Church officials had eventually had to do away with the midnight mass because of all the drinking and carousing, Kivrin remembered, and some of these parishioners definitely looked like they had spent the evening breaking fasts. The steward was talking animatedly to a rough-looking man Rosemund pointed out as Maisry’s father. Both their faces were bright red from the cold or the torchlight or the liquor or all three, but they seemed gay rather than dangerous. The steward kept punctuating what he was saying with hard, thunking claps on Maisry’s father’s shoulder, and every time he did it the father laughed, a happy helpless giggle that made Kivrin think he was much brighter than she had supposed.
The steward’s wife grabbed for her husband’s sleeve, and he shook her off, but as soon as Lady Eliwys and Sir Bloet came through the lychgate, he and Maisry’s brother fell back promptly to make a clear path into the church. So did all the others, falling silent as the entourage passed through the churchyard and in the heavy doors, and then beginning to talk again, but more quietly, as they came into the church behind them.
Sir Bloet unbuckled his sword and handed it to a servant, and he and Lady Eliwys knelt and genuflected as soon as they were in the door. They walked almost to the rood screen together and knelt again.
Kivrin and the little girls followed. When Agnes crossed herself, her bell jangled hollowly in the church. I’ll have to take it off of her, Kivrin thought, and wondered if she should step out of the procession now and take Agnes off to the side by Lady Imeyne’s husband’s tomb and undo it, but Lady Imeyne was waiting impatiently at the door with Sir Bloet’s sister.
She led the girls to the front. Sir Bloet had already gotten to his feet again. Eliwys stayed on her knees a little longer, and then stood, and Sir Bloet escorted her to the north side of the church, bowed slightly, and walked over to take his place on the men’s side.
Kivrin knelt with the little girls, praying Agnes wouldn’t make too much noise when she crossed herself again. She didn’t, but when Agnes got to her feet she snagged her foot in the hem of her robe and caught herself with a clanging almost as loud as the bell still tolling outside. Lady Imeyne was, of course, right behind them. She glared at Kivrin.
Kivrin took the girls to stand beside Eliwys. Lady Imeyne knelt, but Lady Yvolde made only an obeisance. As soon as Imeyne rose, a servant hurried forward with a dark velvet covered prie– dieu and laid it on the floor next to Rosemund for Lady Yvolde to kneel on. Another servant had laid one in front of Sir Bloet on the men’s side and was helping him get down on his knees on it. He puffed and clung to the servant’s arm as he lowered his bulk, and his face got very red.
Kivrin looked at Lady Yvolde’s prie-dieu longingly, thinking of the plastic kneeling pads that hung on the backs of the chairs in St. Mary’s. She had never realized until now what a blessing they were, what a blessing the hard wooden chairs were either until they stood again and she thought about how they would have to remain standing through the whole service.
The floor was cold. The church was cold, in spite of all the lights. They were mostly cressets, set along the walls and in front of the holly-banked statue of St. Catherine, though there was a tall, thin, yellowish candle set in the greenery of each of the windows, but the effect was probably not what Father Roche had intended. The bright flames only made the colored panes of glass darker, almost black.
More of the yellowish candles were in the silver candelabra on either side of the altar, and holly was heaped in front of them and along the top of the rood screen, and Father Roche had set Lady Imeyne’s beeswax candles in among the sharp, shiny leaves. He’d done a job of decorating the church that should please even Lady Imeyne, Kivrin thought, and glanced at her.
She was holding her reliquary between her folded hands, but her eyes were open, and she was staring at the top of the rood screen. Her mouth was tight with disapproval, and Kivrin supposed she hadn’t wanted the candles there, but it was the perfect place for them. They illuminated the crucifix and the Last Judgment and lit nearly the whole nave.
They made the whole church seem different, homier, more familiar, like St. Mary’s on Christmas Eve. Dunworthy had taken her to the ecumenical service last Christmas. She had planned to go to midnight mass at the Holy Re-Formed to hear it said in Latin, but there hadn’t been a midnight mass. The priest had been asked to read the gospel for the ecumenical service, so he had moved the mass to four in the afternoon.
Agnes was fiddling with her bell again. Lady Imeyne turned and glared at her across her piously folded hands, and Rosemund leaned across Kivrin and shhhed her.
“You mustn’t ring your bell until the mass is over,” Kivrin whispered, bending close to Agnes so no one else could hear her.
