The Novice's Tale (Oxford Medieval Mysteries Book 2)

by Ann Swinfen

  The next morning, however, Emma rose for Prime. Washed hands and face in the lavatorium, freeing her cheeks from the salt stiffening of dried tears, and fell into the procession in her allotted place. During her prayers, if she did not seek forgiveness for her misbehaviour, but help for her intended escape, no one might have detected it from her humble and demure appearance.

  All that day she went about her duties quietly and unobtrusively, worked in the heat of the laundry without complaint, and bowed her head submissively when Sister Mercy scolded her without cause during the novices’ lessons. A slanting glance caught the nun’s triumphant smile, but even then Emma did not reveal by so much as a set mouth that she had noticed.

  Matters continued quietly for another two days, and then Sister Clemence fetched Emma at the end of lessons.

  ‘Mother Abbess wishes to see you, Sister Benedicta,’ she said. ‘You are to come with me now.’

  Emma followed the abbess’s private secretary and personal assistant, with her angular heron’s gait, from the cloister and across the courtyard to the abbess’s lodging, a substantial stone-built house of two storeys and a garret, which would not have disgraced a member of the minor nobility. Sister Clemence led her to the abbess’s study and withdrew, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Abbess de Streteley was seated behind a large desk loaded with papers and books, but Emma did not look at her, She stood quietly with downcast eyes, her hands clasped at her waist, hidden under the fall of the wide sleeves of her habit.

  ‘Well, Sister Benedicta,’ the abbess said, ‘I hope your chastisement has taught you better conduct, and that you will not wilfully disobey the mistress of the novices again.’

  Her voice was clear and steady, somewhat deep for a woman. It carried no overtones of censure or of satisfaction.

  ‘I stand corrected, Reverend Mother,’ Emma said. She did not raise her eyes. The abbess was shrewd and experienced. She might have read something there which did not accord with the humble words.

  ‘You will be well aware,’ the abbess continued, ‘that you have now served your novitiate for somewhat more than the customary twelve months. It is time that you made your final vows. You and Sister Ursula will profess in three weeks’ time.’

  Within her sleeves, Emma clenched her hands together. No more than three weeks to complete her plans.

  ‘Mother,’ she softly, and with every appearance of a submissive novice, ‘I do not believe I have a vocation for the monastic life. I have dwelt amongst you this twelve month. I have kept the offices dutifully, and I have prayed for God’s guidance, but I have not been called. I believe my future must lie outside these walls.’

  She risked looking up. Abbess de Streteley was regarding with an unfathomable expression.

  ‘I am afraid, Sister,’ she said, ‘that you have no choice. You have been placed here by your father as an offering to God. Whatever your will, the terms on which you were placed here cannot be overturned.’

  This was something which had never before been mentioned in Emma’s hearing, and the words fell upon her like the sudden shock of icy water.

  ‘But, Mother,’ she said, startled out of her humble pose, ‘Falkes Malaliver is not my father. And I was brought here at the age of seventeen, far too old to be offered as an oblata, a gift to God.’

  She found that she was shaking. Oblates, children given to the monastic life as infants, could not escape, but surely, nearly a woman grown, she was none such.

  ‘Very well,’ the abbess said patiently, ‘as you wish. He is your stepfather, but he is your legal guardian. He signed the papers which gave you to us. I have them here.’

  She laid her hand on them, its long elegant fingers quite unadorned except for the simple gold ring which marked her marriage to Christ. Emma fixed her eyes on it. She knew that Sister Ursula longed passionately for her own ring to be slipped on to her finger, and in her fervent moments babbled about her marriage in terms that Emma found repellent. As if a human woman, alive now, could consummate a physical marriage with a Man and a God crucified more than thirteen hundred years ago.

  She dragged her mind back from the horror that ring represented to her.

  ‘I signed nothing, Reverend Mother, nor was my consent to this arrangement ever asked.’

  ‘Neither your signature nor your consent was required. Your stepfather acted in your name.’

  Emma could feel the blood rising from her neck and flushing her cheeks, as though the very flesh had been set afire. Between them, her hated stepfather and this abbess had treated her with as little regard as if she were a parcel of land or a gift to the abbey of new candle sticks. Why? She had never understood why Falkes Malaliver had been so immovably set on shutting her away in Godstow, but here was an entirely new puzzle. Why had the abbess agreed to it? She had always found Agnes de Streteley fair minded if strict. What could have induced her to accept a reluctant girl of marriageable age as an oblata? The custom of taking infant oblates into the monastic system was in order to rear them innocent of the secular world, entirely devoted for their entire lives to the Rule and the service of God, although even some senior men of the Church had come to frown on the practice. A seventeen-year-old oblate was an anathema, a mockery of the whole concept.

  She was not sure how long she stood, staring at the abbess, as these rebellious thoughts raced through her head, but at last she clenched her hands together all the more fiercely and managed to assume a look of resignation. Whether the abbess detected its falsity, she could not tell.

  ‘So be it,’ she said dully. ‘Three weeks, you say, Mother?’

  ‘Three weeks.’ The abbess looked relieved. Clearly she was expecting more of an outcry, but Emma had herself in hand now.

  ‘You may return to your duties, Sister Benedicta.’

  ‘Thank you, Mother.’

  Emma made her reverence and walked quietly from the room, the very image of a dutiful novice, soon to be a fully professed nun.

  Out in the court, she drew a deep breath. More than ever, now, she must maintain her pretence of obedience. But before the three weeks had passed, she would leave this prison for ever.

  Chapter Three

  There was this to be said for Warden Durant: when he decided upon an action, he wasted no time about it. What passed between him and his college bursar, I cannot say, but, the day after I had first seen the house in St Mildred Street, workmen were already busy about the place. The old thatch was combed free of birds’ nests and other rubbish, and new thatch, still golden from the field, laid over it. The shutters on the upper floor were repaired and new shutters fixed to the windows on the ground floor. By the time, three days later, that Jordain had rounded up half a dozen students to help clean the inside of the house, a plasterer was at work on the street front, chipping away the old rotten plaster before he could lay on a new coat. The frontage would have an odd blotchy appearance until the new plaster dried enough to be lime washed, but the house would at least be watertight. For the moment that was not a serious concern, since the hot dry weather continued without remission.

  Jordain had secured the services not only of his two failed students who were staying on at Hart Hall, but also of three others who lived near Oxford, together with a former student of his who had taken a position as a clerk in the Guildhall. Like most young men, these six were a great deal happier in the dirt and rough work of repairing the house than in poring over their texts, at any rate while this fine summer weather lasted and they had no wish to be confined to their studies.

  It had not been necessary to carry out my threat to recruit Philip Olney.

  Merton’s acquisitions in Oxford, I discovered, were even more numerous than I had realised, and the college’s wealth would certainly prove of advantage to the Farringdons. Probably the advancement of Merton’s fortunes was due to the shrewdness and decisiveness of William Durant, so that the college now found itself in a situation much to be envied by the other colleges of the university. Durant’s prede
cessor, Robert Trenge, had survived the plague himself, but had watched the swathe which Death cut through his students and Fellows with growing despair. Already elderly, and a gentle, quiet man, he had become a near recluse, turning his back on life and spending much of his time on his knees, where one day he had simply failed to rise.

  Appointed Warden in 1351, William Durant had taken the college in hand, seizing the opportunities offered in the aftermath of the Great Pestilence to buy up properties cheaply in Oxford and in other parts of England. However much he might protest about the lack of villeins to work the land, Merton was well placed to build its fortunes for the future. Between them, Warden and bursar kept a close watch over the college purse. I had been more fortunate than I expected in persuading Master Durant to grant Mistress Farringdon a rent-free house, but it was clear that the more desirable properties in the town had already found paying tenants.

  Jordain’s students worked hard and willingly on the interior of the house, although it must have been unfamiliar labour for them. Most were drawn from the families of minor gentry, from homes where all manual labour was carried out by servants. What they lacked in skill, they made up for in enthusiasm, and after three days of somewhat chaotic effort, the house had been swept clean and every inside wall enthusiastically covered with lime wash, much of which had found its way on to the clothes and persons of these gentlemen labourers.

  ‘All that is needed now is furnishings,’ Jordain said, surveying his students’ work with satisfaction the next morning. ‘I wrote to Mistress Farringdon as soon as you had the promise of a house, and she responded that the farmer with whom they are lodging will bring them and their goods in his cart once all is ready. I think I may send word now.’

  ‘Aye,’ I said, ‘I think you may.’

  Although the land behind the house was still a wilderness, apart from a narrow path cut through the nettles to the well, the house itself had been transformed from the filthy hovel I had first seen. Although it was small, it should suit the three of them very well. The hearth was now fit for cooking, after one of the boys had poked a broomstick up the chimney and brought down several birds’ nests and a barrelful of soot.

  ‘One bed chamber will serve for Mistress Farringdon, the other for the girls,’ I said. ‘The downstairs room at the front is large enough for everyday living. What I do not know,’ I added, ‘is what means they will have for living.’

  ‘Let us settle them in a home of their own,’ he said, ‘and then they may take stock.’

  This was an optimistic view, for they might not have long to take stock before the need for an income became urgent, but I thought my sister Margaret might well be of more help to Mistress Farringdon than the two of us.

  Having surveyed the completed work on the house, we locked the door, a new lock and key having been provided by Merton, and Jordain turned to walk up past St Mildred’s church.

  ‘Do you go my way?’ he said.

  ‘Aye, I shall take my dinner at home, then I am going to ride out the Godstow.’

  As we turned along Brasenose Lane and past the Hall from which it took its name, he gave me an amused glance.

  ‘Surely you have no more business there?’

  ‘Business indeed I have. I am going to see Abbess de Streteley, to propose the production of more illuminated books, like the one I showed you. Their novice has the skills, I have the buyers, and the abbey will benefit from the sales. I am sure she will find the proposal attractive.’

  ‘You may also take the opportunity to tell Sister Benedicta that her aunt will shortly be here in Oxford.’

  ‘I think it unlikely that I shall see Sister Benedicta,’ I said stiffly. ‘All I intend is a meeting with the abbess. However, I will leave word for the novice of her aunt’s arrival.’

  ‘I am sure she will be glad to know that her kin will be safely housed, and not too far away to make an occasional visit to Godstow.’

  ‘It would not be easy for them. Too far to walk, and I doubt they will have the means to hire horses. Though I suppose carts must travel there from Oxford with supplies for the abbey.’

  ‘Perhaps they go by boat, up the Thames,’ he said.

  ‘Indeed they may.’

  We had reached St Mary’s Passage, where we parted, Jordain to head for Hart Hall on the corner of Hammer Hall Lane, I to turn down past St Mary’s to the High Street and my home.

  Early in the afternoon I hired my usual mount from the Mitre Inn, a chestnut gelding called Rufus, and set off through the North Gate on the way to Godstow. There was the usual crowd hampering the passage through the gate, augmented today by a group of people shouting protests outside the door which led to the town prison, an unpretentious lockup which consisted of two rooms over the gate. This was generally used to confine aggressive or incapable drunks, or youths caught brawling in the streets. More serious criminals were held with greater security in the castle. From all I could gather, as I forced my way through to the gate, the offenders in this instance were two lads who had smashed each other’s faces the previous night outside an alehouse in Fish Street. Their separate partisan bands were now close to coming to blows themselves, so I was glad to escape into the wider reaches of St Giles.

  By horse it does not take long to reach Godstow Abbey, but in such hot weather I had no mind to exhaust Rufus by going at more than a walking pace, and I was in no great hurry. My meeting with the abbess – if she would agree to see me – would not take long, so I could be back again in time to close up the shop for the evening. The trees along St Giles drooped in the heat, reminding me that our kitchen garden would need watering if the crops of vegetables were not to wither and perish. There had been no rain for at least three weeks, which might not augur well for the farmers.

  The straggle of houses that stretched out from Oxford along St Giles dwindled away as I reached the Woodstock Road. There the road grew narrower, the trees taller, providing some shade. On my left, beyond a scattering of small farms, some of which belonged to the colleges, I could see the gentle slope down to the water meadows and the occasional glint of sunlit water from the Thames. Jordain was right. It was likely that supplies would often be brought to the abbey along this stretch of the river, a reliable waterway except when frozen in winter or over-filled with spring floods. More reliable than the minor trackway which led off from this good road, passing through Wolvercote to the abbey. I had never ridden it in winter, but I could imagine that it became treacherous with clinging mud, slippery ice, and holes deep enough to break a horse’s leg.

  Today, however, the track was pleasant, especially as much of the way was a tunnel under overarching trees, providing the welcome of a cool green shade. Rufus plodded along, in no more hurry than I was. When the bridge to the abbey enclosure came in sight, he raised his head and quickened his step, as if he recognised it as our goal from previous visits here.

  I dismounted and explained my business to John Barnes, the lay servant who was porter for the abbey.

  ‘If the lady abbess can spare me half an hour,’ I said, ‘I should like to consult with her on a matter of business.’

  Barnes knew very well that my three previous visits had been to Emma Thorgold, but if he thought my request to see the abbess surprising, he did not show it.

  ‘If you will bide here in the gatehouse, Master Elyot,’ he said, ‘I will ask whether Abbess de Streteley is able to see you. You will find a tethering ring for your horse over there, in the shade. Better for the poor beast. I think sometimes they suffer from the heat more than we do. We have the understanding to know that it will end, but how can a mindless beast know that?’

  With this piece of philosophy he took himself off.

  ‘Never mind him,’ I said to Rufus as I tethered him, as directed, in the shade. ‘Mindless beast, indeed!’

  Rufus blew a great gust of hay-scented breath in my face, as if in disgust, then dropped his head to sample some tussocks of juicy grass growing close under the abbey wall. I retreated to the cool
of the stone-built gatehouse and waited until Barnes returned.

  ‘The Reverend Mother will see you now,’ he said, ‘though she may not have a whole half hour. Her assistant, Sister Clemence, will come for you shortly.’

  Sister Clemence and I were, by now, old if slight acquaintances. I wondered whether she would feel obliged to chaperone my meeting with the abbess as she had with the novice. I had no time to reflect on this, for she followed close on the porter’s heels.

  ‘Master Elyot,’ she said, frowning slightly as she looked me up and down. ‘Do I understand that you wish to see the Reverend Mother? Is this further matter concerning the death of William Farringdon?’

  ‘It has no bearing on the death of William Farringdon,’ I said carefully – although perhaps that death had led in a roundabout way to my being here. ‘I wish to discuss with the Reverend Mother the production of holy books.’

  ‘Books?’ she said. ‘I had forgot. You are a bookseller. You have a shop.’

  She made it sound like a disease.

  ‘That is correct,’ I said politely. ‘I both make and sell books. I have already purchased a book of hours made here in the abbey and I am interested in discussing the creation of more.’

  I saw no harm in stating my business to Sister Clemence. It was clear that she was in the abbess’s confidence, and I wanted to make it quite clear that I was not intent on seeing Emma, for that might mean trouble for her.

  I was shown into a lofty, pleasant room whose wide window – glassed, I observed – was open onto the prospect of the abbess’s private flower garden, from which scents, drawn up richly by the day-long sun, flowed pleasantly into the room. Agnes de Streteley rose briefly from behind her desk and acknowledged my presence with a gracious nod.

  ‘Thank you, Sister Clemence,’ she said, in tones of quiet dismissal. ‘Please, Master Elyot, be seated.’

  We both sat as Sister Clemence withdrew, closing the door behind her. It appeared that the abbess did not require a chaperone. Abbess de Streteley and I studied each other with interest. She was a woman perhaps in her late forties, not beautiful, but with a strong, intelligent face and sharp eyes which looked as though they would miss little in this world she ruled. I was encouraged. She seemed likely to listen attentively to what I had to say.