That night, as we’re giving the drink, two men and a nun pound on the door. The nun is Mary, the library apprentice.
“We seek refuge, please,” they tell me. “We want to see the physician, privately.”
“If they’re not sick, there’s no room,” calls Joan dispassionately from a cell.
“Not from the illness,” they tell her. “From Agnes de Guile.”
Joan comes to the door and leans in close. “What is going on in the church?”
“Chaos,” says Mary. “We’re starving to death from fasting. Men are losing blood from beating themselves, and the women are doing it, too.”
Cook immediately tends to the emaciated visitors with bread and soup of wild leeks.
“But where are the bodies?” asks Mason.
“They’ve been putting the bodies down in the crypt,” says a stout man with a thin swatch of blond hair. “Prioress Agnes says if they die, it’s because they were sinners, and they’re not worthy to be buried in consecrated ground. But we don’t believe that anymore. And some’ve brought the pestilence with them, but they won’t admit it.”
Mary speaks. “That man you found on the doorstep—Agnes told us he was cursed because he left the church to come here for a cure. They’re planning something against the infirmary because of Edyth and her ‘magic water.’ She says the infirmary is a haven for sorcery.”
“Sorcery!” Joan erupts. “I’m the one in here up to my elbows in shit and piss, while they’re over there beating each other to death to please some other god they created in their own image. Which one of those is more like sorcery?” She slams down her pestle and paces the floor.
Now I’m nervous. If Agnes is planning something against me, I want to be behind the barred door of the chapel with Mason and his collection of hammers.
* * *
—
The next morning, I awake to the sound of Joan screaming.
On the infirmary doorstep are two more victims.
Muriel and Anne.
Pages from our precious manuscript are pinned to their chests, blood converging with paint and obscuring the sacred words. Unbound pages flutter gold and silver and blue through the air, parchment scrolls torn and rolling across the snow and sticking to my paralyzed body.
Mason runs over. “No, no!” he moans. “Edyth! I thought they locked themselves in!”
The ringing in my ears drowns every other sound in a wash of gray. I don’t know what to think or feel; their bodies seem unreal, like sculptures, their clothes nothing more than marble drapery.
“They weren’t even sick,” I mutter in shock. “They kept themselves hidden this whole time, living on grains of barley. They never missed prayers.”
“Let us help,” says one of the defectors. “We are also illuminators, from York Minster. We knew this scribe before she came to this priory.”
We lay my friends down in the churchyard, and all I can do is stare at them. It’s when we go up to the scriptorium that the stun wears off—something breaks in me and I begin to wail.
The whole room is torn apart. Muriel and Anne’s food stores are ransacked. Blood-smeared parchments are strewn everywhere. The muslin sheet between the grinding room and scribes’ room is torn down, and pigment dust floats and falls in puddles of water from the broken magnifying flasks. The bookcase doors are thrown open, but only a handful of books remain.
I look through the door into the library. “Where are all the books? I gave a few to Alice, but where are the rest?”
“Prioress de Guile has declared them heretical,” says Mary. “That was the final straw for me. I knew I had to get out of there.”
“Stop calling her prioress,” I seethe. “The real one isn’t even dead yet.”
We gather a roll of loose parchments and the rest of the books. I cobble together my supplies and put what’s left of the folios I did with Muriel and Anne into a leather folder. It’s far thicker than I thought—this really was going to be a proper book.
I’ll keep working on it, for you, Muriel and Anne, I vow.
“This will end,” Mason says, “and then we’ll find the books.”
* * *
—
The risk to get to Alice is growing greater by the hour, but I need to tell her what’s happening. It feels even more important now to make sure she’s protected.
“Alice,” I whisper, my face right against the wall opening, “I brought food, and a clean dress, and a sheepskin to lie on—it’s getting cold. But you already know that in here, my God!”
Alice crawls toward the window on all fours. “You don’t know what it means to me that you came, Edyth. When these new people started with their frenzies, I thought, That’s it, I’m dead. I commended my soul and waited to die.”
“I wouldn’t have let that happen, my friend. We’re working on a plan to get you out. We need more time, but we will.”
Thwop. The sound of whipping begins again.
“I have to go, Alice. But I’m not leaving you,” I promise, reaching my hand through the window.
“Thank you, Edyth. Thank you for everything.” She presses my hand to her lips and can barely bring herself to let go.
“Wait for me, Alice. I won’t fail you.”
I close the back door just in time to hear the voices starting to shout.
— 42 —
All night, Mason and I have been kept up by the tumult coming from the church. The men’s shouting, the singsong voice of a preacher, the wail of the Dragon. We try in vain to ignore it. Eventually we fall asleep, with the door barred, of course.
But then there’s the steady thwop. Thwop. I keep biting my cheek in my half sleep, tasting blood. And all night, rigid yellow bars roll in time to the rhythm, from left to right across the inside of my eyelids.
Before dawn I startle awake, disoriented, to a sound that has become unfamiliar.
“Is that the bell for prime?” I ask. We get up and say our prayers but can’t concentrate for the mournful singing and another bout of loud preaching. The rhythm starts again—
Thwop. Thwop.
I think of the prioress. If she were well, what would she want me to do?
“Mason.”
“Yes.”
“I want to go into the church. I want to take them the water.”
“Edyth, you heard what Agnes said about you! And you saw what those men are capable of, with Anne and Muriel, the diggers—they won’t even want what you have to offer. You want to walk right into the belly of that beast?”
I’m resolute. “It’s one thing to help our neighbors. We did that. But what about our enemies? They’re running out of water in the fountain, anyway. We can’t let them die of thirst.”
Mason shakes his head. “I don’t like it. It’s not safe!”
“Well, I’d rather be fearless than safe. We can’t let people die without a chance, even if we’re on opposite sides.”
He sighs in frustration. “Tonight, then? After the infirmary?”
“We’ll do it.”
* * *
—
We fill the buckets to the brim with the steaming water. I hitch mine to the yoke, and Mason wraps burlap around each handle of his. We hoist them and walk back toward the priory gate. The bright moon’s got just a sliver shaved off its side. We drink in the quiet as we walk, knowing what tumult awaits us inside the priory walls. When we get to the gate, I put down my yoke.
“Mason, I have to be honest. I know this was what I was supposed to do. I don’t doubt that for a minute. But even with all those people who’ve been healed from this pestilence, I ask myself every night, What if this time it doesn’t work?”
“Edyth,” he says gently. “You were as good as dead, and now look at you.”
“I know, but what if it only works for a time? Do you ha
ve to keep drinking it? We drink it every night, so we’re all right. What if all those people leave healed, only to get sick again and die on the road home?”
“You’re right,” says Mason. “There’s no denying that possibility. But we’ll all die someday.”
“You sound like my da,” I say. “I think he believed there were things worse than dying.”
“Do you think that’s true? What’s worse?”
“To die with regret. To know you could’ve done something good, and instead chose to say no.” We don’t speak for a minute. “How about you? What’s the worst you can think of, Mason?”
“To die alone,” he answers immediately. “Without you.”
“You won’t.” I wrap my arms around his waist. “We won’t miss our chance again.”
“When we’re done with this task, I think we’ll know it, Edie. We’re going to get this water into the church, and we’re going to get Alice out. And then I want to leave. I want to get the hell out of this place.”
“I do, too.” I step closer until there is only a breath between us. “I only wish it hadn’t taken us so long to figure it out.”
Mason kisses me urgently. I shoulder the yoke again, and he follows me through the gate.
* * *
—
Joan is sitting at the long infirmary table, writing furiously on a tablet. She’s not well. As I look closer, I see her neck is covered in lumps, like quail eggs under the skin. I slowly sit beside her—I don’t want to cause panic.
“Not you!” I whisper to Joan. “Hasn’t the water helped?”
“Edyth, I haven’t drunk the water, and I won’t. I need to see if there’s a medicinal cure. My specialty is medicine, not miracles. So far, it’s been eight days since I noticed the signs on me, and I’m still here. Remember what I always say? It probably won’t kill you—”
“—but holler if you see Saint Peter.”
“Well, I’m close to understanding this,” she insists. “Let the pilgrims have the water. Go on. Tend to them. Let me write.”
Mason and I continue to the last cell. Cook is seated at the prioress’s bedside with her back to us, dabbing a cold, wet cloth on the sick woman’s forehead, but Cook yields her place to me. Prioress Margaret’s black habit hangs on a peg on the wall, and her bony feet hang over the edge of the bed. They look abnormally large compared to her thin frame. She clutches a small wooden cross to her breast. She looks so little, like an elderly child, like I could pick her up and lift her above my head.
“Oh no, Venerable Mother!” I say. “I have fresh water—it will heal you!”
“Sometimes we are beyond healing of the body, Edyth. But I do not need that water.” She puts a thin hand on my cheek. “I have been given the drink I need.
“Do you know how good a pomegranate tastes, Edyth?” says the dying woman. “Have you ever seen one?”
“No, Mother, only in paintings.”
The prioress falls into a fit of coughing. I immediately hold the rag to her mouth until it subsides.
“I used to have lots of them when I was a child,” she continues. “I could pluck one up from the bowl whenever I wanted, break it open, roll the seeds out to stain my fingers like blood and run after my little brother as though I was a murderer. He would shriek and hide behind my mother, and I would pop the seeds in my mouth and feign total ignorance.”
The prioress chuckles and forgets her pain for a moment. But she grows quiet again.
“I know nothing of games and intrigue beyond that, Edyth. I wasn’t always locked up here in this place, you know. It wasn’t my first choice, just like it wasn’t yours. I was destined to be a noble lady. I was one, long ago. I had children, a husband. I had long, golden hair,” she says, reaching up and picking at the scraggly white ends.
“I think you’re beautiful,” I say. “Like my own mam.”
“But I found myself alone, like you, Edyth. And then I, too, heard a call to be part of something bigger than I could have dreamed. Something far more ancient than simply being the leader of this great priory. No—what some call power is nothing more than a cheap bauble. It had to unfold like this, and I could not interfere. Mine was simply the call to clear the path. For you.”
The prioress beckons me closer, and I lean in. She looks acutely at me, her eyes losing their blue intensity.
“I’ve heard about what’s going on in the church,” she says. “We are infected with much more than pestilence. Don’t believe those fools. They’ll beat themselves right into hell. But what good is that? Look up instead, and follow the call to the most excellent way.”
Her voice rattles.
“The world is about to be shipwrecked, Edyth. Be strong. Trust your vision.”
She braces herself hard against me and closes her eyes. All the air rushes from her lungs, and she is gone.
* * *
—
At dawn, Mason digs the prioress’s grave under the yew in the churchyard, in a plot chosen years before when she made her final vows, lying on the cold stone before the altar, marrying herself to death and love.
Joan leads the office for the dead, with the infirmary nuns and pilgrims assembled. As we part, she calls me aside and presses something into my hand. It’s Prioress Margaret’s seal. Her name has been burnished out. And on it is inscribed a new name.
— 43 —
There’s one last pilgrim needing the water before Mason and I attempt to bring it to the church. In this cell lies another of the whippers, delirious, pleading for clemency. I slide my arm under his neck, lift the cup to his lips and recite—
O omnes sitientes, venite ad aquas
—just as a heavy fist pounds on the door, startling me into spilling the water down his neck.
Joan keeps working, stirring the juniper tar over a brazier. “No more pilgrims,” she grouses. “Please, Lord, have mercy.”
Mason opens the door, and before he can stop her, Agnes de Guile stumbles in, bedraggled and soaking, her hands black, her neck covered in sores.
Joan steps out from behind the table, shocked to see her. “Agnes.” Her address is firm but soothing.
“I hear Margaret suffers no more,” she says calmly, holding out her hand, as though expecting Joan to kiss her ring. “I am happy to assume my office as prioress.”
Joan’s face is a mixture of disgust and pity. “Agnes, you’re dying. Come, take a bed. I don’t think you’ll be assuming any office today.”
“No one has cared for Saint Christopher’s like I have,” she rambles. “Margaret could not steer the ship.”
I can’t hold my peace. “Is that why you poisoned her?”
“Poison?” says Agnes, seeming genuinely surprised, her voice even and soft. “Did someone poison the prioress? Is this true, Joan? Let that person be cursed!”
Is she lying? Or delirious? Can it be that she doesn’t remember her own crime?
“God help her,” Joan says, bewildered. “Agnes, look at you. You are about to succumb to the Judgment yourself. There’s still time to repent. Here—take the waters.” She procures a cup for Agnes and reaches out to give it to her. Agnes looks at it with disgust, and her tone changes completely.
“You might want to think about repenting, yourself,” she hisses, her yellow tooth flashing. “And everyone else in here with you.”
Agnes throws open the doors. A throng of men and women wait for her, flailing their backs and howling. She leads them away to the church.
“That’s it, Mason,” I say. “It’s time!” I head toward the rear door of the infirmary.
“What about the water?” he calls.
“Not the water. Hammers. We’re breaking Alice out now.”
* * *
—
In the chapel, I grab two of his smaller hammers, and Mason shoulders his tool satch
el and another full-sized sledge.
We crash through the church door and are immediately confronted with the odor of old death. This beautiful sanctuary is completely defiled. The floor is smeared and puddled with congealed blood. Benches are overturned. Nuns and whippers shout frenzied prayers. Rats scurry across the sanctuary, right at the feet of Agnes, who has slumped herself onto the prioress’s oaken throne.
“What do you have to say for yourself, demon?” demands Agnes, wild-eyed and frothing at me. “What kind of sorcery were you working on those pilgrims?”
I stand silent in the doorway, and she rushes at me, undaunted by the two heavy hammers I carry, and strikes me on the mouth. “Answer me!” she yells.
I don’t care. There is only one thing to be done.
I push past Agnes into the ambulatory, raise my hammer and smash it into the wall of Alice’s enclosure. She screams.
“Stand back, Alice,” Mason calls, not stopping his swing, “we’re breaking you out of there!” No one dares come near us as we beat at the stone. Many of the whippers scatter, spilling out of the doors in terror.
“Is anyone with you?” Alice shouts. “Edyth?”
“I’m here, Alice. It’s over. Everything’s over.” My face reddens and I rage against the wall, completely enveloped in the fire of my anger. The stone cracks and begins to crumble down, dust mixing with blood on the floor, on our scratched hands.
“Stand back,” Mason repeats, reaching into the hole we’ve made. He pulls stones crashing to the marble floor, sending bits of mosaic in every direction. “This was easier than I thought,” he says. “She never did ask for mortar.”
He lifts the hammer and breaks off the most precarious pieces.
A Cloud of Outrageous Blue Page 20