Priscilla Royal - Wine of Violence

“Perhaps none of that will be needed. First I must ask why Prioress Felicia chose you to care for the priory gardens.”

“It was to punish my sinful pride.”

“What pride?”

“In the kitchen. I love to cook, you see. Even before my sister, Edith, and I came to Tyndal, we would slip away from our lessons when the servant fell asleep in the sun, I to the kitchen, she to the gardens. Neither of us could embroider an even stitch, but Edith could coax a plant to grow from anything and I seemed to have a talent to cook whatever she grew. When we were older, Inga, our cook, finally let me take charge of one dinner as I had been begging her to do. Our parents told her it was the finest she had ever prepared, but she said nothing about my efforts. They would have been angry that their daughter had done such menial work, but when we came here, Edith gave her talents to the priory gardens with joy. I took over the kitchen.”

“And did the plants grow for Sister Edith?”

“Oh, yes, my lady! Prioress Felicia said her harvests were more plentiful than they had ever been before.”

“And your meals?”

Sister Matilda lowered her eyes. “Prioress Felicia was kind and said her guests were always pleased. Our own fare is simple, but I heard no complaints.”

“Still, your prioress said you suffered from excess pride. Why?”

“I tried too hard to please, my lady. I had overheard someone say our woods had fine mushrooms.” She gestured toward the woods surrounding the stream. “I asked permission to look for some when our prioress was expecting important guests. It was granted and my pasties pleased right well.”

“That is not undue pride, surely?”

“No, but I went often after that. During the Lenten season I found that many of our recipes for meat dishes suited dried or fresh mushrooms quite as well.”

“Again, no sin.”

“It was, my lady, and I was given an unmistakable sign of it.”

Eleanor raised an eyebrow. “Do tell me.”

“One day after Chapter, when I was harvesting mushrooms near a ledge overlooking the stream, I suddenly heard piteous cries coming from the direction of the water. I ran to the edge but could see nothing. The cries, now only whimpers, seemed to be coming from within the earth itself. I was frightened and stepped back. As I did so, a wild, screaming demon burst forth from the earth just under the ledge. His eyes were wild, his arms flailed, his beard was black as smoke. I fled, my lady. I ran in terror back to the priory and told Prioress Felicia and Brother Rupert.”

“And they…?”

“They told me that I must have found a hidden pathway to the dark regions and had heard the cries of lost souls. Surely Satan knew I was coming to the forest, as I had so often done, and had sent one of his devils to drag me down to the fiery pit for my sin of pride. It was only God’s grace that saved me, they said, and forbade me ever to go to the woods again. Henceforth, I should work in the garden as penance.”

“And Sister Edith was to work in the kitchen?”

“She would not know a mushroom from a toadstool, my lady. She would never be in danger of stumbling over that hidden hole to Hell.”

Eleanor smiled at this little hint of pride still exposed in Sister Matilda. “Nor has she ever done so. But tell me, sister, do you remember anything else about the demon or where you found this secret path?”

“The demon came from the earth near the bend in the stream, just below the tree whose roots were exposed by the flood two winters ago. Of the demon, I remember little other than what I have said. He was dressed much like a man, but very ragged.” She hesitated. “Indeed, Satan does not provide for his minions quite as well as I had thought he would.”

“For cert,” Eleanor said, as she remembered the wild-haired man looking down at her as she stood by the cave entrance hidden with matting near the bend in the stream.

Thomas watched the nuns of Tyndal file out to chapter after Mass. Prioress Eleanor had not requested his attendance this morning, for which he was most grateful. He hated the inactivity of just sitting and trying to look stern over one more confession of petty vanity or inattention at prayer.

After Sister Anne had released him to normal activity, he had volunteered to work in the stables, a task he actually looked forward to. Keeping the stables clean was too much for the elder monks and had lately fallen to two younger lay brothers, but Thomas was fond of anything equine and had extended that feeling to the new donkey. He quickly proved that mucking out this stable was satisfying exercise for just one young man, yet not sufficiently absorbing that it cut into time needed to comfort the sick, hear confessions, and do whatever else was needed at the hospital. Much to their disgust, the two lay brothers had been quickly assigned to other duties where their diligence to the task assigned was more closely supervised.

The priory had always had a couple of horses, Brother Andrew told him. Recently the prioress’s donkey had been added, and only a few days after its arrival, a stall for a second donkey was being prepared. This beast had been purchased for whoever would accompany Prioress Eleanor on journeys abroad. Thomas smiled. The prioress was spreading humility over them all, albeit slowly and with gentleness. He liked that.

As long as he could stay active physically, Thomas was finding his work as a priest much more satisfying than he had originally thought, the hospital especially. Taking individual confessions from the nuns might be boring but had proven less onerous than he had feared. Most of the women at Tyndal suffered but minor sins. If only they knew what real sins were, he thought grimly. Theirs were but laughable ones, although serious enough to them, he supposed. For their sakes, he listened courteously and passed out due penance with a properly somber face.

Thomas walked into the sacristy and began to change into the worn and rough robe he used to muck out stables.

On occasion, however, he did hear rumblings of deeper ills in the confession booth. One skeletally thin young novice had wailed for an hour over her unconquerable lust for food and had begged him to let her whip herself in penance since vomiting had failed to purge gluttony from her. Thomas shuddered in horror at such an extreme reaction and had refused to allow her to punish herself so. At such times he wished he were a wiser priest and feared he knew nothing of a young woman’s tribulations. Instead, he had ordered her to talk to the nun in charge of novices who, he assumed, would be better able than he to cope with the problem.

And then there was Sister Ruth, who still felt rage toward the woman she believed stole the position of prioress from her. How naïve she was, he thought. Men made such decisions about who ruled whom. Sister Ruth must have spent most of her life with the foolishly simple if she thought any woman could attain priory leadership if the court of kings had other notions. Her reasoning was feeble indeed.

Thomas left the sacristy and looked out toward the sea. It was a clear day, although wispy clouds did drift high above him. The morning sun warmed the naked spot on the top of his head. Life here could be pleasant, he decided.

Although he was still inclined to believe that most women, like the elder sister, were incapable of sustained logic, he excepted both Prioress Eleanor and Sister Anne and did so with delight. He quite enjoyed discourse with such intelligent, competent creatures, and, he thought with a slight smile, he had always wanted to please women. Now that he no longer pleasured their bodies, he found it just as satisfying, if not more so, to pleasure their minds.