Free Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower Page A

cell really.”
    “The comforts I offer are rather less demanding than the consolations of religion, my lady.”
    “Good,” says the nun, as though admiring a deft piece of needlework or a subtle parry of the sword, “very good.”
    A Norman, a newcomer to judge by her accent, and well born. What does she want here? She is clearly not one of those dispatched from time to time by the burgesses to make sure the women are not diseased, dispensing pious platitudes with their herbal ointments and potions, not expecting miracles.
    “You can understand me, then,” the nun continues. “I’m afraid I have not yet mastered your language as well as I should like.”
    “I understand you.”
    “Good. You are Aelfgytha? From the manor of Colchester?”
    “Yes,” she replies cautiously. How does this Norman nun know who she is, and what can she want of her?
    “Then I am glad to have found you. It has not been easy. May I sit?”
    Gytha jerks her chin in the direction of the stool, at the same time shifting around on the bed to face the nun, leaning against the wall with her knees drawn up in front of her. The nun sits, straight backed, hands folded in her lap as though she were in chapel. Hugging her knees, Gytha waits. In the next door cubicle, cries of passion have been replaced by murmured conversation, rustling clothes, the chink of money changing hands.
    “I hope your daughter is well again soon,” she hears her neighbour say as her client leaves.
    “I should introduce myself,” resumes the nun. “I expect you are thoroughly confused by now, wondering why a nun from Normandy should be chasing around the south of England looking for you.”
    “I wonder very little nowadays, my lady. It serves no purpose. I remember those who thought the comet last spring portended well for King Harold.”
    “You are wise, Aelfgytha. Some in Falaise, where I come from, believed it heralded the Second Coming.”
    “You’d know more about that than I would, my lady.”
    The nun gives her a shrewd look. “I am pressed for time. My lord, the temporal lord, that is, whose business I am on, is not a man who appreciates being kept in suspense. Briefly, my name is Jean-Baptiste, and I am on a commission for the new Earl of Kent, who is my brother and commanded an army in the recent crusade.”
    “Crusade? Is that what you people think you were doing? Crusading? Why, it seems to me you’ve done nothing but burn down our churches since you got here. There’s nowhere left for a pious Christian to worship. Even Canterbury Cathedral, so I hear. I suppose that was your earl’s doing?”
    “My earl, as you call him, had not yet been invested with his earldom when the cathedral burned down. He had probably never set eyes on Canterbury. You would do well to remember that Archbishop Stigand was under interdict when he crowned Harold of Wessex. Perhaps the fire was sent from God.” The nun’s calm is unassailable. “Opposition is always more effective if you get your facts straight.” Gytha gives a sulky shrug. “The earl rendered the king great service during the…invasion and wishes to keep a record of his achievements. Which is where you come in.”
    “It seems improbable to me that your mighty earl should need to send all the way to Winchester for a whore. Are there no brothels in Canterbury? Does he not draw a shoal of concubines in his wake as most great men do?”
    “But you were not always a whore, were you, Aelfgytha?”
    “Your people made me one. What I was before can be of no interest to you.”
    “Many have suffered to put King William on his throne, and not all Saxons. There is no point in pitying ourselves.” A sudden bitterness in her tone makes Gytha look up. Briefly, their eyes meet in a flicker of mutual understanding. But the moment passes and, stung by the nun’s patronising words, Gytha gropes for some clearer way to explain her feelings.
    The Normans are like the men she does business with. They do not see her