The King’s Concubine: A Novel of Alice Perrers Read Free

flaws in the reflection, I was no beauty. I was old enough and female enough to understand, and be hurt by the knowledge. Horrified by my heavy brows, black as smudges of charcoal, I dropped my candle in the water, obliterating the image.
    Lonely in the dark of my cold, narrow cell, the walls pressing in on me in my solitary existence, I wept. The dark, and being alone, frightened me.
    As for the rest of my young days, all merged into a gray lumpen pottage of misery and resentment, stirred and salted by Sister Goda’s admonitions.
    “ You were late again for Matins, Alice. Don’t think I didn’t see you slinking into the church like the sly child you are!” Yes, I was late.
    “ Alice, your veil is a disgrace in the sight of God. Have you dragged it across the floor?” No, I had not, but against every good intention my veil collected burrs and fingerprints and ash from the hearth.
    “ Why can you not remember the simplest of texts, Alice? Your mind is as empty as a beggar’s purse.” No, not empty, but engaged withsomething of more moment. Perhaps the soft fur of the Abbey cat as it curled against my feet in a patch of sunlight.
    “ Alice, you must walk with more elegance. Why do you persist in this ungodly slouch?” My growing limbs were ignorant of elegance.
    “A vocation is given to us by God as a blessing,” Mother Sybil, our Abbess, admonished the sinners in her care from her seat of authority every morning in the Chapter House. “A vocation is a blessing that allows us to worship God through prayer, and through good works to the poor in our midst. We must honor our vocation and submit to the Rules of Saint Benedict, our most revered founder.”
    Mother Abbess was quick with a scourge against those who did not submit. I remember its bite well. And that of her tongue. I felt the lash of both when, determined to be on my knees at Sister Goda’s side before the bell for Compline was silenced, I failed to shut away the Abbey’s red chickens against the predations of the fox. The result next morning for the hens was obvious and bloody. So was the skin on my back, in righteous punishment, Mother Abbess informed me as she wielded the scourge in the name of Saint Benedict. It did not seem to me to be fair that by observing one rule I had broken another. Unwise as I was in my youth, before I had learned the wisdom of concealing my thoughts, I said so. Mother Sybil’s arm rose and fell with even more weight.
    I was set to collect up the poor ravaged bodies. Not that the flesh went to waste. The nuns ate chicken with their bread at noon the following day as they listened to the reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan. My plate saw nothing but bread, and that a day old. Why should I benefit from my sins?
    A vocation? God most assuredly had not given me a vocation, if that meant to accept, obey, and be grateful for my lot in life. And yet I knew no other life; nor would I. When I reached my fifteenth year, so I was informed by Sister Goda, I would take my vows and, no longer a novice, be clothed as a nun, thus a seamless transition from one form of servitude to another. I would be a nun forever, until God called me to the heavenly comfort of His bosom—or to answer for my sins. Beginning in my fifteenth year I would not be permitted to speak, except for an hour after the noon meal, when I would be allowed to converse on serious matters. It seemed to me little better than perpetual silence.
    Silent for the rest of my life, except for the singing of the offices.
    Holy Mother save me! Was this all I could hope for? It was not my choice to take the veil. How could I bear it? It was beyond my understanding that any woman would choose this life enclosed behind walls, the windows shuttered, the doors locked. Why would any woman choose this degree of imprisonment rather than taste the freedom of life outside?
    To my mind there was only one door that might open and offer me an escape.
    “Who is my father?” I asked