by Iris Anthony
“Is…is that all?” Her words were hedged with disappointment.
Surely there had to be something more, didn’t there? Although Saint Catherine had died so long ago… Perhaps this was all that was left. I tilted the reliquary ever so slightly. There!
Besides me, the girl gasped. And then she smiled, candlelight glancing off her even, white teeth. “There it is.” She said it so softly, so reverentially, I could hardly discern the words.
When the dirt shifted, it had revealed a small, slender shard of a bone. Saint Catherine’s finger.
And then she seized my hand, my own daughter did. “Thank you.”
***
I had thought that would be the end of it, so I found my bed that night, praising God I had not had to face the penance of seeing her father. And I spent those long hours of darkness saying all the prayers I could remember on my child’s behalf. But Providence was not so kind as I had hoped. The abbess summoned me the next morning and told me the princess awaited me in the garden.
What madness, what hope, what joy arose in my soul: she wanted me.
But I made myself kneel before the abbess and say what I knew I ought to. “I cannot see her.” I had spent the night releasing her into the hands of Providence. How could He then place her back into mine? For just how long would He torment me?
“She asked for you, for the nun who tends Saint Catherine’s chapel. She met you yesterday, did she not?”
I could only nod.
“Then there is no other for me to send but you.”
“Why could she want me?”
The abbess reached out a hand and touched my shoulder. “She asks not for a mother. She only knows you as a sister. I do not think it would do you any harm.”
But then she did not know how much the previous day’s encounter had cost me.
CHAPTER 3
I did not see her at first. A fog had settled over the garden during the night, and now, warmed by the sun, it was rising in a golden, twisting mist. Putting a hand to my eyes, I tried to peer through that shifting veil.
“Juliana.” The word came as if from a dream.
My breath caught in a tangle of emotions.
It was—was it him? Was he a memory come to life, my imagination’s rendering of my fondest wish? Would he vanish if I turned to address him? I closed my eyes as I turned toward his voice. And then, when I opened my eyes, I nearly cried out when I saw it was he.
But it was a Charles aged and grayed. A Charles with lines etched into his face and deep sorrows in his eyes that had not been there before. I wanted to reach out to touch him once more, but my arms would not move. And neither would my feet. I knew I should step back to remove myself from the temptation of his presence, but I could not do it.
Taking the measure of me, he nudged aside the edge of his mantle, putting his hand on the jeweled hilt of the knife that rode in his belt. Then he placed his other atop it. “You are well?”
No. I had thought myself well once, but I knew then that I would never be well again. “Yes.”
Something, some light, some interest, some hope went out of his eyes. “Then I am glad.”
Oh, my beloved! If he would speak my name once more, then maybe I would be able to breathe again. What a faithless, fickle bride of Christ I was. “Our…our daughter? Is she well?”
“She is.” A smile flickered upon his face and then grew into the mirth I remembered so well. “God has cursed me, for she is the double of you. She is stubborn, and wise…and proud.”
Then God had cursed me too. For what had I ever prayed but that she would be as unlike me as day was from night? “She does not know me?” I could not have said how I hoped he would answer.
“She does not.” Like a man enchanted, he raised his hand to my cheek.
I closed my eyes. A moment’s touch, a lingering caress, and then it was gone. Had I truly felt it? And would I remember it? I had to, for I knew the feel of it would have to last for all eternity.
“My mother raised her. And spoiled her.”
Little wonder. His mother had ruined me as well.
“She does not understand she has no choices.”
“We all have choices.” I was paying for mine every day of my life.
His eyes wandered from me toward the mist-shrouded gardens. “She died, you know. My mother did. Ten years ago.”
I had not known. The woman who had saved and raised me, the woman who had mocked and scorned me and then exiled me from court, was gone. Curious strange it was how little that news mattered to me now. “I am sorry for you.” I should perhaps have thought of masses and novenas, but all I could think of was the satisfaction on her face as she took my daughter from my arms.
“She asked to talk to you. Gisele did.” He gestured beyond me toward the mist.
As I followed the gesture, I thought perhaps I could see her, but then the breeze twisted the fog, and she was gone.
Suddenly, I was afraid to see her again. “I do not—I could not—”
The mist thinned, and we stood, shoulder to shoulder, looking at the daughter we had created. “The abbey is part of her dower. I thought she should have something of her mother’s. You left in such a hurry that I…” He shrugged. Then he sighed and turned to me once more. “She asked to come. She wanted to. Said she wished to meet the women who lived here.”
But I had nothing left to offer her. Everything I’d had, everything I once was had been subsumed by my life here. By my vows and my veil. And such a poor nun was I that I could not even offer her the benefit of sage wisdom or spiritual advice.
“Are you…weeping?”
What if I was? I was poorer, I was meaner and ruder than ever I once had been.
“After all this time, still, you are so beautiful.”
A thousand times I had imagined what I might do or say if I saw Charles again, and none of them had included my crying like a child. Could I not be spared this one last indignity?
He stretched forth his hand. “Juliana—”
I put up my own to stop it. “Do not. Do not touch me.” I spoke the words as best as I could through the sobs that choked my throat. My mouth was moving with great, ugly jerks. “Or I will not be able to last this life through.”
Ignoring my protests, he gathered me into his arms.
Weeping and trembling, I held myself apart from him as long as I could, and then there was nothing left to do but let him hold me. Hidden from the world by the rising mists of the morning’s dew, I like to think we righted whatever had been put wrong between us. He felt just the same as I tucked my head into the spot beneath his chin, and yet, he was so different. “I have heard they call you simple.”
“Straightforward. Yes, I know.”
“You were not always like that.”
“No.” He spoke the word as he pressed his cheek to my temple. “I learned it from you. You were never one to say yes when you meant no. After you left, I realized I had lost what I held most dear, because I had been too circumspect. Much better for everyone to know what I am about. Much better to declare my intentions while I still have time, before that chance is taken from me.”
The sun, bright and fierce, burned through the last of the mist.
He stilled for just a moment, and then he dropped his hands and stepped away. “I wish you would speak with her.”
“What would I say?” What could I offer her that her formidable grandmother and her father could not?
“She is too impulsive.”
Too impulsive? That was a fault I could not fix. But I could pray she would become more like her father. That if she did not yet have it, she would come by a will less malleable than mine. I could beg heaven, as I always did, that she would find some kind of peace, some sort of contentment. But how could she not? She was a princess. Her life would be nothing like mine. And that is why I ha
d come to the abbey, why I had left her there with him. I had wanted her to be loved, and I had wanted her to be safe.
***
“I wonder what it would be like to live at the abbey. To stay up here in the mountains, away from all the world.” She had looked at me with those shining blue eyes that were so much like her father’s.
I dropped my gaze, because she was too willing, too eager, wanting, I suspect, to place far too much weight on my opinion. Behind us, I knew her father stood watching.
Pulling my hands up within the folds of my sleeves, clasping myself about the elbows, I thought about what I must say. The reason I had gone was so she could stay with her father. That she might wish to live out her life here at the abbey was a repudiation of all I had done, all I had sacrificed for her, and all I had tried to become. I must not give her any reason to stay. I must not hint at any reason for her to choose my path instead of her own. “A life of contemplation is not for everyone.”
“Why ever not?”
I delighted in the fire that shone from her eyes, even though its blaze was directed at me. “It does not suit everyone.” It had not, in fact, suited me, because there were some things that should not be contemplated. And in the solitude, in the dark of night, when I had said all the prayers I could say on her behalf, when I had accomplished all the things I could do, it was always those things that pressed in against my soul. “I think, my lady, they must have need of your presence at court.”
Her mouth had quirked in a disdain I remembered from her grandmother. “Need of my hand for marriage perhaps.” A ray of sun touched her hair, turning it into a gleaming gold.
“They would miss you.”
“Not my father. Not anymore. He’s taken to wife. A woman of Lorraine.” She chattered on for some moments with scorn for the woman.
Agony pierced my heart, but I spoke through the pain. I had looked for so long into the past, I had not ever considered a future for these two people I so dearly loved. When she paused, I spoke the one thing I knew to be true. “Your father loves you, my lady.” I could not doubt it. I never had. “Do not despise the life you have been given.” Not when it had come at such great cost.
***
I did not see them again. The bell for prime tolled, and I went to offices with the rest of my sisters. By the time we had finished, they had gone.
Charles had asked me for words of wisdom, but I had given her none. And what had I received? The certain knowledge my child was better off without me. I had been told it before, but it was only then that I came to know the truth of it. I wept along with the pilgrims that forenoon for all I had given up, and all that had been taken from me.
The abbess summoned me after vespers. It was with raw grief and shameful weeping that I entered her chamber.
“You torment yourself, Daughter.”
“I do not know how to stop myself from thinking of them. I have so many memories.” And now I had these new ones to add to all the rest. Perhaps I loved my memories more than I loved God. How stingy, how sparing my devotion must seem to Him.
“Think on other thoughts.”
“But how do you forget the people you love? How do you give them up?”
“By realizing there is One who loves them still more. You must sacrifice your own poor interest in their souls to One whose interests are higher and greater. You must rest in the thought that He can do more for them than you can.”
I could not do it.
God help me, I had tried.
***
Should confession truly free the soul, then I confess I did not hurry to the refectory for the meal on the day of the election.
As always, Sister Isolda read the Holy Scriptures to us as we ate. The table at which the nuns dined was silent. Though I could not discern actual words coming from the novitiates’ table, and though I could not have accused any one of them of actually speaking, a restless, ceaseless noise rose from that quarter nonetheless.
After the meal, we who had taken our vows left the others and repaired to the chapterhouse. A clerk waited in the hall, ready to take the news of our decision to the bishop. After we took our seats, Sister Clothild led us in a prayer, and then she stood. “Today we choose a new abbess. I must know, before we proceed, if there is any other who wishes to be considered.”
She was the one who ought to have been the new abbess. It was she who had served at the abbesses’ side for years, who oversaw the tradesmen and those who worked the fields. It was only for her lack of education that she could not be considered. In every other way she would have been perfect.
I felt an unreasonable surge of anger at her ignorance. She could have managed with a clerk to do her writing, but why had she never learned to read? She had always told me the effort to do so made her ill. She seemed astonished anyone ever could. If she were to be believed, words were sly, changeable creatures, always jumping about the parchment before they could be deciphered. That such an otherwise kind and generous person should evidence such laziness was troubling and—“Would no one else like to propose a name?” She seemed to ask the question directly to me.
I blinked. Looked to my right and to my left. No one replied.
“Are there no other names we should consider?” There was an edge to her tone that had not been present before.
I had told Saint Catherine I would propose my name if she would take care of the rest of it. I was counting on her to persuade God—and the former abbess—that I had no business accepting the position. But if I meant to make good on my entreaties, now was the time. I lifted a hand, though I kept my gaze fixed to the point at which my robes fell at the turn of my knees. “I think…” Why would the words not come? “Perhaps…” A cold sweat had broken out upon my brow as I remembered what had happened the last time I had taken a position for myself, presuming upon the well-wishes of others.
As I sat there, casting about for words, the sisters stared at me. How could I ever have thought I might be worthy of such a great honor? Why had the abbess even asked it of me? And why had I promised Saint Catherine I would offer myself? “Perhaps…if you would allow me…”
I will never know what I might have said, for at that moment, the door to the chapterhouse swung open, and a man strode into our midst.
Tall and broad-shouldered, he wore a tunic of shimmering silk and a finger ring the Queen Mother herself would have envied.
Sister Clothild stepped toward him. “We are currently holding a chapter meeting. If you take yourself to the hospice, one of the workers there will help you.”
“I am not here to stay. I am the Count of Bresse, come with your new abbess.”
A gasp rippled through the room.
He pivoted toward the great doors, gesturing to someone who seemed to be skulking there in the shadows.
Sister Clothild replied, and rather sharply. “We have no new abbess, my lord. That is why we meet today: to elect one.”
“There’s no need. I have already spoken to the bishop. My daughter Aldith will take the position.”
Sister Clothild’s brow folded in alarm as a hiss went up around the room. “It is not open for the taking. By charter, the new abbess is to be elected from our members.”
But he was not listening. He was striding toward that shadowed figure who had not moved from the threshold. Taking the person by the hand, he pulled her forward, toward us, with a frown. “Now then.”
The girl was handsome, though still young in years. Her hair fell in waves to her waist, and she wore it uncovered. As we sat, mute with shock, she took us all in through glittering eyes. And then she started toward Sister Clothild.
If I was not much mistaken, she was not too many years older than my daughter. A vision of my girl, on the day she had stood in the garden, rose in my mind. I kept it always close to heart, and during those times when I despaired of life, of ever being able to attain some me
asure of righteousness, I reminded myself that I was yet a mother, that I had birthed a girl. A girl who, in so many ways, made me almost glad I could not claim her. Should I ever have that honor, I knew I ran the certain risk of vanity and pride.
She tipped her chin up. “Is this where I am to stand?” She asked the question of no one in particular, and the vision of my daughter disappeared. The girl reminded me overmuch of all those thoughtless, grasping daughters of nobility I had known at court. And when Sister Clothild did not move, the girl dismissed her with a wave of her hand. “You may be seated.”
Sister Clothild did not move.
The count’s daughter pushed past her and sat down in the chair the death of our Reverend Mother had left vacant. She rested her arms on the armrests, caressing the carved ends with her palms. As she looked about the room, her lips crimped in a display of distaste. “I cannot say I like a room as plain as this one, but I suppose it can be remedied.”
Her father was still standing in our midst.
She sighed. “I should like some meat and some wine, for I am famished from our journey. And who is charged with supplying you the fire’s wood? It is far too cold in here.”
Anyone who knew Sister Clothild would have recognized as anger the sparks that lit her eyes. “I think you may have misunderstood.” Her head swiveled from the woman to the man. She could not seem to decide who to address. “We cannot elect an abbess who is not from our cloister.”
The count did not seem disturbed by that news. “You may not be able to, but the bishop had no problem appointing her.” He paused to survey us. “You must know your position here is too remote. And quite dangerous. If my daughter is to be abbess, then in return for a portion of your pilgrims’ gifts, I will have no other choice but to offer the protection of my men and my many resources to your community.”
Sister Clothild’s eyes had narrowed as she listened to him. “We have never needed anyone’s protection but God’s.”
“These are troubled times.”