‘I understand,’ the chaplain replied.
I gave a start as suddenly bells began to ring: a deep, long tolling which seemed to come from all around. The door opened and the same nun who had greeted us on our arrival appeared again, making her way carefully to the abbess’s side, where she whispered in her ear.
The abbess murmured something in reply, and then drew herself up. ‘I am afraid I must leave you now for compline,’ she said. ‘However, if you would all follow Sister Burginda’ – she gestured towards the nun – ‘she will lead you to your quarters. I will see to it that food and drink is brought to you once the service is over.’
‘Thank you,’ ?lfwold said, bowing.
‘My lady,’ I said, nodding respectfully towards the abbess, as I allowed the others to leave first.
She looked back, her eyes fixed without feeling upon me, until the rest had all filed out and I myself turned and followed, out into the blue twilight.
Twenty-five
NIGHT HAD SETTLED quickly across the convent. Beyond the hills to the west there was only the faintest of glows, and even that was fading, while to the east the stars were already beginning to emerge.
A line of nuns, about twenty or so in number, proceeded in double file across the central cloister towards the church. Some of them held small lanterns and I could see their faces in the soft light. There were women of all ages: a few wrinkled and ancient, half shuffling, half stumbling on their way; and others, helping them along, who looked barely older than the girl who had met us in the abbess’s house. We waited until they had gone by, before the one the abbess had called Burginda led us away from the cloister, towards an orchard.
The other knights were murmuring and grinning amongst themselves, I noticed.
‘What is it?’ I said, though I guessed who it was they were smirking at, after the way the abbess had managed to discomfit me.
To my right, Wace only smiled and shook his head, while behind me I thought I heard Radulf snigger. Another time, I might have found it amusing, but I was only too aware of where we were. Every one of the nuns I’d seen had her head bowed, and not one had been speaking.
I glared in warning. After what had happened the night before, I didn’t want another argument with the priest. But he and Burginda were some way ahead of us, and the bells were chiming so loud that I doubted he could hear.
On the other side of the orchard stood a long hall, surrounded by a wattle-work fence – there to set it apart from the rest of the convent, I supposed. Burginda set down her lantern by the door and reached inside a leather pouch fastened to her belt, producing a key. It gleamed in the light of her lantern as she put it into the lock and gently twisted. The door swung open without a sound. Within, the hall was dark. The nun picked up her lantern and went inside, followed by the rest of us. Orange light played across the walls, revealing a long rectangular table, a hearth with copper cooking pots beside it, a set of stairs at the rear.
Hardly were we all inside before ?lfwold turned on me. ‘When I speak with Eadgyth, I will do so alone,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I won’t have you always watching over me.’
‘Your lord made me swear an oath to protect you,’ I replied. ‘I am only following his instructions.’ It was not much of an answer, and I knew it.
‘I don’t need your protection,’ he snapped. ‘This is a place of God. What possible harm do you think will befall us here?’ He turned his back on me as he made for the stairs.
He was right, of course, though I didn’t like to admit it. ‘So what do we do now?’ I called after him. ‘Do we just wait here until she returns?’
‘There is nothing else we can do.’
‘We could ride on to Wincestre and see if we can find her there,’ Wace suggested.
‘And what if she’s left by the time we arrive?’ the priest asked.
Wace shrugged. ‘Then we might meet her on the road.’
Wincestre was not far, and it would take only a few hours to get there – a little longer by dark, perhaps, but even so, if we left now and rode hard we could surely get there before daybreak. Although that would mean even longer in the saddle.
‘This isn’t for you to decide,’ the chaplain said.
‘Wace is right,’ I said.
‘No,’ the chaplain replied, fixing me with a stare. ‘I won’t be dictated to. I say that we stay. Whether we have to wait a day or a week for the lady Eadgyth, it doesn’t matter.’
‘The king’s army will be leaving Lundene soon,’ Eudo put in. ‘If we delay here too long, we won’t be able to join it.’
‘I don’t care about the king’s army!’ ?lfwold said, his face as scarlet as it had been the night before. ‘This is the task that Lord Guillaume has sent us here for. Nothing else matters!’