Eating the bread had restored Obligatia enough that she could sit straighter and sip at the metallic-tasting water Teuda poured into a wooden cup.
“After the creature that murdered Sister Sindula was killed, we sought out and bound Sister Venia. No need to take her to trial. She was found in the midst of her sin, with Sister Lucida’s corpse and the traces of her sorcery nearby. Yet what could we do? It was obvious we were in danger. If we let her go, she could strike again. She might return to those who sent her and seek additional help. Yet neither could I bring myself to kill her, even to save ourselves. I felt we had no choice but to keep her as a prisoner, with us, so that she might not work her mischief again. Yet if she did not return with a report to those who had sent her, surely they would send others to seek her out. And in time they did. Where could we flee and gain refuge? Whom could we trust? In the end, we retreated. I would not suffer those in my charge to be harmed.”
“If you had given yourself up to those who sought you, then those in your charge might have continued their lives undisturbed,” said Hanna suddenly. “Did you even consider it?”
Teuda was a big-boned woman and not as thin as the others; she placed herself before Hanna, fists set on hips and chin thrust out in a challenge. “By what right do you speak to our Holy Mother so disrespectfully?”
Obligatia smiled. A leopard might smile so, before it gobbled up its unsuspecting prey. “Nay, let her speak. It is a fair question. Why not give myself up to save them?”
“As if such villains wouldn’t have killed us anyway!”
“Hush, Teuda. Yet that is indeed the first reason. Why should I believe they would not pinch off all the loose ends, those who knew I existed, who knew my secret. If they would not hesitate to kill me, why hesitate to kill those under my charge? Who will notice if a handful of isolated nuns vanish? Few know of our existence. We matter to no one.”
“You would matter to Liath, if it were true that you were her grandmother. Ai, God, she has prayed so often for some knowledge of her family….” Hanna trailed off, wise enough to be humble in the face of this woman who had suffered so much and survived despite everything.
“So you have the other answer. I am selfish, child. If Bernard’s daughter still lives, if there is any hope I might yet clasp her hand in mine, see his dear face in hers, and kiss her as one kinswoman to another, then I will do so.”
To Rosvita’s surprise, Hanna knelt and bowed her head. “Forgive me, Mother. I have misjudged you.”
“There is nothing to forgive, child—”
Gerwita collapsed to her knees and began to sob noisily. “I have sinned!” she cried, words garbled by gusts of weeping. “I have betrayed you! God forgive me.” She gabbed for the eating knife left out on the table after Teuda had cut up the cakes. Fortunatus got hold of her wrist; Hanna leaped forward and pulled the knife from her grasp before she could plunge it into her own abdomen.
“Flee!” she sobbed hopelessly. “No matter where you hide, he will find you. You cannot imagine his power.”
The force of her wailing and crying racked her body; she jerked back and forth like a woman trying to expel a demon, and all that soft, placid, neat exterior, the calm, reserved novice, dissolved into a woman torn by pain and guilt.
For a drawn-out time, measureless, everyone stared at her, too shocked to speak.
But Rosvita recognized the dismay curling up her toes, into her limbs, suffusing her; it scrabbled at her heart, long-fingered dread, like the rats in the dungeon that never ceased to gnaw even and especially on the living who had become too numbed to feel and too weak to fight back.
“Hugh,” she said at last.
Gerwita sobbed, curled up with her body against her thighs and her head hitting the floor repeatedly.
“Restrain her,” said Rosvita. “Do not let her harm herself.”
“She betrayed us!” cried Heriburg. “We would have escaped. There had to be some reason they found our trail, despite everything. She betrayed us!”
“Heriburg! Leave off!”
Heriburg snapped her mouth shut, but she stepped back to grasp Ruoda’s hand tightly as together the two young women glared furiously at their longtime companion.
If a look could kill as easily as a dagger—
Rosvita knelt beside Gerwita. At her touch, Gerwita jerked sideways away from her and wailed and shrieked like a woman mourning the death of her only child.
“Gerwita! Hush! Listen to me, and grant me silence!”
It took a space for Gerwita to calm down, to swallow her sobs, to lie still, face hidden, in silence.