A Vision of Light

by Judith Merkle Riley

  “And now,” said the Dominican, his eyes glittering from beneath his black hood, “tell us who you really are.”

  My God! The filthy hand of Lewis Small from the grave condemns me! This was beyond all imagining. The hypocrisy of those three little Masses enraged me beyond all description. I could just see him, simpering, with his eyes rolled heavenward, and dabbing away a tear as he made sure the way was clear to marry again. I would not let Lewis Small have the last word, not ever. I threw back my head defiantly and said, “I am Margaret of Ashbury and I am no liar. Lewis Small is the liar. He had my death recorded falsely, so as to be free to marry again.”

  “Do you deny you are wedded to him?” said the Dominican, in an insinuating tone.

  “I was wedded to him.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He is dead.”

  “How convenient,” he sneered.

  “Who are you, then?” Father Edmund’s voice broke in.

  “I am Margaret—”

  “Who, I said?”

  “I was baptized Margaret, in the village of Ashbury, by our parish priest, Father Ambrose of St. Pancras, in the year one thousand, three hundred and thirty-two.”

  “That is better,” said Father Edmund.

  “Well, that part is not false,” said the clerk, consulting the record.

  “Is there anyone here who can identify you?” asked Father Edmund.

  “I know of no one here.”

  “Could your brother, David of Ashbury, also called David le Clerk, identify you?”

  “Yes, he could, if he lives still.”

  “Do you not know if he still lives?”

  “We were separated in the year of my marriage, and I never saw him again.” I felt tears coming again, tears of shame because I was a disgrace to my good brother, David, and now I would never see him again. My nose ran, and I had to wipe it. My sleeve had become by this time very wet and grimy. I suppose I shouldn’t have cared about a small thing like a grubby sleeve at a terrible time like this, but that is how people think, I guess.

  “My Lord Bishop, I submit you should call your own secretary, David of Ashbury, as a witness,” said Father Edmund suavely.

  David! David was here! Then in the midst of my sudden hope, I had a dreadful thought. Suppose, instead of saving me, David was dragged down by me? I understood at last the dangerous game Father Edmund was playing. He had found David and, through maneuvering the questioning into a dead end, directed the hearing away from its most dangerous phase, the phase where, in my ignorance, I might let slip some word that would drag me to my doom. If he failed, it might not be one, but three persons who would be waiting that night in jail for public disgrace and the stake. I heard a terrible buzzing in my ears, and I thought my heart would shatter into a hundred pieces. There was a stir and a bustle as the bishop called the youngest of his secretaries. David looked so good to me as he entered the room. So unchanged, so young and slender and earnest in his simple priest’s gown. As he faced the clerk, I heard his honest voice answer simply as he took the oath to tell only the truth.

  “David, David of Ashbury, do you know anything of this case?”

  “Nothing, my lord. I did not prepare the documents for this case.”

  “Who is that woman who kneels there?” asked the bishop.

  “I don’t know—wait—” He looked closer and turned his head a little, so he could see my bowed face. “It’s my sister Margaret, my lord,” he said as he turned again to face the bishop. “Margaret,” he turned back to me and observed, “you look awful. I almost didn’t know you.”

  “That’s enough,” said the bishop. “How many sisters do you have?”

  “Just one,” he answered. “A year older. Margaret. That’s her. I haven’t seen her since her wedding day. She’s changed since then.”

  “You would recognize her anywhere?”

  “Yes, my lord, I would. That’s her without a doubt.”

  “You’ve made a bad choice in sisters, I think. You may go now.” David bowed deeply and was gone. Then the bishop sighed and shifted in his chair. “That’s one charge gone—she’s not an imposter. Now, what about these others?”

  “My Lord Bishop,” Father Edmund said evenly, “I would submit that in all this questioning, the woman there before you has neither perjured herself nor demonstrated that she holds heretical beliefs or clings obstinately to error—”

  “Still, she has confessed to willfully defying the word of God,” interrupted the Dominican.

  The bishop put his hand up to still the Dominican, so that he might hear Father Edmund out.

  “Yes, it is true that she confessed, but I believe the element of willfulness to be insufficiently shown, and that this belief therefore is closer to the side of error than of heresy. Look at how ignorant and simpleminded she is! She was, in my mind, led naturally into error by the false pride engendered by the wrong and sordid way of life that she fell into in this city.”

  “No one, as you well know, Sir Edmund, falls into a bad life; they are led there by the Devil, who favors midwifery especially as the profession of his adepts.”

  “There has been no evidence of black arts, in all these months, that could be found. The supposition that she was an imposter and thus a perjurer is disproved. And of error approaching heresy, there is only one confessed charge. Tell me, does that lowly, sniveling creature there seem defiant? There is no Will there, only stupidity. I believe she is capable of repentance and reform.” Oh, God, Father Edmund, how could you hurt me so? I couldn’t believe one heart could feel as much pain as mine did while he spoke. The bishop looked long at me where I knelt, all disheveled, my face swollen with weeping. I looked up at him, staring at his face for a sign of his thoughts. His mouth twitched in disgust.

  “Reform? She is a serpent and a hypocrite.” Another of the learned doctors of divinity had spoken.

  “Woman, do you repent?” Father Edmund asked.

  “I do, I repent most humbly, and beg pardon.” I must do my part now, for David’s sake. My will was broken, and I could feel only the deep disgrace of being there.

  “Will you do penance?”

  “I will do penance.”

  “Will you abandon your willful ways?”

  “I will.”

  “Before you try to do things that you think are good, you will not puff yourself up, but humbly recall your unworthiness and submit to the judgment of your confessor, or some other worthy priest?”

  “I will.”

  “I think her not incapable of reform,” he said.

  “I’d rather see hard proof,” said one of the others.

  “Yes, evidence!”

  “Why are you not content to card and spin wool, like other women?”

  “I must get my living,” I protested weakly, but my voice was drowned in the gabbling insults of the learned doctors.

  Then the bishop broke through the noise and spoke.

  “I have decided. Margaret of Ashbury, also known as Margaret Small, and Margaret the Midwife, you must cease your present sinful way of life. The things you have done have led you into temptation and wickedness. But it pleases our Savior not to demand the death of a sinner, but rather his repentance. You will forswear and abjure your rebellious thoughts and actions against Holy Scripture, and most especially your false belief concerning God’s just punishment of the daughters of Eve. You will cease all activities that have led you to this belief. You must therefore no longer pursue these activities: to wit, midwifing and the vending of false cures by the laying on of hands. Nor may you speak in public on any issues pertaining to the faith or in other ways making similar unseemly public commotion. You must live as decent women do, in ways that befit them. You should marry, and submit to a husband, if one can be found. You must visit your confessor regularly, and we will receive reports from him concerning your conduct. You will humbly submit to chastisement with the rod at your parish church, appearing there barefoot and bareheaded, clad in a white shirt, and ca
rrying a lighted candle. You are absolved from excommunication. Remember, if you appear here again, there is no second chance; you will be handed over to the secular arm to be burned. Even Our Lord grew impatient with sinners. Clerk, prepare the document of confession and abjuration.”

  As I waited in the silence, I could hear the brief scratching of the clerk’s quill. It didn’t seem so much, what he wrote, compared to the great amount he read out, and I wondered whether they had made it all out ahead of time in expectation of the finding of my guilt, leaving only a few specific details to be added now that the thing was done. Then the clerk stood and announced, “Margaret of Ashbury, hear your confession and abjuration read,” and held up the paper. How can I ever forget what he said? I did not believe so much disgrace and shame could be written on paper. He read in a clear, loud voice, “In the name of God before you, the worshipful father in Christ, Stephen, grace of God, Bishop of London, I, Margaret of Ashbury, midwife of the City of London, in your diocese, your subject, feeling and understanding that I have held, believed, and affirmed the error and heresy which is contained in this indenture:

  “I denied the validity of Holy Scripture concerning the justice of God’s rightful punishment of Eve for the bringing of original sin to man, and willfully and defiantly used artificial means to cause the daughters of Eve to escape the burden placed on them by God’s judgment.

  “I did preach in public, especially to women, of the rightness of my error, tempting them into sin by false swearing and secret words of temptation.” Here I started. When had I confessed to this? I wanted to speak out, and started to open my mouth, but the time for speaking was past. From the corner of my eye I could see Father Edmund give me a hard stare that counseled absolute silence. The clerk read on.

  “In all this I was guided by sinful pride and willful rebellion against God and His Church. Here before you I forswear and abjure my error and heresy and shall never hold error nor heresy nor false doctrine against the faith of Holy Church and the determination of the Church of Rome.”

  Then the clerk read the sentence over, and the warning that if I were to relapse, then I should be handed over to the secular arm for burning.

  “This is where you sign,” he said, pointing to the blank place at the end of the document.

  “What does it say there, that writing about the space?” I asked, looking at the rows of black marks on the parchment. He gave me a look of pure disgust.

  “It says that in witness to these things you subscribe here a cross in your own hand. Do you know how to hold a pen?” I stared at him uncomprehendingly. It was all so very dreadful. It must be all a mistake. I did not belong here. I should be sitting up in the dark by a guttering oil lamp, holding the hand of a woman in labor. This was what my hands were made for. I looked at my right hand. The iron had begun to wear away the skin at the wrist. Oh, hand, I thought, you are a coward, and I am a coward with you. You should not be signing away the weapon forever. I looked at my fingers. Try as I could to still them, they trembled. They wouldn’t even close properly. The clerk saw how clumsily they moved, and held them about the quill, helping them to make the mark. The ink splattered, staining my hand, and leaving drops on the paper and his sleeve. He inspected the damage with a look of distaste. It was all over.

  I was free. But what a sad freedom. I dared not speak to David again, for fear of harming him. I could not even look at Father Edmund as I was escorted from the room, so I looked at my feet instead. At the door the guard took off the manacles. I could hardly see for the tears. I had saved David with my promises, but how could I live? The weapon against death was gone. I would never dare have another. It was nearly as hard as being dead, for I could no longer be myself. But then again, I said to myself, I wasn’t waiting for the stake in the morning. That has to mean something good. My heart took a bound, and I stepped out into the bright light of day.

  MARGARET WAS WATCHING OVER Brother Gregory’s shoulder as he wrote. Now that she could read, it made him nervous. Before, he had enjoyed basking in her admiration as she watched him make the words appear, like magic charms on the paper, and then read them back to her exactly as she had spoken them. He sighed deeply.

  “Margaret, you’ve drawn me into this. I suppose they have my name.”

  “Just for the reading lessons. You take no blame for that.”

  “Just for—how on earth do you know?”

  “I know a lot. I told you I get around. Even now.”

  “Well, at least you’ve resolved one puzzle for me. I always wondered why you wanted to write this. It seemed strange to me. But now that I know you well, it’s all clear that you wanted—”

  “To tell my side of the story,” Margaret remarked complacently.

  “Your side? You interrupt, as usual. No, you just wanted to have the last word. Women!” Brother Gregory snorted, but it lacked the old fire. “But be advised by me.” Brother Gregory shook his finger fiercely at her. “This must never see the light of day. Why you wish to waste your effort is your own business, but disgracing yourself in public is your friends’ business too.”

  “I know that. I’m saving it.”

  “Saving it? For whom?” Brother Gregory shook his head. There was no accounting for women’s quirks.

  “I’m going to leave it to my daughters in that chest, there.”

  “That seems pretty fruitless.” Brother Gregory strode about the room. He was confused and unhappy.

  Margaret sat calmly and looked at him. “If they don’t want it, maybe they’ll leave it to their daughters. Someday someone will want to hear my side.” She paused, and then added, consolingly, “Don’t feel so bad. I’m much improved, and altogether reformed, according to them. Father Edmund takes the credit. I see him sometimes, you know.”

  “Did you do the penance?”

  “You mean, did I beg for forgiveness in my undershirt, carrying a huge candle and leaving bloody footprints on the pavement? No, of course not. My husband got me off, naturally. I’m his responsibility now.”

  “You got off? That’s not so easy to do.”

  “Sometimes, Brother Gregory, I think you are simpler than I am. After we were betrothed, my husband paid them off. He said it was more suited to his position that I repent privately in my clothes. The priest touched my back the required number of times and certified that they were blows. The candle was very large and expensive, and he paid for a small shrine they’d been wanting badly at the parish church. Money fixes everything, you know.”

  “Maybe in London it does, but not in Paris,” Brother Gregory said bitterly. He didn’t want her even to suspect what he was thinking. It really wasn’t fair, he fumed. Not only had he had to beg pardon for his error in his undershirt, but he had had to throw all the copies of his book into the fire with his own hand. What’s more, it was in public, with absolutely hundreds of people shouting rude remarks as the church officials read the confession and recantation aloud. That had hurt even more than the lash marks that had glued the shirt to his back. They’d had to soak it off, and he’d been sick for weeks afterward. All a woman has to do is cry, and it’s fixed with money.

  “That’s probably true about most foreign places,” said Margaret placidly, and her voice brought him out of his morbid reverie. “My husband says everything can be bought and sold in London. That’s what makes it such a good place to be a merchant.”

  “Humpf, yes. Even a merchant of forged indulgences,” said Brother Gregory, sounding sour.

  “Oh, goodness,” Margaret responded, “Brother Malachi never sells pardons in the City. People are much too sophisticated here.”

  Gregory looked gloomier than ever. “I suppose you see him too.”

  “Never. I can’t go back to the old house, you see. If I led them to him, he’d be as good as dead. Hilde delivered my little girls, and I see her still. But not there—no. I’m very careful. I kept Lion, and when I want to send for her, I let him out and he fetches her.”

  “He’s not much of a dog,
but he’s very clever.”

  “That’s what I think. Animals are almost like people, sometimes.”

  “Watch it, Margaret, you’re getting close to the line again—animals don’t have souls.”

  “Suppose I said that was all right, because some people don’t either?”

  “Worse than ever!” Gregory smiled ruefully. “So I’m glad you didn’t say it.”

  Brother Gregory put away the quills and the inkhorn and handed the manuscript to Margaret, who knelt to put it away in the hidden compartment of the chest. He looked uneasy again, as if he were thinking of the best way to break bad news.

  “Margaret, I’m giving you a new writing assignment. You’ll have to write the last part of your book by yourself.”

  “You’re going?” She looked alarmed and agitated. “Not because of me, is it?”

  “No,” Brother Gregory said sadly, “it’s family business. My world’s about to come apart, just as yours has finally come together. I’d like to stay and see how the story comes out, you know. Curiosity is one of my very worst faults, and it’s led me into some bad places. Some good ones, too, if I count this house. But now it’s over.”

  “Can you tell me about it, or is it a secret?” Margaret suddenly felt very sympathetic. It was very sad to see Brother Gregory lose his old fire like this. He looked careworn all at once, and totally incapable of an argument with Kendall, even on the nature of pagan belief in Aristotle’s time. She’d even miss his grouchiness.

  “My family is very old, Margaret; we have an ancient name and take it very seriously.”

  “So you’ve informed me,” said Margaret dryly.

  “Oh, don’t hold it against me, all my prying. I’m sorry I offended you.”

  “Sorry? Oh, don’t apologize, Brother Gregory. Please don’t. You’ve gone all limp, and aren’t your true self. It must be very bad, this news.”

  “I suppose it is—at least to me,” he said. “You see, we’re not rich, Margaret—not like this, all these things here.” He gestured around him. “And I’m a younger son.” Brother Gregory looked out the window and sighed. The garden was all wintry and suited his mood perfectly. All that could be seen were bare branches, rattling in the wind.