A Vision of Light (32 page)

“You’ve had Visions?”

“Rapturous ones. I am constantly propelled from shrine to shrine by supremely ecstatic visions, which occur when I pray all night in holy places. At Compostela, for example, I was visited by St. James himself, wearing a handsome green velvet gown set about with jewels, and surrounded by perpetual light and the singing of angels. I have also seen the four Evangelists, carried by a host of angels on four identical golden litters, each holding in his hand a book of the Gospel written in letters of fire.” Seeing that the group was interested, the German went on.

“Having paid my tribute to the milk of the Virgin, the blood of St. Paul, the hair of Mary Magdalen, and Our Lord’s knife here at the cathedral, I now go forth to experience unspeakable revelations when I have completed my pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury. I have been delayed only by my holy poverty, and only a small amount of additional financial support will send me on my way….”

The clerks looked at each other. Then they looked at the church door. A knight had just left, but he didn’t appear promising. Then an elderly lady, accompanied by her daughter and attendants, could be seen, dabbing her eyes on her sleeve as she departed the cathedral. The clerks stood aside to expose the German to advantage. He leaned on his pilgrim’s staff and extended his hand as she passed.

“Pray for me, pilgrim,” she said, with a troubled look on her face, and pressed some coins into his hand before she passed on. The German inspected them to see if they were genuine, biting one to make sure, and then dropped them into his purse, where they made a heavy
chink
on the coins that were already inside.

“As I was saying, when I pray at the shrine of St. Thomas—”

“Then you have not yet seen the Mystery of Mysteries?” inquired Brother Gregory.

“Ah,” said the pilgrim. “A lifetime of Seeking for this lowly worm, lower than the dust, will scarcely suffice. But the ultimate Vision, the Vision for which I am preparing myself, awaits, without a doubt, at the end of my pathway of purgation and self-denial. God’s shadow, I feel—I feel it strongly—is over me, and He will not forever withhold from this most humble of His lowly servants the blinding and glorious light of His presence.”

“It has been revealed to me that we have not yet had dinner,” said Robert, patting his stomach. Brother Gregory looked at him with a wry grin. All except the pilgrim looked in their purses to see if between them they had enough.

“Clerk’s fare today,” announced Simon. “It’s Mother Martha’s place.” And together they went up Paternoster Row to seek out the bakeshop where overage pies could be had at a substantial discount. It was not until it came time to pay the bill that they realized that the pilgrim had vanished.

B
ROTHER
G
REGORY WAS A
little hollow eyed when next he arrived at the Kendalls’ house to write for Margaret. Two days before, shortly after he had so neatly demolished the vanities of others with his caustic pen, he had suddenly experienced a spasm of guilt about his own resulting vanity. It was when the fourth or fifth person had gleefully quoted to him the anonymous verses on the cathedral door that he began to feel that his hard-won Humility might be shrinking. There was also the question of the efficacy of all-night prayer, so highly endorsed by the German pilgrim. So that evening he had withdrawn silently from his friends and gone to keep an all-night vigil before the shrine of St. Mellitus. But very late in the night, shortly before Vigils, and just after the two other pilgrims before the shrine had discovered a method of sleeping upright while kneeling, Brother Gregory had seen, in the dark shadows above a single guttering candle, an unexpected and singularly unpleasant sight. It was his father’s face, all surrounded by his tumbled white beard, with the habitually wrathy expression it usually wore whenever it looked on Brother Gregory. It had been nearly an hour before Brother Gregory managed to return to a proper meditative state, and not after many bitter regrets that his father had once again found out where he lived.

W
HEN
B
ROTHER
G
REGORY NEXT
presented himself at Margaret’s front door, he seemed unusually reserved.

“You’re not hungry, are you?” Margaret’s anxious voice interrupted him as he silently set out the paper and pens on the writing table. Brother Gregory’s pallor and the dark circles under his eyes had not escaped her sharp glance.

“No, not at all,” answered Brother Gregory, seating himself. He liked to keep his austerities private.

This answer worried Margaret more greatly than ever. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure that something had gone wrong. I hope it’s not about me, she thought to herself. But worry was gradually replaced by more salutary annoyance, as Brother Gregory sharply corrected her style three times in the very first sentence that she uttered, before he even wrote it down. When the words at last began to flow across the paper, the very air around Brother Gregory seemed heavy with his silent displeasure.

T
HE GREAT FAIR AT
Sturbridge was like a magic place. For three weeks in September merchants from all over England and from many foreign places, too, crowd together to display rare and precious treasures from the four corners of the earth. There is also much need of entertainment. Players, dancing bears, jugglers, and quack salesmen of all descriptions descend on the fair in countless numbers. So do pickpockets and lunatics, but I won’t discuss those. One could spend days walking about and marveling at the things there, but we had no time to give ourselves over to sightseeing. Mother Hilde set up at the edge of the fair, where she could watch our tethered donkeys, and spread out her wares on her cloak. Soon she was doing a brisk business. Brother Sebastian went off to do business with Peter, who was always popular at such places, while Maistre Robert and his friends set up at a convenient location, not too greatly inhabited by rival troupes, and began drumming and juggling.

I had been left with six boxes of the smelly ointment, the same six boxes I had carried around all summer. They were not selling well—to be precise they were not selling at all, and they were getting smellier and smellier. Suspecting some defect in my salesmanship Brother Sebastian had left me with words of caution before he had vanished.

“Now, remember, Margaret, it hasn’t done well as a burn ointment—so recommend it for wrinkles, sores, and pockmarks. Say that you were once covered with dreadful pockmarks, but that they all vanished once you had applied a sufficient amount of the ointment. Recommend two boxes for the heavily pockmarked. And for goodness’ sake, quit telling people what’s in it! Just say it’s a rare balm from Araby that was sold to you by a Genoese sailor in Bristol.”

I hung my head and protested, “But, Brother Sebastian, I just can’t lie about it. And I never was in Bristol. And besides, it doesn’t smell nice.”

“Why, Margaret, dear, a disgusting smell simply means it’s that much more powerful. Do use your head.” And he vanished into the crowd. What an idiot I felt like! I wandered about, looking at the booths, the horses, the dogs, the people—anything but dispose of those wretched objects. I was admiring some truly beautiful Venetian glass, when I thought I saw a distorted reflection of someone standing behind me. How oddly reminiscent of someone familiar it was. I whirled around but saw only the departing figure of a wealthy merchant and his stout, jewel-laden wife. It was strange, but something about the man’s walk, and the even curls at the back of his neck, reminded me of Lewis Small.

Oh, Margaret, now you’re seeing shadows, I told myself. This time you really have to get to work. I held up one of those nasty little boxes and tried to call out, but my tongue was incapable of singing out that it was rare balm from Araby. So I just carried it in my hand and wished it would fly away by itself. I walked about for a while, wishing that breakfast had been larger, and wishing that I were someone else—somebody who was not holding six boxes of smelly ointment. It was quite surprising, then, when a large, richly dressed woman stopped me and asked what was in my hand.

“Wrinkle ointment,” I answered. “It works very well on burns, and some say it’s good for pockmarks as well, and it’s made of—”

“I’ll have one,” said the woman, and she paid me a silver penny. This encouraged me to think that it might be just as easy to dispose of the others. Since that was the case, why not go see the wrestling matches? Not quickly, mind you—just oozing along with the crowd, pretending to sell the ointment. It was as I was admiring a dancing bear, still clutching a box from my wretched store, that I was accosted by two catchpolls.

“Are you the one that’s selling ointment?” one asked.

“It’s in her hand, see it there?” said the other, looking at the box with shock on his face. I looked at it myself. Did it really smell that strong? Now the scent must be wafting out from under the lid.

“You’re the one, then. Come along. You’re wanted at the market court.” Completely puzzled, I followed them in silence. No one even noticed us as we slipped along through the crowd.

“Why am I wanted?” I asked timidly.

“As if you didn’t know,” answered one of the men, a look of disgust on his face. Still holding me by the arms, he led me to the edge of the fairgrounds, where the court was continually in session to deal with those little contingencies that come up when Englishmen, foreigners, and money are all mixed together.

The market court business was slow that day. A man who had stretched woolen cloth to make it seem longer was in the stocks. A few people had gathered to see a seller of bad wine forced to drink a gallon of his own merchandise, before being put in the stocks and having the rest of it poured over him. It was almost as much fun for them as a bearbaiting; they were shouting enthusiastically. One catchpoll took me by the elbow to the sheriff, who was presiding over the court.

“This is the woman,” he said.

“Are you sure this is the right one? She looks too young to me.” The sheriff looked dubious.

“This is the one—she’s exactly as described.”

“Woman, you’ve been accused of witchcraft—do you deal in the black arts?” The sheriff scrutinized me as he waited for my answer. I looked him square in the face. He looked uncomfortable. He was seated on a bench under a tree, surrounded by several other men. Around him the milling of people had made the area very dusty. To save his throat from the dust he had a large mug of ale with him. I could tell he was worried. Fair courts aren’t really set up for serious charges like witchcraft. You need more experts for things like that.

“I don’t do anything disgusting like that,” I said earnestly. “I am a good Christian and despise the Devil and his works.”

To the man who stood by him he shrugged and said, “You see? She denies it. She has an honest-looking face. Much too young, I think.”

“But, my lord sheriff, the man who accused her was positive. There is the evidence, after all.”

“Woman, you have been accused of witchcraft for selling balm that gives superhuman powers—balm that is made of the rendered fat of unbaptized infants.” He held up the little box. That miserable, solitary sale I had made to the wealthy woman. A very odd look must have crossed my face.

“Just what would you say is in
that
?” He opened it and put it under my nose. I hung my head and blushed crimson.

“Goose grease, tallow, and herbs,” I said shamefacedly.

“And does it give superhuman powers? Flight, the All-Seeing Eye?”

I was truly humiliated. That’s what comes of dealing in shifty business.

“If you rub it all over you, all you’ll get is a superhuman smell,” I said. “But I never said it was good for anything more than burns.”

“Then you did sell it?”

“Yes, to my sorrow.”

He suppressed a twitch on one side of his mouth.

“Witchcraft is serious business. You can’t get off by merely denying it. You have to prove it.”

“Prove it?”

“Why, yes. We’re not all that well equipped here, but I really can’t afford to make a mistake. Let a witch go? It would spoil my career. You have to understand that. Now, which suits you best”—he gestured to the river—“water? Or fire?” He looked intently at my face.

Fire, I thought, Jesus save me. My eyes must have shown the sudden fear.

“Aha, it looks like fire, doesn’t it?” He spoke to his assistants. “We’ll need a nice big one—right about over there. It ought to be hot enough by this afternoon, wouldn’t you think? Get the parish priest to come around when it’s ready. I’m sorry for the delay, my dear, we’re going to have to keep you awhile.”

It all seemed very unreal to me. He’s apologizing for having to make me wait to be burned to a cinder?

“You’re going to burn me up—without a trial?” I ventured timidly.

“This
is
the trial. We put the red-hot coals over there, you step into them awhile—barefoot, of course—and then the priest bandages your feet. After a week he takes off the bandage, and if the burns on your feet are well, you’re off. If they’ve rotted, then we’ll burn the rest of you. Everyone agrees that it’s fair, and I can’t be blamed for making a mistake. It’s in God’s hands now, woman. You had better repent and pray.” He poured more ale into his mouth. It was very dusty, after all.