The Apostate's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  “In everything she’s done and almost everything she’s said, she’s been lying to us, yes,” Frevisse agreed.

  Dame Perpetua said with horrified wonder, “It makes me feel so…unclean, just having been near her.”

  Some heads nodded at that, but Frevisse did not feel unclean, only angry. Angry at Sister Cecely for her deceits. Angry at Breredon for his. Angry at the Rowcliffes for less reason but just as surely. Wanting to keep her anger from the other nuns, needing time to work through her own clutter of thoughts and feelings and questions, knowing there would be no keeping curb on their tongues, no matter what Domina Elisabeth had charged her to do, she walked away. With all the new fodder for talk she had given them, the others let her go, their voices rising behind her, and she did not know that Dame Johane had followed her until at the path’s turn at the garden’s far end the younger nun said behind her, uncertainly, “Dame Frevisse?”

  Surprised, Frevisse stopped and turned around. Dame Johane stopped, too, still several yards away, as if unsure she should be there but so openly troubled that Frevisse said with an effort at kindliness, “Yes?”

  Still uncertainly, Dame Johane came forward a few steps, stopped again, and said, “Please, may I talk to you?”

  “Assuredly,” Frevisse said.

  “It’s Cecely.”

  “There’s little you can do for her now except pray she amends in her soul.”

  “I have been. Ever since she left. It’s just…” Dame Johane dropped her voice to barely a hush. “It’s just…is she a heretic?”

  In her surprise, Frevisse said somewhat curtly, “No. A heretic is someone who’s troubled to think about his faith. Has come to wrong conclusions but at least has thought about it. Sister Cecely—” She stopped short. What she had been about to say was maybe too unkind to say straight out to Sister Cecely’s own cousin. Then she decided she did not care and finished bluntly, “I doubt Sister Cecely thinks much about anything at all. She just ‘feels,’ and lets what she feels serve her in place of thought.”

  “I feel, too,” Dame Johane said in a half-whisper, with enough torment in her voice that Frevisse paused over answering her, before finally saying carefully, “We all feel. There’s never a way not to feel. Nor should there be. We were given hearts for a reason. But when our judgment of what’s good or bad comes down to what we ‘feel’ about it, with no thought behind it, then that’s wrong and weak.” She paused again, to be sure of her thought, then went on, “It’s even, possibly, evil. If not in its beginnings, then in what grows from it. Because something grows from everything we do, and we were given minds as well as hearts, that we could judge what we do as well as merely feel it.”

  She was not aware of ever having thought that through before now. Her own surprise at it kept her silent when she had done, and Dame Johane was silent, too, before finally saying softly, “She’s so changed. Cecely. She’s older.”

  Despite that seemed to be away from what they had been saying, Frevisse knew it was not and answered, softly, too, “Her feelings have cost her dearly these past years.”

  Dame Johane gave a sudden, despairing sigh. “What troubles me is that I don’t know how much better I am than she is. Even after my years here, I’m so very far from being holy, and now there’s Cecely come back, and despite how very wrong she’s been, she’s making me look at how far from grace I am, too.”

  “No one is ever far from grace,” Frevisse said quickly. Long years ago she had had very much this same talk with Domina Edith of blessed memory, except she had been the one tormented by her failures and Domina Edith offering answer to her—answer that had stayed a comfort to her in even the driest of spiritual times through all these years afterward. Now she offered it readily to Dame Johane, saying, “What we’re too often far from is willingness to open our self to grace. From willingness to let grace come to us. We keep our minds between it and our hearts.”

  “But it’s giving way to her heart that’s ruined Cecely,” Dame Johane protested.

  “Was it her heart she gave way to, or her lusts?” Frevisse returned. “There is a difference.”

  Dame Johane stared past her with a gaze turned inward, looking at that thought.

  Frevisse found herself going on, “As for our becoming holy—” and stopped, wishing she had not started; but Dame Johane’s look had come back to her, expectant, and so she went on slowly, “I don’t think we have to become ‘holy’ to succeed in our life here. I’m not even certain what ‘holy’ would be for us.”

  “Dame Thomasine.”

  “Yes,” Frevisse granted, still slowly. “But it seems more a gift given to her than something she ‘became.’ I haven’t been given it. I know that. My hope isn’t for holiness, only that I grow enough—can set my roots of faith and belief and love deep enough—that like a deep-rooted plant growing taller than a shallow-rooted one, I finally come as near to God in my mind and soul and heart as I can, no matter how much in the world my body has to be.”

  She stopped. There should have been more to say than that. From the way Dame Johane went on looking at her there was surely need of more, but Frevisse did not know what it was and ducked her head as low as Dame Thomasine so often did, said rather desperately, “Benedicite,” and feeling very insufficient, walked away.

  Chapter 14

  In the next morning’s chapter meeting, Domina Elisabeth told them more fully of Sister Cecely’s treachery and that they must endure with grace until this matter was ended. Then, for a mercy, she added a stricture against talk of Sister Cecely in the cloister.

  “We’ll say what needs to be said and nothing more. If you need to speak of her, the hour of recreation will suffice. Otherwise, let there be nothing said.”

  There was restless shifting by some of the nuns at that, thwarted of how they had meant to spend the day, but Frevisse was grateful. Her own hope was that with Sister Cecely now shut away, the days and Offices would take their right shape again, or as near to a right shape as might be, until whomever Abbot Gilbert sent took Sister Cecely away.

  And, please God, he would take her away.

  Unfortunately, although talk was curbed in the cloister, Frevisse had to go to the guesthall where there would be no escape from the matter of Sister Cecely, and admitting cowardice, she went first down to the kitchen, wanting to hear from Ela how things had been, before she dealt with anyone else.

  “They’re not giving trouble. That much I’ll say for them,” Ela told her. “Master Breredon and his folk keep to his chamber, except when his man comes out to fetch their food or empty the pot. The Rowcliffes leave it at that. For now anyway.”

  “What of Mistress Lawsell? Has she thought of going early? To have her and her daughter away from this?”

  “Can’t. She sent their horses home with a servant. He’s not to be back until week’s end. Odd, though,” Ela said. “She’s not carrying on like I thought she might. Not bothered at all by there being so many men about and only her and her daughter. Doesn’t even keep the girl to their chamber.”

  “Ah,” said Frevisse somewhat shortly. That would most certainly be strange in a mother who wanted her daughter to become a nun, but then, according to Elianor, a nun was not what Mistress Lawsell wanted her to be. In truth, it seemed she wanted it so little that she was willing to set Elianor deliberately among men, assuredly not with intent that anything happen here but probably in plain hope of stirring the girl’s blood, that the body’s lust might persuade where a parent had not.

  It would be interesting, Frevisse thought, to see how that went with Elianor.

  “Now,” said Ela, “about what we’re supposed to feed these folk.”

  All Frevisse could tell her was that when she had raised the matter of feeding their guests in chapter this morning, Domina Elisabeth had said she would send to learn if there was chance of lamb or mutton from the nunnery flocks and if anyone in the village might be willing to sell flour. Until something came of that, Ela would have to do with what was on han
d, with green cheese and brown bread and stretching the oat-pottage to last as best she could.

  That settled, Frevisse gave herself up to the next necessity, sighed heavily, and went up to the hall. The trestle table had been left standing after breakfast, and Rowcliffe and the man Symond were seated on the benches there, the nunnery’s battered old chess set between them. By the captured pieces at his side of the board, Symond was rather thoroughly winning. Neither Jack nor either of the Lawsells was in sight, and the door to Breredon’s room was shut. Other than the guesthall’s Tom clearing ashes from the fireplace, with wood waiting for him to lay a fire ready for tonight’s chill, she had Rowcliffe and Symond to herself and she went, however unwillingly, to stand beside Rowcliffe while he finished moving a bishop to a square that she saw would do him no good against the attack Symond had ready against him. Seemingly not seeing it, Rowcliffe said “There!” in a satisfied voice and followed Symond in rising to his feet to bow to her.

  She gave them both a slight bend of her head in return, but before she could say anything, Rowcliffe demanded, “Have you heard from your abbot yet?”

  With more outward mildness than she inwardly felt, Frevisse answered, “It’s somewhat early in the day for that.”

  “I want to see Edward.”

  “I’ll tell Domina Elisabeth your desire,” Frevisse answered stiffly.

  “This morning. I want to know he’s as well as you say he is.”

  “Ease back, John. She’s God’s servant, not yours, for you to be ordering her to anything,” Symond said half-laughingly, his gaze on Frevisse so that possibly he was reading a-right how near she was to snapping back at Rowcliffe.

  Rowcliffe blew out his breath impatiently but seemingly at himself rather than anyone else for he next said, sounding abashed, “I ask your pardon, my lady. It’s not you I’m angry at. It’s Cecely and maybe Breredon. I want to be mourning my nephews, not having to waste time forestalling that woman’s idiot-doings.”

  Frevisse accepted that apology with another slight bow of her head and said, “We’re as willing as you to have this matter settled and be done with her.”

  Symond laughed outright at that.

  Frevisse looked at him and said, “Please, sir, no one has said what your part in this is, or even your name.”

  He looked surprised. “My part? I’m cousin to all of them.” He nodded at Rowcliffe. “My mother was older sister to John’s father. I’m Symond Hewet, but count as a Rowcliffe in all of this.”

  So she had been right about that, Frevisse thought. They were all Rowcliffes and together “in all of this.”

  “It was to Symond that Guy told his secret,” Rowcliffe said. He gave his cousin a hard stare while adding bitterly, “Then he kept it to himself until she disappeared with Edward.”

  “Guy swore me to secrecy before he told me,” Symond said simply, not noticeably bothered by Rowcliffe’s unspoken but very clear accusation. “He said someone should know the truth, on the chance something ever went to the bad. Then things did go to the bad, and so I told.”

  “Fool of a woman,” Rowcliffe muttered.

  “Wasn’t there something you wanted to do when next you saw—” Symond paused, looking at Frevisse.

  “Dame Frevisse,” she obliged.

  “When next you saw Dame Frevisse?” Symond finished.

  “Ah. Yes.” Frevisse could not tell whether Rowcliffe was relieved to be reminded or irked, but he reached with seeming willingness to the leather purse hung from his belt, brought out several silver coins, and held them out with, “A guest-gift. To help against the cost of all our being here.”

  While the Benedictine Rule required the receiving of guests without asking payment from them, even to the impoverishing of a house, it did not require the impoverishment, and Frevisse took the coins with true thanks, then said, as much to Symond Hewet as to Rowcliffe, “I promise you we’re doing the most we can toward making an end to all this.”

  “Keeping close hold on Cecely the while, I hope,” Symond said with a smile.

  “Very close,” Frevisse said grimly.

  “Good,” snapped Rowcliffe.

  Frevisse suspected his dislike of his cousin’s “wife” went back far further than her present treachery. Maybe it had even underlain Sister Cecely’s choice to flee rather than deal with him. She could never have thought they would find her here, not knowing her flight would bring worse trouble on her by loosing Symond Hewet to tell her secret.

  Leaving the Rowcliffes to their game, she went to knock at Breredon’s shut door. His man opened it warily, then widely when he saw her there. As she entered, Breredon rose from where he had been sitting at the window and bowed to her. The manservant’s wife likewise stood up, sewing in her hands, from where she had been sitting on a stool, to curtsy, and Frevisse asked her, “How are you?”

  “Much bettered, my lady,” the woman said softly, with downcast eyes. She was altogether a soft little woman but cleanly kept in a plain gown and apron and headkerchief, just as her husband looked the proper servant in his plain doublet.

  He had stayed beside the door, and his wife edged away to join him there as Frevisse went toward Breredon. Since yesterday it had crossed her mind to doubt the woman had been truly ill. At the same time she had doubted that Dame Claire would have been deceived, but as somewhere to begin, she said at Breredon, quietly, to keep their talk between themselves, “So, was your servant’s wife truly ill? Or was that another lie to serve your ends here?”

  Openly surprised by the attack, Breredon answered, “No. She was ill. She’s better but not well yet, your infirmarian says.” He dropped his voice even lower than Frevisse’s to add, “She miscarried a child last autumn. It left a shadow on her mind. A melancholy. Then this spring she began to sicken. When I needed a woman with me, to keep an honest front to my dealings with Mistress Rowcliffe…”

  “Sister Cecely,” Frevisse said coldly.

  Breredon acknowledged the correction with a slight bow of his head and continued, “…my man Coll and I thought to make a double purpose in bringing Ida, both for my need and to ask help for her.” He smiled. “For Ida at least it’s gone better than we hoped. Your infirmarian has given her something that seems be easing the melancholy. I think she said something about borage? Would that be it?”

  “Very likely.”

  “Besides, it seems Ida is with child again. That was what had her ill these past three months. But Coll isn’t going to tell her that until he has her safely home again. So,” Breredon shrugged, still smiling, “however it goes with my business here, it’s been to the good for them.”

  “About your ‘business’ here.”

  Breredon’s smile left him. “Ah. That.”

  “That,” Frevisse agreed.

  “I do owe you—your priory and St. Frideswide—my apology.”

  “You do. Both for lying to us and for what you meant to do.”

  He admitted that with another slight bow of his head but said, “Still, I refused to steal her out of here on Easter day, which she first demanded of me. That should count something in my favor.”

  Frevisse immediately saw how Sister Cecely would have purposed that, thinking they would all be too deep into the day to keep close watch on her. She had not counted on Domina Elisabeth taking her in charge. Even had Breredon agreed, there would have been no chance of Cecely’s escaping the prioress’ keeping, but neither she nor Breredon had known that when he refused her, and Frevisse asked bluntly, “Why didn’t you help her away then, as she wanted?”

  “On Easter?” Breredon’s surprise was open. “I’d not do such a thing on that holy of a day.”

  Frevisse held back from asking why he thought any day was acceptable for helping an apostate nun escape into sin again, because she thought she could guess his reason well enough—that if the only way to some worldly gain was through a spiritual wrong, he was willing to it. Or maybe he simply thought that Sister Cecely was so far gone into sin that he would be hardly
adding to it by helping her away, and that whatever sin he did in doing it, he could be rid of later by some manner of payment to his priest or church.

  As if a man’s dealings between himself and God were a merchant’s matter of debt and payment.

  Was it so hard to remember whom Christ had driven from the temple, and why?

  But all that was not to the present point, and she asked curtly, “To where were you to steal her away?”

  “Simply out of here. When I had her well away, then I was to pay her a goodly sum of money and she would hand Neddie over to me with the deed to his manor and warrant to have him in ward and the right of his marriage, and that would be that. What she meant to do afterward she never said.”

  So much for Sister Cecely’s desperate claim to care for her son above all things. If Breredon said true, she had meant to sell the child like merchandise for the sake of her own ends. But, “Did she ever say why she came back here, of all places she might have run to?” Frevisse asked. She meant to ask that of Sister Cecely, too, no more trusting her answer than she meant to trust Breredon’s but hoping that, together, their answers might tell enough.

  Not that Breredon’s answer amounted to much. He made a vague gesture with hands and head and said, “We needed somewhere to meet that wasn’t too near to Wymondham for any search to cross our path. Somewhere no search would think to come, some place well out of the way but somewhere we’d be sure of finding each other and at the same time somewhere she and Neddie would be safe until I came. She said the Rowcliffes would never know to look for her here.” His voice took on a bitter edge. “Fool of a woman.”

  Frevisse did not trouble to tell him that, for all Sister Cecely had known, the Rowcliffes had never heard of St. Frideswide’s, should not have been able to find her here. Instead she said flatly, “It was not chance you were in talk with Sister Cecely in the church the other day.”

  “It was not.”

  “How did you know when she would be there?”

  He smiled friendliwise. “That would be telling.”