Free The Ruins of Lace by Iris Anthony Page B

Sister, was so extraordinary, I did not know at first from where it had come. I looked up. Around.
    I felt the slightest pressure at my elbow. “Help me.”
    I worked on, considering what to do. Mathild’s hands were moving. I could see the blur of them, and I could hear her bobbins. To help her, to talk to her, would bring the wrath of Sister down upon my head.
    And my back. And my buttocks.
    I trembled at the thought.
    “Please.”
    She was working. I could hear that she was, so how could she have lost her place? And if she had, if she did need help, then why did she not ask Sister?
    Nee. There could be nothing good gained from answering her plea.
    But once again, that voice entered into my thoughts. “Help me.”
    Her voice echoed in my head, her words creating a pattern.
    I have lost my place.
    Help me.
    Help.
    Please.
    Those words created a design of lace disrupted, unfinished. A lace no one would wear.
    But…how could she have lost her place?
    It was with Mathild I had come into the abbey. It was with Mathild I had learned the patterns at Sister’s knee. Mathild and I, who slept side by side, pallets pushed together for warmth. Mathild and I, the best—the oldest—girls in the workshop.
    And it was then I began to wonder.
    Where had Elizabeth gone? And Jacquemine? And Beatrix? What had happened to all those girls, the older girls who had been making lace and fulfilling commissions when we had first begun? And how was it every one of the girls who had come before us had disappeared?
    Where had they gone?
    I had the feeling that, hidden beneath the confusion of my thoughts, was a pattern. I had only to wait, to watch, to determine what it was.
    But still, that left Mathild and her plea.
    She had lost her place.
    Perhaps, if I could feel her threads, I might be able to find it for her.
    I pressed against her elbow.
    Heard a sharp intake of breath.
    I patted the bench between us with a hand.
    She placed her hand atop mine.
    I grabbed it and pulled it toward my pillow while reaching for her pillow with my other hand. In the doing of it, I was careful not to uncoil myself and sit upright. Not to move my shoulders or my head. I prayed she would be as careful as I.
    I sat there for some several seconds, her pillow on my lap, expecting to be punished. But then I heard Sister’s voice start up a chant for the younger children, and I knew we would not be discovered.
    Mathild must have known it, too, for she sighed.
    I bent over her pillow, nose to her pins, trying to feel where she had stopped. It was a pattern like my own, though not as wide. It seemed as if… nee . I turned the pillow around. Began anew. It seemed as if she had stopped in the middle of…a leaf? A petal? Sliding my hand along the length, I felt the pattern contained within its thread. She had stopped in the middle of a petal. And it seemed as if…I fingered the stitches she had completed. And then, I pressed her elbow.
    She reached out toward my lap, but her hand did not find the pillow.
    Quickly, I pushed her fingers down to her work.
    She took her pillow from me as I felt for my own. “You are…” I paused. My voice had come out raspy and raw. I tried once more. “The middle of the petal. Five stitches. Then turn.”
    If she thanked me, I did not hear it. But if I could not hear it, then neither could Sister.

Chapter 9
Heilwich Martens
Kortrijk, Flanders
    On Wednesday I was late to Herry Stuer’s. If I hadn’t known it before, I could tell by the way his pallet reeked of stale piss. I glowered at the girl who looked after him. “You could change it a time or two.”
    She flounced away from me toward the door. “And taint my hands with the scent of it?” With a flash of her skirts, she was gone.
    Marguerite was her name. And it was only because our blessed Lord had once cared for such as she that I did not speak my mind.
    Whore.
    With some pushing and pulling, I rolled Herry off to one side and then swept the fouled straw out the door. I