“Father’s in debt again, Margaret, and whenever he’s in debt, he bothers me. When we went to France on campaign, he went into debt to equip us—he bothered me then, but after we got some big ransoms, he stopped. Then he paid for Hugo’s knighthood—fees, fees, fees. And new armor from John of Leicestershire—one has to get the best, right? Then he found me and bothered me some more. ‘Go on campaign like a man,’ he shouted, ‘and quit hiding among a bunch of long skirts!’ I tell you, it made a scandal. You could hear him all the way from the visiting parlor to the abbot’s study. He didn’t make any friends for me that day!
“You’d think he’d be grateful for my decision. After all, I’ve spared him a great deal of trouble. But no, he’s been shouting about it as long as I can remember. It’s no easy thing to know you have a Vocation and still honor your father—that is, if you have a father like mine. How he’d carry on! ‘Get out of that book, you infernal whelp, and go act like your older brother Hugo, who is a model of chivalry!’ ‘I’ve been to the tiltyard already, father,’ I’d tell him. ‘Then go back again!’ he’d shout, and knock me flat. Then he packed me off to the duke’s household and said I ought to be thankful. Thankful! Why, the man was just like father! I swear, Margaret, they had made an arrangement to knock my Vocation out of me. I’ve been nothing but bruises since I decided to devote my life to God! You have no idea how much father can shout, even now that he’s old!” Brother Gregory was prowling around the room like a caged wolf, looking very, very annoyed.
“It’s not fair that he doesn’t respect my decision. I say, he should be grateful! I’ve done everything he wanted. I’ve proved I’m no coward. But I want to do things my own way. Why do I have to be like Hugo? There’s no reason, I say, and it’s entirely unfair. Don’t you think it’s unfair?”
Margaret couldn’t quite make out what he meant, but he looked so agitated, she thought it best to agree.
“And why does he choose to bother me now, now, when my spiritual life is at the very point of the fulfillment of a lifetime of Seeking? Do you know why? Because he says the roof needs fixing! Can you imagine? I’m to go into service and make money for his roof, right when I’m almost at the point of seeing God? What sin did I commit for God to give me a father like that? I tell you, he won’t stop me! He won’t! I’m going to see God anyway! And when I do, I’m going to tell Him—” Brother Gregory shook his fist in the air. The veins stood out on his neck.
“Brother Gregory!” Margaret was shocked. She put a hand on his wrist to restrain the violent gesture. Brother Gregory looked at his fist with surprise, as if he somehow hadn’t noticed that it was raised toward heaven, and snatched it away.
“He doesn’t want a son, he wants a lap dog,” growled Brother Gregory. “Now he tugs on the leash, and off I go.”
“Maybe—maybe it would work out better if you let God see you,” Margaret ventured.
“Hmmph!” snorted Brother Gregory. “That sounds just like the abbot. He’s as bad as father. Sometimes I used to think they were in league with each other. He said I had to respect my father and hear him out. An altogether depressing attitude for a person who’s supposed to be otherworldly. He never understood me either. He said I hadn’t conquered Pride enough to learn contemplation, and I should serve in the world until I learned what he meant. Pride!” Gregory sounded bitter. “I’m not proud at all! Do you think I’m proud, Margaret?”
“Oh, very little, Brother Gregory.”
“Have I been proud with you? No! I’ve been very Humble, here and everywhere else. You saw that, didn’t you?”
“Of course, of course.”
“Look, here’s pride for you!” Brother Gregory tore open the top of his habit. Something dark, malodorous, and hairy had replaced his long linen undershirt.
“Brother Gregory, surely not the hair shirt again? It looks very nasty. It will make your skin bleed.”
“My skin’s very strong. Not like yours. I don’t bleed easily.” A smug look passed across Brother Gregory’s face, before one of self-pity replaced it.
“I’m mortifying myself. Mortifying my pride, what poor shriveled remnants are left of it! And in this state I must go to my father and be mortified yet again!”
“Surely it’s not as bad as all that, Brother Gregory,” said Margaret.
“I am being attacked by the vanities of the world,” he growled.
“But at least you’ll come back to check my spelling?”
“That I promise, Margaret. I’ll swear an oath, if you like.”
“You don’t have to. Just promise, and send me word when you’ve returned.”
CHAPTER TEN
SEATED IN THE PARLOR IN FRONT OF A BLANK sheet of paper, Margaret could hear a tremendous racket coming from the kitchen. Cook’s magpie was shrieking, Cook was shouting, and the sound of Cook’s broom missing a hurtling body and knocking over a bucket added to the commotion. Past her open door Margaret glimpsed three little apprentice boys, one of them clutching a meat pie, speeding like deer through the hall to the street, where they vanished to share their prize. Kendall’s apprentices were mostly from good families—younger sons whose fathers had paid hard cash for them to be brought up to the lucrative import-export trade. There was a vast demand for the few places available, for the children were known to thrive under Margaret’s care, and in these modern times everyone knew that business training, like training in the law, was very nearly as good as inheriting land. But they were saucy, these lordlings, and no respecters of the sanctity of the kitchen; their antics amused Margaret greatly, though she would never let anyone know it.
Margaret was careful not to laugh as Cook appeared, breathless, in the doorway, leaning on her broom. Instead Margaret made a great show of looking up in a dignified manner as she raised the pen from the paper. It was a mannerism she had picked up from Brother Gregory, and it was very effective.
“Mistress Margaret,” said Cook, eyeing Margaret’s pen and paper with respect, “did you see which way those wicked boys went?”
“I am sorry, Cook, I really didn’t. As you see, I was occupied. But we’ll deal with them tonight. Which ones were they?”
“That dreadful Alexander was the ringleader again.”
“Then Stephen and Philip were with him, as usual?”
“As usual.”
“Then it will definitely be fixed tonight.”
Cook looked mollified. As she departed, Cook grumbled to herself, “Even so, it’s a lot easier to keep this household in pies since that tall, hollow fellow left.”
Though she’d never admit it, Cook missed Brother Gregory, as all artists miss a truly devoted worshiper of their creations. Now, Brother Gregory did not run off and eat elsewhere like some ingrate, but, after coming and nosing about the kitchen, he would sit down and allow Cook to witness herself the amazing transformation of his person from pallid waspishness to flushed mellowness in all its astonishing detail. Not only could you practically see the food being assimilated into all the corners of his body, he’d say, “My, that was good. It was the saffron you put into it, wasn’t it? Not many people know how to season properly with saffron.” Cook would always turn pink and offer him something else, which he usually ate too. Why, even the bird had gotten used to him and had ceased to sound the alarm. Now she’d been reduced to thievish, unappreciative little boys.
Margaret couldn’t help but overhear Cook’s grumbling, and sighed. Then she rearranged the ink and pens and paper a new, more felicitous way on the table. She’d just written a single word, when the girls came rattling in, with their nurse chasing behind them.
“Mama, mama, Alexander has a whole pie. We want something to eat too.”
“You know dinnertime is very soon. It’s not good to eat between meals: it spoils the appetite.”
“Di’n’t spoil Alexander’s appetite,” pouted Alison.
“It will spoil it; and besides, he’ll be very sorry tonight.”
But Cecily, her oldest, looked at her shrewdly and
said, “But, mama, Brother Gregory ate all the time, and it never spoiled his appetite.”
Margaret sighed again, as the nurse dragged off the still clamoring children.
Then Margaret put a second word on the paper. Perhaps I should close the door, she thought. But then, what if something dreadful happened, and I didn’t attend to it in time, all because I’d closed the door?
At that point Roger Kendall, who’d been going over his accounts and stock records all morning with his clerks and journeymen, decided he needed to stretch a bit.
“My goodness, you look so clever there, all seated in front of the paper with a pen in your hand. I always knew you were an unusually intelligent woman,” he commented happily through the open door. Margaret looked up and blushed with pleasure. He came in, gave her a hug from behind, and looked over her shoulder.
“Not much written yet, is there? But never mind, never mind. Soon my clever, pretty little Margaret will have filled up a whole page.”
Margaret looked at the page and smiled ruefully.
“What is that stuff I smell for dinner? Have we many guests today?”
“Stewed coneys, I think. We’ve got those Hansard cloth traders that you invited, but that’s all.”
“Pity you haven’t invited one of your eccentric acquaintances. My wits need sharpening on a good argument.”
“There’s Master Will.”
“Him? He’s too set on one idea to argue well. Ever since he started writing that long poem denouncing the rich, he’s become dull. Wonder if he’ll ever finish it? I’ll probably be keeping him in paper for years. No, I need someone sharper. Now, that Brother Gregory, he could argue.” And Master Kendall went off to finish his accounts.
I really will have to close the door, thought Margaret. But just as she got up, Lion came pattering in, and she had to pet him. Then she finally closed the door and sat down to write.
“I wonder how he’s doing?” she said to herself, as she dipped the pen in the ink and finished the first sentence.
I BLINKED AS I stepped out into the bright sunshine from the gloomy shadows of the chapter house. It was a very upsetting thought to imagine that wherever I went, people would be listening to my most innocent words, eavesdropping on me, spying on my friends, to report any wrong thoughts they supposed I might be entertaining. But what frightened me most was the risk to my friends. Suddenly I could see our house the way those clerics would see it: in a district of thieves and cutthroats, a sinister, tumbledown den that harbored two dubious midwives who dispensed questionable cures, a mad alchemist, and fugitives and degenerates. There were even two strange animals in the house, eminently suited to be witches’ familiars. Now they would be watching me. How long would it be before suspicion fell on Brother Malachi, who was no Brother? What would happen then, if they ever found out the tiniest part of what he was doing? I couldn’t bear it, thinking of his head on the end of a pole. And if they caught him, what would happen to Hilde, who couldn’t live without him, and the others, who had no place to go? If I loved them, I couldn’t live there anymore. I would never know which day, or which hour, Death would follow me into the house. I felt very low. I’d been thinking all along only about myself when I acted. I’d thought it was for the higher good, but I’d been selfish and full of pride to ask others to share the risk without even knowing it.
“Live like other women, card and spin. Stop midwifing and fomenting trouble. Marry and live decently, for if you cannot reform, you shall be burned.” I kept seeing their hard faces, with their fishy mouths opening and closing. Even David was now at risk, the brother of a recanted heretic. I wished I could talk to him and tell him I was sorry, but I knew that for his sake, I’d never dare look at him again. How could I live? I’d never been that fond of spinning, and carding makes me sneeze.
My head was hung so low that I did not see the mule litter stop at the foot of the stairs of the outer cloister door. Old Master Kendall, his bad foot bandaged up, was huffing and puffing up the stairs, leaning on the shoulders of two husky servingmen. His sparse gray hair was askew under his fashionable, bejeweled beaver hat, and his gold chains clanked and jingled on the gravy-stained front of his rich, fur-lined gown.
“Why, Mistress Margaret! You’re out and unescorted! I was afraid I’d find you in prison—or worse, accompanied by your executioners. Then I’d have been late, too late indeed.”
“Oh, Master Kendall, why did you come here? It’s dangerous to know me,” I sorrowed.
“My dear child, I came to bribe your inquisitors.” Kendall smiled his funny, lopsided smile. “But you seem to have got loose without me. How did you manage?”
“They questioned me and questioned me. Then my brother spoke for me, and since he is a priest, they listened. They’ve told me to repent and change, though, or there will be no second chance.”
Kendall shook his head. “You’re a fortunate young woman. On the Continent no human being walks alive out of the clutches of the Holy Office. They all confess under torture. But our good king doesn’t let the church use torture during the inquiry phase here. Interferes with English justice, he says. And these homegrown affairs, they just lack the same—same snap.” He picked up my hand, looked at both sides of it, and shook his head in amazement.
“Lucky, lucky. Not a mark on you. There’s not many can say that. I have a lot of dealings on the Continent, you know. France, Germany, Italy. It’s all the same. I’ve lost some good friends. If you offer them money there, they assume you’re hiding even more, and get you all the same; then they can confiscate every bit of it. Greedy, black-robed bastards! Here in England, however, it’s practically unpatriotic to refuse a bribe. I figured it would cost a lot, but I’d probably be successful.” He tipped his head to one side as if he were calculating sums in his mind.
“There’s the personal gifts, of course—I’d have to do better than whatever your denouncers paid them. Then they’d hit me for a couple of windows, maybe a chapel in addition—hmm, perhaps a pledge for your good conduct. Oh, it would have been expensive, but worth it. Worth it! Why, my gout’s been aflame since they took you in. I had to have you back!”
“Oh, Master Kendall, you’d do all that for me? Risk your fortune?”
“For my gout, dear, for my gout. I’m a man who hates pain. Could you come right away for a treatment?”
“But I’m not to do healing anymore. That’s one of the conditions,” I told him.
“Count this as a social visit, then,” he said airily. “I can fix everything. Now, quit worrying, go home, and get that smelly stuff you rub on it, and the disgusting tea. I’m in pain, great pain, and very impatient!”
I hurried away to fetch the things he wanted. It’s a true tonic to know one has loyal friends. But at home I found all in chaos. My friends were packing. Or rather, Mother Hilde was packing, and Brother Malachi, who had returned while I was away, was not unpacking, which was his share of the work. He was entertaining the household with a tale, gesturing with his arms while he sat on a chest in the Smellery. I could hear only the last part as I entered.
“—of course, by great good fortune, I had seen the parish priest first and he was most impressed, particularly with the papal seal, so that when those great rustics came at me with their scythes, he flung himself in front of me, saying, ‘Don’t touch a hair of this holy pardoner’s head!’”
“And what happened then?” asked Sim.
“Why, I forgave them all and sold them all first-class pardons at a knockdown price. ‘I have sore feet,’ I told them, and they clubbed together and got me this fine, if slightly aged, mule on which I returned. Ah! Margaret! The Prodigal Daughter has returned!”
“You don’t have to flee. I’m free, and not burned.”
“So I see, dear, so I see! But have they laid conditions on you? Will you be watched?” Brother Malachi was always shrewd.
“Probably so. I’m going to have to be awfully careful.”
Brother Malachi sighed. “In that case, chil
d, I’ll have to postpone my search for the philosopher’s stone awhile and leave my equipment packed up. Who knows who they’ll send to snoop?” Then he brightened. “But the relic business is picking up daily! Did you know there is pestilence back in town? I’ve a powerful prayer you can wear in a little sack around your neck as protection from it, and if the illness is so potent that it passes even this, why, you can chew it up and eat it as a certain cure! I did very well with them in Chester several years ago. God never takes away one opportunity but that He shows us another!” He raised his eyes skyward.
“Amen!” I added, for there is something about Brother Malachi that always leaves one in a good humor.
“I must away—old Master Kendall wants a gout treatment.”
“That old moneybags is a swift one—why, he’s got better intelligence than the Inquisition itself. How did he know you were out so soon?”
“It’s a long story, but you’re right as usual, Brother Malachi.” I gathered my things and made my way in haste to Master Kendall’s big house on Thames Street. When I was shown into his bedroom, it was clear that he was in the greatest pain. He lay on top of the bed, his clothes all disordered, and the poor foot exposed, for he could not bear anything touching it. It was swollen and red. Tears streamed from his eyes, as he bit his own leather belt to keep from crying out in agony.
“Oh, Master Kendall, however did you travel abroad today?” I asked as I laid out my things. He groaned in response. I knelt and blessed myself. Rubbing my hands together to warm the balm between them, I composed my mind in the special way I had learned. All my problems, all my thoughts, disappeared, and a divine bliss filled me. I was conscious of a throbbing in my head and hands, and a soft warmth. I opened my eyes, and the room seemed to be filled with an almost imperceptible, warm orange light. I put my hands on the swollen foot.
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