A Vision of Light Read online

  “So there!” he exulted. “You see?” Sometimes even a brother can be irritating. Especially one who’s younger and always has to prove he’s better. I was so annoyed, I didn’t even notice the sound of greetings from the gossips as Father Ambrose approached.

  “Well, I won’t have any fleas at all, if they can’t be fast ones,” I said. David dug his toes in the dust. He had no hose or shoes, just a tunic and a belt. We didn’t own an undershirt between us. Maybe someone in the village did, but we had never seen it.

  “Ha! You can’t do that. Everyone has fleas!” he gloated.

  “I can so, I’ll wash them off!”

  “Well, they’ll just hop right back on again,” he pointed out, reasonably enough.

  “I’ll just wash them off again, and again!”

  “You are a silly, for you’ll be bathing all the time. Just how often do you think to do this?”

  “Why, I’ll—I’ll do it every week! Every day!” I cried, without even thinking.

  “Then your skin will come off, and you’ll die,” he said. “Everyone knows that.”

  The shadow of the parish priest, who had come upon us, extended across our dusty circle. I looked up to see his sharp blue eyes staring down at us. His wrinkled, stubbly face looked disapproving and suspicious.

  “Have a care, little maiden, how boldly you speak of such vanities,” his deep voice intoned.

  “Why, good day, Sir Ambrose!” David turned his glorious, great blue eyes on the priest. “Have you many visits to make today?”

  “Why, yes, David.” His face lit up as he looked at David’s intelligent, pretty one. David had our mother’s narrow, oval face, her white, white skin, and a mop of great, dark curls that could only have come from father.

  “I have only begun my day’s visits,” the priest said, squatting down to address David face-to-face. “First, I visited old Granny Agnes, who has a sickness in her joints, and I carried her the Host, because she can’t leave her bed. Next I must go to see Goodwife Alice, for she wants her cooking-pot blessed. She says there is a demon in it which causes all her food to be burnt, and her husband threatens to leave her if the demon spoils any more dinners. But right now, little man, I have business with your father.”

  “With father?” I asked.

  He stood and regarded me very carefully, as if counting every feature. People often did that, usually ending by shaking their heads and saying, “You look just like your mother,” as if they somehow disapproved. “Too pale,” they’d say, “and those eyes—hazel’s not a fortunate color. They look yellow, like a cat’s, in this light. Too bad they’re not blue.” I felt more and more embarrassed as the priest stared, and wished that I had a better dress. Maybe if it were not cut down from mother’s, and turned three times at the hem for growth—or perhaps if it were blue, instead of common russet, he’d like me better, as he did David. Instead he never ceased his sharp, hard look as he spoke to me.

  “Yes, my business is with your father, who has great need to be reconciled to Mother Church. And you, little maid, must take care that you do not follow in his footsteps through vanity. A true Christian neglects the body in favor of the spiritual life: too many washings and self-adornings are the sign of un-Christian thoughts at work, and will lead to damnation.”

  Warming to his subject he continued on:

  “Why, it was just through such excessive bathing that our late martyred king, Edward the Second (God rest him!)” —and here Father Ambrose crossed himself—“became so weakened that he failed in battle, and was overthrown by his own wife. Thus was his death accomplished by washing, and you must take heed of this example provided by God.” Sir Ambrose looked pleased with himself, the way he usually did when he delivered a homily he considered to be especially cleverly done. I looked at him intently: sweat had glued his gray hair to his temples; I could see something small and dark crawling up his neck from under his collar. But it was by his fingernails that I could see that he was a very holy man. Here was a problem: did this mean that old William the Ploughman was even holier after a day loading the dung cart? Luckily, this time I was silent. Questions like that have made a lot of trouble for me all my life.

  “Children, is your father inside? I have not seen him at work today, and am told he is home sick.”

  “Yes, he is inside sick,” I told the priest.

  “Sick with ale, Father,” chirped David, who was sometimes as righteous as a little old man.

  “Ah, poor children! I guessed as much. These infernal funeral-ales cannot be stopped. Any man who sang so long, played pipes so late, and drank as much as he did would doubtless be—ah—‘sick.’”

  The priest entered without knocking and we heard voices, or, rather, a voice answered by groans, inside the darkened house. As the voices rose, we could hear what was being said.

  “A man doesn’t shit in his hat and then put it on his head.”

  “You have been knowing her carnally for some time and must wed or appear before court.”

  “Pay a fine? I haven’t any money and you know it.”

  “Have you already squandered the great dowry brought you by your wife?”

  “Those were investments, Father.”

  “Investments? I say, investments in sinning! Aren’t you even ashamed that her children sit outside in the dirt, idly counting fleas, and you have not brought them to church for a fortnight?”

  “Children are a great trial. No man should be expected to raise children.”

  “Then wed the widow, man! She will raise the children.”

  “She’s too fat.”

  “Not too fat for you to sleep with.”

  “She’s too old, and has a loud voice.”

  “She is prosperous, and has two large, strong sons who can help you with your land.”

  “Two big mouths, with even bigger bellies, you mean.”

  “Spoken like a peasant, and not like the freeman you are.”

  “I am a free man, free of marriage, and that way I intend to stay.”

  “And I tell you, miserable sinner, that unless the banns are published in the next week, I shall see you locked up until you repent!”

  A groan, and then a creaking sound, as the prone one rolled over in bed.

  “Very well, then, publish and may the Devil fly off with you.”

  “It’s you I’m snatching from his claws, you vile, blasphemous piece of rotting flesh!”

  A few angry strides and Sir Ambrose was out the door. We sat innocently together as if we had heard nothing. As the priest stepped over the threshold, he spied us and wiped all signs of rage from his face. Looking again at David, he said, in a persuasive tone, “Are you a good little boy?”

  David nodded.

  “No lies, no stealing of fruit?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Little David, I have need of a very good little boy to assist me at Mass. If you come to help me, you will swing the censer and hear the holy words up close. If you are very, very good, you will see the myriads of angels that cluster in the sanctuary whenever the Blessed Mass is sung.”

  David’s eyes widened. How could the priest have known how many hours we had watched the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the angels behind the clouds? But I knew what really moved Sir Ambrose. As I watched his eyes survey David, I knew he was already imagining that beautiful face surrounded by a white collar, and hearing in his mind David’s luminous little treble singing in Latin. It was something everybody thought of when they saw David. Even dirty he looked that way.

  “I would like very much to assist you, Sir Ambrose,” said David in his stiffest, most formal voice.

  “Good, then. Join me after Vespers today, and I will explain matters further to you.”

  As Father Ambrose walked away down the road again, to the tree-shaded porch of the old stone church, I could hear him mutter, “There are yet souls to be saved in that house.”

  AND THAT IS HOW, only a few weeks later, our new mother came to our house, riding
atop her bedding and cooking pots in a great cart pulled by two oxen. Behind was tethered a milk cow, and beside it ran two husky boys, our new stepbrothers, Rob and Will, driving the oxen. Ahead of the cart ran several nondescript dogs that the new brothers kept for their favorite sport: dog fighting. In baskets tied to the outside of the cart rode four geese, several hens, and two fighting cocks in splendor. Even from a distance you could smell the stink of her box of ferrets. The new mother must be a hunter, too.

  Her cousins in the village had said that she was rich and full of pride. From the first it was clear that they were right. She had a square chest filled with a half-dozen sheets, a set of carved wooden spoons, her needles and distaff, four fine, sharp knives, and even a little sack full of silver money. She put on airs because she was from St. Matthew’s itself, the town that sat at the foot of the abbey. As the cart creaked along our main street, she had acknowledged the cries of urchins with a cold nod, turned up her nose at the village church, murmured, “The abbey’s is much greater,” at the village fishpond, and pursed her lips at the green, with its little market cross and stocks that displayed not a single miscreant of note.

  “Be careful how you lift that chest!” she exclaimed shrilly, when my father came to unload her possessions. With her pale, fishy blue eyes she wordlessly took in our disheveled house, my mother’s ruined herb garden, and the roses that had run wild along the wall. Having surveyed all, tethered her cow, stowed her ferrets within, and released her fowl, she said curtly to my father, “Hugh, this place wants fixing up.”

  And fix she did: she swept the dog bones and the trash out the back door, put the coverlets out the windows to air, made up the smoldering fire, and set her kettles to boiling. Then she grabbed me by the ear and told me that I should now be a proper little girl, nodding grimly when she found out that I did not know how to spin. When Rob and Will, those big, loutish sons of hers, grinned at my treatment, she turned and clouted their heads with the stick she always seemed to have in her hand. They yowled and fled, a prudent course that seemed to have already been taken by David, when he had first seen the cart pull up.

  The more I looked at the new mother, the less I liked her. I could no longer remember my own mother’s face, but I was sure it had been much more beautiful—and certainly I remember my own mother smelled a good deal better. Some people are sour all over, in looks, in speech, and in smell, and that’s how the new mother was. My real mother could sing sweetly, and I do remember that she had soft hands. People stared at her, too, and still talked about her now that she was with the angels. She had some secret thing about her that made even the priest, who was always hard on women, deferential. I always wished I knew what it was. Now we watched the new mother waddle about the house, her pale, stringy hair wadded under a greasy kerchief, hitting at whatever annoyed her and shrieking her complaints. I used to wonder how father could ever have done such a thing, having once been wed to mother. Maybe it was the money.

  My father wed the new mother before the church door at Lammastide, and thus began our new life. But it was only a few weeks after the wedding that it became apparent to all who cared to notice, that Mother Anne’s fatness was not the product of greed alone, and that the baby would be coming soon. It was at Martinmastide, after the village cattle were killed and salted, when father was slaughtering our pig, that she was seized with pains. The kettles of corn and oats for blood-pudding were boiling on a great fire outside, and spices set out for sausage making, when a strange look passed over her face.

  “Margaret, go and fetch Granny Agnes, and be quick about it, for my time is coming.” By this time father and my brothers had hoisted the hideously squealing pig by its hind legs. As she took up the great wooden bowl, father plunged his sharp knife deep into the pig’s throat. Sweat shone on her face as she caught the rivers of blood that gushed from its neck. Frightened, I ran all the way to the midwife’s little round hut, and carried her basket all the way back as the old woman hobbled slowly behind me.

  Even before we reached our door, I could hear Mother Anne’s screaming inside. Father was leisurely finishing off the jointing of the pig; the sides of bacon were already carved, and the great bloodless head sat on the block, its piggy eyes sunken and glazed, the tongue protruding. Several good-hearted neighbor women were there at work, to finish the tasks my mother had set out, for none would wait the day. One was pouring rendered lard into a bladder, another, having washed out the guts, was tying sausages, and the third, taking time from finishing the blood-puddings, had gone within to hold mother’s hand. When her moaning and howling would stop, her gossip would pat her hand and let it fall, returning outside to her task. Mother, her face running with sweat, barely acknowledged the midwife’s greeting. She sat on the low birthing stool, her back braced against the wall, all her strength bent on her work.

  Granny was all business. “Margaret,” she said, “set warm water in a tub for the baby’s bath, if there’s a tub left in the house. There’s plenty of work here.”

  There was no tub, so I rushed outside to the neighbors’ and brought back one that would do. When I returned, Granny was holding mother’s hand and chanting in threes, “Lazarus, come forth,” in her cracked voice, to speed the labor. Tears oozed from mother’s eyes, and her face was red. Then both women gave a cry, as the head finally began to appear. Granny knelt between mother’s upraised knees, assisting first the head, then the trunk and limbs, to be born.

  “A boy!” exclaimed Granny, and mother whispered the words over. As the baby started to wail, it turned from blue to pink. Mother stared at it wearily, while Granny delivered the afterbirth and severed the cord. The neighbors had broken off their work to witness the great moment, and stood crowded in the doorway. Women can never resist a new baby, and these were no exception. Granny had light work from that moment on, for they washed and swaddled it themselves and then stood about making cooing noises. While they were occupied with exclaiming over its features, Granny got father for the christening. David was dispatched to fetch the godparents as father, mother’s gossips, and the midwife carried the baby off exultantly to church. I waited with Mother Anne, who was tense with worry. Suppose the baby didn’t cry at the font? That would mean the holy water had failed to chase the Devil out of him. An ill omen, that would be. Both her older boys had slept contentedly through their baptisms.

  But it was not long before he was returned, all red faced, to nurse at Mother Anne’s big breast. As father paid Granny in bacon and she repacked her basket, mother’s gossips joyfully reported that the baby had howled horribly as the holy water touched him. With mother safely holding the baby her gossips departed, happily discussing what dishes to bring to the churching.

  That’s another thing I thought about that day, and that has bothered me ever after. A festivity is very nice, and I have seen some very grand churchings since that day. But why must a woman kneel outside the church door to be purified after having a baby? Does that mean it’s wickeder to have a baby than to be killing things, like a soldier, or as father did the pig? Why shouldn’t father kneel before the church door? I still don’t really understand why God thinks women making babies is worse than men making sausages—or corpses.

  But still, when I think back on that day, and how frightened I was, and how little I observed, I cannot imagine how I ever had the makings of a good midwife in me, or that someday the practice of that art would become the most important part of my life.

  “YOU DON’T LOOK LIKE a midwife,” Brother Gregory interrupted, as he blew on a page to make it dry. His face was averted to conceal his distaste. It is one thing to describe, say, the Virgin with angel attendants, but this woman had no discretion at all.

  “I’m not one anymore,” replied Margaret, looking at him coldly.

  “That is self-evident; it’s not an art practiced by women in respectable circumstances,” said Brother Gregory, looking around.

  “It ought to be the most respected profession in the world—midwives witness how Go
d makes the world new,” said Margaret; gritting her teeth in a way that made it plain to Brother Gregory that he would have to choose between his literary taste and his dinner in the kitchen.

  “Witness to the dropping of the fruits of sin,” he growled to himself.

  “You said?” She looked at him.

  “God wishes to humble us by the manner of our origin,” he said aloud—and especially me, he thought to himself, thinking about the smell from the kitchen.

  “I’m glad you see it my way,” said Margaret. “Now you can put this new part at the top of that page, there. Write it large, it looks nice that way.”

  BUT I WANTED TO have written down about how the events of this time started Fortune’s wheel turning to separate David from me forever, and that I must do. What with the new mother, and the new brothers, and the new baby, David escaped to the rectory more and more often.

  “What do you do at Father Ambrose’s all the time, David?” I asked when he came back one evening.

  “Why, he’s showing me and Robert, the tanner’s boy, all kinds of splendid things. He sent away the cooper’s boy for lying, but he says we are good, and learn well.”

  “What do you learn, besides serving at Mass?”

  “Oh, lots of things. Look, sister!” And he drew several letters in the dirt with a twig. “That’s my name! David!” he said triumphantly.

  “Oh, that’s so fine, David! Can you write Margaret too?” His face fell.

  “It has an M in it, I know, but it’s awfully long. Maybe Father can show me, and then I’ll show you.”

  “For sure?”

  “For sure, really and truly.”

  “Well, show me the M now, so I’ll know it.”

  “Maybe I should ask Father first. He says there are some things properly secret and not fit for women—”

  “But M is not a secret. You’ve told me already, so it’s not secret at all, not a tiny bit. Besides, I’m not a woman, I’m your sister.”

  David’s face looked long with worry. “Oh, all right. Let me make it for you here.”