The Illuminator

by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

  That was why she’d sent him away. All that pretense about spying on the overseer. She’d just wanted him out of the way so she could fornicate with a stranger. She probably figured Colin was too stupid to know what was going on under his very nose. God’s Blood! They’d probably even done it in his father’s bed. The thought sickened him. His own dam! It was as though his father had been erased. Alfred suppressed a desire to shove, with one fell swoop of his hand, the neat little paint pots from his father’s desk—the desk that this … this shriveled little cod had dared to appropriate. But no. The noise might waken the sleeping princess in the next room. Sure to bring down his mother’s wrath on his head. Instead, he picked up a couple of quills and crumpled them in his hands, poking their nibs into the flesh of his palm until he winced.

  A leather book bag hung, open, on a peg. A bag that once held his father’s books. He shuffled through the loose pages of illuminated script. Hasty examination showed the sheets on top to be John’s Gospel. And underneath, more pages, these crammed into the bottom as though less valuable or half-forgotten. He recognized some Saxon words, English words. Unimportant scribblings. Not so angry as to endanger his soul by desecrating a Holy Gospel—especially now that a seed of an idea had occurred to him—he returned Saint John carefully to the bag. Then he took the pearls from his pocket and arranged the strand in the bag, covering them askance with the loose pages from the bottom, so that if one looked with only half an eye, the pearls would be visible while still having the appearance of an attempted concealment.

  Having vented his frustration in this petty act of revenge, Alfred tiptoed out of the room, but not before pocketing a thin sheet of gold leaf—one didn’t have to be an artist to know it was costly—and strode down the stairs with a smile on his face. Once outside, he laid the gold leaves onto a pile of dung, smiling to himself at the result. He thought briefly of putting the gilded cow pile in the illuminator’s bed, but not wanting to dirty his hands with the fresh dung, shrugged off the urge. Just the thinking of it was enough to satisfy him. Let his lady mother find her pearls in her lover’s room. Let him explain that.

  Alfred rode straight to the Beggar’s Daughter to celebrate his mischief. And to drown his grief. He bought the first pint himself. Sir Guy de Fontaigne bought the second. And the third. And then Alfred began to talk.

  Sir Guy, listening attentively, gave the boy an avuncular pat on the back, a sigh of commiseration, and motioned for the publican to pour another pint.

  Agnes lingered by the grave, oblivious to the cold. She couldn’t leave yet. Not until she said her piece.

  “I reckon ye were a good husband to me, John. Except fer the drink. And God’ll forgive ye that. He knows ’tweren’t yer fault.”

  She plucked a long strand of hair from her head—when did it go so gray?—wound it around her index finger in a perfect circle. Then she slid the ashen ring of it from her finger and patted it into the loamy earth. The crows would probably steal it to line their nest, but she had nothing else to give him.

  John had wound such a ring for her on their wedding day, a bright circlet of his own brown hair. She’d cried when a spark from the cook fire had singed it from her finger, cried more for the loss than the pain. He’d laughed at her, then held her to him and said he would shave his head and braid all his locks—his brown luxurious locks—into jewelry if ’twould make his bride happy.

  “Ye’re free now, husband. Long last and untimely so. I know ye had no love fer Blackingham, and it right pleases me to know ye’ll not lie in Blackingham ground. But Lady Kathryn did right by ye, John. She doesn’t blame ye for the fire. I canna blame ye either.”

  She sat beside him a long time. A veiled sun struggled to show itself but could not penetrate the mist. The dove ceased its plaintive mourning calling. The only sound now came from the rustle of dry leaves overhanging the roof of Saint Michael’s.

  “I have to leave ye now, John. I’ve me duties to attend.”

  She stood up and turned away before his ghost could wrest from her lips the one reproach she did not wish to say. The one thing she could not forgive. She was well beyond the lych-gate, well past his spirit’s hearing, when she muttered the words. And the saying of it squeezed the last drop of bitterness from her heart.

  “Ye gave me no children, John. Ye’ve left me alone.”

  She walked the two miles back to Blackingham along the same hard path that Lady Kathryn had taken earlier. She did not feel the cold. The calluses on her feet within their ill-made clogs served her well. The redbrick house loomed ahead, calling her to task. It was too late to roast a joint, she could tell by the position of the weak sun playing hide-and-seek with the mist. Maybe a brace of partridge on the spit. If she hurried, there might be time enough to make a custard tart.

  A thin stream of smoke curled from the kitchen chimney. Thank the Holy Virgin for that. She’d been afraid that, without her there to oversee, the groom who fed the fires would make himself scarce. He was a yeoman’s son but a lazy, loutish boy, marked by the pox and not fit for the wars or he would have gone with all the rest.

  She entered the silent kitchen and put her back to the oak-planked door to shut it behind her. How had she never noticed it was so heavy? Suddenly, it gave with a creak and the metal bar slammed into its latch as if pushed by an unseen angel.

  “Oh, ’tis only ye, Magda. Hiding behind the door again,” she said as she hung her coarse wool shawl on the peg. “More devil than angel if cleanness be a virtue.”

  She’d meant to make the scullery maid bathe once Lady Kathryn had said she could stay. She’d not have such filth in her kitchen. The wench smiled at her as if she’d been paid a compliment, her eyes wide with pleasure, her hand raised close to Agnes’s head, stroking the air as though ’twere a piece of fine silk flowing between her fingers.

  The girl was daft, pity be. Agnes peered at her more closely. Daft, surely. Yet, there was something about her, mayhap even an intelligence behind the downcast eyes.

  The girl pointed to the fire, then to herself, nodding her head vigorously.

  “What are you trying to tell me, girl? Just say it.”

  “Magda.” She pointed to herself, then to the hearth. “F-Fire.”

  “Ye kept the fire going?”

  Smiling broadly, the girl nodded. “Asked b-b, asked boy for logs.”

  “Well. Well. Ye kept the fire. Ye may not be as simple as they said.”

  The girl rubbed her crossed arms together. “Magda, cold,” she grinned.

  The warmth of the fire felt good to Agnes, too. She hadn’t noticed how cold she was ’til now. Cold. Was John cold in the churchyard? Better not to think that way. There lay grief past bearing. She looked at the girl with an appraiser’s eye. She reckoned the stable boy would see cause enough to make him come to the girl’s aid. The girl was small, but beneath her rags could be seen the budding breasts of a woman.

  “Food. For you.” Magda pointed to a dish of fried eggs.

  “Did you cook the eggs, too?”

  The girl hung her head as if disappointed that she could not confirm the deed as hers. “No. A m-man and the lady.” Then, almost defiantly: “But I can cook eggs.”

  “Can ye indeed?”

  Lady Kathryn, bless her. And a man. The illuminator must have returned. And right glad of it she was. The eggs were a blessing. Not just because she needed food—though grief had dulled the blade of her hunger—but because it meant that the others had been fed. They would still need supper, but not so much.

  With a dirty hand, the girl handed her a piece of bread. Agnes looked at it and frowned—bread baked before the fire, when her John was still with her— but she took it and scooped up a bit of congealed yolk with the crust the girl had not touched. As she chewed she looked at the scullery maid thoughtfully.

  “Put some water on to boil, Magda. Ye’re going to have a bath.”

  The girl shook her head, fear widening her eyes.

  “It won’t kill ye, child. And o
nce ye’re rid of fleas and lice, then ye won’t have to sleep with the dogs.”

  Magda’s look of fear abated only slightly, but she poured the water into the swinging kettle. She had filled the water jar from the well that morning, but she poured it stingily, as if each drop were poison.

  “Fill it full up. That’s right.”

  For the first time since the fire, Agnes felt the weight on her chest ease ever so slightly. She went into the cupboard, collected a bar of lye soap and frayed wool rags. But when she came back out, the girl had vanished. The only sound was from the hissing of the boiling water. Then a slight movement beneath the heavy oak table, hardly more than a chimney sweep’s brushing wing.

  “Come on out, child. I’ll not hurt ye and ye’ll not melt.”

  The girl came out, as she was bidden, but cringed when she saw the soap and rag. Agnes took her arm gently and pulled her toward the hearth, seated her on its raised stone end. The girl stood obediently but poised for flight as Agnes filled a bowl with steaming water. Then Agnes took Magda’s upturned face and began to scrub until pink skin showed.

  “Tonight, ye’ll share my bed,” Agnes said. “It’ll keep us both from the cold.”

  Kathryn heard Colin praying in the chapel as she passed on her way to the great hall for Simpson’s monthly reckoning. “Misere Nobis, Kyrie Eleison.” Prayers at prime with the rising sun, more prayers at terce and sexte and none, and then again, when the evening shadows came creeping at vespers. No matter what time of day—even as the bell tolled curfew at compline— when she’d passed the chapel lately, she’d seen her son at prayer. And no perfunctory priestly offerings, either, but sincere supplication.

  Were the sins of Blackingham so great that her beautiful boy, wan and gaunt with fasting—when had she last seen him eat?—must mutter these incessant pleadings for mercy? Did he whisper his entreaties here in the cold chapel even at matins, when the rushlights danced with demon shadows on the wall, and again at lauds, when Saint Peter’s cock crowed in the blackness of pre-dawn? While the sinners at Blackingham slumbered, while his mother slept with a Christ killer—a “Christ killer” with more Christ in him than any priest she had known—her child, surely the most innocent among them, kept prayerful watch.

  She paused at the chapel door, poised to go in, to interrupt, pull him away from his pious devotions into the crisp sunshine of the November day. She could not think when last they’d talked. Not since the shepherd’s death, surely, a week gone. Finn had not come to her either, not since that afternoon she’d sent him away. Seven nights she had waited, listening for a knock at her door. On the day after, Glynis had brought a message from him: “A gift of appreciation for my lady who gives shelter to a poor artisan and his daughter,” attached to a parcel. Artisan. The word slapped her in the face. She unwrapped the package to find shoes of soft suede with a buckle fastener like none she had seen before. She’d heard the buckles were the latest fashion. She’d not seen one until now. The boots were beautiful. Why had he not given them to her himself?

  Domini Deus. Colin was crying in the chapel. His pale hair gleamed like a halo around his fine-boned face, now gaunt with too much piety. The light from the crimson cross of the chapel window played upon his hair, a sign that painted its sacred cruciform across the crown of his head and down his shoulders like a monk’s mantle. Saint Margaret’s window. Roderick had paid handsomely for its brilliant hues depicting the patron saint of childbirth. When she was carrying his sons he’d burned candles, changed the chapel from Saint Jude’s to Saint Margaret’s—how easily he disposed of saints, as easily as he disposed of favorites. All this trouble and expense—not for her, she knew. But for his issue, “the pride of his loins,” as he called the lusty male twins the midwife had presented to him, though from the beginning he seemed to find more pride in one than in the other.

  He’d handed the smaller, sleeping infant back to Kathryn, and held the screaming red-faced one that he’d named Alfred up into the air, one-handed, like a trophy. “This one. This one,” he’d said, “is destined to be a fighter.” She’d shuddered when she’d heard those words. Shuddered and prayed to Saint Margaret to protect both her sons. Saint Margaret, who now conspired with her sunlit cross to woo Colin away. What would Roderick say if he saw his youngest son mewling before the altar day and night? Roderick had no penitential leanings, though heaven knew his sins were great enough to give him cause.

  Colin remained immobile, kneeling before the altar, his hands clasped, eyes closed: the classic penitential posture. Surely he could feel her presence, had heard the rustle of her skirts. He gave no sign.

  “Colin.” Softly, almost a whisper.

  He might have been carved in stone, except for the gentle movement of his lips as he mouthed the prayers.

  Sighing, she turned away. Unable to save his brother, she had stolen this younger one from the malediction of his father’s affections, but she would not struggle with that other Father. Not even for a son. Lest she endanger not only her soul but his as well.

  “Christi Eleison.” Fainter now, his voice pleading as her footfalls fell away.

  Christ have mercy on us. Yes, and especially for you, Colin, for my beautiful boy child. Mercy for you. She mouthed the words silently. “Christi Eleison.”

  Mercy for me, too, she prayed. She could feel the throbbing begin beneath her cheek. Soon the headache would come. Her monthly time was late. Should she be worried? It wasn’t the first time. She’d put it to her time of life. But that was before. Could Finn’s seed even now be seeking some still-fertile niche inside her womb? He had pulled out, hadn’t he? Every time? He’d never spoken of it, had not invited her to enter into sinful conspiracy, but she’d learned to wait for him to spend his passion against the soft of her belly. Like spilled wine.

  Coitus interruptus.

  She massaged her left temple, willing the pain away. There was this reckoning with Simpson to get through.

  Coitus interruptus. Christi Eleison. She took a deep breath and exhaled, her bosom moving with the heaviness she felt. Too much Latin in her life by half.

  Kathryn entered the great hall where the steward would attend her; its portable banqueting tables and benches had been cleared away after the last great feast—feasts were few and far between since Roderick’s death. The hall’s only furnishings now were the heavy tapestries that lined the walls, filtering the cold that seeped through the bricks, and one lone table and chair, which she was to occupy in her various dealings as lady of the manor. This saddle-shaped chair built of sturdy English oak had fit her husband. Roderick had been a large man, filling up the space, a master on his throne, but even with her voluminous velvet kirtle tucked inside the chair’s curved arms, there was extra space. And when she tried to rest her elbows on its arms, she felt like a wounded falcon with its wings stretched unnaturally beyond their span.

  She’d given orders that the chair be moved from the dais to the center of the room, thinking it would be less threatening. She preferred conducting her affairs in the warmer atmosphere of the solar and had only decided to use the great hall in this one circumstance to remind the surly overseer of her position. Now she thought that moving the chair from its elevated position had been a mistake—she needed Simpson to have to look up to her, and besides, she felt very small in the middle of that great expanse of emptiness—but the chair was much too heavy. And her head ached horribly.

  She closed her eyes to exorcise, or gather strength to endure, the familiar pain, and to await the overseer’s coming. Why did she let the man bother her so? He was servant. She was master. She should let him go, but where was his replacement? She heard the shuffle of feet across the floor, then the murmur of voices. She opened her eyes to see not only Simpson but her son as well. Of course, why had she not assumed Alfred would be with him? Alfred— when had he grown so tall and handsome?—stood beside Simpson. The dread shifted, eased. She straightened her spine and raised her chin.

  Alfred reached for her hand, broug
ht it to his lips as he dropped to one knee in a courtly gesture.

  “I trust my lady mother is in good health.”

  He’s practicing his court manners, she thought. How like his father he is in some—too many—respects. But he belongs to me. He suckled at my breast. That bond is strong. And he’ll make a strong master for Blacking-ham. She smiled to think how her father, the first lord of Blackingham, would have been pleased with his sturdy heir.

  There was much she needed to say to Alfred—she’d put it off too long— but she was mindful of Simpson, who stood behind him in a posture, but not an attitude, she noticed, of submission.

  She motioned for Alfred to stand.

  “I am well enough, considering. It is good that you’ve decided to finally attend your mother. Your absence has been conspicuous during this recent misfortune”—here she glared at the overseer—“and your absence as well. You should have attended mass.”

  Behind Alfred, Simpson smirked. She could read what he dared not say: a funeral mass for a common peasant was an affectation and beneath him.

  Alfred colored slightly, his eyes flashing resentment.

  “My lady mother, it was not my intent to be neglectful. I have been busy about the task you assigned me.”

  Pretty words, but the tone she was less sure about.

  “I came to my mother’s chamber the afternoon of the shepherd’s funeral, thinking to lend what support a dutiful son may lend in troubling times, but I found the door closed and my lady mother closeted with another. Not wishing to intrude, I departed.”

  The overseer was smirking, but she scarcely registered it, so taken aback was she. The afternoon of the shepherd’s funeral, he’d said. The last time she and Finn had been together. She felt the blood drain from her face.