Chapter Nineteen
‘Well now, isn’t this disappointing?’
It was a question but it wasn’t a question. Linnet and Isabelle both kept their eyes down. Lady Margaret was annoyed that the Prior hadn’t come and his letter hadn’t smoothed things over enough.
They’d walked the day from Alnwick and had time to wash quickly before asking to see the Lady. The nun who had shown them in had rolled her eyes when they said her name, although she quickly adopted a look of piety and took them to the best parlour.
Unlike the rest of the nunnery, this room was sumptuous. Lady Margaret had clearly made it her home, laying good coverings on the floor and lighting it with fat creamy beeswax candles. There was a little table with wine and fresh bread which Isabelle kept looking at in vain.
Clothes and trinkets were scattered around, as if she’d unpacked by throwing everything into the air and leaving it where it fell.
‘Show me then.’
Making the best of it, the Lady held her hand out impatiently.
Linnet opened her bag and took out the book, carefully unwrapping the cloth before laying it into the small white hand.
‘Very nice.’
She turned the pages idly and without care, not even really looking at the words and pictures Linnet had toiled over.
‘Scribe, read me this page.’
She’d stopped at one of the first prayers. Linnet read it out trying to sound well spoken. Why was she asking her to read it?
‘The pictures are very pretty.’
Lady Margaret hadn’t waited for Linnet to finish before she took the book back and started looking through it again, stopping at the little cat on the page of prayers for serenity.
Maybe she couldn’t read? Why ask for a book you can’t read? Stupid question, Linnet chided herself, it was about looking as if she could read.
‘And you did it? But you’re not a nun?’
The woman’s attention span and caught at Linnet. Isabelle opened her mouth to tell the story of John-the-Lies but Linnet took her hand quickly, pinching her skin to keep her quiet.
‘Yes, my Lady, I was brought up with the monks and they were kind enough to teach me.’
Lady Margaret was examining her carefully now so Linnet took the chance to look at her too.
She was young, a second wife for sure, but no swelling at the waist. She looked pretty and sleek, like the cat Linnet had drawn for her, but her manner was peevish and testy.
At a closer look, Linnet could see how very young and thin she was.
Her lavish clothes were weighing her down, much as she tried to move with grace in them.
How long had she been staying here with the nuns?
And where was her husband? Linnet made a note to find out.
‘You can go now. Get some food in the kitchen, tell them I sent you.’
Giving them an order as if they needed her word to get fed by the nuns.
‘And I’ll want you to read to me more tomorrow morning before you go back to the Priory.’
And with that, they were dismissed.
Isabelle was bursting with questions as they went back to the kitchen but Linnet stopped her again.
They would wait till they were alone before she started.
The food was much better than at Hulne, fresh coddled eggs and even some blackberry pie, and the young nun serving them was a gossip, ready to talk to anyone new.
After Linnet had told her all about their journey, which very much impressed the nun, she asked about Lady Margaret.
‘Oh she’s a right—’ The nun caught herself in time.
‘She’s been here months – Lord Edmund left her here while he was called back to fight the Scots.
’ The Percys of Northumberland were known as fierce fighters on the side of the Crown.
That side had shifted over the years, as the Crown had of course.
She started on a litany of complaints. Lady Margaret was treating all the nuns like servants, she kept changing her mind about what she wanted and she slapped anyone who displeased her too often.
‘But what do she do?’ Isabelle was confused by the idea of a person without definite work.
‘Why, my sweet, she don’t have to do nothing!’ The nun laughed at her. ‘She’s a Lady and they just be, that’s enough. And make little babies for her Lord. No chance of that for now though!’
They’d finished eating and Linnet asked if she could see the Abbess. She needed to give her the letter about the book the Prior wanted. The Abbess was not in the nunnery now, she was told, but would come back later today, so they would wait.
‘And your girl can card some wool while she’s waiting, yes?’
Despite her pleading glances, Isabelle was led off.
The nun came back, still in the mood to talk.
After Linnet asked, she started on the story of the Abbey’s disgrace from all those years ago.
Linnet knew some part of it, but it was a new way of telling the story.
She was always interested in how the holy houses fought amongst themselves.
Her father used to say ‘fighting for the spoils’ but there wasn’t much here at Hearsham – aside from the book of course.
The nun started talking with relish about how after the Abbess Margaret Hawk had left ‘all of a huff, not sorry to see that one go’, the women had chosen their Abbess, back in 1437, Agnes (and the nun crossed herself).
‘But because the Big Man—’ She paused to check Linnet’s face as the way of referring to the Bishop of Durham, and took her amused silence for encouragement – ‘The Big Man hadna chosen her himsel’, he turned it down.
Came here all of a lather, demanding this and demanding that – stayed in Madame’s room that she’s in now of course – and then after all the fuss, it were Agnes he picked!
We all went “aye lad, ta for that” and off he toddled and on we got on wid it all. ’
Linnet joined in her laughter, charmed by how the nun talked about events that happened well before she was born.
She went off to pick some herbs from the garden, pleased with her telling of the tale, and Linnet took advantage of some quiet to stretch her legs and warm herself in front of the kitchen fire, shutting her eyes, just for a minute, to think.
‘Sleeping in the day?’
The voice was sharp and impatient. Lady Margaret. She stood in front of Linnet who rubbed her eyes and tried to clear her head.
‘You can help me scribe a letter, the nuns here are too stupid to write properly what I tell them.’
Back in the Lady’s room, Linnet found a small writing desk, candles lit, paper ready for her. She got her ink and pens out of her pouch and sat waiting, but now that she was there, the urgency seemed to have passed.
‘Are you married, scribe?’
‘No, my Lady.’
‘How strange. You must be about thirty?’
Linnet nodded, although she was some years off.
‘I’m nineteen and I’ve been married two years already.’
It was an empty boast from a girl with nothing to do, stuck in a dull nunnery. Linnet tried to look as if she were envious but she seemed so young. Linnet would not be nineteen again if she were paid for it.
Lady Margaret prowled around her room, picking things up and putting them down as she talked.
She spoke of fine food and her clothes, and her husband She strayed into talking about her life with her sisters, she was the eldest of five, no brothers, and it was clear she missed them, even if she was now a Lady.
Linnet knew she would have been one of those big sisters who the others trailed after, the head in all but name of a large family, and now so dreadfully bored here alone in the nunnery.
There was something that reminded her of Maykin, poor broken Maykin, something she could see that would have others smiling with her lively words and maybe imitations of others around her.
Linnet noticed with a pang how the prayer book had been tossed aside on a pile of dirty linen.
One day, she promised herself, she would start stealing books, not just a half-broken copy of the Divers Arts but actual complete books.
She would have her own secret book closet and keep them properly, safe from harm, somewhere they’d be treasured.
‘Well, scribe?’ The sharper tone broke into her thoughts and she looked up. Lady Margaret was ready to start.
‘My Lord – no – My Dear Husband, I trust this letter finds you well and your action meets with success. I am – no wait – Your Lady is well. Indeed she is well enough for two.’
Linnet looked again at Margaret’s waist, which was slender and gave no sign of her being with child.
Margaret blushed a little but continued boldly, ‘It is early of course but the signs are fair.’
Linnet considered. Lord Edmund had left here months ago. She couldn’t be in the early days of pregnancy unless she’d seen him at least in the last couple of months. She coughed.
‘Yes, scribe? You have something to say?’
‘I was just wondering when you’d last seen the Lord.’
‘How dare you ask that kind of question?’ She came over quickly and angrily slapped Linnet’s hand away from the page. ‘You’re writing the wrong thing, that’s not what I told you to put. Throw that away and start again!’
Linnet folded over the spoiled page and put it to one side. She’d take it with her as she left.
‘My Dear Husband, I trust this letter finds you well. Since I last saw you, I have had my hopes dashed of a happy event. May I ask how long it will be before you visit me again? I wish to be a good wife to you and can come to your camp if you send for me.’
The longing in her voice was obvious. This was not the life she’d boasted of to her sisters when she’d been picked to be a Lord’s wife, not even head of a household of her own.
She finished the letter with some complaints about how badly the nuns were behaving towards her and then signed her name in an uncertain hand.
Linnet wondered again why she was here in the nunnery.
She went back to the kitchen where a rebellious Isabelle was sitting in front of a big pile of dirty wool that she was slowly carding. The gossipy nun was there too, kneading dough for tomorrow’s bread.
‘Is the Abbess returned yet?’