A Place of Light

by Kim Silveira Wolterbeek

  “We are saved, Master Robert! God has sent us provisions, bread and food and wine…” His joyful smile, full of nubbed teeth and inflamed gums, was exactly what they lacked. After the initial heady excitement, Robert and his pilgrims had grown grim in their work and their hunger. “Come,” Moriuht said. “I have a surprise!”

  Robert followed him to the spring where half a dozen peasants clustered beside a handful of congregants. The peasants carried straw baskets, wooden crates, and linen-wrapped bundles in their arms.

  “A gift from Lady Philippa,” a stout woman said, peeling back several layers of cheesecloth to reveal dark loaves of bread.

  “Please thank the Duchess for her charity,” Robert said. Dropping to his aching knees, he instructed his followers to do the same. “Let us also praise the Lord who has blessed us through this woman.”

  During the next fortnight, with full bellies and renewed hope, the congregants set about building wooden huts with thatched roofs and packed dirt floors. Only slightly larger than the cramped box of a confessional, the dwellings offered privacy and warmth at night when the winds blew through the valley. Separating the virgins from the reformed prostitutes, Robert placed two or three women in each hut. He and the other men slept outdoors.

  In the middle of the encampment he helped construct a makeshift oratory where all could meet for worship at the canonical hours. Lady Philippa, who continued to donate food and clothing during these difficult times, persuaded other aristocratic women, Hersend of Montsoreau and Petronilla of Chemillé, to do the same.

  Amidst all this activity, Madeleine never left the hut where she lived with Marie. Worried, Robert approached their dwelling. “I’ve come to offer counsel and comfort,” he told Marie, who stood in the doorway, arms folded against her chest.

  “Not yet.” she declared with firm resolve.

  “When?” he asked.

  “When she’s ready,” Marie said. She had the scent of baking about her, a buttery yeasty smell that reminded Robert that he had not eaten all day.

  “Has she spoken yet?”

  Lips pursed, Marie responded with an abrupt shake of her head.

  “And her health?”

  “She looks better than you,” Marie said. As Robert turned to leave, she called after him. “Master,” she said, “you won’t be helping any of us if you starve yourself sick. We need a leader strong of body as well as faith.”

  Master? He wondered if perhaps a full belly and a place to sleep had softened her attitude towards him, and the idea filled him with joy. “Tomorrow,” he said, “I’ll eat tomorrow.”

  The night air, thick with humidity and the peppery scent of vegetation, carried the high-pitch bark of a lone pup and the harsh clang of a leper’s bell. Standing by the charred remains of that night’s fire, Robert imagined the monastery he would build. The church unfolded in his mind’s eye with the clarity of a holy vision.

  Built of white stone, the exterior was simple, but within, the soul leaped: the central nave, massive and white, the flagstone floor, flecked with glittering mica, heavy columns and arches, established solid order, the only decorations small carvings in the capitals. At the end of the nave, bright light illuminates the chancel, its narrow pillars thrusting heavenward.

  Flanking the church, he saw the huge quadrangle of the monastery. At its center, square lawns of the cloister were divided into smaller squares by hedges. Along one side of the cloister a large refectory terminated in an eight-sided kitchen. On another side stood the chapter house and common room.

  Visualizing the buildings gave him a sense of purpose and direction. He realized that women need protecting, that caring for them was to be his life’s true mission. He determined he would dedicate the oratory to John the Evangelist, and that the men—clerics, monks and laymen alike—would serve the women just as John served Mary. In this way he might partially amend for his sin with women.

  Two winters after William left on crusade, the whinny of a horse startled Philippa awake. She assumed it was the early post to Toulouse and almost drifted back to sleep when she sensed a presence in the room. Heart pounding, she pushed up on one elbow. Her eyes had not adjusted to the muffled light of dawn before William swept aside the damask curtains on their bed and dropped an armful of bright-colored fruit onto the rumpled bed linen.

  “They are called oranges,” he said. “And I carried them all the way from Syria to surprise my wife. You remember that you are my wife, don’t you, Philippa?” he teased. Sitting beside her on the bed, he lifted his eyebrows in a boyish way that reminded her of young Will playing hide-and-go-seek behind the wall hangings. Gathering the blankets around her shoulders, she looked at her husband and thought of their mischievous child, his pudgy baby feet peeking from beneath fringed tapestry, and her heart opened wide enough to hold them both. Perhaps they could begin their lives anew.

  “I remember that I am your wife and the mother of your son.” She picked up an orange and took a big bite, her mouth puckering at the taste of the acrid rind.

  William laughed. “You eat the pulp inside.”

  Beneath his playfulness, William appeared preoccupied and sad. The limbs of the elm tree outside the window snagged the sanguine sun. William turned his head for a glimpse of the new day, and Philippa saw for the first time the keloid scar slashing the length of his left cheek. Kissing her fingertips, she placed them against the raised flesh.

  “How?” she whispered, dropping the orange onto the bed.

  “At Eregli,” he said, his jaw tightening imperceptibly. “It’s nothing.” He dismissed her concern with a defensive shrug. “How is the young pup?” he said, changing the subject.

  “Will is strong and brave like his father,” she said, and understood that now was the time she should reveal the role she had played conducting his affairs. She hesitated, for she understood that while William might be grateful to her for having safeguarded his estate, he might also resent her ability to do so. Better he should hear from someone else.

  Philippa watched as William began peeling the orange, separating the fruit from the peel with his thumb. “Taste,” he said, placing a wedge into Philippa’s mouth just as the elm branches released the morning sun. She bit into a new sweetness, aromatic with a trace of tart, a moan of pleasure rising up in her throat.

  William was filthy, unshaven, and the weave of his clothing held the musky scent of sweat and smoky campfires, but his slow luxurious kiss was flavored with the sweetness of oranges. Philippa’s breathing grew shallow and she lifted her hands to cup his scarred face.

  “I have missed you, wife,” he whispered, dropping the orange on the night table and kissing Philippa’s neck, his breath a humid whisper against her shoulder. His sudden proximity, the way his body filled the bed with animal heat, unnerved her.

  He moved his hands along her arms and hips. By the time he reached her thighs, Philippa felt split open and taken apart. Segment by segment she disappeared out the casement window. Even as her body gave in to an impulse that seemed beyond conscious control, a distant part of her wondered how her husband would react after he discovered that the woman in his arms was not the girl he had left behind.

  Madeleine lay on a pallet in the hastily built hut she shared with Marie. The hut was dark and small, barely big enough to hold two pallets. Air blew under the door and squeezed through gaps between the rough-hewn planks. But she liked the clean scent of the new wood and the silver flash of starlight through scattered knotholes.

  Marie’s unicorn tapestry hung on the wall facing their pallets, and every day Madeleine tried to focus her attention on the beauty of the animal’s milky-white horn. But random impressions of that day in the grove leapt up at her with the persistence of a needy dog. Depleted by the long journey, weak from lack of food, she finally gave in and allowed the yapping mongrel to rest its wet muzzle in the palm of her hand.

  She c
losed her eyes and the grove came to her in all its horror. Not with the graceful clarity of Robert’s promises or the forward momentum of Marie’s stories. But haltingly and in fragments, as though her heart could hold only one piece of misery at a time.

  Red leggings and the call of a hawk.

  A coil of unwashed hair wild with the scent of nervy exhilaration and lust.

  The scrape and gouge of bark against her back.

  Rough hands kneading her breasts, rolling her nipples between calloused fingers.

  The sulfuric burn of spent lightning.

  The creature’s fixed, hazel-eyed stare.

  A swirl of bark had distracted her from the scent of danger. Like a full moon or the silver overlay of fish scales, the bark contained a rippled symmetry her fingers itched to duplicate. She envisioned a garden of deep ambers and sunny yellows, and imagined planting asters and marigolds in tight concentric circles. Viewed from a hilltop, each bush would appear as a petal on a single gigantic flower. Convinced that beauty was hers to appreciate, lost in a world of her own design, she had let down her guard and missed the rustle of leaves and snap of twigs that announced the approach of robbers.

  Over and over she relived the horrors of that afternoon. Near dusk, the beast backed off, curled at the foot of her pallet and drifted off, or pretended to. Madeleine felt its malevolent weight pulling the blanket taut against her legs. Then, she too must have slept. When she opened her eyes, Bodkins had replaced the beast and Marie had returned from her day of work. Cupping Madeleine’s cheek in her palm, she kissed her forehead in greeting.

  “Sometimes you have to settle into misery and let it have its way with you,” Marie said, groaning and collapsing into the cot beside Madeleine. “My poor joints are stiff from kneading dough,” she said, slowly flexing her fingers in front of her face, “and my back aches beyond words.” She lay down on the straw-filled mattress and sighed. Bodkins, who had awakened at the sound of Marie’s voice, leapt from his place at Madeleine’s feet and settled on Marie’s chest. “Oh well,” Marie sighed, absent-mindedly scratching the cat’s neck, “working the scullery sure beats hauling brush and boulders.” Marie kissed the old tom’s head before gently placing him onto the sage-sprinkled floor. “Robert’s even got Agnes and Arsen clearing land.”

  “I hate them both,” Madeleine said. She had not spoken to anyone in three months, not uttered a word since that day in the grove, an oddity of behavior that Marie neither condemned nor condoned. If Marie was shocked by Madeleine’s sudden decision to speak or by the raspy grate of her words, she did not show it.

  Marie settled on the edge of Madeleine’s pallet and smoothed her flour-dusted skirt. The skin around her eyes pouched darkly. “The twins?” she asked. “You hate those two stupid girls?”

  “Not them,” Madeleine said, her breath coming fast and ragged. “I hate Robert for making me believe a better life was possible.” For one whole year Madeleine’s heart had beat with Robert’s promise, fluttering against her chest like some crazy thing that had not known sorrow and disappointment in equal measure. For one whole year she had been stupid enough to believe her life would be different just because a wandering preacher with a kind voice and a rainbow arc of colors told her so. “And I hate…” she stopped, convinced that even to say his name would give him a new and frightening hold over her. “And to think this valley is named for the robber who defiled me!”

  Marie pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and said simply, “Hate requires enormous energy. Better to do something more productive with your life.”

  Madeleine turned to look at Marie’s tapestry, the one item of value Marie brought with her from Rouen. Safely transported throughout the journey, now it hung on the wall in the rustic hut. In the brothel Madeleine had learned to disappear into the strange beauty of the tapestry. But now everything about the beast appeared altered. The hooves seemed sharp-edged and lethal, the eyes malicious and wild. She could no longer envision leaping summer clouds on the back of a unicorn.

  “How we miss the familiar, no matter if it’s joyful or filled with pain and sorrow,” Marie mused, a faraway look playing across her face.

  “Is he here? Does he live among us?”

  “If you mean Evraud, Robert has assigned him to build shelters for the lepers. You will not see Evraud unless you seek him out.”

  For a long time neither woman said a word. “I have not bled in three moons,” Madeleine said. “I feel the monster’s child growing,” she said, resting her clenched fist against her belly. She closed her eyes, heard the throaty trill of a songbird outside their hut, imagined the graceful swoop and rise of flight and tried to hitch a ride. But she remained weighted to the ground.

  “I know, Maddy,” Marie whispered, settling on the edge of her pallet. “I know about the child.” Slowly she massaged the back of Madeleine’s hand until her fingers opened one by one and lay spread against her belly. Marie’s touch, the only touch Madeleine could tolerate, calmed her and reminded her of how carefully Marie had bathed her useless hands and legs the day Robert carried her to the infirmary at Vendôme.

  “It isn’t mine,” Madeleine whispered. “I had nothing to do with it.”

  “No,” Marie said, “you didn’t. But it’s yours just the same.” She shook her head. “But then there’s little that women decide in this life except maybe how to deal with the problems handed them by men.” Her words came to Madeleine smooth-edged and worn nearly transparent. “I know I wasn’t consulted before your father left you and your sister on my doorstep.”

  Madeleine felt a familiar pain for the loss of her family and then a new sensation, a suffocating fear that tightened her throat and made it difficult to breathe. Had Marie not wanted her? Had no one wanted her? “Why didn’t you refuse to take us, then? You could have told my father no,” she said, petulantly sliding her hand free of Marie’s.

  “Yes, I suppose I could have. Don’t think I didn’t consider it. I knew at a glance that the two of you were too young to do me any good. But there you stood, all freckled and bold. And then you tugged at my skirt and I felt something like, well, like need. You needed looking after and I needed someone to love. Some choices in life really are that simple, Maddy girl.” When Madeleine placed her palm against her stomach, Marie covered it with her own. Madeleine sighed, grateful for the warmth of their stacked hands. “If only we hadn’t followed Robert,” she said.

  “If only I hadn’t opened the door to your father. If only your father hadn’t met your mother. How far back you want to take this?” Marie said, her look so distant and old that Madeleine knew she must have been thinking of some secret pain.

  “Why me?” Madeleine said, in an aggrieved voice. Years of pain and disappointment snarled together and erupted into one long angry wail. “It isn’t fair!”

  “Fair?” Marie said, dropping Madeleine’s hand and jutting out her chin. “And since when have you known fair?” Marie looked into her eyes. Madeleine wished that she could see the world through her direct and honest gaze. “Fair or not, the only thing you have to decide is what kind of mother you’re going to be.” She sighed. “Many a woman’s birthed a child she didn’t plan on having by a man she didn’t know or couldn’t stand. The only thing makes this time special is it’s happening to you.”

  Madeleine’s tears left her shuddering and gasping for breath. Marie scooped her up in her arms and held her close.

  Madeleine heard an ominous rattling in Marie’s chest that echoed the sound of her own sobs. She cried for her mother’s wispy colors and her sister’s giggle. She cried for the strong hands of the farmer or blacksmith or merchant she would never wed and for their children, conceived in love and loving them. And after she had mourned the life she had lost and the one denied her, she cried for the life she was living—bruised and unkempt, full of knobby edges and snarled hair.

  “Life is never simple,” Marie s
aid. “Never. But for now it’s what we have. You hear me?” Marie stroked Madeleine’s hair with the same methodical calm she used to settle Bodkins. “And Maddy are you listening to me? Because this is important—all of us, each and every one, needs someone to love.”

  Madeleine’s throat relaxed and she took a deep breath, inhaling the kitchen scents of vanilla and cinnamon on the palms of Marie’s hands.

  “Marie?” she whispered. “Every time I look into my child’s face, will I see the monster’s?”

  Marie stiffened. “How do you know the babe won’t have your freckles and your dreamy ways?” she asked.

  Madeleine laughed. Her arms and legs tingled, and she felt a dim desire to rise up from her pallet.

  “Maddy honey, there’s no escaping what’s growing inside you. The child belongs to you as surely as your arms or eyes do, and you’ll need all four and more to raise it properly.” She was quiet for a time, letting her words wash over Madeleine

  Madeleine listened to the sounds of conversation carried on the breeze and, for the first time in a great while, she wondered what was happening beyond the four walls of her hut.

  “I suspect you’ll be wanting to contribute to this new community of ours,” Marie said. “The old Jumieges nun who’s in charge of the scullery is looking for someone to help her make bread. I could talk to her if you want. The work will do you good, and the sweet smells might remind you to eat. You’re too thin for this hard life, Maddy. Too thin.”

  “We’ll need a garden. I could help plant a garden.”

  “Well then, if that’s what you want, I’ll see what I can do.” Marie loosed her arms and Madeleine settled back on the pallet.

  “Marie,” Madeleine said. Marie leaned forward to hear her words, “I want to want it, but I don’t, and I don’t know how to make myself.”

  “All in good time,” Marie said and kissed Madeleine’s forehead. “All in good time.” Rising up from the pallet, she spoke in a voice that was everyday brisk. “Now get some sleep. Roll onto your left side. Right side’s for growing boys.”