The Novice Bride. Carol Townend
foray into the domain of high-born ladies was beyond his experience, for his own background was humble and his Gwenn had been a simple merchant’s daughter. He was unnerved, yet he knew his future in Wessex hung on the outcome of what happened here as much as it had when he had rallied his fellow Bretons at Hastings.
‘I can’t persuade you to doff your mail, Richard?’ Adam asked. He was still clad only in his leather gambeson and blue fur-lined cloak. ‘You’ve no need to fear a knife in your ribs. This is holy ground. There’s sanctuary of a sort.’
Richard shook his head.
‘You will terrify the ladies…’
‘I doubt that,’ Richard said, dismounting. ‘Nuns can be fearsome harpies—as I know to my cost.’
Adam banged on the portal. ‘How so?’
Richard shrugged. ‘My mother. When my father set her aside to marry Eleanor, Mother moved herself and her household to a nunnery back home. Took my sister Elizabeth with her. When I visited them, Elizabeth told me the whole. Believe you me, Adam, ungodly things go on in holy places.’
Momentarily distracted, Adam would have asked more, but just then the window shutter slid back, and he found himself gazing at the wizened face and brown eyes of the portress. The nun’s face was framed with a wimple that even in this fading light Adam could see was none too clean.
‘Yes?’ she said, eyeing him with such blatant misgiving that Adam felt as though he must have sprouted two heads.
‘Do you speak French, Sister?’
‘A little.’
‘I’ve come on the Duke’s business. I need to speak with your Prioress.’
The brown eyes held his. ‘When you say Duke, do you mean the Norman bastard?’
Adam drew in a breath. It was true that William of Normandy was a bastard, his mother being a tanner’s daughter who had caught the eye of the old Duke, but few dared hold his birth against him these days. It was shocking to hear such a word fall so casually from a nun’s lips. He shot a look at Richard.
‘Told you,’ Richard muttered. ‘There’ll be little holiness here, and little courtesy either. They hate us. The whole damn country hates us.’
Adam set his jaw. The Duke had charged him with seeing to it that the peace was kept in this corner of England, and, hard though that might be, he would do his utmost not to let him down. ‘We’ll see. It was their high-born King Harold who was the oath-breaker, not our lord, bastard though he may be.’ He gave the nun a straight look. ‘Duke William is my liege lord, and I must speak with your lady Prioress.’
The brown eyes shifted towards the clouds in the west, behind which the sun was lowering fast. ‘It’s almost time for Vespers. Mother Aethelflaeda will be busy.’
‘Nevertheless, Sister—’ Adam made his voice hard ‘—I will speak with the Prioress at once. I’m looking for my Lady of Fulford, and reports have it she rode towards St Anne’s.’
The face vanished, the portal slid shut, a bolt was drawn back. Slowly, reluctantly, the door swung open.
‘This way, good lords,’ the nun said, and even though she mangled the French tongue her voice dripped with irony.
Adam and Richard were ushered into a small, dark, cheerless room, and left to kick their heels for some minutes. There was no welcoming fire, and they were offered no refreshment.
‘As I feared,’ Richard said, with a wry grin. ‘Sweet sisters in Christ—harpies all.’
The winter chill seeped up through the earthen floor, and a solitary candle, unlit, stood on the trestle next to a small handbell. Adam grimaced, and knew a pang of pity for the nuns who must spend their lives here. If most of the convent was appointed like this, it was dank and miserable.
With a rustle of skirts, a large, big-bellied nun came into the room, hands tucked into the wide sleeves of her habit. This woman’s wimple was clean, and the stuff of her habit was thick and rich, of a dark violet rather than Benedictine black. The cross that winked on her breast was gold, and set with coloured gems. Clearly not all were made to live penitentially among these grim buildings. This woman, by her garb, hailed from a noble Saxon family, and did not appear to stint herself.
Adam stepped forwards. ‘Mother Aethelflaeda?’
‘My lords,’ the Prioress replied stiffly in the Saxon tongue, barely inclining her head. Her smile was tight and forced, her face the colour of whey.
‘My name is Wymark,’ Adam said, ‘and I’ve come to fetch Lady Emma of Fulford. Reports say she came here. I’m to escort her back to Fulford Hall.’
Mother Aethelflaeda’s gaze shifted from Adam to Richard and flickered briefly over his chainmail before returning to Adam. She nodded. The strained smile twitched wider, but she did not speak.
‘Lady Emma of Fulford?’ Adam repeated patiently. ‘Is she here?’
He was wasting his breath. It was as if the Prioress couldn’t hear him. Though she continued to nod and smile, her stance was too rigid, her smile was fixed and her eyes—which appeared glazed—were pinned on Richard once more. A woman in whom disdain and fear were equally mixed.
‘She’s afraid,’ Adam said.
‘Aye,’ came Richard’s complacent reply.
‘Shame on you, to scare the wits from her. I told you, Richard, they’d not like you mailed.’
Unrepentant, Richard grinned through his helm.
The Prioress gave a strangled sound and moved back a pace.
‘She doesn’t understand a word you’re saying either, man,’ Richard said.
Adam swore under his breath, drawing the gaze of the Prioress. A small furrow had appeared between her brows. ‘I’m not so sure,’ he murmured. ‘It may be she seeks to obstruct us.’ He took a step closer to the nun. ‘The Lady Emma of Fulford—is she here?’
Mother Aethelflaeda stared at Adam for a moment, took up the handbell and shook it. Immediately, the portress appeared in the doorway, so swiftly that Adam had little doubt that she had been listening and waiting for the summons.
There followed a brief exchange in the English tongue which Adam could not follow, save that he thought he caught the name ‘Cecily’. An image of a slight figure with a long golden braid shining in the firelight sprang into his mind. Firmly, he dismissed it.
The portress hurried out, leaving the three of them—Adam, Richard and the Prioress—to stand awkwardly looking at each other. The gloom deepened.
Quick footsteps sounded on the flags outside the lodge, the door was hurriedly pushed open, and the light strengthened as a young nun who was little more than a girl swiftly entered the room. She held a lantern in delicate work-worn hands…
Adam’s stomach muscles clenched.
Cecily.
Next to the richly gowned Prioress, her faded grey habit was no more than a thin rag, and her cross was not bright yellow gold, but simple unvarnished wood. However, the nun Cecily’s bearing would see her accepted anywhere, be it castle or byre. Her body was straight-backed and slender, and her head was held high, without hint of disdain.
Close to, Adam could see how very young she was, and that even her hideous wimple and veil could not disguise that she was more than pretty. Such fine features: arched brows; a small, retroussé nose; lips that curved like a bow. Thick lashes swept down over eyes that were an arresting blue…
Breathlessly, Cecily hurried into the room.
Though she misliked the Prioress, she always jumped to do her bidding—for Mother Aethelflaeda had an uncertain temper, and her power over those under her was absolute. Giving her a brief obeisance, Cecily turned to look at the