by Sarah Bower
They are celebrating the purification of the Blessed Virgin, sealing her virginity in white beeswax and fire. Yet, Agatha asks herself, what are candles compared to the unclouded innocence of this girl, enclosed in the atelier like a virgin martyr in a reliquary? And suddenly it becomes clear to her what she must do. Guerin will not touch her; no one will touch her. Agatha will give her to God. In the crucible of that milk white body the gold of her maidenhead will be tested and will not be found wanting. She is too good, too pure for human love in all its messy absurdity.
Margaret loves Candlemas, with its sense of beginnings, the presentation of the new baby in the temple, the ploughing and sowing begun at Epiphany, a foretaste of spring in the light of all the candles burning in church and among the graves, a light of hope between black earth and lowering sky. This is when she remembers her brothers, not in the November depths of All Souls but now, when the days have begun to lengthen again, with hope. She knows nothing happens in vain; it is all part of God’s plan and God, like Sister Jean, knows the order of the narrative, the purpose of everything in it from the humblest mongrel looking for scraps under the table to the vertiginous loneliness of the king confronting history. God and Sister Jean understand, so Margaret does not have to.
The priest intones the opening line of the anthem, and they begin to move forward, following the choir, around the chapel, across the outer ward and through the gate. The cemetery lies beneath a large oak on the far side of the flat expanse of grass separating the castle from the town, where the lists had been set up for Odo’s birthday celebrations. The air is dry and icy, almost windless so the candles can burn unshielded. A thin layer of snow crunches beneath their feet, unmarked till now by anything but the delicate tracery of bird tracks. When Odo’s hanging is finished, resolves Agatha, she will take Margaret back to Falaise with her. She will be safe there, in the house of women, where Alwys can also be cared for. She will be saved from the world’s corruption.
***
A thin, biting rain has begun to fall. Freya hands Thecla to her father, who tucks the child inside his sheepskin jerkin. Thecla laughs, an exultant bubble of sound rising above the prayers intoned by the priest, and one of the nuns briefly raises her head to smile at the little girl. Shivering, Gytha pulls her hood closer around her face. Her fingers clutching the candle are stiff and aching with cold, but it is more than the wind and rain that has made her shiver. She has a disturbing sensation of being watched, a strange gaze raking the back of her neck, setting her hair on end. It is a relief when the procession starts to wind back among the graves toward the church, forming a queue as each one pauses to cross himself, or kiss the image of the Christ child held up in greeting by a member of the clergy standing at the church door. The queue moves slowly, shuffling forward with heads bowed, the rain soaking through clothes, mud seeping under the soles of shoes. It seems as though they are not moving at all. Behind her, Thecla begins to whine, then to bawl, which seems to trigger a general murmuring of discontent.
When her turn finally comes, she sees what the problem is. Instead of merely bowing to the image, or brushing it briefly with their lips, the worshippers have been kneeling to receive the priest’s blessing, each small delay shunting into the next, slowing and sometimes stopping the line. Well, she will not. She recoils from pictures of the Child, mocking her with His chubby knees and rosy cheeks, and is annoyed when the priest takes a step toward her, blocking her way into the building. Raising her head to defy him, she finds herself looking into the laughing eyes of her lover, her sadness and irritability purged in a golden glint of mischief. Aware of the people queuing behind her in the rain, she lets her gaze linger for the briefest of moments, but it is enough to take in everything, to soak him up as though she is a sponge, every detail familiar and loved, yet new as the spring about to begin. In his haste to prepare this surprise for her, he has not found time to remove his spurs which poke, muddy and incongruous, from beneath his alb. She frowns at his feet, and he grins.
“I rode all night,” he whispers as she lowers her hood to receive the kiss of peace, his lips brushing her cheek like a wingbeat. She steps back, but her gaze remains locked to his.
“What about the king’s charter?” She tries to speak without moving her lips, so her words come out flat-edged as knife blades.
He shrugs dismissively. “Oh, there was nothing wrong with it. He was just…being a king.” Enunciating clearly now, in the priestly voice which carries back above the wind to the rest of the congregation waiting among the graves, he continues, “‘Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many.’” He holds the painted panel at waist height, challenging her to kneel if she is to kiss the Child.
Well, this is as good a way to begin as any. The priest in his spurs, the whore on her knees in her widow’s weeds, the painted image of the perfect child between them. As she kisses the Child, the wood seems to dissolve at her touch, moulding itself to the flesh behind, beneath his sacramental robes, the bowl of his pelvis cupping his sex in its nest of dark blond hair, the skin, taut, white, mapped with blue veins. Suddenly the sense of being watched, of being somehow found out, once again creeps up her back. They know, she thinks, they all know; if we stood here as naked as Adam and Eve in the Garden we could not make it any clearer. She rises too quickly, the blood rushing to her head, suffusing her cheeks, making her stumble. Odo takes her arm to steady her, letting the picture drop at an angle from his other hand, where it hangs between them, a corner digging into her thigh. He makes a play of stifling a yawn.
“I’m ready for my bed,” he murmurs, then steps back to let her into the church where the nuns have begun yet another repetition of the canticle of Zachary.
***
Within days, everything changes. Although he rode from Gloucester accompanied only by a couple of men at arms, to travel fast, it is not long before Osbern joins them in a chaos of noise, men shouting, harness jangling, hooves clattering over the little bridge where the stream crosses in front of her gate. The hall seethes with dogs and soldiers, clerks and squires, all jostling for places at table and hearthside sleeping plots. The silver bathtub is hung from a beam in the kitchen building, where people tend to strike their heads against its bevelled edges; a cut or a linear bruise on the forehead rapidly assumes the status of a Winterbourne brand. The great bed is set up in the bower, leaving scarcely room for a linen chest or a brazier, let alone Odo’s clothes and books. There are gifts for the babies, rattles, balls, an articulated wooden tumbling man whose joints click as he somersaults over a stick. One day, Odo goes out and reappears with a puppy, the smallest Gytha has ever seen, tucked into his hauberk. The French name for this type of dog, he says, is terrier, because it excels at digging rabbits, foxes, even badgers, out of the earth. They quickly discover it also likes biting the backs of ankles and sleeping in Leofwine’s crib.
He is never still, pacing around the hall, cracking cardamoms between his teeth, describing great gestures with his ringed hands as he elaborates his plans for her estate. The house must be pulled down and replaced with something more modern. Two storeys, private apartments for himself and Gytha, an integral kitchen with a chimney. A chapel. Bigger stables, a mews. There must be a grain store closer to the mill. Do these English have no concept whatsoever of efficiency? And here, look, they have planted mancorn when it would be better for wheat. He goes on until she feels as disorientated as Thecla and Leofwine when he plays his hectic games with them, tossing them into the air until they scream with terror and delight, pursuing Thecla, who is beginning to crawl, among the legs of tables and chairs, growling like a bear in a forest.
“But I like everything the way it is,” she protests gently when they are alone at night, winding her fingers in among the hairs on his chest.
“It could be so much better. I want it to be perfect. Our perfect place.”
“Its imperfections endear it to me,” she replies, and he folds her in his arms and kisses her, knowing she is
no longer talking about Winterbourne.
She has spent her life confined to small spaces, to single rooms and low roofs, cells, a narrow bed, a linen chest, a locket containing four twists of hair. Now she is mistress of an estate, a world whose boundaries she can only just encompass in a day’s ride. Odo has enlarged her life immeasurably, and yet he remains larger. He has confided the secrets of his heart and body in her but is as elusive and unpredictable as the gryphons and unicorns everyone can describe but no one ever seems to have seen.
“I’m the luckiest man in England,” he tells her sometimes, but the look on his face when he says it is often complicated; remote, wistful, hungry.
Swansong
Saint Agatha’s Eve to the Annunication 1072
Two days after Candlemas, a messenger from Christ Church arrives for Agatha between Terce and Sext. Archbishop Lanfranc wishes to consult her regarding the setting up of a daughter house for women. He craves the opportunity to seek the counsel of an educated and intelligent woman with long experience of living by the Rule. He is obliged to travel to London the following day, to hear pleas in his court at Saint Mary le Bow, and therefore hopes Sister Jean-Baptiste will be free to spend an hour with him this afternoon. Their conversation will give him food for thought on the dreary journey to London.
Agatha praises the Archbishop’s proposal. It is her understanding that there was, in former times, a strong tradition of female religious life in England, but that it lapsed somewhat during the rule of Harold Godwinson. She knows that many widows and daughters of the defeated English have sought the veil and counts it an act of compassion on the Archbishop’s part that he should thus consider their welfare. If it pleases His Grace, she will come to him before None, so as to avoid having to travel back after dusk.
Odo’s name is not mentioned.
Agatha decides Margaret will accompany her. This invitation is a sign, confirmation that her plans for Margaret meet with God’s approval. What better way to begin her education in the Rule than by listening to the discourse of a monk as learned and virtuous as Lanfranc of Bec? And if, as Agatha anticipates it will, the conversation should turn at any point to the matter of Odo and his mistress, well, she will send Margaret to Brother Thorold in the infirmary to beg some of his linctus for coughs and sore chests. By this late in the winter, her own supplies are running low.
Margaret can scarcely touch her midday meal. She has not been outside the castle walls since she cannot remember when, except for yesterday’s procession, of course, and the joust held for Lord Odo’s birthday last November, but they don’t count. The excitement of going into town, past all the shops and cookhouses, through the Buttermarket with its stalls selling everything from songbirds to sausages, its cock fights and ale counters, is almost unbearable. Not to mention the prospect of seeing the builders at work on the new cathedral, in their short tunics and bare arms. All that male sweat and casual mastery of cranes and pumps, levels and set squares. If she tries to put food in her stomach, she thinks she may explode. Why her? Why not Judith? Of course, Sister Jean would probably have taken Gytha for company if Gytha were here. Has she somehow inherited the wit and worldliness, the air of being surprised by nothing, in awe of nobody, that gave Gytha her unique position in the atelier? Has some element of Gytha rubbed off on her from the years of sharing a frame and washing one another’s hair, the way woad or madder might become ingrained in the skin of a dyer? She feels she is at the beginning of some great adventure. She has only to place her feet in the little imprints left by Gytha’s green satin dancing shoes to find the way to her own prince.
“I intend that you should be in the room with us while we talk. You will find our conversation instructive,” Sister Jean explains as they walk, taking care not to stumble in the frozen ruts of the roads. They pause in the Longmarket while a man tries to drive a large and uncooperative sow through the narrow space between the buildings with their overhanging eaves and bankers open onto the street. Margaret laughs as the sow swerves into a display of game, knocks a truss of partridges to the ground and proceeds to eat them, snuffling and grunting, blood and feathers sticking to her snout.
“But you must keep a modest demeanour. Only speak if spoken to. Do not look His Grace the Archbishop in the eye. Lanfranc of Bec is a great man,” Sister Jean continues.
“Not greater than Lord Odo, surely,” says Margaret, artlessly, between giggles, as voices are raised between the owner of the sow and the game merchant.
“Different,” Sister Jean replies, stamping her feet with cold, or impatience. “Come along. I think we can slip past while the pig is distracted.”
***
They are shown into the Archbishop’s private office. The Archbishop raises his eyebrows when Agatha asks if her young companion can sit in on their meeting, but recovers himself quickly and apologises for the lack of space. There is, he explains, no fire as yet lit in his parlour, and he fears it would be too cold to be comfortable for the ladies.
“And there,” says Agatha, “is one prejudice you must disabuse yourself of, Your Grace, if you are to understand the application of the Rule to women’s houses. That we are in every respect less strong than men. The female humour being generally cold and damp, it might be argued that too much warmth or dryness in our surroundings might distract us from the pursuit of the fire of God’s love. The airiness of women may serve to make them more receptive to the Holy Spirit.”
“Or,” counters Lanfranc, waving Agatha into a chair opposite his desk, as Margaret takes her place on a low stool set against the wall beside the door, “it may be that an excess of cold will cause a predominance of the feminine in the humour, thus hindering women from aspiring to the spiritual by causing them to become preoccupied with physical discomforts.” He sneezes.
The stool is hard, the plaster behind Margaret’s back uneven, and the learned sparring of the Archbishop and her mistress utterly beyond her comprehension. As their discussion continues, ranging over matters as varied as whether women religious should undertake physical labour, shave their heads, or be permitted mattresses in recognition of their physical frailty, the colour of their habits and the numbers of sets of underwear they should possess, Margaret’s attention wanders. Small things distract her: a food stain on her skirt which reminds her that she is, as always, hungry, and sick of eating salt pork and pickles; some scratches on her fingertips make her think about Alwys, and how lucky, yet unlucky, she has been, and that such issues of luck, or fate, or providence, are doubtless real, yet impossible to understand. Margaret has a fondness for horoscopes and, though she dutifully confesses whenever she indulges in improper speculations about the future, she cannot quite give it up. It is as though she needs to do it to reassure herself that she will, one day, when Lord Odo’s interminable hanging is complete, have a future; that the minute adjustment in the conjunction of the planets between her birth and Alwys’ contains a whole world cut off from Alwys with her hand.
“Excess must be avoided in eating and drinking, but also in abstinence. As the Apostle wrote to Timothy, ‘Godliness with contentment is great gain’,” says the Archbishop. Margaret is at a loss as to what she is supposed to learn from all this. Heaven knows, she has listened to enough sermons in her life. Surely Sundays and the holy days of obligation are enough. She is honoured, of course, that Sister Jean should consider her worthy of an audience with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that they should trouble to speak in English so she can understand them, but it is not as though she has any vocation to the religious life.
And then she remembers, with a tightening in her chest, that Gytha came here, to this very suite of rooms, with letters for Lord Odo when he was injured, and that she was never quite the same afterwards, both gayer and angrier, and more secretive. Margaret starts to wonder what happened here, and whether, if she looks in the right way, she will be able to see the imprint of those little shoes dancing through the abbey.
“Thank you, Sister, you have been most helpful. You
have cleared my mind considerably on these issues. Let me send for some refreshment for you and your companion, and while we wait, tell me your news.” Lanfranc tugs at his beard. “Do you expect your brother of Bayeux back from Gloucester soon? I imagine the king’s court broke up yesterday.”
“His lordship goes to survey his estates in Essex, I believe, Your Grace. I am not sure when we expect to see him again.”
“Yes, he has been making reallocations of land in that county, I think.”
“I do not concern myself with my brother’s business. Your Grace, excuse me, but I have just remembered, there are some things we need from Brother Thorold.” Agatha fishes in the pocket beneath her scapular and withdraws a slip of parchment which she hands to Margaret. “Please take this list to him, Meg. If we delay much longer, we shall lose the light for our journey home.”
How unfair, just when the conversation has finally taken an interesting turn. But a young monk is waiting at the door to guide her through the labyrinth of the abbey buildings to the infirmary, and it is clear from the tense, expectant smiles of Lanfranc and Sister Jean that she has no option but to go. She bows to the Archbishop and arranges to meet Sister Jean outside the chapter house when both have concluded their business.
The abbey is full of quiet activity as monks and servants alike hurry to finish their work before Vespers. Brother Thorold himself is in his dispensary, handing out powders in linen envelopes, little bottles of medicines and pots of salves to a forlorn queue of men and boys, some coughing, one whose hands are cracked and bleeding from eczema. Margaret settles down to wait on a stone bench running along the outside wall, beneath the infirmary windows. The windows are glazed, for Saint Benedict ruled there should be constant consideration for the weakness of the sick and the old, and Margaret cannot help glancing through them in an attempt to distract herself from the cold biting her ears and striking through her clothes as she sits.