An Uncertain Choice

Even so, I couldn’t turn my thoughts from the news the duke had delivered. I still couldn’t believe him.

I stopped my pacing, knelt before the duke, and took his callused hands into mine. Even though my body was outwardly calm, my insides continued to resist, like a soldier defending a besieged wall. “Tell me all you know about my parents’ vow, your Grace. I need to know everything.” Of course the abbot had explained the vow to me after the death of my parents, after I’d discovered the scroll hidden in the secret chamber of my mother’s chest. I’d realized then that my mother had tried to tell me about the vow from her deathbed, but hadn’t been able to get the words out before she’d died. Over the ensuing years, I’d always wondered why my mother had waited until so late to finally try to tell me such important news. But I could only speculate that she hadn’t brought it up because she’d wanted me to have as normal of a life as possible for as long as possible.

Even though I’d struggled through the questions and tried to make peace with them, there were still times that I wanted to discover more, to shed light on the truth.

Did the duke have more answers?

He smoothed his hands around one of mine and I settled back on my heels to listen to him. “Your parents were always very much in love with each other. And so it was easy during the first years of their marriage to ignore the fact that they weren’t welcoming a new baby into their home. But as time passed, the emptiness of your mother’s womb moved into their hearts.”

His voice was soft, and his eyes had taken on a faraway look. “They wanted a child of their own very badly. And at last they became so desperate that they went to the convent and begged Abbot Francis Michael to pray for them . . . and to give them a Tear of the Virgin Mary.”

My pulse pattered with a strange rush that happened whenever I heard the story. The Tears of the Virgin Mary were very special. Whenever they were given for medicinal purposes, a miracle always seemed to happen. But they were also extremely rare and used only sparingly.

“As everyone knows, a Tear comes with a price,” the duke said. “And in the case of infertility, the price is always the Ancient Vow of Hannah, the consecration of the firstborn child to God for a life of service to him.”

The duke’s story was exactly the same as the one I’d heard four years earlier, yet I bowed my head and pressed a hand against my stomach in an attempt to calm the turmoil. Even though it had come as a shock and even though it had taken time, I’d finally accepted my destiny. I had no desire to question things now. “The Ancient Vow is unbreakable, unalterable. It must be fulfilled upon punishment of death. How can there be an exception?”

“After your parents died, I suspected that there was more to the Vow than they’d told any of us. I meant to investigate sooner, but the border wars kept me away longer than I’d anticipated.” He reached into a pouch at his side and retrieved a rolled parchment. “Two months ago, I sent orders to my wisest scribes to have them search the ancient texts to discover if there were any exceptions to the Vow. Day and night, they did not stop reading until they finally located something.”

Carefully, he unrolled the stiff, yellowed paper. “The one exception to the Ancient Vow is listed here.” He pointed at a line of faded, handwritten text.

I read the words that were as exactly as he’d explained — that anyone bound by the Ancient Vow of Hannah could be freed from a life of celibacy and service to God if he or she found true love and entered the holy covenant of marriage by the age of eighteen. For long moments, I sat silently, trying to digest the facts. But it was all too much to try to grasp after resigning myself to a life of singleness. After Thomas left, I’d never again courted. I’d never mingled with men. I’d never even spoken to eligible young gentlemen. What would have been the purpose?

Now, with exactly one month until my eighteenth birthday, what hope did I have of finding true love and getting married? It was a ludicrous notion. The only man I’d ever briefly cared about was already married. There were no other prospects.

“I cannot consider the exception,” I finally said, lifting my face and speaking to the duke with all the earnestness I could muster. “I’ve already accepted that God wants me to go to the convent.”

“I’m not convinced God wants you to lock yourself away and become a nun,” the duke said slowly. “But at least we have a month left to determine his will in the matter.”

“What difference will a month make, your Grace?” I rose, resignation coming easily to me.

“One month may not be long enough.” The duke stood too. “But we shall pray that it’s time enough to fall in love.”