Chapter 1 #2
The girl blinks. One eye closes a little before the other, which gives her an owllike appearance.
Her mouth is pinched shut in fear as tightly as a closed book.
With her fingertip, Sister Ursula draws a line on the girl’s cheek to soothe her.
Her skin is almost translucent; the veins at her temples and around her eye sockets are clearly visible and different shades of blue and purple.
Sister Ursula takes out a waterskin and offers it to her companion, who sips at it gratefully.
Giving water to the thirsty is one of seven corporal acts of mercy and thus pleasing to the Lord, though Sister Ursula would have watered this girl even if it hadn’t been.
When the girl gives it back to her, she drinks a little herself.
She lets the water slosh around to wet the inside of her mouth, which is painful in its dryness.
The sound of her subsequent swallowing is obscenely loud.
“Do you have something to eat? I haven’t eaten in two days,” the girl whispers.
Sister Ursula has only a stale crust of bread. She tears it in two, gives the bigger half to the girl. She may be a coward, but she’s not ungenerous. Besides, to feed the hungry is another corporal act of mercy.
The girl stuffs the crust into her mouth straightaway, but Sister Ursula says grace first, then makes the sign of the cross over the bit of bread to bless it.
They take a long time to eat, not because the meal is particularly fine—though if you are hungry, any type of food tastes heavenly—but because the crust is so tough, and in Sister Ursula’s case, it hurts to swallow.
When they are done eating, Sister Ursula whispers, “Do you think it’s safe for us to come out of hiding now?”
“I don’t know.”
“What soldiers were they, did you see?”
The girl’s gray eyes lock with hers. They flash cold and hard as knives. Sister Ursula feels a thrill run through her. Nuns are encouraged to keep their eyes lowered; they call it “keeping custody of the eyes.”
The girl says, “Does it matter? They meant to rape and murder you. Soldiers aren’t men. They are beasts.” She speaks with such fire, Sister Ursula knows that these are not the first soldiers she has met, and whatever they did to her, they weren’t kind.
A phantom ache spreads through Sister Ursula’s belly.
She has had this ever since she was a child: When she sees another suffer, she wishes, more than anything, to ease that suffering or to be part of it.
She has been told often that she is too sensitive, but no matter how she strives to shear herself of it, it has never gone away entirely.
She would like to embrace this girl, as if touch can draw out whatever has been done to her like a leech can draw out corrupted blood, but she daren’t for fear she will overstep or offend.
Instead, she says, “You must think me ungrateful. I haven’t even thanked you.”
The girl blinks again in that slow, owlish way. “For what?”
“For taking my hand and bringing me here. For fighting that soldier.” She remembers the ammonia stench of urine after the girl hit him with that bit of broken rock, the way his eyes rolled back. “Do you think you killed him?” she asks.
“I can only hope so,” she replies, anger roughening her voice.
Sister Ursula gingerly touches her throat, at the ring of bruises made by her cape. “It was a brave thing to do, and selfless, and charitable.”
A harsh laugh punches out of the girl, hoarse like a crow’s caw. She wraps her arms around herself. “No it wasn’t.”
“But it was!” Sister Ursula perseveres. “If you hadn’t dragged me to safety, and if you hadn’t beaten that soldier with a rock, he would have…
he would have done exactly as you said, would have murdered me and…
Well, praise the Lord that you were there.
I don’t know why I didn’t run, why I didn’t fight. ”
Liar, she thinks. You know well why. It’s because you are so cowardly. With the cuff of her dress, she wipes at her eyes, which burn with tears of shame.
The girl says gently, “You mustn’t be angry with yourself about that.
Fear takes people in different ways. Some grow quarrelsome, some flee, and some, like you, grow dazed.
” She has balled her hands into fists again, so tightly that her knuckles stand out like little hills, the tendons taut and yellow.
A fighter, this one, Sister Ursula thinks.
She is suddenly grateful beyond words that she is no longer alone.
Ever since Sister Hildegard died some three weeks ago, leaving Sister Ursula all alone, the fear inside of her has grown so oppressive as to be almost choking.
Now, with this hardened farm girl next to her, it finally lets up a little.
Sister Ursula takes the girl’s hands and uncurls the fingers, then strokes them gently with her thumbs. No one can fight all the time. “What’s your name?”
“Elsebeth.”
“How old are you, Elsebeth?”
“Nineteen.” That makes her six years younger than Sister Ursula, who turned twenty-five this Christmas.
“What were you doing on the road?”
“Traveling. I’m trying to reach my aunt.” Elsebeth hesitates, then says, “She’s married to a parson.”
A Protestant, then, Sister Ursula thinks, and though her heart doesn’t harden, exactly, for she believes that to love often and selflessly is as close as she may come to true divinity, she does feel herself draw inward.
It’s not because she inherently mislikes Protestants, although their views are heretical and there would never have been a war if the Protestant nobles of Bohemia and Austria had not risen up in rebellion against the Holy Roman emperor.
Her personal experiences with Protestants, though limited, are not bad.
When the Swedes occupied large parts of Bavaria two years ago, Sister Ursula’s convent came to be under the protection of a group of Protestant officers.
They—and their wives as well—generally behaved in a manner exemplary of all Christians, full of kindness and courtesy.
But not all Protestants are alike, and so Sister Ursula must be careful.
“Last thing I heard,” Elsebeth goes on, oblivious to this change in her companion, “he had a parish north of here. And you? What is your name?”
“Ursula. I’m traveling to reunite with family, too, also north of here.” It’s not a lie, exactly.
“Let us travel together then, at least for a little while. It’s safer than traveling alone, and even if it weren’t, I’ve my belly full of being alone,” Elsebeth decides.
“You were alone on that road?”
“Yes.” Elsebeth is quiet, then adds in a curiously flat voice, “My aunt is all the family I’ve left. That is, if she’s still living.”
Sister Ursula’s heart aches. She, too, has known loss, but nothing so obliterating as this girl’s.
She gives Elsebeth’s hands a firm squeeze.
“I’m so sorry. I am sure the Good Lord knew what He was doing when He called them home to Him, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a heavy burden to bear.
I hope the knowledge that you shall be reunited with them in Heaven consoles you.
I shall pray for their glorious resurrection. ”
“You’re very pious, aren’t you?”
Sister Ursula flushes.
Now, it is Elsebeth’s turn to squeeze Sister Ursula’s hand. “I don’t mind,” she says softly.
They sit and wait for hours, and it’s like Eichst?tt all over again, only a little better in that there is no shooting now. It never fails to amaze Sister Ursula how terrifying war can be, yes, but also how incredibly boring, and sometimes both at once.
Finally, Elsebeth crawls out of their hiding place, dusts off her skirts, and says, “Those soldiers must have gone the other way, or we would have seen them by now. Let’s walk back to the stream.
You can refill your waterskin, and I saw some dandelions not yet gone to seed that we could eat.
That crust of bread of yours has woken my hunger. ”
Because Sister Ursula doesn’t know what else to do, she trails after Elsebeth.
Her knee throbs with every step. Once at the stream, they drink water cold enough to make her teeth and jaw ache.
Along the bank they find a clump of dandelions, exactly as Elsebeth said they would.
The girl has a good practical head on her shoulders; when they were fleeing, all Sister Ursula noticed was the stitch in her side and the fear clawing in her breast like a cat in a sack.
They dig the dandelions out, wash them carefully, then eat them. Together with the cattail shoots that Sister Ursula cuts down with her little knife, they form a passable meal.
“Look at us, two little cows chewing our cud,” Sister Ursula says as she hands Elsebeth a piece of cattail, which she has blessed with a quick sign of the cross. It tastes like cucumber.
“Better a cow than hungry,” Elsebeth says.
“That indeed. What shall we do now? Traverse the woods, or make our way back to the road?” Sister Ursula asks.
She realizes it’s silly to defer to this peasant girl, who is younger than she is, as well as a Protestant and virtually a stranger, but Sister Ursula is not used to making her own decisions; one of the three vows she has made as a nun is a vow of obedience, which in practice means she is to listen to her superiors and do as she is told without complaint and without question.
Elsebeth chews slowly on the cattail as she thinks. “The soldiers might still be there, lying in wait for the next group of travelers.” She rips apart a dandelion between her fingers, puts the leaves in her mouth. “Besides, there’s food to be had here but none on the road.”
“But we can’t spend the night here,” Sister Ursula frets.
“Why not?”
“It might freeze tonight. The days of the ice saints have not yet passed. But if we start a fire, those soldiers might see the smoke.”
“Worry not. We can walk through the woods for a while, then enter the road far away from where those soldiers attacked us.”
Sister Ursula brightens at this. Perhaps they’ll find a kindly farmer tonight who will put them up in his barn.
Cities and towns may switch from Catholic to Protestant and back again depending on what army occupies it, but at its core, Bavaria is loyal to Rome, and thus its people shall be eager to help a nun.
“Do you know the way?” she asks.
Elsebeth nods as she licks the dandelion juice from her fingers. Her mouth and hands are stained yellow. It makes her look young, like a girl almost.
As they walk, they find more dandelions, as well as some oyster mushrooms and plenty of nettles that, once cooked, will make a decent dinner.
For the first time in weeks, Sister Ursula feels something akin to joy, and it is so sweet that she is almost light-headed with it.
How good God is, to send her food to fill her belly, sunshine to warm her face, and a companion to protect her and to talk to!
Around noon, He sends them a dead man.