Sylvia

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘I am an acolyte,’ he corrected, then added, ‘Only a week.’

  ‘A week! Do you like it?’ He did not reply but looked down at his feet. ‘Oh dear, you miss the monastery, is that it?’ I asked kindly.

  He looked up slowly, not answering my question, but then said, ‘You are Little Sister Sylvia and you brought the birds to the old monk’s grave.’

  ‘You knew Brother Dominic?’ I asked.

  ‘Nay, only that he died, but we know of thee – you are the Petticoat Angel and have a fish and a cross on your back,’ he said ingenuously, then added, his little face serious still, ‘And you brought medicine for the abbot’s piles.’

  I laughed. ‘I hope it brought him some comfort. Nay, I have no cross on my back – it has gone and the fish is a birthmark – nor am I Little Sister Sylvia any longer. My name is just Sylvia or, if you like, Sylvia Honeyeater. There, now you know everything, but you have not answered my question, Matthew.’

  ‘What question?’

  ‘Do you like it here?’ He lowered his head and remained silent. I had spent too much time with street children of his age not to know he was saddened and hiding something. ‘What is it?

  Tell me, Matthew.’

  ‘Nay, I may not.’

  ‘Yes, you may. I won’t tell.’ His lips started to tremble. ‘Is it the bishop? What does he do to you?’

  ‘He . . . he touches me.’

  ‘Where?’ He pointed to the bed. ‘There, in that bed.’

  ‘Nay, where does he touch you?’

  ‘In the bed,’ he repeated.

  ‘You are naked?’

  His bottom lip began to tremble.

  ‘What happens in the bed, Matthew? Tell me!’ I said, my voice raised to push him further.

  ‘He snores,’ he said tearfully.

  ‘Nay, answer properly, does he get hard?’

  ‘Aye, he just likes to stroke me.’

  ‘Stroke you? Does he kiss you?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘He doesn’t hurt you?’

  ‘Nay, I must hurt him,’ he said sniffing, then knuckling his eyes.

  ‘How?’

  ‘He lies on his stomach.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I must beat him with a switch to his arse.’

  ‘Then what happens? Does he cry out?’

  ‘He shouts “Suffer little children to come unto me”.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘He jerks and moans.’

  I reached forward and drew him to my bosom and kissed him. It was probably the first time in his life that he’d consciously felt a woman’s arms about him or knowingly received a kiss from one. With street children it was the single most powerful thing you could do to comfort them. ‘You’d better go, Matthew,’ I said softly. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  He pulled back. ‘Nay, I will be beaten,’ he said, alarmed. ‘It is only two months, then I return to the monastery and will be safe.’

  I smiled. ‘You’d better go now,’ I said, knowing there was very little, in fact nothing, I could do. He was a foundling and belonged to a monastery, a place where the abuse of children was well-known and whispered about but never documented. The vow of chastity, it seemed, did not always include little boys, although it seemed from what Matthew said, this did not happen at the present time at Disibodenberg. The foundling children from all the monasteries surrounding Cologne were under the bishop’s ultimate jurisdiction and if by his own promiscuity he covertly sanctioned this behaviour, the poor children had no further recourse to justice.

  Nor could Matthew hope to escape by running away. In a monastery he could justify the food he ate by working in one of the minor orders such as a porter, lector, exorcist or, as he did, as an acolyte, with the hope of some day becoming a priest or monk. But to run away never having known the city streets he wouldn’t last a week before the sodomites who preyed on street children discovered him. Unless he lived within a gang, such as the one Nicholas had formed when I first met him, he would soon enough be found sodomised then murdered.

  Matthew had not been gone ten minutes when two men entered the room. I drew back frightened, for it was at once obvious that they meant me harm. One of them carried a scourge while the other stood with his arms folded across his chest with a rope attached to his belt. ‘Take off thy garment,’ the one who carried the whip instructed.

  ‘Nay!’ I cried, moving backwards and away from them so that I felt the back of my thighs bump against the bed.

  The knave holding the whip smiled – he lacked teeth and the left side of his crooked mouth was shiny with fresh spittle. His nose had been broken frequently and a valley dipped between the top and tip so that it appeared as two separate lumps upon his fleshy and sanguineous face. A deep purple scar tracked from the edge of his half-closed left eye in a jagged curve to the corner of his mouth where his lip was slightly raised and the skin puckered upwards. It was from here that the wetness leaked. ‘You may choose, fräulein, to have the cloth torn from your body.’ He glanced at his partner. ‘We would greatly enjoy doing this, or you may undress for us. What say you now?’

  ‘She has nice tits,’ the second knave said, licking his lips. He was less ugly, but hard-faced and pockmarked, his eyes cruel and the way his tongue now stroked along his top lip I knew was intended to frighten me. He unfolded his arms and brought his left hand down to grasp his codpiece, which he commenced to slowly rub with the ball of his thumb, his obsidian eyes never leaving my face. The forefinger of the hand so employed with caressing his wakening erection was missing, as was the tip of the second finger, and a white scar ran diagonally across the back of his hand. It was a common scar among fighting men and came about when warding off a blow from a sword with the naked hand. Scarface had not been as quick as Pockface and he forever wore the keloidal disfigurement to his face.

  I raised my stave as if to hit out and both men laughed. ‘Drop it, fräulein, or it will be to thy cost if you attempt to use it,’ Scarface said. I dropped my stave and it clattered to the floor and rolled under the bed.

  I was breathing heavily, trying to contain my fear. ‘What are you going to do to me?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah, if you do as you are told then you shall only get a beating,’ Scarface replied. He tested the scourge in the air. ‘The bishop requires lots of little crosses placed upon thy back.’ He shrugged and giggled lewdly. ‘“Not strips, lots and lots of little crosses,” those were his very words. But if you resist us, then you will have the selfsame but we also have permission to rape you.’

  ‘She is a dainty dish,’ Pockface smirked and I now saw that he had gained an erection, his cock straining at the coarse weave of his stockings. There was no escape – they were both big men and stood with their backs to the door. Now that I knew my fate I remained very frightened but knew I could endure the beating but not the rape. In my mind’s eye I was back in the darkened pigsty with the two sows and the boar snuffling and grunting in the corner. I was bent over the broken wine barrel holding grimly to the cold metal hoop where two oak panels had broken away. My father stood behind me, his peg leg pushed out at an angle to gain a firmer purchase in the wet pig shit so that he could, with his own porcine grunts, penetrate me all the harder. I had sworn to myself that I would rather die than have my body so violated by a man again.

  I looked at both vile creatures and shouted to gain courage, ‘I shall take the bishop’s beating, though I wish he were man sufficient to do it himself. If I am to be punished let it be at the hand of God’s earthly servant!’ As I said this I saw both their eyes shift involuntarily above my head to the ceiling. Ah! I am being watched! My Lord Bishop is watching this and no doubt has his consecrated cock held in his bejewelled and priestly hand. I did not turn to look for the peephole in the roof that I knew must be there, but looked instead at the two brutes, no longer afraid of them. ‘In God’s name I promise, if I am raped by either of you then you will have to kill me or I will not rest until I have destroyed you both.�
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  Scarface looked at me and must have seen something in my eyes that bade him hold his tongue. But Pockface was too stupid and lacked the other’s imagination, thinking me only a silly young cow mooing empty threats to hide my own fear. ‘And how will you do this, pretty wench? Will you send me fleeing like you did the three old whores?’ He laughed. ‘I must warn you I am not so easily frightened by angels in petticoats.’ So, they knew who I was.

  ‘Aye, perhaps you have heard of what happened at the gallows yesterday?’

  ‘So?’ Pockface said, his smile evil. ‘Must I be afraid?’

  ‘Not if you have made your peace with God,’ I said slowly, surprised at the coldness in my voice. ‘With you the children will not cut you down and bury you in consecrated ground but leave you hanging for the crows to pick your eyes out, then feast upon your brains. That is, if they may find any within thy stupid skull!’ Then, as if suddenly possessed, I began to caw, calling as a crow might for his female mate. The unexpected presence of a crow is known by all to be an omen of bad luck; crows are carrion birds and always present at the gallows. I saw the sudden surprise in their eyes. My mournful and repeated caws were as if a crow was already present in the small bedchamber. I commenced to slowly remove my clothes, uttering a silent inward prayer that God would protect me from these two, continuing to call the birds of misfortune so that the two men might be distracted from my undressing.

  ‘Stop!’ Scarface cried. ‘Stop that calling out!’ He lashed at me with his whip and I felt its sharp sting across my thighs but forced myself not to react and looking directly at him called once more, the sound mournful and threatening, filling the shadowy space around us.

  Although I should with due modesty have turned my back to them, my every instinct told me to continue to look them in the eyes, to lock their eyes to mine so that they might see my defiance and think carefully of my threat. The news of the hanging of the alms thief I felt sure would have reached the servants’ quarters in the bishop’s palace or why else were we summoned? Pockface, I surmised, had spoken unthinkingly or from plain stupidity.

  I stood naked and defiant in front of the two brutish oafs and willed myself to keep my hands to my side, my feet slightly apart and not to turn my shoulder and cover my breasts and crotch as any maid might do. And then a sudden flutter and a crow landed upon the outside sill of the small window, and then a second. Their heads pulled to one wing then the other in the familiar way of carrion birds, then their sharp black beaks poked inquisitively through the window bars, their red eyes, often called Satan’s eyes, fixed on the two men.

  ‘If you touch me again I promise you will not tomorrow see the sun rise. If you are not already dead, then you will have two blood-spilled holes for eyes!’ Another crow arrived, pushing the first two into the room where they beat the air with their wings looking for a place to land. Then more, each arrival pushing the others inwards until twenty or more were contained within the bedchamber, with Scarface beating at the air in panic with his scourge. ‘See! They come for thee!’ I cried out, as more and more crows entered the room, their wings battering against the walls, and attempted to land upon the shoulders and heads of the two terrified men. I dressed hastily, pulling my peasant’s shift over my head and slipping on my boots, still calling all the while to the invading birds.

  The two brutes could contain their fear no longer. Scarface was the first to turn and flee, closely followed by the pockfaced braggart. Changing my call slightly I sent the crows after them as they fled down the corridor, their arms flailing the air about their heads. I ran out to watch as the big black birds fluttered above them, darting in to attack them, landing momentarily upon their shoulders and pecking at their cheeks and necks, and all the while a terrible cacophony of cawing filled the palace.

  ‘Run! Run for your life, it is the devil coming to get you!’ I shouted, as they reached the stairs and leapt down two steps at a time into the hall. I now stood at the top of the stairs. ‘Bastards! Pig shit!’ I screamed down at them, then turned and quickly ran back to the bedchamber and knelt beside the bed to retrieve my stave. Crows were still coming through the tiny window and so I placed the stave across my back to rest behind my neck and on both shoulders. The birds quickly came to sit upon its length. Unbeknownst to me at the time, to an observer it appeared as if my body was the mainstay and the stave with the large black birds perched along it the cross-stay, so that together we formed an avian cross. This would later become known as ‘The Cross of Crows’, and would be another item added to the gossip of old women in the church and among the peasants at the markets in Cologne.

  ‘Thank you, Lord Jesus,’ I prayed aloud and then walked, turning sideways to go through the narrow door, along the small corridor, then turned frontwards when into the bigger passage and then down the broad stairs.

  I began to sing a Gregorian chant, my voice echoing into the great beams of the entrance hall, punctuated by the lugubrious cawing of the crows seated on the cross and others whirling around the ceiling. Servants came running and stopped in their tracks when they saw the cross of crows. Some fell to their knees and made the sign as I walked unhindered out of the bishop’s palace. I could feel the eyes of the awed and frightened servants upon my departing back as I walked, my footsteps making a crunching sound on the gravel path leading to the gate. Still singing I passed the sheltering elm tree. When I was well clear and some distance down the road, I stopped and sent the crows up into the sky and fell to my knees and thanked my precious Saviour for my rescue.

  Two hours later as the sun was setting, turning the Rhine into a sheet of burnished copper and the fetid Blaubach, struck at a different angle, into a river of gold, I arrived back in Cologne, weary and hungry. After eating bread and smoked fish and drinking a little summer wine, I went to St Mary’s on the Kapitol to see if I might find Father Hermann and to visit Nicholas. I had cried most of the way back to the city and wished only to return to my quarters with the wrestler’s widow to hide my head and to sleep. I knew myself emotionally exhausted but was aware that I must first seek out the two priests and hear how they had fared with the bishop and, as well, look in to see Nicholas.

  Arriving at the church I peeped in the door and saw Father Hermann in the sacristy praying to the figurine of the Virgin, so I went first to visit Nicholas in the crypt, to try to persuade him to come up and breathe the evening air. I found him listless and moribund and not to be encouraged. To every positive suggestion I made came a negative and despondent reply. I lacked the strength to persist. It was then that he told me the news of both priests and how they had fared with the bishop. Father Hermann had been to see him to ask him to pray for my safety and told him what had occurred at their interview.

  ‘Father Hermann can’t come,’ Nicholas began in a toneless voice.

  ‘Can’t come where?’ I asked.

  ‘The crusade. The bishop has forbidden him.’

  ‘But we must have a priest,’ I exclaimed, alarmed. ‘A priest carries the authority and respect we need!’ I was depending on Father Hermann, an imposing figure of a man, just the sort to approach town dignitaries and their like when beseeching alms or help along the way. His bombast and forthcoming nature would impress any town or village priest we met and press him into service on our behalf. ‘What of Father Paulus?’ I asked.

  ‘I cannot say, I haven’t seen him, he must have gone directly back to St Martin’s.’

  I had never thought that Father Paulus would accompany us and he had never indicated that he wished to do so. He would be a poor substitute for Father Hermann, being small, mousy and much too timid of life. He didn’t preach, was half deaf and not the sort who could cajole or intimidate a local priest. I had seen him after they’d been with the bishop and it was plain that he’d been reduced to tears. He was not the type we’d need for our spiritual authority or guidance.

  ‘We go without the blessing of the Church,’ Nicholas said with a hopeless shrug.

  There was no point in eve
n talking to him when he was down like this. While his moods varied when he was in his despondency, some, as was now the case, were worse than others. One of the grandmothers who helped with the feeding in the square brought him his evening meal and I left soon afterwards. I would usually stay with him and encourage him to eat and try to restore him to a lighter mood, but now knew myself too weary and anxious and also discouraged by the latest news.

  My stomach began to knot and I felt quite ill as I thought about the task that lay ahead. Two thousand children waited for our departure, with more arriving every day. We had no priest as our spiritual guide, a leader who sat all day in a monk’s cell staring at the wall, no carts to transport the few bags of flour and smoked fish we had stored, and a vengeful bishop who would, if he could, destroy our every endeavour.

  I began to doubt that this crusade was the result of a miracle I had myself witnessed and been a part of, or that God had so clearly spoken to me and told me that I must be beside Nicholas as he led us to Jerusalem. Perhaps others, such as the abbot who had begged me to have no part in this ‘absurdity’ of a children’s pilgrimage, were correct in their advice that we should abandon this crazy idea of a Children’s Crusade. Who then would send these children home? How would they respond to the news, their faith in Christ’s word forever after questioned as they returned disillusioned to their homes or hovels or the dark alleys of the city?

  I looked in at the sacristy to see that Father Hermann was still at it, moaning and mumbling, sighing, crying and praising. When he went into one of his ecstatic sessions with his beloved Virgin Mary he would only rise at Matins. There would often be two red patches where his white habit was bloodstained at the knees, caused by the all-night vigils spent with the Mother of God in prayer.

  I knew that I myself should pray for guidance. It was not in my nature to despair, but the day had been an anxious and traumatic one and Nicholas and his news had added to my depression. I could not clear my head of the sudden and terrible fear I had felt at the threat the two brutes had made to rape me. The image of my snorting, pumping father persisted in my head. This interchanged with the perfidy of a bishop of the Church who would allow these oafs to violate a young maid’s virtue for his own carnal satisfaction or revenge and to corrupt a small child whose only earthly desire was to work in praise of God.