Bridgit pours the powder onto a slab of marble. She adds the yolk a drop at a time, and a little water, too, and keeps mixing with a glass muller until it’s smooth, until it becomes paint, the consistency of fresh cream.
“It looks delicious,” I say, the taste of olive oil still on my tongue.
“Don’t try to eat this, child,” Bridgit laughs. She keeps mixing, longer than seems reasonable. Under her breath, she mutters, “Beautiful poisons, the lot of them.”
I think of the chilly reception Agnes got here in the scriptorium, and for a moment, I don’t know whether Bridgit’s talking about pigments or people.
— 10 —
In the afternoons, I like to take the long way around from the refectory to the scriptorium. The river encircling the priory wall seizes, the sound of the water heaving underneath the ice. The cold squeezes my ribs, too, and I have to remind myself that it must come to an end someday.
The basic rhythms of the priory are ingrained by now. I’ve almost memorized the entire Rule, which seems to have mollified the sub-prioress, and I fairly well embody the order of the day. There isn’t much else I need to know, now that I spend most of my time in the scriptorium.
Once upstairs, I settle at the table and review the list of pigments that the illuminators need prepared, nibble on a pilfered oatcake and attempt to study a bit of my Rule before everyone else arrives. Instead, I wind up with my head on my arm, drowsily doodling in the book with my brass stylus, embellishing the simple drop-capital letters at the beginning of each paragraph with flourishes. If only you could see me now, Mam, reading Latin, surrounded by scribes and artists. This is more than “B is for bird.”
* * *
—
One day Da drew me aside and, without a word, pressed a small bundle into my hand. I unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a stack of small parchments and a brass stylus.
“You think I haven’t seen you, Edie, your drawings on that board in the barn. But I do see.” He winked at me, planted a big Da kiss on my cheek and went whistling back to his work. He called over his shoulder, a finger pointing in the air, “A real artist deserves some real tools!”
That was the night I sat my family down and drew their portraits, one by one. But this time, my drawings were as fine and precise as I saw them in my mind, and I could look each of my family members in the eye when I did it, without hiding a thing.
* * *
—
In the warm shaft of sunlight across my table, I jolt awake, my mouth open and dry, the last of a snore answering the sound that rouses me.
PING. Pt-ping. Pt-ping.
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep. The terce bell rings. I rub my face, confused and annoyed at the disjointed, angular patterns of the sound—
Pt-ping. Pt-ping. Pt-ping.
I look out the window and see the source of the noise. On the side of the ruined chapel, a makeshift shelter’s been erected. Some men are under the canvas roof, mixing yellow mortar, hammering wood. One’s chiseling white limestone; another sledges a dark dull rock. The sound does not stop.
Pt-ping. Pt-ping. Pt-ping.
Red. Red. Red. Like the tip of a blade plunging downward between my eyes, unending, flashing. Red. Red. Red.
Once I’m in the church for terce, the pounding hushes to tiny red dots instead of daggers. I can deal with that. But even under the women’s song, there’s the sound of men’s hammers.
After prayers, the novices exit through the back door of the church, trying their best to get a peek without turning their heads in the direction of the workers. Most of the builders are old geezers, but some are young, strong and broad, and the girls recite: We must prepare our hearts and bodies for the battle of holy obedience. I head back toward the grinding room. That’s over for me, anyway. I can’t care about stonemasons anymore.
But still, I know that’s a lie. If it wasn’t, Mason’s stone cross wouldn’t be in my pocket. I cradle it in my hand. Just thinking of him feels like someone’s writing stories under my skin. I sit on the steps outside the scriptorium and draw columns and arches.
Pt-ping. Pt-ping. Pt-ping.
Red. Red. Red.
* * *
—
Next morning at the beginning of chapter, Agnes takes the floor for an announcement.
“Many of you will remember when the chapel of Saint Eustace was partially destroyed by fire. Its blight has always been an embarrassment to us. Unfortunately, we have had no choice but to keep the relics of Holy Eustace tightly locked in the church crypt, and we are unable to properly serve our pilgrims without them.”
The older sisters murmur in agreement.
“Now, every year at Lent, as you know, our lord baron pledges a tenth of his estate to the rebuilding, but he has been late on his promise…these twenty years.” Sardonic laughter rises from the nuns.
“Around Christmas, though,” Agnes continues, “a surprise benefactor stepped in with a large donation. Saint Gabriel’s Abbey in Dorsetshire has provided the funds for the project. No doubt you have seen—or heard—the laborers,” she says with a chortle. “Please do not interfere with their work, nor let them interfere with yours. And let us pray for the new pilgrims who will come through our gates to worship in the restored chapel of Saint Eustace!”
The room reverberates with applause, clashing with the construction outside. I reach into my fitchet pocket and touch the little stone cross, its smoothness balancing the sharp red flashes of noise.
* * *
—
The next morning, Alice puts in a good word with the sub-prioress and asks for my help preparing seedlings for the medicine garden. After all, there’s much to do getting ready for early planting in a few weeks. Thank God, I can put away my studies and get into the fresh air.
The garden shed’s a three-sided stone extension on the back of the infirmary, with roll-down linen curtains to let in light and keep out frost. All sorts of baskets, spades, forks and rope hang on the wall, with clay pots stacked up tall, and a wooden bin of soil in the corner. Alice takes a shallow box off the windowsill. It’s full of tangled seedlings, with sticks labeled in chalk.
“Prick out the seedlings by kind, and pot them on, Edyth. Like this.” She scoops some loose dirt from the bin into a pot and makes a hole in the center with a sharp stick. Then she inserts the stick into the corner of the seedling box, lifts out a group of white-rooted shoots, separates them carefully and puts one seedling into the pot, packing it in tightly.
“Understand?”