The Nun's Tale (18 page)

At the guest house, Sir Robert stopped and bowed to Dame Isobel. ‘I shall wait in the church. Come, Daimon.’ He pressed Lucie’s hand, then walked away with stiff dignity.

Lucie and the prioress mounted the guest house steps. Isobel turned at the top, her bulk making her breathless from the climb. She pressed her chest, motioning that she was catching her breath. ‘I shall accompany you, but if she prefers to speak with you alone, I am willing to accommodate her – are you?’

Lucie nodded.

The hospitaller opened the heavy oak door and bowed them in. His sandalled feet whispered across the wooden floor as he led them to Joanna’s room overlooking the garden.

The curtains of the great bed were open, the bedclothes straightened. Wrapped in the shabby blue mantle, Dame Joanna stood at an unglazed window, her back to her visitors, seemingly unaware of their presence.

‘
Benedicte
, Joanna,’ Isobel said loudly.

Joanna started, then turned. ‘
Benedicte
, Reverend Mother.’ Her eyes flitted over to Lucie, her face warming. ‘Mistress Wilton, you were kind to come.’ The mantle dropped back from her head, revealing a cloud of unruly red hair that curled to Joanna’s shoulders.

‘How is your throat?’

Joanna touched the bandage. ‘It is nothing.’

‘May I see it?’

Joanna shrugged.

Lucie unwrapped the bandage around Joanna’s neck. The skin had been scratched raw, not torn. Already it healed. ‘You are lucky someone watches over you.’

Joanna said nothing.

Lucie replaced the bandage. ‘How do you feel otherwise?’ Despite the scarred throat, Lucie saw a marked improvement in Joanna’s appearance. The pale, freckled skin was no longer a sickly grey. The shadows under Joanna’s eyes had faded. She stood up straight, her expression alert and friendly, though she had not yet actually smiled.

‘Does an apothecary know remedies of the spirit?’

Lucie paused a moment, considering her reply. She did not wish to get off to a bad start. ‘We can do much to balance the humours. And we have remedies for simple maladies of the spirit. Rosemary and mint to wake up a sluggish spirit, balms, bedstraw, catnip and camomile to soothe an agitated spirit before sleep, lavender to cheer up a sad spirit.’

Joanna clutched the blue mantle. ‘Rosemary helps the memory.’

‘Do you need a rosemary tisane to help your memory?’

Joanna shook her head. ‘I remember far too much.’

‘That mantle. Will Longford’s maid wore something similar when she was murdered. Do you know why?’

‘Murdered?’ Joanna looked alarmed.

‘You did not know?’

‘I –’ Joanna covered her eyes with her hands, shook her head.

‘Maddy was wearing a blue shawl much like yours.’

Joanna dropped her hands to the shawl, stroked it. Her expression was no longer one of alarm. She smiled. ‘Poor Maddy. We all long for a sign of favour from God’s Mother.’

‘That is not an answer, Dame Joanna. I am not here to play games with you. I must open the shop before sext.’

The half-shut eyes widened in surprise. Joanna sank down on a bench beneath the window. Lucie pulled a chair over and motioned to the Reverend Mother to do likewise.

‘Now, please, Dame Joanna, tell us how you first came to Will Longford’s house.’

Joanna eyed Isobel, then dropped her gaze to her hands, clasped in her lap. ‘It rained. The streets were muddy rivers. My feet got cold. I got lost and walked in circles.’ Joanna glanced up at Lucie, back down to her hands.

Lucie wondered what that glance had meant. And the speech – it was as if she’d begun in the middle of her story. ‘Did you know Will Longford before you arrived in Beverley?’

Joanna shrugged.

‘Joanna! Mistress Wilton deserves your respect!’ Dame Isobel said.

Lucie saw a flicker of irritation in Joanna’s eyes as she glanced at her prioress. This would not do at all. ‘Reverend Mother, might I speak with Joanna alone?’

Joanna glanced over at Lucie with a look of profound gratitude.

Isobel inclined her head. ‘This does not mean we shall now allow you to rule us, Joanna. But I shall leave you with Mistress Wilton this morning.’ Isobel rose. ‘God bless you for your patience, Mistress Wilton.’ With that, she left the room.

Lucie studied the nun’s face. Except for the freckles, which were considered blemishes by many poets, Joanna was a comely young woman, with high cheekbones, pale lashes and brows, and eyes whose colour shifted according to the light, from deep to sunlit green. It was easy to imagine her catching a man’s eye. ‘Perhaps we should just talk, Joanna. Do you know anything about me?’

Joanna nodded. ‘I have heard how you escaped St Clement’s and married a man who taught you a trade, and when he died you became a master apothecary and married for love.’

Lucie winced. ‘Twice I married for love.’

Joanna smiled. ‘I have met your captain.’

Lucie waited for further comment, but Joanna said no more.

‘So. You know something of me. Now tell me about you. You speak of my “escape” from St Clement’s as if you are unhappy there. Yet they say you performed heavy penances, so I would think you devout.’

‘Without God’s love there is nothing.’

‘And you worry that God will cease to love you?’

Joanna twisted her head to look out of the window. ‘I was betrothed to a fat old man who scolded me. I dreamed of a man like my brother, Hugh. Strong and courageous. Someone who laughed. Someone who loved me as God loves His chosen ones. I wanted my one love. Jason Miller was not he. Jason did not love me. He wanted a nurse for his children.’

Hugh. It was her brother she called for at night. ‘So you asked to go to the convent.’

Joanna nodded.

‘But surely there was no need to take vows? By then Jason must have married someone else?’

The full lips pouted childishly. ‘I
am
devout.’

‘You felt you should take your vows?’

‘My parents paid a great sum to St Clement’s for the promise that they would be bothered with me no more. I was dead to them.’

‘In a sense, that is the custom, is it not? You are a bride of Christ and finished with the passions of this world?’

Joanna fixed her green eyes on Lucie. ‘I
died
, Mistress Wilton.’

‘You mean the burial?’

Joanna’s gaze seemed as if it could penetrate Lucie’s eyes, look through them into Lucie’s soul. ‘I received the last rites.’

Lucie must ask the Reverend Mother what it meant to receive the last rites. She had a vague memory that it permanently altered one’s standing in the eyes of God. ‘So the priest saw you before you were tied in the shroud?’

Now the gaze broke, the eyes moved over to the bed. ‘I lay there on the bed, my hands folded over my chest.’ There was something so focused about Joanna’s stare; Lucie wondered whether Joanna realised that it was not the same bed.

‘He must have touched your forehead in giving the blessing. You would not have felt dead to the priest’s touch.’

There was a flicker of annoyance in the eyes that moved back to Lucie. ‘I was dying, not dead then. But they had made me drink something to draw the warmth of life out of my hands and feet.’ Joanna touched her left shoulder with her right hand, a protective gesture, wadding the blue cloth of the mantle in her hand. ‘Nothing would warm me after I woke. That’s when he gave me her mantle.’

‘Who? The priest?’

Joanna stroked the worn wool. ‘You can see the radiance of Our Lady’s love. Would you like to touch it?’ she asked softly, looking shyly through her pale lashes.

‘So this is truly the Blessed Mother’s mantle?’ Lucie touched the cloth, then crossed herself. Was it wrong to pretend to believe? But how else was she to earn Joanna’s confidence?

‘You are protected now,’ Joanna said softly.

‘How does it protect you, Joanna?’

‘The Blessed Virgin watches over me. She keeps me from harm.’

Now Lucie understood why Wulfstan and Isobel said Joanna was confused. Should Lucie challenge this theory by asking Joanna about the bruises? About her own ability to hurt herself? She decided she should not. ‘Who gave you this wonderful gift?’

Joanna’s eyes darkened abruptly. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘It was a most loving gift. They tell me that two men visited Will Longford and were at your funeral.’

Joanna looked down in confusion.

‘You said “he” gave it to you when you were so cold. Was it one of the visitors? Or Will Longford?’

‘I was frightened. He put the mantle over my shoulders and told me it was the Blessed Mother’s mantle. She would now protect me. I was a virgin risen from the dead – as Mary was.’

‘Joanna, do you truly believe that you died and rose from the dead?’

The eyes challenged. ‘I did.’

‘And this man, the one who gave you the mantle, was with you when you . . . rose?’

‘Stefan,’ Joanna whispered, her eyes focused on a distant memory.

‘He had been Will Longford’s guest?’

‘He was kind to me. He found my medal, too.’ She pressed a spot above her breast.

‘He found the medal you wear about your neck?’

Joanna nodded. Her eyes were still far away.

‘Tell me about Stefan.’

Joanna looked surprised, then frightened.

‘I am not here to judge you,’ Lucie implored. ‘I know what it is to love a man. I imagine it would comfort you to speak of Stefan. He was kind to you. He gave you something that must have been precious to him.’ Lucie touched Joanna’s hand. ‘Tell me about him.’

Joanna dropped her head, pressed her chest. ‘When I got to Beverley I was thirsty. I stopped for water in a churchyard. While my back was turned at the well, a boy tried to steal my Mary Magdalene medal. He dropped it when I shouted at him, but it was so muddy, and I was crying and so tired, and I could not find it. Stefan found it for me.’

‘You must have been very grateful.’

Joanna drew the medal out of the neck of her gown, gazed at it. ‘My brother Hugh gave it to me when I was thirteen.’

Hugh again. ‘Mary Magdalene, the penitent. A curious choice for a young girl. Is your brother older than you?’

Joanna looked up through her eyelashes, an odd half-smile on her face. ‘My big brother Hugh. He said the Magdalene would understand if I wasn’t perfectly good. He said she could forgive anything, so I need never be afraid to pray to her.’

Lucie wished to find this merely charming, but the smile and the sentiment, spoken to a young girl . . . something about it disturbed her. ‘He knew you would be tempted to misbehave?’

‘
Noli me tangere
,’ Joanna whispered.

Lucie recognised the words that Christ had said to Mary Magdalene when she’d found Him outside His tomb. ‘ “Touch me not.” What does that mean to you?’

Joanna’s eyes changed from bright to wary, as though a cloud had covered the sun. ‘My parents said we were the children of Cain.’

‘You and your brother Hugh?’

Joanna nodded.

‘You have other brothers and sisters?’

‘One other brother, two sisters.’

‘Where is Hugh now?’

The eyes grew darker still. ‘That is who I wished to find.’

‘But you did not find him?’

Joanna bowed her head and gave a great, shuddering sigh.

‘So you met Stefan at Will Longford’s?’

Joanna hesitated.

‘Is he handsome?’

A fleeting smile. ‘Oh, yes. Blond and strong like Hugh. But tall. With eyes that laugh even when the rest of his face tries to look grim.’

‘You love him?’

A vague frown. ‘I did.’

‘Was it Stefan who helped you get away from Beverley?’

Joanna hugged herself. ‘They bound me tight so I would feel more like a corpse.’ Her eyes were far away again, frightened. ‘When I woke I was so cold.’

‘And he gave you the mantle.’

Joanna nodded, stroking the mantle with one hand, clutching the medal with the other. Stefan and Hugh, her saviours. Where were they now?

‘Why did Stefan help you leave Beverley?’

‘He had a customer for the relic. And he thought he knew where Hugh was. And Longford said he could not keep me in Beverley. Folk would know he was hiding a nun.’

‘Did Stefan find Hugh for you?’

Joanna turned to look out of the window. ‘He did not really want to,’ she said in a small voice.

What did that mean? Lucie wished there were some way she might write all this down as she heard it. By the time she was home, would she remember all the twists and turns? ‘Was it Stefan’s idea, your death and burial?’

Joanna shook her head. ‘Longford’s.’

‘So why did Stefan get involved?’

Joanna pressed her arms down impatiently. ‘I
told
you. He could sell the relic. And he thought he could find Hugh. And Longford didn’t want me staying there too long.’