The Burning Time

by Robin Morgan

  Not that she was overly indulgent. She maintained a distance to preserve her authority. But Alyce knew that the peasants’ greatest concern beyond their hardscrabble lives was for the future of their children, and it was here she was aware of being most respected, for two reasons. First, she was that rarity, a woman of learning. Second, she had for years been teaching the peasant children to read and write—beginning with the older ones, who in turn would teach the younger, and sometimes even tutor their own parents. The practice was, she knew, a flirtation with danger, but as such it was a thrilling, guilty pleasure. Townsmen and district gentry thought it an outrage that serfs might become lettered; not many townsfolk and gentrymen could read or write themselves. In idle moments, especially after a trip into Kilkenny Town, Alyce would find herself pondering how much of a real threat their surreptitious grumblings might one day present.

  Now she flopped over onto her stomach, trying to dismiss such worries. Public opinion had never before stopped her, she reminded herself, so there was no reason to start being concerned with it now. Whoever hungered to learn—nobles, peasants, women—should be permitted to learn. For that matter, Alyce knew that in some of her serfs the hunger itself had to be fostered. There were those whose minds had been famished lifelong, so that the slightest whiff of appetite or hope seemed suffocated by despair. Patient, steady coaxing had to be exercised to elicit a gleam of curiosity in their pain-dulled eyes. But the children, ah … they were different.

  She burrowed deeper into her bed linen, her thoughts careening back to the work that needed to be done. Soon it would be tupping season, time to put the bucks in with the does and the rams in with the ewes for mating that would produce next spring’s kids and lambs. For that matter, she needed to have her women card more sheared fleece for wool so that she could finish her spinning. In the morning she must remember about the orris root. And the cheeses. And sketch out a design for the flowered garlands of the sabbat dancers. Which reminded her that she must speak to William, and find a tactful way to suggest that he should not lead the Spiral Dance this sabbat. The last time he’d done so, he had wound everyone up in a mess of confusion, with much kicking of shins and clonking of heads. Dear Will. Her son never could remember the difference between dancing deosil, or sunwise, and widdershins, the counter-direction. It worsened when he became excited—certainly an expectable emotion at a sabbat—so that he tended to call out an instruction to circle one way while he blithely hopped off the opposite course, yanking baffled dancers after him in a lurching chain that soon collapsed into a heap of crushed garlands, wildly waving arms and legs, and mutual hilarity.

  My own sweet boy, Alyce reflected, realizing anew that at sixteen Will was no longer a boy; he was older than she had been when first she’d been betrothed. “How much younger he seems than I was then,” she murmured, silently thanking The Great Mother that Will showed few signs of taking after his father, her first husband. For the hundredth time, Alyce hurried her imagination past wondering what life might have been like had her child been a daughter.

  She turned over on her back again—this time Prickeare did protest, a bit noisily—and closed her eyes, letting the froth of her thoughts ebb along a wave of drowsiness. Trying to catch that wave, she began an exercise to summon and sweeten sleep. For the sheer hypnotic comfort of acknowledging its dependability, she started softly chanting to herself the stages of The Wheel that drove the year, naming each of the Eight Spokes that radiated from the hub and turned the days:

  “The Great Quarters:

  Two Solstices—Winter and Summer.

  Two Equinoxes—Spring and Autumn.

  Intersecting The Great Quarters, the four Cross Quarter Days:

  Brigid, the Feast of Returning Light, called Imbolc by the Druids, in early Feabhra, soon after winter’s peak;

  Beltane, or May Day, the spring Feast of Fertility;

  Lugnasad, or Lammas, summer’s Feast of the First Harvest;

  Samhain, the all-hallowed Eve at autumn’s heart, at the end of the month of Deireadh Fómhair—the solemn Feast of the Ancestors’ Spirits, the Death of the Old Year and Birth of the New …”

  What wisdom those primal rhythms held, she thought, as a way to mark time’s passage. Her eyelids growing heavy, she blinked in homage to those who had gone before, the Ancient Ones who had studied the moon’s phases and the stars and devised the calendar. Then, drifting toward a doze, she gave herself over to the tide of sleep.

  An insistent knocking at the door roused Alyce to the surface of consciousness.

  “Who is it?” she croaked groggily—then heard Petronilla de Meath identify herself in a timid voice from the other side of the broad oak slab.

  “Oh, Petronilla. Yes, enter. What is it? Is anything wrong?”

  A young woman burst into the room, only to stop short, afraid of its occupant and abashed at having wakened her. Placing her candlestick on the floor, she sank into a deep curtsey and remained there, her small hands anxiously twisting the ends of her hair—two long braids so light in colour they looked like melting icicles touched by a late winter sun. That extreme paleness framed a plain little face, currently pinched with shyness and trepidation.

  “Please an’ to forgive me, Your Grace, but—”

  Alyce waved away the apologies and inquired again, more sharply, if anything was wrong.

  “No Ma’m—yes Ma’m. Well … t’is Helena Galrussyn, Your Grace. The babe’s not due for almost another moon, y’know. But it comes now anyways, though why t’would willingly rush into such a world is a fine mystery. T’is Helena’s first, you’ll be kind enough to remember? And her pains—it goes hard with her, m’Lady. I know I feared I’d die with the hurt when my Sara was born … so, what with the midwife off to Durrow to be with her daughter through her first … forgive me, Your Grace, to be bursting in waking you. What must ye think of me! But I was hoping mayhap you might be so good as to look in on—”

  Petronilla’s last sentence hung in the air unfinished since Alyce, awake now, was already in mid-leap out of bed. The little maidservant watched as her mistress wriggled off her bedshirt in one swift unselfconscious movement, slipped on an under-tunic, and groped about for the brown homespun gown she’d left casually lying on the floor. Finding it, she yanked it over her head, slung a shawl round her shoulders, and stepped into a pair of hemp sandals. Accustomed to such nightly drama, Prickeare opened one languid jade eye to check on this flurry of activity, then closed it again and sighed himself back to sleep.

  “Do stand up, Petronilla. Bring your candle here,” Alyce ordered, flinging open the doors to her cupboard of medicines. The maid rose to her feet and carried the taper nearer.

  There, inside, were squat jars chiseled from blue stone, bronze boxes with openwork lids, tall brown leather bottles, green pottery bowls, and piles of yellowing muslin bags fragrant with their various stuffings of dried herbs, roots, and flowers—a treasury on shelves pungent with dust, wood, and spices. Petronilla drew closer, fascinated by the disarray ranked in some obscure order on those shelves: the secrets there—balms, potions, and powders mellowing in each jug and dish—waiting for the hand of Alyce Kyteler to apply them properly, so as to bestow the magickal curative properties of sleep or painlessness or health itself. The whole room felt enchanted, Petronilla thought, glancing around at the wall of crammed bookshelves, the small writing desk, the friendly clutter of bound volumes and rolled parchments piled on tables and stools, spilling over into the stone floor.

  Alyce was hurriedly packing a small basket with certain vials and casks, muttering as she did so.

  “Yes, hmmm. So … belladonna to stop the spasms and halt labor if it seems she might miscarry … ergot if we need to hasten the labor, skullcap for brewing as a tea to ease cramping … another tea we can steep from willow-bark and, let me see, dittany, hyssop, vervain, pennyroyal—if the pains grow really harsh.… Now, what else? Ah, yes. Some hyacinth oil. A massage should relax Helena’s muscles, as well as distract her wi
th its fragrance …”

  Petronilla stood watching, nervously knotting and unknotting her apron. She felt compelled to attempt another apology for having stirred such a storm in the calm of the night.

  “Helena—sure she said I mustn’t wake you. Said you were up last night into the wee dawn hours tending to Eva de Brounstoun’s bad lungs. You must think me daft, Your Grace, and t’is truly sorry I am. I dinna understand how you manage it all, Your Grace—”

  Her mistress glanced up from packing and frowned.

  “Petronilla, no ceremony. I have told you before not to call me ‘Your Grace.’ My peers would eagerly say that long ago I should have forfeit my title by refusing to behave as a noblewoman ought—however that is—though they have no idea how their dislike of my behavior delights me. I find the honorifics of rank encumbering. So now I will tell you again, hopefully for the last time: a simple ‘Lady Alyce’ and ‘My lady,’ will do. And stop saying Eva’s lungs are ‘bad.’ They are not. But she must cease taking part in the winnow of early wheat; that is what makes her wheeze so horridly. I have set her to breathing steam from boiled mullein leaves and cinnamon camphor, but she must stay away from chaff and pollen. It has nothing to do with good lungs or bad lungs or any moral judgment on lungs.”

  Petronilla blushed, crimson flooding her pale face.

  Alyce relented, adding, “I need to keep reminding myself that you are new to Kilkenny. Can it be only a year and a half you are with us? And look at you! You have actually put on a bit of flesh—not nearly enough, but at least you are now almost a scarecrow, not just a ghost rattling her bones. And you already a Seeker in The Old Ways! Why, you have begun to blossom, Petronilla. Out from your darkness. Like a moonflower.” Alyce touched the younger woman’s shoulder lightly. “So surely by now you must realize that no one around here has called me ‘Your Grace’ for a long time—except His Gracelessness Sir John, of course.” Petronilla smiled despite her embarrassment, not able to take worshipful eyes off her mistress, who was already moving swiftly to another cupboard, standing on tiptoe to pull down some lengths of fine linen from a high shelf.

  “That should suffice,” Alyce said, folding the cloth into a second basket. “Clean linen for the bedding, with enough extra to wrap the infant.…” She paused, mentally double-checking the contents of both baskets to make certain she’d forgotten nothing that might be necessary.

  Petronilla stood by silently, sending sidelong peeks at her lady, unable as always to find words that might express her admiration for this woman who seemed so fearless, so unlike her timid self. Alyce, noticing her awkwardness, offered the basket of linens for Petronilla to carry. The frail young woman grasped it as if she were being entrusted with a sack of gold.

  “You know, Petronilla,” Alyce said, peering at the shy face, “You did make the right decision. It would have been dreadful if Helena had been left with no midwifery this night. It was proper that you woke me.” She turned and sped to the door, while Petronilla stared at her adoringly.

  “Time drags cruelly to a woman in childbirth,” Alyce added briskly, looking back at her companion with raised eyebrows. Her glance was like a command.

  The two women swept out, leaving the chamber vacant for inspection by the slender crescent moon. It shone in like a smile, serene and satisfied, on the blueblack velvet face of the midnight sky.

  III

  UNEXPECTED GUESTS

  BISHOP RICHARD DE LEDREDE tensed his eminence, a somewhat bloated stomach, producing a loud belch that he tried to stifle behind the stiff silk of his cuff. Squirming with discomfort on the chair’s hardwood seat, he shifted his bulk and shook his head vigorously, causing his jowls to vibrate in sympathy with his indignation. This really was unusually rude, even for the Irish. How long must he wait? It was not as though he was unexpected; two days earlier he had sent a messenger informing Lady Alyce that he would call on her today and, though she had not responded, he knew she was in residence.

  He had boomed a stentorian “Yes!” when the manservant ushering him into Kyteler Castle’s Great Hall had asked if he wished for some refreshment while waiting for Her Ladyship. Back then, of course, he had assumed the wait would be the usual brief ceremonial one inflicted on even a distinguished visitor seeking audience with a noble. But hours had passed. He had devoured every crumb of the spiced toast and every morsel of the dates stuffed with eggs and cheese that two serving lads duly brought to him on a small, elegantly laid table. He had drunk every drop of the cider—for which he’d had to ask, rejecting the water they’d poured into a silver goblet—though once requested, he had to admit, the cider had been quickly fetched. Then he had read his breviary. Then he had slipped off his purple silk pilos, the skullcap that properly should be removed only during certain parts of the Mass, and fanned himself with it in the summer heat. He had paced. He had examined the ornately carved wooden benches set against the walls. He had studied the rich tapestries across which maidens danced alongside unicorns—recalling with unease the heresies that had been uncovered, flourishing like weeds, throughout the tapestry-weaver guilds in Provence. He had admired the gleaming silver candlestands ringing the huge room like sentinels, each taller than a man. The woman undeniably commanded enormous wealth and had superb taste … but how much longer must he endure this? It was insupportable that the Personal Emissary of His Holiness should be kept waiting for an entire morning, and by a woman.

  Richard de Ledrede had more than once found himself wondering why the blessed saints ever considered women a temptation. Along with children and animals, women struck him as the incarnations of pandemonium—although one might excuse children and animals, who existed in a state of innocence, which adult females hardly dare claim. Obviously, men could be agents of disorder as well, but men were complicated. It was a Christian obligation, for example—fortunately parallelling his personal tendency—to loathe men who were Saracens or Jews unless they embraced conversion, in which case they still could never quite be trusted. Scholarly men might be regarded with respect—but respect tempered by vigilance, since too much thinking could dim the most radiant brain to heresy until it might be brightened again only at the stake. Powerful, high-born men were to be suffered but befriended; they were the keepers of societal order, lay generals of the Church—yet they must never be allowed to forget that the Church held the keys for their entrance to Heaven. Wealthy men who preferred to live for pleasure rather than for power—men who had a sophisticated palate for fine food and wines, who relished aristocratic sports and cut fashionable figures in appearance—they were harmless jesters with the sense to leave serious decisions to Church representatives. Then there were the consecrated few, the Pope’s chosen sons: cardinal princes, bishops, monsignors, abbots, sometimes even ordinary priests.

  To be sure, many men of the cloth were not as disinterested in earthly delights as might be assumed—sport, feasting, drink, and fashion included—and Richard de Ledrede’s capacity for irony compelled him to number himself among them. No scrawny Saint Anthony in the desert, he; indeed, he privately harbored a disgust for religious zealots who denounced earthly pleasures God had intended for man’s delight. Still, he understood as too many did not how crucial it was to combine such pursuits with a shrewd grasp of what was most important: spiritual authority and temporal power, reflecting and reinforcing one another. Furthermore, he was wary, having seen more than a few worldly churchmen meet their downfall by a lack of moderation. But such folly was almost inevitably provoked by women, Hell’s most reliable servants.

  De Ledrede had been canny enough to avoid feminine lures, unlike some of his brethren; his sense of fastidiousness spurned the lazy wantons he found most women to be. Given the misery caused by female lasciviousness and sloth, he thought, how much better would the world be without women! There was procreation, to be sure … but if only God had arranged it so that the tiny homunculus curled inside each spermatozoon might grow to fruition directly and purely, held hostage not even temporarily by the dark,
fetid womb. As he had many times before, Richard de Ledrede found himself wondering why God’s ways were so much more mysterious than efficient.

  “I canna! I tell you I caaaanna!” The vowels rolled out along a wail.

  “Yes, Helena, you can. And you must. Oh, poor dear, poor child. Only two more heaves—just two more—and the babe will be here, I promise you. Petronilla, hold her up, do not let her slump so. Bear down now, Helena, push!”

  Alyce Kyteler, on her knees in a pool of bloody, watery fluid, kept yelling “Push!” as she hunched and strained between the spread, sweat-slick thighs of the woman squatting on the birthing stool before her. It was the seventeenth hour of labor, and Helena was weak with exhaustion. Her colour rose in a livid flush of effort as she bore down hard, then faded to the ashy pale of fatigue again as she relaxed. She moaned softly.

  “Good, good, you are doing well, Helena, so well,” Alyce crooned, “What a brave warrior you are … and the babe is almost here. I can see the head—I can see fine dark hair. Rest a moment now, dear. Breathe. Breathe deeply. Then one more set of presses, only one more, and it will all be over. There will be time afterward, so much time, time to rest, to celebrate, time to sleep.…” Hearing her singsong voice echo through her own weariness, Alyce sat back on her heels. What are you babbling about, she thought. Time to sleep? With a firstborn in the house? But she continued her soothing murmurs while wiping the sweat from her eyes with her sleeve.

  “Petronilla, cool Helena down again, will you?” she said. “Yes, her forehead, but also a wet cloth on her neck … along her arms, too. And some salve on those lips? Poor dear, poor brave dear …”