by Robert Gluck
The girl’s father, the ostler, ran up to Margery’s room and grabbed her bag. The Law was etched into his very grain. He wouldn’t let Margery finish a letter (she was asking John to take her home because traveling alone was dangerous). She had a dubious reputation. Like any fanatic, she needed to show the world what she had become. She could have avoided trouble; instead she harangued people, an unlicensed preacher, maybe subversive.
The ostler was a thin-limbed man with a potbelly and a pointed nose; he was never far from sleep. He rushed Margery to the Mayor through narrow streets that led to the guildhall. The ostler was worried about the future. It was his duty as a citizen to protect the state against heretics now that the King was away unleashing English power.
They came to an iron pole he’d used to climb; he’d gone up and slid down, gone up again and again until a kind of orgasm rushed between his thighs. He pressed his face against the metal, a steely scent, musty and gray. Death was learning to speak. Cobblers, harnessmakers, potters, glovers, gilders, spicers, smiths, and skinners—they worked harder and harder but their labor was a kind of apathy (their isolation and equivalence were the ostler’s dreams materialized).
Peasants danced in a churchyard to a hurdy-gurdy, arms and legs thrown out like swastikas. Margery could not believe her eyes; her indignation kept them dancing night and day for a whole year. Her miracle was mean spirited. They danced themselves waist deep into the ground.
The Mayor was an ash blond with perfectly chiseled features. The words hello or please cost him too much to be wasted on Margery: as soon as he saw her he cried, “Dic mihi nomen amantis.” The devil could answer difficult questions in good Latin. “How should crescite et multipli-camini be understood?” Heretics said it justified free love. Priests stood around to hear her reply and a soldier leaned on a pike with a sprocket.
“Speak English. I don’t understand what you are saying.”
“Speak English. Speak English.” He minced as though lying were lecherous. “You are a liar in plain English.”
He would have been stunning but his nervous mouth always chewed on his cheek. “I will burn you—whore, Lollard, deceiver of the people!” He expected Margery to fall on her face and beg.
She said, “I am as redy, ser, to gon to preson as thee am redy to gon to chirche.”
“Ah,” said the Mayor with a meaningless smile.
•
Margery climbed to a privy in the prison tower. In company she was bright with expression but alone, smiling still, her teeth started chattering; the vibration reminded her of her skull.
There was a window she could put her face through. She saw orchards crowded beneath blond hills, city walls, and people laughing and pointing at her, saying, “Amazing, amazing.” The window’s position was a town joke and Margery became part of the joke’s folklore: the holy woman with her ass on the pot and her face in the clouds. Margery hoped Jesus wouldn’t hear of that, but she also laughed.
The Mayor took Margery by the hand and led her into his chamber; he told her he wanted to lick her breasts, that his cock was stiff and he wanted her to taste it.
“Sir, I am the daughter of a man who was mayor five times.” He rubbed himself and wet his lips. Margery felt giddy, that her body betrayed her by blushing.
“Tell me whether you talk with Jesus or the devil.” His breath was labored.
The Mayor repeated the question to himself that night when continuous rain pounded Leicester. People said it rained because he had thrown Margery in prison.
37
On the second Wednesday of July, Margery was brought to the Church of All Hallows before the high altar where the Abbot of Leicester and some canons were seated. There were friars, priests, and townsfolk who came to see if Margery would be burnt—so many they jostled and scrambled onto stools. They were coarse: a wave of acrid sweat, faces and hands added later.
The Mayor cried, “Silence!” and the Abbot put his spectacles on and looked around to see who was talking. The Mayor wore a blue silk mantle with an orange border. He wondered if the fear in Margery’s eyes when she saw him was mirrored in his own.
Margery knelt before the altar and raised her palms in the position of piety. It was a scene from a penny broadside, the clumsy perspective jumble, the figures partaking of the wooden block that made them.
The Mayor asked, “What have you done with the baby conceived in adultery and spawned when you were abroad?”
Margery was thunderstruck. Slander had thrown its spear decked with ears. The charge of sedition often is framed as a sexual crime. “Sir,” she said, “I never had part of any man’s body in this world excepting John Kempe’s by whom I have borne fourteen children.”
“She does not mean with her heart what she says with her mouth!” The Mayor was so full of grievance he stepped from side to side like a boxer. The Lollards were gaining strength in his city. He was rich and uncomprehending, surprised that anyone would object to being mistreated by him. “Why do you dress in white? You have come to lure our wives from us and lead them off.”
Margery snorted. He was accusing her of being one of the Flagellant Albi who roamed from town to town whipping themselves. “You are not worthy to know why I wear white but if the court were cleared of laymen, I would tell the clerics as though in confession.”
Than the clerkys preyd the Meyr to gon down fro hem wyth the other pepyl. The Mayor’s voice grated with rage. “I will not let you go in spite of anything until you get a letter from my Lord Bishop of Lincoln—you are in his jurisdiction.”
Margery shouted, “I am no heretic.” She hid her hands under her mantle; she did not know how compelling she was—her certainty aroused Jesus.
The Abbot of Leicester looked more like God than Jesus’s father, with fierce circumflex eyebrows and fiery red eyes. He glared at Margery and asked with rich indignation, “Are you a Christian or a Jew, a woman or not?” Margery tilted her head as Jesus sang:
The kiss you gave me,
Burning and bold,
Ran off with two birds,
And flew to their tree,
To guard their nest
From the cold.
•
Her delight was startling because so inappropriate. She tipped her ear to contain his voice and felt the warm sensation of hearing that comes before orgasm.
What can I do but whisper this,
And beg you for another kiss?
She dropped to the floor, face churning, tears falling. A black-hooded church doctor declared, “It’s all her fancy; she has no sorrow.”
The Abbot snarled, “Be quiet!” The doctor shriveled as though to escape a blow. The Abbot asked Margery, “Why do you weep?” His face was lightning looking for ground.
“You will wish . . . some day . . . you wept . . . as sorely as I.”
“I hear you are a wicked woman.”
“I hear you are a wicked man. If you are as wicked as they say, you’ll never get to heaven.”
“Why you . . . what do people say?”
“Other people, Sir, can tell you.” She flushed with power on the infinite point she was making.
“She speaks against the Church,” the doctor complained. “She told me the worst story I ever heard.”
Margery climbed to her feet, expanding on the limitless plane of her voice. “A priest got lost in a forest. He found an arbor with a young pear in the middle covered in blossom. A huge bear, ugly and rank, shook the tree till the blossoms fell. The bear ate all the flowers, turned his tail, and sprayed the priest with watery shit.
“The priest was disgusted and very depressed because he could see the shit was symbolic. He met a handsome old man who asked the priest why he was sad. The priest repeated the matter: rank beast devours blossoms and sprays them horribly out its ass.
“The old man explained: You act without faith. You sit over your beer, give yourself up to your body . . .”
“I don’t believe there’s a crumb of sense in it,” the doctor stated
.
The Abbot thought, I would give twenty pounds to have her tears. He said hopelessly, “That’s a good story.”
Quick stages of demolition and reconstruction replaced one another on the doctor’s face. He said, “Good story,” submissive.
Margery nodded with pleasure. “If anyone dislikes it, watch him—he’s guilty.”
“Who will escort this woman to the Bishop of Lincoln?” A young man jumped up; he had a deer’s passionate eyes, edible flesh, and furry rump. He was still preoccupied by the growth of his cock during puberty. The Abbot said, “Too young.”
Thomas, a somber man of the court, asked, “What will you give me?” His eyes were set so close in his narrow face they made you dizzy. The Abbot offered five shillings and Thomas demanded a noble.
“Here are five shillings. Escort her quickly out of this area.”
38
Philip, Bishop of Lincoln, had presided over Margery’s vow of chastity. First she went to Leicester Abbey and into the church. A peacock angel opened a manderla in the bulging air in which Jesus sat naked on his three-legged stool. She was used to swallowing him whole. Anticipation elongated her body and arched her forehead. Jesus walked towards her; his milky skin was so fine his veins were visible. Her knees buckled, she held onto a pillar and felt as though she were running. The unruly outside was sucked into her body with her breath. He was grinding every grain of separate existence to dust. A thick swarm buzzed louder towards a longed-for and intolerable crescendo; the excitement was also a light sense of wellbeing that tapered her fingers and lifted her lips and nipples. She was moved but also disturbed by his torso, a face without features. Jesus lowered his lids and tipped his head back, basking and effeminate. Two tiny points of hair on his chin were his beard. She questioned her attraction and answered yes, it was strong.
The next day Thomas brought her to the Bishop’s palace. Philip was still in bed. In his hall men stood in clothes fashionably slashed and cut into points. They were dandies; they wore jeweled circlets on their heads and fluffed their hair out around their ears; their gowns ended above the crotch and they wore particolored hose with long pointed toes. Their gestures expressed cordiality, delight, disarming confusion, throwing caution to the wind. Margery’s attention was specific and random as a flashlight beam loosely dragged across her century.
Finally the Bishop entered, wearing a jerkin of otter skin and a plain green cloak. He circulated among his guests, isolated in his mannerisms, existing entirely at the level of delighted greetings and a rush of compliments. He squirmed with pleasure to see Margery and asked after John. Her old affection for John surfaced as remorse—his tremulous sweetness and the purity of his open face.
Philip insisted that she was doing him a favor by accepting his letter. He invited her to dine with him.
•
It was disconcerting to be with someone so happy. Philip sat with his back to a huge fireplace; sparks flew upwards above a round plaited fire screen. Mint and fennel were strewn on the floor to sweeten the air. His pander and carver stood by and his cup bearer poured French wines. His cup bearer was so young that when he came his body arched like the swag of fruit that dangled above Philip’s head. Margery joyfully ate cherries, then white bread, fresh beans boiled in milk, roach and crab, eel pasties, rice cooked with milk of almonds and cinnamon, lampreys baked with a sauce, tarts, new cheese, and fruit.
Margery asked Philip, as though in confession, “Which way should I go from here?”
Philip shook his face as though clearing away cobwebs of sleep. Her question was entirely novel. He furrowed his brow and pressed one finger against his forehead in exaggerated thought while Margery waited in silence. Finally he said, “That depends on where you want to get to.” The Bishop vanished quite slowly: the darkness of time was the darkness of unconscious life. Margery talked more urgently as his face faded and white stars began to shine through it. The air became white; the sky was yanked up at the corners. Heavy storms flattened the crops and blew petrels inland, where they fluttered on gray wings like bats above the ponds. His grin grew wider after the rest had gone, expression without context.
Horses waded belly deep into the water to crop the grass floating on the surface. In Leicester, thunder soured the beer. The Mayor grew lean with fright: the storm tore branches off old trees and the devil ripped the Mayor’s soul out and flew away holding its corner at arm’s length like a dirty napkin flapping in the wind.
•
When the Mayor read the Bishop’s letter, he returned Margery’s bag and instructed Thomas to take her home. People wanted her to leave that part of the country. She walked a few steps ahead as Jesus did, but no further because, unlike Jesus, she needed her audience in earshot. She would go to heaven on a path running through the minds of Thomas and others who listened. The Mayor had detained her for three weeks.
39
L., as Jesus, lounges on his side and unbuttons the fly of his gray rayon slacks; he fishes out his cock and balls and drapes them across his thigh to the mattress so their exposure isolates their pendulousness. His lip, snagged on a tooth, duplicates the shape of his cock’s ragged mouth. A pale band of skin between his shirt and trousers was dented by the elastic of his boxer shorts. He’s controlling his breath. Infinitely passive, he’s subject himself to the clamor his body makes. He pushes my hand away.
Although I travel, I’m deflected from my goal. I never encountered nakedness that was not also an invitation. My heart beats with useless excitement. He struggles to understand a rage inside himself. Is my love amazing because it exists? Does it verify my existence or are my tears merely the faulty plumbing of an hysteric? L.’s cock testifies to the human form he chose—so strange to him that he will not let me touch it, as though keeping co-conspirators from meeting.
•
Thomas was unhappy like steady rain; he could barely keep up with Margery. He had a sore on his tongue, a hard kernel that was killing him. The August sky was clear with a white cloud range to the south. Margery needed to keep moving, to re-predicate herself in different contexts.
Two yeomen blocked her path. One leaned on the staff of his lance, the other draped his hand on the pommel of his sword. Margery said, “Whose men are you?”
They opened their palms in explanation, “The Duke of Bedford’s men!”
The Duke of Bedford was Henry’s brother and, in the King’s absence, the most powerful man in England. Fourteen years later, in 1431, Joan of Arc would be burned under Bedford’s eye for false enchantments and sorcery. His yeomen wore studded green-leather crossbelts and their teeth were blue from eating blackberries.
One smelled his blue finger and put it in his mouth. He had a pressing memory: after they’d had a swim, his partner pushed his legs over his head and rimmed him. He had writhed, amazed by a cool shifting fire closer to wherever it was that he was than any other sensation. He thought his friend had broken the rule against worshiping idols. They’d been so rattled they gazed into each other’s eyes with unguarded expressions.
•
The yeomen led Margery and Thomas northward towards Beverly, where the Duke of Bedford was holding court. “For owr Lord hath sent for thee, & you art holdyn the grettest loller in al this cuntre, & we xal han an hundryd pownde for to bryng thee be-forn owr Lord.” She went unwillingly; there was plague in Beverly—would she die for no reason? Yet this actual threat of death was separate from the fear that always gnawed at her.
Larks, throstles, blackbirds, linnets, and cuckoos poured out music on every side. When Thomas pissed, he lifted his cock from the top by the scruff of its foreskin like a pup. The road was roughly paved with large stones and it cut across green billowing wolds. Blue-toothed women with their distaffs ran out of their houses crying, “Burn this heretic!” Margery felt the cool spray of their words. They had no scale to measure difference: Margery’s white mantle was a sexual crime, a revolution, a collapse of meaning.
Beavers still lived in the riverbanks,
swatting the water with their tails. Two columns of smoke appeared static as though supporting the sky. People said, “Woman, give up this life, go and spin, card wool, and don’t endure so much shame and bitterness.”
Margery told stories to Thomas and to the yeomen who had arrested her: her faith in language exceeded theirs but the spectacle of that belief gave them the consolation of believing their own lives had value.
The yeomen were bald with pale blue eyes and red mustaches. One would die in 1421—a death in which one person dies for all—and the survivor would look at his friend’s corpse before mass. The heat that was his friend was still retreating. The yeoman was a little frightened of dead people, but the face did not turn brown or blue and when the yeoman met his friend’s cold hand for the last time there was no fear. He said, “We’re just the same body—and should I be afraid of myself?”
Later, his tears appeared so simply they surprised him. His body didn’t clench, there were no spasms. He just stepped outside and sat for a while so quietly that he could feel the tears well up and spill on their own as though they were part of the day along with the weedy yard and the yellow light falling on a retaining wall.
40
In Beverly, Margery’s purse and the ring Jesus had given her were impounded. Thomas was thrown in prison but the jailer volunteered to keep Margery at his own house. They cut across a broad common where cows lay beneath the twin towers of the minster. She smelled clover and dried milk. The jailer kept jabbing her between the shoulder blades. He had a guilty relation to people. On his hearth sat a dish of white bread sopped up with milk to appease the fairies. He put her in a fine room and from her window she told stories so compelling that women wept and cried, “Why should you be burnt?”
Margery asked the jailer’s wife for a drink. “My husband took the key.” The jailer fantasized during sex—it made him feel guilty so he fantasized about his wife. She would try to be more present but it never worked, never ever, so what is there to the mind-body continuum?