Candace Robb - The Nun's Tale

‘Jocelin, what are you doing away from the kitchen?’ Isobel demanded.

The novice bowed to Dame Isobel. ‘I took but a moment. Dame Margaret said I might.’ She bowed her head and hurried away before Isobel could ask more.

Isobel opened the door. Dame Margaret, the cook, knelt beside Joanna’s cot, praying.

Joanna lay quietly, her eyes closed.

‘Dame Margaret! Rise and come with me.’ Isobel turned to the infirmaress. ‘How did this happen? You were to tell no one of Joanna’s presence.’

‘I told no one, Reverend Mother. I believe it was Katie. I sent her to the garden for cloths and shortly Dame Felice was in here.’

Isobel should have guessed. The laundress was an unholy gossip. ‘And she of course stopped in the kitchen.’

Prudentia looked to Margaret, who nodded.

‘Dame Margaret, return to the kitchen and tell anyone who asks that Joanna’s mantle is made of Yorkshire wool, new wool, and cannot be what she claims.’ Isobel glanced over at Joanna and caught her listening with a hostile glint in her eyes. So be it. Isobel would not have all the sisters of St Clement’s hysterical.

But Margaret did not rise. Instead, she pushed back one of her sleeves and thrust her bare arm toward Isobel. ‘Marry, look you, Reverend Mother. The skin is clear.’

Isobel looked at the proffered arm. It looked reddened from scrubbing, but free of any blemish. ‘So it is. Why do you show me this?’

‘It was not clear before I touched the mantle. Our Lady’s mantle has worked a miracle, Reverend Mother. My rash is gone.’ Margaret bent low over the mantle once more, her hands pressed together in prayer. ‘Sweet Mother of Heaven, thou hast healed me, thy humble servant.’

‘You see?’ the sub-prioress whispered. ‘When word of this miracle spreads. .’ She shook her head, her eyes wide, mouth pinched.

Sweet Mary in Heaven, why have you done this to me ? Isobel took a deep breath. ‘Prudentia, did you examine Margaret’s arm before she touched the mantle?’

The infirmaress looked confused. ‘No. I never thought — ’

‘Have you ever seen this rash of which Margaret believes she has suddenly been cured?’

Prudentia’s wrinkled face lit up. ‘Oh, yes, Reverend Mother. Many times.’

Isobel closed her eyes, clutched her hands beneath her scapular, thinking fast. She was no longer so firm in her disbelief. Perhaps it was Our Lady’s mantle. But she must preserve the peace of the convent. ‘Dame Margaret, I order you to keep silent about this.’

Margaret raised her head, her eyes dazed. ‘But, Reverend Mother, others might be cured.’

Isobel drew herself up to her full height. ‘Remember your vow of obedience, Dame Margaret.’

The cook bowed her head. ‘Yes, Reverend Mother.’

Isobel turned to the infirmaress and the sub-prioress. ‘Not a word of this to anyone.’ They nodded and voiced their promise in unison.

Isobel did not for a moment believe she could stem the tide of rumour, but perhaps she could slow it to a manageable trickle.

Thoresby stood in the garden of his palace at Bishopthorpe, enjoying the mild morning and the company of his gardener. He liked Simon’s quiet doggedness, the simple joy the gardener took in his accomplishments. This morning the talk was of lady’s mantle, the beauty of the dewdrops caught in the furled, fan-shaped leaves, how the drops would dry as the leaves opened.

‘Mistress Wilton would collect the dew early in the day for her remedies. Apothecaries hold it in high regard.’

‘The dew? Why? What is its virtue?’

Simon sat back on his heels, took off his battered straw hat, and wiped his brow with a clean rag. ‘They say ’tis changed to the water of life as it sits in the leaves. A remedy is all the better for it.’

‘The plant grows wild in the Dales. The women dry it, but I never knew what use they made of it.’

‘Mistress Wilton says the plant dries and binds. Stops a wound from bleeding and seeping. And she told me the proper name for it, the one clerics use. Leontopodium.’ Simon pronounced the Latin carefully, with obvious pride.

‘Lion’s foot?’

Simon nodded. ‘For its spreading root leaves. ’Tis why Mistress Wilton believes in thinning the clumps. Gives them room to spread. I considered it a long while.’

Thoresby envied the man his pleasant concerns. ‘And what have you decided? Will you be thinning these?’

‘Oh, aye. You’ll not find me wasting good advice. Mistress Wilton learned from the best of gardeners, Your Grace. Master Nicholas Wilton. Was never a man knew as much about gardens as Master Nicholas.’ Simon slipped his hat back on and bent to his work.

Nicholas Wilton had been dead for two years. Thoresby had not known him well. But Lucie Wilton’s present husband, Owen Archer, was much on Thoresby’s mind. He awaited Archer’s return; he was just the person to look into this abysmal situation.

Thoresby could not complain of Archer’s absence. He had been pleased when John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, had requested Archer’s help in preparing men for the expedition to be led by Edward, the Black Prince, to restore Don Pedro of Castile to his throne. The previous winter the French had helped Don Pedro’s bastard brother, Enrique de Trastamare, usurp the throne of Castile and banish Don Pedro from the kingdom. King Edward and the Black Prince had vowed to restore Pedro, King by right of birth, and Edward’s third son, John of Gaunt, was to aid his elder brother in this venture.

Assisting the Prince and Lancaster suited Thoresby, as he wanted their support in his efforts to rid the royal household of their father’s new mistress, the upstart Alice Perrers. And Archer had been glad to oblige, welcoming the chance to spend time with his old friends, Lief and Gaspare.

But this uproar at St Clement’s Nunnery — it was just the type of business Archer sorted out well.

‘I was set against liking her new husband,’ Simon the gardener was saying. ‘Looks like a knave with that patch and his soldierly ways.’ He had loaded a handcart with dirt and lady’s mantle. With a grunt he began to move away.

Thoresby followed. ‘Archer’s appearance does work against him.’ He had been surprised when he had first encountered Archer in the old Duke’s entourage, but Henry of Grosmont had been a keen judge of men, and Thoresby had never doubted that Archer must be a quick-witted, resourceful, trustworthy spy. ‘But his looks, patch and all, appeal to the ladies.’

Simon shrugged. ‘I’ll never understand it, but my wife says ’tis true. Captain Archer’s a good man, no matter his looks. He’s made Mistress Wilton laugh again. ’Tis a blessed sight to see a pretty woman laugh.’ Simon stopped in front of a freshly dug bed. Picking up the slips, he set them aside on the grass, then dumped the soil into the bed. He knelt down and began to place the plants at regular intervals. ‘I expect this is the first of many children.’

‘Children? Whose children?’

‘Captain Archer and Mistress Wilton, Your Grace. They’ve been kind to Tildy and Jasper. It’s good they’re beginning their own family.’

‘I had not realised.’

Simon shrugged. ‘Well, you were down at Windsor and up in the Dales so much of the winter, weren’t you?’ He bent over the bed again, pressing mounds of earth around the new plants.

Thoresby did not like this piece of news. He did not like that Archer had not told him. ‘If I had known Mistress Wilton was with child, I would not have sent Archer away.’

Simon squinted up at the archbishop. ‘He’ll be back soon enough, won’t he?’

‘And gone again.’

Simon shrugged. ‘Back by Michaelmas?’