Cadfael fic fragment #2
Apr. 23rd, 2007 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartOkay, this is the part of Chapter 3 where the main OC enters the story. Originally I named her Sister Veronica, and I might return to it. Currently, she is named Sister Eata, which is a bit stupid, as Eata was the name of a male saint, but I like it a lot, so again, it may remain that way.
This OC has a complicated family background and personal history all worked out; perhaps one day I'll post the personal file, too. Until then, have fun!
CHAPTER THREE
Sister Eata was standing in front of the small wooden chapel of the Benedictine cell at Godric’s Ford, looking towards the walled kitchen garden. She was a stocky woman of middle height, with the gold-flecked, greyish blue eyes of her Saxon grandfather looking out of the oval, pale face – complete with a strong chin and a slightly aquiline nose – of her father, a penniless Norman knight. It would have been a stunning face, with those high cheekbones and small, full rose petal lips, had she had the height and the graceful build that should have gone with it… and that she did not possess. Patrician features aside, her shape revealed the woman of common stock that she was, at least from her mother’s side.
Not that she was disturbed in any way by her own lack of womanly charms – she was not. Unlike most women, she had never desired to get married and raise children. She had been in the world for near thirty years and had seen enough. And yet taking the veil was not the means to escape that fate for her. Knowledge was the thing she had yearned for all her life, and life in a cloister provided her with a never failing source of that. She had been a scribe and an illuminator in the mother house of Polesworth – and a good one – before being sent to the cell at Godric’s Ford to serve there as the percentor… or cantrix, as the office was called in Polesworth and therefore in all its daughter houses.
She was also a self-styled scholar of some sort. Her origins had ensured that she spoke several languages. English she had learned from her mother, French – the langue d’oui – from her father, and Welsh from the servants of the tradesman whose clerk her grandfather had been in Shrewsbury. Old Harald, who had loved her more than his grandsons that had shown no interest for letters, had taught her to read and write, and a good bit of Latin and Greek. Arabic, both the language and some of the calligraphy, she had learned from her father’s Saracen servants as a child.
Sadly, those rare talents were not asked for in the small, modest cell at Godric’s Ford. So she was left to write letters for Mother Mariana and to serve during office as the lead singer. And when Mother Mariana fell too ill to leave her bed any longer, Sister Eata was assigned to her bedside, to take personal care of her.
She did it heartily. She loved the old prioress with all her heart, and she had had ample experience with the ill, having looked after her ailing grandmother the same way for a year before taking the veil in Polesworth. But she had been growing restless lately – ever since Sister Magdalen had entered the cell and taken it over like a force of nature. Not with her vocation, she still firmly believed that she belonged to this cloistered life, but with the place she had been sent to. Not that she would question Sister Magdalen’s good intentions and undeniable talents; but she disliked the other woman’s brusque ambitions and the way Magdalen handled weaker sisters who did not possess the same wit, vigour or experience.
Sister Eata never desired to become Mother Mariana’s successor. Neither did she mind if Sister Magdalen grabbed the office and held it a life long. But she did mind living in a small, rustic house, out in the wilderness; in a house where her skills were wasted, and where an ambitious, ruthless superior cornered her with mundane duties tightly enough to take her the air to breathe.
In her own way, Eata was just as ambitious as Magdalen. She had inherited her ambitions from her grandmother, a shoemaker’s daughter who had risen through the ranks, becoming the wife of a respected clerk, and from her grandfather, the samesome Saxon clerk who had infected her with the insatiable hunger for knowledge in early childhood. The small grange at Godric’s Ford was suffocating her. She was desperately homesick after the Abbey of Polesworth, an ancient and venerable house, a place of worship and pilgrimage for three hundred years. She missed the wondrous old church, the arched walkways around the quadrature, the many-voiced singing of the choir… She missed a cloister that was worth to be named thusly.
But if Sister Magdalen was ambitious and vigorous, Eata was determined – and as the daughter of a Norman knight, however penniless her late father had been, she had contacts. The sisters at Godric’s Ford would perhaps be a little shocked to hear that they not only would lose their prioress but their cantrix as well. When Bishop de Clinton arrived to celebrate Mother Mariana’s last rites, he would announce that he would be taking Sister Eata with him to the recently founded Priory of Farewell – and a handful of other sisters who had suffered from Sister Magdalen’s unofficial reign.
The cell would barely feel their loss – there had been quite a few new postulants in these years – and Farewell, a new house still in the foundation phase, would welcome them. Above all, they would welcome Eata, experienced in both worlds and mature of age and in possession of useful skills. And with Sister Benedicta and Sister Ursula having received permission to stay with the new priory, she would have two fellow sisters from Polesworth. It would be almost like her old cloister again.
BTW, I have no idea whether Godric's Ford was an actually existing place - most likely not, as I can't found any historical references. Sadly, there are barely any pics about Polesworth Abbey or the Priory of Farewell, either. When you find some, please point me to the right direction. :)
This OC has a complicated family background and personal history all worked out; perhaps one day I'll post the personal file, too. Until then, have fun!
CHAPTER THREE
Sister Eata was standing in front of the small wooden chapel of the Benedictine cell at Godric’s Ford, looking towards the walled kitchen garden. She was a stocky woman of middle height, with the gold-flecked, greyish blue eyes of her Saxon grandfather looking out of the oval, pale face – complete with a strong chin and a slightly aquiline nose – of her father, a penniless Norman knight. It would have been a stunning face, with those high cheekbones and small, full rose petal lips, had she had the height and the graceful build that should have gone with it… and that she did not possess. Patrician features aside, her shape revealed the woman of common stock that she was, at least from her mother’s side.
Not that she was disturbed in any way by her own lack of womanly charms – she was not. Unlike most women, she had never desired to get married and raise children. She had been in the world for near thirty years and had seen enough. And yet taking the veil was not the means to escape that fate for her. Knowledge was the thing she had yearned for all her life, and life in a cloister provided her with a never failing source of that. She had been a scribe and an illuminator in the mother house of Polesworth – and a good one – before being sent to the cell at Godric’s Ford to serve there as the percentor… or cantrix, as the office was called in Polesworth and therefore in all its daughter houses.
She was also a self-styled scholar of some sort. Her origins had ensured that she spoke several languages. English she had learned from her mother, French – the langue d’oui – from her father, and Welsh from the servants of the tradesman whose clerk her grandfather had been in Shrewsbury. Old Harald, who had loved her more than his grandsons that had shown no interest for letters, had taught her to read and write, and a good bit of Latin and Greek. Arabic, both the language and some of the calligraphy, she had learned from her father’s Saracen servants as a child.
Sadly, those rare talents were not asked for in the small, modest cell at Godric’s Ford. So she was left to write letters for Mother Mariana and to serve during office as the lead singer. And when Mother Mariana fell too ill to leave her bed any longer, Sister Eata was assigned to her bedside, to take personal care of her.
She did it heartily. She loved the old prioress with all her heart, and she had had ample experience with the ill, having looked after her ailing grandmother the same way for a year before taking the veil in Polesworth. But she had been growing restless lately – ever since Sister Magdalen had entered the cell and taken it over like a force of nature. Not with her vocation, she still firmly believed that she belonged to this cloistered life, but with the place she had been sent to. Not that she would question Sister Magdalen’s good intentions and undeniable talents; but she disliked the other woman’s brusque ambitions and the way Magdalen handled weaker sisters who did not possess the same wit, vigour or experience.
Sister Eata never desired to become Mother Mariana’s successor. Neither did she mind if Sister Magdalen grabbed the office and held it a life long. But she did mind living in a small, rustic house, out in the wilderness; in a house where her skills were wasted, and where an ambitious, ruthless superior cornered her with mundane duties tightly enough to take her the air to breathe.
In her own way, Eata was just as ambitious as Magdalen. She had inherited her ambitions from her grandmother, a shoemaker’s daughter who had risen through the ranks, becoming the wife of a respected clerk, and from her grandfather, the samesome Saxon clerk who had infected her with the insatiable hunger for knowledge in early childhood. The small grange at Godric’s Ford was suffocating her. She was desperately homesick after the Abbey of Polesworth, an ancient and venerable house, a place of worship and pilgrimage for three hundred years. She missed the wondrous old church, the arched walkways around the quadrature, the many-voiced singing of the choir… She missed a cloister that was worth to be named thusly.
But if Sister Magdalen was ambitious and vigorous, Eata was determined – and as the daughter of a Norman knight, however penniless her late father had been, she had contacts. The sisters at Godric’s Ford would perhaps be a little shocked to hear that they not only would lose their prioress but their cantrix as well. When Bishop de Clinton arrived to celebrate Mother Mariana’s last rites, he would announce that he would be taking Sister Eata with him to the recently founded Priory of Farewell – and a handful of other sisters who had suffered from Sister Magdalen’s unofficial reign.
The cell would barely feel their loss – there had been quite a few new postulants in these years – and Farewell, a new house still in the foundation phase, would welcome them. Above all, they would welcome Eata, experienced in both worlds and mature of age and in possession of useful skills. And with Sister Benedicta and Sister Ursula having received permission to stay with the new priory, she would have two fellow sisters from Polesworth. It would be almost like her old cloister again.
BTW, I have no idea whether Godric's Ford was an actually existing place - most likely not, as I can't found any historical references. Sadly, there are barely any pics about Polesworth Abbey or the Priory of Farewell, either. When you find some, please point me to the right direction. :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-23 06:59 pm (UTC)'Scuse me, I'm getting all beta-reader-y on you already. :) Anyway, I'm gonna hold the critique till you send me the first chapter. My beta-ing address is dama_karmelowa@yahoo.ca - the email listed in my profile has the tendency to get wonky from time to time, so the yahoo one is safer. Looking forward to hearing from you! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-24 05:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-25 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 02:08 pm (UTC)It's not the actual beginning of the chapter, nor do I intend to post it in the one big lump as it is shown above. Some of the info would actually come from Cadfael (Eata's Saxon granddad is supposed to have worked for the same wool-merchant that Cadfael served in his young years, hence the connection), some of Bishop de Clinton, who supposedly knew Eata's father, the knight Stephen de Lyons, and some would be delivered otherwise.
I've just collected a lot I wanted to work in somehow about Eata and her family, and this should be somehow delivered in Chapter 3, that's all.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 09:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 09:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-23 10:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-24 05:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-25 10:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 02:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-28 04:18 am (UTC)