The Cross and the Dragon (38 page)

* * * * *

The abbess sent for Alda after a week of kitchen duty. As Alda left the warmth and smoke of the kitchen, the cold air hit her face and stung her lungs. She saw a few snowflakes drifting in the air and held her cloak close to her as she walked on snow-covered frozen mud. She was still shivering when she met Radegunde in her reception room.

“You have worked in the kitchen long enough,” Radegunde said. “Do you wish to learn to read and write?”

“Yes.”
To be able to read
, Alda thought almost in rapture.

“My successor must be able to read and write,” Radegunde said. “I do not want our sisterhood to depend on men for more than we must.”

My successor
. Alda repeated the words in her mind, hardly able to believe her luck,
my successor
. She would have to find a way to keep the appointment secret from Ganelon, but if she could be mistress of this abbey, life would not be so harsh.

* * * * *

When Epiphany came, there was less food at dinner. The stew the lay sisters had made was watery, and the loaves of bread were smaller.

Hunger gnawed at Alda constantly. She and the other sisters stared at the empty baskets as if their gaze would make more food appear.

Alda tried to silence her longing for meat. But at night, she dreamt she was plump and dining with Hruodland at a table groaning under the weight of roast ducks, swine, and venison, and she woke sobbing that it was only a dream.

After nones prayers one afternoon, Alda and Nanthild, a young novice also learning to read and write, walked back to their class, past fields of winter wheat, where green shoots poked through the snow, half as much as she had seen at Drachenhaus.
It will be a meager harvest,
she thought.

“I heard the stores of grain are already half empty,” Nanthild said to Alda in a low voice. “How will we feed ourselves?”

“I told the abbess my mother would give us grain,” Alda replied. “She refused.”

“Why?” Nanthild asked.

“Mother had the peasants work on the Lord’s Day.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Abbess Radegunde said God would punish us — that accepting the wheat would be the same as breaking His commandment ourselves.”

Nanthild gasped. “She would let us starve for that?”

Alda nodded.

“We could do penance,” Nanthild said. “I would rather ask for God’s forgiveness than starve.”

“Somehow, I must tell my mother to send us some of her wheat,” Alda said in a hushed tone. “If she knew of our need, she would not let us starve.”

Alda heard someone behind her sneeze. She turned and saw Prioress Plectrude. She stared at Plectrude with wide eyes.
What did she hear? And what will she tell the abbess?

* * * * *

Two days after Epiphany, Alda was leaving the church after sext prayers and saw the door in the porter’s house swing open in the cold, wet mid-morning fog. Alda stood still as she watched who was coming through.

“Mother!” she called, lifting her skirt, ready to run through the snow.

Alda felt an icy, claw-like hand on her forearm and turned. Radegunde glowered at her.

“What are you doing?” Radegunde said, her voice as chilled as the wind.

“My mother is here,” Alda said, beaming. “And she has brought my nephew.”

“Did they ask me for permission?”

“Permission? Permission for what?”

“Any visitor needs my permission,” the abbess said, her spine stiffening.

Alda opened her mouth to argue that she needed no one’s permission to see her kin but decided it would be simpler to get this formality done with. “Very well. Mother Radegunde, may I have permission to visit my kin?”

“No. No novice may have visitors. It is too much temptation.”

“Temptation of what?” Alda asked, stamping her wooden shoe into the snow. “They are my kin, and it has been weeks since I saw them last. Please. Let me speak to them for but a few minutes.”

“No,” Radegunde said, her voice stronger.

Alda yanked her arm away from the abbess and ran toward Theodelinda. “Mother!”

“Alda!” Theodelinda smiled, but her eyes had a look of horror.

“I missed you,” she whispered, holding her mother in a fierce embrace.

“I missed you,” Theodelinda said as they pulled away from each other. As Alda bent to embrace Werinbert, she heard her mother say, “Daughter, come home.”

Alda stood and felt a cold hand on her shoulder. She turned and faced Plectrude.

“How dare you defy the abbess’s will!” the prioress spat.

“They are my kin.” Alda snorted, the breath from her nose like a dragon’s flame.

“Madam,” Plectrude said over Alda’s head, “if you do not wish for your daughter to receive the stripes, you will tell her to rejoin her sisters now.”

“She is coming home.” Theodelinda’s eyes flashed. “It is obvious she does not have enough to eat here.”

Alda swallowed. Had she lost that much weight?

“Alda,” Theodelinda pleaded, “come home. I will have you well guarded.”

Alda remembered the night Ganelon had tried to rape her. She closed her eyes against the fear. Again, she felt the edge of the cold knife on her throat, her nakedness as he straddled her, her helplessness. She shuddered.

Alda opened her eyes. She was standing in the snow outside the porter’s house, wearing a black habit and wooden shoes. If she had to leave her mother, it was better than the terror of that night. Anything was better.

“We had guards that night,” Alda said. “No number of guards could stay Ganelon’s hand. I shall remain with my sisters. May I have a moment alone with my mother, Sister Prioress?”

“No,” Plectrude said coldly, “you will return now.”

Alda shoulders slumped as she returned to the group. If only she could have spoken to her mother but for a moment. If only she could have said two more words, “Need wheat.” Why would Plectrude do this? Did she not know she was condemning herself to hunger as well?

* * * * *

Seven days later, Radegunde, her face gaunt, announced after sext prayers that she had a vision from Jesus. “We are to fast and pray until Candlemas.”

The novices all flinched, and some of them groaned.

“Think of the temptation Jesus went through for us,” the abbess scolded. “Forty days with neither food nor drink. Is two weeks without food too much to ask?”

The abbess paused as several sisters looked at their feet. Alda stared at her.

“The Lord is punishing all of us for the lack of faith of at least two sisters,” Radegunde said. “Alda, Nanthild, come forward.”

They obeyed. Alda looked Radegunde straight in the eyes. Nanthild stared at her feet, trembling.

“Alda, did you tell Sister Nanthild that I should have accepted wheat harvested by men who worked on the Lord’s Day?”

“I did,” Alda said, still looking Radegunde in the eye.

“Do you repent that utterance?” she asked, gripping her staff.

“No. I should have lied,” Alda said defiantly. “I should have told you my mother forbade them to work on the Lord’s Day. Then, we would have enough to eat.”

“You will be given the stripes for your sins.”

“It was not a sin,” Alda shot back. “I am of noble blood. I shall not be beaten like a common slave.”

“If you wish to join this order, you will submit to discipline. You have committed a sin.”

“What sin? I told you the day we met that you should accept wheat from my mother. I have not lied.”

“You have committed the sin of pride, the deadliest of all.”

Alda seethed but held her tongue. She still hoped to be the abbess’s heir. But she could not help thinking,
I have committed the sin of pride? Who has all but boasted about how she could fast the longest and mortify her flesh the most?

“And Nanthild,” Radegunde continued, “did you tell Alda that you agreed with her, that God would forgive us if we violated His rule?”

“No,” Nanthild almost screamed, “Never.” She was shaking, almost in tears. Alda glared at her.

“You lie,” Radegunde spat. “You will be given double the stripes of Alda for your double sin.”

“It was not a sin,” Alda protested as one of the sisters opened a trap door Alda had not noticed in the candlelight.

Six sisters, staring straight ahead, dragged Alda and Nanthild down the steps to a room beneath the sanctuary. The others followed slowly, not daring to look up. The damp basement had a dirt floor and was lit by only one torch, just enough to see the steps and the post and ropes.

The abbess handed a small whip to one of the stouter sisters. Alda and Nanthild were stripped of everything but their shoes. Alda shivered and her teeth chattered. She heard gasps and looked down at herself, pale skin stretched over bones, ribs.
The others must wonder if they look this bad.
Alda could not see her sisters, except for Nanthild.

“Why do you carry those worldly symbols?” Radegunde scolded, ripping away Hruodland’s ring and the dragon amulet.

“They are worth nothing to you,” Alda said, her voice tight.

“Your disobedience shall cost you three more stripes,” Radegunde’s voice boomed from the shadows.

Alda and Nanthild were tied to the post. The rope hurt Alda’s wrists.

“Alda, you will be given seven stripes for the sin of pride and three for disobedience,” Radegunde said.

Nanthild was sobbing. Alda was having a hard time keeping her face in check.
I shall not cry. I shall not scream.

The leather smacked Alda's back. She grimaced, clenched her fists, clamped her teeth together, pulled against the tight knots on her wrists, and bottled the scream in her throat. The sister paused between each lash.

Nanthild screamed when the strap hit her back, screams from the bottom of the gut, screams that Alda had refused to let loose.

“Let this serve as an example for those who defy God’s will,” Radegunde said.

* * * * *

Alda shivered and tugged at the knots that bound her wrists. In the dark, she heard the abbess and the sisters climb up the steps. Alda thought she heard at least one sister stifle a sob.

“Sister Prioress,” she heard Radegunde scold, “where have you been?”

“I thought I heard a merchant boat outside,” Plectrude said, panting. “But it was the wind.”

“Why must you insist on attending to worldly matters before spiritual ones?”

“If it were a merchant vessel, he might have had incense for the church,” Plectrude replied. “I only thought I was doing your will. You were occupied, Mother Radegunde. What are those objects in your hand?”

“Worldly symbols of Sister Alda’s,” Radegunde snapped.

“Let me put them away for you, so that you can return to your residence and pray.”

“Where are you going, Sister Prioress?” the abbess growled.

“To the cellar, to see the example you made of the faithless sisters.”

Holding a candle, Plectrude descended the steps. In a pool of flickering light, the prioress’s head was cocked as if listening to the footsteps above.

Plectrude stepped toward Alda and Nanthild and undid the knots. Her breath smoked in front of her as she shouted, “The abbess was merciful. If it were my will, I would have given you three-fold the stripes.”

Alda rubbed her arms and wrists as Plectrude pointed to where the habits lay. Alda and Nanthild ran to them. Alda beheld the welts on Nanthild’s back. They were bright red, but the skin had not been broken. Alda wished she could awaken from this nightmare of facing a slow painful death if she stayed on Nonnenwerth or rape and torture if she left.

“Do you know what you have done?” Alda hissed to the prioress as her numb fingers picked up her shift. “You have condemned us to starve.”