The Anchoress

Robyn Cadwallader

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9780571313334
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Historical Fiction
• Index: Literature

England, 1255: Sarah is only seventeen when she chooses to become an anchoress, a holy woman shut away in a small cell, measuring seven paces by nine, at the side of the village church. Fleeing the grief of losing a much-loved sister in childbirth and the pressure to marry, she decides to renounce the world, with all its dangers, desires and temptations, and to commit herself to a life of prayer and service to God. But as she slowly begins to understand, even the thick, unforgiving walls of her cell cannot keep the outside world away, and it is soon clear that Sarah's body and soul are still in great danger...

Robyn Cadwallader's powerful debut novel tells an absorbing story of faith, desire, shame, fear and the very human need for connection and touch. With a poetic intelligence, Cadwallader explores the relationship between the mind, body and spirit in Medieval England in a story that will hold the reader in a spell until the very last page.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• I had always wanted to be a jongleur
• The Church of St Juliana
• The clang of a bell, loud and close by
• For those first days it was only me
• Noises outside — shouting, laughter, squeals
• St Christopher’s Priory
• Show your face to me,’ he says
• The shutters rattled of a sudden and I flinched.
• Shortly after prayers at Prime
• ‘Greetings in the Lord, Sister.’
• ‘We need to provide what the customer asks for
• Yule and its celebrations were nothing to me
• My penance reminded me of my body
• Ranaulf returned to the priory a little late for Terce
• In the days after I swooned
• Watching the sun cast its orange radiance
• The scrape of the parlour door and the sound of the stool
• I ran my fingers along the edge of my desk
• The rhythm of his steps had the same reassuring steadiness
• I had thought winter was hard
• The anchoress listed her sins, among them fear
• I left the book on my desk. Some days I would pick it up,
• Anger, while it lasts, so blinds the heart that it is unable to discern the truth
• Anna’s pale face and the rings of black around her eyes startled me.
• A thick layer of cloud had settled over the sun
• I knelt at my squint, ran my hands across the stone, smooth and warm
• Father Peter looked like he was sinking into the bed
• ‘I can feel it moving. Just here, Louise.
• Anna’s face and arms were thin and her stomach big
• The twinge in his shoulder was tightening into a cramp
• Outside, the sounds of carts, beasts grunting and straining
• Head bent, hands pushed into his sleeves, feet shuffling, he was still half asleep.
• Father Ranaulf’s voice sounds like stone that will not crumble
• The village that lived its life around my cell
• The night was like any other
• What do I do inside these four stone walls?
• Ranaulf’s boots echoed on the wood of the bridge
• When Father Ranaulf left I sat on the floor
• ‘Sister, I have news. The dean has sent a message from the bishop
• Apart from Lizzie and Father Ranaulf, Louise had kept visitors away from me
• ‘Ego te absolvo.’ The rhythm of Father Ranaulf’s visits had not altered
• Like most anchorholds, my cell had been built in the shadow of the church
• The wall grew slowly, as the men snatched time from the fields to work on it.
• The sky was black; the new moon a thin crescent
• In the days that followed the fire, more men came to finish my wall
• Ranaulf stood at the gate. The wood was worn, but solid
• Eleanor was quieter than usual. I thought perhaps it was the fire
• Sir Thomas’s condition remained the same, and though uneasy questions hung around the village
• Afterword
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright