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“The soldiers are back,” said Sister Lillian, leaning out the door of the pantry.
Morwen sat back from her fold-down desk and looked up from her accounts book. “Which soldiers?” Her mother wasn’t actually bringing troops to force her to marry the Earl of Hyrne, was she?
But Lillian didn’t know, and the lay sisters who came in from the fields for evening prayers had no idea, either. “What was on their banner?” Morwen asked.
“It looked like a bridge,” one of the women said.
“Severn,” said Morwen. These were Gramiren men. “Well, Earstien willing, they’ll move on tomorrow.”
They didn’t, though. The second morning, the camp followers and servants of the knights and officers were all down at the river, washing clothes and hanging them out to dry in the frosty air. “It looks as if they’re settling in for a while,” said one of the lay sisters, sounding a bit worried.
“What on earth could they want here?” Lillian wondered.
“Probably to murder us all in our sleep,” said Sister Irma Dawson. She was the treasurer of the abbey and almost 80 years old. She tended to have a dim view of humanity.
Sister Noreen Payton, the deputy infirmerer, was precisely the opposite. “The third Epistle of Valamir says we should minister to those Earstien brings in our path. Perhaps they need medical attention.”
Sister Catherine, the sub-prioress, wouldn’t hear of it, though. “No one is going anywhere to ‘minister’ to a group of rough young soldiers.” The way she said it made it seem as if poor Sister Noreen had been suggesting a brothel and dancing girls.
So, they weren’t going to the soldiers, but the next day, the soldiers came to them. After morning prayers, seven knights rode out of the camp and up the long slope to the convent gate. They had swords on, but no mail or armor or helmets. It looked as if this was a social call, not an assault. Inside the gate, they dismounted. Their leader, a huge blond man with massively wide shoulders, looked around him with icy blue eyes.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said, with a very tiny bow. “I do hate to interrupt your devotions, but I need a brief word with your abbess.”
Sister Catherine took charge. She snapped at the sisters to “go on and be about your business. Honestly, don’t you have things to do?” Then she pointed the soldiers to the big downstairs visitors’ parlor.
As the big knight passed, he scanned the crowd of nuns. When he spotted Morwen, he bowed, much lower this time, and grinned broadly. Then he carried on, chuckling quietly to himself.
“Do you know that man?” Sister Catherine demanded in a low voice.
“I don’t think so,” said Morwen. She couldn’t have said his name, or where he was from, but there was something curiously familiar about him. If he was a Gramiren officer, then perhaps she had known him at court. But that was a decade ago, now, and she couldn’t say for sure.
The abbess, Sister Catherine, and the prioress joined the knights in the reception parlor and shut the door. The other nuns began drifting away to their usual duties. The excitement was over for the time being, at least. Morwen decided to go see if the new soap the novices had been making was ready yet. But she barely got around the cloister before Sister Catherine came running after her.
“Are you really certain you don’t know that man?”
“I’m not sure. I might have known him at court, but I can’t remember.”
“Well, he certainly seems to know you. He’s demanding that you be present at his meeting with the abbess.” Sister Catherine lowered her voice. “You know, Sister Morwen, if there’s some...secret past between the two of you, it will go better for you if you confess before your sins are brought to light.”
“If I had a past with that man, I can assure you I’d remember it,” said Morwen, with as much dignity as she could.
She returned to the visitors’ parlor with Sister Catherine. Only the abbess and the big knight were seated. All the other men stood behind their leader’s chair or over by the window. Sister Joyce, the prioress, stood to one side of Sister Alberta. All eyes turned to Morwen as she entered. The big knight stood and bowed.
“Lady Morwen. Or I suppose you would prefer ‘Sister Morwen’ now. I doubt you remember me at all. You were a lady-in-waiting to Queen Rohesia when I knew you, and I was just a lowly squire to my father. We really never spoke much, but I shall never forget how lovely you were in your court finery.”
“That is very kind,” said Morwen, aware of Sister Catherine’s frigid glare on her. “But I’m afraid, my dear sir, that I cannot recall your name.”
“Sir Halvor Ingridsson,” he said, with yet another bow, this one even lower than before. “At your service.”
So that’s who he was: the half-Krigadamite bastard son of Duke Lukas. Of course. Morwen remembered everyone at court saying he would make a fantastic soldier one day. He was as tall as his father back then, and the boy had only been...what? 15 or 16? She also remembered thinking that there was something dangerous, almost feral about the boy. Like he’d walked into the Wealdan Castle Palm Court straight out of the jungles of his mother’s homeland. Some of that had been tamed now; he had been taught basic manners. But there was still a wild look about him, all the same.
He glanced around the parlor, taking in the cushions and the gilded mirror and the engravings of the ten cathedrals of Myrcia. “I knew you had gone into a convent, Lady Morwen, but I had forgotten this was the one you had chosen. Do you like living here?”
Morwen looked at the sub-prioress, and the prioress, and the abbess. Sister Alberta shrugged and raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Yes, please. I’m curious to know, as well.”
“I love it here,” said Morwen. “It’s my home. May I ask why you wanted to see me?”
“You have a unique perspective,” said Sir Halvor. “And unique connections. These ladies,” he pointed at the other three, “are the top officers of your little regiment, as it were, but let’s not kid ourselves. As my mother always used to say, ‘she who pays the captain picks the heading.’ And I think we all know who pays the captain of this grand vessel.”
“I assure you I’m an ordinary Leofine Sister,” Morwen said. “I answer to the authority of Sister Alberta, and above her, only to Earstien.”
Sir Halvor rolled his eyes and chuckled. “You may not be interested in your old family, Lady Morwen, but they do seem very interested in you. And in the financial security of this convent.”
“Are you here to audit us?” asked Sister Alberta coolly.
“Perhaps later,” he said. “No, for the time being, I would like to quarter some of my men here. In the convent itself, you understand. Not in your fields. In your dormitories.”
“That is...that is...of all the...utterly outrageous,” sputtered Sister Catherine. “To suggest...to even imply would be bad enough, but to ask for—”
“Yes, thank you, Sister Catherine,” sighed the abbess. “Sir Halvor, we cannot grant your request. We have a lay dormitory, and that is open to all travelers. But you will not be permitted into the cloisters, nor into the sisters’ communal living areas.”
Smiling, Sir Halvor rounded on Morwen. “What do you think, my lady?”
“It’s ‘Sister Morwen,’” she said. “And I think Sister Catherine and Sister Alberta are exactly right. Some of your men might stay in the lay dormitories, but if you’re talking about a whole regiment, or even a whole company, there simply isn’t room.”
He stepped closer to her. “Don’t you think you sisters could make room for my men? Make them feel a little more...welcome? Wouldn’t it be fun?”
Morwen took a step toward him and crossed her arms. “I’m not sure what you mean to imply, sir, but if it’s what I think you mean, then no, we would not find it ‘fun.’”
“How can you reject pleasures you’ve never tried?” he asked. Both Sister Catherine and Sister Joyce gasped at that. Sir Halvor ignored them and went on. “Or have you tried them, and you didn’t find the right man?”
“I found Earstien,” said Morwen, clenching her arms tighter to herself to stop them from shaking. “You might want to try that yourself.”
Sir Halvor burst out laughing. “Yes, I like your Earstien. He is a most amusing deity.” Pointing out the window at the buttresses of the abbey church, he said, “I like how Earstien makes you take a vow of poverty, then sets you up in a palace that would do a baron proud. He really has a sense of humor.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” said Morwen.
“No, the shame is yours,” he said. “Two days ago, I visited a farmhouse near here. The people had nothing. Everything they make, you sisters take from them. What if I decided to bring my men in here and...redistribute things a bit?”
Sister Catherine sputtered out something useless again, but Morwen cut her off. “I think you might find that the Leafa Church can be a powerful enemy, Sir Halvor. I don’t think your father wants his troops to despoil an ancient abbey.”
Sir Halvor didn’t look very frightened of the Leafa Church. “My uncle Arthur is the Bishop of Leornian, you know.”
That had been a great scandal at the time—even in the cloistered world of the convent, the nuns had heard about the outrage when the Gramiren king had made one of his brothers-in-law the head of the most important and influential bishopric in Myrcia.
“I don’t care if he’s your uncle,” said Morwen. “No bishop will countenance the sack of an abbey. I wouldn’t presume too much upon your family connections if I were you.”
He bowed again mockingly. “Yes, I concede that presuming upon family connections is an area in which you have much to teach me, Lady Morwen.”
“It’s ‘Sister Morwen,’ Sir Halvor, and—”
Someone hammered on the door, and another of Sir Halvor’s men burst in, followed by a pair of novices and a nun, all trying to stop him.
The newcomer ignored the women, though, and rushed up to Sir Halvor. “Sir, you must come immediately. The enemy is in the woods. They’re flanking our position!”
Sir Halvor stormed out of the visitors’ parlor like a bull, with all his officers running after him. They jumped into the saddles of their horses and thundered down the road to their camp.
Morwen and some of the other sisters went to the gate and looked out, trying to see what was going on. Here and there they could see flashes of bright metal in among the bare gray trees of Almoner’s Woods. Then Lillian, who was there, too, pointed off to their right, in the direction of Basington. There was a cloud of dust rising there, like a great caravan was passing through the town. Horsemen from the Gramiren camp rushed one way, then wheeled around and rushed back. It all seemed very frantic and confusing.
“I think we need a higher vantage point,” said Morwen. She led the way into the abbey church and up the long spiral stairs of the central tower. Around and around they went, speculating in whispers as to what was going on out in the valley—whether it was a real battle, and if it was, who was winning. Finally they came out in the great belfry, full of cobwebs and dust and old pigeons’ nests. Morwen made a note to have the place cleaned sometime soon. Overhead loomed massive beams larger than any oak still living in the valley, and the five big bells that had been a gift from one of Morwen’s distant ancestors, back in the day when Keneburg was its own independent country.
Stepping carefully, they made their way down a catwalk onto the outer gallery, a dizzying perch over a hundred feet in the air, where they could see across the whole valley. Some of the girls took one glance and went back inside.
Those who stayed, like Morwen, were greeted by a magnificent sight. A long line of cavalrymen came out of the Almoner’s Woods at a walk. Another line came out of Basington to the north. All at once, and in complete silence, they moved to a trot together, converging on Sir Halvor’s camp. A moment later, the sound of the bugle call and the rumble of hoofs reached the nuns on the church tower.
Sir Halvor’s men had no chance at all, except to run for their lives. Wagons, tents, and laundry were all left, and the Gramiren cavalry made a desperate break for the southern end of the valley. Some of them made it. Others were caught up in the wave of men coming down from the woods. One of the nuns had fetched a spyglass from the schoolroom, and all the women passed it around, taking turns watching the battle up close. When Morwen had her turn, she spotted the banner of one of the attacking knights—a white tower on a green field. Those were the arms of the house of Byrne. Those were her family’s soldiers. Maybe even one of her brothers was leading them.
Morwen knew men were dying down there, but she couldn’t help feeling some measure of grim satisfaction. “That will teach you to mock Earstien, Sir Halvor,” she thought.
It was more than a defeat for Sir Halvor—it was a complete rout. One of the younger nuns, possibly Lillian, went in and started ringing the abbey bells, like they did on feast days. That wasn’t entirely proper, of course, but no one told her to stop.
All the sisters were terribly excited, and there was a great deal of talk about the “miracle” of their “deliverance.” Then Brother Irving from the Basington priory came jogging up and put everything back in the proper perspective.
“There are dozens of men dead down there,” he said, panting from his run. “Maybe a hundred wounded, too. Brother Anthony has us all working, but we’re out of bandages and herbs. Could some of you sisters lend a hand?”
Sister Catherine tried to object again that it wasn’t proper for nuns to give medical aid to men, but she was outvoted decisively by all the women who wanted to help. Morwen, as deputy chamberlain, took charge of gathering cleaning supplies and bandages.
“Where are we going to care for all these men?” Sister Joyce wondered aloud, as everyone pitched in to load carts with medicines and clean linens.
Sister Alberta said, “Well, there’s the lay dormitory. I suppose in the end, Sir Halvor will get his wish. His men will be staying there, after all.”