“No doubt.” The giant yawned, scratching the scar on his head with his fingernails. “I can’t imagine he’d go to Constantinople without us.”
The abbess summoned Reynevan again on the Eve of Saint James’ Day.
This time, she was reading a sumptuous and rich edition of Meister Eckhart’s Book of Divine Consolation.
“You haven’t been to church in a long time,” she observed, looking at him over her spectacles. “You might stop by sometime, kneel before the altar. Ponder over this and that. Give thought to this and that… Oh, I forgot.” She lifted her head and continued without waiting for an answer. “You don’t have time. You are occupied, you and Jutta, very occupied. Why, I understand you and don’t condemn you. I haven’t always been a nun. In my youth, I’m ashamed to admit, I also paid ardent homage to Priapus and Astarte, and many times felt that I was closer to God in the arms of a man than in a church. I was mistaken. But it doesn’t prevent me from understanding those who need time to understand that error.”
A moment later, she continued, “We have given you sanctuary and care. You’ve no doubt realised that we weren’t motivated entirely by mercy. Nor was our sympathy entirely owing to the affection and fondness our dear Jutta Apolda feels for you. There were also other reasons, about which it is time to talk.
“Your sharp eyes have surely also discovered by now that this convent differs a little from other convents. But it is by no means—know you—the only convent of its kind. It’s not just you Utraquists who discern the need to reform the Church, not just you strive for that. And though it sometimes appears to you that you are radical in your strivings, it is not the truth. There are those who desire further-reaching changes. Much further-reaching.
“You are familiar, I presume,” she continued, “with the thesis of the brethren of the Franciscan Order, which drew from the wellspring of great and secret wisdom, the same one fathomed by Joachim of Fiore, under the influence of the sacred will and sacred thought? Let me remind you: our world is divided into three Ages and three Orders. The Age and Order of the Father, which lasted from Adam to Christ, was a rule of harsh justice and violence. The Second, the Age and Order of the Son, began with the Saviour and was a rule of wisdom and mercy. The Third Age dawned when the great Saint of Assisi took up his work and is the age of the Holy Spirit, a time infused by love and mercy. And the Holy Spirit will rule until the end of the world.
“The power of the Holy Spirit, says the inspired Meister Eckhart,” said the abbess, placing her hand on the open book, “awakens that which is purest, most subtle, most noble, awakens the spark of the soul and raises it up to the very mountaintops in love and glory. It is as a tree: the power of the sun draws what is purest and most subtle in the tree’s root and carries it up to the branches where the blossom burgeons forth. In the same way, the spark of the soul is carried out to the light, aroused to its first beginning, and achieves absolute unity with God.
“See wherefore, young man, that the coming of the Age of the Spirit makes the intercession of the Church and the clergy vain and unnecessary, for the entire community of the faithful is enveloped by the direct light of the Spirit. Through the Spirit, it unites and is one with God. Without intermediaries. Intermediaries are unnecessary. Particularly sinful and false intermediaries.”
“Indeed.” Reynevan cleared his throat and gathered the courage to speak. “We have, it seems to me, similar outlooks and designs. For Jan Huss and Hieronim said quite the same, and before them Wycliffe—”
“And Petr Chelčický said and says the same,” she interrupted. “Why, then, don’t you and yours listen to his words? When he teaches that violence cannot be answered by violence? That war never ends in victory, but spawns a new war, a war that can bring nothing but another war? Petr Chelčický knew and loved Huss but distanced himself from men of violence and murder. He distanced himself from men who turn their faces towards God as they kneel on battlefields among corpses. Men who make the sign of the cross with bloodied hands.
“You climbed the mountains at Easter in 1419,” she continued, before he could protest. “On Tábor, Oreb, Baranek, Sion and the Mount of Olives, you created a fraternal community of Children of God, imbued with the Holy Spirit and the love of your neighbour. Then you were true Warriors of God, for you had pure souls and hearts, for you zealously carried the word of God and proclaimed Divine love. But it lasted a bare fifteen weeks, my boy, fifteen short weeks. Already by Saint Abdon’s Day, on the thirtieth of July, you cast men from windows onto spears, murdered people in streets, churches and houses, and committed rape and slaughter. Instead of God’s love, you began to preach the Apocalypse. And the name ‘Warriors of God’ no longer befits you, for what you are doing more delights the Devil. You cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven up a stairway of corpses. You pass down it to Hell.”
“But yet,” he interjected, reining in his annoyance, “you said that Utraquism is dear to you. That you see the need to reform the Church, that you are aware of the need for far-reaching change. When Chelčický called: ‘The Fifth Commandment: Thou shall not kill!,’ papal crusades were marching on Prague. Had we listened to Chelčický, who entreated us to defend ourselves with nothing but faith and prayer, had we faced the Roman hordes with only humility and love for our neighbour, they’d have slaughtered us. Bohemia would have run with blood, and our hopes and dreams vanished into thin air. There would have been no changes, no reform. In its triumph, Rome would have been even more haughty, cocksure and arrogant, even more mendacious, even more in opposition to Christ. We had something to fight for, so we fought…”
The abbess smiled and Reynevan blushed. He couldn’t help but feel that her smile was tinged with mockery, and that the abbess knew what an ass he was making of himself by saying “we” and “us,” when in actual fact he had watched the ascent of the mountains at Easter 1419 from a distance, in bewilderment and fear and without a trace of understanding. That, shocked by the Defenestration in July, he had fled before Prague in its frenzied revolt, that he had run from Bohemia, mortally horrified by the course of events. That even now, he was barely a neophyte and was behaving like one.
“Regarding changes and reforms,” continued the smiling Poor Clare, “we actually agree, you and I. But what makes us different is not just the means but also the scope and scale of activity. You want changes to the liturgy and reforms to the clergy on the basis of the principle sola Scriptura. We—for I told you there are many of us—wish to change much, much more. Look.”
Directly opposite the abbess hung a painting—the only decoration in the room—a board with a depiction of a white dove, soaring up with outstretched wings into a ray of light falling from above. The Poor Clare raised a hand and said something in a barely audible whisper. The air was suddenly imbued with the scent of rue and verbena, typical for white, Aradic magic.
The ray of light in the painting grew brighter and the dove flapped its wings, flying up and vanishing into the light. A woman appeared in its place. Tall, black-haired, with eyes like stars, attired in a patterned gown shimmering with many hues, now white, now copper, now crimson…