Chapter 2
The Convent
Freya felt more and more uneasy as she approached the convent. Her father had threatened her with being forcibly placed in a nunnery if she kept refusing to go forward with the betrothal. When even that threat had stopped working, he gave it up and resorted to plain old force.
The Priory near Keep McInnes was a huge, forbidding place, with the monks and nuns gliding about with eyes like gimlets.
They were sour-faced and stern, ready to find fault in anything a person did.
Freya had never liked the place, and nor did anyone else.
A nun had once run away, decades ago, and rumor had it that she was walled up alive when she was caught, as a punishment for breaking her vows.
Freya shuddered.
Stay calm. Ye are just a supplicant looking for a place to stay. Ye can’t afford to be choosy. They don’t know who ye are.
The stony path she followed was rimmed with scrubbed white stones. The farmer who’d let her shelter in his barn last night—whose name she hadn’t asked, for fear he might ask hers—had told her that it was done deliberately, so that people could easily find their way to the Priory.
The path led through a forest, with rocky cliffs looming up here and there.
The path sloped consistently upwards, and Freya soon found herself breathing heavily.
She noticed that the undergrowth was neatly pruned back in places.
Herbs and flowers grew alongside the road, filling the air with a mixed sweet-and-savory scent.
At long last, Freya crested the hill, and then she saw the Priory.
At least, she assumed it was the Priory, as there were no signs. The stone building which nestled in the dip of a valley was certainly the largest building around, but certainly nowhere near the size and grandeur of the priories and monasteries she’d seen before.
Neatly fenced-off squares weaved their way down towards the building, like a spiral of petals around the center of a flower.
It took Freya a moment to realize what she was looking at. They were raised beds, each with a different fruit or vegetable or herb growing from it. In places, green, leafy stalks waved higher than her head. In other beds, barely a hint of green showed above the well-turned soil.
The white-lined path went steadily downwards, towards a domed building at the front of the Priory, doubtless the entrance. Freya stopped, staring about her, trying to gather her wits.
“Hello, there. Can I help ye?”
She flinched at the sudden voice, seeming to come from nowhere. There was a rustling in one of the raised beds nearest to her, and a young woman stepped out of the greenery, smiling.
She was the most striking woman Freya had ever seen.
Tall, slim, and with a head of almost white hair, Freya couldn’t stop staring at her.
The woman’s hair was twisted back into a knot at the back of her head, long strands escaping and hanging around her ears.
She had a smooth oval face, her complexion creamy without a freckle to be seen, with a pair of clear blue-green eyes peering out.
Freya wasn’t exactly sure how old she was. Five and twenty, perhaps? A few years older? She wore a long, black smock with a white shirt underneath, tied high around her neck and secured at the waist with a piece of rope. Her sleeves were rolled up, hands rough and dusted with dirt.
Freya thought of what the farmer had said earlier, about her hands being too soft, and self-consciously tucked them away into the folds of her cloak.
“Ye… I-I didn’t see ye there, Sister,” Freya stammered, feeling like a fool.
I must look a sight. Just my luck to come face to face with the most beautiful nun in the world. Although… Is she a nun?
As if reading her thoughts, the woman lifted a self-conscious hand to her head.
“I’m not a nun, but I can fetch one of the Sisters for ye if ye like? Are ye here to see the healers?”
Freya blinked. “Ye have healers here?”
“Aye, we do, and a few good midwives.” The woman’s gaze flicked briefly up and down Freya’s form, as if trying to assess whether she needed a midwife.
She cleared her throat. “I don’t need a healer. Or a midwife. I… I have nowhere to go, and somebody told me I could find shelter here.”
The woman nodded. “If we want to stay here for any length of time, ye must talk to the Abbess. Ye are out of luck—she’s away at the moment. But she ought to be back tomorrow, and we can certainly let ye stay one night, at the very least.”
Freya let out a long, slow breath. “Thank ye. I-I expect ye want to know who I am, and where I come from, but—”
The woman held up a hand, smiling wryly. “Ye can share what information ye want, lassie, but we’ll not press for answers from ye. We offer shelter to all kinds of folk. This is a safe place.”
Can ye stand up against the might of Clan Grahame? Freya thought, a twinge of panic sizzling in her gut.
She was sure she hadn’t been followed, but then again, how would she know? If Laird Grahame marched up to the convent gates and demanded she be handed over, would this mysterious Abbess hand her over? Probably.
“Thank ye,” she heard herself say.
“My name is Senga. What’s yers?”
“Freya,” she answered at once, and then cursed herself.
Why could I not have picked a false name? Something simple and forgettable, like Mary or Martha? Everybody will remember Freya!
Still, what was done was done, and there was no sense in worrying about it now. Besides, lying to a nun felt deeply wrong.
Not that Senga was a nun, of course.
“Glad to meet ye,” Senga said, smiling. “If ye don’t mind me saying, ye look like a woman living in fear. It’s clear that ye are running from something.”
Freya’s shoulders sagged. “My betrothed,” she admitted, not quite able to believe the words coming out of her mouth. “I was forced into a betrothal, and I could see no way out of it. So, I ran.”
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected from Senga. Shock, perhaps? Disapproval? Instead, Senga nodded, and began to lead the way down the white-lined path towards the Priory itself.
“That’s a common enough story, sadly,” Senga said, over her shoulder. “Women escaping violent husbands, or domineering fathers, or men they’re being forced to marry. So much of women’s suffering can be traced back to the men in their lives. It’s sad, but at least ye are free now.”
“For the time being,” Freya said, before she could stop herself.
Senga shot a curious glance over her shoulder.
“Ye do not feel safe?”
Freya only shrugged.
“Well, ye will be safe here,” Senga assured her. “This is a sanctuary for women. Come, I’ll introduce ye to the others.”
“Ye mean, the other nuns?” Freya asked, nerves prickling again. “All of them?”
“Nay, not yet,” Senga laughed. “There are a few of us of a similar age—I’m twenty-seven, and the eldest of our wee group—and we have not taken orders. Not yet, at least. Ah, there is Kyla.”
At the bottom of the hill, there were much larger vegetable beds, full of onions, potatoes, leeks, radishes, turnips, and more, all the sort of foods that would be used in abundance on a daily basis.
Freya had expected a courtyard, but found to her surprise that the ground was left in its natural state, with only a few stone paths crisscrossing around.
Wild grass grew along the sides of the Priory, with wildflowers sprouting in abundance, dots of color in the sea of green.
Senga led her over to a large square of a garden, where a young woman knelt in the center, elbows-deep in dirt. She glanced up as they approached, and smiled.
“Senga! Come to help with the potatoes? I could use a— Oh, who is this?”
The girl got up, using the back of her hand to push round, wire-rimmed spectacles further up on her nose.
She couldn’t be more than nineteen, by Freya’s estimation, with olive-hued skin, untidy brown hair, and a pair of large hazel eyes.
She smiled easily, revealing a missing back tooth, the one beside her left canine.
It gave her a strangely endearing and lopsided look.
She was dressed in the same smock and shirt as Senga, and her hair was not covered, either.
“This is Kyla, Freya. She’s only been here for a year. I warn ye, don’t let her talk to ye about her books and manuscripts, or else she’ll talk ye to death.”
Kyla snorted. “Ye are extremely unkind, Senga. It’s a pleasure to meet ye, Freya.”
She extended a soil-caked hand for Freya to shake. Freya hesitated, eyeing the girl’s palm for a minute, before Kyla realized and grimaced, withdrawing her hand.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “Still, it’ll be good to have extra hands, eh? Senga and I are run ragged in the gardens.”
“Freya is here to rest, for now,” Senga answered reprovingly. “Not to do chores.”
“No, I would like to earn my keep,” Freya said eagerly. “I’ve… I’ve not done much work in gardens, but I’m sure I’ll pick it up.”
“Senga will teach you,” Kyla said with a laugh. “She’s been here long enough. Longer than some of the nuns, I think. People are always asking why she’s stayed here so long, and I always say that it’s not the company, but the food.”
It was clearly meant to be a joke, but nobody laughed. Senga’s face seemed to have turned to stone. She shot a quick, unreadable look at Kyla. The smile dropped from Kyla’s face like a rock through water. She swallowed hard, and looked away.
Freya shifted uncomfortably. It was clear that Kyla had said something wrong by mistake, but she had no idea why it was wrong, and now the previously friendly atmosphere had tightened up.
The awkward moment was interrupted by a window somewhere above their heads scraping open. A head poked out, obviously belonging to a proper nun, wimple and all.
“Would it be too much to ask,” the woman said, exasperated, “for a wee bit of silence during our prayers? Perhaps that’s too much to ask, considering we’re in a convent. Kyla, lass, yer voice carries a lot more than ye think. It’s echoing in here!”