The Keepers of the Library by Glenn Cooper

of Cumberland as the sixth child of a Norman farmer, to the age of fourteen she’d shared a bed with four sisters and a single room with her entire family. She had come to Vectis Abbey a year earlier. Baldwin, the Abbott of Vectis, had stopped at the market town of Kirkby Stephen on his return from an arduous journey to Scotland seeking patronage for his order. Following the death of the abbey’s principal patron, the Countess Isabella de Fortibus, Baldwin had been forced to leave his island enclave and travel throughout the Kingdom of Wessex and far beyond, courting earls, lords, bishops and cardinals to support Vectis Abbey, a jewel in the Benedictine crown which possessed the finest cathedral in the land. Baldwin’s entourage had found itself in need of two fresh horses and in the market square the abbot met Clarissa’s father, who had horses on offer.
    A deal arranged, Baldwin had a question for the farmer. He was also in need of obedient young virgins to populate the ranks of novices at his abbey. Had the man any daughters to spare? For a price?
    Indeed he had. But the question which farmer was which one? His oldest had caught the fancy of the son of the local blacksmith and he was expecting good things from the union. The youngest was too young and the next youngest was his wife’s favorite; he didn’t fancy the slings and arrows coming his way if he dealt her off. That left the middle two. Bothwere good enough workers but Mary better met the abbot’s criterion for obedience. Clarissa, on the other hand, was strong-willed and feisty, questioning everything, a burr under his saddle. After he’d made up his mind, he’d showed his wife the coins and told the sobbing woman, “We’ll leave it to the church to tame her.”
    Clarissa had left Yorkshire with a mixture of trepidation and wonder. She knew well the strife in store for her if she stayed on the farm. There was no allure to that life beyond the solace of her family’s bosom. She’d work the fields and herd the sheep till her bones ached—right up to the day her father married her off to some village oaf who’d snatch her away from her dear sisters anyway. And the only consolation of the union with that husband who undoubtedly would have bad teeth and onion breath would be a baby. How she longed to have and hold a baby one day! She’d seen her mother with her newborn youngest sister, and when she cuddled her to her milky breast, that haggard woman appeared happy for the only time Clarissa could recall.
    And it was that thought that weighed on her during her monthlong journey to Vectis. If she were to marry Christ and not a man, she would never have that baby. How sad, how sad. But she was treated with solicitude by the abbot’s minions and was regaled with stories of the grandeur of the cathedral and the wonderful tranquillity and holiness of the abbey. So she thought about God and wondered if he materialized on earth what he would look like? A handsome young man with a beard as she had seen on crucifixes? An old man with a white beard in a long robe? And how would she feel as the bride of Christ?
    She remembered well her first sight of the cathedral spire. She had pulled her new woolen cloakto her throat to counter the slicing wind. With her free hand, she gripped the ship’s rail hard enough to turn her knuckles white. The sea behaved like it was trying to prevent her from completing her journey. She’d never seen the ocean before, and it seemed like a dark, evil thing, spraying salt in her nostrils and sickening her stomach. But a kindly old monk who had been her protector of sorts during the expedition grasped her shoulders and told her she had nothing to fear. The boatman, he said, had the situation well in hand.
    “Just keep your eyes on the spire, child. We’ll be there, soon enough.”
    The spire, appearing black against the gray sky, was God’s outstretched hand pointing straight to heaven. Vectis would be her home, her sanctuary. She