A Vision of Light (7 page)

Father had once even been caught in the miller’s trap. He had, one day, gone with brother Will and Tom the Cooper and several others to the mill. After waiting about for the return of the flour, they were infuriated to find it even less than expected. Even an infant could see that it was short, according to my father. He said, as he reported it that evening at home, “‘You villein, you’ve given me false measure!’”

And the miller, as even tempered as a dead fish, had responded, “‘That’s slander, slander twice, for I’ve returned true weight, and I am as freeborn a man as you are.’”

Court day was the following week, and father had to return, taking with him half the village, including mother and myself. The abbot had a great hall for doing justice that was part of the wider church grounds. Sometimes he sent his steward to hold lesser courts in the villages on abbey lands, but offenses at St. Matthew’s had to be dealt with there.

As I watched the abbot dispense justice, I grew more afraid. He was the hardest man I’d ever seen—fat with slothful living, but with a pair of sharp yellow eyes like a hawk’s, and a long, unpleasant Norman nose. His rapacious hands were covered with rings, and he ordered up fines and sentences with the kind of snobbish, indolent voice of a man long accustomed to being served. Nothing, not a word or a glance, escaped those piercing eyes. Fines for fornication, fines for loose animals, the thewe for a gossip, an ear off for theft, and a runaway villein branded—his justice was swift, the more violent parts being carried out in the courtyard outside.

Just before father’s case an altogether different sort of matter was heard. A richly dressed merchant, pale and clean shaven, had come up from Northampton to demand justice for the theft of some goods by a man with whom he had entered into business in St. Matthew’s. As the man heard the sentence, he paled and cried, “You monstrous liar!” before he was led out in the courtyard to lose his hand. But the expression on the merchant’s face was quite extraordinary. He was smiling. It was almost benignant, that smile, which he smiled straight into that man’s face. His mouth was a wide grimace, laughter lines surrounded it—but his eyes, which were blue, were as cold as ice. What a horrible man, I thought, as I watched them look at each other. As the merchant left the room to witness the carrying out of the sentence, he brushed by me where I stood with mother. I hid my eyes from his gaze by staring at the ground, and so my final impression of him was only the soft sound of his dark, pointed leather shoes as they passed out of sight.

When father’s case was called, he stood up boldly. First the miller testified. Father had slandered him, he said, and he wanted justice. But father said he was a freeborn man and wanted a jury of freemen. The abbot, tired of sitting so long, shifted in his great chair with an impatient look. His gold chain rattled as his crucifix resettled itself among the folds of fat and silk upon his belly. He lifted a pudgy, bejeweled hand with a lazy gesture and told father coldly that slander was too small a matter for a jury, and that he was in any event subject to his liege lord. Had he said this slander?

“No!” my father boldly declared, he had never said any such thing, and to prove it he had six oath-helpers from the village, all witnesses, and all ready to swear by the cross that father had never said either slander.

The abbot’s yellow eyes narrowed, like a malignant cat’s. I suppose he did not like to be defied and took collusion by the villagers as a bad sign. The miller, grim and bony, set his jaw in a look of aggrieved righteousness.

Besides, my father went right on, he could never have said such a thing, for not only did everyone know that the miller was freeborn, but also everyone knew that he was bound to give a portion of what he milled to his lord. And if he kept back flour secretly from those who used the mill, he would be robbing the abbot as well, “a thing that we know no honest man such as he would ever do.”

At last I understood my father’s cunning, and the long nights he had stayed up planning with the men. The abbot’s yellow eyes took on an amused look. The miller’s knees shook—not much, but enough to show. The abbot, his sallow jowls puffing in and out like a toad’s, shot the quaking miller a sharp, hard glance. Then he composed his face in its usual arrogant look and said, condescendingly, “Very well, then, let’s hear the compurgators.”

The testimony heard, the abbot did a thing that seemed most unlike him. He dismissed the case with a fierce warning that no complaint about false weight must ever be brought without proof. Then a strange thing happened. As the abbot dismissed the villagers, he glanced about the room and his eye caught mine, where I stood with mother, staring at him from the back of the hall. He inspected me closely for a moment, and then, suddenly, as if he had seen enough, he turned his head away as we filed out of the hall.

We all stayed silent until halfway home, so that our exultation would not be overheard by the abbot’s servants. But then, of course, the celebration lasted all night, with each boasting of the part he had played to the neighbors who had stayed home. As mother’s ale was poured, father took out his pipes, and others ran to get drums and viols. The dancing was as fierce as the drinking that night, and even Father Ambrose joined in, for he had been short-weighted too. For a time after the miller was bested, there was grumbling about the abbot’s greed, and threats to burn the tithe barn, but no one ever actually did it. And because nothing ever lasts, it was not too long before the miller was back to his old tricks.

And so we come to this day, the one I remember so well, when father had wished the Devil would take the miller. When father spoke, Will and Rob looked at each other, and I knew something was going to happen. Even though they lived to make trouble, they now seemed to be totally quiet, vanishing from the house, and even the village streets, for long periods of time. That was fine for me, because it left me in peace at last to dream of marriage with handsome Richard Dale. Richard was seeing me every day, now that my brothers were not around to prevent him. And I was the envy of everyone; there wasn’t a woman in Ashbury who didn’t adore Richard’s curly head, even if his father was not well off. He was just fifteen, charming, and a wonderful dancer—second only to me. I spent all my time thinking about him.

It was only a few weeks later, when I was standing in the churchyard with Richard Dale one Sunday after Mass, that the folk there told us an amazing tale. The Devil had, it seems, actually come to take the miller, and had only departed when the miller had offered money and the maidenhood of his daughter as well. It seemed to me odd that the Devil could be deterred from his aims with such offers, but it did not strike anyone else as strange at all. After all, who can say how the Devil’s mind works? But now, it seems, the miller was hoping to elude the Devil and avoid keeping the bargain. He had called a priest to arrange for the exorcism of his house, and the priest was horrified to see, when he came to the house, the marks of cloven hooves beneath the miller’s window.

“And may the Devil take all those wolves at St. Matthew’s Abbey away with him as well,” said Tom the Cooper as he retold the story for the hundredth time over ale at our house.

“Can’t do that, there’s too many for him to fit in his sack,” said Will.

“Yuh. He’s probably starting with the littlest one first,” observed Rob. “Why, it’d take two Devils to lug away that big fat abbot.” Everyone guffawed.

But the exorcism did not work, for it was not long before another story was being told over mother’s ale. It seems that the Devil had come back for his bargain, and even the crucifix over the door had not stopped him, for he climbed in by the bedroom window. The Devil was accompanied by three other demons—all very large, all with horns on their heads and long tails, like oxen. The Devil himself had a beast’s head and horns. But what was most remarkable about the Devil was his skin. It was green, just like the paintings in church, and green everywhere, if you understand what I mean.

As the demons held the miller down, the Devil cried, “Now for my bargain!” and flung up the covers from the foot of that side of the bed where the daughter was sleeping, covering her head. From beneath the covers a muffled voice could be heard in protest.

“George, George, what on earth are you doing? I thought you had a headache!”

“You fool, you’ve got the wife!” chuckled the other demons, and the Devil was forced to correct his work. As he finished, he inspected the situation with some interest and said calmly, “No blood, Master Miller. You’re a dishonest man. You can’t bargain with what you don’t have. I doubt this girl’s any virgin. I believe you’ve had her yourself, you filthy old thing. Don’t you know you can’t short-weight the Devil? When we’ve finished here, I think we’ll take you to hell after all.”

Then the devils stuffed the cowering miller into one of his own grain sacks and lowered him out of his window. But something must have stopped them—the miller always swore after that it was a holy relic he wore about his neck. They got no farther than his own millpond, where they dumped him in. And it was only heavenly intervention that it was the shallow end. He was freed in the morning, wet and struggling, from the sack. The horrified neighbors discovered a milling mass of huge cloven hoofprints beneath his window.

It was not long after that I surprised Will at the brook, scrubbing his hands.

“Grass stain, sister. It ill becomes me.”

I had my suspicions, but I was certain of the truth when Richard Dale and I went out walking one evening.

“Come out to a more private place with me,” he begged. “I’ve something important to talk about.” So we went some distance out of town, to a lovely place where the trees grow thick, and the curving bushes make a kind of wild bower beside a narrow run of water. There we sat, and he watched the creek bubble, saying with deep solemnity, “You know I cannot marry yet, but if you’ll wait, I’ll ask father—” He had pushed me backward to the earth with one hand, and now he leaned his full weight upon me.

“Just a kiss, a sweet kiss to plight our troth.” But he acted as if he had more than kisses in mind. He was so good looking, and so hard to refuse!

But as he pushed me down, I cried, “Ow! Get off! Jesus, there’s something sharp beneath me, hurting my back!” How quickly pain stops passion! He rolled off, the picture of crushed disappointment.

“You don’t love me?” he asked plaintively.

“No, no that’s not it—it’s something sharp that’s bruised me badly. Here—a root, or something.” I turned and pointed. His eyes followed my finger.

“That’s no root,” he observed, “that’s wood—perhaps the corner of a chest.” He started to dig, an eager look on his face. Fairy treasure! That’s what he thought it was. We all believed in fairy treasure. Once we’d heard of a man who had turned up a jar full of strange coins with his plow. Greed steals the urge, too, you know. He had quite forgotten me. A moment’s eager digging brought only disappointment.

“Oh, it’s just a clog, a damned clog.” But what an odd clog it was! All carved of wood, it was perfectly shaped on the upper half to receive a human foot. But the lower half, which would leave a mark on the earth, was shaped like a cloven hoofprint. I knew beyond all doubt that if Richard dug any farther, he would find no treasure, but several sets of identical clogs.

“It’s nothing,” I said, tossing it aside. “But now that we’re speaking of important things, I must tell you one true thing. If you can’t marry soon, then we’d best not make a plight-troth baby. For I want no bastard children, even if I want you very badly.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he grumbled. “I’d not want my son’s inheritance in jeopardy. But you’ll wait for me?”

“As much as it’s in my power, I’ll wait,” I promised.

Before we left, I reburied the clog. Why should my brothers be in more trouble than they were in already? But trouble never came, even when half the village greeted the miller with “Headache last night, George?”

But spring is, of course, one of the Devil’s busiest times, for it is then that even good folks are tempted far from the sacrament of marriage. As for people who are always tempted—well, they are more likely to do something about it. Sometimes father vanished for a day with the husband of Alice, whose cooking pot had been exorcised many times without much success. When father returned, Will and Rob would laugh and poke him and tease, “Why pay for what’s free? There’s many a fish in the sea!” And father would reply, “You get what you pay for,” and roll his eyes in mock ecstasy.

Though I listened carefully, I never quite figured out where they went. At those times Mother Anne would check in the little box, where she kept her small money, with bitter eyes.

“If I were a widow,” she said in a hard voice, “I’d keep what I earned. But the ‘flesh of my flesh’ can put his hand in the cashbox any time he wants. And for any reason too. Tithe and tax, they are nothing so bad as a lazy scoundrel of a husband.” She looked fiercely at me. “Marry a rich man or never marry at all, I say! Stay away from poor, good-looking boys with roving eyes and charming ways, like that rascally Richard Dale! A sober fellow not half so vain about his looks, a thrifty fellow who’ll make good for you, is what you need!”

“Yes, mother, I’ll take it all to heart, what you’ve told me,” I promised humbly. But who can heed good advice in the springtime? I spent my days dreaming of Richard Dale, and our marriage, which I supposed would come very soon.

Other girls felt the same way, I know, for though I found it hard to believe, the cooper’s daughter had fastened on my awful elder brother, Will, in exactly the same way that I had fixed my thoughts on the beautiful Richard Dale. She hung about me all the time now, hoping to become closer to him. It was useless warning her that he was a hard, heartless fellow who thought only of himself.