“Ecce tu pulchra es.” She says the words softly. “Behold, you are beautiful.” She is offering them the words of the Canticle.
“Only if you would meet him”—her eyes return to the legate—“you must die first. You must die to your desires.” She pauses to see if the pope’s envoy follows. She does not look at the others. The Dominican has pressed his steepled hands to his lips to stifle his objections. The abbot bears a knitted frown of bewilderment. But the legate has closed his eyes, listening. “In the dying, you will fill with honey. You are the hive and the honeycomb.”
The echo of Lukas’s best sermon returns to mock him. Pity these men. While they pursue riches, the comb lies broken open at their feet.
“He is as close as your heart breath.”
Lukas sees Jan shift his weight. “Your Excellency,” Jan interrupts. “Reverend Abbot, Master Theologian. May I speak my impression?” The legate nods but does not remove his eyes from Aleys. “The words this woman chooses are sweet.”
The Dominican jumps in. “Indeed, I think they are much like the words Eve said to Adam.”
The abbot agrees. “Or the serpent itself. ‘When you eat this fruit, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”
The Dominican opens his palms like a book. “Exactly! You will be like God!” He turns his hands over and presses down on the table, shoving heresy away. “Are these not her very words?”
The legate addresses Aleys: “What have you to say to this?”
“Insofar,” she says. “Only insofar as we love God can we become godly.” Her eyes flick to Lukas. “We cannot command God.”
Her words are delicate as a paring knife. Lukas feels the edge of the pointed tip beneath his skin, and he is flayed, expertly, precisely, his skin sliced neatly away. His white ribs are bare, his windpipe is exposed, pink and striated. He grips his swollen gut so the worms will not spill onto the courtroom floor.
We cannot command God.With sudden clarity he sees his error. He wants, more than anything, to make God acknowledge him. For God to reach down and point a long finger—You, Lukas, you are my most beloved. To be named, to be chosen, to be honored. It’s spiritual avarice. He sees the slender serpent, gray and strangely beautiful, weaving restless and hungry between his fingers. He turns it in his hand and feels a momentary pity. The worm seeks blindly. It will never still.
He understands. His ambition to be chosen by God is stronger than his love of God.
Her eyes settle front again. Those were her last words to him, he knows. Now she faces her accusers.
The Dominican is outraged. “This is sophistry!Insofaras we love God? Is she a lawyer, that she would parse the grammar of God to us? On what authority does she speak? She is neither monk, nor cleric, nor scholar. She is a devil with a clever tongue.”
The legate puts out a quiet hand. “Did not the great Dominican teacher say much the same? Did not Thomas Aquinas write that the end of spiritual life is that man unite himself to God by love?”
“Yes, but a woman ...” sputters the abbot. “The vessel is so, so ... unorthodox.”
“But her words, Reverend? Can we really say her words lack precedent?”
The legate does not want to kill her.
Lukas sees his brother go rigid. When they were boys and would wrestle, there was a moment when elbows became sharp, when claws came out and laughter turned to hiss. In that moment, Jan would pull back. He would go entirely still, and Lukas could feel the fury coiling within his brother. Now, as Jan gathers himself, Lukas knows he is about to strike.
“Admit the next prisoner,” calls out his brother.
63
Aleys
The courtroom doors swing open, and there stands Marte. Aleys sees her pale face, her hazel eyes fastened on the robed judges. She’s still wearing her apron. The guards push her forward. Marte stumbles, then rights herself to walk the aisle alone. Her limp is back. She halts beside the dock, uncertain where to stand.
This can’t be. Aleys swivels to the bishop. “What do you mean by this?” she demands. “My maid had nothing to do with the showings.”
“Silence,” Jan says coolly. “You have no standing here.”
The legate frowns at the bishop. “We have traveled to try the anchoress, not her attendant.”
Jan bows to the legate. “Your Excellency, you will recall that you alerted us to Dutch translations of sacred scripture circulating in our city. We have apprehended documents that are not merely illegal but anathema. Some are so perverse they can hardly be recognized as translations. Both the anchoress and her maid are implicated in spreading heresy.”
Aleys is confused. Marte? It makes no sense. She can’t translate. She has no Latin.
From the corner of her eye, Aleys sees the bishop’s mouth crack a small smile as he tilts his head slightly toward Lukas. It’s enough to reveal his motivation. This trial is retribution for the woman who stabbed his brother and the one who nailed the belt to the cathedral door. The bishop doesn’t care whether the charges are true; it matters only that they advance his ends. He’ll pin them on anyone.
