‘We shall say a prayer of thanksgiving for your deliverance,’ she said, rising. ‘And then I must tend your gums, or all your teeth will be gone.’
And with this double proposal, which merged comfort of the body with that of the soul and was utterly typical of her, she knelt beside my bed, shutting her gracious eyes. I was still very weak. I began silently to cry, then remembered she despised tears, and wiped my face on the coverlet before she crossed herself at the final psalm.
I crept from the bed and stood infirmly before her, in a shift which must have been worn by a lady passing tall. I could not have walked in it without tripping. I fancied a smile glimmered on the Mother’s face. I opened my mouth wide at her command, while she dabbed my swollen gums with a piece of wool soaked in a pleasant-tasting amber fluid. Then she bade me sit on the bed while she unwrapped my feet from their bandages. Both great toe nails were gone, but my feet seemed to have no part of me any more. A young nun, not one I remembered from the old days, brought water and smiled cheerfully at me before departing. Then the Mother washed my feet. The pain was terrible, but the shame was worse. She, of all people, should not serve me thus, I thought, cringing with humility. She applied a yellowish balm to my toes, and bandaged them again, telling me it was Tansy juice, a wondrous wound herb, and, for my mouth, the Greater Celandine, ruled by the Sun. The Sun draws out the pain, she said. But Tansy! that could nigh bring back a man from death. She had treated one of the few who escaped Tewkesbury’s Bloody Meadow. His fearsome wounds! One of the Prince Edward’s men.
‘A Lancastrian?’
‘Lancaster or York,’ she replied. ‘The soul needs a house. I treated his body and asked his policies after.’
An awful, self-pitying wave washed over me. I had suffered, dear Mother, I said, excuse me. I had suffered, and I had sinned. She looked me levelly in the eye. ‘But you are alive,’ she said, and that broke me completely and I babbled of Edyth—of my sorrow, and my hideous culpability.
‘Peace,’ she said. She took me in her arms. I could never remember her doing such a thing before. I hid my face against her steady heartbeat.
‘You did well to come to us,’ she said. ‘You and your little maid. Your Katherine Plantagenet.’
So she knew. I guessed rightly that in my fevered state I had said much, and was glad to be spared the recounting of a sad tale. But I itched to tell her of all the other trials—I had not seen her since I went to live at Grafton Regis, and I had my mind made up to tell her all, right from the beginning, and above all, to get her opinion on how such things could be, as took place in the Yorkshire house. She sat by me on the bed’s edge and listened, gravely, to the story of May Eve and the Duchess of Bedford’s strange work, a brief hint of my happiness at court, and the doings subsequent to Warwick’s rebellion. I stinted naught in the telling; it was such a relief to be free of Dame Johanna, Bridget with her accidia, the skimped offices and the dreadful, damp dilapidation. It was so wonderful to talk of these things in the tense of Then and not Now, that at times I was afraid I was dreaming, one of my better dreams. When I described the fat priest’s parody of the Mass, she surprised me by smiling.
‘Titivillius,’ she said. ‘Don’t you remember the Mirror of Our Lady?’
In truth, I had forgotten.
‘When a holy Cistercian Abbot was in choir at Matins, he saw a fiend with a long bag about his neck, gathering up all dropped letters, words and failings made by the priest and the nuns in their office. The Abbot asked his name; he was called Titivillius, and he had to bring to his master, the Lord of Evil, a thousand such bags daily—full of dropped phrases and misread psalms. Or else he was sore beaten. I like to hear you laugh,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘Your laughter was always full sweet. Go on.’
I told her that Dame Joan counterfeited the household accounts, but that she was passing kind to me. I told of the dreadful scene in Chapel. The Prioress’s dog, and hair shirt, came in for dry comment, but when, reluctantly, I told her about Adelysia, her face grew like a thundercloud and she paced the room.
‘They mock the frailty of women,’ she said fiercely. ‘But, on my soul, ’tis the men that make them so! I trust your fire-haired chaplain will be excommunicated.’
I began now to see that I was wrong; she had changed, most subtly, in some way that I could not quite fathom. Though I was not very wise, I knew without telling that this kind of philosophy would not make her popular with the bishops. And I loved her for it. I was able to talk of Long John, and she agreed he had been cruelly misused. But he was wrong to take the vengeance upon himself, though she did not judge him for it. I spoke again, trembling, of poor Edyth, and she said naught. I touched on accidia. She had read of its existence. Accidia, I said. Was it not a dreadful, inevitable thing?
‘Know you how long I have been in cloister?’ she asked, with a smile, and I marvelled at her life-span, and was much comforted. For I already had, I think, an inkling of my own destiny, soft as thunder far away, but not yet insistent. She made many enquiries into my monetary affairs, how much had been my dower, how long was I at the Yorkshire house? And made a little note upon the book she carried, and then fixed me with her blue eyes and asked with startling suddenness:
‘What happened on May Eve, at Grafton? Tell me again.’
I squirmed through the nasty moonlight of that night, and she made me repeat little bits, now and again whispering Our Lady’s name as protection for us both. She would have it, exactly what they did, and more important what was said. It was no trouble to recall, being burned into my mind.
‘The Duchess said that men were fickle, and all was written,’ I told her.
‘“Forget not the other”? Is that right?’ I nodded.
‘What other?’ she asked.
‘I know not, but when Elysande recounted my words to the Queen, she went white as death and said, “Jesu, mercy”.’
The Mother said slowly: ‘At no time did they mention Lord Talbot’s daughter, Eleanor Butler?’
I shook my head, and dared to ask her why.
‘There was a young man once, a chantry-priest, who came to me in distress,’ she said, and stopped abruptly. She laid her hand on mine.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘No living soul shall hear of this from me. But I charge you, dame, never to speak of it again. For I know, soon or late, men will die by these words.’
There was a heavy silence, broken by a light tap on the door. The young nun entered, with Katherine, and all my fears fled away.
‘The little one eats hearty, Mother,’ said the sister, smiling. This brought me to another dilemma. Even as the Mother who, like so many, could not resist Katherine, took her on her knee, I said haltingly:
‘I know we have but forty days’ Sanctuary.’ And then; ‘Oh God, where then?’
‘Carpe diem,’ she answered. ‘Live for the day.’
‘We have...’ I began.
‘No money,’ she said crisply. ‘Yea, you roared it in your fever. Think you that after an hundred and forty days I would cast you off? We have but eight nuns left. This House is failing fast. But we are frugal, not like this Johanna of whom you speak. Can your presence bring us to ruin?’ She looked at Katherine, then at me. ‘Certes, mayhap. For never did I see two such great, lusty giants!’
The young nun grinned broadly, with fair white teeth. I lifted Katherine into the bed beside me. I heard the Vespers bell, so unlike the sour note once tolled by Edyth. The Mother bade me goodnight. I kissed the plain jewel on her finger. She would have to do penance for speaking after the Hour.
‘St Catherine keep you both,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow, you shall write to Richard of Gloucester.’
She left me, her last words robbing me of sleep. How, in the Name of God, could I write to him. I pictured the Lady Anne, cool and proud and angry, and a rift yawning between them because of me. I saw his anguished, outcast look, the same that he had worn at court, when none save I loved him. I drew Katherine close, and prepared for a night of wakefulness. B
ut I slept instantly. And a dream came, the first of many I was to know at Leicester. Safety and comfort have sometimes an odd effect. When the body is easy, with no hazard threatening, the mind gains full play. Warm and safe, I slept.
I dreamed that he and I were together again, that we stood in the pleasaunce at Greenwich and kissed each other, softly, while from very near the sound of the mallets in the forbidden game of closh mingled with guilty laughter.
Substitute order for confusion, industry for sloth, the whole being salted with piety and peace: this was Leicester, just as I remembered it. But it was sad to think that Edyth, lately entombed by charitable monks at Nottingham, had bought back my childhood with her life. The Mother ordered a Requiem Mass for her; I thought it the fairest I had ever heard, and I had heard plenty in my time. There may have been only ten of us in the Chapel, but the singing was like a crystal flood, and all tender purity. Everything was as I remembered. The stolid pillars fanned upwards to heaven still, each buttress a sweep of fading gold, while all above was starred and pointed and vaulted with blue. And, running the length of the clerestory, their stone necks stretched out into the chancel, were the faces that had once cheered my terror. Ten years ago, while Queen Margaret ravaged the realm and we prayed, I had sought comfort in those faces. The laughing monk, the scowling demon, the rude, winking friar. The devout monk, extending his tongue for the Host. The weeping monk, the drunken monk, the falcon, the red-bearded lion. The four Apostles, and, in the farthest corner, a face which we had always suspected belonged to the mason himself, with a complacent expression and a tasselled hat.
That day, the Mother and I broke enclosure for a while. She rode ahead on her grey ambler; I followed upon a mule. Behind came Dame Ursula, her face as dear and familiar as any of the gargoyles. I say this without offence—each time I looked back she bowed and dimpled, mouthing how fortunate that I should have come home. I knew that never again in my life should I be completely happy, but this did not make me any less glad of this loving welcome. I was exceeding glad to see Dame Ursula again; it was she who had taught me to sew. There were no men in our House. Dame Lucy acted as precentrix. Wisely, the Mother did not permit that the two other serving priests should live on the premises, for all that they were both aged men. We passed through the Lodge and out on to Swine Market. A little way up the cobbled street to the north stood the Market Cross. The Castle reared up in the west, its ramparts already falling into ruin. Across the river, robed figures moved like busy birds among the fields of St Mary. They were our nuns, tossing a constant rain of oats into each raw furrow.
‘We did our ploughing straightway after Candlemas,’ said the Mother proudly. ‘Soon we’ll put in the barley. And if our peas are as good as last year, I’ll be content.’
We ambled on towards the South Gate. Through a gap in the houses I saw the watermill, turning unhurriedly, and behind, the West Field, fallow this year. Eastward lay St Margaret’s Fields, quartered by etch and tilth grain, and, swivelling my gaze still further, I caught a glimpse of the Abbey and its meadows, dotted with the shapes of toiling monks. Leicester lay under a spring sun, lulled by the constant bubble of the Soar. The townsfolk made way for the Mother. Most of the women gave her obeisance, some men pulled off their caps, and one ran beside her a few paces, begging her prayers to St Bride for his sick cow. Yet there were looks, not quite hostile, but rather, of affront. They reckoned she should stay in cloister, and I would have thought likewise, only I knew she must have a good reason, as ever, for riding out, and when she alighted outside a flimsy hovel, I guessed this was it. Just before the door, half off its hinge, swung open under her touch, she said to me:
‘You said that you had suffered. Come.’
There must have been eight or nine children, the youngest about three years old. They crowded round their mother, and she herself was like some horrible parody of the female form. Dull sunken eyes watched us incuriously out of a white, turnip face. Her gross body strained at a ragged shift, the front of which was covered with filth and great patches of dried blood. Her bare legs and feet were crusted with the dirt of years. Around her the children shrank and jostled, half-naked, corpse-thin. Bloated lice, visible even from the doorway, tracked placidly amid their hair. The youngest child broke from its mother and crawled towards me.
From the far corner came a terrible stench. A man lay there, so skeletal and still I thought him dead. Suddenly the straw sleeping-pallet heaved, and disgorged a great rat, which ran, with an obscene slithering, into the wall. Bile rose unheralded into my mouth. The Mother closed the door carefully behind us. In the half-dark, the stink grew hotter and more vile. She touched the woman’s hand in greeting, she bent, O God! she actually kissed the scabrous face of one of the children before passing on to where the sick man lay.
‘Domine vobiscum,’ she said calmly. Emotionless, she stripped the solitary rag from his belly. From it, a growth the size of my own head rose like a strange purple fruit. The Mother laid salve on a cloth, and bent closer. At that moment a convulsion seized the patient; he vomited, while at the same time black blood spumed from his bowels, some of it splattering on the Mother’s habit. The odour of rotting entrails mingled with the already deathly stench in the room.
I had a bit of dried lavender, and thrust it into my nostrils, my own stomach a nauseous knot. The Mother turned and saw me, and there was something in her face that made me wish I had kept still. All she said, however, was:
‘If I had but known of him earlier! As it is, the poison has devoured his bowel. This is tincture of ragwort—the lime it contains is a boon against the canker. And I swear by goose-grass—the wondrous aparine. But both have failed. Nay, my dear,’ as he moaned and twisted. ‘Lie quiet.’
The woman’s turnip face dissolved in grief. ‘Lord, Lord!’ she blubbered. ‘What shall become of our children?’
The smallest had its filthy hand upon my shoe. Running sores ringed its mouth, it stank like plague.
‘I will take your eldest into our House,’ said the Mother, not looking up. She had a basin of rose-water and was sponging the dirt and vomit from the dying face.
‘In charity,’ she added, as the woman broke into a gobbling paean of gratitude. A pale boy of about ten was pushed forward, and stood staring blankly at the Mother.
‘In charity,’ she said again. She was looking at me, very hard. ‘Would it not be kindness to wash that little maid?’
The dirty child still clutched my foot. Its skin was like a toad’s, its head alive.
‘Did the court spoil you so?’ She threw a faggot at a peering rat. It fled into the straw. I leaned halfway to the child. I could not touch it.
‘Think!’ said the Mother, in a terrible voice. ‘If it were Katherine! Think! If it were Christ Jesus!’
I washed the child. I stripped her rags and scoured her with lye soap. The lice, frightened, leaped to find a richer host in me, and set to feasting. And I know now of course that the child was in truth Christ, as are all like her, yet I can also see how easy it is to turn one’s face away, as do many, and I nearly did. By the time I had finished, the Mother was praying silently over the sick man. I therefore sat with the others by the door, and washed the hands and face of the eldest boy, Giles, also, as he was to come with us. And from his incoherent, faltering whispers I knew that here we had another Edyth. Remembering Edyth, I was glad.
Later, I sat opposite the Mother in her private room. The parchment lay blank under my hand for half an hour. I put forward every argument that I knew, but when she spoke of Katherine’s birthright I felt myself weaken. It was not an easy thing to explain, none the less. I could never discourse with a living soul on what I felt, or my fears for his happiness with the Lady Anne. She asked me, did I want Kate to grow up poor and needy? I shuddered, remembering the hovel we had just left. Why should the Lady Anne be vexed, over something that was long finished and done? The parchment cracked sharply in my fingers. For it was far from finished to me. The Mother told me: like her name
-Saint, Anne was a full gracious lady. Take John. Of him she was passing fond; she had him to stay with her at Middleham. As he was of Richard’s blood, so was he dear.
And who was John? She told me. Men were men; it had been a long exile. A woman of Flanders, they said. It was worse than hearing of his marriage from Patch. I had never known true jealousy. I welcomed the lice that writhed and itched in my flesh. I would have welcomed a burning brand thrust into my bosom. Anything, to divert this shaming, crippling stroke.
Had they been dancing? Or had he been in one of his sober, melancholy humours? Had she... comforted him right well, with Venus riding high? A Flemish doxy; they used them in the Southwark stews. How readily she ran to him! Yea, she would run to him, lecherous and black-eyed and bold; if she were not a woman of stone, she would run to him. I had no claim, no more than did this Flemish harlot. Yet it was a part of his life in which I had no sharing; there lay the fury, the sadness. Yet, strangest of all, my love renewed, redoubled.
‘He will honour John; he will see him well endowed.’
She dropped the pen between my fingers.
‘Men grow fond of their daughters,’ she said.
So, at last, I wrote to Richard, formally at the Mother’s dictation, and not as I had planned, and it was sealed with both my seal and the convent’s. And I did not dream that night, for I did not sleep.
We Speak No Treason Vol 2 Page 32