The Book of the Maidservant

by Rebecca Barnhouse

  I picture John Mouse lifting his long fingers to brush a lock of brown hair from his eyes, the way he does. I picture him covering his eyes with his hands in the middle of a disputation with Thomas, when he is deep in thought, then looking up from them again when he is ready to speak.

  I know I shouldn’t allow myself these sinful thoughts, but I can’t help it. I whisper a quick prayer, but even as I do, I see John’s eyes and feel once again the touch of his fingers on mine.

  When I finish, I fold the shirt carefully and place it beside the fire so it will be warm when he’s ready to put it on.

  At the midday meal, John Mouse and Thomas are still off somewhere, but most of the others are already seated. My mistress comes through the doorway all puffed up with pride, a brown-robed friar following her. She shoos Father Nicholas out of the place of honor and sits the friar down. “He’s a master of divinity,” she says. “And a legate to the Pope himself!”

  Dame Isabel sits up a little straighter and nudges her husband to do the same. So does Father Nicholas. I smooth my apron and step into the kitchen for the bread.

  There isn’t much talk at first. Instead, everyone watches the friar and sends food down the table to him. But after the meal is over, Petrus Tappester squares his shoulders and speaks. “Sir, I don’t know what lies she’s told you, but we can’t have this woman in our company anymore, not while she won’t eat meat. We have to go out of our way to find food for her. But you, sir, you could order her to eat meat again.”

  “And her holy stories,” Dame Isabel says, her voice low at first but gathering strength as the friar looks at her. “She acts as if she’s a priest, but we all know women aren’t allowed to preach.”

  “Could you tell her not to weep, sir?” her husband asks.

  Surely they shouldn’t speak to the friar this way. I wish John Mouse were here to say something.

  Father Nicholas clears his throat. “I do fear her holy stories will bring us to harm, will cause some to think she is a false Lollard and imprison us all for heresy.” He keeps his face down, but I can see his pale eyelids fluttering.

  “We sacrifice a great deal for her,” Dame Isabel says. “She’s never thanked us, not once.”

  The friar looks first at Petrus and then at Dame Isabel. He looks around the table, letting his gaze fall on each person who has spoken. “If one of you had vowed to walk barefoot to the Holy Land, should I make you dispense with that vow because it displeased the other pilgrims?”

  No one answers. Everyone except Petrus lowers their faces.

  The friar speaks again. “Dame Margery vowed to abstain from eating meat. As long as the Lord gives her the strength to abstain, I certainly won’t order her to eat it. Her weeping? A gift of the Holy Spirit. I have no power over it. As for her holy stories, I will ask that she stop until she meets people who can appreciate what she has to say.”

  Petrus bursts out, “You don’t have to travel with her. You don’t have to hear her bawling every single minute of the day and thinking she’s more pious than everybody else. She’s not going with us if you don’t stop her.”

  “Couldn’t you just speak with her, sir?” Dame Isabel says, and her husband nods encouragingly at the friar.

  “You have my answer,” the friar says.

  “Well, that’s it, then. She’s out of this company. Agreed?” Petrus looks around the table.

  Nobody speaks. Father Nicholas looks like he wants to, but he doesn’t. I hold my breath.

  “I said, agreed?”

  “You’re right, Petrus; of course you’re right,” Dame Isabel says.

  “I say yes,” her husband adds.

  Father Nicholas stares down at the table, his lips moving as if he were praying.

  “Then I’ll see to it myself that she gets to Rome,” the friar says. “Madame? Gather your belongings and let us depart.”

  I start for the door to get our pack.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Petrus Tappester says. He jumps up and grabs my arm. “She stays with us. We signed on as a group with a maidservant—you can’t go back on that.”

  They did? Dame Margery offered me to work for everybody from the very beginning? Petrus tightens his grip.

  “You would leave me alone and friendless in a foreign land where they don’t even speak English?” my mistress says. “With no one to wash and cook for me?”

  “Come, madame. The Lord will provide.” The friar goes to her and gently takes her arm in his.

  My mistress looks up at him with tears on her cheeks as they leave the inn. She never even looks at me.

  I watch her walk through the door, leaving me behind.

  Petrus grabs my hair, pulling my head back. He leans his face into mine. I wince at his sour breath and shut my eyes to the snaking veins on his nose.

  “Don’t you dare try to leave. I’ll be watching you.” He holds on to me long enough to run his eyes down my body before he shoves me away.

  I hold back the tears until I’m in the kitchen. The other servants look at me without interest and go about their business. I slide my back down the wall and bury my wet face in my arms and knees. I don’t know how long I’ve been crying before I realize Bartilmew is crouched on the floor beside me. I raise my head a little, and he sees my tears.

  “Your mistress is a holy woman,” he says.

  “But what about me?” I wail. “What will I do?”

  He looks at me gravely. “God will watch over you,” he says. “And I will watch over you.”

  It doesn’t help. My tears flow as fast as my mistress’s.

  “Come,” Bartilmew says, pulling me to my knees beside him. “The saints help those who ask them.”

  So right there in the kitchen, with the smell of bacon and smoke wafting around us and the sounds of servants’ voices in the background, Bartilmew and I pray. And as we pray, vesper bells begin to ring somewhere near us, as if in answer.

  i was a fool. The saints didn’t hear my prayers after all. If I had had any inkling how hard this journey would be, I would have run away the first time my mistress mentioned it. In England, at least there were places I could run away to. Here, there are only mountains, and beyond them, more mountains.

  Wind whistles around cliffs and makes me pull my hood close to my face as I stumble along, alone with my thoughts. Before we left Constance, Father Nicholas saw my mistress. The friar had found her a guide to help her reach Bolzano, an old man from Devonshire, Father Nicholas said. But I don’t know how an old man and a woman can survive this journey alone. What if they don’t make it over the mountains? I look up at the craggy peaks surrounding me, blocking out the sun. If I can’t find my mistress when we get to Bolzano, how will I ever get home?

  Our path suddenly opens onto a wide meadow, still green. As we cross it, goats dance away from us. Beyond the meadow, the way narrows and loose shale makes it hard to climb. I slip and bruise my shin on a rock. Limping along behind the others, I don’t realize they’ve come to a stop until my nose hits Bartilmew’s pack.

  A lake blocks our way, but someone must have seen us coming, because on the rocky shore, a man readies his boat. He agrees to take us across, negotiating the price with gestures and nods since none of us can under stand him.

  The boat doesn’t seem big enough for all of us, and it tips far more than I would like as I clamber aboard. We all have to sit smashed up against each other. Dame Isabel moves so that she’s next to John Mouse, but he stands and guides me into his seat, taking hold of my arm to steady me. It would be easier to be smug if the boat didn’t choose that moment to rock, pitching me forward in an unbecoming fashion.

  I take my place beside Dame Isabel and hold on to the side of the boat for dear life. But the ride turns out to be smooth, and by the time we’ve reached the other side, my shin no longer aches as much.

  The boatman points us toward a village where we can find food and a barn to sleep in for the night.

  The next evening, we’re not so lucky. Darkness descen
ds when we’re nowhere near a village, and we have to sleep in the open, wrapped in our cloaks, the wind whistling around us and rocks biting into our backs. When I wake, the water I carry in my pig’s bladder is frozen. It stays that way all day long and the next day, besides.

  Then, the morning after that, Petrus Tappester increases the pace. Dame Isabel and her husband have trouble keeping up. Father Nicholas pleads with Petrus to slow down, but he won’t. Finally, the rest of us begin walking more slowly, letting Petrus get far out of sight, even though we all know we should stick together on these paths.

  John Mouse becomes our leader over stones and across icy brooks, but he asks Thomas and Father Nicholas for advice about which way to go.

  Late in the afternoon, we come to a wide, rushing mountain stream. John Mouse and Thomas search up and down its banks for a good place to cross; there’s no sign of Petrus or where he forded it.

  John Mouse pokes his staff at stones in the water, then stretches out a foot. He is halfway across when a rock under him wobbles. He struggles like an acrobat balancing on another man’s shoulders, then collapses into the icy water, his head striking a rock.

  Thomas is in the stream instantly. The water batters his legs, and he slips on stones. He pulls John Mouse’s head above water, but I don’t see how he’ll get him back to shore. I lift my skirts to rush into the water, but Bartilmew pushes me back and wades through the rapids.

  Together, he and Thomas drag John Mouse through the water and over the rocks. They heave him onto the bank, where his body lies in a crumpled heap.

  “He breathes,” Thomas says.

  Father Nicholas kneels beside him, praying. I whip off my cloak and lay it over him, whispering a prayer.

  “Fire,” Bartilmew says.

  There’s hardly any fuel, just bracken and twigs, but I rush to gather them. My hands shake as I pull out my flints and a few bits of wool, but I get a flame going.

  I am spreading wet garments on the stones before the fire when John Mouse groans and opens his eyes.

  “Blessed be God,” Dame Isabel says, and bursts into tears.

  Tears spring to my eyes, too, and I murmur another prayer to the Virgin.

  As I watch, John Mouse tries to sit up and quickly lowers his head again, groaning. Thomas leans toward him.

  “Thomas. When did you multiply yourself?” John Mouse says, and shuts his eyes.

  “How’s your head?” Thomas asks.

  “Two hundred stonemasons are building a cathedral inside it. All hammering at the same time.” He shivers. Al though he jests, his voice quavers.

  Dame Isabel’s eyes widen. She’s thinking what I’m thinking, I’m sure—what if he catches a fever?

  “Well, amicus, have a master bring those journeymen under control while we dry our clothes. Next time you want a swim, may I suggest summer?”

  “It’s God’s punishment for leaving behind the holy woman,” Bartilmew says, the longest speech I have heard him make.

  “Nonsense,” Dame Isabel’s husband says. “It’s that fool who went on ahead—it’s Petrus Tappester’s fault.”

  “We should thank God we are all alive,” Father Nicholas says. He begins to pray. I drop to my knees. So does Bartilmew. Side by side, Dame Isabel and her husband sink to the ground, and Thomas folds his hands in prayer.

  When John Mouse can walk, shakily and with the help of Thomas and Bartilmew, we set out again. Crossing the stream takes us forever, and even after that, our progress is painfully slow. John Mouse sees two stones for every one the rest of us see, and he says the stonemasons inside his head will take no rest. We stop every few steps for him to catch his breath.

  A few paces beyond the stream, the path turns sharply. Just after the turn, we come upon a pile of four stones set up like a little tower—a waymark. We pass three more of them as we walk.

  “Look!” Thomas calls. We can see a building atop a steep incline, and as the light fades, we hear bells.

  We follow the bells, moving more and more slowly as the sky darkens and John Mouse grows weaker.

  Three figures appear on the path ahead of us, and as they come toward us out of the darkness, I can make out the shapes of Petrus Tappester and two monks.

  Petrus and one of the monks take John Mouse’s arms over their shoulders and drag him to the hospice, the building we can see. Here in the midst of the mountains, the other monk tells us, monks have built a place for travelers like us. The brothers who live in the priory have vowed to serve pilgrims. Their infirmarian will look after John Mouse.

  I hear Bartilmew mumbling a prayer and Father Nicholas saying one aloud. I add my voice. We all do. Never has a hospice appeared at such a moment of need.

  We are treated to warm porridge, which I don’t even have to serve. The monks act like I’m a pilgrim, not a servant—I get to sit on a bench and stretch my feet toward the fire while my gown dries. Then they show us to warm beds with plenty of blankets. This is what Heaven must feel like.

  In the morning, we go to the chapel to hear Mass. I know I’m not the only one who prays for John Mouse, but I doubt anyone else says a prayer for my mistress. Except maybe Bartilmew.

  Then we gather before the fireplace for another meal. While we eat, the monk who speaks English tells us what the infirmarian has said about John Mouse. It will be several days—perhaps weeks—before he can leave.

  “If you’re to get over the mountains before the snow and avalanches trap you, every day counts,” he adds.

  “We can’t break up our party,” Dame Isabel says. “We have to wait for him.” I look at her face. When we left Zierikzee, she was pink and fat and healthy. Now her skin is as rough and brown as mine from the sun and wind. Her face looks drawn and frightened. When she speaks, she avoids her husband’s gaze.

  “We’re leaving, and we’re doing it today,” Petrus Tappester says.

  “You’ll go without me, then,” Thomas says.

  “And without me,” Dame Isabel says, staring fiercely into the fire.

  “My dear,” her husband says, but she cuts him off with a wave of her hand.

  “We vowed to stay together and help each other. We can’t leave without him,” she says.

  Where was that vow when they kicked my mistress out of the company?

  The monk settles the battle for us. We can’t all stay here for the winter, he tells us. “You, yes,” he says, pointing at Thomas. “But not the rest of you.” He says the hospice has to be ready for other travelers in need, so we must move on.

  Dame Isabel lowers her head, and as I turn, I see a tear hesitating on the tip of her eyelash.

  Tears prick at my eyes, too. Go on without John Mouse? As I gather my pack, the tears spill over. What if I never see him again? I wipe at my nose, but it does no good.

  Does he remember that we share a name day? Or the song he turned from Latin into English for me? I touch my arm where he put his hand on it so long ago, when I was sick on the English Sea. Now I know what he meant when he said, “Dreams, dreams, they mock us with their flitting shadows.” Dreams I didn’t even know I had evaporate as I think of the road ahead, and of John Mouse here in the infirmary without me.

  it takes us fifteen more days to reach Bolzano. So says Father Nicholas, although Petrus Tappester argues that it was only fourteen days. Without the warmth of John Mouse’s smile, I am too cold to count the days of our misery.

  I know that two nights we camped under rocks, and I awoke to find snow on my cloak and my fingers too stiff to build a fire. And that because I couldn’t get a fire going the first night, Petrus threatened me.

  Bartilmew helped me, showing me how to drop the glowing char-cloth into a bird’s nest of kindling so it wouldn’t blow out in the wind. The next night that we spent outdoors, my fire caught so quickly that Petrus never had a chance to complain.

  The monks told us to follow the path marked by the little towers of stone, which would take us from hospice to village to hospice. If we had followed their advice, Dame Isab
el’s gown wouldn’t have caught on fire.

  On one of our nights outside, she got too close to the flames trying to get warm. Bartilmew stamped out her burning gown fast enough that she wasn’t burned, but the singed edges make her even more sour than usual.

  If she is sour, like an apple eaten too early, Petrus Tappester is as rotten as an apple whose core has been gnawed by a wasp. He’s the one who ordered the rest of us to follow him on a trail of his own devising, away from the waymarks. We nearly froze for his folly and spent two nights in the snow.

  Our mornings begin with arguments, our dinners are spiced with quarrels, our suppers are served with squabbles like large helpings of thistles. Surely God will never allow Petrus Tappester into the Holy Land after all the things he has said and done. A pilgrimage is supposed to be a kind of penance, but he’ll need to do penance for his pilgrimage. We all will. Maybe even me.

  Descending is as hard as climbing, except for the knowledge that each step takes us closer to Bolzano, with its warm beds and hot food. Snow and icy rocks begin to give way to scraggly trees, and trees to snow-covered fields. Curls of smoke and crowing roosters signal farms and villages. We sleep in barns, warmed by cows and goats.

  One night in a village, everyone sleeps in an inn. I survey the kitchen, trying to find the best place to curl up, when the inn’s maidservant, who must be about Cicilly’s age and has black braids that shine in the firelight, takes me by the hand and leads me out and down the snowy street. We stop in front of the huge village oven, built right into the mountainside. She opens the door, touches the warm stone, and climbs in, gesturing for me to follow.