Meriel closed the book and stood, then paced the narrow confines of the cell. Four steps one way, six the other. If she wished, she could open the door and go out to watch the night sky or pray in the church. If it were daylight, she could have gone to the priory fields and helped with the harvest.
That being the case, why did the cell seem so much like a prison? Why was she unable to sleep, feeling as if she could not breathe when her eyes closed?
Blackest of all, why could she not pray? Meriel had always found it easy to pray, conversing with the Blessed Mother, Father, and Son as easily as with her earthly family. Yet tonight, when she should be preparing her soul for the most solemn moment of her life, she felt cut off from the wellspring of faith that had always been at the center of her being, and her spirit was parched by the deprivation.
Stopping by the perch, she unhooded the kestrel and scratched its throat as it blinked its brown eyes in sleepy amiability. Meriel had never been absolutely sure that she wanted to become a nun, and looking back, she could pinpoint the exact time when her doubt had crystallized: two months before, when the knights had come.
The day had been the most eventful of all she had spent at Lambourn, and she could recall with precision her pleasure in flying the kestrel, the shock and terror of seeing the battle on the road, then fear as the community waited to see if catastrophe would strike the convent.
Later, when the knights had arrived with courtesy, not blades, the atmosphere had changed from fear to giddy relief. Meriel had volunteered to serve food and drink to the visitors, feeling as if her feet must scarcely be touching the ground.
That brief half-hour of talking and walking had reminded her of how much she liked, and missed, the male half of the race. She had enjoyed the good-natured teasing of the men-at-arms, and she had gently teased a young squire who was so shy his eyes would not meet hers. Meriel had even enjoyed the brusque leader with a face like Lucifer fallen, whose scolding about her incaution reminded her of her older brothers.
She began to pace again, circling the cell, her fingertips grazing the rough stone walls. It was not as if she never saw a male face. Men worked the priory fields. There were visitors, and occasions when she was sent on errands. Nonetheless, Lambourn Priory was essentially a community of women.
As Meriel paced, she spoke aloud to the kestrel. "You know I must take my vows, Rouge, there is no other choice. My father was not a wealthy man—Beaulaine is scarce large enough to provide for William and his family. Papa was most clever to find marriages for Alice and Isabeau, and their dowries took all of Mama's own marriage portion. As the youngest of five, I must be grateful there was enough to pay my dowry here at Lambourn."
The kestrel performed the alarming falcon trick of turning its head upside down, as if questioning her conclusion. Meriel continued earnestly, "As a nun, I will have respect, the companionship of the holy sisters, the joy of doing God's work."
Her voice rose. "There is no other choice. Tomorrow evening my family will arrive for the ceremony. William has already ordered the celebration feast. It will be a great occasion. It is too late for me to change my mind, it has been too late since the first day I came here."
Rouge stirred uneasily and Meriel realized that her agitation was disturbing the kestrel. "This is where I belong," she said more quietly, as if by convincing the bird she could convince herself. "Mother Rohese, the other sisters, the students—they are my family now. It would be different if Papa was alive. Though he would have scolded me for leaving, in truth he would have been glad to have me back at Beaulaine.
"But William and his wife... he will not refuse to take me in, but Haleva will say I am taking bread from the mouths of her babes, will treat me scarce better than a servant. I cannot turn back!"
Meriel drew a shuddering breath, then said with sudden determination, "When I have become one of Christ's brides, I will know that I have done the right thing."
She pulled off her veil. A novice's hair was cut just before taking final vows, as a symbol that the world was renounced. To cut her hair now would prove that she had made her decision, would surely end her tortured doubts.
Meriel lifted her knife, which she kept keen-edged for sharpening quills, eating, and a myriad other daily tasks. Pulling one of her long plaits forward, she tugged it taut so the knife would cut quickly.
The ebony strands gleamed in the candlelight. Meriel knew that to be beautiful one must be tall and blond like her sisters, but secretly she had always thought her hair was rather nice in spite of its color. When she brushed it out, it fell almost to her knees in a glossy rippling mantle.
Vanity! The sooner her hair was cut, the better. She laid the edge of her blade against the plait, as close to her head as possible. Her fingers tensed on the knife to begin the downward stroke, then froze, incapable of completing the action.
Meriel was halted by a paralysis that had nothing to do with vanity. She felt as if great weights constricted her chest, dragged at her wrist, halted her breath. As her heart beat frantically, she closed her eyes for a moment, seeking to calm herself.
Instead, she had a terrifying sense that the stone walls were closing in to crush the breath and life from her. The illusion was so powerful that when her eyes flew open, for a moment it seemed as if the walls actually moved, pressing inward with the lethal inexorability of fate.
Meriel felt terror such as she had never known in her life. The knife dropped from her nerveless fingers and she fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands as she began to shake convulsively, her slim body as cold as death.
Desperately she cried out. "Blessed Mother, help me. Help me!"
At first it seemed that her anguished prayer would go unanswered and that she would drown in her rising panic. Then, twining through the maelstrom, came a thread of peace.
At first it was the frailest of strands, but it grew, weaving a cloak of protection around the novice, as if the Blessed Virgin had come to embrace her anguished daughter.
Meriel saw a clear vision of herself standing at a crossroads. The road on the right ran through a cloister. It was a clear path, as safe and predictable as it was confining.
The left fork was as dark as the right was bright. The road lay swathed in dark mists, and she knew that the shadows held both danger and joy, freedom and peril.
Yet, in truth, there was no choice. For an instant a vision of terrible beauty appeared before her inner eye: an archangel with flaming sword and a face of pitiless purity barred the right-hand path that led to the religious life.
Before she had time to draw a second breath, the vision was gone, leaving profound certainty in its wake. Meriel had asked for guidance and received it. Now she must follow the unknown path into the mists, no matter what trials and dangers lay there.
Tears still glittering on her face, she took her candle and wove her way through the narrow corridors to face her first trial. The bell was tolling for matins as Meriel knocked on the door of the prioress's quarters.
Mother Rohese bade her enter. The older woman was preparing to go to the church, and even at this dark hour of night she was a figure of otherworldly serenity. Looking at her novice without surprise, she said softly, "Yes, child?"
Meriel sought for words to explain why she had come, but in the end all she could do was say brokenly, "I can't do it, Mother, I just can't."
Understanding immediately, the prioress opened her arms. "It's all right, child, truly it's all right."
Meriel set down her candle and flew into the older woman's embrace, gasping through her tears, "I love God, and the Blessed Virgin, and the priory, but I can't be a nun."
"There is more than one way to serve the Lord," Mother Rohese said, her voice rich with comfort. "Mary herself was a wife and mother, and the world was a better place for that."
She stroked the girl's bare head. "There are many reasons why women take the veil, but for you, child, it would be wrong to become a nun without a true vocation."
"I know
in my heart that I am doing the right thing," Meriel whispered, "but I have no idea what will become of me. My brother William will be most displeased."
"I do not doubt that God has plans for you, and in his time, you will discover what they are."
Mother Rohese was unsurprised by Meriel's agonized decision. With her knowledge of the human heart, she had guessed the girl was not meant for the cloister, but Meriel might have taken vows from lack of other alternatives. Though she would have made a devout and honorable nun, it was better that she had the courage to turn away.
Selfishly Mother Rohese knew she would miss the girl's special kind of sweetness, the joy she brought to everyone and everything she touched, but the outside world had more need of sweetness and joy than Lambourn Priory did. "I will send a message to Beaulaine in the morning to inform your family of your decision so they will not come for the ceremony."
Meriel nodded, then reluctantly stepped from the prioress's sheltering arms. While she knew beyond doubt that her choice was the right one, she did not look forward to the consequences.
* * *
The day when Meriel was to have taken her vows came and went. Her change of mind had created a stir at Lambourn. While a few members of the community had offered shy approval and best wishes, most avoided her, as if her failure of vocation might be contagious. As she continued with her usual tasks, Meriel herself was impatient, feeling that it was time to take her first uncertain steps into the mists of the unknown.
Three days after her decision, one of the lay servants came to the scriptorium to tell Meriel that her brother had come for her. She glanced around the large room, where half a dozen sisters engaged in the painstaking work of copying manuscripts.
Meriel would never set foot in here again, and already she missed it. Carefully she blotted her quill and laid the pen down, suddenly sorrowful. Someone else would finish copying this page, and Meriel would never see the result.
Automatically she straightened her veil modestly across her forehead. Meriel still wore her black habit since she had no other gown. It could be reworked into a regular garment when she returned to Beaulaine. The heavy wool was sound and would last for years.
She hesitated outside the guest parlor, hoping that William had accepted her decision and would not try to change her mind. Doubtless he and his wife, Haleva, had spent the last three days arguing what to do with his undutiful sister.
Surely William would be at least a little glad to see her? He took his responsibilities very seriously, but usually she could coax a smile from him.
Opening the door, Meriel stepped inside, then stopped, astonished at the sight of the handsome young knight who waited for her with teasing eyes. "Alan!" she cried, and hurled herself across the room into his arms.
Laughing, her brother swept her from her feet with his hug. "No wonder they wouldn't have you as a nun, Madame Mischief!"
Alan was her favorite brother, five years older than Meriel. They were the two youngest de Veres and she had adoringly trailed him around Beaulaine, in the process learning to ride, hawk, and swim. Like Meriel, Alan had inherited their Welsh mother's raven-black hair and vivid blue eyes, but while Meriel had also inherited her mother's slight build and lack of inches, her brother had the height and strength of their Norman father.
"Why are you here? I thought Lord Theobald was keeping you in the north?" Meriel frowned, suddenly concerned. "You are still one of his household knights, aren't you?"
"So many questions!" Her brother set her down on her feet and they took seats. "Never fear, his lordship is far too wise to dismiss such a fine fellow as Alan de Vere."
More seriously, he continued, "He needed a message delivered to Winchester and gave me leave to see my little sister made a nun on my way back, so I was at Beaulaine when the prioress's message arrived. In truth, I was glad of the news, for I did not think you should be a nun. You have too much life in you to spend it all within these walls."
Meriel gave him a look of affectionate exasperation. "If you and Mother Rohese were so sure of my lack of vocation, why did neither of you tell me? It would have made my life much easier these last months!"
"I know little of vocations, but it seemed to me, and surely to the reverend mother, that such a decision must be one's own, no matter how great the difficulty. Besides"—Alan sighed—"it seemed the best choice, if you were content."
Meriel's face sobered as she remembered her circumstances. "Are William and Haleva dreadfully angry with me?"
"Well, Haleva is breeding again and you know what that does to her temper."
Meriel nodded. Her sister-in-law, not particularly amiable even at her best, became positively shrewish toward the end of her pregnancies.
Alan continued, "She refuses to have you back."
Stricken, Meriel stared at her brother, her eyes huge and round. "But I will work hard and cause no trouble. Even Haleva admits that I'm good with the children." She bit her lip. While she had known her family would be unhappy, she had never considered that she might not be allowed to return to Beaulaine. "Did... did Haleva say why she does not want me?"
Her brother raised his hand quickly. "Don't worry, everything will be all right. Better than all right, in fact. As to why Haleva doesn't want you"—he grinned—"she is jealous, afraid you will put her in the shade."
"Jealous!" Meriel gave a peal of laughter. "Alan, you're teasing me again. Haleva is beautiful. I would draw no attention from her."
"Haleva is a handsome wench, for all her sharp tongue," Alan admitted, "but you... you are Meriel." Before his sister's puzzled expression could become a question, he continued, "But don't worry, you can come back with me to Lord Theobald's castle and attend his wife, Lady Amicia. I think you will be happier at Moreton than at Beaulaine. And later, a few years perhaps"—he paused portentously, drawing out the moment—"you will be able to live with me at my manor."
Meriel caught her breath, scarcely daring to believe that her brother's announcement could be true. Landless younger sons took service with the great lords in the hope of eventually earning land of their own, but few were successful, fewer yet at so young an age as Alan. "You mean Lord Theobald is going to enfeoff you?"
Alan nodded, a proud smile spreading across his face.
"How wonderful!" Unable to contain her delight, Meriel jumped up and gave him a strangling hug. "Tell me all about it! Did you do some great deed to earn Lord Theobald's gratitude?"
"We were attacked, I came to my lord's aid as any knight would," he said succinctly.
"Then you saved his life."
"Perhaps. Certainly I saved his freedom and the ransom he would have had to pay to buy it back." Alan gave a deprecating shrug. "At any rate, Lord Theobald decided I should be rewarded. One of the manors he holds is called Avonleigh, in eastern Shropshire. The knight who holds it now is old, with failing health and no heirs, so Lord Theobald has promised I shall have the manor when the present tenant dies."
"I am so happy for you," Meriel said, her face glowing. "You will be a man of property. You will be able to marry, perhaps an heiress who will increase your holdings." Her eyes danced. "You will become a greater lord than William."
"You go too quickly, little sister," Alan cautioned. "It is not a great estate, just a single knight's fee, and it is not mine yet. Even if all goes as planned and Lord Theobald enfeoffs me, there will be much to be done, for the old knight is lax in his management."
He leaned forward, his blue eyes earnest. "I need you, Meriel. When—and if—Avonleigh becomes mine, I want you live with me, to run the household and oversee the manor when I am away serving my lord. I will need someone I trust, and I can think of no one who would be better than you. Even when you were a tiny maid, people obeyed you gladly."
He gave her a conspiratorial smile. "If I do take a wife, I shall be sure she is one you will be happy to call sister. And who knows? Perhaps I will take a rich captive and earn a ransom that will let me dower you."
"I'm not sure I
want a husband, Alan, for I'd not make an obedient wife." Meriel laughed, thinking how good it was of her brother to say that he needed her, when in truth, she needed him far more. "But it will be my great pleasure to assist you in any way I can."
Blissfully she leaned back against the whitewashed wall. Further along there were still mists, but for now, the first stretch of her path lay clear and bright before her.
Chapter 2
Montford Castle, Shropshire
March 1148
"There's a sizeable party coming from the south, my lord."
Alerted by the lookout, Richard FitzHugh raised a hand to shade his eyes and tried to discern the device on the banner barely visible in the distance. The mild spring weather had brought him up to the battlements to survey the castle defenses and decide what improvements to make over the summer.
As he peered into the distance his gaze was wary, for the long civil war was about to enter an uncertain phase. Spring might bring danger after the cold safety of winter.
The lookout said, "It's Warfield, my lord," at the same time that Richard made out the silver hawk on the banner. A minute later he fancied that he saw his brother's silver-gilt head shining in front of the band of riders.
"Adrian made good time," Richard said with pleasure. "I had not thought to see him back in England before April." He turned and headed down the stone steps to tell his seneschal to prepare a welcoming feast for Montford's liege lord.
A pity it was Lent and they were restricted to fish, but the end of winter was not the time for fatted calves anyhow. No matter. It would be good to see Adrian, and to discover what conclusions he had reached during his sojourn in Normandy.
* * *
The feast was very presentable, even though it featured herring and cod in a number of guises. After eating, Adrian and his brother withdrew for a private conversation, leaving the Montford household and the Warfield knights to drink themselves cheerfully under the trestle tables.