The Innocent Read Free Page B

be, a totally innocent bride of Christ. That is the only way for me."
    "Each of us knows the best way for herself," Sister Cuthbert said soothingly. Then she turned the conversation. "Sister Winifred tells me you are the best student she has ever had. She has asked Reverend Mother if she may have you for her assistant in the herbarium. She is not young anymore, my child, and you may one day take her place, but do not say I told you until Reverend Mother tells you it is so."
    Elf had learned of her appointment to the herbarium a few days later, and was very pleased. She liked the old nun whom she would assist, and who had taught her all manner of healing, physicking, and tending of wounds. She liked the herbarium because it was quiet and peaceful. In the summer they had a garden in bloom all around the little building housing the herbarium. Elf was content knowing her place in the orderliness of the convent.
    "Look!" Isa, pointing, broke into her thoughts. "A mounted rider is approaching the convent. I wonder what news he brings. Mary’s blood! Look how the sun shines on his hair! It’s like beaten gold, I vow."
    "My hair is gold," Matti said.
    "Your hair is yellow like straw, and when it’s all cut off that’s just what it will look like." Isa giggled. "It’s a good thing your head will be covered by your wimple, Matti. Still, you have a very pretty face. No one will miss your hair."
    "I hope you'll send your first daughter here to St. Frideswide’s in a few years so I can tell her what a troublesome wench her mother was as a girl," Matti said sweetly.
    "You are terrible, the pair of you," Elf chided them, but then she joined in their shared laughter. "Oh, Isa! I shall miss your honesty and your wickedly sharp tongue. I will pray God that Sir Martin appreciates what a wonderful wife he has been blessed with, even if she is a bit of a naughty baggage."
    "Men like naughty women," Isa responded.
    "But not wives," Matti said wisely. "Even I know that. When my father sought a match for my eldest brother, Simon was mad for the daughter of a neighbor, but father had heard she was a bit wild. He sought elsewhere for a more modest girl. The neighbor’s daughter was twenty before a husband was found to take her; and that bridegroom was mightily surprised to find the neighbor’s daughter a virgin, for all had believed her not. A reputation must be guarded as carefully as a maidenhood, my father always said."
    "I was betrothed to Martin of Langley when I was five, and then immediately sent here to St. Frideswide's," Isa said. "I will go home some time after Lammastide, and be married immediately. I have no reputation!" she complained bitterly.
    "What does he look like?" Matti asked curiously.
    "As I remember, and I have not seen him since our betrothal," Isa replied, "he had brown eyes and brown hair. He was fifteen, and had just been knighted, but as I recall he had no pockmarks on his face. I can't remember his face except that it was pleasant. He shall be a complete surprise to me, and I hope a nice one. I shall be a total surprise to him from the runny-nosed little maid I was on our betrothal day. I had a cold, as I remember, and wanted to stay warm in my cot, but I was dragged up, and dressed in my finest, and taken to the church to stand by his side while the betrothal ceremony was performed. I don't think he ever even looked at me more than once, and I suppose then to ascertain that I didn't have a squint," Isa concluded.
    The three girls giggled, but then they turned their heads at the sound of a voice calling them. It was the convent gatekeeper, Sister Perpetua, and she was waving her apron at them.
    "Eleanore de Montfort, come down at once," she shouted up the hill at them. "Reverend Mother wants to see you."
    Elf arose, and waved back. "I am coming, sister," she called. She put on her wimple, tucking her long braids beneath it, brushed the grass from her dove gray skirts, and looked to her two friends. "Am I all right?"