Sister Anne bustled out. She frowned when she saw Janna still there. 'You were told to return to the infirmary, Johanna,' she scolded.
''Tis my fault, Sister. I kept Sister Johanna talking here.' Margery flashed a brief smile. 'I bid you good night,' she said. 'God be with you.' She hurried back into the abbess's lodge to wait upon the empress.
'It is my belief that anger and frustration are behind ma dame's headache.' Sister Anne relented enough to pass on the news as they made their way back to the infirmary.
'Did the talks not go well?'
'I think not. While the legation, led by the king's own brother, Henry, the Bishop of Winchestre, have all sworn fealty to the empress, the archbishop has put off doing so until, he says, he's had a chance to visit the king in his prison and has obtained consent to act "as the difficulties of the time require". A nice, neat way of covering himself should the situation change.'
'Can he delay everything in this way? His words must have greatly incurred the empress's wrath.'
'Not to mention bringing on a headache,' Sister Anne said wryly. 'But yes, the archbishop is within his rights and the empress must know that. The king was recognised by the pope when he was crowned, you see. He is not dead now, merely imprisoned. While the other bishops may ignore the implications of anointing a queen while an anointed king still lives, the archbishop is cognisant that there is no precedent for this sort of thing, and that he might well be acting against the pope's wishes if he rushes to pledge fealty to the empress.'
'No wonder the empress is wrath.' Janna felt some impatience with the archbishop's dithering, even while acknowledging that she knew nothing of the ways of the church or of statecraft.
'Wrath is hardly the word for it. The empress is in a black rage, for the archbishop intends to take several bishops with him to visit the king.'
'Perhaps some syrup of poppies . . .?' Janna ventured.
Sister Anne smiled. 'I've already thought of that. And I'll take it to the empress myself. I know not why Johanna, but your presence disturbed her. She was very sharp with the abbess after you left the room.'
Janna was impressed. It would take a lot of nerve, she thought, to be sharp with the abbess! 'Will the empress stay long with us?' Janna was hoping there might be another chance to see her.
'I think not. The legate has summoned a church council to be held in Winchestre in a few weeks' time, and the empress means to attend and to make sure that Bishop Henry and the rest of the legation stay true to their promise of support. So I heard her tell the abbess, when she asked that same question. And in truth I think the abbess feels some relief that they will be gone soon – not least about the money she will save if she doesn't have all these extra mouths to feed!' Sister Anne cast a sidelong glance at Janna. 'There is something else I heard, but for the moment it's a secret.'
Janna knew the infirmarian's love of a good gossip. 'I won't breathe a word,' she promised, and crossed her hand over her heart. She'd seen other nuns make the gesture, and it seemed to convince Sister Anne.
'The abbey is well rewarded for the trouble and expense the empress's visit has caused.' Sister Anne paused to savour her news. It would pass around the abbey like wildfire in a wood once it was out.
'How? In what way?'
Sister Anne poked her head closer to Janna, although there was no-one close enough to overhear her words. 'The empress has brought with her a sacred relic, the hand of St James the Apostle!' She drew back with a pleased smile, anticipating Janna's expression of awe and delight.
Janna pulled a wry face. Her experience with the pedlar at St Edith's fair had taught her to be sceptical about such things.
'I saw the reliquary myself!' Sister Anne declared, indignant that Janna should doubt such a holy object. 'It was given to the empress as a marriage gift from her first husband, the emperor of Germany!'
Janna raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
'The empress brought it back to England after the emperor died. I'm not sure why she wasn't allowed to keep it for herself, but she told the abbess that her father, King Henry, gave the sacred hand to Radinges Abbey.' Sister Anne was determined to convince Janna that she spoke the truth.
'How is it that the abbey has parted with such a valuable relic?' In spite of her scepticism, Janna was becoming interested. She knew that such a thing would attract pilgrims from miles around, which in turn would generate a steady income for the abbey that housed it.
'I suspect they did not part with it willingly but, as they are known to support the king's cause, I can't think the empress would be troubled by any objections they might make. I heard her tell the abbess that, although her father, the king, has been dead these past five years, the church to honour him is still being built. She fears that the relic might not be safe there, and so she wishes it housed close to the shrine of St Edith until such time as the building is completed.' Sister Anne beamed with joy at the thought of having such a desirable object in their own abbey.
'There's to be a Dedication Mass tomorrow,' she told Janna. 'Archbishop Theobald will dedicate the shrine to God in honour of St James, and the empress will attend. But I suspect that may be the last we'll see of either of them.'
As Sister Anne had predicted, the empress left straight after the Dedication Mass, closely followed by the archbishop and his entourage. To everyone's disappointment, the delicacies also disappeared from the dinner table, to be replaced by more usual Lenten fare: platters of cod, eels and vegetables.
Once again it was Sister Ursel's turn to read at dinner. 'Today's Rule is titled: "Whether b-brethren who leave the m-monastery should be received again",' she began. As the full import of her words sank in, Janna wished Agnes could be present to hear them.
'If a b-brother who through his own fault leaves the monastery should w-wish to return, let him first p-promise full reparation for his having gone away . . .' Sister Ursel continued. Janna listened intently, so that she could pass on St Benedict's words of wisdom to Agnes. It seemed that there was no bar to her going and she could even return twice, so long as she was prepared to 'make reparation and to be received in the lowest place'. But Agnes was already there, in the lowest place, Janna thought. She could leave, and leave again, but if she left a third time she would not be received back into the abbey. In her heart, Janna was convinced that if Agnes left to marry Will, she would not think of coming back, not even once – but how to get her to leave in the first place? And, after Agnes's deliberate rejection of him on the previous day, would Will be prepared to wait in the hope that she might change her mind?
She sought Agnes out after chapter the next day, to tell her about the reading. It struck her, as she related the message, that she'd had no difficulty in listening to Ursel for the sister had hardly stuttered at all while she read. In fact, Ursel had a new confidence, a lightness and spring in her step that spoke of her joy in her work at the abbey. It was interesting, Janna thought, what a difference it made if you could only believe in yourself. And Ursel was doubly blessed for she believed in God, and now she also believed in her place in the abbey and in her worthiness to worship Him.
But if Sister Ursel had sprung to life like a new shoot in spring, Agnes, by contrast, seemed to be withering into winter. Janna looked at her friend, trying to reconcile Agnes's once cheerful disposition and humorous observations with the downcast demeanour, the air of despair that she now presented to the convent.
'It's not too late. Send Will a message somehow,' she urged. 'Tell him you've changed your mind.'
'But I haven't.' Agnes turned on her heel and hurried out to the garden. Most of the lay sisters were busy there now, for as well as planting new herbs and vegetables there was flax to sow for the fibres which would provide linen for new habits, tow wicks for lamps and oil from the seeds. There was an extra urgency to their tasks, so as to take advantage of a sudden mild spell in the weather.
Janna shrugged as she followed Agnes. She decided to move on into the physic garden, for there was much work
to be done there, too. There was no point in discussing the matter further, she decided. Not when her friend was so blind to the truth, and so determined not to change her mind.
To her surprise, Agnes followed her and crouched beside her to help. 'Do you really think it's too late for me?' she whispered.
Janna looked at her, noticing the red eyes, the shine of tears on a hastily wiped cheek. 'I don't know,' she said honestly.
'If I could only be sure of the right thing to do. If only there was a sign!' Agnes clasped her hands tight together, as if unconsciously praying for the way to be shown to her.
'It's something you have to decide – not God.' Janna tried to soften her words with a smile. 'You surely care for Master Will, for I have seen in the past how you've talked to him and about him. He is a kind man, and he will care for you, I am sure of that. The question you really have to ask yourself is: are you brave enough to leave the abbey and live in the outside world, live as Will's wife and the mother of his children? You might perhaps have a child of your own one day, or even more than one.'
A rosy blush heated Agnes's face. 'I would love to have a child of my own, but it's the thought of lying with a man, being intimate, that worries me,' she confessed. She heaved a despairing sigh. 'I'm afraid, Janna. I'm afraid of how it will be when Will sees me, sees the full extent of my injury. What if he spurns me, turns from me in utter disgust? If I leave the abbey but he won't live with me as my husband, where will I go, what will I do?'
'According to St Benedict's own Rule, you can come back to the abbey.' Janna caught Agnes's hands between her own. 'But that won't happen. It won't!'
Agnes glanced towards the imposing buildings that were her home, and at the walls that surrounded the convent and kept them in, and her face pinched tight. 'Master Will has had my answer. He will not ask again, you said so yourself. And even if he did, how can I answer him when I'm so unsure of him, and so unsure of myself?' She picked up a spade, dug it savagely into the earth and winced as the shock jarred her sore shoulder. 'He'll find someone else. He will not wait. 'Tis better so.'
Janna took a breath, ready to argue, but then thought twice about it. She had interfered enough already, she'd done enough damage. It would all turn out as fate decreed. The sudden image of Godric and Cecily laughing together came into her mind, accompanied by a shaft of misery that stabbed her to the heart. That situation, too, was beyond her control. She would just have to make the best of it, and move on from the abbey.
'God's bones, look at this!' Agnes beckoned Janna over to inspect some new parsley plants which had been reduced to just a few sparse stalks.
'Hares . . . deer . . . rabbits from the king's warren?' Janna looked around for a possible culprit.
'Blighted creatures,' Agnes grumbled.
'But just as worthy in the sight of God as rats, cockroaches and every other obnoxious little pest – including Sister Catherine's dog!'
Agnes's mouth twitched into a reluctant smile. Suddenly she dived sideways and pounced on a small, quivering ball of fur. She scooped it up and opened her hands to Janna's gaze.
'A leveret.' Janna looked down at the baby hare, recalling her time in the forest when Edwin had captured just such a one and they had eaten it. She shuddered, feeling greatly relieved that she had never known so great a hunger since then. She took the hare from Agnes, and gently stroked it. It looked up at her with bright, frightened eyes.
'This isn't the work of just one baby.' Janna swept out a hand to indicate the ravaged parsley bed. 'The rest of its family must have hopped off and left it here.' She cradled the creature against her habit, and kept on stroking its soft fur.
Agnes shrugged. 'We'd better get rid of it, stick it over the wall or something. I'm not wasting my time planting things out if they're just going to be eaten.'
Janna nodded in agreement. Reluctantly, she held the leveret out to Agnes, then suddenly snatched it back again. 'I know something else we could do with it,' she said, and hurriedly stuffed the tiny creature down the front of her habit as the dinner bell sounded.
With dinner over, Janna went once more to Sister Ursel, stealing time out from the garden where she was meant to be working. The nun greeted her with a smile, which grew broader when Janna complimented her on her reading of the Rule.
'In truth, my heart feels so full of the Lord, I . . . I no longer think of how difficult it is to read aloud in the company of the convent,' she said. 'I used to dread it so, and the more anxious I . . . I became, the worse it got.' She hesitated a moment. 'For me, it was always a test of faith,' she confessed. 'I thought that, if I loved the Lord enough, he would f-free me to speak as others do. When it did not happen, I d-doubled and redoubled my efforts, but it seemed to make everything worse. I just got more and more tongue-tied. I thought God had . . . had abandoned me. I thought it was His judgment for . . . for not having enough faith, for not believing in Him. And yet I do, with all my heart!'
'God didn't abandon you. You abandoned yourself.' Janna remembered the heartbroken cries she'd overheard in the church. She was sure that it was Ursel's lack of faith in herself that lay at the heart of her affliction, probably stamped on her by her unhappy childhood. The fact that pages of her manuscript were being stolen and destroyed must have seemed like an extra sign that God had abandoned her.
'You cannot think you've earned God's displeasure, that He has forsaken you, not when He's given you such a marvellous gift,' she said gently. She was coming to realise how lonely Ursel's affliction had made her. If only the nun could have shared these thoughts earlier, so much could have been said and done to give her confidence in her worth and in her work.
'I have something for you.' Janna put her hand down the front of her habit and withdrew the baby hare. It had been lying still, asleep against her heart, but at her touch it jerked awake and struggled in her grasp.
'Ah.' Sister Ursel took the hare from Janna and looked deep into its eyes. Its struggles quietened; it seemed mesmerised by her gaze. She stroked it gently, never taking her attention away from it for one moment. Janna watched them, and smiled.
But her pleasure turned quickly to impatience and irritation as she struggled to read the words Ursel had written on the slate for her to decipher. 'Le renard et le loup vont a la chasse au lapin.' She tried to sound out the words. Something about a fox and a bear? Or was that a wolf? Chasing a rabbit? Learning to read was taking far longer than she'd realised, yet Sister Anne grumbled about her absence from the infirmary and begrudged the time Janna spent away from her own tuition. 'You have more need to learn from me than from Sister Ursel,' she had pointed out, on more than one occasion. 'Your gift lies with healing, not with learning something that scribes are trained to do. Besides, you have no time to waste for there is much to do in the garden now that spring has come.'
Unable to confess the real reason for wanting to learn to read, Janna sought to placate the disgruntled infirmarian. 'I am truly grateful to you for all you are teaching me,' she said. It was the truth. Sister Anne's knowledge was wideranging. In addition, the infirmarian always encouraged Janna to administer the potions and deal with the patients herself, albeit under her watchful eye. This was the practical experience that her mother had never given her, and Janna appreciated the nun's generosity, her willingness to share and to train her new pupil. It seemed to Janna sometimes that her brain would burst with all the new things she was trying to cram into it, but at the same time her confidence in her own ability was growing and she was happy.
At least, she was happy until she thought of Hugh and Godric. Then her heart would sink like a stone to the bottom of a pond; she could imagine mud and slime oozing over it, covering it, burying it in a mire of her own making. She couldn't leave the abbey. She couldn't bear to face them. Nor, if she was honest, was she sure whom she cared about most. The one was too highborn; they could never wed. The other . . .
If Godric had turned his attention to Cecily there was nothing she could do about it other than wish them happin
ess – and Godric's happiness, above all, was what Janna wanted. Why, then, did she feel such a corresponding misery at the thought of him with Cecily, and not her?
She had plans, big plans! Janna sought to bolster her courage. As soon as she managed to read her father's letter, she would leave to find him. She had no use for suitors right now; they would just get in the way, come between her and her quest. She must find her father and ask him to seek justice for the death of her mother, justice against Robert of Babestoche. Until that was done, there was no point even thinking about romance.
Janna sighed as she turned her attention to the sheet of parchment handed to her by Sister Ursel. She began to sound out the words that stopped her, trying to make sense of them. Becoming impatient with her efforts, she read the piece through quickly, and recognised it as the day's Rule that Ursel had read out during dinner. Although she could not recall the reading word for word, she found she could remember enough to guess the words that puzzled her, and so find the meaning of the text. She picked up the metal stylus and began the task of copying out what Ursel had written on the slate.
When Janna next looked up, the hare had vanished. She jerked around on her bench to search the cloister, but there was no sign of it. Janna inspected the nun more closely, detecting then a suspicious lump in the front of Ursel's habit. As she wondered just what she was looking at, the fabric bulged suddenly, and as quickly subsided. Just so had Janna witnessed a child kicking from within a pregnant woman's stomach, and she smiled at the sight. Sister Ursel caught her watchful gaze, and smiled in return. 'I shall call him "Harry",' she said, and went back to carefully smoothing a piece of vellum with a pumice stone in preparation for a new page on the life of St Edith.
EIGHTEEN
WITH THE HIGH holy time of Easter now passed, spring gave way to early summer. The green fuzz on the trees sprouted into pale leaves that darkened into a thick canopy of green. Daffodils and bluebells bloomed and died, corn grew higher and so did the weeds of the cornfields. It was time to scythe the long grass in the water meadows to make hay. Janna wondered if Agnes would go out and brave a meeting with Will, but got a sharp rebuff when she suggested it.
Lilies for Love Page 25
