The Illuminator (54 page)

She got up heavily, feeling older than her thirty-seven years, and pulled
back the curtain. The company of women and children. How welcome, she thought, and said as much to her visitors, though she could see little through the narrow window but three pairs of eyes peering into her cell.

“I'm Lady Kathryn of Blackingham,” the first pair of eyes said, indicating two others behind her. “These are my servants.” She held a bundle in front of the window. “This is my ward and goddaughter.”

“This window is too small for all of you. Please, go around to the back and come into my servant's room. We can talk better through the window where she serves me. It is much larger. Alice has gone out but she left her door open so I could have the benefit of the afternoon light.”

A few minutes later three pairs of eyes appeared at Alice's larger window, but this time they were attached to faces, and the faces were attached to three travel-stained female figures. The one holding the child was dressed like a noblewoman.

“Hand the babe to me,” Julian said, “so that I may bless her. What is her name?”

After the slightest hesitation, the sleeping child was passed through the window. “Her mother called her Jasmine, but she was baptized as Anna.”

“She is as beautiful as a jasmine blossom.”

After Julian made the sign of the cross over the child and murmured a prayer, the lady lifted something else onto the wide windowsill.

“I've come as a messenger from Finn the illuminator,” the visitor said, pushing a wide roll of papers forward.

“Finn. I hope he's well. He is a good man and a friend.” Thank the Virgin he's still alive, she thought. She'd meant to intervene in his behalf with the bishop, but that was before she had incurred the bishop's ill will. After ordering her to write a statement affirming her faith, he'd not returned, leaving her to stew in the elixir of his disfavor. It had been a trying time. No news from the prison all during the bleak rainy season. Just she and her fear alone in her cell. Repeatedly she'd struggled with the apologia, only to crumple the parchment in frustration. Then she would have to pray for forgiveness for her fits of pique and the process would start all over again, until the inner light that guided her was as dim as the dreary daylight outside her cell. When she prayed, He no longer listened and the wounds of contrition, the precious revelations, might have been the mad imaginings of a fevered brain. Today, she'd fallen asleep saying the Divine Office.

With one hand—the other cradled the sleeping infant—she untied the string securing the thick stack of papers.
In the beginning was the Word.
And the Word was in English!

“Finn asked that you pass these papers to the dwarf, Half-Tom, the next time he visits you,” Lady Kathryn said. “But if you think they will place you in danger, I will take them away and burn them.”

“Burn them! Burn the precious words of our Saviour, Saint John's record of the acts of our Lord. Could you really do that?”

The woman's gaze was as direct and forthright as what she said. “They are only words.”

“But holy words.
The
Word!”

“I am a practical woman, anchoress. Holy words, yes. But life is sacred, too. Do we not have a duty to the Creator to preserve the creation, or should we just all march merrily to our graves, holy martyrs for some words scribbled on a piece of paper that can be reproduced? If we are alive to do it. Besides, it is the role of the Church, is it not, to spread the Word? You should know that better than anyone, having withdrawn into it.”

“I have not withdrawn into the Church. I am not like the nuns and the monks. This is no cloister. I am anchored in the world. Though I am, of course, loyal and obedient to the Church.” A hasty disclaimer. What did she really know of this woman anyway? The bishop was reputed to have spies.

“My purpose is to seek to know Him better, to contemplate His passion, and to reveal His passion to those who seek me out. Besides,” Julian continued, “the Church has made no edict saying we cannot translate Scripture. I write my own Revelations in English.” She did not add, “at Finn's urging.” Finn who was in prison.

Lady Kathryn's skepticism showed in her face. “The king's law is one thing. I've heard some of the king's law is being written in English. But there is also the goodwill of the Roman Church. I do not intend to stub my toe against either.”

The baby stirred and whimpered. Julian put down the text she was examining and held the infant over her shoulder, rocking gently back and forth. It felt good to have the child in her arms. “How do you know Finn?” she asked her plain-speaking visitor.

“We were lovers,” Lady Kathryn said bluntly.

“It must be hard for you, loving him, knowing he is in prison.”

“Made harder because I gave false testimony against him in the matter of the priest's murder, to save my son who may be guilty.”

It was such a bald confession, such an unvarnished statement of priorities in conflict, that the anchoress for a moment didn't know how to respond. Rarely did she encounter persons of such honesty. The woman appeared so cold, sitting ramrod-straight as she delivered this assessment, but Julian noticed her restless fingers, straightening the stack of papers, smoothing the top pages, as though she were trying to smooth the wrinkles of her conscience, straighten the mess she now found herself in. Here, at least, was one sinner who knew what she was. Julian found this lack of hypocrisy redeeming.

The child started to cry.

“Better give her to the nurse. She's a greedy little sprite.”

Julian noticed how the rigid line of Lady Kathryn's mouth softened with these words.

“This is Finn's child?” she asked, handing her over to the woman, who held out her hands.

“No. This is Finn's grandchild. The lust in our houses apparently runs to the second generation,” she said wryly. Her restless fingers stilled, then she looked down and breathed deeply. When she lifted her head to meet the anchoress's gaze, her eyes glistened. “May I make confession?”

“I am no confessor, my lady. But I will listen to whatever you have to say gladly, if it will lighten your burden. I can see you are greatly troubled.”

Lady Kathryn told her about Colin and Rose, how she'd just left Finn, how he'd refused the child.

“He'll change his mind when his grief has seasoned,” the anchoress offered.

“It doesn't matter to me. Except for him. This child will be my daughter. But she could comfort him as she comforts me.”

The anchoress placed her hand over Lady Kathryn's gloved hand that rested on the window ledge. She noticed blue smudges on the fingers and wondered idly how they came to be there. “You understand,” she said.

“Understand what?” Lady Kathryn looked puzzled.

“The kind of love that makes a mother sacrifice everything for the love of a child.” She felt the other woman's fingers withdraw into a fist beneath her sheltering palm. “That's the kind of love the Saviour has for each of us. The kind of love He has for you.”

The fist tightened. “If He loves me so much, why does He put me, why does He put all of us, through this?” She withdrew her hand. The long fingers fluttered in the air. “Never mind. I know what you're going to say. ‘Sin.' It is for our sins that we are punished.”

“Does a loving mother take pleasure in punishment? She only punishes to teach. To make the child stronger. Suffering strengthens us. Nothing happens by chance. God doeth it all.”

“What about Finn? Why would a loving God allow a good man to be persecuted?”

“Through suffering He redeems us, perfects us.”

“Did you know that Finn's wife was a Jew? It must be for that he is being punished. And his daughter. The sins of the fathers. He fornicated with me. Yes. But that cannot be so bad a sin. Anchoress, I know you are a holy woman and know little of the venial sins. But surely such a sin as lust deserves not such a heavy price. If so, the prisons would be so full of priests and bishops, there'd be no room for the rest of us. Why take away Rose, the creature Finn loved most in the world, except for some weighty sin?”

“For the profit of his soul a man is sometimes left to himself, without his sin always being the cause. Finn is not necessarily being punished. God loves Jews and Gentiles alike. He is Father to all. Be assured, my lady, that in taking in this child of Jewish descent, you do not harm but good for your soul. Though I suspect you would do it even on peril of your soul. And that's why I know you understand that kind of love.
All will be well.
Your suffering only binds you closer to God.”

“Then why can I not pray? I recite the offices, I count the beads. Empty words falling in a void. Anchoress, don't you ever think that it might just all be some grand charade, or some great lie perpetrated by powerful men for personal gain?”

A brave question. It deserved an honest answer.

“I suppose about twenty times, in the times of joy, I could have said with Saint Paul, ‘Nothing shall part me from the love of Christ.' And in pain, I could have said with Saint Peter, ‘Lord, save me. I perish.' It is not God's will that we keep step with our pain, by sorrowing and mourning for it. Pass over it. I promise—I know because He told me—the pain will come to nothing in the fullness of His love.”

These are words meant for me, Julian thought. Physician, heal thyself.
God has sent me this woman so that in ministering to her I can lay new hold on my own faith. Stop worrying about the bishop's anger. He is either a tool of the devil or an instrument of God. Either way,
all will be well.

“I have not your faith, anchoress, though I find some comfort in your words. But I've lingered longer than I intended. It's too late for the journey back to Blackingham. Have you knowledge of an inn nearby?” She looked nervously at the baby who, having drunk her fill, had fastened her blue-eyed gaze on Julian.

“An inn might not be the best choice for a company of women. Just five miles north on your way home is Saint Faith Priory. Their tradition of hospitality is well known.”

“Aye. I know it. In the village of Horsham. I stopped there once as a girl with my father. The sisters there are very kind.”

The women rose and prepared to leave. The little coterie of females looked suddenly vulnerable. The younger woman, who now held the baby, was really hardly more than a child, fourteen or fifteen. She had a rapt expression on her face. She stared as though she was seeing some strange apparition deep inside the cell.

“Is there something you'd like to say, child?” The anchoress asked.

The girl leaned forward, spoke, her voice scarcely above a whisper. “The light around you sh-shimmers. L-like hope. It b-beats like a heart.”

“But there is no light—”

The nurse interrupted. “She has a gift, milady.” And then added quickly, “From God.”

These women are special, the anchoress thought: not just the strong-willed noblewoman who loves so intensely; but this infant, too, with her blue eyes and Jewish blood, a symbol of God's love, of his Oneness; even the nurse— who now that she looked more closely, resembled the girl with the spiritual gift. Some nurturing quality bound them all together.

Kathryn gathered her cloak about her. “I thank you for your counsel. You've given me somewhat to think on.” Then, as an afterthought: “Do you wish to keep the papers? Or shall I take them?”

“I will see that Tom gets them. I am not afraid of the bishop.”

Lady Kathryn merely shrugged and turned to leave.

“The Lord go with you,” the anchoress shouted as she waved good-bye to her visitors' backs.

Only the young maid turned and smiled a grateful acceptance of the benediction.

After her visitors departed, Julian's spirit was so renewed that she wondered if they had been real or some angel visitation, another of her visions. One thing was sure: real or not, they had been sent to her from He who was her source. In ministering to them, she had watered her own soul. She would write her apologia, and she would write it in English.

But whatever happens,
all will be well.

“Come on, Ahab,” she said to the fat feline, who leaped onto her windowsill. She picked up the Wycliffe papers and hid them under a stack of linen. “We will look forward to Tom's visit, you and I. He will bring us news of Finn and perhaps a gift from the marshes.”

Ahab purred his anticipation.

Grant harvest lord, more, by a penny or two, to call on his fellows the better to do; Give gloves to thy reapers, a largess to cry, and daily to loiterers have a good eye.

—T
HOMAS
T
USSER
,
G
OOD
P
OINTS OF
H
USBANDRY

D
uring the late spring, Kathryn did not return to Castle Prison. Half-Tom appeared at Blackingham Manor frequently, a circumstance
of
which Agnes did not approve. “I'll not have him sniffin' around my girl.” But Kathryn encouraged the dwarf's visits, finding errands for him to do in her service, sending him as a messenger to the abbeys around Norwich with inquiries about Colin. Was her younger son a vagabond, sleeping in ditches, hungry, dirty, alone? Or was he even now, as she thought about him, threading the stone corridors of some faraway cloister, drugged by plainsong, lost to her forever? But Kathryn would have found something for Half-Tom to do even had she not been desperate for news of Colin. Half-Tom was Kathryn's only link to Finn.