It has been a week since the abbey was besieged and held hostage by the Revolutionaries.

In one of the rare moments of compassion-or perhaps he just tired of their presence-Lascombe allowed the nuns to go on with their daily lives, like tending to their gardens and livestock, cleaning the abbey and its cloisters, sometimes even praying. Of course, it benefited their invaders-a well-tended garden and farmhouse provided food, a clean shelter provided physical comfort, and the praying allowed Lascombe and his cohorts more time and privacy to talk of their godless revolution and dreams of a New France.

While she saw through the hypocrisy behind Lascombe's charity, Helene also took such days as opportunities to observe him and his people, and seclusion in the chapel provided ample time to talk to the Mother Abbess. Today, Helene joined Henrietta and another nun, Soeur Angeline from Valois, as they collected honey from the beehives behind the vegetable garden. Helene took off early and was now resting on a wooden bench while the other two remained busy with the collection. In a while, she will head to the chapel and have a few minutes with the abbess.

For now, she closed her eyes and reminisced.

When Helene first arrived at the abbey, she was barely out of the schoolroom and already slowly becoming a hollow shell of the girl she used to be. She often wondered if she stayed home, would they still be whole and together today? For a long time she blamed herself, her surviving the Terror. Here, inside the abbey's walls, she was given shelter and shield while all the people she loved remained to be fed on by the wolves.

It was her intention to join with Soeur Marguerite and the Cistercian nuns but she never received an invitation. All of her letters to the nun went unanswered. She had to settle with the Abbey of St. Frances in Avignon. When Max finally admitted to joining the National Convention, it sent their parents almost mad with grief. She had been given leave to visit with them in Aix but the month she requested was shortened to only ten days, to her everlasting regret.

Strange men started coming to their chateau, demanding to speak with her father. Always he managed to avoid an audience with them. Always her Maman would tell them her husband was in Paris. She wished Max had never returned to Aix that night. She wished she had not left the chateau only a day before everything fell apart for her family.

Monsieur Manet had driven the carriage taking her to the abbey. He had drugged her, she knew, for as the smoke from the burning chateau was still visible all the way to Avignon, her eyes had still seen the end of the Merciers before she went into a deep sleep. She fully awoke days later, screaming and crying in the Mother Abbess' arms.

Helene was the one who turned mad with grief. She let her anger seep into her bones, into her soul. She swore vengeance and knelt for many hours on end inside her cell, unwilling to join her sisters in prayer to a silent deity. Helene had tried to escape from the abbey, eventually discovering the secret passage she used to get Agathe out. Yet even upon the discovery, her feet had refused to cross the boundary between the abbey's wall and the freedom beyond and out. She had sat there from the dead of night until the sun rose, only thinking and thinking.

When she returned to the abbey, Helene went into the abbess' private office and boldly asked, "Are you a daughter of God or a daughter of France?"

The abbess was unperturbed by her invasion of her privacy and asked back, "Is there a difference, child? For surely, if you love Him, as a child loves its father, there is nothing to keep you from loving your home, too."

"I need concrete answers, Mother, not riddles!" Helene snapped, causing one of the other nuns inside the office to gasp. The abbess nodded to the nun and the woman left the room immediately, closing the door behind her.

"Sit down, Helene Mercier," the old nun said, her voice losing its characteristic gentleness, replaced by a hardness Helene was unaccustomed to. Helene was still scowling but obeyed and sat on one of the chairs before the nun's desk. Abbess Mathilde opened a cubbyhole from beneath the desk and pulled out a stack of folded pieces of parchment, tied together with a frayed thin rope. She laid it on the desk and pushed it towards Helene. "Go on. Open them."

Helene did as she was told and as she read through each letter, her eyes widened and her heart beat faster. When she was done with the last, she looked up at the abbess' grim countenance and asked in a whisper, "Y-You've been conspiring against the Republic? All this time?"

The abbess nodded slowly. "This abbey has been home to the daughters of nobility for two hundred years. Great-aunts of mine came here from Versailles to become nuns. My own father was a French count before his line died, having no sons to inherit, and the title reverted to the Crown. One of my sisters married but she has gone on to live in Vienna...I do not know what happened to her after she left. The rest of my sisters went into other convents...and perished from the guillotine, perhaps from much worse."

Helene waited for the nun to continue her story, now curious as to what pushed the stoic woman to engage in such clandestine and dangerous activity.

Abbess Mathilde did continue. "I received missives from other abbeys, delivered in secret, about the atrocities being committed to members of the clergy and the religious. They begged me to take their nuns, especially those who had been born of the nobility. Yet I also knew that one day, my abbey will catch their attention and will be equally, if not more brutally, besieged. I knew I cannot shelter and shield them all, along with my own sisters. I had to ask for help."

The abbess placed her hand under her habit and took out what looked like a large silver coin, punctured with a hole through which it hung from a silver chain. She held it closer to Helene. It showed an embossed image of a tower, its top formed with six crenellations, like the battlements of a Medieval fortress. At the edge of the coin, surrounding the tower, were the words Blanc est la tour qui garde le roi et je suis la porte printed backwards. Helene noted the flecks of pink-looking powder stuck to the grooves that made up the images and letters. 

"Wax," the abbess answered her unspoken question. "I wrote to the Pope in Rome, not expecting to receive a message-and this medallion-delivered by a priest-in-hiding. This is a third of the movement's seal and only two other people in the world hold almost identical seals though I do not know of the other two. We do not sign our names on parchment, only with the seal." 

Helene glanced back the opened letters in her hands, and the wax seal on all of them: a fleur de lys, encircled with the words L'or est la fleur qui réconforte le roi et je suis son compagnon.

Helene frowned, the words on the medallion, and those signed on the letters, triggering jumbled memories in her mind, all of them disconnected yet strangely familiar, like an old song she heard before. White is the tower that guards the king and I am its gate. Gold is the flower that comforts the king and I am its mate. Helene could not help but wonder what the third seal looked like. 

"My instructions were simple in order for me to receive help. I must answer to the White Tower alone. But as abbess my activities can only be within the abbey's walls; I could not go out. I needed another person." The abbess paused, as if debating whether to say anything more. "Monsieur Manet has been my eyes, ears, hands, and feet outside the abbey."

"W-What?" Helene could not believe her ears. "What?"

The abbess sighed wearily. "I received a message from the White Tower when you were younger, instructing me to keep you here when the Republic was starting to become violent towards the religious. I know about your attachment to your Aunt Marguerite. And through the White Tower, came to know of what happened to your aunt and the Cistercian nuns. They burned the convent to the ground and executed everyone who did not cede to the rules of the Republic. Your aunt was among the casualties, Helene. That's why your letters were left unanswered and why, upon the White Tower's insistence, you had to be accepted here. To protect you."

Helene was too much in shock to respond. She could feel bile rising to her throat. 

"In the course of my service, I have sent young women, novices, and nuns out of France, through the help of the White Tower, a bulwark of security. But I am getting older and weaker. News comes to me now so rarely, it fills me with dread that perhaps, seclusion within this dense woodland around us is fast coming to an end. I have not heard from Rome for a long time and the last correspondence I've had with the White Tower has been months ago, as you've seen in the last letter. Today, I have been meaning to write to the White Tower...for you."

"Me? Why?"

The abbess rose from her seat and sat on a chair facing Helene. "Your sister, Isabelle, has been sent away to England. The rest of your family, however, have all gone to God. The White Tower intends to send you out of France, to be with Isabelle, so as not to share the same fate as they."

In her mind, Helene knew since that night smoke rose from the chateau, her family was dead, including Isabelle. Her heart, though, rejected it. Now, with news of Isabelle's survival, hope surged once more in her heart.

Isabelle was safe. At least one of them was safe. Helene was finally and truly, free. The decision she made has never been so easy.

"No."

An eyebrow rose. "No?"

"I am not going. I am not leaving you or the abbey," Helene said firmly. 

"But why?" the abbess asked, confused. "Do you not wish to be reunited with your sister? To be safe with your mother's family?"

Helene nodded, a stabbing pain attacking her heart. "With all my heart I wish to be with my family, Mother Abbess. But it is a great comfort to me to know that at least one of us is safe and will continue living a life." At the abbess questioning look, Helene added, "I do not expect to get out of France alive, to be truthful. I do not know how to use a sword but I can do my part to help my country without violence or death. I will not die watching, Abbess Mathilde." She raised her hand, palm up to the stunned nun. "Let me help the White Tower. Let me help you and the sisters."

It took Abbess Mathilde several seconds before she found her voice. "My child, this is not a simple task. It will cost you your life and you are much too young..."

"My life is already forfeit, Mother Abbess, I feel it," Helene replied. "There is nothing left for me outside these walls and I do not wish to burden my dear Isabelle with the demons I carry. Besides, this White Tower character seems to know a lot about me and asks far too often about me in the letters. I might as well answer directly."

The Mother Abbess nodded but Helene saw she was still not convinced Helene could-and should-contribute. "I will think and pray about it, Helene. For now, I trust that you will keep this a secret and that this conversation never occurred?"

Helene rose from her seat and nodded. "I will never break your trust, Mother Abbess."

"Then you may leave and go back to your activities."

Two nights later, after Compline, Helene discovered the White Tower medallion and a cube of red wax beneath her pillow. 

But Helene never used the wax to sign her messages. Wax is easily discovered-messy and harder to clean. 

From the first message, her fingers welcomed the sharp point of a sewing needle.

Because blood can be washed away.

* * * * * *

Once Henrietta and Soeur Angeline had collected the honey, Helene accompanied them to the pantry. Thankfully, none of the men were there save for Juliette, keeping guard. Helene pretended not to have seen her and went about her way. She wanted to know why Juliette apparently faked her death and why she had joined the revolution, when the Merciers had shown her nothing but kindness and generosity. Once they were done in the pantry, the three proceeded to the chapel for None. When the prayer ended, the rest of the women went back to their work, save for Helene and the Mother Abbess. 

"We still have seventy-four girls and women inside the abbey, the both of us included," Helene whispered to the older nun, the two of them kneeling on one of the pews, heads bowed, seemingly in fervent prayer. The Revolutionaries have pillaged the chapel, took away the golden ornaments and destroyed the paintings and statues of the Virgin Mary and of the saints. Few candles were allowed in the chapel, as all the candles were confiscated by the revolutionaries and used inside the cloisters, the kitchen and dining hall. In the gloom of late afternoon, their brown linen habits almost melded into the wooden pews. "I can send away two tonight."

"That is dangerous to even speak of now, Helene," the abbess admonished. "Lascombe has eyes and ears all about the abbey. We cannot risk discovery."

"We are in danger whatever we do or not do, Mother," Helene argued. "But we are not yet dead. We still have a chance, no matter how small that chance is. It is one of the men's birthday, the thin one called Feuille. They intend to hold a party of some sort for him. Expect the men to get drunk tonight. Too drunk to notice two small girls crawling in the dark to freedom."

"You have not received word from Monsieur Manet? Or the White Tower?" the abbess asked.

Helene cleared her throat. "No, I haven't."

"Then who will meet the girls outside?"

"We cannot depend on Monsieur Manet as of now," Helene said. "That's why I'm making Marianne go with Lucille. Marianne grew up in these parts, she will know how to keep them both alive and get them to the pick-up point for the British spies."

"And what must be done if they-you-are caught?"

Helene swallowed. "Then I die."

She felt the abbess' gnarled hand grab one of her own and grip it tightly. 

"God will do with me whatever He wants," Helene muttered, returning the other nun's grip, then letting go abruptly just as one of the female revolutionaries, not Juliette, strode in.

"Ladies! How about you stop mumbling to your god over there and start preparing our feast, eh?"

Helene sighed and stood, helping the abbess rise. Without a word, the two went out of the gloomy chapel and back inside their hell on earth.