The Illuminator

by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

  She did not sit. Just kept looking at the broken vial of blue powder on the floor.

  He was giddy with relief, his words as frenzied as his pulse. “Your visit is well-timed. I need you to deliver a packet of papers for me. I’ve been copying for Wycliffe. The bishop would not be pleased. If you could just take the papers to the anchoress who lives by Saint Julian’s, she’ll see that Half-Tom delivers them to the right place. I certainly can’t afford to anger the bishop now, can I? Not when Rose needs me so. Kathryn, I can’t tell you how—”

  She shrugged his hand off her shoulder and dropped to her knees. “You’ve spilled the luzerite,” she said softly. “Let me help you.” She brushed the blue grains into a pile with her gloved hand.

  “I was so surprised to see you.” He knelt beside her, started to sweep the blue onto a scrap of parchment. “It was too strident for the Virgin’s cloak anyway. Tell me about my granddaughter.” She said nothing, just answered him with a sniff. Had she caught an ague in the weather? A small drop of moisture wet the back of her glove. Where had that come—“Kathryn? Are you crying?”

  He took the reclaimed pigment from her, stretched to lay it on the work-table.

  His breath refused to come. “Kathryn, is it Rose?”

  The top of her head nodded, barely discernible, except for the stirring of a strand of hair escaping its golden net.

  “Kathryn, for God’s sake. Look at me. Answer me.” He gripped her shoulders and together they rose from a kneeling position. “Is it Rose? Is she not well?”

  When she raised her face to him, a smudge shadowed her cheekbone where she’d wiped at her tears with a blue-stained, muddied glove.

  “Kathryn, you said …”

  She wiped her eyes again, spreading the blue stain beneath the other eye. Her face looked bruised. For an instant he saw the face of his weeping Madonna, his Crucifixion Madonna. And he knew what it was she could not bear to tell him.

  He choked on the words, his mind refusing to accept what his eyes read in her face. “But you said her labor was over, Kathryn.”

  “Her labor is over, Finn. She is with the Holy Virgin.”

  Kathryn sat beside Finn for a long time on the floor, watching helplessly as he held his head in his hands and cried for his daughter. Kathryn cried for them both. She told in a voice hoarse with emotion how tenderly Rose had been cared for, how her last words had been for him, how they’d buried her in the family crypt, in consecrated ground. When he responded to none of this, but still sat with his head in his hands, she sought to move him by telling him how they’d found a nurse for little Jasmine, what a treasure the child was, and how she brought hope to Blackingham, should bring hope to him. She vowed to raise the child until Finn could come for her.

  “I will treat her like my own daughter, Finn. No child will be more loved. I swear it, dearest heart.” She had called him that the last time they had lain together. The word had just crept in amidst her grief, surprising her. But he took no notice of it. “Finn, I swear it by the Virgin’s milk that nurtured our Lord.”

  But she might as well have been giving her promises to a statue. Finally, she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. The nurse was at the entrance with the baby. Kathryn wordlessly took the baby from her, motioning for her to wait outside. She knelt beside Finn with the baby in her arms.

  “I’ve brought Rose’s daughter for you to see.”

  She touched him lightly on the hand, careful not to startle him. “Finn.” She thought he was going to turn away, shrug her off. But he didn’t move. With her free hand, she arranged his arms in the shape of a cradle. She placed the sleeping babe there. He looked at the child as though it were some strange, exotic creature, his eyes unblinking, his lips parted. He sat like that for what seemed an eternity to Kathryn. The babe slept soundlessly.

  Kathryn urged softly. “Finn, this is Jasmine. This is Rose’s gift to you. She was baptized as Anna, but Rose called her Jasmine to honor Rebekka.”

  “Rose’s gift,” he repeated dully.

  Kathryn stroked the baby’s cheek. Jasmine opened dark blue eyes and blinked at him.

  “She has Rose’s mouth, Finn. And see, she has Rose’s high, noble brow.”

  He held her out in front of him, studying her as though she were one of his half-completed manuscripts. Kathryn had never seen his eyes look so cold. When he spoke, his voice was low and flat. Kathryn had to strain to hear. “She has Colin’s fair complexion,” he said. “She has Colin’s eyes.” His tone chilled Kathryn to the hard bone.

  He handed the child back to her. “I’ve lost three women that I loved,” he said. “I’ve not the heart to lose another.”

  Finn didn’t know when they left. It was the bells ringing none, mid-afternoon, that roused him. He was alone in the prison cell. Maybe it had all been a dream, he thought, a dream sent by the devil to torment him. The weight in his body began to ease. But the papers were gone—the papers he’d hidden when his visitor approached. And at his feet was the broken vial. A pile of blue powder, mingled with dust, lay on his worktable where the Wycliffe papers should have been.

  Grief hit him full-force, sucking his hope. He wanted to break something, anything, to leap from the high window into the river, to hurl his body against the wall until the blood splattered its stones. He cursed and roared at the empty air around him, bringing the constable.

  “Bring me opium, I am in pain.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Bring it. Now!” he screamed. He pounded his fists on the table and continued pounding until a guard brought him a goblet of strong wine laced with opium.

  He woke later to the sound of vespers bells. He felt feverish. His heart hammered, and his head kept time. He felt like a man in a downhill race who could not stop.

  He took up the Annunciation panel. With shaking hands, he mixed the arabic gum and the strident blue powder. A shard of broken glass gleamed up from the blue. He laid it in the palm of his hand to examine the tiny glass dagger. He closed his palm against it and waited, hoping for the sharp prick of pain.

  When he opened his palm, a small drop of blood welled up. Stigmata. But self-inflicted. No miracles here. Not for him. Not for his Rose.

  The drop of blood mingled with the blue powder in the crease of his palm. With the index finger of his left hand he scooped the sticky mixture onto his palette and began to stir it. His hands no longer shook. Carefully, methodically—he might have been merely mixing cinnabar to tone the blue— he stabbed his index finger.

  He squeezed a drop. Stirred the mixture.

  Stab. Drop.

  “Aurea testatur. “It is witnessed in gold.

  Stab. Drop. Sanguine testatur. It is witnessed in blood.

  Stab. Drop.

  Now he had it. The perfect shade of blue for the Virgin’s robe. A deep blue-stained royal.

  It was the color of his granddaughter’s eyes.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Yet in all things I believe as Holy Church preacheth and teacheth … It was my will and meaning never to accept anything that could be contrary thereto.

  —JULIAN OF NORWICH, DIVINE REVELATIONS

  The anchoress awoke from her nightmare to the sound of a light tapping at her supplicant’s window. She’d dreamed the devil was choking her—a devil who bore a remarkable resemblance to the bishop—and at first found herself disoriented, so real had the dream been. She was drenched in sweat in spite of the chill she had felt during the prayers of mid-afternoon. Had she fallen asleep reciting the none office? No wonder the devil approached her. How long had she slept? From her communion window, she could see afternoon light picking out the colors on the windows deep inside Saint Julian’s shadowy interior.

  Tap, tap, tapping again. More urgent this time. Unmistakably, voices coming from outside, women’s voices. She’d not had many visitors since the rains began. She missed her visitors. But she dreaded them sometimes, like now. Who was she to offer holy comfort? The Paraclete had departed from her, leaving a p
aucity of comfort.

  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.