A groan emerged from the other side of the confessional screen. “Again?” Father Alaric asked with a deep sigh. “You made your penance just this morn with all the other novices. What sin could you possibly have committed in such a short time… in a nunnery, of all places?”
“I blasphemed when I stepped in some droppings from Sister George’s goat in the sacristy.”
“The sacristy?” Father Alaric sputtered. “Really, those rescued animals of Sister George’s are getting beyond bothersome. It’s nigh sacrilegious where they show up.”
“Wait till you see the five-legged piglet she brought in today. Methinks it sleeps now in the baptismal font.”
“What?” Father Alaric shrieked, then seemed to recall his setting. “Back to your confession, child. Which bad word did you use?”
“Christ’s toenails,” she answered matter-of-factly.
“Christ’s toenails,” Father Alaric murmured under his breath—whether to repeat her words or utter his own expletive was unclear. “Tsk tsk tsk! Using the Lord’s name in vain is unacceptable for a novice with a true vocation.”
” ‘Tis difficult being good all the time,” Esme complained. “Thou shalt not swear.” ‘Tis hard not to swear when one is living in the midst of a gaggle of fifty lackwit nuns and novices who produce beer to subsist. “Thou shalt not be greedy.” The person who thought that one up must never have experienced the sparse purse of a convent. “Thou shalt not be slothful.” Up before dawn, to bed soon after dark, and not a second for dawdling that I’ve ever seen. “Thou shalt not harbor unclean thoughts or deeds.” As if I would know an unclean thought if I stepped in it! I haven’t seen a man worth salivating over in ten long years. “Thou shalt not be noisome. Well, all right, mayhap I do whistle on occasion, or sing unmelodiously, or voice an unsolicited opinion or two. “Thou shalt not be prideful.” Yea, I take great pride in my sackcloth gown. “Hah! There are so many shalt not’s, ’tis tedious keeping track of them all,” she concluded to the old priest, who continued to make the tsk-ing noises.
“Lady Esme, I am more and more inclined to believe you are not destined to become a nun.”
“I am not Lady Esme anymore—just Sister Esme.”
“Not till you take your final vows, and it appears more and more likely that may never happen,” the priest said sternly, then immediately softened his voice and added, “Be reasonable, Lady Esme. You have been here eleven winters… since your thirteenth birthday… and you have not yet become a bride of Christ. Go home. Be a biddable daughter. Marry. Have children.”
“Never!”
“Tsk tsk tsk. Your pride will always be a boulder in your path to holiness.”
“Nay, the only boulder in my path is my father. He wants me dead, or buried in a convent.”
“Lady Esme! Honor your father and mother; ’tis the first commandment of our Blessed Lord.”
“He couldn’t have known my father when he made that rule. Satan in chain mail, that’s what my father is.”
She couldn’t see clearly through the screen, but Esme would bet her beads that the priest was praying and rolling his eyes heavenward.
“Enough!” Father Alaric said finally. “Go and sin no more, my child. For your penance—”
Esme could guess what that would be: another rosary said on her knees on the stone floor of the second chapel.
But, nay, this time Father Alaric had something different in mind for her.
“Go with Mother Wilfreda and several of the good sisters to nearby Stone Valley.”
Stone Valley? Why would he send me there? Didn’t I hear of a battle taking place there this morn?
“A mission of mercy. If it be God’s will, you shall perform a rescue… an act of supreme compassion.”
“Rescue? Who needs rescuing?” She thought he might mention some injured monk or a Saxon soldier in need of care. Mother Wilfreda was a noted healer, and injured wayfarers often traveled to the abbey for her care. But, nay, Father Alaric had something entirely different, and totally unexpected, in mind.
“A Viking.”
Birds of a most unusual feather…
Toste lay on the cold ground of a Saxon battlefield waiting for the Valkyries to come take him to Valhalla. He hoped it would be soon, because his head felt as if a drum were beating inside his brain, about to explode.