Her family breaks through the crowd. Griete grasps Aleys close. Henryk bows his head and Claus bends to kiss her hand. Papa’s eyes are desperate. “I should never have let you go.”
Aleys bends her head to meet his. “Papa, I gave you no choice.”
Papa pulls from his bag her maroon cloak, wraps her in wool. “Sister,” says Griete, fastening the claps. Then she can say no more.
The people part to let Aleys pass. She smells the first whiff of burning parchment, and flurries of ash fill the air. So they are burning her words, too.
People crowd the street, forming tributaries that stretch back through the alleys. As Aleys approaches, they fall to their knees. They reach out to touch her.
They say holy.
They say sister.
They say sint.
Their need rushes over her like a raw wave, and though she doesn’t know whether she is the saint they crave, she sends them blessings in return. They carry within them flint and spark, the same as she, and Aleys loves them, these people, with their hurt and their hope. It is the secret honey on her tongue.
That is when she sees. She stops. The face of the laundress who kneels before her is lit bright, illuminated with the spirit of Saint Clare. How did she not see it before? There, but feet away, is a woman with two children and the stiff spine, the charisma, of Ursula. From the corner, a bent crone looks up and Aleys spies Christina Mirabilis, odd, defiant, cackling from the rafters. Aleys turns to look back at what she has missed, at saints all around her. A red-haired girl lifts her chin and looks Aleys straight in the eye. It is Perpetua in the arena, fearless, the gladiator’s sword in her grasp. And she understands it is the people who are blessing her. There are others, too, the visionaries yet to come, in the crowd. Stubborn Marguerite, who will write and write again the books they will fail to destroy. Catherine of Siena, who will upbraid a pope; Spanish Teresa, who will build castles of spirit; the anchoress Julian, who whispers from the future:All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Aleys is woven into the braid of those who sought the truth and spoke of the journey. She walks with them and knows she will join them, lionesses all, at Mary’s side.
66
The Bishop
The bishop sees her from afar. The people bow before her, and she appears as a lit taper at the end of a tunnel. He squints past her, looking for Lukas. Jan doesn’t know that his brother has closed himself inside the anchorhold, is just now bent in prayer. Later, Jan will bury his brother, will turn the key in the lock, will consecrate him to the hold, where he will spend his days praying to the saint he wronged.
The noon bells toll.
Jan is annoyed that the hastily erected dais was not properly squared; it swayed when he mounted it, and it feels insubstantial beneath him now. It’s barely large enough to accommodate the six of them. The four churchmen are forced to huddle in the center like children hiding in a closet. The abbot and Dominican stand just behind him in their brown and black. The legate’s red cap brushes against his shoulder. The bishop regrets the full gold and white regalia he donned this morning. It warmed him the day of her funeral; it is heavy on this, the day of her death. His hand slips on the shepherd’s crosier. He just wants to get this over with and retreat to the shadow of his manor. The mayor stands to one side, frowning, as if to distance himself from these proceedings, though he will give the signal to touch torch to wood. The church mustn’t be stained with actual blood. The mayor doesn’t want this, either. “They won’t like it, Jan,” he said. “The people think she is theirs.” Then he added, “So do I.”
As the last bell fades, the crowd begins chanting “Sint!”The sound is faint at first, from the direction of the jail. “Sint!” A fury pushes the words along the street—“Sint! Sint!”—into the Markt. The voices are loud, the men angry, the women violent. The chanting reaches and runs around the fragile platform so that Jan feels adrift on a small raft in an ocean of frenzy. The abbot shifts his weight and Jan feels the creak of the wood rise through his feet. Only the legate is calm.
The bishop stamps his crosier hard into the dais for silence, three times, but the platform only trembles as the chant swells. The people are all craning to see Aleys. All but one. The bishop looks down and meets the green eyes of a small boy in a red jacket, holding the hand of his mother. He blinks up at the bishop. Then, though he cannot possibly know the meaning, the boy stretches wide his perfect ruby lips and he, too, mouthsSint!while looking straight at the bishop and the sight chills Jan to his bones.
“I will have them arrested,” he says.
“No,” says the legate. His voice is quiet. “The people need something holy.” The small man presses his palms together and brings them to his heart. It looks as though he’s praying. For a moment, Jan thinks the legate will step down into the crowd and join them in shouting “Sint!” Instead he says, “We have created a martyr.”
“It’s not too late,” says Jan. “We could reverse the verdict.”
The legate shakes his head. “The decisions of the pope are the decisions of God. We weave his design.” Jan will never understand this man.
67
Aleys
The crowd parts and Aleys sees the stake. At its base is not just wood, but piles of parchment that form hillocks. Some are in stacks pinned down with stones. Some is tucked into the branches piled around the stake. She knows the parchment contains precious Dutch words inked by believers and copied by others. Marte’s revelations. The showings of God that she whispered to Lukas. She has given the word to the people and knows that others will follow. In a century, in two, as the hidden copies surface, the world will read these letters of love. She mounts the platform. A breeze catches up a loose piece of parchment and the gospel drifts over the people as she’s bound to the stake.
Closest in, encircling her, are the women in gray. The beguines are sober; they do not chant; they do not care if she is saint or not. The plaza is an ocean of people on their knees, but the beguines stand witness. All of them—Ida, Katrijn, Marte, even old birdlike Agnes—are there, and each is holding parchment, blank parchment, waiting for the word. Some, defiant, raise the sheets high. Others hold it to their chests. There is nothing between these women and their God. They simply love and are loved in return. As the pyre is lit, it is Katrijn who begins theAve Maria,Katrijn who holds her eyes.
Aleys tips her head back to meet her God.
68
The Bishop
The flames lick her feet as ash lands softly on her cloak. Great snowflakes of ash, particulate and singular, show briefly against the crimson wool. Then the hem of her dress catches, at first playfully, then in earnest, and she is suddenly ablaze. The bishop has witnessed burnings, knows how skin will blush and blister and that flesh will hiss like a boiling kettle. The terrible smell. The screams.
But she is silent, eyes to the sky.
