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

penance nor God’s forgiveness if you’re not repentant,” Father Henry had warned. He had sounded as if it hurt him to say it.
    Caring nothing for his hurt, Cristiana had said, “Then don’t,” stood up, and walked away.
    Afterward she was sorry it had come to that. She knew full well the comfort there was in giving up her sins to a priest and the relief that came with forgiveness and penance. But what use would pretended repentance be? The hunger pains in her stomach would reawaken her envy. Her despair would not give way so long as she was trapped here. And as for her wrath and hatred at Faurence, Milisent, and everyone who had helped them put her here, what use would penance be when her fury at them still seared with actual, burning pain behind her breastbone? It wasn’t penance she wanted. What she wanted was out of here and her daughters with her and the chance to pay Laurence and Milisent back for everything.
    A flare of her hatred-pain took her with no warning, curled her forward on herself, and then, its warning given, faded. She straightened slowly, wary of waking it again, and was surprised to find tears on her cheeks and—when she opened her eyes—Sister Thomasine kneeling beside her in prayer toward the altar.
    Sister Thomasine prayed more intently than anyone Cristiana had ever known. No matter what the hour or how long she knelt, her body was straightly upright from her knees, her hands steepled together palm to palm at her breast, her head deeply bowed, her face shielded from view by the soft fall of her veil to either side of it. Save for when she gave Cristiana the pad for under her knees, she had never spoken to her nor given any sign that Cristiana was there while she was praying. That made it the more startling when now, as Cristiana drew a cautious breath, wary of wakening the pain again, and settled back onto her heels, Sister Thomasine lifted her head and turned to look at her, the first time Cristiana had fully seen her face.
    Whatever Sister Thomasine had been when young— pretty or plain or even ugly—was gone. Her face was refined down to fine bones and pallor almost as white as the wimple tightly around it, as if both food and sunlight were things in which she rarely indulged. And yet in her eyes were more of depth and distances than Cristiana had ever seen in anyone’s. Cristiana stared into them as Sister Thomasine put out a narrow, white hand and laid it gently on her shoulder with all the tenderness a mother might have given a child.
    It was only for a moment. Then Sister Thomasine took back her gaze and her hand and faced the altar again, head bowed to her prayers. Yet for that moment of her touch and look, Cristiana’s hatred, angers, and pain had all seemed little things.
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    A few days after that the church was again softly golden with westering sunlight and Cristiana was again alone in front of the altar in the hour before Compline. As she had come toward the church after supper, she had seen Sister Thomasine among the nuns going through the narrow slype toward the tall-walled garden beyond the cloister to spend their hour’s recreation, but now when she heard a slight, soft footfall behind her, she supposed she was come after all, until the nun who stopped beside her did not kneel, instead said, “Cristiana,” and when Cristiana jerked up her head to look at her, added, “I want to speak with you.”
    Wary both of the nun and her own stiff knees, Cristiana stood up unsteadily.
    The nun, her hands tucked into her opposite sleeves, made no move to help her, simply waited until she was standing, then said, “I’m Dame Frevisse.”
    Cristiana had learned a few of the nuns’ names by chance, but mostly she knew them as “the older nun who talked too much,”
    “the young nun who stared,”
    “the nun with her nose in the air.” This one was “the tall nun who had been at the guesthall.” Not knowing what lies Milisent had said to her then, Cristiana set her lips