The Burning Time

by Robin Morgan

  “Then what—”

  “My dear. Richard de Ledrede is merely a symptom of a greater sickness, and while I may be able to treat the symptom, the sickness itself is one for which I know no cure. We live in dangerous times, our lives ruled by men far from us, far from our lives, our experiences. They are men who love to hold power over others, who live to do so, and who doubtless have convinced themselves that what they do—no matter how cruel—is for the good of those who suffer and perish from their doing it. This much I know: almost no one committing evil believes he is committing evil. T’is an interesting quirk of humanity—one that, could we ever learn enough about it, might one day save us all, since it must mean that at heart even the worst villain wishes to do good.”

  “Hearing you reminds me how greatly I have missed our conversations, Lady Alyce. But I am here to—he sent me to spy on you, my Lady! I am so ashamed!” He buried his face in his hands.

  “Why need worry, when you shall fail in your mission? What is there to spy on? I have come to visit with the le Poers—surely that is permissible. You and I spoke about your dead mother, who was my friend. You did not even break bread or take tea with me.”

  “My Lady, please. You must flee. He—he … he plans to make an example of you, to prove his diligence to the Pope. These charges are … no one in an Ecclesiastical Court will ever find you innocent. I know you care naught about being excommunicated. But you will be condemned. You could be burned alive!”

  “Nonsense.”

  “No! T’is not nonsense! You must get away, to Wales or—”

  “I shall never be driven from my home and lands, Sean Fergus. But you must flee. Get away, my dear, keep trying to get back to your studies. I could send you a potion that would convincingly make it appear as if you were mortally ill for a few days, so perhaps he might let you—”

  “But now I must stay here. Only I can testify to your innocence before his Ecclesiastical Court!”

  “And thereby endanger yourself to the charge of heresy? I think not. However, I also assure you that such a trial shall never take place.” He groaned, and Alyce chuckled. “Nor am I mad. Or a religious zealot. Although I confess to a tincture of cynicism at times.…”

  “But now—”

  “Now you must go. Return to the Bishop. Inform him that Her Grace has thought deeply on the charges. Inform him that I will attend on him later today, before noon, at his Residence.”

  “You will attend on … why?”

  Alyce stood and held out her arms to him, saying nothing.

  “Holy Brigid, my Lady! To recant?”

  She did not answer him directly, but she smiled, “Well, if recanting would stop such viciousness, it might be worth it, Sean Fergus, might it not? Mere words, after all? Words offered with the intention of making peace?”

  In a confusion of relief, dismay, and bafflement, the young priest leapt to his feet and rushed into Alyce’s embrace.

  “I cannot—I will help you any way I can—but I know not what to—to …”

  She held him a moment. Then she murmured,

  “Now be on your way. And fear not, my dear. Róisín watches over your ways, even as The Mother watches over all our ways. Go. Bring your bishop my message.”

  He bowed and kissed her hand, then walked to the door.

  “And … Sean?” He turned.

  “Blessed Be.”

  He bowed again, and smiled.

  “Blessed Be, my Lady.”

  Then he turned and was gone.

  Annota Lange, in the door before his footsteps on the stairs had faded away, demanded to know what he had been after. But Alyce assured her that the meeting had merely been a courtesy visit between old friends, a teacher and her very first student, and that underneath his cassock Father Brendan Calice was still the Sean Fergus they had known and loved. The widow was not satisfied with that answer.

  But her dissatisfaction could not compete with the Bishop’s, when his priest returned to the Residence bearing at first somewhat similar, innocuous information. Nevertheless, Richard de Ledrede was greatly mollified and even more greatly excited to learn that Dame Alyce would be calling on him before midday, possibly—although his priest could not proclaim this for certain—to discuss recanting.

  As for Father Brendan, while neglecting to tell his superior that he had confided numerous details to Lady Alyce, he realized he could honestly report that from her he had really learned nothing at all.

  X

  BISHOP TO QUEEN’S PAWN

  TRUE TO HER WORD, later that morning, attended by her full retinue, Alyce Kyteler descended on the Prelate’s Residence at St. Canice’s Cathedral.

  When word was brought to the Bishop that Dame Alice actually awaited him in his reception chamber, he felt elated. A recantation from so prominent a rebel would surely sweep other Irish apostates in its wake. He might be able to return to Avignon sooner than he had hoped, in triumph!

  Enjoying himself, he poured a cup of wine and sat savoring it, deliberately keeping his caller waiting as long as he dared. But in less than half an hour, his manservant informed him that Her Grace was about to depart, so he rushed to his reception chamber, fearful that he had gone too far and might lose his prey.

  The noblewoman Richard de Ledrede encountered was as different from the peasant wench he had first met as she was from the infidel priestess he had later confronted. He was taken aback, for a moment thinking that perhaps the witch actually could become three different females. Yet there was something recognizably consistent in her expression, although certainly this woman—arrayed according to high rank and station—was more to his liking than either of the others. Impressed by her taste, her jewels, and the cut of her watered-silk pale rose gown, he decided that he could afford to be magnanimous. After all, he had her in his power. She was here, alone, a penitent about to recant and submit to his authority in public contrition.

  “Your Grace,” he said, bowing formally, “Welcome to Kilkenny Town and to my Cathedral. It is a prudent action that you take, and you shall discover that I am not a man of petty revenge. We will find ways to set your penance so that it is tolerable and not as harsh as some may—”

  “For you,” she said. She neither smiled nor rose to greet him. She simply held out a scroll of parchment.

  “For me? Me?” he stammered, confused. “If you have written out your recantation, that was unnecessary, Your Grace. You could have dictated to my clerks any—”

  “Read it.”

  She sat there so regally that he felt diminished, a petitioner in his own house. He scurried to where she had enthroned herself, took the scroll, and backed away as he unrolled it. But one glance at the parchment script was enough to send his heart pounding. He looked up at her, then back again to the scroll, then back up again at her.

  “My lord Bishop,” she said coolly, “You issued ultimatums when last we met—when you brought disrespect and violence to our Lugnasad Sabbat. I come bringing neither disrespect nor violence. But I do bring a reciprocal ultimatum.”

  He felt fear rise and wash over the residue of his jubilation.

  “You … are not here to recant?”

  He looked so genuinely devastated that Alyce found herself pitying him. She chose the gentlest tone she could muster in the circumstances.

  “No, my lord Bishop. I am not here to recant.”

  “But, but … why … what has this to do with—” he waved the parchment at arm’s length as if it might curl closed with a snap, devouring him.

  “I am here in the hope that you and I can solve our dispute in peace, between ourselves. If you give me your word that you agree to cease persecuting my people and my person, then that paper will be quietly returned to the county annals to gather more years of dust. Well, in truth, the parchment you hold is actually a fair copy—but I have the original in my safekeeping, which I will then return to the Registry. Afterward, you may re-convert as many of us Irish as you can catch—or at least you can try. But not here. N
ot in Kilkenny. Not in all Ossary.”

  The Bishop groped toward the nearest chair and sat down heavily.

  “If you do not agree, then I must tell you that I intend to revive the charge, and have public proceedings opened against you.”

  “This is extortion!” he whispered, incredulous.

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps it is a case of a woman who has means pursuing justice almost two years late on behalf of a woman who lacked means.”

  “You actually would—you would—”

  “I would. Doubt me not.”

  “But I could have you arrested now, right here! I could—”

  “No. You could not. For one thing, my women wait just outside that door, and they can be rather fierce. With them are a few of my brawniest ‘followers,’ as you would put it. And my men-at-arms. Your men-at-arms, by the by, are off enjoying a leisurely early luncheon at the tavern, with unlimited tankards of ale—at my invitation and expense. They were so pleased to be offered such a treat, and this not even a saint’s day.”

  The Bishop stared at her.

  “Come, come, my lord. Why look so ravaged? This is a good bargain we might strike! You are left your reputation intact, and in exchange, we are left our lives in peace. As I recall, you care greatly about reputation—an understandable concern for a man well on his way to becoming a cardinal prince of the Church, perhaps one day even Pontiff? Why not?”

  Rigid with anger, de Ledrede could not yet reply. Unfazed, she continued. As she talked, she removed one of heavy pearl necklaces from around her neck and stripped off the emerald ring, placing them both on the small table next to her chair.

  “You once invited me to dine and implied that we might become friends, my lord Bishop. I should not necessarily dislike that.”

  His eyes on the jewels, he bit out each word:

  “You dare try to bribe me!”

  “Why no, my lord. What a thought.” She tugged a silk kerchief from her sleeve and serenely began fanning herself with it. “I merely feel warm. As you know, I am at heart a country lass, unaccustomed to being indoors in summer heat—and unused to town finery.” She left the jewels where they were, but picked up her earlier thought. “Were we to forge our own peace, I might prove a powerful friend—one who could support your ambitious crusade for advancement at Avignon.”

  “You know nothing of me or my ambitions! And what can an admitted witch possibly know of politics at the Papal Court?”

  “That they are not much different from politics at any other court,” Alyce shrugged. “With sufficient finances, a cardinal’s red hat would be well within your reach. As for knowing you, I am a diligent student, and have managed to learn a bit of your history. You are a fascinating man. I know that your mother died when you were a child, and that your father was given to express himself in blows rather than words. I know that he often filled your home with his strumpets; t’is little wonder you think all women whores. I know that one of your older brothers died in a tavern brawl and the other became a tanner and saddler, that your sister had scrofula and died young, and that your father assumed you would follow him in the family trade.”

  She paused, watching him flush dark red.

  “Yes, my lord. Trade. I know that he refused your pleas to become a scholar. I know that you surrendered your hopes and made a disastrous attempt to follow family tradition … as a petty merchant.”

  “You know. You think you know, Your Ladyship. You know nothing. You were born to privilege and you wallow in it, unaware, free, so free that you can afford even the ignorance of not realizing you wallow in it. Look at you. How could you possibly know what it feels like: to squander your intellect on London tradesmen in tawdry commercial scuffles over a few sordid pence; to be forced to do business with Jew moneylenders; to compete for a clientele of fine lords and ladies who scorn you; to grovel for the patronage of nobles like yourself!”

  “So you rebelled. Well, I applaud you. You ran away and took religious orders: rather a dramatic rebellion, that. Tell me, did you choose to become a Franciscan and adopt the most altruistic vows of any order—”

  “—the better to serve suffering humanity—”

  “—the better to distance yourself from grimy commerce?”

  “You are a devil!”

  “Oh dear, back to that again, are we? Why does your kind always attribute insight to a demonic impulse? As if obtuseness were a holy value? Were all your saints idiots, then? Unlike you, sir, I do have faith—faith that not all good people need be stupid.”

  The Bishop smiled grimly at his guest.

  “What a clever woman you are, Your Grace. I know not how your informants ferreted all this out from the long-buried past. But it matters little. I can tell you the rest, so you need not exhaust your spies further.”

  “Not spies, my lord. Scouts. In your case, I requested information that might be helpful to a student of human nature, like myself. But for some time now, my … curious couriers have proved useful to me as a lone woman managing the affairs of a great estate. They tell me of trends and markets and wars on the Continent. They ask questions, speak with neighbors, sift through public records. They listen. They read county registers and district annals, craft-guild member lists, law proceedings, birth and death rolls. Not so different from the Church’s information-gathering arrangement—but for three exceptions: mine is infinitely smaller; my couriers do not accept slander as fact; and no one in my employ tortures people.”

  “No need to, eh? The nobility simply has them murdered outright?”

  “My lord Bishop, if you insist on—”

  “Oh no, Madam. You wanted my personal history, and you shall have it. I fled to Italy, but I am sure you know that. There I encountered a banquet of learning—theology, philosophy, languages—all within my grasp. You were not the only intelligent student in the world, Your Grace. The Church noticed me, while everyone else ignored me. I applied myself. And so I rose, gradually but steadily, from priest to monsignor. In time, I was judged worthy to be sent to France, to the Papal Court. There I was … it was as if I had been transformed. The place itself … the south of France, with its golden light—”

  “—and golden opportunities? With the realization of how many occasions there were for a shrewd young man to seek advancement in the Church?”

  “Your sarcasm, Madam, is unwarranted. You have not been to the Court at Avignon, or you would not speak of it so dismissively. It is an earthly paradise. There, fountains dance in sunlight throughout lush gardens, and the larks sing counterpoint to Gregorian chant. There, peace is no longer an idea but an experience. There, exquisite art, sophisticated discourse, and sumptuous feasts are all daily devotions celebrated as often as Mass—and every part of this is accomplished in a seemingly effortless manner. There, daily life is miraculous.”

  “Due to great wealth, which is never effortless. While daily life is always miraculous. So. In Avignon, you discovered how heady earthly power could be, and the myriad ways it might be obtained—”

  “—to work all the more effectively for mankind’s redemption! Although I do not expect you can believe that.”

  “Oh but I can,” she said slowly. “None of us becomes who we intended to be when … when we first chose the path to a then-certain destination. We are fortunate if the path approximates any resemblance to what we originally thought we were selecting.… Nor is it possible to decipher when, where, or how one began to change, subtly, along the way—since one has no vantage point from which to perceive the entire terrain.”

  The Bishop raised his eyebrows in surprise. For a moment, he found it difficult to remember that he was facing an enemy. Rarely had he felt so recognized.

  “Yes,” he admitted, “What you say is true. I discovered a new universe—one of delicate moral shades, more challenging yet more soothing than the simplistic blacks-and-whites of my youth, when I was so pathetically straining to live as a parody of Saint Francis. But no matter the path I chose, the Church was there before me, with
answers to all my questions. I found my salvation, in this world as well as the next, through the one institution wherein a man might move from impotence to power, to live and act as the equal of those who are born—callously, unjustly entitled—into it.”

  “Like me,” Alyce said softly.

  “Like you,” he answered, nodding. “Yes, Madam, those born to power like you. You can afford to play at being a peasant, you see. I was only a step up from being one. I know you as well as you know me, though with fewer specifics. I have met your type before among the nobility; ones who act beneficently toward their inferiors, but always for their own purposes—beguiling them in the process, as you did with my obviously corruptible, incompetent men-at-arms. You personify the ideal mistress to your serfs—but one day you will get bored with them, or the peasants you have indulged will actually begin to take themselves seriously. Then nobles like you fling the wretches out, back on Church alms again, which they need to augment the pittance you have allowed them, just to stay alive.”

  Alyce flinched. But she chose to ignore this remark, pursuing her own strategy instead.

  “Yet we have something in common, my lord. As you noted, we both struggled to become lettered. We both—”

  “And we both became lettered. Highly educated, in fact. But here is the bitter joke, Madam: we were both educated by the same institution—one I embrace and you deny. What an ingrate you are, Your Grace! What a hypocrite! You would champion your allegedly defrauded widow—but if I relent, you stand ready to abandon her and her case, summarily. Or will you seek her out and bribe her, too? You posture, you extort, you threaten, you bribe. A true noblewoman! So arrogant, indifferent, and immoral that you deign not even recognize your own malevolence.”

  Alyce’s eyes flashed.

  “Hearken to me, Papal Emissary. You and your Church leave a blood-soaked trail of forced conversions in your wake—and you call me arrogant? You hunt down people; you accuse them on evidence of rumours based in spite or envy; you torture them to extract confessions—and I am immoral? You coerce them to name other innocents, more victims for more condemnations; you condemn as a heretic anyone who dares dispute an Inquisitor’s verdict; you spill human agony from your cornucopia of conquest—and I am malevolent? You burn alive living human flesh—”