A Place of Light

by Kim Silveira Wolterbeek

  “We shall not see our king excommunicated!” shouted a nobleman. A roiling chorus of voices chanted, “Long live the King!”

  “King Philip has already been excommunicated,” Robert said, “twice. He now must suffer anathema, which separates him from the body of Christ, which is the Church. If any of you do not wish to witness this sentencing, leave now, for it is God’s will!”

  There followed a great scrape and thump of kneelers pushed hastily aside. A rush of nobleman erupted from the pews into the central aisle, shouting invocations and swearing allegiance to the crown. For a moment Philippa wavered in her convictions. Philip was her liege as well, yet was he not guilty of the same crime as her husband? How could she support the king’s adultery and object to William’s? Other nobles followed suit, as did those prelates appointed by the king, exiting the cathedral through the arm of the transept. When the heavy door whooshed shut behind them, a spasm of air belched through the cathedral, guttering devotional candles and blowing rose petals into the pew where Philippa knelt clutching her prayer beads.

  Isabelle and the two Agneses stood. “Aren’t you coming, Philippa?” one of the Agneses asked.

  “No. I shall stay to see the outcome.”

  “But my lady!’ Isabelle whispered, “they are condemning the king and my sister before God and the holy angels!” Her feet crushed a rose petal, releasing the scent Philippa would forever associate with Dangerosa. “Surely,” Isabelle continued in a wheedling tone, “you do not approve of such harsh judgment!”

  Philippa trembled with righteous anger. “Your sister,” she said, “is no innocent.”

  Isabelle gasped and turned on her heels.

  Philippa wondered at her unnecessary cruelty toward Isabelle, a trifling woman of no import. Was she becoming the kind of bitter woman she abhorred?

  Robert held his arms out to the pope. A prelate crawled out from under the altar. Smoothing the edges of his fine garments, he attempted to recover his dignity while his servant retrieved and relit the fallen candles.

  For a third time Pope Pascal rose to enact the close of the ceremony. “We declare King Philip excommunicated and anathematized and we condemn him to eternal fire with Satan and all the reprobates…”

  More people exited the side door, sending another flurry of rose petals against Philippa’s ankles. Bending to push aside the tickle of blossoms, she remembered her aunts’ story of the miraculous red flower that revived Guilliadun. Her breast swelled with a sudden realization that revenge would neither revive her marriage nor assuage her sorrow.

  Pope Pascal took a labored breath and read the closing words of the holy writ. “We deliver King Philip to Satan to mortify his body, so that his soul may be saved on the Day of Judgment.” The twelve religious standing before the altar chanted, “Fiat! Fiat! Fiat!” throwing their candles onto the marble floor.

  Robert’s eyes met Philippa’s and she knew what she must do. Just as Eliduc’s wronged wife entered the nunnery so would she. At least until William came to his senses and she could find forgiveness in her heart.

  Madeleine lit on the edge of the bench beside Robert, her nervous energy reminding him of the hummingbirds that appeared out of nowhere to buzz the salvia. During confinement her hair had darkened and her freckles had faded to pale hemp. Otherwise, she looked much the same. The butterfly fluttering the pulse of her neck still jarred his soul.

  Robert had been attending council the day Madeleine gave birth, and afterwards he had remained in Poitiers to meet with prelates and potential donors. He had raised considerable monies for the abbey, but judged his counseling of Philippa less successful. Her decision to enter the abbey seemed hasty.

  “Marie is failing,” Madeleine said, her eyes full of purpose and sorrow. “She needs your blessing.”

  Clasping his hands beneath his robe, he concentrated on steadying his voice. “I will administer Last Rites. Let me gather my things,” he said simply. Then, because he so dearly wanted to touch Madeleine, he did not. Silently, he followed Madeleine to the new abbey building, into which many of the women had moved during the time that he had been in Poitiers. Madeleine and Marie still shared a small room, but even half-finished, the cells offered more protection than the rustic huts.

  “Marie, you’ve a visitor,” Madeleine said, opening the door and stepping aside so that he might enter. Marie lay on a cot, her breathing strained and pronounced, her gray head turned towards the cradle in the corner where Robert could just make out the bundled form of Madeleine’s sleeping babe.

  “Peace be to this house,” Robert said. At the sound of his voice the old tomcat, Bodkins, looked up from where he lay curled near the door.

  “And to all who live within,” Marie responded in a weary voice.

  “May I use the table?” Robert asked Madeleine, removing the satchel he carried on his back.

  Madeleine nodded, removing several dried bundles of herbs from the low table beside Marie’s bed.

  Robert spread a white cloth and arranged a crucifix flanked by two blessed candles.

  Madeleine propped Marie up with a pillow. Marie smiled and touched Madeleine’s cheek. “You’re a good girl,” she said, her eyes lingering on Madeleine’s. “Now leave an old woman alone with her priest.”

  Madeleine wrinkled her brow. “Are you sure?”

  Marie nodded.

  “All right. I’ll be at Bertrad’s cell.” She kissed Marie’s cheek and turned to lift the babe from her cradle.

  “Leave her be,” Marie said.

  Madeleine hesitated before re-tucking the corners of Little’s blanket. “I won’t be gone long then.” Robert withdrew clean linen, a vial of holy water, and the Eucharist from his satchel and placed them on the table. Marie studied him with expressionless eyes.

  “Ah,” she said, “then you have plans to save me?”

  Robert nodded. He knew his task would not be easy. Of all the Rouen converts, Marie was most resistant to his teachings. “Only the Lord can do that,” Robert said, “and you, if you seek redemption.”

  “I’m not opposed to redemption,” she said, “only leery. But first, we talk. Will you do that Robert? Will you talk to me using your own words?”

  “The words of the Bible are…”

  “Easier than coming up with your own?” she challenged.

  “Better than my own, I was going to say. The Bible’s holy words are pearls polished to perfection.”

  “And what would you know of polishing?” she asked. “Have you ever worried a rag between the tines of a fork?”

  He shook his head and sat on a low stool beside Marie’s pallet.

  “No. I thought not. I may be dying, but I know when someone’s speaking from the heart. She paused to catch her breath. “So here are the rules. And I should be allowed to make the rules, no? Before you perform your last rites we talk. You can speak only what you know. If you agree, then you can stay. Otherwise, leave now.” She closed her eyes and her breath came as though she had run a great distance.

  Robert thought of all the chores he had fumbled through, the passions he had pursued and those he had fled, and it occurred to him that he had experienced enough to talk for all eternity. “I borrow biblical words not because they are polished, but because they are the word of God and fill me with the same calm I know listening to a bubbling spring.”

  Marie nodded. “My turn,” she said in a matter of fact tone. “Do you think my death will be easy?”

  Without the Bible’s words to guide him, he felt lost. Over the years he had witnessed godly men die painful, horrible deaths and unrepentant sinners pass peacefully in their sleep. “Death is a miracle and a mystery,” he said. “I cannot know what God has in store for you, Marie, only that something wonderful awaits you on the other side.”

  Marie shivered as though she felt a sudden chill.

  “Shall I bring more blan
kets?”

  “The cold is inside,” she said, laying her hand against her chest and pausing for a labored breath. “Blankets won’t help.”

  “I have an idea,” he said, rising from his stool and lifting Bodkins from his place near the door. The old tom turned as if to bite his wrist, but settled into a fierce purr once Robert laid him at Marie’s feet.

  Marie smiled. “Better,” she said.

  “The best is yet to come.” As Robert approached Little Marie’s cradle he was overcome with curiosity. It was not their mismatched color that startled him but rather their intensity. Hers was not the wobbly unfocussed gaze of an infant struggling to make sense of shapes, but the appraising look of a much older soul. He lifted her awkwardly to his shoulder.

  Marie laughed a ragged wheeze. “You hold the poor child like she’s a bundle of rags. Cup her head and pull her close.” Her shallow breathing sounded hollow and strained, like air passing through water.

  Robert placed Little in the crock of Marie’s arm near her failing heart. She sighed. “Warmer than down ticking or rabbit fur,” she said, closing her eyes.

  Robert sat back down in the rocker and allowed the sorrow to pass over him. Marie woke suddenly, her eyes opening in one blink.

  “You… see it, don’t… you?” she asked. The space between her words was long, as though meaning had traveled a great distance. “Our Little… someone to be reckoned with… smart like her mother… but not so apt to… get tangled up in her own thoughts. Nor,” Marie said, looking pointedly at him, “seduced by… a soothing voice.”

  “I never deceived Madeleine,” Robert said. “Every word I’ve spoken to her has come straight from my heart.”

  Marie took a deep breath, as though gathering all her strength for one last stand. “You think I would be talking to you if I thought otherwise? I’m old and dying, but I still have my senses about me.” Her words sounded sopping wet and weighted down.

  She drifted away then, whether in sleep or contemplation, Robert could not say. He prayed, “Hear us, holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God, and be pleased to send thy holy angel from heaven to guard, cherish, protect, visit, and defend all that dwell in this house.”

  After a few moments, Marie opened her eyes. “I know the dying are supposed to confess their sins and beg forgiveness,” she said, “but I don’t believe I can atone for a life of sin, not even if I had time to do it.” She took a few deep breaths until her breathing slowed.

  “If Christ forgave a thief on a cross, surely he can forgive you,” Robert said.

  The confident trill of a chough brought a smile to Marie’s face.

  “I was in love once, did you know that?” She smiled, perhaps lingering a while in the memory of that love. “It was Maddy’s father that I loved and for no good reason. He was a scoundrel through and through.” She shook her head. Little stirred and settled back into a deep sleep. “Maybe what I liked best about him was that he didn’t try to hide his selfishness, didn’t pretend any future beyond the boundaries of my cot. But he had a crocked smile and a laugh that’s lingered in my heart. Oh Lord, the man could laugh! You think love should be about something, should come in response to goodness or courage or grace. But it isn’t like that, and thinking too hard on the why of it is just a waste of time.”

  The telling seemed to lessen some heaviness inside of her. Robert felt the energy of something important gathering between them.

  “What would comfort me is to know that Maddy and Little will be properly cared for after I’m gone.”

  “All the other pilgrims have a home here for as long as they desire,” Robert said.

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it,” Marie said, a note of impatience entering her voice. “Either you’re lying to yourself or you’re lying to me, and I don’t have time for either.”

  However much he wanted to believe that each and every pilgrim held an equal piece of his heart, it was not true. “You are right. Madeleine is special,” he said, wondering if Marie knew how truly special. “I pledge my word that I will look after her and her daughter.”

  “Thank you. Now I will meet your honesty with some of my own. You’re a fine man, Robert, but I worry that tales of your sainthood will turn your head and weaken your resolve. You’ve work to do. You cannot afford distraction. Believe in yourself, Robert, but don’t presume a holiness that isn’t yours.”

  “It’s true I suffer from the sin of pride, but I have never imagined any of my actions warrant sainthood,” he said with a steely conviction that seemed to settle Marie.

  “Good,” she said. “You are a good man, Robert.”

  He knew from the hollow sound of her voice that Marie was weakening. “Should I get Madeleine now?” he asked.

  “If I let my sweet Maddy into the room, I’m afraid the strength of her will could keep me tethered to this old body. I’m tired, Robert,” she whispered, her breathing as splintery as shale, “tired and ready to move on.”

  Bodkins meowed and settled more fully against Marie’s feet. “Tell Maddy she was the daughter of my soul,” Marie said. “Say that loving her was enough. Repeat it so I know you won’t go polishing my words.”

  “Loving Madeleine was enough,” Robert said, thinking, in loving her you also loved the Lord.

  Marie nodded, satisfied.

  Robert took the host from the tray and held it out. “Open your mouth, Marie, repent and receive the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  Nodding once, she opened her mouth.

  “May the Lord keep you from the malignant foe,” Robert prayed, “and bring you to life everlasting.”

  Her energy depleted, Marie closed her eyes and entered a fitful sleep. Then, because she could not speak the words of the prayer herself, Robert spoke them for her.

  “I confess to almighty God, to blessed Mary ever virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, to all the saints, and to you Father, that I have sinned exceedingly, in thought, word, and deed: through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”

  Marie woke one final time, struggling to get air into her lungs, opening her mouth and turning her head from side to side. Robert took the holy oil and anointed her.

  “By this holy unction and his own most gracious mercy, may the Lord pardon you whatever sins you have committed,” he prayed. And while Robert could not be sure Marie would hear him, he took her hand and leaned in close. “You are loved and you are safe,” he said, his voice confident and strong. “May almighty God open the gates of paradise and lead you to joys everlasting.” Bringing Marie’s hand to his lips, he kissed her palm and imagined her death—a deep and mysterious surrender to love, an embrace with God that was filled with peace.

  Marie’s skin and lips turned milky blue. Robert placed the hand not holding hers against Little’s chest, felt the heat of their three bodies braiding them together, and he could not tell where he left off and they began.

  “It’s all right to let go, Marie,” he said, just as Little began to stir.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” Marie whispered, a feathery sound full of curiosity and wonder. “I’ve never died before.”

  “May almighty God bless you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” Robert prayed.

  Her final breath—a startled puff of air—moved effortlessly past Little’s piercing wail.

  Philippa and William sat before the fire in Philippa’s chambers, two mugs of spiced cider and a silver tray of William’s favorite fig tourteletes on the table between them. Philippa broke the silence. “I would like your permission to leave Poiters and take up residence at Robert’s Abbey,” she said.

  Williams continued to stare into the fire, but the scar that slashed his left cheek—that pink rise that Philippa had traced with her tongue and caressed with trailing fingers�
�stretched white and menacing.

  “And,” Philippa continued, “I would like to take the children with me.”

  William took a deep breath before turning to face his wife. “Will stays with me!” he said, bringing his fist down hard on the upholstered arm of the chair.

  Snout, asleep at the hearth, lifted his head at the sound of his master’s angry bellow. The old hound’s jowls swayed as he sniffed the air. Rising on arthritic legs, he hobbled to Philippa’s side and nuzzled her palm before returning to the hearth and settling with a snort and a sigh.

  Even then Philippa believed that with a little patience and flattery she could persuade her husband to see the wisdom of her request. “Of course,” she said, dropping her eyes. “It’s your decision. But there’s much to be said for an abbey education.”

  Somewhere in the corridor a servant opened a door. The draft of air that whooshed into Philippa’s chambers carried the sweet fragrance of one of the flower arrangements. The scent of roses triggered Philippa’s memory of Dangerosa’s red hair and slim ankles. Her fingers clutched the arm of her chair.

  William sighed, a long drawn out sound that reminded Philippa of the exaggerated length of the train on her rival’s Parisian gown.

  Instead of reminding William that his son was but a toddler, that once he was old enough to learn the manly arts of hunting and battle, he could return to Poitiers and learn these at his father’s side, she recalled how Dangerosa had entered the grand hall with her hand tucked comfortably in the crock of her husband’s arm.

  “Why, William?” Philippa whispered, asking the question that had been there all along. “Why did you betray me?”

  William stared at her with the same look Philippa saw when she reprimanded young Will. “No like you!” her son would say, his little back ramrod stiff. “No like you!”

  How easily she forgave Will. If only she could be so generous with his father. But William was a man, not a child, and fully capable of understanding the consequence of his actions.