Threads of Treason (2 page)

Abbess Eleanor could be heard saying, ‘I can’t believe Prioress Ursula is dead.’

Miriam nodded at Therese. ‘You are right. We should not be listening,’ she said. She closed the door and set off up a stone stairway.

Therese pointed to the door. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked. ‘Why can’t we go through this door to the visitor’s hall?’

‘
Because the Abbess will know we heard them from here. This door is not meant to be in use. There is nothing that woman cannot work out. I cannot afford the penance for such a sin.’

‘
A sin is still a sin, whether you’re caught or not. The truth is always the truth,’ said Therese following her. At the main entrance door to the visitor’s hall Therese looked around to tell Miriam how nervous she was and found herself alone. After a moment she pulled herself straight and opened the door.

Bishop Odon and Abbess Eleanor were sitting opposite each other by the fire. The glowing embers cast shadows across their faces and picked out the reds and golden colours of the brightly painted walls.

‘
Come in, Sister Therese,’ said the Bishop.

Therese rushed towards him and nearly fell at his feet in an effort to show her obedience and respect. He stretched out his hand and she kissed his ring of office.

‘
You may sit,’ he said. Abbess Eleanor beckoned her to a stool close to the dying fire. ‘Abbess,’ he continued, ‘Sister Therese is already a young woman. Does she speak the language of the Anglo-Saxons?’

Therese looked up at Abbess Eleanor and examined the hint of hazel in her brown eyes, reflecting the gold of the embers. The Abbess’s serene face was slightly etched by the responsibilities of her office, but she also looked well cared for considering her half-century could only be a few years away.

‘
Indeed, Your Grace. We have taught her as best we can: she knows Latin; she reads and writes.’

‘
I have arranged a grand token of the Church’s esteem for my half-brother, William Duke of Normandy. It is an embroidery showing him claiming his rightful lands of England. It will be exhibited at Christmas in Bayeux Cathedral.’ The Bishop’s greying red hair formed an evenly trimmed frame to his rounded face.

‘
Your Grace,’ said the Abbess. ‘She does not need to know all. The less she knows the safer she will be, surely?’

‘
You are probably right,’ said the Bishop. ‘But this is already common knowledge. It is also common knowledge that some would like it destroyed.’ Therese noted the Abbess give the Bishop a warning look. The Bishop gave in to her pressure. ‘You, Sister Therese,’ he continued, ‘are to accompany your Abbess to Canterbury in England. You will be useful to her with your skills. Now go and ready yourself. You leave before dawn for the coast. At last the weather has improved, you must cross the channel before it deteriorates again.’

‘
But…’ said Therese.

‘
We have taught you better than to question our decisions, Sister Therese,’ said Abbess Eleanor. ‘England is our destination.’

‘
It is a foreign land,’ said Therese.

The Abbess smiled and patted her hand. ‘A difficult time awaits us there, without doubt, Sister Therese. We will trust in God. The Bishop has instructed us and we have his protection. Two of his own knights will guard us.’ The Abbess frowned at her. ‘But you have never shown fear before, Sister?’

‘
I am not scared. I would just like to know if Sister Miriam will be coming with us.’

‘
Just you and I, Sister Therese, will be travelling to England. Sister Miriam will remain at Bayeux and pray for our success.’

Therese sat on a bench next to Abbess Eleanor as the breeze pulled them away from the Normandy coast. Suddenly the world seemed so large. She licked her lips; they were salty. Surely God had truly worked to make this wondrous place with the movement of the water and the vastness of the sky above it. Among the complement of guards were the two knights promised by Bishop Odon. They took up their positions: one at the bow, the other at the rudder. Both wore chain mail tunics and helmets with nose-guards; they carried heavy swords and shields shaped like birds’ wings. Norman knights, Sir Gilbert and Sir Brian. Their very presence made Therese feel safe, but her Abbess seemed uneasy. Therese had never seen her so preoccupied.

The boat turned in to the open sea, towards England’s coast. Cold spray found their faces. As the hours turned the sun from east to west so the movement of the water beneath them became rougher.

‘
I’ll fetch us something to eat,’ said Abbess Eleanor.

‘
I’ll go,’ said Therese. If the Abbess required food, it was surely her job to fetch it for her.

But Abbess Eleanor shook her head and laid a hand on her shoulder as she rose. Therese had noticed the care she’d taken in stowing the casket she’d brought on board containing their food. It had been placed with that of the boatmen, alongside the supplies for the guards and knights. But when Abbess Eleanor came back she brought nothing with her.

‘
Are you hungry?’ she asked Therese.

‘
My stomach could not take anything, Abbess, with the boat rising and falling like this.’

‘
That is just as well,’ said Abbess Eleanor, taking back her seat on the bench.

The boatman cast a cover over them. ‘That will keep the spray off you,’ he said, so they sat under it like a makeshift tent.

‘
You may never see your home again, Sister Therese,’ said the Abbess.

‘
No, Abbess?’

‘
No, Sister. Nor may we see Normandy or France again.’

‘
The sea will not take us, Abbess.’

‘
It may not be the sea that takes us, child.’

Therese searched the eyes of her Abbess. She’d never called her, ‘child’, before, even though she’d lived all her life in the convent with her.

‘
We have someone on board we cannot trust. I packed the food myself and it has been tampered with.’

‘
Perhaps they were just hungry?’

‘
Nothing has been eaten,’ said Abbess Eleanor. ‘I placed seals on the pots myself, and they have been broken.’

‘
We must tell our guards.’

‘
I fear it was one of them that did it, child.’

‘
But if we do not they could be…’ Therese didn’t dare say the word, “poisoned”.

Before either of them could say anything a blast of wind caught their cover and a shout went up, ‘Man over-board!’ The corner of the sheet flipped over revealing a group of men stooped over the stern of the boat, but the knight who was stationed there was not among them. The men were looking into the black sea.

‘
We have no hope of finding Sir Brian in this storm,’ the boatman told Abbess Eleanor. ‘It is set to get worse. We must make haste for the English coast. It is not far now.’

Therese pulled at Abbess Eleanor’s sleeve and said, ‘Do you think Sir Brian ate anything?’ Any sense of feeling safe was draining away with the loss of one of their protectors.

The Abbess nodded in acceptance of the idea, but said, ‘I doubt if he had, but I will ask. In addition, I will instruct the food to be put overboard. We must take every precaution.’ She made her way over to the remaining knight and the boatman at the rudder. Abbess Eleanor held what she could to keep her purchase with the rolling sea beneath her. Therese heard the boatman’s voice raised against the wind and sea in reply: he would carry out her instructions. She saw his head dip towards the Abbess and say more in a way others would not be able to hear. She replied in a like fashion. They spoke thus for some moments before he returned to his duties.

Watching her return, Therese pondered the possibility that the missing knight could have been pushed overboard by a traitor still on the boat. These thoughts spilled out into words as the Abbess sat back next to Therese and pulled the cover over them.

‘
I have already asked, Sister Therese. The sea is rough, no one saw anything. They are sure it was an accident and that is almost as bad, because the boatmen think such a thing is a bad omen. So, I have set them to praying as they work. It will keep their minds off such nonsense.’

Having settled herself, Abbess Eleanor turned to Therese in the darkness cast by their makeshift tent and said, ‘I am going to tell you a story. This is a true story and it may protect you in England if anything happens to me. Now listen, child.’

Therese reached out and touched Abbess Eleanor’s hand, ‘I’m not afraid,’ she said. The Abbess gripped her hand in turn; her long sleeve slipped back showing a heavy ring. Therese recognised it as belonging to Bishop Odon.

‘
You ought to be scared,’ said the Abbess tilting her head so she spoke directly into her ear. ‘You were born into a land of fire and death. You are an Anglo-Saxon. You were born in the summer of 1066.’

Therese frowned and said nothing. To argue her Frenchness with her superior would be impudent; to cry would be weak; to exclaim that she always knew she was different and belonged elsewhere would be ungrateful.

‘
When,’ continued Abbess Eleanor, ‘William Duke of Normandy crossed the channel to conquer that usurper of England’s crown, Harold, one of the ships landed at Romney away from William’s fleet at Pevensey Bay. The people of Romney killed all our brave men aboard that vessel. When the Battle of Hastings took place Bishop Odon fought alongside his half-brother, William. The Pope himself had sent his backing for the enterprise.’

‘
Our Duke defeated Harold and became King of England,’ said Therese proudly.

‘
Please listen, my dear. The people of Romney had to pay for what they’d done to the ship that landed there. King William laid waste to the village.’ The Abbess stopped.

‘
Go on, please,’ said Therese. She sensed some difficulty for the older woman in what she had to say. ‘I want to hear the truth.’

‘
At Romney Bishop Odon found a baby girl hidden when all else was dead and burnt. The baby was you, Sister Therese. He hid you inside his robes and sent you back to me in Normandy for safekeeping. I have brought you up as he asked; now he is returning you to your homeland.’

The story was so strange, Therese hardly attached it to herself. ‘But that is not why we are going to England, Abbess. I do not need an escort of knights. Bishop Odon said something about looking after a great embroidery for his brother.’

‘
The reality of your story will take time to settle on you. And you must understand that we cannot look after the embroidery, Sister. Two nuns and a few guards would not be enough to protect it, even without a traitor among us. No, I have been sent to find out who is behind the difficulties at the priory where the last panel is being made. I only tell you this so you know what you are up against if anything happens to me.’

Therese gripped Abbess Eleanor’s hands. ‘Do not fear, Abbess. I will finish your work if you are unable to do so yourself.’

‘
No, you must not, Sister. I am telling you this so you will leave well alone and declare your Saxon blood if you fall into danger. Now, the sea is getting rougher. You will need to hang on. With God’s help we should not be far from the English shore.’

With that Therese realised she was soaked and cold. She wanted to consider her new history, but could not as it took all her energies to hang on to the boat. The sea heaved and the boat was kicked by the waves; sometimes it gave to them; other times it rode them; and sometimes it seemed to fight them. The boatmen yelled at each other and Therese felt her thrill of life shift to wanting to live just a while longer. God, she thought, would not mind waiting for her. She curled up in the bottom of the boat until the movement and shouting subsided. She wasn’t sure if they’d reached safety even when she felt the boat scrape on sand. In the dark she could not tell if she’d reached the land of her birth.

Abbess Eleanor was holding her shoulders and pulling her upright. “We are here,’ she said. ‘I have spoken to our remaining knight, Sir Gilbert. He will be coming with us to Canterbury. I will dismiss the others. I cannot trust them.’

‘
But we need more than one knight to guard us, Abbess?’

‘
I cannot take the risk, Sister Therese. We have our own investigations to make, and we must not be prevented from completing them. It is the only way I can be sure we will not have a traitor with us.’ With the sea behind her the Abbess seemed to have regained her sober authority.

‘
Yes, Abbess.’ Therese tried to sound as if she understood, but she remembered clearly the Bishop’s instructions to help the Abbess. And this woman was her superior in every way.

‘
We will go on to Canterbury through the night. Lympne Castle is not far from here I am told. They will provide us with dry clothes and a cart, and a wagoner to drive us.’

Therese didn’t doubt Abbess Eleanor’s ability to do as she said and indeed she soon found herself seated next to her on a cart headed for Canterbury driven by a wagoner with Sir Gilbert riding next to them. She fell to praying. It comforted her to pass the beads of her rosary through her fingers as she recited her Ave Marias. The Abbess did not seem to be praying. She sat very upright staring at the stars in the clearing sky.

‘
I feared this, Sister Therese,’ she said. ‘I begged Bishop Odon to leave you in Normandy. You would have been safe there.’

‘
But only half-alive,’ said Therese forgetting to grip the bead she was up to firmly. Her fingers slipped. She looked down at her rosary. She would have to start that set of ten again.