Joan gave a delighted gasp and was on her feet and in his arms before he could say anything else. She planted a kiss full on his lips.
“John, what a shameful thing to say! Though the way you smell, your lady would probably be well enough justified. This is Brother Gabriel. He is a legate from Canterbury.”
“From Canterbury, you say?” His guard was instantly up. What was the woman thinking?
“The archbishop has sent us a confessor.” Her eyes glinted mischievously.
Suddenly the weariness of the long ride home swept over him in a wave. His good humor evaporated as he considered this spoiler of his homecoming.
“I am surprised that you did not tell the legate from Canterbury, good wife, that we have no need of a confessor.”
“I did, my lord, be sure, I did. But he has really come to preach at the abbey, and his visit and offer to us are merely a courtesy.”
That part at least rang true. The abbess had mentioned the newcomer to him and expressed some concern that his presence might slow down the abbey’s output. But why was he here at Cooling Castle?
His lady leaned into him and whispered in his ear, or made a pretense of whispering, for she said it loud enough for the friar to hear. “Brother Gabriel has Lollard sympathies. Isn’t that shocking!”
Sir John disentangled his wife’s arms from around his neck and looked more closely at the interloper. He was certainly a fine-looking specimen for a monk. He remembered Joan’s laugh and felt the tiniest pang of jealousy.
“And specifically with what aspect of Lollardy does this emissary from His Excellency agree?”
Brother Gabriel looked him straight in the eye, his manner forthright, honest. “I cannot say I totally agree, nor can I say I totally disagree, with Master Wycliffe’s teachings. Let us just say, Sir John, that I am a seeker after truth. Your lady was kind enough to show me your copy of the Wycliffe Bible. I found it very impressive.”
“And do you think the archbishop would find it ‘impressive’?”
The friar smiled. “I daresay not. But the archbishop does not speak for me in all matters.” The visitor took another drink of John’s wine then stood up and wiped his mouth. “I see, Sir John, that you are weary from your travels. I will bid you good night. Tomorrow or the next day perhaps we can discuss theology.” He gave a little half-bow and moved toward the door. “Thank you, Lady Cobham, for your kind hospitality. No need to ring for a servant. I can find my way back to my chamber.”
“And what was that about?” Sir John asked when the priest was gone.
“Now, my love, before you go and get all bothered, have a little faith in me. I told him nothing of our endeavors. He saw the Wycliffe Bible on the table and asked to examine it. That’s all. I thought by not pretending to hide anything, he would lose interest and go away. Sometimes a little bit of truth bluntly spoken hides what is unspoken. Besides, if Arundel went after everybody who owns a Wycliffe Bible, he’d have to put half of England in chains. And don’t forget, my husband, the young king has always held you in high favor.”
“He’s not king yet.”
“In all but coronation.” She pulled him into a chair and sat on his lap. “You must be starved. Here.” And she broke off a sliver of meat and put it between his teeth, then raised her goblet to his mouth, and after he had drunk, she kissed away the drops that lingered there. “Don’t worry about the monk, John. He’s harmless enough. Who knows, we may convert him. And wouldn’t that put a wrinkle in old Arundel’s breeches.”
Sir John patted his wife on her plump behind and stood up. He couldn’t help but laugh. God’s wounds, it was good to be home.
Alone in the chamber to which the servant had shown him, Brother Gabriel tried not to enjoy overmuch the gracious furnishings and convenient appointments of his surroundings. A man could become fond of luxuries like the feather mattress and the beeswax candles glowing softly in the darkness. To his way of thinking, too many among his fellows already had succumbed to the love of luxury, forgetting their vows of poverty. It was a weakness he would not allow himself. Still, he was grateful for the candle. By the glow of its light, he could examine the Wycliffe Bible.
It was a crudely copied affair. No decorated capitals. No color in the margins. Just line after line of English written in a cribbed hand. Written as though paper were very dear to the scribe. It was, he decided after his cursory examination, a profane document, just by the appearance of it. Imagine the Holy Scriptures, deserving of all the beauty that could be lavished upon them, written in such a common hand! In such a common language! Think of the dirty and callused hands that would touch it, turn its ugly pages. But the worst part was that the words themselves would fall from the lips of ignorant peasants not worthy to mouth such holy words.
It was truly casting pearls before swine. That was the established position of the Church he served, and who was he to disavow it?
He should put the profane text aside. He opened it, instead, to the Acts of the Apostles. At first he was caught up in the translation itself. And he was forced to admit, except for a word here and there, the translation was correct. Gabriel prided himself on his Latin. He would certainly spot a mistranslated word, an aborted phrase—had there been such. But then, nobody ever accused Wycliffe of being ignorant. The thing that surprised him most was that long after Wycliffe’s death, when the translations were completed by other minds, copied by amanuenses of varying levels of education, the translation was readable and reasonably accurate.
But it was still a profane document. The Church had condemned it. History had proven it worthy of condemnation, for had not these very words in the minds of ignorant and unlearned men incited riot and murder? Without John Wycliffe’s heretical teachings about every man his own priest, without his sermons on the abuses of clergy, would Wat Tyler and John Ball ever have dared lead a raid against the the nobility and the clergy, killing even the archbishop? And yet it looked so innocent.
The candle guttered. Where had the night gone? Of course there would be no bells to toll the hours in such a profligate house—that would be too much to expect. But it must be nigh unto matins judging by the spent candle.
He knelt on the floor among the rushes and recited the Divine Office: Domine labia mea aperies. The image of Lord Cobham’s plump, pretty wife intruded. Et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam. Trying not to think of what they might be doing now in the hovering darkness of their chamber. But the carnal thoughts interrupted his devotions with surprising force—the glow on Lady Joan’s cleavage, the smell of the bruised roses in the heat of the afternoon. He’d thought that struggle behind him, with his youth, after that first carnal straying, after the crofter’s daughter from the village. She’d been older than he and not a virgin, but he’d thought he loved her. He’d cried when she ran off with a traveling tinker, confessed his sins, done his penance, and vowed to put women behind him. They always left anyway, Brother Francis had said. Only the Holy Virgin was faithful. He tried to think now of the Virgin’s face, but Lady Cobham’s smile—the coquette’s smile reserved for her husband—intruded there too.
When his prayers were complete—some words repeated several times to chase away the English words from the profane text that he’d just read; how quickly the devil worked, first the carnal images and now the heretical text— Brother Gabriel did not avail himself of the feather bed. A sinner who could not control his thoughts deserved to spend the night on the stone floor in mortification of his flesh. He had not brought his flagellum with him. It had been a long time since he had felt the need for such an instrument of contrition. False pride. False spiritual pride—and lingering too long with the profane text—had weakened his control, and now these lustful thoughts had entered his mind, sullying his contemplation. Brother Gabriel reached inside his cassock and pinched his thigh until he felt it throb with pain.
When he awoke for lauds, he was satisfied that the bruise was sufficient to keep his thoughts pure. It ached when he walked. He recited the offic
e of lauds—his mind not once straying from the Latin words he mouthed—and then lay fully clothed across the feather bed, where he fell into a deep but troubled sleep.
NINE
Ne’er do well fortunetellers, ventriloquists
and wiʐards … who are inspired satanically to pretend
to predict the unknown …
—FROM AN EARLY 13TH-CENTURY
BYZANTINE RECORD
It was not the approaching Prague twilight that chased the old Gypsy woman from the stone bridge spanning the river Vltava—not the advent of eventide but the soldiers.
“Begone, hag, lest you want a fagot lit under your filthy skirts.”
Jetta knew why the soldiers were at the bridge. They had come to take down the death’s heads. Jetta had come to watch. She retreated just out of reach, yet close enough to appease the voices in her head.
Three skulls gleamed in the slanted sunlight like ivory globes. Picked clean. It hadn’t taken long—she’d watched the daily gleanings—less than a week in the summer sun, with sharp beaks pecking at skin and sinew and carrion flesh. Even the twittering little birds came at the end to feast on the leavings of the black-winged crows. But it was the way of all things. The way of predator and prey, and the birds didn’t know they picked at flesh that had once pulsed with life, or care, any more than people cared who ate the flesh of birds. It was nature’s way.
Though Jetta ate no meat. And she gave scarce meat to her Little Bek, because what she gave to Little Bek she had to chew first. He could not keep rough food on his stomach. But he was getting stronger every day. One day soon, he would be able to chew his own food. He might never walk. Or talk. But that was all right. Her head was filled with too much talking anyway.
Jetta put her hands over her ears, tangling scrawny fingers in the dirty gray strings of hair that hung beneath her kerchief, and shook her head from side to side. Nothing, not even this violent shaking, could rid her of the demon voices.
“Jetta will look, Jetta will look,” she muttered in reply to their incessant nagging.
One of the soldiers pointed in her direction the long pike he was using to take down the skulls. “Look,” he said. “She’s a witch. She’s talking to her familiar. Let’s take her in, chain her to the altar of Saint Vitus Cathedral so her witch’s ears will hear the mass.”
“Nay. She’s no witch. That’s just old Jetta. She’s harmless, one of the vagabond Egyptian pilgrims camping downriver.” Then he raised his voice. “Off with ye. Go back to your vagabond camp. There’s no one here to dukker with your fortune-telling.”
But still Jetta did not flee. The voices in her head wouldn’t let her. She skittered to the edge of the bridge, still within eyesight, still within earshot. She had not come to tell fortunes. She came today same as every day to the stone bridge, driven by the whispering in her head, whispering that turned to shrieking when she did not obey. In the beginning she had resisted, humming plainsong like the monks or wailing like the violins around the Gypsy campfires, but the voices would not be ignored. They would torment her until she tied little Bek in his chair and went in search of the red-haired girl.
The soldiers were lowering the pikes now. One of them removed the skull from the center pole, hefted its weight in his hand. “A well-made brain pan, that.”
He made to toss it into the river, but his fellow, the one who’d spoken up for Jetta, stopped him. “Shouldn’t they have a Christian burial?”
“This is a fit enough burial for a heretic, I’d say,” and the soldier threw back his hand, hurling the smooth, round dome into the river.
Jetta watched as it arced high and skipped once before catching in the swirl of the current. A flash of bleached bone, a flash of sunlight on the water, and the skull disappeared. Its pole mates dropped after, plopping without ceremony into the black waters beneath the shadow of the bridge.
Then the soldier stopped and picked up a fresh nosegay of flowers resting at the base of the pike: pink and purple coneflowers tied with a blue ribbon. “Send these after,” he said, flinging them into the river.
“Gone. All gone. Swallowed by the river spirits. She’ll not come anymore.” Jetta whined to her voices. “Now let Jetta rest. Let Jetta go back and tend to Little Bek. Little Bek needs Jetta.”
But she knew the demon voices would torment her until their purpose was accomplished. As before. When she’d found Little Bek on a bed of rags, abandoned at the edge of the bridge, flailing with his hands against the hard stones, flopping on his twisted legs like a discarded trash fish precariously close to the water’s edge. She’d named him Bek because that was the only sound he made, screaming like a wounded bird, bek, bek, bek, his screams growing louder as she carried him on her bent back, his stringy legs dangling almost to the ground, to her camp.
The soldiers were gone now, but they’d left the naked, upright pikes on the bridge to await their next adornments.
The slipping sun was turning the river the color of blood. The young woman would not be coming today. Jetta knew she’d already come and gone, because the flowers floating on the current were fresh. The voices were mostly silent when the red-haired woman came tentatively across the bridge and laid her offering beneath the pike.
Jetta had watched her at other times, wondering what demons drove the woman to the bridge. Sometimes the woman cried and threw stones at the birds. Sometimes she just stared with large, sunken eyes in a face that would have been beautiful if not distorted with grief. At such times, Jetta could read her mind, and she trembled for her and would have approached her.
Wait, the voices would say. Not now.
And Jetta would wonder why they drove her to be a silent witness to another’s grief.
The soldiers had gone. The voices were silent now. Jetta walked to the end of the bridge, looked back at the great bronze crucifix at its opening on the other side of the river. It too had caught the reflection of the dying sun and was the color of blood.
She ventured a few steps. Quiet, still. She hiked up her ragged hem and ran as though distance between herself and the bridge could keep them silent. By now, Bek would have pounded his poor wrists against the sides of his chair until they were blue, and he would be hungry. It would have been a mercy to let him fall into the river. But the voices would not let her.
The rind of an orange sun floated on the surface of the water. It would be dark soon, and she did not like to be on the streets after dark, but she still had to go to Celetná, the street of the baker, to buy calty. And she had not enough coin even for the smallest loaf. She looked around hurriedly for her gorgios mark. There. Just entering the street. A wealthy merchant.
“Dukkeripen,” she whispered hoarsely, offering to say his future. Then before he could turn away, “You have been three times in danger of death,” she said, making her voice low and heavy with warning.
This always got their attention, for it was true. What soul did not live with death all around?
The merchant looked furtively about, before giving her the silver penny and extending his palm to her. She quickly pocketed the penny in her begging apron, glancing askance at one of the soldiers who had driven her from the bridge. She muttered the familiar litany: a long journey undertaken to escape danger, a fortuitous encounter with a beautiful woman. The gorgios saw the soldier too. He had paused in the doorway of the chandler and appeared to be watching them.
The merchant’s palm, whose lifeline she traced with a ragged nail, twitched nervously, then tried to retract, but Jetta held on for a second longer just for the sport of it, as she muttered, “Danger surrounds you.”
The pudgy hand with its beringed fingers, the largest ring, a signet ring, circled his fat sausage finger—no chance to steal that one; it clung too tight, biting into the flesh—jerked free. Jetta chortled to watch him wipe his palm against his fine cloak, casting furtive glances in the direction of the soldier as he pretended to saunter away. He could be fined or worse for his attempts to divine the future with soothsaye
rs and Gypsies. The priests laid all divination and magic at the devil’s door.
But never mind, she thought, fingering the silver penny. The gorgios in protecting themselves protected the Gypsies too. She waved a bangled wrist at the soldier and hurried into the baker’s. She had her penny, and little Bek would have his bread, and his eyes would light with pleasure when he saw her.
And for now, the voices were quiet.
The voices stayed quiet until the next day at noontime. Jetta was singing to Little Bek, delighting in the way he singsonged back to her—still the bek bek, but he carried the melody in his high, sweet tone even when she varied it.
He was learning to chew his own food too. He would hold a bit of bread in his mouth until it softened with his slobber, sometimes mulling it with his teeth, watching her, copying the way she moved her own jaws as she chewed, and then he would swallow it. He had only choked once and then but lightly. He was coughing his way through that spell when the whispers began in her head.
Go to the bridge. The red-haired girl is coming. Go now. Now. Now. Now.
“Not now,” Jetta muttered, “not now.” Little Bek looked at her with startled eyes and beat his bruised fists against the floor of the wagon. He knew what was coming, and she hated it. But the longer she resisted the worse the voices would become, until the shrillness gave her a headache, and she would still have to go.
“Just a little while, Bek. Be still. You can sing while I’m gone,” she said, tying him to the chair. He flailed his arms against the sides in protest, bek, bek, bek, no sweet tones now, but shrieks. He beat the sides of the chair so furiously—more than once she had to duck his flying fists—that she feared his fragile wrist bones would snap. She could have wept for his terror and hatred of being tied, but she had no choice. The one time she had not strapped him in, he had scooted to the edge of the camp wagon and fallen out. It had been during the heat of the day, when the camp was deserted. He was exhausted and coated with dust when she found him, his poor bottom scraped raw with his scooting.
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