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In this historical novel, the sixteen- or seventeen-year-old Rosamund Clifford is brought to a convent on the Garonne in France in 1170. After a year and a half, she becomes a nun, sister Magdalen. She is befriended by boarders Esther and Mary. Esther is there so her brother may have her fortune but he is killed in a fight over a prostitute; she is then taken back by her family. Mary, daughter of the rich Sieur de Vavasour, has three brothers; she has inherited some moeny from her maternal aunt and is kept in the convent against her wishes so that her brothers may have her fortune. When she learns what she is worth and how her family is defrauding her, she dedicates her 'patrimony' to St Bertrand, patron saint of the convent (I:89), her new family, choosing the archbishop and God as her father(s), the church as her mother (II:76-96).
When Magdalen has been there nearly five years and is twenty-three, Mary being then twenty, the four- or five-year-old Ela arrives. She is the daughter of the widowed William, second earl of Salisbury. He is off participating in wars arising from the 'unnatural contentions raised by Queen Eleanor between King Henry [II] and his sons' (I:137) and leaves her here during his absence, the abbess being his great-aunt. Ela insists she has found her mother in Magdalen but other nuns doubt Magdalen could be the child's mother, given that she entered the convent either the year Ela was born or the year before, and they believe it would be odd if Ela could feel the cry of blood - cri du sang - for a mother she couldn't remember. Nonetheless, Ela mysteriously knows that Magdalen is not Magdalen's name. At this time, Mary begins to doubt she ought to take her fortune from her family and give it to the church, so the Abbess starves her; Mary falls ill and the abbess relents and allows Magdalen to tend her.
One day Magdalen walks alone in an area that is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a woman who had had her husband's mistress seized and imprisoned. This woman then grew deranged from thinking the mistress's child had been destroyed; she then committed suicide. While walking in this area, Magdalen is kidnapped by men sent by Mary's father to kidnap Mary; the men mistake Magdalen for their prey. One man, on realizing that she is not Mary, helps her escape. This is Morgan. He had been caught by bandits and forced to join them. He had escaped them for a while but ended up under their chief again, and this chief turned out to be Mary's brother - hence Morgan's participation in the attempt to kidnap Mary. Morgan is also apparently the son of the nurse who breastfed Magdalen; while we later discover he is not the nurse's son, they are siblings of a kind from having been nurtured at the same breast. When Magdalen returns to the convent, Mary takes her vows, becoming sister Bertha.
Morgan joins the church, becoming assistant to Friar Dominic and then becoming a priest. In Friar Dominic's care is ten-year-old Eustace. We learn that Magdalen has now been at the convent for seven years. The Friar implies that Eustace is Magdalen's son and that Eustace is not his real name; he tells her too that 'Eustace' has an older brother. The Friar explains that Magdalen was taken from her parents' house when fourteen, and that she was later brought to the convent at the order of the boys' father's 'injured wife' (II:172). He confirms that Magdalen is Ela's aunt - Magdalen's sister was Ela's mother. It was Magdalen's resemblance to Ela's mother that led Ela to mistake Magdalen for her own mother.
The archbishop tells Magdalen that her parents and children are well. Seven more years pass and Eustace misreads the cri du sang he feels toward Magdalen and wants to marry her. He recognizes that a union between them cannot take place but mistakenly believes that Magdalen's having taken religious vows is the (sole) reason they cannot wed. She sends him to England and for three years, he remains improperly ardently attached to her.
The abbess continues trying to get Bertha's wealth but then in a scene repeating a portentous dream Bertha has had, the convent breaks out in flames and the abbess burns to death. The man who first brought Magdalen there, Ralph de Faie, now appears and says that Magdalen and Bertha may go with Morgan to England, where he is to be a convent's spiritual director. Eustace shows up as they are about to leave and we here learn that his real name is Geoffry.
On their way, they encounter a penitent dying man - Sieur de Vavasour, Mary's father - accompanied by his penitent son, Mary's brother. Mary's brother saves Bertha and Magdalen from being carried away by a river and Geoffry and his brother William (also Magdalen's son), turning up just then, save Ela. William falls in love with Ela. Geoffry casts off his lust for Magdalen. He still does not know that she is his mother but here says he will henceforth see her only as an adoptive mother.
King Henry then dies. Richard recognizes Geoffry and William as his natural brothers - for they are Magdalen's sons by Henry II. At this point, it becomes clear that Magdalen is Henry's famed mistress, Rosamund the Fair. Ela and William now wed. Morgan counsels Ela to serve others as daughter, instructress, exemplar, and mother, being treated as having a specifically religious power in those roles. Ela is a pacifist and sees the Crusades as wrong. Vavasour is killed by an old enemy.
Eleanor comes to Magdalen and tells her that her - Magdalen's - penance has lasted long enough. Eleanor says that she now knows that Magdalen wasn't willingly sinful, that she was kidnapped from her parents' house. Magdalen sees her relationship with Henry as causing chaos for the king's family and for the entire country, thrown into warfare by his familial dispute, but Eleanor reassures Magdalen that her lapse from virtue was not the sole cause of the intrafamilial dissension that led to war.
We learn here now that not only Geoffry and William are Henry's natural sons; so too is Morgan (although obviously not by Magdalen, since he is the same age as she is). Magdalen sees her parents again and is welcomed to the convent at Godstow where she continues expiating her sins - her relationship with Henry.
© 1999 Julie A. Shaffer / Sheffield Hallam University
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