“Then you are a witch,” said he, and he was not smiling.
“No, I only saw what was in your face when you spoke of that city,” said she. “Also there is gossip that you spent much time in Goteborg as a young man, idling and marveling at the ships and markets when you should have been at your farm.”
She said, “Thorvald, I can feed that cleverness. I am the wisest woman in the world. I know everything—everything! I know more than my teachers; I make it up or it comes to me, I don’t know how, but it is real—real!—and I know more than anyone. Take me from here, as your slave if you wish but as ■your friend also, and let us go to Constantinople and see the domes of gold, and the walls all inlaid with gold, and the people so wealthy you cannot imagine it, and the whole city so gilded it seems to be on fire, pictures as high as a wall, set right in the wall and all made of jewels so there is nothing else like them, redder than the reddest rose, greener than the grass, and with a blue that makes the sky pale!”
“You are indeed a witch,” said he, “and not the Abbess Radegunde.”
She said slowly, “I think I am forgetting how to be the Abbess Radegunde.”
“Then you will not care about them any more,” said he, and pointed to Sister Hedwic, who was still leading the stumbling Sister Sibihd.
The Abbess’s face was still and mild. She said, “I care. Do not strike me, Thorvald, not ever again, and I will be a good friend to you. Try to control the worst of your men and leave as many of my people free as you can—I know them and will tell you which can be taken away with the least hurt to themselves or others—and I will feed that curiosity and cleverness of yours until you will not recognize this old world any more for the sheer wonder and awe of it; I swear this on my life.” “Done,” said he, adding, “but with my luck, your life is somewhere else, locked in a box on top of a mountain, like the troll’s in the story, or you will die of old age while we are still at sea.”
“Nonsense,” she said, “I am a healthy, mortal woman with all my teeth, and I mean to gather many wrinkles yet.”
He put his hand out and she took it; then he said, shaking his head in wonder, “If I sold you in Constantinople, within a year you would become Queen of the place!”
The Abbess laughed merrily and I cried in fear, “Me, too! Take me too!” and she said, “Oh, yes, we must not forget little Boy News!” and lifted me into her arms.
The frightening, tall man, with his face close to mine, said in his strange, sing-song German:
“Boy, would you like to see the whales leaping in the open sea and the seals barking on the rocks? And cliffs so high that a giant could stretch his arms up and not reach their tops? And the sun shining at midnight?”
“Yes!” said I.
“But you will be a slave,” he said, “and may be ill-treated and will always have to do as you are bid. Would you like that?”
“No!” I cried lustily, from the safety of the Abbess’s arms, “I’ll fight!”
He laughed a mighty, roaring laugh and tousled my head—rather too hard, I thought—and said, “I will not be a bad master, for I am named for Thor Red-beard and he is strong and quick to fight but good-natured, too, and so am I,” and the Abbess put me down, and so we walked back to the village, Thorvald and the Abbess Radegunde talking of the glories of this world and Sister Hedwic saying softly, “She is a saint, our Abbess, a saint, to sacrifice herself for the good of the people,” and all the time behind us, like a memory, came the low, witless sobbing of Sister Sibihd, who was in Hell.
When we got back we found that Thorfinn was better and the Norsemen were to leave in the morning. Thorvald had a second pallet brought into the Abbess’s study and slept on the floor with us that night. You might think his men would laugh at this, for the Abbess was an old woman, but I think he had been with one of the young ones before he came to us. He had that look about him. There was no bedding for the Abbess but an old brown cloak with holes in it, and she and I were wrapped in it when he came in and threw himself down, whistling, on the other pallet. Then he said:
“Tomorrow, before we sail, you will show me the old Abbess’s treasure.”
“No,” said she. “That agreement was broken.”
He had been playing with his knife and now ran his thumb along the edge of it. “I can make you do it.”
“No,” said she patiently, “and now I am going to sleep.” “So you make light of death?” he said. “Good! That is what a brave woman should do, as the skalds sing, and not move, even when the keen sword cuts offher eyelashes. But what if I put this knife here not to your throat but to your little boy’s? You would tell me then quick enough!”
The Abbess turned away from him, yawning and saying, “No, Thorvald, because you would not. And if you did, I would despise you for a cowardly oath-breaker and not tell you for that reason. Good night.”
He laughed and whistled again for a bit. Then he said: “Was all that true?”
“All what?” said the Abbess, “Oh, about the statue. Yes, but there was no ravisher. I put him in the tale for poor Sister Hedwic.”
Thorvald snorted, as if in disappointment. “Tale? You tell lies, Abbess!”
The Abbess drew the old brown cloak over her head and closed her eyes. “It helped her.”
Then there was a silence, but the big Norseman did not seem able to lie still. He shifted his body again as if the straw bothered him, and again turned over. He finally burst out, “But what happened!”
She sat up. Then she shut her eyes. She said, “Maybe it does not come into your mans thoughts that an old woman gets tired and that the work of dealing with folk is hard work, or even that it is work at all. Well!
“Nothing ‘happened,’ Thorvald. Must something happen only if this one fucks that one or one bangs in another’s head? I desired my statue to the point of such foolishness that I determined to find a real, human lover, but when I raised my eyes from my fancies to the real, human men of Rome and unstopped my ears to listen to their talk, I realized that the thing was completely and eternally impossible. Oh, those younger sons with their skulking, jealous hatred of the rich, and the rich ones with their noses in the air because they thought themselves of such great consequence because of their silly money, and the timidity of the priests to their superiors, and their superiors’ pride, and the artisans’ hatred of the peasants, and the peasants being worked like animals from morning until night, and half the men I saw beating their wives and the other half out to cheat some poor girl of her money or her virginity or both—this was enough to put out any fire! And the women doing less harm only because they had less power to do harm, or so it seemed to me then. So I put all away, as one does with any disappointment. Men are not such bad folk when one stops expecting them to be gods, but they are not for me. If that state is chastity, then a weak stomach is temperance, I think. But whatever it is, I have it, and that’s the end of the matter.”
“All men?” said Thorvald Einarsson with his head to one side, and it came to me that he had been drinking, though he seemed sober.
“Thorvald,” said the Abbess, “what you want with this middle-aged wreck of a body I cannot imagine, but if you lust after my wrinkles and flabby breasts and lean, withered flanks, do whatever you want quickly and then, for Heaven’s sake, let me sleep. I am tired to death.”
He said in a low voice, “I need to have power over you.” She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “Oh, Thorvald, Thorvald, I am a weak little woman over forty years old! Where is the power? All I can do is talk!”
He said, “That’s it. That’s how you do it. You talk and talk and talk and everyone does just as you please; I have seen it!” The Abbess said, looking sharply at him, “Very well. If you must. But if I were you, Norseman, I would as soon bed my own mother. Remember that as you pull my skirts up.” That stopped him. He swore under his breath, turning over on his side, away from us. Then he thrust his knife into the edge of his pallet, time after time. Then he put the knife under the rolled-u
p cloth he was using as a pillow. We had no pillow and so I tried to make mine out of the edge of the cloak and failed. Then I thought that the Norseman was afraid of God working in Radegunde, and then I thought of Sister Hedwics changing color and wondered why. And then I thought of the leaping whales and the seals, which must be like great dogs because of the barking, and then the seals jumped on land and ran to my pallet and lapped at me with great, icy tongues of water so that I shivered and jumped, and then I woke up.
The Abbess Radegunde had left the pallet—it was her warmth I had missed—and was walking about the room. She would step and pause, her skirts making a small noise as she did so. She was careful not to touch the sleeping Thorvald. There was a dim light in the room from the embers that still glowed under the ashes in the hearth, but no light came from between the shutters of the study window, now shut against the cold. I saw the Abbess kneel under the plain wooden cross which hung on the study wall and heard her say a few words in
Latin; I thought she was praying. But then she said in a low voice:
‘“Do not call upon Apollo and the Muses, for they are deaf things and vain.’ But so are you, Pierced Man, deaf and vain.”
Then she got up and began to pace again. Thinking of it now frightens me, for it was the middle of the night and no one to hear her—except me, but she thought I was asleep—and yet she went on and on in that low, even voice as if it were broad day and she were explaining something to someone, as if things that had been in her thoughts for years must finally come out. But I did not find anything alarming in it then, for I thought that perhaps all Abbesses had to do such things, and besides she did not seem angry or hurried or afraid; she sounded as calm as if she were discussing the profits from the Abbeys beekeeping—which I had heard her do—or the accounts for the wine cellars—which I had also heard—and there was nothing alarming in that. So I listened as she continued walking about the room in the dark. She said:
“Talk, talk, talk, and always to myself. But one can’t abandon the kittens and puppies; that would be cruel. And being the Abbess Radegunde at least gives one something to do. But I am so sick of the good Abbess Randegunde; I have put on Radegunde every morning of my life as easily as I put on my smock, and then I have had to hear the stupid creature praised all day!—sainted Radegunde, just Radegunde who is never angry or greedy or jealous, kindly Radegunde who sacrifices herself for others, and always the talk, talk, talk, bubbling and boiling in my head with no one to hear or understand, and no one to answer. No, not even in the south, only a line here or a line there, and all written by the dead. Did they feel as I do? That the world is a giant nursery full of squabbles over toys and the babes thinking me some kind of goddess because I’m not greedy for their dolls or bits of straw or their horses made of tied-together sticks?
“Poor people, if only they knew! It’s so easy to be temperate when one enjoys nothing, so easy to be kind when one loves nothing, so easy to be fearless when one’s life is no better than ones death. And so easy to scheme when the success doesn’t matter.
“Would they be surprised, I wonder, to find out what my real thoughts were when Thorfinn’s knife was at my throat?
Curiosity! But he would not do it, of course; he does everything for show. And they would think I was twice holy, not to care about death.
“Then why not kill yourself, impious Sister Radegunde? Is it your religion which stops you? Oh, you mean the holy wells and the holy trees, and the blessed saints with their blessed relics, and the stupidity that shamed Sister Hedwic, and the promises of safety that drove poor Sibihd mad when the blessed body of her Lord did not protect her and the blessed love of the blessed Mary turned away the sharp point of not one knife? Trash! Idle leaves and sticks, reeds and rushes, filth we sweep off our floors when it grows too thick. As if holiness had anything to do with all of that. As if every place were not as holy as every other and every thing as holy as every other, from the shit in Thorfinn’s bowels to the rocks on the ground. As if all places and things were not clouds placed in front of our weak eyes, to keep us from being blinded by that glory, that eternal shining, that blazing all about us, the torrent of light that is everything and is in everything! That is what keeps me from the river, but it never speaks to me or tells me what to do, and to it good and evil are the same—no, it is something else than good or evil; it is, only—so it is not God. That I know.
“So, people, is your Radegunde a witch or a demon? Is she full of pride or is Radegunde abject? Perhaps she is a witch. Once, long ago, I confessed to old Gerbertus that I could see things that were far away merely by closing my eyes, and I proved it to him, too, and he wept over me and gave me much penance, crying, “If it come of itself it may be a gift of God, daughter, but it is more likely the work of a demon, so do not do it!” And then we prayed and I told him the power had left me, to make the poor old puppy less troubled in its mind, but that was not true, of course. I could still see Turkey as easily as I could see him, and places for beyond: the squat, wild men of the plains on their ponies, and the strange, tall people beyond that with their great cities and odd eyes, as if one pulled one’s eyelid up on a slant, and then the seas with the great, wild lands and the cities more full of gold than Constantinople, and water again until one comes back home, for the worlds a ball, as the ancients said.
“But I did stop somehow, over the years. Radegunde never had time, I suppose. Besides, when I opened that door it was only pictures, as in a book, and all to no purpose, and after a while I had seen them all and no longer cared for them. It is the other door that draws me, when it opens itself but a crack and strange things peep through, like Ranulf sisters son and the name of his horse. That door is good but very heavy; it always swings back after a little. I shall have to be on my deathbed to open it all the way, I think.
“The fox is asleep. He is the cleverest yet; there is something in him so that at times one can almost talk to him. But still a fox, for the most part. Perhaps in time. . . .
“But let me see; yes, he is asleep. And the Sibihd puppy is asleep, though it will be having a bad dream soon, I think, and the Thorfinn kitten is asleep, as full of fright as when it wakes, with its claws going in and out, in and out, lest something strangle it in its sleep.”
Then the Abbess fell silent and moved to the shuttered window as if she were looking out, so I thought that she was indeed looking out—but not with her'eyes—at all the sleeping folk, and this was something she had done every night of her life to see if they were safe and sound. But would she not know that 1 was awake? Should I not try very hard to get to sleep before she caught me? Then it seemed to me that she smiled in the dark, although I could not see it. She said in that same low, even voic6: “Sleep or wake, Boy News; it is all one to me. Thou hast heard nothing of any importance, only the silly Abbess talking to herself, only Radegunde saying good-bye to Radegunde, only Radegunde going away—don’t cry, Boy News; I am still here—but there: Radegunde has gone. This Norseman and I are alike in one way: our minds are like great houses with many of the rooms locked shut. We crowd in a miserable, huddled few, like poor folk, when we might move freely among them all, as gracious as princes. It is fate that locked away so much of the Norseman—see, Boy News, I do not say his name, not even softly, for that wakes folks—but I wonder if the one who bolted me in was not Radegunde herself, she and old Gerbertus—whom I partly believed—they and the years and years of having to be Radegunde ajid do the things Radegunde did and pretend to have the thoughts Radegunde had and the endless, endless lies Radegunde must tell everyone, and Radegundes utter and unbearable loneliness,”
She fell silent again. I wondered at the Abbess’s talk this time: saying she was not there when she was, and about living locked up in small rooms—for surely the Abbey was the most splendid house in all the world, and the biggest—and how could she be lonely when all the folk loved her? But then she said in a voice so low that I could hardly hear it:
“Poor Radegunde! So weary of the lies s
he tells and the fooling of men and women with the collars round their necks and bribes of food for good behavior and a careful twitch of the leash that they do not even see or feel. And with the Norseman it will be all the same: lies and flattery and all of it work that never ends and no one ever even sees, so that finally Radegunde will lie down like an ape in a cage, weak and sick from hunger, and will never get up.
“Let her die now. There: Radegunde is dead. Radegunde is gone. Perhaps the door was heavy only because she was on the other side of it, pushing against me. Perhaps it will open all the way now. I have looked in all directions: to the east, to the north and south, and to the west, but there is one place I have never looked and now I will: away from the ball, straight out. Let us see—”
She stopped speaking all of a sudden. I had been falling asleep but this silence woke me. Then I heard the Abbess gasp terribly, like one mortally stricken, and then she said in a whisper so keen and thrilling that it made the hair stand up on my head: Where art thou? The next moment she had torn the shutters open and was crying out with all her voice: Help me! Find me! Oh, come, come, come, or I die!
This waked Thorvald. With some Norse oath he stumbled up and flung on his sword belt and then put his hand to his dagger; I had noticed this thing with the dagger was a thing Norsemen liked to do. The Abbess was silent. He let out his breath in an oof! and went to light the tallow dip at the live embers under the hearth ashes; when the dip had smoked up, he put it on its shelf on the wall.
Nebula Award Stories - 1983 #18 Page 5