The Titus Chronicles-The Saga of Yanna Part I by Peake R.W

Author:Peake, R.W.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Mother Heloys had made the trip through the tunnel so many times now that she no longer felt the need for a light, and while she was tempted to stay with Yanna, her new son, and the others simply because she was so exhausted, the allure of her bed was too much for her to resist. By the norms of the day, even the Abbess was expected to sleep on what was really nothing more than a bunch of straw stuffed into a large sack and laid on the floor, or at most a bare wooden frame, which was what the refugees in the crypt slept on, even Lady Helissent, but Mother Heloys was growing old. She was secretly proud of the fact that nobody who knew her was close in their guesses of her real age; the oldest estimate she had heard had been fifty-five, but the truth was that she was sixty-three. And, she would have said if anyone had pressed her on it, her sixty-three-year-old bones needed more than a straw mattress. The bed was narrow, just wide enough for her, but the mattress was filled with goose feathers and set on a wooden frame a foot off of the cold stone floor so that, during the winter, she did not have to worry about the cold radiating up through the mattress. It also meant that the rats did not crawl on her...much, but whatever guilt she felt about this one piece of vanity was not strong enough to get her to change. Now, it was really all she could think about as she made her way down the ladder, ignoring how Helissent and Albine peered down at her anxiously, although once she set foot on the dirt floor, she did look up at them.

“I’ll come shortly after dawn,” she told them. Turning her attention on Helissent, she said severely, “And, Lady, with your time coming, it’s important that you rest as much as possible, and you’ve been up as long as I have. Please, go lie down while you have the chance.”

“Yes, Mother,” Helissent said meekly, then she looked over her shoulder at something Mother Heloys could not see, but understood when the noblewoman added with a laugh, “Gervese is glaring at me right now. I promise that he won’t let me do anything else but rest.”

Satisfied, the nun turned and walked away, taking care to skirt the spot where Parva and her baby were buried, making the sign of the cross and once more reminding herself that once the siege was over, she would be exhumed and buried in consecrated ground. She immediately placed one hand on the wall, prepared for the moment the trapdoor was shut and removed all of the light which, as faint as it might have been, still pitched her into a darkness so total that she could not have seen her hand even if it was an inch from her face. She moved slowly, careful to pick up her

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