the shrine, you will know too because God will give me a sign.” Dominica’s face beamed with the kind of faith the Prioress had neither seen nor felt in many years. “Sister Marian will be my witness.”
Sister Marian had always spoiled the girl. “Who will pay for this journey? For your cloak, your food? Who will do your work while you are gone?”
“Sisters Catherine and Barbara and Margaret have said they will bear my load. And Sister Marian said she will pay for my food from her dowry.” She looked defiant. “I won’t eat much.”
“Sister Marian’s dowry belongs to the Priory now.” The Prioress cradled her throbbing head in her hands. What had become of obedience? This was what came of allowing the Sisters to keep lapdogs.
“Please, Mother Julian.” The girl fell to her knees, finally humbled. She tugged at the Prioress’s black habit with ink-stained fingers, nails bitten so close that the garden dirt had nowhere to cling. “I must make this journey.”
Shocked, the Prioress looked into her eyes again. They burned with faith. Or fear.
Suddenly, she could see where this could lead. The girl would never return once she discovered life beyond the walls. She had a shape most would envy, those who were not looking for a cloistered life. If only she’d tumble for the first man who flattered her. She’d come back with a swollen belly and there would be no question of her taking the veil.
Mother Julian sighed. Maybe not. The searing intensity in those blue eyes would be more than most lads would fancy. Well, let it be God’s will. Better she go and take her dangerous ideas with her before the Abbot or the Earl found out, although that would leave the problem of who would do the laundry and the weeding. They could hardly afford to pay a village lass.
“All right. Go. But speak no more of your heresy. If there is a hint of trouble on the journey, you will have no home here when you return, with or without a veil.”
Dominica raised her hands and her eyes to heaven. “Thank you, Heavenly Father.” She ducked her head and scampered out without asking permission to leave.
The Prioress shook her head. No thanks to me for my many kindnesses, she thought. Only to God. Well, God would have the care of her now.
Dominica’s breath burst from her body. Relief lifted her on her toes, almost floating her down the hall. The soft, sure feeling settled over her. God always answered her prayers, even if she had to help Him a little. What the Prioress and Sister Marian did not know about this journey would keep.
Sister Marian sat in the sunny cloister courtyard, teaching Innocent to sit up. Or trying to. Like Dominica, the shaggy black dog was a stray no one else wanted. Hard to love and hard to train.
“She said ‘yes,’ she said ‘yes.’” Dominica swirled Sister around until her black robes billowed. Innocent barked. “I’m going, I’m going.”
“Shhh, hush.” Sister tried to quiet both Dominica and the barking dog, who was running in a circle to catch his too-short tail. That was a trick Dominica had taught him.
“Good boy,” Dominica scratched him behind his one remaining ear. The other was missing. “Don’t worry, Sister.” Dominica hugged her. “Everything will work out. God has told me.”
Sister’s eyes widened and she glanced toward the corridor. “Don’t let Mother Julian hear you say God talks to you.”
Dominica shrugged. No use telling Sister that Mother Julian already knew. “It’s like the scripture says: Knock and it shall be open to you,” she said in Latin.
“And if she hears you spouting Latin, she will change her mind.”
“But if God is trying to speak to us, why shouldn’t we open our ears to hear?”
“Just be sure you aren’t putting your words on God’s lips.”
Dominica sighed. God had given her ears, eyes, and a brain. Surely He expected her to use them. “Anyway, we’re going and when we come back, I shall take my vows.”
Sister sat and gathered Dominica’s fingers in hers. Dominica loved the feel of Sister’s hands. Soft, for they did not have to wash or weed, the fingers of her right hand were set stiffly, permanently, in position to hold the quill. As a child, Dominica had envied Sister the writer’s bump on her middle finger, rubbing her own each day, hoping it would grow.
“Just remember, my child, when God answers our prayers, He may not give us the answer we want.”
“How could there be another answer? My whole life is here.” She loved the ordered, predictable days, the quiet of the chapel, where she could hear the hushed voice of God, the brilliant red, blue and gold ink that illuminated His words. All she ever wanted was to finally, fully belong. To be embraced as a Sister. “I can read better than Sister Margaret and copy better than anyone but you.”
Sister sighed. “You are pushing again, Dominica. There is no guarantee that God will grant you what you seek.”
“Oh, God I am sure of. It is the Prioress who worries me.”
Sister raised her hands in submission. “When you have lived longer, you will be less sure of God. Come, let us gather our things.” She rose, slowly. Her hips were as accustomed to the writing bench as her hands. “We must be ready to leave tomorrow.”
And when they returned, Dominica thought, the message would be safe in the right hands and she would never need to leave her home again.
All that was required was faith. And action.
“We need money, your Lordship.” The Prioress forced her neck to bend in supplication. Humility before Lord Richard did not come easily.
She had trapped him into hearing her petition, approaching after the midday meal, when the Great Hall was still crowded with watching knights, squires and servants so he could not refuse. But the hall was empty now of everything but the smell of boiled mutton. Her stomach growled.
“Why do you want money, Prioress?” Richard asked. Narrow of shoulder and of nose, he slouched in his chair and picked at his ear, then flipped the wax from under his nail. “I thought nuns had no need of worldly things.”
She wondered if he showed such disrespect for all his petitioners. The donation she requested would be no hardship. “Food, ink and funds for the annual pilgrimage, your Lordship.”
“Times are difficult.” Legs crossed, he swung his foot back and forth, studying it intently.
“Your father was a great patron of our work at the Priory,” she reminded him. The old Earl’s tapestries still cloaked Readington’s Great Hall, though since his death, the place seemed colder. She never felt his loss more than when she looked at this dark-haired, sallow-skinned second son. “He promised to support our work of copying the word of God.”
“My father is dead.”
“Which is why I come to you.”
“As you know, it is my brother you must petition. And it is impossible for me to allow that now.”
“We pray for him daily. Does his health improve, your lordship?”
Lord
