CHAPTER TEN

SEATED IN THE PARLOR IN FRONT OF A BLANK sheet of paper, Margaret could hear a tremendous racket coming from the kitchen. Cook’s magpie was shrieking, Cook was shouting, and the sound of Cook’s broom missing a hurtling body and knocking over a bucket added to the commotion. Past her open door Margaret glimpsed three little apprentice boys, one of them clutching a meat pie, speeding like deer through the hall to the street, where they vanished to share their prize. Kendall’s apprentices were mostly from good families—younger sons whose fathers had paid hard cash for them to be brought up to the lucrative import-export trade. There was a vast demand for the few places available, for the children were known to thrive under Margaret’s care, and in these modern times everyone knew that business training, like training in the law, was very nearly as good as inheriting land. But they were saucy, these lordlings, and no respecters of the sanctity of the kitchen; their antics amused Margaret greatly, though she would never let anyone know it.

Margaret was careful not to laugh as Cook appeared, breathless, in the doorway, leaning on her broom. Instead Margaret made a great show of looking up in a dignified manner as she raised the pen from the paper. It was a mannerism she had picked up from Brother Gregory, and it was very effective.

“Mistress Margaret,” said Cook, eyeing Margaret’s pen and paper with respect, “did you see which way those wicked boys went?”

“I am sorry, Cook, I really didn’t. As you see, I was occupied. But we’ll deal with them tonight. Which ones were they?”

“That dreadful Alexander was the ringleader again.”

“Then Stephen and Philip were with him, as usual?”

“As usual.”

“Then it will definitely be fixed tonight.”

Cook looked mollified. As she departed, Cook grumbled to herself, “Even so, it’s a lot easier to keep this household in pies since that tall, hollow fellow left.”

Though she’d never admit it, Cook missed Brother Gregory, as all artists miss a truly devoted worshiper of their creations. Now, Brother Gregory did not run off and eat elsewhere like some ingrate, but, after coming and nosing about the kitchen, he would sit down and allow Cook to witness herself the amazing transformation of his person from pallid waspishness to flushed mellowness in all its astonishing detail. Not only could you practically see the food being assimilated into all the corners of his body, he’d say, “My, that was good. It was the saffron you put into it, wasn’t it? Not many people know how to season properly with saffron.” Cook would always turn pink and offer him something else, which he usually ate too. Why, even the bird had gotten used to him and had ceased to sound the alarm. Now she’d been reduced to thievish, unappreciative little boys.

Margaret couldn’t help but overhear Cook’s grumbling, and sighed. Then she rearranged the ink and pens and paper a new, more felicitous way on the table. She’d just written a single word, when the girls came rattling in, with their nurse chasing behind them.

“Mama, mama, Alexander has a whole pie. We want something to eat too.”

“You know dinnertime is very soon. It’s not good to eat between meals: it spoils the appetite.”

“Di’n’t spoil Alexander’s appetite,” pouted Alison.

“It will spoil it; and besides, he’ll be very sorry tonight.”

But Cecily, her oldest, looked at her shrewdly and said, “But, mama, Brother Gregory ate all the time, and it never spoiled his appetite.”

Margaret sighed again, as the nurse dragged off the still clamoring children.

Then Margaret put a second word on the paper. Perhaps I should close the door, she thought. But then, what if something dreadful happened, and I didn’t attend to it in time, all because I’d closed the door?

At that point Roger Kendall, who’d been going over his accounts and stock records all morning with his clerks and journeymen, decided he needed to stretch a bit.

“My goodness, you look so clever there, all seated in front of the paper with a pen in your hand. I always knew you were an unusually intelligent woman,” he commented happily through the open door. Margaret looked up and blushed with pleasure. He came in, gave her a hug from behind, and looked over her shoulder.

“Not much written yet, is there? But never mind, never mind. Soon my clever, pretty little Margaret will have filled up a whole page.”

Margaret looked at the page and smiled ruefully.

“What is that stuff I smell for dinner? Have we many guests today?”

“Stewed coneys, I think. We’ve got those Hansard cloth traders that you invited, but that’s all.”

“Pity you haven’t invited one of your eccentric acquaintances. My wits need sharpening on a good argument.”

“There’s Master Will.”

“Him? He’s too set on one idea to argue well. Ever since he started writing that long poem denouncing the rich, he’s become dull. Wonder if he’ll ever finish it? I’ll probably be keeping him in paper for years. No, I need someone sharper. Now, that Brother Gregory, he could argue.” And Master Kendall went off to finish his accounts.

I really will have to close the door, thought Margaret. But just as she got up, Lion came pattering in, and she had to pet him. Then she finally closed the door and sat down to write.

“I wonder how he’s doing?” she said to herself, as she dipped the pen in the ink and finished the first sentence.

 

I BLINKED AS I stepped out into the bright sunshine from the gloomy shadows of the chapter house. It was a very upsetting thought to imagine that wherever I went, people would be listening to my most innocent words, eavesdropping on me, spying on my friends, to report any wrong thoughts they supposed I might be entertaining. But what frightened me most was the risk to my friends. Suddenly I could see our house the way those clerics would see it: in a district of thieves and cutthroats, a sinister, tumbledown den that harbored two dubious midwives who dispensed questionable cures, a mad alchemist, and fugitives and degenerates. There were even two strange animals in the house, eminently suited to be witches’ familiars. Now they would be watching me. How long would it be before suspicion fell on Brother Malachi, who was no Brother? What would happen then, if they ever found out the tiniest part of what he was doing? I couldn’t bear it, thinking of his head on the end of a pole. And if they caught him, what would happen to Hilde, who couldn’t live without him, and the others, who had no place to go? If I loved them, I couldn’t live there anymore. I would never know which day, or which hour, Death would follow me into the house. I felt very low. I’d been thinking all along only about myself when I acted. I’d thought it was for the higher good, but I’d been selfish and full of pride to ask others to share the risk without even knowing it.

“Live like other women, card and spin. Stop midwifing and fomenting trouble. Marry and live decently, for if you cannot reform, you shall be burned.” I kept seeing their hard faces, with their fishy mouths opening and closing. Even David was now at risk, the brother of a recanted heretic. I wished I could talk to him and tell him I was sorry, but I knew that for his sake, I’d never dare look at him again. How could I live? I’d never been that fond of spinning, and carding makes me sneeze.

My head was hung so low that I did not see the mule litter stop at the foot of the stairs of the outer cloister door. Old Master Kendall, his bad foot bandaged up, was huffing and puffing up the stairs, leaning on the shoulders of two husky servingmen. His sparse gray hair was askew under his fashionable, bejeweled beaver hat, and his gold chains clanked and jingled on the gravy-stained front of his rich, fur-lined gown.

“Why, Mistress Margaret! You’re out and unescorted! I was afraid I’d find you in prison—or worse, accompanied by your executioners. Then I’d have been late, too late indeed.”

“Oh, Master Kendall, why did you come here? It’s dangerous to know me,” I sorrowed.

“My dear child, I came to bribe your inquisitors.” Kendall smiled his funny, lopsided smile. “But you seem to have got loose without me. How did you manage?”

“They questioned me and questioned me. Then my brother spoke for me, and since he is a priest, they listened. They’ve told me to repent and change, though, or there will be no second chance.”

Kendall shook his head. “You’re a fortunate young woman. On the Continent no human being walks alive out of the clutches of the Holy Office. They all confess under torture. But our good king doesn’t let the church use torture during the inquiry phase here. Interferes with English justice, he says. And these homegrown affairs, they just lack the same—same snap.” He picked up my hand, looked at both sides of it, and shook his head in amazement.

“Lucky, lucky. Not a mark on you. There’s not many can say that. I have a lot of dealings on the Continent, you know. France, Germany, Italy. It’s all the same. I’ve lost some good friends. If you offer them money there, they assume you’re hiding even more, and get you all the same; then they can confiscate every bit of it. Greedy, black-robed bastards! Here in England, however, it’s practically unpatriotic to refuse a bribe. I figured it would cost a lot, but I’d probably be successful.” He tipped his head to one side as if he were calculating sums in his mind.

“There’s the personal gifts, of course—I’d have to do better than whatever your denouncers paid them. Then they’d hit me for a couple of windows, maybe a chapel in addition—hmm, perhaps a pledge for your good conduct. Oh, it would have been expensive, but worth it. Worth it! Why, my gout’s been aflame since they took you in. I had to have you back!”

“Oh, Master Kendall, you’d do all that for me? Risk your fortune?”

“For my gout, dear, for my gout. I’m a man who hates pain. Could you come right away for a treatment?”

“But I’m not to do healing anymore. That’s one of the conditions,” I told him.

“Count this as a social visit, then,” he said airily. “I can fix everything. Now, quit worrying, go home, and get that smelly stuff you rub on it, and the disgusting tea. I’m in pain, great pain, and very impatient!”

I hurried away to fetch the things he wanted. It’s a true tonic to know one has loyal friends. But at home I found all in chaos. My friends were packing. Or rather, Mother Hilde was packing, and Brother Malachi, who had returned while I was away, was not unpacking, which was his share of the work. He was entertaining the household with a tale, gesturing with his arms while he sat on a chest in the Smellery. I could hear only the last part as I entered.

“—of course, by great good fortune, I had seen the parish priest first and he was most impressed, particularly with the papal seal, so that when those great rustics came at me with their scythes, he flung himself in front of me, saying, ‘Don’t touch a hair of this holy pardoner’s head!’”

“And what happened then?” asked Sim.

“Why, I forgave them all and sold them all first-class pardons at a knockdown price. ‘I have sore feet,’ I told them, and they clubbed together and got me this fine, if slightly aged, mule on which I returned. Ah! Margaret! The Prodigal Daughter has returned!”

“You don’t have to flee. I’m free, and not burned.”

“So I see, dear, so I see! But have they laid conditions on you? Will you be watched?” Brother Malachi was always shrewd.

“Probably so. I’m going to have to be awfully careful.”

Brother Malachi sighed. “In that case, child, I’ll have to postpone my search for the philosopher’s stone awhile and leave my equipment packed up. Who knows who they’ll send to snoop?” Then he brightened. “But the relic business is picking up daily! Did you know there is pestilence back in town? I’ve a powerful prayer you can wear in a little sack around your neck as protection from it, and if the illness is so potent that it passes even this, why, you can chew it up and eat it as a certain cure! I did very well with them in Chester several years ago. God never takes away one opportunity but that He shows us another!” He raised his eyes skyward.

“Amen!” I added, for there is something about Brother Malachi that always leaves one in a good humor.

“I must away—old Master Kendall wants a gout treatment.”

“That old moneybags is a swift one—why, he’s got better intelligence than the Inquisition itself. How did he know you were out so soon?”

“It’s a long story, but you’re right as usual, Brother Malachi.” I gathered my things and made my way in haste to Master Kendall’s big house on Thames Street. When I was shown into his bedroom, it was clear that he was in the greatest pain. He lay on top of the bed, his clothes all disordered, and the poor foot exposed, for he could not bear anything touching it. It was swollen and red. Tears streamed from his eyes, as he bit his own leather belt to keep from crying out in agony.

“Oh, Master Kendall, however did you travel abroad today?” I asked as I laid out my things. He groaned in response. I knelt and blessed myself. Rubbing my hands together to warm the balm between them, I composed my mind in the special way I had learned. All my problems, all my thoughts, disappeared, and a divine bliss filled me. I was conscious of a throbbing in my head and hands, and a soft warmth. I opened my eyes, and the room seemed to be filled with an almost imperceptible, warm orange light. I put my hands on the swollen foot.

“Oh, Jesus, thank you! I didn’t think I could stand it much longer without going mad!” His servingwoman propped pillows behind him so that he could raise his head to look at me. The foot grew paler in color.

“You’re far from mad, Master Kendall, but I suspect you were self-indulgent. Suet pudding last night? Wine? Mutton?”

“No, the very lightest of fares. I always follow your advice. Just goose, lark pie, a white wine—very light—a cheese, a nice lèche lombard—oh, a few things like that.”

“Oh, Master Kendall, I can take away the pain, but you’ll surely bring back the disease every time with your love of rich foods and wine.”

“But what’s left to me, then?” He was distressed. The pain was forgotten, and he’d been planning a luxurious supper as his reward for suffering.

“Oatcakes? Water? A baked apple, perhaps? Why, poor peasants fare better than that!”

“But have you ever noticed that poor peasants do not have the gout?”

“They don’t live long enough, that’s why. It’s all those oatcakes, that vile pottage. Ugh! They starve long before they can get gout!”

“You have to decide,” I said firmly, “simple food or gout, it’s up to you.”

“Well, I’ll think about it. You’re the only person who’s ever made any sense—or any difference. Why, I’ve been poisoned and bled for years, and it never did anything but add to the pain. Sore foot, plus sore belly and sore wrists, make a miserable Roger Kendall, that I’ll tell you. Move those pillows a bit higher, can you?”

I moved the pillows as he studied my face quizzically. The glow in the room was fading.

“You look very sad. What did those old farts in the chapter house tell you?”

“They—they said I should card and spin, like other women, and quit midwifing and healing and praying for people and—and get married.”

“Well, why don’t you?”

“I need to earn my living, and if I earn my living, I can’t change much. It just won’t work. I’ll end up back before them again, and not so lucky the second time.” I was getting depressed again.

“Well, why not just marry? It suits other women well enough to be supported by a husband.”

“I can’t marry, I just can’t. I hate it, and I don’t want to be married!”

“Don’t want to be married? What a thought for a pretty young girl. What ever makes you not want to get married?”

“I—I—well, I guess I don’t like men very much,” I stammered. I was too heartsick to conceal the truth.

“Not like men? Not like men?” Kendall threw back his head and laughed. “Why, a girl like you was made to like men! What on earth could have happened?”

“I don’t know. But being married is bad. I know from experience.”

“What experience could you have had, at your age? I wager you know nothing of marriage.”

“I know altogether too much. I was married to a dreadful, dreadful man. A man just like the Devil himself, only my parents never suspected it when they made the arrangement. Only the plague, which everyone curses so, saved me from him.”

“Why, little Margaret,” his voice was soft. “Did he hurt you? If he did, I’m sorry.”

“He beat me. He hurt me. His—his first wife hanged herself in the bedroom. He was so bad.” I was crying into his coverlet now.

“I’d—I’d be a nun, if I could, but I haven’t a dowry for the convent, and I’m not pure anymore. They don’t want girls who aren’t pure.”

He leaned over and put his arm around me consolingly.

“You’re pure, Margaret. You’re a chaste widow. What could be purer? I’m a rich man. Your dowry would be no problem for me.”

“Oh, you mean well, but how can you understand? He used me against nature. He said it was my duty. I’ll never, never be pure again.”

“Is that all? Only that? Why, Margaret, that’s a very little thing. It happens a lot, I can assure you.”

“But it’s not natural. I bled all over. And sometimes I’m ashamed I’m alive.”

Why did I tell him everything? I don’t know. I guess he was sympathetic. And old too—he didn’t frighten me.

“Margaret, Margaret, dear. Don’t you know that’s how men make love to each other?”

“Men do that? How could they?”

“Did he have a man friend, Margaret? That would explain a lot.”

“Oh, God, an awful friend, a slimy red-faced friend. Was that what they were doing alone in the bedroom together? I never knew.”

“That, and much more, doubtless,” he replied.

“There’s more? Don’t tell me about it. It’s too much for me.”

“You’re an odd girl. Most are curious.”

“I’m not curious at all. I’m just so, so sad. I asked God to take my life away. I had nothing, nothing left at all. And instead He gave me a Gift.”

“The Gift that makes my foot well?”

“Yes. God has an odd sense of humor, I’m convinced.” My tears were drying. I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

“Margaret, if you knew more about the world, you’d not be weeping about such a small thing. Come and sit by me and hear me out, and I promise you’ll never weep again over it. Then you’ll accept the dowry from me, won’t you?” He lifted me up to sit beside him on the bed and waited until I was done drying my eyes before he spoke. “The longer you live, Margaret, the more you’ll discover how necessity forces hard choices on us all. It seems to me that goodness does not consist of remaining untouched, but of acting honorably under difficult circumstances. I’ve never seen you knowingly turn your hand to a wicked deed, Margaret, and I’ve watched you closer than you know.” He looked intently at my face and added, “There are not many I could say that of, even of myself.” Then he laughed softly.

“Do you know how much credit I get for my connections in the Orient, and even more, for my acquaintance with the sultan? How they envy and hate me, my less well connected brethren! They see the descendants of his stud horse in my stable, and his knife at my belt, and envy the gifts we’ve exchanged in years long past, and the trade I’ve opened. But that prince lives as wantonly as any Christian king or prelate, and I assure you that no Christian captive at his court, as I once was, would survive, let alone prosper and be freed, unless he learned a great deal more about the world than he had originally intended.”

I looked at him curiously. What a strange, strange man was hidden underneath his foolish, cheerful exterior! It was like looking over the edge of a deep well and suddenly, unexpectedly, seeing a pair of very ancient eyes looking back out.

“What would you say, Margaret, if I told you that I once knew of someone, young like yourself, who discovered the cruelties of the world on a long merchant voyage, and who on returning found his wife dead, his children being raised by his mother, and then gave himself over to endless sighing and weeping, prayer and penance, fasting and pilgrimage? And all because of things he would never have chosen of his own free will? Tell me how you see it.”

I thought long and carefully before I replied, “I would say that if God had forgiven him, then he should forgive himself, for otherwise he is only swallowed up in pride. It is better to make amends than dwell overlong on a fault.”

“That is what I say, too, Margaret, but you are a clever girl, and you think more than most people. I know that he did not come to the idea anywhere near so quickly. It wasn’t until he found that his own sovereign, our late king, lived no differently than the sultan, that he realized it was a thing hardly worth notice in the great world, a trifle not worth a single sigh.”

My eyes opened wide. I’d never imagined such a thing. He looked at me in the oddest way, both shrewd and indulgent, all at the same time.

“Margaret, you dear little innocent, can’t you see that what you worry over is nothing, nothing at all in the eyes of the world? And as for the eyes of God, well, I think you already have your answer.”

“Is that all—all really true?” I gulped.

“It’s true,” said Kendall, simply.

“But—but there’s something I’ve just thought of. I can’t be a nun anyway. What convent would take a woman who had signed an abjuration of heresy?”

“I’d thought of that already myself.” Kendall’s voice was matter-of-fact. “You could try marriage—with me, for example. My money and influence would protect you.”

“It’s not you—please see that; you’re—well, you’ve been so very kind. But marriage? Marriage frightens me so much that I don’t think I should be married ever again.”

“Do you know, half the widows in London would kill themselves for this chance?” His voice was bantering. “Why, I’m old—practically in the grave already, and my wife would be rich.”

“That’s a dishonest reason for marrying.”

“Dishonest, but common enough. Why, I once had a mistress not so long ago who begged me regularly to marry her. She was very fond of jewelry. I heaped it on her. But marry her? The greedy sot had a young lover. They’d have poisoned me as surely as they did the old fool who finally did marry her.”

“Poisonings? Mistresses? That’s a disgusting life.”

“And so say I, little Margaret. Marry me and cure my gout, and you’ll lack for nothing. I’m ready to live a good life, for I’m old, and God is looking over my shoulder.”

“Oh, Master Kendall, that’s an expensive way to get a nurse!”

“A nurse? No! Not a nurse. I can hire a nurse. Look at it this way. I got rich by having a gift for finding hidden treasures. You’re a treasure, Margaret, and I’m just clever enough to try to snatch you up.”

“But—it—it won’t work.” I was knotting and unknotting a corner of the coverlet in my hands. He was watching me closely, as shrewdly as I have seen him watching a Levantine who wants to borrow money.

“Are you thinking of your—hmm—duties?”

“Yes.”

“What if I promise you, promise before a priest, that I’ll ask nothing of you unless you ask it first? I’ll not touch you, if you wish it.”

“You’d truly do that?”

“Truly, I would, I swear by Our Lord Jesus Christ.” Kendall spoke solemnly and looked straight into my eyes. I saw he was completely honest in what he promised.

“But don’t you want heirs?” I asked.

“I have heirs,” he answered. “Two grown sons who will only be pleased if you have no children.”

No children? I felt a brief spasm of grief. But it was necessary. It hadn’t worked out at all before.

“If you’d truly, truly swear—then—then I shall accept your offer.” I looked at him intently, as if somehow I could see, if I looked hard enough, how long his promise might last.

“Why, then, it’s settled! I’ll go tomorrow to arrange to have the banns published!”

Kendall was honest in his promise, I was soon to find out, but like all shrewd dealers, he had concealed information. His long years of living unmarried, many of them spent abroad in very strange places indeed, had made him a master of the secret arts of love. It was with these secrets that he hoped eventually to win me over, and yet be true to his pledge.

But—that is for later. I was, at the time, so carried away by the exchange of secrets and the new knowledge of worldly affairs that Master Kendall had given me, that I asked him something I had been wondering about for years.

“Tell me—just one thing more, since we have been so honest.” I looked at him. Surely he was the wisest man I had ever known: worldly, tolerant, and consoling.

“Why, what is that?” he answered tenderly.

“Just—just something I’ve wondered about for a long time. Is it true you knew the late king?”

“Well enough, I suppose. I sold him a lot of rarities, and when he fell, I was lucky to escape with my life and fortune.”

“Well, it’s just this. Did he really become weakened and lose his throne through too much bathing?”

Kendall looked astonished, and then he roared with laughter, until the tears squeezed out of the corners of his eyes.

“Margaret, Margaret, you’ll never bore me!” And then he took me by the hand and explained as if to a child.

“Now, it’s true that his late majesty King Edward the Second did bathe often, and people called him soft for it. He also—if you can imagine—carried a little cloth to blow his nose in, instead of in his fingers, like a Christian! But it was not his frippery habits, but his love of men that destroyed him. In particular, his favorites and their followers grew too great. The queen and her lover threw the king over, with the connivance of a number of great barons. And when he had abdicated in favor of his son and heir, they murdered him without leaving a mark on his body.”

“How was that? Did they starve him?”

“He was not so fortunate. They pushed a red-hot poker into the avenue of love about which we have spoken, and burned out his bowels.”

“Holy Jesus!” I crossed myself. If this is what happens to kings, what safety do we little folk have?

“Do not ever speak of this matter. I know much that is unknown to others. I’ll be honest with you always, if you can hold your tongue. Knowledge is dangerous in this world.”

“But so is ignorance, I think.”

“You’re right enough there. But I have yet to decide which state is the safest.”

 

MARGARET SAT ALONE WRITING. Her face was all wrinkled up with concentration, and little blots of ink had splattered from the quill onto her sleeve. There was a big inkstain on her right index finger and a smaller one on her thumb.

Goodness, she thought to herself, it is ever so much harder writing it all down than just saying it. No wonder Brother Gregory was so grouchy. And she massaged her right hand with the left hand, as she had seen him do. Lion lay asleep under the table, making dreaming sounds, as dogs do. Margaret wondered for a while what dogs dream, then what lesson the girls should have in the afternoon, and after that about what to have for supper on Thursday when guests were coming. Then she thought about what she was writing and planned just how many pages she could finish today. Then she realized it was too many and revised the estimate. At last there was nothing to do but actually start writing. She thought briefly about how much fun it would be to annoy Brother Gregory by saying something really shocking. Then she sighed and picked up the pen again.

 

WE MARRIED QUIETLY, BUT it was hard to avoid scandal. My husband’s grown sons were offended by his remarriage, and it was all over town that Roger Kendall had become senile at last and married his nurse. That meant, of course, that a great crowd was in attendance, because it included not only my husband’s friends, but his enemies—the ones who wanted to be able to tell everyone, “Did you see old Kendall’s little dolly? Why, I was at the wedding. He’s quite besotted—yes, his mind’s quite gone.”

The wedding service was strange and dreamlike to me, for the words brought back the first wedding that had ended so badly. Even the strange agreement my husband had made did not console me, and he remarked on my pallor. I felt trapped—trapped into marriage by my love of my friends and brother, and by my fear of burning. I’d sold my freedom to save them from the danger of having known me. It was all so bitter, and it worked on my mind day and night. But at length I thought it over and finally decided that freedom was worth the risk of burning, for burning only lasts a little while, but that I could not bear the grief of spending eternity knowing that my heedlessness had hurt those I loved. I resolved for their sakes to act in ways that would not arouse suspicion. I took only two things with me from my old life of liberty: the Burning Cross, which I wore always, and Lion, who would not eat without me.

But new dresses and luxurious surroundings did not agree with me. I seemed to lose my strength in Master Kendall’s house. I couldn’t sit in quiet and call the Light anymore, I hurt so much. I walked beside my husband like a ghost when he escorted me to church, where we always made a great show by our arrival. My hair lost its shine and began to fall out. Then one morning I knew for sure what I had been thinking: the Gift had vanished. Soon I could no longer rise from bed; then I could not eat. My stomach hurt always, as if it were being torn apart by devils from the inside.

“Please eat and make me happy,” begged my husband, sitting on the side of the bed. “I used to think you were only sad, and would recover, but now I see you’ve gotten sick. Don’t just fade away! Please! Look at me. I’m a great deal thinner. I’ve been eating fewer rich foods, and my gout is much, much better! I’ve not had an attack in some time. I knew it would spare you. Use your strength for getting better. Can’t you heal yourself?”

I looked at him and smiled, for speaking was too difficult, and held his hand. His devotion comforted me. Lion stayed always with me, at the foot of the bed, as if he would protect me from some invisible menace. Then I took all my strength and whispered, “Send for Hilde. If she doesn’t know what to do, then no one does.”

“I’ll do better than that. I’ll send for the best doctor in London, Dottore Matteo di Bologna.”

“He’s Italian?” I was agitated.

“Why, yes, of course. And very intelligent.”

“With a bristling black beard?”

“Yes, he has that.”

“Then I can’t bear to see him, no matter what. That’s the man I met at the rich lady’s—the man that betrayed me, I am sure.”

“Hush, hush. I made inquiries. It was an Englishman who denounced you. He paid them a pretty penny too. They would never have taken the word of a foreigner. It’s one of two possibilities, I am sure. Both specialize in treating rich women. You were cutting into their trade.”

“You mean that all this—was a business proposition?”

“When there’s money to be made, people play hard games. I know all about that. I’ve played a few hard games myself, and have taken a few blows, and returned them as well.” His eyes narrowed, and I hoped for his soul’s sake that he would not be able to find out which of the two it was.

“Bad thoughts will not help your health,” I cautioned him, and he smiled his funny smile and said,

“Bravo, spoken almost like the old days.”

After that my thoughts began to wander, and they told me later that I did not recognize Hilde when she came. My husband became alarmed and sent for the doctor and a priest to come at once. The priest he sent for was Father Edmund.

I knew that people were standing there. They looked like shadows shifting about the bed, and I couldn’t make out who they were. They looked accusing, the shadows, so I apologized to them.

“I am very sorry they are dead. There was nothing anyone could do. I had a weapon once, but it is gone. The head is too large, too large—”

“I told you this is how it was. She thinks she’s working. Sometimes she says she’s flying without wings, and other fanciful things. She—she doesn’t light up anymore. I had planned to call you for a dinner party, Father, not for extreme unction.”

“Margaret, daughter, do you know who I am?” a man’s voice asked. Somebody put something cold and wet on my face. It stung, and smelled awful. Just like our old house.

“Hilde? Where is Hilde? I asked for her. Did you send for her?”

“I’m here, Margaret. That’s Doctor Matteo’s remedy.”

“It smells awful, Hilde, just like the distillery. You know, Hilde, I’ve got sick again.”

“I know, and I’ve come to help out.”

Things came gradually into focus. Father Edmund stood there, looking somber. I saw he had vested himself and put on his stole. The boy with the candle held the oil. They had set a little table by the bedside with two candles burning, a branch of yew, a towel, and the other things he needed.

Father Edmund took my hand.

“Margaret, Margaret. I am sorry for what I did to you. I had to do it. I had to break your will. I had to do it quickly, before you said any more. If you could have been led into saying what you think, they’d have twisted your words to condemn you irrevocably. That’s how it’s done in these inquiries; men like that don’t need torture to bring a person to the scaffold. I wanted to save you, but I smashed you. I thought it was for the good.”

“The good? Just like I did, then.”

“Just as you did.”

“I never wanted to be ignorant.”

“I always knew that. I just had to aim the blow at your weak spot.”

“You did.”

“I was greedy to save you. Too greedy. They couldn’t put together much of a case. There was no evidence, except for the death record. When I found David, then I knew I had them. I couldn’t let you go. You’re an original, you know. Better than the Miraculous Pancake.”

“The Miraculous Pancake?” my husband rumbled. “I’ve heard of that—they’ve just hit me up for a contribution to a shrine. I gave, of course. I always contribute to shrines.”

“Father Edmund,” I asked, “have there been any more Manifestations since the Pancake?”

“Oh, yes, several interesting ones. The Glowing Bone, the Floating Sword—that one was false, set up by a charlatan for money—there is also the Angelic Footprint and the Hanged Man’s Thumbnail. This last, I have proven to be a case of the black arts. London’s been very busy this season, even though it’s not spring.”

They put another pillow under my head and shifted me so that I could see better. The bedclothes slid down, revealing the glitter of gold.

“I see you still wear the Burning Cross. I’d never dare touch it now,” said Father Edmund sadly.

“For fear it would burn? That’s silly.”

“No, for fear it would not burn. Then I’d know that you were right about it, and I wasn’t the good man I thought I was the first time I touched it.”

“Oh, Father Edmund.”

“You’re not really ignorant, you know. You just never studied. That’s different. And you think too much. You’ll always be in trouble for that—that, and not holding your tongue.”

“I know that’s true.” I sighed. “But it doesn’t matter much now. I’ve lost my strength.”

“You don’t see the Vision anymore?”

“I remember that I saw it once, but I can’t feel it. It’s gone now.”

“I ask your forgiveness, Margaret. I beg it humbly, for it was I who did this.”

Doctor Matteo snorted. He had been prowling about the room as we spoke. First he had felt my pulse, then poked about, looking in pots and chests, and then under the bed. Now he stood, observing the whole scene with his dark, cat’s eyes.

“You priests always treat everything as a crisis of the spirit.” His beard bristled ferociously. “I thought perhaps you were brighter than the rest, but you, too, lack powers of observation. Hmph!” He looked indignant.

“Look at this hair, how it breaks.” He picked up a long strand of my hair from the pillow and demonstrated by rolling it between his fingers. Then he picked up my hand. “See these nails? The color? They break too. This face, see this? The color?” He grabbed my face under the chin and turned it roughly from side to side.

“You should have called me sooner. Even this old woman here, who is not so dumb, I think, would not have seen it before. I have. It’s common enough in Italy.” Here he paused for effect. He was a man who loved drama.

“It is poison.”

Father Edmund and Master Kendall looked at each other.

“Ordinarily,” Doctor Matteo went on happily, “when seen in a woman, these symptoms mean her husband is tired of her for having affairs.” He stuck his bristly beard in my face and stared into my eyes, saying suddenly, “Do YOU have affairs?”

Then he straightened up. “Humph. I think not. Besides, you are newly wed. Your husband shouldn’t have tired of you yet. That leaves things open. Who benefits from your death, bambina?”

Kendall narrowed his eyes. He knew.

“So she will live?” he asked.

“Live? Who said live? Ordinarily I treat by bleeding and purges. It cleans the blood and bowels. But it’s too late for that. She’s too weak for bleeding. Try drinking a lot of water and staying away from poisoned food. It might help; it won’t hurt. Usually, at this stage, it’s all over—days, hours, who knows?” He shrugged his shoulders. “She’d better make her peace with God. It may be time now.” He stepped closer to the bed and leaned over me.

“And you, bambina, should not trouble yourself about spiritual crises. I have had several ecstatic ones myself. Next time, don’t crawl and confess. Defy them! Stand by truth! It’s beautiful! Why, when they burned my first master, Bernardo of Padua, they piled his books all around him at the stake. As the flames rose, he cried, ‘I defy you! You cannot burn Truth!’ Oh, I tell you, it’s the only proper death for a scientist. Perfetto! A glorious martyr’s death for Truth! As the towering column of smoke rose, the flames caught in his hair like a halo! ‘Truth!’ he shouted! Now that’s a death!” Doctor Matteo was very excited. He gestured with his hands to give the impression of roaring flames, and then raised them up to show how the smoke rose to God’s Judgment Seat itself. Then he calmed down and fixed my eye with a beady brown one.

“Say your prayers and don’t eat anything bitter. I’ll come by tomorrow to see if you’re still alive.”

“I—I thought the bitterness was my sadness,” I said weakly.

“You would. Ha! Women!” and he turned to walk out, but then thought better of it. Instead he walked around to where Hilde was standing on the other side of the bed, and said, perfectly calmly, “You, the old lady, you are the teacher?”

“The teacher?” she said.

“Yes, the teacher of this little one. She says you taught her everything. We have had several beneficial conversations, she and I. I am compiling a list of the effects of plants native to England. I want to come and talk to you about your herbal cures sometime.” Hilde nodded silent assent. I could tell her brain was working in other directions.

Then they cleared the room while Father Edmund heard my confession and put a towel under my chin for Communion. When they returned, he began the prayers, and I heard the faint mumble of the responses gradually grow more and more remote.

It is a very interesting thing about death, or at least, death in bed. First one resists it terribly. It is like sliding down a slippery tunnel with no handhold. You’ll grab anything, claw frantically, take big desperate breaths trying to get enough air to fuel the dying fire within. Then it’s no good. Things break inside, and the blood comes out of your mouth, trickling away on the pillow. You don’t even taste the salty, metallic taste or worry about the laundry. The pain goes far away, like a ball that floats in the air and isn’t attached to you anymore. It’s all gone, your life, and it really doesn’t matter, because it’s all different now—it’s, well, I think of it as soft. I leaned back into death, as if it were a soft, sweet thing. A thousand miles away they seemed to be saying the liturgy for the dying. How foolish. They all seemed to be so affected by it. I was once too—those things used to bother me. That was when I cared about a little speck of flesh called “Margaret.”

Then, suddenly, I was floating above the speck, looking down. Silly, silly little people! A poor shell of a woman lay there. She looked terribly, painfully young. But the face had the shadowy lines of a skull shading the cheeks and the deep, sunken eyes—shadows with that strange, greenish-blue color that you see in old bruises. Little doll figures in dark gowns stood about her, and one of them had just finished marking the sign of the cross on her forehead with his thumb. Good-bye, foolish specks—I must soar!

A voice, a voice like a roaring waterfall sounded all around me in the void of Light.

“Margaret, you may not come yet. You must go back.”

“Never, never, let me come now!”

“Go back, you have a task that you must do.”

“Please, no!” I shrieked into the void.

“You have a task of many years in length. You will not regret them. It is not your time yet, and you may not come.”

“I don’t want to; I’m done, and I’m coming,” I shouted back into the Light.

“Why must you always be so stubborn, and talk so much? Haven’t you learned anything yet? Go back, I say!”

“Never!” I cried with my whole self, and something set me spinning, spinning terrifyingly downward.

It was a bitter disappointment to awake to unspeakable pain. I was in my poor body again, all tied and bound to pain that tore through me. I couldn’t tell where the pain was. It was all over. It was the pain of being alive. No more flying! I felt cheated. I kept my eyes closed. I heard the roaring of my blood in my ears and the faint, gasping sounds of my body trying to breathe for me. Sometimes someone held my hand. Sometimes no one did; it didn’t matter. I just listened to the gruesome clatter of my body living, living.

One time I heard a voice say, “So, she still holds on, does she?”

Another time a voice tried to speak in my roaring ear, which nearly drowned the sound: “The kitchen maid has confessed. Hilde caught her doing it, and she hanged herself in jail before they could make her talk.”

Who cares?

“It’s over, get well,” said someone.

Nothing is over; I can’t fly. Ugly, heavy body. It holds me down, making a horrible rushing, roaring sound.

Eyes don’t open. No matter. Who wants to see out there?

Then, one day, life won. I opened my eyes and saw Hilde asleep in the darkened room. Then I closed them again, but this time it was to sleep, really sleep.

In the afternoon I saw light from one eye. It was the eye that was being peeled open by somebody with a black, bristly beard.

“Ha! Living, I think. Will probably recover, with care.”

My lips tried to form words, but no sound came out.

“So? Speak up, you’re not making any noise,” said the Beard.

“I’ll never be afraid of death again,” I whispered. “It’s soft.”

“Didn’t I already tell you that? Ha! Death, in its own way, is as glorious as life! It must be—appreciated!”

A madman, I thought. I know only one such madman.

“Doc-tor Matteo,” I said slowly and distinctly.

“Why, she’s speaking! She recognizes you! It’s a miracle! I believe she will recover. I’ll pay for a Mass of thanksgiving. Splendid, splendid!” Then Roger Kendall leaned over me and said, “Why, we’ll celebrate your full recovery with a feast, something lavish and wonderful!”

“Oh, husband, do not take so much trouble. You’ll stir up your gout again.”

“Why, that’s my old Margaret—stout Margaret!” he exclaimed. When the doctor left, old Roger Kendall sat with me until my eyes closed again.

I slept some little time. When I opened my eyes again, something stirred in me. I had to speak.

“I think you must really—like me—you could have—left me,” I said to him, with my little strength.

“Leave you? Leave you? After all the plotting and planning it took to get you? Margaret, I am selfish with my treasures. I never give them up.”

“You truly think I am a treasure?”

“Why, of course. A real treasure. When I saw you, I wanted you. If I were young, I would have courted you in the most ravishing ways that you wouldn’t have been able to resist. But all I have now is money, and I was afraid of being laughed at. I wouldn’t want you to laugh at me! Then Dame Fortune, in the disguise of a treacherous leech, threw you into my arms, as it were. Do you think that I think less of you for that? Margaret, you are beloved. Beloved by me, if only you’ll value it.” I looked at his face. It was so serious. It touched me very deeply.

“Give me your hand, that I may kiss it, my true, good friend. I do value your love. I never dreamed that I could be loved by someone so gentle and good. I did not think it possible.” My heart overflowed with tenderness. I couldn’t sit up, but I took the hand that he extended. It was wide and muscular. A terrible scar ran up the back of it. I kissed the palm, and then the scar, so very gently. Then I held it against my cheek as I fell asleep.

Each day of my recovery he brought some little gift. A posy, a ribbon, some little trifle chosen with exquisite taste and care. And as he came and held my hand each day, I saw a wonderful thing take place. His face glowed with joy and seemed to grow, on each visit, a little younger, as if love renewed him. He dressed with great care now, not in the gravy-stained bits and pieces I was always used to seeing him in. He favored deep, rich materials, often lined in dark fur and embroidered exquisitely. His heavy gowns now bespoke dignity, and his gold chains and rings were no longer laden on for showy effect, but selected with care, to reflect his natural elegance and taste. His face—it would never be young again, but it was something better. It had become thinner, and the muscular jaw had emerged again from once sagging fat. His eyes seemed brighter, and the lines of experience on his brow became him well.

“Everyone says that I grow young again, Margaret. It is your influence. I eat those ridiculous vegetables, that ghastly tea—why, I’ve even cut down on wine. Look at my foot!” He held it up and wiggled it. “Much better! I want to be young again for you, to make you happy.” How could my hardened heart not warm to him?

Now I was better and could be carried down by two footmen to sit in his parlor room. He opened the window onto the garden, so that I could see the roses and breathe outdoor air. Each day he took a bit of time from his business and sat with me, showing me the strange treasures in his great ironbound chest. He had swords of strange design, an astrolabe, and foreign things that I had never seen before. He had books in Latin, French, German, and even Arabic—a treatise on mathematics—as well as in English. The English ones he read to me. They were mostly poems, beautiful poems.

One night he sat beside me in our great bed, the curtains pulled. He held my hand.

“Dearest Margaret,” he said, “have you never thought that we might have children?” I shivered. He put his arm around my shoulders tenderly, and said, “Love is not evil, Margaret, or painful, or cruel, or shameful.” I hung my head. “Truly,” he said, “good children are begotten of good love, and I would have no other.” When he saw how I looked at him, he said, “I remember my promise, Margaret, and honor it. I want you never to despise me.” I saw his face, ardent and generous, and knew he was my truest friend.

“Just one kiss, and I will not ask again.” His voice was yearning, soft, and sad. Only one? I thought. It was so small a thing to ask, after so much.

“Surely, one is not much—not enough for your goodness. I do wish it,” I answered him.

He embraced me gently and kissed me full on the lips, which he had never done before. It was delicate, and yet passionate, in a way I cannot describe. I felt something powerful stir within me.

“Another?” I said in a small voice.

“Another? My precious, dearest love.” And he kissed me again. His sensitive hands touched me gently—here, then there, softer than the dust that floats in a sunbeam. I felt a shiver—a delicious shiver, this time—shake my body. He kissed my neck, then my breast, in an exquisite way that sent a searing flame of passion straight up from the gates of love.

“I do, I do desire you, my beloved bridegroom,” I whispered to him. I felt my inner self begin to bloom like a flower. How else could I ever have said such a thing to any man?

“Then do not be afraid of me now, my beloved,” he said softly.

Somewhere—I can only imagine it must have been very far from this hard land—my husband had become a master of the hidden secrets of love. What wise and passionate woman had instructed him? Some women hate their husband’s former lovers, but I, if I knew her, would thank her, even now. But of all that he said and did, what moved me and changed me was the great caring that his deep and perfect love revealed. I still can’t even find the words to explain it to myself. With a kind of subtle delicacy he nursed our mutual passion to the heights of unspeakable rapture. My whole being was shaken and made new. And when we had dallied—so beautifully, so pleasantly, that I cannot bear to even use the same name for it as is commonly applied to grosser couplings—he rested with me fondly and said, softly, “Again?”

“Again and always,” I murmured, burying my face in his neck. And if the first was rapture, the second reached beyond it. We fell asleep together, twined in a true lovers’ knot.

An errant beam of sunlight had made its way through the heavy curtains of the bed, illuminating my husband’s bare back above the coverlet. It was beautiful to me—the pale skin over the shoulder blades, the even marching column of backbones, rising in an arch where he lay curled. Everything looked more lovely, like the green earth after a summer rainstorm. What beautiful curtains, what an interesting coverlet! And what an amazing creature lay in the bed beside me—someone who had cared enough to unlock for me the treasure of love and show me the secrets of my own heart.

“Surely,” I mused to myself, “this must have been the sort of wedding for which God intended His blessing. Not that other kind. People have made a mistake, as usual.”

My husband stirred, turned, looked up at me where I sat in the bed beside him, and smiled. “You are a very unusual woman,” he said. “I wonder if you have any idea how unusual.” I kissed him, and he returned the kiss. We soon again reentered that state of bliss we had experienced the night before.

“Margaret, you are a woman beyond belief. You have renewed my youth,” he said, admiring my face.

“And you have taught me of something that I never knew, never suspected could exist,” I whispered to him.

He sent for breakfast, and we drank from the same cup, for love. We lay in bed all day, talking and renewing our love from time to time, and all through the next night.

“Is this what marriage is supposed to be?” I asked him on the second morning.

“Not usually day and night, but that’s the general idea,” he said happily.

It was true, at length we had to open the bed curtains and come out into the world, for there is always work to be done. But my days were full of the friendship and warm understanding that make marriage, true marriage, a blessed estate. Kendall’s house was large, and learning to run it took time. Besides, I had ideas that made a great deal of trouble. I had the servants scrub the house from top to bottom, for they had developed slovenly habits in the days of Kendall’s widowerhood. The necessary-places in the back wall of the house were stinking dens: we hired men to clean them, since no house servant would do it. We rebuilt the storerooms solidly, to discourage the burrowing of vermin, and I set a fat old tabby and her kittens to live there, for I do hate rats. What they do not eat, they foul—and in this they remind me of some human creatures that I won’t speak of just now.

“I must speak with you, wife. The money you spend on new rushes is immense. And mixed with sweet herbs always! The most dainty people are content to change them but four or five times a twelvemonth, yet you are constantly sweeping them out.”

“Dirty rushes hide rats and insects. I hate rats.”

“The world is full of rats and insects. Suffer them to live, and spare my household all this turmoil.”

“They may live anywhere they wish, as long as it is not in this house. Besides, I have a lovely idea. Haven’t you seen those beautiful carpets, with the fabulous plants and monsters woven into them, that foreigners put on their floors? If we had them, there would be only one expense.”

“And what an expense—a hundred years’ worth of rushes! Wouldn’t you like jewels? Most women love jewels. I could shower you with them.”

“I’d rather be showered with a clean floor, beloved husband. Perhaps just in our own room, at least?”

“I’ll write to Venice,” he answered with a smile.

“And the beautiful room that looks onto the garden?”

“That too.”

“And the hall?”

“At that I draw the line. Too much falls from the table. Better to sweep out rushes.”

“As you wish.” I smiled. He shook his head in wonderment and smiled his funny, lopsided grin.

But he did not object too much to the transformation of his house. He said it was as satisfying as getting a new one, and without the trouble and expense of moving.

It was not long after that I found myself pregnant. When I told him, he was beside himself.

“You’ve given me a new life, a second life that I never expected at the end of the first one,” he said to me that morning. He was immensely pleased that he could show to the world that he was as manly as ever, and took every opportunity to drop the fact into conversation with each man that he met. It was only natural that it became the talk of the town, and he received a great many teasing comments, which he took blandly as compliments.

“But won’t you be angry if it’s not a boy?” I asked him.

“I have sons already, and they’ve been a disappointment. Why not try something different? Whatever child that is yours and mine is welcome.”

It was true that his sons made him sad. They were already grown. The elder, Lionel, was twenty-five, and the younger, Thomas, was twenty-two. They showed few of the good qualities of their father. This I attributed to the indulgent spoiling their grandmother had given them, particularly when Kendall was away in their youth. They led wasted lives and cared for their father only as a source of money. They had already failed in the trades he had apprenticed them in. Thomas now lived in a rented room above a tavern and spent his days dicing. Lionel lived with his mistress, who was an unpleasant, grasping woman. I knew about her from before. She was said to have once been a favorite of the Earl of Northumberland, before her looks faded. She had procured an abortion from an old, incompetent midwife that I knew, who had used the dark powder carelessly, nearly killing her and, indeed, leaving her lunatic for many months after. Kendall had often before paid for justice for them—to get them off for killing a man in a tavern brawl, for dumping a friar into a pile of manure—just as he helped them escape punishment for playing handball in church, and smashing a window, when they were little.

My husband often sat with his head in his hands, brooding about them, I know. I would kiss his neck to make him feel better, and he would start, looking up at me to say, “Oh, Margaret, if only they could have had you as their mother, they might have turned out better.” And then he would stroke my belly with the swelling life in it and smile sadly.

He told me that he once thought all boys were wild, but that eventually they became sober and took on manly responsibilities. His boys had not only run away from school, they once broke the master’s stick over his back. He tried apprenticing them with a fellow merchant, where they had proven incurably lazy and troublesome. The eldest he had sent to sea on one of his merchant ships, in hopes of his learning more about trade; he learned, instead, more about vice.

One day in springtime, when everything was green and joyful, he called me to him in his office, where I seldom went. He sighed deeply, and said, “I have made my decision, Margaret. This house, my country estate, and my personal goods I am dividing between you and our child, or, God willing, children. There is an income from the estate alone that will support you all well. My business stock, my movables, and the goods I have in storage in the seld are to be sold. Part of it I am leaving as gifts to my servants, friends, and benefactors. There is a large lump sum that will be divided between you and any children we have. I have asked that Master Wengrave act as their guardian and take over my apprentices’ terms. I know you trust him, Margaret, and he’s a good man to have on your side. Even with the large sum I intend to leave to the Church for perpetual Masses for my soul, you will still be a wealthy widow—one of the wealthiest in London, Margaret.”

“Oh, God, husband, don’t speak of it, I don’t want to be a widow, wealthy or not. I want to go with you. I can’t live without you, don’t you see that?” I could feel the tears gathering in the corners of my eyes.

“Margaret, Margaret, you are too young to speak like that,” he said gently, wiping my eyes as he would a child’s. “Listen to what I say, for it is you I am thinking about, and your own good. You must look after our child, Margaret; I care about you more than I can tell you, and this is a very wicked world.” For his sake I tried to listen, but talk of death arrangements, even though we all must do it, fills me with superstitious fear.

“What I’m trying to tell you, Margaret, is that I have disowned my sons. Their debauchery and crimes have brought me nothing but grief, and I have paid their proper inheritance several times over to get them out of trouble. I dreamed, once, that they would mend their ways; but they have brought me nothing but disgrace with their notorious way of life. I am leaving them each, on condition that they show honorable behavior, with a small sum—more than I started out with, to be sure—which they will doubtless consider sufficient to provide them with only a few nights’ carousing. It ought to keep them properly occupied in the courts, trying to certify their virtue in order to secure the money, and it may keep them from annoying you.”

“Surely you leave them too little?” I asked.

“Not little enough!” he said, with intense bitterness, and he stared at me fiercely. Then, seeing how I stared back, he smiled faintly and said something I did not understand at the time.

“If anything happens to you, or if our children die without issue, all the assets my sons might then hope to claim as an inheritance revert to the Church.” I looked puzzled. His chuckle was grim: “Set a greedy dog against a greedy dog. It ought to keep them in shrines for a good long time.”

I had grown immense now, and could hardly walk. Hilde came often to visit, and she would give me all the gossip of the town from the midwife’s-eye view, so to speak. What child looked like no known relative, what child was born in a caul, or marked unusually, and what strange arrangements had been made in which household to deal with the new baby. It was delicious, for it brought the old days back to me in a rosy haze, without any of the difficulties. Brother Malachi was doing well with plague remedies. He could sell them without leaving town, which made Hilde happy. It seems that when a plague remedy doesn’t work, there’s always a good excuse, and besides, there is no furious customer to try to stuff the bad merchandise down your throat.

“And he’s dreadfully, dreadfully close to the Secret these days. He says the first gold he makes will be used to crown my head in reward for my patience. He’s silly, but so well meaning!”

“His equipment?” I asked in some alarm. “It’s out?”

“Oh, don’t worry so. In the daytime he makes spirits of wine, which is his excuse. At night he pursues the Secret. He does well with his spirits—he sells it for a medicine. He tells people it will cure almost anything, and whether it does or not, they always come back for more.”

“But doesn’t he ever sleep?”

“In the daytime, when there’s work to be done, he usually needs a nap. But that’s the way it is with higher minds,” said Hilde complacently. Then she patted my stomach. “The baby’s dropped nicely. It can only be a few days more, dear.”

Three nights later the powerful contractions began; water gushed into the bed.

“Send for Hilde!” I gasped, shaking my husband by the shoulder. Everything was ready when she arrived, the firelight shining on the new cradle, and the little bath that sat on the hearth. The clean linen and swaddling bands were laid out. Hilde had brought the birthing stool, for we had both seen enough to know that if there is a choice, it is easier to push down than, lying flat, to push out.

“Surely, Margaret, you’ve delivered enough children not to be so anxious this time,” she said, holding my hand.

“It’s entirely different when it’s your own, Hilde. And besides, I know too well that anything can happen.”

“Then breathe deeply instead of panicking, Margaret; surely you can do better than this,” she remarked calmly.

My husband was morbidly nervous. He paced noisily about outside the door of the lying-in room, peeking in every so often to ask some useless question of Hilde.

“I’d feel much better if we had that thing Margaret used to take around—just for an emergency, mind!” he said, waiting outside the open door.

“No matter, Master Kendall. I was always afraid to use it. I’m just old-fashioned. It was always Margaret’s, and she can’t very well deliver her own baby, anyway, can she now?” Hilde’s calm good sense stilled his nerves for a few moments. Then as the pains grew stronger, I could not help groaning and crying out. There he was, back at the door, interfering again.

“I can’t bear hearing all this, Mother Hilde. Are you sure this is all going as it should? It sounds terrible; it’s much more gruesome than an encounter with pirates. You say women do this all the time?” Hilde was too busy to answer, so he sat down outside, with his head in his hands. Then I cried out again; the head was being born.

“Only a few minutes more that you must wait, Master Kendall; all goes well, very well indeed,” called out Mother Hilde, as she lifted the slippery torso.

“It’s a girl-baby that you’ve got now, Master Kendall,” she called out a minute later. But she wouldn’t let him in the room until the child was washed and neatly wrapped, and I was clean and tucked into the newly made bed. This time, when he stood at the door, she held out the little bundle for him to inspect.

“Why, it’s got red hair!” he exclaimed with pleasure. “Little red curls on the top. I can see the color plainly!”

Hilde put the baby in my arms, where it first rooted about for the breast and then sucked ecstatically.

“Who would have thought it? Red hair,” my husband kept murmuring dreamily. His sons were black headed, like their mother. It was his hair that had been red, long ago, before it was white.

I have never been more tired than in the days and nights that followed. It was a happy tired, and I slept most of the time and fed the baby in between.

“Won’t you have a wet-nurse to spare yourself? I thought all women wanted a wet-nurse,” Kendall said when he saw the circles under my eyes.

“Oh, husband, never. For the child takes on the characteristics of whoever’s milk it drinks. And I’ve seen too many wet-nurses at close hand.” His eyebrows went up, and he shook his head at my eccentricity.

Several weeks later, while the child slept, I decided to take my sewing downstairs, where I could enjoy the roses. I was making something nice, an embroidered gown for my little girl.

Agatha came in to interrupt, her face the picture of annoyance.

“There’s a shabby begging priest at the door to see you. He says he knows you and wants to be admitted. I’ll chase him off if you want. These people are just leeches, and you need your rest.”

“But who did he say he was?” I asked her.

“He said he was David—you’d know the rest.”

David! David here!

“Oh, Agatha, send him in right away—he’s my brother.”

“Your brother? You certainly picked a poor-looking brother. It fooled me,” the old woman muttered, and was gone.

“David, David!” I beamed, and got up and held my arms out to him as he entered the room.

“Don’t get up, sister. I hear you’ve gone into the childbearing business, this time, and I’ve been informed you need your rest.”

“Just let me hug you this once, David—I’ve craved it for so very, very long,” I answered, and he put his arms about my shoulders with an awkward gesture.

David and I sat together on the window seat. It was almost like the old days.

“You live well here, sister,” he said, looking around at the glazed windows, the patterned carpet, and the blooming roses outside.

“My husband gives me everything.”

“Then you must be happy,” he said, but his eyes looked sad.

“Happy? Yes, happy, I guess. But I wanted to be free. That’s different.”

“I’m sorry, then.”

“Don’t be sorry, David. Don’t ever be sorry for me. Things didn’t come out badly. I’ve even found you again. That’s been a joy, even though I couldn’t see you. I wanted to, you know, but I thought I’d pull down your great career. So I stayed away.”

“I knew that was so. That’s why I’ve come to see you instead. I’ve something to tell you, Margaret.”

“Nothing bad, I hope,” I replied. His face looked so serious.

“No; it’s just that I wanted to apologize.”

“You never need to apologize to me, David. I’ll apologize to you.”

“No, you don’t understand, Margaret. When I saw you there, looking so unhappy, and Father Edmund humiliated you on purpose, I felt so bad I can hardly tell you. It was about something that happened long ago. I—I was ashamed I’d never showed you the rest of the alphabet.”

I took his hand in both of mine. How dearly I loved David! My twin, my other half, for all the days of my life. I wanted only to console him.

“But that’s all gone by, now. You can’t grieve over what’s past. I’m well off, you see, and my husband has promised to get a reading teacher for me sometime when I’m less tired. Someday I’ll study, and then I’ll write you a letter in my own hand. You’ll be pleased with me then, David.”

“Well, just don’t be sending letters all over. They’ll wind up in the hands of the bishop’s officers. Don’t you remember? We get the reports on you at the bishop’s palace. Reports on you, and a lot of others.”

I thought about that awhile. It didn’t seem fair, but David was right.

“Oh, David, it’s so depressing. I wish there were an island far away in the sea, where I could go live and think what I like.”

“There is no such island, Margaret, and if there were, people would make it just the same as here. You’re stuck, Margaret. You have to live like everybody else.”

“If you were a nice brother, you wouldn’t remind me,” I said with a smile.

“That’s something like I’ve been thinking, Margaret. I think somewhere I took a wrong turn—not much of a one, but it led to the wider path, you see.” His face looked, suddenly, drawn and sad.

“You’ve got a wonderful career—don’t spoil it now with doubts,” I urged him.

But he went on: “It’s just that I started thinking about the old days, Margaret. It’s when I started buttering up the bishop after your hearing. I told him all these good things, how mother had died, and how good you’d been to me. He got quite smug that he’d let you off. But I started remembering some of the ideas I’d had, and then I felt worse and worse. So I’ve talked him into letting me go. I want to work with the poor, and live like Christ and wander about—at least for a while, until I can figure out what’s right.”

“Oh, David, that’s not very safe—you might get hurt. And you have big things to do.”

“You mean, come back a prince? I’m not so sure it can be done. Just like you can’t be free.”

“But the bishop isn’t mad at you, is he?”

“Oh, no, he looked very sentimental and gave me his blessing. He said he did that, too, when he was young, and wishes he could do it now.”

Oh, David, I thought. All this tolerance you get. They’re better to you there than they are to the others, and I know why. But if I told him, it would break his heart. He thought the bishop liked him for himself alone. Why spoil it for him? So I said, “Well, if you need a good meal, you’ll at least come back here, won’t you?”

“Of course I’ll come back.”

“When, David?”

“When—when I see angels again.”

“Oh, David, then you’ll take my blessing too? Let me put my hands on your shoulders.”

He knelt down, and I put my hands on the rough material that covered his thin shoulders. The room glowed soft orange, then deep orangish-pink, and for a moment a bright, soft honey-gold.

“Why, Margaret, that’s a funny trick you have. Your face lights up. How did you learn that?”

“It’s a long story, David. But I’ll tell you one thing I’ve noticed about your bishop.”

“What’s that?”

“His fleas jump much farther than yours ever did.”

“Oh, Margaret, you’re unregenerate!” He cuffed me on the arm and grinned, picked up his bundle, and was gone.

 

MARGARET LOOKED AT WHAT she had written. It was hard to think about David without missing him so much that she hurt inside. A year ago a letter, all stained from travel overseas, had arrived, addressed “To My Right Well-Beloved Sister, Margaret.” It had taken months to arrive, and gave news of wandering in Italy, of work in a lepers’ hospital, and a planned pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Margaret read it and reread it, and still took it out occasionally to touch it as a talisman, as if that might bring David safely back to her. Now writing of David made her need her letter again. She took it out of the chest, unfolded it carefully, and looked at the well-memorized words once again, stroking the paper and touching the signature before she put it back and resumed writing.

 

IN THE TIME THAT followed, my husband grew richer and richer, so that even the people who had gossiped about his wedding to me fought for invitations to his house.

“Good company and good food, Margaret—that’s what everything’s all about,” he would say, holding up some odd rarity that had come to him from overseas, so that he could see it in the light. Silver goblets from Italy, gold rings from Constantinople, strange little gilded paintings of the Blessed Madonna from the Slavic lands—they all passed through his hands and were converted into gifts to the great and powerful, which built his influence even further.

“Never forget, Margaret, we all need friends,” he’d say, telling me of some spiteful revenge or double-dealing at court. Then he’d add, “And isn’t it a blessing you run my house so well—that’s half the story of my new successes, right there.” I never felt so wanted and so valued.

He purchased two more manor houses in the country to add to his estate—one of them solely because it had an excellent cherry orchard, for he loved cherries immoderately. Each time he bought property, he’d rewrite his will secretly, to make sure his two sons never got anything with which to finance their wild lives. About the time I was pregnant with Alison, Lionel and Thomas, fearing I was bearing a son, and not knowing that his plans were already made, became so vicious that he barred them from the house entirely.

But I always dreamed that someday I’d find a way to reconcile them, to change them and gladden their father’s heart. It always seemed to me that the Gift, which mended broken bones so nicely, ought to be able to mend a broken family, but that was not so. Sometimes it didn’t even do so well on bones, for whenever I was pregnant, the power sank inward to aid the child and could not be summoned up to assist others outside of me. At such times my husband had to live better for his gout’s sake, as other people do, which was not easy for a man who loved good food and drink as much as he did.

When baby Alison was born, he gave her as grand a christening as if she were a son, and for my churching made such a feast and so many gifts to the church that they seemed to think my moral character quite reformed. So what began as a marriage of convenience ended as a marriage of love, and sorrow was transformed into happiness beyond any I had ever dreamed.

 

MARGARET LOOKED AT HER words, so nice and black on the paper, and was pleased—very pleased. It was just the way a story should end, with “happily ever after.” Now it needed to be finished perfectly. Just as a nice dress needs to be well hemmed, a book should be ended with the right word. She dipped her quill in the ink and wrote in large letters the proper word to end a real book with. It was a Latin word; Brother Gregory had shown it to her. The pen had gone dull, so the ink splattered a bit, but it looked quite nice. The word was

FINIS

She held up the sheet and smiled, admiring her work this way and that. Then she put the sheets away. They filled the whole compartment.

 

BUT THE STORY WASN’T really over at all.