by Barbara Wood
But they had no saffron, and the abbot had a beautiful ruby ring!
She nearly cried out with frustration and despair. The abbot expected her to make silk from sows’ ears, and now she was to teach all that she knew to young nuns! Not just how to draw or paint or make pigments, but how to purchase the ingredients and keep from being swindled. Did the abbot not see that during this learning process the students were going to turn out very poor illuminations? Could he not anticipate that the reputation of his books was going to suffer until the skill of the novices had reached the level of excellence of the very sisters he was determined to put out to pasture? His lack of foresight infuriated her. Typical of most men, she thought sourly, the abbot thought only of today. Leave tomorrow for the women to worry about.
“Mother Winifred!” Dame Mildred’s voice rang out. She came hurrying into the scriptorium, her sandals making slapping sounds on the paving stones. “The gypsy peddler is here! Mr. Ibn-Abu-Aziz-Jaffar!”
Winifred’s joy was instantaneous. “Praise God!” she cried. Surely this was another sign from God: just when they are at their lowest in supplies, the Almighty brings the pigment-seller to their door!
“God’s blessings, Mr. Jaffar!” she called out as she hurried down the path with her black veils billowing around her.
“And to you, dear lady!” he called back, sweeping his hat from his head and bending with an elegant bow.
A man of foreign origin with an olive complexion and close-cropped silver beard, the peddler always greeted the prioress in a way that made her think of courts and kings. He wore a long robe embroidered with stars and moons; his cap was padded and edged in fringe. He was tall and stately, and though she guessed he must be near sixty, he held his back straight and shoulders square. His old horse drew a most curious wagon, painted with celestial symbols, zodiacal signs, comets, rainbows, unicorns, and large, all-seeing eyes. The peddler was known far and wide as a purveyor of dreams and magic, stardust and hope. People liked the way his name, Ibn-Abu-Aziz-Jaffar, rolled from their lips; children followed his wagon, chanting his name, bringing wives out of their cottages. In reality he was Simon the Levite, and he was a Jew. He told everyone he was from “far off Araby” but had in fact been born in Seville, Spain. To his customers he was a gypsy Christian, but beneath his long robe he wore a tasseled shawl and at night when he was alone he solemnly recited “Hear O Israel.” Simon did not hide his identity because of local prejudice (persecution of the Jews would not blossom fully in Europe for another three hundred years, when the Black Death had to be blamed on someone), but because he had found he enjoyed playing the exotic persona and the notoriety that went with it. He liked selling mystery and illusion; he delighted in seeing children’s faces light up over his prestidigitation and magic, for Simon was himself youthful at heart. He had come to the isle of Britain by accident on a ship bound for Bruges that had been blown off course. When he discovered that he was different—at home he was simply one of many like himself, but here he was unique—he decided to stay, for there was profit in uniqueness. He lived a solitary life, making an annual circuit from London to Hadrian’s Wall and back, and looked forward to the day when he could retire in his own small cottage and put old Seska, his faithful companion of fifteen years, out to pasture.
Mr. Ibn-Abu-Aziz-Jaffar had but one weakness that on more than one occasion had nearly been his undoing: he loved women. Be they young or old, fat or thin, slow or quick, he found joy and wondrous mystery in every female he met. He sometimes wondered if this was because he had been one of eight brothers. Females were God’s gift to men, he avowed, despite what the Torah said about Lilith and Adam’s unfortunate dalliance with her. He loved the softness and smell of them, their mercurial moods, how they could sometimes be weaker than a man, sometimes stronger. Their ferocious instinct of motherhood. Their flirtatious smiles. Their long hair—oh, their long hair. Although Simon was getting on in years, he was not so old that he did not still appreciate a firm thigh, a full bosom, and a warm heart. He never forced or compromised a woman; she came willingly or he would have none of it. But women everywhere were intrigued by foreignness and reasoned in their blessed hearts that a man who had come from so far must know more about the art of love than the local pickings. And the thing was: he did.
He traveled alone and was rarely accosted, for even brigands respected the healer and themselves sometimes needed the fool, or the fortune-teller. Although people could not read, symbols painted on the sides of his wagon advertised his skills as an alchemist, fortune-teller, dentist, magician. He sold and traded everything—buttons, pins, thimbles, and thread, potions and ointments, bottles and spoons—with one exception: he did not deal in relics and religious goods. For Simon the Levite belonged to that rarest of breeds: he was an honest peddler. Therefore he left the selling of saints’ hair and teeth and bone to charlatans and priests and sometimes thought there was no difference between the two. He also harbored his own private opinion of the splinter of the True Cross that was housed in the new convent up the road, for he had encountered other such splinters in his travels across Spain and France, and had heard tell of others throughout Europe and in the Holy Land, and decided that the mental calculations of any idiot would reveal that all so-called splinters of the True Cross laid end to end would reach the moon.
He recalled the madness that had gripped England twenty-two years ago when something called the millennium was supposed to have occurred. It puzzled Simon for there was no thousand-year mark according to the calendar of the Jews, nor to the calendar of their racial brethren the Muslims, who reckoned their years from the time of Muhammad. Had that meant only a third of the world was to come to an end while the rest went on as before? It turned out to be a moot question for the significant midnight came and went without incident, and now priests were declaring it was the next millennium, a thousand years hence in the impossible-to-imagine year 2000, that Jesus and his angels were to descend.
As Simon traveled the English countryside, he was many things to many people, but whenever he stopped by the priory of St. Amelia near the river Fenn he was himself. He admired the prioress and knew that she saw through his sham and recognized and respected his wisdom and learning. And so off came the fringed hat, away went his wand and mystical gestures. But he kept the wizard’s robe on because he thought it lent him dignity.
It had been a year since he last came this way and the reduction in the nuns’ circumstances alarmed him: the tumbledown walls, the fields gone to seed, the absence of geese or hens, weeds growing over a path that had once been trampled smooth by the feet of pilgrims. He had known the new convent was growing in popularity, but he had not thought the nearby abbey would abandon these women so. Surely the fat abbot could see that these devout sisters needed food on their table and ale in their cups.
When Winifred saw the white-toothed smile in the olive face, she realized she was very happy to see Mr. Jaffar. Winifred was very unworldly, having been born twenty miles from the priory and never in her life having traveled farther than that. She knew a rudimentary Latin and had read the Bible, but that was the extent of her reading. Winifred and her sisters knew nothing of the rest of the world, only what they heard from pilgrims and travelers. And since both had stopped coming to St. Amelia’s, the visits of Mr. Ibn-Abu-Aziz-Jaffar were so much more precious, for the itinerant tinker brought news and gossip.
He was a strange man, almost repellent in his foreignness, yet possessing a curiously compelling personality. Had she allowed herself such worldly thoughts, she would have noted that he was very handsome. While Winifred suspected he was not a Christian, she knew he had the highest respect for God. And he had a way sometimes of saying things that lit small candles in her mind. Mr. Jaffar was unlike the other peddlers who came this way. Those men were filthy and thieving and unrefined, whereas Mr. Jaffar was clean and graceful, with a foreign charm. More than anything, he was trustworthy.
In the past, other merchants of pigment materials had
swindled her. Inexpensive azurite was easy to pass off as costly lapis lazuli. To tell them apart with certainty the stones had to be heated red hot: azurite turned black, lapis remained unchanged. Azurite was purchased as a powder, and there were swindlers who put sand into the ground pigment to increase the weight for sale and it was the ruin of the color. Likewise, dishonest dealers would put all the best blue at the top of the bag and the poorer quality at the bottom. Not so Mr. Jaffar who now opened a box on the side of his wagon and displayed such richness of paint materials that she eyed them as if they were platters at a feast.
“The good Lord has brought you at a most propitious time, Mr. Jaffar, for my sisters and I are in need of fresh supplies. We are desperate for yellows.”
To her delight he produced gallstones.
Winifred reached into a deep pocket and brought out the water-filled glass globe she used to magnify her work. Mr. Jaffar had once tried to sell her a new invention from Amsterdam—polished glass called a lens—but she had turned it down as being much too expensive. As Winifred examined the gallstones through the globe, Simon thought: herein lay the woman’s true gift, for Winifred was more than just talented at drawing and painting, she possessed the most uncanny sense of color. Beneath her nimble fingers and keen eyes the most prosaic of elements became the most glorious hues in all of God’s creation. Take the pigment known as sap green, a substitute for verdigris, which was rare and expensive. Sap green was made from the juice of the ripened buckthorn berries mixed with alum and allowed to thicken by evaporation. The result was an olive color, transparent and rich. Although other monasteries had mastered the color, Winifred’s skill lay in creating durability. Normally, sap green did not last long, which was evident in poor quality manuscripts made only decades ago. Mother Winifred, however, knew the secret of thickening the juice just right, and then keeping it in bladders as a dense syrup rather than allowing it to dry. When used thus on a manuscript, the color was not only beautiful to the eye, but durable.
While she took her time looking over the powders and minerals, the raw materials that would create living animals on a page, Simon watched her closely and thought she looked different today. There were shadows on her face, disturbing currents in her eyes. He had always thought the prioress a placid creature, if a bit dour and humorless. He had never thought her capable of being disquieted.
She carefully chose her purchases, then she said, “I have not the money at the moment. I trust you will be in the neighborhood for a few days as is your custom?”
He stroked his impeccably clipped mustache and thought somberly. It was apparent to Simon that the Prioress could not possibly afford the items she had chosen. How was she to pay? Nonetheless, he would not embarrass her by raising the question—Simon knew only too well the importance of keeping one’s pride. If only she would see her way to parting with one or two of her illuminated books. Men in London had inquired of him if he could lay hand to Portminster manuscripts. One illuminated book from Winifred and she could have all the pigments she needed. But he knew she would not part with one, for she believed the books belonged to the abbot. “Very well, dear lady, we shall conclude our transaction three days hence.” He wondered now if he would be invited in for ale and possibly a cake, and mistakenly took her hesitation to mean she was thinking the same thing. Instead, to his surprise, she asked him if he, being an alchemist, could comment on a rather strange object that had come into her possession.
Expecting a tooth from a saint or a clover with four leaves, Simon was stunned when she handed him a blue crystal that was as deep and blue as the Mediterranean Sea. He sucked in his breath and whispered an oath in his native tongue, then he brought the crystal up to his keen eye and examined it closely.
Simon could barely speak, the stone was so beautiful. In an age when it was considered ruinous to cut a gemstone, for it was said to destroy the stone’s magic, gems of such clear transparency rarely existed. Simon had seen only a few—he had once even seen a cut diamond and could scarcely believe that such a cloudy piece of crystal could harbor such brilliance within. Yet this stone appeared to be uncut, for it was smooth and vaguely egg-shaped, just slightly larger than a robin’s egg, but of a more spectacular blue. Could it be aquamarine? He had once seen an emerald from Cleopatra’s mines. That, too, had been cut and dazzled the eye with brilliance. But no, this was not as green nor as pure at heart as that emerald had been.
Though he could not identify the stone, he sensed that it possessed great value. “I know a man in London,” he said, “a dealer in gems.”
Winifred had heard of London. Most people possessed scant knowledge of the world beyond five miles in either direction from where they lived; few were even aware of other countries, and their only familiarity with foreigners was to know that the Vikings who had once been the scourge of England were devils from beyond the sea. But Winifred knew that London was a town to the south, a prosperous trade center where the king lived.
Mr. Jaffar added, “London is the perfect place to sell such a gem.”
“Sell!”
“Why yes,” he said, handing it back to her. “Is that not what you were asking of me?”
“To sell Amelia’s stone?” she said, as if he had just asked her to hack off her arm. And then common sense took over. “Is it so valuable then?”
“My dear Mother Prioress, I could fetch you a fortune for this stone. Its uniqueness alone would bring a ransom in gold.”
Her eyes widened and her practical brain suddenly buzzed with new thoughts and plans. With a ransom in gold she could repair the roof, reinforce walls, provide new beds, and then perhaps plant some crops and purchase a few goats, hire some local lads to help out, make St. Amelia’s self-sufficient again, attract new novices and lady guests with their donations and patronage of their families. All in an instant, in the dazzling blue flash of a crystal, Winifred saw a bright new future for St. Amelia’s.
And then she frowned. “I must confer with the abbot.”
“What does he say to do with the stone?”
“He does not know of it yet.”
Mr. Ibn-Abu-Aziz-Jaffar stroked his beard. “Hmm,” he said, and Winifred read his meaning.
“I should tell the abbot,” she said in an unconvincing tone. “Shouldn’t I?”
He asked how she had come by this gem and when she told him, Simon the Levite said, “It would seem to me, my dear Mother Prioress, that it was to you alone this stone was given. A gift from your saint.”
When she bit her lip in uncertainty, Simon said gravely, “You are caught in a struggle.”
She bowed her veiled head. “Yes, I am.”
“It is a struggle between faith and obedience.”
“I feel that God is trying to tell me something. But He has told the abbot the exact opposite. How am I to choose?”
“That, dear lady, is up to you. You must look inside your heart and listen to what it is saying.”
“I refer to God, not my heart.”
“Are they not the same thing?” He asked further about the crystal, specifically how she thought it came to be lodged in the saint’s neckbones. Winifred then told him how Amelia had commanded her own heart to stop before the authorities could torture her into revealing the names of other Christians.
“Then,” he said, “it would seem, if this stone is delivering a message as you believe, that the message is one of following your own counsel.”
Her face brightened. “This was my thought!” And suddenly she was confessing to him about her dream to paint an altarpiece for St. Amelia.
“And what troubles you most,” the wise foreigner said, “is that if you go to live in the new convent, you will lose this vision.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes…”
“Then you must listen to your heart.”
“But God speaks through the abbot.”
When he said nothing, and she saw the skeptical look on his face, she said, “Mr. Jaffar, I suspect you are not Christian.”
He smiled. “You suspect rightly.”
“In your faith, do you not have priests?”
“Not as you do. We have rabbis, but they are more spiritual advisors than intermediaries to God. We believe that God hears us and speaks to us directly.” He wanted to add that Winifred’s crucified lord had been a rabbi, but decided this was neither the time nor the place for such a topic.
He said, “I will be camping by the stream for a few days while I visit the farms hereabouts, after which I shall continue on to Portminster. Before I leave, you can tell me your decision. I pray, my dear Mother Prioress, that it is the right one.”
Mother Winifred decided to go to the abbey alone. Although it was customary for the members of her order to travel in pairs or groups, this was one journey she knew she must take by herself. She still had not broken the bad news to the others, despite the abbot’s orders that they must vacate St. Amelia’s as soon as possible. Perhaps she would have complied without hesitation if it had not been for the incident with the reliquary and her discovery of the blue crystal. But the incident had occurred, and she was in possession of St. Amelia’s remarkable talisman, and now she was under a compulsion to confer with the abbot over what to do next.
She had prayed all night, and though she had not slept, she felt strangely refreshed. Her foot was firm as it took to the path leading from the convent, her resolve and spirit strong, for with her she carried the blue crystal of St. Amelia.
When she arrived at the main lane, Winifred saw that she was not going to have to travel alone after all. She joined a group of pilgrims headed for the Convent of the True Cross—they had walked right past St. Amelia’s. “Got to get to the convent by noon,” their leader explained. “That’s when the sisters put out their table. I’m told we’ll have our fill of mutton and bread today.” Then he saw Winifred’s habit and, slow-witted soul that he was, her identity finally dawned on him. Turning bright red, he said lamely, “We didn’t want to impose on you good ladies of St. Amelia’s, being the ragamuffins that we are.” And he moved to the head of the group where he could let his embarrassment subside.