The Midwife's Tale (Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries) by Margaret Frazer Page A

supposed.  In cloister or out they were supposed to be as silent as might be; and of course, being a nun, she was far better born than Ada, was at least of gentle and maybe even noble blood.  Tall for a woman, she had a strong-boned face and beautifully kept, long-fingered hands.  Her gown was plain Benedictine black, just as it should be, but amply made from fine-woven wool, its color all even despite black being notoriously hard to dye. Except for the gold ring on her left wedding finger and her belt-hung rosary of richly polished wood, she had no finery such as Ada had heard tell was all too common among some nuns.  Nor did she seem arrogant, only tired and sad, and Ada liked her the better for it.
    They stood silently side by side while the daylight broadened around them and birdsong rose from hedgerows as if joy were newly discovered in the world, until in the house, where there had been deep stillness for this while and a while past, people began to move, to talk low among themselves, some of them trying to comfort a man weeping.  The wait was over and the task of dealing with the dead was come.  It was a task that every village woman knew, and all did their best at it, knowing it was something that sooner or later would have to be done for each of them, when her time came.
    The baby made a mewling cry and was quieted.   She seemed healthy enough, was already baptized, and Johane living just down the way had already said she would suckle it with her own, she having milk enough for a calf, as she put it, so that was all right.
    Ada knew she should go back in now, was bracing herself for it when someone came up behind her in the doorway.  She and Dame Frevisse both shifted further aside to make way, Ada supposing it was Dame Claire, leaving now there was nothing more the nuns could do, but it was Elyn Browster, Cisily's neighbor from two houses farther along, right at the village's very end.  Barren herself, Elyn was nonetheless at almost every child birthing and always took a loss like this to heart; and this one even more to heart than usual, it looked like.  Normally a vigorous, wide-gesturing woman, she was gray-faced with weariness and grief and she would have gone between Ada and the nun without speaking except Ada said, "It's a sorry thing.  Martyn is taking it hard, seems."
    "There'll be those who'll comfort him," Elyn said curtly and went on without pause or a look up from where her feet were trudging.  It was the way she showed pain, Ada knew.  She had feelings that cut deep, did Elyn, but wanted to keep them to herself as much as might be.
    "Jenkyn to see to?" Ada asked at her back.
    "Aye," Elyn said and kept on going, a swag-hipped woman on tired feet, along the verge of the lane still muddy from the past few days of rain.
    "She's a good woman, is Elyn Browster," Ada said, not because she thought Dame Frevisse needed to know but simply to have something in her own mind besides thought of Cisily lying dead now.  "Her husband Jenkyn, he's not much and would be less if it weren't for her.  She's had to take the man's part around their holding more often than not because he won't.  It's not what she wanted when she married him, I'd guess, but she's never faltered.  She -- "
    Ada broke off as she found Dame Frevisse's gaze fixed on her with a disconcerting directness that made her realize she had been gossiping to someone who not only had no interest in such things, but should not be hearing them at all.
    She was saved from deciding what to say next by Dame Claire, the infirmarian, coming out.  She was a small woman and seemed smaller for being beside Dame Frevisse.  She looked as sad and tired as Elyn Browster had and her surprisingly deep voice grated with weariness as she said, "I think maybe you should go in, Mistress Bychurch.  Father Clement is beginning to comfort Martyn Fisher."
    Knowing exactly what that meant, Ada dropped a deep curtsy to them both and hurried back into the house.