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“But Mother Julian, I know I am meant to spread His word.” She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “I want to copy the texts into the common tongue, so the people can truly understand them.”
The Prioress beat prayerful fingers against her lips. Heresy. I have a heretic living under my roof. If the Readingtons find out, I will never see another farthing from them. I should never have let her learn her letters.
The girl was still speaking. “I belong here. I know it. And after I reach the shrine, you will know too because God will give me a sign.” Dominica’s face beamed with the kind of faith the Prioress had neither seen nor felt in many years. “Sister Marian will be my witness.”
Sister Marian had always spoiled the girl. “Who will pay for this journey? For your cloak, your food? Who will do your work while you are gone?”
“Sisters Catherine and Barbara and Margaret have said they will bear my load. And Sister Marian said she will pay for my food from her dowry.” She looked defiant. “I won’t eat much.”
“Sister Marian’s dowry belongs to the Priory now.” The Prioress cradled her throbbing head in her hands. What had become of obedience? This was what came of allowing the Sisters to keep lapdogs.
“Please, Mother Julian.” The girl fell to her knees, finally humbled. She tugged at the Prioress’s black habit with ink-stained fingers, nails bitten so close that the garden dirt had nowhere to cling. “I must make this journey.”
Shocked, the Prioress looked into her eyes again. They burned with faith. Or fear.
Suddenly, she could see where this could lead. The girl would never return once she discovered life beyond the walls. She had a shape most would envy, those who were not looking for a cloistered life. If only she’d tumble for the first man who flattered her. She’d come back with a swollen belly and there would be no question of her taking the veil.
Mother Julian sighed. Maybe not. The searing intensity in those blue eyes would be more than most lads would fancy. Well, let it be God’s will. Better she go and take her dangerous ideas with her before the Abbot or the Earl found out, although that would leave the problem of who would do the laundry and the weeding. They could hardly afford to pay a village lass.
“All right. Go. But speak no more of your heresy. If there is a hint of trouble on the journey, you will have no home here when you return, with or without a veil.”
Dominica raised her hands and her eyes to heaven. “Thank you, Heavenly Father.” She ducked her head and scampered out without asking permission to leave.
The Prioress shook her head. No thanks to me for my many kindnesses, she thought. Only to God. Well, God would have the care of her now.
Dominica’s breath burst from her body. Relief lifted her on her toes, almost floating her down the hall. The soft, sure feeling settled over her. God always answered her prayers, even if she had to help Him a little. What the Prioress and Sister Marian did not know about this journey would keep.
Sister Marian sat in the sunny cloister courtyard, teaching Innocent to sit up. Or trying to. Like Dominica, the shaggy black dog was a stray no one else wanted. Hard to love and hard to train.
“She said ‘yes,’ she said ‘yes.’” Dominica swirled Sister around until her black robes billowed. Innocent barked. “I’m going, I’m going.”
“Shhh, hush.” Sister tried to quiet both Dominica and the barking dog, who was running in a circle to catch his too-short tail. That was a trick Dominica had taught him.
“Good boy,” Dominica scratched him behind his one remaining ear. The other was missing. “Don’t worry, Sister.” Dominica hugged her. “Everything will work out. God has told me.”
Sister’s eyes widened and she glanced toward the corridor. “Don’t let Mother Julian hear you say God talks to you.”
Dominica shrugged. No use telling Sister that Mother Julian already knew. “It’s like the scripture says: Knock and it shall be open to you,” she said in Latin.
“And if she hears you spouting Latin, she will change her mind.”
“But if God is trying to speak to us, why shouldn’t we open our ears to hear?”
“Just be sure you aren’t putting your words on God’s lips.”
Dominica sighed. God had given her ears, eyes, and a brain. Surely He expected her to use them. “Anyway, we’re going and when we come back, I shall take my vows.”
Sister sat and gathered Dominica’s fingers in hers. Dominica loved the feel of Sister’s hands. Soft, for they did not have to wash or weed, the fingers of her right hand were set stiffly, permanently, in position to hold the quill. As a child, Dominica had envied Sister the writer’s bump on her middle finger, rubbing her own each day, hoping it would grow.
“Just remember, my child, when God answers our prayers, He may not give us the answer we want.”
“How could there be another answer? My whole life is here.” She loved the ordered, predictable days, the quiet of the chapel, where she could hear the hushed voice of God, the brilliant red, blue and gold ink that illuminated His words. All she ever wanted was to finally, fully belong. To be embraced as a Sister. “I can read better than Sister Margaret and copy better than anyone but you.”
Sister sighed. “You are pushing again, Dominica. There is no guarantee that God will grant you what you seek.”
“Oh, God I am sure of. It is the Prioress who worries me.”
Sister raised her hands in submission. “When you have lived longer, you will be less sure of God. Come, let us gather our things.” She rose, slowly. Her hips were as accustomed to the writing bench as her hands. “We must be ready to leave tomorrow.”
And when they returned, Dominica thought, the message would be safe in the right hands and she would never need to leave her home again.
All that was required was faith. And action.
“We need money, your Lordship.” The Prioress forced her neck to bend in supplication. Humility before Lord Richard did not come easily.
She had trapped him into hearing her petition, approaching after the midday meal, when the Great Hall was still crowded with watching knights, squires and servants so he could not refuse. But the hall was empty now of everything but the smell of boiled mutton. Her stomach growled.
“Why do you want money, Prioress?” Richard asked. Narrow of shoulder and of nose, he slouched in his chair and picked at his ear, then flipped the wax from under his nail. “I thought nuns had no need of worldly things.”
She wondered if he showed such disrespect for all his petitioners. The donation she requested would be no hardship. “Food, ink and funds for the annual pilgrimage, your Lordship.”
“Times are difficult.” Legs crossed, he swung his foot back and forth, studying it intently.
“Your father was a great patron of our work at the Priory,” she reminded him. The old Earl’s tapestries still cloaked Readington’s Great Hall, though since his death, the place seemed colder. She never felt his loss more than when she looked at this dark-haired, sallow-skinned second son. “He promised to support our work of copying the word of God.”
“My father is dead.”
“Which is why I come to you.”
“As you know, it is my brother you must petition. And it is impossible for me to allow that now.”
“We pray for him daily. Does his health improve, your lordship?”
Lord Richard tried to smother his smile with a grave expression. “Well, Prioress, perhaps you had better hurry to finish his Death Book. But, there is always hope.” He snickered. “The mercenary plays palmer for him on the pilgrimage.”
She crossed herself. “The knight who brought your brother back from the dead?” The entire village knew the tale. She had even heard blasphemous talk of him as The Savior.
Lord Richard flopped back in his chair with a pout. “If you believe his account. A man who fights for coin instead of for fealty can scarcely be trusted.”
A curious criticism, she thought, since Lord Richard had managed to avoid fighting in France at all. “A landless knight must do what he can. God works in mysterious ways.”
His lips curved. “Doesn’t He? Well, perhaps your prayers and the mercenary’s visit will soften Saint Larina’s heart to cure the lingering effects of my brother’s wounds.” Boredom saturated his voice. “Who goes to fulfill the perpetual vow this year?”
“Sister Marian.” She hesitated for a moment. “And Dominica.”
Lord Richard uncurled himself, spine straight, feet flat on the floor, and met her eyes for the first time. “The little scribe? Is she old enough to travel?”
Did everyone know the girl could write? Pray God she had said nothing to him about her heretical ideas. “In her seventeenth year, my lord.”
His nose twitched as a weasel’s might. “And still a virgin?”
The Prioress drew herself to her full height. “Do you have so low an opinion of my stewardship?”
“I’ll take that for a ‘yes.’ What does she seek on this pilgrimage?”
Clasping her hands, she considered his curiosity. Perhaps she could use it. “She wants to join the order and she seeks a sign that God approves.”
“Because you do not?”
She assessed him for a moment. There might be a reason to tell him the truth. “No. I do not.”
“Then we have something in common. I have another interest. In the mercenary,” he said. His dark eyes glowed. “My brother’s gratitude seems to extend to perpetual support, as if this Garren were a saint. I would have him see what kind of knave the man really is.”
She already knew what kind of a knave Lord Richard was. No doubt his brother did, as well. The Prioress waited for his proposition. She did not think it would be a pleasant one.
“Offer this Garren money if he will seduce the little virgin. He seems to do anything for a bit of coin. And when she accuses him, we shall each have something we want.”
“Milord, I cannot—”
“You don’t want her to be a nun. Neither do I. And once Garren is disgraced, William will have to throw him out.” He paused, smiling. “If he lives that long. If not, then I’ll be the righteous one. And then I’ll have a few personal tasks for the girl.” His smirk left no doubt that those tasks would take place in the bedchamber. “Don’t worry. She may still do laundry for you, Prioress, in her idle hours.”
“Milord, how can you ask such a thing?” And how could she consider it? Because she was responsible for twenty lives besides Dominica’s. Lives already pledged to God. And when the Earl died, the fate of those lives would rest in Lord Richard’s hands.
“If you do, I might be able to give you the support you need. And a generous incentive to the mercenary for his sin.”
No hint of trouble, she had told the girl. This scheme would assure she never took the vows. Of course, hadn’t she herself wondered, nay, hoped for just such a thing? Perhaps God was answering her unspoken prayers. “And I’m sure your remembrance of the Priory will be generous.”
He laughed, a chittering sound that rattled on the roof of his mouth. “Well, that all depends on how successful you and the Blessed Larina, are, doesn’t it?”
The girl had the Devil’s own eyes. Maybe this was the fate God had meant for her. And the mercenary? He and God could wrestle for his soul.
“I promise nothing,” she said, cautiously. “I can but prepare the table.” And pray for forgiveness.
“I promise nothing, either.” He squinted at her. “Prepare it well.”
Garren, though he had given up God as a lost cause, was still shocked when a nun asked him to violate a virgin.
“Dominica is her name,” the Prioress said, settled in her shabby chamber as if it were a throne room. “Do you know her?”
Speechless, he shook his head.
“Come.” The Prioress beckoned him to the window overlooking the garden. “See for yourself.”
The girl knelt in the dirt, facing away from him. Her hair lay like poured honey in a thick braid down her back. She hummed over her plants, a soothing sound, like the drone of a drowsy bee.
Of its own accord, his heart thumped a little harder. Even from behind she had a pleasing shape. It would not be difficult to take her, but the idea rekindled a sense of outrage he thought long dead.
“I’ll not force her.” He had seen too much force in France. Knights who took vows of chivalry and then took women like rutting boars. The remembrance churned in his stomach. He would starve first.
“Use whatever methods you like.” The Prioress shrugged. “She must not return from this trip a virgin.”
He looked back at the girl, digging up the weeds. He was no knight from a romance, but he had a way with women. Camp followers across France could attest to that. Every woman had a sweet spot if you took time to look. Where would this one’s be? Her shell-like ears? The curve of her neck?
She stood and turned, smiling at him briefly and the purest blue eyes he had ever seen looked into his wretched soul. He felt as transparent as stained glass.
And for a moment, he shook with fear he had never felt before a battle with the French.
He shrugged off the feeling. There was no reason for it. She was not that remarkable. Tall. Rounded breasts. Freckles. A broad brow. Her mouth, the top lip serious, the bottom one with a sensual curve. And an overall air as if she were not quite of this earth.
She turned away and kneeled to weed the next row.
“Why?” He had asked God that question regularly without reply. He didn’t know why he expected a country Prioress to answer.
The Prioress, broad of chest and hip, did not take the question theologically. Her dangling crucifix clanked like a sword as she strode away from the window, out of hearing of the happy hum. “You think me cruel.”
“I have seen war, Mother Julian. Man’s inhumanity is no worse than God’s.” He had a sudden thought. The usual resolution to a tumble with a maid would find him married in a fortnight. “If it is a husband you need, I’m not the one. I cannot support a wife.”
I can barely support myself.
“You will not be asked to marry the girl.”
He eyed a neatly stitched patch on her faded black habit and wondered whether she had the money she promised. “Nor fined.”
“If you had any money you would not be considering my offer. No, not fined, either. God has a different plan.”
God again. The excuse for most of the ill done in the world. Hypocrites like this one had driven him from the Church. “If you do not care for my immortal soul, aren’t you concerned about hers? What will happen to her? Afterward?”
Her eyes flickered over him, as if trying to decide whether he was worthy of an answer. “Her life will go on much as before.”
He doubted that. But the money she offered would be enough for him to give William the gift of the pilgrimage. Enough and more. William would be dead soon. Garren would have no welcome under Richard’s reign. All he owned was his horse and his armor. With England and France at peace, he had no place to go.
With what she offered, and the few coins he had left from France, he might find a corner of England no one else wanted, where he and God could ignore each other.
“Can you pay me now?”
“I’m a Prioress, not a fool. You’ll get your money when you return. If you succeed. Now, will you do it?”
The girl’s happy hum still buzzed in his ear. What was one more sin to a God who punished only the righteous? Besides, the Church didn’t need this one. The Church had already taken enough.
He nodded.
“Sister Marian also goes to the shrine. She knows nothing of this. She wants the girl to fulfill her vow and return to the order.”
“And you do not.”
The Prioress crossed herself. A faint shudder ruffled the edge of her robe. “She is a foundling with the Devil’s own eyes. He can have her back.” Her smile was anything but holy. “And you will be His instrument.”
Chapter Two