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

by Ann Swinfen

  ‘So that is how you know her.’

  ‘That is how I know her. I took her word when her cousin was killed. And it was she who had your Irish Psaltery hidden away for safety.’

  ‘I see. In that case, I will do all I can to help her, but I think I would have done so in any case. Such a forcing into the religious life is distasteful.’

  All this while, Beatrice Metford had continued with her sewing in silence, only looking up from time to time to glance from one to the other of us. Now she spoke for the first time.

  ‘Of course you will help her, Philip. A woman has as much right to justice and to choose her own life as a man. We are not children.’

  I saw a look flash between them and realised that what she said held more significance than the mere words themselves, but this was a matter into which I had no intention of prying.

  ‘I am grateful, Philip,’ I said, ‘for although I studied as much of the law as was necessary to graduate as a Master, I barely dipped below the surface. If you could draw up a suitable document for the grandfather to sign, I will try to discover whether it will be possible for me to visit him. Mistress Farringdon may know. Emma’s aunt.’

  He nodded. ‘I will do it tomorrow. With the students away I am not much occupied.’

  ‘I ride out to Godstow in two days’ time,’ I said. ‘My excuse – to take a bottle of tawny gold for the illuminated book of hours Emma is making. Why do you not come with me? That way you can ask her any questions that might be necessary.’

  ‘Do you think we would be admitted? Two men, not kin, allowed to visit a novice?’

  ‘In the ordinary way of things, perhaps not, but I have already arranged with the librarian, who is in charge of Emma’s work, that I will bring the ink. You can be presented as her man of law.’

  ‘That may well put a cat amongst these holy doves. Still, if you think we may bring it off, I will come. Perhaps I should wait to draw up the document until I have spoken to her.’

  ‘One other point,’ I said. ‘You mentioned it might count in her favour if force was used. I am not sure about force, but I do know that her stepfather sent her surrounded by an armed escort, rather more than would be necessary for quite a short journey.’

  He nodded. ‘In such a situation it would have been difficult for her to resist. It will help to strengthen our case.’

  I was pleased that he said ‘our’. It seemed he was committed to Emma’s defence. I felt more optimistic than I had done since leaving the abbey, for from what Olney said it seemed that there would be a good case in law to support Emma’s determination to leave the cloister. At least a court should be prepared to hear the case, which was the essential first step.

  ‘Tomorrow I will see whether I can find any precedents,’ Olney said. ‘I am sure there have been other cases of women enclosed against their will, who were able to secure their release.’

  I stood up. ‘I am grateful to you, Philip. If you can make a case, perhaps we can help the girl. There is not much time. She told me that she is expected to make her final vows in less than two weeks’ time.’

  ‘So soon?’ He looked worried. ‘There is no chance of a hearing by then, but we can argue for a delay, especially if we have the grandfather’s support. I have not heard that the abbess is an unreasonable woman.’ He stood up also.

  ‘Not unreasonable, I should say, but a woman of great strength of will, accustomed to being obeyed. And one who would not endure any slight upon her abbey, which this will likely seem.’

  ‘We shall move with great courtesy,’ he said. ‘Stay, will you not sup with us?’

  I smiled. ‘I think you have supped already, Philip. Nay, I thank you, but my sister expects me, I gave her my word.’

  I turned to Mistress Metford. ‘I am sorry to have intruded upon your evening, mistress.’

  ‘You have not intruded, Master Elyot. I am grateful to have met you.’ She rolled up her mending and laid it on the table. ‘I truly hope you are able, between you, to help this girl. It seems to me she has been monstrously ill used.’

  ‘She has,’ I said. ‘But I hope, with Philip’s help, we may be able to set her free.’

  As I stepped outside and turned back toward home, I felt the first tentative drops of rain. They did nothing to dampen my sense that I was on my way to atoning for my previous cowardice.

  * * *

  She could not breathe. There was darkness all around her, a swirling darkness, and she was being tossed round and round like an empty sack, except that she was not empty. Nay, her body was not empty but heavy, encased in clinging, tangled cloth. Her chest was bursting as though it would explode at any moment, yet it felt as though an iron band was tightening around it, holding it closed. That band and her exploding lungs fought each other. She had once watched a wheelwright fit the iron rim round a wooden wheel, and as it cooled it grew tighter and tighter, until it held all the separate parts of the wheel together in its relentless grip.

  Why was she thinking of wheels? She was become a wheel. A wheel, turning and turning.

  At first she did not know what had happened or where she was, but then she realised. She was in the river and she was going to drown. The dog had leapt from her arms. Such a small dog. A small dog would have no chance in this river, a river which was bearing her inexorably along. She opened her mouth to cry, ‘Jocosa!’ and swallowed water. She began to choke. Then she rolled over and for a moment her head was out of the water and she gasped for air, then she went down again. Her thick habit, sodden and heavy, was dragging her deeper.

  It would not be long now, before the end.

  Holy Mary, Mother of God. The words went through her head, but what could the Blessed Mary do for her now, a self-condemned renegade novice? The pain in her chest was almost unbearable. Soon she would grow unconscious, and then it would be over.

  Something struck her hard on the head. Something caught hold of her and held her fast, as it fought against the flow of the current. Why had she ever thought the river was low and quiet, easy to cross? It was a wild beast, determined to devour her, in despite of whatever this was, that was holding her back.

  With the last of her strength she reached up to feel what had hit her. Her hand met wood. Wet. A thick branch, fallen out over the river, with many small branches sprouting from it? Nay, that felt wrong. She struggled to get her arm around it, in case it decided to abandon the battle with the river and let her drift away. With almost the last of her strength she hauled her head and shoulders out of the water and lay across the branch, spitting and retching.

  A fallen branch, and at any moment it might part company with the bank and float away down the river.

  Desperately she scrabbled at the thing until she could get a better hold, then began to inch her way painfully sideways toward the bank.

  It wasn’t a branch, it was a root. The root of one of the riverside willows, projecting out into the river. A blessed root, firmly joined to the trunk of the tree. She lay on her stomach across it, half laughing, half crying. Unlike a fallen branch, it would not part company with the trunk of the tree. If she could just drag herself a few more feet she could scramble on to land.

  She was so weak by now that she almost gave up, but some tiny flame of courage or determination drove her on until she rolled over on the hardened mud of the bank and lay too exhausted to sit up. The hateful bundle was still attached to her waist and had probably helped to drag her down. But Jocosa was gone. She began to weep. It was all her own fault. She should have left the little dog behind, safe in the abbey. John Barnes would have cared for her. Now Jocosa was drowned and no one to blame but herself and her selfish folly.

  How long she lay there, she could not say. Away down river there was a rumble of thunder. Earlier, as they had processed into the church for Vespers, there had been a brief shower, but it was soon over. Now she heard the whisper of a few first drops of rain on the leaves of the willow. The storm, if that was what the thunder presaged, was coming nearer, throwing
down the first threatening handfuls of rain. Suddenly aware of how cold and wet she was, Emma shivered. Her wimple had vanished, along with her veil, snatched away by the river, and her habit clung to her in sodden folds.

  Somehow she managed to drag herself to her feet and peer around at the place where she had fetched up. The dark was still too intense to make out much of her surroundings, although the racing storm clouds overhead occasionally opened enough to permit a little starlight to filter through. There were more willows here, and an undergrowth of low bushes, too indistinct to make out clearly. She was standing on a small patch of rough grass, almost entirely enclosed by these trees and bushes, though she thought she could just see the traces of a riverside path where she had dragged herself ashore.

  She shivered again. If the clothes in her bundle had remained at least partly dry, she should change into them now, for her teeth were beginning to chatter and she was cold, cold to the very bone. How she wished she had stolen a cloak as well. The prolonged hot weather had deceived her into thinking she had no need of one, but she longed for something warm to wrap round her shaking body now.

  The water had swollen the cord around the bundle, so that the knots seemed to have fused together and she broke two nails struggling to prise them apart, but at last the awkward thing fell open. One bit of the hose had worked its way out of the oiled wrapping and was wet, but everything else had remained dry. She squeezed the wet portion to rid it of as much of the water as possible, then struggled out of her soaking habit. She was in two minds what to do with the linen nightshift she had worn underneath. It had been her intention to wear it under the cotte, as she had no shirt, but it was now as sodden as the habit, clinging unpleasantly to her skin. She peeled it off and stood naked and shivering as she unfolded the cotte and hose. Her hands were shaking so much, she had difficulty in dressing, but at last she was clothed again, though the rough fabric rubbed her back painfully, where the scabs left by the beating were not yet healed. The shift she wrung out to rid it of as much of the river as possible, and realised she must take it with her, wet as it was, for the change in the weather meant that later she would need the warmth of an extra layer.

  John Barnes’s cap was a little too large on her shorn head, but it was marvellously comforting, bringing warmth and the memory of one good friend. Her habit she rolled up tightly and pushed under the thickest of the bushes that she could just make out in the intermittent starlight. Then she wrapped up the rest of her bundle, spreading out the shift on one of the bushes to dry, if it might. If the rain held off, yet a while.

  As long as it remained so dark, it seemed foolish to try to continue on her way. She had no idea how far the river had carried her, and while it remained so dark she might stumble into the river again, or twist an ankle feeling her way through the undergrowth. She would wait here until the sky began to lighten a little and she could make out the best way to go.

  There was a sort of hollow cave amongst the bushes – bushes of broom, planta genista, that occasional badge of the royal house of England. Was it fanciful to suppose that was a good omen? Pushing her bundle before her, Emma crawled into the hollow under the broom. If the rain started up again, it would afford some protection. She was shivering a little less now. If only her habit were dry, she could have wrapped it around her for extra warmth.

  She curled up on her side, as much to fight the insidious cold as to rest. It would be unwise to sleep, for when the dawn came she might find that this place was near some cottage or farm, and she must not be taken unawares. Now there was no sound to betray human habitation, no barking of a dog, no noise from beasts of the field. Only the relentless rushing of the river, and the whisper of the leaves overhead. The wind was getting up.

  When she jerked fully awake, she knew she must have slept after all, or half slept, but not for long, since it was as dark as before. What had disturbed her? Then it came again, a rush of wind through the heavy summer foliage, and the hammer of rain like pebbles on the earth, dried hard after weeks of hot weather. She crawled out of the hollow and retrieved her shift. Left lying on the bush, it would only get even wetter. Back under the arching broom, she laid the shift to one side of the place she had flattened here, like a hare’s form. The shift was as wet as before.

  If the rain truly set in, not only the shift would be soaking. Soon everything she was wearing would be sodden as well. How foolish she had been, not to procure a cloak. Even if she had taken another of the oiled cloths, she could have draped it around her shoulders for some protection, but she could not spare the one she had. Were she to eat the food, she still needed it to protect the pages of her unfinished book. It had somehow become important to her to keep them intact.

  Resigned, she decided that she might as well try to sleep. Few people would be about in the morning if the rain continued, and surely she could avoid them. She needed rest. The half drowning had left her exhausted. Yet it was not easy to sleep, now that she had woken once. The ground was very dry and hard, riddled with roots and punctuated with sharp stones, so firmly embedded in the earth that she broke another nail trying to remove one that was digging painfully into her hip.

  Despite the discomfort, eventually sleep overcame her, though her dreams were haunted by frightening images, as if the wall painting of the Last Judgement, which adorned one wall of the abbey church, had come to life. The demons who dragged the sinful down to Hell had burst from the painted image and chased after her in her dream. The entrance to Hell was the gaping mouth of some huge monster, spiked teeth dripping with blood, and the Devil’s imps towed the helpless dead through it and down, down, to flaming fires and bubbling cauldrons of thick oil. The painting had always terrified Emma and now it was come to life in her dreams.

  Suddenly something pushed against her and she woke with a shriek.

  She lay very still, her heart pounding.

  This side of the river, seen from the abbey, appeared mostly uncultivated and wild. So she had assumed there would not be many people about. John Barnes had told her that there used to be a few scattered farms here, but the people had all been wiped out by the Great Pestilence.

  In land abandoned by men, the beasts of the forest would return. Wild boar and wolves, the most fearsome amongst such beasts. Even a fox could have a dangerous bite. And dogs whose owners had perished had turned wild and vicious. She had even encountered one at home, before she had come to Godstow. One of her uncle Farringdon’s men had shot it with an arrow as it was wreaking havoc amongst the chickens.

  With great care she drew herself up into a sitting position. She thought she had once been told that wolves on the whole did not attack people, except the very young or frail. Boar, however, were another matter. One slash of a male boar’s tusks could rip a man’s belly open.

  The creature, whatever it was, pressed against her leg, and whimpered.

  It could not be. Could it?

  Nervously she reached her hand down and found herself touching matted hair, soaking wet – but familiar.

  ‘Jocosa?’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Jocosa!’

  She gathered up the little dog in her arms and clutched her tightly. The dog licked her chin apologetically, as if to show that she had not intended to abandon her mistress.

  ‘How did you escape that terrible river, little one? Oh, I thought I had lost you forever!’

  Jocosa, certain now that she was not going to be scolded, wriggled into a more comfortable position, thereby managing to transfer much of the wet from her fur to the front of Emma’s cotte.

  ‘I suppose dogs know how to swim by instinct,’ Emma said. ‘Somehow you must have contrived to scramble ashore, but I do not know how you managed it, out of that terrible current.’

  Then she remembered that the flow of the water was erratic, some places fast and fierce, in others, small coves hollowed out of the bank, almost tranquil. As Jocosa had leapt from her arms, she had been heading for the bank and must have landed in one of these quieter spots. Afterwards, she must have k
nown by some inexplicable canine sense, that Emma had been borne away down river, and had followed her along the bank.

  ‘Well, little one, I shall keep most of this food for later, but I think you deserve some sustenance after tracing me all this way.’

  Burrowing into the now much smaller bundle, she tore off some chunks of bread and fed them to the dog, who gobbled them down eagerly and looked hopefully at the corner of cheese which was poking out. Emma wrapped it again securely in the end of the oiled cloth, keeping it well away from the manuscript, on which it would leave greasy marks.

  ‘Later,’ she chided Jocosa. ‘We do not know when we may find another meal.’

  Despite the fact that her cotte was now wet all across the chest, Emma felt warmer. She eased herself down on to the least uncomfortable part of the ground and put her arms around the dog. Somehow the appearance of Jocosa, small as she was, had banished the fear and despair she had been feeling before. She was not entirely alone in the world. And the survival of the dog as well as her own escape from the river, seemed like a blessing on her plan, if only she could survive long enough to reach Oxford.

  She would go to her aunt first, but would explain that she intended to find work and earn her own keep. Any work. And she had the pages of the unfinished book of hours. It was, perhaps, a kind of theft, for the parchment was the property of the abbey, although she considered that the copying and illumination were hers, as the product of her own labours. Once she had work, she would buy parchment to replace what she had taken – what she had stolen – and send it to Sister Mildred. She would hand over the pages to Nicholas Elyot. One of his scriveners could finish the book.

  So she argued to herself as her eyes grew heavy with sleep and Jocosa squirmed into a more comfortable position. What she would not articulate to herself, though the thought lurked behind these conscious thoughts, was the hope that Nicholas would allow her to finish the book. No one need know how much had been completed before she left the abbey.