Paul Moorcraft - The Anchoress of Shere

Marda stared at him in rage now. “I don’t want to be comfortable here,” she shouted. “I just want to get out. Please. Where am I? Is this some sort of prison? Am I in London? Who do you work for?”

“I work for no one but God.”

Duval’s words chilled Marda; not just the content, but the coldness of his tone, the deadly humourless conviction which so belied the smile. Duval seemed an embodiment of the belief that Christ never laughed. He spoke to her like a well-educated but bored post-office official helping a particularly stupid customer fill in a very simple form.

As he slid the grille across, the beam of light was removed; darkness reconquered the room and her soul.

She rushed to the grille to see if she could open it, but it was impossible from the inside. Putting her ear to the grille, she tried to catch some sound from the outside, and heard Duval say, “Hello, Julie. Hello, Denise. And you, Mary. Justine, you have company. And Dorothy, you used to be so lonely. You have a friend now.” As he said each name, Marda could hear a tap as if on separate doors.

So I am in some kind of prison with other women, she thought. Somehow that made her feel better. She was still terrified, but she was less alone.

Duval returned to his desk. He wanted to write while his universe was in perfect equilibrium.

August 1331

Christine, on her knees, kissed the bishop’s ring, which was as opulent as his private chambers. The episcopal parlour was adorned with brightly coloured tapestries from Arras. Opus anglicanum embroidery, the handiwork of doting nuns, was displayed on a heavy carved oak table. This was some of the finest embroidery in Christendom, with workmanship so delicate and designs so very fine, threads of gold, yellow shading to green, and white to blue.

Christine had spent three days in the Dominican convent in Guldenford, where she had been starved of food and sleep and then forced to repeat a series of detailed confessions. In each the main theme had been that the step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy was very small, and she had willingly taken that fateful step to excommunication by abandoning her vows in order to follow the Great Tempter. Made public, against normal protocol, these confessions had been recorded on vellum and a summary presented to the dean, who had then summoned the bishop. It was his job to supervise petitions for Christine’s excommunication as punishment for the abnegation of her vows. Thereafter, she could be handed over to secular authorities for trial and possible execution.

The bishop, however, had more worldly fish to fry on this Friday. Alone except for a scribe, he addressed Christine with due solemnity: “My child, I have read the summation of your confessions and I have…” He stopped, seeing her strained face. “Please, look up from the floor and at me. You seem pale. Scribe, place that stool for our errant sister…Sit, Christine.”

Christine had been struggling, through her fear, hunger and exhaustion, to hold herself upright. “Thank you, my lord,” she said gratefully.

“By all the rights,” continued the bishop, “you should be before a court ecclesiastic. This may come, but I wanted to speak to you privily. To help. To counsel. To keep a sister in the faith. With due penance, perchance you can be absolved of your sins and avoid excommunication. But should you persuade the court to shrive you, then to be re-enclosed in St. James’s church will require the special permit of our Holy Father the Pope. Do you understand?”

“I understand, my lord,” Christine said meekly.

“Let me speak to you of God, and also of worldly things,” intoned the bishop as he stroked his heavily embroidered rochet. “Firstly, your miracles. Your claimed miracles. I pray that God has visited you, my child. Let me see your palms.”

Christine showed her open palms. He reached forward from his gilded chair and examined them carefully. “I see no stigmata, my child,” he said kindly. “Were it now to happen before my eyes, and extra witnesses I could summon, this proof might be hailed as saintly. But one claim, with none as witness, will not persuade this bishopric-let alone the Pope-to grant your pardon.”

Christine was silent. He pulled out a brocaded cloth of sarsenet and blew his nose into it, then he tried again to explain: “Saintliness, the desire for this lofty gift, may be the ultimate temptation. And your fasting to extremes…to die for our religion is much easier than to live absolutely for Christ. As you know now, solitude is a palace for the Beast.”

The bishop saw a tiny tear in Christine’s eyes, although she, who had suffered so much, now found it hard to cry. He wanted to take her mauled hands to comfort her, but knew he could not. “I believe in the truth of your vision which led you to enclosure in St. James’s church,” he said softly. “I sense your spiritual strength, my child, but let us leave the claim of miracles apart.

“I have read your extra deposition. You have accused Sir Richard of carnal violation of your virtue and that of your deceased sister, Margaret-God rest her soul. If true, this is devilish work. But your sister has gone to another place, and it rests upon your truth against your honoured master, Sir Richard. True, your calling to the anchorhold would give you extra worth, but you are a fugitive now from your cell.”

The bishop’s brow furrowed. “Fornication-especially by main force-is against God’s law, and the Church condemns accordingly, but our custom is that bonded and free men of the demesnes have few redress in matters carnal against their lord, especially when he has a strong sword-arm and the knights to follow him.

“But I myself have remonstrations with Sir Richard.” His voice dropped. “I will aid you to avenge your family’s wrongs, but you must return my favour. Later I will explain all to you. Meanwhile, I swear you to absolute silence. Rest quiet in the convent, where I have forespoken to the Abbess Euphemia and instructed her to treat you well.”

Duval was happy and the writing flowed, yet even though his story was materialising, he felt his thoughts were being seduced back into the twentieth century. The Middle Ages shimmered around him, but they did not envelop him with images. His imagination was not seized with irresistible force by thoughts of the 1320s. Previously, his female trophies had allowed him, on occasion, an almost perfect escape into the fourteenth century, but now he found that Marda’s face was assuming the likeness he had long ago invented for Christine. The more he tried to focus on the medieval Christine, the more he wanted to start his work on the living flesh and blood of Marda. This had not happened to him before and he found it unsettling, yet he could appreciate the delicious metamorphosis.

A few feet below the thick stone floor on which Duval’s writing desk stood, Marda was desperately banging on the door again. Why hadn’t the women Duval had spoken to said a word? Maybe their cells were too well sound-proofed. But surely they could hear her banging? Perhaps they were locked in another part of the prison? For several hours she had been consumed by an almost mindless rage, but some small part of her knew that others were suffering as she was, and she needed to speak to them.

She shouted a few of the names she had heard: “Denise! Dorothy!”

Maybe they were gagged or drugged? Not all of them, surely? How many people were in this hell-hole? Was her gaoler working alone or was he part of some bizarre and insidious organisation? There had to be other people involved, captors and captives.

She wanted her fellow-prisoners to help her, at least to tell her what was happening: knowing would make it easier. She could then survive whatever she had to go through to be released, or to answer whatever questions were needed to pass the test that would enable her to leave.