Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard Von Bingen (30 page)

“
God’s
admonition?” Cuno appeared bemused. “I fear there is nothing godly in your impudence. Those monies rightfully belong to this house. A pity you acted so rashly, causing your nuns to starve on account of your ignorance.”

His words evoked a picture of Richardis in her sickbed. An icy terror gripped me that I would ride home to find her dead. For her very sake, I forced away those thoughts and locked eyes with Cuno before staring at each monk in turn. Rising to my feet, I spoke, my words slow and deliberate.

“My lord abbot, my brothers in Christ, hear the words of the true vision I have received.”

From my lips emerged not my own voice but another, as terrible as thunder. An unearthly power filled me as I spoke in prophecy as God’s sibyl.

“The Serene Light says: Cuno, you should act as a loving father to my daughters and cast off your greed. Their dowries have nothing to do with you. But if it is your will to persevere in the gnashing of your teeth, then woe betide you.”

My entire body shook, possessed of a might far greater than my own. When I slammed my staff on the tile floor, everyone jumped. Cuno spilled wine on his robes.

“If any among you say ‘We intend to diminish their holdings,’ then I Who Am says you are the worst despoiler. If you attempt to steal from my daughters their Brother Volmar, the shepherd who applies their spiritual medicine, then again I say that you are like the sons of Belial. God’s justice shall destroy you.”

Their faces as white as the moon, the brothers looked from one to the other. Once more that foul smell, worse than our stink of sweat and horses, filled the room. No one could deny that this abbey had become a stagnant place, full of woe, since my sisters and I left. Who was to say that this was not God’s wrath at work?

Cuno himself looked jaundiced, his teeth blackening in decay. He slumped in his chair, an aging man of failing health. But a man who would die fighting before he gave in to me. He opened his mouth, as though to denounce me, then seemed to think better of it, looking instead to the young man beside him, who eyed me gingerly, as though I were a viper that required careful handling.

“Sister Hildegard, reverend magistra,” the young man said. This could only be Helengerus, the new prior. “We shall meditate on your words. You must be hungry and weary from your journey. Please let us offer you food and drink.”

In the guesthouse, I watched my niece devour six bowls of thin Lenten pottage before that haunted grip of hunger vanished from her face. My heart sank to think that even this poor fare was probably the best she’d had in half a year.

The following morning brought no progress, only Helengerus wringing his hands to tell me that Cuno had yet to make a decision regarding our dowries. Immediately I asked for our horses to be saddled, for there was no point in lingering.

Then one of the young brothers I remembered from the scriptorium appeared. His eyes were oozing white pus.

“Hildegard, dear lady, have pity,” he said.

So I accompanied the boy to the infirmary, where I instructed the surly new infirmarer on how to prepare a compress of pounded field mint tied in a cloth.

“This will draw out the discharge. Make a fresh compress three times a day until his eyes are clear and free of infection.”

“This has become a house of pain,” the boy whispered. “I think my eyes have clouded because it’s so miserable to see.”

In the courtyard, I crowed in delight to see Volmar waiting with our horses.

“My friend! You’re coming with us?”

“I told Cuno I believe the truth of your prophecy,” he said, helping me into the saddle, “and I dared not go against God’s will. If Cuno insists on my return, he’ll have to appeal to the archbishop. Besides, do you think I would let you two ride alone?”

“You can’t bear it here anymore,” Hiltrud said, her voice overflowing with her fondness for him. “Nobody can. If they could, they’d all leave.”

How much more spirit the girl had with food in her belly and distance from Guda and her carping.

“Will we ride home now?” she asked me.

I warmed to hear her call Rupertsberg her home.

“Not empty-handed,” I told her.

The next days were a blur of hard riding and hunger.

“This is where I was born,” I told my companions, pointing to the castle on the hill skirted by vineyards, nestled in the fields and forests where I had once run wild with Rorich. My heart raced to see Bermersheim again after forty-two years of exile. How I wished Richardis could have been here, how I longed to share this homecoming with her, to offer her my girlhood memories in a jeweled casket. In the mirror of her understanding, my pain and loss might be transformed into something precious.

No doubt Bermersheim was humble compared to her family’s palace in Stade, but how abundant this land was. My eyes devoured the rich sweep of newly sown fields, the budding green grapevines, the orchards about to burst into blossom. The pastures were bursting with new lambs and calves, the woodland with game and swine.

Hugo, the only one of my three brothers not to enter the Church, was heir to this place, and he was very old, a widower with no living children. Hope beat inside me that this, my family birthright, might be Rupertsberg’s deliverance.

The servants, unfamiliar faces all, greeted me as if I had returned from the dead. That seemed not so far off the mark as, after the day’s hard ride, I limped to the solar where my brother received me. During my childhood, he had been away in the Holy Lands, only returning after I had become an anchorite. Though we were born of the same womb, this was the first time we stood face-to-face.

As we exchanged our formal greetings, I thought to myself how ancient he looked, like one of the patriarchs of the Old Testament. Twenty years my senior, Hugo was old enough to be my father and I was already half a century old. His sparse hair was as white as hoarfrost, his face and hands marked by scars he had reaped in the First Crusade. But his gaze was shrewd and his mind dagger sharp.

“Hildegard, welcome,” he said. “I thought you might come. Rorich writes that you’re in trouble.”

“Yes,” I said, for what point was there in denying the truth? “My daughters go hungry because my abbot won’t loosen his grip on our dowries. See how thin Hiltrud, our niece, has grown.” I put my arm around the girl who gaped at her uncle as though he were a relic from the time of the Romans. He was probably the oldest man she had ever seen.

“So you’ve come to implore me to leave this estate to you.” He regarded me wryly, for I was the supplicant and he the judge. “For the glory of God, no doubt. You’ll tell me to think of my immortal soul and hint that my donation will ease my passage into the heavenly kingdom.”

“Brother, clearly you are far too astute to be swayed by such talk,” I said. “I know we have nephews in plenty who are clamoring for your lands. Perhaps you’re well-weary of hearing the arguments over who most deserves Bermersheim.”

“You’re certainly no less ambitious than any of our nephews.” The aged knight probed my eyes as if recognizing the fellow warrior in me, his sister. “God should have made you a man. You’d have been a boon on the battlefield. But I fear your ruthless striving ill suits a nun.”

My face burned as I clasped his scarred hands. “I’m fighting for Rupertsberg’s very existence. Would you not fight till your death if Bermersheim was under siege?”

“I’d fight to my last, but with no joy. By the time I was your age, Hiltrud,” he said, turning to our niece, “I’d seen enough death and gore to last a lifetime. In truth, I envied you, Hildegard, safe within cloistered walls and innocent of slaughter.”

“Brother, I’m so sorry to hear how you suffered.” My eyes traced the jagged scar running down his cheek. “I shall pray that you find peace.”

“Pray for your own peace,” he said. “You do yourself no favor by waging war with your abbot.”

His words pierced me where my armor was weakest.

“I only want to feed my daughters,” I said, remembering Richardis’s thin face. “Our nephews are welcome to your castle and your gold, but I beg you to lend me your flocks and herds so we might at least avert starvation. And horses, if you could spare them. I think I will need to travel to Mainz and plead before the archbishop.”

Futility and despair weighed on me, for I feared Hugo would see me as a grasping, greedy woman. As I fought back tears, he sat with me in silence for what seemed an age.

“If I give you what you ask for, will you bury me in your churchyard?” he asked. “And keep my soul forever in your prayers?”

Something in his voice was broken. When I looked into his eyes, I saw that he was closer to the next world than this one and that, despite his gibes, he genuinely feared for his salvation. The blood he had shed still tormented him, as though it were an indelible stain on his soul.

“Yes, brother, of course. Even if you don’t grant us a single hen, you’re forever in my prayers.” While Hiltrud and Volmar looked on, I held the old man like a child, rocking him back and forth.

To my unending gratitude, Hugo endowed Rupertsberg with his entire estate and its tithes, its tenants and crops, its flocks and fields, its forests and fish, its wool and flax. Thanks to him, Volmar, Hiltrud, and I rode home with full bellies and fresh horses. Behind us, servants herded the cattle and sheep and drove wagons laden with wheat and wine. After a two-day journey, we returned to Rupertsberg in triumph, reaching the gates at sunset. How the builders and stonecutters stared to see us bringing home the train of livestock. Though it was still Lent and we were forbidden meat, there would be milk and fresh cheese in plenty and enough wheat to provide bread until this year’s harvest rolled in.

As we rode up the twilit hill, Richardis awaited us, bearing a lantern that illumined her wondering face. How I rejoiced to see her restored to health. Adelheid and Verena stood with her, gathered in her circle of light.

“My daughters, I told you God would provide,” I said, elated but too stiff to leap down from my saddle until Richardis helped me, her arms around my waist. I had grown so thin that even she, so recently ill, could lift me in her arms.

“You did exactly as you promised,” she murmured, her cheek soft against mine.

Underlying the warmth of her welcome, I sensed a somberness, something she feared to tell me. She squeezed my hands and looked at Adelheid and Verena. The three of them glanced at one another, as though searching for words.

Slowly it dawned on me.

“Where’s Guda?” I asked. “Where are Sibillia and Margarethe?”

“While you were gone, they left for Schönau Abbey,” Richardis told me. “I’m sorry, Hildegard. I begged them to wait until your return, but you
did
give them leave to go.”

With the edge of her veil, she brushed away the tears that clouded my eyes. The sense of betrayal knocked me sideways. After everything I had done to secure our future, Guda had fled behind my back like a coward, taking the novices with her.

“Perhaps it’s for the best,” said Adelheid. “They will no longer sow discord. We who remain are your true core.”

My loss was like an unstaunched wound. I had thought that if I tried hard enough, if I brought home the right treasure, provided the right comforts, I could win back Guda’s love, that girl who had been like a daughter to me, that five-year-old child I had once cradled in my arms. She hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye.

This was supposed to be my victory, yet I sobbed in Richardis’s arms like a broken thing. Volmar laid a consoling hand on my shoulder.

“Hildegard,
we
have stayed,” Verena said, “because we believe in you.”

“Onward,” Hiltrud whispered.

Not many days afterward, when I was still reeling from Guda’s abandonment, a withered old man came to call. If it weren’t for the servants bearing his coat of arms, I would never have guessed his identity. Once he had been tall and straight, shining and beautiful with his lion’s mane of curls. Now he drooped and dragged as Richardis showed him into the tent where Volmar and I were writing yet another letter to the archbishop.

“Hildegard,” she said. “Count Meginhard von Sponheim requests an audience with you.”

Volmar bristled, his face washed an angry red, his eyes shrinking to hard points.

“You dare show your face here?” he demanded, casting down his stylus to glare in undisguised hatred at the man who had destroyed Jutta, Volmar’s eternal beloved.

My stomach seized up in both dread and fury to see Meginhard, the author of my misery, this hypocrite whose rape of his own sister had cast her—and me—into living death while he had gone on living his life of opulence, as though he were spotless. It took all my self-discipline not to spit in his face.

“What do you seek here, Meginhard?” I asked. If Volmar’s rage was boiling hot, mine was as frosty as a winter wasteland.

His face was so sallow that he reminded me of an old dried-out cheese. His youth and beauty now faded, the mortal sin that had been corroding inside him for more than four decades lay exposed, as shameful as excrement.

Ignoring Volmar, who looked mad enough to floor him, Meginhard spoke directly to me. “Hildegard, I have committed grave misdeeds, may God forgive me. In holy Jutta’s name, I wish to do good.”

From behind him, his servants stepped forward bearing a chest of gold so heavy that they staggered from its weight. Dumbfounded, I stared at Meginhard, who blinked hard, a tic in his eye.

“Magistra, please accept my offering.”

Volmar looked as though he wanted to hurl the man’s guilty bribe into the Rhine. But I confess my first thought was one of temptation. Even if we never saw our dowries again, this was a handsome endowment and one we needed. It was certainly true that Meginhard had a debt to pay. Would it be a sin to accept his money? Was his gold as tainted as his soul? The burden of these questions and Rupertsberg’s uncertain future hung on my shoulders like a leaden cloak. God had punished Meginhard by rendering his seed sterile. Meginhard had no heir. He had no one. His life was a loveless desert.