And by the time they started using it, Reynevan could stand up unaided. The fingers of his left hand were no longer numb and he could hold various objects in them. Owing to which he was able to help the nuns treating Samson. Who—though conscious—was still unable to stand up.
Jutta never left Reynevan’s side. Her eyes shone with tears and love.
The war, which they had managed to forget about, made itself known soon after Trinity Sunday. On the morning of the first day of June, Reynevan, Jutta and a nun from White Church were startled by the roar of cannons coming from the west. Before precise information reached the convent, Reynevan had guessed what it was all about. Jan Kolda of Žampach hadn’t retreated with Prokop the Shaven’s army but had remained in Silesia in the fortified position on Sobótka. He and his murderous squad were a thorn in the Silesians’ side, too vexing to be tolerated. A powerful Wrocław–Świdnica contingent armed with heavy bombards encircled the castle in Sobótka and began to fire, calling on Jan Kolda to surrender. The popular rumour had it that in response, Kolda called the besiegers by a vernacular name for the male sexual organs and encouraged them to indulge in sodomy. After which he retaliated from the walls with fire from his own guns.
The exchange of fire lasted a week, and for a week Reynevan all but rode to Sobótka to aid Kolda in some way, for example with sabotage and acts of subversion. He could barely walk, could only dream about riding a horse, but was spoiling to fight. Jutta finally put an end to his agitation and thwarted his military plans. Jutta was firm. She gave him an ultimatum: either her or the war. Reynevan chose her.
Jan Kolda of Žampach defended himself for another week, inflicting such acute losses on the Silesians that when he finally exhausted all his resources, he had a strong negotiating position. The day after Saint Anthony’s Day he surrendered, but under honourable conditions, with the pledge of safe passage to Bohemia. Meanwhile, the Silesians razed Sobótka Castle to the ground so that it couldn’t be used by the next bloody Kolda.
Reynevan found out all those details from the gardener, who worked in the convent grange and had—apart from good sources of information—a love of gossip and a talent for it. Following the fall of Sobótka, the gardener came with some rather alarming rumours. For Silesia had finally recovered from the Hussite Easter plundering raid. And begun to react. Violently and bloodily. The blood of those who had proved cowards in battle or parleyed with the Czechs dripped from scaffolds. Supporters of Hussitism—and people only suspected of sympathising—sizzled on pyres. Peasants who had informed the Hussites expired on wheels and stakes. Gibbets groaned under the weight of collaborators. Moreover, people who had absolutely nothing to do with Hussitism were also tortured and executed. The usual suspects: Jews, free thinkers, troubadours, alchemists and village abortionists.
The apparently safe sanctuary inside the convent walls suddenly lost its sense of snugness. Reynevan spent his convalescence waking up in a cold sweat to every bell and knock at the gate, and would then fall asleep relieved to hear that it hadn’t been the Inquisition or Birkart Grellenort, just the fishmonger with his delivery.
Time passed, and peace, care and medical attention did their job. His wounds healed. Slowly, but surely. After Saint Anthony’s Day, Samson began to rise, and after Gervasius’ and Protasius’ Day to feel well enough to begin helping the gardener with his work. Reynevan, however, had recovered enough for his contact with Jutta through eyes and hands to no longer suffice.
Saint John’s Eve came. The Poor Clare nuns from White Church celebrated it with an extra mass. Reynevan and Jutta, on the other hand, followed by the curious looks of the nuns, ran to the forest to search for the fern flower. No sooner had they reached a grove of birches than Reynevan explained to Jutta that the fern flower was a legend and the hunt for it—however romantic and exciting it might be—was in principle pointless and something of a waste of time. Unless they felt a great need to respect the ancient tradition. Jutta quickly admitted that while she did, she’d actually rather make better, more intelligent and pleasant use of the short June night.
Reynevan, who thought similarly, spread his cloak out on the ground and helped her to undress.
“Adsum favens,” whispered the young woman, slowly and gradually emerging from her raiment like Aphrodite from the ocean foam. “Adsum favens et propitia; I have come in sympathy and goodwill. Now stop your tears and cease your lamentation; banish your grief. Now by my providence your day of salvation is dawning.”
She whispered and beauty met his eyes. The resplendent beauty of nakedness, the glory of delicate womanliness, the Holy Grail, saintliness. She manifested herself to his eyes as donna angelicata, worthy of the brushes of artists he knew such as Domenico Veneziano, Simone of Siena, the Master of Flémalle, Tommaso Masaccio, Masolino, the brothers Limbourg, Sassetta and Jan van Eyck. And of those whom he could not yet have known, who were still to come. Whose names—Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Enguerrand Charonton, Rogier van der Weyden, Jean Fouquet, Hugo van der Goes—a delighted humanity could look forward to knowing.
“Sit satis laborum,” she whispered, putting her arms around his neck. “Let there be rest from troubles.”
Seeing that Reynevan’s wounded shoulder was still paining him, she took matters into her own hands. Lying him on his back, she united with him in the position the poet Martial usually ascribed to Hector and Andromache.
They made love like those two lovers. They made love on Saint John’s Eve. From somewhere on high came the singing of choirs, quite possibly angelic ones. And all around cavorted sylvan spirits, singing.
The elderflower blooms at Midsummer
Love will be ever more blissful!
During the following nights—and often during the day, too—they didn’t bother running to the forest. They made love just outside the convent wall, in a sun-soaked bower among bushes of blackthorn and elder. They made love and—even during the day—sylvan spirits cavorted around them.
Parsley, carrots, celery
Grow in our garden,
The gorgeous Jutta is the bride
She should wait no longer…
The convent in White Church was divided into three parts, which Reynevan inevitably associated with the Three Circles of Initiation. The First Circle—which wasn’t circular, of course—housed the convent’s utilities, including the garden, the infirmary, the guests’ and workers’ refectory and the converse nuns’ dormitory, and also the guests’ bedchambers and rooms. The Second Circle—the heart of which was the church—was off limits to guests and included the library and scriptorium, and also the abbess’s chambers. The Third Circle consisted of the completely and strictly secluded clausula, and the nuns’ refectory and dormitories.
The Poor Clares of White Church observed—on the face of it, at least—a stern religious rule. They fasted strictly and there was no meat in the convent’s bill of fare. They kept silent during meals and utter silence was maintained from Compline to the convent Mass. Work, prayer, penance and contemplation took up their entire day; they were only entitled to one hour for their own affairs and rest, with the exception of Fridays, when no rest was allowed. The conversae—apart from Jutta, there were four in the convent, all maidens from noble families—followed a considerably tempered version of the rule and their duties were limited in principle to worship and religious study.