7 The Prioress' Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  The Prioress’ Tale

  Margaret Frazer

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  The Prioress’ Tale

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 1

  The late-October days had mellowed back toward a memory of summer, warm and clear all of the week since Monday. Only the golden slant of the early-afternoon sunlight—too long and low for any summer’s early afternoon—betrayed how far this year of our Lord’s grace 1439 was gone.

  But it had been a good year, Alys thought as she watched the last of her nuns hasten along the cloister walk ahead of her into the church for the office of None. It was a short office, thank God. As prioress of St. Frideswide’s, she had enough to do without her days being eaten up with time in church.

  As Sister Emma’s skirt tail disappeared through the doorway, Alys paced forward, closing on her heels to hurry her. Alys’ dignity as prioress necessitated she come last to her place, all her nuns standing in their choir stalls waiting until she did. Then she would sit, and when she had, they could. It was a satisfying moment, a reminder to herself and them seven times in every day of who she was and how important, but Alys’ impatience moved her almost invariably to hurry dignity along. Sooner begun, sooner done—that was plain enough, but she seemed to be the only one able to see it. Some of them—and Sister Emma was only the worst—would probably dawdle leaving their graves when the Last Call to God’s Judgment came.

  Behind Alys as she passed from the sunlit cloister walk into the church’s cooler shadows, Sister Johane, who had the duty during the days this week to ring the bell calling them to church, let go the bell rope, duty done, and the bell clappered to merciful quiet in the cloister garth. That bell was among the things Alys had in mind to change. One way or another, she meant to have as sweet a ringing bell there as there had been at home in her girlhood, a bell that was a pleasure to the ear instead of this thud-toned dullard someone had given the priory fifty years ago, probably as a penance for a sin that had been as dull as its tone.

  She mounted the steps that set her choir stall a little above the others and took a short, sharp look along the lines of nuns facing each other in their lower, plainer stalls. Dressed alike in their black Benedictine gowns, black veils, and white wimples, their heads bowed so their faces were hidden, there was no way to tell them apart except in height to anyone who did not know them well, or else knew who stood where, each one to her same place, office after office, day after day, year into year. Alys knew—blessed St. Frideswide and God in heaven, she knew! After twenty-three years in this place she ought to know, and more especially now that they were all hers. She knew not only one from the other but what each one of them was like and how each one of them had to be dealt with. Most of them she had brought to heel since she had become prioress. Some of them had taken to it readily, grateful to have the Rule relaxed, the priory made more fit to live in. Others had had less wit, taken longer to be convinced. Others—well, they had learned to keep their mouths shut better than they had, but she was not done with them yet, she knew.

  She sat down heavily in her stall. In a rustle of skirts and veils her nuns followed her. “Gloria patri,” she declared loudly, to set the office on its way, but she had more to deal with than prayers, and while her tongue turned to the words her mind kept on about the cursed nuns who still fought her on seemingly every little thing. Why couldn’t they see that things were better now than they had been the last years Domina Edith had been prioress? The priory had been dying then, right along with its prioress. Nine nuns and no novices, that was all St. Frideswide’s had been left with when Domina Edith died. That was all there had been for years. With Domina Edith dead and then Sister Lucy, who, God knows, had been more than old enough to die long before she finally did, the place would have been down to seven now, except the poor fools who were left had managed, by God’s grace, to have sense enough to elect her prioress instead of that soft-wit Dame Claire who had been Domina Edith’s choice. God and they had known she had more sense than anyone else in the place and relatives who were worth something more than an occasional petty gift when and if they felt like it, the way it was with everyone else. Within six months of her election to prioress, Alys had brought in a niece and a cousin’s daughter as novices. That had meant their dowries to the priory as well as new interest in it from their families.

  So let those who opposed her remember that she, not they, had been elected—on the first vote, mind it—to be prioress; that she had been the priory’s choice, the saint’s choice, God’s choice; and that because of her, now that her niece and cousin’s girl had taken their vows last year, St. Frideswide’s was back up to nine nuns. Not nearly where it should be, but it was early years yet; she had hopes of talking a great-niece out of one of her nephews before next summer, and there was little Lady Adela, Lord Warenne’s daughter. The girl was a cripple, with a malformed hip and twisted leg, so what else could Lord Warenne expect to do with her except make her a nun? She was not his heir, and he had boarded her here for four years; he might as well pay her dowry over to the nunnery and be done with it. Blessed St. Frideswide knew they could use the money.

  Overhead something heavy fell with a shuddering thud. Heads jerked up from prayer books and words faltered. Alys cast a dark look at her nuns and a darker look toward the northeast corner of the church. Easily audible through the boards fixed over the unfinished door hole there, a man’s voice cursed, the words unclear but the intent plain.

  Sister Cecely smothered a giggle. Sister Amicia caught it from her, and the contagion would have spread except that Alys turned hard, warning eyes on all of them and rose to her feet. Silence, abrupt and utter, fell.

  And well it might. They ought all to be used to that sort of thing by now, and if they were not, they had better learn to be. Heads bowed rapidly under Alys’ look, and although Sister Cecely’s shoulders twitched, it was soundlessly. Alys nodded at Dame Perpetua. As precentor, it was her duty to set right anything that went awry during a service. Obediently, promptly, she took up the service where it had been interrupted, and the rest fell in with her, keeping place despite the mutter of men’s voices that had started up beyond the someday doorway and went on in uneven counterpoint to the women’s chanting.

  Alys had had it out with the masons’ master, Master Porter, when they first came that they were supposed to pause their work during services. He had complained as if they were paid by the hour instead of the job and she were taking the bread out of their mouths by her demand, despite they were fed at the nunnery’s expense day in and day out so long as they were here. She had not heeded him, had had her way. Still, more services than not, they managed one kind of a disturbance or another. And she would swear they made more noise the rest of the time than they had to, with their battering on stone, their heaving of ropes, and shouting.

  But when they were done—and Master Porter had sworn they would be by Advent and he had better see to it they were—St. Frideswide’s would have a tower that would show the countryside they were there and worth the noticing.

 
; Before she was done with it, Alys meant to have a steeple, too, and had told Master Porter to build the tower walls accordingly. That would take a time longer but she would have it, a place besides that cloister pentise to hang the priory bells—and she meant for there to be bells, not just the one. At least three. Five for preference. It would not be soon, she knew. Money came in with snail slowness and went out with discouraging ease, but she had plans—and the will to carry them through, God be thanked, which was more than most people had.

  The smooth linen of her underdress slid comfortably across her shoulders as she shifted from one hipbone to the other. Someday she would wear silk under these black gowns of hers; and though for now she needs must settle for linen, at least it was better linen than the coarse stuff she had had to make do with in Domina Edith’s day. Let the others still wear that if they wanted to, or—more to the point—if their families would not afford them better, since Alys had no intention of raising the sum allowed for clothing yearly, there being too much else the money was needed for. For herself, it was different; she managed best if she was comfortable, thank you, and so it was as much her duty to be comfortable as it was her God-given duty to lead St. Frideswide’s out of the slumped heap Domina Edith had let it fall into.

  Alys had long since admitted to herself, with some relief, that she was not made to be a saint. Some were and that was all very well for them—Sister Thomasine there was well on her way to sainthood, heaven bless her; anyone who knew how many hours she spent in prayer had to know how holy she was; and she was welcome to her hair shirt, too—but God had seen to Alys being made prioress and that was something different from sainthood by a long way and she knew what she meant to make of her duty now that she was.

  There were others who saw it differently, she knew. The ones who were always looking to make trouble of anything she tried to do. Her glance flicked up from her prayer book, hoping to catch one of them out, whispering or some other way inattentive, but every head was bent over their books except for Sister Thomasine whose gaze was turned toward the altar just as always. She had all the offices to heart, no need for her prayer book. She lived for prayer, was here in the church on her knees whenever she had any time away from other duties and even at night when she could have been abed and sleeping, even in winter nights when it was so cold her breath showed in the low glow of the altar lamp. Domina Edim had held her back from such excesses, forbidden her to pray through the night without particular permission, but the girl was half-witted with holiness, so let her pray. Where was the harm? At least she made no trouble while she did. Nor trouble any other time, come to that. Her mind was turned to God and nowhere else. Not like some Alys could all too readily name.

  But naysayers be hung, she would make St. Frideswide’s into a place known for four shires around despite the lot of them. Right now weren’t the granaries as full as this year’s half-decent harvest would provide? None of it had needed to be sold off this time, which put paid to all the fretting some people had made over last year’s necessity to do so. There was a sufficiency of apples and hedge-gathered nuts in the priory storerooms, too, and that lout of a steward had been able to buy almost all she had demanded of him in the way of spices and even rice from his Michaelmas trip to Oxford despite his complaining of the costs. The only lack that needed to be set right before winter was wine. There was hardly a half barrel left, and the way it went anymore, that would not see them through to Christmastide. But Reynold had promised to see to at least another barrel and maybe two being in store by Martinmas. And well he might, considering how much he’d helped in drinking what the priory had had.

  Alys cut off the ungrateful thought. Reynold was her cousin, and the rest of the Godfreys had done more for St. Frideswide’s priory than any other family in a dog’s age. She was not about to begrudge him wine and the hospitality to go with it, no matter who grutched at it.

  A silence among the nuns roused her to realization that she had lost her place in the prayers and that it must be her time to say something. With no notion of where they were, she offered at random, knowing it came somewhere this far along in None, “Redime me, domine.” Redeem me, Lord. “Et miserere mei,” she added firmly. And pity me.

  A continued silence suggested that was not what she was expected to say here. Raking a harsh glare indiscriminately across the faces of the nuns who had dared raise their heads to look at her and the bowed heads of the rest, Alys repeated forcefully, “Redime me, domine! Et miserere mei!”

  Of course it had to be Dame Frevisse who took it up then, out of everyone else’s sheep-headed confusion. Always ready to take the lead, was that one. Her head still lowered in that feigned humility of hers, she answered Alys’s insistence with, “Redime. Pes enim meus stetit in via recta.” Redeem me. For my feet have stood in the right way.

  But at least she had started them moving again. Dame Perpetua answered a little unsurely, “Et miserere,” and they were away again, Alys laying heavily into a final “Redime.” Redeem me, Lord, from this nest of women who had to be led like sheep and gaggled like silly geese every step of the way she took them. She would find a way yet to approach Abbot Gilberd about having Dame Frevisse out of here, into another nunnery. She was the worst of them. If she could be rid of Dame Frevisse, the rest of them would be easy enough to manage. Or easier, anyway.

  Admittedly the woman had finally learned to keep her mouth mostly shut—it seemed even Dame Frevisse could learn her lesson if the penances were hard enough and often enough—but her face still sometimes showed what she was thinking and Alys was tired of seeing it. Or of working to avoid seeing it.

  The problem was that she had no wish to bring Abbot Gilberd in on any matter at all if she could avoid it. St. Frideswide’s was only a priory, and so it had to be a daughter house, subservient to an abbey and not even an abbey of nuns at that, but in St. Frideswide’s case, to St. Bartholomew’s Abbey at Northampton. Domina Edith had made the best of it, but for Alys it rankled. If St. Frideswide’s had been an abbey, its abbess would have been subject to no one in England except the Bishop of Lincoln, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the King himself, so it was a great pity that the widow who had founded and endowed it in the last century had not had wealth or influence enough to make it one. That was a flaw that, given time enough and the chance to be rid of people like Dame Frevisse, Alys meant to correct.

  The problem was that if she gave Abbot Gilberd a chance to ask questions out of the ordinary about St. Frideswide’s, concerning Dame Frevisse to begin with, he was all too likely to go on to asking others; and there were those among her nuns—Dame Frevisse was not the only one, just the worst—who would take a chance like that to make trouble, when just now in particular Alys did not want trouble. Unfortunately that meant she must go on dealing with Dame Frevisse; but if the woman would not bend, then she would have to be broken and that would settle the problem just as well.

  Alys realized she had lost her place in the office again, but it did not matter. Wherever they were, it had gone on long enough. It would be time for Vespers before they had finished at this rate, and she had things to do. Not bothering with whatever everyone else was saying, she raised her voice and declared loudly, “Benedicamus domino deo gratias fidelium animae per misericordiam dei requiescant in pace amen,” and rose to her feet.

  The slower-witted among her nuns fumbled through a few more words of the psalm before joining in the uneven chorus of amens trailing after hers. Alys made an impatient sign of the cross at them, slammed her prayer book shut, and shoved out of her choir stall. There were things to be done, and the sooner they were seen to, the sooner they would be finished. That was how she saw it.

  Chapter 2

  Frevisse came our last among the nuns from the church into the sunlight of the cloister walk. The others were scattering to their different duties, Domina Alys ahead of them all and already well away along the walk, going with her usual heavy-footed purpose as if she would tread down anyone daring to be in her wa
y.

  Drawing in a deep breath of the bright autumn air, Frevisse closed her eyes, both to shut out sight of her prioress and the better to feel the sunlight on her face. She had learned in these three years under Domina Alys’ rule to take and enjoy when they came such small pleasures as a moment in the sunlight and a quiet pause among the daily troubles. There was probably no being rid of Domina Alys this side of the grave: prioresses, like priors and abbots, were elected for life. And the harvest had been bad again this year; there would be hunger among the villagers and likely in the nunnery, too, by spring. And the daily offices of prayer were increasingly badly done, increasingly uncomforting, between the builders’ noise and the prioress’ inattention. It seemed that day by day there was less and less peace to be had anywhere in St. Frideswide’s, but for this moment, here, just now, there was sunlight and quietness; and brief though they both would be, Frevisse had learned that momentary pleasures enjoyed as fully as she could were far better than no pleasures at all. She had come to see them as God’s gift given in God’s way, to be accepted when nothing else seemed being given and nothing else could be understood.

  Time had been when the offices with their beauty of prayers and psalms had been, day in and day out, Frevisse’s greatest pleasure, a sanctuary and sure refuge from the small, unceasing troubles of every day, a time when she could let go of the world and give her mind over entirely toward eternity and God. Now, mangled as they daily were by Domina Alys’ stupidity—

  Frevisse cut the bitter thought short. She had gone that way too many times, never to any use. In the election for a new prioress after Domina Edith’s death, too many of the nuns had separately thought to soothe then-Dame Alys’ temper and ambition by giving her a single vote in the first round of voting and instead they had unwittingly given her the election. Fit retribution for their cowardice, Frevisse thought. Except that the rest of them, the few who had not bent to fear of Dame Alys, were now forced to live under Domina Alys along with the rest.