Blythe Gifford - The Knave and the Maiden

The Abbot, who had traveled all the way from White Wood to give the blessing, intoned in Latin, designed to make him sound closer to God’s deaf ears than the rest of us, Garren thought.

The girl moved her lips with his words, almost as if she understood them. Her hair shimmered around her head like a halo. She was young and vulnerable and untouched by the world and he had the strangest sensation that despite it all, she was stronger than he. He suddenly wondered whether he could touch her and remain the same person.

The Abbot switched to the common tongue. “Those who have gathered to go on pilgrimage, are you ready for this journey? Have you set aside worldly goods to travel simply, as did Our Lord?”

Garren watched Dominica nod, wondering what worldly goods she owned. He had few enough. In nine years, he had amassed no more than he could carry.

“When you reach the shrine, you must make sincere confession or your journey will not find favor in the sight of God and the saints. Will you all make your confessions?”

Murmured yeses rustled like dry leaves. Garren held his tongue. He would confess to God when God returned the favor.

“And particularly Lord Richard asks that each of you pray for his beloved brother, the Earl of Readington, who was saved from death only to live in a state too near to heaven and too far from earth.”

A faint, forceful voice, William’s own, interrupted. “I thank my brother, but I shall ask for my own salvation.”

“What the—?” Richard sputtered.

Garren half rose, wanting to believe in miracles, wanting to see William standing tall and strong again. Shielding his eyes against the sun, Garren turned toward the church door. A reclining figure, almost too tall for the litter, lay silhouetted against the sunlight. William, pale and thin as a wraith, was carried on his pallet by two footmen, one holding a pewter pan in case of need.

The crowd inhaled with a single breath. Then, hands fluttered from foreheads to shoulders, making the sign of the cross against a spirit raised from the dead.

William waved his two servants forward. The crowd parted as he was carried to the altar rail, where the Prioress bent over him. Richard, with petulant lips and pitiless eyes, stood erect.

The Abbot, flustered, rolled his eyes to Heaven for guidance. There was no ceremony for this occasion. “Already God has given the Earl strength from your pure intentions.” His voice swelled. “You who take this journey, pray for a miracle!”

William lifted a hand. “Thank you for…prayers.”

Garren’s heart twisted at the sound of William’s voice. Once so strong in battle, it quavered as one twice his age.

“I have ordered,” he continued, “first day’s food for all.”

“A magnificent gesture, my Lord Readington,” the Abbot said.

Richard scowled.

William waved his hand as if brushing away a wisp of smoke. “And let it be known,” he stopped for a breath. “Garren walks for me and carries my petition to the Blessed Larina.”

William grabbed his stomach and turned, retching, just in time to hit the pewter pan. Garren closed his eyes, as if William’s pain would not exist if he did not see it. As if he could close his eyes and bring back the past.

“Let us end with a prayer for Sir Garren’s success and Lord Readington’s recovery before I bless the staffs and distribute the testimoniales,” the Abbot said, quickly.

Garren walks for me, William had said. What would they think of him now?

Dominica smiled at him, but the rest looked awestruck, as if they really saw a man of God.

Everyone except the Prioress. And Richard.

Dominica pressed her forehead against the altar rail, trying to concentrate on God instead of the Earl’s sudden appearance. Completing the ceremony, the Abbot kissed her staff and placed it, solid and balanced, in her outstretched hands. She pressed her lips against the raw wood, stripped of bark, then set it in front of her.

Next, the Abbot handed her the testimoniales, the scroll with the Bishop’s magic words that made her truly a pilgrim. Her fingers tingled as she slipped it into her bag, next to her own parchment and quill. Later, when no one could see, she would compare the copyist’s letters with her own.

Bowing her head into her hands, she searched for the voice of God inside her, trying to ignore The Savior on her left. She wondered if he was watching her. He was as solid as the staff in her hands. The kind of man you could lean on. She studied him through her fingers. Clutching his staff like a weapon, he looked like a man used to standing alone, not leaning on a staff. Nor a friend. Nor even God.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she brought her mind back to the reason for her journey.

Please God, give me a sign at the shrine that I am to keep my home in your service and help spread your word.

She wanted to add “in the common tongue,” but decided not to force that point with God just yet.

She opened her eyes and peeked through her fingers past Sister Marian on her right. A servant daubed sweat from the Earl’s forehead. God had spared him nearly ten years ago at the height of the Death and taken his father instead. She still remembered weeks of mourning when the old Earl died. Sister Marian’s eyes had been red for days. But God had spared the son. Surely God had sent The Savior to protect him again.

She added a prayer for the Earl who surely deserved God’s help. And hers.

The Abbot spoke his last amen and her fellow pilgrims rose, leaning on their staffs, and filed past the Earl on their way out of the chapel, giving thanks for his gift of food.

When Sister Marian stopped before him, he thanked her for her work on the Readington psalter, clutched in his white-spotted hand.

Sister brushed the thin, blond hair from his damp brow as if he were a child. Many were afraid to touch him now. They whispered “leprosy” when they saw the mottled black-and-pink-and-white spots on his skin.

Dominica quaked a little, too, when it was her turn to bend her knees before him. But he had been so nice to her as a child. Not like Richard.

He lifted a finger to his lips. “Remember. A secret.”

She pursed her lips, nodding, and looked for Lord Richard, still talking with Mother Julian and Abbot. Make sincere confession, the Abbot had said. Did keeping a secret require the same penance as a lie? She thought not. A lie had words. Words made it real.

As she moved on, The Savior knelt beside the Earl, clasping the dying man’s shoulder in a gesture that might have been called tender. Sir Garren will hurry, she thought, relieved. We’ll be there in time for The Blessed Larina to save him.

With Sister, Dominica circled back to the altar rail, kneeling for a final blessing from the Prioress. She wanted words that would keep her company until she was safe at home again. But instead of a kiss of peace, the Prioress hissed at her, too softly for anyone else to hear. “Remember, any hint of trouble and you will have no home with us.” Then, she turned her back, murmuring to Sister Marian in Latin.

Dominica gripped her staff. A knot in the wood scraped her palm. No home at the Priory meant she had no home at all.

Her own blessing complete, Sister Marian leaned on her staff and straightened her reluctant knees. She was not more than two score years, but copying had made her body old and chanting had kept her voice young.

Dominica, still shaking from Mother Julian’s words, offered her arm. Together, she and Sister shared slow steps toward the chapel door. Cool tears blurred her fellow pilgrims into a lumpy, gray cloud in the middle of the sunny courtyard. Surely God would not let the Prioress stand in the way of His plan for her life.