The Illuminator

by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

  “Except in the minds of men,” she said.

  She covered the sleeping child with a blanket, then wiped her hands clean of the ointment she had spread on the wound.

  “Can you fetch the mother of this child, Finn? There is no substitute for a mother’s healing touch. It most closely resembles, of all earthly feelings, the love our Lord has for us.”

  “Of course, anchoress. I promised the mother I would be back for her. I’ll fetch her straightaway.”

  “Half-Tom will stay with me until Alice fetches him clean clothes. We will pray for the child, and its mother. And for you.”

  “Aye, mistress.” Half-Tom looked at the dried blood on his palms. “And I’ll be praying, too, that the bishop doesn’t find out who killed his pig.”

  Finn would have laughed at the dwarf’s wry tone if he had not known the seriousness of Half-Tom’s situation. He would be completely at the bishop’s mercy—a quality for which Henry Despenser was not widely praised. A dwarf from the fens, who grubbed his living from earth and water, against one of the most powerful men in England. Despenser would swat him like a fly, perhaps even take his life as payment for the pig’s.

  The anchoress looked up at the window. “Do not be afraid, Tom. Our Lord is a much greater judge than the bishop and He sees into the heart.”

  “I just hope He’s paying attention is all,” Half-Tom muttered under his breath.

  Finn placed his hand on Half-Tom’s shoulder. “Friend, would you be offended if I called upon the bishop and claimed for myself the honor of saving the child? I have some connections with the abbot at Broomholm. That would surely add weight to a reasoned argument.”

  Finn didn’t know whether to read discomfort or relief in the dwarf’s face. A mixture of both, probably. But after a brief hesitation, his fear won out over his pride.

  “I’ll be in your debt,” he said. He didn’t look as if the prospect made him altogether happy. “For the rest of my life or yours, whichever ends first.”

  The anchoress thanked Finn with her eyes.

  With Alice’s help, Finn discarded his bloody tunic and sponged the stains from his shirt. He did not want to distress the mother with the sight of the bloodstains.

  She was still standing by the roadside waiting. She looked as though she had not moved.

  “Your child lives. I’ll take you to her.” He held out his hand.

  She did not answer but climbed dumbly onto the horse, behind him. “Put your arms around my waist,” he said.

  As they rode, he could smell the fear on her, pungent and biting, mingling with the smell of rancid fat and smoke from her cottage cook fire. He thought about what the anchoress had said, about the power of a mother’s love. His own daughter had never known that. But he loved her. Hadn’t he provided for her every need? Sometimes, they had to hire an extra cart just to carry her satins and laces. But the anchoress had implied that a mother’s love was greater in some mysterious way than a father’s. Under other circumstances he might have hotly disputed that with her. Rose’s protection and comfort guided his every decision. No father could be more devoted. It was a vow he’d made on Rebekka’s deathbed. And he’d kept it.

  He urged his horse faster. The day was fleeting, and he’d not yet found suitable lodgings. Rose, housed at Thetford with the nuns, was unhappy about the separation. He’d promised to find a place for them today, but now there would be no time.

  Had he been too rash in offering to take the blame for the dwarf? True, he was well connected and his reputation commanded respect, but he had secrets of his own, secrets that would not endear him in certain society. And then there was the matter of the papers. He should, at least, dispatch those before he called on Henry Despenser. It would delay his meeting with the abbot at Broomholm and mean another night in an inn, but it couldn’t be helped. If the illuminated texts were found in his possession, it would prejudice the bishop against him, make him ill-disposed to consider the slaughter of the pig as the only reasonable action. It might even cost Finn the abbot’s patronage.

  The hedge lining the field to his right painted a short shadow. After he delivered the mother to her child, there would be time to find a messenger to carry the papers to Oxford. He wouldn’t send for his daughter until he had settled this affair with the bishop. It could be a tricky business.

  Behind him, he thought he heard the child’s mother start to cry.

  TWO

  Will then a man shrink from acts of licentiousness and fraud, if he believes that soon after, but with the aid of a little money bestowed on friars, an active absolution from the crime he has committed may be obtained?

  —JOHN WYCLIFFE, 1380

  Lady Kathryn of Blackingham Manor pressed the heel of her palm hard against the bridge of her nose as she paced the flagstones of the great hall. Damn that sniveling priest! And damn the bishop he pandered for! How dare he come here again, for the fourth time in as many months, peddling his indulgences.

  The pressure under her left cheekbone was excruciating, but it was no use sending to Norwich for a doctor. He would hardly stir his learned bones in this heat to tend the monthly migraine of a woman no longer in the bloom of youth. He would send the barber surgeon to bleed her. Bleed her! As if she had not bled enough this week. Already she had stained two of her best linen smocks and her green silk kirtle.

  And now there was this.

  The hawthorne hedge had barely sprouted its tight white buds when the bishop’s legate came the first time, demanding money to buy masses for the soul of Sir Roderick, who had “given his life so valiantly in the service of his king.” Surely the widow would want to ensure an easy passage for her husband’s soul. The widow had given him three gold florins, not because she gave a farthing for the state of Roderick’s soul—he could roast on the devil’s spit for all she cared—but there were appearances to maintain. For the sake of her sons.

  When this priest—he’d introduced himself as Father Ignatius—learned that her own father confessor had died at Christmastide, he’d chided her for neglecting her soul and the souls of those entrusted to Blackingham. He’d offered to send a replacement. She thanked him warily. His manner did not foster trust, and since she could ill afford the upkeep of another gluttonous priest, she’d put him off with vague assurances that the void would soon be filled.

  A few weeks later, on May Day, Father Ignatius came skulking back. “To bless the festivities,” he said. Again he inquired about the status of her priest-less household, and again she put him off, this time by claiming a close relationship with the abbot at Broomholm.

  “It’s a short ride to Broomholm, and the abbot is glad to hear my confession. There’s also the new Saint Michael’s Church in Aylsham. And we are frequently visited by friars—black friars, gray friars, brown friars—who, in exchange for a joint of meat and a quart of ale, will see to the souls of the vilest sinners among my crofters and weavers.”

  If he heard the sarcasm in her voice, he ignored it—only wrinkled his heavy furred eyebrows into a single black line—but he warned again of the perils to the unshriven soul. Then, to her relief, he appeared to let the matter drop. But the day of his departure, as he feasted at her board, the priest commented that he had lately become much distressed upon hearing that her dear departed husband might have forged, before his death, an alliance with John of Gaunt, who was a patron of the heretic John Wycliffe. Although any such alliance was probably innocent, unscrupulous persons could make even the innocent appear guilty. Would the widow like to buy another round of prayers? For appearance’s sake?

  Lady Kathryn knew full well that her gold florins—for which the sly priest thanked her “in the name of the Virgin Mother”—went to finance the ambition of Henry Despenser, bishop of Norwich, in his campaign for the Italian pope. Better soldiers for Urban VI, she supposed, than jewels and women for the French pope at Avignon. And besides, what choice did she have but to pay? Her estate was ripe for plucking by Church or crown, should the slightest hint of tre
ason—or heresy—be breathed.

  Not that she thought her late husband capable of treason. Roderick had not the fortitude for it. If indeed he died in a skirmish with the French, as she was told, he must have been struck in the back. But he had a fox’s instinct for sniffing out his own interest. And he was very capable of the kind of petty, inept intrigue that could get her and her two sons put off their lands despite her dower rights. In pledging his allegiance to the more ambitious of the young king’s uncles, Roderick had played a dangerous game. John of Gaunt was regent now, but for how long? The duke was making enemies within the Church, powerful enemies—enemies that would be no match for a widow alone.

  By the saints, how her head ached. Her left temple throbbed, and she felt the bit of capon she’d eaten at nuncheon threaten to return, bringing the boiled turnips with it. Squinting against the afternoon sun, she thought longingly of her cool, dark bedchamber. But not yet. First, she must see the steward to receive his quarterly accounting of the wool receipts and the rents. He was already late with the collections by a fortnight, and she would not feel easy until she felt the weight of the coin in her hand. She knew at the first indication of a womanly weakness or lapse in vigilance, he would strip her clean as a beggar’s bone.

  Her supply of gold florins already plundered, she had been forced to satisfy the priest’s third extortion with her ruby brooch. He had shown up on the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene and suggested that, if she paid for prayers for King Edward’s soul, the loyalty of her household could not be questioned, even by those who might wish her ill.

  And now—today. Today, the greedy priest had taken her mother’s pearls. Smiling greasily, Father Ignatius had slid them into his cassock. They are only pearls—she’d steeled herself against the loss—only pearls. A creamy strand of gleaming stones, the necklace that her dying father had pressed into her hands in a rare display of affection. I gave them to your mother on our wedding day. Wear them always near your heart, he’d said. And she had, putting them on every morning like some good-luck charm, some angel’s token of her mother’s guardianship. They had become as much a part of who she was as the chatelaine’s keys that nestled between the folds of her skirt. But they are only stones, she reminded herself. Not brick and mortar. Not lands. Not deeds. And she had no daughter whose hands she could press them into saying, Wear them next to your heart. They belonged to your mother and her mother before.

  “I have nothing left to pay for prayers, Father Ignatius,” she had said, her voice husky with unshed tears. “I trust our souls and our persons are now divinely protected. You have no further cause to trouble yourself on our account.”

  He had inclined his head in what she hoped was silent acquiescence, but as she ushered him to the courtyard where he mounted his horse, he spoke to her in the unctuous voice she loathed.

  “Lady Kathryn, in a household such as yours,” he said, looking down at her from his horse, “with a breath of scandal hanging over it, you would do well to wear your natural piety like a garment. A resident priest is a requirement of a truly devout household. I’m sure your friend, the abbot of Broomholm”—the sly smile, the veiled gaze beneath the scraggly black line of brow—“would agree. Would he not?”

  So. He had found her out. He knew she had no friends at the abbey.

  That was when she first felt the familiar, squeezing pressure around her left eyeball. He would try to plant some spy so that he could keep a tighter grip upon her purse, or, worse yet, insert himself into her household on a permanent basis.

  He didn’t wait for her reply, but pulling on his horse’s reins, said over his shoulder, “Think about what I’ve said. We’ll talk about it when I return, next month.”

  Next month! By the saints and by the Virgin, too.

  There must be some way to rid herself for good of that extortionist priest.

  When the steward finally waited upon her an hour later in the great hall, Lady Kathryn’s left temple throbbed. She could not concentrate.

  “If my lady is indisposed, I’ll just leave the bag with the rent receipts. She need not bother herself with the details of the reckoning. Sir Roderick often—when he was busy—”

  She picked up the bag and weighed it in her hand.

  “Sir Roderick was more trusting than I, Simpson,” she said evenly. “You would do well to remember that.”

  “I meant no offense to your ladyship. My only desire is to serve you well.” The words were right, but not the tone. There was an insolence about the man that made her uneasy—the slump of his large shoulders, the sullen eyes with their hooded, lazy lids.

  “Leave the ledgers with me and attend me tomorrow at this same time,” she said as she unconsciously rubbed her temples.

  “As you wish.” He placed the sheaf of pages bound with string on the sideboard and backed out of her presence.

  At last. Now she could seek the sanctuary of her bedroom. If she could make it that far without retching.

  Dusk was thickening in her room when she awoke, several hours later, to the sound of a door creaking on its iron hinge.

  “Alfred?” she asked, keeping her voice low lest she wake the sleeping beast inside her head. It was an effort just to form the word.

  “No, Mother, it’s me. Colin. I came to see if I could get you anything. I thought maybe some food would help. I brought you a cup of broth.”

  He held it to her lips, gently. The smell made her stomach lurch. She pushed it away. “Maybe later. Just let me lie here a bit longer, then have the lamps lit in the solar. I’ll come down by and by. Have you eaten? Is your brother home?”

  “No, Mother. I’ve not seen Alfred since prime. Are we to have vespers in the chapel? Shall I go and find him?”

  “Father Ignatius is gone.” The taste of bile was on her lips, or maybe the bitterness was just the priest’s name in her mouth.

  Her elder son, elder by only two hours, was probably at the tavern and would come home drunk and stagger to his bed—his father had taught him at a tender age. But at least, she reasoned, the boy had been obedient, had abstained while the priest was in the house.

  Her younger son stirred, reminding her of his presence.

  She patted his hand. “No, Colin. We are spared the tyranny of praying the hours for a little while.”

  In the dim light she could make out the pretty shape of his head, his pale hair falling in a shimmering curtain over one eye.

  “It wasn’t so bad, Mother. To have the priest, I mean. I think the ritual beautiful in its way. The words fall on the ear almost like music.”

  Lady Kathryn sighed, and the beast sleeping inside her head stirred, sending shooting pains into her temple. So unlike his twin. It was just as well Colin would not inherit. He had not the heart for it. She wondered, not for the first time, how Roderick had begot such a gentle creature.

  “I’ve learned a new song. Shall I sing it for you? Would it soothe you?” “No.” She tried to answer without moving her head. It felt as though it were stuffed with soggy wool. The linen sheet beneath her was warm and moist. She would have to change her smock, find more linen rags for padding. “Just send Glynis to me, and close the door. Gently,” she whispered.

  She didn’t hear him leave.

  When Lady Kathryn entered the solar two hours later, Colin was at supper. And he was not alone. Her pulse quickened when she saw the back of the Benedictine habit.

  “Mother, you’re better. I was telling Brother Joseph about your headaches.”

  “Brother Joseph?” The question rode out on a relieved sigh.

  Colin got up from his stool. “Do you want the rest of my supper? It’ll make you feel better.”

  He pushed the half-eaten fowl toward her. Queasiness threatened. She shook her head. “I see that you have divided your supper once already.” She pointed to the bird that had been neatly halved, then turned to look more closely at the unexpected visitor, who had risen when she walked into the room. She held out her hand. “I am Lady Kathryn, mistress of Black
ingham. I trust you have found my son worthy company.” She hoped he mistook the relief in her voice for hospitality. “If you’re passing through, it would be our pleasure to provide you shelter for the evening. Have you a horse that needs grooming?”

  “Your son has already seen to it; and since the evening grows late, I’m grateful for your kind hospitality. However, Lady Kathryn, I am not just passing through. I have come on a mission. I have brought you a message from Father Abbot of Broomholm Abbey. He has a request to make of you.”

  “A request? From the abbot of Broomholm?”

  Had the priest stirred a hornet’s nest with his inquiry? Blackingham could not satisfy the greed of an abbeyful of monks.

  “How can a poor widow serve the abbot of so esteemed a company of Benedictines?”

  “My lady, you look quite pale. Please, sit.”

  He indicated the bench upon which he had been sitting. She sank down on it and he sat beside her.

  “Please, don’t be distressed, Lady Kathryn. We heard through Father Ignatius that you desire friendship with our abbey. What Father Abbot and Prior John suggest will cost you little but will offer you a chance to serve our abbot in a profound way and ensure you and your household the friendship of our brotherhood.”

  The friendship of the brotherhood? But it was unlikely she would be granted gratis that which she had falsely claimed.

  “Please, Brother, tell me how my humble household may serve his lordship.”

  The Benedictine cleared his throat. “It is a simple matter, Lady Kathryn. Blackingham Hall has ever been known for its hospitality. With the death of Sir Roderick, I’m sure this tradition will continue. Therefore, our abbot and our prior feel that this request would not place too heavy a burden on your ladyship.”

  He paused for breath.

  “And what request might that be?” she asked, impatient for him to get beyond his rehearsed speech. “I hope I may not seem as slow to grant your request as you are to voice it.”