A Vision of Light

by Judith Merkle Riley

  “Tell my wife that Brother Gregory has had a mishap in the street, and have her send Bess to draw a bath.”

  “This is very inconvenient. I’ll go now,” complained Brother Gregory.

  “On the contrary; it’s quite convenient. More so than just about anywhere else in London. We have a marvelous tub, just for bathing, with a little tent about it so you won’t take chill. It’s almost always set up. My wife is the bathingest woman you can imagine. I tell her that her skin is bound to come off, and then what will she do—but she never stops. Bath, bath—once, even twice a week! She’s not vain about her jewels, as you may have noticed, but this bath thing makes up for it. Rose water, oil of almonds, there’s no end to what she wants. And linen! She keeps an entire laundry in constant business with all her linen changing, I tell you. ‘Loosen up a little, dear, there’s health in good dirt,’ I tell her. ‘Health for beans and posies, but not for people,’ she says. Well, maybe she’s not all wrong. There’s been less sickness in the house since she came. Or it may be her praying. She has a funny trick with that—have you noticed? Her face lights up.”

  “No, I hadn’t. But this bathing—no smelly things! I have enough problems with the vanities of the world already.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Besides, I keep you here for selfish reasons. I’ve a favor to ask. But I won’t ask it until you’re repaired.”

  He slapped Brother Gregory on the back. Brother Gregory flinched. He did not like familiar gestures. Also, his back was sore. He had been flagellating himself, trying to see God, and was not fully recovered yet. It seemed only a moment before Brother Gregory was shown into a back room of the house, where the tall, wooden, ironbound tub was already set up. Two neatly clad serving-women in white kerchiefs were busily carrying brass jugs of hot water to fill it. When the bath was done, they would have to carry every drop of water away again.

  “All waste and vanity,” grumbled Gregory, as he examined the scene before him. Steam was rising to fill the pretty colored linen tent above the tub, which was partially pulled aside for the filling. With a practiced gesture the servant woman reached for the little bottle of rose water, to scent the bathwater.

  “No fool lady-smells!” Brother Gregory roared, and she looked shocked at his ill humor and fled. Kendall had sent a manservant to help him into the bath and take his clothes, for he was sensitive to Brother Gregory’s nervousness about being too close to women. The man set a changing cloth on the rush-covered floor for Brother Gregory to put his bare feet on. Because of the danger of water stains this room was uncarpeted, unlike most of the rooms used by Kendall and his family. It vaguely reminded Brother Gregory of long ago in his father’s house, when he and his brother used to stand attendance each morning at his father’s bedside as the valet knelt and put out the changing cloth before he helped the old man to dress. Except that that house was hard and cold, and this one warm and comfortable.

  “We’ll soon have these right for you, sir,” said the russet-clad manservant, as he took away Brother Gregory’s putrid clothes. With a groan Brother Gregory lowered his sore, naked body into the tub. He felt deeply humiliated. Would it have been so shameful to walk home without bathing?

  He thought seriously of the alternatives. Both involved mockery, and Brother Gregory hated mockery more than just about anything. And then, his narrow little room, at the top story of a shabby building of rental rooms, had no such fine facilities for washing up. It was convenient here—but, on the other hand, in his room he wouldn’t have to parade his shame in the house of strangers. Considerate strangers, but still, it wasn’t proper.

  Pensively he put a hand out of the tent and felt for the little jar of rose water. Did it really smell that nice? He pulled the stopper and sniffed. It was nice. It smelled like Margaret. Then he closed it and hurriedly put it back.

  Settling deeper in the water, he winced as it touched his back. A dark scum spread over the water’s surface. Brother Gregory scrubbed at his folded-up knees. Little black dirt-rolls peeled off his skin. He splashed water idly on one dirty shoulder. Did God think washing was a sign of vanity? Well, perhaps only in hot water in a tub with a gaudy tent. It wasn’t all so bad to be clean. Now, cold water, that was surely all right with God…. Should he give up and wash everything? With a sign of pleasure Brother Gregory dipped hot water over his head and rubbed vigorously. The tonsure at the back of his head was growing out, and his dark curls had become wild again with lack of trimming. In theory Brother Gregory was clean shaven, but even now that he had some money, he would never have considered being shaven once a week, like some dandy, and so his version of clean-shaving was less exacting than most. Now he dipped more water on his head to rinse it off. Little gray dots, which a careful eye might perceive to be tiny insects, joined the scum floating on the water.

  Suppressing the urge to hum a lovely Stabat Mater that he had just heard, Brother Gregory found that the warm water had summoned up Lady Memory to occupy his mind in place of the dolorous Virgin. He still did not fully comprehend why he had been sent back into the world by the abbot, when it was so clear to him that his was a mind most perfectly suited to the art of Divine Contemplation. Actually this astonishing self-revelation had come to him some time before, on the passage from Calais, as he gazed over the ship’s rail at the boundless ocean, brooding over the blazing end of his literary career. A passage from the Mystica Theologica of Dionysius had risen unbidden to his mind: “Men can attain this hidden deity by putting away all that is not God.”

  Now, Dionysius had made it very clear that those who live by earthly knowledge are incapable of perceiving divine teaching, and especially incapable of experiencing the Divine Presence itself. And so it came over Gilbert the Scholar all at once that the book burners had freed him spiritually to perceive God, while, by chaining themselves to earthly knowledge in the form of obnoxious and entirely incorrect theological argumentation, they had guaranteed that they themselves would not. It pleased and consoled him so much, this thought, that he had immediately gone and presented himself to the most austere monastery in all of England as a postulant, full of passion to lose his identity in oneness with the Deity.

  Of course, it was only natural that a person such as himself would, in the divine peacefulness of the monastery, reach a level of sublimity of thought that many an ordinary person might envy. But just as he was quite, quite ready to take the final vows that would commit him to a lifetime of contemplation, the abbot, obviously incapable of perceiving that he was in a very sensitive place in his spiritual growth that required greater consideration from others, had called him in.

  Brother Gregory still remembered quite vividly the long, unpleasant wait, kneeling on the cold stone floor, before Godric the Silent actually spoke.

  “You have been preserving and extending your Pride,” said the old man, his lashless lids blinking slowly over his pale eyes. Pride? thought Brother Gregory. Why, the man had to be incredibly shallow not to see his extraordinary aptitude by this time. As the old man sat silently inspecting Brother Gregory, Brother Gregory thought the matter over. The man was completely wrong, like so many who have overinflated reputations. After all, who but Brother Gregory could kneel the most hours without fainting, fast the most days without growling, and cite the most authorities in learned disputation? Besides, he had just been on the verge of seeing God when the abbot had called him in. That probably had something to do with it too. Then the abbot had said something that showed he really didn’t understand anything at all. What was it? Oh, yes.

  “Go until you can find out whether you are fleeing the world or seeking God. You may come back and tell me when you know the difference.”

  It was probably jealousy at work, thought Brother Gregory. That was it. Jealousy and politics, which you just can’t escape anywhere. The other brethren’s complaints had obviously influenced him. That’s what happens whenever you mix commoners together with men of high lineage—even if they are only younger sons—and tell them they’re
all equal before God. Jealousy takes over. It was a pity he had been too sincere to take jealousy into account beforehand. It was altogether improper that final admission to the house depended on a vote of the members. After all, does God take votes on salvation?

  Brother Gregory had wanted to argue. He knew thousands of powerful scriptural reasons why his own way to salvation was best. But that’s the problem with someone who’s known as “the Silent.” You can’t argue with such a person at all.

  It would have been a dreadfully hard blow to some spiritual weakling, but Brother Gregory did not consider himself a spiritual weakling. He had been there long enough for them to have given away his old gown at the almshouse by the monastery gate. And so, on that dark January morning, when he had peeled off the coarse white habit of the order, Brother Gregory found himself departing on the long road south toward London in the shabby, nondescript gray robe and grubby sheepskin abandoned by some lay brother. Well, that was all right. It had entirely suited his morbid mood.

  So it was that in the midst of a hard winter, Brother Gregory had been flung into the world of wandering clerks who copy letters, pray at funerals, and sing the psalms for small money. But in the midst of this test of faith Brother Gregory had been absolutely sure of two things: that he had a vocation for contemplation, and that he was never, never going home again.

  “When I go back and tell the abbot I’ve seen God, then he’ll admit he was wrong,” Brother Gregory grumbled, idly splashing water over his stomach.

  “Ho, Brother Gregory, you’ve been in there a long time, so I’ll just have to come and converse here. I’m sorry about that, but I need to be across town in an hour, and I can’t leave until I’ve put my request to you.” Kendall’s jaunty voice pierced the steamy mist in the tent and rudely broke into Brother Gregory’s reverie.

  That’s how it goes in this house, thought Brother Gregory. Strip a man naked and then ask him a favor when he can’t run off. Oh, well. And he poked his head out of the tent.

  “How go the reading lessons, Brother Gregory?”

  “The what?”

  “The reading lessons. Can Margaret read yet?”

  “Simple things, yes. She’s doing well. She’s very clever for a woman, you know. But her spelling is awful. Purely barbaric.”

  “How well do you think she’ll read by Christmastide?”

  “Well enough, I think, at this rate. Why do you ask?”

  “I’m planning a gift for her, and I thought I’d consult you.”

  “A gift? What kind of gift?”

  “A book. I have an idea for a new kind of Psalter. You’re just the man to help. I want one line in Latin, the next line in English, and so forth. That way she can read it herself and look at the Latin as she goes along.”

  “That’s a dangerous idea, friend. It’s not proper to have the Psalms in English. They lose their sacred character.”

  “I’ve had lots of dangerous ideas in my time. Let’s not argue until you’re out of the bath. Just tell me now before I go. Can you tell me of a good copyist, and perhaps a translator with a poetic turn of mind, who can do this for me? I don’t need illumination—just decorated capitals will do nicely. But it’s got to be bound in time.”

  “I know people suitable for this work, yes.”

  “If you can organize the whole thing and get it done for me on time, I’ll give you a good commission.”

  “I’ll go see the people I know and come back tomorrow and let you know. But I’m sure it can be done, even on such short notice.”

  “Good, then, good—tomorrow”—and Master Kendall’s footsteps could be heard departing. Gregory pulled his head in like a turtle. The water was cold. He could also hear a stirring outside the tent.

  “Mistress has sent these clothes to wear until yours are dry. They’re right by the fire, but it will still be a while before they’re dry. There is a towel here by the tub. I’m leaving now.”

  Merciful Jesus, what next? Some jester’s outfit in crazy colors to crown this series of indignities. Brother Gregory pulled himself out of the bath and inspected the clothing as he dried himself. All was well. Margaret, who had a delicate sense of his needs, had provided him with the sober black gown and hose that Master Kendall had worn to his mother’s funeral. They were a little bit wide and short for his tall, lanky form, but with a few adjustments here and there, they fit well enough. As he put them on, he looked again at the unforgiving blackness of them and wondered if Margaret were making fun of him in some subtle way. When he went downstairs, and Margaret greeted him with a cheerful “All dry again, Brother Gregory?” as if she didn’t even see the ridiculous black gown, he gave her a sharp look. She was getting entirely too presumptuous and deserved to be pulled up short.

  But the smell of the ink and the look of the fresh empty paper began to soothe him as it always did. As he started writing, the familiar technique of making elegant, blotless copy first diverted, and then absorbed his whole mind. Margaret’s voice receded into the distance as he contemplated the lines of letters extending under his hand. He’d save his surprise for later.

  IT WAS AFTER CURFEW, when the streets of London are dark, and every proper citizen has doused his lights and gone to bed, that Hilde, Brother Malachi, and I were awakened by the doleful wailing of two drunken lorimers, staggering down the muddy alley in front of our house.

  “BRO-thers for EVer, in Christian charitYYYY,” they sang, or attempted to sing, the fraternal anthem of their guild. The sound rose and fell like the howling of wolves. A shutter banged open across the alley.

  “Shut up!” a man’s voice bellowed. On the other side of us another voice called, “You, old Tom! I’ve heard better singing from cats in heat!” There was a swish and a crack. Someone had thrown an overage egg, which had splattered harmlessly on the uneven pavement. A sensitive nose could catch a faint whiff of sulphur. Suddenly the drunks reeled and stopped, supporting each other.

  “Thish ish the place,” announced one of them, and he pounded on our door. As we all lay there, wishing most heartily that they would go away, the door of the neighboring house was flung open.

  “Watt, you come inside this minute! The night watch will put you in the lockup again!”

  “Oh, there you are, Kate. What are you doing in the house next door?”

  “I am not in the house next door; this is your house, and you are banging on the door of those new people, like a fool.”

  “I’m no fool. This is the right house, and you’re next door—and just what are you doing next door?” he asked, with a rising tone of suspicion in his voice.

  “You’re drunk! And late! Just what did you do after the guild feast? Speak up and answer!”

  “Why, sweetheart,” he said, in an exaggeratedly conciliatory tone, “I stopped off at the house of one of the brethren—on business.”

  “On drinking business, you mean! And just who is that with you?”

  “’Nother brother. His wife won’t let him in, he says, so I says, my Kate’s a hospitable woman. Stay over with us. But you’ve locked us out, and now you want us to stay next door—”

  There was a sound of footsteps as the woman came and grabbed him by the ear and pulled him away from our door.

  “Ow! My ear!” we heard him cry.

  “You are disgusting! Come in this minute and get away from that woman’s door. She’s a whore, and I know it!”

  “She seems nice ’nough to me.”

  “She’s no better than she should be. Midwife, ha! She’s far too young. She couldn’t midwife a cat. This neighborhood is going down, I say—” The door slammed, and we heard no more.

  That was my problem. The streets of London may be paved with gold, but you need the right sort of shovel to dig it out. I couldn’t get any clients at all. It’s very hard to start up business where you’re not known. It’s a lot different from the village. When we first arrived, we had all of us stayed in a single room, partitioned off at the back of a bakeshop in Cheapside. It was a
lot less costly than an inn, because bakeshop owners aren’t allowed to keep overnight guests, that being the business of the Innkeepers’ Guild. But Brother Malachi was something of a master at saving money by living on the shady side, so there we stayed, until he could rent a house for himself and his “tragically newly widowed cousins, whom he supported out of charity.” One day he came back rubbing his hands together.

  “Well, my dears, haven’t I always said that the other side of disaster is opportunity? We could never have hoped for such a splendid place before the pestilence made so many rentals free! We would have lived in a rented room forever, but now, thanks to my ingenuity, we have a fabulous great house, perfectly suited to our interests. Envision a veritable palace, with only a slight air of aged dignity!”

  We retrieved Moll from her rented stall and together threaded our way through the narrow streets to Cornhill, where, after rounding a corner, Brother Malachi gestured to the right and announced that this was the place. Goods were displayed for sale on the street, mostly odds and ends: some hoods and gloves, cups, spoons, a cooking pan, some knives of various sizes.

  “Where is the street?” I asked. “I don’t see any.”

  “Right in there,” he gestured. “Secluded, yet central to everything.”

  Sure enough. Between the houses fronted by the street vendors, there was a narrow opening with a long, crooked alley visible beyond. It was hardly worthy to be called a street: it was more of a winding gutter, only four or five feet wide, suitable for draining sewage out to the main street. It seemed sunk in shadow, for even in bright daylight the sun could not penetrate between the close-set houses. As we entered the alley, my heart started to sink.

  “What’s this place called?” I asked.

  “Once it was known as St. Katherine’s Street, I believe, but lately it has acquired the name of ‘Thieves’ Alley.’ Those things for sale out front—they’re mostly stolen, I’m afraid. But the house is a find. Here it is.” Brother Malachi looked very pleased with himself.