Free The Widow's Tale (Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries Book 14) by Margaret Frazer Page A

of crisply fried wafers dipped in sugar, so that afterward Cristiana on her knees in the church during the nuns’ daily hour of recreation gave deep thanks that today had not been one of her bread-and-water days and that for this little while she was not hungry. At most meals the nuns ate far less than she was used to having. She told herself she might have grown used to that, but her bread-and-water days left her so light-headed she was sometimes unsteady on her feet and at night her stomach gnawing at itself kept her awake when she might have slept, now that she no longer cried so much.
    In truth, she rarely cried at all anymore. She felt as if her grief had eaten its way into her so deeply it was maybe beyond her tears’ reach. Or maybe she was just too tired for crying.
    Having given her small prayer of thanks and her other, constant prayers for Mary and Jane and that Gerveys might find her soon, she sat back on her heels, her chin resting on her clasped hands pressed against the base of her throat in at least semblence of prayer. Around her, the church was abloom with golden, fading, evening light. She could remember when she would have felt that beauty was like God’s embrace made visible. Now all it meant was that she had endured through another day with no sign of any better hope for tomorrow.
    If only she wasn’t always so hungry she would be able to think more clearly and maybe find some way of escape from this place. She was sorry, too, in a distant way that she had upset the priest when he took her confession today. He seemed, all in all, a kindly enough man, with a burly, uncomplicated certainty to him that in another time and place she would have found comforting. He had even been kind enough to tell her his name. Father Henry. But despite that he had asked if she wanted to make confession, he had seemed almost afraid to hear it. Afraid of what depths of sin she would reveal? Afraid he would see hell’s mouth gaping behind her and his own soul polluted by her mere words? Even suspecting that was his thought had not curbed Cristiana’s gladness at a chance to talk to someone.
    She had promptly unsettled the poor man, though, when he began by asking when she had last made confession. “In Holy Week,” she had answered.
    Startled, he had fumbled, “Not since then? When they . . . after you . . . Surely before they brought you here . . . you didn’t make another one?”
    “I was seized without warning.” She had let all her bitterness show. “I was bound and gagged and brought here with no chance for anything.”
    Uneasily he had asked what penance she had been given at Easter. She had listed the Aves and Paternosters given her by Father Richard for her numerous small sins and the beeswax candle she had given the church in recompense for her anger at Edward when he bought the chestnut gelding last autumn when they had not needed another horse.
    When she stopped, Father Henry had sat silently waiting, then asked, “Nothing more?”
    “There was nothing more.”
    Again he had been silent, then bade her go on with what she wished to confess now. With bitter satisfaction, she had confessed to her wrath and her hatred and to her despair, then had waited through another silence from Father Henry before he asked cautiously, “Is that all?”
    “And envy,” she said, belatedly thinking of it. “Envy of the nuns at their meals on the days when I have only bread and water.”
    “And?”
    “There’s nothing more, Father.”
    “No . . . sins of the flesh?”
    “On my soul’s hope of salvation,” she had said more sharply than she had ever spoken to any priest, “those are all my sins.”
    Father Henry’s unhappy silence had drawn out somewhat long before finally he asked, “Do you repent of these sins?”
    She had meant to be humble, because those were sins, however justified, but found herself saying harshly, “No.” With no urge to take back the word once it was said.
    “I can give you neither