Suddenly she saw again the little Jewish boy outside the walls of Judenstadt, his silly little hat, his tears. She heard too the taunts of the other children. “I … I don’t know. It is a hard thing to know.”
“We will decide together,” he said.
Together. How she longed to believe in those words.
“I can read your face,” he said. “You do not trust me. But I would beg you to remember that my disguise was not the only one, Anna. You were no widow. It was a maiden’s virtue I took that night in our little love nest in Rue de Saint Luc.”
She started to explain, but he held up his hand. “I understand there is much that must pass between us before there can be trust. As I promised, I will not claim the marriage debt from you nor will I pay it until such trust returns between us.”
The scent of the apple blossoms perfumed the tiny chapel. She sat down on the lone bench beside him.
“I have no dowry,” she said.
He laughed. “And I no dower to offer you, except what resides in heart and hand and head. I bring nothing to our marriage but the clothes on my back—and they were purchased by that Church which you despise.”
Outside, voices gathered and called to them.
He led her outside onto the gray stone steps of the chapel, where the wedding vows were to be said before they reentered the chapel to celebrate their first mass as man and wife. The Lollard priest was waiting there with Lady Joan and Lord Cobham. The abbess was there, leaning on Sir John’s arm, wearing her thin black veil. Anna could not see her eyes. Only a small crowd of local peasants and laborers had gathered—most were at the Eastertide mystery plays being put on by the guildhall in Rochester.
The priest cleared his throat.
“Have the banns been published?”
Lady Cobham spoke up. “There was no need. The bride is a stranger to these parts. Father, you may proceed.”
The Lollard looked as though he might challenge her, then thought better of it. “Then are there any assembled here who know of any impediment to the marriage?”
Not even a murmur.
“I can see the couple is of age,” the priest said. “Do you swear that you are not within the forbidden degree of consanguinity?”
Gabriel said, “We so swear, Father.”
“Do you consent freely to this marriage, then, Anna of Prague?”
“I do.” Anna nodded.
“Do you, Gabriel, the friar’s son, enter into this holy bond of matrimony with Anna of Prague of your own free will?”
At the mention of Gabriel as a friar’s son, a murmur drifted around the fringe of cotters and servants gathered to watch. A knowing smirk appeared on some few faces, as if to say, “Another one.”
“I do,” Gabriel said.
“Then join right hands. Gabriel, have you a ring as token of your pledge?”
Gabriel took the ring—also provided by Lady Cobham. “Here, you will need a ring,” she’d said, as if it were a little thing and handed him the silver band set with garnets. He handed it now to the priest, who held it up and then placed it in turn on the first three of Anna’s fingers, intoning, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” letting it finally rest on the trembling third finger of her left hand.
Then the priest delivered a small homily on the sanctity of marriage, but Anna could not quiet her mind long enough to listen to his words. She could only wonder at how she had come to be standing here, with a child growing in her belly, pledging herself to a stranger who represented everything her grandfather had taught her to disdain.
She wished she could see her grandmother’s face behind the veil. But since the abbess had made no move to stop her, didn’t that argue for consent? Didn’t her presence bespeak her approval?
Gabriel held her hand lightly. But she could feel the sweat on his palm and found it strangely endearing. She looked up to read his expression, but he was not looking at his bride. He was looking at the priest, actually listening to his homily.
And then it was over and they were moving inside the flower-bedecked chapel to kneel before the altar and take their first Communion as husband and wife. When the priest offered not only the host but the cup to Anna, Gabriel looked surprised, opened his mouth to speak, and Anna feared that he would object. She knew the Roman Church did not give the cup to laity. Only the priests were allowed to partake of the wine. It had been a bone of great contention in Prague. But her bridegroom closed his mouth and remained silent as she drank the blood of Christ.
At the conclusion of the mass, the priest passed the kiss of peace to Gabriel, touching his lips to Gabriel’s cheek. Gabriel passed it to his bride. Anna could scarcely feel the brush of his lips on hers, so lightly was it transferred.
THIRTY-NINE
Women have power and authority to preach and make
the body of Christ and they have the power of the
keys of the Church, of binding and loosing.
—WALTER BRUT, 1391,
AT HIS TRIAL FOR LOLLARDY
The bride ale was almost finished. Anna and Gabriel sat without touching each other, not on a dais in the great hall, but at the head of the small but festive board in the solar. She’d read of great men, royals and such, where bride and bridegroom had never met before their wedding day. I am marrying a stranger, she thought, as much a stranger as if we’d never met in Rheims.
Lord Cobham toasted the health of all assembled: the yeomen and retainers attached to his estate, his own “fair bride of a few happy years,” the abbess, who honored them with her presence, and lastly, the bride and groom. With each toast his jocularity increased and Anna’s too rapid heartbeat quieted a little. A piper piped a pretty tune and then a fiddler played a love song. Its plaintive notes reminded her of the Gypsy fiddles, and she wondered where Bera and Lela were, if they’d ever made it to Spain.
She stole a glance at her new husband when she thought he wasn’t looking. Only one thing about him looked familiar. He wore a flat suede cap to cover his tonsure, and his blond hair curled beneath it just the same way it had curled around VanCleve’s red silk hat.
The wine was good and the food tasty. There were the usual Easter subtleties—confections in the shape of crosses and eggs—and a small bride and groom made of marzipan standing on tiny chapel steps made of cake. And there were gifts. The abbess, pleading fatigue, left early but presented the couple with a purse of gold florins before she departed. A child’s wooden cradle from the lord and lady came with a blessing that “they should fill it well and often.”
Anna felt herself blush. “This is for our child, Gabriel,” she whispered in her husband’s ear. “It is beautiful.”
“Yes. It is.” But Gabriel appeared to address the company at large more than his bride. He did not tag the blessing of the cradle as a more enthusiastic bridegroom would surely have done.
She made no other attempt to gain his ear and felt only relief when the feast was ended and they departed for the abbey. Since it was only a short distance from castle to abbey, Anna rode in front of Gabriel. She held her body stiffly so as not to lean against him overmuch, wishing that the horse would walk less sedately, but knowing that Gabriel walked it slowly for the sake of the child.
No raucous wedding party followed them to the bridal chamber. When they reached the abbey, the sun had already set and that shadow-drenched loneliness that heralds the night had descended.
He walked her to her chamber door and, with a stiff little bow, said in a strained voice, “I will not see you on the morrow. I must go to Lambeth Palace. The archbishop has summoned his council to consider the problem of Lord Cobham.”
She could feel her temper rising, the bridle slipping from her tongue. “But surely you—”
“The archbishop must not know of my decision. If I am to save Lord Cobham from the fire, he must think me still committed to stamping out heresy.”
“He is the true heretic. It is he who presents a false salvation. He who takes that which is p
ure and whole and simple and twists it to enrich himself and that devil’s institution which he serves.”
He just stared at her. “Anna, beware. Your tongue can not only destroy yourself but your husband as well. And if that does not move you to silence, then have a care for our child—else this will all have been for nothing.”
Her husband. How strange to hear him describe himself thus.
He did not look at her but over her shoulder. His lips formed a faint smile. A goodly sight! She realized she had not seen him smile all day.
“I see Lord Cobham’s gift has already arrived.” He pointed to the cradle beside Anna’s bed.
“His horse was faster than yours.”
“Perhaps his burden less precious.”
He is talking about the child, she thought.
He held out his hand as though he were going to clasp hers, but let his drop listlessly to his side. “I bid you farewell, wife. I will return as soon as I can. Take care while I am gone.”
She knew he meant that she should guard more than her own good health. He reached again for her hand. She did not offer it. Tomorrow he would don his black friar’s habit and he would leave her. She did not know what that meant.
“Godspeed, then, husband.”
She watched him walk away. She noticed again how the fine blond hair curled below his brown suede hat.
It was not the first time he’d left her thus, promising to return.
On May Day, the morris dancers came to the abbey yard. Anna took Bek outside to watch them dance around the maypole. She envied their lithe bodies.
She felt heavy now. And always tired. And she was worried about her grandmother, who hardly ever left her bed except when Anna took her to the gardens to watch the bees and the butterflies and the new spring flowers.
“You will hear from him soon, Anna. He is a good man. It’s not easy being caught between two worlds.”
When the abbess wasn’t dozing in the sunshine, she told Anna stories about her mother, Rose, and her father, Colin. Stories Anna was always hungry for. “You got your religious zeal from your father,” the abbess said. “And that quick temper and red hair—well, you got that from your uncle Alfred.”
These memories seemed to console the abbess as much as Anna.
“And my mother, what did I get from her?”
“Grace and beauty and a lineage that goes back to our Lord.”
“You do not hate the Jews, then, Grandmother?”
“My Lord was a Jew. How can I hate the Jews?”
“In Prague once on an Easter Sunday, they shut them all up in a synagogue and set it on fire. Three thousand of them died.” Anna had heard that story many times, but this was the first time she envisioned it. She could hear the cries all around her as the smoke billowed, saw in her mind the flames, smelled the smoke and fear. Anna put her hand protectively around her belly. “Some of them were children,” she said.
But the abbess had not heard her. She was sleeping in the sun.
In June a short message came from her husband. Or so the letter was signed. She didn’t feel as though she had a husband. It was cryptic and short.
I fear my disguise is wearing thin. My absence would cause questions here and my presence there pose a danger for you. You are safe at the abbey. Give my regards to the abbess. I have been in touch with our mutual friend to apprise him of the danger he is in. I may go to him ere I come there.
It was signed “your husband.”
Oddly enough, she drew some comfort from the coldness of the letter. For when he had spoken words of love to her he had willingly abandoned her. Perhaps duty and not love would drive such a man as he. Though duty kept a cold hearth.
As did resentment, she reminded herself.
In mid-July Anna went into labor. Twenty pains or so! she thought after six hours’ labor. What did Gilbert the Englishman know? And then she remembered how easily Lela had given birth to her son.
“She is old for a first bairn,” the midwife said, clucking her tongue. “It’s hard for the older ones.”
Sister Matilde held Anna’s hand and mopped her brow, lifting her heavy hair that dripped with sweat. She felt the cooling breeze on her neck, then braced herself for the next wave of pain. “Pay her no attention, Anna. Just think about the babe. Think about holding your infant in your arms.”
Twelve hours later, wan and depleted, Anna held her son in her arms.
“He’s a fine lad,” the midwife said, preening as though she were responsible. As though Anna had not done all the work.
“Where’s his father? Shall I call a priest from the village to baptize him, or will you take him to chapel on the morrow?” she asked.
“We will take care of it ourselves,” Anna whispered, not taking her eyes off her son.
“Mother will baptize him,” Anna said when the midwife had gone. “She has strength enough to dip a child in a baptismal font.” She knew Sister Matilde would not protest. The sisters even celebrated the mass themselves when no priest was around.
“What do you wish him to be called, Anna?” The abbess had appeared in the door of the chamber while the midwife was cleaning up.
“His name is Finn. Finn, Gabriel’s son.”
The abbess smiled. She was not wearing the veil. The smile spread to her eyes.
Gabriel’s son was six weeks old when he first saw him.
“She’s in the kitchen garden with the wee one, Brother,” the novice who answered the abbey gate told him.
She was sitting in the shade of a pear tree, her blouse unhooked, the babe at her breast. Her head rested against the trunk of the tree and her eyes were shut. The expression on her face was that of a woman lost in a pleasant dream. At her knee was the basket of pears she’d been picking, their skins rose-brushed like the skin of Anna’s white shoulders and neck. The heat of the afternoon pressed the fragrance of overripe fruit into the air. The only noise was the drone of a bee that hovered over the basket and the little tiny sucking sounds his son made. The vision left him almost light-headed. Here at last was Eve. Here Eden.
He felt a surge of desire and with great effort tore his gaze away from her full cleavage and fastened it instead on the bald pate of his son. His son! Greedy little sprite. He made a little gurgling noise in his throat. Gabriel laughed.
Anna opened her eyes. Her face tightened.
“You’ve come, then, finally. To see what it is you’ve, what we’ve, wrought. It has been four months since you promised to be my husband.”
“I have kept my promise.”
She looked as though she did not know how to reply to this.
“I mean, I have been faithful to you. And I am here, at last. May I hold him?”
“You need not ask permission. He is your son, I’m glad you are in your husband clothes. He might spit up on your fine black habit.”
Not Eden after all.
He held out his arms, accepted the child carefully in the crook of his arm. He’d baptized many an infant. Yet this one felt different. This one was as much a part of his arm as if it had grown there. The child screwed up his mouth as if to cry, and then closed his eyes and went to sleep. Gabriel brushed a bit of milky white from the corners of his mouth, tried not to stare as Anna fumbled at the thin fabric of her bodice to close it.
“I shall not have much use for the habit in the future, at any rate,” he said, giving the child his finger to suck on, wondering if the sensation was more intense against Anna’s pink full nipple. Setting that thought deliberately aside, he said, “The archbishop is growing impatient. He suspects my gathering of further evidence is a pretense. I’ve been buying time for you and the babe to grow strong enough to leave.”
“But … but where will we go? How shall we live? Does he know of the marriage?”
“No, he does not. Not yet. But he suspects that I have betrayed my calling. Sir John has been arrested, and I tried to warn him. When that failed, I argued for him, even went to the king on his behalf. I will be called to te
stify at his trial, and I mean to testify in favor of him. If the archbishop finds out about you, then you and my son will be in danger. He might even try to use you as a lever to make me testify against Sir John. I’m going to take you to a safe place. I’ll take you to my mother’s cottage in Appledore. If I survive the trial, I’ll come for you. If I don’t, you and—what did you name him?”
If I survive the trial! “Finn. Gabrielson. After my grandfather,” was all she said.
He brushed the downy head of the child, the soft spot in his skull reminding him of his son’s vulnerability. “You gave him my name too.”
“That was the reason I married you, remember? To give him your name,” she said, then added, “I did not like ‘Friarson.’”
“Neither do I,” he said.
“But what about Mother? What about Bek? Are they safe here?”
“I don’t think Arundel will bother with the abbey again. There is not enough evidence. As for Bek? Well, he has the patronage of the king. You can bring him, if you want, but if he is happier here—well, you and he decide.”
“But this is my home. I cannot leave—”
“You must leave, Anna. And you must do it now!”
“Now, Gabriel? You think you can just—”
“Now, Anna. For the child. Not for me. For him. If Arundel finds out he is my child, he may wind up in some monastery, raised with that religion you call false, raised like me. Is that what you want for him?”
“Let me tell the abbess good-bye,” she said. Then looking at him with tears in her eyes, she added, “Gabriel, did you know that the abbess is my own true grandmother?”
“But you said your grandmother was a Jewess.” He whispered the word, lest even the pear trees have ears.
“I had two,” she said. “Kathryn of Blackingham was my other grandmother. My father died in the Lollard cause. So, you see, I have a long heritage of heresy.”
The Mercy Seller: A Novel (v5) Page 43
