Free Roses in the Tempest by Jeri Westerson Page B

plainly, startling from her a look of surprise. “I am a frank woman, Dame Cristabell, and I always speak my mind.”
    “Humility is what’s wanted here, Mistress.”
    “I have seen little by way of humility here, Dame.”
    “You think because you bring pouches of gold that we will conform to your will? Then I am glad of our poverty…if for nothing else than to protect us from the power of greed!”
    “You know nothing of me, Cristabell. And I would tell you if only it would make a difference.”
    “I will not be fooled by your innocent demeanor. You are no highborn lady.”
    “And I never professed to be. Why do you mistrust me so?”
    Cristabell maneuvered away from the puddle as if its reflection could contaminate. “Clearly you do not take this seriously, Mistress.”
    I leaned against a chilled stone arch. I rubbed my reddened hands, chapped from wash water and morning cold. “I do take it all seriously,” I said to the floor. “You must help me, Dame, for I know not how to be a nun. I have only been a daughter and a poor sister to my own siblings. And I am a naïve woman. You must help me.”
    Surprised wariness flickered in Cristabell’s eyes. “Help you? Seek your help in God.”
    “But are you not my sister in Christ? May I not find help in you just as the holy apostles helped one another?”
    “We are not apostles. Only women.” Cristabell turned, but I caught her arm.
    “Surely it was difficult for you when you first came here. How…how long ago was that? Why did you come to Blackladies?”
    Her brow lowered over her eyes. “You are too familiar for your own good, Mistress.” She pulled her arm free of me and moved down the cloister, disappearing behind a door.
    I watched the bubbles form and pop along the edge of the puddle, and my mind wandered, drifting. Was it possible to seal the rift in my heart with God? I thought as much, for else why was I here?
    To run from an arranged marriage by Sir John , I admitted. But what was so wrong with marriage?
    My toe nudged the puddle, touching off rings running to its outer edge. I inhaled Blackladies’ wet stone, its sweetly scented garden, and I felt its enclosing walls hover over me like a schoolmaster’s switch.
    It was Thomas who stood in my way, of course. There was no use denying it. I could not see myself loving anyone but him. No one else but God.
    I cleaned the rest of the floor before going to my other tasks. Each day became a new lesson in the worth of communal life. It seemed I was nothing but a chore to Cristabell, who made it her mission to correct my faults, making mention of them constantly at our daily chapter meetings. I kept to myself, as I was used to, for I never troubled myself with Robert’s acquaintances who were too rough for me, nor Agnes’ silly feminine pursuits and gossip. At home, I happily tended the garden and beehives alone, and so alone I did so at Blackladies.
    “Good morning, Mistress,” greeted Meg Burre, our servant, as she did to me every morning. And every morning it startled me. I was used to solitude and the disregard of the nuns.
    I nodded to her as I affixed my bee bonnet with its netting.
    “Here, let me help you with that.” She straightened it, making certain the veil pooled over my shoulders. “My milking’s done. Shall I help you with the hives?”
    Embarrassed for no reason I could fathom, I glanced swiftly at her in acknowledgement. With buckets and knives, we walked to the meadow near the mill pond where the woven domed skeps soon came into view mid the dying hogweed, nettles, and lavender. We smoked the tiny workers with a piece of smoldering linen wrapped around some straw inside a canister, and I lifted the woven skep while Meg pulled out the combs with a knife, and scraped the precious honey and beeswax into one of the buckets.
    Meg looked up so often toward the barley fields that I could not resist turning my head to look, too. She nodded to a tall figure stepping through the browning