Lukas visits bearing exhortatory tracts regarding the hazards of loneliness. He warns her, through the curtain, that she must not succumb to the sin of despair. But her spiritual progress is more endangered by gossips than isolation, and she tells him that. So Marte is installed as gatekeeper. She is stern and forbidding, fierce, even. In the street outside the parlor, Marte plants her broom like a Templar plants a pike. None shall disturb the prayers of the recluse, be they saint’s kin or devil’s. Marte listens attentively for Aleys’samenbefore she admits anyone to the parlor. She shows them, one at a time, to a chair beneath the window, warns them to get to the point and keep their hands to themselves, then retires to the stool in the street outside the door, wrapping a shawl against the autumn chill.
Marte’s is the only face Aleys sees. Twice a day, Aleys and Marte draw back the curtains. Marte passes the meal in; Aleys lifts the chamber pot over the sill. They are practical. Matters are concrete. Aleys learns every crease of Marte’s brow, the subtle shades of her frown. The pursed frown, the resigned frown, the scowl that turns up in the corner when she tries not to laugh. It becomes a small sport, trying to make Marte laugh. Marte’s plain face becomes the grounded touchstone to Aleys’s reality. For with each passing week, the voices beyond the curtain become less corporal and the visions she receives more vivid.
Her hours are marked by prayer.
At Matins, in the black of night, Aleys rises to sing of his magnificence, of the sea, which he made, and of the dry land also. She pictures the swells and the vastness and the shelter of coves and relief of shore. Stars sing midnight hymns at Matins. His creation is revealed by candlelight, alive in her psalter. Cascades spill from the margins and pomegranates hang from the letters. The tiny book of hymn and lapis, psalm and leaf, contains his marvels. She does not need to have seen waterfalls to believe they exist.
At dawn, the hour of aurora and resurrection:Lord, open my lips so that my mouth may proclaim your praise.As the sun rises, the horn panes on her window glow, one by one, a ladder of praise. In her book, her fingers trace the images of spring, the robin’s egg, the May lily. She is lost in the hour of Lauds, so that when she finally stands from the prie-dieu, her mouth is dry.
The first hour, Prime, holds pleas for strength, for truth, for mercy for the day to come. An enlargement of heart.Hide not thy commandments. Teach me, Lord.She remembers to eat.
At the third hour, as the sun bends toward its zenith, Aleys prays for charity to be poured into her breast, to burn with fire. To worship with mouth, tongue, mind, sense, action. She prays for the town, she prays for Sophia, for Lukas, for Marte. And when people come to her window, as they will at this hour, when they ask for her blessing, she pours unto them the warm milk of morning grace that is Terce.
Sext is the hour of crucifixion, the glory and the horror. Daylight turned dark as they nailed him to the noontime cross; this hour carries midnight in its soul. Noon is a trickster in splendid garb: The serpent beguiled Eve in this time without shadow. But noon is also the death that is victory, the fall that is redeemed. It is the hour where prayer bears paradox, where logic falters and faith must lead. At noon, Aleys prays for understanding that does not come.
It is in the ninth hour, Nones, the hour of his death, that the demons descend. The sun drops toward the sea and the spirit sinks with it. She prays theRerum:Grant to this day an unclouded end, an eve untouched by shadows of decay.Some days her prayers are answered. But sometimes the horned beasts creep from the pages and her heart is unshielded. The demon, despair, and its servant, fatigue, hover at Nones.
Vespers is sunset. She sings the song of the gratitude that magnifies the Lord. Aleys sings with all her heart the words of her childhood:Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. And always, always, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. There is a sweet softness to Vespers. From her cell, she conjures hills turning lavender, the last golden light on the oak. Her fingers trace the psalter waves as the sun slips beneath them, to where she cannot follow. Vespers is the hour of simple faith that the light will rise again.
She breathes trust into the last prayer, Compline.Into thy hands, O Lord. You shall not be afraid of any terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day.
She lingers over the image of the archer in her psalter who perpetually releases his arrow toward the silver-red doe curled at the foot of a monk in blue. The monk and doe are surrounded by a golden sky and framed in climbing ivy. The doe’s face is lifted to the monk, who reads scripture from an open book. The doe is vulnerable and yearning; she leans in to hear his words. Aleys traces the path of the archer’s arrow and cannot tell if it will pierce the deer. She doesn’t know if the doe will live. She closes the psalter and sleeps a dreamless sleep in mystery.
At Matins, she rises for the midnight prayer. At Lauds she celebrates his dawn. Eight times a day she praises him. She feels him drawing near.
Her third night, in the unnamed hours, she hears spirits. Aleys lies rigid, her cheek against her sleeve, her ears as eyes into the pure darkness. Then, out of nothing, a whisper. She opens her eyes wide, as if she could see through ink. Then, again, she hears it, a rustling, quiet as the wings of bees on petals. Nothing. Then, once more, the sound. She laughs, for she realizes the commotion is her eyelashes brushing her sleeve. She blinks several times, and it is a flock of mallards taking flight. She rolls onto her back and laughs, imagining the ducks winging away. The air in her cell is dense as pudding. She feels, enfolded within stone, the stillness of the catacomb. She imagines the stone walls thick as miles, stretching on and on, so that there is nothing under heaven save the rock and this pocket of stillness, which is hers to violate with laughter and prayer and the flight of winged eyelashes.
But other nights, she is most definitely not alone, her cell porous to the world. Some nights, the echo of incense drifts through the squint like the sighs of angels. Sometimes, midnight creatures visit, loud as elk crashing through brush. These do not frighten her; she knows it’s just mice crept in through the squint or dropped from the parlor sill. They patter the length of the cell, scouting for crumbs, their squeaks like shouts in the marketplace. She tucks her blanket around her feet. She doesn’t really mind the mice. They’re company in the dark.
That is, until the morning her eyes fall on her prie-dieu and she recoils, hands to her mouth. For the upper corner of her psalter—its sumptuous calfskin cover, silky to the touch, embossed with vines—is eaten away. From the once smooth and perfect edge, shredded threads of leather dangle. Aleys brings herself to touch the defiled leather gently, like she would the mangled ear of a favorite dog. Tears spring to her eyes; she kisses it. Oh, Mama, she thinks. How could I have failed to protect our psalter? I’ve been careless. I should have slept with the prayer book in my hands. Aleys clutches Mama’s treasure to her breast, looks around for the villain.
When Marte comes, she receives the psalter from Aleys with both hands.
“Miss, your book.” She frowns. “’Tis the rats. They used to chew through our harnesses, at the farm. Once, Dagmar’s boot ...” She stops. Marte has seen too much of Dagmar’s boot.
It’s not rats, Aleys wants to protest,it’s just mice, but she realizes she doesn’t know that. The thought of rats in her cell, their long bald tails, horrifies her.
“Miss, shall I be taking your book to the saddler, then? I don’t know if he can repair it to what it was, seeing as it’s so fine, but he can round down the corner for you.” She opens it. “At least your pages are whole, which is a miracle, since rats are like to eat anything.” She turns a page and pauses. “Oh my. I didn’t know as there’d be pictures.” She looks up. She’s actually blushing, stoic Marte. “Do all the prayer books have these?”
Aleys nods. “The better ones.” She sees desire flare in Marte’s eyes.
“They go with the stories?”
“Of course. See, there’s the harrowing of hell.” She points at a drawing of Christ, his robes flowing behind him, reaching down into a pit for the hands of Adam and Eve, first to emerge. They look stunned. The sinners in the cauldrons look optimistic.
Marte turns the pages. A hushed reverence falls over her. “And this?” She stops at an image of a woman pouring from a pitcher, while another woman sits at the feet of Christ. “This would be Martha?”
“Your namesake.”
She nods, solemnly. “Martha, as was scolded by Christ for doing her work. I’ll see that the saddler takes right care of your book, miss. But you cannot have such a book as this, alone in your cell, what with rats and all.”
She tucks the psalter into her apron pocket and bangs out the door, and Aleys wants to leap after the book, through the parlor window, but it’s too small. She’s left rubbing the empty silk pouch between her fingers.
When Marte returns, Aleys hears a scuffle in the parlor. “Miss, open your window, quick-like!”
Aleys unbolts the parlor shutter, sweeps aside the curtain. Marte shoves something through, a stiff parcel of caramel fury. It jumps to the ground of the cell and immediately begins to hiss. The orange demon resolves into a cat the color of burnt sugar.
“There, miss. That should be the end of your rats.”
