He puts his hand out. Stop. He’s heard rumors about those meetings. He respects Sophia and doesn’t want to know more. “That’s teaching, not preaching. A woman has never given a public sermon in Brugge.”
“That’s because there’s never been a Franciscan sister here. How am I supposed to find recruits? Could I at least go door-to-door like my brothers?”
“And who would accompany you? One of the men? Sister Aleys, where did you get such notions?”
“But Saint Clare?”
“Saint Clare was enclosed with her women.”
“She wasn’t by the side of Saint Francis? Like Mary Magdalene beside Christ?”
“Of course not. Francis established a convent for her.”
“Oh.”
“The brothers supported them at first, then the town, once they realized the power of their prayers.” How could she not know this? He supposes he could have told her, but it seemed too obvious to say.
“But how will I recruit if I can’t preach?”
She has a point, but he can’t have her wandering about with his men. “You must try harder here. You can ... impress them with your Latin. I’ll ask Sophia if you can perform the evening oratory instead of Katrijn.”
“No.” She frowns as she twists to look for Katrijn. “Please don’t. I’ll think of something.”
A burst of laughter rises from a knot of young women as a pair of toddlers chases a group of pigeons and the courtyard explodes with rising, flapping gray. Aleys’s gaze catches on the women for a moment, and when she turns back, he glimpses longing in her face. It strikes him, for the first time, that he could lose her to the beguines. That she could find something here. He watches the flock disappear over the roofs. He can’t let that happen. God sent her, he can’t lose her. Aleys has something he needs, something he can’t quite name. He can’t let her go.
“Sister,” he says urgently, “you have a calling as a Franciscan. Take the time you need. I will pray for him to show you the way.”
18
Aleys
The reading chair has migrated to the window to catch the evening light. Aleys has asked permission to read. She hopes to make up for the night that she corrected Cecilia. She hopes that they will like her if she reads. She feels the contradiction, that she wants to belong even as she tries to recruit them away. But there you have it.
Katrijn pushes aside the spindles in her basket to extract a sheet of parchment. It’s riddled with holes where the parchminer scraped the goatskin too thin. The translator, whoever he is, uses cheap materials. The readings are always in the same cramped hand, hastily executed, words crammed onto the page in uneven lines.
Katrijn passes the reading to Aleys. For a moment, they’re face-to-face, gripping the parchment. Aleys looks down. Katrijn’s hands are blemished with liver spots. Even her cuticles are stained brown. Aleys starts. On her right hand. Just her right hand. When Aleys looks up, Katrijn’s eyes are stern. She releases the reading.
Aleys’s eyes follow as Katrijn resumes her seat and pulls cloth work from her basket. Every nail on Katrijn’s right hand is stained brown; her third finger bears an angry red callus, as if she’s been gripping a pen too long. It’s a sudden realization: Katrijn is the translator.
Aleys’s head reels. How is it possible? Katrijn must work through the night by lamplight, Latin to her left, blank parchment to her right, the wordsgloria,pax,fidesflying across the gap, landing on the new page as glory, peace, faith. This page she holds is written in Katrijn’s hand.
How had she missed it? She hadn’t imagined that the woman with the coin purse could also cherish scripture. But it makes sense. Katrijn reads Latin. Now Aleys understands why Katrijn is so wary, why she watches Aleys as if she were an informer. Aleys could bring down the Church upon them if she reported the translations.
“Let us pray.” Sophia gives the benediction, her voice as calm as a compress. Sophia—she’s been harboring a translator in the begijnhof. For Sophia knows, of course she does. Katrijn and Sophia are always together. They’re close, closer even than sisters. You can see how they lean on each other. They may disagree, but there’s some understanding between them, a tenderness. They protect each other.
The women are waiting. Aleys holds in her hands the parable of the mustard grain, the tiny seed that grows into a towering tree to delight the creatures of the air. She imagines the Dutch syllables springing into forests of words. As Aleys begins reading, Katrijn tips back her head to listen, intent as a composer hearing the first notes of her own music.
Later, Aleys corners Ida.
“Katrijn translates scripture, doesn’t she?”
Ida looks at her sharply.
“You don’t have to say. But why?”
Ida frowns. “If you don’t understand, I can’t explain.”
“No, I do. Just, why her? Why does she do something so dangerous we can’t even talk about it?” Aleys thinks of the martyrs in her psalter. Is Katrijn that brave?
