Free The apostate's tale by Margaret Frazer Page A

burden” of her confession and penance. He said they were too much, that it was for Abbot Gilberd, not him, to deal with, her sin was so great.
    The size of her resentment at his refusal had surprised Cecely. She could only hope her disappointment had masked her fury at him. She had wanted to shout into his face, “I was in love! You don’t even know what love is! You and all these withered women! I loved Guy!” Instead, she had bowed her head very low, whispered acceptance of his stricture, and kept her head bowed, hiding her face while he signed a cross over her and went away.
    Still, she had got something a little her own way, she thought as she followed Dame Claire up the stairs to Mistress Petham’s chamber where poor Neddie was being kept, the sickly woman apparently willing for him to share her chamber. Yesterday Cecely had had to spend her time with him there and been able to drag only a few words out of him. It seemed he was being fed and that Mistress Petham was being kind to him, but the poor little mite had hardly talked except to answer what she asked him. He had just kept his head down and shook or nodded it for answer when he could, while across the chamber Dame Juliana fussed over the sick woman.
    Two old women with one foot in their graves and their heads in the charnel house, Guy would have said, and he and Cecely would have laughed together, the way they had at his old aunts more than once.
    No. Don’t think of Guy. Not now.
    Think instead how she had got her own way about Neddie, making certain Dame Juliana saw how poor Neddie had hardly talked to her there in Mistress Petham’s chamber, so that afterward she had been able to ask humbly, with deeply bowed head, if he might be allowed alone with her in their time together. “In the church, perhaps?” she had asked softly. “Outside the rood screen, where we’d trouble no one. It might help him, too, when…when…he’s gone away to be a monk?” she had wavered. Dame Juliana had made a great matter of having to ask Domina Elisabeth about it. Then Domina Elisabeth, granting leave for it, made plain that Cecely should understand it was a great favor she was being given, for the child’s sake, not hers, and that she should be hugely grateful for it.
    Hiding her bitterness, Cecely had humbly thanked her, but it was with hidden triumph she now followed Dame Claire into Mistress Petham’s chamber again. Neddie must have heard them coming. He was standing ready with his cloak. Cecely held out her hand to him, and he came to take it as Dame Claire, her guard today, said, going toward the bed, “I want to see briefly how Mistress Petham does. Go on to the church. I’ll soon be there.”
    Cecely murmured, “Yes, my lady,” and with a flare of hot triumph at gaining even those few moments of “freedom,” she grasped Neddie’s hand and pulled him out the door.
    Then came her next piece of good fortune.
    Alson was coming up the stairs, carrying a covered cup of something meant for Mistress Petham.
    There were so few moments to be alone and unwatched in this place. To meet Alson in one of them was almost un-hoped for luck.
    Except it was not luck, Cecely realized, as Alson said hastily, looking past her, up the stairs, “I had hope she’d linger with the old woman. They’re keeping close hold on you, aren’t they?”
    Cecely let go of Neddie, caught hold of Alson’s free hand with both her own, and whispered gladly, “Alson! You have the only friendly face in this whole place. They never found out you helped me, then?”
    Alson let go her worried uncertainty and whispered back as gladly, “They found out I’d taken your place in the kitchen, that’s all. You never saw such a to-doing as there was when you were found gone and well away. It’s been well with you, then? Worth it and all?”
    Gladness drained out of Cecely. Bleakly she said, “Until now. Now everything is…” Without she meant it to, her voice broke.
    Alson squeezed her hand