The apostate's tale by Margaret Frazer Read Free Book Online Page A

the room, dared a small smile at her before ducking her head and hurrying out, leaving Cecely not quite so barren with loneliness as she had been. She after all wasn’t without a friend in this place. That was more than she had dared to hope for.
    What Alson had given her to eat, however, was miserable. The bread was dry and stiff. It had to be yesterday’s, and she would swear it was more chaff than flour, while the cup held ale so thin it might as well have been water. Penance was one thing. Starvation was another. How long did Domina Elisabeth mean to keep her this little fed? She hoped Neddie was better seen to than this, poor little mite. The church had been so shadowy that, with the rood screen in the way, she hadn’t been able to see if he had been brought to suffer through Vespers, and she could not guess when she’d be allowed to see him again. Domina Elisabeth might decide that to be separated from him should be part of her punishment.
    But no. No matter what the nuns did to her, Cecely didn’t think they would be that cruel to a small child. Let him cry for his mother, or even ask for her piteously enough, and they would be merciful. She had told him that and was certain she could depend on him to do that much.
    If nothing else, Alson would surely help her. Cecely said a quick and general little prayer of thanks for her good fortune in finding Alson still here.
    That did not help her to choke down the miserable bread, though, nor did she dare take time to soak it much in the ale. When the nuns finished eating, she would be expected to be done, too, she supposed, so she chewed at it and, to take her mind from it, listened to the nun reading aloud at the room’s other end, only after a while realizing that what she was hearing was the same sermon for Tenebrae, the dark days before Easter, that had been read at them all this same way in her last Lent here. Dear saints above, did nothing ever change in this place?
    She was washing down the last of the bread with the last of the poor ale when Domina Elisabeth rose from her place to show the meal was done. All of her nuns rose like shadows with her, and grace was said again—little though there was to be thankful for, Cecely thought. Maybe they were giving thanks there hadn’t been less.
    Now came the one hour of recreation they were allowed each day. Given the cold and wet, they would probably go straight to the warming room, Cecely supposed, and supposed, too, that she should simply stay where she was until told to do otherwise. The nuns left, save for Dame Juliana. Cecely looked at her, and she pointed at the table for Cecely to put the cup there. When Cecely had, Dame Juliana signed for her to follow her, and they went from the refectory and around a corner of the cloister walk to, as Cecily had expected, the warming room.
    With its fireplace it was one of the more comfortable places in the cloister, but not very. A fire was usually allowed there only from October’s end until April’s, and it was as plain a room as the refectory but far smaller, the nuns’ retreat in poor weather and where they sat through the daily chapter meetings where nunnery business was dealt with, confessions made of common faults, and penances given for them. Cecely had expected she would be dealt with in the morrow’s meeting, but found that the nuns, rather than at ease and in talk and at the various light pastimes allowed in this while of recreation, were seated on their joint stools in a partial circle facing the prioress’ chair, and as she followed Dame Juliana into the room every one of them looked toward the doorway. Toward her.
    Her heart sinking a little, Cecely stopped on the threshold, looking back at them. Not in the morning, then. Now. Tonight. While she was still tired with travel, still chilled from the rain and the church. Still hungry.
    She straightened her shoulders and lifted her head. So be it, she thought defiantly.
    Then she remembered she was supposed to