Free A Memory of Love by Bertrice Small

said.
    “And now how many?” The nun revealed two fingers on her left hand.
    “Two there as well,” Rhonwyn said.
    “But how many altogether?” Sister Rhan asked.
    Rhonwyn quickly scanned the digits, counting mentally. “Four.”
    “That is correct, and that, my child, is called adding.” She reached into a basket by the table where they sat and brought up a device with several rows of beads, which she set on the table. “This is called an abacus, Rhonwyn. Now watch.” She slid two beads from one side of the instrument to the other. “Two and two more equal how many?”
    “Four!”
    “Take away one bead. How many?”
    “Three!”
    “Excellent. That second calculation is called subtraction,” Sister Rhan explained.
    They quickly discovered that Rhonwyn had a talent for arithmetic. Each day she increased her knowledge until Sister Rhan assured the abbess that her niece would never be cheated by anyone. At least not where arithmetic was concerned. Grammar and logic appealed to the young girl, but while her handwriting improved markedly, Rhonwyn seemed to have no real talent for rhetoric, and she knew it.
    “My brother would do well with it,” she told her teacher. “He makes up stories and poems, and puts them to music that he sings in the hall of Cythraul. I think he will be a great bard one day.”
    Her time was growing shorter at Mercy Abbey, and her days, it seemed, were busy from dawn to dusk. Her two companions, Elen and Arlais, ended their trial as postulants and became novices. The three girls had never really become close, having different interests, but Rhonwyn was pleased that they were halfway to attaining their heart's desire. Rhonwyn, on the other hand, was suddenly beginning to consider her forthcoming marriage. She would not meet her husband-to-be until just before they married. Such a thing was not unusual, her aunt said.
    Now, as well as increasing her education, Rhonwyn was being fitted for her wardrobe. Her father had brought fine materials indeed for his daughter, and Gwynllian could not complain at him for being niggardly in either his choices or the quantity. There were silks and velvets and brocades as well as linen and fine cottons. The fabrics were rich and colorful. Rhonwyn was shocked, however, to learn women did not wear braies beneath their gowns.
    “I've worn mine all along since you put me in a gown,” she told her aunt. “What is substituted to cover the bottom?”
    “Ladies wear nought beneath their chemises,” Gwynllian replied.
    “Nothing?” The girl's eyes were wide.
    “Your skirts will cover all, I assure you, Rhonwyn,” the abbess said. “It is quite acceptable.”
    “I don't think it respectable” was the answer.
    Gwynllian's lips twitched, but she managed to keep from chuckling. Her niece was more prudish than she would have expected of a girl raised in a fortress of men. Were it not for the child's continuing warlike tendencies, the abbess would have believed her a candidate for the nunnery, and not marriage. But Rhonwyn still rode daily outside the gates of the abbey, galloping along at a breakneck speed that had the porteress almost swooning at Rhonwyn's maneuvers.
    On March the twentieth the abbey celebrated the feast of St. Cuthbert, who had been a bishop of Lindisfarne and whose fingernail paring now resided in its bejeweled gold box on the abbey's church altar. It was bruited about that the relic could cure a variety of minor illnesses, but as it was not a large memorial great miracles could not be expected of it. But the pilgrims came nonetheless to touch the gold box and pray to the saint. The abbey coffers grew at a modest but steady pace that day.
    April first, the day marking Rhonwyn's sixteenth birthday, came, and Llywelyn ap Gruffydd appeared to reclaim his daughter. Her cool, elegant demeanor was slightly intimidating, but her manners were flawless. He was rather astounded to learn of all her accomplishments since her arrival at the abbey