to get married. Oh, God, why did Sybilla have to die?
Nell wet her lips with her tongue. “Where is Roger?” she asked.
Her father looked through the door again. “He just came out to stand beside the altar.”
Lady Alice said, “I should take my place.”
The steward came to her. “I will escort you down the aisle, my lady.”
“Thank you,” Lady Alice said.
Nell stood, her arms crossed over her chest, as her mother left the vestibule to walk down the church aisle. Lord Raoul watched through the partially open door. When Lady Alice was finally seated, the cathedral choir began to sing an unaccompanied Gregorian chant.
“That’s our signal,” the earl said. He offered Nell his arm. She put her small hand on it and together they entered the church and began to proceed down the aisle.
Nell felt like a helpless animal being led to the slaughter. She could feel the people looking at her from either side, but she stared ahead at the bishop, who was waiting for her at the top of the aisle. He was magnificently dressed in gold vestments, with his white miter hat making him look very tall. He was flanked by six altar servers who were dressed in crisp white cassocks.
What if I told the bishop that I was being coerced into this marriage? What would he do?
Nell and her father stopped before the bishop and Roger came to join them.
The bishop raised his hands and the singing stopped. He spoke clearly, so he could be heard throughout the church. “We are gathered here today to join these two young people in a yoke of concord and an indissoluble chain of peace. This union is blessed by God and is as holy and sacred as is Christ’s love for his bride, the church. It is not to be taken lightly or unadvisedly.” He looked from Roger to Nell. “Do you understand this?” he asked, his face stern.
“We do,” Roger said and, after a brief moment, Nell echoed his words.
The bishop next looked at Lord Raoul. “Who is it who gives this woman in marriage to this man?”
“I do,” Lord Raoul said firmly.
“Do you swear that there is no known reason why this couple may not be joined in holy matrimony?”
I could speak up now, Nell thought wildly. I could tell the bishop I am not willing….
She almost opened her mouth, but then her father said, “I swear that there is no reason why this couple may not be joined in holy matrimony.”
The words of denial just wouldn’t come.
The bishop looked to Roger. “You may take the bride’s hand.”
I am being handed over from one to the other, just like a piece of chattel, Nell thought despairingly.
Roger reached out and took Nell’s hand into his. His large grasp felt warm around her frozen fingers.
She stood next to Roger and they listened as the bishop read to the church the Old Testament passage about the creation of the world: “God created man in His image, in the divine image He created him, male and female He created them. God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.’”
The bishop made the sign of the cross over them, and Roger and Nell turned to take their places at the kneelers on the altar. The bishop started the mass.
The familiar Latin words rolled over Nell, but her mind was on the reading the bishop had just given. The purpose of marriage was procreation. She remembered what her mother had told her about how babies were conceived, and she shuddered. How could she endure such a violation of her modesty?
Her attention went back to the mass when the bishop mounted the pulpit.
The bishop began reading from the book of Matthew: “When Jesus finished these words, he left Galilee and went to the district of Judea across the Jordan. Great crowds followed him, and he cured them there. Some Pharisees approached him, and tested him, saying, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?’ He said in reply, ‘Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?”’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”
Marriage is a sacrament blessed by God, Nell told herself. This is a holy thing I am doing.
But I always thought I would be a bride of Christ, not of a man! Sybilla should be making this marriage, not me. I should be back in the convent, where I belong, not here, being wed to this stranger.
Now the bishop was coming to the center of the altar to stand in front of them. “My brother and sister in Christ,” he said. “You have come here today to ask the church’s blessing on your marriage. Marriage was ordained by God for the procreation of children, to avoid fornication and for the mutual help and comfort that one might have of the other. Therefore I must ask of you, do you Roger de Roche, take this woman to be your wedded wife?”
“I do,” Roger answered firmly.
“Do you pledge to care for her, to comfort her, to be faithful to her all the days of your life?”
“I do,” Roger answered again.
The bishop turned to Nell. “Do you, Eleanor de Bonvile, take this man to be your wedded husband?”
There was a pause. I could say no, she thought. But she didn’t have the nerve. “I do,” she said in a voice that was scarcely audible.
“Do you pledge to care for him, to comfort him, to be faithful to him all the days of your life?”
“I do,” Nell said.
“Do you have the ring?” the bishop asked Roger, who took a plain gold band from a pouch on his belt.
“You may put it on her finger,” the bishop said.
Roger took Nell’s small, cold hand into his and slid the ring on her finger. It was too big and she had to close her fist to keep it on.
The bishop then spoke to the assembly in the church. “In as much as Roger and Eleanor have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed to it before God and this company, and have given and pledged their lives to each other, and have declared the same by the giving and receiving of a ring, I pronounce that they be man and wife. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Roger turned his head and smiled down at Nell. She did not smile back.
It’s done, she thought bleakly. It’s been sealed by the bishop in front of all these people. I’m married to Roger de Roche.
Nell listened to the familiar prayers, but she felt detached from it all. She felt numb. It was as though all of this were happening to someone else and all she was doing was looking on. Even when she received the host upon her tongue and bent her head to pray, she felt a distance. This had always been one of her favorite moments of the day; she had felt so close to
