Rushing to the dormitory, Aleswina was just about to cross the courtyard when she saw a dark shape emerge from the stairwell. She stopped, stepped back into the shadows, and stood frozen, letting Sister Harthwreg, the bell ringer, pass by. Then, with only moments before she’d be discovered out of bed, she lifted her skirts and ran for the stairs. She raced up, taking two steps at a time, and reached the top gasping and out of breath. Now if only she could get down the hall and into her room before—
It was too late! At the far end of the dimly lit corridor, the unmistakable figure of the under-prioress, Sister Durthena, stood just outside Aleswina’s door, her sword-straight posture making her look taller than she was.
Acting on instinct, Aleswina stepped out into plain view and walked straight down the center of the corridor. Emboldened by the startled, almost guilty, look on Durthena’s face, Aleswina made the convent’s hand signal for “I had to go to the latrine.” Before the under-prioress could lift her hand to respond, Aleswina edged her way past, slipped into her room, and closed the door.
Her room was small and spare, with barely enough space for a narrow cot, a tiny side table, and a clothes cabinet in the corner by the window. She took off her night habit as she crossed the short distance from the door to the dresser and let it fall in a crumpled heap beside the bed. She was pulling her day habit on over her head when the first peal of the chapel bells rang out. By the second peal, she was tucking in her hair and straightening her veil. On the third, she opened her door just in time to join the line on its way to the chapel to say the prayers for the dead.
The prayers for the dead, conducted halfway between midnight and dawn, might more precisely have been called the prayers for the royal dead. This was not because the convent’s founder and namesake had any doubts that the love of Jesus was infinite and all-encompassing; it was because Edeth had promised King Theobold that in exchange for the endowment she needed to erect the abbey’s bell tower, he and his family would have the nuns’ exclusive prayers to speed their path through purgatory—and, realistically, including the dead of all classes in a time of frequent famines, recurring plagues, and almost constant warfare would have taken too long.
In keeping with the tradition started by the first abbess, the prayers were conducted in English instead of Latin. The current abbess, Hildegarth, presumed that this was a decision made to ensure that even the least educated of the community would be instructed in the fleeting nature of life and the need to keep their minds on the eternal life beyond this one, while, in fact, it was because Edeth had never learned Latin.
Lord Jesus, hear our prayers for King Theobold, who loved You, his Savior, with all his heart, grant him Your divine mercy, forgiving his sins and taking him up in Your arms that he may dwell with You in heaven forever and ever amen. Lord Jesus, hear our prayers for Queen Alswanda, beloved wife of King Theobold, who loved You, her Savior, with all her heart, grant her Your divine mercy, forgiving her sins and taking her up . . .
As Aleswina stood in her assigned place in the chapel, between Sister Erdorfa and Sister Idwolda, the litany of names and supplications fell around her like a soft, warm spring rain, soothing her jittery nerves and helping her heart return to something more like a steady rhythm.
. . . in Your arms that she may dwell with You in heaven forever and ever amen. Lord Jesus, hear our prayers for Queen Fridwulfa, beloved wife of King Gilberth, who loved You, her Savior, with all her heart, grant her Your divine mercy, forgiving her sins and taking her up in Your arms that she may dwell with You in heaven forever and ever amen. Lord Jesus, hear our prayers for Queen Aelfgitha, beloved wife of King Gilberth, who loved you, her Savior, with all her heart, grant her Your divine mercy, forgiving her sins and taking her up in Your arms that she may dwell with You in heaven forever and ever amen. Lord Jesus, hear our prayers for Queen Redwalda, beloved wife of King Gil-berth, who loved You, her Savior, with all her heart, grant her Your divine mercy, forgiving her sins . . .
The service might have been conducted in Persian, for all it meant to Aleswina, but she’d heard the litany so many times she could mumble most of it half asleep. Now, as the hot rush of panic-driven daring faded and the cold realization of just how much danger she and Anna were in took its place, she shifted her eyes to Sister Erdorfa on her left and to Sister Idwolda on her right.
. . . and taking her up in Your arms that she may dwell with You in heaven forever and ever amen. Lord Jesus, hear our prayers for Queen Witburga, beloved wife of King Gilberth, who loved You, her Savior, with all her heart, grant her Your divine mercy, forgiving her sins and taking her up in Your arms that she may dwell with You in heaven forever and ever amen.
Moving her lips in synchrony with theirs, she got through the prayer, only stumbling once, momentarily, over the newest verse—
Lord Jesus, hear our prayers for Queen Ermegdolin, beloved wife of King Gilberth, who loved You, her savior, with all her heart, grant her Your divine mercy, forgiving her sins and taking her up in Your arms that she may dwell with You in heaven forever and ever amen.
Between the flickering light of the chapel’s candles and Sister Idwolda singing loud enough for both of them, Aleswina’s pretense fooled even Sister Durthena, who’d spent most of the service watching Aleswina with the eyes of a wary hawk.
Of all Aleswina’s religious sisters, it was Durthena who liked her least. The two were close in age and, superficially, in looks—both were short and thin, both fair-haired with pale complexions, and neither one of them smiled very much. But there the resemblance ended. Unlike Aleswina, who’d been sent to the convent against her will, Durthena wanted to be there.
The daughter of a successful merchant and the illegitimate but acknowledged daughter of a nobleman, Durthena had realized early that neither her father’s wealth nor her mother’s semi-aristocratic status would get her so much as a handmaiden’s place in a queen’s court. And she’d wanted more than that. Seeing the convent as the one place she’d have a chance to earn a position of real power and authority, Durthena had entered Saint Edeth the day she turned twelve.
From the moment she stepped inside the abbey’s gate, Durthena had put her heart and soul into memorizing its rituals and upholding its rules. At fourteen, she’d been the youngest novice in the convent’s history to take her final vows. By sixteen, she’d advanced from dispensing alms to the poor to overseeing the care and storage of the blessed vessels and relics. By eighteen, she’d had full charge of preparing the altar and laying out the vestments for the visiting priest to conduct mass. Now, at the age of just twenty-one, she acted as the assistant to the prioress, Sister Udella, who in turn answered only to the abbess.
Glowering from the far side of the chapel, Durthena made no effort to put down her resentment that—just because she was royal— Aleswina got the corner bedroom with the best view and she got to keep a servant on the convent grounds, despite the fact that here, at least, everyone was supposed to be equal in the eyes of God!
Any other novice who couldn’t remember what day of the liturgy it was or say a simple novena from start to finish without being coached would have been sent away years ago. Instead, the abbess just coddled the stupid little bitch (this last string of words was a mental lapse on Durthena’s part, and she revised it to “Dear Sister Aleswina” and continued her thought) when she should have been telling Dear Sister Aleswina that she’d burn in hell forever if she didn’t learn her catechism!
Time and again, Durthena had gone to the abbess to report that Aleswina had left food on her plate, come to chapel late and with dirt under her fingernails, just hummed along with the hymns instead of singing, but the stupid little . . . Dear Sister Aleswina never got any worse penance than staying in her room. And then nobody ever checked to make sure she was actually praying for forgiveness and not adding to her sins by taking a nap. Just once, Durthena wanted to see Aleswina get really punished. (And having her burned at the stake for hiding a Druid sorcerer under the shrine of Saint Wilfhilda would have done nicely, if only Durthena had known about it.)
Somehow aware that she was under scrutiny, Aleswina resolved to do whatever she needed to do to avoid suspicion. For the next five days she became the perfect nun-to-be. What prayers she knew, she said with reverent zeal, and those she didn’t know she mimed with enough fervor to convince even Durthena she understood what she was saying. And above all else, she made a careful show of attending to every word of the abbess’s always erudite, usually lengthy, and often obscure noontime sermons.
Each of those days, the abbess concluded her midday discourse with a lamentation that the soldiers’ ongoing search remained fruitless. Putting up her hand to silence the murmurs of disappointment (and one faint gasp of relief), she went on in an unwavering voice to say that the guards were still scouring the woods day and night. With that she launched into a closing prayer to the Lord God that He “lend His divine guidance to the king’s guards, leading them to find the heathen sorcerer whereever he is hiding,” finishing with an unintentionally contradictory petition for the safety of “all who dwell here within our holy walls.”
After joining the others in a prolonged amen, Aleswina waited for her turn to leave the table; each time it came, she returned to the garden, barely breathing until she reached the convent garden and closed its gate behind her.