Priscilla Royal - Wine of Violence

“What if you fall, my lady?” Gytha said, “and no one came by. The stones of the cloister are uneven. If you are further injured, I would have failed you.”

Anne had just left for the hospital with firm instructions to her prioress to stay off the foot for the remainder of the day, instructions which both she and Eleanor knew would be ignored as soon as the sub-infirmarian was out of sight. As Eleanor stood with her weight on her sound foot and looked down the steep stairs from her chambers to the cloister, however, she had to concede that both Gytha and Anne were right.

“Very well, then. Help me down the stairs, but bring that sturdy branch I brought back from the forest. It will give me support on level ground, and I will let you watch me for a bit so you can see for yourself that I am able to walk safely on my own.”

So the young girl, who was slightly taller already than her mistress, agreed and the two walked with cautious, slow steps down the stairs. At the bottom, Eleanor braced herself against the wall and rested. Gytha put her hands on her hips, watching with an worried expression.

“Tostig bred a fine beast, my child. Your brother is a man of many talents,” Eleanor said, trying to switch the subject away from herself.

Gytha glowed with pleasure.

“You are proud of him.”

“He is a good man, my lady. When our parents…well, he has been father and mother both to me.”

“Not married?”

“Not yet. He wants to regain some land and wealth first.”

“Regain?”

Gytha blushed. “I’m sorry. I should have…”

“Honesty, child. You promised me honesty.” Eleanor smiled.

“Our family were thegns to Harold before…”

“And lost your lands to those who followed William, but it has been a long time since then, Gytha. Your family has surely had opportunity to prove your worth and advance your interests with men who are now your neighbors, not your enemies?”

Gytha was silent, her head bowed and her face turned away from the prioress.

“What is it? What are you trying to say?”

“You will not be angry, my lady?”

“If honesty angers, it is not true anger but rather confusion over what is truth. I would not punish you for my failure to understand something when no spite was intended. I promise to think about whatever you have to say.”

“My lady, I am an ignorant person and my words will be ill-chosen, but I would never intend malice or insult against you, nor would Tostig. I will try to explain as best I can what my brother’s thoughts are. Please do not condemn him for my inadequate expression of them.”

Eleanor nodded.

Gytha gestured toward the land beyond the priory. “You may see neighbors out there, and for sure they are to you, perhaps even kin, but my kin are a conquered folk. We may speak your language, but we speak it with an accent. It is not our tongue. And we have learned your customs, but, no matter how hard we try, we will never quite look, sound, or act like you. Your barons look at me and do not see the daughter of a thegn, worthy of marriage to one of their sons, but a lowly creature, unsuited to anything but service to their ladies or labor for their fields. Yet we once held all this land and had honor in our king’s eyes, more perhaps than a Norman baron has in King Henry’s. Now we have little land and little honor with this king. We work land for others that once belonged to us. My brother makes ale and cheese, and breeds donkeys. For this our new lords respect him, but no Norman will trust Tostig with land. Should Tostig have land, he might think himself the equal to a Norman. There can never be two lords over one land, my brother says.”

“Surely enough time has passed to forget which family has been here longer and to whom our kin owed allegiance so long ago? A good man is a good man whether he be Norman or English.”

“Nay, my lady. One man sees goodness in another only if there is trust; and trust can only exist between equals, my brother says. My family is not on equal footing with yours. We hold none of you in fiefdom. Again, I believe these to be my brother’s words.”

“So you fear us still?”

“And you, us. There is a lack of trust, my lady.”

Eleanor nodded. What Gytha told her had saddened her. Perhaps she even disagreed with some of it, but she grieved that people innocent of any wrong should be afraid of someone like her or her kin.

“I can only say that I will think about what you have told me, Gytha, and pray for wisdom beyond myself. Until those prayers are answered, you must believe that I have no desire to hurt you or your family. I would earn your trust.”

With that, Eleanor hugged Gytha, who hugged her back with genuine affection; but, with her eyes closed and her arms around the Saxon girl, Eleanor remembered the disheveled forest man who ran from her a second time near Tostig’s house. She saw again the frown on Tostig’s face, and once again she wondered what lay behind his silence.

Sister Matilda was leaning on her hoe and weeping softly. Eleanor watched her in silence from the cover of the bower, then lowered her head, ground her foot noisily into the pebbles of the path, and slowly walked into the sunlight.

“Ah, Sister Matilda!” she said, raising her head just as she approached the woman. “I am so glad to find you here.”

The nun had had time to wipe the tears from her face, but just barely. “I am at your service, my lady.” She curtsied.

“I see you have been working hard at the garden. Let us take some ease and talk awhile.” Eleanor gestured to a stone bench in the corner.

The nun dropped her hoe, picked it up with an awkward gesture, and rested the implement against a tree. It fell again. With a sigh, she left it lying in the dirt.

Not a tool with which Sister Matilda felt much comfort, Eleanor thought. “Tell me, sister, how you are progressing with the vegetables for this winter’s store?”

The poor nun put her hands to her cheeks, threw her head back, and began to wail piteously.

“Come, come! Nothing can be that bad.” Although Sister Matilda was clearly older than Eleanor, her cries were as piteous as those of a child suffering a bee sting. Eleanor reached out, took her hand, and stroked it soothingly.

“I have failed everyone!”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Look!” Sister Matilda gestured at the dusty garden. “The poor plants. I am so sinful I kill them. I mean only the best and I work hard, but I cannot make them grow. Sister Edith has tried to teach me, but I cannot learn. She says Satan has given me brown thumbs.” She raised the offending digits and stared hard at them. “I don’t see the change in color, but she has to be right. I must be so sinful I cannot see what Satan has done to my thumbs. I…”

“Hush! Let me see your hands.” Eleanor reached out for both hands.

The nun thrust them at her and turned her head as if afraid she’d see the Horned One sitting in her very palms, painting her thumbs as dark as the soil.

“Now pray with me, sister,” Eleanor said, holding the nun’s two hands gently in her own.

The two women lowered their heads.

“Were you able to pray?” Eleanor asked after she heard Sister Matilda’s breathing return to normal.

“Yes, my lady. After just a moment.”

“Then Satan has little hold on you. I think we can get rid of him quite easily.”

The expression on Sister Matilda’s face grew almost beatific with relief. “I will do anything, my lady. I will don a hair shirt and never take it off. I will care for lepers and wash each of their wounds. I will fast every other day for the rest of my life. I will…”