A Cloud of Outrageous Blue

by Vesper Stamper

  “Are you sure she took it?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “But wasn’t she shifty?”

  “She was in quite a hurry to leave.”

  “What about the nonsense with that insane Dragon Nun,” Alice continues, “blabbering on about seeing demons? Did anything happen after you left with them?”

  I shudder and recount Felisia’s “prophecy” about Agnes “steering the ship.”

  “That makes horrible sense,” Alice responds. “If any of us had pulled one of Felisia’s stunts, it would have been ten switches,” she muses sardonically. “Oh, Edyth, I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s all right, Alice. What do you want me to do?”

  “You’re going to see Mason tonight, right? Ask him to watch her, even follow her. She won’t suspect him; workers are invisible to her. The three of us will keep an eye on the Anti-Pri and find out what’s she’s up to.”

  * * *

  —

  Between the prayer offices on Monday, we’ve got our paltry morning attempts at keeping the crops going, I’ve got my work at the scriptorium in the afternoon, and in the evenings, I help with the latest spate of sick pilgrims in the infirmary. When I’m exhausted like this, my colors get fuzzy and confusing, as though someone spilled all the paint on the scriptorium floor. I don’t want to make any mistakes.

  The sun lowers. I need a break and a good meal. Alice stabilizes her patients as much as she can, and we ask leave to go to the refectory.

  “Just bring me a little something,” calls Joan, who hasn’t had a break in days.

  Alice and I fall in step, and we hear footsteps following behind. I glance back to see Mason also going in our direction, probably hoping to sweet-talk Cook into yielding something extra for the builders to eat.

  “Ave,” Alice addresses him cautiously over her shoulder. He returns a quick greeting.

  “How is the chapel coming along?” she asks.

  “Slower, now that they’ve got us digging graves, too,” he says. “There are only four of us now. I didn’t come here for that kind of work.”

  “I didn’t exactly come here to deal with pestilence myself,” says Alice. “I wanted to write books and study physic. Edyth’s told you what we’re looking for?”

  “Yes, and I’ve been keeping my eye on Agnes, anyway.” Before Mason passes us to the kitchen door around back, he squeezes my hand. His eyes are lightless. “Whatever she’s doing,” he promises, “we’ll find out.”

  Ahead of us, Agnes enters the refectory with the prioress.

  “You know what’s strange about that?” I mention. “The Pri usually takes her meals in her study.”

  “Let’s sit apart on either end of the refectory so she doesn’t suspect us,” Alice suggests. “We’re going to catch that fox.”

  * * *

  —

  Darkness finally falls. I sneak from the infirmary to the chapel and knock softly. Shrieks pierce through from next door, icy lightning bolts stabbing my eyes, my temples.

  Mason opens the door. “This doesn’t feel terribly romantic,” I half joke.

  “Come inside,” he suggests. “Maybe we won’t hear as much in here.”

  “What about the other builders?”

  “They’re drinking in the old shed,” he says, leading me into the chapel. “They’ll sleep where they are. Don’t worry, we’ll be alone.”

  Alone. That word suddenly feels different to me. We’re alone together every Sunday night, but outside, sitting against the chapel wall, talking, kissing. Alone never had its own color until now, a new edge of magenta glowing against the background of all this fear. Mason lights a fire in the middle of the floor, and this empty chapel feels like home.

  Instinctively we curl up in the bed of straw together and lie there, enjoying the quiet. I feel so safe in here, the rough stone and dust so familiar. I never was meant for sterile places or anodyne routines. I was meant for dirty hands and a homespun dress and a shaggy-haired boy who builds real fires.

  You do something to me, Mason says, and that’s not a bad thing, what I do to him.

  You’re different, he says, and not in ways that make him want to pull my hair or lash my back. Mason fills my mouth with white birds taking flight over the mists, over the feather spirits from the village river, with the taste of beating wings, the rhythm of my own heart.

  I take off my veil and fold it under my cheek. Mason begins unbraiding my hair, and I can hear his breathing deepen. His fingers start to comb out my tangles, but I giggle at the useless effort. “Pretend I’m a wooly sheep instead, Mason,” I say, and we laugh and he buries his face in my hair, pulling me closer, kissing my neck.

  “Edyth, stay here with me. Bring your things from your cell. It’s safe and dry, and I can protect you in here.”

  “What if someone finds out? The last thing we need is someone deciding to take a tour and finding me in here with you.”

  “You mean Agnes? She won’t. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Well then, bar the door, Mason,” I say, with unexpected boldness. “Something tells me we’re about to find a reason for her not to say a word.”

  — 29 —

  Prioress Margaret wasn’t in chapter yesterday. Alice hasn’t seen her, either.

  “She usually helps in the infirmary after nones,” says Alice. “I haven’t heard anything—she said she wouldn’t be leaving the priory again.”

  “Maybe she’s had a visitor or something,” I suggest, as Agnes de Guile takes the seat to preside over the chapter meeting.

  “Prioress Margaret is feeling ill today,” the sub-prioress announces as she waves me over and hands me her books. I hate assisting her, hate touching anything she’s touched. But Felisia hasn’t left the sanctuary in days.

  Why doesn’t Agnes make that damn Dragon come out of the church and do her job?

  “Does Prioress Margaret have the fever?” Alice asks. Everyone dreads the answer.

  “No, sisters, thankfully it’s only a bit of stomach upset. For a rapid recovery, let us pray.”

  After dismissal, I take Alice aside. “Has anyone come to the infirmary for a stomach remedy for the Pri?”

  “Not that I’ve seen. If the leader of our priory had a hangnail, Edyth, I would know,” she whispers. “I think the Anti-Pri’s lying. I’ll go talk to Joan.”

  As I stack Agnes’s books, I casually ask: “Excuse me, Sub-Prioress? I’m helping finish the illuminations for Brother Timothy’s herbal, and a few pages seem to have gotten misplaced since it was brought to the infirmary. You wouldn’t happen to know where they went, would you? I don’t know exactly which ones they were; I’ve counted several times. I just thought I’d ask.”

  “Certainly not,” says Agnes. “As though I keep track of loose papers. Isn’t that a conversa’s job?”

  “Thank you, Sub-Prioress.” I bow, frustrated at not being able to find an answer that’s surely right in front of us.

  One book in Agnes’s stack belongs in the prioress’s study. There’s no servant outside, so I walk in to return it.

  The prioress is curled on a pallet on the floor, barely conscious, an imperfectly used bucket of vomit beside her.

  “Mother! Prioress Margaret!” I rush over to her and want to cry for help, but something tells me to be as covert as possible. “I’ll get Joan.”

  Making sure no one sees me leave, I quietly close the study door and feign nonchalance on my way to the infirmary. I tell Joan about the prioress and take the stack of Brother Timothy’s folios.

  Up in the scriptorium, I carefully collate the pages into alphabetical order. I can tell that something’s out of place, but I need to look closer. I begin again, shuffling the pages and listing each herb.

  Hart’s tongue, I write. Lavender. Licorice. Madder. Mandrake. Mugwort. Myrrh.r />
  Wait—there, between Mandrake and Mugwort—the missing entry is something under M.

  * * *

  —

  Dragon won’t leave the church; she sits there, endlessly moaning her “prophecies.” Agnes has made her a pallet under the watchful gaze of Our Lady. Alice and I stay behind after vespers, duck into the shadows in a side chapel and watch, too. Agnes brings Felisia a small meal, and they whisper together, almost too softly for us to hear, except for a few unmistakable words that fill us with horror.

  We have no choice but to wait there until compline with this secret mission churning our guts. We control our breathing, let tears stream without sobbing, turn our desire to scream into silent, pleading prayers.

  The bell tolls, and Dragon breaks into loud prayers as the nuns file in. Agnes wipes away the nun’s tears and sits by her at the end of the choir stall. Alice and I are going to have to sneak into our places. She goes first, a step at a time, then stops dead. From the dark, I see Agnes staring at Alice, red rage rising in her face.

  It’s safer if I don’t go into the nave at all. I pad through the rear of the apse to the church’s back door, and once I’m out, I run as fast as I can to the stonemasons’ shed. Mason and I lock eyes. I don’t need to say anything. He takes my hand, and we sprint to the chapel.

  “What happened?” he pants.

  “I think Agnes is onto us. Well, I don’t think she saw me, but she spotted Alice coming out of our hiding spot. I’m positive that Agnes knows Alice was spying on her and Dragon.”

  “Are you sure she didn’t see you?”

  “Pretty sure. And, Mason, we know they’re conspiring about something.”

  At that moment, we hear the gravel crunch outside. Mason and I look at the door with horror—we forgot to put the bar across.

  “Behind that stone,” he commands. “Hide. Whoever it is, I’ll take care of it.”

  I huddle behind a half-carved capital up on the chancel and try not to breathe. The door creaks open, and I hear the familiar heavy footfall of the sub-prioress.

  “Stonemason,” she says. “I saw torchlight in here. I’m glad I found you.”

  “Good evening, Sub-Prioress,” he greets her. Only I can detect a slight waver in his voice. “How can I help?”

  “I will need a quantity of stone delivered to the church tonight. I have a project.”

  “How much do you need? What sizes?”

  “Oh, ones that I can lift myself, though I’m stronger than you might suppose. And enough for an area as tall as you are, and again as wide—about one and a half times that. Bring it in the back door and leave it by the side chapel of Saint Christopher.”

  “Happy to,” says Mason. “What is this for, again?”

  “An…object lesson.”

  I hear her start to leave, and raise my head a little. That’s when my foot slips out from under me. Agnes turns, but I see Mason shuffle his feet, trying to mimic the sound. She doesn’t seem to see me.

  “Quick as you can, stonemason,” she says, and goes out into the night.

  “We didn’t bar the door!” I whisper, emerging from my hiding place, fear clouding my sight.

  “I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “I guess she didn’t see me. I’m going to my cell—I can’t risk her finding me in here.” I kiss him quickly and duck out the door.

  Just as I step out, a hand grabs my arm so hard, I see a flash of purple light in the night’s dark. Agnes twists it behind my back and pushes me down the path to the barn where she first whipped me, spitting in my ear the whole way.

  “You simply couldn’t obey, could you?” she seethes. “I tried to help you fit here, but you insist on sneaking around with that boy. Have you learned nothing from me?”

  “I never asked to fit here,” I reply, trying to yank away from her, but God, she is strong.

  “That’s because you come from poor stock, and your family did not impress the proper things upon you. But that could be forgiven. You were simply—how do I say this?—poorly formed.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I grimace as she shoves me against the wall, still wrenching my arm. The goats in the barn wake up and start pacing in their pens, bleating like crying children. “I’m nobody to you.”

  “Why would you question me?” Agnes’s calm voice doesn’t rise a fraction, even as the flail comes down on me and sends me to my knees. She sighs, almost as though she’s bored by having to do this again.

  It’s crazy, what you can be grateful for when you’re being whipped in the dark. For one thing, I’m thankful she let me keep my dress on this time. And for another, it’s getting late, and she seems to be running out of energy for the task.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, she stops.

  “It’s not real, you know,” says Agnes. “That whole tree picture. It’s a fantasy, made up by a dreamer a long time ago. It’s meant to distract you from what matters.”

  Still bent over by the blows, I lift my head in disbelief. “But the comet—you saw it, too. And the carving on your desk.”

  “It was a dead end. People…people died anyway.”

  “But maybe they didn’t have to.”

  The sub-prioress is silent. The animals calm in their pens.

  “Can’t you just stop?” she finally pleads. “Can’t you simply follow the way we do things here? Don’t see the stonemason. Don’t indulge useless visions. It’s simple enough.”

  “I have to find the truth.”

  “Haven’t I been good to you?” she says earnestly, helping me to my feet. “I gave you a privilege, serving in the scriptorium. Girls like you aren’t usually allowed to touch books.”

  My eyes have been clenched so tight, I can barely open them, but I stare her right in the face.

  “Thank you for the privilege,” I sneer.

  She looks me up and down for a moment—and then strikes my jaw so hard, it’s an explosion of violets as I fall into the hay.

  * * *

  —

  When Mason finds me later, the bell is ringing for some middle-of-the-night office. I know my face looks bad, straw adhered to my skin and my tongue swollen in my mouth. Mason lifts me up from the floor and throws my arm over his shoulder. He helps me walk toward the chapel, but I don’t want to go there. I just want to be alone, alone. As he fumbles with the door, I want to punch the stone wall in front of me, but know I’ll regret it.

  So I run.

  I break away from Mason and throw open the calefactory door. The still air on top of my red anger makes me sweat instantly. I push along the wall of the spiral staircase, propelling myself faster to my cell, tears mingling with perspiration, trying not to swoon. The second bell rings, but I don’t care if I miss prayer, even if I’m beaten for it again. I don’t care.

  I slam the door to my cell, and Henry’s clay honey pot wobbles and spills water and field flowers across the desk. I rip off my veil; I hurl my shoes at the wall and roar.

  Off comes this damned dress.

  I tear my hair out of its braids.

  I stand wild-haired in my linen tunic and throw myself, sobbing, against the stone wall.

  Nothing is opening itself up to me. Nothing is in my control.

  Back in my old life, I could talk to people who knew me. I could come and go as I pleased, in and out of the sheepfold, dance around the maypole with whoever I liked. I could pick pears and put a flower behind my ear or weave a whole crown of them and wear it all day. But in this priory, a world away from Hartley Cross, it’s different—what it means to be a peasant’s daughter, with a peasant’s choices.

  — 30 —

  Five sisters are missing from chapter Monday, and everyone’s restless. I show the prioress the wax tablet with the list of announcements. She tries to get through them, but her focus is wavering. She looks u
tterly exhausted.

  “Why don’t you sit, Mother?” I whisper, easing her into her chair.

  “Thank you, daughter,” she responds, weakly placing a hand on my bruised and lacerated jaw. I’ve put on a wimple to try to mask it, but it’s obvious. Should I tell her, in her weakened state, what happened to me? Something tells me she’s already guessed.

  Prioress Margaret struggles through the agenda.

  “Lastly,” she concludes, “Agnes de Guile has something to say to us.” She waves a hand at her sub-prioress. “Go ahead, sister.”

  Agnes rises and stands in the center of the room, surrounded by column capitals full of grotesque creatures, their eyes rolling and tongues sticking out. She takes her time before speaking, looking around the room at each sister, magnifying them like a scribe’s water flask.

  “Let us give thanks that our beloved prioress is feeling well enough to join us today.”

  “Amen,” Bridgit chimes in, loudly.

  “Sisters, in this confusing time, we must look for tokens of clarity,” she continues. “And we have been shown mercy by the provision of two holy offices. First, the revealing of our prophetess, who sits among us even now, enduring terrifying visions on our behalf.” She gestures grandly toward Felisia, who, plucked from her nest in the sanctuary, sits backward on the bench, staring at the wall and moving her lips soundlessly. I glance at the prioress, but she’s just trying hard to sit up straight. Agnes continues.

  “Second, in this very priory, we are favored to be taking on an anchorite.”

  There was an anchorite back home, on the road from Hartley Cross to Saint Gabriel’s Abbey. He lived alone in a roadside chapel, in a room with no doors, only a window where travelers passed food in, and a muddy hole where he dumped out his chamber pot. No companions, no sunshine. The very image makes it hard to breathe. Who would want to do that here?

  “We will celebrate Mass for her today: our very own Alice Palmer.”

  “Alice?” the Pri asks, incredulous. Suddenly she leans forward in her chair, seized by a pain in her side. This can’t be right. My head’s all in a muddle—I jump up to help the prioress, but I want to run and find Alice.