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There were too many soldiers, and for the last few days of their journey, Morwen was worried. She tried not to show it, though, because she didn’t want to alarm Lillian. But she stayed off the main roads. Whenever they passed a troop of cavalry or an encampment of pikemen, she urged their little donkey to a slightly faster walk, and she clutched her copy of the Epistles of Ovida tightly to her chest. It was a lovely book, and to protect it from the elements while traveling, it had a lead-lined case of solid walnut. It weighed eight or nine pounds. Swung with enough force, it would probably stun a charging bull.
Luckily, the soldiers left them alone, and Morwen never had to find out if her plan for literary self-defense would really work. At last they crested the low ridge of the Almoner’s Woods and they saw a gentle valley of neat little farms. Off to the left, faded gray in the summer haze, they could see the market town of Basington, and the spire of the priory there. Ahead and to the right, straddling either side of the little Erstenwell Stream, they could see the gray stone wall of the convent, and behind it, towering over everything like a manmade mountain, was the abbey church itself.
A lay sister at the abbey stables took charge of the donkey and the cart. Then Morwen and Lillian went to the Chapel of the Well, close by in the west transept of the abbey. Nuns always washed their hands, faces, and feet there whenever they returned. It was a tradition, and it was also a pleasure, especially on a hot, muggy morning after long days on dusty roads.
The Erstenwell, as it was known, was the entire reason why the abbey and the priories and the convent had been built in this area. The story went that the little spring had been discovered by the Blessed Fenne, one of the original hillichmagnars who had created the world with Earstien’s magy. Supposedly the waters had marvelous healing properties. Or that was the legend, anyway. Morwen suspected the Blessed Fenne had only told people that in order to get them to wash their hands and take a bath every once in a while.
In any case, whatever the truth of the story, someone had built a chapel here, and then the priory at Basington, and then a convent, and then eventually the abbey church. What made the community unusual was that, due to some rather tedious political wrangling at the time, the leader ended up being a woman. Only men could be preosts, of course, so Prior Anthony of Basington, and his sub-prior, Brother Nathan, were the ones who conducted services in the abbey. But the church, and its chapels, and the convent and two priories here, plus half a dozen more little communities spread across northern Keneshire and western Trahernshire, and thousands of acres of abbey lands, were all under the control of the Abbess of Erstenwell. A lot of people thought this arrangement was odd, or even unnatural. But Morwen, coming from a family where her mother held the title and wielded all the power, thought it only sensible.
The abbess received them in a small upstairs parlor with hard wooden chairs and a well-worn old table that she used for a desk. There was a more comfortable parlor downstairs, with a sweeping bay window and cushioned chairs, but that was used for meetings with outsiders. It would have almost been an insult to meet with fellow sisters in a place like that.
Sister Alberta, as she modestly preferred to be known, was a small woman, not much taller than Morwen, with quick, alert blue eyes and a rounded, grandmotherly face. She sometimes gave young nuns and novices the impression that she was a bit soft and easygoing. But as Morwen knew, Alberta had a theory that stupid people should be allowed to make their own mistakes, so they could be identified and avoided. She had, therefore, a hands-off policy when it came to discipline, but not entirely out of kindness.
She listened to Morwen’s report—Lillian sat fidgeting to the side, too nervous to say much—and at the end, the abbess smiled and said, “Well done. I thought for certain the bishop would try to weasel out of the book contract. I had confidence you could show him the error of his ways, though.”
It was on the tip of Morwen’s tongue to ask if the bishop had some history with her mother, but then she decided it was best not to know.
“Off you go, now,” Sister Alberta said, standing. “You’re both excused from your duties today. Oh, and tomorrow, too. You’ve been away a while, and a couple days of rest will do you good.”
Lillian was almost giddy at the thought of two days of idleness, and headed straight to the dormitories with the intention, as she told Morwen, of sleeping straight through until tomorrow morning. For her part, Morwen thought she might go to the library and do some reading.
When Morwen saw the baseboards in the library, however, she knew she wouldn’t be taking two days off, after all. There was dust down there. Actual dust! And a thin layer of grime in the corners that made her shudder. Morwen was the deputy chamberlain of the convent, which meant she was in charge of directing the younger nuns, novices, and postulates in their daily cleaning duties. Clearly, the girls had been slacking off in her absence. She went straight to the dormitories, rounded up half a dozen sisters (except Lillian, who was already fast asleep) and set them to work on the library floors. Then she got a pencil and some scrap parchment and went around making notes of other things that needed done.
Hours later, when the convent was finally looking tidy again, she had time to sit down at her desk and check off all the items—windows, floors, flagstones, and so on. It was most satisfying.
Morwen didn’t have an office. No one but the abbess had a proper room all to herself to work in. Instead, she had a little fold-down desk in the passageway outside the pantry. Sometimes she found it annoying, because women were always going past, one way or the other, and occasionally someone would stop and want to talk about whatever Morwen was doing.
“Ah, catching up on the cleaning, I see.” The voice was low and rather nasal. Morwen looked around to find Sister Catherine Foster, the sub-prioress, peering over her shoulder.
“Yes, Sister Catherine. Cleaning. As you can see.”
“Things got shockingly dirty while you were gone, Sister Morwen.”
“Yes. Hence, the extra cleaning today.”
“I’ve always been of the opinion that if girls are properly instructed in their jobs, they’ll do their jobs properly, even when there’s no one around to make them do it. Don’t you think, Sister Morwen?”
Morwen took a deep breath. “I suppose that’s true.” It really never failed; Catherine always managed to find a way to insult her.
Catherine patted Morwen on the shoulder. “Anyway, I’m keeping you from your work. Good day, sister.”
Clenching her fists, Morwen bowed her head and said a prayer that Earstien would forgive her for the sin of wrath. Then she got a brush and a bucket, went back to the library, and scrubbed the baseboards again, all by herself, just to make sure. With that done, she finally did some reading, and she spent most of the afternoon there, except during the services of the hours, when she naturally had to go join everyone else in the abbey church.
After evening prayers, there was a bit of a commotion in the churchyard. Some of the lay sisters had come in from the fields, looking rather worried, to report that soldiers were setting up camp in the valley around the River Basing and the Erstenwell Stream.
“Soldiers?” said the abbess. “Whose soldiers?”
No one knew, and Morwen instantly thought of all the troops she and Lillian had seen on the roads. She remembered seeing a lot of Gramiren troops. But she had also seen troops of her mother’s cousin, the Earl of Montgomery. The soldiers out in the valley could be from either side, in other words.
It soon became clear that the soldiers, whoever they were, were just passing through and didn’t intend to pillage or rape or cause any sort of mayhem in town. So the panic subsided, and the lay sisters went home to their families, and the women of the convent settled down for their evening work. Morwen, of course, went back to the library.
She had only been there for an hour, however, when Sister Una Baldwin, the assistant librarian, came and said that the abbess was looking for her.
“Oh, dear,” thought Morwen. As she rounded the cloister, she thought back to her conversation with Sister Catherine. Had she said anything disrespectful? Had she used too sarcastic a tone when she said, “Hence, the extra cleaning today”? Catherine loved nothing better than getting other people in trouble.
Morwen found the abbess in the fancy downstairs parlor, and astonishingly, her mother was there, too. Duchess Flora was seated on the big velvet couch, with a mug of the abbey’s cider in her hand. She had on a long purple riding dress, a studded leather bustier, and silver pauldrons, like some adolescent boy’s fantasy of a warrior goddess. It looked a bit ridiculous, actually.
“Morwen, darling!” She jumped up for a long hug and a quick kiss. “The Sigors and I are heading north to relieve Keelweard, and I thought I’d pop in and say hello.”
“How nice,” said Morwen. It had only been two weeks since she’d last seen her mother. She wasn’t used to being around her this much. Good things rarely happened when they saw too much of each other.
Sister Alberta stood up and excused herself. “Please take all the time you need, your grace. If you need any more cider, or perhaps some food, don’t hesitate to ring the bell.”
“Now, then, dear,” her mother began, the moment the abbess was gone. “I wanted to talk to you about a very serious subject.” She poured a cup of cider and passed it over the low marble table.
“Oh? What subject is this?”
“Your marriage.”
Morwen sighed. “Mother, honestly. Do we really need to go through this again?”
“Apparently yes. Now, I know you like it here,” she waved a gauntleted arm vaguely around. “I know you like...praying and...reading scriptures and whatever else it is that you do here. But you’re a Byrne woman, and it’s time for you to do your duty for the family like Lauren did.”
A quick prayer for patience, and to ask forgiveness for the sin of wanting to murder her own mother. “Lauren didn’t take a vow of chastity.”
Flora made a rude noise with her lips. “Chastity! It’s unnatural, my dear girl. A woman isn’t meant to keep herself all sealed up like that for a whole lifetime. I can get the Bishop of Keneburg to release you from your vows. Nothing simpler. I’ll go see him after this battle, and we’ll have you wedded and bedded before Finstertide.”
Morwen cringed at the obscene jocularity of the phrase “wedded and bedded,” but she couldn’t fail to notice the implication in her mother’s hurried timetable. It was already mid-August. Finstertide was at the end of October. Not quite two and a half months. If her mother was serious about having a wedding that quickly, then that meant....
“Let me guess. You’ve already picked out the groom.” Obviously, the Duchess of Keneburg wouldn’t have made this trip and picked open this old scab between them if she didn’t have a plan already in place.
“I was thinking you might like Lawrence Swithin.”
Fortunately, Morwen had just set down her cup of cider, because she would probably have dropped it at this point. Or flung it at her mother. “The Earl of Hyrne? Why on earth would you think I would like him? Assuming I were going to get married, which I’m not.”
“He’s handsome and rich. You’re very pretty—though that gray and white looks dreadful on a girl with your coloring. He needs a wife and you, my dear, most definitely need a husband.”
“I’m sorry, mother, but even if I were inclined to marry, which I’m not, I don’t know the earl at all.”
Flora scooted forward, smiling. “Oh, he’s a lovely man. Very clever. Wonderful conversationalist. Very passionate nature, my dear, at least when you get to know him well.”
“Passionate nature...?” Morwen groaned. “Oh, mother! You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you? Do you have any idea how obscene that is? Trying to get me to break my vows so you can marry me to your lover? How can you not be ashamed of that?”
To her surprise, her mother’s cheeks reddened, and she looked down, fidgeting with her hands. In a softer voice, Flora said, “I know what you think of me. If it makes you feel better, I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently. Lawrence is probably going to be my last conquest. Depressing, isn’t it?”
“Depressing?” Morwen arched an eyebrow.
“Yes. When you’re the best at something, darling, it’s hard to know when to quit. It’s so tempting to do it one more time, and once more after that, until you look ridiculous doing it. When I turned 40, everyone said, ‘She looks 25.’ When I turned 50, people said, ‘she barely looks 40.’ When I turn 80, are they going to say, ‘she hardly looks 70’? That’s not much of a compliment anymore. The years catch up with you. I’m old, and I feel old.”
Morwen found herself unexpectedly touched. “You’re not that old, Mom.”
“When you’re 53, you’ll know what I mean. Listen, I’ve never told you this, but I’ve always promised your father that I’d be with him until we died. No matter what I did, or who I was with, I always told him that in the end, I’d be his. I told him we’d grow old together. Well, now I’m old. It’s time for me to make good on that promise. And it’s time for someone else to carry the burden of this family.”
Morwen found it hard to speak. Then she remembered who she was talking to: the most manipulative woman in all Myrcia. The lump in her throat faded, and she said, “Mother, I don’t care for your way of promoting your family’s interest.” She stood up and bowed. “And I wish you would remember, once and for all, that I am a sister of the Leofine Order. These women here are my family now, and I’m not leaving them.”
As she turned and left, her mother said, “You’ll always be my daughter. Just think about it, dear, will you?” But Morwen didn’t answer.
Morwen was in the right. She knew it. But the blasted thing about her mother was that the woman could make you feel guilty, even when you had nothing to feel guilty about. Morwen had always loved rules, even as a child, and it offended her deeply when she followed the rules and got blamed, anyway. All night, she stayed awake thinking of her mother saying “You’ll always be my daughter” and twisting the corners of her sheets into angry knots.
In the morning, word came that the Keneburgian troops were leaving. Morwen half expected another visit from her mother, but there was none. At first she was relieved, which made her feel even more guilty.
She went to see the abbess. Sister Alberta was in her solar, a tiny room on the third floor of her official residence, where she kept her plants. When Morwen found her, Sister Alberta was tending a little garden of moss and lichen, clinging to a broken bit of masonry and enclosed in a glass terrarium.
“I like moss,” the abbess said, half to herself. “It only grows in quiet places that have been left alone.” She looked up. “What did you need, sister?”
Morwen told her about the conversation with her mother, and about her mother’s plans for Morwen to marry the Earl of Hyrne.
Alberta sniffed. “Well, do you want to marry him?”
“No!” said Morwen. “I mean, I took my final vows six years ago, and I can’t—”
“Oh, that,” said the abbess. “The bishop could get you out of that. Especially since his nephew married your sister Lauren. The question was whether you wanted to marry the earl or not.”
“No, I don’t! Sister Alberta, I want to stay here. It’s all I’ve ever wanted since I was 16.”
“Yes, yes. You told me about it when you came here: your religious epiphany in the churchyard of the cathedral at Atherton. Very affecting story, I must say. The thing is, Sister Morwen, that we all move according to Earstien’s will, and that is something entirely different from what you want, or what I want, or even from what your famous mother wants.”
Morwen considered that for a moment. “So the real question is what Earstien is leading me to do.”
“Exactly.”