by Jill Barnett
Sofia nodded, rocking from the toes to her heels and back to her toes again.
“Filled the birdbath?”
“Aye. After I did the morning dishes so Sister Mary could read to the village children. I cleaned out the stable stalls and put in new hay so Sister Bertrice could help with the shearing, is that not right, sister?” She looked to Bertrice.
“Aye. She did a fine job at it, too.”
“I took the grain to the mill so Sister Alice can grind it and I fed the fish in the pond, without anyone even asking me to.” Sofia waited.
Sister Judith looked thoughtful. She glanced back at Sofia, gave a sharp nod of her head. “Fine. Here.” She handed Sofia a pile of sheep skins. “Go wash these and set them out to dry.”
Sofia took the skins. “And then?”
Judith sighed. “And then you can go into the chapel and pray first for Divine guidance and understanding of the meaning of the words . . . nay, nil and naught, and then you may pray that the Good Lord gives me patience so I do not have you chained to the wall with a rag stuck in your mouth. Now off with you!”
But Sofia had more devices up her sleeves. She could argue to a fine point the reason why, from her perspective, that giving in to her wants would be beneficial to all, which she did, for the next three evening meals.
“What would happen if outlaws decided to attack the convent?” Sofia asked. “Who would protect you?”
All the nuns looked at her and said in unison, “The Good Lord.”
“Suppose Viking raiders came down from the north and burned the convent, pillaging and raiding?”
“This is the thirteenth century, not the tenth,” Judith said in a wry tone. “The likelihood of a Viking raid in Leicestershire is about as probable as the likelihood that you, Sofia, will convince me to make you into a warrior.”
The nuns all giggled.
But that did not stop her. The very next day she heard that the prioress was indisposed with a toothache. She burst into the dining room, where Judith lay atop the table while Sister Alice had her knee braced on a bench and was tugging on the bad tooth with a set of iron clamps.
Sofia elbowed her way in front of Sister Alice. “Here. My strength has improved vastly from all my chores, especially carrying those water buckets. Let me try.”
“Mmmmmfph!” Judith started to shake her head and tried to sit up.
Sofia shoved her down with one hand. “’Twill be fine. You shall see.” She gritted her own teeth together, grasped the clamps in both hands and pulled back with all her might.
The tooth came out so swiftly that Sofia flew backward and ended up sprawled on the hard floor. She looked at the clamps, then held them up, smiling. “See there? ’Tis out!”
Sister Judith sat up slowly, her hand on her jaw, then she looked at Alice. “Remove her . . . now!”
Alice all but dragged Sofia from the room.
It was late, well after Sofia had heard Sister Katherine’s key click the lock on her door that she heard the same click again.
There was a quiet rapping and she sat up in her bed and swiped the hair from her sleepy eyes. “Aye? Come in.”
The door opened and Sister Judith stood before her.
They looked at each other in silence for a moment, then Sofia asked, “How is your mouth?”
“Better,” Judith said gruffly. “Now that the tooth is out.”
“Oh.” Sofia stared at her hands.
“Stand up, girl. Look me in the eye.”
Sofia threw back the blanket and rose, then stood with her shoulders back.
Judith had hobbled outside of the door, then she came back in dragging one end of a wooden trunk that she dropped with a hard thud. “Open it”
Sofia knelt down and unlatched the trunk lid. She opened it.
Inside the trunk was chain mail.
Sofia looked up at Judith.
“’Tis my mail inside there.”
Her heart was suddenly pounding in her chest. Oh, she had won! She had won!
Judith limped over to the trunk and took out a long mail coat. She looked at Sofia, then casually tossed it to her.
Sofia reached out to catch it. The mail coat hit her in the torso and she fell back flat on the floor with a grunt, the incredibly heavy mail atop her. “Sweet Mary and Joseph! ’Tis heavy as stone!”
Judith crossed her arms and looked down at her. “Aye. That it is. And inside the trunk are mail leggings, cowl, mittens, boots, and a leather aketon for protection underneath.”
“Good Lord . . . ” Sofia muttered.
The tall sister looked down at Sofia, lying on the hard wooden floor under the weight of only one piece of chain mail. “I shall leave these with you, Sofia.” She moved toward the door and then turned. “When you can wear the mail and move freely, I will gladly teach you what I know.”
Chapter 24
Sofia began by carrying the water buckets up the steep hill to the birdbath not merely once a day, but twice, morning and afternoon. The first day her face was so hot it felt as if her skin were burning up. Sweat dripped into her line of vision, making her wobble under the weight of the yoke from which hung the buckets filled with water.
Lord, who would have thought that water could be so heavy?
But she kept moving, up and up, the water sloshing back and forth as the yoke across her shoulders sank more deeply into her neck. She collapsed at the top, gasping. Then, when she found some air, she just sat there staring down at the bottom of that hill. She did not smile. She wanted to, but she had no strength left to lift even the corners of her mouth.
But she had begun.
It took three days before she could make the climb without stopping to catch her breath. The sisters had started to gather at the base of the hill to watch her. Just Katherine and Alice at first, then others.
A week later she was traipsing up that hill three times daily. And the nuns were clapping their hands to the timing of her steps. Every night before she went to sleep, she donned the chain mail and walked around her small room, first in the coat, soon with the cowl and the coat.
Her appetite increased and she ate as if she had been starved, sometimes waking in the middle of the night with her belly crying out for food, so she took to filling a cloth bundle with bread and cheese that she kept under her bed.
A fortnight later she was not walking up that hill, but running, four times a day, then six. The nuns took to praying for her. They lit candles and ended every prayer with, “And dear and gracious Lord, please help Sofia make it to the top the hill.”
She rose before dawn, when the sky told her it was still night and the stars had not yet disappeared. She could not leave her room, so she put on the mail coat, the leggings and the cowl and just walked, in circle after circle, learning to move her arms, learning to freely move her legs. She lay down on the bed and forced herself to stand smoothly in the mail. When she conquered that, she lay on the floor and did the same.
It was over a fortnight past Michaelmas. The leaves had begun to turn golden and brown. The daisies were blooming and the nights were just beginning to turn frosty. ’Twas then that the nuns of Grace Dieu were busy making cider.
Sister Judith was in the buttery supervising the pressing of apples, when there was a commotion outside—a shout here, another shout there. Judith frowned. “What is going on, now?” she muttered, then wiped her hands on a towel, grabbed her crutch, and took a step just as the door flew open and rattled hard against the wall.
Sofia stood there in Judith’s old mail, the afternoon sun glinting off the metal links, her shoulders straight and her breath completely even.
“Good day to you, Sister Judith,” the girl said with a sauciness that almost made her smile. Then Sofia strolled into the room as easily as a swaggering knight, her arms loose and swinging freely at her sides, except when she placed one hand on a low rafter and ducked under it, almost in a one-handed half swing to show off that she could move with such ease.
She moved around
the small room, flexing this and moving that, making certain that Judith could see the ease with which she moved. She bent down and placed her mail-mittened hands on her knees and looked underneath the press, eyeing the apple juice, then straightened again.
When Judith said nothing, Sofia looked around the room, planted a hand on her cocked hip, then turned to her and asked, “Do you need that basket of apples?”
“Aye, child, but—”
“I shall fetch it.” She crossed over to the corner and gripped the handles, then lifted the tub of apples high, so high she actually could prop it on one shoulder. She turned without a flinch or a wince and asked, “Where would you like me to put them?”
Judith laughed and shook her head. “Put them down, Sofia. You have made your point.” Judith leaned on her crutch and held up her hands in the sign of surrender. “You win, child.”
Sofia looked at her. “Truly?”
“Aye. You have earned the right,” Judith said, then started for the door.
Sofia froze. “But where are you going?”
“Outside.” Judith turned back and gave her a long stare. “Are you coming?”
“Aye,” Sofia almost ran across the room. “Where are we going?”
“To the stables, where you can show me how well you ride.” Judith ducked under the low beam of the door and hobbled outside into the bright fall sunshine, where all of Grace Dieu stood, lined up, watching, waiting, their faces and eyes curious.
Judith looked at them, then turned back as Sofia walked outside in full mail, a tall and striking beauty whose glossy black hair had grown to her chin, whose bearing was grander and taller after her training. She was every ounce the warrior.
Sofia looked at Judith, who nodded, and Sofia raised her fist into the air the way the knights did when they bested a man at a tourney.
But then Sofia let out a loud and raucous whoop of glee. “I did it! I did it!”
And the cheers that filled the air carried almost all the way to London.
“Sweet Mary! This sword weighs as much as my horse!”
Sister Judith smiled. “Aye, ’tis a training sword. It is twice the normal weight of a sword.”
Sofia scowled at the sword. “Why?”
“To help you get used to it more quickly and to build strength in your arm and shoulder. Here, now. This is called a pel.”
“Looks like a wooden post to me.”
“That’s because that’s exactly what it is. Now you will vanquish it. This is your opponent. Practice!”
Judith stepped back and leaned against a post near the stables, and waited.
Sofia did exactly as Judith thought she would. She raised the sword high, just as Judith had the first time, and sliced a horizontal path right into the pel.
Judith could almost feel the jar of the strike ring through Sofia’s arm, to her shoulder and probably right to her teeth. It must have hurt like the Devil.
The girl cursed so foul a word even Judith was dumbfounded.
“Sofia!” Judith crossed herself and gave Sofia a stern look, but the girl did not notice.
She was sitting on the ground, the sword next to her, her hand dangling limply as she gripped her wrist and rocked back and forth.
Judith hobbled over. There were tears in Sofia’s eyes. Oh, she remembered that pain well. She bent down and picked up the sword, then turned its hilt toward Sofia. “Again.”
A fortnight later they worked on the bow, a month after that, the quarterstaff and then came the day when Judith set up a quintain.
Sofia was on horseback, her mailed feet strong in the stirrups.
“Lower the lance a bit. That’s right. Now tuck the shaft more tightly into your armpit. There. So the lance is firmly seated.” Judith limped back a bit. “Now all you must do is strike it! Go!”
Sofia kicked her mount and bent low. She hit the quintain squarely, then turned back to grin at Judith.
The quintain spun around, building speed. It hit her hard in the back and knocked her from the horse.
Sofia lay facedown in the dirt. Her shoulders were shaking. Judith watched for a moment, concerned. She thought perhaps she was truly hurt, to be crying so hard. She hobbled over and knelt down at the fallen girl.
“Sofia?” Judith put her hand on her shoulder.
“I forgot to duck,” she said, then turned her face to Judith. She was laughing, laughing really, really hard, as if it were the most amusing thing to be knocked clean off her mount and flat on her face.
“I shall do it again and duck this time!” Sofia climbed back onto the horse, trotted some distance away, then set her lance and took off. She made a perfect strike, then ducked and kept riding until she could safely turnher mount.
The girl was an amazing rider, better than Judith and certainly better than most men. She had never seen the like of it. The lance was easily learned; it had to do with technique, angle, and the right strike, but the true power, the truly skilled like William the Marshall had been, were those rare horsemen who could ride, ride like this young woman.
Sofia reined in front of Judith, kneed the mount up rampant, then turned the powerful horse in a tight, dancing circle. The horse’s front legs came down with a thud and Sofia leaned forward, stroking him and cooing to him as if he were her pet. She looked at Judith, grinned with cocky assurance. “So . . . what’s next?”
Judith wanted to laugh at her audacity, but an intelligent person did not give Sofia that much rein. She looked the girl in the eye. “Now you must do it all again.”
“Again! Everything? But it’s taken months!”
“Aye, that it has. It takes squires years to learn a knight’s skills.”
“But they’re men!”
“Your humility astounds me,” Judith said dryly.
“It should.” Sofia shook her head proudly. Her shorn hair had grown past chin length, was tousled and wavy and so black it picked up sunlight. “I have learnt these skills swiftly.”
“Aye. Now you have trained, and understand the basic techniques.”
“Then why must I do it all over again?”
“Because . . . ” Sister Judith turned and started to leave, but then she stopped and cast a quick glance over her shoulder. “Now you must do it all wearing armor.”
Then she crossed the tilting yard, ignoring the sound of that vile curse word as she silently prayed for Sofia’s immortal soul.
Merrick de Beaucourt took the stairs up the old tower at an even pace, his expression schooled, but his hand near the hilt of his sword, a dagger in his boot and belt, and his mind alert. He was a large man, tall enough that he was used to looking down at most men. But the Scotsmen who were ahead, leading the way up the steps of this stone keep, were a good head taller, with massive shoulders and arms that garnered any sane warrior’s respect.
Barely two steps behind him was a contingent of his own men-at-arms, a precaution negotiated with the angry Scots who held de Clare ransom. Merrick followed the Scots through the winding, narrow tower of a crusty keep built on an outcropping of a massive granite mountain.
He cast a quick glance out the arrow slit and could see nothing but air and the misty crags of mountains in the distance. The positioning of the place made it impenetrable. It had taken him no more than a few minutes to see he would not be storming the place to release his friend. No one could ever argue that the Scots weren’t shrewd.
One of them put a key into a huge iron lock. He opened the door and gave Merrick a quick, dour look and a nod of his head. “Yer man is inside.”
Merrick entered the room alone.
De Clare was standing with his back to him, his stance straight and stiff. He suspected this was how he greeted his keepers. Were he in Tobin’s boots, he would be mad as hell, too.
“Is that any way to greet the man who taught you to wield a sword?”
Tobin spun around. “God’s eyes, Merrick! ’Tis good to see you.” He started toward him.
“I thought I taught you to fight better.
How the hell did you get yourself locked in a tower?”
“Go straight to the Devil.” Tobin said, but there was relief and something else on his face.
Merrick gripped Tobin’s shoulders and shook him. “’Tis good to see you well.”
“Aye. They feed us well enough, if you can stomach oats and hare or hart. We are allowed to exercise in the bailey below, even in the godforsaken rain. I think all it does in Scotland is rain.”
Merrick walked over to a table and hitched his hip on it. His look was direct. “So tell me what is going on?”
“They think their king has betrayed them.”
“Alexander has repeatedly refused to pay homage for his English lands. Even though Edward is his wife’s brother. Why do the Scots think he is betraying them?”
Tobin drove a hand through his black hair. “It has something to do with a strip of land, a loch and another one of their ancient castles. Edward wants the place. God only knows why. Alexander is caught in a quandary. If he does not give the place over, Edward will take his lands in England. But the old Scot who owns the place has the support of the nearby clans. He will not give up without enough of English gold to make him forget he ever owned the place. And then there is the fact that the Scots do not trust Edward.”
“Aye. They have seen what has happened to the Welsh. I would not trust him if I were a Scot.”
“I do not trust him and I am his vassal,” Tobin murmured.
Merrick shook his head. “I know that I am his good friend and I do not know what he is about lately.”
“So.” Tobin looked at him in expectation. “How soon do I get out of here? I assume you have brought the ransom.”
Merrick took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Edward has taken all the scutage he dares. Parliament meets in less than three months. He cannot exact any more gold this year or he will have an uprising on his hands.”
Tobin just stood there.
“He wants your father to pay it.”
De Clare swore viciously, then slammed his hand on a table. He stood there, his fist on the table, his head down, his breathing deep and labored.
“Your father will have the ransom here in less than a fortnight.”