The Blessing Stone

by Barbara Wood

  Winifred was not surprised to hear that Agnes was in the convent graveyard. She had visited it every Sunday for sixty years. Now she must say good-bye to it.

  The prioress found the elderly nun kneeling at a tiny grave that was shaded by an elm tree that had recently been stricken with leaf blight. She was brushing away dead leaves with her arthritic fingers. And she was weeping.

  Winifred knelt beside her, crossed herself and closed her eyes in prayer. The miniature coffin beneath them contained the corpse of a baby that had lived only a few hours. Sixty-one years ago, during a Norse raid on Portminster, Agnes and her cousins had been caught at the river by a gang of Vikings. While the other girls had managed to escape, Agnes had been seized and raped. When she turned up pregnant a few weeks later, she had been brought to the convent of St. Amelia’s and ordered to stay there for, in her father’s eyes, she had dishonored the family. The nuns had taken her in, but her child had not lived long. After he was buried here in the convent cemetery, Agnes stayed and never saw her family again. She took holy orders and learned to paint illuminations, and spent every Sunday for the rest of her life pouring love into a grave that was marked simply, “John—d. 962 Anno Domini.”

  She squinted up at the bare branches and wondered why God would inflict the tree with the blight just now, for its leaves were raining onto the little grave and within hours it could be completely covered. Once the sisters left, there would be no one to keep the grave clear of blighted leaves. “Soon my wee Johnny will be covered up and forgotten.” There was already a pile near the grave that Andrew had intended to burn later. Except that Andrew wouldn’t be here; he was moving to the new convent with them.

  Winifred helped the elder nun to her feet. “Andrew says the new convent is very large,” Agnes said.

  “It is, Sister Agnes, but it is also nice and new. And”—she peered up at the blighted maple tree through her own tears—“all the trees are healthy and green.”

  “I shall never find my way around it.”

  Winifred had heard the same fear expressed by the other nuns. She herself dreaded having to learn her way through that maze of corridors and courtyards and buildings.

  “And I shall never paint again,” Agnes said, drying her eyes.

  “It is time for you to rest. You have spent your life in the service of God.”

  “Retirement is for old horses,” Agnes said petulantly. “Am I so useless? I can still see. I can still hold a pen. What shall I do with myself? And who will look after my wee Johnny here?”

  “Come along,” Winifred said gently. “It is time for us to go.”

  They gathered in the chapter house, which was dominated by an enormous fireplace that had been installed two hundred years earlier by a mother prioress who had been particularly sensitive to the cold; her wealthy brother had paid for the ostentatious hearth that was much too large for the room, but had failed to provide the constant wood and coal it required, and so the fireplace had fallen into disuse. Carved into the massive mantelpiece were the words of Christ by which Winifred and her sisters tried to live: “Mandatum novum do vobis: ut diligatis invicem”—“A new law I give you, that you shall love one another.”

  Dame Mildred was bemoaning leaving her giant stewpot behind. It hadn’t been used in years because of the diminished population of the convent. “It’s a good pot,” she fretted. “It fed us through many a hard winter. We shouldn’t leave it behind.”

  “It’s too big, Sister,” Mother Winifred said gently. “We cannot manage it ourselves. Perhaps later we can have some men come back and fetch it.”

  Dame Mildred looked uncertain, her woeful glance cast back toward the kitchen as if she were leaving a child behind.

  They were interrupted by shouts outside and the sound of horse’s hooves clattering in the yard. Andrew hurried in, white-faced and blathering something about an attack. As Winifred rushed to him, another man flew in, his face flushed from his hard ride. He wore the emblem of the abbey over chain mail, and he carried a halberd. “Begging pardon,” he said breathlessly. “Vikings have attacked and I’ve been sent to bring you and the ladies to the abbey for protection.”

  “Vikings!” Winifred crossed herself and the others started wailing.

  He told them in rapid order what had happened: the Norsemen had landed at Bryer’s Point and marched the short distance to the Convent of the True Cross. Reports were sketchy, but it was believed the entire complex had been ransacked and put to the torch. Of the pilgrims and sisters he had scant knowledge, only that Mother Rosamund had managed to escape and make it to the abbey to give the alarm.

  “She said her nuns had run to the chapel for safety and there the devils had found them, all huddled together, and they had been slain where they were, like geese in a pen. And now I’ve been sent to fetch you and your ladies. Come quickly, we’ve no time.”

  “But the abbey is some distance from here!” Winifred protested. “Mightn’t we encounter the Vikings along the way?”

  “Well you certainly would not be safe here, Mother Prioress,” the man said impatiently. “Hurry! I will escort you. We’ll take the man’s wagon.” The man who had been hired to transfer them to the new convent.

  While her sisters cried and milled about in a panic, Winifred tried to think. The invaders had not attacked the harbor town nor the abbey but had chosen an unprotected convent. What was to prevent them from turning in this direction and hope for a second easy kill? If so, then the soldier and his helpless charges would run smack into the invaders.

  Every instinct told her that they were safer staying put. To meet the Vikings on the road was certain suicide, but to stay at St. Amelia’s gave Oswald’s soldiers time to give chase and perhaps rout the invaders in time.

  Winifred felt the blue stone in her pocket and recalled how St. Amelia had faced her fate with courage, how she had not succumbed to the tortures of men. St. Amelia had done more than defy the orders of a mere abbot, she had rebelled against the authority of the emperor of Rome.

  “No,” Winifred said suddenly. “We shall stay.”

  The guardsman’s eyes bulged. “Are you mad? Now look, I’ve been given orders and I mean to carry them out. All of you, now, please, into the wagon.”

  It was as if he hadn’t spoken. The elderly nuns and two ladies clustered around their prioress like chicks around a hen, saying, “What should we do?” Winifred recalled a report from many years ago, when she was a girl and the Vikings had attacked a village northward along the coast. There the villagers had gathered in the church and had huddled together. The Vikings had set fire to the building and all within had perished. Remembering also when she was very young and lived at home with her brothers and sisters, how they would all huddle together during a frightening storm. We must not huddle together, for that is what they will expect of us.

  “Now listen to me, dear sisters. Remember how our blessed saint faced a trial worse than this, for it was her faith that was put to the test, as well as her flesh. But she found the courage to outwit her tormentors, and so shall we.”

  “But, Mother Winifred,” said Dame Mildred in a tremulous voice. “How?”

  “Each of you must find a hiding place for yourself, one that the invaders would not expect to find a lady in. Do not hide under a bed or in a clothes wardrobe as this is the first place the Danes will look.”

  “Can we not all hide together?”

  “No,” Winifred said firmly. “Above all, we must not hide together, not even in pairs.”

  The soldier from the abbey spoke up. “Mother Prioress, it is the abbot’s direct or order—”

  “I know what is best for my women. And you will stay, too.”

  “I!” He put his hand to his chest in shock. “I must return to the abbey.”

  “You will stay,” she commanded. “You will find a hiding place and there you will remain, silent and still, until I give the all-clear signal.”

  “But I take my orders from—”

  “Young si
r, you are in my house, and I am the authority here. Do as I say, and do it swiftly.”

  After a moment of ineffectual milling about, the women finally fled the chapter house, each running to the place they loved best, thinking this would protect them, or to that which they feared most, believing that a villain would fear it too, and so Dame Mildred ran to seek shelter in her beloved kitchen, Sister Agnes to her beloved Johnny’s grave, Dame Odelyn to her loathed well in the yard, and so on until the eleven members of St. Amelia’s priory vanished before the astonished eyes of the guardsman from the abbey, who was thinking it could not be done and that they were all going to be slaughtered like sheep.

  But he underestimated Mother Winifred’s ingenuity. Her nuns, being smaller than Vikings, were able to squeeze into hiding places the invaders could not, like mice in wall cracks. And so Dame Mildred carefully swept away the cobwebs that had grown over the mouth of her enormous stewing pot, climbed in, and restrung the cobwebs over her head. Sister Gertrude, finding untapped strength and ingenuity, climbed up into the chimney of the enormous fireplace in the chapter house and clung like a frightened bat to the hinges of the flue. Sister Agatha ran to the dorter where she ripped open the seam of a mattress, pulled out some of the straw stuffing, threw it out the narrow window, then climbed inside the mattress and held the split seam closed with her fingertips. Dame Odelyn thought of lowering herself on the bucket down into the dreaded well, but then she realized that the bucket down inside the well might be a give-away, so she arduously climbed down, using the uneven stones of the well wall for handholds. Sister Agnes threw herself upon wee Johnny’s grave and then raked blighted leaves over herself and trembled under the pile. Sister Edith, who always had a hard time finding the necessarium, rushed straight to it and squeezed into the foul-smelling space between the seat and the wall.

  It was not until she made sure that each was securely hidden, including Andrew and the man from the abbey, that Winifred finally climbed up into the scaffolding over the altar and secured herself there.

  No sooner were they hidden than the Vikings arrived, bursting into the forecourt with fierce yells and cries of blood-lust. They barged into the chapter house and chapel, the dorters and refectories, kitchen and scriptorium like stampeding bulls. As Winifred had predicted, they searched relentlessly for the hidden sisters: in the confessional, behind the altar and tapestries, inside cupboards and storage chests, under beds. Dame Odelyn in the well, kept her face downcast and saw in the water below the reflection of a red-hair-haloed face look briefly in from above, but not seeing her for her dark blue gown blended into the deep shadows. In the kitchen, no man bothered to look into the giant cookpot with the threads of spider web across its mouth. Gertrude, in the mattress, heard heavy footfalls and held her breath. She heard the door being flung open; felt a pair of eyes scan the room; then heard the footsteps tramp on to the next room. Each terrified woman hunched in her special hiding place, heard or saw the villains barge through, ransacking and plundering, and shouting curses when no women were found.

  Winifred, hiding in the scaffolding, clutched the blue stone as she watched with held breath the Viking leader tramp through the chapel, slowly looking around. He was the biggest man she had ever seen with muscles like melons and hair like fire. He seized Amelia’s silver reliquary and forced it open, dumping the bones out and scattering them with his feet. After a search under and behind the altar, in the confessional, in every nook or recess where a woman might hide, he tucked the box under his arm and stormed out.

  Winifred did not relax her posture. Although every joint and muscle ached from her awkward position among the crossbeams, she kept as still as she could, praying that the invaders would make quick work of their destruction and leave. She felt sweat break out over her body. It trickled down her scalp and under her veil. Her hands grew damp. Suddenly, to her dismay, the blue crystal slid out of her wet fingers and hit the floor directly below.

  She had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out, and she prayed with all her might that no more Danes came into the chapel. But to her horror the Viking leader came back, as though he had forgotten something or had sensed something amiss in there. She watched in terror as the tall blond giant in the horned helmet strode slowly down the central aisle and to the bottom of the altar. He gave a turn, and his foot kicked the crystal.

  Winifred stifled a gasp.

  The Dane looked down, retrieved the sparkling gem, then looked around, knowing it had not been there a moment ago. He turned his face upward and peered into the overhead shadows, the construction of planks and struts and supports. He stared for a long moment. Winifred saw a pair of keen blue eyes but she couldn’t tell if he could see her.

  Suddenly his roving gaze stopped and his eyes met hers. She held her breath as she clung to the rotten wood and tried not to disturb the dust on the beams.

  The moment stretched on, with the savage below staring up at the terrified nun.

  And then in his foreign tongue he shouted an order to his men and Winifred saw, through the clerestory window, the others gathering up their plunder. When two men came in with torches, he barked orders at them and gestured for them to leave. When they ran out, he looked up again, and this time there was a flicker in his eyes, a slight lift of his mouth. Another person might have read the look as a salute to courage and ingenuity; Winifred saw it only as the power of St. Amelia at work.

  She waited a long time before climbing down. Her bones protested as she finally unfolded herself from the cramped position, and she nearly lost her foothold as she made her way to the floor. Then she hurried up the narrow stairs to the top of the belltower and looked out. In the distance she heard the thunder of horses’ hooves—Oswald’s men riding after the fleeing invaders. And then the thunder faded and the afternoon was quiet and still.

  She called the sisters from their hiding places, helping them to climb out of tight spaces they had only hours before slipped into with ease, and they all gathered in the chapel to pray. When they told of how they had escaped detection, each in her own peculiar place, and as Winifred thought of the scaffolding erected five years ago, when roof repairs were to have begun, how she had cursed it all this time and in the end it had saved her, and thinking of Odelyn’s dreaded well and the necessarium that had been the bane of Edith’s life, and the leaves that were going to obscure poor Johnny’s grave, she thought: the scaffold, the cook pot, the blighted elm, the well—items that had brought irritation and heartache, these were no accidents. They were miracles. There to save us had we but the courage to use them. Amelia’s courage.

  Winifred thought of the blue stone that the Dane had picked up and she hoped that the grace of St. Amelia went with it and that it would somehow, someday bring light to the heart of the barbarian.

  As the abbot rode down the lane on his fine horse, he thought how much more convenient the newer convent had been to the abbey. Unfortunately it had been utterly destroyed by the Vikings whereas St. Amelia’s, by some miracle, had been spared. And having been spared it was now the only convent in Portminster. Ironically, if both had been destroyed, rebuilding would have been done on the other site and St. Amelia’s let go to ruin.

  When he took the turn-off he joined the stream of pilgrims heading for the priory. The splinter of the True Cross had been consumed in the fire at the other convent, so Amelia was once again the only relic in the area. The abbot knew a miracle had occurred here. Why hadn’t the Vikings burned this place down as well? Everyone said it was St. Amelia who had stopped them. But, thinking of the indomitable Mother Winifred, he wondered…

  Changes had taken place since the miracle of the Danes. Wonderful cooking smells now came from the kitchen where a tasty stew was simmering in Dame Mildred’s enormous cookpot. Outside, a young man was at the well drawing water and handing the bucket to Dame Odelyn. Another youth was raking leaves off a little grave. There was industry everywhere, and new prosperity.

  But the abbot wasn’t coming here today to congratu
late the nuns of St. Amelia’s. He was here because he had heard disturbing news: Mother Winifred was not herself training the young novices in manuscript illumination but was leaving the task to the elderly nuns. And what was the prioress doing with her time? Painting that blasted altarpiece!

  Well, he was going to put a stop to it once and for all. He would brook no more disobedience from that woman.

  He expected Winifred to be at the gate to greet him as she always had in the past, but she wasn’t there. It was Sister Rosamund, now a resident of St. Amelia’s and demoted from mother prioress, although she did not seem to mind. She was the prioress’s assistant, and happily had her hands full seeing to the comforts of travelers, pupils, and lady guests, as well as supervising the renovation of buildings, the housing of goats, sheep, and hens, and seeing to it that the dinner table always groaned with food.

  Rosamund cheerfully escorted the abbot to the new solar where Mother Winifred was seated at an easel, painting. He was about to speak up when he looked at the panel and was rendered speechless. And then he saw something even more dumbfounding: Mother Winifred was smiling!

  He took a seat and remained quiet while she worked. Winifred had created an exquisite St. Amelia, radiant and humble, serving the poor, spreading the word of Christ. In the fourth panel of the new altarpiece, St. Amelia was holding a blue crystal, cupped in her hand, to her throat. The abbot could make no sense of it, but it was beautiful and compelling and it took his breath away.