She washed his bony limbs, the fragile webbing between his fingers, his toes, then dipped her rag into the water and washed his shriveled private parts. He had not always been thus. He had first come to her in his prime. The girls had all made crude jests as they guessed what: hung beneath his priests’ robe, had all offered cheerfully to find out. But he’d been clear enough to the old woman who ran the brothel. He wanted a young girl, a virgin, and she would be his regular. He would not share, but he would pay well for sole use.
Even Jane, who had been no more than fourteen then, had smiled at this request and wondered which of the younger girls the mistress would try to pawn off on him. Margery and Alice were already simpering, straightening their spines, tugging at their low-cut gowns, trying to look prim. She could almost hear what was going on in their heads. Here was steady income. A regular customer. And a friar—one whose wants would be more easily satisfied. One who would not be brutish—after all, he was a man oj God. One who might even be grateful.
She remembered the cramped little parlor on Bankside Street, as young Jane—that self long abandoned but living still in memory—intruded with the force of a dream.
Young Jane had almost laughed, thinking how foolish the women looked. Surely, even a priest could tell a seasoned whore from a maid. The old mistress must have known it too. She was scrunching up her eyes, furrowing her brow. Her large breast heaved like a bellows. Jane resumed her dusting—the mistress demanded that the parlor be kept straight, even though some of the girls’ rooms were no better than pigstys.
Jane had come to the house two years past to char for the whores and the mistress of the house, because her mother had died and she had nowhere else to go.
“You have good teeth and pretty blond hair. They like the young ones. Have you started to bleed yet?” The mistress had looked her over, one arched brow raised in speculation.
“No, mistress.” It wasn’t a lie, not really, she thought. She had only bled once, and her mother had told her it would be every month. Sometimes she worried about it. Now she was glad. She was only twelve, but she knew what the mistress was getting at.
“ ’Tis too bad. But this house has some standards. I’ll not whore a child.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but I only want to char. I’m strong. I can carry water and sweep and cook a little. Me mum was sickly a long time.”
Since then, the mistress had not mentioned it again. But all the same, Jane took care that she not see her bloody rags from the courses that had come regularly the last six months.
The mistress had clucked her tongue and shaken her head. “Sorry, Father, I’m afraid—”
Jane squeezed herself between her mistress and the door, trying to make herself invisible as usual. It was a tight squeeze. She bumped against the mistress, who turned around and seized her by the arm. The old woman’s smile reached her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Father. I’m afraid I only have one girl to offer ye.” Jane felt the imprint of the mistress’s fingers gripping her arms, bruising her flesh, as she pushed Jane out to the black-cassocked priest. “She is just about to begin her training. I reckon ye’d be as good a teacher as any.”
And that was how Jane Paul became a whore.
But not really a whore, she told herself. She’d wound up being a charwoman after all and as chaste as a nun. Brother Francis never touched her after she came to live with him. After he stole her son away. After she became Mistress Clare, a name she borrowed from the Poor Clares who had given her shelter when her mistress turned her out for her swollen belly, turned her out because she would not kill the second child in the womb. But her little girl had died anyway, and the Poor Clares who were kind to her had said it was God’s will. That God took her little girl as payment for her sin. Would they have said that if they knew her child’s father wore a Dominican robe? She had cried when her little girl was stillborn, but she didn’t think it was the wrath of God. She thought it was a mercy.
“Jane Paul is dead,” she’d said to Brother Francis, who took her in when she had to leave the shelter of the convent. They had made the bargain then. Her vow of silence in return for her place of service, and she had said, “From now on I will be called ‘Mistress Clare.’”
“It matters not to me what you call yourself,” he’d said, and he had never come to her again, though her body had yearned for just a touch, some human connection. As for him, she thought he’d found another, younger woman to give him physical release, but she never saw her nor knew her name.
As she sewed the old priest into his shroud, the needle pricked her thumb. It didn’t even penetrate the callus, just stuck there until she pulled it out. She looked at the hands wielding the needle against the tough oiled serge. Once they had been pretty, but now they were the hands of a charwoman, red and rough. But from this day forward the only cooking and cleaning she would do would be for herself. And she would have to do it for herself. For Jane Paul had no family in this world.
Except for her son.
And she needed no promise to keep her from telling him his mother was so baseborn. (How rightly she had named him, this proud, beautiful creature—she trembled whenever she saw him to think that such a one had been nurtured in her womb.)
She was better off than most her age, she supposed. She thought of the little horde of silver groats and pennies she’d saved, thought about the little cottage by the sea with its tiny vegetable garden, payment for her secret. She would raise a few chickens for eggs and the occasional stew. She would make do.
The only part of the shroud left to close was over the old man’s face. She lit a candle and held the flame in front of his lips to be sure. Not the slightest stir of air. Not even a flicker of life.
She bent and kissed him lightly on the lips. Never in all of her life had she kissed or been kissed by a man. Her lips lingered for a second, moved gently against his, just as she’d dreamed about in her youth, just as in her earliest memory she’d once seen her father kiss her mother.
The old priest’s lips were cold.
Fumbling, she folded over the selvage edge of the cloth, then refolded it carefully to make a neat seam. He deserved this last thing—a well-sewn shroud. He had been a good enough priest, she supposed. He had important visitors. In the beginning. Before he got old. Before he was forgotten. When the visitors stopped coming, she used to make up excuses to spare his pride.
“Brother Francis, the bishop sends his good wishes.”
“Brother Francis, there was an emissary from Canterbury to see you, but I told him you were sleeping.”
This lie had earned her a stern scolding.
Another stab of the needle and this time it punctured the callus so that she felt it. He’d never beaten her or been rough with her. He had only ignored her. She was to him a lesser creature whose lot in life was ordained by God to serve His servant. If Brother Francis had noticed her misery, he would have felt no responsibility for it.
But he had been good to her son.
After the boy was old enough, he’d taken him away from Bankside Street. When he’d found how bright her Gabriel was, he had settled the boy’s future and banned her from his presence, taking her in only after the boy went away. Well, she had kept her part of the bargain. Close enough at least to claim her due. But she would do this last thing for him.
And she would sit vigil by him in the chapel too. After she had gone to the abbot and gotten the promised deed to her cottage.
After she had summoned the boy to witness his father’s burial.
TWENTY-THREE
A true lover is constantly and without intermission
possessed by the thoughts of his beloved.
RULE XXX, RULES OF COURTLY LOVE
Good character alone makes any man worthy of love.
RULE XVIII, RULES OF COURTLY LOVE,
CAPELLANUS (l2TH CENTURY)
December one. A fortnight had come and gone. Anna told herself VanCleve could be delayed by the weather. The snow had
departed as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a muddy quagmire. Even the sturdiest coach would have difficulty navigating the roads. The weather warmed enough at midday for her to bundle Little Bek into his wagon and trudge to the market square. But in two days she’d only sold one pilgrim guide. There were few travelers on the Pilgrim’s Way during winter. She would have to find another source of custom. Thank heavens the rent was paid until after Christmas. The landlord had informed her of that fact when she’d tried to pay him.
“Monsieur VanClef a payé le loyer pour le mois entier, ” and then he had handed her a rolled parchment with her name on it: “Anna Bookman, Rue de Saint Luc, Rheims, France.” She waited, her mind itching with impatience, as the portly little man smiled and patted Little Bek’s head, pretended interest in the boy’s new wagon, although Anna could feel him watching her out of the corner of his eye. She waited impatiently beside the still-open door, fingering the cord binding the parchment. Finally the landlord gave his courtly little bow and bade her, “Adieu, madame.”
In her excitement, she almost slammed the door in his face. Her fingers trembled as she removed the cord and broke the seal, which in spite of the poor traveling conditions was still intact.
“Dearest Anna,” in VanCleve’s fine cribbed handwriting. She could almost see his hands writing the words, envision his long fingers as they guided the quill across the page, formed the breast of the D, a blot of ink where he lingered on the pointy A of her name. “Dearest Anna.” The words sounded like a caress in her mind.
“As you can see from the weather, I am probably not going to make it back to you within the time I had hoped.” But he was coming back! He had not gone back to his wife, to his other lover, to his life in Flanders! “In addition to the delay caused by the weather, upon my arrival in Paris, I registered with the mercer’s guild, where a message awaited me with some very bad news that will require even more travel. My godfather has died and I am flying to his side to see that he is laid to rest with all due honor and to endow masses for his soul. He was very old and very frail and his death was not unexpected. Yet I find myself strangely grieved. It is a great personal loss. I wish I could seek comfort from your sweet face, your voice, your smile …”
Here the writing trailed off. A great personal loss, and he was not here for her to comfort him as he had held her after Jetta’s drowning. Not here for her to kiss away his tears.
“Only the thought of you waiting for me brings me joy. It is my hope that I shall not be much delayed. By the time you get this I shall probably already have crossed the Channel.”
Crossed the Channel? From Paris to Flanders?
“With this letter, I also sent the landlord enough money for the rent on your room until I return. He seems an honest sort, but do not try to pay him again. The temptation might prove too great. Give Little Bek a hug for me. I dream of you each night, think of you each day, and will hold you in my arms again, soon.”
It was signed, tentatively, “ VanCleve,” as though the ink were fading.
That had been three days ago. She’d read the letter until the edge of the parchment was beginning to fray. She reread it now for reassurance as the gray December day seeped beneath the windowpane and chilled her, taunting her with its endless melancholy.
He is coming back, she told herself, holding the parchment tight against her breast. In lieu of the writer she would hold the writing.
“He has promised.
“This is just a delay.” She said the words out loud to the boy. Whose wide gray eyes seemed to understand what she did not say.
Brother Gabriel leaned into the wind from the bow of Le Petre de Dartmouth. The Channel crossing was rough, especially down below, where few passengers huddled. His stomach churned, threatening. Even though there were few pilgrims this time of year—only necessary travelers plied the waters during the bleak midwinter months—still the stench of unwashed bodies was strong. The salt spray felt good against his face. It was as gritty as the reality that had abraded his spirit since he donned the Dominican garb.
Seabirds shrieked in the boat’s wake, screaming for some scrap of refuse thrown overboard. Their raucous cries, incessant like harpies swooping and crying, added headache to his malady. He leaned into the wind.
“Feelin’ a little peaked, are you, Father?”
Gabriel looked around. The voice must be addressing him. There was no one else in the bow. Yes, of course. Father. He was “Father.” A woman of indeterminate age in a gray cloak and hood emerged from the seamless background of sky and water.
“I’ve a piddlin’ bit of ginger in my pocket, if that w’ud help.”
He could see her more clearly now that she had closed the distance between them. She was only a little beyond a girl, a girl with pretty eyes. He’d been vaguely aware when she came on board with an older woman, her mother probably. At an earlier time she might have provoked his thoughts to lascivious mischief—now all he noticed was her gentle manner. She only approached because of his black cassock. He doubted she would have made such a gesture to VanCleve.
“It’s a bit dry and ugly,” she said, offering him the gnarly root. “It carries better this way. Just a tiny bite will do—it’s a mite peppery to the tongue.”
“Thank you,” he said, looking dubiously at the proffered root. One end looked as though it had already been chewed.
“Here.” She whisked a little knife from inside her reticule and cut off a piece from the other end, then smiled as she waved the knife around. “For protection. We’ve come all the way from Boulogne. I’ve only had to use it once, to frighten away a cutpurse, until now.”
She flashed him a smile, showing a complete set of nearly perfect teeth, good skin. He wondered why she had to travel without a man’s protection. Such a passage was unsafe for women alone, even in pairs. Something about the sauciness of her voice reminded him of Anna, Anna who had come all the way from Bohemia alone.
He took the ginger root the girl offered him. “I’m feeling better,” he said. “I’ll save this for later.”
“As you wish, Father.”
The young woman’s mother sat with the other passengers, huddled together in the center of the boat for warmth. From his position in the bow and through the fog and mist they looked like lumps, but he saw one lump turn toward him, then say something else to another beside her. There would be no need to watch out for her daughter, no need when she was with a priest, the woman would be thinking. He felt a little sting of guilt, and a newfound incredulity. How vulnerable they were—these sheep who trusted so completely in their black-robed Roman shepherds.
“Do you travel far, child?” he asked. The voice of a priest. The words of a priest. But not the heart.
“Just as far as Dover. My betrothed is to meet me there.”
My betrothed. She said it so proudly. He tried to imagine Anna’s lips forming those words, but Anna could never say those words, not for him.
A gull shrieked and swooped low over their heads, then settled for a moment on the railing of the boat before the force of the wind at its back fanned its tail feathers and lifted it off the rail. It went screaming into the wind. VanCleve is like that bird, he thought, resting on an uncertain perch, a stolen respite from the wind. The boat pitched forward. His stomach lurched again. Maybe he would need the ginger after all.
“Your betrothed is a lucky man,” he said, thinking still of Anna. Thinking of VanCleve.
The girl blushed. “I’d better get back to my mother.”
“God go with you, child.”
The words. The voice. It was as though he watched this priest from a distance, as though the man who mouthed these ritual words had nothing whatever to do with him.
What advice would Brother Francis have for him? And then he remembered.
Brother Francis would for now and ever remain mute on this and all subjects. He would find no light to lead him there. To whom then would he confess his sins now? he wondered, remembering the cold, impersonal voice
in the cathedral confessional.
He felt the gorge rise in his throat. But it had little to do with the roll and pitch of the small ship on the rough winter seas. He had never felt more in need of a confessor. The words of Psalm Six came into his head, the Penitential Psalm: “Domine, ne in furore tuo arguas me … O Lord, rebuke me not in thy indignation, nor chastise me in thy wrath. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak.”
But without a confessor, how would he ever know his prayer was heard? He had not Anna’s faith. There was no sign. The leaden sky surrounding him remained unchanged. The wind still spit sea spray into his face. The gulls still swooped and cried. The girl had joined the other formless masses in the middle of the ship.
He bit off a piece of the ginger root the girl had left him. It tasted bitter on his tongue.
On the first sunny day, Anna bundled up Little Bek and they walked to the stationer’s shop.
Business was slow there as well. The stationer’s wife seemed happier to see her as she walked through the door. She always spoke to Anna in English. She’d been a camp follower, one of the women who followed the English soldiers into France, but unlike most, this one had fared well, catching the eye of a French merchant. She’d been delighted to learn that Anna spoke English and had presumed an intimacy that Anna did not reciprocate.
“Pull the boy’s cart on inside. That way you won’t have to lift him.” But Little Bek had already gathered his crutches and was hauling himself out of the cart. It was all she could do to keep from helping him, but she recognized the stubborn look on his face. He wanted to show the stationer’s wife that he was independent.
“My, he’s growed big since last time I saw him.”
Anna suppressed a smile as she watched the boy stretch himself even taller on his spindly legs. But it hurt her heart too. She knew how much it cost him to stand erect, to hold his head still. “Here, Bek”—she’d taken to calling him that, dropping the diminutive, because that was what he called himself. “Bek wants” or “Bek likes,” he would say—”Come, Bek, you can sit here while we do business.”
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