CHAPTER TWO

I HOPE YOU HAVE KEPT IN MIND MY WORDS about the Ancients,” said Brother Gregory as he looked reprovingly at Margaret. A worldly man might have found little to reproach in the simple dress and mannerisms of the woman who stood before him, but Brother Gregory had stricter standards than most in these matters.

Before Brother Gregory’s unusual height Margaret seemed short, rather than of medium height. She was clad in a dress of plain gray wool, without adornment or tight lacing; over this was a surcoat in deep sky blue, lined with gray squirrel fur and decorated with a single band of embroidery around the central panel and the hem. A pale, slender leather belt held the ring of keys and purse at her waist; her hair was neatly braided and coiled into two brightly colored silk hairnets beside her ears. Over her braids she wore a fresh white linen veil and wimple, as is proper for married women.

Margaret had an erect posture and moved with natural grace. But what one noticed in particular were her hands, which were unadorned by the many rings usually worn by women in her position. Slender and tapered, they moved in simple, graceful gestures that seemed to convey an air of repose. Yet they were rarely unoccupied: Margaret seemed always to have a distaff, a needle, or some other bit of work in them. And if one looked closely, one saw that they were not frail, in spite of their grace, but well muscled and capable of any exertion. Margaret’s sole concession to her husband’s fortune was the gold cross and chain at her neck. It, too, was plain and unjeweled, but of an antique design of great rarity and taste.

Most odd about Margaret was something that cannot be clearly described: people around her felt a sense of calm but were not sure why. She had a way of moving into a room that imparted serenity to the most frantic situations, but no one ever quite knew how it had come about—least of all Margaret herself. Since she usually did this without words, it often took several repetitions of events for people to associate the change with Margaret’s presence. But nervous, sensitive people often understood right away that they felt “better” near Margaret, and as a result she was never without friends.

It took a harsh soul, indeed, to be impervious to Margaret’s charm, but Brother Gregory prided himself on withstanding the blandishments of vain, worldly people. And despite Margaret’s external lack of display, Brother Gregory knew that the inside of her mind was gilded and ornamented with an extraordinary set of vanities. Why, the woman was impossible, and only a fool would have taken her commission. But now only pride in his honor kept him at work—and who knew how long that could last? If, perhaps, he could guide her into a more edifying style—possibly a more elevated subject matter—then this would not be time wasted.

“Brother Gregory, I have not forgotten the Ancients, and I have given it thought.” A wiser man might have been warned by the excessive sweetness of Margaret’s voice. Brother Gregory looked down at her with an austere and disapproving gaze.

“Did the Ancients write much about women? I want to write about the things that I know, and I am a woman. So tell me how the women of the Ancients wrote, and I shall model myself on that.”

“The women of the Ancients did not write, and in that they were wiser and more discreet than certain women now.” Brother Gregory looked warningly at Margaret.

“But the Ancients were not Christian and were therefore less enlightened than we are. And in our enlightened times women are much improved, and write most feelingly of profound matters. Bridgit of Sweden, for example—”

“That lady is, first of all, a blessed and holy abbess and, secondly, writes of profound matters dealing with the soul, not with worldly frivolities. You should take that to heart for your own improvement.”

There was something—something odd about Margaret that he had seen somewhere before, but couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was that something, so tiny as to be almost invisible, that had overbalanced his calculation in favor of taking up this writing project. It was on the first day he’d seen her, when the light had caught her eyes for a moment. Even in the dim shadows of the cathedral, as she stared at him, her eyes had shone for a moment all golden, like a falcon’s. It was a very strange look indeed. Where had he seen that glance before? Not on a woman, surely. But where? The thing puzzled him. But now that he had ceased having unpleasant night visions of mutton chops, he blamed himself for having an insufficiency of pride. There should be standards in the world of writing, and he’d failed to uphold them. There was no excuse. He sighed. It was all the fault of Curiosity.

And that, too, is a vanity, observed Brother Gregory to himself morosely. He carefully sharpened a row of quills in advance, for his experience of the first week had made it clear that Margaret talked far too much for his taste, and seemed to pause very rarely, once she had started.

 

THE WINTER OF MY thirteenth year was very hard. First the damp rotted the rye, and then the ground froze. A coughing sickness swept through the village and took away the babies and the weak ones, including Granny Agnes. By Shrovetide there was not a soul in the village whose gums did not bleed, and my teeth felt loose in my head.

But the hardest thing was not the weather. At night I’d lie awake in the loft, listening to the heavy breathing beside me and the sound the oxen made as they shifted in the straw below and wonder, What’s to become of me? Everything was changing and moving in ways I did not understand. Sometimes I was frightened for no reason.

Then, one icy day, Mother Anne set down her spinning suddenly and got up from the fire. Alone, she walked out beyond the village to the frosty summit of the low hill beyond it, where she stood for a long time, silently, the wind whipping her shabby cloak around her. I followed her from curiosity, and when I approached, she did not curse as usual and send me away, but stood instead, unseeing and unmoving. As I looked at her, I realized that she was weeping silently. The tears seemed to turn to frost on her face, as she wept on and on, without speaking.

“Mother Anne, Mother Anne, what is wrong?” I caught up with her and questioned her.

“You don’t care, so why ask?”

“I do care. Do not weep so, you’ll be sick.”

“Who cares if I am sick?”

“Why, everyone cares—we all care.”

“No one cares. I’m old, and it doesn’t matter.”

“But you’re no older than you were,” I protested.

“The last of my teeth has fallen out this winter. All my beauty is gone, and I’m old forever until I die.” I looked at her, not understanding.

“You don’t understand, do you?” She turned on me fiercely. “You’ve always thought of me as old Mother Anne, the Ugly One. But I was beautiful once. I had pearly teeth and skin as fine and smooth as the petals of a flower, just as you have now. And I had hair like spun gold, too, such as none has ever seen. ‘A river of gold,’ they called it.” The icy wind cut me to the bone. “Now my teeth are all, all gone. ‘One for each child,’ they say. One and many more than that! But I have given them for dead ones. Where is the fairness in that? To give up beauty and love for dead things? Had I ten children living, I would be honored, honored, I say!” The tears had ceased, but her frozen, ice-blue stare looked even more inhuman without them.

“Oh, someday you’ll understand. Your mother was the lucky one! She died in the glory of her beauty. Her shining hair wrapped her like a great cloak within her shroud. Even dead her face was more lovely than the carving of the Blessed Madonna. ‘Oh, look at her, the beauty, the poor, lovely creature! A saint, a poor saint, who left behind two poor, wee little motherless mites.’ Two hard-hearted, shrewd little mites, I say, for poor ugly Anne to raise and make the best of. And when they do well, who gets the credit? The dead saint, of course! That’s who! Why should it be otherwise? Tell me, tell me, what will you do when you are old and ugly, and no one wants you, not even your children?”

“But Rob and Will—”

She turned, interrupting me in a bitter voice, “Rob and Will? They’re the Devil’s own, and someday he’ll come and fetch them. And I, I’ll be always alone until I die.”

I had never suspected that, simple as she was, she could think this way, that she had seen so many secret thoughts so clearly and yet gone on. I was seized by a sudden sympathy, so deep I could not imagine where it came from.

“Just come down from this cold place, Mother Anne, and I’ll try to be a good daughter to you. A real daughter.” She nodded blindly and, consumed by her own thoughts, let herself be led down and home again.

Everything was still when we returned, for father and the boys were out taking counsel with the older men of the village about the first day of planting. The ground was too hard, and it must be postponed. I put Mother Anne to bed, and wrapped her heavily, for she had begun to shake, and the death wish was in her eyes. When father and my brothers burst in to inspect the contents of the kettle, I tried to distract them, so they would leave Mother Anne to herself. But it was a useless effort, for father saw her in bed at midday, her lips blue and the covers heaped around her, and sauntered over.

“So, old sow, in bed at midday? Wielding a broomstick must have worn you out early!” The men laughed, even her sons. The death wish in her eye was replaced by rage: she glared at him ferociously.

“Ha! When you grow weaker, I grow stronger,” he mocked her. “We’ll see who rules, now!” He strutted in front of the bed.

She sat bolt upright in bed.

“You old he-goat!” she shouted. “You’re no stronger than a parson’s fart! I’ll show you how I wield a broomstick!”—and she jumped out of bed.

Father leapt nimbly away, cocking his finger in a sarcastic manner. “One more swing, Mother Lazarus, and I won’t tell you the news.”

“News? News? What news is that?” she asked anxiously.

“The kind of news old women like to hear. Priest’s news,” mocked father.

“Tell me now, or your head will need mending,” said mother, reaching menacingly for her griddle.

Rob and Will were laughing at father now; things were back the old way.

“Well, Sir Ambrose says we need pay no more tuition.”

“Holy Mother, they’ve thrown him out.” Mother’s face fell, and she sat down.

“Thrown him elsewhere, is more like it,” teased father cruelly.

“Oh, God, not in jail! What could he have done?” she wept.

“Nah, mother, it’s not that,” said brother Rob. Will poked him and chuckled.

“You tell, you tell now, or I’ll march straight to Sir Ambrose,” mother cried.

“Put your feathers back on, woman. It’s another one of those ‘honors’ of Sir Ambrose.” Father looked at her in a superior manner. “It seems there is this place of higher learning. Higher, higher learning. Highest higher, higher learning. So high that simpering priest has to roll his eyes heavenward to speak of it. Each year the abbot sends two boys, and pays their fees, but some years, no boy is holy enough, or high enough”—and here he held his nose, as if smelling rancid meat—“to go. This year there’s only one. It’s David, of course. Little Master Goodbody himself.”

“Has Sir Ambrose seen David?” I interrupted eagerly. “Is he well, is he happy there?”

“He’s seen him, and he’s fine. He grows apace! The monks eat better than we do, the bloodsuckers.”

“This place he’s to go, is it very splendid?” I asked. Mother was silent, thinking.

“From how Sir Ambrose tells it, it’s only short of heaven itself. It’s at Oxford town, and it’s called the university, and a man who studies there, he says, has an unlimited future. David might be something great someday. A great scholar, or a prince of the Church. Or, at least, so says that cozening priest.”

A prince! Nothing, nothing, was too fine for a boy like David! Mother looked paralyzed. Then she suddenly spoke.

“If any part of this is true, old man, then we are made. For princes look after their own.” Father nodded assent.

“But—but the trip. It’s long and dangerous. How will he go? Where will he stay?” The thought that she might lose such a treasure, after such a great imagined gain, was terrifying.

“All is arranged. We do nothing. In October the university sends the ‘fetchers,’ all well armed, to take the boys back from all parts of England. The abbot pays for the trip. Then they live in a house with a master to look after them. The abbot pays for that too. They read large books and learn large things. The abbot pays for all. It’s simple. Then when he’s done, he comes back a prince.”

“Well, then, hold my hand, for we are people of good fortune.” For a whole fortnight after that father and mother were reconciled.

 

“I ALWAYS WANTED TO study at Oxford myself,” remarked Brother Gregory placidly, placing the last period.

“Have you seen it, then?” asked Margaret.

“Yes, I have traveled there, and once bought a very fine book, but fate denied me the chance to study there.”

“You own books?”

“Only one for myself just now. The book I bought then was a gift I’d been sent to buy for someone. But the university’s a wonderful place. Even in the alehouses there is high disputation.” Brother Gregory had begun to feel that he might owe Margaret slightly more serious consideration. After all, not every woman—even one who talks too much—has a brother who is an authentic scholar. Well, he’d doubtless have to trek through many a weary page before he found out where the brother was now.

“My husband owns books,” said Margaret.

“Oh?” replied Brother Gregory politely, counting through the pages he had written and numbering them carefully. “Who’d have thought it of this money-sucking tradesman?” he thought to himself.

“He owns nineteen. They are locked in this big chest.” She tapped the closed, ironbound lid of the chest near where Brother Gregory was sitting. “Some are Latin, some are French. There is one in German, all about God, and even one in Arabic.”

Oho! Here was something out of the ordinary! Brother Gregory looked up and raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, Arabic,” said Margaret calmly, conscious of the sensation she had made. “My husband has traveled all over the world and says that a great merchant must know many languages.”

“And what about you?” asked Brother Gregory. He thought he could detect a hint of the north in her accent still, even after years in the south. Margaret’s face fell.

“I don’t know anything but English.” Then she brightened a little. “But my husband has got a Frenchwoman to teach me and the girls. He says everyone must know French, for it is the language of the court. He says he imagines I will speak French very nicely one of these days.”

“I know a man with forty books,” Brother Gregory remarked calmly.

“I am sure my husband will have forty books, when he has the time for them,” sniffed Margaret.

Brother Gregory got up to leave. Margaret took the pages that had been completed and did something very odd to the big chest. First she fiddled with a bit of carved decoration, then pushed at a corner, and then pulled out an entire drawer from the bottom of the chest, where its edges had been disguised beneath a line of carving.

“Look at this, isn’t this a fine place? There’s a secret drawer here that my husband showed me, that only he knows about. The whole house is full of things like that, and I don’t know half of them. But this is empty, and he said I might use it. It’s just the right place for my book, until it’s done, don’t you think?”

Brother Gregory nodded gravely and waited at the door.

“Oh, your fee for this week. I have it here. I didn’t forget. Clerics need to eat, too, I know.”

Brother Gregory looked studiously uninterested in her chatter.

“But you will come back? Day after tomorrow?”

“Next week would be better.”

Perhaps I’m paying him too much, thought Margaret. If he gets too comfortable, he won’t come back. He’s made it clear enough he doesn’t like writing for a woman. Still, it’s not right to be stingy when a job’s properly done, she sighed to herself. Master Kendall would be ashamed of me if he knew I’d been cheap. She fished in the little purse she wore on her belt, next to her bunch of keys, and picked out the coins for Brother Gregory. With a silent salutation he disappeared.

 

WHEN BROTHER GREGORY WAS shown in the following week, he noted with a certain vague annoyance that Margaret had made herself comfortable on the window seat, exactly as if she had always expected him to return. Her sewing basket was beside her, and she was hemming something large and white, that spread in wide folds across her lap. Her maid had evidently just finished telling her something that was funny, and she continued to look amused even after the girl disappeared carrying a pile of folded, finished linen. In the hall beyond the open door he could hear Master Kendall’s apprentices shouting to each other. Margaret began to talk even before Brother Gregory had finished opening his inkhorn, and her tone of complacency irritated him.

 

I THINK I LEFT off where things had changed with me and Mother Anne. It wasn’t long after that that I was married. Spring came, and I turned fourteen, but that isn’t why it happened, even if I was a grown-up woman. It really all happened because of the miller, though I couldn’t see it that way in the beginning. You know how that is, don’t you? You pull a thread you hardly even notice, but the knitting comes undone. It’s only later you notice the little thing has brought all the great things with it—but of course, you couldn’t know it at the time. It was that way with the miller. He was a liar and a cheat, and no one ever came home from the mill with honest measure. But one bright day that spring he outdid himself, and father and my stepbrother Will came home from a day at the mill at St. Matthew’s shouting with rage. Father was so mad he threw his hat on the ground in front of our doorstep and swore furiously.

“Devil take that miller! I swear he’s given short weight again, that spawn of hell!”

But the miller held the abbot’s monopoly, so what was to be done? Nothing at all, we all thought. He was just a thieving pest, like rats or the little birds. At least the birds sing melodies for our pleasure, but all the miller ever sang was testimony in court. For when some man raised his fist in protest, the miller swore he had attacked him, and then he must pay a fine. Court day at St. Matthew’s was held regularly, and the abbot made as much again in fines from the miller as he did in fees. Now that I am older, I think they colluded in this, for the abbot knew how to make money from everything he touched.

Father had once even been caught in the miller’s trap. He had, one day, gone with brother Will and Tom the Cooper and several others to the mill. After waiting about for the return of the flour, they were infuriated to find it even less than expected. Even an infant could see that it was short, according to my father. He said, as he reported it that evening at home, “‘You villein, you’ve given me false measure!’”

And the miller, as even tempered as a dead fish, had responded, “‘That’s slander, slander twice, for I’ve returned true weight, and I am as freeborn a man as you are.’”

Court day was the following week, and father had to return, taking with him half the village, including mother and myself. The abbot had a great hall for doing justice that was part of the wider church grounds. Sometimes he sent his steward to hold lesser courts in the villages on abbey lands, but offenses at St. Matthew’s had to be dealt with there.

As I watched the abbot dispense justice, I grew more afraid. He was the hardest man I’d ever seen—fat with slothful living, but with a pair of sharp yellow eyes like a hawk’s, and a long, unpleasant Norman nose. His rapacious hands were covered with rings, and he ordered up fines and sentences with the kind of snobbish, indolent voice of a man long accustomed to being served. Nothing, not a word or a glance, escaped those piercing eyes. Fines for fornication, fines for loose animals, the thewe for a gossip, an ear off for theft, and a runaway villein branded—his justice was swift, the more violent parts being carried out in the courtyard outside.

Just before father’s case an altogether different sort of matter was heard. A richly dressed merchant, pale and clean shaven, had come up from Northampton to demand justice for the theft of some goods by a man with whom he had entered into business in St. Matthew’s. As the man heard the sentence, he paled and cried, “You monstrous liar!” before he was led out in the courtyard to lose his hand. But the expression on the merchant’s face was quite extraordinary. He was smiling. It was almost benignant, that smile, which he smiled straight into that man’s face. His mouth was a wide grimace, laughter lines surrounded it—but his eyes, which were blue, were as cold as ice. What a horrible man, I thought, as I watched them look at each other. As the merchant left the room to witness the carrying out of the sentence, he brushed by me where I stood with mother. I hid my eyes from his gaze by staring at the ground, and so my final impression of him was only the soft sound of his dark, pointed leather shoes as they passed out of sight.

When father’s case was called, he stood up boldly. First the miller testified. Father had slandered him, he said, and he wanted justice. But father said he was a freeborn man and wanted a jury of freemen. The abbot, tired of sitting so long, shifted in his great chair with an impatient look. His gold chain rattled as his crucifix resettled itself among the folds of fat and silk upon his belly. He lifted a pudgy, bejeweled hand with a lazy gesture and told father coldly that slander was too small a matter for a jury, and that he was in any event subject to his liege lord. Had he said this slander?

“No!” my father boldly declared, he had never said any such thing, and to prove it he had six oath-helpers from the village, all witnesses, and all ready to swear by the cross that father had never said either slander.

The abbot’s yellow eyes narrowed, like a malignant cat’s. I suppose he did not like to be defied and took collusion by the villagers as a bad sign. The miller, grim and bony, set his jaw in a look of aggrieved righteousness.

Besides, my father went right on, he could never have said such a thing, for not only did everyone know that the miller was freeborn, but also everyone knew that he was bound to give a portion of what he milled to his lord. And if he kept back flour secretly from those who used the mill, he would be robbing the abbot as well, “a thing that we know no honest man such as he would ever do.”

At last I understood my father’s cunning, and the long nights he had stayed up planning with the men. The abbot’s yellow eyes took on an amused look. The miller’s knees shook—not much, but enough to show. The abbot, his sallow jowls puffing in and out like a toad’s, shot the quaking miller a sharp, hard glance. Then he composed his face in its usual arrogant look and said, condescendingly, “Very well, then, let’s hear the compurgators.”

The testimony heard, the abbot did a thing that seemed most unlike him. He dismissed the case with a fierce warning that no complaint about false weight must ever be brought without proof. Then a strange thing happened. As the abbot dismissed the villagers, he glanced about the room and his eye caught mine, where I stood with mother, staring at him from the back of the hall. He inspected me closely for a moment, and then, suddenly, as if he had seen enough, he turned his head away as we filed out of the hall.

We all stayed silent until halfway home, so that our exultation would not be overheard by the abbot’s servants. But then, of course, the celebration lasted all night, with each boasting of the part he had played to the neighbors who had stayed home. As mother’s ale was poured, father took out his pipes, and others ran to get drums and viols. The dancing was as fierce as the drinking that night, and even Father Ambrose joined in, for he had been short-weighted too. For a time after the miller was bested, there was grumbling about the abbot’s greed, and threats to burn the tithe barn, but no one ever actually did it. And because nothing ever lasts, it was not too long before the miller was back to his old tricks.

And so we come to this day, the one I remember so well, when father had wished the Devil would take the miller. When father spoke, Will and Rob looked at each other, and I knew something was going to happen. Even though they lived to make trouble, they now seemed to be totally quiet, vanishing from the house, and even the village streets, for long periods of time. That was fine for me, because it left me in peace at last to dream of marriage with handsome Richard Dale. Richard was seeing me every day, now that my brothers were not around to prevent him. And I was the envy of everyone; there wasn’t a woman in Ashbury who didn’t adore Richard’s curly head, even if his father was not well off. He was just fifteen, charming, and a wonderful dancer—second only to me. I spent all my time thinking about him.

It was only a few weeks later, when I was standing in the churchyard with Richard Dale one Sunday after Mass, that the folk there told us an amazing tale. The Devil had, it seems, actually come to take the miller, and had only departed when the miller had offered money and the maidenhood of his daughter as well. It seemed to me odd that the Devil could be deterred from his aims with such offers, but it did not strike anyone else as strange at all. After all, who can say how the Devil’s mind works? But now, it seems, the miller was hoping to elude the Devil and avoid keeping the bargain. He had called a priest to arrange for the exorcism of his house, and the priest was horrified to see, when he came to the house, the marks of cloven hooves beneath the miller’s window.

“And may the Devil take all those wolves at St. Matthew’s Abbey away with him as well,” said Tom the Cooper as he retold the story for the hundredth time over ale at our house.

“Can’t do that, there’s too many for him to fit in his sack,” said Will.

“Yuh. He’s probably starting with the littlest one first,” observed Rob. “Why, it’d take two Devils to lug away that big fat abbot.” Everyone guffawed.

But the exorcism did not work, for it was not long before another story was being told over mother’s ale. It seems that the Devil had come back for his bargain, and even the crucifix over the door had not stopped him, for he climbed in by the bedroom window. The Devil was accompanied by three other demons—all very large, all with horns on their heads and long tails, like oxen. The Devil himself had a beast’s head and horns. But what was most remarkable about the Devil was his skin. It was green, just like the paintings in church, and green everywhere, if you understand what I mean.

As the demons held the miller down, the Devil cried, “Now for my bargain!” and flung up the covers from the foot of that side of the bed where the daughter was sleeping, covering her head. From beneath the covers a muffled voice could be heard in protest.

“George, George, what on earth are you doing? I thought you had a headache!”

“You fool, you’ve got the wife!” chuckled the other demons, and the Devil was forced to correct his work. As he finished, he inspected the situation with some interest and said calmly, “No blood, Master Miller. You’re a dishonest man. You can’t bargain with what you don’t have. I doubt this girl’s any virgin. I believe you’ve had her yourself, you filthy old thing. Don’t you know you can’t short-weight the Devil? When we’ve finished here, I think we’ll take you to hell after all.”

Then the devils stuffed the cowering miller into one of his own grain sacks and lowered him out of his window. But something must have stopped them—the miller always swore after that it was a holy relic he wore about his neck. They got no farther than his own millpond, where they dumped him in. And it was only heavenly intervention that it was the shallow end. He was freed in the morning, wet and struggling, from the sack. The horrified neighbors discovered a milling mass of huge cloven hoofprints beneath his window.

It was not long after that I surprised Will at the brook, scrubbing his hands.

“Grass stain, sister. It ill becomes me.”

I had my suspicions, but I was certain of the truth when Richard Dale and I went out walking one evening.

“Come out to a more private place with me,” he begged. “I’ve something important to talk about.” So we went some distance out of town, to a lovely place where the trees grow thick, and the curving bushes make a kind of wild bower beside a narrow run of water. There we sat, and he watched the creek bubble, saying with deep solemnity, “You know I cannot marry yet, but if you’ll wait, I’ll ask father—” He had pushed me backward to the earth with one hand, and now he leaned his full weight upon me.

“Just a kiss, a sweet kiss to plight our troth.” But he acted as if he had more than kisses in mind. He was so good looking, and so hard to refuse!

But as he pushed me down, I cried, “Ow! Get off! Jesus, there’s something sharp beneath me, hurting my back!” How quickly pain stops passion! He rolled off, the picture of crushed disappointment.

“You don’t love me?” he asked plaintively.

“No, no that’s not it—it’s something sharp that’s bruised me badly. Here—a root, or something.” I turned and pointed. His eyes followed my finger.

“That’s no root,” he observed, “that’s wood—perhaps the corner of a chest.” He started to dig, an eager look on his face. Fairy treasure! That’s what he thought it was. We all believed in fairy treasure. Once we’d heard of a man who had turned up a jar full of strange coins with his plow. Greed steals the urge, too, you know. He had quite forgotten me. A moment’s eager digging brought only disappointment.

“Oh, it’s just a clog, a damned clog.” But what an odd clog it was! All carved of wood, it was perfectly shaped on the upper half to receive a human foot. But the lower half, which would leave a mark on the earth, was shaped like a cloven hoofprint. I knew beyond all doubt that if Richard dug any farther, he would find no treasure, but several sets of identical clogs.

“It’s nothing,” I said, tossing it aside. “But now that we’re speaking of important things, I must tell you one true thing. If you can’t marry soon, then we’d best not make a plight-troth baby. For I want no bastard children, even if I want you very badly.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he grumbled. “I’d not want my son’s inheritance in jeopardy. But you’ll wait for me?”

“As much as it’s in my power, I’ll wait,” I promised.

Before we left, I reburied the clog. Why should my brothers be in more trouble than they were in already? But trouble never came, even when half the village greeted the miller with “Headache last night, George?”

But spring is, of course, one of the Devil’s busiest times, for it is then that even good folks are tempted far from the sacrament of marriage. As for people who are always tempted—well, they are more likely to do something about it. Sometimes father vanished for a day with the husband of Alice, whose cooking pot had been exorcised many times without much success. When father returned, Will and Rob would laugh and poke him and tease, “Why pay for what’s free? There’s many a fish in the sea!” And father would reply, “You get what you pay for,” and roll his eyes in mock ecstasy.

Though I listened carefully, I never quite figured out where they went. At those times Mother Anne would check in the little box, where she kept her small money, with bitter eyes.

“If I were a widow,” she said in a hard voice, “I’d keep what I earned. But the ‘flesh of my flesh’ can put his hand in the cashbox any time he wants. And for any reason too. Tithe and tax, they are nothing so bad as a lazy scoundrel of a husband.” She looked fiercely at me. “Marry a rich man or never marry at all, I say! Stay away from poor, good-looking boys with roving eyes and charming ways, like that rascally Richard Dale! A sober fellow not half so vain about his looks, a thrifty fellow who’ll make good for you, is what you need!”

“Yes, mother, I’ll take it all to heart, what you’ve told me,” I promised humbly. But who can heed good advice in the springtime? I spent my days dreaming of Richard Dale, and our marriage, which I supposed would come very soon.

Other girls felt the same way, I know, for though I found it hard to believe, the cooper’s daughter had fastened on my awful elder brother, Will, in exactly the same way that I had fixed my thoughts on the beautiful Richard Dale. She hung about me all the time now, hoping to become closer to him. It was useless warning her that he was a hard, heartless fellow who thought only of himself.

“Sisters will always say that, but have you never taken notice of the cleft in his chin, where the new beard has started to grow?”

“He’s pockmarked, Mary.”

“The lightest marks in the world. They give character to his face.”

“He’s brutal—suppose he beats you?”

“How could he beat me, his own true love?”

“He’d beat me, his own true sister, if he could catch me. He hits his own mother when supper’s not to his pleasure. Why not you?”

“You’ll never understand. He’s taller and handsomer than any of the other boys, and he has pledged me his love forever.”

“Oh, Mary, can’t you understand, he’s betrayed women before? You should be wary.”

“Oh, how we’ll love each other when we are sisters, Margaret. But like all younger sisters, you’re a bit sour on your brother. Why, he has told me that his heart was stolen by my beauty. A sister can never know a man as well as the woman that he loves does.”

I looked again at her long, plain face. Mary was tall and skinny, with dark hair and a face shaped like an amiable hatchet. She was seventeen and passed over already. Will’s a selfish bastard, I thought. He’ll just leave her pregnant and boast about it.

When, before Easter, the king’s call came for armed men for a great campaign in France, then it all seemed certain to me. Will was never the sort to settle down when he could rove and make trouble.

But father grumbled, of course. He didn’t want to lose Will and Rob’s help. Mother pointed out he should look on the bright side. They wouldn’t be leaving until after May Day, and then David would be home for the entire summer, before he went away to the university. So that was quite a bit of help. And besides, he was fortunate that he didn’t have to go himself, she said, for as old and as soft as he’d got, he wouldn’t last long, with all the hardships of the camp and battlefield.

“You say I’m weak, woman?”

“Why, no, just fortunate.”

“I’ll show you fortunate!” and he grabbed a poker and chased her around the fire and out into the street, where he soon enough ran out of breath. Mother left him wheezing before the house.

“Old idiot, his lungs are gone. There’s nothing left in him but boasting.” And she went back to her work.

Just before Easter week a gray friar came to preach, and it was a great event that caused much stir. He was a clever speaker, who explained God’s will much more clearly than Sir Ambrose. He told us that God loves the poor best, and everyone nodded and agreed. Sir Ambrose says that God loves the obedient best.

“Well enough, those who are obedient are bound to be poor,” observed old Tom, and that seemed to resolve the issue.

Easter passed, and it was soon enough time for May Day, which is a merry celebration, despite all Sir Ambrose can do. I think he gave up, as he got older, for May Day had been around a lot longer than he had. They even say the old priest who died before him kept May Day with us, but then, he kept hunting dogs, too, and was altogether a different sort of fellow. All sorts of things happen on May Day, to judge by the number of christenings nine months after, and there is dancing, and mumming, and drinking, and every kind of trick played.

The master of the May Day feast is Robin Hood, and he is chosen with his lady, Maid Marian, from the best-looking young people in the village. This year it was handsome Richard, and of course I was chosen as Marian. The biggest one is made Little John, and he challenges all comers. But the choicest role is that of Friar Tuck, which is given to the wildest fellow in the village. For the whole festival, before and after the play of Robin Hood, he has license to play whatever trick suits him. Brother Rob donned the Friar’s habit this day, in honor of his having thought of the scheme to get vengeance on the miller.

No one looked finer than merry Richard, as, flushed with ale, he led out the round dance.

“No one is more beautiful than you, Margaret,” he whispered as we crossed in a dance figure. “No one more beautiful at all,” as we crossed again. Finishing the dance, he whispered, “Remember to wait for me, beautiful Maid Marian, for I’m sure that my father will soon speak to your parents.”

“And you’ll wait for me, sweet Robin?”

“Always,” he said, kissing me, and vanished. As I watched him go, I sensed that someone had approached me from behind and was waiting patiently for my attention. I turned to see Mary, anxious for conversation, as usual.

“It’s very hot, Margaret.” Mary had approached me as Richard left. “Wouldn’t you like to sit in the shade with me? I’ve things I need to tell you.”

“Is this tree all right, Mary?”

“It’s too much in the open, Margaret, dear, and I wish to be more private.”

“Well, then,” I answered, “let’s walk until we find a good place.”

“It won’t be easy, Margaret, for this day every private place conceals lovers, it seems to me.”

“Then we’ll walk farther. I know of a bower that’s like a little room. We’ll have it to ourselves.” I guessed her private news already, poor girl. I’d think it strange if she didn’t tell me she was pregnant.

“Margaret, I wanted to speak of my love for Will.”

“So I guessed.” By now we had passed away from people’s coming and going. Mary gave me a troubled look. Her face was pale, and there were shadows under her eyes.

“Margaret, he says we cannot publish the banns yet.”

“Then father has given permission?”

“Not yet, not yet, though I think it will be soon. After all, there are so many arrangements. The property…it’s all so complicated, you know. And there’s a settlement and a dowry to negotiate.”

“Yes, but, Mary, I don’t know whether he’s even asked father yet.”

“Not asked? Not asked?” Her eyes were wild. “He must have asked. He told me so. Surely you’re joking.”

“Well,” I said soothingly, “I don’t know all of father’s business.”

“That’s true, that’s true. A man doesn’t tell a woman everything.” She hesitated. “But I must speak with you, you see. If the banns aren’t published now, there’s no hope of wedding before he leaves.”

“Why, that’s true, but you could wait until he returns. Oh—here’s the place. We’ll just dabble our feet in the water and discuss—EEEEEEEK!”

Both of us, as we bent to enter the bower, had seen something we hadn’t expected—a man most actively engaged among the skirts of one of the two daughters of Watt the Herdsman. The other daughter had her arms around his shoulders and was murmuring, “My turn next. It’s my turn next.” I couldn’t see the man’s face, but I thought I recognized the hose—they were Lincoln green, like Robin Hood’s. Then it was beyond a doubt. Richard Dale’s curly head rose from among the flailing skirts with an aggrieved look.

“Is this how you wait?” I said fiercely, tears running down my cheeks.

“Men are different from women, Mistress Holy Virgin. Be a little generous. We have needs. A real woman understands a man’s needs—”

“Like us,” broke in one of the sisters. “If a man’s promised marriage, it shows honest intentions. Like with us. Let’s pretend again it’s our wedding night, dearest Richard.”

“Then me,” spoke up the other, and made a face in my direction.

“She just doesn’t understand men,” said Richard consolingly to the sisters, and he coolly resumed his work. I turned on my heel, too angry and humiliated to think of anything cutting enough to say.

“Come away, come away this minute,” said Mary, pulling at my sleeve.

“Anyway, you can’t marry both at once,” I turned and shouted back to him in a fury. Why are we always too late with a clever reply?

“Of course he can’t. Of course he can’t, Margaret, dear. And if he marries a hundred cottars’ daughters, he’ll get not a penny between them all. If he’s so vain he’d risk a dowry as good as yours for a bit of pleasure, then you don’t want him at all.”

“But I do want him—or I did want him. I just feel so terrible.”

“Don’t let anyone see it, dear. I don’t let anyone see it. And the baby will show soon, and he’s going away to be killed, and I won’t even be a widow!” And she soon passed from weeping to howling on my shoulder. And I howled on hers. When we were done, we put plenty of cold water on our eyes until our faces looked less swollen.

That night we ate and drank like gluttons. For although I must sit next to Robin Hood at the head of the table, just as she sat next to Will, there is no better way of ignoring things like that than eating and drinking yourself sick.

“Here’s to Maid Marian, the greatest beauty and the greediest face ever seen!” toasted the village rowdies, and I raised the cup again to the swarm of faces that seemed to multiply and swirl around the table. Already the weaker souls had passed out, but those with greater powers stayed and caroused until nightfall. I would, I would, outdrink Richard Dale! He sat beside me, too proud to even get up to piss, though I figured he couldn’t hold out much longer.

“Pour me more, brave Friar,” I cried, “for I can outdrink any man here!” A cheer went up for wicked, wild Maid Marian. Never tell me a woman can’t hold it! I tipped the cup and drank half.

“The last is for you, bold Robin Hood,” I cried, and extended the cup to Richard Dale.

“That girl is her father’s daughter, that’s for sure. Who’d have thought that old ale-sack could pass on his talent like that?” The old-timers respect nothing better than a powerful drinker. It is, after all, their own main amusement.

Richard turned all pale, and sweat stood on his temples. I knew, as I watched him shudder and drink, that I had him at last. With a wonderful, malignant pleasure I watched him turn all green around the mouth. His eyes seemed to roll in different directions. Then, with a hideous gurgle, Robin Hood vomited up everything and fell off the bench in a dead faint.

“Hurrah! Maid Marian triumphant!” cheered those who remained at the table. I stood and bowed, waving the empty cup, until I suddenly realized things were not all that well with me either. A little hastily I dismissed myself to take care of my own needs elsewhere.

It was already growing dark as I returned to the back door, but dark or light, it didn’t matter, for I couldn’t see straight. As I fumbled for the door latch, a heavy hand caught my shoulder and spun me around, pinning me to the wall.

“Beautiful Margaret,” a drunken voice mumbled. I could not see who it was. A hand mashed my breast, and a stinking, hairy mouth closed on mine. I turned my head away.

“Just one kiss. I’ve seen you kiss Richard Dale. You’re not so pure. Give me one. You owe me.”

I recognized the voice now.

“Father! Get away from me!”

“You owe it, you owe it, pious little bitch. So prissy. So holier than thou. All that holy water. I’ve fed you long years, I’ve raised you. You ate my food…” He was terrifyingly drunk. A tear rolled out of one of his eyes. “And she won’t kiss her father, not one little kiss for her father—plenty for everyone else….” The hand mashed me, and as he pinned me against the wall with his full weight, the other hand reached for my skirt.

“For the love of Christ, father, get off. Stop this!”

“Love, that’s it, love—you owe me.” His breath was sour with ale.

“I don’t owe you this! I don’t! It’s not decent! God doesn’t want it!”

“Of course it’s decent. Lots of men do it. Who’s the best to break in a girl? Her father, that’s who! The miller did it. Why, if the father doesn’t, the lord of the manor does, on the first night….” Always the miller! Why must everything start with him?

“That’s not so, not so! Not these days! Not here! Not me, not ever! Get off!” My desperate struggle was useless. He was much heavier than I was.

“I say get away from that girl now!” A woman’s voice cried out in the darkness, and with a thwang! a heavy iron griddle came down hard on father’s head, knocking him unconscious.

“Oh, mother, mother!” I wept.

“The old bastard jumps on anything that moves,” she observed in a cold voice, looking down at his inert form. “I wondered when it would happen. I watch his eyes, you know. You’re too beautiful. You tempt men without knowing it. It’s time you were wed, girl, the sooner the better.”

“I—I don’t want to wed, mother. Men are awful.”

“Awful or not, you’re better off wed. And to a strong man too. Otherwise you won’t be safe until you’re as old and ugly as I am.”

“I can’t wed, not now—I just can’t.”

“Well, you’ve got Richard Dale, if you’re fool enough to want him. If you wed him, it’s the beginning of a life of sin and ruin.”

“Perhaps—perhaps he’d reform,” I replied weakly.

“Do snakes reform? Do wolves reform? Womanizing men don’t reform.” Mother sniffed and looked in the direction of father’s body.

“You must consider another thing,” said mother, in a hard voice. “Richard Dale, even if he were a saint, is a bad match. His father’s property is small, and his mother is a villein. The freedom of your children might stand in doubt.”

I had never heard mother speak with such cold logic. But then, I had never heard her calculate the gains to be made by a match before.

“I’ll find a suitable match. I’ve cousins in St. Matthew’s.”

“But I don’t want a man from St. Matthew’s.”

“Little Miss, you must take what you can get, and get out of this village. Otherwise your father will hunt you down and spoil you. Haven’t you realized that yet?”

It was true. The only men strong enough to defy father were my own big brothers. And even they, wild as they were, would never raise a hand against father. It would be the ultimate sin, the defiance of a father’s law. And we all knew that the will of a father is absolute, like that of the king, for it is sanctioned by God Himself. They would never run the risk of being shunned by the entire village and outcast by all decent folk for such a small thing as a sister’s honor. And father? I know now, he wouldn’t even have burned in hell for it. I’ve learned since that indulgences for incestuous men come at low prices these days.

“But—but can’t Sir Ambrose stop him?”

Mother threw back her head and laughed bitterly.

“Don’t you know that he’ll blame you for tempting him, and not him for being tempted? Take it to the priest, and you’ll be destroyed for good.”

“What must I do, mother?”

“Keep quiet, keep this little knife about you, and avoid him when he’s drunk. Other than that be guided by your mother, which is your duty as a Christian daughter.”

My head was turning. It was too much truth, and too much ale, all for one night.

“Yes, mother,” I said. “I’ll remember my duty and be guided by you.”

When father was sober, he did not seem to remember what he had done. But mother was right. His eyes did follow me, and now I saw it and was afraid. If only my brothers were not going, I could have borne the fear. But to be there alone with him terrified me. Sometimes he would brush against me in passing, in a way that was not innocent, or stand a certain way, blocking my path and humming a little song as a way of daring me to come nearer. But when the time came to leave for France, my brothers did go, as did half the village, and we stood by the road and wept. I don’t know about the others, but I think now I was weeping for myself. Mostly that’s what we do when we weep. We just say it’s for others.

I still remember Rob and Will’s jaunty wave backward as they left, with God’s blessing, to do in France exactly what He had forbidden them to do at home. Even now I find it a mystery why God’s commandments don’t count for foreigners. If you add to the question the consideration that foreigners think we are foreigners, then it gets even more complicated. After all, God has blessed both sides equally, if you go by what the priests on each side say. It seems to me that then God’s law doesn’t apply to anyone at all. The more I think about it, the less I understand war. Maybe God will explain it all to me sometime. I’ll have to remember to ask again after Mass this week. Or perhaps Easter would be better. God often answers things at Easter.

Not long after, David returned for his last summer at home. He had walked alone, carrying his few possessions in a bundle on his back. He was taller than I was now, all bony and awkward-looking. His voice had started to crack. But he still had the same mop of black curls and serious blue eyes, even if they were perched on top of an unfamiliar scarecrow of a body.

I had waited all day to be the first to greet him, and ran to meet him by the high road. But he didn’t seem the same anymore, he was so quiet.

“What a solemn voice! No hug?” I asked him.

“I’m sorry, Margaret, it’s just that I’ve been living so differently.” He embraced me stiffly, and I put my head on his shoulder. David disengaged himself gently. He was changed, but I couldn’t quite understand how.

“And will live better yet, better yet, David! Just think, father said to mother that if you study at the university, you become a prince! Does it really work like that?”

“Father’s not got it quite right, Margaret. But then, he doesn’t know about a lot of things.”

“But you do learn lots and lots, and then become something splendid, don’t you?” We had turned to walk back down the road.

“I don’t know. I’ll be a priest, and maybe a teacher, too, if I’m good enough. Some boys get good appointments afterward, but then, they’re rich and have grand families. I can’t expect so much, I think.” I took his hand. This time he forgot to take it away.

“But you could be like Sir Ambrose and do good.”

“Yes, that’s so, if I can get a place. I might have to substitute for someone who holds a good post. Then I wouldn’t be so well off.”

“You mean priests hire substitutes, the way rich men do for their army service?”

“That’s it, Margaret.”

“But what do they do when they’ve hired the substitute to sing the Mass?”

“Take the living from the post and move somewhere they like better, I suppose.”

“Why, that’s very odd. I would think it would be a great thing to be a priest and save souls from the Devil. But it seems very complicated to me.”

“It is, Margaret, it is, as I’m beginning to learn.” We were very close to the house now.

“But tell me, David, what are the things you’ll be learning at the university?”

“Why, more Latin, and other languages—that’s called grammar—and speaking well and arguing—that’s dialectics—and mathematics, theology—things like that.”

“And what is mathematics?”

“Why, it’s—it’s—well, it’s very complicated, too, and too hard to explain.” It must be complicated, I thought, if even David, who is so good at school, can’t understand it.

“Oh, David, you are so very clever, you’ll surely have a place. You belong at a great cathedral, the greatest in the world.”

“Well, sister, I’ll study hard and take what I can get. But I am fortunate in one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I have the abbot for a patron. He called me in and explained it to me. If I have talent and work hard, he’ll help me find a place. He does that with the boys he sponsors.”

“Well, then, who’s to say you might not come back a prince?” I said to him as I unlatched our front door.

That summer David set to work with a will, but to me he called the farm work his “penance.” This is how I knew that although he acted the same as before, he was waiting for fall with all his heart.

It was just before St. John’s Eve, when we light bonfires and roll fiery wheels downhill, that mother told me she had found a husband for me. We were weeding the garden together as we spoke.

“Your father is willing; the match is good,” she said, picking a caterpillar off the beans and squashing it.

“Good? What kind of good?” I was very anxious, for I feared marriage greatly.

“A wealthy older man, a merchant of furs and a widower, has been making inquiries about you. He saw you on court day at St. Matthew’s and was driven wild with desire by your beauty, or so says my cousin.” Now she was pulling errant sprouts among the turnips.

“Does he live at St. Matthew’s? Then, at least, I can visit you.” I had finished the carrots and had begun the onions. Sweat was running down my nose, and I wiped it off with the back of my hand, leaving a smudge on my nose.

“That’s the hard part. He lives much farther, in Northampton. He’ll make a generous settlement on you. You’ll never lack for anything: fine food, fine clothes, fine friends. It is rare that a girl like you, even a beauty, gets a chance like this.”

“I’d rather live here, in the country, with the people I know.” My heart was sinking for fear of living in solitude among strangers.

“You should think of the comforts your children will have, and thank God that He has sent you such good fortune at such a needful time in your life.” Mother Anne’s face was set like iron.

“But, but—”

“Don’t ‘but.’ If a rich man had seen me when I was in my full beauty, I’d not have said, ‘But.’ I’d have been living in town, enjoying every luxury, with nothing but praises on my lips. Praises to God, and to my dear parents, who had arranged such comfort for me. Gratitude! That’s what children lack today! It’s gratitude! The new generation is graceless and ungrateful, I say!”

“Oh, mother, I’m grateful. Truly, I’m grateful. I’ll always thank you. Yes, I will, I promise.”

And so word was sent to the merchant, who seemed so wealthy to us, and negotiations begun to arrange for the marriage he evidently desired so passionately.

It was hard to talk to David about it. That evening I spoke to him when he had returned from his “penance” and was staring into the fire.

“You’ve heard father and mother? I’m to be married.”

“I’ve heard,” he said morosely.

“He’s very grand, they say.”

“Not grand enough,” said David.

“Will you miss me, David, when I’m a married woman, and you’re a teacher?”

“That’s a stupid question, Margaret.” David stared glumly at the glowing coals.

“I’ll be sad, David, but maybe we can visit.”

“That’s stupid, too, Margaret. We’re parting forever, this time. And if we see each other ever again, we won’t be the same. Not the same at all.”

“Will I be too rich for you, David? Is that it?”

“Oh, Margaret, there’s nothing too good for you! I’m not jealous. That’s not it. It’s just that I’ll be different. I’m different now. I’m more different all the time. I can’t talk to mother or father. I can’t talk to my old friends. Maybe someday I won’t be able to talk to you either.” He set his chin on his fist and brooded silently.

“But, David, even if you’re higher, can’t we love each other anyway?” I asked softly.

“It’s—it’s just hard to explain.” He looked confused and troubled. “You see, it’s hard to feel the same when you can’t talk to someone.”

I thought of something.

“Tell me, David, do you see angels anymore, up there at the abbey?”

“I don’t see so many—no, that’s not true. I don’t see any at all, these days.”

When David left, it was as if he’d died. I felt I’d never see him again.

But losing David was only the first sorrow. Sorrows always come together, I think. First there’s one, then another little one or two, and then a whole crowd. If you could think of a way to keep the first one from jamming the door open, then the rest wouldn’t be able to force their way into the house. At least, that’s how I see it. But I didn’t know that then. I was young, and thought things always turned out for the best.

Not long after, my suitor came, mounted on a white mule and accompanied by servants bearing gifts. He made quite a stir as he rode through the village. Although he was old—already thirty—he had retained a curiously youthful look. His fashionable, tight scarlet hose made his well-muscled legs show to advantage while riding, and his elegant red-and-silver liripipe was wrapped about his head to show off his carefully curled hair and his even, classical profile. Little flawed his looks: a hint of a line on the forehead, perhaps, and a muscular, squarish jaw that made his pale blue eyes seem a bit too small in contrast. But what everyone was dazzled by was his clothes: he dressed as a walking advertisement of his trade. There was fur on his hat, fur in his sleeves, and fur at his neck. Over all an embroidered, fur-lined gown was drawn up by a belt, tooled with silver, that held his long knife at his waist. His fingers glistened with gold, and on his feet were beautiful morocco leather slippers, with fur at the top and long, pointed toes that dangled with elegant disdain from the stirrups as he rode. But as I stood before the house staring, the distaff fell from my hand, and my breath suddenly stuck in my throat. It was the ice-hearted merchant I had seen at the abbot’s court!

 

BROTHER GREGORY HELD UP his fingers and wiggled them until the joints cracked. Then he squirmed until his back felt unkinked, and sighed. It was obviously too late to get out. He couldn’t decide whether to blame his stomach, which had started the whole thing, or his Curiosity, which had led him on when he should have said, “Enough!” Or perhaps it was his Honor that kept him from rejecting a bad bargain in time to save himself from recording this compendium of trivia. Yes, definitely, it was his Honor, he decided. Honor wasted on the kind of people who didn’t even understand what honor was. Women, for example. They don’t have any themselves, so they don’t appreciate it in others. The kind of sly, self-serving women who aren’t even ashamed that they are the cause of the Fall of Man. Eve tempted Adam and started it all with an apple, and this awful woman used a bakeshop meat pie, but it was all the same. And now he was wallowing in the nasty lives of the sort of women he wouldn’t even speak to on the road, unless he needed a drink of water or directions to the next village. Saint John Chrysostom was right when he called women open cesspools, and that was even one of the nicer things he said. I should have heeded him, growled Brother Gregory to himself, I did it all to myself.

The worst part was that these preposterous creatures explained everything backward. It was exactly—well, almost exactly—as if he had made a contract to take down the memoirs of someone’s favorite horse.

“And now, Bayard,” you’d say, “how will you begin?”

“With my feed bin,” he’d say. And then the catalogue of miserable little events would begin. And would any well-meaning correction have the slightest effect? Certainly not! You have to be a thinking creature to be capable of perceiving higher things. Feed bins, tittle-tattle, and birthings. How low he’d sunk. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been warned by all the Authorities, he thought. On the other hand, perhaps God was trying to teach him a lesson. What lesson? Humility? He’d certainly had a bellyful of that lately: God ought to be tired of that one. Maybe the story had a moral. In that case he would be disregarding God’s will in not hearing how it came out. But was that his Curiosity tempting him again? I’ll do a penance, and then send her a message and tell her it’s over, he decided.

But then he couldn’t help thinking about how well his meditations were going, now that that recurring nightmare, the one about the fowl on the spit that kept floating just beyond his grasp, had gone away. Why, it was only yesterday evening that he had come very, very close to a truly ecstatic moment, while contemplating the Crown of Thorns. Perhaps he shouldn’t cut her off too abruptly. It might make her hysterical, and that would be unwise. For a moment he had a vision of hysterical women, hundreds of them, their faces all red and distorted, and their open mouths screaming. He shuddered. Then he inspected Margaret’s face. It didn’t look hysterical—yet. Perhaps it could all be managed. With a brusque motion he piled the pages together and bade Margaret farewell.