rough stone pressing against her knees, oblivious of her surroundings. Her thoughts were consumed by the plight of her mother, and how wretched and frightened she must have felt when she realised she was with child and that her lover had abandoned her.

  With knowledge came some understanding. Janna had known her mother to be cold and proud. It had been a source of some resentment that Eadgyth had seldom spoken a kind and loving word to her, or given her any praise while she was growing up. But Janna could understand now that this was how Eadgyth had protected herself when, disgraced and abandoned, she had been forced to beg the abbess for charity and had thereafter struggled to survive, to make a life for them both. Janna's resentment gave way to admiration as she contemplated Eadgyth's courage, the iron will that had not all
owed her to give up, to be beaten or condemned in the eyes of the world. Her father might be a man of God, or even someone wealthy and important, but in Janna's eyes he was a coward, a nothing and a nobody compared to her heroic mother.

  'Come.' Agnes tugged on Janna's arm, and Janna followed her obediently out of the church and into the sunlight. 'Are you all right?' the lay sister questioned. 'What happened in there?'

  Dazed by the bright light, by the questions still whirling through her mind, Janna shook her head. 'I . . . I just had a revelation,' she said slowly.

  'A revelation? You saw our holy mother? Or even Christ Himself?' Agnes's eyes grew wide with wonder.

  'No! No, I mean I –'

  'Johanna!' Sister Brigid swooped down like a great black bird. 'You're a disgrace to our order, dressed the way you are. Come with me.' Without waiting for a reply, she set off at a fast pace towards the small parlour they'd passed through on their visit to the abbess's quarters the night before.

  Janna wrinkled her nose at Agnes, and got a shrug and a grin in reply. 'I'll see you later,' she called, and earned a frown of disapproval from her guide. She followed the blackhabited figure into the parlour, which now was guarded by a nun. She was engaged in haggling with a chapman who, in spite of her denials, was determined to pull the wares out of his heavy packs and display them to her. Sister Brigid ignored them, choosing this time a different door from the one they'd used the night before. It led out into a sunlit grassy square, bound by the stone church on one side and wooden buildings on the others. A vaulted walkway ran around its four sides, supported by graceful arches that framed the peaceful garth. A fountain splashed at the centre, a gentle murmuring that echoed the tranquil scene. A sparrow hopped about, poking an inquisitive beak into the grass, which was drying and browning in the summer sun. Janna hoped it might find a worm, for there was no-one about to spread any crumbs for its succour. She wondered where everyone was.

  'This is the cloister, where we may read, chant, sew or spin, study the Rule, or take our rest,' the nun said, and waved an encompassing arm at the peaceful, sunny scene as she turned right and walked briskly along the corridor.

  Read? Janna pricked up her ears.

  'Along here is the refectory where we take our meals.' Sister Brigid gestured ahead as she turned left into another arm of the walkway. Janna licked her lips at the mention of food. The nun noticed, and said hastily, 'Those who have taken their vows, as well as the oblates, postulants and novices, eat here. The lay sisters have their own refectory in the outer courtyard.' She turned left once more, then swooped to the right and into a small parlour adjoining a larger storeroom. 'You may wait here for Sister Grace,' she said, and hurried off. Janna wondered if she was as curt and gruff with all the visitors who came to the abbey. Still, the porteress had told her a little about the abbey, and Janna was grateful for that. She was finding it difficult to get her bearings, to accustom herself to the new life she had chosen, which seemed so hard and so joyless.

  Sister Grace was aptly named, she thought, as a nun glided through from the storeroom and stood, head on one side, studying her. A small twitch of her mouth spoke of her amusement, which was confirmed as she said, 'We're not often called on to give a sister's apparel to a youth!' She gestured towards Janna as best she might, for her arms were heavily laden. 'Are you sure you want these?' Sister Grace's voice was low and musical, her gestures graceful as she set her burden down upon a table.

  'I'm dressed as a youth, but I am a maid, mistress . . . Sister.' Janna felt self-conscious under the nun's careful scrutiny.

  'Then once you have changed, you may bring your old clothes back here to our wardrober. I am sure one of the workers at the grange will be glad of them. But tell me: if you are a maid, why do you wear such unbecoming garments?' The question sounded kind, as if Sister Grace genuinely wanted to know.

  Janna sighed. 'It . . . it is my disguise.'

  'And why should you need a disguise?'

  'I believe my life is in danger.' For all that it sounded so dramatic, it was no more than the truth. Yet, noticing how Sister Grace's expression stiffened somewhat at her words, Janna understood that the nun wasn't sure whether or not to believe her. Nevertheless, she held out a bundle of clothes to Janna, along with a pair of rough leather sandals. 'You're safe here, and besides, no-one will recognise you among so many others when we all look so alike.'

  Safe. Janna recognised the truth of the sister's words, and felt a slight easing of tension. She would become just another black crow, indistinguishable among the flock.

  Sister Grace patted the rolled bundle on the table in front of her. 'Here is a pallet for you to sleep on, and a blanket to keep you warm,' she said. 'You may take these to the lay sisters' dorter and change into your habit while you are there. The scapular is for outside work only.'

  Scapular? 'Thank you, Sister.' This largesse was more than Janna had expected. She smiled her relief at Sister Grace.

  The nun looked steadily at her, all trace of amusement now vanished. 'If you have come here for sanctuary, you may be sure you will find it here,' she said. 'What is your name?'

  'Johanna.'

  'Well, Johanna, I am in charge of the postulants, novices and lay sisters, and I am answerable to our abbess for your behaviour. I understand you are not yet familiar with our ways but I'm not prepared to be lax on that account. I expect you to bring any questions and troubles to me and I will do all in my power to help you settle in here. Is that understood?'

  'Yes, thank you, Sister.'

  'Good.' The nun nodded briskly. 'We follow St Benedict's Rule of Silence here in the abbey, so I don't expect you to indulge in idle chitchat with the lay sisters. Speak only if there is a need to know.' She paused for a moment, while Janna tried to keep her dismay from showing on her face. 'After you have taken your bedding to the dorter, you will find the lay sisters in their refectory, breaking their fast,' Sister Grace continued. 'Go and join them there and, when you have finished, come to the chapter house, where your duties for the day will be told to you.' Giving Janna no time to say anything in reply, the nun glided out of the small room.

  'I don't know where the refectory is!' Janna called after her.

  The nun stopped and, with an impatient click of her tongue, beckoned Janna to follow her.

  Once more they traversed the walkway that fringed the cloister garth, then through the small parlour and out into the large courtyard. To Janna, it felt almost as if she'd escaped from a dungeon, for all that she was still within the walls of the abbey. She looked longingly at the gatehouse on the far side of the courtyard, where pilgrims and guests of the abbey still milled about, talking after the Mass. It took all her willpower not to walk on and join them, and escape into the freedom of the marketplace beyond.

  'The lay sisters' refectory is over there.' Sister Grace indicated its position across from the dorter with an outflung hand. 'You may break your fast once you are properly attired.'

  She stood and watched Janna trudge towards the building in which she'd slept the night before. Conscious of the nun's gaze, Janna wondered if Sister Grace understood her longing to escape. Perhaps she'd read it in Janna's expression, and was lingering to make sure that if Janna fled the abbey, the garments and bedding she'd just doled out did not go with her.

  In the daylight, Janna could see that the lay sisters' dorter was built over a storeroom. The door of the undercroft stood half-open and she could make out barrels and chests in the dimness beyond. No doubt they were all stuffed to bursting point, given the wealth of the abbey. Reminded of food, Janna's stomach growled with hunger. She hastened up the stairs to the empty dorter. She dropped her new bedding onto the pile of thin pallets and possessions set tidily on one side of the room, then hastily stripped off the breeches and smock she'd worn, and bundled them up. After a moment's thought, she refastened her girdle and precious purse against her skin, then donned an under-tunic followed by a black habit, which she secured with a cord that had been bundled within i
ts folds. There was a sleeveless tunic, rough and stained. The scapular for outside work? Janna put it aside, and turned to the wimple. She draped it carefully over her head and neck, trying to recall how it had looked on Agnes. She took pains to tuck her hair out of sight, just as Agnes had done. A white homespun veil came last, different in every way from the silky black veil worn by the abbess, with its silver cross embroidered in the centre. What did she look like now? Janna wished she had a looking glass in which to see herself! No matter that she hated looking like a nun, these clothes must surely suit her better than the peasant's garb she'd worn before and they would certainly prove an effective disguise. She wondered what her mother would say, if only she could see her daughter now.

  Eadgyth! Questions about her mother's past filled Janna's mind once more, banishing any vain thoughts about her appearance. Questions continued to occupy her as she handed in the bundle of discarded clothing to the cellaress, who was now busy dealing with a more prosperous-looking merchant in the parlour. A bell began to ring, and the sister looked up. 'Chapter's about to start,' she said. 'You'd better hurry.'

  Conscious of her empty, rumbling stomach, Janna raced to the refectory for a snatched portion of bread and ale before hurrying after the lay sisters, who were fast disappearing into the parlour at the far end of the courtyard.

  THREE

  THE CLOISTER SEEMED to be the hub around which the wheel of the abbey revolved, Janna thought, as she followed the lay sisters in a different direction from that she'd taken earlier with Sister Grace. This time they walked along the side of the stone church, turned right and then left into a large room. Black-robed nuns occupied the benches in front; the lay sisters were expected to sit behind them. Janna spied Agnes and slipped past a few of the lay sisters so that she could reach her friend.