That’s silly, though, isn’t it? What’s the harm? I reach out a finger and poke Bridgit in the shoulder. Her head lolls to the side, and on her outstretched neck, right near her collarbone, is a purple blotch with a white lump in the middle, like a ripe open plum and pit.
She stirs, and I startle.
“Edyth.” Bridgit raises a weary hand. “Help me up. Help me to the infirmary.”
Don’t touch. Don’t touch.
“I’ll go get help,” I fumble. “Stay there.”
I know it’s stupid. What kind of friend am I? I wonder as I stumble through the chilled calefactory and out the back door. I couldn’t at least help her to her feet? I run with a pheasant’s gait to the infirmary, throw open the iron latch and push in the door.
The first thing that hits me is the putrid smell, same as Brother Timothy, but multiplied by a dozen. So this is where everyone is. Every stall is filled, every curtain drawn open. Some cells have two people each, one in the bed, one on a pallet on the floor. Joan darts back and forth like a flummoxed sparrow. A cup of water here. A fresh rag there. Mopping up bloody spit. A poultice on a lump, or five lumps. It’s impossible. The physician doesn’t even notice me. And if she did, would she be able to help me? To leave these two dozen sickbeds to help one woman collapsed out in the cloister?
I have to find help somewhere else. I burst outside, and there’s Bridgit, on all fours. In the absence of a friend, she’s crawled here herself.
“Someone has to stop this,” says Joan, laying Bridgit down on a pallet. “We’re too full. I don’t want to turn anyone away, but we’re using every bit of space, and we’ll have to start laying them on the table next. Do you have my supplies?”
“Here.” I take out the bread and hand her the basket as the door opens, and Agnes comes into the infirmary with the prioress.
“Sister Joan,” says Agnes, dripping with false sympathy, “our Venerable Mother is still unwell. I believe she needs to stay here. It must be the heat. Or something she ate.”
Joan sighs. “This isn’t the place for her, Sub-Prioress. There’s too much contagion. Edyth, bring Prioress Margaret back to her study. I’ll come by soon to check on her.”
Agnes heads for the exit, satisfied to hand over the burden.
“But wait, Sister Agnes.” Joan beckons her back. “I’m glad you’re here, because I have to tell you, we cannot take any more pilgrims. Look at this place. Is there something we can do?”
“I agree with you, Joan,” says Agnes. “This is quite the chaotic scene you have here.”
“I was thinking that we could make space in another building. We did that before, during the famine.”
“What, so we can become overrun by hell-bound sinners? We have to protect our own first, Sister Joan.”
“Agnes, we exist to help the sick. It means certain death for them if we don’t.”
“I do have an idea, Joan. We’ll talk about it in the morning.” The sub-prioress turns on her heel and leaves.
“Take me to the sanctuary first, Edyth,” says Prioress Margaret. “I want to pray.” The prioress slings her arm across my shoulder, and I grip her around the waist.
“Here, Edyth,” says Joan, handing me Alice’s wax tablet and stylus. She looks like she wants to say more, but she’s got too much chaos to deal with. “Take these to Alice. And give her my love.”
* * *
—
The waning afternoon light hits the eastern wall of the stone church, giving its curved apse the look of a huge ship’s prow. Before anyone here was born, this church stood in this place, sailing through centuries. Who knows what abyss it’s speeding toward now?
The sundial on the outside of the infirmary tells me it’s almost time for vespers, but since there are no bells, I determine to feign ignorance. As I bring the prioress in through the transept door, I hear a solitary sound bouncing off the soaring walls in the nave, a thin, white line, glowing with light, the echo returning to it like white stars.
It is Alice, singing from within her enclosure—
O aeterne Deus, nunc tibi placeat,
Ut in amore illo ardeas—
O eternal God, please now
Burn us with that fiery love—
The prioress stops, then walks on her own to stand right before the rood screen. She is so weak and thin, but she straightens like a basalt obelisk, her head tilted up toward the mosaic above the altar, with the bearded man in the center of everything, emanating love: the man in perfect control. She stretches out her hands—an offering, or a plea.
She joins Alice in the song—
Et perduc nos in laetitiam salutis.
And lead us to the joy of salvation.
The prioress isn’t desperate, or frenzied, but she does weep, her tears running slowly down her neck like rain on a pillar. She sings like an innocent defendant in court, simply stating her case. The last note ricochets off the columns and showers down from the vaults.
Throughout the entire song, Dragon cowers in the corner, watching us from her straw pallet. It’s hard to feel sorry for her now. Yes, she’s one of the Pitiful, but so am I—and I don’t think suffering has to beget her brand of mad malevolence.
And that raises an obvious question.
“Forgive me, Mother, but…” I falter.
She purses her lips and nods in understanding. “You want to know why I didn’t stop Agnes and Felisia from imprisoning Alice.”
“Yes.”
She turns her head sharply. “I will ask you a question instead: In the Garden, why did God not close the mouth of the serpent, right from the beginning? He could have.”
I consider this. “That’s something that’s confused me since I was a little girl.”
“Everything God made is good, isn’t it?” She breathes in slowly and turns her head toward Dragon. “He made snakes, too—before there was sin. But what is it that makes serpents bite?”
“Getting too close to them?”
She laughs at my naivete. “Fear, Edyth. That’s what makes snakes bite, and gifted nuns, too. Fear can kill. But it does not have to win.”
I still don’t have my answer.
“Fear of what?”
“Keep asking that question. Of yourself most of all.”
She takes another breath, slow and shuddering, but bears her pain with more ease.