Aleys frowns, unable to explain the Bible raining brimstone on mothers. But the answer seems obvious.
Marte points to the Latin scripture. “Men wrote this down, didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think they wrote the whole story.”
Marte fingers the quill in her pocket. People need the whole story.
45
Aleys
Aleys tosses and turns into the night, pondering Mary’s message.You must bear the truth.But what truth? The truth of the visions shown only to her, or the truth of the book kept by priests? They don’t always agree. Both are hard to decipher. She dozes off, finally, open questions stirring her dreams.
In the small hours, between Matins and Lauds, Aleys wakes to the sound of weeping. It takes her a confused moment to realize the voice isn’t coming from the parlor. Someone, a man, is outside her squint. People know the church is open, and some seek a companion in midnight sorrow. Their feathered cries flutter around her cell like trapped birds. Aleys swings her feet to the cold ground and draws her blanket about her shoulders, sending Kat to the floor.
An ashen moonlight graces the cross of her squint, so that it appears outlined in silver. Aleys edges quietly over. She will witness. She sets her head back against the wall and listens to the gasp, the poised silence, the spill and surge of breath as it cascades into sob. Aleys pulls her awareness inside. She inhales his anguish in long sweeps. The man’s pain fills her lungs, hot and deep beneath her ribs, but she doesn’t falter. She prays for the unseen man. And slowly, mercifully, in the far branch and flower of her lungs, in an alchemy of prayer, his heated breath cools, and she releases her calm as gift. She weeps and breathes with him for some time. The moonlight from the chancel has cast a blue cross on the floor at her feet. It is peace.
When the man speaks, his voice is thick. “Aleys,” says Friar Lukas.
She recoils, stumbles back against her bed. The warmth drains from her. How can it be Lukas? Her confessor shouldn’t come crying to her. Her skin crawls beneath her nightshift. It’s an inversion of order, like father supplicating son, mother pleading to child. She has inhaled his pain into the depths of her lungs, where its tentacles have entered her blood.
“Aleys,” he repeats. His voice is too close.
She could feign sleep, but he must know she’s listening. She thinks of his tear-dappled face and feels not charity, but revulsion.
“I ...” His voice catches. “I must ask you.”
No. No more crying. You must not weep at me. You are supposed to be stronger. You are my spiritual director. You should have the answers, not the questions.
“Ego sum homo malus uir... I am a wicked man and hostile to my own self. I must confess to you.”
“Father, no. Not to me.”
“Ask our God to deliver me from evil, for I suffer the torment of devils.”
What is he saying? This is so wrong. “You must confess to the bishop.”
“The bishop cannot heal me.”
“I cannot—”
“Sister, you must help me. Warm me with your prayers.”
She hears him draw even closer to the squint. Then, through the cross, over the lip, his fingers curve, a long, pale spider on her sill. She looks away, but sees only the black shadow of his fingers inside the blue cross on her floor. He has breached her safehold. It is a trespass most foul.
“My hand,” he pleads. “Take my hand.” She doesn’t want to touch him. “Have you no charity?”
“Father, don’t ask this of me.”
“Sister Aleys,” says Friar Lukas, and it is the voice of authority. She feels the obedience rise within her like a raised stick, and she swallows her revulsion and takes his hand. It sends a cold wave up her arm. He is her confessor. She has vowed submission.
“Aleys, why? Why does God favor you so?”
46
The Bishop
