A Vision of Light (14 page)

“Don’t worry, now, I’ve brought you something,” I said soothingly, as I passed my hand over his forehead. He was burning hot! This was no child’s disease, but a dangerous fever. I resolved to wait with him awhile, and got cloths wrung out in cold water to place on his head and body. When I had done what I could, I left him, promising to return soon. And when I had finished my few errands and returned, I noticed, as I bathed him in cold water, that huge swellings had grown on the back of his neck and under his arm. He was nearly incoherent with fever now and asked me for his mother. It was then that I saw the black spots, like ugly black blisters, that had begun to form on his body. There were, as I searched, only one or two, but it was clear that before nightfall, they would be accompanied by many more. This looked like a thing that could not be dealt with lightly, so I sent word to my husband, who was out courting a client, that he should return at his earliest convenience. He returned in a fury with me for cutting short his work.

“Husband, something very important has happened. One of the boys has a fever, and I think there is a dangerous sickness in this house.”

“What sickness is this, that the loss of an apprentice should interfere with my business?”

“No sickness that I have ever seen before, but a very swift one that ravages within hours.”

Small lifted an eyebrow.

“Come with me to see, for this is not a light matter,” I said. “I have already sent for the priest.” Small lit a candle, the better to inspect, for the downstairs room where the apprentices slept had but one tiny window and was dark even at midday. As he held the candle high above the bed, it was clear that the poor boy had breathed his last before the priest could even arrive at the house. The circle of light from the candle, as Small moved it slowly the length of the corpse, revealed clusters of black spots, marring the skin of the belly above the coverlets and making of the face an unrecognizable mask.

“I know this thing,” he said evenly. “You did well to inform me, wife.” He moved with a swift stride to his storeroom. “Follow me, wife, and do everything exactly as I tell you.”

At the door of the broad storeroom he paused, candle held high, and smiled his terrifying smile.

“Lads!” he cried. “I’ve neglected a happy duty! Take the finest of this new shipment from London to the house of William le Draper as my personal gift to his daughter in honor of her marriage! And take these sables, here, to William himself, and tell him that it is my gift of love, and that I wish all differences between us to be resolved in Christ’s name. Hurry, hurry! And mind you make sure that you show them to him personally!”

Then he grabbed my wrist hard, blew out the candle, and dragged me swiftly to the chamber above.

“Get your traveling cloak and things,” he said, proffering an open saddlebag. With his key he opened his great chest and took gold from within, loading a moneybag and the hollow heels of his wooden pattens with gold coins. Strapping on both clogs and money belt, he took his cloak, sword, and buckler.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked, shocked at this sudden silent whirl of activity. He gave me an icy look.

“It is not you I take, Mistress Small, but my son.”

In a moment we were downstairs and in the stable yard. The chickens scattered away from his angry feet, as he hurried to roust the stableman to saddle his ambler and my riding mule. Small himself tied on the saddlebags as the old man helped me to mount, for I was very cumbersome.

“Have a care, Mistress Margaret, and return soon to us,” said the kindly old man. “And to you, too, Master,” he added as a respectful afterthought.

As our mounts clip-clopped out of the stable-yard gate, Small rode ahead in silence, his jaw set as hard as a statue’s. His face did not relax until we were well beyond the town gate, in the open country.

“Where are we going,” I ventured to ask, “and why so swiftly?”

“Why should you care where you are going, if it is your husband’s will? Yet I will tell you this: There’s a man deep in the countryside who’s in my debt, and there will we go for a while, until we can return to our household.”

“But it is not seemly to leave so quickly, without farewells, dropping all obligations,” I fretted.

“I am the judge of what is seemly in this case,” he answered, and he flashed his terrifyingly cold smile. “If you listened better and talked less, you would know what I knew in an instant. Those skins from London are tainted. They are plague goods, and have brought black Death himself within our house.”

“Sweet Jesus!” I blessed myself. “Then the wedding gifts—?”

Lewis Small’s smile was so sweet that it was almost tender as he replied, “I believe in sharing my good fortune with friends.”

With horror I imagined William’s smiling daughter stroking the soft pelts on the eve of her wedding, perhaps in the company of her bridesmaids, friends, and relatives, who had come to admire her gifts. The gift of death itself! Her honest father, who, deceived by the Christian message, has already received the sables in his hand, may be resting, for he feels a bit unwell, and does not want to mar the festivities. In the meanwhile our own boys, the unwitting messengers of death, have decided to stop off at a tavern on the way home, for who will notice a quick drink, taken on the sly? The taint of death leaves the tavern, and like the flames of hell, sweeps through the city. At our own house the priest has called, and in blessing the poor corpse carries home to the church the dreadful gift. What a perfect and efficient mind Lewis Small had! At one stroke he had taken vengeance on his enemy, and on the world as well for the loss of his goods.

We plodded on in silence and did not stop as night fell, for there was a bright moon, and Small wanted to ride all night, to put distance between the town and ourselves as quickly as possible. The stones on the narrow track glittered under the cold stars. As dawn broke, I complained of hunger, for I am as ravenous as a wolf when carrying a child, and Small said we should ride on, for there was a village not far.

He was right, for soon the dusty track wound through the alleys and past the common of a little village, no bigger than the one where I was born. Where the ale stake was hung to signify refreshment, we stopped briefly, turning away all questions as we ate and drank.

As we left I heard the goodwife say, “Poor girl, he is returning her to her parents for bearing another man’s child.”

“No,” said another old woman, “for she herself told me that they are returning for the blessing of her old mother, who is dying.”

Before midday I could go no farther. I am not a person to ride day and night without sleep, even now.

“Please, husband, just a moment’s rest, for the sake of the child.”

These words were the only key to his heart, and he dismounted, tethered his horse, and aided me to dismount and lie down beneath a tree by the side of the road.

“Have you water? I am very thirsty,” I asked, for I felt suddenly very weak. He searched for the leather bottle he had brought with him. But then, suddenly, he turned on me with a suspicious look. With a swift step he returned and knelt, feeling my forehead.

“Why, wife,” he said calmly, “you seem to have a fever. Lie here and rest, and I will hurry and fetch help from the next village.” He tethered my mule to his saddle and mounted with a single smooth movement.

“Remember, I’ll soon be back,” he called, and he smiled at me. And by that smile I suddenly knew that I would never see him again, and that no help would be coming from any village. As I closed my eyes against the now painful light, my last memory was of the jingle of harness and the soft clop-clop of hooves in the dust, as he departed forever.

B
ROTHER
G
REGORY NEVER LOOKED
up. As he put a neat little curlicue at the end of the last letter, his face was stony. Margaret could see his jaw clenched tight, and she began to fret to herself. Maybe he was going to quit and go away after all. Brother Gregory was so prim and easily offended. He was probably getting ready to quote some unpleasant Authority and make her regret that wretched Voice another time. Just thinking about how horrid he was probably going to be caused her to give her needle a vicious jab through a French knot in the embroidery she was working on, sticking her finger. As she nursed the sore finger, she couldn’t help thinking how hard it is just to plan how to say a thing, even without anticipating a lecture on what is proper. And after all, how can you get to the point of a story, which is at the end, without going through the middle?

“Have you seen many ghosts?” Brother Gregory turned and looked at her speculatively.

“No, just that one,” said Margaret into her embroidery.

“Too bad,” said Brother Gregory. “I knew a lay brother once who had regular warning visitations. They were most convenient, especially around planting time.” He couldn’t help watching the needle as it moved up and down among the spreading foliage in the embroidery frame. A spot of blood lay half hidden behind a leaf. She looked innocent enough—but who would ever have supposed that, like some whited sepulchre, she was already twice married? Had the first one died, after all? He’d probably soon enough find out that she had proposed to the second husband over the coffin of the first, like the woman in the joke. Found some old fellow who’d let her run wild, and bewitched him with rolling eyes and tight lacing. A pity. Discipline wears off quickly in women and hounds. They need consistency if you’re going to get any permanent results. I’d tell her, he thought, for her own good, but she’s probably not capable of hearing it without some infantile outburst. Inadequate Humility. The disease of the modern world.

“I suppose it’s to be expected that you don’t know much about demons,” he said. “It requires special study. Observation is not enough.”

“Then you’ve observed many?” said Margaret, looking up.

“Only one or two. But I know of a very holy Father who is capable of vanquishing quite large ones. I learned some useful things from him.”

“Then you see that the ghost was right, and the proof that he was a demon is what he did—killing all those people secretly.”

“You’re gobbling down conclusions before you’ve looked at the premises, Mistress Margaret. That’s superstition at work on your part. You must know first of all whether the victims had any sins on their consciences. Pestilence can be an expression of God’s will, you know. He wishes to warn us to set no store by the things of the earth.”

Brother Gregory leaned back and put his chin in his hand, and his brow wrinkled up with thought. His passion for theology could not be long suppressed, and it was especially likely to bubble to the surface when confronted with the everyday horrors of life. On viewing the displayed corpse of a dismembered traitor, Brother Gregory was likely to wonder all of a sudden in what part of the body the soul resided. A ghastly accident might call forth speculation on God’s will, and once, long ago, he had walked in blood-spattered armor through a battlefield of corpses pondering on the nature of the Trinity.

Now he was reminded of the Pestilence. That was a hard one, finding God’s purpose there. He remembered men howling like dogs about the open pits where the bodies lay stacked like cordwood, and women, screaming hideously with the pain, running stark naked through the streets. God must mean us to think only of the Heavenly City, when He makes the earthly one like this. But just as he almost had it figured out, an anxious voice interrupted his reverie.

“But surely, God, if He is good, would not use as an agent a man bent on revenge.” Margaret was very concerned.

“A point, definitely a point to consider. But it wouldn’t prove the fellow was a demon. He could just as easily have been a human under contract to the Devil. It is something that merchants and moneylenders, especially, are tempted by. The buying and selling, you see—they think they’re better bargainers than ordinary folk. First they charge interest, then they cheat honest knights out of their inheritances, and soon they’ve passed to dropping poison in wine-cups. After that, it’s nothing to think they can outfox the Devil on a contract. These men of business are like that—no honor to begin with. It predisposes them, you see.” But the idea appeared too complex for Margaret, at least to judge by the lack of understanding on her face. She clenched her teeth, set down her sewing, and said in a very even tone, “It seems to me that Lewis Small was totally selfish, without any thought except for his own benefit. Complete selfishness is the personification of evil, is it not?”

“Women’s talk, Mistress Margaret, women’s talk. The essential thing is to determine, first, if the hanged girl who said he was a demon was a dream or a simple ghost, in which case her word is dubious, or, secondly, a warning visitation sent by God, which would make her word more significant, or, thirdly, whether she was herself a demonic manifestation or devil, which would again change the interpretation of her word. Tell me, are you certain that you both saw and dreamed her, or that you only saw, or, alternately, only dreamed her?”

“I think at first I dreamed, then saw her in the dark before my eyes. But I was much disordered. I was pregnant and alone in the house of a wicked man. So it could have been either.” Margaret sounded thoughtful.

“You need to think more clearly than that, if you wish to analyze the meaning of your vision accurately.” Brother Gregory was very self-assured. He had, after all, the benefit of professional training in these matters.