A Vision of Light (52 page)

“You got off? That’s not so easy to do.”

“Sometimes, Brother Gregory, I think you are simpler than I am. After we were betrothed, my husband paid them off. He said it was more suited to his position that I repent privately in my clothes. The priest touched my back the required number of times and certified that they were blows. The candle was very large and expensive, and he paid for a small shrine they’d been wanting badly at the parish church. Money fixes everything, you know.”

“Maybe in London it does, but not in Paris,” Brother Gregory said bitterly. He didn’t want her even to suspect what he was thinking. It really wasn’t fair, he fumed. Not only had he had to beg pardon for his error in his undershirt, but he had had to throw all the copies of his book into the fire with his own hand. What’s more, it was in public, with absolutely hundreds of people shouting rude remarks as the church officials read the confession and recantation aloud. That had hurt even more than the lash marks that had glued the shirt to his back. They’d had to soak it off, and he’d been sick for weeks afterward. All a woman has to do is cry, and it’s fixed with money.

“That’s probably true about most foreign places,” said Margaret placidly, and her voice brought him out of his morbid reverie. “My husband says everything can be bought and sold in London. That’s what makes it such a good place to be a merchant.”

“Humpf, yes. Even a merchant of forged indulgences,” said Brother Gregory, sounding sour.

“Oh, goodness,” Margaret responded, “Brother Malachi never sells pardons in the City. People are much too sophisticated here.”

Gregory looked gloomier than ever. “I suppose you see
him
too.”

“Never. I can’t go back to the old house, you see. If I led them to him, he’d be as good as dead. Hilde delivered my little girls, and I see her still. But not there—no. I’m very careful. I kept Lion, and when I want to send for her, I let him out and he fetches her.”

“He’s not much of a dog, but he’s very clever.”

“That’s what I think. Animals are almost like people, sometimes.”

“Watch it, Margaret, you’re getting close to the line again—animals don’t have souls.”

“Suppose I said that was all right, because some people don’t either?”

“Worse than ever!” Gregory smiled ruefully. “So I’m glad you didn’t say it.”

Brother Gregory put away the quills and the inkhorn and handed the manuscript to Margaret, who knelt to put it away in the hidden compartment of the chest. He looked uneasy again, as if he were thinking of the best way to break bad news.

“Margaret, I’m giving you a new writing assignment. You’ll have to write the last part of your book by yourself.”

“You’re going?” She looked alarmed and agitated. “Not because of me, is it?”

“No,” Brother Gregory said sadly, “it’s family business. My world’s about to come apart, just as yours has finally come together. I’d like to stay and see how the story comes out, you know. Curiosity is one of my very worst faults, and it’s led me into some bad places. Some good ones, too, if I count this house. But now it’s over.”

“Can you tell me about it, or is it a secret?” Margaret suddenly felt very sympathetic. It was very sad to see Brother Gregory lose his old fire like this. He looked careworn all at once, and totally incapable of an argument with Kendall, even on the nature of pagan belief in Aristotle’s time. She’d even miss his grouchiness.

“My family is very old, Margaret; we have an ancient name and take it very seriously.”

“So you’ve informed me,” said Margaret dryly.

“Oh, don’t hold it against me, all my prying. I’m sorry I offended you.”

“Sorry? Oh, don’t apologize, Brother Gregory. Please don’t. You’ve gone all limp, and aren’t your true self. It must be very bad, this news.”

“I suppose it is—at least to me,” he said. “You see, we’re not rich, Margaret—not like this, all these things here.” He gestured around him. “And I’m a younger son.” Brother Gregory looked out the window and sighed. The garden was all wintry and suited his mood perfectly. All that could be seen were bare branches, rattling in the wind.

“Father’s in debt again, Margaret, and whenever he’s in debt, he bothers me. When we went to France on campaign, he went into debt to equip us—he bothered me then, but after we got some big ransoms, he stopped. Then he paid for Hugo’s knighthood—fees, fees, fees. And new armor from John of Leicestershire—one has to get the best, right? Then he found me and bothered me some more. ‘Go on campaign like a man,’ he shouted, ‘and quit hiding among a bunch of long skirts!’ I tell you, it made a scandal. You could hear him all the way from the visiting parlor to the abbot’s study. He didn’t make any friends for me that day!

“You’d think he’d be grateful for my decision. After all, I’ve spared him a great deal of trouble. But no, he’s been shouting about it as long as I can remember. It’s no easy thing to know you have a Vocation and still honor your father—that is, if you have a father like mine. How he’d carry on! ‘Get out of that book, you infernal whelp, and go act like your older brother Hugo, who is a model of chivalry!’ ‘I’ve been to the tiltyard already, father,’ I’d tell him. ‘Then go back again!’ he’d shout, and knock me flat. Then he packed me off to the duke’s household and said I ought to be thankful. Thankful! Why, the man was just like father! I swear, Margaret, they had made an arrangement to knock my Vocation out of me. I’ve been nothing but bruises since I decided to devote my life to God! You have no idea how much father can shout, even now that he’s old!” Brother Gregory was prowling around the room like a caged wolf, looking very, very annoyed.

“It’s not fair that he doesn’t respect my decision. I say, he should be grateful! I’ve done everything he wanted. I’ve proved I’m no coward. But I want to do things my own way. Why do I have to be like Hugo? There’s no reason, I say, and it’s entirely unfair. Don’t you think it’s unfair?”

Margaret couldn’t quite make out what he meant, but he looked so agitated, she thought it best to agree.

“And why does he choose to bother me now, now, when my spiritual life is at the very point of the fulfillment of a lifetime of Seeking? Do you know why? Because he says the roof needs fixing! Can you imagine? I’m to go into service and make money for his roof, right when I’m almost at the point of seeing God? What sin did I commit for God to give me a father like that? I tell you, he won’t stop me! He won’t! I’m going to see God anyway! And when I do, I’m going to tell Him—” Brother Gregory shook his fist in the air. The veins stood out on his neck.

“Brother Gregory!” Margaret was shocked. She put a hand on his wrist to restrain the violent gesture. Brother Gregory looked at his fist with surprise, as if he somehow hadn’t noticed that it was raised toward heaven, and snatched it away.

“He doesn’t want a son, he wants a lap dog,” growled Brother Gregory. “Now he tugs on the leash, and off I go.”

“Maybe—maybe it would work out better if you let God see you,” Margaret ventured.

“Hmmph!” snorted Brother Gregory. “That sounds just like the abbot. He’s as bad as father. Sometimes I used to think they were in league with each other.
He
said I had to respect my father and hear him out. An altogether depressing attitude for a person who’s supposed to be otherworldly. He never understood me either. He said I hadn’t conquered Pride enough to learn contemplation, and I should serve in the world until I learned what he meant. Pride!” Gregory sounded bitter. “I’m not proud at all! Do you think I’m proud, Margaret?”

“Oh, very little, Brother Gregory.”

“Have I been proud with you? No! I’ve been very Humble, here and everywhere else. You saw that, didn’t you?”

“Of course, of course.”

“Look, here’s pride for you!” Brother Gregory tore open the top of his habit. Something dark, malodorous, and hairy had replaced his long linen undershirt.

“Brother Gregory, surely not the hair shirt again? It looks very nasty. It will make your skin bleed.”

“My skin’s very strong. Not like yours. I don’t bleed easily.” A smug look passed across Brother Gregory’s face, before one of self-pity replaced it.

“I’m mortifying myself. Mortifying my pride, what poor shriveled remnants are left of it! And in this state I must go to my father and be mortified yet again!”

“Surely it’s not as bad as all that, Brother Gregory,” said Margaret.

“I am being attacked by the vanities of the world,” he growled.

“But at least you’ll come back to check my spelling?”

“That I promise, Margaret. I’ll swear an oath, if you like.”

“You don’t have to. Just promise, and send me word when you’ve returned.”

CHAPTER TEN

S
EATED 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.”