The pain in my arm kept me awake most nights and I used the prick of it to drive me to my knees in prayer. That at least I should have been able to do, keep vigil through the dark hours. Even if my limbs were hacked off, my tongue torn out, my eyes blinded, and my ears sealed, I should still have been able to perform the work of prayer. But I could not pray. Healing Martha’s distorted face floated constantly beneath the surface of my thoughts like one drowned.
If I had gone back to look for Healing Martha, instead of following Gwenith’s granddaughter, could I have protected her? If I’d had the faith and courage to fight that demon, could I have saved her? But the question that tormented me the most, the one I could not push away, was why had she been chosen to face that battle alone and not me? Was her faith so much greater than mine?
I stood before His altar and held in my hands the deepest mysteries of life, both of this world and the next. It was my words that transformed base bread and wine into His very flesh and blood for others to consume. But I was only the ditch through which water flowed, leaving me behind, empty and cold. Yet what right had I to ask for anything more? A priest is but an instrument, a knife, a spoon, a bowl. When all is said and done, it is women’s work, this feeding.
I finally made my way to the bedside of my old friend. I’d wanted to move Healing Martha back to her own room, but I knew it wasn’t practical to do so. Andrew could be left for hours at a time, except in her last few days, but Osmanna, who had been working in the infirmary ever since the night of the storm, assured me that Healing Martha must be watched constantly. She struggled sometimes to clamber out of her cot and if she slipped she couldn’t right herself. More than once Osmanna had found her choking on her own saliva. We couldn’t spare someone to watch her in her own room day and night, at least not yet.
Healing Martha smelled of lavender and stale urine. She’d slipped down the cot and her head was lolling to the side liked a hanged man. She peered at me with her open eye and her good fist clutched at the coverlet.
“Gar.”
“What is it, Healing Martha, what are you trying to say?”
She took a harsh breath. “Gar. Gar. Gar!” she shouted, her good hand pounding her leg in frustration.
I couldn’t believe that such a fury could emanate from any so weak, let alone Healing Martha. Osmanna came hurrying up. Slipping her arms under Healing Martha’s arms, she hauled her back up the bed. Then she carefully arranged her head on the pillow, as if she tidied John the Baptist’s head upon the platter. Healing Martha sank back, both eyes closed, her breath rasping.
“Is that what she was asking for? To be lifted up?”
Osmanna looked pained. “I don’t know. She makes that sound over and over to whoever is near. Sometimes she shouts it, other times she whispers. No one understands what it means.”
“I dare say it has no more meaning than a baby’s cry. How is she?”
“She’s quiet most of the time, staring for hours into space and I don’t know if she is awake or sleeping. Sometimes, Servant Martha …” she hesitated and glanced uneasily back at the spectre in the bed, “when I look at her she’s weeping. I can’t tell if it’s because she’s in pain. I don’t know if I should give her something.”
“Healing Martha would not weep for pain. Look how she suffered with her back without complaint these many years. She weeps for the evil she has seen. Her tears are prayers, Osmanna, prayers for those who have not repented. Didn’t our Lord Himself weep over the stiff-necked people of Jerusalem?”
Osmanna looked unconvinced. Perhaps I sounded unconvincing. I hoped that’s why Healing Martha wept. I prayed it was.
“You look weary, Osmanna. Have you been in here all day?”
“I don’t mind. I want to.”
“I’m glad of it, but get yourself some ale and take it out in the courtyard. The cold air will revive you. I’ll watch here.”
She smiled gratefully and walked away, her feet dragging in the rushes.
I took Healing Martha’s right hand. It lay like a dead fish in mine. I squeezed it, but there was no response.
“I’ve neglected you, Healing Martha. Forgive me. You know that I’d spend every day at your bedside if I was free to do so, but I’m not. The women are frightened. They depended too much upon you. I’m guilty for not having recognised it long ago. They shouldn’t depend on any save God alone. I must show them that the beguinage will continue without you. I can’t be seen to keep vigil over you as if I too missed you.”
Her expression didn’t change.
“In a few days we are to elect a new Martha. Someone must take responsibility for the infirmary. Not that she will ever replace you,” I added hastily. “I’ve prayed these past days for guidance, Healing Martha, but I’m no closer to the answer, for there’s no one who clearly stands out as your successor, no one who has your skill and maturity. I wish you could be with us in the meeting. You could always examine a seedling and tell which way it would grow.”
Healing Martha made no response. Her head lay at ease where Osmanna placed it on the pillow. Osmanna handled her well, and the rest of the patients too. Ralph, old Hilda—they all seemed to respond to her. The infirmary looked ordered and calm, almost as it was under Healing Martha’s rule. Not as tidy, but the patients appeared content enough.
But Osmanna was much too young to be appointed as the Healing Martha. She was scarcely more than a child. Then again perhaps she was the young blood we needed; a new beguinage needed young beguines who could carry on the vision long after we ancient ones were dead. If Osmanna was trained up as a Martha, allowed to sit in Council and listen to the debate, she would learn, and maturity would come in time.
I leaned closer to Healing Martha. “Is that what you meant the night of the storm, when you said, ‘The fault in the pupil is the virtue in the leader’? That we should make Osmanna a Martha?”
Healing Martha’s eyes did not flicker.
I squeezed her hand. “I know the Marthas think I should never have taken you out that night. They do not say it to my face, but I see the reproach in their eyes whenever they speak of you. And their condemnation is nothing compared to my own guilt over what I’ve done to you. But God ordered us to bury the dead. I was doing what God commanded and I trusted Him to keep faith with us.
“I have searched alone in that place since and there’s no trace of either the baby or that poor woman’s corpse. Aldith’s body simply vanished. But it was there. The woman had been ripped apart. We both saw it. I touched it. Did the Owlman devour them both? If that’s so, I not only failed you, my old friend, I failed to protect the soul of the child Aldith entrusted to me. I’ve always believed that faith could defend me against anything. But where was God that night? Why did He abandon me?”
Healing Martha’s good eye opened and I realised I was shaking her arm. Tears trickled down, settling in the wrinkles of her face. “Ga,” she whispered. Her face twisted into a devil’s mask as she struggled to make the animal sound. That demon had destroyed her mind and body as surely as if he had eaten her from the inside.
I closed my eyes and saw that creature again, those eyes, ringed with fire, the great black bottomless pupils that seemed to draw me closer and closer until I was swallowed up in the darkness of them. What evil lay at the bottom of them? What horrors had Healing Martha seen in them to freeze her face forever in this glimpse of Hell? I had not believed that such a monster could exist and now—now he was more real to me than God. Each time I tried to pray I saw his face. I heard the crack of his savage beak and smelt the foul stench of his breath. That demon reared up before my face as if the prayers I was offering were made to him. And God was silent; He was nowhere and nothing.
december
saint egwin’s day
to prove his innocence of a crime of which he was accused, saint egwin locked his feet in irons and threw the key into the river avon before walking to rome. there he bought a fish which he cut open in front of the pope, and inside was the key.
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servant martha
tHE MARTHAS ENTERED into the chapel, each from their appointed realms. Gate Martha was already seated. She was used to waiting without impatience. Her eyes seemed permanently fixed on a far horizon, from perpetually squinting down the road to see who approached. Her hands were, as ever, busy with her spindle while her mind slipped off by itself to who knows where.
Kitchen Martha, scarlet and sweating profusely, waddled in and flopped down on the bench, fanning herself. “Thank the Lord, it’s cooler in here. The heat in my kitchen’s fit to roast a pig in ice, for we’ve to keep all the doors and shutters fastened against the wind. That wind is so strong it could pluck a fowl. One day we’re near drowned, the next we’re flayed to death. God alone knows what it’ll be next, snow, I shouldn’t wonder. It was a wise decision, Servant Martha, to hold the council here in the chapel where we’ve stout walls. A body can’t hear herself think with the wind howling round that refectory.”
“Thank you, Kitchen Martha, though I did not convene the meeting here for our comfort. This decision must be guided by the Holy Spirit through prayer, for it is God’s choice we must wait upon, not ours. I hoped the chapel might remind us of that.”
Kitchen Martha lowered her gaze, looking discomfited, as though I’d reprimanded her. Why did all the women take everything I said as a criticism when it was simply meant as an explanation?
The door banged opened and Merchant Martha strode in so quickly, I feared she wouldn’t stop in time and burst straight out again through the wall on the other side.
“Am I the last?”
“As always, Merchant Martha,” I replied.
She nodded as if she expected no less and was certainly not abashed by it.
The others chuckled quietly. Merchant Martha was forever trying to cram a full day’s work into each and every hour. She’d no doubt been busy with some task that she didn’t trust anyone else to perform. But it was as well she was last; she’d only fret and fume if she was obliged to wait for someone else to arrive.
“Sisters, as we consider who will be elected Healing Martha, let us remember that we sit in the presence of the Blessed Host of Andrew and of our consecrated Mass stone set into the altar, the very stone which was given into our hands by the priest at Bruges when many of us were commissioned to come here. Weighty decisions were made then and must be made again this day. So, in the knowledge that others pray for our guidance, let us begin.”
Each looked at the other, but no one spoke. Finally, Merchant Martha shifted forward in her seat. I knew she wouldn’t be content to dither long.
“Beatrice is the obvious candidate. She’s been longest among us as a beguine and is a hard worker. Who else is there?” Her tone suggested that matters now being settled, we could all leave.
Several heads nodded in agreement around the room.
Shepherd Martha frowned. “Beatrice is a dedicated beguine, there’s no doubting that, but the Healing Martha is different from other Marthas. Whoever is chosen must have the skills to tend the sick and prepare cordials and ointments. Just to discover what ails a person is no simple task, never mind to reason what will cure them. Has Beatrice these specific skills?”
“Do you think any here have those skills?” Merchant Martha retorted tartly. “Healing Martha studied a great many years and attended the finest school of medicine in Flanders before she joined us. We’ll not find another like her, so we’ll have to make shift with what God’s seen fit to grant us. No use fretting for roasted swan when you only have herring.”
Kitchen Martha waved her hand in a timid gesture. “Is Beatrice to be called Healing Martha?”
“We’ve not yet decided that Beatrice is to be appointed Martha,” I explained, trying not to let my impatience show. The events of the past weeks had left us all exhausted, but Kitchen Martha could at least attempt to pay attention to the discussion.
“No, no … I mean whoever is appointed a Martha, if she is to be called Healing Martha, what will our own Healing Martha be called? We can’t take her name from her, can we, not while she lives. It’s been her name for so long and …” she hesitated and bit her thumb, “and as ill as she is, she might not understand another name.”
Kitchen Martha was absolutely correct and I was annoyed with myself for not foreseeing this problem. To be a Martha is a responsibility, not an honour, but the beguines had come to look upon the title as a badge of respect. They would think we were insulting Healing Martha if we stripped her of the title. Besides, what had been her beguine name before she became a Martha or her baptismal name before that? If I who had known her longest couldn’t remember, who could? It would be in the records in Bruges but, as Kitchen Martha said, would she recognise it?
“Obviously, we’ll have to give the new Martha a different title,” Merchant Martha said impatiently.
Everyone nodded and smiled, relieved.
“So it’s to be Beatrice, then?” Gate Martha said.
All eyes turned to me. It must not be Beatrice, of that at least I was determined. There was a bitterness in her, a festering splinter that I couldn’t pluck out. She was sullen as a child, with as little control over her own emotions. She refused to bare her soul to me in confession. I knew that she said what she thought I wanted to hear, guarding her real thoughts from me.
And it was not just her thoughts and sins Beatrice hugged to herself. Of late, I had observed that she had become uncommonly possessive. Kitchen Martha would never mention it in open Council, but I had seen her forced to stand outside the door of the pigeon cote, waiting like a scullion for Beatrice to hand her out a basket of squabs. It was to be commended that any beguine took charge of some aspect of husbandry, but Beatrice had gone much further than simply caring for the cote—she refused to let anyone, except the mute girl, set foot inside. How could you trust a woman like that to make decisions that would affect all our lives?
I knew the Council of Marthas was waiting for me to speak, and I made them wait, fixing each pair of eyes in turn. I wanted them to be quite clear that I would not be swayed on this.
I said: “I don’t believe that Beatrice seeks this office, and it would be wrong to force this responsibility upon her. She is too close to Pega and some of the other women to want to lead them. And she openly shows favouritism among the young beguines, indulging some and being overly critical of others. She fusses over the mute girl as if she was the child’s mother. I do not dispute that a little maternal care might be good for Gudrun, if Beatrice would discipline her as a mother should, but instead she encourages the child to run wild. If Beatrice cannot exercise control over one young girl, how is she to be entrusted with the running of a beguinage? No. If Beatrice had wanted responsibility, she would have taken it already. She’s content to be guided and directed. Women like her find responsibility frightening.”
Merchant Martha frowned and shuffled forward to the very edge of her seat, as if she was about to leap out of it. “I don’t agree, Servant Martha. Beatrice has a deal of common sense, which is what we need on this Council. And she wants to be given the opportunity, any fool can see that. I’ve often heard her grumble that she is sent too often to the fields and not entrusted with more weighty duties.”
“Thereby demonstrating all too plainly that she’s not ready to be a Martha,” I retorted. “Marthas are elected as servants of the beguinage. They should never grumble about performing humble tasks and most particularly they should not complain of such to the other women and encourage discontent. We need Marthas who will uplift the spirit of the beguinage, whatever their personal feelings. And we need Marthas who can keep their own counsel.”
The women exchanged sidelong glances with one another.
“Does no one else have another candidate to propose?” I asked, willing someone to propose the name that was in my thoughts. It must be seen to come from one of them. Then they would accept it. “Tutor Martha, what about you? You’ve told us nothing of your thoughts on this matter. Whom do you propose?”<
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Tutor Martha looked up eagerly. “I know you’ll say she’s too young, but have you considered Osmanna? Look how she’s already taken charge of the infirmary and the care of Healing Martha, and she learns quickly. I’m sure such responsibility would hasten her maturity.”
A small sigh of relief escaped my lips. “Osmanna is very young, Tutor Martha. But I agree, she shows every sign of making an excellent leader.”
Dairy Martha pursed her lips. “I’ve no objection to Osmanna personally, nor do I have any quarrel with appointing one so young. But … I hate to say this … Many of the local women are uncomfortable being around her. She never seems to make any effort to befriend any of the other beguines. I know I should not say this … but I’ve heard them describe her as cold and well … proud. They might not respect her as a Martha; they might even resent her. And besides, as Merchant Martha says, Beatrice expects to be appointed. She’ll be very hurt if she isn’t.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Dairy Martha, have I heard you aright? Are you seriously suggesting that we should appoint someone as a Martha simply on the grounds that they will cry if we do not?”
She flushed. “No, Servant Martha, that’s not what I meant. I merely—”
“I am most relieved to hear it. As to Osmanna’s popularity among the women—unfortunately we cannot be liked by everyone. I dare say some of the women dislike me.”
Kitchen Martha chuckled nervously, but no one contradicted me.
Merchant Martha coughed pointedly. I tried to ignore her, but everyone turned expectantly. This time, unable to sit still a moment longer, Merchant Martha rose and began pacing the chapel, her hands clasped behind her back.
“There’s another objection to Osmanna that no one seems to have mentioned.” Merchant Martha glanced back at me, frowning. “We all know that the state of the soul is known only to the penitent herself, her confessor, and God. Nevertheless when we are considering that person for a position of authority …” She paused and surveyed me with dark inquisitive eyes.
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