Katrijn speaks without preamble: “What do you think you were you doing?” The flame on Aleys’s candle rears back from its wick. “To Marte?”
Aleys doesn’t need this. “Sister, I’m going to bed.”
“I saw you.” Katrijn points her finger. “This morning. In the courtyard.”
Aleys feels annoyance flare. “What? I can’t help our own?”
Katrijn scoffs. “If you did.”
If she did. Aleys is so tired. All she wants is sleep.
“It’s bad enough, you exploiting the dying. But this is the begijnhof. We live here. When you’re in our home, you need to keep your holy hands to yourself.”
“If you’re accusing me of something, say it.”
“I see how you profit.”
“From what?”
“Chicanery.” Katrijn doesn’t blink. “Fraud.”
This is outrageous. She’s pursued by believers and attacked by nonbelievers. She can’t win. “Explain to me, exactly, what I gain from this.”
“My free room. The magistra’s attention. Sophia’s hardly sleeping, she’s so concerned about you. Did you know that?” Katrijn slices her palm through the air. “Her hands went numb yesterday, she told me. Her headache is back. She’s worried sick about you.”
“I never wanted this.”
“Didn’t you, though? You come here parading about as a friar, the talk of the town, when you could have just joined as a woman. A regular woman. Like the rest of us. But no. You were too good for the gray dress, weren’t you?”
Aleys is stunned into silence.
“Just say it. You think you’re better than we are.”
“No. No, I don’t.” What comes from Aleys’s mouth surprises her. “The beguine life is beautiful.” The quiet pleasure of the company of women and the solace of the word of God. Itisbeautiful. It’s just not what she’s seeking. She wants the fast path to God, the shortcut that runs straight up the mountain. It doesn’t make her better than them, just different. She appreciates their ways.
Katrijn scoffs. “Really? You’ve been a threat to us from the day you arrived. The wool contract canceled. The bishop following us around.”
“You can’t blame me for that.”
“No? What were you doing with his man in the market? By the wheel?”
“Nothing.”
“So it was coincidence that he approached us after speaking with you?”
“I had no idea who he—”
“Tell me this,” says Katrijn, “how do we know you’re not the bishop’s spy?”
Aleys can’t speak. There’s nothing she can say to this woman. She turns on her heel, slams the chamber door behind her. The action extinguishes her candle, and she’s left in the dark, the walls ticking. After a moment, Katrijn storms down the stairs, but not without delivering a parting shot: “If you want to prove yourself, get the bishop off our back.”
27
The Bishop
Miracles are an issue for the bishop. He paces the nave of Sint-Salvator, avoiding the withering gaze of Christ over the altar. The peaked miter perched on his head begins to slide to the side, so Jan yanks it off and ruffles his hair. He can’t think straight in that hat. He resumes walking, turning the hat in his hands.
First, there’s the matter of his staff. Everyone is talking about the girl. Jan has heard the rumors; his priests, his cook, his footman all speak of the saint in the begijnhof. They can’t stop talking. The kitchen help are concocting false ailments to get into Sint-Janshospitaal just to see her; the scullion went so far as to stab himself in the thigh with a carving knife. Jan thinks to remind them that no one is a saint until he says they are, until Rome agrees, and certainly not before they are dead, but he holds his tongue. A surge of faith is swelling over the Low Countries like a wave that will swamp them all. Even in Brugge, especially in Brugge; today’s Mass was so crowded, they ran out of altar bread. It has been a week since anyone was murdered. He needs to stop this. They might wake God up with their fervor.
