The Illuminator (11 page)

Until tonight.

But tonight was as the first night, when her heart hammered in her chest like the heart of a caged bird. She felt again the rising panic, wanted to scream and beat with her fists at the great wood barrier that barred her from the world.

How long had she lain here in this heavy darkness, mouthing prayers that could not bridge the faithlessness of her broken communion?

Was that a lark? The cathedral bells tolled matins. It was not yet morning.

Her limbs were stiff, her flesh bruised by the clammy stone, sweating in the August heat. To live a life of contemplation, to shut out the swirling vortex, the
danse macabre,
to close her ears to the cries of mourning, to the never-ending dirges—the reaper walked abroad, gleaning souls like ripe grain—to listen instead for the Still, Small Voice: that was the way she'd chosen when she pledged herself to God.

And she had been content until the illuminator brought the broken child to her.

She'd cradled the wounded child in her arms and crooned a lullaby. But by the time the illuminator returned with the mother, the “anchoress” had receded into the shadows, and in her place was a woman filled with regret, a woman painfully aware of all she'd left behind.

Her menses had ceased with her enclosure in the anchorhold.

“Her name is Mary,” the mother had said, as they bathed the skin of the burning child. Her voice broke on the last word, her face grotesque with pain, frozen like the tragedy masks the mummers wore for their mystery plays. “I named her for Our Lady. So She would protect her.”

But the Virgin had not protected the namesake child. Nor had the Christ to whom Julian prayed. Did the mother know how much Julian envied her that little girl? Even a dead child lived in memory. First came envy and then
doubt. Then, what other sins might creep through the crack in her faith?

The stone tasted of mold and death beneath her lips.
“Domini, invictus”
she pleaded. But Mercy had departed for a season. Her body was rigid from lying so long on the cold stone floor. Could she will its locked joints to move, if she tried? I will die here, she thought. I will die, and they will find my bones before the altar, the flesh falling away like rotten fruit falling away from its seed. The fingers of her left hand, palm pressed flat against the floor, began to twitch convulsively.

I never even knew the mother's name, she thought.

Julian had tried to speak words of comfort. But the words had fallen like pebbles in the silence, hard and brittle as grief. How to speak of mercy when none is offered?

For three nights after they buried the child, Julian had dreamed the devil was choking her. She had awakened, struggling for breath, to the cries from beyond her servant's shuttered window, cries of the mother calling out in her sleep for her dead child. Julian tried with all her will to still the yearnings the child had wakened in her. She'd made her choice—blasphemy to gainsay it now.

“Pastor Christus est
…” Her lips could no longer form the words.
Forgive my frail flesh, Lord. I thank you for this unanswered longing. I offer my suffering to you as sacrifice.

But she could not stop the hot tears that puddled beneath her face. Did she weep for the suffering of her Saviour, for baby Mary, for the grieving mother? Or did she weep for her own empty womb?

In the garden outside, the first call of the lark presaged the dawn. Inside the church, rats scuttled about, seeking some lost crumb of host. How fragile was this thing called faith.

“Lord, if it be your will, take away the longing. And if it is not your will that I should be free of all womanly desire, then turn this yearning into a better understanding of your perfect love.”

In answer, the first breaking of pearly light gathered and flowed, like fickle grace, beneath the door of her cell. Julian heard Alice's early-morning preparation on the other side of her door: the crunching twigs of a fire being laid beneath the cook-pot, the whoosh of the shutters opening on the small window through which Julian received her food. She rose from her position, surprised that she could will her reluctant limbs to obedience.

“Has the night passed?” she asked as Alice placed a clean stack of linen on the ledge.

“Aye, and the mother has gone,” Alice said. “Her cot was empty when I got here. She's probably returned to her husband.”

“That is good. Now she can begin to restore her spirit.”

To Julian's relief, Alice made no comment about the seeming injustice, though her mouth twitched with wanting to. “Have you been at prayer all night?” she asked as Julian removed a clean veil and wimple from the stack on the ledge.

“The Holy Spirit gives balm to wounded souls.”

“Well, the body needs a bit of comfort now and then, too.” She bustled like a wren lining a nest. “Here, take this egg to break your fast.”

As Julian took a bite of the boiled egg, then returned it to its cup, she noticed the newly sharpened quills peeking out from the basket Alice was placing in the window.

“I see you brought more pens. I shall eat later. After my work is done.”

The servant's mouth pinched tighter, but she swallowed her protest. “I brought an extra poppy-seed cake for the dwarf,” she said. “He may be half a man, but he hath the appetite of a giant.”

“And the spirit of a giant. But you may take the cake to the alms gate or give it to the birds. Tom won't be back. He's returned to his eel traps. He took a message to the man who brought the child to us. I thought that he would want to know.”

Alice poured water from the church well into a basin and, shoving the half-eaten egg aside, placed it in the window. “Now, that one is a strange duck to be certain. He's doing monk's work, drawing for the abbey, but he's no monk. He has a daughter.”

Alice laid out soap and towels and fresh herbs in the weekly ritual. Julian insisted on this frequent bathing over Alice's objection that “ 'tweren't healthy.” Julian undressed as Alice gossiped.

“I wouldn't have took him for a family man. He had the stubborn look of a Welshman, but he spoke Norman French as well as you. And that don't fit 'cause I never knowed a Welshman without a brogue. I'd bet my maidenhead, if 1 still had it, he's a vagabond Celt. More pagan than Christian. And working for the Church. They should stick to hiring God-fearing Saxons.”

Julian turned her back to the window and removed her shift. The little
cell, which was usually cold, had become uncomfortably warm with August heat. The water felt good against her bruised skin. Was this weekly bath a fleshly indulgence that she should deny herself? Or could she think of it as a kind of baptism? She half listened to the older woman's chatter, inhaled the soothing fragrance of the lavender-scented water. Another indulgence? But God made the lavender sweet—a gift from a loving father.

“God-fearing Saxons, that's what I say.”

Julian had long been aware that, like others of her class, Alice harbored many prejudices in an otherwise good heart. No use trying to argue with her.

Alice rattled on. “He was uncommonly clean, though. Did you notice his hands? Smooth like a woman's. And the fingernails. Except for the little ridges of paint, they were clean as a chicken bone gnawed by a beggar.” She gave a sly look from under lowered lashes. “But there was nothing womanly about him.”

A pause. A sigh. Julian knew what was coming.

“But I don't suppose ye notice such.”

“I've taken a vow of chastity, Alice. Not blindness. But more important, he seems to have an honest soul.”

Alice harrumphed, “Not too honest to lie to the bishop about who killed the pig. I know 'twere the dwarf. He told me so. Said he was fearful of the stocks. Last man who stole the bishop's property had his nose slit fer it.”

Julian, finding no holy reason to draw out her bathing and wishing her soul could be so easily cleansed, slipped a clean shift over her head. It smelled of lye, sharp and acrid. It stung her nose.

“ 'Twere a noble lie, though,” Alice said grudgingly. “The bishop being more tolerant of an employee of Broomholm Abbey than to an eel-catcher from the fens. And a good thing it happened last week instead of this.”

“A
noble
lie, Alice? I'll have to meditate on that. As for the timing, what difference could it make?”

“Ye haven't heard then. I thought maybe the dwarf might have told ye.”

“Told me what?”

“The bishop's legate was returned to him in a sack. With his head bashed in.

“What—?”

“ 'Tweren't no accident, neither. And Henry Despenser says he'll see the murderer hanged, his head on a pole, and his entrails burnt.”

“But what could that have to do with the illuminator?”

“Well, he were a stranger, that's all. And everybody knows the Welsh are a wild lot. Anyway, the bishop flew into a great temper when he heard the news. Said whoever struck the blow, he'd lay the blame to John Wycliffe for working up the people against Holy Church. Said if Oxford wouldn't shut Wycliffe up, he'd go to the French pope.”

Julian handed her dirty clothing back through the window. Alice reached for it, her string of talk unbroken. “Though I don't know where that would get him, since everybody knows he's robbing rich and poor to finance the Italian pope's claim. Two popes. One in France. Another in Rome. Holy Mother of God. Isn't one enough? How is a God-fearing person to know which is right? Probably neither.” And then she mumbled, “Mayhap I'll just declare myself pope, and then we could have three. And one a woman.”

Alice must have seen from Julian's expression that she'd gone too far.

“Well, I'll just go tend the herb garden and leave ye to yer writing.” She opened her chamber door into the morning sunlight. Through her window Julian could see the light from the open door paint the gray image of a tree branch on the wall. A shadow leaf fluttered in a remembered breeze. She could smell the green morning. She longed to feel the sun on her face. Secondhand light filtered through her interior window onto her writing table. That was her portion. And she would be satisfied with it.

Alice's voice drifted in. She must be just beside the door, talking to herself as she pulled weeds among the thyme and fennel. A muttered curse, then “two popes. 'Tis an evil world. The anti-Christ is abroad.”

Julian turned to her manuscript and began to write:

OF CHRIST'S SUFFICIENCY

I knew well that there was strength enough for me (and indeed for all living creatures that shall be saved) against all the fiends of hell, and against all ghostly enemies.

At first, Blackingham's cook felt much abused that there would be two more mouths to feed from the gaping kitchen hearth she tended. As she flattened
down the red embers under the white-hot ash to make a level cooking base and swung the heavy pot into place, Agnes grumbled to her husband, John, that her poor old back would not hold out much longer.

“Then where would milady be?” she asked.

“Like as not between the same rock and hard place she is right now.”

She knew she shouldn't complain to John. It only made him more resentful, and that was not what she wanted at all. He'd begged her to leave years ago, after the plague swept the country in 1354, killing many of the able-bodied laborers.

“ 'Tis our chance to break with the land,” he'd said. “I've heard they be paying wages in Suffolk. A man can hire himself out to whatever job he wants. Leave when he wants. No questions asked. After a year in Colchester, we'd be free. Blackingham would have no hold on us.”

“The king's law forbids it. We'd be outlaws for a whole year. I'll not wear the wolf's head even for ye, John; I'll not be hunted in the forest like a wild thing. Lady Kathryn's been good to us. Ye bide yer time right and Sir Roderick might make ye overseer someday.”

John had been a good stout man in those days, and smart. He could do anything, and did. Single-handedly, he'd built the flocks to where they produced enough wool to keep every hand they could find busy with the fleeces; shearing and rolling, grading and packing. He'd been a proud man then, but things had not turned out the way Agnes had planned. Her John had not been rewarded for his loyalty and hard work. Instead, Sir Roderick had hired that surly bailiff, Simpson, who lost no time putting John back in his place, lording it over him, never calling him by name, just “Shepherd.”

“Shepherd” John had remained, and he'd lost all joy in his labors. He still supervised the shearing and the pulling of the fleeces and much else besides— work that rightfully should have been done by Simpson. This very day Agnes had had to leave the kitchen and go to the wool room to help, because they were shorthanded. It was already late in the season and time for the haying, and John was with the mowers, laborers hired by Simpson who would be paid a wage. She and Glynis had rolled the washed fleeces skin side up and laid them out on the clean-swept floor of the wool house—she and Glynis and young Master Alfred, who'd stopped and offered to help.