The Cross and the Dragon (36 page)

Alda nodded and then looked up at Drachenhaus looming above as if it were in the clouds. She stroked the amulet.

The trip continued in silence as the merchant’s slaves guided the boat to a dock at the abbey on Nonnenwerth. A bell tower at the center of the abbey rose above a wall of split trunks from the forest. The merchant’s servants knocked on the door of the porter’s quarters, adjacent to the great gate. All became silent as Alda heard shuffling from inside and the tap of a cane.

An old, bent woman opened the door a crack. She was so old, Alda could not even guess at her age, other than past sixty winters. She wore a woolen cloak, black wool habit, wooden shoes, and a belt with an eating knife. A gloved hand held the cane.

“Thanks be to God,” the old woman said.

“Thanks be to God,” Alda said.

“We have business with the abbess,” the merchant added.

The porter gazed at them and then opened the door to let them into the gatehouse. The porter opened a second door to allow the guests to enter the abbey’s grounds and then hobbled toward Alda. “Madam, you have the look of nobility, not a merchant’s wife.”

Alda waved to the merchants to go to the abbess while she spoke to the porter. “I am Alda, wife of Hruodland, the late prefect of the March of Brittany, and sis — aunt of the count of Drachenhaus, and I wish to speak with the abbess.”

“About what?”

“I wish to join this order.”

“Life here is very hard,” the porter said. “We adhere closely to the Rule of Saint Benedict, and the path to God’s love is not easy. Joining the cloister means giving up your body and your will. You will not have servants to wait on you. Your face will become wrinkled. Your hands will bleed and become calloused. Above all, you must obey. Is that what you want?”

“Are there no servants?” Alda asked.

“We have a few lay sisters and lay brothers. Until this last war, we had tenants to work the land, but we sent soldiers to war under the count’s command.”

“My kin gave their lives to the Lord,” Alda retorted. The mention of her brother reopened a wound that had not completely healed. “My brother is not to blame for the abbey’s loss.”

“I do not know how we will get through winter. The abbess says to pray.”

The porter stared past Alda as if the old woman could see into a few months from now, when loaves of bread would be smaller, when wine would barely cover the bottom of the cup.

“It will take more than prayer,” Alda muttered, thinking the porter would not hear.

“That is bold, and Saint Benedict frowns on boldness,” the porter replied. “Yet, some people would admire that, especially among the laity. You would make a better countess than a nun. Why do you wish to join?”

“I have no place left to go,” Alda said. “Like you and your sisters, I suffered a terrible loss in the war, and I wish to withdraw from the world.”

Alda gazed out through the open door of the porter’s house. This walled community was the sisters’ whole world, a world Alda had seen from the Drachenhaus tower, a world where all of the buildings were made with the trees cleared from this space, the little bit of civilization hacked from the forest. The church and its bell tower stood at the center of the complex.

“I shall take you to the abbess,” the porter said.

Alda followed the porter, who leaned heavily on a cane as she led Alda to the abbess’s house. In the hall, Alda shivered, pulled her cloak closer and stood by a small fire in the hearth as she waited for the porter to find the abbess. A moment later, Alda heard the tap of the porter’s cane.

“The abbess will see you now in her reception room,” the porter said. She led Alda down a dark corridor. “Through this door.”

When Alda walked into the reception room, she was overwhelmed by the murals of sin and redemption. While the abbess and her prioress spoke to the merchant, Alda beheld the back wall, where candles illuminated Jesus crucified with the two thieves. To Alda’s left, Adam and Eve departed the apple orchards of Eden, while an angel barred their way back. To Alda’s right were the hearth and a mural of the Nativity.

Alda turned around. Framing the door to the room was the Final Judgment. Heaven, a land of blue sky and white clouds tinged with gold, was to the right of Jesus the judge. Ten times the size of the mortals, He wore a gold crown and blue robe as did His mother, Mary, Queen of Heaven, who sat beside Him and was almost His size. The righteous wore white robes and sang the praises of God with the angels. Sinners went naked to His left, to hell, a land of dark sky, gray-brown hills, and black pits. Sinners burned in the lake of fire. Devils were the same size as the men, tiny men. Proud princes hung by their ankles and were dipped in ice, then boiling water. A demon excreted gold and forced a greedy man to eat it, while a lazy man was prodded awake with knives. Alda could not take in all the tortures at one glance.

“You did not come all this way to admire the art,” said a voice.

Alda turned, murmuring an apology. To her surprise, she found the abbess scowling at her prioress.

“Silence, Sister Plectrude,” the abbess barked. “Those murals are meant to be seen and turn one’s thoughts to God.”

Despite herself, Alda smiled while Prioress Plectrude looked down.

“But Mother Radegunde,” Plectrude protested, “she asked to see us and then…” A glare from the abbess cut her off.

Radegunde appeared to have seen forty or fifty winters — Alda could not tell — and wore a humble cloak and robe of black wool and a matching veil. A leather belt instead of a jeweled girdle cinched the waist of her thin figure. Radegunde’s only jewelry was a gold crucifix and her abbess’s ring. Holding a staff, she sat on an ornate chair resting on a dais three broad steps above the floor, like a throne.

Plectrude appeared to be at least a decade, perhaps two decades, younger. She wore a costume like the other sisters, black cloak, black veil and robe, sheepskin mittens, leather girdle with a purse and knife, and wooden shoes, but she had a regal bearing.

“Lady Alda asked to speak to me, not you,” the abbess said. “Take the merchant and his party to the hall and attend to them there.”

Alda stood up straight and tried to conceal her puzzlement while she watched the prioress. Plectrude folded her hands and bowed but not before Alda caught a slight frown. When Plectrude looked up at the abbess again, her face was blank.

As soon as the door closed behind Plectrude and the others, Radegunde said, “Sister Porter tells me you wish to join.”

“I do,” Alda replied, looking straight into the abbess’s clear blue eyes.

“You have eyes like a wild thing in the forest,” the abbess said. “How can I be assured of your humility?”

A wild thing? How dare she?
Alda’s cheeks burned crimson. “I fail to see what having green eyes has to do with anything.”

“You have not answered my question. You have given me reason to believe you will be proud and bold. You have told Sister Porter it will take more than prayer to get through the winter.”

“My mother managed to have the harvest brought in.” Alda clenched her fists by her side, determined not to lose her temper. “Perhaps, she could give you grain as alms or as part of my dowry.”

“Was it brought in by men who worked on the Sabbath?” The abbess leaned forward.

“Knowing Mother, yes.”

“We cannot use it.” The abbess sank back into her chair.

“What?”

“It would be a sin.”

Alda shook her head, not comprehending.

“When your mother had the men work on the Lord’s Day,” the abbess said, “she risked their souls as well as her own.”

“Surely, God understood. The men were away fighting His war. He did not let us starve when they were in Lombardy.”

“You are presuming the will of God. Your mother’s faith is not strong enough.”

“My mother is a good, Christian woman,” Alda shot back. “It is a greater sin to let people starve.”
Hruodland, why did you die and leave me vulnerable to Ganelon? I have no choice but to join this order run by a woman mad with piety.

“You are terribly bold. Saint Benedict would not approve of you. I might not be able to let you join this order.”

“But my dowry is a generous gift,” Alda blurted.

“Do you think you can buy your way in?”

“It is not a bribe. It is my gift when I join.”

“If you join,” the abbess admonished.

“You know I am right about the harvest.”

“We must not fear hunger. It is but a weakness of the flesh. A temptation Satan used against Christ and now uses against us.”

Alda had fasted during Lent and Advent but never knew of a time when she could not break that fast. She had seen true hunger in the skeletal beggars at the church. They stalked those who might have something to eat, dug through refuse for a scrap of moldy bread, and fought for that scrap.

“Perhaps, Abbess, you have the strength to face hunger,” Alda said, “but think of your tenants. A hard winter might shake their faith. They have already lost their sons in the war to spread God's truth, as I have lost my husband, brother, and an uncle. You could accept the grain, and the tenants could survive winter and praise God. Or they could starve and think that God has abandoned them.”
As I have often wondered.

“It is their weakness. God tests us constantly, and we must still obey His commandments, not follow only the ones we find convenient.”

“Would Christ or one of His saints not intercede for us?”

“Christ still wants us to follow God’s laws.” Abbess Radegunde looked Alda up and down and smiled. “I like your wit. You will make an interesting pupil and later a good abbess, if you stay, if you can endure the hardships on the path to God’s love. You are welcome to stay in the guesthouse for a couple of days, and if you still wish to join, you will reside in the novitiate. You may join us for prayers at vespers tonight. I would invite you to dine afterward, but I am fasting in hopes of a vision from the Mother of God.”

“The answer is here,” Alda muttered. “You simply do not like it.”

* * * * *

After three days in the guesthouse, Alda moved to the novices’ convent, where she was told to exchange her fine clothes and jewelry for humble, black garments. Alda half expected Veronica to help her dress before realizing she was not here. It was the first time in years Alda had not felt the weight of a jeweled girdle on her waist.

After sext prayers, Radegunde pointed to the ring Alda still wore, Hruodland’s morning gift to her. “You were told to divest yourself of all finery, and that includes that ring and that amulet. I see you must learn humility and obedience.”

Alda cupped her hand around the dragon amulet. “This finery, as you call it, is all I have left of my husband and my kin.”

“You must renounce the world, including those,” Radegunde ordered.

“They are but trinkets,” Alda protested.

“Perhaps. But if I allow you to wear jewelry that turns one’s thoughts to the world, the other sisters will pester me about satisfying their vanity, and it will not be in remembrance of a husband.”

“Very well, Abbess. I will put them with my jewels for safekeeping.”

Alda found her chest of jewels in the treasury and fished out two ribbons. She strung the amulet on one and Hruodland’s ring on the other. She gazed at them a long time before she kissed them and tucked them both under her shift. They would be near her heart, where she could touch them and remember her loved ones. Putting away the ring and the dragon would be like giving up Hruodland, and she could not give up Hruodland, not yet.

* * * * *

Hruodland woke to the bell calling the inhabitants of the Abbey of Saint Stephen to prime prayers. Through a crack in the shutters, he could see a sliver of gray light. He made the sign of the cross and clutched his small wooden cross. He murmured the Pater Noster and silently added his own wish,
Give me strength
.

Shivering, Hruodland sat up and felt the cold morning air, unaffected by the embers burning low in the hearth. His breath smoking in front of him, he blew on his hands and rubbed them together, then reached for a tunic that lay near his bed and pulled it on. Judith had given him the tunic and leggings a week ago. It felt good to wear clothes again.