Knowledge of Angels

by Jill Paton Walsh

‘There are two questions,’ said Sor Agnete. She was sitting well down the table, far from that empty chair, in which, in truth, she longed to sit. ‘First a petition from Taddeo Arta . . .’

  Josefa gasped, half rose from her chair, and subsided. Clearly this was the first she had heard of it.

  ‘. . . He says that he understands his daughter has not yet taken final vows, and he requests that she be returned to his household. He says that his young wife is sickly and cannot look after the children properly. He needs his daughter’s care of her stepsisters, one in the cradle and the other now first walking. He offers money.’

  Every face in the room turned towards Josefa. ‘Oh, please!’ she said, beginning to cry, copiously, ‘Oh please . . . please . . . I beg you . . . Oh . . .’

  ‘Please what, child?’ said Sor Eulalie. ‘Please release you, or please retain you?’

  ‘Please let me stay!’ cried Josefa.

  ‘Have we ever sent a sister away against her will?’ someone asked.

  ‘Only for gross turpitude,’ said Sor Agnete.

  ‘There, there, girl,’ said Sor Blancha. ‘Of course you can stay.’

  ‘We must think, though,’ said Sor Agnete. ‘If this Taddeo appeals to the cardinal . . . It would be easier if she had taken the final vows. Then any release would be unthinkable.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she take them right now?’ said Sor Blancha.

  ‘Is she ready?’ asked Sor Lucia. ‘Our other three novices are more diligent. Has Josefa even so much as started on the contemplative life?’

  ‘She has worked hardest of all!’ cried Sor Blancha. ‘And with never a word of complaint!’

  ‘Work, certainly!’ said Sor Lucia. ‘But prayer, Sor Blancha?’

  ‘You are not fair!’ cried Sor Blancha. ‘We have laid on her the drudgery of care night and day for a . . . a thing like an animal; you have been praying all day, while she has been struggling in dirty straw and sharing misery with that poor savage creature, under obedience like you, and do you now turn up your nose at her?’

  ‘No, I do not, Sor Blancha. But I point out that Sisters of Sant Clara have chosen the part of Mary, who sat at the feet of the Saviour . . .’

  ‘While Martha in the kitchen made the meal,’ said Sor Blancha. ‘Have a care what you say about the Marthas, Sister. Remember that the food you eat here has been the product of my work with farm and flock these many years. And who prays well when they are hungry?’

  ‘What will become of us if we fall out, when the abbess is unable to rule us?’ said Sor Eulalie. ‘If there are many mansions in heaven, surely we can manage more than one kind of virtue in Sant Clara! And doesn’t it say in St John that the Lord loved Martha?’

  ‘Come, Sisters,’ said Sor Agnete. ‘Let us not argue over such a matter as this. If Josefa takes her final vows this day, is there anyone who does not welcome her among us? Speak now, or for ever hold your peace.’

  No-one spoke. Into the silence Sor Agnete continued, ‘There is another matter. The cardinal is coming to question Amara again.’

  ‘I don’t understand this,’ said Sor Blancha. ‘He wanted to know what she said, and she said “No”. So now he comes again – will he keep her here until she says “Yes”? Is that the idea?’

  ‘I have never understood how she can answer questions about God if she doesn’t know what the word means,’ said Sor Eulalie.

  ‘It is a cruelty to keep her here, like caging a bird, or tethering a young horse,’ said Sor Blancha.

  ‘But we are deeply sworn,’ Sor Agnete said.

  ‘Must I make a confession, before I take final vows?’ asked Josefa.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Sor Coloma.

  ‘And in confession we are forgiven great sins as well as little ones?’ said Josefa.

  ‘Yes, Josefa. Yes, you know this,’ said Sor Coloma.

  Sor Agnete was looking at Josefa with a shrewd understanding.

  Josefa sat on the little painted chair in her cell and looked through her window-grille at the shining sea. By and by, she took to her knees and attempted prayer. It is a terrible bondage that chains those who need to those who give help. Soon the comforter needs the sufferer as fiercely as ever the sufferer needed the comforter. Helplessness is addictive, like poppy water, and it is the helper who needs to drink on and on. Josefa contemplated life without Amara with a limitless dismay. She had barely courage enough to think about it. But she knew an equal dismay in thinking about Amara’s life, locked up for ever in the narrow compass of Sant Clara and kept from knowing what was happening all around her – forever locked in and forever locked out. And Josefa understood love; she had been loved until her mother died. She knew by unconsidered instinct that love involves letting go. She was afraid of the cardinal in a way – had she thought he would know of her perfidy, she would have been terrified. But he would not know. She would sin, and confess, and be forgiven, and enter the safety of a nun’s life, making a new vow that she would never break. She crossed herself, rose, and went to find Amara, to coach her; to teach her what to say.

  At vespers that evening the sisters admitted Josefa irrevocably to their community. Pare Aldonza heard her confession and led her to the altar rail. She knelt, and Pare Aldonza blessed her novice’s ring and heard her speak over the words that locked doors for ever – every door in Sant Clara except the one to heaven. She was wearing a wedding veil; Sor Berenice had stitched it with a border of white flowers. It had been ready for many months.

  The cardinal brought a large party with him to Sant Clara. He wanted witnesses. He wanted Fra Murta to be wrong-footed in public. He wanted no more saying ‘Teach her further’ and rejecting what she said. She had convinced him: there was no innate knowledge, just a simple duopoly of faith and reason. He was going to cite the child’s answer in his own defence against the sniping there would undoubtedly be when he protected Palinor. But with her help he would be invincible. The atheist was not a heretic, only a man who had not encountered revelation and who had failed to ascend by his own unaided reason.

  Therefore Severo brought to Sant Clara with him the father provincial of the two orders of friars, three canons from the cathedral, a holy hermit, four parish priests, and the prefect of the western quarter of the island, besides two august teachers from the Galilea. He had thought of commanding Beneditx but was not sure if it would be kind. And there was also, of course, Fra Murta and some private chaplain of his. And Rafal. Severo barely noticed Rafal. The cardinal’s party filled the little chapter-house. They had all been told the child’s story, and they were full of pleasant curiosity and excitement. Here was something different: something to talk about for the rest of their lives! They had not been told that the question had been asked and answered already; they were flattered to be called to the great occasion.

  Led in before them came a young woman. She wore a simple white dress, pinned chastely at the neck. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders, curling softly and held back from her face with a simple band of white ribbon. She was barefoot. The cardinal saw with interest how the terrible strangeness was ebbing from her. A certain vacancy in her expression, a certain sliding evasiveness of her glance was all that was left of it. She did seem very frightened, as she took in how many people thronged the room around her. She cringed slightly, and he heard her teeth clash. The nuns standing behind her murmured to her.

  ‘Do not be afraid, little maid,’ he said to her gently. ‘We only want to ask you some questions.’

  She glanced at him and away again, and nodded.

  ‘When you were in the mountains,’ he asked, ‘were you alone there? Was there any other presence, to your senses invisible, but . . .’

  ‘Kindness,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  She spoke slowly, tonelessly, with her eyes shut. ‘I had a friend,’ she said, ‘not seen. I was despised and rejected of men, but when I would have died the spirit moved the wolf and made her foster me. The mountains where I lived had a maker. I had a protector, tho
ugh I not know a name for him.’

  ‘Amara!’ Severo cried at her. ‘Did anyone tell you to say this, or do you know it of yourself?’

  ‘Who could tell me?’ she answered. ‘Could the wolf speak? Nobody there but me. The silence taught me.’

  And so Fra Murta won his victory without, himself, speaking a word. Those who saw how the cardinal wept, copiously and silently, tears which filled his eyes in the chapter-house and continued while he blessed the child, while he visited the abbess and gave her the last sacrament, while he mounted his horse and rode away among his companions, took them for tears of joy.

  34

  Palinor was afraid. Fra Murta had taken him from his cell and with two hefty servants was marching him through the prison. He had said, ‘Now is the time when you will admit the truth.’ The prison, it turned out – Palinor had not seen enough of it to realize – was a friary, complete with church, cells, and garden. They descended. Below ground level was a vaulted crypt of wide extent, divided into chambers. Some were workshops, some were storerooms. He did not see the warren of foul little dungeons where he had been held before, though he thought they were in the same building somewhere – he did not remember having drawn a single breath of the open air when Severo had him moved.

  They marched through a little side-chamber where at a long narrow table four or five clerks were sitting, diligently writing. A grille above their heads admitted daylight, and they had each a candle-lamp. Immediately beyond this little scriptorium was a door, standing wide, and through it Palinor was half led, half thrust. He felt a moment of relief: the room had an open grille in the door and was in earshot of the scribes. Then his eyes widened as he took in with terror and disgust the purposes, visible in blades, spikes, levers, straps and pulleys of the mechanisms in the room.

  One of the scribes rose behind him and came in. He went to the corner of the room and sat on a little stool. He unbolted and lowered a wooden flap in the wall. It dropped to an angle that formed a writing surface for him. In the little cubby-hole that opened behind it was an inkwell and quill. The scribe dipped his quill, and held it expectantly poised above his vellum.

  ‘Let her go?’ said Sor Agnete. ‘Let her go where? Where could she go?’ Nobody offered an answer.

  Sor Agnete went upstairs to the cell where the abbess was lying. Sor Blancha was with her, trying to feed her a thin gruel, a spoonful at a time. Sor Agnete stood at the foot of the bed. ‘The cardinal said we could let Amara go, Mother,’ she said, ‘but where? Where can she go?’

  The abbess seemed to be asleep. She was breathing so lightly she might have expired in the last few moments since Sor Agnete spoke. But after a long pause, she did answer, in a difficult whisper that the two nuns leaned forward to hear.

  ‘Ask Jaime,’ she said.

  News spread fast enough on Grandinsula, being always in short supply. When Palinor rode out of view, escorted by the prefect, Lazaro and Miguel and their friends assumed that he was on his way home. He disappeared as completely as any embarked traveller, and only Esperanca remembered him. She had her reasons in her dream of gold, and also in her unreasonable love of her son. Rescuing Palinor was the only thing in the least remarkable he had so far achieved. The news that Palinor was still on Grandinsula, and in the heretics’ prison, was a terrible blow to her.

  ‘So much for your hope of riches, my poor Esperanca,’ said her neighbour, suppressing a smile. It would after all be very vexing if Esperanca became suddenly rich. Who would mend clothes for nearly nothing if that happened?

  Esperanca’s welcome in nearby houses cooled a good deal, and a certain number of unkind remarks about heretics and the danger of dealing with them were heard on the square, when families took a stroll in the cool of the evening.

  ‘I’ll not believe he is a heretic!’ Esperanca wailed when the door was shut at night, and there was only Lazaro to hear her. ‘ He seemed so kind and lordly. How could he be one who eats babies and casts spells that sicken cattle? I’ll never believe it!’

  The torture audit lay on Severo’s desk. He came upon it without warning, among the papers for the day. It was written in a steady legible hand, closely covering the page.

  Prisoner shown the devices.

  DIXIT INQUISITOR. ‘Do you wish to confess?’

  PRISONER. ‘What have I to confess? What have I done?’

  INQ. ‘You know what you have done.’

  Prisoner stripped and bound.

  INQ. ‘Do you wish to confess?’

  PRISONER. ‘What would you have me say?’

  INQ. ‘That you have known God from your first hours, and that you have perfidiously deserted him.’

  PRISONER. ‘I will not confess that. It is not true.’

  Cordeles and garrotes applied to prisoner.

  INQ. ‘Confess. We will release you at once if you confess.’

  PRISONER. ‘No.’

  Three turns. Prisoner voids his bowels. Prisoner screams.

  INQ. ‘Do you confess?’

  PRISONER. ‘No.’

  Mancuerda applied to prisoner. All cordeles attached to maestre garrote. Three turns. Prisoner screams.

  PRISONER. ‘Don’t. Don’t. I cannot bear it.’

  INQ. ‘Do you ask for mercy?’

  PRISONER. ‘Yes, yes!’

  INQ. ‘Only confess and you shall have it.’

  Prisoner sobs. Three more turns.

  PRISONER. ‘Stop, aah! stop. All right, anything. Screams. ‘Anything, only stop.’

  Ropes slackened.

  INQ. ‘Say it.’

  PRISONER. ‘Say what?’

  INQ. ‘My disbelief is but a lewd pretence.’

  PRISONER. ‘No. How can you do this? Have mercy.’

  INQ. ‘I will have mercy on your poor misguided soul. Confess, and we will send you to the judgement seat a penitent, for whom a mansion is prepared in heaven. Remain obdurate and you will go straight to hell.’

  Ropes wound five turns. Prisoner faints. Revived with cold water. Doctor summoned.

  INQ. ‘Why do you make me continue? I am distressed to see such suffering – I, who only mean you well. But make no mistake, yours is a special soul, and I hunger and thirst to save it. You are a great prize, and I will have your confession, though your limbs are bare bones before I get it. Look how you bleed. Have pity on yourself and confess now.’

  DOCTOR. ‘Enough now, Fra Murta. He must not expire.’

  INQ. ‘One more attempt. Three turns.’

  PRISONER. ‘I believe in God. I lied when I denied it.’

  Ropes slackened. Prisoner carried to his cell.

  Torture suspended.

  To the truth of the above, I, Petro Llop, clerk, etc. etc., in nomine Domini, etc. etc., set my hand in witness.’

  Severo staggered to the basin set in a corner of his cell, and vomited. When he had thrown up all there was, he was still doubled over and retching. Rafal must have heard him, from the next cell, for he came to help. Severo refused the offer to summon a doctor.

  ‘No, Rafal, I am not ill, just horrified.’ He gestured at the papers on the table. Rafal picked up the top one, glanced at it, and went pale.

  ‘Could you not have stopped him, Holiness?’ Rafal asked.

  ‘It was my duty rather to assist him,’ said Severo. ‘I relied on the snow-child to outwit him, and she changed her tune. I don’t know why, something went wrong. I believed her when she answered the first time – what can have gone wrong?’

  ‘Someone at Sant Clara breaking their vow to you, Holiness?’

  ‘Surely not. I trust those women both for sense and sanctity.’

  ‘Then perhaps . . . No, perhaps not.’

  ‘What were you thinking? Anything that might cast light . . .’

  ‘She was captured by shepherds. And then spent time in a cage until Jaime prevailed on you to rescue her. Perhaps she heard God named during that time?’

  ‘And if she did, the answer she made is void – it would not prove innate knowledge! Ra
fal, go at once! Find horsemen. Ride to Sant Jeronimo and find everyone who was involved, and get them here fast . . . Why did I not think of this before? I was so besotted with the thought of the child bringing proof . . .’ Severo was looking and speaking wildly, and Rafal was alarmed.

  ‘Holiness, it’s only a slim chance . . .’

  ‘Anything!’ Severo cried. ‘Quick, Rafal! On your way!’

  35

  ‘She could be an ice-keeper,’ said Jaime. He had come with a plump, rosy-cheeked little boy riding in his donkey pannier, and he himself looked prosperous; he was filling out, losing the slenderness of youth and the expression of intense attention to the world that he had once had. The little boy ran around in the cloister garth and chased a hen that had wandered from the farmyard.

  ‘What is an ice-keeper?’ Sor Agnete asked.

  ‘We cut snow in winter,’ Jaime told her. ‘We pack it into pits where it stays unmelted under a roof of reeds. Then on summer nights it is carried down the mountain in baskets of straw and sold. Someone has to stay up there, to keep the reed roofs in good order – you get a melt-down very quickly if the wind takes off the reeds, and it can blow hard up there when it’s warm and still below. She could do that, couldn’t she, if I showed her how to fix the reeds?’

  ‘Is such work paid for?’ asked Sor Agnete.

  ‘We don’t use money much between ourselves,’ he said. ‘There is a good hut at the Sant Jeronimo ice-pits. The men who come for the ice would bring bread, and savours, and a jug of wine. Now and then someone goes up and cuts firewood, to keep a stove burning in winter. She would be welcome to the job – everyone hates it. The loneliness drives people crazy.’

  ‘How can we be sure she will be all right?’ demanded Sor Eulalie. ‘Mightn’t she come to harm up there on her own?’

  ‘I’ll go up myself every week or so,’ said Jaime. ‘I’ll keep an eye on her.’

  The two nuns glanced at each other. ‘Why should you take this on yourself, Jaime?’ asked Sor Agnete.

  ‘If I hadn’t stayed Galceran’s hand . . .’ he said. Then, seeing their blank expressions, he simply shrugged and said, ‘I am willing. She will need warm clothes.’