“About a week after Shrovetide some strange men came to Nowogrodziec to visit me. Although they were taciturn, I guessed they were the servants of the man with the strange accent. They drove me in a covered carriage for a few days, transported me to the Cistercian nunnery, which turned out to be Marienstern in Lusatia. Seeing myself further and further away from home, I was desperate. I felt I had to escape. I discovered a small window with a loose grille in the lavatorium. It was high up, I needed at least three sheets tied together. One of the converses seemed to be decent. I let her into the secret and she—”

“Informed on you at once,” Weronika easily guessed.

Zofia of Schellenberg, Prioress of the convent in Marienstern, was rarely seen by the nuns, practically only during Masses at the nunnery. Word had it that she was totally preoccupied with her life’s work, the story of the reign and deeds of Frederick I Barbarossa.

“What, I wonder, irked you so much about our cenobium that you decided to flee from it?” she said and interlocked her fingers on her scapular and rosary beads. “Tending the carp in the fishponds? Don’t you like carp? I’m sorry, the convent must live on something. And aside from the fish? What other harms befell you? What was so terrible here that you wanted to flee it by jumping from a high wall? What annoyed you, Miss Jutta?”

“The boredom!”

“Oh, the boredom. And beyond our walls, in your erstwhile secular life, what was so engrossing? What did you fill your days with, what were your daily diversions? Hunting? Drinking and fighting? Gambling? Tournaments? War? Outlandish journeys? Eh? What was so fascinating about your former life? What did you have there that you don’t have here? Well? You can embroider on a frame and spin on a wheel as much as you like here. Here you can freely gossip and twitter about trifles with better effect than at home, for the company is more intelligent. What then do you lack? A man?”

“Perhaps,” she replied impudently. “That springs to mind at once.”

“Oh! Ah, so we’ve known sinful delights. And you desire a man? Well, that could be a problem here. The sisters somehow cope, that’s what ingenuity is for. I won’t encourage you, but neither do I prohibit it—”

“You misunderstand me, it’s not that. I love and am loved. Each moment I’m away from my beloved is like the twist of a dagger plunged into my heart.”

“What?” said the prioress, cocking her head. “What? The twist of a dagger? Plunged into your heart? Dammit, girl! You’re gifted. You could be a second Christine of Pisan or Hildegard of Bingen. We shall supply you with parchment and quills, a whole barrel of ink, and you can write and write—”

“I want to be free!”