Page 4 of Bold Angel
“Yes, Mother.” Sweet Jesu, what had the old woman said?
“Good, then you will repeat it for me.”
“Wh-What?”
“Repeat what I have just said.”
Caryn figeted nervously, twisting the folds of her ugly brown tunic. “Humility and piety, that is what I must learn.” As good a guess as any. That was what the abbess usually said.
“What else?”
“What else?”
“I believe you heard the question.”
“Discipline. You said I needed discipline.” The frown on Mother Terese’s face might have meant Caryn was guessing well, or not well at all.
“Thank you for reminding me. For falling asleep during prayers, you will repeat sixty psalms while lying in a pool of water. ’Tis possible the next time you feel sleepy,you will remember the lesson you learned in watchfulness.”
Caryn shivered just to think of it. The convent was cold and drafty. Warm fires were rare, the floors hard and damp. No doubt she would be stripped to her camise, then later, since it would be wet, forced to wear her scratchy woolen tunic without one.
“Sister Agnes will see to your penance. Good day.”
Caryn sighed as she walked out the door. Mayhap it wouldn’t be so bad. Surely it couldn’t be worse than scrubbing the floors in front of the altar with a twig, or missing her meager fare of fat mixed with peas for two or three nights in a row.
“Await me in the hall,” said Sister Agnes with a satisfied smirk. It seemed to Caryn that the skinny little woman could well use some penance herself. “I shall fetch a pitcher of water and join you forthwith.”
“Thank you, dear sister,” Caryn said with a sarcastic smile.
In no hurry to accomplish her unpleasant task, she went to check on Gweneth and found her quietly embroidering in her cell. When Caryn spoke to her, Gweneth smiled warmly but continued to shove her needle with infinite care through the fabric she held in her lap.
In her strange state of mind, life was easy for Gweneth, peaceful and full of joy. Caryn sighed. For her, life had always been a quest of sorts, a search for something, though as yet she wasn’t sure what it was. She would find it one day, she was certain. Then she would enjoy the same peace her sister did.
Caryn waved good-bye to Gweneth, resigned to the ordeal ahead. By the time she returned to the hall, Sister Agnes had doused the floor with water, darkening the stone in an inch-deep circle, and stood waiting impatiently for Caryn to appear.
“Remove your tunic,” she commanded.
Caryn did so grudgingly, trying not to think hateful thoughts about the nun.
“Mayhap the next time you feel like shirking your duties, you will remember the consequences of such behavior.”
“’Tis certain, Sister Agnes, that I will.” Shivering against the cold, Caryn lowered herself facedown onto the rough stone floor. Her camise was instantly soaked and her shivering increased. Dutifully she began to repeat the psalms the abbess required, saying them as rapidly as she could, knowing Sister Agnes would be counting every one.
Before she had finished, her skin was blue and she was shaking all over. She climbed to her feet, forced herself to smile at Sister Agnes, turned and stiffly walked back to her barren room.
***
“Are you all right?”
Caryn looked across her cell to see Sister Beatrice standing in the doorway. Beatrice was her best friend, a slight girl with big green eyes that occasionally glinted with the same sort of mischief her own too often did.
Sitting on her corn husk mattress, Caryn pulled the itchy woolen blanket more closely around her. “Just cold is all.”
“Where were you this morning?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “’Twas the first sunny day we have had in weeks, and the flowers have started to bloom.” She smiled. “I wanted to pick some for Gweneth.”
Beatrice smiled, too. “She does so love them. But then ’tis a gift she has, finding joy in the smallest of things.”
