5
REMORSE
After their long rest in the guesthouse kitchen, Lille and Ghent fairly trotted alongside Kate, happily sniffing at passersby, far calmer than earlier in the day. Kate, on the other hand, forced herself to the brisk pace in an attempt to combat the creeping weariness of early afternoon in high summer. The air felt thick, heavy, and her shoulders ached with the tensions of the day, yet she felt restless. Some time at the archery butt, or practicing with her battle-axe, that is what she needed.
Lille’s rumbling growl caught her attention.
Danger! Geoff shouted in Kate’s mind.
As Kate drew her dagger, she and the hounds turned as one, startling two armed men who were much too close. One carried a rope. Kate pointed the dagger at one, then the other, and warned them that she was about to order the dogs to attack. The men backed away, disappearing down an alleyway. Her mother’s man, Griffin, appearing from nowhere, chased after them, but he returned in a moment, shaking his head.
Kate considered the Welshman, who had spent years in the Holy Roman Empire, judging by his accent. Crusading? As a mercenary? Just as she’d not bothered to investigate Agnes Dell, she’d ignored Griffin.
Ghent stepped between them, ready to protect Kate.
Holding up his empty hands, Griffin had the good sense to take a few steps back. “My mistake, Dame Katherine. I thought you might need assistance.”
“You see me through Dame Eleanor’s eyes.” Kate rubbed the hounds’ ears, caught up their leads, and turned to continue on her way, more disturbed by the encounter than she wished Griffin to guess, but also oddly satisfied, all weariness gone. “What is your business on Coney Street?”
“Searching for you. Dame Eleanor said it was urgent.”
“She sent you as well as Jennet?”
“Patience is not her virtue?”
“No, it is not. Jennet did not know what the urgent matter might be. Do you?”
“No.”
God help her. What had her mother done now? Noticing with annoyance that Griffin kept pace slightly behind her, she motioned for him to walk beside Ghent. “He shakes off his response to danger faster than his sister,” she said when he hesitated.
He did as she wished. “Berend is right, you’ve a rare connection with your hounds.”
So he’d been discussing her with Berend?
Interesting, Geoff said in her head. But I wouldn’t hold it against him.
We’ll see, Geoff. We’ll see.
They fell into easy laughter over the strangers’ apparent ignorance.
“He thought they would submit to his attempt to catch them with a rope?” Kate laughed.
“A plot conceived over one too many tankards of ale, I would guess,” said Griffin.
As they approached Kate’s house, Lille and Ghent pricked their ears. Across Castlegate, two men stood guard at the maison dieu. Kate changed direction, crossing toward them. “Sister Dina is there,” she said in answer to Griffin’s questioning expression.
“Did you order a guard?” he asked.
She shook her head, recognizing the two men. “Sir Elric’s.” His visit to the abbey and now this—it was clear that Elric had known about the intruder all along. Devious man, she was right not to trust him. “I will step inside, have a word with Magistra Matilda.”
“But Dame Eleanor . . .”
“I shall try her patience a while longer. This cannot wait.”
Griffin nodded. “I’m glad to wait with the hounds.”
Surprised by the offer, Kate held out her hand for his, then guided him to touch Lille’s back, then Ghent’s. She bent to rub their ears. “Be easy with him,” she whispered. “I won’t be long.” She greeted Elric’s men, who stood aside to allow her in. “Did you or your comrades witness anything last night?”
The men bowed to her but did not speak. Which suggested the answer was yes. But nothing more. Elric had trained them well.
In the dimness of the sisters’ hall, Kate was greeted by a servant who knew her, knew who she wished to see.
“Come this way, I pray you, Mistress Clifford.” She led Kate into a small room off the hall, warmed with a brazier even on this summer afternoon. Magistra Matilda sat at the side of a small cot, watching Sister Dina sleep. A crucifix on the wall, a small table beside the cot, a shuttered window. Bare essentials.
“Any change?” Kate asked.
“At last she sleeps a healing sleep,” said Matilda. “For a long while she lay watching the ceiling and moving her lips, but no sound, no sound.” She shook her head. “What terror does she revisit?”
“I have been too incurious about the beguines my mother collected.”
“She is not your responsibility, surely?”
“When did the Earl of Westmoreland’s men take up the guard here?”
Matilda shook her head. “I knew nothing of it until one of the sisters returned in tears, fearing that we were being put out of our house so that the soldiers might lodge here. The men say they were ordered to ensure Sister Dina’s safety until her attacker is found. I demanded to see their captain.”
Elric knew everything, damn him. “And have you spoken to him?”
“Not yet.” Her veil trembled with indignation. “But I have sent word to the sheriffs.”
Unhappy news. “Did your message mention the intruder last night?”
“Only that there was one. And I am concerned that the Earl of Westmoreland has overstepped his bounds.” A sniff of irritation.
Not as bad as Kate had feared, but still . . . Once the sheriffs knew of the intruder the story would spread quickly throughout York. Any scandal touching her was bad for business—lenders and customers became uneasy. And with all the soldiers, it was no time to stand out. “Had you mentioned an intruder to anyone before Sir Elric’s men arrived?”
“Do you accuse me—”
“No.” Kate raised her hands in surrender. “But I cannot understand how the knight knew to put guards here, can you?”
“I have said nothing to anyone outside this house. And I ordered all in my charge to say nothing.”
“Then someone else knows and told Sir Elric,” said Kate. She bowed to Matilda, thanked her for watching over Dina.
“I will send for you if there is any change,” Matilda assured her. “Or if the sheriff sends someone.”
Perhaps Berend’s visit to the abbey might reveal what Elric knew, what his night watch had witnessed. If not, Kate must think of a way to confront the knight without seeming to confront him.
Outside, the sun beat down. She was glad to see that Griffin had found a shady spot beneath a tree to rest with the hounds. As she approached, he rose with a fluidity that impressed her.
“How is Sister Dina?” he asked.
“Sleeping peacefully.” Kate smiled as Lille and Ghent joined them, nudging her hands for ear rubs. As she obliged them, she thanked Griffin for watching them.
“To be honest, it felt as if they were keeping me polite company,” he said.
Kate waited until they crossed into Hertergate to ask Griffin why her mother had sent him and not a servant to fetch her.
“Dame Eleanor grew anxious that Jennet might not have stressed the urgency of her summons. I set off to find you.”
A stroke of luck that he’d found her, then. “But you know nothing of what happened that she’s so keen to see me?”
“To see both of us. Devil if I know. Except that she had an unexpected visitor—Lionel Neville.”
That sent a shiver down Kate’s sweat-dampened back. “God help me. If Dame Eleanor and Lionel are in league—”
“No, no, I did not mean that. I assure you, she dislikes him as much as you do.”
“So she has told you all about us?”
“To be honest, I heard it on the street.”
Of course. Their bad blood would make good gossip. “I take no comfort in your empty assurance. She has not as much cause to dislike him as I do.” She led Lille and Ghent down the side of the Martha House and into the garden, finding a shady spot for them beneath the kitchen eaves. “A bowl of water?” she asked Griffin.
He fetched it from the kitchen without hesitation, and proffered a small plate of cold meats. “Not so rich as what they deserve.”
“But welcome for now.” She smiled, a peace offering.
“Dame Eleanor awaits us—” Griffin gestured not to the main house but the kitchen.
“In here?” As she stepped into the kitchen, Kate wrinkled her nose at the warring scents of damp earth and lye.
“The intruder bled enough to weaken a man,” Griffin noted.
“Yet he managed to elude us.”
Kate paused in the doorway to the small bedchamber, nodding to her mother, who had been sitting on the bed, hands folded. Now Eleanor rose and came to kiss Kate on the cheek. A surprising gesture.
“Bless you for finding her, Griffin.”
“She was already on her way, Dame Eleanor. I merely accompanied her from Coney Street.” He said no more.
Placing a cool hand on Kate’s arm, Eleanor leaned close to request that they adjourn to her house. “I would as lief not be overheard.”
Kate glanced around. It was only the three of them. What did her mother fear? “Of course. Berend is out, so the kitchen should be quiet. I have some information for you as well.” She noticed shadows beneath her mother’s eyes, and a subtle bowing of her shoulders. “What did Lionel want?”
“At your house, daughter. Griffin, come along.”
The Welshman grinned good-naturedly and followed.
Kate called to Lille and Ghent as she moved through the garden to the gate in the hedgerow. In her own kitchen, Matt was piling wood and coals by the hearth. Changing her plan, Kate told Matt they’d be in the hall.
“But Sister Brigida and the girls . . .”
“The weather is so fine, they might enjoy taking their lessons out in the garden. Bring ale and some food to us, then wander down to the staithes, chat with the workers. Perhaps someone’s talking about trouble there in the early morning.”
Matt’s expression brightened. Kate knew he missed the bustle of High Petergate, where he’d supported Griselde and Clement.
Sister Brigida and her pupils greeted Kate’s idea with delight, the girls hurrying from the hall clutching their wax tablets and giggling as they attempted to express their happiness in elegant Parisian. Brigida followed at an only slightly more sedate pace, whispering to Kate, “They are such joys.”
In the ensuing silence, Griffin settled on a bench between the two windows. Taking off his felt hat, he leaned back and sighed with pleasure as the cross-draft ruffled his coppery curls.
Eleanor had been drawn to the vertical loom directly beneath the east window, touching the bright threads. “You’ve done some work on it.”
“Petra and I. It reminds her of happy times with Old Mapes, the healer who raised her.” Kate’s niece had quickly adapted to the sounds and rhythms of her household. The loss of a father she’d never known, and the two who had brought her up, still burdened her with sorrow, but as she discovered her deep similarities with Kate, and was shown over and over again by all in the household—even Marie, in her own way—that she was loved and appreciated, she found the strength to hold that sorrow. “We both take great pleasure in the time together.” Kate felt herself bracing for the much-remembered criticisms: “You are all thumbs. Your color pairings are no better than if a blind girl chose them. Do you call that a pattern?”
But Eleanor merely nodded, settling in one of the high-back chairs. “As we worked the loom when you were learning. Do you remember the songs?”
Kate exhaled. “I do.” It was a bittersweet memory, conjuring scenes of her brothers crowding into the hall with the dogs and cats, threatening to topple the tall loom. All dead now, all three brothers. Though Geoff, her twin, lived on in spirit, it was not the same, would never be the same.
Matt’s arrival with ale and food drew Kate out of her sudden melancholy—his smile was a grace, always able to warm her heart.
“I will be away now.” He hummed a jaunty tune as he strode from the hall.
Griffin bestirred himself, pouring some ale, slicing some cheese to balance on a chunk of bread.
“Some woman will be most fortunate in that young man,” said Eleanor. “Or have you claimed Matt for yourself, Daughter? I saw how you brightened with his arrival.”
Eleanor, with her startlingly green eyes and winning ways—when she chose to use them—had always charmed men into caring for her and dancing to her tune. Her husbands, sons, nephews, cousins, brothers, neighbors—the males had all been hearts to conquer and shape to her advantage.
Kate chose to ignore her comment about Matt. “So. Lionel paid you a visit?”
Eleanor’s teasing smile vanished with a sigh, and she bowed her head. “That odious creature. He pretended concern about our welfare, having heard about an intruder.” She fussed with a sleeve. Was that a tear rolling down her cheek? “But Agnes lied to us, you see. The house was not her gift to give. It belongs to Lionel Neville.”
“God in heaven,” Kate whispered. He must be praying for a scandal in the Martha House, something to ruin her good name by association.
Eleanor leaned toward Kate, reaching for her hand, pressing it with both of hers. Yes, there were tears spilling down her face. “I am so sorry, Katherine. I didn’t know—I never imagined—I was in such haste. It is my fault. I am to blame. How can you forgive me?”
Kate touched her mother’s cheek with the back of her hand and shook her head at the impossibility of what her mother had uttered. Never had she heard those words from her mother: sorry, my fault, I am to blame. Months earlier, when she had confronted Eleanor with the horror she had unleashed by carelessly advising Walter, Kate’s eldest brother, to reach out to an old enemy, stirring the flames of an anger that would not be slaked until both men were dead and Petra was an orphan, her mother had refused to take responsibility, much less express remorse. She had even tried to lay the blame on Kate and her brothers. Yet now here she sat, clutching Kate’s hand, asking forgiveness.
Was she entirely to blame? Kate might have discovered Lionel’s name on the property had she taken the trouble, had she not washed her hands of her mother because of the guilt she would not own. She, Jennet, and Berend investigated the holdings of all with whom Kate did business. It was her own fault for neglecting to do so with Agnes Dell.
But it was no time for pointing fingers. For Dina’s sake, indeed for all their sakes, Kate needed to discover what had happened in the house Eleanor had leased, whether any or all of them were in danger.
“Do you say nothing to me, Katherine?”
Kate placed her free hand over her mother’s. “Forget about blame, Mother. Tell me all that you know. That is how we will discover what happened, whether it was a random encounter or something more sinister.”
“Do you think the rest of us are in danger?” Griffin asked.
Kate glanced over at him. “That is what we need to find out.” She patted her mother’s hand and offered her a cup of ale. “Wet your throat, then tell me all. From the beginning. What made you suspect Agnes had not been honest with you?”
She listened closely as Eleanor recounted Nan’s announcement that Lionel was in the hall, her obvious discomfort and reluctance to fetch Agnes, Agnes’s consequent blubbering, and the conversation with Lionel, the lie about what had happened with Dina.
“A story perfect for Lionel,” said Kate. “Certain to dissuade him from asking further questions. You were inspired, Mother. Have you informed Magistra Matilda of this version of this morning’s events? This must be our story going forward.”
“With everyone?”
Kate thought about Sir Elric, his men, Thomas Holme, Griselde and Clement, the monk at the abbey infirmary. And what had Berend told Sir Alan and his guests?
“No, it is Lionel’s special tale. With anyone else, say that you do not wish to talk about it. Though if you are pushed . . .” It would not be that simple. Kate threw up her hands. “How can I advise you when I do not know what happened? For now it is best to say as little as possible.”
Eleanor gently cupped Kate’s face in her hands, then released it with a tearful smile. “I promise to keep my own counsel, except with you. Now. As to what we do about the house—” She explained Sister Clara’s proposal and her own insistence that they consult Kate before making any changes or saying anything to Agnes and Nan.
Kate caught herself glancing over at Griffin as she might Berend or Jennet to gauge their reaction. The breeze had dried his hair, now a coppery mass of curls that gave him an angelic appearance.
“Let me discuss this with Berend and Jennet,” said Kate. “Until we come to a decision, say nothing, Mother.”
“Agnes will ask,” said Eleanor.
“Advise her to pray. Is that not what she joined with your sisters to learn, how to live all her life as a prayer? Suggest she find a work that is pleasing to God, helpful to the community.” Agnes Dell. What was her story? What was her part in this? “What do you know of Agnes? What reason did she give for her offer of the house and her wish to be a beguine?”
Eleanor tilted her head back with a sigh, leaning against the high back of the chair. “What exactly did she say?” she said softly. “She spoke of her grief over her husband’s death, and at sea. With no body to clean, dress, bury with blessings and prayers for his soul, she feels robbed of the farewell. She seeks solace, grace, a life devoted to good works. As you say, it is time she found good, honest work through which she might gain grace for herself and her husband’s soul. May God grant them that.”
Was her mother still referring to Agnes and her late husband, or herself and Ulrich? Kate glanced over at Lille and Ghent. The two slept, Ghent’s head resting on Lille’s back. She rose and helped herself to some cheese and bread. Griffin joined Kate at the table, his back to Eleanor.
“In truth, I asked Agnes very little,” Eleanor said as she rose to join them. Peering into Kate’s eyes, she demanded, “What do you know, Katherine? I sense there is much you are not telling me.”
Kate’s hands itched for the release a session with her bow and a quiver of arrows would bring. “I know far less than I would like, and what little I know is confusing. I need to be quiet now and think. Go to the maison dieu, tell Magistra Matilda what you told Lionel. And then quietly go about the rest of your day as if nothing were changed. We can consult further when we know more.”
Eleanor lifted a hand. “The maison dieu reminded me—Dina sleeps with a dagger beneath her pillow.”
“I know.”
“You do? Did she—?”
“Sister Brigida told me.”
Eleanor had returned to the loom, running her hands over the threads. “Well, the dagger is missing. Agnes and Clara searched for it between the house and the church, thinking Dina may have dropped it as she fled to sanctuary, but they found nothing.”
Sanctuary. An interesting choice of word. “What does Dina fear so much that she would resort to such ends as sleeping with a dagger at the ready?” Kate asked.
Eleanor still fingered the threads. “I wish I knew. I do not believe either Sister Clara or Sister Brigida know.”
“Most unfortunate,” Griffin said quietly.
Kate glanced at him. “Will you sleep in Dina’s bedchamber tonight?”
“I will.”
“And I will send Sister Agnes to sit with Nan’s mother,” said Eleanor.
“Why Agnes and not Nan?” Kate asked.
“Punishment. For both of them.”
“But Mother . . .”
Save your battles, Kate. This one isn’t worth it, Geoff said in her mind.
I don’t know. Mother’s judgment . . .
Allow her this small act.
Of spite, Geoff. Pray God this does not end badly. We don’t know if we can trust Agnes.
Kate shook her head at her mother’s puzzled frown. “No matter.”
“You said Simon had this loom made for you?” Eleanor asked. “I should like one for the Martha House—when I feel certain I have one.”
It was one of Kate’s most treasured gifts from her late husband. “When the time comes, I will introduce you to the man who fashioned this for me.”
“I pray that it comes to pass.”
Another unexpected response from her mother. In the past she would have expressed anger at those who stood in the way of her dream. Kate walked Eleanor to the street-side door. “Sit with Sister Dina awhile, Mother. Perhaps, seeing you there, she might confide something—”
Eleanor nodded. “I will pray for her trust.” Kissing Kate on the cheek once again, she departed.
Kate watched her walk through the yard and past the small house on the street. She was an elegant woman, her mother, proud, vain, stubborn. But there was something new, a softening, a sadness. A troubling thought—was her mother using the news about Lionel to mask distress over something else? Something to do with Sister Dina?
Turning from the door, Kate watched Griffin finish what was left of the cheese and bread. She needed to find a way to draw him out, learn what he knew about her mother’s life with Ulrich Smit.
“You are patient with Mother,” she said.
What was it about his eyes when he smiled? They seemed to dance. “She obliged me by trusting me above the others in Ulrich’s household.”
“Others? Ulrich had more than one retainer in Strasbourg?”
“He did. Though he called us factors.” The grin broadened.
“What does a merchant need with several retainers?”
“Surely you saw a few of them when he stayed in your father’s house in Northumberland? He always traveled with two or more. You don’t remember them?”
“I remember he came with others, but I never took note of them. I understand why he traveled with them. But once he was back in Strasbourg, what was the need? Did he continue to travel after he wed Mother?”
Griffin ran a calloused hand through his hair. “It is not my place to speak of Ulrich Smit and Dame Eleanor.”
“She has requested your silence?”
“Not in so many words.”
He reached up as if to rake his hair once more. She caught his hand, turned it palm up, studied the calluses.
“You’re an archer.”
“I am Welsh.”
She glanced up, caught his grin, and laughed. “So you are. Do you have your bow and quiver with you?”
“At my lodgings.”
“Bring them back with you when you fetch your things.”
“Is that an invitation? I’ve hesitated to ask if I might join you at practice. I would enjoy that.”
His hand grew warm in hers. A nice hand. Dry. Strong. She let it go and thanked him again for not mentioning the men who had followed her on the street. “You might do something for me,” she said, shifting the topic.
“Yes?”
“The Earl of Westmoreland’s men at the maison dieu. They will be relieved at some point.”
“I have seen them often, here and elsewhere in the city.”
“I would like to know where the two lodge.”
He bowed. “I will follow them when they are relieved.” Opening the door, he glanced back. “Does this mean you trust me?”
“We shall see.”
He nodded and took his leave.
Time to clear her head. From the cupboard near the hearth she plucked her bow and a quiver of arrows. Taking it as a signal, Lille and Ghent rose and shook themselves. Together they went out into the garden.
Sister Dina’s was a small, stuffy room despite a shutter being slightly ajar. Eleanor opened it wide for a moment, appreciating the pleasant prospect, Thomas Holme’s gardens tumbling down the slope to the river Foss. But the summer afternoon offered little breeze, certainly not enough to risk the danger of inviting access. Though the window was high in the wall, a determined intruder might easily climb with the help of the vine growing up the side of the building and drop into the room. Eleanor remembered a time when Ulrich . . . She shook her head against the unwelcome memory and closed the shutters. Sir Elric’s men guarded the maison dieu. Sister Dina was safe here. But once she woke, Eleanor would insist she return to the Martha House. And then what would Sir Elric’s guards do? She smiled to think what her daughter might say about their presence across the hedgerow. There was something between Katherine and their captain, she could see it.
Eleanor shifted the high-backed chair in such wise that Sister Dina might see her and recognize her on waking, and close enough that she might hear her prayer. Settling, she drew out her paternoster, shaking out the silver and pearl beads. Bowing her head, she began a silent prayer to calm her thoughts, draw her heart to the place from which she might reach out to Sister Dina, touch her suffering with her own. In the background, sisters quietly called to one another in the hall as they went about their duties, a cart rattled past on Castlegate, a dog barked; not her daughter’s great beasts. Katherine—had Eleanor any hope of regaining her trust? She had taken the news more calmly than Eleanor had expected . . . She shook herself. It was not the time for those thoughts.
Softly she began to say Hail Marys aloud, watching Sister Dina’s sharp-featured face for a sign of awareness. After two or three rounds, the beguine’s eyelids flickered, but nothing more.
“Blessed Mary, Mother of God, pray for me, a sinner, that I might make amends,” Eleanor murmured. “I see now that I have been a willful, heedless creature. When Ulrich died and I learned—But I do not need to tell you what I learned, our all-seeing Mother. When I understood the depth of his betrayal, and my part in it, I prayed for a sign of how I might redeem myself, how I might atone for my sins. You brought me Sister Dina, a beguine, a sempster fitting me for my mourning clothes, a woman radiating such comforting grace that I begged her to tell me how she came to be so. Sweetly she shared with me the words of Meister Eckhart, his sermons of love, compassion, the light within, the Mother’s grace. ‘Love is nothing else in itself than God.’ As long as I love, I am on the right path.” Remembering herself, Eleanor glanced behind her to check that she was not overheard by anyone but Dina. It would not do to speak of Meister Eckhart in Magistra Matilda’s hearing. Eleanor did not need a rumor spreading that her beguines were heretics.
She bent close to Dina, looking for a sign that she heard, remembered. Sister Dina had consoled Eleanor and given her hope when she had resigned herself to damnation, certain there was no path to redemption. Did she remember? Did she regret her kindness? Dina gave no sign. Eleanor spoke a few more Hail Marys, then prayed for the beguine, prayed for forgiveness for drawing her away from the safety of Strasbourg. “May God smite me for plucking this good woman from her home and putting her in harm’s way.”
Sister Dina’s eyes flickered.
“Do you wake?” Eleanor gently lay a hand on hers. “It is Dame Eleanor. You are safe, my dear. Magistra Matilda has brought you to this quiet room where you may rest.”
Dina’s eyelids flickered, opened. She turned her hand to grasp Eleanor’s. A firm grip, too firm, tightening, tightening. A look of horror. A quavering thread of voice. “He came for me. He said he would, but I did not believe. No grave can hold him. He will not rest. Cannot rest.”
“Heavenly Mother,” Eleanor gasped, dropping her beads to squeeze Dina’s wrist until she released the hand.
But the young woman now clawed at Eleanor’s face. She cried out for help. Two sisters rushed into the room.
“Hold her arms. Gently, but firmly,” Eleanor gasped, sitting back to catch her breath.
“He will not rest!” Dina shrieked.
Magistra Matilda came striding in and slapped Dina’s cheek. The young woman gasped. “Release her arms,” Matilda ordered.
The sisters obeyed, backing away.
Dina crossed her arms, pressing them close to her, as she stared from face to face.
“You said he came for you, Sister Dina. Who?” Eleanor asked in a voice she hoped was soothing. “Who frightened you?”
The young woman turned her head away from all of them. “Shamed,” she whispered to the wall. “Shamed. Bloodied. Cursed.”
Magistra Matilda lay a hand on Eleanor’s shoulder. “Perhaps we should let her rest in quiet, Dame Eleanor.”
“He made me commit a terrible sin. I have murdered a man,” Dina moaned.
“We do not know that, Sister Dina.” Matilda spoke with authority.
But Dina had experienced the attack, not Matilda. Eleanor did not want the magistra confusing Dina, making her question what she remembered of the attack. “Now she is awake, I want to bring her back to my Martha House,” she said.
“Is that wise? To take her back there? After all, that is where she—”
“Not out in the kitchen, of course, but up in the solar, where she will be with her sisters.”
“Of course I have no authority over you, but I urge you to leave her here. There are many of us to watch over her.”
Too many ears. Too many mouths. No. Eleanor could not allow that. Nor could she abide this arrogant magistra much longer. “I have decided.”