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Bells tolled the hour of matins, the sound an eerie echo in the deserted halls of the convent. In a chapel in the far east wing, rows of black-garbed nuns rested on their knees on the hard stone floor, readying themselves for prayer.

“Where has the girl gone this time?” the abbess asked, surveying the nuns and a small group of novices kneeling off to her left.

Sister Agnes stood beside her, equally incensed, a righteous curl to her lips.

“I have not seen her.” A woman in her thirties, she was thin as a stick and just as unbending.

“She did not break her fast with the rest of us this morning, and two days in a row she has fallen asleep during afternoon prayers.”

“Find her,” said the stern-faced abbess, “I wish to speak with her at once.”

Two hours later, Caryn of Ivesham, wearing a coarse brown tunic and stiff white camise, her hair pulled into a single long auburn braid, stood before Mother Terese, the tall formidable Abbess of the Convent of the Holy Cross. Caryn laced her fingers tightly together and tried to look demure.

The abbess sighed, breaking into the silence between them. “You must learn obedience,” she said, continuing the tirade she had begun some time ago. “’Tis certainly not something that comes easily to you. Still, you must endeavor to achieve the lesson.”

“Yes, Mother Terese.”

“You must learn humility and piety,” she droned on. “Your family is dead, Caryn. Ivesham Hall lies in ruin. Your blood sister, Gweneth, and your sisters here in the convent are your only family now. Gweneth is happy here. You must learn to accept your life here, too.”

Caryn caught only the last remark, her attention having drifted to the flock of birds chirping outside the window. Accept this dreary life? she thought. Never! But she didn’t dare to say it.

“You must resign yourself to becoming one of us,” the abbess continued. “If it takes strict discipline to accomplish that end, then that is what shall be done.”

Caryn dragged her eyes up from the floor where she had been studying the intricate movements of a long-legged spider.

“Did you hear me, Caryn?”

“Yes, Mother.” Sweet Jesu, what had the old woman said?

“Good, then you will repeat it for me.”

“Wh-What?”

“Repeat what I have just said.”

Caryn figeted nervously, twisting the folds of her ugly brown tunic. “Humility and piety, that is what I must learn.” As good a guess as any. That was what the abbess usually said.

“What else?”

“What else?”

“I believe you heard the question.”

“Discipline. You said I needed discipline.” The frown on Mother Terese’s face might have meant Caryn was guessing well, or not well at all.

“Thank you for reminding me. For falling asleep during prayers, you will repeat sixty psalms while lying in a pool of water. ’Tis possible the next time you feel sleepy, you will remember the lesson you learned in watchfulness.”

Caryn shivered just to think of it. The convent was cold and drafty. Warm fires were rare, the floors hard and damp. No doubt she would be stripped to her camise, then later, since it would be wet, forced to wear her scratchy woolen tunic without one.

“Sister Agnes will see to your penance. Good day.”

Caryn sighed as she walked out the door. Mayhap it wouldn’t be so bad. Surely it couldn’t be worse than scrubbing the floors in front of the altar with a twig, or missing her meager fare of fat mixed with peas for two or three nights in a row.

“Await me in the hall,” said Sister Agnes with a satisfied smirk. It seemed to Caryn that the skinny little woman could well use some penance herself. “I shall fetch a pitcher of water and join you forthwith.”

“Thank you, dear sister,” Caryn said with a sarcastic smile.

In no hurry to accomplish her unpleasant task, she went to check on Gweneth and found her quietly embroidering in her cell. When Caryn spoke to her, Gweneth smiled warmly but continued to shove her needle with infinite care through the fabric she held in her lap.

In her strange state of mind, life was easy for Gweneth, peaceful and full of joy.

Caryn sighed. For her, life had always been a quest of sorts, a search for something, though as yet she wasn’t sure what it was.

She would find it one day, she was certain.

Then she would enjoy the same peace her sister did.

Caryn waved good-bye to Gweneth, resigned to the ordeal ahead. By the time she returned to the hall, Sister Agnes had doused the floor with water, darkening the stone in an inch-deep circle, and stood waiting impatiently for Caryn to appear.

“Remove your tunic,” she commanded .

Caryn did so grudgingly, trying not to think hateful thoughts about the nun.

“Mayhap the next time you feel like shirking your duties, you will remember the consequences of such behavior.”

“’Tis certain, Sister Agnes, that I will.

” Shivering against the cold, Caryn lowered herself facedown onto the rough stone floor.

Her camise was instantly soaked and her shivering increased.

Dutifully she began to repeat the psalms the abbess required, saying them as rapidly as she could, knowing Sister Agnes would be counting every one.

Before she had finished, her skin was blue and she was shaking all over. She climbed to her feet, forced herself to smile at Sister Agnes, turned and stiffly walked back to her barren room.

***

“Are you all right?”

Caryn looked across her cell to see Sister Beatrice standing in the doorway. Beatrice was her best friend, a slight girl with big green eyes that occasionally glinted with the same sort of mischief her own too often did.

Sitting on her corn husk mattress, Caryn pulled the itchy woolen blanket more closely around her. “Just cold is all.”

“Where were you this morning?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “’Twas the first sunny day we have had in weeks, and the flowers have started to bloom.” She smiled. “I wanted to pick some for Gweneth.”

Beatrice smiled, too. “She does so love them. But then ’tis a gift she has, finding joy in the smallest of things.”

“Aye. There are times I wish I could be as content as she.”

Beatrice walked toward her. “You will learn. One day you will be able to accept things as they are. ”

“One day I will leave, Beatrice. You will see. One day I will strike out on my own.”

“For now you had better strike out for the chapel. They will be watching you closely for a while.”

Caryn sighed. “I suppose you are right.” She climbed up from the floor. “Sister Agnes seems to find a secret joy in my failings.” Tossing off the blanket, she pulled on her coarse woolen tunic, trying to ignore the scratchy feel against her skin.

They started down the hall, but the sound of someone banging on the oaken door in the entry stayed their movements. Curiosity turned Caryn in that direction. “Who do you suppose it could be?”

“’Tis not our concern. Come. We will be late.”

But Caryn started walking toward the door, forcing Beatrice along in her wake. Even before the tiny nun hurrying to answer the knock could pull the door open, armored men poured into the entry.

“’Tis the Lord of Malvern Castle—Stephen de Montreale,” Beatrice whispered with a gasp of surprise, recognizing the tall blond man richly clothed in crimson who strode in at the head of his men. “My father spoke of him often, usually with loathing.”

Malvern. Caryn knew of him—what Saxon did not? She knew he’d made a bloody raid on Beatrice’s village, and that fear of Norman swine like him was part of the reason Beatrice was there. Malvern was hated, Caryn knew, by most of her Saxon kinsmen, and his ruthlessness was legend.

“I have come for your novices,” he said to the abbess, who stood angrily before him. “The women who have not yet spoken the vows. You will bring them forth at once.”

“What do you want with them?” The abbess eyed him warily.

“There is work to be done at Malvern. I am in need of extra hands and you have more than enough.” He was tall and lithe yet muscular and solidly built.

His shoulders were broad, his hips lean, his face almost perfect.

Had it not been for his slightly too-pointed nose and hard male mouth, he might have looked pretty.

As it was, he merely looked handsome, yet there was a cruel air about him.

“These girls are under the protection of the church,” the abbess countered.

“They will soon be under my protection.”

“But—”

“You will do as I say.” When she still didn’t move, he added, “Now!”

Caryn turned as Sister Agnes walked up with a cluster of nuns.

“What goes on?” Agnes asked. “Why is Lord Stephen here?”

“He has come for the novices.”

“The novices? What does he want with them? By what authority—”

“He is Malvern,” Caryn said. “He needs no authority but his own.” She turned to Sister Beatrice. “Whatever happens, you must keep Gweneth away. She is still in her cell. You must see her hidden safely away.”

Beatrice glanced at the men, nodded and turned to leave, but Caryn caught her arm. “If anything goes awry, promise me you will see to her safety.”

“What could—”

“Promise me!”

“You have my word.” As the men began to move through the halls, Beatrice hurried toward the rear of the convent.

The women who wore no veils were roughly rounded up and hauled toward the front, Caryn among them.

She nervously glanced to the rear of the convent, but neither Beatrice nor Gweneth appeared.

“These are the only ones,” the abbess said to Malvern, obviously distraught. “Just these six girls.” That she intended to spare Gweneth made Caryn regret some of the harsh thoughts she’d had about the older woman.

“Six will be enough for our needs.” Malvern surveyed the young women, none beyond eighteen years. A knight near the great oaken door eyed them with relish and chuckled gruffly.

“How am I to explain this?” the abbess asked. “What will their parents say?”