The Illuminator

by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

  “He has a daughter.”

  “Yes, he has a daughter.” She looked away. “But I didn’t drag you out of your bed to talk about Finn and his daughter.”

  “I know. You wanted to warn me to watch my mouth.”

  She nodded. “That and to ask you to begin to assume your responsibility as lord of the manor.”

  Here it comes, he thought, the lecture about responsibility, too much drinking, too much carousing. He remembered how angry she’d been at him. He shouldn’t have been so familiar with Glynis in front of her. She must have heard him sneaking in during the wee hours after all.

  “But I’m not old enough to be lord of the manor. Remember. You told me so.”

  “You’re old enough to begin to learn how to protect your lands and your family.” She held up her hand to stop his interruption. “I’m not talking about bearing arms. I know your father taught you how to wield a sword and use a dagger. And where did that knowledge get him? No, I’m talking about protection of another kind.”

  She got up and began to pace the floor again.

  “I have reason to believe that Simpson is stealing from us, from you. And in any event, he has valuable knowledge about the tenants, the sheep, the preparing and selling of the wool: knowledge that you need.”

  “If you think he’s stealing, why don’t you just sack him?”

  “Because between the plague and the French wars, precious few men are left. Laborers are hard enough to find: common yeomen, shepherds and weavers—harder still those who can read and cipher.” She turned to look at him. Her gaze was level, direct. “So I’m asking you to go and stay with Simpson. You can keep an eye on him and learn from him at the same time.”

  “You mean like an apprentice! Me? The future Lord Blackingham, heir of Sir Roderick, apprenticed to an overseer?” He heard his own voice rise in a childish whine but couldn’t help it. “Why can’t Colin go?”

  “Because Colin’s not the heir to Blackingham Manor. You are. Besides, it wouldn’t be apprenticed, exactly, Alfred. Simpson will still be servant and you master. He will respect that. He’s too greedy not to. He’ll probably even try to ingratiate himself with you. He knows I have no love of him. And you’ll learn from him—he may be a thief, but he knows wool—but more importantly, you’ll watch him, protect yourself and us from his thievery.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes you to catch him.” She shrugged. “Michaelmas, maybe.”

  Alfred, after his first flare of indignation, began to weigh the merit of her argument. So, he was to be a spy. The idea of such an adventure was not without its appeal. He could lead old Simpson a merry dance. And he had to admit it might be nice to be away from his mother’s watchful eye. Sometimes her apron strings tugged painfully. He’d thought about asking to go as squire, maybe to the sheriff, Sir Guy de Fontaigne. His father had spoken about it before he died. But this might be better. Close and not too close.

  “Needless to say,” she added, “you’ll be excused from prayers. I don’t know how much show of piety will be required of us with our new abbey connection. I expect we’ll see more of Brother Joseph. And there may be couriers between Blackingham and the abbey’s scriptorium. We must keep up appearances. But Simpson’s presence is only required at chapel on Holy Days. Of course, if you stay here, as future lord of the manor, you would be expected to be more in attendance than you have been in the past.”

  Well, that settled it!

  “When would I have to leave?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow. Simpson always brings the accounts on Fridays. Yesterday we were interrupted. I will send for him tomorrow. You will, of course, be present, and he will be made to understand your new status. Now that I think of it, he should give this accounting to you. I will stand in the background to answer any questions you might have later. But Simpson will see you’re in charge. You can even tell him that it’s your decision to observe his goings-on for a while—so that you can learn the wool trade—you don’t want to put him on his guard.”

  This new adult status was scary but had a certain excitement too. Stay here and take orders from his mother or go with Simpson and be able to give the orders? What’s more, he could do with a little male companionship. He missed his father.

  “I’ll do it, Mother,” he said, nodding soberly—as if the decision had been his to make. “Don’t you worry, I’ll catch the bugger for you.”

  “Good.” Lady Kathryn smiled. “I knew I could count on you.” She exhaled deeply and the lines in her face relaxed. “Now, go along and tell Agnes that you want your breakfast.”

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek. Her lips felt soft, and her hair smelled of lavender. At least this time he had made her happy. And it hadn’t been all that hard to do. Playing lord of the manor to surly Simpson might even be fun. And then he thought of Rose and sighed with regret. He’d completely forgotten about the illuminator’s pretty daughter. What a time to have to leave. Maybe he could get away from Simpson once in a while to check on progress in the improvised scriptorium.

  Lady Kathryn sank with relief onto the bed. From outside, she could hear the first clanging from the courtyard. Smoke from the struggling kitchen fires scented the early-morning air. Blackingham was shrugging off its slumber: the grooms, the maids, even the hounds sleeping in the stable, all were stirring to life with the first graying light. And she had not slept at all. She had passed the night considering the best way to get Alfred’s cooperation, but her careful planning had paid off. She could have ordered him to obey, but he was happy this way. It was all a game to him.

  Alfred and his games. How she’d loved watching him as a boy, a stick strapped to his side for a sword, dragging his makeshift shield behind him, devising battle strategy—he himself always the hero among his imaginary battle mates—punctuating gallant speeches about honor and courage with violent shakes of his red curls. She could still hear his shouts of “Forward, lads. Cut the blackguards down.” And in frustration he would shake his sword-stick at Colin, who had wandered off to examine the colors of a butterfly. She allowed herself the briefest fancy that she was back there with her young sons—watching them play, loving them, stroking their heads, singing them to sleep, binding their scrapes and bruises, doing the things that mothers do. How much she’d taken those simple pleasures for granted.

  Playing spy to Simpson would be just another game to Alfred, but it would keep him away from Rose. And he could profit from Simpson’s learning, and the overseer did, indeed, need to be overseen. Alfred was bright. If Simpson was stealing, Alfred would discern it, and together they could put a stop to it. Still, she would miss having her merry-hearted son underfoot. He could always make her laugh. And if Simpson was not the best influence, what harm could he do to Alfred’s character that Roderick had not already done by example?

  The lark outside her window started to sing—impudent fellow, to herald a dawn come too early. She would have hurled her shoe at him were it not ill luck to harm a lark. And Kathryn needed no more ill luck.

  So much to remember, so much vigilance required. Sometimes, she felt like a dried leaf buffeted about by the wind in winter. No direction. No control. If she could only rest a little while, then she would have the strength to see that Finn and Rose were settled in their new quarters.

  Just before she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, she remembered there was one thing she had forgotten. She had not questioned Alfred about his whereabouts on the night of the priest’s murder.

  FIVE

  On your altar let it be enough for you to have a representation of our Saviour hanging on the Cross: that will bring before your mind his Passion for you to imitate, his outspread arms will invite you to embrace him, his naked breast will feed you with the milk of sweetness to console you.

  —AILRED OF RIEVAULX,

  RULE FOR THE LIFE OF A RECLUSE (1160)

  The anchoress lay prostrate before her altar, before the image of her suffering Christ, and offered up her
own anguish. Her contemplation was broken, her prayers intruded upon by the terror her mind could not quench. She remembered (as though it had been days and not years) the bishop’s face as he chanted the mass of the dead, the sound as he shot the bolt on the massive door, sealing her in the symbolic tomb. The sound of the clanging of the lock and the scraping of the great oak door along the floor still rang in her ears even as she lay before her altar in a well of silence. She lay in darkness, too. And she lay in the cold sweat of her fear.

  It was the highest calling of all that had summoned her, the call to live in solitude, to close herself off from the world, from family, from friends—not even allowed the comfort of monastic community—so that she might become an empty vessel to receive Him. The woman she had been was dead as far as the world was concerned, giving up even her name for the name of the church, the Church of Saint Julian, in whose eaves her hut sheltered. A mere appurtenance, it was built outside the church walls as a symbol of the hermit’s solitary status. She had willingly answered the call to this life, denying herself both ecclesiastical and worldly community, agreeing to live fully dependent on the charity of others for her sustenance, to abide in communion with her Lord, her solitude interrupted only by the occasional visitor who came seeking solace or prayer. And that had been enough.

  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 G
od 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.”