Page 30 of The Conquering of Tate the Pious
The point was that she was going to start playing fair.For Tate, for Far Hope.For everyone who’d ever found happiness under the starlike ceiling of its secret chambers.
And that would have to be enough.
Twelve
TATE
WYNFLAEDand the others arrived back a week later, although much of the abbey’s treasure remained at Thornchurch until Tate could decide what to do with it.It was simply too tempting a prospect here at the abbey, and the last thing she needed was their purse lightened by a money-hungry William or an acquisitive wolf.
Tate welcomed Wynflaed gratefully and even gave her a hug.
Wynflaed pulled back after they’d embraced, eyes wide.“Tate,” she said.“You justhuggedme.”
“It’s been a long two weeks,” said Tate, trying to keep her voice neutral and failing.
And then—horribly—her face crumpled.She felt it happen.She hated it.And yet she couldn’t stop it.
She put her hands to her face and wept harder than she ever had in her life, including after she’d killed Cafnoth, while Wynflaed folded her into her arms.
“It’s all right,” Wynflaed crooned.“I’m here.I’m here.”
Why hadn’t Tate ever let anyone comfort her before?It felt nice.Warm.The loneliness, the heartbreak, and the weight of the abbey’s future receded a little bit.But as she pressed her face in Wynflaed’s shoulder and sobbed, she couldn’t help but wish it was someone else’s shoulder instead.Someone who smelled like metal and grass, whose soft, red hair would tickle her face.Someone who would kiss her—and then bite her.Or the other way around.
She missed Adelais, no matter how foolish it was.And even more foolish was the skip of her heart when she remembered that she wouldhaveto see Adelais again if Adelais was their patron and landholder.She’d have to see those gold eyes, those freckles the color of dried blood.That beautiful, lying mouth.
Somehow, unwillingly, Tate found the whole story sliding out.From her first night with the Wolf, to her meeting with King William in the Wolf’s tent.How she started her arrangement with Adelais to keep the abbey safe, and somehow lost her heart instead.
“I only knew her three days,” Tate sniffled, chin still dimpling with tears.“How can it matter so much?”
“We’ve seen people fall in love in less, haven’t we?”Wynflaed soothed, stroking her hair.“After only a day.After only a few hours.Why not you?”
“Because I’m more sensible than that!”Tate protested through wet gulps of air.“Because I know better than to fall in love with a lying Norman who wants to take control of Far Hope!”
“Oh, Tate,” sighed Wynflaed.“We already knew Far Hope was coming to an end eventually.Maybe it’s time to admit that to ourselves and figure out what’s next.”
Tate pulled away, wiping her face.“But it’s not supposed to happen like this,” she said, voice trembling.“I always thought that…well, that the sisters would go one by one and I’d die here alone.Or something.The last one to keep the braziers burning.”
Wynflaed rolled her eyes.“Tate, that’s very songlike and all, but you didn’t think that would actually happen, right?They shut down abbeys left and right these days—because some bishop decides to use the land for some other abbey’s income or because someone founds a new abbey and everyone leaves to join it.They’ll close Far Hope long before you die alone, entombed by ancient secrets or however you want this song of yours to end.”
Tate sniffled again.Now that Wynflaed was saying this, she supposed the image in her head had been rather…dramatic.And maybe she had been clinging to the songlike idea of it because it was all she had left.If she couldn’t hold this abbey together and keep it going, if she was responsible for yet another death, of a sort, then at least it should be a noble one.A stoic one.At least she wouldn’t have made anyone else suffer with her.
Except now she was crying and snotty and not stoic at all.
So what did she have left?
Wynflaed hugged her again.“I bet the pagans here felt the same way when the Christians came, and I bet the Christians who still practiced the old ways felt the same when King Alfred decided to build an abbey here.And yet through all those changes, Far Hope has kept its heart.We must believe Far Hope can do it again.”
Tate nodded against her friend’s arm and started crying even harder, because hope stung so, so much worse than defeat.
Six weeks later, Tate was walking home from Thornchurch, a crown of tightly furled roses in her hand.She visited her childhood home every year for the first of May, and so she’d just come from Beltane, her stomach full of good food and her mood enlivened somewhat by all the dancing and merrymaking.Not that she’d made merry much herself, but it was still nice to be around.Ongoing strife and famine had dried up the slow trickle of Far Hope’s pilgrims entirely; the cave with its quartz ceiling and burning braziers hadn’t been used since Candlemas, in February.Tate’s days were spent praying—matins, lauds, vespers, compline—and working.Cleaning the abbey, gardening, sewing, gathering eggs and milk.
Waiting for the inevitable: when Adelais would return and begin closing William’s fist over the abbey at last.
But when she thought about it—and she did have lots of time to think these days, since her hours were spent kneeling in vegetable beds or gathering fresh rushes for the floor or singing songs she’d sung hundreds and hundreds of times before—it wasn’t entirely fair to blame Adelais for the inevitable end of the abbey, not when even Mother Ardith had seen it coming.They’d opened the cave in February, yes, but before that, it had gone unused since September.When Tate had finally been shown Far Hope’s secrets seven years ago, pilgrims had been taken to the cave two or three times a month.And now it was barely twice a year.
Perhaps King Alfred had only forestalled what had been slowly dying for centuries, had bellowed air into Far Hope’s dying lungs so it could live on for a couple centuries more.
She could not lay that at Adelais’s feet.In truth, she’d rather have Adelais as the abbey’s landholder than anyone else, and maybe that was God’s one blessing to Tate and the sisters now.If it should be anyone, it should be Adelais.
