Free The Nun's Tale by Candace Robb

me?’
    ‘Brother Wulfstan will prepare a remedy to calm you, help you sleep. But he must know as much as possible about you. Whether you are in any pain is important.’
    ‘Pain is unimportant.’
    Lucie glanced back at Dame Isobel with raised eyebrows.
    Dame Isobel shook her head, dismissing Joanna’s reply.
    Lucie felt Joanna’s forehead with the back of her hand. ‘You are not feverish, yet they tell me you have been talking as if you were. Why is that, Dame Joanna?’
    Joanna touched the hand Lucie still held to her forehead. ‘I do not mean to be trouble. I would not mind so much if you would examine me alone.’
    ‘Without your Reverend Mother?’
    Joanna nodded.
    Lucie turned to Isobel. ‘Will you permit this?’
    Dame Isobel did not look pleased, but she nodded. ‘Of course, Mistress Wilton. Brother Wulfstan says I can trust you as I do him.’ Dame Isobel gave Joanna and Lucie a little bow, then moved away to the far side of the room. She sat down with her head bowed, hands pressed together in prayer.
    Lucie looked at Joanna’s eyes, her mouth. Her teeth were in remarkably good condition except for a front tooth that was chipped. ‘Does the chipped tooth hurt?’
    Joanna touched it with her tongue, nodded.
    ‘Brother Wulfstan can give you clove oil to dab on it for the pain.’
    ‘I offer it up as a penance.’
    ‘But why, if there is a remedy?’
    Joanna said nothing.
    Lucie shrugged. ‘As you wish. How did you chip it?’
    The eyes turned inward. ‘I fell.’
    Coupled with a fresh scar beside Joanna’s mouth and a red streak in the whites of her eyes, Lucie guessed she had been beaten, and not very long ago. But her business was to examine Joanna’s body, not her story. ‘You had a blackened eye recently?’
    Joanna nodded.
    ‘And a cut beside your mouth?’
    A shrug.
    ‘All from the fall?’
    Another shrug.
    Lucie patted Joanna’s hand. ‘You can help me, if you will. I am not a physician, so I may miss something. If my touch hurts you, makes you uncomfortable in any way, please tell me.’
    ‘Your touch is gentle, Mistress Wilton.’
    Lucie wondered what all this talk of Joanna’s state of mind was about. So far only the woman’s inattention when Lucie first opened the curtain had been odd.
    ‘I must lift your shift. Will you help me?’ Lucie touched an end of the shawl.
    Joanna grabbed it away from Lucie and unwound it, pulling it out from under her, carefully tucking it beside her. ‘You must not touch it.’
    ‘Is there anything else I must not touch?’
    Joanna shook her head, then arched her body so Lucie could pull up the shift.
    Joanna’s feet and legs had the cuts, scratches, and bruises of an active child. The bottoms of her feet had healing sores, obviously already tended by the infirmaress at St Clement’s or at Nunburton. Nothing unusual. She was missing a toe on her left foot, but it was an old injury. Still, it might be important.
    ‘How did you lose this toe?’
    ‘Frostbite.’
    ‘How long ago?’
    Joanna shrugged. ‘A few years.’
    Lucie found that quite plausible. Joanna’s torso was bruised and scratched, but none of the marks were surprising.
    Around Joanna’s neck was a medal. ‘This is pretty.’ Lucie lifted it.
    Joanna grabbed it from Lucie, holding it protectively in her cupped hand.
    Lucie thought it best not to comment, just stick to her task. ‘Please turn over on your stomach.’
    Joanna did so.
    Here were puzzling injuries. Patches of scabbed abrasions, some still tender scars, yellowing bruises, almost gone. ‘How did you come by the cuts and bruises on your back?’
    ‘I am clumsy.’
    Lucie doubted that was the cause. It was unlikely that her clumsiness would make her fall backwards rather than forwards. ‘They look almost healed.’ She pressed the worst spot gently. ‘Does this hurt?’
    ‘Pain purifies me.’
    Wulfstan had warned Lucie that Joanna spoke thus. ‘You may pull down your shift.’
    Joanna pulled it down slowly, as if