Soon Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde began to move more freely in and out of the convent walls. They were allowed to go down to the gardens to tend to the fruit trees or the flower beds without anyone questioning their whereabouts. This change had also developed so gradually that it was hardly noticed. Some years earlier the slightest attempt to go beyond the walls for any reason would have been met with the scourge and the carcer.
As the summer approached harvest time, the apples began to take on sweetness, the moon turned red in the evening, and the black earth smelled of damp ripeness. One day Cecilia Rosa had no particular errand down in the gardens, and twilight had already begun to fall, so she wouldn’t have time to do any useful work. She was simply walking by herself, looking at the moon and enjoying the strong fragrance of evening. She didn’t expect to find anyone else down there, and perhaps that was why she didn’t discover the terrible sin until she was quite close.
On the ground between some luxuriant berry bushes that had already been picked clean, lay Brother Lucien with Sister Leonore on top of him. She was riding him voluptuously and without the slightest shame, as if they were man and wife sharing a worldly life.
That was Cecilia Rosa’s second thought. Her first had been the awareness of the terrible sin. She stood there as if petrified or bewitched; she couldn’t manage to scream, or run away, or even shut her eyes.
But she quickly got over her fear and instead felt a foreign, tender feeling as if she herself were taking part in the sin. The next moment she was no longer thinking of sin but of her own longing. Instead of those two, she pictured Arn and herself, although they had never done it exactly that way, which was of course doubly sinful.
The twilight descended fast as she stood there watching. Gradually the stifled sounds of desire ceased and Sister Leonore climbed off Brother Lucien and lay down beside him. As they held and caressed each other, Cecilia Rosa saw that Sister Leonore’s clothes were in such disarray that her breasts were sticking out, and she let Brother Lucien play with them and stroke them as he lay on his back, breathing hard.
Cecilia Rosa could not bring herself to condemn these two, because what she saw looked more like love than the odious sin that all the rules described. As she crept away, careful to place her feet so that she would not be heard, she wondered if she were now part of the sin because she did not condemn it. But that night she prayed for a long time to Our Lady, who as far as Cecilia Rosa knew was the one who could help lovers more than anyone else. She prayed mostly for protection for her beloved Arn, but she also prayed a bit for the forgiveness of the sin committed by Sister Leonore and Brother Lucien.
That entire autumn Cecilia Rosa kept her secret without betraying a word of it even to Ulvhilde Emundsdotter. And when winter came, all the gardening work was put aside and Brother Lucien could no longer come to Gudhem on business until spring was at hand.
During the wintertime Sister Leonore worked mostly with Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde in the vestiarium, for there was much that needed to be woven, dyed, and embroidered. Cecilia Rosa often watched Sister Leonore secretly. She imagined she saw a woman who had a light inside her that was so strong that not even the black shadow of Mother Rikissa could weaken it. Sister Leonore was almost always smiling, and she hummed hymns as she worked. It was as if her sin made her both brighter in her soul and more beautiful because her eyes were so radiant.
One day Cecilia Rosa and Sister Leonore were alone in the vestiariumat the beginning of Lent, when work was not obligatory as usual and only those who wished to do so worked late into the evening. They were dyeing red cloth together, a process that went quickly and surely with the two of them helping each other. Then Cecilia Rosa couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Don’t be afraid, sister, because of what I now tell you,” Cecilia Rosa began without really understanding where her words came from and why she now felt the need to speak. “But I know the secret that you and Brother Lucien share, because I saw you once in the apple orchard. And if I saw you, then someone else could see you too and draw the same conclusion. Then you would both be in deep trouble.”
Sister Leonore blanched and put aside her work, sat down and covered her face with her hands. She sat for a long while before she dared look at Cecilia Rosa, who had also sat down.
“You’re not thinking of betraying us, are you?” whispered Sister Leonore at last, in a voice so weak that it was barely audible.
“No, sister, I certainly am not!” replied Cecilia Rosa, offended. “I’m sure you know that I am here at Gudhem for punishment and penance, because out of love I committed a sin like yours. I will never betray you, but I want to warn you. Sooner or later you two will be discovered by someone who will tell Mother Rikissa, or in the worst case Mother Rikissa herself will see you. You know as well as I do what an evil woman she is.”
“I believe that the Holy Virgin Mary has forgiven us and will protect us,” said Sister Leonore after a while. But she was looking down at the floor as if she were not at all sure of her words.
“You have promised Her to remain chaste. How can you so easily believe that She will forgive your broken promise?” Cecilia Rosa wondered, more bewildered than offended by the sinful thoughts which Sister Leonore so shamelessly displayed.
“Because She has protected us. No one but you, who wishes us well, has seen us and understood. Because love is a precious gift, and more than anything else it makes life worth living!” said Sister Leonore in a louder voice as if in defiance, as if she were no longer afraid that the wrong ears might hear her.
Cecilia Rosa was dumbstruck. She felt as though she were suddenly up in a high tower, looking out over vast expanses that she had only imagined could exist, but at the same time she felt the terror of losing her footing and falling. The idea that a sister consecrated to the Holy Bridegroom would betray her vows was a thought she never could have entertained. Her own sin, doing exactly what Sister Leonore had done, but doing it with her own betrothed and not with a monk who had also taken the vows, was a small sin in comparison. But it was obviously still a sin. Love was a gift from God; there was proof of that in the Holy Scriptures. The difficult thing to understand was how love could at the same time be one of the worst of sins.
Cecilia Rosa now recalled a story which she decided to tell Sister Leonore, at first a bit hesitantly, as she searched her memory.
It was about a maiden named Gudrun who was forced to agree to a bridal ale with an old man whom she loathed. But she loved a young man named Gunnar, and these two young people who loved each other never gave up the hope that they might marry. Their prayers eventually moved Our Lady so much that She sent them a wondrous salvation, and it was reported that they were living happily together to this day.
Sister Leonore had also heard that story, because it was well known at Varnhem, and Brother Lucien dwelled on it often. The salvation offered by Our Lady had put a little monk boy from Varnhem in the way of evil men. This monk boy had inadvertently and without blame killed the old man who was to have drunk the bridal ale with the maiden Gudrun. So in the presence of God’s love, and with a belief in this love that never failed, all sins could be diminished. Even a killing could become no sin at all if Our Lady had mercy on lovers who beseeched Her for support.
It was a very lovely story as far as it went. But Cecilia Rosa now objected that it was still not that easy to understand. Because the monk boy whom Our Lady sent to the young lovers’ rescue was Arn Magnusson. And not long afterward, he had been sentenced harshly for the sake of his own love, just as Cecilia Rosa had suffered from that same harsh judgment. For almost ten years now she had been brooding over the meaning of Our Lady’s response, though without being any the wiser.