A Place of Light

by Kim Silveira Wolterbeek

  Even as a babe in arms Little possessed an indomitable will. Every time she combed her tiny fists through the air, it seemed entirely possible that she might snag a beam of sunlight. In the child’s concentration, Madeleine saw a resemblance to prayer. Perhaps for this reason (and because the child’s hair was so dark and wavy), Little often reminded Madeleine of Robert. Except for the shape of her brows, Madeleine saw little of herself in her daughter, and she would not allow herself to see anything of Evraud.

  Giving birth had nudged Madeleine towards a consideration of others. She noticed Bertrad’s eyes closed in exquisite relief when her milk let down and that Marie’s raspy breathing slowed to a purr whenever she cradled Little in her arms. She knew Bertrad to be a keen and attentive mother, but Marie’s behavior surprised her. She, who had never shown any interest in children, held Madeleine’s daughter for hours on end, inhaling Little’s scent, kissing her plump cheeks and dark head, seldom putting her down except at night when Bertrad took the babe back to her hut. Amidst the somnolent routine of caretaking and recovery, Madeleine began to miss her dead mother and sister. In her loneliness, she felt even more drawn to Marie.

  “Marie,” she asked, “did you ever have a child of your own?” Marie rocked for such a long time without responding that Madeleine worried her question was inappropriate, offensive in some way. When Marie finally spoke, her voice had the wispy quality of distance and regret.

  “I was very young, younger than you are now,” she said.

  Madeleine wondered why Marie had never spoken of the child before. But even more startling than Marie’s silence was her own lack of curiosity. Why had she never asked Marie about her life before?

  “But where is the child now?”

  “The boy was raised by my older sister. She had a husband and no babe. I had a babe and no husband. An hour after my son’s birth, I handed him to the wet nurse my sister had hired and never looked back.”

  Madeleine’s breath quickened with fear. What if she were never to see Little again? But then before the fear could gather momentum, Little sighed in her sleep, a breathy coo as beautifully arresting as a dove’s call. The cell, dimly lit by a single candle, pulsed purple and magenta, soothing colors that invited confidences.

  “You’ve never seen the child since?” Madeleine asked.

  “Never. It was what my sister wanted. She insisted.” Marie’s voice sounded battered and bruised. Studying her profile, Madeleine tried to imagine the painful tumble of her life.

  “And the father?”

  “Men do what they will and then move on,” Marie said. “But then you already know that.” Marie’s eyes had a dark and endless depth that frightened Madeleine. This private, thoughtful Marie was not her Marie, but someone different, someone separate and apart from her. Time slowed to the pace of Marie’s gentle rocking. The world outside their hut ceased to exist beyond the soft rustle of wind through poplars. “Mine is not a pleasant story, but there are plenty who’ve lived worse lives,” Marie said. “I’m not sure if it will help or hinder you to hear the details, but if you want, I’ll tell them to you now.”

  “Please,” Madeleine said, “tell me.”

  Marie adjusted Little against her chest. “Shortly after my older sister married and left home, my family was captured by northmen. My brother and father were murdered, my mother and I taken to Normandy and auctioned at a Rouen slave market where we imagined ourselves lucky to be sold to a missionary and his young handmaiden. Before and after,” Marie said. “That’s how I have come to think of my life—the time before the northmen and the time after.

  “The missionary’s handmaiden was a homely creature of few words, a woman so chastened by life that she covered her mouth to hide her infrequent smiles and treated each day as a burden to endure. Lighting the morning fire she barely noticed the blue flicker of flame or felt the sputter of warmth before her mind moved on to the next chore. The only lovely thing about her was her singing voice, a soaring soprano,” Marie said, smiling faintly.

  Madeleine imagined a voice that mingled russet-colored sunsets with the scent of lavender and hibiscus.

  “Everything good and powerful was concentrated in that voice. If only her courage had matched the strength of her voice,” Marie said, shaking her head, “her life would have been entirely different. Mine too.

  “The voice, that creamy promise beneath the plain looks, was probably what caught the missionary’s attention. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he acquired her with the same stern indifference he showed purchasing my mother and me. Most of the other men at auction stepped forward to examine the slaves, pulling back lips to count teeth and examine gums, grabbing thighs to measure the strength of muscle. ‘Is this one fertile?’ they asked. ‘Any history of violence here?’ The missionary was different. He did not touch. He asked no questions. With barely a glance in our direction, he pointed to my mother and then me. ‘Those two,’ he said, and counted out his money.”

  Marie kissed Little’s head, a drowsy, deliberate gesture that opened up an ache somewhere deep inside of Madeleine.

  “I was naive and vain enough to be flattered that the missionary wanted me to accompany him and his handmaiden on his mission to convert pagan northmen,” Marie said. “We traveled by boat to a country with deep fjords and gray skies, made our way to city gates on market days. The preacher explained to me that the handmaiden would sing while I walked through the crowds holding out a collection basket.

  “Even at twelve I was tall and well formed. The handmaiden—and why give her a name?—Let her be the timid, homely handmaiden with the voice of a siren—went unnoticed until she opened her mouth. As soon as the first note escaped her lips the people in the marketplace froze in mid-gesture and listened, mesmerized by the warbling grace of her song. Only after the song ended would the listeners become suddenly aware of the songbird’s plain brown feathers. At his point, the missionary would begin to sermonize about Christ’s passion and mercy, the joys of a virtuous life, the power of the will to choose good over evil, the beauty of the soul. His words, so soon after the spectacle of song, made everyone think of some hidden potential in themselves, some kernel of splendor they all suspected they possessed.”

  Madeleine leaned forward in her chair, completely mesmerized by Marie’s story.

  “I came to understand that the homely handmaiden and I were just the warm up act. The minister was the real show. Even then, I thought myself lucky. Better to listen to a pretty voice than to spend my days scrubbing floors and churning butter or, worse yet, starving to death.” Marie sighed, shaking her head from side to side. “So in my own way I was as much to blame as the handmaiden who took me to her master’s pallet at night and bid me lay down beside him.

  “I was barely twelve, with downy new pubic hair that still surprised me. The missionary, a scrawny man with a bristly beard and hot metallic breath, was neither gentle nor kind. The whole while he was doing it to me he recited biblical passages. The beautiful words sounded ugly in his mouth. I tried to shut them out, but they battered past the thoughts I constructed to protect myself and hammered away at my soul, pinning me to the pallet and churning up images of my father and brother bleeding beet-red and sprawled in the dirt like butchered animals.”

  Madeleine thought of her mother’s death, the gradual waning of her colors. Her grief, Marie’s rage, their combined sorrow floated the air between them.

  “It was the homely handmaiden who taught me how to survive. In the dim light of a splinter moon, she grasped my arm and whispered the gift that at first made no sense. ‘Memorize the psalms first,’ she said. ‘Use them to your advantage.’ I was, as always, surprised by her speaking voice, a well-worn sound that reminded me of the smooth handle of a broom. My advantage? I thought, what could she possibly mean? But we were in his presence before I could ask a single question.

  “Why is it I can still hear the handmaiden’s
voice so clearly when the voices that mattered most to me have all gone missing?” Marie shook her head at the random nature of memory. “In the end I took the handmaiden’s advice because none other was offered.”

  Marie’s face tightened into the mask she put on to greet the men who showed up at her door in Rouen. “At first I could not separate the meaning of the psalms from the missionary’s prodding, but I persisted, learning whole passages by heart—‘The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not lack; He makes me to lie down in green pastures. Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no harm.’ It was the act of concentration as much as the words themselves that lifted me past the moment and staunched the memory of my loved ones’ bloody deaths. The blessed act of concentration.”

  Madeleine studied the tapestry on the wall. She recalled how she had learned to make herself small as a gnat and wing herself onto the back of the unicorn, and she was happy that Marie had also found a way to leave her body behind.

  “After he was done with me,” Marie said, “the missionary would fall to his knees and ask forgiveness. Not of me, but of God for having fallen victim to Satan’s lure.”

  “What about your mother?” Madeleine asked. “Didn’t she know what was going on? Didn’t she try to stop him?”

  “She knew. She didn’t stop him.” Marie shrugged a forlorn, dismissive gesture that spoke the pain of a child neglected by a grieving mother. “I’ve always imagined that whenever my mother considered confronting the missionary, she saw the edge of the blade that the northmen used to cut my father’s and my brother’s throats and told herself that rape was better than murder.”

  Madeleine felt small and insignificant beside Marie’s impressive endurance.

  “After we returned to Rouen, I began to show, and the homely handmaiden stopped coming for me at night. The missionary told a gossip who questioned him about my condition that I was too familiar with a boy we had converted in Gotland. ‘Of course,’ he added, knowing full well that his lie would be passed on to others, ‘I cannot be certain, for she has lain with many men.’ He managed to assume a tone of forgiveness even as he implied that I was a hopeless, weak-willed slut.”

  Marie laughed then, the old derisive laughter that came as a relief to Madeleine who thought she could not bear to hear more misery.

  “I told the missionary I was leaving with my mother. He did not try to stop us. After I bore the child, I had no money, no occupation. I did not know what I was going to do with my life, but I was determined that no man would ever have power over me again. And none ever has.”

  There was a note of finality in her voice, so Madeleine was surprised when she continued.

  “My experience has made me wary of all religious. But Robert, I think, is different.” A cock crowed outside the door of their hut. Marie startled, but Little slept on, secure in the safety of her arms. “Robert does not use biblical words as weapons or to satisfy his own perverse pleasures. He’s no saint—don’t get caught up in that confusion—but he’s a caring man with a dream and the courage to pursue it.”

  Madeleine understood where Marie had been leading her. It was not her life or the lives of other women she wanted Madeleine to understand but her own.

  A knock at the door jolted Little awake. Bertrad entered the hut out of breath and in a hurry. “How’s my little puppet?” she asked, laying a forefinger on Little’s plump cheek. “Are you hungry, my sweet?” Before Bertrad could take her stool or untie her chemise, Little was wailing with hunger.

  “You and Little could do worse than to let Robert into your life,” Marie said, placing the screaming baby into Bertrad’s arms. Little latched on to Bertrad’s breast with a great sigh that ended in a gulping swallow.

  “Just give it some thought,” Marie said.

  Madeleine felt it before she saw it—the milky-blue color of possibility suffusing the room, lighting it up and encompassing them all.

  The day of the council meeting, Saint Hilary was packed with onlookers, many occupying seats in the pews, tribune and choir stalls, others standing in the central aisle, all craning their necks to witness the proceedings near the altar. Philippa and her aunts followed their servants closely as they cut a path through a side aisle toward the altar. The rank odor of unwashed bodies commingled with the burn of incense and the singe of candles. Stone columns rose above their heads, supporting transverse arches and expansive clerestory window that flooded the cathedral with morning light. In a candle-lit alcove housing a statue of the Virgin, a fresh bouquet of red roses reminded Philippa of Dangerosa’s cloying perfume.

  When they reached the pew reserved for noblewomen, Philippa noted how they stood out like gems against the dark wood. Isabelle de Montfort’s saffron dress highlighted her blond hair, which was pinned in cascading ringlets at the crown and lightly covered with a transparent veil. The Agneses, of Craon and Aïs, were artfully arrayed in summer pastels, their fingers and wrists heavily jeweled. Philippa’s breath quickened when she noticed the arrangement of their hair, for both women had copied the Parisian style worn by William’s mistress. Though their braid cases was not as luxurious as the samite one worn by Dangerosa, the effect was nonetheless startling. Philippa felt violated by their mimicry, as though in aping Dangerosa’s fashion they had honored her.

  To steady herself, Philippa focused her attention on the immense gathering. Hundreds of black-clad religious sat in the nave while laymen stood on the fringes. In the noblemen’s pews across from Philippa and her aunts, lords and counts wore fine tunics in blue, red, and purple, and immediately behind them, a group of nuns, all in black.

  Most eyes were on the holy pontiff seated behind the altar. Pope Pascal was an old man, sunk in his seat, but resplendent in amice, stole, and violet cope. His white mitre was trimmed with gold.

  On both sides of the pope sat twelve prelates, each with a lit candle before him, and at the far end of the altar, wearing a worn garment of dark serge, sat the longhaired and bearded Robert, his eyes fixed on the flame of a candle. One of the men, his mitre listing slightly to the left, struck the floor three times with a staff. The booms rolled through the cathedral and quieted the crowd.

  “In nomine Patri et Filii et Sancti Spiritus,” he began. “I, Cardinal Benedict, legate of the holiest of holies, do solemnly call this day’s proceedings to order.”

  Unsmiling, he looked out over the congregation. “Cardinal John,” he instructed in a haughty voice, “please review the charges against Philip, King of France.”

  An elderly man with a palsied right arm hanging limply at his side rose from his seat behind the altar and began reading a document. His frail voice was barely audible and his Latin words were lost on most of his listeners.

  Cardinal Benedict, still standing near the pulpit, translated the words into French, speaking loudly so all could hear. “Because of King Philip’s illicit and unsanctified liaison with countess Bertrad, the rightful wife of Fulk, Count of Anjou, we hereby re-issue the bans of excommunication…”

  At the mention of her sister’s name, Isabelle de Montfort began fidgeting with her prayer beads. For the first time, it occurred to Philippa that King Philip’s infidelity affected many people beyond his queen.

  The twelve holy men sitting behind the altars stood, raised their candles and walked to the front of the altar. The pope, assisted by a servant, rose and read the writ of anathema.

  “Wherefore in the name of God the all-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and of all his saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive King Philip and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the communion of the body and blood of our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our holy mother the Church in heaven and on earth…”

  “Long live the King!” someone
shouted from the tribune. Others joined in. “Long live the King!” the crowd repeated, their voices building in volume and intensity. A rock was hurled from above. One of the standing prelates reeled back, knocked his head on the altar, and fell to the ground, still clutching the sputtering candle in his hand. Another rock the size of a man’s fist bounced once and skittered across the marble floor.

  The mob responded in a cacophony of boisterous cheers. Pendants and buckles were thrown from all directions. A prayer book careened into the vase of roses, sending flowers, splinters of glass, and spilt water onto the tiles. The prelates fell to their knees. Several crawled under the altar, one pausing long enough to help the pope. Smoke from extinguished candles billowed in great plumes.

  Isabelle was the first to hurl her rosary beads.

  “We should leave,” Sibyl whispered. Licking her lips, she plucked at her chemise before reaching out to take her niece’s hand.

  Sophie nodded. “This is sheer madness!”

  “Not yet,” Philippa said, for suddenly the events before her took on personal dimensions. Were she to go before the council seeking to excommunicate William, would the men she had defeated in skirmishes or bettered in land deals defend him as boisterously as this crowd defended their king?

  “Stop!” a voice thundered. Robert rose from his seat and raised his arms high in the air. Barefoot and clothed in a simple robe, he looked every bit the ascetic leader who had led hundreds of pilgrims through western France.

  “What the Vicar binds on earth shall be bound in heaven, what he looses on earth shall be loosed in heaven,” Robert cried out.

  The shower ceased. Philippa marveled that such a gentle man could quell a crowd with the power of his voice.

  “God told Moses, thou shalt not commit adultery. And yet,” he paused and surveyed the congregation before him, “some among you have risked murdering the supreme head of God’s church in support of a man who has committed adultery!” He lowered his arms to indicate the rosaries and rocks spread across the marble tiles.