Chapter Thirty-One
She was still trying to understand it all the next day with Isabelle buzzing around, pestering to let her do some more writing, when Ann came bustling in.
‘Don’t be wasting your time on that writing business, pet, there’s work for you in the kitchen, and I’ll be getting you ready for Candlemas too.’
Was it Candlemas already? Linnet felt they’d been in the depths of the dark winter for months. She’d loved the ceremony as a child with all the candles and the lights in the windows afterwards, a sign the worst of the winter was behind them.
Isabelle was pulled out of the room protesting, as Ann informed her she would be scrubbed clean, and needed to collect the candles, and do all the other chores she’d saved for her.
The monks had their own ceremony at Candlemas, but Linnet would be expected to go to the church with the rest of the islanders. She wondered fleetingly if her stolen candles were worthy of a blessing, well, why not? Stolen or not, they gave out light.
Linnet thought she would go and help in the kitchen. The monks were busy so the Scriptorium wouldn’t have a fire today.
Ann set them to work, chopping apples for a hot drink she would be making later after the church service, something her mother and her mother’s mother would always do, with cinnamon and honey stirred in. She was in a talkative mood for once, the promise of spring loosening something in her.
‘Going to make you look neat for the church tonight, hen,’ she said to Isabelle. ‘Go to my cottage and ask my Judith for her old dress, it will do for you for now and it’s clean.’
Isabelle pulled a face but took the chance to escape the busy kitchen.
‘Isabelle.’ Ann turned the name over in her mouth like a bad piece of carrot. ‘Why her mother would call a child such a haughty name is a mystery. Mind you, she always was a brazen piece.’
‘Isabelle’s mother?’
‘Aye, a right strumpet, by no means a beauty, but all flashing eyes and talk. Her mother was nothing like it, a normal, nice woman, she loved babbies. She’d have brought Isabelle on as her own, only that one wouldn’t do the right thing and stay indoors when she needed, to hide her shame. Claimed her as her own, right enough.’
‘Sir Cyrus said they all died?’
‘Yes, it was that pestilence one of the foreign fishermen died of. It were Isabelle’s grandmother tended to him and that took for the whole family. Apart from that little one.’
She stopped chopping for a minute to give Linnet a straight look.
‘She’s yours now, ain’t it so?’
Linnet’s startled face gave Ann an answer without her having to say a word.
‘Well, she followed you when you went to take that book to the Lady Margaret. She’s like that damned cat, she’s taken to you now and you’ll have a hell of a time shaking her loose. You’re more than old enough to have a child anyways.’ Ann laughed with grim satisfaction.
Well, whatever they thought, Linnet wasn’t going to adopt her. She wasn’t one of them – not even an islander.
Isabelle came back in a faded but very clean dress, looking unnaturally shy. Ann’s daughter had evidently taken a comb to her hair, which was neatly plaited for once, and washed her face too.
The villagers, farmers and fisherfolk were gathering, clutching their candles to be blessed, and one to be lit. The service would start when the last of the winter light dipped below the sea.
The church was filling up when Linnet came in, Sir Cyrus’s assistant at the door lighting candles for everyone as they came in. The priest was at the altar, dressed in his best robes.
The recently birthed women were pushed to the front, holding their babies in tightly wrapped swaddling cloths, chattering about sleeping and feeding and all the things that mattered for new mothers.
Linnet’s candle was lit and she stood at the back, near the old door with its rough-hewn wood she liked to trace over with a finger. One of the fishermen had showed her an old gash in it once, which he swore had come from a Norseman’s axe. She didn’t believe him but she liked the tale.
The church was ablaze with the candles and alive with chatter and the little mewing cries of the new babies. Sir Cyrus called for quiet and the noise stilled.
He was a surly old sot but he gave a good sermon, talking of the light Jesus had brought into the world and the light within everyone’s souls, the ways to carry light forward into the year. One by one the people came up clutching their candles, some with a few stubs, some carrying armfuls.
When Linnet came up, the priest blessed her handful. Lost in the moment, he didn’t glare at her for once or berate her for her failings and sins, and she went back to her place feeling almost at peace.
Linnet was one of the first to come out of the church when the service was over. She watched as the little flickerings of light flowed out of the door into the darkness of the churchyard, spreading out into the village as people put their candles in their windows and on their door ledges.
It made her think of the stars coming out one by one, as they were in the clear night sky above. One of the farmers stopped by her and pointed at the sky. ‘If Candlemas be fine and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.’
His friends nodded wisely, agreeing with him and adding their own half-remembered proverbs. Linnet hoped they were wrong, it had been a long enough winter as it was.
The doors of the Priory kitchen were open and Ann was in the centre of a mass of people holding up their mugs for the apple drink. The Priory Church itself was radiant, the lights from the monks’ candles spilling out into the darkness while their plainsong rose up into the still cold sky.
The villagers had moved on from the apple drink to ale and there was much singing in the outer Priory courtyard and the village green.
Linnet could see small groups going back into the churchyard. They would stop by their family’s grave and drip some wax on the stone, making the sign of the cross and then moving on. She looked around for Isabelle, who was teasing the Priory cat with a twig, her candle lying unlit next to her.
‘Do you want to drop some wax on your family’s stone, Isabelle? We can light your candle again.’
The child shrugged but stood up and relit her candle from Linnet’s and came with her. She pointed out the small grave, a simple stone with some initials on it. Linnet supposed the village had put it up, she would have been too young.
They solemnly dripped their wax on the stone and then Isabelle asked if they could go down to the beach.
The moonlight was bright and the way down was clear. The inky black sea swept in and out, slowly but steadily, like a great creature breathing, Linnet thought.
Isabelle carefully held her candle just above the spray until the water put it out.
‘That’s for Tom,’ she said, and Linnet did the same, offering his soul to St Gertrude as she did so.