2ND DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Gennys, not the one who carried his own head
I am confounded. Shaggy Beard's agents, gone these last days, have come again. Shaggy Beard, it seems, is determined, and my behavior and my wishes affect him not at all. Is he the suitor more greedy than my father and more stubborn than I? Oh, God, I pray not.
The messengers' return changes nothing. I will not marry the pig!
A wonder: I have not the powers to avoid Shaggy Beard. Did I then truly have anything to do with George and Aelis? Or was there no curse?
3RD DAY OF MAY, Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross
May Perkin roast in Hell. I asked him this morning for a small kiss so I might know what all the fuss and poetry and song is about, but he just laughed and would not.
4TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Monica, who overcame a violent husband and a tendency to heavy drinking to become mother of the holy Saint Augustine
I put my shoes on the wrong feet this morning and it brought me ill luck indeed, for the negotiations are over and I am set to marry Shaggy Beard. My mother asked that I not be wed and gone until her baby is born in the autumn, so I have a morsel of time left to figure a way out of this trouble. If only I had been able to become a monk or a crusader or a pilgrim or anything but a maid about to be sold like a herring. I am sulking and have refused all food since dinner.
5TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Hydroc of Lanhydroc, a Cornish hermit
Fought with the beast my father over this joke of a marriage. I roared, he roared, I threw things, he stepped on them, I pushed him, he shouted about stubbornness and pride which should long ago have been broken and delivered several hard blows to my face.
6TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saints Marian and James, blindfolded, beheaded, and thrown into the river Rummel
Fought again with my father. God gave me this big mouth, so I think it can be no sin to use it. Even so, I plan to resume sulking instead of arguing—it is much easier on my face.
7TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Stanislaus of Poland, killed by some king while he prayed
Still sulking and have added deep sighs and ill temper. My father looks about to burst with anger. Good.
I spent the afternoon in the far field with Perkin and the goats. He said my father manages me all wrong. Perkin said he learned about getting along with me by watching Sym with the pigs. If it is necessary to lead a pig forward, he said, Sym ties a string to its hind leg and pulls backward. The pig will then pull forward and so goes ahead. And so it is with me, Perkin says. If my father pulled me backward, I would demand to go ahead.
I mislike being likened to a pig, so left Perkin in the field and am sulking in the barn—alone.
8TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Indract, an Irish prince who with his nine traveling companions was set upon and murdered by brigands
More lady-lessons. It is impossible to do all and be all a lady must be and not tie oneself in a knot. A lady must walk erect with dignity, looking straight before her with eyelids low, gazing at the ground ahead, neither trotting nor running nor looking about nor laughing nor stopping to chatter. Her hands must be folded below her cloak while at the same time lifting her dress from the floor while at the same time hiding her mouth if her smile is unattractive or her teeth yellow. A lady must have six hands!
She must not look too proud nor yet too humble, lest people say she is proud of her humility. She must not talk overmuch yet not be silent, lest people think she does not know how to converse. She must not show anger, nor sulk, nor scold, nor overeat, nor overdrink, nor swear. God's thumbs! I am going out to the barn to jump, fart, and pick my teeth!
9TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Beatus of Vendome, who lived and died in a cave, where he fought and slew a dragon
More arguing with my father and more bruises. As Morwenna bathed my face in rosemary water she said, "Child, a dog is wiser than you. He does not bark at his own master."
Perkin likens me to a pig, Morwenna to a dog. I wish I were one or the other.
10TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Conleth, who was devoured by wolves
My mother still troubled by headache, I made her a tonic of chamomile, being out of goat dung until Perkin brings the goats home. No relief.
11TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Credan, who killed his father and in remorse became a hogherd and a saint
I wonder how he did it.
14TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Boniface, who led a dissipated life but was kind to the poor and died while protecting Christians
My mother being ill these past days, I have had no time for writing or, in truth, anything to write.
15TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Dympna, protector of lunatics
We sent for the Spanish physician who is visiting the abbey to see to my mother's headaches, for Morwenna and I can do no more. He is a little man in a black cape and a flat black hat that looks very like a big burned pancake. He advised her to avoid bad smells, keep her head cool, and not to cry, sing high, or shout hallo. I advised her to get rid of the Spanish physician.
17TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Madron of Cornwall, whose magic well one can still visit
My mother does better, I am still promised to Shaggy Beard, it is raining. Life goes on.
18TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Aelgifu, queen of Wessex, mother of Kings Edwy and Edgar
I think Aelgifu a more suiting name for me than Catherine or Birdy. I asked Morwenna henceforth to call me Aelgifu but she merely snorted.
19TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Dunstan, who pinched the Devil's nose with tongs
Still raining. I sat in the hall with Odd William, who also refuses to call me Aelgifu but did read to me from his history of the world. He has just finished writing of the Trojan War and of Aeneas, who fled to Italy from the ruins of Troy, and his grandson Brutus, who was expelled from Italy for shooting his father with an arrow, thinking him an animal, although it seems to me a reasonable mistake. After many adventures this Brutus came to the island of Albion, inhabited only by giants, and he and his followers built homes and settled down to stay, changing the name of the island to Britain, after Brutus. I asked Odd William why in that case it was not Brutain. He humphed and stopped reading and I had to leave the comfort of the hall and find a place to hide from Morwenna and her everlasting weaving.
20TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Ethelbert, king of Fast Anglia, a relative, no doubt, of my aunt Ethelfritha
Still raining. No one will agree to call me Aelgifu except Gerd the miller's son, who cannot pronounce the name and says Ugly-foo.
21ST DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Collen, a Welshman who fought a duel with a Saracen before the pope, went home to Wales, and delivered the people in the Vale of Llangollen from a lady giant by slaying her
I asked Odd William about this story of Saint Collen, for it seems the sort of thing he would know. William says it is but a fable, that Saint Collen did indeed fight a Saracen and a lady giant but the pope was never involved.
How pleasant it has been to lie by the fire and hear stories and think about Greeks and giants and popes. Mayhap I could be William's apprentice.
22ND DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Helen of Carnavon, builder of Welsh roads
In order to put an end to my idleness, which Morwenna says is the great pathway that leads to all evils, I have been made to hem sheets for my marriage bed. By cock and pie! Would that I had thread spun from deadly henbane or spurge!
This sewing of sheets makes a marriage seem more real. What am I to do? Am I doomed?
25TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Zenobius of Florence, who raised from the dead five people including a child run over by an ale cart in front of the cathedral
Grown full restless with the rain, I thought to sing some of my songs to Odd William. He is after all a great scholar and could give me an opinion of them. I had just begun my Lenten song when he commenced talking of his own work and the difficulty of obtaining enough paper and how he is contemplating next a life of Merlin the Magician in rhymed coupl
ets. He did not see me or hear me at all. Finally I wandered off to throw gooseberries into the fire. They popped and hissed—made as much sense as Odd William. He will have to find another apprentice.
28TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Bernard of Aosta, who used dogs to help lost travelers on the Alpine passes
Walter Grey, the steward of Crossbridge Manor, stopped here today to drink our ale and to boast of a miracle in Crossbridge village. One of the villagers, he says, an unlettered man with no language but English, woke up one morning suddenly able to speak fluent Hebrew. We once had a two-headed calf, which I think much superior to Hebrew-speaking villagers, but it didn't live very long.
29TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Alexander, martyred in Milan
The news of the Hebrew-speaking villager has greatly excited Odd William. This, if true, he says, supports his growing suspicion that Brutus and the early Britons were not Trojans but members of one of the lost tribes of Israel, driven from their homeland by the Assyrians. A villager who miraculously remembers Hebrew from the Britons' long-ago past would confirm his theory.
William plans to ride to Crossbridge to see for himself. He has visions of glory and renown, with famed scholars coming from all over the world to consult him. Probably they will all want to sleep in my chamber.
30TH DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Hubert, who became a Christian when he saw the image of the crucified Christ between the antlers of a stag
There was a wondrous strange spectacle in our yard this dawn. Odd William tied his writing table, parchments, and pens onto the back of the miller's mule and set out for Crossbridge and fame. His eyes, so well suited for close work like writing, fail at distances, so that William rides leaning greatly forward on the mule's neck, alternately squinting and peering far ahead, while rubbing that spot between his eyes where all this squinting and peering hurts him. Our villagers lined the road and called out to him as he passed, thinking him some sort of saint or holy man for his part in the Crossbridge miracle. Dogs, two goats, a goose, and several village children ran behind him, spattered with the drops the ink made as it spilled its way to Crossbridge. I should like to paint a picture of this on my chamber wall, but I fear I would never then sleep for laughing.
31ST DAY OF MAY, Feast of Saint Petronilla, who refused to marry a pagan count and starved herself to death
The rain has stopped and the world shines. Everything seems more hopeful in the sun. It will soon be summer and I am not Lady Shaggy Beard yet. I will find a way out.
June
1ST DAY OF JUNE, Feast of Saint Gwen of Brittany, who had three breasts
Odd William has returned. He says the miraculous Hebrew the villager spoke was but gibberish, the product of a brain fever or an overactive imagination. Gone are William's hopes for greatness. He is standing again, his back to our fire, writing of the founding of Rome by twin orphans nursed by a wolf.
2ND DAY OF JUNE, Feast of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Christian martyrs, who converted their jailer while in prison
There was a message from Robert. His wife has died with as little fuss as she lived. I never once called her by name. It was Agnes. The child died too. It had no name.
Strange things are happening to me. I am having so many soft feelings. Mayhap I need to brew me some wormwood and periwinkle, to comfort my heart.
3RD DAY OF JUNE, Whitsunday and the Feast of Saint Kevin, who lived on salmon brought to him by an otter and died at one hundred twenty
We dressed all in green and yellow to celebrate Whit Day and sang "Summer is icumen m," although it was so cold and rainy that the dancers fought to wear the tree costumes, which are clumsy but warm, and all were wet and bedraggled. We were happy to think on the church ale to come.
4TH DAY OF JUNE, Feast of Saint Edfrith, scribe and artist, like me
Quiet today. I am sore of head and sour of stomach but warm.
5TH DAY OF JUNE, Feast of Saint Boniface, who wrote the first Latin grammar used in England
I helped an ant today. She carried a burden so heavy it looked to crush her. A crumb it was, or a speck of wheat. Or a drop of honey that had hardened in the sun. She was struggling to take it back to her nest, where it would feed her fellow ants for a day or a week, as small as it was. So intent was she on carrying her crumb that she didn't notice me at all. I watched as she staggered and fell and bumped and stumbled, making slow progress toward what must have been her home.
But day was nearly over. I knew the villagers would be driving their animals back through the meadow to pen them for the night. And the tiny ant and her precious crumb would be smashed into the dirt. I had to help her.
First I searched around for other ants, to see where they were going. I followed a line of ants running to and from a hole in the dirt, some in, some out, some sideways, all around the hole. This must be home, I thought.
I put a piece of a leaf in front of the ant. All intent on her burden and unaware of me, she walked onto the leaf. Then I went to the hole in the dirt where all the ant activity was. It was only a few steps for me but seemed a lifetime's journey for an ant. I put the leaf down by the hole. The ant walked around the leaf, up the stem and down the side, stumbled around in circles for a bit, twitched her feelers like my brother Robert hitching up his breeches, and walked down the ant hole, still balancing her morsel. I felt as though I had saved the whole world.
6TH DAY OF JUNE, Feast of Saints Gudwal, Jarlath, Norbert, Agabard, Artemius, Candida, and Pauline. Truly. I am not making this up
The beast my father woke up roaring like a real beast this morning. Toothache. He rubbed garlic on his thumb and left the smelly paste there all day, but that reliable remedy failed him. He roars that he will go to Lincoln to the tooth puller, but my mother is afraid that pulling the tooth will leave a hole in his head where evil spirits can get into his body. I think it more likely that evil spirits could get out.
8TH DAY OF JUNE, Feast of Saint William of York, at whom my great-great-great-great-grandmother once threw a cabbage
My mother convinced the beast to send to the abbey for the Spanish physician. She thinks mayhap he can cure my father's toothache without leaving a hole.
11TH DAY OF JUNE, Feast of Saint Barnabas, the first missionary
Two days ago the Spanish physician was here. He told my father that the toothache is due to an imbalance of humors in his body and recommended letting out some excess blood by cutting a vein under his tongue. The beast submitted meekly—for him—until the knife pierced his tongue. He swung out and knocked the little man from Spain from his stool. Finally the physician managed to cut the vein and caught the heavy dark blood in a cooking pot.
But today the beast still roared, so the physician returned. The toothache, it seems, comes not from unbalanced humors but from a toothworm, which has burrowed deep into my father's jaw. This new cause required a new remedy, so the physician mixed henbane leaves with sheep fat, rolled this into little pellets, and dropped them on the fire. My father leaned over and breathed in the smoke through his mouth. Sparks kept leaping up and starting his beard on fire—he looked like a demon from the mouth of Hell, smoldering and bellowing. I went outside and helped Meg make cheese.
13TH DAY OF JUNE, Feast of Saint Antony of Padua, who once preached to fish
We go today to Lincoln to the tooth puller! The physician came again yesterday, escorted by six of my father's men. He told my father that this toothworm was especially stubborn and malignant and that nothing would do but a poultice of raven manure on the sore tooth. I saw the little man running, robes pulled up over hairy skinny legs, followed by my father's roar, and not even his six escorts could bring him back.
Morwenna convinced my mother that we need new embroidery silks that none but she and I could select, so we go too! It is Corpus Christi week and on Thursday the guilds of Lincoln will deck their wagons with flowers and herbs and pull them through the town to the cathedral square, where they will perform their plays about the wonders of Creation and the life of Jesus
and I will be there to see! God keep Morwenna!
19TH DAY OF JUNE, Feast of Saints Gervase and Protase, whose relics restored the sight of a blind butcher in Milan
Corpus bones! Since last I wrote I have seen Heaven and Hell, angels and devils, and the tortures of the damned. I must be much changed.
We rode to Lincoln in a fine drizzle, but the city atop its hill was bathed in sunshine. From our room in the inn I could hear the sharp cracking of horses' hooves on cobblestone, the cries of merchants and peddlers, the cook boys calling "Hot pies! Fat pigs and geese! Come and eat!" and the incredible noise of too many people in too small a space.
Lincoln is wondrous fair and curious. On our way to the tooth puller we walked streets so steep a fat bishop pushed from the top would not stop rolling until he reached the river Trent. On either side were merchants' booths with wares spread out upon the counters—cloth, ribbons, candles, needles, boots, belts, spoons, knives, arrowheads, and more. Above the shops the second stories leaned so far over the street that Mistress A could pass a sausage to Mistress B across the road without leaving her house.
Catherine, Called Birdy Page 11