A Place of Light

by Kim Silveira Wolterbeek

  “And who were you expecting?” she said in her gruff, no nonsense voice. She approached with her arms spread wide and her cheeks flushed pink as a young girl’s. A luminous glow, not soft, but blinding like the sun at its zenith, lit Marie.

  When Robert stepped into her embrace, he smelled the flowery aroma of his mother’s carefully tended delphiniums and the earthy scent of his father’s simples.

  “I was measuring ingredients for sweet rolls,” she said, patting the flour that dusted her bodice and sleeves.

  While wearing a silk gown? Robert wondered, but did not ask, for surely there were more important questions.

  “Maddy always loved my sweet rolls. Before I left I taught her to make them. She’s good with her hands, you know.”

  A great mélange of images floated the air above them—Madeleine’s hands kneading dough, digging loam, snapping beans, tying bows in Little’s hair—and Robert wanted to grab her wrists and suck each capable finger one by one. The more he tried to divest himself of lascivious thoughts, the faster they came.

  “You’ve seen her illustrations?” Marie asked.

  “They show great talent. Brother Peter tells me she has an interest in painting saintly women.”

  Marie nodded. “At last, Maddy’s found her art form! But artists need more than talent and interesting subjects, no? They must also possess a commitment of the heart,” Marie said in a voice so low he was not sure she had spoken until he saw the set of her jaw.

  “Marie, what are you saying?”

  “Oh Robert, I thought we agreed, you and I, not to play dumb. Not to pretend to be anything other than who we are.” She shook her head and let out an exhausted sigh. “It’s funny. I live in a timeless world, and still I haven’t time for nonsense.”

  Hands clinched, Robert fixed his eyes on a tangle of periwinkle vines. Taking a deep breath he exhaled slowly. “It’s true that I care for Madeleine above all others,” he said. “Which is why I have always hoped that with time the damage inflicted on her in Rouen could be undone. In any case,” he said, assuming a tone of moral conviction, “I would not, I will not…”

  “I think you would, Robert,” Marie said, patting his arm. “I think you would.”

  Realization struck Robert with the force of a blow. Geoffrey’s allegations held a grain of truth, for while he remained celibate in body, his desire for Madeleine frequently waylaid his spirit. Lust had fueled his early life, lust and pride. And now that Fontevraud was nearly built, the two demons renewed their struggle to gain a piece of his soul.

  “In truth,” he told Marie, “there are moments when I would barter my soul for one night with Madeleine.”

  The scent of ripe fruit and anticipation hung heavy in the air. Marie nodded before plucking an apple from the canopy of branches above her head. “There are some surprises ahead for you, my friend.”

  “Heavenly surprises, do you mean?” he asked. He saw no point in continuing their discussion of Madeleine. Each knew the truth of the other’s heart. “Is this planked orchard the Kingdom of God?”

  Marie laughed, a joyous sound that rustled leaves and left him more bewildered. “Look at this beauty,” she said, admiring the apple’s perfect symmetry. She bit into the apple and chewed at a leisurely pace. Robert could not say precisely how long she took to eat the fruit, for time was not measurable in this place. After swallowing the last of it, she sighed. “Wonderful!” she declared, tossing the core and wiping her mouth on the hem of her gown.

  A chough erupted with a shrill chee-ow that sent rabbits scurrying for cover. In the time it took for him to blink, Marie aged twenty years. She looked as she had before her death—grey, shrunken, a diminished body housing a powerful will. But far more startling than her change in appearance was the change in her sound. When Marie opened her mouth to speak, a chorus burst forth. His father’s deep bass and Abbot Geoffrey’s windy baritone rose and fell with a biblical cadence—“There can be only one love in life that burns with such intensity!”

  Robert’s shoulders ached and he had to remind himself to breathe. Even as he aspired to a holier intimacy with God, Robert longed to place his lips against the pulse of his Madeleine’s neck.

  “Wrap yourself in the cloak of prayer, Robert. Consider the consequences of your actions.” The voices unraveled, separating strand by strand until all that remained was Marie’s singular tone. “I am a woman who lived her life selling flesh and catering to men’s dreams. I know men, Robert. For better or worse, I know men. And you, Robert, are a good man.” She studied the horizon as though waiting impatiently for someone to appear.

  Robert listened to the fragile beat of his own heart until the clump of hooves against planking startled him and he opened his eyes to the sight of Marie’s hands cupping the muzzle of a unicorn! “You’ve come at last, my beauty,” Marie murmured. Her hands slid from forelock to withers, a mesmerizing motion that inexplicably reminded Robert of the grace that follows a good deed.

  A church bell sounded and a golden seam of lightning split the sky. Robert heard the rain before he felt it—not the gentle patter of spring showers but the great whooshing flood of a downpour. And while his feet remained firmly planted in the apple orchard, he heard the deep gurgling of rain flushing the dorter drains at Fontevraud and tasted the cold sweet water of the fount when he swallowed. “Marie, what if I am not the man you think? What then?” he whispered.

  Marie smiled. “Oh, but you are Robert. You are.” She nuzzled the unicorn’s cheek before slapping the animal’s croup. “Off with you,” she said. The horned beast whinnied once and cantered to a wooded area where he disappeared from sight.

  “Marie…” Robert began and faltered. There were so many questions; he hardly knew where to begin. Just as his confusion coalesced into words, Marie began to fade. Her image flickered and then blurred, beginning at the hem of her gown and moving upward like the swirl of mist rising from a pond. Robert’s breath came in shallow bursts. His palms grew damp. When Marie’s shimmering shadow rose and merged with the smudge of clouds above his head, Robert’s whole body tingled. He felt the stringy mass of his muscles, the warmth of his skin, the pulse of each and every heartbeat. He was not thinking. He was plunging into the deepest part of his being. When Robert surfaced, drenched in sweat and gasping for air, he clutched the hem of Madeleine’s robe.

  “I’m right here, Robert,” Madeleine said, placing a cool palm on his brow.

  Robert’s hands trembled. Putting Madeleine’s needs above his own would be his greatest act of martyrdom. He imagined the scratch of haircloth wrapping his heart and prayed that he might know the impartial love of a holy man.

  “Has the storm passed, Madeleine?” he asked in a sleep-drenched voice.

  “There was no storm, Robert,” she said, confusion creasing her forehead. “You must have dreamed it.”

  “I saw Marie…”

  “Marie?”

  Robert laughed aloud. “Dressed in a satin gown and petting her unicorn. We spoke of you. She approves of your paintings, called you an artist who had found her art form.”

  Madeleine smiled and turned her head to the window, a faraway look in her eyes.

  Robert heard the lazy coo of a dove, the tinkle of a leper’s bell and the voices of the women singing hymns. The sounds of Fontevraud, he thought.

  “The day is clear and warm,” Madeleine said. “Look how sun lights the steeple of the church!” she said, in a voice filled with wonder. “Your dreams and your faith built this place, Robert.” The expression on her face was not the distracted glance of the young girl he had met in Rouen, but the focused gaze of a mature woman, a mother and an artist.

  He admired the reach of the steeple before responding. “I can’t take credit for Fontevraud. The spirit of God and the faith and hard work of many men and women built this abbey.”

  Madeleine’s unblinking gaze proje
cted sincerity and gratitude. “You had the vision, Robert. You did.”

  Robert recalled the pitched ceiling of the Rouen whorehouse giving way to a bank of clouds nestling the majestic white-walled buildings of Fontevraud, and joy filled his chest.

  Madeleine took his hand in hers. Bending forward, she brought her face to his. “I called you on my day of trouble and you delivered me, Robert,” she said, her breath mingling with his.

  It is said that when two souls are perfectly matched all the good that exists in the world plays out in their love. And while Geoffrey would call such an idea blasphemy, Robert knew it to be true. His love for Madeleine went beyond the lusts of the flesh, for it held a shimmer of holiness, a golden restraint. A mantle of peace settled over him, and he sensed a shift in the energy of the room, as though desire had been replaced by something more enduring. “Thank you,” he said. Sliding his hands free of hers he knew that he would never love another human being with so much of his heart. “Now I must leave you, for there is much work to be done. I will return, but it may not be for many months.”

  When he rose from her cot, Madeleine examined his face. “You are still weak, Master. You must eat more than apples and sleep longer than a nap before resuming your work.”

  “I feel neither hungry nor tired,” he said and indeed he felt infused with energy. The world with its desire passes away like grass, but he who does God’s will remains, he thought.

  “Wait!” Bending to the chest at the foot of the cot, she dug through lavender scented blankets, unearthing a miniature wrapped in linen. “Take this,” she said, removing the cloth and handing it to him. “So that you won’t forget us.”

  The painting exploded with color. Saffron marigolds, orange poppies, and powder-blue cornflowers spilled out of the frame into the miniature’s border where green vines trailed a copper-tinted trellis. In the center of this sumptuous garden Madeleine and Little Marie sat on a rough-hewn bench. Madeleine’s robe was the color of mulberry juice, and Little’s loose smock pulsed the scarlet of summer crocus. One of Madeleine’s hands wrapped her child’s waist and the other held a tiny rosebud. Both pairs of eyes looked past the flower and beyond the leaf of vellum as though they could see the very shape of Robert’s soul.

  “It’s beautiful, Madeleine. Beautiful,” he said, understanding for the first time that in this place with her daughter and her brushes Madeleine had found peace. “My heart needs no drawing to recall your faces, but I will cherish your gift and carry it with me always.” He tucked it safely into his robe and stood for a quiet moment at her side.

  “Little and I shall miss you,” she said running her hand along the plait of her braid.

  “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit,”Robert said, signing the cross. He walked slowly across the cell and paused with his hand on the door latch. He did not think he could put into words the depths of his feelings for her, but he must try. “Before I met you, Madeleine, while I was awake, truly my heart slept. In loving you I have loved the Lord,” he said, and quickly, before she had a chance to respond, he closed the door softly behind him.

  Thereafter whenever Robert’s conscience was troubled or he felt confused about his life’s direction he would hold Madeleine’s miniature in his hands and recall that moment of clarity when his love was cleansed of cupidity and born anew in charity, and that memory would fill him with the faith and courage to continue God’s work which, he came to understand, was his destiny.

  But one’s destiny is not always easy. Even as Robert resumed his mission, wandering rural roads and cobbled city streets, entering cramped cottages and houses of prostitution, there were many nights when he lay awake on rocky, uneven soil or tossed atop a farmer’s musty pallet and wondered—If Marie had not interceded, would I have forfeited my soul for one night with Madeleine? That question, that tiny kernel of uncertainty, kept him humble all the days of his life. And if there were moments amidst the fervent activity of his ministry when his upright spirit faltered and he longed to smell the fruity tangle of Madeleine’s hair or feel again the flutter of her fingers against his cheek, he accepted, even embraced the pain that his longing aroused, for Robert understood that an easy faith is no faith at all.

  After Robert left Fontevraud, Madeleine spent very little time in the garden. Although beans obligingly climbed the arbors and yarrow bloomed plentifully, no clutch of poppies flamed red against a silver patch of lambs’ ear or burst suddenly from beneath an artfully placed slab of granite. Clove-scented gillyflowers no longer bumped blossoms with violets. The young novitiates pruned the bushes to conform to arbitrary borders of stacked river rock, segregated the hyacinth bulbs by hue, and plucked all volunteer seedlings, whether fiddle fern or dandelion, and tossed them aside like weeds. And while Madeleine dearly missed the bold clash of colors, the sloppy cascade of bridal wreath and the careless creep of periwinkle, her new work afforded her a different and far greater pleasure.

  Initially Hersend had objected when Robert established a women’s scriptorium and placed Brother Peter in charge. With few exceptions, the monks believed creativity was a male prerogative, and she worried that they would see female scribes as rivals and this rivalry, whether real or imagined, would distract them from their duties. But Robert, with Philippa’s assistance, argued that an abbey established to serve the needs of women must embrace a larger notion of creativity. “Freedom and salvation comes to us in many forms,” he said, “why not through rubricating manuscripts and painting miniatures?”

  Hersend relented. The women’s scriptorium, much smaller than the men’s, found a home in the Abbess’s residence. What the room lacked in size it made up for in light. Two large windows caught the morning sun and held it fast until late afternoon, and even on cloudy days, a dozen tapers and a large fireplace tossed a warm glow onto the pine tables and benches arranged against the walls. After a while Hersend assigned Hildegard, a commoner from Jumièges, and Eleanor, a reformed sinner from Orléans, to work in the Abbess’s scriptorium as it came to be called. But in the beginning only Peter and Madeleine worked daily in the small room.

  The moment Peter took Madeleine under his wing she felt born anew. Even before she picked up a brush, she saw in her mind’s eye the infinite possibilities of color. She started out as a rubricator, highlighting chapter headings and capital letters in the body of the text. Initially she relied on pattern books and stencils, but as she grew more confident, she created her own style of initials. After applying a base coat, she made outlines in lead plummet that Peter, if he judged the image satisfactory, filled in with color. When she grew proficient, Peter allowed her to paint portions of his miniatures—the feathery wings of an angel or the gilded garment of a saint. Gradually he granted her permission to compose her own illustrations.

  Peter never commented on Madeleine’s affinity for painting biblical women of virtue and courage, but he complemented her bright and varied pallet. In response to his encouragement, she dared to experiment, grinding carmine and azurite, mixing the powdery pigment with glair or gum Arabic. He also praised her attention to details, noting the folds in a robe or the sinewy slide of a serpent’s tail brought the spirit of the gospels to the page.

  Early in her apprenticeship Madeleine realized that painting, much like gardening, celebrated God’s glory through the beauty of color. But while a garden bloomed only briefly, a fickle splendor that withered and died in a matter of weeks, a miniature’s beauty lasted far longer.

  In addition to satisfying Madeleine’s urge to create and to spread the word of God, painting allowed her to hide her oddity. She remained ill at ease around people. With few exceptions, she continued to distrust men and her infrequent contact with the monks of Fontevraud did little to change that. For while the monks willingly served aristocratic nuns as penance for their sins, they balked at sharing the privilege of their position with commoners. They were outraged when she began illustrating manuscrip
ts. In response to their angry whispers and scathing glances, Madeleine concealed her true emotions with a modest drop of her eyes, for she believed that the appearance of timidity and compliance in woman calmed most men. She felt certain that Marie, a pragmatic soul who understood that success is sometimes achieved in circuitous ways, would approve of this deception.

  As for the women of Fontevraud, the reformed sinners lived apart from the nuns cloistered in the Grand Moutier. Madeleine spoke daily with Bertrad, but seldom saw the twins. She heard talk that Agnes had fallen in love with a stone cutter from Tours, and suspected that she and her sister would very soon take leave of the abbey. Madeleine and Philippa remained friendly, but Philippa was by birth a woman of great power and Madeleine never completely relaxed in her presence.

  Although Madeleine’s distrust of people limited the number and nature of her relationships, it seemed to benefit her art. All of her unexpressed emotions found their way into her illustrations.

  Of course she had a life apart from the scriptorium. Little Marie, a sturdy, confident child with a sharp mind, exhibited none of her mother’s timidity. More fearless than most girls, Little spoke forcefully at times, but always with kindness. Robert said that in loving her daughter Madeleine had forgiven Evraud, and she suspected he was right, for she knew that without Evraud’s unwanted seed there would be no Little, and Madeleine did not want to imagine that life. While not as expressive as Philippa’s or as attentive as Bertrad’s, Madeleine’s love for her child deepened with each passing day.

  Aside from Little, Robert was the only living person ever-present in Madeleine’s thoughts. He once told her that redemption was a long journey of the soul. And while he spoke of his own journey, Madeleine understood that his words applied to hers as well.

  That day when the Master returned from Anjou, Madeleine had been preoccupied with thoughts of Saint Lucy, the subject of her next miniature. Deeply immersed in her private world of inspiration, Madeleine momentarily mistook Robert’s nimbus for the one she envisioned glorifying Lucy.