‘Deus vult!’ the archbishop said.
‘It is God’s will!’ came the reply from a hundred throats.
‘The archbishop wills it thus!’ intoned Father Sixtus who, as the newly appointed abbot of the monastery, led the ceremony.
‘The archbishop wills it thus!’ the monks replied.
As if turned into a pillar of salt, Anna stood at the foot of the steps of the altar in the monastery church dressed in her habit and scapular. She was facing a crowd that had assembled around her in a semi-circle and that, though keeping a safe distance, was half salivating, half afraid. But she did not notice. Anna was gazing into the distance, into eternity. She felt completely empty inside, a lifeless shell. Helpless and unmoving she awaited the inevitable ceremony which, according to canon law then in force, was to be performed. According to this ritual everyone afflicted with leprosy was to be cast out from the human community and designated a leper for ever after.
To her left stood Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden and Count Lothar von Hochstaden with Sixtus, the abbot, behind her on the altar. He now began to speak.
‘The abbot wills it thus! Turn your face to the altar, Brother Marian.’
Anna obeyed the command as if in a trance. However she did not look at the archbishop’s henchman, but through him at the altarpiece of the Last Judgement by Master Mathis. On the left side the just and the repentant sinners were being received by the saints and led upwards to heaven where the Almighty awaited them, while on the right monsters and ogres, the servants of Satan, circled around the many sinners whose grimacing faces were distorted by fear. They were being pulled down into the pitch-black pit of hell where everlasting torture and damnation awaited them. In her mind Anna began to pray. God alone should hear her words, for full of the deepest despair, they were addressed to him alone: If you exist, oh Lord, let a bolt from heaven kill my tormentors! You alone know that they are murderers. They have killed Father Urban. And now you have also cursed me with illness, who alone could have denounced them, and I will have to die. But why, oh Lord? But God did no longer talk to her, nor were there any signs: no bolt of lightning came from the vault of heaven, nor did the earth open and swallow her tormentors.
Deep in her heart Anna had not expected any such thing. Numerous trials from God and humankind had taught her, young as she was, that she could only rely on herself. Of course, to think like that came close to blasphemy. She could lose her immortal soul and join the sinners destined for the maw of hell. And that’s why she had always kept such thoughts to herself. But what kind of a God was this who did not intervene when innocent people fell ill and died? When some human beings caused unspeakable suffering to others? When she, who had lived a blameless life in the service of the sick, was afflicted with leprosy and cast out of the human community?
Anna allowed herself such thoughts only now as she faced the imminent death to which this ceremony inevitably would expose her. After all, what did she have left? Soon she would have to remove all her clothes, and her secret would be revealed – the secret that for ten years had enabled her to learn what no girl ever had the right to learn.
Anna looked at the altarpiece imploring silently: Please, dear God, not that as well, please!
She almost lost her strenuously maintained composure but gritted her teeth and stubbornly fought back the tears that threatened to well up. No, that was one favour she would not grant her tormentors. Whatever was going to happen, she was going to bear it with pride and dignity. The gruff voice of Abbot Sixtus wrenched her back to reality.
‘Brother Marian, remove your habit and put it in this basket!’
Hearing this order, a lay brother brought a basket. With a look of trepidation as if she was a malevolent creature from hell who would spring at him and bite his throat, he placed it on the floor several steps from where she stood, stepping back quickly. The other monks also retreated a few steps as Anna slowly started to disrobe.
She took off her scapular and habit and put both in the basket. Now she was standing there clad only in her shirt awaiting the next order with the ugly rash of leprosy unmistakable on her bare arms and legs. A murmur went through the rows of monks who instinctively moved further back.
Abbot Sixtus relented somewhat.
‘Here,’ he said throwing something that fell on the floor at her naked feet. It was a brown cape with a hood that Anna quickly slipped on and which reached down to her ankles. There was something special about this cape: Over a dozen little bells had been sewn onto it rather like that worn by the king’s jester so that with every step she took Anna would be heard. However her cape was not meant to amuse but scare people off, warning whoever heard the little bells to give her a wide berth.
‘You are obliged to wear this cape from now on,’ Abbot Sixtus instructed her. ‘It is meant to serve as a protection for those who are healthy. As soon as you leave this place, you may never again set foot in a church, village or human habitation. Should you violate this order, anybody who encounters you is permitted to kill you. Deus vult! God wills it!’
‘God wills it!’ echoed the monks and lay brothers.
‘So go with God, Brother Marian. God be with you and with us. In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti! Oremus!’
The new abbot made the sign of the cross and nodded to a monk who was standing by the screen to open it. A clear path now stretched to the far end of the nave. There, another monk was waiting, and when he opened the main portal the bright light poured in.
Abbot Sixtus began to pray, and all present joined in.
‘Gratiam tuam, quaesumus, Domine, mentibus nostris infunde: ut, qui, Angelo nuntiante, Christi Filii tui, incarnationem cognovimus . . .’
As Anna carefully started off step by step, the gaping monks and lay brothers receded before her like the waters of the Red Sea before Moses and the Israelites. Abbot Sixtus continued with his prayer unperturbed while she moved towards the main portal like a sleepwalker: ‘per Passionem eius et Crucem ad resurrectionis gloriam perducamur. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum.’
Anna blinked as the sun’s rays fell on her disfigured face. She had never felt so lonely. Her parents were far away and her dear friend and teacher Father Urban, the only person over the years in whom she could confide, was dead. As she walked down the long nave to the main portal in her bare feet with the seemingly out-of-place tinkling of the bells on her jester’s gown, Anna was filled with the deepest sadness. Eventually she stepped out into the bright sun-lit courtyard of the monastery. She heard the final ‘Amen’ behind her and it sounded in her ears like a curse which the monastic community had hurled after her. Then, with a loud clang, the main portal was closed for ever behind her.
Not for a moment did she hesitate nor look back.
With her head held high, she walked on until she reached the front gate of the monastery. She thought she could feel through the church portal the eyes of the monks, lay brothers, the new abbot and the archbishop on her back. The thought of it made her stumble and she nearly fell, but a dogged kind of pride stopped her from showing any sign of weakness while still within sight of the monastery.
‘One thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ The words from the Gospel of St John that had been carved on the archway now seemed to her like an evil curse. Much as she would have liked to sink down there and then, she resolutely put one step in front of another on the muddy path that led from the monastery.
After a while she reached the end of the avenue of poplars that led towards the world beyond. Here, where she could not be seen from the monastery any more, she stopped and looked around. As far as she could see there seemed to be nobody but herself. Only then, by the roadside, did she break down and sob bitterly like a little child.
Chapter VI
Anna did not know for how many hours she had trudged aimlessly.
By now it must have been getting close to midday because the springtime sun had started to burn down intensely. She was hungry, her mouth wa
s completely dry and her lips were cracked and sore. She was almost dying of thirst and her skin was itching unbearably. She stood still and scratched. What she was to do she did not know. But hearing the lively babble and gurgle of a stream beside the path, she came to her senses. Now at least she could quench her thirst.
With some effort, she got going again and walked more determinedly away from Heisterbach monastery. The country road ran south into a valley lined by hills on which trees and shrubs were turning green, as if touched by magic.
For an hour Anna had steadily followed the path up the mountain. It led through a dense beech wood and finally to a clearing on the summit. From afar, Anna had seen a fine column of smoke rising from there and walked towards it.
The smoke was rising from a half-extinguished fire where, to judge by the remains, a sizeable group must have camped for the night with their horses. Anna was so hungry that she crawled around looking for any edible scraps. She was lucky enough to find an old piece of bread so hard that it must have served as fodder for the horses. But sitting down on an old tree trunk, Anna ate it greedily.
As she was eating, she began to think. From here one could see northwards towards the distant Rhine which gleamed on the horizon. Suddenly the scales fell from her eyes – of course, this must be the Maelberg, nicknamed ‘Mount of Olives’ by the Cistercian monks of Heisterbach because it reminded them of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Many years ago, when her father first brought her to the monastery, they had rested here. Her father had shown her everything and explained that the hill of Drachenfelsen lay in a southwesterly direction and Heisterbach monastery was at the very bottom of the valley. Only later did she realise just how hard he had tried to cover up his sadness so that she would not notice how difficult it was for him to give his much-loved daughter to the care of the monastery. It seemed strange that she should be reminded of this only now.
She put aside her apathy and regained her fighting courage. What she needed was a plan. She did not want to give up just like that – and wander around aimlessly until she dropped dead. No, she would try by every means to establish how her mentor had died. But then she lost her new-found courage again . . . How could a girl dressed as a boy who was banned as a leper from any contact with humans find anybody to confide in?
Leprosy was a slow, insidious death that gradually ate up the afflicted person, distorting his face into a grotesque grimace. Anna did not know how long it would take for the illness to destroy enough of her body for her to die. Father Urban had told her quite a lot about it. What she did remember – and she had an unusually good memory – was that having been infected with leprosy, one could waste away for many years before death.
Perhaps she could make it back to her parents. She did not want to infect anybody, but at least this prospect offered a glimmer of hope for if she could make it that far, at least she would not starve. If she could keep up a fast pace, she would reach her village on the evening of the next day.
Purposefully she got up and set off southwards along the wooded mountaintop. With her father holding her by the hand, she had gone to the monastery as a young, carefree girl a long time ago. And now, almost ten years later, she would return as Brother Marian, outcast, stigmatised and sentenced to death by a slow, lingering illness. Reluctantly pushing self-pity from her thoughts, she started out on the long and arduous way home to Ahrweiler.
Anna spent a cold night in the forest and reached the river Wied the next day, river she had to cross. Because of the snow melting in the mountains, it had turned into a rushing torrent which had burst its banks. Anna knew that one or two miles further there would be a ferry which carried travellers across for a small fee. But she had no money, so how was she to get to the other side? From there it would not be far to her parents’ village. Anna kept walking along the bank until it became too difficult to climb over the washed-up trees, roots and dense undergrowth and she decided to take the path through the woods higher up.
Eventually, from a hilltop she could make out the small cove in the river which served as a landing place for the ferry. Two long, stout ropes stretched across the river and served to keep the ferry on course even in a strong current. One of the ropes ran through a guide ring which was attached to the side of the boat, the other was used as a tow rope. The ferryboat, big enough to carry two cows or two horses, was bobbing up and down the bank on Anna’s side of the river. The strong current was pulling on the ropes. But the ferryman was nowhere to be seen. His hut was on the other side of the river where smoke was coming from the chimney, so he had to be around somewhere. Cautiously Anna approached the boat.
‘Hello – is anybody here?’ she called into the woods.
‘Away with you, get lost!’ a coarse man’s voice roared behind her, giving her an almighty fright. She turned around to see the burly ferryman half hidden behind a tree trying to shoo her away with vigorous gestures of his arms.
‘Would you carry me across?’ she asked. ‘I am coming from Heisterbach monastery. May God reward you.’
‘Are you mad? Not for all the money in the world would I carry you across! You are a leper! Move along immediately!’
He must have heard her little bells from far away, long before she had spotted him, and he had quickly taken himself out of harm’s way.
‘I am sorry but I must get to the other side,’ she said and climbed into the boat.
‘Don’t you touch that boat!’ His voice became more and more panicky. ‘The current is too strong. The towing rope will break! You won’t be able to hold the boat. You will capsize and drown miserably!’
‘I have nothing to lose,’ Anna said as she untied the knots of the mooring ropes. The gesticulating ferryman took a few steps towards her but didn’t dare get too close. Anna knew that if it had not been for her frightening cape with the little bells and her easily visible rash, he would have long since grabbed her in his anger and thrown her into the river. Convinced that she could unfasten the boot undisturbed she turned her back on him, not listening to his insults which had now turned into dark threats.
Suddenly a thick club whizzed past her head narrowly missing it. She turned around. The fellow had started throwing at her whatever he could lay his hands on and now he was looking for stones along the river bank. It was time to get away. With a jolt she loosened the last knot and soon the boat was pulled out on to the river. The guide rope was as taut as could be, and Anna pulled on the tow rope with all her might. She progressed faster than expected because of the strength of the current.
The tow rope was burning her hands, but Anna did not give in and, hand over hand, continued to pull the boat across. She could muster unexpected strength when she put her mind to it.
She had nearly made it across when a mighty tree trunk, uprooted by the fast-flowing water, came drifting towards the ferry. Out of the corner of her eye she saw it heading towards her and redoubled her efforts.
Too late! The huge trunk slammed into the stern of the boat and Anna barely had time to grab hold of the tow rope. For a moment she thought that the guide rope would break but miraculously the tree trunk slid by. The boat swayed dangerously but the guide rope held, and as soon as she had a firm foothold again Anna pulled with all her might and eventually landed the ferry safely on the other side.
Still a bit shaky from the effort and the fright, she moored the boat as best she could to the narrow wooden walkway and cast a glance back at the ferryman who was standing incredulous and frustrated on the other side of the river.
She jumped ashore and approached the ferryman’s thatched mud hut. Such a favourable opportunity to find something to eat was unlikely to turn up again soon. With hunger stronger than a guilty conscience, Anna carefully stepped into the hut and looked around. Next to the fireplace was a bowl with some cold vegetable mash which she devoured. She also took half a loaf of bread before disappearing upriver into the woods.
As dusk fell, Anna had reached the end of her strength. It could not be much further n
ow. In fact, she should long have met people from the village or seen some lights. But the area seemed deserted. At least the moon was just rising in the east and its pale light showed Anna the way.
At last she could make out the first low houses. Ahrweiler was not a big place, only a dozen huts, and as was customary in most parts of the country, they were made of wattle and daub already crumbling in places. They had pointed gable roofs made of straw that projected over the window openings.
Her parents’ house was at the very end of the village street. Anna stopped in the middle of the road and did not move. Strangely she could not feel the slightest breeze nor hear any sound. Not a cow moved in its byre, no sheep bleated, not a dog barked, no glow of fire was to be seen through the small window openings and no child cried. Slowly Anna turned around and felt increasingly afraid. Had the world stopped and, in her mania to reach home by any means, had she not noticed?
Slowly she began to move again, and the bells on her cape jingled softly.
When she reached the door of her parents’ home, she hesitated. She would have liked to turn around and walk away. Suddenly she was afraid of making a terrible discovery upon opening the door. Perhaps plunderers had killed all the inhabitants of the village and taken away the few cattle that the people maintained for themselves? But no: such horrifying projections must have been a consequence of her hunger and exhaustion. It made no sense to delay any longer, and she had come such a long way that now she had to take the last step. She knocked and slowly opened the door. She entered the house, which consisted of one room with a sleeping place and a hearth. All was darkness and silence. The door fell shut behind her. In order to see, she needed to light a kindling chip at the hearth, but the ashes were cold. She swallowed as a black panic seized her. It was so unlike her parents. Her mother was a champion at lighting fires and she would never let the embers die down completely or not have kindling ready.
The Apothecary's Secret Page 5