Philippa Gregory - Changeling

‘I have ordered them to prepare a room for you next door to this one,’ she said. ‘I think it better that you should hear evidence in my house, in the house of the Lady Abbess. They will know then that I am co-operating with your inquiry, that they come here to speak to you under my blessing.’

‘It would be better somewhere else altogether,’ the priest said quietly to Luca. ‘You should come to the monastery and order them to attend in our house, under our supervision. The rule of men, you know . . . the logic of men . . . always a powerful thing to invoke. This needs a man’s mind on it, not a woman’s fleeting whimsy.’

‘Thank you, but I will meet them here,’ Luca said to the priest. To the Lady Abbess he said, ‘I thank you for your assistance. I am happy to meet with the nuns in your house.’

‘But I do wonder why,’ Freize prompted under his breath to a fat bee bumbling against the small leaded window pane.

‘But I do wonder why,’ Luca repeated out loud.

Freize opened the little window and released the bee out into the sunshine.

‘There has been much scandal talked, and some of it directed against me,’ the Lady Abbess said frankly. ‘I have been accused personally. It is better that the house sees that the inquiry is under my control, is under my blessing. I hope that you will clear my name, as well as discovering any wrong-doing and rooting it out.’

‘We will have to interview you, as well as all the members of the order,’ Luca pointed out.

He could see through the grille that the white figure had moved, and realised she had bowed her head as if he had shamed her.

‘I am ordered from Rome to help you to discover the truth,’ he insisted.

She did not reply but merely turned her head and spoke to someone out of his sight and then the door to the room opened and the elderly nun, the porteress Sister Anna who had greeted them on their first night, said abruptly, ‘The Lady Abbess says I am to show you the room for your inquiry.’

It appeared that their interview with the Lady Abbess was over, and they had not even seen her face.

It was a plain room, looking out over the woods behind the abbey, in the back of the house so that they could not see the cloister, the nuns’ cells, or the comings and goings of the courtyard before the church. But, equally, the community could not see who came to give evidence.

‘Discreet,’ Peter the clerk remarked.

‘Secretive,’ Freize said cheerfully. ‘Am I to stand outside and make sure no-one interrupts or eavesdrops?’

‘Yes.’ Luca pulled up a chair to the empty table and waited while Brother Peter produced papers, a black quill pen and a pot of ink, then seated himself at the end of the table, and looked at Luca expectantly. The three young men paused. Luca, overwhelmed with the task that lay before him, looked blankly back at the other two. Freize grinned at him, and made an encouraging gesture like someone waving a flag. ‘Onward!’ he said. ‘Things are so bad here, that we can’t make them worse.’

Luca choked on a boyish laugh. ‘I suppose so,’ he said, taking his seat, and turned to Brother Peter. ‘We’ll start with the Lady Almoner,’ he said, trying to speak decisively. ‘At least we know her name.’

Freize nodded and went to the door. ‘Fetch the Lady Almoner,’ he said to Sister Anna.

She came straight away, and took a seat opposite Luca. He tried not to look at the serene beauty of her face, her grey knowing eyes that seemed to smile at him with some private knowledge.

Formally, he took her name, her age – twenty-four – the name of her parents, and the duration of her stay in the abbey. She had been behind the abbey walls for twenty years, since her earliest childhood.

‘What do you think is happening here?’ Luca asked her, emboldened by his position as the inquirer, by his sense of his own self-importance, and by the trappings of his work: Freize at the door, and Brother Peter with his black quill pen.

She looked down at the plain wooden table. ‘I don’t know. There are strange occurrences, and my sisters are very troubled.’

‘What sort of occurrences?’

‘Some of my sisters have started to have visions, and two of them have been rising up in their sleep – getting out of their beds and walking though their eyes are still closed. One cannot eat the food that is served in the refectory, she is starving herself and cannot be persuaded to eat. And there are other things. Other manifestations.’

‘When did it start?’ Luca asked her.

She nodded wearily, as if she expected such a question. ‘It was about three months ago.’

‘Was that when the new Lady Abbess came?’

A breath of a sigh. ‘Yes. But I am convinced that she has nothing to do with it. I would not want to give evidence to an inquiry that was used against her. Our troubles started then – but you must remember she has no authority with the nuns, being so new, so inexperienced, having declared herself unwilling. A nunnery needs strong leadership, supervision, a woman who loves the life here. The new Lady Abbess lived a very sheltered life before she came to us, she was the favoured child of a great lord, the indulged daughter of a great house; she is not accustomed to command a religious house. She was not raised here. It is not surprising that she does not know how to command.’

‘Could the nuns be commanded to stop seeing visions? Is it within their choice? Has she failed them through her inability to command?’

Peter the clerk made a note of the question.

The Lady Almoner smiled. ‘Not if they are true visions from God,’ she said easily. ‘If they are true visions, then nothing would stop them. But if they are errors and folly, if they are women frightening themselves and allowing their fears to rule them . . . If they are women dreaming and making up stories . . . Forgive me for being so blunt, Brother Luca, but I have lived in this community for twenty years and I know that two hundred women living together can whip up a storm over nothing if they are allowed to do so.’

Luca raised his eyebrows. ‘They can invoke sleepwalking? They can invoke running out at night and trying to get out of the gates?’

She sighed. ‘You saw?’

‘Last night,’ he confirmed.

‘I am sure that there are one or two who are truly sleepwalkers. I am sure that one, perhaps two, have truly seen visions. But now I have dozens of young women who are hearing angels, and seeing the movement of stars, who are waking in the night and are shrieking out in pain. You must understand, Brother, not all of our novices are here because they have a calling. Very many are sent here by families who have too many children at home, or because the girl is too scholarly, or because she has lost her betrothed or cannot be married for some other reason. Sometimes they send us girls who are disobedient. Of course, they bring their troubles here, at first. Not everyone has a vocation, not everyone wants to be here. And once one young woman leaves her cell at night, against the rules, and runs around the cloisters, there is always someone who is going to join her.’ She paused. ‘And then another, and another.’

‘And the stigmata? The sign of the cross on her palms?’

He could see the shock in her face. ‘Who told you about that?’

‘I saw the girl myself, last night, and the other women who ran after her.’

She bowed her head and clasped her hands together; he thought for a moment that she was praying for guidance as to what she should say next. ‘Perhaps it is a miracle,’ she said quietly. ‘The stigmata. We cannot know for sure. Perhaps not. Perhaps – Our Lady defend us from evil – it is something worse.’