“I’m sure it’s an anomaly.”
The legate looks at him long. One eye, then the other. “Anomalies seed heresy.”
“I assure you there is no heresy in my diocese.”
The legate gives a dry laugh. “That’s what they said in Strasbourg. Our inquisitors found the place crawling with heretics. They were preaching without ordination.” He squints both his eyes as if he cannot bear to face the thought. “They had women preaching.”
Jan knows he speaks of the Waldensians. “But you’ve chastised them.” They burned eighty of them. It’s said that when the breeze shifts in Strasbourg you can still catch the whiff of singed flesh.
The envoy sighs. “Perhaps. We must be alert. There can be no more translations. Heresy breeds where butchers read the Bible.”
“I don’t think that—”
“Of course not. No one sees it coming. It starts with this.” He presses his finger into the table, beside the parchment. “Then there are secret meetings. Laypeople begin interpreting scripture on their own. They are unqualified. They haven’t spent their entire lives training to understand God’s intentions for us.” The legate taps his finger. “These translations. Before you know it, the people reject the word of their deacons, their priests, even their bishops. You’ve heard the Waldensians are threatening to excommunicate the pope? The pope!”
Well, the pope has already excommunicated the Waldensians, so perhaps that’s little surprise. Now that they can read the Bible, the heretics claim they can’t find the wordpopeanywhere in it. Notad literum, thinks the bishop, they stand on a technicality, but he does understand the pope’s impatience with translations. “That will not happen here, I assure you.”
The pope’s representative falls quiet, eyeing the document. He sighs, and an unguarded emotion flickers over his face. He raises his hand to rub his eyebrows. When the legate speaks again, there is a wistful note in his voice. “They claim to communicate directly with God.” He pauses, looks up at Jan. “No one can do that. Right?”
Jan isn’t sure how to respond. For a moment, the pope’s man seems a child who’s run all the way to the fair to be told the fire-eater has left for the next town. He stifles the urge to lay a consoling hand on the legate’s shoulder.
“We are but the pope’s shepherds,” he says. “And he the messenger of God on high.”
The legate gives his head a little shake. “Of course.” He is silent a moment longer.
Jan hears the muffled sound of laughter from the kitchens. “You were speaking of heresies?”
“Yes. Yes, I was.” The legate gathers himself, straightens his shoulders. “Someone in your city is distributing the Bible in vulgar language.” The legate stands. “You must stop them.”
“Your Excellency.” He must show strength. They missed their first chance. Now it won’t be enough to destroy the documents and merely frighten the translators. He has no desire to roil Brugge, to trouble this commercial city with trials and acts of faith. It won’t win him any favor with the city leaders. It will make it harder to raise money. The whole thing is distasteful. His hand is forced. “We will see the authors tried.”
“I assure you, the pope will take note.” The legate gathers his bag. “We await news that the sanctity of this city has been restored. You must bring your translators to account.” He focuses both eyes on Jan. “If a bishop can’t root out heresy, well, then, what use is a bishop?”
16
Aleys
The sun peaks high. It’s nearly Midsummer, thinks Aleys. A year ago she was learning Latin from Finn in the fields. Just before they moved to the orchard to read the Song of Songs in the trees.Canticum Canticorum. The world brimmed with promise and blood rushed through her veins like a spring-fed river. She knew where she fit. Or thought she did. And now? Finn’s in some scriptorium, copying out Latin, dipping his reed in a pot of red ink and embellishing theDinDeus. He’s adding flourishes to words that need no embellishment, that were perfect and sacred and their very own.The beams of our house are cedars, and its rafters are firs.Does he think of her as he copies? Will someone explain the meaning to him? Maybe to them he’s nothing more than a hand with a quill. Either way, he’s risked nothing, she thinks bitterly. She’s better off forgetting him. Finn’s safe within his monastery.
Whereas she’s a novitiate nearly two months into her probation, already running out of time.
She’s supposed to be recruiting other women. Friar Lukas seems to think it would be easy, like she could bang her spoon on her mug and announce that she’s looking to form a women’s order, would anyone care to join? She’ll have to approach the candidates one by one. She figures she’ll have better luck with the ones not yet pledged.
Aleys steps from the dormitory into the sunny courtyard, where she nearly trips over a pair of young beguines seated on a ground cloth spread across the path. They’ve pulled their skirts above their knees and stretched out their legs, stockinged feet nearly meeting to create a diamond of space. Between them is a pile of sheep fleece, straight from the sack, still tightly curled in locks, still full of seed and bramble. The girls clutch long willow switches, poised to beat the curl from the fleece so it can be carded. Aleys smiles. Wullebreken. She and Griete used to chant as they broke the wool, their yellow switches whipping the locks into a churning cloud of wispy fleece angels. And sure enough, the girls nod to each other and begin singing as they snap their switches into the fleece.
Wullebreken, Wullebreken
Send me a dowry
Wullebreken, Wullebreken
Send me a man
If he’s not handsome, I’ll go to the convent
Wullebreken, Wullebreken
Fast as I can
