CHAPTER 9
THE EARTH WAS cool and moist, but the sun warm on my back as I knelt, my small trowel temporarily forgotten in the garden soil. Despite the imposed rule of silence, noises droned all around —the rhythm of my more industrious sisters hewing out fresh furrows, the rumble of carts and the calls from the merchants outside the convent wall. Beside me, Therese hummed, though she surely was not aware, else she would stop abruptly and offer a silent prayer of repentance. It was such a pleasant sound, no one within its hearing would call it to her attention. The notes carried with them the freshness of spring, blending with the birdsong.
Girt should have been with us, but had been absent now for what must be a quarter of an hour, long enough for me to excavate not only my portion of the garden, but hers as well. I harbored no resentment that my friend might be shirking her share of the assigned work, but if she didn’t return by the time the bell rang for dinner, the abbess would surely require an explanation for her absence, and any acceptable one would be a lie.
A subtle change came to Therese’s tune, alerting me to the idea that it was not, after all, an act of her subconscious. The notes took on a minor quality and increased in volume, thus attracting the attention of our fellow toilers in the garden. Soon, all eyes were on Therese, who feigned a slow realization, raised her head, and made a great, silent show of apology, begging forgiveness of each sister in turn. I, too, participated in the charade, knowing full well it was meant to divert attention from Girt, who was hurrying back to her place.
Are you crazy? I implored with a sidelong glance.
Sorry. Girt’s cheeks were flushed, easily attributed to the nearly noon sun. I decided my friend’s breathlessness was due to running back from . . . wherever she’d been, and the smile a result of the beauty of God’s day. Anything else, I didn’t want to know.
At the first ringing of the bell, I stood with the others and wiped the loose dirt from my hands on the green apron I wore over my habit. I took my turn at a bucket filled with warm water and plunged them in, taking care not to stain my sleeves. A casual glance over my shoulder revealed that Girt chose not to follow, possibly because she had done too little work to actually have dirty hands, but I suspected more.
Once inside, my sisters and I filed into the refectory and to our seats, standing until the abbess took her place at the head table. At her lead, we moved as one, making the sign of the cross, then joined hands as she led us in a lengthy blessing. By the time she reached the conclusion —“For thy bounty, we do give thanks” —I felt the slip of paper in my hand, passed along with a quick squeeze from Girt. I barely had time to secrete it up my own sleeve before joining in the chorus of amen.
It would be a trick, to partake of the meal while keeping the note concealed. I sat patiently, allowing another sister to slice the bread, and accepted Girt’s silent offer to ladle the soup into my bowl, all the while working the page farther up my sleeve.
This, I noticed right away, was more than the usual fragment of torn parchment Girt had been slipping to me over the past year. Had I not been far more skilled at reading, I might never have been pulled into the circle of these secret missives. By now, though, it was understood. I would wait for the opportune time and place to read, and then —this being the far more elusive aspect —find time to share, word for word, the message.
Across the table, Therese arched one disapproving brow.
I tilted my head, a plea for mercy, if not approval.
Therese returned her attention to her soup.
Dismissed from dinner, and from the service after, we were granted two hours’ time for meditation and reflection. Some sisters went to their cells, where soft snores betrayed the state of their prayers. Others would seek the warming room in winter or, as on this day, a stone bench in the sun-filled courtyard. One could work on stitchery, so long as it was nothing frivolous, or even read aloud from the prayer book to a small gathering of sisters. These were hours in which each soul was accountable to Christ for their passing.
“The Lord is in his holy temple,” Abbess Margarete would intone before our dismissal. “The Lord’s throne is in heaven: his eyes behold; his eyelids try the children of men.”
I headed straight for the sanctuary, knowing no other place in the expanse of the convent would offer as much light. I stopped before the altar, knelt, and prayed.
“Blessed be the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Grant me wisdom to understand the words I am about to see, and discernment to find your truth within. I pledge to you my heart, unceasing in its devotion to your will. Pray, find my spirit to be obedient, though my flesh may waver.”
I offered the same prayer every time I undertook this mission. After, I took my usual place in the center of the fourth pew, hoping to discourage any other sister from sitting right next to me, and opened my prayer book. With one hand I turned its pages, while the other slipped up my sleeve to dislodge the note hidden there. Once it was brought into view, I surmised that it was no note, but a full page —torn from something greater. A book, maybe, or at the very least a pamphlet.
The Freedom of a Christian.
The title alone held no significance, but when I noticed the author, a familiar sense of excitement ignited at my very core.
Martin Luther.
I knew of him, of course. As much as Marienthrone tried to maintain holy sequestration, ideas seeped in. Literally, in this case, handed over bit by bit, written on scraps of parchment and on the back pages of old ledger books. Simple Bible verses at first: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians ii, 8-9. And others from the Gospels and the Psalms —each with a governing message of faith. All given to me from Girt’s soft hand, having been delivered to her by another work-worn, stronger one.
“Where did you get this?” I had asked the first time, when a painstakingly copied verse from the Gospel of John was slipped into my palm.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
My eyes had taken in the words, hearing them in Latin, but seeing them in German —the words of my Savior written in my own tongue.
“Hans says that someday Luther will translate the whole of Scripture,” Girt had whispered over her shoulder, her voice filled with equal awe for the messenger as the scholar. “Not only that, but have it printed in books, available to everyone.”
Mere knowledge of the plan made us all conspirators, and one secret after another passed from Hans to Girt to my own hand. And then, over the course of two years —from my twenty-first birthday until this spring —thin scraps, torn from a single printed page. It took months before the message of the numbered lines came clear. Luther, speaking out against the corruption of the priests. Of the pope, even, in the selling of indulgences —fees paid to the clergy by family members in mourning, hoping to pay a price on earth to purchase an eternity in heaven for loved ones who died without repentance for their sins.
“Like my mother,” Therese said that night in the darkness when we three huddled together, reunited in a common cell, the strips carefully laid out in sequence on the floor between us. “He’s saying there’s nothing to be done, no hope to bring her soul to God?”
“He means her soul can’t be bought,” I said, working the complication of the teaching out in my head even as I spoke. “He’s saying that all of us —every person —we’re responsible for our own repentance. If we confess our sins, Christ forgives us. But nobody can confess for us, and once life is ended, the time for confession has ended.”
“I can’t believe that,” Therese said. She took herself to her narrow bed, disturbing the neat assembly of Luther’s words in her wake. Ever since, when the occasion came to study some new message, Therese had lain in resolute silence, facing the wall, feigning sleep.
Since then, new chambers of belief were unlocked with each message. Fresh clarity to Scriptures I had heard from infancy, read by the priests, intoned in Latin.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. With a special notation that it is he —Christ himself, our Savior —who cleanses us. A truth recorded centuries before the inception of the Church, the ordinance of confession, and the priesthood established to enforce it. Such power in those little slips of paper. Ancient writing forged with new ideas —messages I’d never heard before in a lifetime of sermons and lessons.
And now, something completely new. The Freedom of a Christian. I ran my fingers over the creases on the page, bracing myself for the words to follow.
Christian faith has appeared to many an easy thing. . . .
Easy thing, indeed. The sleeplessness, the silence, the cold floors and sparse meals and endless scrutiny. This was the very first line, and I found myself not simply reading the page, but conversing with the author.
For it is not possible for any man to write well about it . . .
. . . or to understand well what is rightly written. . . .
As I read, I felt a connection to the man who wrote the words. I’d form a question, and he’d answer it in the next line. At times, I had to furrow my brow and beg him to repeat his logic, so he did in the rereading of a sentence. Or two. Other times, his point would be so strong and perfectly clear, I needed to look away from the text and stare out the window at the square frame of blue sky while the new truth took root.
According to his own text, these were the words of a poor man, vexed by temptations, yet with the assurance to write about matters of faith. He wrote with elegance and solidity and a proclaimed desire to serve the ignorant. And who could possibly be more ignorant than I?
Then, the final lines on the page:
A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.
Here was something to ponder, and I read it again. And thrice, bringing the paper closer to my face, as if to make the words clearer, before remembering that to do so would put the paper in full view of any other sister choosing to spend her hours of unassigned time in the chapel. A furtive glance revealed five within my eyesight, and I dared not attract attention by turning my head to see who had come in behind.
Most free of all.
The irony caught me unaware, and a bit of a laugh tried to escape before I captured it and tamed it into a more acceptable outburst.
This single sentence presented itself as a puzzle with contradictory interlocking truth. How could one be, simultaneously, in servitude and free? Subject to none, and to all?
It was maddening, this bit of logic. Or illogic. For the first time, with all my heart I wished I could turn my head and ask this Luther himself, “What do you mean?” But God had given me a mind of my own, and few enough opportunities to challenge it.
Free. Free from the bondage of sin. Free from condemnation, through repentance and confession. But subject to none? Only to Christ, and the pope, and the bishops, and the priests, and the abbess, and Therese, who carried with her always the threat of discovery.
Most dutiful servant. To Christ, to the Church, and therefore, I supposed, to all. Carrying their prayers, creating this haven of worship.
Unsettled by the paradox, I took one last sweeping glance at the paper, folded it, and returned it to my sleeve. Moving as silently as possible, I slid out from the pew and kept my head bowed in contemplation as I traversed the courtyard and entered the sisters’ sleeping quarters. Open doors revealed nuns kneeling at their bedside in prayer or stretched on their mattresses in sleep. I quickened my pace, turned the corner, and slipped into the narrow hallway, casting a glance to ensure I hadn’t been followed.
It was an unusual time to try to visit with Sister Gerda. I knew I was to ask permission, but this could not wait. I went straight to the door and knocked quietly, not knowing if the sound would travel through the thick wood. I peered through the window. The cell was dark, making the small, misshapen woman appear like a specter floating out of the shadows.
“I know this visit must come as a surprise,” I whispered, pressing my face into the latticework so that my words would land only within the close, dark walls, “but will you speak to me?”
Sister Gerda shook her head, a motion so quick I questioned the response.
“Only for a moment?”
Followed by a more convincing dismissal.
“But I-I have questions. And there’s no one here that I —” I stopped myself short of saying trust. I trusted Girt, and Therese to an extent. But they wouldn’t understand any more than I did. Sister Gerda’s years of silence had surely nurtured a wisdom more pure than anything outside of this dark place.
I pleaded again. “Will you, then, listen? Just for a moment? I only need —”
This interruption came with the sight of Sister Gerda’s hand, so white as it emerged from the black sleeve, it seemed disembodied, yet strong enough to halt the wall of words. Behind her splayed fingers, a stern expression discouraged any further sound. I leaned my head against the door, realizing the true reason I trusted this woman.
Silence keeps secrets.
I turned my back to the door, rested against it, and slid down until I was sitting on the floor. Taking the page from my sleeve, I opened it, found an angle that afforded the most light, and began to read as loud as I dared. I knew she listened on the other side. Her distinct footfall sounded until she stopped, and I imagined her good ear pressed against an open knot in the wood.
Never had I felt such power as in speaking these words aloud, and I fought to keep my whisper intact. To think, a man had penned them, but I could read them. I could speak them. And yet I had no power to make them my own truth.
When I got to the end, I went back to the top and read the page again. Pausing at the end of each sentence, letting the ideas seep through my lips, through the door. But when I began to read it a third time, a sharp rap came from the other side.
Stop.
I obeyed, midsentence.
“Will you keep this for me?” I asked, pressing the paper against the door. “I can’t be found with it, but I–I can’t destroy it. Please?”
No sound, no protest. I began to slide it under the door but knew I needed to keep a remnant with me. Carefully, I folded a crease just above the confounding last line. Lifting it to my mouth, I gave it a quick swipe along my tongue before tearing it carefully —imagining each woven strand of paper dislodging —until I’d separated it from the larger page. A single narrow strip. Easily concealed. Swallowed, if necessary. I stood, folded the larger page, and dangled it through the lattice.
“I need to know,” I said, speaking blindly into the wood, “and you can answer me whenever you can. However you can. But I need to know. What does this mean?”
I would have opened my fingers, allowed the words to drift to the floor of the cell, never to know if they’d fall under the gaze of another soul. But then I felt it —a tug as small as the slip itself.