A Vision of Light (53 page)

“Pity you haven’t invited one of your eccentric acquaintances. My wits need sharpening on a good argument.”

“There’s Master Will.”

“Him? He’s too set on one idea to argue well. Ever since he started writing that long poem denouncing the rich, he’s become dull. Wonder if he’ll ever finish it? I’ll probably be keeping him in paper for years. No, I need someone sharper. Now, that Brother Gregory,
he
could argue.” And Master Kendall went off to finish his accounts.

I really will have to close the door, thought Margaret. But just as she got up, Lion came pattering in, and she had to pet him. Then she finally closed the door and sat down to write.

“I wonder how he’s doing?” she said to herself, as she dipped the pen in the ink and finished the first sentence.

I
BLINKED AS
I stepped out into the bright sunshine from the gloomy shadows of the chapter house. It was a very upsetting thought to imagine that wherever I went, people would be listening to my most innocent words, eavesdropping on me, spying on my friends, to report any wrong thoughts they supposed I might be entertaining. But what frightened me most was the risk to my friends. Suddenly I could see our house the way those clerics would see it: in a district of thieves and cutthroats, a sinister, tumbledown den that harbored two dubious midwives who dispensed questionable cures, a mad alchemist, and fugitives and degenerates. There were even two strange animals in the house, eminently suited to be witches’ familiars. Now they would be watching me. How long would it be before suspicion fell on Brother Malachi, who was no Brother? What would happen then, if they ever found out the tiniest part of what he was doing? I couldn’t bear it, thinking of his head on the end of a pole. And if they caught him, what would happen to Hilde, who couldn’t live without him, and the others, who had no place to go? If I loved them, I couldn’t live there anymore. I would never know which day, or which hour, Death would follow me into the house. I felt very low. I’d been thinking all along only about myself when I acted. I’d thought it was for the higher good, but I’d been selfish and full of pride to ask others to share the risk without even knowing it.

“Live like other women, card and spin. Stop midwifing and fomenting trouble. Marry and live decently, for if you cannot reform, you shall be burned.” I kept seeing their hard faces, with their fishy mouths opening and closing. Even David was now at risk, the brother of a recanted heretic. I wished I could talk to him and tell him I was sorry, but I knew that for his sake, I’d never dare look at him again. How could I live? I’d never been that fond of spinning, and carding makes me sneeze.

My head was hung so low that I did not see the mule litter stop at the foot of the stairs of the outer cloister door. Old Master Kendall, his bad foot bandaged up, was huffing and puffing up the stairs, leaning on the shoulders of two husky servingmen. His sparse gray hair was askew under his fashionable, bejeweled beaver hat, and his gold chains clanked and jingled on the gravy-stained front of his rich, fur-lined gown.

“Why, Mistress Margaret! You’re out and unescorted! I was afraid I’d find you in prison—or worse, accompanied by your executioners. Then I’d have been late, too late indeed.”

“Oh, Master Kendall, why did you come here? It’s dangerous to know me,” I sorrowed.

“My dear child, I came to bribe your inquisitors.” Kendall smiled his funny, lopsided smile. “But you seem to have got loose without me. How did you manage?”

“They questioned me and questioned me. Then my brother spoke for me, and since he is a priest, they listened. They’ve told me to repent and change, though, or there will be no second chance.”

Kendall shook his head. “You’re a fortunate young woman. On the Continent no human being walks alive out of the clutches of the Holy Office. They all confess under torture. But our good king doesn’t let the church use torture during the inquiry phase here. Interferes with English justice, he says. And these homegrown affairs, they just lack the same—same
snap
.” He picked up my hand, looked at both sides of it, and shook his head in amazement.

“Lucky, lucky. Not a mark on you. There’s not many can say that. I have a lot of dealings on the Continent, you know. France, Germany, Italy. It’s all the same. I’ve lost some good friends. If you offer them money there, they assume you’re hiding even more, and get you all the same; then they can confiscate every bit of it. Greedy, black-robed bastards! Here in England, however, it’s practically unpatriotic to refuse a bribe. I figured it would cost a lot, but I’d probably be successful.” He tipped his head to one side as if he were calculating sums in his mind.

“There’s the personal gifts, of course—I’d have to do better than whatever your denouncers paid them. Then they’d hit me for a couple of windows, maybe a chapel in addition—hmm, perhaps a pledge for your good conduct. Oh, it would have been expensive, but worth it. Worth it! Why, my gout’s been aflame since they took you in. I had to have you back!”

“Oh, Master Kendall, you’d do all that for me? Risk your fortune?”

“For my gout, dear, for my gout. I’m a man who hates pain. Could you come right away for a treatment?”

“But I’m not to do healing anymore. That’s one of the conditions,” I told him.

“Count this as a social visit, then,” he said airily. “I can fix everything. Now, quit worrying, go home, and get that smelly stuff you rub on it, and the disgusting tea. I’m in pain, great pain, and very impatient!”

I hurried away to fetch the things he wanted. It’s a true tonic to know one has loyal friends. But at home I found all in chaos. My friends were packing. Or rather, Mother Hilde was packing, and Brother Malachi, who had returned while I was away, was not unpacking, which was his share of the work. He was entertaining the household with a tale, gesturing with his arms while he sat on a chest in the Smellery. I could hear only the last part as I entered.

“—of course, by great good fortune, I had seen the parish priest first and he was
most
impressed, particularly with the papal seal, so that when those great rustics came at me with their scythes, he
flung
himself in front of me, saying, ‘Don’t touch a hair of this holy pardoner’s head!’”

“And what happened then?” asked Sim.

“Why, I forgave them all and sold them all first-class pardons at a knockdown price. ‘I have sore feet,’ I told them, and they clubbed together and got me this fine, if slightly aged, mule on which I returned. Ah! Margaret! The Prodigal Daughter has returned!”

“You don’t have to flee. I’m free, and not burned.”

“So I see, dear, so I see! But have they laid conditions on you? Will you be watched?” Brother Malachi was always shrewd.

“Probably so. I’m going to have to be awfully careful.”

Brother Malachi sighed. “In that case, child, I’ll have to postpone my search for the philosopher’s stone awhile and leave my equipment packed up. Who knows who they’ll send to snoop?” Then he brightened. “But the relic business is picking up daily! Did you know there is pestilence back in town? I’ve a powerful prayer you can wear in a little sack around your neck as protection from it, and if the illness is so potent that it passes even this, why, you can chew it up and eat it as a certain cure! I did very well with them in Chester several years ago. God never takes away one opportunity but that He shows us another!” He raised his eyes skyward.

“Amen!” I added, for there is something about Brother Malachi that always leaves one in a good humor.

“I must away—old Master Kendall wants a gout treatment.”

“That old moneybags is a swift one—why, he’s got better intelligence than the Inquisition itself. How did he know you were out so soon?”

“It’s a long story, but you’re right as usual, Brother Malachi.” I gathered my things and made my way in haste to Master Kendall’s big house on Thames Street. When I was shown into his bedroom, it was clear that he was in the greatest pain. He lay on top of the bed, his clothes all disordered, and the poor foot exposed, for he could not bear anything touching it. It was swollen and red. Tears streamed from his eyes, as he bit his own leather belt to keep from crying out in agony.

“Oh, Master Kendall, however did you travel abroad today?” I asked as I laid out my things. He groaned in response. I knelt and blessed myself. Rubbing my hands together to warm the balm between them, I composed my mind in the special way I had learned. All my problems, all my thoughts, disappeared, and a divine bliss filled me. I was conscious of a throbbing in my head and hands, and a soft warmth. I opened my eyes, and the room seemed to be filled with an almost imperceptible, warm orange light. I put my hands on the swollen foot.

“Oh, Jesus, thank you! I didn’t think I could stand it much longer without going mad!” His servingwoman propped pillows behind him so that he could raise his head to look at me. The foot grew paler in color.

“You’re far from mad, Master Kendall, but I suspect you
were
self-indulgent. Suet pudding last night? Wine? Mutton?”

“No, the very lightest of fares. I always follow your advice. Just goose, lark pie, a white wine—very light—a cheese, a nice
lèche lombard
—oh, a few things like that.”

“Oh, Master Kendall, I can take away the pain, but you’ll surely bring back the disease every time with your love of rich foods and wine.”

“But what’s left to me, then?” He was distressed. The pain was forgotten, and he’d been planning a luxurious supper as his reward for suffering.

“Oatcakes? Water? A baked apple, perhaps? Why, poor peasants fare better than that!”

“But have you ever noticed that poor peasants do not have the gout?”

“They don’t live long enough, that’s why. It’s all those oatcakes, that vile pottage. Ugh! They starve long before they can get gout!”

“You have to decide,” I said firmly, “simple food or gout, it’s up to you.”

“Well, I’ll think about it. You’re the only person who’s ever made any sense—or any difference. Why, I’ve been poisoned and bled for years, and it never did anything but add to the pain. Sore foot, plus sore belly and sore wrists, make a miserable Roger Kendall, that I’ll tell you. Move those pillows a bit higher, can you?”

I moved the pillows as he studied my face quizzically. The glow in the room was fading.

“You look very sad. What did those old farts in the chapter house tell you?”

“They—they said I should card and spin, like other women, and quit midwifing and healing and praying for people and—and get married.”

“Well, why don’t you?”

“I need to earn my living, and if I earn my living, I can’t change much. It just won’t work. I’ll end up back before them again, and not so lucky the second time.” I was getting depressed again.

“Well, why not just marry? It suits other women well enough to be supported by a husband.”

“I can’t marry, I just can’t. I hate it, and I don’t want to be married!”

“Don’t
want
to be married? What a thought for a pretty young girl. What ever makes you not
want
to get married?”

“I—I—well, I guess I don’t like men very much,” I stammered. I was too heartsick to conceal the truth.

“Not like men? Not like
men
?” Kendall threw back his head and laughed. “Why, a girl like you was
made
to like men! What on earth could have happened?”

“I don’t know. But being married is bad. I know from experience.”

“What experience could you have had, at your age? I wager you know nothing of marriage.”

“I know altogether too much. I was married to a dreadful, dreadful man. A man just like the Devil himself, only my parents never suspected it when they made the arrangement. Only the plague, which everyone curses so, saved me from him.”

“Why, little Margaret,” his voice was soft. “Did he hurt you? If he did, I’m sorry.”

“He beat me. He hurt me. His—his first wife hanged herself in the bedroom. He was so bad.” I was crying into his coverlet now.

“I’d—I’d be a nun, if I could, but I haven’t a dowry for the convent, and I’m not pure anymore. They don’t want girls who aren’t pure.”

He leaned over and put his arm around me consolingly.

“You’re pure, Margaret. You’re a chaste widow. What could be purer? I’m a rich man. Your dowry would be no problem for me.”

“Oh, you mean well, but how can you understand? He used me against nature. He said it was my duty. I’ll never, never be pure again.”

“Is that all? Only that? Why, Margaret, that’s a very little thing. It happens a lot, I can assure you.”

“But it’s not natural. I bled all over. And sometimes I’m ashamed I’m alive.”

Why did I tell him everything? I don’t know. I guess he was sympathetic. And old too—he didn’t frighten me.

“Margaret, Margaret, dear. Don’t you know that’s how men make love to each other?”

“Men do
that
? How could they?”

“Did he have a man friend, Margaret? That would explain a lot.”

“Oh, God, an awful friend, a slimy red-faced friend. Was that what they were doing alone in the bedroom together? I never knew.”

“That, and much more, doubtless,” he replied.