The Devil's Door Read Online Free PDF Page A

Compline at sunset, to Prime. She felt that somehow the time of quiet and darkness was more dangerous than the bustle of the day. Perhaps that was why the blessed Saint Benedict had made the night office the longest. The sleeping world needed more protection from the servants of Evil, from the Angel of Death.
    Despite all their efforts, a faint, nauseating scent was starting in the swollen broken arm. The bone had been snapped through the skin. There was no way to stop the infection once it had started. Catherine knew that Alys would lose the arm, if not her life. Her attacker was not a spirit sneaking through the night, though. It had been a human demon who walked proudly under the sun.
    Her anger billowed inside her. On the other side of the cot, Paciana watched her. Catherine felt her gaze and looked up, blushing. Paciana raised her thumb to her lips and moved her fingers slightly, then signed three and six.
    “Oh, Paciana,” Catherine said, then looked about guiltily for Sister Bertrada. She smiled and kissed her fingertips then blew on her opened palm, thanking the lay sister.
    Psalm Thirty-six: “Do not fret because of the wicked … spera in Domino et fac bonum.” That was easy for Paciana, her faith was firm and she never did anything but good. It wasn’t so easy for someone without a natural leaning toward docility. All the same, Catherine recited the words under her breath and tried to push her anger aside.
    Count Raynald had neither returned since he had left his wife six days before nor sent to know if she still lived. Alys’s mother had not come from Quincy, only a short ride away. She lay here dying among strangers.
    Why does this matter so to you? her voices asked. Christian pity is well and good, but making yourself her defender and chief mourner is arrogant.
    Catherine shook her head. She didn’t know why the plight of the poor woman had affected her so strongly. Perhaps it was her own uncertainty. She was forsaking this place of order and peace for marriage, for the world. When Edgar had been beside her, it had seemed the only choice, but now … . She tried to sign her thoughts to Paciana, but it took so long and she was so clumsy at it, she finally gave up and whispered.
    “It’s only that she’s here alone, no family, no one familiar.”
    Paciana shook her head, her arm moved in a circle, encompassing them all.
    “Yes, of course, we all love her as one who would be our sister in Christ, but still …”
    Paciana sighed and gestured again, with some reluctance.
    “Me … secular … blood … sister,” Catherine interpreted. “You’re her real sister?”
    Her voice had gone up. Paciana leaned across the bed and put her fingers firmly over Catherine’s lips. She looked as stern as Wrath, itself.
    Her hands shaking, Catherine signed, “Then how can you forgive what’s been done to her?”
    The lay sister smiled sadly and bent to kiss the countess’s forehead.
    “God forgives,” she signed. “I accept. Say nothing.”
    “If you wish,” Catherine nodded reluctantly.
    But why not? Mother Héloïse and Prioress Astane must know already. Paciana couldn’t have been admitted to the convent without the approval of her family. It struck Catherine that she knew the background of every one of the other sisters. Many came from local families; some were part of the original group that were driven with Héloïse from Argenteuil. Abelard’s own nieces, Agate and Agnes, were here, too. Only a few were like her, drawn from farther away by the Paraclete’s reputation for learning. Paciana had always seemed so much a part of the convent that Catherine had never thought of her anywhere else. But now she wondered. She had presumed Paciana was not of the nobility. But if she were Alys’s sister, she must be, unless she were illegitimate, and that alone wouldn’t be enough to keep her from a proper place in the convent. But, if Paciana were wellborn, then why hadn’t she become a choir nun, to copy