Marte sniffs and gives the smallest of nods, then leaves with the basin. Aleys hears the water slosh onto the stairs.
There is an awkward moment as Cecilia and Aleys regard each other, not sure what to say next. The voices of the girls carding wool drift into the window. Cecilia dips her head their way. “I best be getting back to my work, miss. When you hear the bell ring, that’s for supper. I’ll save you a spot next to me, don’t you worry.”
Aleys imagines her life beside Cecilia, sleeping, waking, eating, praying. Cecilia’s abundant energy more than fills this close room: It rebounds from wall to wall. And there are four other girls, in this space alone. She was better off with just Griete. The thought of Griete is a stab in her side. She should never have left home. But that wasn’t a choice.
And she will need to recruit some of these women.
After Cecilia clomps down the stairs, the rhythmic sound of wire brushes scraping each other stops for a moment as the others make room for her. Then one of their voices picks up, resuming a story.
Aleys pulls the sheet out from under the blanket. She’ll prepare her bed. Then she’ll pray. It may be her only moment alone all day.
“She loved him,” floats up a voice.
“I don’t understand,” says another. “If she was in the convent ...”
“There are ways.”
“No,” says the first, “that’s not what I meant. She’d been in love with him since childhood. Since they were twelve. They pledged to each other the night before he left with the Templars.”
She hears Cecilia’s voice. “If I could have married a knight, you can be sure I wouldn’t be carding wool.”
Aleys spreads the sheet over the bed.
“Listen, in the Holy Lands, the knight fights with valor. It’s afterward, on the way home, that he slips from his saddle. His man at arms rushes to his side, but the knight’s wounds have opened, and he’s bleeding all over the ground. There is nothing they can do. He tells his comrades to go forward, gives his man a rose to bring to Beatrice, and a message. ‘Remember me, always.’ When his man comes to the house of Beatrice’s father, her heart breaks at the news. What’s she going to do?”
“Take vows, of course.”
“Unless they had a begijnhof in her town.”
“No, they didn’t have any. She went to one of the convents devoted to Saint Mary.”
Aleys folds the blanket over the end of the cot. Then she kneels at the narrow prie-dieu, crosses herself, begins the Lord’s Prayer.
“Anyway, listen,” the voice drifts up, “in four or five years, she’s the bell ringer for the abbey, and she’s perfect, she never once misses the prayers. But then the knight returns ...”
Aleys tries to concentrate. How is she supposed to hallow his name when she can barely hear herself think?
“I thought he died.”
“That’s what’s so tragic. He survived. And he comes back and she’s just taken her final vows. At evensong, he comes to see her. The mist is rising, and they whisper through the iron grill. ‘Do I dream?’ she asks. ‘Is it you?’
“‘My lady,’ says the knight, ‘day and night, I yearned for you.’”
Aleys rests her forehead on her clasped fists. This is impossible. Will they talk all day?
“‘But, sir, I have made the solemn profession. I am sworn to chastity. For life.’”
Apparently, they will.
“‘Damsel,’ he says to her, ‘you wound me! Better my heart had been quartered by infidels! Now it is condemned to beat as your prisoner, forever.’ Then he reaches through the lattice. Their fingers touch.”
The sounds of carding stop.
“‘Kiss me, lady, for old friendship’s sake.’”
“Ach, he’s a scoundrel,” says the third girl.
“No, he’s not,” says Cecilia. “Keep going.”
