“No.” He drums his fingers on the table. “I won’t touch any friars. Though I could.”
“Then who are you talking about?”
“Listen, we won’t be excessive. An arrest or two should suffice. A short trial. I’ll let them recant any heresy, and then release them. It’s their own fault for resisting supervision. You need to govern those women.”
Lukas feels a pit in his stomach. “You want me to name a beguine.”
“Why not? The people already distrust them. Plenty will come forward to witness. There are many who would be happy to see their wings clipped.” Jan puts his palms up. “Though I can’t touch their draper. The guild protects her.”
“But the beguines are faithful! They’re more devout than your merchants.”
“Precisely. They’re pious fools. They err in their excess. I know they’re writing tracts.”
Lukas stands. “Jan, I’m their shepherd.”
“Then be a shepherd. Cull the diseased to save your flock. I promise it will be quick and easy. No one will come to harm. Bring me a translator, just not the Janssens widow.”
“You want me to betray them.”
Jan snorts through his nose. “Don’t be deliberately naïve. It doesn’t suit you.”
“I won’t betray my own.”
“Either you will or I will. And I’ll be less generous. I understand there are two lettered women in the begijnhof besides the draper. The magistra and your girl. I’m letting you select who will serve as an example. Or I could take them both. We require, the pope requires, that we teach the people a lesson. They need to stop seeking that which is too high for them.”
22
Aleys
The women start at small noises: the cat in the hall, the settling of logs. They build the fire high, though it’s August, in case words must be burned quickly. Marte keeps watch outside. The readings grow short, but they don’t stop. Katrijn looks strained.
“Our mission is service,” the magistra reminds them. “Let us focus on our work.”
Sophia had been wrong. The bishop is interested in the activities of women who knit. Aleys wishes she hadn’t let his man goad her into speaking. She tells herself that she said nothing about translations. Still she’s uneasy.
Aleys walks with Ida to the hospital. “What’s going on?” Aleys asks. “That man on the quay—”
Ida looks around. “We’re not sure.”
Aleys gestures to her basket. “You’re not ... ?”
“I am. We’re being more careful.”
“And Katrijn’s still translating?”
Ida nods. “We can’t live by bread alone. Nor can the people of this town.”
Aleys is assigned permanently to Sint-Janshospitaal, where she performs the lowliest tasks, changing bedpans, holding cloths to wet coughs. Disease is so damp. Piss and blood, pus and mucus. Sores creep like living things across limbs. She swabs a wound and it opens like a cut of raw meat. She is forever wiping her hands on her apron. Aleys no longer watches for demons. She’s too busy. She observes the other beguines, and her admiration grows for their stamina. They are fast in their faith and they are frank; they do not shrink from the facts. We will all go to God when he calls, they say, but we can ease each other’s way in the passing.
A girl is brought in who looks like Griete did as a child, with a blonde braid to her waist and eyelashes so pale they’re barely visible. The girl’s chest rattles and she spits blood, but her eyes follow Aleys around the ward. When she can, Aleys sits with her, tells the girl saint stories as she smooths her hair. The child asks over and over again for the tale of Ursula and the eleven thousand companions who chose to die rather than yield their chastity. The girl seems more impressed by their number than their virtue.
“How much is eleven thousand?”
“They would fill the whole of Markt square. There would be no room for anyone else.”
“All of them friends?” Probably not, thinks Aleys, it would be more complicated than that. But she nods.
The girl is consumed by a fit of coughing, the sharp bark of it and the heavy wheeze. Aleys places her hand on the child’s back, feels the fever against her palm, and squints above the bed. She hopes it’s angels, not demons, waiting for this one.
