The Devil's Door Read Free

for once, was quiet too, although her most frequent infraction was breaking the rule of silence. While Paciana lifted Alys, Catherine washed her and applied clean rags. No wonder the poor woman had miscarried, the bruises on her stomach were worse than those on her face. There were cuts, too, which ought to be cleansed.
    “That’s odd,” Catherine said, forgetting silence again. “Look at this, Paciana. Do you see?”
    The lay sister leaned over to look. A spasm of anger flashed across her face, then she took a deep breath and regained her customary calm. The body of the countess was ribboned with thin white lines of scars, along with raised welts of mishealed flesh.
    “These wounds weren’t made at the same time,” Catherine continued. “There are bruises here that have almost healed and these marks on her legs and buttocks must be from something long ago. It looks as though she’s been whipped, over and over. See how they overlap?”
    Catherine felt a spasm of anger, too. But she didn’t try to control it. Swiftly, she finished her job. The two women wrapped and settled the countess, Catherine’s jaw set in fury. Who could have treated the poor woman so? She turned to the lay sister.
    “Have you ever met the count of Tonnerre?” she asked.
    Paciana shook her head.
    Across the cloister the bell was ringing for Matins. Catherine washed her hands.
    “You’ll stay with her?” she asked.
    Paciana nodded, then her fingers made the sign for the number seven and seven again. Catherine sighed.
    “I know that one should forgive seventy times seven, but only those who sin against us. And the sinner should first repent, I think. Mine is a righteous anger, Paciana. The proud and haughty need to be brought low, especially the haughty count Raynald.”

    Catherine followed the sound of the bells to the chapel, but she stumbled often in her recitation of the office. The only thing she wanted to pray for was the swift smiting of the count of Tonnerre. What sort of man would beat his wife and then try to pass it off as the work of someone else! They found her outside the castle! Who would believe that? Why would she have been travelling alone? Where were her guards? Did Raynald think the nuns were incapable of noticing the difference in the scars? Well, he wouldn’t be allowed to continue in his wicked schemes. Mother Héloïse would learn of this.
    The office of Matins flowed into Lauds, and from Lauds until the office of Prime, at dawn, the sisters worked quietly by candlelight on sewing or study. Catherine usually read for these hours, the most pleasant of the day for her. But this morning she went over to the abbess’s chair and, kneeling next to it, whispered that she must speak with her about the countess. At first Héloïse frowned, then she whispered back.
    “You may come to my room, after Prime. We can discuss it then fully.”
    When they had finished singing the office, Catherine followed Héloïse to her room. The abbess sat down at a table covered with papers, which she regarded wearily. Catherine could tell they were not devotional reading without looking at them. Only the convent accounts caused the abbess to look so tired. Héloïse picked one up and began to read through it.
    “Catherine,” she said without looking up. “If we are given the rights to berries and apples in the wood between the convent and the monastery of Vauluisant, and fallen trees for fire, but may not cut any standing trees and must maintain the road through as well as leave all acorns for the pigs belonging to the monks, do we have a profit or a liability?”
    She handed the paper to Catherine.
    Catherine studied for a moment. “There isn’t enough information here,” she said at last. “How do we feed the men who clear the road? What is the fruit harvest and who gathers it? And how much damage do the pigs do?”
    She gave the paper back.
    “The pigs!” Héloïse exclaimed. “I knew I was forgetting something. They can turn a