Page 40 of The Queen’s Witch

“How do I know? Do I look like a nun?” She laughed, the sound like wet stones rattling together.

“Were there more nuns once?”

Agnes could not resist showing off her superior knowledge. “Aye. Never no shortage of fools. But after the fighting twenty-some years ago—”

“What fighting?”

Agnes spat. “Faugh, ye be too stupid to live. The taxes, girl, the taxes. The new king’s Parliament tried to tax us more, but Henry that now lives with his Boleyn whore, he was too godly to tax the religious houses! Not then! But some of the king’s soldiers ‘taxed’ the abbey by themselves, in their own way. Looting, beating, rape!” She guffawed, holding her belly.

I said slowly, “And that’s when most nuns left? And the abbess—”

“Got herself a bastard. Raised it too. Roger Ainley, and may he be cursed for his whoring mother’s theft of my manor!”

“If she was raped, she was not a whore.”

“So say ye. But ye like the thieving abbess, I see that well enough. Good. I will send ye there again.”

“Why?”

“Ye will see.” She laid a finger alongside her nose, looking sly. “Like it or not.”

“You are a disgrace to the Sisterhood,” I said. Agnes only laughed.

I slept badly that night, waking to the persistent hooting of an owl. Agnes’s Third? But Agnes lay on her sagging bed, snoring loudly, filling the cottage with her sour odor until she woke at first light, shouting at me to raise my sarding unholy lazy bones and bring her a cup of ale.

At least Agnes remained faithful to our pact. She taught me the forms, requirements, words, and outcomes of great magicks even though to me, not yet thrice braided, they were useless. For each afternoon of cantankerous teaching, I was forced to bring back more news from the village, so I continued to relate the corruption, disgrace, anguish, and disorder she wanted to hear. Some of it was even true.

“The pope ordered the king to put aside his mistress, and the king refused.”

“The king has gone on Royal Progress and left the queen behind.”

“The Lady Mary has recovered from her illness, but people continue to say she was poisoned by the Lady Anne.”

It was painful for me to speak of Anne, to dwell on my failure to tie the thrice-braided cord. Agnes did not seem to notice.

Before she could order me to attend another Mass, a nun appeared at Agnes’s door, grimacing horribly and crossing herself, to deliver a message. “My lady abbess requests the help of the healer Mistress Lond for Mistress Elizabeth Gysbourne.”

“Go,” Agnes said in barely concealed glee. She could hobble a little now, although I could sense the strong spells she needed to keep the pain at bay. “And ye, ye black crow, tell yer abbess that I lend my servant and expect to be paid.”

“I am not your servant, Cousin Agnes,” I said wearily. “I have told you so many times.”

The nun, the only young one I had seen at church, said nothing on the hurry to the abbey, not even when I asked what ailed Elizabeth. At the scarred wooden door, wide open to the summer breeze, she finally spoke. “The novice is cursed.”

Could that be true? Was there another cunning woman near Bredham who had laid a curse since I last saw the girl? Why?

Elizabeth was not cursed; I would have sensed the spell. She lay on a narrow bed in a small stone cell, her eyes closed, Abbess Cecily beside her. The abbess rose as I entered. “Thank you for coming, Mistress Lond. Elizabeth kept asking for you. I fear there is little you can do; I am afraid it is the falling sickness.”

The young nun pursed her lips.

Elizabeth opened her eyes and began to cry. “I am dying.”

“No,” I said gently, “you are not.”

She cried harder. Even with red eyes and snot streaming from her nose, she was lovely. Flawless skin, huge brown eyes, hair of bright gold framing perfect features. No lady I had seen at court—certainly not Anne Boleyn—could match this girl’s beauty.

I said, “Do you remember falling over? Where were you?”

“In . . . the garden?”