I Believe Her Name is Agnes

The tiny robin warbled once from the tall gothic arched window of Agnes’s cell.

Nothing.

It called out twice.

No change.

Four times it insisted until Little Sister Agnes’s eyes opened to the glorious rays of cloister morning light. Sung prayers in Latin echoed from the chapel all the way to her dormitory, and, for a moment, Agnes simply smiled and let the dreamy melody wash over her.

Then she shot up.

“I’m late! Oh, I’m late! I’m late! I am so late!…“

✨✨✨

Through a long-drawn out yawn, she managed to pick up one large egg from each of the hens in the chicken coop. Sometimes, she found two eggs.

“Impressive, Lady Bess!” Agnes curtsied at the bounty. But the mother hen did not know what to make of the compliment.

Agnes also nodded off, half mumbling, while her hand still rested on the giant udder of a cow, the metal bucket sitting beneath it. Her sleepy head dropped lower while she, causing her to almost fall off her wooden stool, mid-squeeze.

Something the cow certainly did not appreciate.

With eyes still closed, the exhausted nun crossed the cloister’s rose infested gardens, back to the main kitchen, while carrying the large bucket of fresh milk and her basket of eggs.

Once inside the large convent kitchen, she waited patiently for the pots to boil the eggs while the oven fire finished baking the loaves of maslin bread, her head tilting back, drooly mouth wide open.

The sisters’ prayers continued to echo across the kitchen while the black cloister kitten licked his paws.

“Woad has been known to be toxic…” Agnes mumbled, deepening and making her voice sound petulant as she stirred the giant vat of porridge. “Yes? Well, you didn’t even give it, you big oaf!”

”No rue for me today… Patients became weaker after taking rue…"

She continued to mock Lorenzo’s deep voice with a grumble, all while serving scoops of porridge and placing hard-boiled eggs on each of the sisters’ plates in the large dining hall.

“Wouldn’t even let me explain…” she continued to mumble. “Who does he think he is anyway?!”

The porridge slop landed so harshly on the plate of one of the postulants that a scalding dollop of goop landed close to her eye.

“Hey!” Elyse, the young postulant, protested.

”Sister Agnes!” Vicaress Cecily stood up from her chair.

“Forgive me…forgive me…” Agnes said and rushed over to wipe the postulant’s face with the oversized sleeves of her own habit.

”Sit!” Abbess Elinor ordered, once she was summoned at the rectory.

Agnes sat.

Moments later, Agnes was down on her knees scrubbing the cloister floor by hand, while the cloister black cat licked his paws next to her.

”Maybe next time, I’ll just lace his precious theriac…!” she grumbled.

✨✨✨

No singing robins for Lorenzo.

Instead, the plague doctor was treated to the ominous cawing of giant ravens from the village walls while he walked purposefully to the apothecary.

He was rushing at such a speed that, once again, he almost collided with one of the cadaver carts.

“Whoa there, kind sir!”

A knight in full armor and a Templar crossed helmet caught him.

“I… I didn’t see where I was going, forgive me,” Lorenzo said.

“No need. You are doing God’s work,” the knight said and then let him pass, turning back to the laborer he had been conversing with. Lorenzo observed him slip money into his hands.

How strange, Lorenzo thought. But he simply could not dwell on the transaction too much to speculate.

He had a set destination.

”Back already?” Alaric asked upon seeing him enter.

”All supplies were spent on yesterday’s cases. I also covered all of Edgar’s, since he’s still missing,” Lorenzo said. “She’s not here yet?”

”Little Sister Agnes? She came already and left the lot,” Alaric said, gesturing to the large wicker basket.

Lorenzo lowered his head, then raised it again.

“What do you have for me?”

Alaric did not hesitate to lay out the contents. Again he arranged the generous spread of clean linen, dried root, and pungent herbs, honey, and fresh flowers. No mysterious blue vial.

”They sent theriac this time… and an additional item just for you.”

Lorenzo’s eyes settled on a small costrel of ale.

One childish scribble on the label with the letter “L.”

“For…me?” Lorenzo asked.

“Aye. If that is what I think it is, you’re about to have one most blessed day…” but then Alaric’s eyes turned towards the open window. ”Well, I’ll be…”

Lorenzo turned just in time to see Cedric enter alongside Edgar, the tallest plague doctor of the group… who seemed noticeably tipsy.

”Good morrow, fine fellows!” The tall one burst through the door, quite in good spirits. “And a glorious day it is!”

”Edgar!” Alaric smiled. “We were expecting you to turn up in some ravine.”

“Where were you?” Lorenzo demanded, with his ominous, low-frequency rasp.

”Lorenzo! My perpetually dour colleague. How are you faring? Me? Why, I was out celebrating!” Edgar said. “I have prevailed over the pestilence. I have cured my first patient!”

”You…” Lorenzo gasped. “What…?”

”He keeps saying it, but I don’t believe a word,” Cedric said.

”I have…” Edgar said, taking a single smug step to lean triumphantly on the weathered counter of the apothecary. “I was just with the widow from the house at the end of the lane. In dire straits she was. No monk would come to administer the sacrament in her wretched state. Or, come to think of it, in any state as of late…”

But Lorenzo interrupted his ramblings.

“What did you give her?”

“Everything. I had tried everything. I was desperate…”

“What…did… you…give…her?”

”Her fever would not break. Then I find this little blue vial-…“

Edgar produced the small empty vial from his pocket. It had the small scribble of the childishly-drawn star.

*SLAP*

“Why did you slap me when I’m wearing a mask?” Edgar asked.

Then, Lorenzo grabbed him by the neck.

”You are lying!”

“I forgot I had taken it from the table!”

”You administered an unknown substance!” Lorenzo roared.

“Lorenzo… put him down,” Cedric tried to come between them. “Let him explain, man!”

”Alright…Explain,” Lorenzo ordered.

”This poor woman had no hope!” Edgar pleaded to Lorenzo. “I figured if it’s poison, it will shorten her agony, or dull her suffering.”

”Lorenzo, I said put him down,” Cedric declared. “Let’s hear it.”

“You’re a madman…” Lorenzo grumbled, letting go of his leather collar.

Edgar composed himself once Lorenzo released him, rubbed his abused neck, and continued his cheerful tale.

”Well, anyway…down the hatch! I cross myself, thinking I will surely be burying this poor sad crone come daylight. Next morning, I run straight over. First light. And to my surprise… She is up and about, greeting me with warm rolls, and her late husband’s finest wines. We drank the entire bloody cellar,” Edgar gloated. “Haha!”

Lorenzo and Cedric looked at each other.

“You drank for an entire day?!”

*ANOTHER SLAP*

This time, it had been Cedric’s turn.

“Oy!” Edgar lamented, then readjusted his twisted beak.

”We searched for you!” Cedric reproached. “Lorenzo took over all your cases!”

”Forgive me. I will make it up to you. To both of you. It’s just that…” Edgar said. “This has never happened to me before… This…”

Edgar looked down.

They all stood in silence for a moment.

”All these months. These infernal months... of one calamity after another. One shattered village after another, one family after another. For once, I didn’t have to watch someone waste away overnight… and arrive just in time to see it all end with one final haggard breath. While I try everything… only to accomplish nothing,” Edgar said, lowering himself until he sank into one of the wooden stools. “All the while, I can’t touch, I can’t comfort. Not even offer a look of compassion…One look… This kind, lonesome woman.”

His voice was breaking now, so he composed himself.

“I…I sleep. Just enough, so I can run to her house before dawn, in this bloody cloak, this grotesque mask… half expecting to see yet another bright life reduced to a slumped corpse in the shadows. Another soul who trusted me, and then died alone… Instead, this time…”

All others were silent as Edgar continued to speak.

“I ran to her house…to find a smile. And warm rolls.”

Cedric lowered his head.

Edgar straightened back up.

“So, yes, most esteemed colleagues,” Edgar stated. “I fear that, indeed, we drank for an entire day.”

Lorenzo also stayed quiet. So did Cedric. Alaric was at a loss for words.

”Well, then,” Edgar said, now turning cheerfully towards the counter. “What do we have here…?”

”A delivery from the abbey,” said Alaric.

“The abbey!” Edgar said. “Where this miracle originated, surely they sent us more…?”

”Uh…” Alaric looked uncomfortably at Lorenzo.

But of all the items, his beak turned and focused exclusively on the small leather costrel.

“But, hark! Is this… is this what I think it is?”

He looked over and saw the scribbled letter. He examined the costrel from every angle. Tapped it. Shook it. Then, turned it to slosh the contents inside.

Lorenzo looked down and sighed. Edgar clapped once.

”Lorenzo, dear friend, I fear that I will owe you yet again. Three cups, please.”

”Make it four,” Lorenzo said, gazing at Alaric. “There’s more than enough.”

Alaric’s eyes lit up with stars and his cheeks blushed. He all but squealed.

“Certainly! I consider Alaric another soldier in this battle. You may even get to take some home if I temper myself, Lorenzo,” Edgar said.

Soon enough, Alaric presented four unglazed gray jugs so all four men would get a generous serving.

”To the miraculous sisters of Saint Catherine,” Edgar declared. “And to the blessed hands will help us defeat this curse.”

All four cups knocked together.

Lorenzo then inspected his own cup thoughtfully.

”I believe her name is…Agnes,” he said.