All the Ever Afters

by Danielle Teller

  Fernan jollied me as he did the alewife, and I soon forgave him for shoving me from the horse. As we finished our dinner, I asked him how he had learned to read and write. I had never known anyone but priests and noblemen to be lettered, and I felt the prickings of envy. Fernan did not object to answering my question; indeed, he seemed to relish the sound of his own voice.

  “I learned to read Latin when I was a child in Aquitaine. I grew up on the fringes of the court of Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales . . . He was Prince of Aquitaine too, of course.”

  I knew nothing of Aquitaine or princes, so I held my tongue.

  “When my father was a young knight living in Castile, he was conscripted into service by the prince. As he told it to me, my father took no notice of the quarrel over the Castilian crown, as he had not a drop of Castilian blood in his body. He was a heathen from Granada.”

  My spine stiffened at the word “heathen.”

  “My father was a mercenary. He was a skilled knight, and he served the prince well. Edward of Woodstock was a fierce warrior—as well as a fine leader—and my father admired him.” Fernan paused and glanced out the window. The sunlight made his amber eyes glow bright. When he looked back down at his cup, his eyes seemed an ordinary dull brown, like tiny lanterns that had been extinguished.

  “My father pledged fealty to the prince. He followed Edward to Aquitaine and converted to Christianity. That is how I came to be born in Aquitaine. My father taught me horsemanship and swordsmanship, and the prince allowed me to be educated with boys in his court.” He grinned at me, perhaps aware of both my awe and my defensiveness about my ignorance. “That, laundry girl,” he said, “is how I learned to read and write.”

  “What of your mother?”

  “I never knew her. My father told me that she was godly and fair.”

  “Have you any brothers or sisters?”

  “Nay, none.”

  “How did you come to England?”

  “My father died of consumption. When the prince moved back to England, he brought me with him and left me under the authority of Mother Elfilda, his father’s second cousin.”

  “Why are you not a knight?”

  Fernan smiled and leaned back against the wall, swinging his legs onto the bench. “Is this an inquisition? You should tell me about how you came to be a laundry girl at Aviceford Manor.”

  “I was the second daughter, my mother died, my father couldn’t keep me. I needed to eat.”

  “You might consider embellishing your story just a trifle for the sake of the listener.”

  “I don’t like embellishment. Why are you not a knight?”

  “Being a knight is not just about being able to ride a horse and fight, Agnes. The English consider me to be lowborn.”

  “Even though your father was a knight?”

  “He was not an English knight.”

  “I see. Well then, how did you become a messenger?”

  “Mother Elfilda decided that since I can read, write, ride, and handle a sword, I would make an excellent messenger. And I am good, if I dare say so. I like it too. The work pays well, because of the danger. And I meet so many pretty girls.”

  “Don’t tease.” My voice sounded severe to my own ears. “What danger?”

  “I could get saddle sores.”

  “A tender arse is indeed a handicap.”

  “Whatever happened to ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’?”

  “I am a lady’s maid now. And you are not so much older than me . . . Sir.”

  He laughed, baring his gleaming teeth. “You are not as staid as you pretend!”

  I opened my mouth to ask another question, but he cut me off, saying, “We should be going. We have hours yet to ride, and you don’t seem to run out of questions!” When he slapped tenpence on the board, my expression must have betrayed my thoughts, for he laughed again, saying, “I told you that I am well paid!”

  We rode the rest of the way mostly in silence, and I was content to be left to my own happy thoughts. God had opened a window for me, and I flew forth like an arrow, growing dizzy with my rise. Already the manor seemed like a dark blot far beneath me.

  As we neared the abbey, the trees grew thicker and more wild. Ellis Abbey was built on Ellismere Island, which was not truly an island, for it attached to the shore of the lake by a thin isthmus. The island was thickly forested, an empty wilderness except for the abbey and a hunting lodge owned by the king.

  We were nearly upon the abbey when it came into view. The entire compound was enclosed by a massive stone wall that could have served as fortification for a castle; beyond the enclosure, alabaster spires soared to the sky like pale fingers stretching toward heaven. The lake was a dark mirror, a reflection of the blue sky and soft clouds, and it seemed that the Kingdom of God was everywhere around us, just beyond reach.

  My heart quickened as we passed through the shadow of the open gate. Over the crown of the arch, three words were carved deeply into the moss-blackened stone.

  “What is written there?” I asked.

  “It says, ‘Welcome, Cinder Girl!’”

  I didn’t gratify him with a laugh, and he couldn’t see my smile.

  The abbey was built so that the first view encountered by a visitor was of a road, perfectly straight, flanked by rows of magnificent elm trees. At the end of the road, framed by the elms, was the ghostly face of the church. High walls and a vaulted stone roof were supported by swooping flying buttresses, giving the appearance of a white bird about to take flight. The outside wall of the nave was adorned with a rose window and steeply pointed lancets alternating with decorative arcading. The church did not seem high-wrought, but airy and graceful, aspiring skyward.

  We did not take the road toward the church, but turned aside, toward the stable. We passed a rose garden and a fishpond, and then a field of brilliant purple lavender. My most fevered imaginings could not have matched the beauty of the place.

  Fernan left Perla with the stableboy and ushered me with my small bundle toward the dormitory, a long building that enclosed one side of the cloister behind the church. “You had better clean yourself while I inquire about whether Mother Elfilda might receive you,” he said.

  I had washed my face in the rain barrel that morning, but no matter, I was not going to argue. Fernan left me at the entrance of the dormitory and told me to wait while he sent one of the sisters to help me. I sat on the stoop, inhaling the sweet, hot scent of summer, watching bees drone drunkenly from one clover to the next. The queasy fluttering in my stomach settled; I was too happy to be worried.

  I took the stones out of my bundle and held the most treasured ones in my hand. I thought of myself as grown up, but I had yet to put all childish things aside. I had not added to the collection since the day I left home, as any association with the manor would only tarnish it. While the green stone was always my favorite, on this day the white stone seemed almost as precious. It was small and many-faceted, and it glittered in the sunlight. The stone, in its simplicity and inconsequence, seemed as much an inspiration to modesty and purity as the abbey itself.

  I nearly fell backward when a nun opened the door behind me; my pebbles clattered on the flagstones as I hastened to kneel.

  “Get up, then. I’ve come to give you a bath. I am Sister Marjorie.” Her voice rasped like dry leaves. “Follow me.”

  I scrambled to gather my belongings and followed the shuffling nun into a sunlit arcade. The stone floor was worn to a smooth polish in the most trafficked areas; to one side stood a wall of columns, clusters of slender, dark marble stems surrounding fluted central pillars. Slanting shafts of light created shadow doubles of the columns on the floor separated by bright arches. Sister Marjorie’s white veil glowed when she passed through the luminous half-moons. The sound of falling water came from the cloister, and I glimpsed a fountain and a profusion of flowers before we entered the dormitory. I wondered why such a magical place would be deserted.

  Sister Marjorie led me slowly
from one end of the long dorter to the other. She was so short that from the back, she would have looked like a child were it not for the stoop of her shoulders. Besides mattresses lining each wall, the enormous room was empty of furniture and clean as a pin. The floor was strewn with fresh rushes, the walls were free of black woodsmoke stains, and sweet air blew from open windows. Trees growing near the casements dappled everything with light and pearl gray shadow that shimmered when the wind blew. The dormitory seemed a comfortably cool place to sleep, though I would discover in winter that the cold could bite, for there was no fireplace.

  At the far end of the dorter was the warming room; fires were allowed there, but none was lit on such a warm summer day. The windows were mere slits near the ceiling, better suited to letting smoke and steam escape than allowing sunlight to enter. Whitewashed walls, the scent of rosewater, and two fat, gleaming copper tubs made the room inviting despite the dim light. One of the tubs was still filled with unheated gray water; on the surface, a film of soap scum made lazy swirls.

  “Leave your dress on the floor. I shall bring you a clean frock.” The nun handed me a lump of soap and padded slowly to a linen chest.

  With a shiver of pleasure, I remembered that I would not have to do the laundry. I said a silent prayer of thanks, for I could scarcely believe my good fortune. I tossed aside my clothing and climbed into the tub; I was too tall to fit properly, and with my knees folded near my ears, I must have looked like a giant cricket.

  A few rays of sunlight angled steeply across the warming room, plucking golden notes from the burnished belly of the empty copper tub next to mine. I watched as a spider lowered itself toward the tub on a wisp of thread. It became transfixed in the path of a sunbeam and froze, spinning perilously, so I reached over and broke its web with my finger, lowering it safely to the floorboards. “Godspeed!” I whispered as it darted into the shadows.

  Sister Marjorie returned carrying a scrub brush and a gray woolen gown very like her own habit. I did not like the idea of being scrubbed or having to wear such a hot, itchy frock, but I was too happy to really mind. Frail as she appeared, the nun was plenty strong enough to scour me to a bright pink. She informed me that weekly baths were expected at the abbey. This was not as bad as it might sound, for in the winter, though the water in the tub did not stay hot for long, the warming room was cozy with a cheerful fire. Also, once the sisters trusted me to clean myself properly, I was allowed to scrub myself.

  Sister Marjorie spoke little; she did not even ask my name. I imagined that at her age, her thoughts were drawn toward the world to come. I dressed in the clean linen chemise from my bundle and the gray frock, which was as disagreeable as it looked. The elderly sister then took me back through the dorter and into the cloister.

  The cloister was no longer deserted. A dozen nuns sat upon stone benches or strolled silently along the paths that separated four flower gardens. The paths met in the center of the cloister, where a three-tiered fountain splashed water into a quatrefoil basin of polished black stone. The gardens were full of color at that time of year, flush with pink roses, yellowwort, purple foxglove, mauve centaury.

  The ebb and flow of gray-clad vestals in the cloister would become familiar to me in time. Their days, like the phases of the moon, slipped by with quiet regularity. Each nun was assigned her own work to keep the abbey functioning, but everything, even sleep, came second to prayer. Matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline were divine duty, prayers that marked the passage of the hours and gave meaning to each day. When the bell sounded its sonorous peal, the abbey, like a beast with one single heart and mind, fell at once into worship.

  Sister Marjorie approached one of the other nuns in the cloister. They murmured quietly, the taller nun bending to hear, their veils drooping together, hiding their faces. Sister Marjorie pointed at me and then beckoned me to approach. The other nun had a round face, and her smooth cheeks dimpled when she smiled at me. “My name is Sister Marjorie also,” she said. “That will make it easy for you to remember. The sisters call me Marge. What is your name, dear?”

  “My name is Agnes, Sister.”

  “That is a lovely, holy name. Sister Marjorie tells me that I am to take you to meet Mother Elfilda in the chapter house.” She looked at me appraisingly. “Do you know proper manners for an audience with the abbess?”

  “No, Sister.” I swallowed nervously.

  “Come with me. We shall wait in the vestibule of the chapter house, and I shall explain what you need to do.”

  We crossed the cloister to a faceted round building with a vaulted roof. It was nearly as ornate as the church, with towering stained-glass lancets and decorative moldings. The nun ushered me into a dark, cool anteroom and indicated that I should sit on a stone bench that jutted from the wall. Low voices from the inner chamber drifted toward us, but I could not make out any words. While we waited, several laymen wearing country clothes arrived and sat in patient silence across from us. I recognized one of them as the reeve from Aviceford Manor; he must have had a special petition for the abbess.

  Sister Marjorie bent her freckled face toward me and instructed me in a barely audible whisper. “When you enter the chamber, kneel in the doorway, and then progress to the middle of the chamber, where you must kneel again. Do not move unless Mother Elfilda beckons you forward. When the prioress tells you to stop, kneel again and wait until you are spoken to. When you are requested to speak, always begin with a greeting. Bow on each occasion you are asked to speak. Do you understand?”

  I felt a stab of doubt; I was not sure that I had followed what she had said, and it was all foreign to me, but I nodded anyway.

  “Now, sit quietly,” she whispered. “Someone will come for you when they are ready. The prioress is fitting you in between appointments, so it will be a quick audience.” She smiled at me encouragingly and then crept away, leaving me alone.

  It felt like hours before the heavy chapter house door swung open and a group of sisters swept out, their white veils billowing behind them. One of them signaled to me that I should enter, so I edged uncertainly toward the door as they filed past. When I reached the threshold, I knelt and looked up. I had a fleeting, fanciful idea that I had entered a jeweled forest. Colors from the stained glass mixed with shadows in a way that reminded me of light filtered through a canopy of trees, and the ceiling was so distant and dark that it might not have been there at all. At the far end of the room was a dais, and upon the dais, in an ornately carved chair, sat the abbess. The prioress stood stiffly next to her, vigilant and obedient. Over the top of a brass lectern in the shape of an eagle, the tip of a quill bobbed; the nun who wrote with the quill was short enough to be invisible to me.

  Mother Elfilda motioned to me with her hand, and I moved to the center of the chamber and knelt again as I had been told to do. The prioress clucked impatiently and said, “Come here, girl! You are not a tortoise.”

  I approached the dais, kneeling for the third time. Mother Elfilda was tiny and delicate, like a child pretending to be king on her father’s throne. Her exquisite features might have been carved from alabaster, so white and still was her face. She wore the same gray habit and spotless wimple as the other nuns, though her veil was longer, and a heavy gold cross hung from her neck. I could tell from the fine, pale arches of her eyebrows that she was fair, and her eyes were the color of robins’ eggs.

  “Who might this be?” Mother Elfilda’s voice had the pure timbre of a Sanctus bell.

  I was not sure whether she had addressed me, but as the prioress glared at me with her close-set dark eyes, I croaked a nervous reply. “God bless you, my lady, I am Agnes come from Aviceford Manor to work as a chambermaid.”

  “Chambermaid? But there are no ladies’ maids at Aviceford. Oh—you must be the one sent to help Mary with Rose House. You know how to clean properly, I hope? The work at Rose House is not heavy, but you can help in the laundry if you have spare time.”

  That I was not to be a lady�
�s maid felt like a truth I had known all along but had been too stupid to acknowledge. Of course the laundress had exaggerated the desirability of the post in order to make me feel worse for not being able to take it. Why had it not occurred to me before? She would have wanted the post for herself if it had truly been so good. I had come to the abbey to do the same sort of work that I had done at the manor, and the laundress would know it. The cow.

  “Take her to Mary so that she can be settled. God be with you, Agnes.”

  I bowed and took several steps backward before another nun grasped my elbow and escorted me outside. Why had I made such a stupid presumption? Worse, why had I made my presumption known? The abbess seemed to have disregarded my ignorant comment, but I wanted to reach back through time and snatch my words from the air. I cringed when I imagined Fernan discovering my mistake, and then I cringed again when I realized that he had already known the truth when I boasted about being a lady’s maid. He had, after all, been the deliverer of the message.

  Humiliation is felt most sharply in youth, and it is hard for me now to understand why Elisabeth’s deception was so painful to my young self. I did suffer. Eventually, I consoled myself that I was out of the manor, and the abbey was near to paradise itself. I decided that humiliation was my punishment for the sin of pride, which I should tear from my soul by its roots.

  7

  Rose House

  Mary was in charge of maintaining the residential building, otherwise known as Rose House, one of many outbuildings in the abbey’s compound. Due to its isolation, the abbey had to be self-sufficient, and the outbuildings included an infirmary, a guesthouse, a bakery, a brewery, workshops, a laundry, and, of course, barns, stables, a henhouse, and a pigsty. Beyond those buildings lay vegetable gardens, orchards, modest grain fields, and a mill where the nuns ground their own wheat.