Saint Fire by Tanith Lee

Author:Tanith Lee [Tanith Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780879517359
Publisher: Overlook Press
Published: 1999-11-15T10:19:57+00:00

***

Sister Purita waited quietly by the Domina, as church servants carried yet three more chests up the sister-house stair.

So many possessions for with this visiting lady. And yet, she was said to be frugal and devout.

Of course, there would be things of her brother's, the Fra's, kept in the island house, and now needing to be made safe. The library had already been brought; it had taken all morning to go up.

Veronichi was to have three of the guest cells. They must already be choked and impassable.

An ugly woman, though quite young. Of course she had never borne a child. Child-bearing aged women. It was a fact, she dressed modestly and unbecomingly.

The Domina sat in her chair, her hand on her walking stick. Now she motioned for the other nun, Permaria, to give her her medicinal tincture. (In the outer world, the fleet was gathering. How far off it seemed, here, how slight.)

"Purita," said the Domina, "it is you, there, Purita?"

"Yes, holy Mother." (This was the second time she had asked.)

"Purita, I should like you to read the lesson, as we dine."

"I?" Purita was appalled. The lessons read at meals were transcribed from the Latin, to benefit the less able nuns. Even so-"My reading's poor, Mother, despite the help I've had-"

"Your Latin does indeed need work, but as you know that will not impede you in this. And you know the text, Purita. You've heard it often now. I'll go through the words with you. Remember, you may interpret, where you understand. God sometimes inspires us to do this."

Purita glanced at the other nun, who might have been a statue.

The old woman was saying Purita might invent the lesson, where she could not decipher it?

"I like you to read, you've read for me," said the old Domina. "You have a clear yet friendly voice, and the accent of the City."

"I'm common, Mother."

"That's not what I said, Purita. Besides, the rose is common in summer. Do we like it less for that?"

She could be crisp, when she wanted. Luchita-Purita wondered sometimes if the Domina acted out her occasional feebleness, her vaguenesses of mind, to trick them all. But definitely her physical strength was failing. They were both needed now, she and Permaria, to help the Mother to her cell.

But then she sat in her room, in the chair, like a cheerful, fat grasshopper, smiling. She loved her room, with its bare white walls lit by the sun, her wide window that looked on the well-stocked garden. You saw her filmy eyes roam over every object, the plain cross and the jeweled one, the hand-high Virgin with white flowers in a vase, the dark religious books, her velvet cushion for kneeling. She liked her walking stick too, which had carved on its top the head of a bird, much polished by use-and caresses. In repose she cuddled the stick like a toy, and now and then spoke to it, apologizing for her weight and her need, telling it, (oddly) that it reminded her of the boundless strength of Christ, who was the walking stick for every frail soul.

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