Page 45 of The Queen’s Witch

“But you will not go away,” Elizabeth said to Cecily.

Was there a slight hesitation before the abbess answered? “No, dear child, I do not intend to go away.”

“Good! May I go to the garden now?”

“Yes. Sister Margaret”—Cecily raised her voice, the first time I realized that Margaret must be nearly deaf—“please accompany Elizabeth to the garden.”

I did not see what protection old and tottering Margaret could be to Elizabeth’s new womanhood, but the two left nonetheless. I took a sip of ale, watching the abbess. When she did not speak, I said, “You are unhappy about Sister Joan’s decision to leave.”

“Yes, particularly since it is so unnecessary. Whatever she saw, it was not a ghost.”

True enough. My spell had produced only a floating white mist, made to dissipate at the first loud noise.

“We can ill afford to lose more religious,” Cecily said. And then I saw that she was much more distressed than I had thought—enough to erode her usual reticence. “This letter is from my friend at court. His Majesty has sent a petition to Pope Clement, signed by his councillors, demanding a divorce as the wish of the whole kingdom. He means to marry the earl of Wiltshire’s daughter, Lady Anne Boleyn. Also, Lord Cromwell moves forward with his”—she consulted her letter—“‘reforms of laxness and abuses at religious houses,’ as well as diverting some of our revenues to the crown.”

Money. Always money. I said, “There is neither laxness nor abuse at Bredham Abbey. You are safe, are you not?”

“For the moment. I suspect that Cromwell has been reading Desiderius Erasmus.”

I did not know who that was. But Cecily spoke to me as if to an equal, another mark of the abbess’s unease. A moment later, however, she collected herself.

“I am sorry to trouble you with any of this, Mistress Lond. Thank you again for your aid to Sister Beatrice, and I wish you a safe walk home. The weather, at least, is temporarily delightful.”

I was dismissed. Before I could rise, Elizabeth burst into the room. “He is here! Roger is here!”

Cecily’s unease vanished. Her face shone with happiness at the arrival, seemingly unexpected, of her son. So had Grandmother looked whenever I came home from market at Twilford. I pushed aside the pang in my heart and left quietly, unnoticed.

I did not see Roger, not then.

Agnes sent me back to the abbey to sicken Sister Beatrice a second time, and I did so. Agnes chortled gleefully. “I did not think ye had it in ye. Perhaps ye be not such a scobberlotcher after all.”

So scobberlotcher must mean a useless person. I had wondered. I said, “I wish to sleep.”

“Yea, go sleep,” she said, surprising me: a mark of her pleasure. Agnes never agreed with me. “And I will think on what ye can do next.”

I did not want to do anything next. The malefic magick was necessary and so justified, but after the pleasure in its results wore off, I could not escape a faint unease. But Agnes was teaching me much that I needed to know if I became thrice braided, and I should pay attention to that and not indulge my own transient feelings.

When I woke, Agnes had decided my next task. “Ye will sicken the whore herself.”

Abbess Cecily. I had not told Agnes, nor did I intend to, of Roger’s arrival. I would not sicken Cecily at her son’s visit. I would not sicken Cecily at all.

“No,” I said.

Agnes’s face purpled. “Have ye forgotten our pact?”

“No,” I said hastily. “But . . . it is not a good time to cause more mischief at the abbey. If troubles come too often, and they happen each time I am there, Cecily may become suspicious. Think what you might of her, Cecily is not dim.”

“Hmmm.” Agnes’s face returned to its usual mottled frown. “Ye be right. We will wait some while.”

Lady Anne had not been completely right, after all: Power did not always reside with those who loved least. Cunning could even the scales.

But not with the Dark One.

15

Bredham

Agnes waited a fortnight. I pestered her to fill the days teaching me, and she complied. Neither of us could risk violating our pact. I recited words in the old language as I cut firewood, fed chickens, stirred porridge, washed bedding, made candles from tallow purchased at a nearby farm. Agnes never praised my quick memorization, but occasionally I caught her gazing at me in speculation.