A Vision of Light

by Judith Merkle Riley

  “I was hoping for the older one,” he said.

  “I know I’m young, but I have assisted at many births and delivered children successfully, although not in London. The ‘older one’ is my teacher, and I do things just as she would.” I defended myself boldly, but something in my eye caught his notice.

  “You’re not working so much here?” he asked.

  “No”—I sighed—“for I haven’t been long in London, and it’s very hard to get established, particularly in this business, if you don’t look old.”

  “Then you’re not so different from me,” he said. “I came because London is a city of gold, but none of it has wound up in my pocket. Married priests never get advancement. I get a little work copying, singing psalms. I bless houses occasionally—” he looked around hopefully. “You wouldn’t want your house blessed, would you?” All the sweeping in the world had not made the house less shabby, and we didn’t have money for whitewash. It’s just that we’d got tired of noticing it, so we quit. It was always a jolt when a stranger reminded us how bad it looked.

  “I’m afraid this house is beyond blessing.” I sighed, looking around.

  “That’s too bad, because”—here he broke off, but I knew what was coming—“because,” he went on, “I’d, um, hoped to defer payment until—somewhat—later.”

  I knew the proper answer, and although I was disappointed, I did want to prove myself.

  “I’ll do the work for the love of Christ,” I told him. His face brightened.

  “Are you sure you’re as good as the older one? My wife and I have been married only a year and a half, and don’t they say the first one is always the hardest?”

  “It depends on the strength of the mother,” I answered reassuringly.

  “Well, then, I’ll come back and bless your house anyway. No house is beyond blessing. Maybe this house just needs a larger-than-usual one.”

  “Perhaps that’s so. I fear the previous occupants may have come to no good end.”

  And so we settled it, and when his wife’s time had come, he himself fetched me, and I raced to keep up with his long steps as we walked the streets to an alley very similar to ours, in another part of Cornhill, where he lived in a decrepit cottage. The delivery was not a hard one, as those things go, but it took longer, as it does with a first child, and she was deathly frightened. When both mother and child were safely bedded, I went to him where he was waiting, in the cottage’s other room, with his head in his hands.

  “They are both well, and your child is a girl,” I told him. He looked up, his long face pleased and radiant.

  “Truly so? I thought when I heard cries—”

  “No, they’re well, both well indeed.” I followed him in and watched enviously as I saw the tender look on his face when he admired them both.

  “Why, she’s very pretty, isn’t she?” he exclaimed over the child, and his wife smiled happily. And I thought secretly to myself, If I could have chosen, I’d have had a love match like that one—and if I can’t have that, then I won’t choose any. But fate taught me later that it’s a rare woman who gets any choices in matters that men think they have a right to direct.

  This was the beginning of better luck for me, for the first client always recommends the rest. And this shabby priest got around. Sometimes I would see him on a street corner exhorting the passersby against sin, his threadbare gown whipping about him in the wind. He had a number of favorite themes, some of which were enough to get him put in the stocks, and how he escaped I do not know. He said it was the sins of the wealthy and the great that had caused the plague, and he denounced the selfishness of the rich, as well as that of the career-minded celibate clergy. “Chastity without charity” was what he called it, and he said that purchased pardons could not save the buyers from hell, but only God could pardon, and would do so without regard for money. Poor people liked to hear him, and more than once I saw a crowd surround him and whisk him out of danger when it looked as if he might be taken by the authorities. That was the problem with the new clients he sent me—they were all as poor as he was, and paid in vegetables. Still, that’s better than nothing at all, and life started looking up.

  It was perhaps a sign of our new prosperity that everything homeless seemed to sense that there might be a welcome and something to eat at the narrow house in the alley. One morning, when I went to feed Moll, I found that a shabby orange cat with a torn ear and missing tail had slept the night in the shed. With that kind of insinuating flattery that cats have, she wound her skinny body about my legs until she had acquired a bit of milk for breakfast. After that she seemed to take possession of the house and yard and soon was as fat as a prosperous burgher. Hilde was pleased, because she had often regretted having had to leave her old mouser behind and had often thought of buying another cat when times were easier. A cat improves the garden wall in sunshine, and the hearth in foul weather, so we began to feel the house was not so dreary.

  Then, one rainy afternoon, when I was returning from a job, with payment in the form of butter and eggs neatly wrapped in my basket, I nearly fell over something lumpy curled up at the front door. It looked exactly like a pile of unraveled rope, and even when it got up and pushed itself hopefully into the house behind me, I wasn’t altogether too sure what it was, for the front and back ends looked more or less alike. So I got a bucket of water and a comb, while the creature pattered about after me, and then I settled down at the back door to wash it until I’d found out whatever it was.

  “What on earth is that you are washing there?” inquired Brother Malachi, who had come forth from the Smellery to take air.

  “I’m not sure, but it seems more or less like a dog,” I answered, combing out the tangled fluff. The truth is, I had been greatly taken by a pair of merry bright eyes, and a mouth that looked always like a smile, that I had found beneath the matted hair. But a dog does eat, and it wasn’t right to keep it if the others objected.

  “A dog, eh? It’s not very large. I imagine it barks well. Margaret, we might consider keeping this creature to sound a warning. After all, we must think of the future. Very soon now the house will be piled with gold bars, which will make it very tempting to criminals. It would be a wise precaution to keep a watchdog. Clearly Fortuna is looking out for the details of our new life.”

  And so the dog stayed. As if in gratitude he laid a token of his appreciation at my feet the next morning. It was a dead rat nearly half his size.

  “My goodness, Margaret,” said Mother Hilde, “he must have had quite a scuffle to get that. He is small, but lionhearted.” That is how he got his name, although most people tell me it’s a silly one. But Lion was very quick-witted, and I enjoyed teaching him some of the tricks I had seen the jongleurs’ dogs perform. Maistre Robert had a wonderful secret that made his dogs as lively as human children. Instead of beating them like stubborn mules, he showed them just one thing at a time, luring them to perfect it with little rewards and kind strokes. It was a very clever way that left his creatures full of love, and I used it with great success. When the little boys would come to visit, they would applaud Lion’s tricks, which pleased him no end, for he was a dog that loved to be admired.

  Thanks to my little friends Lion was not the only creature that came to stay during those days. It was late on a windy March afternoon that I answered a timid knock at the door. It was a sad-looking creature that stood there—a scrawny, undersized little boy, nursing a long unhealed cut on his hand. He had many little bruises about his body and walked as if his limbs were sore. When he spoke, I saw his gums were red and swollen. I know this disease well. It comes in winter, when there is not enough to eat.

  “Are you the woman who fixes cuts?” he asked.

  “That I am,” I answered.

  “The boys tell me you mend them for love of a brother that’s gone. He’s not found yet, is he?”

  “No, he’s not. But won’t you come in?” He stepped in more cautiously than the cat, looking carefully about to see t
hat nothing menacing was in the room.

  “What’s this, Margaret? Another of your boys? What’s your name, and who is your master, for it’s clear enough to me that he treats you very ill.” Mother Hilde’s voice sounded warm and concerned, as she dished up pottage for him from our ever-boiling kettle.

  “My name is Sim, and I haven’t any master,” he answered. “My mother didn’t have the fee to set me to learn a trade. Now she’s dead, and I get work where I can.”

  “And I suppose you’re not above begging a bit too,” said Mother Hilde. The boy was silent. Mother Hilde thought a bit and disappeared into Brother Malachi’s workshop while Sim ate. Soon she reappeared with a bustle.

  “Sim,” she said, “Brother Malachi, who is engaged in a project of greatest importance, has need of a boy to blow the bellows and clean out his vessels. Peter is a total failure at it. Margaret used to do it, before she had so much work. But now Malachi is very worn down with excess labor and frustration. If you take on this work, you may stay in this household. Would you like that?” Sim looked wary.

  “There’s no trick. We don’t eat children here, or beat them, and we almost always have good things to eat. Do think about it.” By now the cat had come to sit on Sim’s feet. He thought a bit and said, “Yes, I’ll do it.” Mother Hilde kissed him, and the agreement was made. I washed the cut and brought the edges together, but it was clear to us both that food was this boy’s medicine.

  Sim was a handy creature to have about. As he regained his spirits, he worked long hours for Brother Malachi, ate as if he were a bottomless pit, and ran many useful errands. I noticed, too, that as he regained strength, he seemed to have acquired some special stature among the other boys, who gave him great deference.

  On the way to market one day I saw Sim in the street, demanding first turn at a game of ball and getting it, somewhat undeservedly, I thought. I caught up with a child hurrying to play and grabbed him by the shoulder.

  “Wait a minute, please, and tell me something,” I asked. “Just who is that boy who’s going first, and why is he so well regarded?”

  “Oh, lady, don’t you know? That’s Sim. He’s apprenticed to a wizard and has already learned some very powerful secrets. He can call lesser demons and turn his enemies into frogs.”

  “He can what? I think that’s a very tall tale.”

  “Oh, no, it’s all true. He has shown us quicksilver from his master’s laboratory, and water that can dissolve stone.”

  “Why, then, I thank you for telling me. A person can’t be too careful of wizards.”

  “That’s what I say, too, lady.”

  That evening we confronted Sim.

  “Sim,” I said firmly, “I hear you’ve been telling the other apprentice boys that you’re apprenticed to a wizard.”

  Brother Malachi’s eyebrows went up. Sim looked troubled.

  “Sim, that’s a terrible thing,” said Mother Hilde.

  Sim hung his head.

  “Sim,” I said, “telling tales like that can call the archdeacon down on us. Suppose someone tells him all those things about the frogs and the demons? He’ll arrest Brother Malachi for sorcery. Maybe even all of us. You have to watch yourself.”

  Sim looked as if he were about to cry.

  “Frogs? Demons?” Brother Malachi was looking fierce, but his mouth was twitching on one side. “Just what exactly did you tell your playmates?”

  Shamefaced, Sim told him.

  “Sim, Sim.” Brother Malachi shook his head warningly. “I’m afraid you’ll never make much of a sorcerer, or much of an alchemist, either, with a tongue like that—but”—Sim looked up hopefully—“you’ll make a lightning salesman! Save your lies for the road, my young friend, and you’ll travel with me when you’re a bit older. In the meanwhile tell your little friends that your master called up a demon so unpleasant that it caused him to repent on the spot, and he has now gone on a lengthy pilgrimage to purge himself from sin. That ought to be sufficient, I think. These things die down, if handled right.”

  “But I’ll still get to work the bellows?”

  “Of course, of course. I’m beginning a new process of the most subtle and dangerous type tomorrow. There is risk that my materials may fly violently up into the air, with great flame and noise—but it may very well be the gateway to the Secret. Last time I tried it, I nearly burned down the house. This time showers of gold await! But you’ll have to be very courageous—”

  “I’m brave, I swear I am.” Sim looked heartened.

  “Good—don’t run off tomorrow, and we’ll begin at dawn. But I must be able to trust you absolutely. Do you swear?”

  Sim swore. Mother Hilde and I shook our heads. The next day the house was full of a peculiarly noxious black smoke that caused even the insects to flee the cracks in the walls. Hilde and I went off to work to spare ourselves from asphyxiation. Hilde had a new client, the wife of a wealthy saddler, who was bearing her seventh child, which Hilde said was a very lucky sign, and I went off to a shabby tenement on London Bridge to see a woman referred to me by Master Will, the street preacher.

  I like London Bridge: those who live or keep shop on the bridge think themselves very special and constantly work some evidence of their uniqueness into their conversation. The air is cold and brisk there, which they say brings better health, and there is something strangely soothing to the spirit to watch the water rush at great force between the narrow stone piers, although it is a dangerous business to put a boat between them. Yet watermen shoot the bridge every day, although their wiser clients disembark on one side of the bridge and rejoin the boat at the other side, for many are overturned and lost taking boats under the bridge. Because of the buildings on the bridge, the high street is but a dozen feet wide, except where it opens in the “square,” on which they sometimes have jousting. The only thing I really don’t care for on the bridge is the drawbridge gateway on the Southwark end, because it is decorated with severed heads, as a way of reminding those entering the City from the south that treason is a serious matter in England. When a new head is put up it is considered something of a holiday, and men bring their families down for a stroll to gawk at it and perhaps also do a little shopping. If the bridge merchants could arrange it they would have a new head there every week, for the increase of trade.

  The crowd was very pressing on the High Street this day. Market women displayed their wares on their cloaks and shouted an invitation to buy. In the shadows under the second story overpasses, cutpurses and sneak thieves plied their trade. Beggars, including maimed veterans and children who have been damaged by their parents so as to appear more pitiful, wept and pleaded for offerings in Christ’s name. Those who gave were showered with blessings to the point of embarrassment and surrounded by swarms of additional hopefuls. Sports in search of women, tradespeople and apprentices, jostled each other on foot, while wealthy merchants, mounted on mules, threaded their way through the crowded street. As I approached the bridge square, I could hear several apprentices in deep conversation nearby.

  “I say, that sorcerer fellow’s head is all black now.”

  “It always was black; it is with sorcerers, especially the bad ones. And this was one of the worst—imagine, trying to put a spell on the prince!”

  “You’re wrong; it wasn’t black at all when they put it up, just sunk in a little. I still say it turned black later.”

  “Well, it’s coming apart now. They all look alike when they’re old. The new ones are the interesting ones.”

  “That’s true. Once the eyes are out, they aren’t much anymore.”

  Further speculation was interrupted by a cry from the southern end of the bridge.

  “Make way! Make way for my lord the Duke of Norfolk!” A party of armed nobles and their retainers, all splendidly mounted on their traveling horses, followed by their baggage train, crossed the drawbridge at a good, stiff trot. You could see the sunlight glitter on their silver-and-gold embroidered surcoats. The horses’ chests and necks wer
e soaked with sweat from their long, fast ride. The crowd parted before them, but not quickly enough. Mothers snatched at their children, and grown men shoved to get into sheltering doorways. The crowd surged into the narrow “square,” the fortunate ones stepping into the pedestrian recesses in the bridge wall. Someone tripped me and I fell. Then others fell over me, and I was soon smothered under several bodies. My wind was knocked out and there was a searing pain in my leg.

  The party on horseback having passed, there was something new of interest for the scandal watchers, as the injured were disentangled, carried to the adjoining bridge chapel, and laid out on the floor. Some were bruised only and soon recovered their wits. One old man had his back broken and had turned all gray in the face, as men do when they are dying. The priest bent over him, anointing his forehead while his acolyte held a candle. Next to me a barber surgeon was strapping a man’s ribs, whistling cheerfully. When he finished, he looked at me and said jauntily, “Now, what have we here?”

  “It’s my leg,” I whispered, for it was very painful. The light in the chapel was dim and the gray stone floor hard and uncomfortable. There was the sound of groaning from the dying man, which did little to brighten the atmosphere.

  “Oh, lovely!” he exclaimed, as he turned back my dress. “A beautiful compound fracture! Why, here’s the bone!” He had a nasty ginger-colored beard, which matched bristling eyebrows and ill-combed long hair of the same color. His dun-colored wool tunic and dark green surcoat were protected by a wide leather apron, which had many sinister dark splashes on it that I took to be bloodstains.

  “For God’s sake, don’t touch it!” I cried, as he looked at the white fragment of bone extending from the break. I was sick with horror. People never like to see their own bones.

  “Oh, touch it I will, soon enough. You have family who’ll pay, I take it?”