by Lauren Groff
There is a fine polish of near-morning upon the abbey, so distant on its hill, when she comes out of the final tunnel of the labyrinth’s secret hidden underpass. She feels nearly weak in her relief; the mare’s skin shivers delicately with fatigue and she walks with her head low.
How glad her nuns are to see her safe again, they are radiant. Their faces, needing no shell in this place that Marie has made safe for them, are so vulnerable Marie feels she could wound them by looking too closely. She asks gently for a bath to be made ready and in the meantime food to be brought out to the garden, where she wants to let the good sun burn through her skin, to warm the chill of travel out of her bones.
Already at so early an hour, the old and feeble nuns are sitting on the bench beside the great spilling coins of echinacea in their full yellow. Wevua who snarls at Marie like a dog and kicks at her with a mangled foot, Amphelisa whose stroke has sadly recurred, Burgundofara who has begun falling everywhere, her bones so brittle she has broken her hip, and Edith who no longer sleeps but ranges like a ghost in the night, calling for her mother. Brainless Duvelina claps when she sees Marie and stands and then something shifts in the nun’s face, a slyness slips across it. There is the sound of a small rain upon the damp dirt and Duvelina lifts her hem and she is pissing hard on the ground where a puddle grows around her clogs. And because Marie is so tired she can do nothing else, the abbess laughs along with her laughing mindless nun as all the other aged or decrepit nuns leap or shuffle or creep in horror from the growing puddle beneath them.
* * *
—
It is in deep summer when the rains come, and a miasma breathes up out of the too-damp soil and ditches and puddles near the pond, and the bad air sickens half the nuns. Marie herself is made so ill by it she is moved to the infirmary, where she lies for some nights among the dying and sometimes the dead.
She hears the rain stop, she hears in her long fever as all the moisture wicks out of the earth and leaves it dry, dry for days, for a full hot week.
Her fever rises so hot it makes her convulse, and she wakes to a small shiny blue demon squeezing the tip of her tongue with fire pincers. When she comes back into her own mind, Nest and Beatrix will tell her that she bit off the very tip of it in her fit.
The infirmatrix nuns speak softly in a corner but the awakened part of Marie’s mind hears them and understands that they are worried she will die. And with their words, Death steps into the infirmary and stands a bad vigil in the corner of the room.
In the night she wakes again to see Death bent over Sister Sybilla, who had been old even when Marie came to the abbey, a hard worker and uncomplaining but perhaps because she had been born without a voice to speak, and Death is pressing its lips to her mouth and breathing the life out of the old nun.
Then Death, still thirsty, splits into two and its second head bends over young Sister Gwladus, a Welsh princess stripped of her insurrectionary family and given to the abbey as punishment, for if she had not been given to god, she would have bred great strong intelligent Welsh nobles who would also inevitably chafe against the English crown.
And both nuns rise out of their bodies through their gaping mouths to join the black shadow of Death sucking upon them.
Later, when she can sit up and grip a quill without her ague knocking it from her hand, Marie will write of what she sees, in her Book of Visions.
Though death did not take me, she writes, I was like a feather carried on a current of water. I was carried behind my good dead sisters as they ascended toward heaven.
We rose and we rose through the firmament and toward the warmth of the hand of God. And it felt upon my body as a hawk feels when the tiny invisible gusts of wind carry the bird upon its current with no flapping of wings, only a glorious floating.
At last, I found myself in a plane of clouds as they left me behind in their ascent; and in that vast plane above the clouds, for as far as one could see, there were seven towers, some closer to where I lay upon the wind, and some nearly invisible to the eye.
The closest tower was near at hand and I came toward the window and looked inside. And I saw my very own long-dead sisters, some in vestments of gold and some in shining light and some like the abbess Emme with great crowns of thorns about their heads and they were all praying aloud together.
And below my feet fathoms deep upon the ground, I saw the four beasts of the apocalypse: the lion, the she-ox, the eagle, and the woman-faced one; all with wings and all their bodies covered in blinking staring eyes. And the beasts were slavering and howling and climbing the sides of the tower with a slithering like that of a newt under a rock; and they came so swiftly upward they stopped my blood in ice.
As the beasts came, my sisters’ prayers within the tower became louder and more fervent and soon they broke into divine song. And in singing they came closest to prayer, for singing is the very heart of the heart of prayer, and their voices mixed and melded. And under their voices there was a great earthquaking, and my sisters’ singing caused the stones of the tower to shake and tremble.
And the beasts gnashed their teeth and they howled, but their grasp faltered on the tower and they began to slip down the long slick stones. And one by one they fell, the lion, the she-ox, the woman-faced one, the eagle, and despite their wings they were dashed to the earth.
As I watched, my sisters fell back to silent prayer. But there was no safety from the beasts, for springing up out of the bloodied corpses of the beasts, smaller versions of the same were birthed, and began their terrible wailing upon the ground, and they grew even as they climbed.
When I woke, my fever was gone.
Darkness had fallen upon the abbey and all the sounds of sleep were deep in the infirmary, and I held as a gift this vision given to me in my illness.
For it had been revealed to me in my vision that this abbey of saintly women is one of the seven great pillars of humankind built to keep the raging gnashing violent bearded beasts of the Revelation far from the tender lambs of God; and though the six others are yet unknown to me, this seventh is equal to all.
It is the brightness of my sisters and their faith and their piety that are as a great fire keeping off the terror of the night.
And I, in whose protection this abbey grows, must stand firm as the tower of stone and strong and tall, to hold them safe and high above the ground.
It was in the morning of the night my fever broke that I heard the news that, over the rim of the labyrinth, out in the city, in the night, the wind blew at a small fire from a tipped lantern in a barn and it soon became huge. It spread so swiftly through the houses of the western part of the sleeping town that there was hardly time for shouting or for running for water from the river and wells. And though it spared the pilgrims sleeping in the hostelry and our sisters caring for them there, it devoured the other side of the road, eating the wood-and-thatch shops leaning against the cathedral, and, far worse, the entirety of the church’s house behind it, with all the holy inhabitants sleeping within, all those poor pious souls devoted to the church. Sister Ruth the hostellerix and almoness woke to look across the road, and she saw there a charred plain with smoke rising from it, and in the ashes they found the bones of twenty dead in their beds.
And with this disastrous conflagration, there was not a soul left alive in the town whom our superiors have qualified to come through the secret passages and say Mass at the abbey, none to give my daughters the solace of confession. Save, of course, for me.
And with this news, I at last understood the vision and the order that had been given to me within my fever.
I will take upon my own shoulders the abbey’s sacerdotal duties.
For I, as abbess, am the mother of this place, the parent of my daughters with all the authority of a parent given by god. And like Mary Magdalene, Apostola Apostolorum, who preached and converted many, I have been called to preside over Mass and confession for
my daughters.
* * *
—
Two weeks pass before Marie can rise to her feet and stand and move about. She has lost some of her muscular weight and her habit flaps upon her. There is still a charred-meat smell when the wind blows from the northeast, an ash that collects on the wind-side of the apple trunks.
On the cheery faces of her nuns, darkness has fallen. They have lost guidance, they have not been shriven or taken communion since the conflagration, they are mourning the lost souls who, though they were aged and fumbling, had tried with goodwill to give the nuns their comfort. Though every day Tilde annoys Marie about it, the abbess doesn’t write to summon anyone new.
At last when she is well enough, Marie calls the holiest of her sisters to her, cantrix Scholastica, whose goodness is a pure and humble light, and confesses to her, as the nuns often confess their sins to one another according to the Rule. The cantrix smiles, holds Marie’s hand, but she does not dare give penance. And when they are done, it is time for Mass. Marie goes to the little room off the chapel and puts on the vestments. The fabric smells of other bodies, onions and skin, bodies that lived so recently and that died in the fire.
She has the missal, she has prepared the bread and the wine with her own hands. Marie watches the faces of her nuns as she comes out into the chapel wearing the vestments and all her largest authority, and on some faces there is shock and on others a sort of wild hilarity barely suppressed. On the faces of the oldest nuns, the ones who had known the abbey before Marie came and took it in hand, there is dismay and anger and fear. Goda looks so appalled, Marie would not be surprised if she left her earthly form here and now.
Wevua stands, her stick clattering to the ground. She bellows as though she is wounded, a deep loud animal sound. In the uproar and confusion, Ruth stands and leads the old nun away, throwing Marie such an acidic look that Marie knows this is the end of their ancient friendship, she has lost Ruth, perhaps she is gone for good. Marie bows her head to let the pain send its wave through her, then looks again upon her many other daughters, commanding them with her sternest face to stay where they are. They, so used to obedience, remain. Confusion roils in their faces, for which is the lesser sin, to leave Mass, or to hear it presided over by a woman? Time flows on and decides for them. The introit begins. Marie smiles; she offers the cup, the bread, she blesses. The recessional. Her nuns stand and silently go to their work.
There is a great deal of angry muttering all day.
Goda is waiting in the abbess’s chambers, shaking so hard her clogs chatter on the ground. She says that it is wicked, wicked, it is against the church, against god, for a woman to preside over Mass.
Marie wills herself to love poor Goda. It is not her fault she was born like this.
She says to Goda to please tell her if she believes that women are the lesser sex?
Goda snaps that of course women are the frailer and the more sinful sex. Corrupted and weak.
Marie asks what her proof is, knowing that Goda knows little scripture by heart.
Goda gapes. She has large holes in her gums where she has lost teeth. At last she says, uncertainly, well, isn’t this the lesson of Eve?
Marie tells the subprioress to look at her and sits beside her and takes her hand. There is something in Goda that craves touch; perhaps this is why she attends to the animals. She resists, but then she lets Marie unclench her fingers and slowly begins to lean her body against the abbess’s. Marie says, Goda, do you not think the Virgin Mary, though born a mere woman, is the most precious jewel of any human born to a womb? Is our Virgin not the most perfect vessel, chosen so that in her own womb the Word can become human?
Goda says angrily of course. But but but.
And Marie says, wait a moment, let’s look closer at hand, and she knows Goda and she have had their fights in the past, but please be truthful, daughter: has Goda ever met a person Marie’s own equal, of any sex? And she waits as a terrible struggle takes place in Goda, and the subprioress at last says a very quiet no. She is sour and shortsighted and in thrall to hierarchy and authority, but she is pure in her way, she cannot lie, the poor old nun.
Marie says to remember that the abbey will have a visit from the diocesan just after the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin. If a woman saying Mass is still so wrong to Goda, she can unburden herself with her private interview then.
And poor Goda is so wrenched inside, she stands and informs Marie that she has to vomit, and runs out, leaving Prioress Tilde and Marie alone.
Tilde evades Marie’s gaze. Her cheeks are purple with rage. Marie looks steadily at her.
Tilde says at last that all of this is a terrible blasphemy, a terrible sin. If Marie persists, there must be an election for abbess.
Oh please, if there were an election today, Marie says, she herself would easily win.
Tilde says no that is not true.
Marie says only that Tilde should count, and watches as Tilde sorts through the nuns in her mind. At last Tilde sighs. She breaks her pen into pieces in her hands.
Tilde says that if there is a faction against Marie, she will—but Marie is glad to see that her prioress is too savvy to finish the sentence.
They hear Goda still retching on the ground outside. Tilde says that now that she is at last standing against Marie, she has long wondered why Marie keeps Goda as subprioress. Goda is an excellent mistress of the animals but her Latin is bad and she is no help in the business of the abbey. And she is simply wretched with the personal issues among the sisters. She has no understanding of feelings.
Marie says that it is true. In those matters, it is best to hear Goda’s advice and do the opposite.
But Tilde says that this is not an answer, and why does Marie not put in her place the sacrista or cantrix or mistress of scribes, all of whom are intelligent and subtle thinkers? They could be at least useful.
Marie says that, along with her duties with the animals, Goda’s position as obedientiary keeps her busy. High constant emotion mixed with rigidity is dangerous. A busy Goda poses no threat.
Marie understands what Tilde is doing; the prioress wants to install a new subprioress as payment for her silence. Marie bets on Tilde backing off first. Between the two, Marie has the far greater force of spirit. After a long span, the women frowning at each other across the room, Tilde’s eyes flood and she hurries out.
But Marie’s answer gnaws at her, and later in the afternoon she has to stop in her reading to consider what she said to the prioress. It is true that she keeps Goda near because the woman’s venom disperses swiftly with small easy obsequies to her dignity. She looks at Goda, her fingers mottled with ink as she murmuringly accounts for the ewes and the heifers and the hens on the back of an old letter, and then crosses out, bites her pen, scratches marks again and counts these aloud, scribbles again, and licks her lips that blacken with the tip of her tongue, which itself is black with ink. Perhaps it is her very barnyard reek and her vulgarity and her loud voice and her proud stomping upon the emotions of her sisters that draws the subprioress to Marie. Perhaps in loving a sister as difficult as Goda, Marie can be more sure of her own goodness.
And so it is as a sinner herself that Marie goes to hear her daughters’ confession.
The dam has burst. Most of the old nuns are furious but they do not dare to speak their fury aloud, they mutter it, they pray, they turn their shoulders to Marie.
At first only the novices and oblates and young nuns flock for confession, but after some weeks, Marie is kept sitting for hours. She listens; she hears them.
Suscipe sancta Trinitas has oblationes quas tibi ego peccatrix offero, they say, and often they cry.
And over the years that she will be the abbey’s confessor, what she hears will make her burn hotter in anger for them. Not the small things, the praying with no true prayer in their hearts, the lying, the stealing a bit of roasted chick
en off the spit, the small lusts and the special friendships—how many feel themselves polluted with an impious kiss!—these she sends off with small penance and there is a smile in her voice and they are reassured. But she sorrows for her daughters in their lives before, the secret invisible weights they have dragged behind them into the abbey. For the way this novice of eighteen is weeping because she is no virgin, because she had discovered a shadowy form sitting upon her bed each night from the day she turned eight years old, and how she has swallowed the sin, which is not hers, and taken it into herself as her own. The secret pregnancies; the sudden fists in the gut, the kicks in the head. The faces held to the dirt and the skirt pulled up. One young hesitant voice tells of the knife waiting in her hand for she knew a particular evil was planning to come stealing into the girl’s room on the day of her sister’s wedding, and it did happen like this, and she was ready, and then suddenly there was blood everywhere and bellowing and the death of internal rot afterward and her sister a widow almost as soon as she was a bride. Such murder heavy on the poor nun’s heart. And she could not bring herself to tell any confessor until Marie, there could be no ears for this but a woman’s. Until Marie became confessor, if she died, she would have burned in hell for this.
This is Sister Philomena, a quiet, pious nun whose nose often flakes with dead skin and whose eye is never bright with anything.
Marie says that, as the dear child knows, it was defense. The true murderer was the one who chose to come through the childhood door with evil intent.
But in the silence, Marie hears that this answer would never be enough. Philomena needs to hurt, to find catharsis through bodily pain, she will not be satisfied without it. Marie hates corporeal punishment as penance, but sighs and tells the nun to go to the misericord and flagellate herself until blood rises to the skin of her back. Stay on her knees in the cold there until the bell for Vespers. Pray as she kneels, pray with her whole soul. When she rises, her pain and her prayer will have washed her sin from her, and she can leave this sin on the floor of the misericord and go with a heart unburdened into fuller prayer.
