Page 5 of Down and Dirty

Not nearly enough. “Really, Mother Edwina, think how boring my confessions would be otherwise. I am a trained warrior. ’Tis what I do best. But there is naught to defend here at the abbey, other than a wayward bull or angry bees. Truly, my confessions would go thus: Bless me, Father, for I yawned during compline. Bless me, Father, for I cursed when the chapel bell rang for the tenth time during the night. Bless me, Father, for I want to nigh scream if I hear another Kyrie or Sanctus. Bless me, Father, for laughing at Sister Benedictus when she broke wind hitting the high note of “Gloria.” Bless me, Father, for I would rather lop off an enemy’s head than pray for him. Bless me, Father, for wishing my father and my brothers to the fires of Muspell. Bless me, Father, for drinking too much of Sister Margaret’s mead.”

The only income source the abbey had was the sale of Margaret’s mead in the trading stalls of Jorvik. And good mead it was, too, the secret ingredients passed on by the same Northumbrian family who sent a daughter named Margaret to be a nun each generation from ten decades past.

“You must learn to accept your lot in life.”

“Why?”

“Because it is the way of the Lord.”

“And who is to say that the Lord prefers I be a nun than a warrior? Remember Boudicca, the Celtic queen who led an army against the Romans.”

Mother Edwina made that tsking sound she usually employed when Britta had asked an unanswerable question.

“I grow weary of the tedium,” Britta complained. “How can you bear the quiet and the same routine every day, month after month, year after year?”

“Inner peace is its own reward.”

Britta, feeling anything but peaceful, grabbed at her own hair with frustration, then pressed her lips together, pondering. “Methinks there may be another way.”

“I will no doubt regret asking, but what other way?”

Britta looped an arm over the mother superior’s shoulder and confided, “Returning to my father’s rat’s nest of a keep is impossible. The only way I can leave this nunnery is if I am dead. Or if my father thinks I am dead.”

“Thinks?”

“Yea. I will do naught to jeopardize the nunnery. But I must needs come up with a fake death.”

“And that fake death would be?”

“It must be a death where there would be no body as evidence.”

“Like a fire or a drowning?” Mother Edwina’s face brightened with understanding.

“Yea, but I am not about to risk either of those. How about if I have suddenly gone barmy?”

Mother Edwina muttered something about her already being barmy.

“For the next few sennights I could do some demented things so that word will begin to spread of my mind’s demise. Then when I jump off a cliff — you know, the cliff on the way to Jorvik — everyone will say I committed suicide in the midst of one of my fits.”

Mother Edwina’s jaw gaped with astonishment. “You would truly die if you jumped off that cliff. There is naught but sharp rocks and deep waters below.”

“I would not really jump. I would just pretend. And I would leave pieces of my ripped clothing on the rocks, with a bit of blood doused here and there. Oh, do not look askance at me. ’Twould be chicken blood.”

“May the saints preserve us!” Mother Edwina made the sign of the cross over her ample chest. “Where would you go?”

“That is the best part. I will hide in Sister Margaret’s mead wagon next time she goes to the market stalls in Jorvik. From there I will arrange passage to Iceland and from there go to that new land called Greenland. Or else I could go to the Rus lands and become one of the Varangian Guard.”

“Have you lost your senses, girl?”

“Mayhap I have, but you must see that I have no choices left. Have you considered that Sister Bernice’s disappearance last sennight might be related?”

“Never!”

“My father has threatened to get me, even if he has to assault the abbey walls.”

“He cannot breach sacred walls. ’Twould be a sacrilege.”

Mother Edwina was so naive. “As if my father would care about that!” Britta muttered.