By Queen's Grace. Shari Anton

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      “Matilda has known heartache, but she dwells on her joys,” Judith said. “Her two children. The king’s trust in her to rule in his stead when he is away. Her ability to fund projects and charitable acts dear to her heart. She enjoys being queen, and I think her a good one. Someday, I should like to do as she does.”

      Sister Mary Margaret huffed. “Then you may as well become an abbess. The queen spends more time here than in London, to escape her faithless husband.”

      Judith couldn’t argue the point. Matilda retreated to Romsey as often as she could. Yet her marriage wasn’t all bad. Henry was fond of his wife, and beyond his fickle ways, treated her with a measure of respect. Matilda, on the other hand, loved her husband with her whole heart.

      Judith never tired of hearing the romantic story of their meeting, of how dashing Prince Henry had visited the abbey with a friend, of how he’d asked to pay his respects to the Saxon princess who resided there. Matilda’s eyes would grow misty when she spoke of Henry’s charm, of how he’d taken her heart with him when he left. Of how he returned, time and again, and finally asked her to be his queen.

      Matilda held no illusions about her marriage. She knew it to be an astute move on Henry’s part, uniting the noble houses of England and Scotland. Judith held no illusions, either. Someday her hand would be granted to a man with whom one of the royal houses wished to solidify an alliance. She could only hope for marriage to a man she could not only like but love, and who might love her in return.

      “Not all husbands are faithless,” Judith finally said.

      “Mayhap not, but most men worthy of a wife of your rank think nothing of keeping a mistress or two. Then the wife becomes unhappy and turns shrewish. Best to avoid the unpleasantness altogether.”

      Not all noble marriages turned sour. She had only to look to her friend Ardith, a Saxon lady who’d married Gerard, a powerful Norman baron, and was happy beyond belief. “Could not a woman find happiness in her children?” she asked, citing the Church’s only acceptable excuse for marriage and consummation.

      Sister Mary Margaret shook her head. “Mayhap. But to have children, one must submit to a man’s base urges and then give birth. I doubt children are worth suffering the pain of either the consummation or the birthing.” The nun rose from her stool, her face flushed from discussing so worldly a subject. “‘Tis overwarm in here. I believe I shall go out for a breath of air. Keep scrubbing.”

      Judith scrubbed, not only to hurry the chore along, but to take her mind off submitting. It didn’t work. It might have if talk of urges and submitting didn’t bring to mind the face of one particular man. The male who had first, and last, aroused her curiosity and stirred her urges.

      Corwin of Lenvil.

      Sweet heaven, she hadn’t seen Corwin in three years, yet could recall his startling blue eyes, a body wide at the shoulders and narrow at the waist, a smile that warmed her from head to toe.

      Maybe, at the age of ten and five, she’d simply been ripe to feel those urges. Maybe she recalled Corwin’s handsome face so vividly because Ardith frequently mentioned him in her letters. Unfortunately, she also remembered him because Corwin had shown her kindness and she’d repaid him with meanness.

      Corwin had brought Ardith to Romsey, to see a nun whose skill as a midwife was unequaled. Poor Ardith had been so upset, and Corwin…well, Judith had never seen the like. Imagine a brother who so cared for his sister that he would risk the wrath of a baron to ease her mind.

      She’d thought Corwin courageous as well as handsome, and her unfettered interest in the man had been so apparent that Matilda noticed and issued a warning.

      “You must not encourage his attention,” Matilda had said. “Corwin is a nice young man, but has neither the rank nor wealth to play suitor to a royal heiress.”

      Thoroughly disappointed, Judith had snubbed him the next time she’d seen him. Even now, after all this time, she felt a twinge of remorse for her crass behavior, and a greater twitch of embarrassment for her arrogance in assuming Corwin had given any thought to becoming her suitor.

      He certainly hadn’t pursued the matter. He’d never returned to the abbey to see her. Even if he’d tried, Abbess Christina or Queen Matilda would have turned him away.

      Still, meeting Corwin had been a good thing. She’d learned for certain she wasn’t suited to be a nun. Not that she’d harbored much doubt before then, but she certainly couldn’t’ imagine any nun experiencing the tingles of awareness she’d felt when near Corwin.

      The knowledge that she wasn’t immune to a man’s charm gave her a measure of confidence when arguing with Abbess Christina about taking vows.

      Judith grabbed the biggest and heaviest of the iron kettles. She slid it gently into the tub, but managed to create a wave of water that splashed up and soaked the front of her robe.

      Frustrated, Judith rolled down her sleeves and headed for the courtyard just beyond the kitchen door. High, gray stone walls loomed before her, blocking out nearly all of the sunshine that struggled to lightthe small courtyard. Sister Mary Margaret sat on one of the benches, her eyes closed. Other nuns, also silent, were scattered about on others. A few walked about slowly, talking quietly to companions, making hardly a rustle in the never-ending peace.

      No male ever intruded on this inner courtyard, not even the traveling priest who would say Mass in the abbey’s chapel on the morn. Joy and laughter weren’t allowed entry, either. Only when Matilda was in residence, and then only in the privacy of the queen’s chamber could Judith laugh without censure.

      Many of the nuns, like Sister Mary Margaret, had chosen this life and were content. But there was unhappiness here, too, among the daughters of noble houses who’d been given to the Church as children and had no hope of escape. The thought of being trapped here forever. Judith shook off the dire thought, knowing it would never happen. Someday she would leave this place, and doubted she would ever return. If she did, it wouldn’t be by choice.

      ‘Twas the quiet-the endless drone of days without change or color or laughter-that was driving her witless, she decided. That and the ceaseless pressure from the abbess. ‘Twas beyond time to get out, to end these useless bouts of self-pity, to stop waiting for a prince to come to Romsey Abbey as Prince Henry had come for Matilda. Maybe ‘twas time she went in search of her own prince.

      With that intriguing thought. in mind, Judith returned to the kitchen, rolled up her sleeves and went back to her pots.

      If her fate in this world was to marry a high-ranking noble, then the best chance to meet her future husband was at court. If she wrote to Matilda and asked if she could come, would her aunt allow it? Perhaps. Judith had been to court before, though not in a long time. The prospect brightened her mood.

      Getting such a letter out of the abbey would prove a challenge. The abbess would throw a fit if she learned of Judith’s plotting. Maybe the visiting priest would be willing to deliver her letter, providing he was headed toward London.

      Even if she didn’t find her very own prince at court, once there, if she begged the queen’s grace, she might be able to stay and not return to Romsey Abbey.

      And she would never, ever, be forced to scrub another pot.

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