Chapter 4
Elsebeth
Ursula is a papist.
Worse than that, I think she might be a nun.
Oh, she’s tried to hide it, but she’s not good at it, not at all. I’ve seen the rosary around her neck made of pretty wooden beads all shiny from use, and I have seen her make the sign of the cross twice already with her dainty hands.
White and cool as lilies those hands are.
How could I not look at them?
And if I hadn’t seen that, well, then I would have known when I saw her stare at that skull as if she’s half in love with it.
When she told me how they wrap the skulls in gauze to keep them clean, I knew for certain that she’s a papist all right, a papist through and through, and mayhap a nun to boot, or she wouldn’t be saying “we” and “us.” No Protestant handles bones like that, and no Protestant would believe the fairy story that poor dying wretch told us about a saint granting those who give her back her skull a wish, either.
Wish granting is for God alone.
If He even exists, that is.
Lately, I have begun to think He does not, for what all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing God would allow for such horrors as we encountered on the road to be visited upon His flock? Surely no sin can warrant such a correction? As a girl, I felt His presence everywhere. Now, I just feel alone.
If I were the godly woman Ursula believes me to be, I would turn my back on her now and try to forget all about this, for it can only lead to tears and more suffering.
And yet for all that I know this is a fool’s errand, I cannot leave her.
Ursula seems to know so little of this world, I might have thought her an innocent if she didn’t speak so prettily.
If I am not there to guide and shield her, I know in my heart something dreadful will happen to her, and although the papists are to blame for this war, for the tyrant emperor left the nobles of Austria and Bohemia no other choice but to rebel when he tried to force Catholicism on all of us, that doesn’t mean she deserves to die.
The thought of any harm coming to her makes my belly squirm as if it has been filled with eels.
And if there is indeed a wish at the end of all of this, then I may wish for my grandmother, my father, my mother, my big sister, Margarethe, and my little brothers, Friedrich and Johannes, to…
I may wish for them to…
I dare hardly think it, for if I let this hope into my heart only for it to be dashed to pieces…
Well, that would mutilate and maim me, would ravage and raze me.
Mayhap Ursula’s manner of talking is like the devil’s, pouring pretty prattle into my ear and filling my head with vain hope. I may no longer be certain in my belief in God, but I have seen too much not to believe in Satan.
I look at her as she sits with that dead man, praying for his eternal soul, her head bowed meekly, exposing the pretty curve of her neck.
All white it is, that neck, even whiter than her hands.
Don’t nuns wear wimples that cover their necks, keeping them marble white even when they toil in the fields?
How pretty she looks, how pious!
But looks can deceive.
If she is of the devil, she will lie to me, and then I shall know her for what she truly is.
I smile as I think about this. The devil may be crafty, yes, but then so am I, or I would’ve been dead three times over, wouldn’t I?
And so I ask, “You are a nun, aren’t you?”
She freezes, like she did on the road, and looks at me all frightened from the tail of her eye, like a rabbit being hounded, her folded hands shaking.
“Aren’t you?” I press.
She squeezes her eyes shut.
“Aren’t you?” I say, for three is the Lord’s number and shall compel her to answer me, as indeed it does.
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Why did you lie to me? Don’t you know lying is a sin, or do they teach you nothing in those convents but worshipping bones?”
She winces, and I know I am being mean, even cruel, for what strife do I have with her?
But since I have already promised to throw in my lot with hers and travel these godforsaken roads with her whilst carrying that ghastly skull done up so horribly with hair and embroidery, I am to know who and what she is.
“I was afraid,” she tells me. “I’ve heard of what horrible things might be done to me if the wrong people discover what I am.”
I have heard such tales, too. I find myself softening, so much so that I almost reach for her.
I have known her for scarcely a day, and already I find myself craving her touch.
Mayhap it’s because I have been lonesome for too long, for my grandmother did always say that a lone woman is easy prey for the devil.
Ask I, “You said you were traveling to see family. Was that a lie as well?”
“No, no!” She reaches for me, hesitates, then lets her hands fall to her lap, where they lie like doves, and my traitorous heart feels heavy with disappointment that she did not touch me.
It has been such a long time since anyone touched me with love that I can’t well remember the last time it happened.
“I didn’t lie,” she says softly. “My fellow sisters are my family, and it is them I’m braving the roads for. Our guardian ordered us to flee because of the approaching troops. He feared we might be killed by the soldiers, or worse, if we stayed behind. But some of my sisters refused.”
I cock my head. If I knew soldiers were coming, I would run like the wind. “Why?”
She looks at her hands as she speaks. One of her fingers twitches.
“They were too old or too sick, or they were tired of fleeing. Our order is a cloistered one. Once we become nuns, we are not supposed to ever leave the grounds. I asked Reverend Mother Regina what I should do, because we made a vow of obedience and must heed her in everything we do. She told me I was free to choose.”
“And you chose to run?”
It’s just a question, not a reproach, but she looks up from her hands as if stung, her eyes glistening with feeling. “I was afraid, so horribly afraid, of what might be done to me if I stayed…”
She swallows, then winces. There’s a circle of bruises at her throat left there from that soldier’s attack.
I remember the crunch as I bashed that rock against his head, and I can’t help but feel satisfied with myself, for from the fit he had straight after, pissing himself and gnashing his teeth, I am sure he will never hurt another again.
“We went to a sister convent,” Sister Ursula goes on.
“It was only a small one, and we were with too many, so the Reverend Mother had us split up. Sister Hildegard…” Her breathing hitches, and she makes this strange raw sound, half a gasp and half a gag, as if the name of her fellow nun is a fish bone that has lodged itself into the soft flesh of her throat.
Again she swallows. Something inside of her throat clicks. “Sister Hildegard,” she goes on, her voice raw now, “and I were to travel to a Carmelite convent. She was our choir mistress. She had this heavenly voice, so pure and strong…” She falters.
“You were to travel to a convent,” I say, gently leading her back to her story.
She wipes at her cheeks, all silvered with tears. “Yes. Yes, we were, but on the way, she became sick. It was some sort of infection of the belly, and then I… Well, she died, leaving me all alone. I didn’t know what to do then.” She works her hand under her collar to clutch her rosary for comfort.
I know she is not telling me everything, but I know better than to press. I have things I don’t want to talk about, too, don’t I?
(Like my big sister Margarethe, like the soldiers.)
“So you decided to go back to the one place you knew?” I ask.
“Yes.”
She looks up at me, her brown eyes large and pleading.
“Please, Elsebeth, don’t be angry with me.
I did not mean to lie; I know it is a sin.
Please tell me you shall come with me still, if only for your own sake.
Even if you don’t believe you shall be richly rewarded, it’s not safe, traveling all alone. ”
Is this what those soldiers see every day: a beautiful woman on her knees, her face pale with fright, beseeching them to have mercy?
There is a kind of dark pleasure in it. No wonder that witch I saw burned sold her soul to the devil to have such power always at her fingertips.
A fly tries to land on my face, filling my ears with its disgusting droning sound. Don’t they say that flies are attracted to those who are corrupted by sin?
I am disgusted with myself then. I grab Ursula’s hands, roughly haul her to her feet, slap at her skirts for her to dislodge the crumbs of earth and the maggots that cling to the brown fabric.
“Don’t be daft,” I grumble. “I told you already that I’d come with you, didn’t I?
And I never break my word unless I can help it, for that would be dishonest, and there’s little I hate as much as dishonesty.
Now come. Let us take care of this man’s body and then get out of these woods. ”
* * *
We can’t bury the man. For all that the ground is soft, we have nothing to dig with.
Sister Ursula tries for a while with her hands, for she says burying the dead is a corporal act of mercy, whatever that may mean, but it’s no use.
If she keeps going that way, we will be here for days.
Instead, we say a prayer for him, close his eyes, fold his hands, and place two pebbles on his eyes to keep them shut, for looking into the eyes of the dead brings bad luck.
I also bind his jaw shut with a bit of cloth torn from his shirt.
I take care that no fabric touches his lips so he won’t become a Nachzehrer.
“What are you doing?” Ursula asks me when I place some more pebbles in the dead man’s hand and strew them around his feet.