The chapel bells clanged now, three bells calling the sisters to nones, the last of “the little hours” in the heart of the afternoon. The sisters put down their quills as if on cue and rose, some stretching discreetly, some stifling yawns, grateful no doubt for the respite from the tedium of copying. The boy struggled to his feet, drawing himself up hand over hand on one leg of Anna’s stool and holding on to Sister Matilde’s hand for support. They joined the processional. Sister Matilde always brought up the rear because of Bek’s affliction, but Anna considered it no less than a miracle that the boy could walk at all without the help of the handmade crutch VanCleve had fashioned for him. His legs still jerked and wobbled, but at least they supported him.
The scriptorium emptied out, leaving Anna alone, excluded from the obligation of the Divine Offices. Oddly, this exclusion did not pain her as had her exclusion from the Gypsy women, if exclusion it could be said to be. Her participation would have probably been welcomed by the sisters, but she had no desire to chant the prayer ritual. Still, she felt in some sense tied to these women in common cause, and even to their prayers, though she preferred to say hers alone, a personal, private prayer of thanks to God that she and Bek had found a home at last.
Her grandfather had been right to send her here. She should have come sooner. But no. She would not regret the time in Rheims. How could she? Not with the memory of VanCleve’s arms around her. A memory that might have to sustain her forever here in this company of women. And how could she regret their “sinful dalliance,” as others would call it, with the knowledge that his son grew inside her, a son she already loved? But still her conscience pricked. She wondered what Mother Superior would say if she knew the truth about Anna’s child.
Anna looked out the window to the cloister walk and beyond to the threetiered fountain, where raindrops plopped like tears into the still pools below. Quiet pools like the reservoir of tears inside her that filled up the empty places in her heart. Tears for Martin, for her grandfather, for VanCleve, who had abandoned her. But not all tears of bitterness. Tears of hope too. VanCleve had left her with this secret part of him that fostered charity in her, charity enough to think that someday he would return to the little house in Rue de Saint Luc as he had always intended. Finding her gone, he would come searching for her. The landlord would give him the Gospel of John and the note, telling him where she had gone. That thought warmed her. That and how pleased her grandfather would be that she had kept her promise and was carrying on the work to which he’d given his life.
The sisters—and Bek—would be returning soon. The room would fill up again with the whispering of nibs on parchment, the scraping of penknives against the cured flesh of the calfskin, and the plaintive notes of Bek’s chanting. (He no longer chanted “An na” but now words from the prayers: the kyrie eleison and je su je su.)
She should go to the privy before the sisters returned. These days her bladder’s demands seemed to follow the frequency of the Divine Hours. She did not like to leave Bek unattended, lest they think she took advantage. She pulled on the hooded mantle hanging on the peg beside her stool and rummaged around to find the French poem, which she placed carefully on top, leaving her quill on the last unfinished word as though she had stopped mid-sentence to step away from her writing table. Then she laid the book of poems on Wycliffe’s text before heading for the necessarium behind the priory.
She pulled her hood up to cover her hair and closed the door behind her. No need to latch it. The sisters never latched it when they went to prayers. And who would come out on a day such as this to nose among an innocent abbey filled with women?
Brother Gabriel sat gratefully in front of the small hearth in the guesthouse and rubbed his calf, grimacing at the tender spot. The ride back to the abbey from Canterbury in the rain had not helped. What was it Mistress Clare had said about the pain in Brother Francis’s leg? It bothered him when it rained? The pain shot from Gabriel’s hip to his ankle in a string of fire. He went to the little wooden cupboard and took out a flask he’d procured from an apothecary in London, poured from it into his hand, and gingerly massaged his leg, releasing the fragrance of peppermint into the air.
This was a pain surely sent from the devil to punish God’s anointed. Or sent by God Himself perhaps, to punish His anointed? It was the same punishment that had come upon Brother Francis in midlife. After he’d had carnal knowledge of a virgin. After he’d stolen her child from her and sent her away.
“Your mother was not a whore. She was a virgin when Brother Francis first knew her.” He could still hear the condemnation in Mistress Clare’s voice, the inflection on the word “knew” leaving little room for any misunderstanding that such “knowledge” was in a biblical sense. At least Brother Gabriel had thought Anna a widow when he’d first made love to her. VanCleve, on the other hand, really did not care. And yet the latter’s intent toward Anna was much purer than the former’s. How naive VanCleve had been in the purity of that intent. How false Brother Gabriel. Where did one begin and the other end? And was this pain in his leg sent by God or the devil? Or was it merely something one man had inherited from his father? The fathers eat sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge. The sins of the father.
He put down the bottle of peppermint oil and stood up gingerly, wincing when his foot accepted his full weight. VanCleve might be gone, but Anna Bookman lingered in the thoughts of Brother Gabriel. He was besotted with the woman, powerless to discipline his thoughts, like some poor victim from Greek lore. He saw his enchantress everywhere: her image hung on his closed eyelids like a beautiful tapestry; her visage lay upon the faces of painted saints; the corona of her bright hair shimmered in goblets of still wine. Two weeks ago, his imagination had conjured her in the personage of Cobham’s ward ensconced upon the dais beside Lady Joan. Dear Lord, what a fool he’d made of himself. He’d been so overcome with emotion, he’d been almost too weak-kneed to stand even the next day when he was called upon to accompany the archbishop back to Canterbury.
That trip to Canterbury alone had been enough to aggravate the pain in his leg. The three of them, Brother Gabriel, Commissioner Flemmynge, and Archbishop Arundel, in the intimate space of the heavily draped carriage, as Flemmynge the sycophant sallied forth on the evils of the heretics. Gabriel had closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wooden panel of the carriage, hoping his companions would think him asleep. But who could sleep with Anna there, standing in the doorway of the little town house in Rheims, as he had last seen her, her eyes bright with unshed tears?
“Flemmynge thinks we should concentrate on the abbey.”
In the pause that followed he realized the archbishop was addressing him. He opened his eyes.
“I beg your pardon, Your Excellency.”
“I said we should concentrate on the abbey. Have you searched the abbey?” The archbishop’s words rose and fell with the motion of the carriage as it rocked back and forth on the rutted winter roads.
“I’ve been in the scriptorium many times when the sisters were copying. The last time with Flemmynge himself.” He looked directly at the bishop, who was sitting on the carriage seat next to the archbishop, the better to whisper behind his hand, Gabriel thought.
“Then perhaps you need to search it when it is empty,” Arundel said archly.
Flemmynge smirked.
The archbishop continued. “Oldcastle will be summoned to give an account of his actions during the occasion of the Feast of the Blessed Saint Thomas a Becket.”
“Why? What did he do?” Gabriel asked.
The crescent-shaped creases framing Archbishop Arundel’s face deepened. “Prince Harry ordered him to provide a guard to line the processional route for the holy cross.”
“Did he refuse?” Gabriel asked.
“Worse. As the processional cross passed, each of Sir John’s armored and liveried vassals turned their backs on the holy cross that carried the image of Our Blessed Lord.”
Brother Gabriel d
rew in a sharp breath. That was a bold move even for Sir John. And a reckless one. An open challenge, not just to the church but to the king who ordered him to serve at the processional. One had to admire the man’s courage. Or deplore his foolishness.
Flemmynge disturbed the smirk on his lips to comment. “Prince Harry is not pleased. Oldcastle is being summoned the day before Candlemas to answer for his blasphemy.”
Candlemas. Well timed to draw out Sir John’s heretical tendency. The blessing of the candles was just one of the many rituals the Lollards despised.
“Did you tell Sir John of the impending summons as you accepted his hospitality?” Gabriel asked. He could not keep the sarcasm from his voice.
The archbishop registered it with a belch and a frown before commenting. “No. Best to let him think he got away with it. While we gather more evidence. You are to return to the abbey by the end of the week—that will give you time to offer indulgences at Canterbury to those brave pilgrims hardy enough to venture forth in this weather. When you return, make a thorough search of the scriptorium, and this time do it when the nuns are not present. You will have two weeks before the summons to come up with more evidence.”
Two weeks, the archbishop had said. Starting today.
When the abbey bells tolled nones, Gabriel returned the liniment to the cupboard and carefully pulled his boot over his tender calf. Then he pulled up his hood and slipped out the door of the guesthouse. Nones was a shorter office than some, but the scriptorium was sure to be deserted for the next fifteen minutes or so. There would be time to make a start.
When Anna returned from the necessarium, the nuns were already beginning to exit the chapel in one long line, threading the cloister like a black silk cord. Cutting diagonally across the quadrangle courtyard, she opened the door on the end closest to her writing table and was surprised to see that she was not the first to return. At the other end of the long, rectangular room, a figure hovered over one of the slanted desks.
The dim light of a winter afternoon had already cast the eastern end of the scriptorium into shadow, but it was easy enough to see that the head bent over Sister Agatha’s desk wore a hooded cowl and not a wimple. She was about to hail the visitor when, probably startled by the blast of cold air ushered in by Anna’s opening of the door, he slipped out of the door on the opposite end that led into the refectorium and not the cloister walk.
The “sometime resident friar” the abbess had mentioned? But what was he doing at Sister Agatha’s desk and why did he bolt like a frightened hare down a hole? Probably nothing. But she would mention it to Mother next time she saw her. Blowing on her frozen fingers for warmth, Anna settled on her stool, put her frozen foot on the welcoming, warm bricks—which like the inkwells seemed to be miraculously replenished several times a day. She positioned the outside sheet of the quire containing pages one and two beneath the weighted cords to hold them in place, took up her pen knife for scraping mistakes in one hand, her quill in the other, and began to work. She looked up only long enough to smile at Bek as he settled at her feet.
The nosy friar slipped as easily from her mind as he had slid from the scriptorium.
Brother Gabriel waited two days before making another attempt to search, certain that the young postulant—it was not one of the regular sisters; he could tell by her dress—had reported his snooping to the abbess. He should never have tried to search the scriptorium during “the little hours”; he should have known there was not enough time.
His heart was simply not in it, Brother Gabriel thought. That was why he was making such a bad spy. Lately, he’d come to wonder why the people he most admired seemed to be on the other side. Sir John, for instance. One surely had to admit the man had the courage of his convictions. And the abbess. There was something about her spirit that made him want to bathe his wounded soul in it. And then of course there had been Anna, who despised the very notion of grace dispensed by priests and friars and pardoners. They didn’t understand the frailty of the human spirit: that’s what Brother Francis would have said. They didn’t understand how one soul had not the strength or the purity to meet God without the crutch of God’s divinely ordained.
The keys to the kingdom did not belong to anyone who claimed them. He knew that in his heart. And yet something in his spirit sided with the heretics, or at least was beginning to understand how they could come to their heretical notions.
When a summons from the abbess did not come, he concluded that it might be safe to try again, but he would wait until vespers. The nuns had their last meal of the day afterward. That would insure him sufficient time for a thorough search.
But what would he do if he found something? That was the next question. He would report them, of course. What else could a loyal son of the Church do?
At the sound of the vespers bells, he listened until the last footfall faded, then he lit a small lamp and went out into the cloister. He would have all the time he needed. The windows of the scriptorium were already dark. The sisters would not be back tonight.
Anna would wonder later what might have happened if she had not ignored the flame flickering in the scriptorium windows, lighting first in one, then the other, like some ghostly firefly in the middle of winter. Probably one of the sisters back from vespers filling the inkwells in preparation for tomorrow’s work, collecting the finished work, she told herself, and then she put it from her mind. She and Bek had been invited to take their evening meal with the abbess in her quarters. She had come to treasure these intimate moments with the abbess. She did not want to be late.
THIRTY
And would that you, Conscience, were in the court of
the kings always. That Grace, whom you commend so,
were the guide of all clergy.
—WILLIAM LANGLAND IN
PIERS PLOWMAN’S PROTEST (14TH century)
In his chamber at Westminster Abbey, Prince Harry was finishing the musical composition to be performed at his father’s funeral. The doctors of medicine had pronounced it a matter of days, perhaps only hours. Henry Bolingbroke, King Henry IV, had been stricken while at prayer in Westminster Abbey’s Jerusalem Chamber. He was now unable to speak or even to move. He took no food. No water. He would not last long. Prince Harry, who had been summoned to his father’s side, would be crowned immediately upon the king’s death. Indeed, Harry had already tried on the royal diadem.
It did not fit ill.
Harry had written the music down on two pages, each page with carefully drawn neumes, signs above each syllable of text, to show whether the melody would go up or down, and not just one melody but two, two polyphonic sounds to be sung in counterpoint.
First, he would send for the archbishop, who also kept the death watch, to solicit his approval. Then, he would send the music out to be copied for distribution to the court musicians. With the melody humming in his head, he considered. How to sign it? Henry V? Prince Harry? No, some signature for his music alone. He picked up the pen and with a flourish signed, “Roy Henry.” It looked good on the page.
Prince Harry was playing one melody on his lute, while guiding Lord Beaufort to play the other, when the archbishop answered the summons.
“No, Excellency, not yet,” Harry said as Arundel rushed into his chamber. “No word from His Royal Majesty yet. I’ve summoned you on another matter. Attune your ears to listen to your prince’s composition.” Harry nodded at Beaufort to begin. “Psalm Twenty-three. It is to be sung at my father’s funeral. Though not to the sound of the dirge. I’m not partial to dirges.” He plucked the first notes of the second melody.
The archbishop frowned. His demeanor never changed during the playing of the lutes. When the last note died away, there was silence in the room.
“Well? What say ye?” Harry was unable to keep the impatience from his voice.
“Your Highness, it is a tune … worthy of a monarch’s passing. I’ve no doubt it would be rendered more so if Your Grace had a less inept accompanist. But when Your Highness
has time, I have matters of graver importance to discuss.” The archbishop gave the merest hint of a bow, took a step backward. “I shall return when Your Grace is alone.”
Irritated at the archbishop’s disdain for one he preferred—as well as for his lack of musical taste—Harry answered sharply, “Excellency, prithee, proceed with your ‘grave matters.’ We have no secrets from our uncle.”
Now you have something to frown about, Harry thought, and then reminded himself that he was not king yet and Arundel could be a powerful enemy. He nodded at Beaufort apologetically. “Attend us, uncle, after you have had your dinner.”
Beaufort, ignoring Arundel as though he were not even in the room, bowed deeply. “As Your Highness commands.” He backed out of the room.
“Now, Excellency, you have our sole attention.”
“It concerns Lord Cobham, Your Grace. Candlemas has passed. Lord Cobham has ignored your summons to appear at Leeds to answer for his heresy.”
“The roads are scarcely passable with the flooding.”
“Neither has he sent a messenger to show cause for his delay,” the archbishop retorted.
“If Sir John could not get through, how then could we expect a messenger to?” Harry could not keep the irritation from his voice.
The archbishop merely nodded, conceding the point reluctantly. “There is more, Your Grace.”
More? How could there be more than the deliberate disobedience of a subject to his lord? “Say it, then, before it burns your lips, so eager are you to have your prince’s friend hauled before you in chains.”
“Brother Gabriel has searched the abbey scriptorium, which is under the patronage of Lord Cobham, and he has found damning evidence indeed.”
The Mercy Seller: A Novel (v5) Page 32
