[An excerpt from the the mystery novel Nun Too Clever, which looks at what life as a queen was really like for the fairytale maiden who landed the prince.]
“Let’s start at the beginning,” I suggested. “What was Elfwinne doing here?”
“Her relatives brought her when her husband died.”
“Why?” I wondered.
At last I had her attention. “I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t want to remarry, and they didn’t want to take care of her. I admit I thought, at first, that her calling was a whisper rather than a shout, but over time she proved me wrong. Elfwinne prayed alone, day after day, kneeling on the hard clay of the stable.”
“I can believe she was on her knees in a stable,” I said, “but I somehow doubt she was praying.”
I got a withering look. I am used to it from Athelflad. I persisted. “Why pray alone? Why did she prefer the stench of livestock to the serenity of the chapel?”
“She had her reasons.”
“Do you know what they were?”
Athelflad sighed. She wasn’t in the mood to explain. Instead she recited this history:
“One morning the abbess noticed that Elfwinne had missed lauds, prime, and terce. Naturally, Mother was concerned. And angry at what looked like shirking. Mother demanded to know where she had been.” Athelflad set down her pen and drummed on the writing table. “Elfwinne said she had been praying in the stable.”
I pressed her. “I suppose she had good cause?”
“She did, even if it isn’t anything you can understand.”
Athelflad was too upset to think clearly, but I would be a poor Christian if I didn’t believe that redemption is possible. I suspended disbelief. Maybe Elfwinne had changed. I shut up and let Athelflad tell the story as she saw it.
“Elfwinne,” she said, “confessed an early life of dissolution. She grew up in the Mercian court, the child of the king’s mistress. After years of witnessing bad behaviour, she succumbed to wickedness. She knew nothing else. She didn’t fear God.”
“That Elfwinne rings a bell,” I said.
“Elfwinne cried and begged to be allowed this indulgence.”
This sounded logical, maybe too logical. Is redemption that straightforward? Athelflad was still talking. “Elfwinne said it was an exercise in humility that she needed after the years she had spent at court. You could learn from her, Cynethrith.”
Was Athelflad trying to convince me that Elfwinne was on the up and up, or did that barb cover her own bothersome ambivalence? “Did anyone expect Elfwinne to die?” I asked. “Had she been ill?”
“No.” Athelflad picked up her pen and tapped it sharply on the parchment, splattering tiny droplets of ink. She stared at them. “She was robust.”
“Am I to assume that Elfwinne had become so holy that God decided He must have her immediately?”
Her mouth turned down. “Yes,” she said, as if that settled it. “That must be it.”
“Tell me what happened. Don’t leave anything out.”
“There isn’t much to tell. The bishop, stabling his horse, spotted her body prone on the floor. He raised an alarm. There was nothing we could do.”
“When can I see the body?”
“It’s too late. We buried her immediately.”
“Why the rush?” I asked.
“The bishop thought we should. He said there might be devilish spirits hovering, trying to claim someone so saintly. He said it was by God’s grace that he had happened along, since he could officiate.”
Athelflad hadn’t told me everything. “There’s something else,” I said.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Let’s hear it.”
“We suffered another loss yesterday. It’s wrong to equate the two, but I can’t help it. Elfwinne’s death was the second dreadful thing that happened. I know God grants suffering to those He loves, and I accept it with all my heart—”
She started to cry. I hugged her and prayed God might agree that she had suffered enough for a while.
She went on. “This morning we realised that St. Eugenia was gone.”
St. Eugenia is a reliquary. The sisters love her with the fervent devotion of an infant for her mother. She is the comforter, the one who loves us with all our imperfections. From the day of her arrival, St. Eugenia has presided in a place of honour in the chapel. There sat the gold and bejewelled saint, dressed in the men’s clothing she preferred, for as long as I could remember. An opening in the back of her head, which sadly the living saint lost in her martyrdom, contained two of her teeth, four thorns from Christ’s crown, and two hairs from the coat of St. Jerome’s lion. St. Eugenia brought pilgrims from all Wessex to the abbey, and many of them, proclaiming the saint’s miraculous healing powers, filled the abbey’s coffers with their offerings. The loss, both spiritual and material, was considerable.
(End of the Excerpt)