Eleanor looked up sharply and studied the sad, but almost peaceful expression on Anne’s face. “Thus you teach me once again, Anne,” she said and reached out to touch the nun’s hand. “Are we not two sisters together, equal in so many ways before God? Anne and Eleanor, not sub-infirmarian and prioress? Indeed, I need a sister to be my conscience and I have none, either here or in the world. Will you act as that for me?”
“A woman of lowly birth such as I, and a sinful one, conscience to the prioress of Tyndal, the daughter of one of King Henry’s most favored barons?”
“Remember that entrance to Heaven is harder for me than it is for a camel to slip through the eye of a needle. Thus it is arrogant of me, a most lowly creature in the eyes of God, to ask you to act as my companion and conscience. If for no other reason, would you take on the task as a kindness to one of such mean rank in God’s eyes? You have perceptions and nobility of heart that I lack, and I ask with genuine humility for your friendship, unworthy as I may be.”
Anne smiled and gently took Eleanor’s hand in hers. “I am grateful you came to us, Eleanor. I was so very lonely.”
***
Many years later, some of the nuns and monks of Tyndal would swear that they saw a skeletally thin horseman on a very pale horse ride away from the monastery grounds into the forest beyond as the church bells rang for prayer that first evening after Simeon’s death. There were many more that claimed the bells had never sounded quite as sweet as they did the following morning when the first day of true peace dawned over Tyndal Priory.
Bibliography
For those who want to read more about the period, the following are a few of the books I consulted. None of these excellent sources should be blamed for any of my errors. I take sole responsibility for any misreading or misinterpretation of their material. For those inaccuracies, not excusable because this is a fictional work, I apologize profoundly—and I am sure I will hear about them, for which I give genuine thanks in advance.
The Lais of Marie de France trans. by Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby (Penguin, 1999).
Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women by Roberta Gilchrist (Routledge, 1994).
Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England by Margaret Howell (Blackwell, 1998).
Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France by Penelope D. Johnson (University of Chicago Press, 1991).
Religious Life for Women c.1100–c.1350: Fontevraud in England by Berenice Kerr (Clarendon Press, 1999).
The Sanctuary Seeker, A Crowner John Mystery by Bernard Knight (Pocket Books, 1998). (Gives the history of crowners and what they did as well as being a mystery.)
Sex, Dissidence and Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages by Jeffrey Richards (Routledge, 1994).
Women Religious: The Founding of English Nunneries after the Norman Conquest by Sally Thompson (Clarendon Press, 1991).
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