A Vision of Light (50 page)

The meeting hall of the chapter house was very tall and shaped like the outer walls, that is, with eight equal sides. In each of its eight walls a tall window, with a partial panel of stained glass, let in a long shaft of light that played across the stone floor and the faces of the assembled dignitaries. The ceiling was high and shadowy, with partially revealed stone faces and carved designs hiding in the darkened corners where it met the walls, and at the peak of the roof. I was brought in by two guards and left to stand alone in the center of the room, quaking with fear. There, in front of me, stood the dais that supported the great carved and draped table at which sat my inquisitors. At the center of the table, in the highest and most elaborately decorated chair, sat the bishop himself, an old, unhealthy-looking man in layers of embroidered crimson-and-white silk, heavily lined with the finest miniver. He had a long Norman nose and distant, arrogant eyes, set in a sagging face spotted with broken veins. He wore a great golden crucifix, much greater and more elaborately carved than any other worn in the room. When I saw it, I felt a brief sense of relief that the Burning Cross was tucked safely under my surcoat. You know these great churchmen—they become irate if an ordinary soul has a cross on that rivals their own.

My eyes shifted around the table. There was at one end a terrifying Dominican, in his black habit and cowl, with sunken, fanatical eyes. At the other end was the clerk, who would read documents and take down the proceedings, a simple priest dressed in a black cassock and white surplice. Between them sat the doctors of divinity; their hands glittered with gold as they put them on the table, but were surpassed in brilliance by the heavy gold chains they wore around their necks, some with crucifixes, and some fabulously carved to contain a holy relic. Their heavy robes of silk and velvet fell in deep, glistening folds about them; their grandeur made me feel weaker and smaller than I had ever felt before. If only my face weren’t dirty!

As I looked up at their smug, well-fed faces, there seemed something hard-hearted and corrupt lurking within them, something that made my heart shrink. It was then that I realized that there was, among those hard faces, one that I recognized. There, in the splendid robes of a Doctor of Divinity, so different than I had ever seen him, sat Father Edmund. His jaw was set, and his eyes as cruel as the Dominican’s. I looked away from him, for now I feared the worst. I could hear my heart pounding as I stood as straight as I could to answer the first question.

“Are you the woman who calls herself Margaret of Ashbury, and also Margaret Small, or Margaret the Midwife?” asked the clerk.

“I am that woman,” I answered in a shaky voice. The men around the table nodded almost imperceptibly to each other; the Dominican had a knowing smirk on his face, and the others seemed to set their jaws tighter. What on earth could be wrong with an answer to this question? Or were they doing this just to unnerve me?

“Do you know that you have been accused of heresy?”

“I have been falsely accused. I am a true Christian. Where are my accusers, that I may answer them?”

“Just answer our questions, woman who calls herself Margaret of Ashbury, and do not presume, in your arrogance, to ask any of us,” one of the learned doctors said. Then they began to question me on the nature of my Christian belief. They started with simple questions, which I tried to answer as plainly as possible, for fear they would lead me into a wrong answer. Soon I grew bolder, for I saw that they were nodding as I answered.

“And how do you understand the sacrament of Communion?” my questioner asked. I answered bravely. These questions were just like Father Edmund’s! Perhaps I would be saved after all, if they found no fault in me. But then the questions grew more complicated, and had Latin words in them, and I had to tell them that I did not understand. Again they passed the knowing looks to each other, and withdrew from this line of questioning. Then the inquiry took a very nasty turn, when the man next to the Dominican started to speak. He was a frightening person; his bravely colored gown only increased the grayish pallor of his hollow-cheeked face—he had the smell of the grave on him.

“Without a doubt this is the boldest, most shameless servant of the Devil that I have ever seen trying to twist out of God’s justice. It is well said that woman is the gate of hell. And this one hides behind holy words and pretended simplicity, the better to win souls for her Black Master.” Then he leaned forward on the table and stared directly at me, saying, “Do you deny you used an implement called the ‘Devil’s horns’ to suffocate and draw out infants from the womb, and that you sold your soul to the Evil One to get this implement?”

Now I realized something very dreadful. My fall was not my own business. If I did not answer well, I would pull other honest folk down with me. I must never reveal who had made the steel fingers, or who had been saved by them. God strengthen me, I prayed silently.

“I do deny it. I never sold my soul to the Devil. The instrument is made like the tongs used to take hot things from the pot. It pulls the baby when it is stuck. It does not take life but gives it. I love babies, and I would not harm them.”

“Does the instrument look like this?” He suddenly brandished something shining in the air. A shaft of sunlight reflected for a moment from the bright blades of the weapon, and made a moving spot of light on the opposite wall. Holy Jesus! They’d somehow got hold of it! I started, and my eyes grew wide. My questioner leaned closer and leered at me.

“Then this
is
yours. You can’t deny that.”

“It’s mine. I came by it honestly. It is a weapon against death.”

“A weapon
against
death?” He smiled derisively. “Will it prevent your death when it is placed at your feet among the burning faggots at the stake?”

“No, it will not,” I answered boldly. “It has no magic or diabolical qualities in it. It is just a plain tool, made through observation. It only saves lives, pain, and grief in childbirth. It will not stop my burning.”

“Saves pain and grief? Woman, do you know what you are saying?” said my questioner, his eyes glistening with secret pleasure. I saw Father Edmund shrink back. His face sagged and turned white.

“Would you deny that Eve brought original sin into the world.”

“N-no,” I stammered.

“And how did she do that?”

“She took the apple from the serpent.”

“And then what happened?”

“Adam ate it, and God drove them from Paradise.”

“And what was Adam’s punishment for sin?”

“That he must work.” Suddenly I saw, with a sickening lurch, where the questioning was going. I had evaded one trap only to fall into another. It was all over for me; I was doomed. His voice hit me like a blow:

“And how did God decree that Eve should be punished?” I hesitated. He repeated the question with a mocking sneer and asked if I had suddenly become too stupid to remember. Reluctantly I answered with my head hung low. My voice could hardly be heard.

“God decreed that Eve and her daughters should suffer pain in childbearing.”

“Pain and grief, would you say?” he said, throwing my words back at me.

“Yes.” I thought I would choke as I said the word.

“Woman, you stand condemned from your own mouth,” he said, with the shadow of a wolfish smile on his bloodless lips. My knees gave way, but no one came to assist me. I picked myself up as best I could and knelt on the hard stone floor, my manacled hands before me as if in prayer.

“Please pardon my offense. I only thought I was doing good.” My voice sounded very tiny to me. The room was deathly still, except for the scratching sound of the clerk’s quill, as he transcribed every word. The bishop’s face tightened, as if something had been confirmed in his mind. He looked at me as if I were an insect—an insect that had annoyed him and needed to be squashed.

The man on his right, a fellow with huge jowls and piggy eyes, said in a hard voice, “You set yourself high, woman, to think yourself the judge of good in the face of God’s will.”

Another voice broke in, “And in your arrogance, you go from childbed to childbed, hissing like a viper in women’s ears, enticing them to defy the church and make revolution against their husbands.”

“I have never done such a thing, truly I haven’t,” I answered.

“And I suppose you deny that you have been crawling about in the poorer sections, daring to preach and speak of God’s will.”

“I don’t do that, no, I swear I don’t. If I have said something wrong, tell me what it is. Is it wrong to speak God’s name? I swear I’ve done no more than that. I never did anything except to try to do what I thought was good, please, I swear it.” I was desperate. How could I best plead for my life, when I did not understand what I had done?

“How dare you swear that you speak truly, when you are a proven liar in all things before us, except for your confession of guilt?” another broke in.

What on earth did they mean?

As if in answer, another broke in, “Woman, are you aware of the penalty for perjury before this body? You will wish you had never been born.”

“Perjury, what does that mean?” I asked desperately.

The man who had spoken nodded faintly to the Dominican, whose eyes shone like wet stones in the light, and a knowing smile twisted his lips.

“It means lying, you pretended simpleton,” answered my questioner, “lying such as you are doing now.”

“But I’m not lying. For God’s sake, tell me what I’ve done.”

“By God, the woman is guileful. Her contumacy surpasses all imagining,” he said to Father Edmund.

As I waited for the next blow, the voice of Father Edmund joined the attack, as hard and as cruel as a whiplash.

“Of what would you say that this good consists, you wretched woman? How did you come to your understanding of what is good, that you should flaunt it so shamelessly in the face of God’s righteous plan?”

This one was a trap more subtle than any of the others. There was no way to answer correctly, only to entangle myself deeper. How could he be this way? I thought that he would help me. My eyes were foggy as I answered, “I—I thought that good was to follow the commandments of God and the example and teachings of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

“How do you know these teachings?” he persisted.

“B-by listening in church.”

“Do you listen faithfully?”

“Yes, I go often to Mass.” The others were shifting in their seats.

“Then from whom do you learn what is good?”

“F-from the priest.”

“And how does he know what is the Good?”

“From reading holy books, and from being—being made a priest,” I answered.

“Just what prayers do you know?”

“I know the Paternoster and the Ave.”

“Do you know the Credo?”

“Not all.” Where was he going?

“Can you read holy books?”

“I can’t read at all.”

“Then how, if you cannot read holy works, and know so very little after many years of listening, did you ever expect that you might by yourself be able to know the Good? Are you not far too stupid, woman, to ever discern such a thing for yourself? What conceit and vanity led you to think that a lowly, ignorant creature like yourself might, unaided, presume to understand God’s word?”

Now I saw what he wanted. He would save himself from having known me by forcing me to add to my own confession—now I must confess to my worthlessness in addition to my guilt. They say that if you crawl enough, and repent everything, then they will strangle you before they light the fire. But I was beyond calculating such niceties. I saw instead that I was betrayed by a man I had trusted because I thought he had had a nice face. My heart cracked, and I started to weep.

“Answer!” His voice was brutal.

Tears poured down my face, and my voice broke as I answered, “It—it is true—I am ignorant—I can’t read—I’m only a woman—”

“A stupid woman?” his hard voice prompted.

“A—a—stupid woman,” I sobbed.

“And yet you dared to set yourself above priests?” Another of them had joined Father Edmund’s attack.

“I—didn’t—I couldn’t.” I wiped my face on my sleeve. Their voices seemed to melt together as they shouted insults.

“There is only one remaining part of the confession,” broke in the bishop. “Clerk, read the document that condemns this false woman.”

The clerk read from a paper, in a clear voice, “In the year of Our Lord one thousand, three hundred and forty-nine, Lewis Small, merchant of the city of Northampton, did declare that his wife Margaret of Ashbury perished of the plague, and recorded her death in the parish, offering funds for three Masses to be said for her soul.”

“And now,” said the Dominican, his eyes glittering from beneath his black hood, “tell us who you really are.”

My God! The filthy hand of Lewis Small from the grave condemns me! This was beyond all imagining. The hypocrisy of those three little Masses enraged me beyond all description. I could just see him, simpering, with his eyes rolled heavenward, and dabbing away a tear as he made sure the way was clear to marry again. I would not let Lewis Small have the last word, not ever. I threw back my head defiantly and said, “I am Margaret of Ashbury and I am no liar. Lewis Small is the liar. He had my death recorded falsely, so as to be free to marry again.”