The Song and the Sword by Isabelle Chevallot

Author:Isabelle Chevallot [Chevallot, Isabelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fetterlock Publishing
Published: 2022-08-24T17:00:00+00:00

The following day, Eleanor woke unusually refreshed. After Prime and the usual breakfast of potage and a few crusts, the women were set to work in the kitchen garden. She must have been singing while she dug that morning for Sister Agnes admonished her.

‘And what, pray, do you sing about?’ The nun’s face twitched with anger.

Her head dropped, she awaited Sister Agnes’s punishment. But it never came, because a man’s voice broke in.

‘Hark, what an angelic voice!’ The man wore the long robes of a priest. He had a tangled grey beard and intelligent blue eyes. ‘To whom does it belong?’

‘It was she, Precentor,’ said Sister Agnes. She pushed Eleanor forward roughly.

Eleanor bowed and lowered her eyes meekly.

‘You have truly been gifted by the Lord! My dear, you must join with the ancren and make part of the choir.’

In the presence of the precentor, Sister Agnes had become meek and mild, a changed woman. ‘If it pleases you.’ She gave a long bow. ‘I will send her to practice.’

‘We start presently,’ said the priest.

Eleanor wiped the worst of the dirt off her hands on her apron and followed the priest through the cloister and into the priory, which was fragrant with the smell of incense. The choir sat in parallel pews adjacent to the altar. The priest gestured she should take position by the hermits who came to the priory to sing and worship. Beside her stood a woman dressed as humbly as herself, in a rough woollen gown. The woman turned and smiled at her, a good-tempered sparkle in her hazel eyes.

A dozen women, mostly nuns, made up the choir. Several nuns accompanied them on lutes. On this side of the rood screen, the music was resonant and unchecked by stone. Eleanor cast an admiring glance about the room and took in the high carved wooden ceiling and the beautiful frescos that adorned the walls, which depicted the coming of Christ, the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. Finally, she turned towards the altar and allowed herself a moment, gazing up at the tall gilded crucifix, full of awe at the beautiful depiction of Christ’s great suffering.

The musical score that she shared with the woman beside her was a manuscript of great beauty. The first psalm they sang was unfamiliar. It appeared to be a song arranged with the nuns in mind for it extolled the merits of being a wife of Christ as opposed to the poverty and suffering of being a mortal man’s wife. She picked it up as they went along.

A maiden did once ask me to recommend a mortal love to her,

And forsooth, I did reply a mortal love will wither and die.

For a man is a whimsical creature, what pleasures him one day may offend him the next.

His eye may stray to other fair maidens in his vicinity,

His heart will err and shatter your own irreparably into tiny fragments

And even if he keeps faith with you, and he possesses a healthy physique,

He may be taken from you by some terrible malady

And at the end he will inevitably wither and die.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.