The Blessing Stone

by Barbara Wood

  As the sisters lifted their voices in the “Salve Regina,” Winifred glimpsed a shadow on the other side of the screen meant to separate civilians from the nuns. It was Andrew. “The abbot’s at the end of the path,” he said quietly, his eyes round with worry.

  “Thank you, Andrew,” she murmured. “Go and admit him through the gate.”

  Leaving the sisters at their song, Winifred hurried across the cloister to the kitchen where a gray-haired woman in a plain gown was stirring porridge over a fire. She was Dame Mildred, who had come to the convent twenty-five years earlier upon the death of her husband. As none of her children had survived to adulthood, and her own relations were dead and buried, she had adopted the community of nuns as her family. When her fortune ran out and she could no longer pay for her keep, she happily took up duties as cook, and had long since forgotten that she had once been a knight’s lady. “We shall need ale for the abbot,” Winifred said. “And something to eat.”

  “Dear me, why has he come? It is too soon!”

  Although Dame Mildred had been given an order to fetch ale, she left her station and followed Winifred to the visitor’s gate where they both anxiously watched the abbot’s approach.

  “Reverend Mother!” Mildred said in sudden joy. “Look! Father Abbot brings a brace of pheasants!” Her face fell. “No, ’tis but one pheasant. There are eleven of us, hardly enough to go around, and if the bishop should decide to sup with us…”

  “Do not worry. We shall manage.”

  Mother Winifred watched the abbot’s progress as he rode his fine horse down the garden path. She could tell by his posture that her fears had been justified. The abbot carried more than holy books in his rucksack. He also carried bad news.

  “God’s blessings upon you, Mother Prioress,” he called out as he dismounted his fine horse.

  “And upon you, Father Abbot.” Mother Winifred eyed the paltry pheasant, thinking that there would be no generous supper tonight, while at the same time the abbot discreetly sniffed the air but detected no enticing cooking aromas. He remembered a day when he could look forward to Winifred’s famous blankmanger, which she personally made from chicken paste blended with boiled rice, almond milk, sugar, and anise. She used to cook delicious fish dumplings and fritters that made one’s eyes water. And her plum tarts…He sighed at the memories. Sadly, those days were gone. Now, if he stayed to dine, he could expect stale bread, thin soup, wilted cabbage, and beans that would make him fart into next week.

  Together they entered the chapter house with stomachs growling.

  As they walked they spoke of the weather and other inconsequential things, “roundabout topics,” as the prioress thought of them, for she knew the abbot well enough to know when he was putting off distasteful news, and while they talked Winifred’s keen eye did not miss the fact that the abbot was wearing new robes. His cloak, though black, fairly dazzled in the sun, as did the shiny spot on his scalp where his hair had been shaved for a tonsure. She also noticed that his girth had expanded since she last saw him, a mere two weeks ago.

  But foremost on her mind was the purpose of this unexpected visit, the subject he was avoiding. He needn’t bother, she already knew what the bad news was: there would be no repairs to the roof again this year. She and her sisters were to suffer another winter of buckets and pans and soaked beds.

  Perhaps she could turn this dismal visit to her advantage. Delivering such disappointing news, the abbot could hardly follow it up with a refusal of her request to paint the altarpiece. She would appeal to whatever grain of charity dwelled in his heart.

  Winifred believed in the Bible to the letter, but with room for interpretation. While she believed that God had created men first, she didn’t believe he had created them smarter. Nonetheless, she had taken vows of obedience and so obey the abbot she would—within reason. If he could not give her a new roof, then he must acquiesce on the subject of the altarpiece. She deserved that much consideration. At nearly sixty Winifred was one of the oldest women she knew. She was in fact older than most men she knew—older certainly than Father Abbot—and she thought that this alone entitled her to special privilege.

  As they entered the chapter house, a drafty hall furnished with straight backed chairs and dominated by an enormous sooty fireplace, Winifred asked the abbot if he had brought willow bark tea. “It is not the first time I have made this request, Father Abbot.”

  As he lowered his bulk into the one comfortable chair, the abbot wondered if Winifred wore her wimple too tight or if her face was naturally pinched like that. Then he caught a glimpse of her hands and could tell by the blue-black stains that she had spent the morning gathering woad leaves. The shrubby broad-leafed herb, which contained the raw material of a blue dyestuff, was an excellent substitute for the imported Indian indigo that went into the nuns’ pigments but which was rare and expensive.

  “You must not think of your comfort, Mother Winifred,” he chastised gently.

  Her lips firmed into a hard line. “I was thinking of Sister Agatha’s arthritis. The pain is so bad she can hardly hold a paintbrush. If my sisters cannot paint…” she said, leaving the threat to hang in the air.

  “Very well. I shall send willow bark tea as soon as I return to the abbey.”

  “And meat. My sisters need to eat. They need their strength to work,” she said significantly.

  He scowled. He knew what she was up to. Winifred had a way of holding her illuminations hostage in exchange for creature comforts. But he was in no bargaining position. Demand for the illuminations was growing, although he took great care not to let Winifred know this.

  It would be incorrect to say that Abbot Edman hated women. He simply saw no purpose to them and wondered why God, in His infinite wisdom, had chosen to create such an adversarial means for reproducing His children. For Edman was convinced that men and women would never, into eternity, learn to get along. If it were not for women, Adam would have stayed in Eden and all men would be living in Paradise right now. Unfortunately, England was no paradise and this convent fell under his purview as abbot of Portminster and so it was his duty to pay regular visits. But he never lingered, getting the business over with and departing as quickly as politeness allowed.

  As he tried to relax in this thoroughly feminine atmosphere—why did women have such a frivolous passion for flowers?—he thought of the brothers in his order who had difficulty holding to their vow of celibacy. Edman was celibate, although as a priest it was not required of him. Most priests were married, which was beyond his comprehension, and more amazing was the incident back in 964 when Bishop Ethelwold gave the married priests at Winchester Cathedral the choice of keeping their wives or their jobs, and to a man they chose their wives. Celibacy had never been a problem for Edman because he had never had any desire to enter into a carnal state with a female, and it was completely beyond his comprehension why any man of reason would want to. Born into poverty with only the vaguest memories of his mother and orphaned early upon the death of his fisherman father, Edman had survived in the port town by wit and cunning, and allowing himself to be used as a work animal by farm women and fishwives. He had received more undeserved clouts to his head than he could count, which taught him that there was no compassion or tenderness in any woman alive. It was only the kindness of a local priest, who taught him to read and write, that had rescued Edman from a life of humiliation and grinding desperation. He entered the holy orders and with ambition, a quick mind, and the ability to make the right friends, had climbed the clerical ladder until he now headed an illustrious abbey and a prosperous order of Benedictine scribes.

  Thus he chafed at these obligatory visits to St. Amelia’s priory. Certainly it could be carried out by an underling, and he had in fact once sent one of his subordinates to the convent to pick up an illuminated manuscript. Mother Winifred had been so affronted that she had said the manuscript wasn’t finished and as much as insinuated that it would not be until the abbot himself came to collect it. The creat
ure had a strange way of being obedient and defiant at the same time. But on some issues Edman stood firm—her request to paint an altarpiece, for instance—and on this she acquiesced to his orders. Thank God, for the abbot could not spare the time she would spend on St. Amelia when her arts were needed to fill the growing demand for illuminations.

  Still, despite his distaste for visiting the convent, he had to concede that places like this served a useful purpose. Many an unwanted female was sent away to a convent to live out her life respectably, in safety and without being troublesome to their menfolk. And of course there were the creatures who preferred the company of their own kind, women who bridled at having to obey men, women who thought themselves the equal or superior to men, women who had the strange notion that they could think for themselves. Convents therefore served the purposes of both men and women alike. The abbot just wished the creatures weren’t so fanatical about cleanliness. The smell of honest sweat never hurt anyone, but Winifred and her coterie always reeked, like all highborn ladies, of sweet lavender and tansy, which they strew on their mattresses to keep fleas away.

  “How was your visit to Canterbury, Father Abbot?” Mother Winifred asked, not at all interested and hoping his response would not be too long winded. She could tell by his bulging rucksack that he had brought more work for her sisters, which meant she must get to the business of preparing fresh pigments.

  Edman thought so hard that he squinted. At Canterbury Cathedral he had witnessed a strange sight. Something called a play in which men dressed in costume and acted out a story. It had been held as part of the Easter services and was a new invention by the priests there. When a monk dressed as the Devil came onto the stage, the congregation had erupted in fear and fury and had nearly killed the poor man when they rushed at him. The argument went that such enactments would help people learn Bible stories more easily, but the abbot had reservations. If people could simply watch a story, then would they stop listening to sermons? Would educated men stop reading the Bible? Perhaps this “play” thing would not catch on. He certainly had no intention of putting on such enactments in his abbey.

  He wondered if the plays were a sign of the changing times. Although, there was a day, just twenty-two years ago, when the Church had thought times were going to change so drastically as to literally herald the end of the world.

  What a disappointment the millennium had turned out to be. All the buildup and hysteria, the feasts and orgies, people flocking to the abbot for confession, the suicides and doomsayers, everyone thinking Jesus was coming back and the world was about to end. And the endless debates! Do we count a thousand years from the birth of Christ, or from his death? Did the millennium mark the second coming of Christ, or the beginning of Satan’s reign? Was the Muslims’ destruction of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem a sign? But that event had occurred in 1009. Could nine years later still be the millennium? Abbot Edman, at the time a young clergyman, had joined the Peace of God movement in an effort to curb the rampaging of feudal lords. Of course, Judgment Day fever had had its benefits. A wealthy baron in the county had given all his lands and wealth to Portminster Abbey and headed off to spend millennium eve in the Vatican dressed in sackcloth and ashes. And then, the morning of January first of the year 1000—nothing. Just another cold morning with the usual aches and pains and flatulence.

  “My journey went well, God be thanked,” he finally said, hoping these inanities weren’t leading up to her request to paint the blasted altarpiece again—such a tiresome subject. No matter how many times he told her that it was out of the question. Didn’t she know that to go against an abbot’s will was to go against God’s?

  Of course she knew it, which was why she never disobeyed. The woman was a model of Christian compliance, although she did use the occasion of confession to sneak her little rebellions in. “I am guilty of the sin of hunger,” she would murmur through the screen in the confessional, “and wish Father Abbot would provide more food for my sisters and myself.” He would ignore the gibe and order three Our Fathers for the sin of gluttony.

  But the abbot’s annoyance was tempered with pity. Poor Winifred. As soon as word had spread about the new convent and its generous amenities, there had been an embarrassing exodus of nuns, lady guests, and pupils from St. Amelia’s. But how could it be otherwise? Winifred was hardly known for her bountiful table. She was parsimonious with wood and coal, and didn’t allow pets. The lady guests often complained to him of lacking conditions. And now they were comfortably housed in the new place where fires kept out the cold and the supper table groaned with meat and wine. Poor Winifred was left here in these drafty rooms with a meager, loyal following. Were it not for their continued production of fabulous illuminations, he would have closed down this old place long ago.

  Dame Mildred had baked honeyed oatcakes, a much needed healthful treat for the sisters. But because the pantry was low on both oats and honey, she had made precisely eleven walnut-size cakes, one for each of the sisters and one for Andrew, the caretaker. Since she could not allow Mother Prioress the embarrassment of not offering something to the abbot, she brought the plate out, thinking that she would sacrifice her own oat cake that the abbot might know their hospitality. To her shock, and to Mother Winifred’s, the Abbot scooped up three of the cakes at once and popped them into his mouth. They watched his jaw and cheeks work away at the precious oats and honey, and when he gave a great swallow, reached for three more. The cakes were gone in no time and Mother Winifred was filled with outrage.

  As Father Edman washed down the rather tasteless cakes with a cup of weak ale, he did not miss the glance exchanged between the two women. He ignored it. The abbot made no apologies for his appetite, for he believed that God wanted his servants to be well fed. How could he expect to make converts to Christianity if he were a scarecrow himself? Would not the pagan say, “How good can your Christ be if he lets his children starve?” And Abbot Edman was serious in his evangelizing, for although England had all the outward markings of Christendom, the Abbot was only too aware that many folk still worshipped trees and stone circles. Ancient superstitions and heathen ways lay beneath a very thin surface of pretended piety and so the fight for men’s souls was a never-ending battle. He saw himself as Christ’s warrior, and everyone knew that soldiers must eat.

  Wiping his fingers on his habit, he got down to the business at hand and reached into his carrying bag for the new pages that needed capital letters. He had also brought a book for Winifred to illuminate—it was yet another sign of the changing times that people other than the clergy were starting to show an interest in books. “The patron wishes to have his picture on the front page, dressed in armor and seated atop his horse with shield and jousting staff. He wishes his lady to be illustrated at the beginning of one of the psalms.”

  Winifred nodded. This was a common request. She usually chose Psalm 101 for a gentleman’s lady. In Latin it began with the letter “D,” which lent just the right shape and room for a human figure. Plus the opening phrase, translated into English, was, “I will sing of your love,” which the ladies always liked.

  Although a variety of books was currently being illuminated in England and Europe, from Gospels and liturgical books to works from the Old Testament and the collections of ancient authors copied from Carolingian copyists, Father Edman’s regional specialty was psalters—psalm books—decorated with biblical scenes and of a quality found nowhere else in England, thanks to Winifred. The decoration was executed in a lively style, with human figures in animated postures and wearing fluttering draperies. Since Winifred had been schooled as a girl by an artist trained in the Winchester style of illumination, her artwork was manifested in rich blue and green coloring, sumptuous borders of leaf ornamentation and animals, but she had also added her own trademark style in the spiral patterns, interlacing, knotwork, and intertwined animals reminiscent of Celtic metalwork.

  Competition among the book-producing centers was fierce, each rival abbey or cathedral wanting
its books to be the most popular among kings and nobles. But illumination manufacture was slow, with most cathedrals and monasteries producing only two books a year. It was one of Edman’s predecessors who had hit upon the idea of putting the nuns of St. Amelia’s to work, for with their smaller hands, keener eyesight, and gift for detail, they could labor over capital letters while the monks churned out the main text. Pride had kept that former abbot from revealing that the artwork was done by women and so everyone thought it was the monks of Portminster Abbey who produced such miraculous artwork and at such phenomenal speeds. “They work at the speed of God,” the abbot liked to say.

  But now there was a problem: no new novices were coming to St. Amelia’s and the original artist-nuns were dying off. It was the bishop who had come up with a solution. And a reasonable and brilliant solution it was, Edman thought, but he knew Winifred would not see it that way.

  He had to move carefully next, for he had no idea how she was going to react to what he had to say. There was that rebellious streak in her to be minded. If he did not handle her with care, all could be lost. And the abbot was an ambitious man. To govern an abbey was a measure of success, to be sure, but he felt destined for greater things. A new cathedral was being built at Portminster, which meant a bishop would be installed there. Father Edman intended to be that bishop. But much of his success depended upon Winifred’s continued production of illuminations.

  While the abbot had been devouring cakes meant to feed eleven, Winifred sent for the completed manuscripts to be brought to the Chapter House. Edman now examined them. As always, the colors were breathtaking and alive. He could swear that if you touched the red you would feel a pulse, that if you sniffed the yellow you would smell buttercups. The abbot found it a strange irony that Winifred herself should be so dour and colorless while her creations were breathtakingly vibrant.