“Oh, Jesus, thank you! I didn’t think I could stand it much longer without going mad!” His servingwoman propped pillows behind him so that he could raise his head to look at me. The foot grew paler in color.
“You’re far from mad, Master Kendall, but I suspect you were self-indulgent. Suet pudding last night? Wine? Mutton?”
“No, the very lightest of fares. I always follow your advice. Just goose, lark pie, a white wine—very light—a cheese, a nice lèche lombard—oh, a few things like that.”
“Oh, Master Kendall, I can take away the pain, but you’ll surely bring back the disease every time with your love of rich foods and wine.”
“But what’s left to me, then?” He was distressed. The pain was forgotten, and he’d been planning a luxurious supper as his reward for suffering.
“Oatcakes? Water? A baked apple, perhaps? Why, poor peasants fare better than that!”
“But have you ever noticed that poor peasants do not have the gout?”
“They don’t live long enough, that’s why. It’s all those oatcakes, that vile pottage. Ugh! They starve long before they can get gout!”
“You have to decide,” I said firmly, “simple food or gout, it’s up to you.”
“Well, I’ll think about it. You’re the only person who’s ever made any sense—or any difference. Why, I’ve been poisoned and bled for years, and it never did anything but add to the pain. Sore foot, plus sore belly and sore wrists, make a miserable Roger Kendall, that I’ll tell you. Move those pillows a bit higher, can you?”
I moved the pillows as he studied my face quizzically. The glow in the room was fading.
“You look very sad. What did those old farts in the chapter house tell you?”
“They—they said I should card and spin, like other women, and quit midwifing and healing and praying for people and—and get married.”
“Well, why don’t you?”
“I need to earn my living, and if I earn my living, I can’t change much. It just won’t work. I’ll end up back before them again, and not so lucky the second time.” I was getting depressed again.
“Well, why not just marry? It suits other women well enough to be supported by a husband.”
“I can’t marry, I just can’t. I hate it, and I don’t want to be married!”
“Don’t want to be married? What a thought for a pretty young girl. What ever makes you not want to get married?”
“I—I—well, I guess I don’t like men very much,” I stammered. I was too heartsick to conceal the truth.
“Not like men? Not like men?” Kendall threw back his head and laughed. “Why, a girl like you was made to like men! What on earth could have happened?”
“I don’t know. But being married is bad. I know from experience.”
“What experience could you have had, at your age? I wager you know nothing of marriage.”
“I know altogether too much. I was married to a dreadful, dreadful man. A man just like the Devil himself, only my parents never suspected it when they made the arrangement. Only the plague, which everyone curses so, saved me from him.”
“Why, little Margaret,” his voice was soft. “Did he hurt you? If he did, I’m sorry.”
“He beat me. He hurt me. His—his first wife hanged herself in the bedroom. He was so bad.” I was crying into his coverlet now.
“I’d—I’d be a nun, if I could, but I haven’t a dowry for the convent, and I’m not pure anymore. They don’t want girls who aren’t pure.”
He leaned over and put his arm around me consolingly.
“You’re pure, Margaret. You’re a chaste widow. What could be purer? I’m a rich man. Your dowry would be no problem for me.”
“Oh, you mean well, but how can you understand? He used me against nature. He said it was my duty. I’ll never, never be pure again.”
“Is that all? Only that? Why, Margaret, that’s a very little thing. It happens a lot, I can assure you.”
“But it’s not natural. I bled all over. And sometimes I’m ashamed I’m alive.”
Why did I tell him everything? I don’t know. I guess he was sympathetic. And old too—he didn’t frighten me.
“Margaret, Margaret, dear. Don’t you know that’s how men make love to each other?”
“Men do that? How could they?”
“Did he have a man friend, Margaret? That would explain a lot.”
“Oh, God, an awful friend, a slimy red-faced friend. Was that what they were doing alone in the bedroom together? I never knew.”
“That, and much more, doubtless,” he replied.
“There’s more? Don’t tell me about it. It’s too much for me.”
“You’re an odd girl. Most are curious.”
“I’m not curious at all. I’m just so, so sad. I asked God to take my life away. I had nothing, nothing left at all. And instead He gave me a Gift.”
“The Gift that makes my foot well?”
“Yes. God has an odd sense of humor, I’m convinced.” My tears were drying. I wiped my nose on my sleeve.
“Margaret, if you knew more about the world, you’d not be weeping about such a small thing. Come and sit by me and hear me out, and I promise you’ll never weep again over it. Then you’ll accept the dowry from me, won’t you?” He lifted me up to sit beside him on the bed and waited until I was done drying my eyes before he spoke. “The longer you live, Margaret, the more you’ll discover how necessity forces hard choices on us all. It seems to me that goodness does not consist of remaining untouched, but of acting honorably under difficult circumstances. I’ve never seen you knowingly turn your hand to a wicked deed, Margaret, and I’ve watched you closer than you know.” He looked intently at my face and added, “There are not many I could say that of, even of myself.” Then he laughed softly.
“Do you know how much credit I get for my connections in the Orient, and even more, for my acquaintance with the sultan? How they envy and hate me, my less well connected brethren! They see the descendants of his stud horse in my stable, and his knife at my belt, and envy the gifts we’ve exchanged in years long past, and the trade I’ve opened. But that prince lives as wantonly as any Christian king or prelate, and I assure you that no Christian captive at his court, as I once was, would survive, let alone prosper and be freed, unless he learned a great deal more about the world than he had originally intended.”
I looked at him curiously. What a strange, strange man was hidden underneath his foolish, cheerful exterior! It was like looking over the edge of a deep well and suddenly, unexpectedly, seeing a pair of very ancient eyes looking back out.
“What would you say, Margaret, if I told you that I once knew of someone, young like yourself, who discovered the cruelties of the world on a long merchant voyage, and who on returning found his wife dead, his children being raised by his mother, and then gave himself over to endless sighing and weeping, prayer and penance, fasting and pilgrimage? And all because of things he would never have chosen of his own free will? Tell me how you see it.”
I thought long and carefully before I replied, “I would say that if God had forgiven him, then he should forgive himself, for otherwise he is only swallowed up in pride. It is better to make amends than dwell overlong on a fault.”
“That is what I say, too, Margaret, but you are a clever girl, and you think more than most people. I know that he did not come to the idea anywhere near so quickly. It wasn’t until he found that his own sovereign, our late king, lived no differently than the sultan, that he realized it was a thing hardly worth notice in the great world, a trifle not worth a single sigh.”
My eyes opened wide. I’d never imagined such a thing. He looked at me in the oddest way, both shrewd and indulgent, all at the same time.
“Margaret, you dear little innocent, can’t you see that what you worry over is nothing, nothing at all in the eyes of the world? And as for the eyes of God, well, I think you already have your answer.”
“Is that all—all really t
rue?” I gulped.
“It’s true,” said Kendall, simply.
“But—but there’s something I’ve just thought of. I can’t be a nun anyway. What convent would take a woman who had signed an abjuration of heresy?”
“I’d thought of that already myself.” Kendall’s voice was matter-of-fact. “You could try marriage—with me, for example. My money and influence would protect you.”
“It’s not you—please see that; you’re—well, you’ve been so very kind. But marriage? Marriage frightens me so much that I don’t think I should be married ever again.”
“Do you know, half the widows in London would kill themselves for this chance?” His voice was bantering. “Why, I’m old—practically in the grave already, and my wife would be rich.”
“That’s a dishonest reason for marrying.”
“Dishonest, but common enough. Why, I once had a mistress not so long ago who begged me regularly to marry her. She was very fond of jewelry. I heaped it on her. But marry her? The greedy sot had a young lover. They’d have poisoned me as surely as they did the old fool who finally did marry her.”
“Poisonings? Mistresses? That’s a disgusting life.”
“And so say I, little Margaret. Marry me and cure my gout, and you’ll lack for nothing. I’m ready to live a good life, for I’m old, and God is looking over my shoulder.”
“Oh, Master Kendall, that’s an expensive way to get a nurse!”
“A nurse? No! Not a nurse. I can hire a nurse. Look at it this way. I got rich by having a gift for finding hidden treasures. You’re a treasure, Margaret, and I’m just clever enough to try to snatch you up.”
“But—it—it won’t work.” I was knotting and unknotting a corner of the coverlet in my hands. He was watching me closely, as shrewdly as I have seen him watching a Levantine who wants to borrow money.
“Are you thinking of your—hmm—duties?”
“Yes.”
“What if I promise you, promise before a priest, that I’ll ask nothing of you unless you ask it first? I’ll not touch you, if you wish it.”
“You’d truly do that?”
“Truly, I would, I swear by Our Lord Jesus Christ.” Kendall spoke solemnly and looked straight into my eyes. I saw he was completely honest in what he promised.
“But don’t you want heirs?” I asked.
“I have heirs,” he answered. “Two grown sons who will only be pleased if you have no children.”
No children? I felt a brief spasm of grief. But it was necessary. It hadn’t worked out at all before.
“If you’d truly, truly swear—then—then I shall accept your offer.” I looked at him intently, as if somehow I could see, if I looked hard enough, how long his promise might last.
“Why, then, it’s settled! I’ll go tomorrow to arrange to have the banns published!”
Kendall was honest in his promise, I was soon to find out, but like all shrewd dealers, he had concealed information. His long years of living unmarried, many of them spent abroad in very strange places indeed, had made him a master of the secret arts of love. It was with these secrets that he hoped eventually to win me over, and yet be true to his pledge.
But—that is for later. I was, at the time, so carried away by the exchange of secrets and the new knowledge of worldly affairs that Master Kendall had given me, that I asked him something I had been wondering about for years.
“Tell me—just one thing more, since we have been so honest.” I looked at him. Surely he was the wisest man I had ever known: worldly, tolerant, and consoling.
“Why, what is that?” he answered tenderly.
“Just—just something I’ve wondered about for a long time. Is it true you knew the late king?”
“Well enough, I suppose. I sold him a lot of rarities, and when he fell, I was lucky to escape with my life and fortune.”
“Well, it’s just this. Did he really become weakened and lose his throne through too much bathing?”
Kendall looked astonished, and then he roared with laughter, until the tears squeezed out of the corners of his eyes.
“Margaret, Margaret, you’ll never bore me!” And then he took me by the hand and explained as if to a child.
“Now, it’s true that his late majesty King Edward the Second did bathe often, and people called him soft for it. He also—if you can imagine—carried a little cloth to blow his nose in, instead of in his fingers, like a Christian! But it was not his frippery habits, but his love of men that destroyed him. In particular, his favorites and their followers grew too great. The queen and her lover threw the king over, with the connivance of a number of great barons. And when he had abdicated in favor of his son and heir, they murdered him without leaving a mark on his body.”
“How was that? Did they starve him?”
“He was not so fortunate. They pushed a red-hot poker into the avenue of love about which we have spoken, and burned out his bowels.”
“Holy Jesus!” I crossed myself. If this is what happens to kings, what safety do we little folk have?
“Do not ever speak of this matter. I know much that is unknown to others. I’ll be honest with you always, if you can hold your tongue. Knowledge is dangerous in this world.”
“But so is ignorance, I think.”
“You’re right enough there. But I have yet to decide which state is the safest.”
MARGARET SAT ALONE WRITING. Her face was all wrinkled up with concentration, and little blots of ink had splattered from the quill onto her sleeve. There was a big inkstain on her right index finger and a smaller one on her thumb.
Goodness, she thought to herself, it is ever so much harder writing it all down than just saying it. No wonder Brother Gregory was so grouchy. And she massaged her right hand with the left hand, as she had seen him do. Lion lay asleep under the table, making dreaming sounds, as dogs do. Margaret wondered for a while what dogs dream, then what lesson the girls should have in the afternoon, and after that about what to have for supper on Thursday when guests were coming. Then she thought about what she was writing and planned just how many pages she could finish today. Then she realized it was too many and revised the estimate. At last there was nothing to do but actually start writing. She thought briefly about how much fun it would be to annoy Brother Gregory by saying something really shocking. Then she sighed and picked up the pen again.
WE MARRIED QUIETLY, BUT it was hard to avoid scandal. My husband’s grown sons were offended by his remarriage, and it was all over town that Roger Kendall had become senile at last and married his nurse. That meant, of course, that a great crowd was in attendance, because it included not only my husband’s friends, but his enemies—the ones who wanted to be able to tell everyone, “Did you see old Kendall’s little dolly? Why, I was at the wedding. He’s quite besotted—yes, his mind’s quite gone.”
The wedding service was strange and dreamlike to me, for the words brought back the first wedding that had ended so badly. Even the strange agreement my husband had made did not console me, and he remarked on my pallor. I felt trapped—trapped into marriage by my love of my friends and brother, and by my fear of burning. I’d sold my freedom to save them from the danger of having known me. It was all so bitter, and it worked on my mind day and night. But at length I thought it over and finally decided that freedom was worth the risk of burning, for burning only lasts a little while, but that I could not bear the grief of spending eternity knowing that my heedlessness had hurt those I loved. I resolved for their sakes to act in ways that would not arouse suspicion. I took only two things with me from my old life of liberty: the Burning Cross, which I wore always, and Lion, who would not eat without me.
But new dresses and luxurious surroundings did not agree with me. I seemed to lose my strength in Master Kendall’s house. I couldn’t sit in quiet and call the Light anymore, I hurt so much. I walked beside my husband like a ghost when he escorted me to church, where we always made a great show by our arrival. My hair lost its shine and beg
an to fall out. Then one morning I knew for sure what I had been thinking: the Gift had vanished. Soon I could no longer rise from bed; then I could not eat. My stomach hurt always, as if it were being torn apart by devils from the inside.
“Please eat and make me happy,” begged my husband, sitting on the side of the bed. “I used to think you were only sad, and would recover, but now I see you’ve gotten sick. Don’t just fade away! Please! Look at me. I’m a great deal thinner. I’ve been eating fewer rich foods, and my gout is much, much better! I’ve not had an attack in some time. I knew it would spare you. Use your strength for getting better. Can’t you heal yourself?”
I looked at him and smiled, for speaking was too difficult, and held his hand. His devotion comforted me. Lion stayed always with me, at the foot of the bed, as if he would protect me from some invisible menace. Then I took all my strength and whispered, “Send for Hilde. If she doesn’t know what to do, then no one does.”
“I’ll do better than that. I’ll send for the best doctor in London, Dottore Matteo di Bologna.”
“He’s Italian?” I was agitated.
“Why, yes, of course. And very intelligent.”
“With a bristling black beard?”
“Yes, he has that.”
“Then I can’t bear to see him, no matter what. That’s the man I met at the rich lady’s—the man that betrayed me, I am sure.”
“Hush, hush. I made inquiries. It was an Englishman who denounced you. He paid them a pretty penny too. They would never have taken the word of a foreigner. It’s one of two possibilities, I am sure. Both specialize in treating rich women. You were cutting into their trade.”
“You mean that all this—was a business proposition?”
“When there’s money to be made, people play hard games. I know all about that. I’ve played a few hard games myself, and have taken a few blows, and returned them as well.” His eyes narrowed, and I hoped for his soul’s sake that he would not be able to find out which of the two it was.
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