Priscilla Royal - Wine of Violence

Sister Edith’s face was red and her eyes squeezed shut as if she were in a bad dream from which she might awaken, if only she waited long enough.

Eleanor reached up and put a hand gently on the woman’s shoulder.

“Cook it any way you want, for the love of God!” Sister Edith screeched, once again raising her closed eyes heavenward. “Just don’t ask me another question.”

Then she opened her eyes.

“Oh, no!” she whispered as she looked down into the expressionless face of her prioress.

Eleanor struggled not to laugh.

“Come, sister,” she said with immense control. “Let us walk in the cool of the garden and talk.”

The two women walked silently out of the hot kitchen, across the cloister and through the trellised arbor into the garden filled with tiny flowers and toward the carved stone seat near the fountain. Despite the warming sun, there was a chill to the air that foretold the coming autumn storms. Sensing the change, bees buzzed with special urgency, but a butterfly or two floated almost carelessly in the air as if they cared not a whit for their fate in the darker season.

Sister Edith’s head was bowed, perhaps less from humility than from embarrassment, for Eleanor noted that her eyes quickly looked sideways when they entered the garden, as if she could not keep herself from studying the state of the lush vegetation.

“Please sit.” Eleanor gestured to the bench. The sound of the water in the fountain was as peaceful as a primeval brook running over ancient, smoothed pebbles.

“My lady, I have sinned…”

“Brother Thomas is your confessor. He will give due penance for sins of anger.”

“I have failed both you and Tyndal.”

Eleanor folded her hands into her sleeves, tilted her head, and waited.

“It was my rotation in the kitchen and I have failed in my duties.”

“Rotation? Not as a penance for anything then?”

“When Mati…Sister Matilda was taken from the kitchen, I was rotated in. Our prioress that was, Prioress Felicia, said we must all learn to do everything in the priory. In that I have been unable to perform adequately.”

“Everything? Indeed, that is not a bad idea, for the good of your soul as well as your experience. Surely you began with the basics of cooking?”

“No, my lady. I began in charge. I had been in charge of the gardens. Prioress Felicia felt it would be unseemly for me to do the base work of chopping vegetables.”

“I saw two sisters doing just that.”

“They are the daughters of knights…”

“And you and Sister Matilda are the daughters of a baron.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Would you have minded serving under women of lesser rank?”

“I want to serve God well. If I serve best chopping parsnips, so be it, my lady, but I have not done well directing in the kitchens. Even with Sister Mat…” She stopped and looked sheepishly at the prioress.

“Even with your sister’s help?” Eleanor smiled and put a hand on the nun’s arm. “Fear not. I have seen each of you struggling to help the other, but I have also seen the anger between you.”

“She will never learn not to water in the high heat of…” Sister Edith stopped as her own voice raised in indignation. “That is no more her fault than it is mine that I cannot remember how long to boil a pot of stew or the right flame for meat.”

“No, it is not, and you both must make peace. Anger is sinful whether it be between kin or with any child of God.”

Sister Edith squirmed uncomfortably on the bench. “Aye, but I still don’t know how to cook.”

“And I have a solution for that. Would you be willing to do anything, no matter how humble or unsuited to your station, to correct your faults?”

“I wish only to serve, my lady. True station exists only in the grace of God.”

“Well said! We must all remember that the twelve apostles were men of very simple birth but were chosen to sit at the right hand of God. So take the lowly task I have for you and perform it well in the spirit of those men. Will you promise me that?”

“Aye, my lady.”

“I am assigning you to the priory gardens that you may humble yourself in the earth and bring forth flowers for the glory of God and plants to feed us so that we will have the strength to serve Him better.”

“What about Matilda?”

“I am bringing your sister back to the kitchen. She has served her time in the field. And I order the two of you to make peace so that she may prepare the fruits of your work to grace our tables within the blessing of unity.”

Sister Edith cried aloud and tears flowed down her cheeks again, but both voice and tears were finally filled with happiness.

Sister Ruth was droning. It was difficult to read the Venerable Bede’s Life of Saint Cuthbert and make it sound dull, but the good nun was succeeding with impressive skill.

Eleanor looked down from the prioress’s high table to the long line of nuns eating silently on benches in the refectory below her. This night she had invited no one to join her. She was too weary even for familiar company.

Two deaths on priory grounds had been horrible, but daily responsibilities could not be set aside. After days of talking to the nuns, monks, and lay people at Tyndal, studying the account rolls taken from Brother Simeon, and making small changes she hoped would be beneficial to both body and soul, she was exhausted, her humors out of balance. She needed to spend an evening in restorative prayer and contemplation, something she had had little time for of late. At least her ankle had healed, she thought, quickly adding something positive to offset her list of complaints.

She looked down at the trencher in front of her and smiled. The return of Sister Matilda to the kitchens had been a popular decision. Her talented cooking had also helped ease the transition to a more spartan diet than the religious inhabitants of Tyndal had been accustomed to, a necessity in view of the poor monastery harvest and reduced income from priory lands. Fish from the ponds was still plentiful, and Sister Edith had offered hope for an increase in the cooler season’s vegetables, but austerity was still required if all were to have sufficient food through winter.

At yesterday’s chapter, Eleanor had announced her personal vow to cut her own portions in half, eat no meat, and drink only ale from Tyndal’s brewery. What wine the priory had should be saved for Mass and the sick, she declared, for none could be bought until revenues increased. Eleanor had left the choice of what to surrender from meals, other than wine, to the nuns themselves, although she had warned against an excess of fasting. Thanks to Brother Thomas’ wise direction, she knew of one young novice who had difficulties with such excesses. At his order, the girl had told the head of novices about her self-induced vomiting and Eleanor had been told that the nun would be especially vigilant, not only with her but others who might exhibit similar debilitating behavior.

Ah, the good brother! He was the other reason Eleanor had given up any meat, and she meant to do so until her body ceased to respond in lustful ways to his presence. It was well known that meat heated the blood, and her blood needed no warming when Brother Thomas was with her. Brother John, her confessor, had agreed, although he had been kinder than others might have been when she told him about her adulterous feelings toward the monk. He might have suggested scourging. Instead, he had ordered her to pray alone in the chapel for one hour each night as she stretched out, face down on the stone floor. The penance had cooled her passions sufficiently in the warmer months of summer. She imagined it would utterly destroy them by mid-winter when the stones turned icy.