I be damned

Genesis

      Maria-Dolores was born on the sixth of June 1177 in Alicante, Spain, from the wealthy bourgeois Arriazu family. Her mother's pregnancy having been difficult and she being the fourth child and second daughter of the couple, she had been promised to the church before birth. Her mother being ill, it would be her elder sister Camila who would care for her as a toddler. She would be sent to a reputed catholic pensionate from an early age and grow up in the monastic ways, only coming back to her family for short periods. During those years she maintained a steady correspondence with her sister Camila and kept polite terms with her brothers Guillermo and Santiago whom she had never got enough time to get close to.

      When she turned fifteen, she was entrusted to a Benedictin convent to become a postulant. Her industriousness rapidly made her a favourite among the community and she took her definitive vows the year she turned eighteen and became sister Maria-Dolores del Carmen. Because of the strictness of her order's main focus, ora et labora, she became a deeply efficient nun. Her devotion to her work however often preceeded that to Christ which was one of the main reproaches her superiors came up with. She was extremely skilled in bookeeping and finance and greatly helped the prior of the convent she was in even before her final vows.

      Her skills helped her bring back balance into the finance of any institution she worked for and soon more important convents in dire need of financial stability asked for her guidance. A thing which her abbess dislike. She often warned her that she should be more grateful to God for blessing her with those gifts rather than indulging in the sin of pride. Younger she had fought back such remarks, arguing that prayer wouldn't feed them nor keep them warm during cold winter nights yet now almost nineteen she had learnt her lesson. She would yield, apologise, confess and act repentant. Yet in the bottom of her heart, she grew increasingly resentful towards those who criticised her for making sure they would have bread on the table.

      In 1196, when she had just turned twenty, she was transferred to an abbey which had recently been built. The Abbaye aux Dames had been erected in Caen, France, one-hundred and thirty years ago by a repenting nobleman who had sought a pardon from the Pope. It had prospered on its initial funds for a while but the tills were now empty. After spending a few months there balancing the accounts, the abbey started producing enough for their own sustenance and within a year they had made profit. The recovery had been amazing and she was much praised among officials of the church for this. This is why, when the abbes died in the following year, she was put in charge. Therefore becoming the youngest abbes in her order.

      This tremendous achievement filled her with pride, yet she knew enough to conceal it and show only her moderate humble self. She enjoyed life there, her community was kind and none of them resented her for being successful, on the contrary they thanked her for saving them from starvation. There, among her satisfied flock, she thrived for some time until an unexpected knock at the door.

      It was evening, they had just sung the vespers and were returning to their cells when a young nun came to her looking profoundly distressed.

'Mother abbess' she gasped' there are... men! At the door. They want to see you! They are many and look fierce'.

      The novice was pale, trembling. Maria-Dolores took a deep breath and reassured her before striding accross the corridors to go and face those who had frightened her protégé. Upon opening the judas hole, she saw about twenty men at arms standing there with a carriage and horses. Most of them bore crosses yet they wore no attire she knew of. A middle-aged man with a deep scar accross his cheek spoke.

'Open.

      His voice froze the blood in her veins, she knew that pitch, it was the one of a man who accepted no refusal. She breathed deeply before answering in her most authoritative manner.