‘Miraculous!’ he exclaimed, at the conclusion of my singing, the sudden sound of his voice sending the birds in a wild flurry of wings from the tree and the robin and the magpie from his hands. ‘I should not have believed it if I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes,’ he declared. ‘You are truly blessed by God.’
I laughed, despite myself, having had my recent fill of being blessed I wished for no more such blessing. ‘Oh, it is nothing, simply a trick the village children enjoy,’ I replied trying to sound dismissive, though I was secretly proud of my prowess.
‘It is a great deal more than that!’ he said emphatically. ‘Besides, you have a truly remarkable voice and a wonderful way with nature. Will you not let me intercede on your behalf with the abbot, and perhaps he might find you a place in a convent as a novice?’
‘Nay! I cried out. ‘If you please, Father, no!’ In my imagination I saw the boar with its head over my father’s stomach, a piece of his intestines hanging from the corner of its mouth, its great porcine snout covered in blood. I had used the boar too often to play the role of the abbot while I mimicked his furiously spitting sermons – now the prospect of being taken into his hallowed presence filled me with terror. As for becoming a novice nun, how could I ever entertain such an idea with the great burden of sin I carried upon my young shoulders?
‘Ah, such a pity. Though, on second thoughts, burying you in a nunnery, while granting you salvation, would deny the world’s children the benefit of your extraordinary talents.’ He paused and smiled. ‘Now you must tell me, what is it I can do to help you, child?’
I had never been spoken to with such generosity of spirit, but nonetheless I knew that I should not allow Father John’s kindly words to seduce me into thinking I was more than a terrible sinner with the practical intent of escaping the environs of the village. ‘You can give me a fair price for my father’s carpentry tools,’ I answered, in what I hoped was a businesslike voice. Then, rather cheekily, I held up the small bag of corn. ‘The kitchen monk has dealt with me unfairly, Father. My six hens were plump and good layers and the rooster in his prime! Yet he claimed they were scraggy old boilers, fit only for soup, and gave me this small bag of corn in exchange for them.’ Then, imitating the kitchen monk’s voice, I mimicked his words to me: ‘Child, be off! You are fortunate I feel generous today, the abbot will chastise me over the thin and watery taste of the soup these scraggly hens will make and the rooster is not worth fetching water from the well for the boiling pot. It has been a poor year and the corn crop has failed – you are well ahead in this exchange.’
Father John clapped his hands gleefully. ‘Perfect! You have that miserable old fool down pat!’ he chortled.
Anxious to press my advantage and desiring to stick to the subject of providing for my departure, I now said, ‘Perhaps, in return for my father’s carpentry tools you can arrange for a little more corn or even coin to purchase food on my journey, Father?’
Father John sighed. ‘Alas, we are not allowed to handle money and only the kitchen monk has access to the corn bin.’ He looked momentarily distraught, then suddenly brightened. ‘A leather bag with straps for your back, a fine brass buckle I have recently forged to clasp it secure and a stout stave! If it should rain the bag of corn you carry will spoil! Yes, yes! A splendid idea!’ he decided, and without consulting me further. ‘A stave to protect you and help you over rocky ground when you embark upon your pilgrimage and a bag for your back so you have the means to carry what you gather on the way and protect it from the weather.’
‘It is not a pilgrimage, Father,’ I protested. ‘I seek only to find somewhere else to go. Cologne perhaps, where I will find employment as a kitchen maid in a rich man’s house.’
‘Ah, yes, but that is no less a pilgrimage. We may not all reach Jerusalem, but we are all pilgrims and life itself is a rocky road with the promise of redemption at its end if we remain pure in spirit.’
I was not sure I understood him, thinking his words altogether too profound for such as me. Anyway, if I correctly understood him, it was a bit late for me to remain pure in spirit as the rocky road in life had long since stubbed my toes and skinned my knees and elbows and in the process, I felt sure, crushed my poor spirit. ‘Thank you, Father, it is a generous exchange, the stave will protect me well and the bag is just what I need,’ I said, wishing to be polite, although I would have much preferred a bigger bag of corn.
He seemed pleased. ‘Come then, we must measure you for both, the bag must sit comfortably upon your back and the stave must not be too unwieldy for you to handle.’
Some hours later and after he had shared his midday meal with me, bread and wine and a bowl of boiled cabbage, he completed the bag and the stave. The leather satchel stoutly stitched and fitted with a strong brass clasp sat comfortably enough upon my back but Father John tut-tutted and fiddled, adjusting it carefully until he was satisfied that it was a perfect fit. Whereupon he reached for the stave, a lovely silvery colour that seemed cut from a yew tree, at its one end a metal tip and at the other, where I gripped, a cunning plaiting of leather most comfortable to my grip. The monk frowned, his head cast sideways to rest upon his neck. ‘You are too young and, besides, too small to protect yourself by the defensive use of a stave. So I have fashioned it somewhat differently for your use. Use it only when you are threatened by the likes of knaves and robbers.’ Whereupon he twisted the leather handle to the left and pulled from the top of the stave a dagger of sharpened bronze. ‘I had forged it for a kitchen knife, but now have changed it to make a dagger. It is blessed by sprinkling with holy water and should not be put to flippant use. Each time you use it, when you place it back you must pray to our Saviour and thank Him for protecting your life.’ Then he replaced the blade and putting his rough carpenter’s hand upon my head pronounced, ‘God be with you, my child. Remember always He has said, “Suffer little children to come unto me . . . for such is the kingdom of God.” Those are the words of Jesus who has seen that you have a way with children and with nature and He will ever guide and bless you.’
I was leaving a past I had no reason to remember and to which I had no wish ever to return. As I had told Father John, I vaguely thought that my journey to somewhere else might end up in the great city of Cologne, where I imagined myself indentured as a kitchen servant in the grand house of the Richerzeche, perhaps one of the senatores, in return for food and lodging. It would be a place where a fire kept me warm in winter, where plump round loaves, warm from the oven, were placed before me and a perpetual pot of soup simmered on the hearth. It is with such fairytales that poor motherless children remain hopeful and it just goes to show that, with the encouragement I had received from the kindly monk, even at this darkest moment I remained optimistic.
But for the chill in the air, travel wasn’t difficult and the first two days passed without mishap. I would find a place in the woods and using the flint I had taken from home I would gather twigs and light a fire to cook my evening meal. I possessed only one blanket and after the fire died down it would grow bitterly cold at night, but I would soon grow warm with walking once the sun rose and I had regained the road. A few people passed me but they kept to themselves. There was no advantage to be gained from a passing acquaintance with a barefoot child in a patched gown; misery always begets more misery and an eleven-year-old girl has no amusing stories to tell to while away time spent on the road.
Even in late autumn there were still some green herbs to gather in the fields and lanes to supplement my small bag of corn and, while constantly hungry, I had sufficient gruel and green in my belly not to weaken my resolve to walk a hundred furlongs each day. On the fourth night my bag of corn was almost gone and I hadn’t found anything to gather worth eating. Hungry and becoming concerned that no destination had yet presented itself, I crept within a wood for protection. I found a dry hollow deep within the roots of a giant oak tree, said my prayers, adding a despairing but not overly hopeful request for food, before wrapping myself i
n my blanket to slumber.
When I awoke, as if by a miracle, a dozen or so plump mushrooms had pushed up among the fallen leaves at my feet. I offered up my thanks at once to a merciful God, wondering meanwhile what it was I had done to persuade Him in His infinite mercy to come to my aid. I cooked and ate some of the mushrooms and saved what remained for a later time. With the rare pleasure of a full belly my spirits soared and my strength returned. I regained the road to continue my journey to the mythical blazing hearth, warm loaves and hot soup I had so set my mind upon.
By mid-morning it had begun to rain and the ruts in the road soon filled with muddy water. Soaked to the skin I lost my morning courage and became quite miserable, though I continued walking as the surrounding countryside consisted of open fields and rolling hills without a wood in which I might take shelter. I came at last upon a peasant farmer’s cottage and knocked on the door.
The frau opened the door. ‘Yes, what do you want?’ she asked, looking at me suspiciously.
‘I seek shelter from the rain this night, good mother. Perhaps in your cow shed?’ I asked meekly.
‘Ha! I knew it! You are looking for food without work.’
‘No, mother, just shelter from the rain.’
‘You lie, child, they all say that. God does not feed idlers or beggars and nor do I.’
Exasperated by her tone I foolishly pointed to my bag. ‘I have food of my own, a little corn and some mushrooms.’
She looked me up and down, tight-lipped, one corner of her mouth turned down, as though examining a scrawny goose at the market. I was soaked through, so that my patched and mud-splashed dress clung to my ribs. With muddy feet, my hair wet and scraggly and me scrawny and dirty, I must have been a pathetic sight. ‘Ha! In that bag you have food you have stolen! You are a thief and now you ask for charity?’ she scolded.
‘No, mother, only a place to shelter tonight from the rain. The food I came by honestly and I ask for no sustenance from you.’
She thought for a moment, then pointed a stubby finger at the splendid leather bag on my back that Father John had made for me and said slyly, ‘If you give me that bag we will give you shelter.’
‘Good dame,’ I begged, ‘I cannot part with it, it has been blessed with holy water and made by a kind monk to suit my needs on the road. Will you not show God’s mercy? “Suffer little children to come unto me,”’ I said rather pathetically, repeating the line I had learned from Father John in the vain hope it might soften her peasant heart.
‘Ho! I am not so easily gulled. God has no time for vagabonds and children who carry expensive leather bags and steal corn from the pious poor. It is not yet winter and you are already wet. Be gone from my doorstep! Be on your way!’ With this she slammed the door in my face.
‘Bitch!’ I shouted, much to my own surprise. Then, suddenly elated by my unexpected vehemence, declared further, ‘May you ride in the night with the devil and may his vile seed give birth to a changeling!’ It was the first time I had ever cursed anyone and it felt very good. I continued walking in the rain and it was true: the raindrops, heated by my anger, seemed no longer cold. As the evening progressed the rain turned to soft drizzle and towards the end of the twilight ceased altogether. I found a hedgerow thick enough to shelter me; wet and exhausted I fell asleep as only a child might in such an unforgiving clime.
I woke to a morning bathed in rare sunshine and my spirits rose, even though I could find no dry twigs to light a fire to break my fast and I had barely sufficient food to last two more days. This day, I knew, would be different. I had sometimes in the past experienced such days when I would remain clean and untouched. These were days when my voice would be purer in song and I was filled with a quiet merriment of the soul. It was on such days in particular when small children would follow or seek me out in the woods and beg for a story. They would laugh and clap and beg for more tales of ghosts, goblins, wights, elves, wicked witches, ogres, dwarfs and giants, as well as the well-known stories of Amazons who lacked breasts, snake-eating troglodytes, bearded women, Cyclops, pygmies, androgynous men, monstrous races and other netherworld creatures. Their eyes would grow large and frightened and they would clutch each other for reassurance when I told of the ‘wild hunt’ demons and spirits that invaded the air during the twelve days of Christmas. Often, to the delight of the children, with all the creatures and characters I created, I mimicked the voices and adopted the mannerisms of the more important and pompous people in the village. These were bewitching days when I had been blessed and this soft late-autumn morning, filled with sunshine and promise, on the road to somewhere else, I knew to be one of them.
I walked on until mid-morning when I came upon a stream running through a glade of oak and elm, the oak already almost bare of leaf and the elm ablaze with autumn colour. The banks of the stream were covered in moss and fern with bold, rounded rocks etched with lichen, the water running between them silver over bright black pebbles. I walked downstream until I was well away from the road and could not be observed, although I had seen no other traveller all morning. My garments had dried on my body in the sunshine, but the hem of my dress was stiff with mud and needed washing. If, perchance, I should arrive at Cologne, I told myself I would need to be clean and respectable-looking when I presented myself to the rich merchant’s wife my imagination had now turned into existence.
I undressed and bathed in the icy water and then, as I stepped from the stream, I knew at once that I must pay penance for cursing the peasant woman who had denied me shelter from the rain. I had acted in haste brought on by my tempestuous nature and yet God, in His infinite mercy, had not punished me for my uncharitable words, but had sent me the gift of mushrooms to stave off my hunger. I would, I decided, remain naked until I could bear the cold no longer. Then I would attempt, in the spirit of repentance, to remain naked and still for the passage of five chants, Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, singing both the parts for the choir and the cantrix solo parts.
Who knows how the mind works? There I was, unclean from my father’s wanton and vile attentions and guilty of his murder and also condemned by the Church as a blasphemer. Yet I was not about to do penance for these horrific sins of the flesh and the spirit, but only for a bitter and impetuous tongue, when it might all the while be justly claimed that I had every right to rebuke the mean and unpleasant peasant woman.
And so I sat upon a rock until the cold seeped into my bones and my lips grew numb and the skin felt as though it would peel from the roof of my mouth, until I knew I could bear it no longer. It was then that I attempted to sing, the words of the first hymn thin and only half pronounced from tremulous lips. But soon the Latin words began to flow easily from my tongue and I felt a warm glow within my bosom. It was when I had reached the Agnus Dei that I heard the notes of a flute, clear and clean as it accompanied my singing. My voice rose with the beauty of the music and I felt sure I had never sung as well to the glory of Christ Jesus. I came at last towards the end, singing the psalm verse as a solo, then on to the responsorial chants and the glorious solos to complete the melismatic chants, and all the while the flute played constant and most beautiful. Finally, aware for the first time that my fingers had grown stiff with the cold, I reached for my blanket and wrapped it about my body.
‘Good day, young maid,’ a male voice said behind me. Alarmed, I sprang to my feet clutching my blanket tightly as if it should protect me. I turned to face the intruder. A young man, perhaps twenty years old, stood with the sunlight behind him so that a halo seemed to appear behind his long dark hair. Tall and thin and most comely in appearance, he stood smiling at me, a flute held in his hand. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he urged, a mischievous smile upon his lips. ‘In my life I have yet to hear a voice as beautiful. Are you an angel descended from heaven?’
I did not possess the presence of mind to send him on his way, but stood open-mouthed staring at him. Then, gathering my wits somewhat I said as boldly as I could, ‘You have spied on me!’
‘What have you seen?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘I have seen the sunlight on your hair and a fish,’ he laughed.
‘A fish? In the stream?’
‘Nay, it sits most beauteous between your shoulderblades and is the sign of Jesus the Messiah.’
‘It is simply a birthmark,’ I snorted. Then growing bolder, ‘You came too close then!’ I accused.
He pointed to a small hawthorn bush that grew waist-high equidistant from where we each stood. ‘You were seated, I saw only your back, part thereof – the sacred fish between your shoulderblades and the golden halo of your head.’ He paused and grinned wickedly. ‘The bush concealed the nether part.’ Then looking at me, his head cocked slightly to the side, he asked my name.
‘I am Sylvia Honeyeater.’
‘A most comely name. Where do you journey, Sylvia Honeyeater?’
‘To Cologne,’ I told him. Not wishing him to think me some poor waif without a purpose, I added somewhat self-importantly, ‘I have a position as a kitchen maid in a rich merchant’s house.’ So accustomed had I become to this fantasy that I was barely conscious that I was telling a lie. ‘And pray tell, what is your name?’ I asked with what small dignity I could still possess clutching an old blanket about my person.
He bowed slightly. ‘I am Reinhardt of Hamelin. I think myself a musician.’ He shrugged and tossing his head he gave a deprecating laugh. ‘Alas, in truth, I am a ratcatcher.’ He grinned. ‘Though, if it will help you to think well of me, a most God-fearing ratcatcher who likes to play the flute!’
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