Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy

by Stephen Morris

  “Will he ask you to run away with him?” she asked Florina. “Has he some plot to win your father’s approval?” She knit her brow.

  “I don’t know what he has in mind, Seïa. He’s coming to see me! After more than a year! I don’t care what he has in mind! Whatever it is, I still love him and… and…” Florina shrugged, unable to complete her thoughts.

  “Well, what if he does ask you?” Seïa wanted to know. “Would you do it?”

  “Run away with him?” Florina dreamily considered that possibility. “Yes, Seïa, I believe I would. If he asks me, I would marry him even without my father’s blessing!” She hugged herself at the thought. “Why, that would be the most marvelous thing I can imagine, Seïa!” She whirled around, as if dancing with her beloved Damek. “Except, of course,” she came to a stop and wavered, dizzy with her dance, “I would miss you, Seïa. Dreadfully.”

  “I would miss you too.” Seïa hugged Florina. “You are my dearest friend!” Seïa swallowed hard. “But how could you marry someone without your father’s blessing? I don’t understand, Florina.”

  Two weeks flew past the nuns and novices in St. George’s Convent. Each time Florina was given an obedience to assist in or near the kitchens, her heart fluttered in hopes that the scullery girl would have fresh news of Damek. But although the girl would catch Florina’s glance, it was never with a gesture that could mean, “Follow me. He is here and he wants to meet with you.” Florina knew it might take Damek days—even weeks—to reach Prague from her family’s estate on foot, especially if he was running away and trying to avoid being caught. But every day she hoped for some word, some token, some hint of his arrival.

  “Maybe I should use the charm and call the imp,” she thought one night, so excited at the prospect of seeing Damek that she was unable to sleep. “I could have it bring Damek here. Or take me to Damek.” She sat up, ready to swing her legs over the edge of the bed. One of the other novices in the large dormitory stirred in her sleep and turned over.

  Was there any quiet way to summon the imp? Even more dangerous, she now realized, was the likelihood that the imp would twist her words again, no matter how carefully she thought out and formulated her request. Would the imp bring Damek to her safely or would Damek be injured in some way? If the imp took her to Damek, would she ever arrive or would she be lost in some dank wilderness forever?

  Florina slowly sank back down onto the bed.

  “I will just wait for Damek to arrive.” It was too dangerous to use the imp in this case, she decided. “Waiting seems the safest thing to do, after all. But I wish he would hurry!”

  The nun slipped into the sacristy the last week before Christmas, after Compline, the last service of the day. Having lived in the convent nearly all her life, she had memorized its every stone and had no need of a candle to find her way. Hidden by the shadows of the night, no one noticed the darker shadow of the nun’s habit slide along the stone walls of the chapel and into the room where the vestments and liturgical treasures were kept.

  She went directly to the place where the now-empty reliquary was kept and hid it within the folds of her habit, beneath the scapular that reached from her chin to the floor. It took only a second and she was out the door again and creeping silently along the chapel aisles and into the cloister. She turned down the corridor that led to her cell.

  “I will contact the official tomorrow,” she planned. “Or at the latest, the day after. We can arrange a meeting during the holiday festivities, when it will be least likely to be noticed, and he can then return the reliquary to the Roman.” Everything seemed in order.

  Seïa was distracted by the gentle whisper of an older nun’s habit. She had lingered in the dark chapel to pray for her friend Florina, but thought it odd that the nun seemed so intent on secrecy, going alone into the sacristy with no candle after all the other nuns had returned to their cells for the night. She watched the sister dart into the sacristy and emerge moments later, adjusting the folds of her habit. Curiosity roused, she forgot her prayers for Florina.

  “What was she doing in the sacristy? It was too brief a time to set out something for the priest’s use tomorrow morning. It’s almost like… she was taking something.” Was that possible? Surely not. But the nun’s behavior certainly seemed suspicious.

  Nuns and monks are taught to be vigilant. “Every night we sing ‘that awake, we may watch with Christ, and asleep, we may rest in peace,’” Seïa mused. “Keep watch.” She would keep watch to discover what the nun had been doing.

  Christmas Eve finally arrived. The nuns and novices quietly made their way into the chapel for Matins and Lauds, the first services of the day. After the service, the midwinter dawn was beginning to kiss the hilltop and turn the sky from midnight black to steel gray. Stars faded and winked out. Daylight stole over the city, even though the sun was hidden behind thick clouds hugging the horizon.

  Households wakened and began the bustling activity of the last preparations for Christmas. The many guests in the convent also wakened and mixed with the sisters for the simple morning repast. Novices were given their obediences and scattered throughout the convent to care for the guests. The older nuns attended the daily reading of the chapter from their Rule and listened to the daily meditation offered by Mother Deborah before going about their duties. The Rule, read chapter by chapter each day, was read in its entirety in this fashion three times a year.

  Today’s portion was “Chapter 66: Of the Porter of the Monastery” and described the duties and responsibilities of the nun who served as the doorkeeper of the convent. The doorkeeper was charged with locking the doors of the convent each night at curfew, when the Great Silence began, and reopening the gates in the morning. She was to be an older nun and to have a cell near the doors so that she would be able to hear a guest knocking for admittance during the day or to unlock them in case of an emergency at night. Mother Deborah likened to responsibility of the porter to the responsibility each nun had to guard the entrance of her own soul, careful to admit only those thoughts that would please Christ and keep those that would offend him out of their consciousness.

  One nun was particularly aware that the porter would be kept busy on Christmas Day, as guests would be coming to the convent to visit the novices and nuns. Even some of the more aristocratic nuns might be excused to feast with their families in the city. It would be the perfect opportunity to meet briefly with the emperor’s minister and deliver the reliquary to him, and Christmas would be a wonderful opportunity for him to bestow the reliquary again as a gift to the Roman priest. She had been unable to contact him sooner but would have a message delivered to him to expect her sometime tomorrow.

  As the novices scattered to their obediences, the scullery girl found Florina.

  “Damek has arrived!” she whispered excitedly. “He wants to see you!”

  Florina caught herself from exclaiming in surprise and delight. “When? Where?” she was able to gasp.

  “Tomorrow afternoon. During the festivities. At a house where he is hiding in the Little Town.” She described the house to Florina, a wealthy family’s residence whose servants were allowing Damek to stay among them for a few days.

  “Thank you! God bless you!” Florina kissed the girl on the cheek. “When will tomorrow afternoon arrive?” the novice fretted.

  Seïa had been watching the nun who had slunk into the sacristy as carefully as she could without drawing attention. She had noticed nothing else suspicious. She had resisted the temptation to share her surveillance project with Florina, as that would necessitate explaining why she had lingered alone in the chapel that night. There was a tension between the two girls, who had both carefully avoided mentioning Damek. Seïa was sure he hadn’t arrived yet, if only because Florina had not run off with him yet.

  “Why else would he be coming here?” Seïa had decided. “It will only be a few days now and Florina will run away and I will never see her again. She will never be allowed to visit the convent again. Wh
o else will I be able to talk with if she is gone?” The surveillance of the older nun was at least a distraction from the worries she harbored about Florina.

  Florina joined in singing the responses and hymnography of the Christmas services that night and the next morning. The three festival Masses of the convent were splendid occasions at which nuns, novices, servants and guests all mingled and rejoiced in the birth of Christ. Incense hung in the air and drifted throughout the cloister. Laughter bubbled among the sisters and their guests. Wine flowed freely in the refectory and ample food left everyone feeling overfull.

  As the festal meal began, Florina found the opportunity to slip away from the refectory. Even the convent doorkeeper was sharing in the celebration, leaving the front gates unwatched briefly. Quickly, she made her way across the convent and out the doors, pausing only to be sure there was no one lurking about the plaza she needed to cross. The great stacks and piles of stones that filled the construction site provided hiding places to duck behind and around. Florina made her way past the growing cathedral, through the other courtyards of the castle complex and past the hilltop defenses. Some nobility, coming late to greet the emperor and share the royal banquet, glanced her way, but they would assume she was on her way to see her family.

  “Vánoční stromeček! Happy Christmas!” filled the air.

  Thinking she would not be noticed now that the feast was gradually coming to a close and there was nowhere in particular that a nun of her rank was expected to be this afternoon, the nun made her way from the refectory to her cell. Retrieving the reliquary and wrapping it in her habit, she ventured to the convent doors.

  “Happy Christmas, sister!” she and the doorkeeper saluted each other.

  “Stepping outside for some fresh air,” explained the departing nun to the porter.

  “Enjoy the stroll.” The doorkeeper glanced at the sky. “It seems we are to receive a Christmas snow, sister.”

  “Indeed,” the nun agreed, stepping out into the plaza. “It will make for a beautiful city!”

  The nun crossed the plaza and made her way through a side entrance into the castle.

  On the heels of the first nun, another senior nun approached the doorkeeper.

  “Happy Christmas!” They kissed each other on the cheeks.

  “Taking a gift of Christmas alms this year?” asked the doorkeeper.

  “Just as every year,” smiled the nun passing through the door, indicating the small purse in her hand. “The poor, among whom Our Lord chose to be born, should never be forgotten on this great day.”

  “So true, so true,” agreed the doorkeeper.

  The second nun stepped briskly across the plaza, trying to keep up with the nun she was following. Suspicions were beginning to bear fruit, after all. Was this the proof she would need before confronting the thief before the abbess? Her alms for the poor would have to wait until later. She paused at the side door the previous nun had entered and then slipped inside.

  Seïa saw both nuns leave the refectory within moments of each other, each glancing about as if concerned that someone might notice her departure from the feast. She hid behind a pillar and, peeking around the stonework, saw each nun leave the convent.

  “I’ll never be able to follow them now,” she fumed. “What excuse can I give Sister Doorkeeper to justify my stepping into the plaza today?” Besides, two nuns and a novice stepping out in such quick succession was bound to be noticed. She would have to wait before attempting to follow the two others.

  “But how will I know where they have gone?” Seïa wondered. “How will I pick up their trail?”

  The sun was slipping toward the horizon as Florina wept and wailed. She didn’t care who saw or heard her. Stumbling up the road to the castle, she could barely see through her tears. “Why did I go to see Damek today? Why did he want to torture me in this way?” She was sick with heartbreak.

  Florina had found the house where Damek was hiding and been welcomed into the kitchen by the other servants. Damek was sitting there, ready to share the Christmas bounty they had spread out for themselves while the family and their guests feasted in another part of the house.

  Florina was beside herself with joy. They embraced and she sat down to join the humble feast. It was good simply to sit by him. As the meal progressed, Damek told her all the news from the estate: which cows had calved, how many pigs there were, which women had given birth, which children were either walking or speaking now. She could see them all in her mind’s eye and missed them terribly.

  “Your father and mother are well,” Damek reported. “As are your brothers and sister.” He added almost as an afterthought, “They say your father has selected a husband for your sister and will announce the betrothal on Epiphany.”

  Florina clapped her hands in excitement. There was a lull. The feast was over and the household servants drifted from the kitchen, planning on returning to clean up the remains of the celebration later. Some made their way to the family’s dining room to clear away the platters and trays from the more extravagant dinner there.

  “What about you, Damek? How is your family?” Florina finally broke the comfortable silence between them.

  “My family is well,” the boy reported. He took a breath and blurted out, “My father decided I should be wed, Florina. He arranged it all and I was married last month to…”

  “No!” Florina exclaimed. “I don’t want to know! Was it—no, I don’t want to know! Married? How could you?” Tears stung her eyes and streamed down her cheeks.

  “I didn’t want to, Florina,” Damek insisted. “I don’t even like her. But I couldn’t get away, not with all the harvest and the work on the estate. But I came now. I came to ask if you would come away with me, Florina. We can run away to the countryside. Maybe to somewhere outside Bohemia, even. We can run away and be together!”

  “Now?” The idea seemed impossible. “You are married now, Damek! That would be a sin, to run away with a married man! I could never marry you and we would always be sinners!” She pummeled his chest with her fists and collapsed sobbing on the table.

  “Why not?” Damek wanted to know. “We could be married in some other village by a priest who doesn’t know us. It will be all right.”

  “All right?” Florina was shocked. “How can it be all right? You can’t marry a second time, Damek. Even if the priest doesn’t know, God will know! He will know and see and punish us!” She pushed herself away from the table, knocking over one of the benches.

  “But I ran away to come here and be with you!” Damek protested.

  “Well, run away again, Damek! Run away—or run back home! I don’t care which! But run away and leave me alone! I—I don’t want to ever see you again!” Florina stumbled out of the kitchen and somehow found her way out of the house. Not sure of where she was going, she ran down the streets and lanes of the Little Town before discovering herself halfway up the steep road to the castle, the evening star glittering high above her. Today, the winter solstice and shortest day of the year, had also brought a Christmas snow. Flakes danced lazily in the air about her.

  Was Damek following her? She hoped not. She looked back and saw only other people making their way from festivity to festivity. Did she really mean that she never wanted to see him again?

  Yes, she decided. She meant it. She sniffled and bit her lip with grim determination and then used the sleeve of her habit to wipe her face.

  The nun passed the reliquary to the official. She had been waiting for some time while he had extricated himself from a conversation with one of the many foreign diplomats attending the imperial holiday feast. “I trust you will find a way to bestow this yet one more time on the cardinal’s secretary,” she murmured as they kept their appointed rendezvous near the door to the royal banquet hall.

  “Yes, I will,” the official replied testily. “But how can I assure the priest that it will not vanish again? Or might the relic vanish with the reliquary next time?”

  “I have taken
precautions,” the nun told him. “I have washed the reliquary with holy water, which should remove whatever okouzlení or ‘cunning work’ was placed upon it. It should no longer answer to whatever power called it back to the sacristy.”

  “How ironic,” the minister muttered, hiding the reliquary among his sumptuous robes as servants passed to and fro beside them. “Wash the reliquary with holy water to prevent its return to the convent.” He chuckled.

  “Happy Christmas, sister.” He turned back towards the banquet hall.

  “Happy Christmas,” she replied. They nodded to each other in a cursory fashion. He stepped into the hall and she began to walk down the corridor.

  It had been nearly sunset when she left the convent and it was now a snow-filled twilight as she stepped out another side door and into a different plaza than the one before the convent. Enjoying the beauty of the falling snow, she slowly made her way back towards the convent doors.

  Seïa was wandering through the castle hallways, hopelessly lost. She had finally dared to walk up to the convent doorkeeper and say that she would like to go out for a Christmas stroll, and the doorkeeper had given her blessing.

  “Happy Christmas!” They exchanged the customary greeting and Seïa stepped into the midwinter chill. Where had the other two nuns gone? She started walking in what she thought was the right direction. There were servants standing about one of the many doors of the castle, taking a momentary respite from the heat of the royal kitchens. Seïa decided to ask them if they had seen any nuns walk past.

  “Yes,” of the men said, pointing at the castle door. “She went in this door here.”

  “Thank you! Happy Christmas!” She entered the castle.

  “Happy Christmas!” the group of kitchen workers responded.

  But after that, she had no idea of which way to go. Up stairways and down stairways she tramped. She found herself near enough to the kitchens to feel the heat and close enough to the banquet hall to hear the singing. But there was no sign of either nun that she had hoped to follow.