The Ruins of Lace

by Iris Anthony

  Hands could be washed.

  Aprons could not… least not so easily.

  I peered out the door, though in truth, if someone was watching from the abbey, I would not have known it. Swiftly, I walked toward the privy house. And then, once I had reached its door, I walked beyond it, behind it, and lowered my head to a gap in the stones.

  “Heilwich? Are you there?”

  There was only silence. And then some shouting. That woman accusing Pieter of making a mess of things again.

  “Heilwich?”

  Nothing.

  I waited.

  “Heilwich?”

  The woman had done with her shouting. A door scraped. A dog barked. But no steps came near across the cobbles. No cough sounded to let me know she was there. I waited some moments more, standing in the rain, and then I walked around to the front of the privy house and washed my hands with water from a pail. But before I returned to the workshop, I bent to the gap again and spoke her name one time more.

  “Heilwich?”

  “Ja.”

  “You are there!”

  “Is it not Tuesday? And do I not always come on Tuesday?”

  “Thank you. For coming.”

  “Here. Take this.” A hunk of bread pressed against my nose. I inhaled its moist, yeasty scent for a moment, and then I stood and pulled out my prize.

  “And there’s an egg pushed up inside it.”

  “Thank you!”

  “You’re the thanking-est girl I’ve ever known. Just eat it.”

  “I am.” Or I would when I discovered where the egg was. I probed at the bread with my fingers then held it up to my nose to see it better.

  “Let me have a look at you, then.”

  I bent once more and pressed my face to the gap.

  “I want to see more than just your eye. Stand away.”

  “But then I can’t see you.” And seeing her face was one of my greatest treasures. It enlivened the words she spoke to me. I recalled them together, her words and her face, in the days between her visits.

  “For shame. Of course you can.”

  I could see a shadow where I presumed her face to be, but I could not truly see her, not when I stood away. Not clearly enough to distinguish her features.

  “Can’t you?”

  “I can tell you’re there.”

  “And what color are my sleeves?”

  “They blend…with the color of the stones.” There now, when she moved, I could see them.

  “With the stones? For shame, they do not! Eat now and leave me to think a minute.”

  I ate. And with pleasure. The last egg I had eaten was the one she had brought me the week before. During her weekly clandestine visits, I always told her I had no wish for anything, having eaten so recently, but in truth, I discovered I could. When she pushed her bundles through the wall for me, my stomach never failed to cramp with hunger.

  “Why haven’t you told me your eyes have gotten worse? Stand away and let me see you from the side.”

  Though I ate, I did as I was bid.

  “You look shorter than last I saw you. Stand up straight.”

  I lifted my shoulders and uncoiled my spine.

  “I meant straight. As a pin.”

  “I am.”

  “You’re bent as a shepherd’s crook.”

  I was? But I was standing as straight as I could.

  “Come here. Come toward me. Put your eye to the gap.”

  I swallowed the last of the egg, wiping the yolky crumbs from my fingertips onto the bread. I set my face to the hole.

  “I have to get you out. No more delays. I spoke to the Reverend Mother last month, and I’ve saved one coin more since then. Perhaps this time—”

  “Nee!”

  “You’re hunched as a grandmother…and you’ve almost gone blind.”

  “Nee. Please. Don’t speak to them. Don’t say anything.”

  “Why not? I’ve been saving money for years to buy you back. And with that extra coin…perhaps that will be enough if I promise to return with the rest later…”

  “Don’t. Please don’t.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because. Because…I’m in the middle of a length, and I must finish it. I have to finish it.”

  “If you don’t finish it, I’ve no doubt they will find another who will.”

  “Nee. They won’t.”

  “It’s not you who has to finish it. It’s the abbey.”

  “It’s my length.”

  “Truly, Katharina, the buyer will care nothing for your name. He will never know it.”

  “But…”

  “If I don’t take you out, they’ll push you out.”

  “Nee. They won’t.”

  “They will. They have. I see what’s left of you poor lace makers all over the city, doing…vile things, Katharina. Vile things. Things that cannot be forgiven.”

  “Which lace makers?”

  “Which of them? All of them! What do you think will happen to you when you can no longer work? When you can’t see to thread a needle?”

  “Bobbin.”

  “Needle, bobbin, it doesn’t matter which. And they don’t care, either. They care nothing about you!”

  “They do. I’m the best lace maker they have.”

  “And their best lace maker has almost gone blind. Can’t you see the work is destroying you?”

  “But it isn’t.” It couldn’t. How could I be destroyed by something I loved?

  “I will speak to her. Today. And I’ll see if I can’t have you out by Sunday.”

  “Nee! Please. Please. Let me just…let me finish the lace. Three weeks. Please.” And perhaps by then she would have forgotten her threat.

  “Well…you don’t think they’ll notice?”

  “They haven’t noticed yet.”

  “Then…be off with you. Before they come looking.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll see you next week. And I’ll ask the nuns in three weeks. Once I’ve had the chance to come by more money.”

  I turned from the wall and left her, washed my hands once more, and ascended the stairs. But this time, as I took up my work, I found no pleasure in the dance. Only duty and dull repetition. Petal after petal, flower after flower, scroll after scroll. There was nothing magical about a length of lace. There was no story in its pattern. There was only thread.

  Yards and yards of thread.

  •••

  The next morning started much like the one before. We assembled after breakfast, hands washed, held up for inspection. Again Mathild was separated from us and sent to the infirmary. A rustle of unease rippled through us.

  One time more. Perhaps two. How long would it be before she too vanished?

  We assembled together and then walked to the workshop. But halfway through the morning, Mathild appeared. She sat down beside me and took up her work.

  “I have lost my place.”

  The sound of a whisper, a voice not belonging to Sister, was so extraordinary, I did not know at first from where it had come. I looked up. Around.

  I felt the slightest pressure at my elbow. “Help me.”

  I worked on, considering what to do. Mathild’s hands were moving. I could see the blur of them, and I could hear her bobbins. To help her, to talk to her, would bring the wrath of Sister down upon my head.

  And my back. And my buttocks.

  I trembled at the thought.

  “Please.”

  She was working. I could hear that she was, so how could she have lost her place? And if she had, if she did need help, then why did she not ask Sister?

  Nee. There could be nothing good gained from answer
ing her plea.

  But once again, that voice entered into my thoughts. “Help me.”

  Her voice echoed in my head, her words creating a pattern.

  I have lost my place.

  Help me.

  Help.

  Please.

  Those words created a design of lace disrupted, unfinished. A lace no one would wear.

  But…how could she have lost her place?

  It was with Mathild I had come into the abbey. It was with Mathild I had learned the patterns at Sister’s knee. Mathild and I, who slept side by side, pallets pushed together for warmth. Mathild and I, the best—the oldest—girls in the workshop.

  And it was then I began to wonder.

  Where had Elizabeth gone? And Jacquemine? And Beatrix? What had happened to all those girls, the older girls who had been making lace and fulfilling commissions when we had first begun? And how was it every one of the girls who had come before us had disappeared?

  Where had they gone?

  I had the feeling that, hidden beneath the confusion of my thoughts, was a pattern. I had only to wait, to watch, to determine what it was.

  But still, that left Mathild and her plea.

  She had lost her place.

  Perhaps, if I could feel her threads, I might be able to find it for her.

  I pressed against her elbow.

  Heard a sharp intake of breath.

  I patted the bench between us with a hand.

  She placed her hand atop mine.

  I grabbed it and pulled it toward my pillow while reaching for her pillow with my other hand. In the doing of it, I was careful not to uncoil myself and sit upright. Not to move my shoulders or my head. I prayed she would be as careful as I.

  I sat there for some several seconds, her pillow on my lap, expecting to be punished. But then I heard Sister’s voice start up a chant for the younger children, and I knew we would not be discovered.

  Mathild must have known it, too, for she sighed.

  I bent over her pillow, nose to her pins, trying to feel where she had stopped. It was a pattern like my own, though not as wide. It seemed as if…nee. I turned the pillow around. Began anew. It seemed as if she had stopped in the middle of…a leaf? A petal? Sliding my hand along the length, I felt the pattern contained within its thread. She had stopped in the middle of a petal. And it seemed as if…I fingered the stitches she had completed. And then, I pressed her elbow.

  She reached out toward my lap, but her hand did not find the pillow.

  Quickly, I pushed her fingers down to her work.

  She took her pillow from me as I felt for my own. “You are…” I paused. My voice had come out raspy and raw. I tried once more. “The middle of the petal. Five stitches. Then turn.”

  If she thanked me, I did not hear it. But if I could not hear it, then neither could Sister.

  Chapter 9

  Heilwich Martens

  Kortrijk, Flanders

  On Wednesday I was late to Herry Stuer’s. If I hadn’t known it before, I could tell by the way his pallet reeked of stale piss. I glowered at the girl who looked after him. “You could change it a time or two.”

  She flounced away from me toward the door. “And taint my hands with the scent of it?” With a flash of her skirts, she was gone.

  Marguerite was her name. And it was only because our blessed Lord had once cared for such as she that I did not speak my mind.

  Whore.

  With some pushing and pulling, I rolled Herry off to one side and then swept the fouled straw out the door. I left it in just such a place that Marguerite would have to tread upon it when she returned.

  “If she’s to have a few coins for the keeping of you, pardon my saying, the least she could do is remember you while you’re yet living.”

  He said nothing. He hadn’t, not since that night a month ago when he’d been felled by apoplexy in one of the rooms above the inn. He’d been wrapped in the arms of the young Marie. Old Herry had always been one for the pretty girls. He’d come sniffing around my own skirts a time or two back fifteen years ago or so. And from the sights I’d seen during my care of him, I was sorry I had not been more willing.

  I tore away the blanket from Marguerite’s own pallet and took half her straw to make a new one for Herry.

  “The least she could do is share some of what’s yours with you.”

  I rolled him onto the clean pallet. He blinked.

  Kind eyes he had. Kind eyes he’d always had.

  I stooped down and pressed a hand to his cheek.

  He blinked once more.

  “Ach, Herry.”

  A tear bloomed at the edge of his eye.

  I knelt and brushed it away with the hem of my apron. “And what would the guildsmen say if they knew old Herry Stuer was a man for crying?” I shook Marguerite’s blanket. Once. Twice. Let it settle itself down across Herry. “I won’t tell a soul.”

  Poor man. When had old Herry ever harmed anyone? What had he done to deserve an end like this?

  “You know, that girl did ask for the looking after of you.” Though anyone with any sense could guess she had asked to care for him only after his guild had made known the amount of money they would provide for his care. Old Herry still had his wits about him. I knew it by his eyes. He might not be able to move or talk, but he could see. And hear.

  I wasn’t quick enough to catch the next tear before it leaked onto his cheek. It crept down to his neck, leaving a trail in the grime that covered his skin. I rose, and finding no rag, took the edge of Marguerite’s other shift and dipped it into a bucket of water. “Just let me get the look of you.” I scrubbed at the sides of his mouth where drivel had made a crust and then worked beneath his chin where the remnants of a pottage had collected in his whiskers. “You were always one for a neat shave and a clean shirt. ‘There’s nothing like the sight of Herry Stuer on a Guild Day,’ that’s what I used say.” I dipped the shift back into the water and wrung it nearly dry. “I did. And that’s a fact.” It could do no harm to let the man know how much I had fancied him. Even if he had been older. He’d had such a way about him. If only he hadn’t fancied everybody else. Such a fine, good man. “Shall I give you a shave, then?”

  I would. I did. There was time enough for it. If Marguerite returned before I was done, it would be a miracle to rival the virgin birth. There was only Father Jacqmotte who awaited me, and with his head in his books this day and his thoughts on the eternal, I doubt he knew I had gone anywhere at all.

  Such a fine thing to see Herry’s face revealed. And I have to think it did him some good, as well. I lay a hand to his cheek, just because I could. Who was there to stop me? And who but Herry would ever know of my foolishness? So soft was his cheek. But gaunt. And gaunter by the day. He was not long for this world. But he probably knew it as well as I, so there was no point in dwelling upon it. Death would claim us all soon enough.

  I patted his hand and then took it up in my own. Of course, I had to curl his fingers round mine, but there was a nice heft to it as it lay in my palm.

  “Ach, two fools are what we are. You for lingering. And me for dawdling.” As I said it, I shed a tear for the man with nothing left but his wits, and the woman with nothing left but her work. I sat there beside him, holding his hand, until I heard Marguerite coming toward the door.

  The devil himself would have heard Marguerite coming, accompanied as she was by some man or another. All shrieks of mirth and howls of laughter, they were.

  I gave Herry his hand back and tucked it underneath the blanket I’d settled atop him. For certain it would stay there for the night.

  I opened the door when I heard the straw’s rustle and Marguerite’s curse. “You might have pushed this all to the side!”

  Hiding a smile beneath a hand, I di
d push it aside with the toe of my clog as I brushed past her. “And you might give him a look over in the middle of the night. To see if he wants for anything.”

  “And if he did, could he tell me?”

  “You’ve only to look at him. He’d tell you. With his eyes.”

  She sneered and then shut the door in my face.

  Chapter 10

  Denis Boulanger

  The border of France and Flanders

  One month, the lieutenant said he’d give me. But I still hadn’t found any lace.

  Once, though, I had been close. I’d stopped a man as he stepped into the line. There was something about his eyes. Something in the way they shifted back and forth as he looked around. There was only the shack and the lieutenant and myself to look at. It seemed strange to me he should be so interested in the goings-on about him. Especially when everyone else concerned themselves with the tips of their own shoes.

  I’d asked him to remove his cloak.

  There was nothing hidden inside it.

  I’d asked him to remove his coat.

  There was nothing in there, either.

  I might have stopped right there, but it seemed to me if he had nothing to hide, he would have said so.

  I asked to look in his pack. He had a purse in there and a shirt and what looked like a very fine loaf of bread. “Is it any good?”

  He looked up at me. “What?”

  “Is it good? It looks as if it is.”

  “It’s…very nice.”

  My father was an excellent baker. Anyone in Signy-sur-vaux would have said so. It wasn’t easy to make a good loaf of bread. That’s why I’d joined the army.

  He coughed. “May I go?”

  “What?”

  “Have you finished?”

  Had I? I didn’t think so. “Might I have some?”

  “Some…?”

  “Some of your bread.”

  “My bread.”

  Even if there were no lace hidden inside, I had a sudden longing for a good piece of bread. He was no destitute peasant; there were no children staring hungrily at this loaf. I thought—I hoped—he could spare just one bite.