by P K Adams
As I stood staring at the ravaged thigh, a conversation I had had with Brother Wigbert came back to me. Soon after I had started working in the infirmary, I told him that Jutta, who had never indulged in any condiments with her meals, had begun to ask for more salt from the kitchen. Wigbert had seemed disturbed, and now I understood why. Salt . . . as the implication sank in, I felt sick again.
I went to the window and stared at the thick layer of snow sparkling in the midday sun, letting the sight purify my senses. I felt tainted, and the pristine landscape soothed me, but when I returned to wash the body, its contours began to blur and heavy tears spilled down my cheeks. Grief welled inside me like water filling my lungs and choking the breath in my throat. Jutta had effaced herself but she had allowed me to thrive—one word from her, and I would never have worked or studied with Brother Wigbert. And while I had shown my gratitude to the old infirmarian many times, I regretted never having properly thanked her.
Wiping my eyes with my sleeves like a child, I wrapped the body in a shroud, placed a candle by its head, and kneeled by the bier.
Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine
Et lux perpetua luceat ei.
Jutta was buried in a side chapel of the church because the snow had made it impossible to dig a simple grave in the cemetery that she had wanted, and where we would move her in the spring. Yet despite the snow, ordinary folk had trudged from as far as Böckelheim and Sobernheim to bid farewell to the famed anchoress of St. Disibod. I had never seen so many people in the abbey at one time, thronging both courtyards and spilling through the gate despite the cold.
The next day, Abbot Kuno summoned me to discuss the transition at the convent. For some time, I had been feeling blind in my dealings with the monks because Brother Wigbert’s increasing forgetfulness—he would miss church services without knowing it, or stare at me helplessly when presented with a complicated bone fracture—meant that I knew less and less about what went on inside the abbot’s lodging. My nerves were taut when I went to the meeting with no inkling as to what might be planned and no advice on how to handle it. Important decisions about the future of our community might be in the making, but unable to anticipate and prepare for it, I felt uncertain and acutely alone.
I did not fear for the convent’s survival because we were too profitable to the abbey, the endowments Jutta had ceded over the years having paid for various renovations and additions. The church alone had been outfitted with new statues, a gilded cross, and a reliquary containing a splinter from the Holy Cross. And those were the things I was aware of; who knew what else had been stashed away in the treasury house, which itself had been expanded only the year before?
What worried me was how the monks would treat us after Jutta’s death. Would we continue as a fief that supported their lavish spending, or would we be allowed to function as an independent entity that used its property as it saw fit? From what I had been able to gather, we were entitled to our income—as evidenced by Jutta always ceding it voluntarily—so the convent must have been founded as an autonomous house, bound to the abbey only by its common allegiance to Regula Benedicti. Under Jutta it had shifted into an obscure dependency, but there was no reason why it should remain that way when she was gone.
I entered the abbot’s parlor, where the air felt tense from Prior Helenger’s presence even before the first words were spoken. Pale winter daylight filtered through the window but failed to dispel the shadows from the chamber’s corners. The fire from the hearth provided more light, but it caused the prior’s tall shadow to hover ominously on the wall, its top breaking where the wall met the ceiling to make it seem like he was looming over us.
The first thing Abbot Kuno wanted was an account of Jutta’s last days. I told him of my discovery of the hair shirt and the cilice, which left him visibly shaken. Helenger, on the other hand, listened with avid curiosity, his eyes shining not unlike Jutta’s when she was alive. When I had finished, the abbot shook his head. “The extent of her bodily mortification was greater than we had all thought.”
“Yes.”
“Is that what caused her death?”
“Ultimately. The infection was responsible for the recurring fevers that sapped her vitality in the end.”
“She was a holy woman.” Helenger’s voice rang out, strangely thick. “We need more martyrs like her.”
I ignored him, keeping my eyes on the abbot. “I have not read the convent’s charter since Jutta became enclosed fifteen years ago,” he said at length, “and I have forgotten the details because my memory has grown weaker, as has my vision. But Brother Prior”—he gestured toward Helenger without looking at him—“took the pains to reread it, and he informs me that the document leaves it to me to choose the manner in which her successor will be selected.”
So we were not exactly an independent house. “How so?” I asked, trying to hide my disappointment.
“I can make a nomination, or I can leave it entirely to the sisters to select their magistra.”
“And I have advised Father Abbot to nominate Sister Juliana, who is the most senior member of the anchorite community,” Helenger hastened to inform me.
Of course you have, I thought, still looking at Kuno.
“It is true that Sister Juliana is the next in line,” the abbot said, “but I want to know if Sister Jutta expressed any wishes as to who should succeed her in her duties.”
“She has, Father.” I straightened my spine reflexively. “She wanted me to take over.”
Helenger gave a snort. “You cannot prove that.”
“Are you saying that Sister Hildegard is lying, Brother Prior?” The abbot raised an eyebrow in his direction.
“I am saying there is no proof,” he repeated petulantly.
“There is no proof because we were alone when she expressed her will,” I said. “I suggested Sister Juliana myself, but Sister Jutta did not believe she wanted it.”
“It is not a matter of choice but of duty.”
“We cannot force anybody to lead a community against their will.” The abbot spread his arms. “It is too important a role. Sister Juliana’s stance on the matter will be easy enough to verify,” he added for the prior’s benefit, then gave me a considering look. “And what was your answer?”
“I said I was ready to lead if they chose me.”
“Father Abbot, she lacks the experience. It would be an insult.” The contempt had left Helenger’s voice and was replaced by a ring of frustration that I knew would give way to anger next.
Kuno leaned on his desk and steepled his fingers under his chin, contemplating me. In that moment, I saw how he, too, had aged. His face, once round and red, had thinned and become more lined, folds of skin hanging on the sides of his jaw. His hands were covered with brown spots, their knuckles more prominent than I had remembered.
“I will nominate you,” he said, raising his hand as the prior opened his mouth to protest, “but a nomination does not assure an election. The anchoresses will have to vote, and if there is a tie, I will break it.”
“But Father Abbot—” Helenger’s eyes widened as if to say, What about that other matter?
I guessed immediately what was on his mind but took care not to reveal it.
“I have made my decision,” Kuno said wearily.
“Can I make a request, Father?” I asked, encouraged.
He nodded cautiously.
“May I read the charter?”
“If you are elected, you will be entitled to have access to it.”
He rose and I followed, feeling lighter. The charter had the final answer to the question of who controlled the convent’s finances, but I was not worried anymore; Helenger’s reaction had been eloquent enough. All I needed now was the votes.
“One more thing . . . Sister.” Helenger’s voice reached me on my way out the door, and his emphasis was loaded with cold fury. I
stopped, and as our eyes locked, I saw implacable hostility in them. “Whoever succeeds Sister Jutta will only be entitled to be called magistra, not prioress, because the convent ranks lower in the hierarchy of the abbey. It is not an equivalent house.”
As the caveat was unnecessary, I inclined my head and was about to turn away when a dismal thought struck me: if I were elected, I might one day have to deal with an Abbot Helenger. He had tried to throw obstacles at my feet for years, and when Abbot Kuno was gone, he would unleash everything in his power to relegate me to an anchorite oblivion. He must have read all that in my face, because as I gave him one last look, his mouth twisted in a mirthless smile full of malice.
A week later, on the first day of the year 1125, I was duly elected magistra of the convent of St. Disibod.
24
October 1125
I did away with many of the rules by which Jutta had governed the convent. I asked the kitchen to send us fresh fruits and vegetables along with our normally bare rations of bread, water, and milk, and to add fish on Sundays and holidays. With Brother Wigbert’s help, I procured larger braziers for the dorter and the chapel so they were finally properly heated, and fresh rushes were now regularly spread on the floors. It was no longer required of the sisters to kneel for hours in front of the altar; instead, I let them choose the way they wanted to perform their devotions.
Next, I turned my attention to our robes. We had always worn habits of coarse wool bought locally, but now I decreed that we could receive cloth from home—soft wool for the cold season and linen for the warm months—in colors other than gray. Juliana opted for black, while Gertrude chose white with a short silk veil. She looked very becoming in it too, as I had done away with the practice of having our hair shorn four times a year. If anyone had been allowed inside the enclosure, they would have often found us with our hair unbound and streaming over our shoulders as we went about pruning the vines and tending to our newly-planted rosebushes. How we had changed in just a few months! Never before had our cheeks been so rosy, nor our sense of camaraderie so deep. In Jutta’s time none of it would have been possible, and it gave me a bitter kind of satisfaction.
But it was not an easy transition, plagued as I was by Helenger’s constant complaints and an ongoing lack of funds. To make matters worse, Brother Wigbert’s decline had quickened after I had become magistra, and soon I was running the infirmary by myself, setting bones, lancing boils, and dispensing medicines, with ever-changing novices for assistants.
Before the first year of my tenure was over, Wigbert was confined to bed and no longer recognized anybody. I was the only one whose presence sparked a glimmer of awareness in his eyes, as if my voice managed to shed a momentary light into the darkening recesses of his mind. And I grieved for the old infirmarian, for in him I was losing a teacher and a friend whose guidance had opened my mind and made my success in the practice of medicine possible.
Whenever I had a free moment, I would sit at his bedside, hold his hand, and tell him news from the world.
The year had been an eventful one, and many throughout the Rhineland—from the heights of princely and ecclesiastical courts to the merchant shops of port towns—were looking forward to its end with hope for quieter times. The simmering conflict within the empire had flared up again, ravaging commerce and weakening the nobility’s grip on their lands. Emperor Heinrich had died without producing an heir with his English wife, which precipitated a brief but fierce struggle for the throne. Duke Frederick of Swabia, his nephew, was a natural successor, but the Archbishop of Mainz had thrown his support behind the Duke of Saxony, Lothair of Supplinburg—according to some because Frederick was one-eyed, but more likely because Lothair had soundly defeated Heinrich at Welfesholz ten years before. He was therefore a potent symbol of the papal faction’s struggle against the Salian dynasty and offered the best hope for a more pliable monarchy.
Predictably, that choice had run into opposition from the late emperor’s kin, and the conflict might have turned bloody but for the fact that Frederick’s younger and more ambitious brother Konrad, Duke of Franconia, was in Jerusalem during that time. Frederick lost the election to Lothair and never managed to rally enough supporters to attempt to take the throne by force.
I had followed those developments closely through intelligence gathered from our visitors, and it seemed to me that the concordat had done nothing to quell the proclivity of the temporal and spiritual powers to use elections, whether ecclesiastical or royal, as an opportunity to ascertain more control over the other’s domain.
“And no, there had been no comet in the sky the night the emperor died,” I whispered after I had recounted the events, smiling even as I swallowed a lump in my throat. Wigbert’s expression was as serene and trustful as that of a child listening to a bedtime story.
I blew out the candle, added charcoal to the brazier, and left for the convent. Often, that late night walk was the time when I felt most lonely, and when my thoughts instinctively went to Volmar. He had been gone for more than two years, and although I did not know where he was or what he was doing, I hoped that he was safe and happy. I still missed him, but I no longer felt the acute sense of loss that had followed his departure. Nowadays, the thought of him brightened my mood and helped dispel my solitude, even though there were times, especially when Wigbert was faring worse, when I wished he was there to offer words of comfort and courage for what lay ahead.
But that autumn night, I had reason to feel hopeful again, even excited. Just five days before, our convent had grown. It was not exactly an expansion—my plea for renovating and enlarging our premises had yet remained unanswered—but Jutta’s vacated place had allowed me to accept a novice, and I made my choice carefully. Elfrid was unlike the rest of us; she was a small, plump woman in her middle thirties, she had lived in the world before she had joined us, and she possessed a restless energy in her movements that betrayed a force to be reckoned with. She also had a worldly skill.
I knocked on the door, and from the short, rapid steps on the other side, I guessed that she would be the portress. Perhaps she had just returned to the enclosure herself. Indeed, as the gate squeaked on its rusty hinges, there she was, welcoming me with a bright smile on her wide face.
“How did it go?” I asked, alert despite my weariness. Everything about her was sure and lively, two traits absent from the convent. Her viriditas made my heart lighter.
“With God’s help, the babe was delivered safely and is living, though she is tiny and will require much care to thrive,” Elfrid replied. She had been a midwife in Rüdesheim and had decided to spend her widowhood as a nun. Her dowry—the money she had inherited from her mildly successful merchant husband—had been only fifteen silver marks, much less than a daughter of nobility would have brought. But I had not hesitated, for here was a chance to do something about the poor quality of maternity care that made the risky business of childbirth more dangerous still.
Surprisingly, Abbot Kuno had given his leave for Elfrid to go on house calls, though it was only because he wanted to avoid a battle over allowing women to deliver in the infirmary, an option I had deliberately suggested first. “It took so long that I had to use three measures of henbane to help her through it.” She reached into her scrip and took out an almost empty bottle to show me. Elfrid was also a competent herbalist, and her infusion of henbane in wine was highly effective in easing labor pains. “There was some bleeding afterward, but I put pressure on her stomach and held it for thirty Hail Marys,” she added. “In two days, she will be back on her feet.”
I was greatly relieved because the patient happened to be Renfred’s only daughter, the babe his first grandchild, and the old man deserved some cheer after he had buried his wife in the spring. I thanked Elfrid and turned toward the chapel to say a quick prayer before retiring; I had missed compline again. Elfrid headed for the dorter, but not before informing me excitedly, “Tomorrow, if I am not cal
led to another labor, I will work on a remedy for husbands who suffer from marital difficulties. I have heard several women complain about it, and I have not been here a week.”
My hand flew to my mouth to cover my shock and a simultaneous urge to laugh. Then I composed myself, for the physician in me was curious, “What kind of remedy?”
“It requires the seeds of watercress, leeks, and carrots which are bound into a honey paste mixed with spices. There is ginger and a little bit of cinnamon in the workshop, but if we could get our hands on some cloves and pepper, we could make a lot of people happy.” She winked and was gone in a flurry of robes.
I reached the chapel door, pondering on how important it would be for Elfrid to abandon her worldly way of speaking, and on how refreshing it was that she had not done it yet.
When I came out, gusts of winds where swooping overhead like swallows before rain, shaking the tendrils of the vine and tearing off its drying leaves. The clouds were scudding fast across the sky, and together with the sharp breeze, they portended a change from the mild weather of the past few weeks. I was not halfway to the dorter when another gust sent a shutter of one of the windows swaying in its hinges. Before I could go inside and close it, a final blow loosened it out of the wall altogether, and it landed on the beaten earth with a thud.
I gritted my teeth in frustration. The convent’s buildings needed repairs badly, and it was time to bring it up with Kuno again. I would send a message first thing in the morning to ask for a meeting. But that night, at least, we would be shivering in our beds.