Chapter 10 Aleys
Aleys
The begijnhof turns its brick back to Brugge, facing inward, each house tight against the next.
Here and there, windows push open above a canal that swells into a pond before the entrance.
An arched footbridge cinches the middle of the pond like a belt.
Half a dozen vigilant swans patrol a miniature island.
Others stand guard on the bank. Each twists its thick neck to fix Aleys with inked eyes, feathered soldiers defending a moat.
It’s not what she expected. Aleys thought the beguines would live in lopsided, debauched houses, loose beamed and flapping open to the town.
Hardly. The cobbled entrance to the begijnhof seems like a drawbridge to a tidy fortress.
It’s entirely enclosed. The busy square outside is crammed with the shops of butchers and bakers, a tailor and a chandler, mostly fronted by brick, but some in beam and plaster, and one in ramshackle wood that leans over the canal.
Inside the begijnhof, across the bridge and through doors the height of two men, Aleys senses something different.
She follows Friar Lukas over the bridge.
He never told her that she’d be a novitiate, like the new girl at a nunnery.
What if she fails? She can’t go home. Her stomach clenches.
Not even a convent would take a failed Franciscan who ran away.
She adjusts her robe, rubs her arms to calm herself.
She will hold her head high as she enters this arena.
The beguines aren’t wild beasts, she tells herself, just wild women.
They pass through the entrance and the sound of carts and commerce falls away.
Aleys stops short at the scene before her.
Within the contained court, all is white and green and breeze.
A ring of whitewashed homes, maybe twenty or thirty, each capped with red-tile bonnets, hugs a large grassy yard lined with tall trees strung end to end with linens.
A faint smell of brine gusts over the rooftops.
They’ve stepped into another world. Papa once brought home a decorated egg; you peered through a small round window in the shell, and beheld inside a miniature scene of the nativity, perfect and complete.
Aleys had wanted to enter that world, to dig her fingers into the sheep’s wool, to gaze into Mary’s eyes, to lift the infant from the cradle and sniff its milky skin.
Papa let her keep the egg on her altar for a week before he returned it to the sailor he’d met on the wharf.
She mourned its loss. Aleys would have crept inside that egg and never come out.
The wind shifts, a change in tempo, and the sheets on the lines begin to rise and fall in waves, a billowing ocean of snow, and Aleys imagines she could swim from one end of the courtyard to the other, where a gray stone church rises like a headland.
The breeze shifts again and the sheets snap like the wings of gulls rising from the sea. She can’t tear her gaze from them.
“Sister.” Friar Lukas is speaking. “Aleys?” It seems the sheets have a message for her. What is it? What is God saying? Lukas should stop interrupting.
All falls silent. The spell is broken. The linens settle back to their lines. Cloth alleys appear between trees. Between them, brown-stockinged legs kick a ball. Giggles rise from the bleaching.
“Ach! Don’t you muddy my sheets with that ball!
” Across the courtyard, an exasperated young woman stands from her stool and waves bristled paddles at the children, fine strands of wool trailing down her wrists.
She and two others are carding outside one of the houses, a black cat stretched on the sill behind them.
The rhythmic scritch scratch halts as all three look at Aleys and Lukas.
The giggling stops. A ball rolls from the linen alley as if presenting for punishment.
One of the carders pushes aside a blonde braid with the back of her wrist as she looks up at Aleys.
The third woman elbows the first: “Look, see? That must be her.” Aleys is suddenly conscious of her monkish robe, her smudge of brown amidst the green and breeze.
They are staring at her, three young women in simple dress and aprons, judging Aleys in the strange robe with the thrice-knotted belt.
I’m wearing linens underneath, just like you, she thinks.
You don’t need to stare. Aleys lifts her chin.
She will be as brave as Perpetua entering the arena.
Then the church bell rings, the three turn in unison toward a house, a door opens, a tall woman exits, the cat hops down, and Aleys feels gears whirring, like she’s stepped inside a well-tempered clock.
She half expects the woman in the doorway to chirp the hour.
Instead, the woman pauses to kick the ball back to the children.
Small hands show under the sheets, grasp the ball, throw it down the linen alley.
The children are off again. Laughter resumes from the laundry.
All is set right, the hour resumes. Straightening, the woman notices them.
“Friar Lukas. I thought we might see you this morning.”
The woman’s bearing is elegant and brisk, her eyes clear and intelligent. In a simple white veil and wimple over a plain gray dress, she could pass in town for a widow. A happy widow. Her face bears the creases of contentment.
Friar Lukas places his hands inside his sleeves, gives a small bow. He has obvious regard for this woman. “Magistra.” He turns to Aleys. “I introduce to you the magistra of the Wijngaerde, Grand Mistress Sophia Vermeulen.”
The magistra inclines her head. “Introductions are unnecessary, Lukas. Your young sister is the woman of the hour.” Her eyes rest on Aleys’s face.
“Everyone is talking about you.” She seems more amused than shocked.
Raising an eyebrow, she inclines her head toward the women who’ve set down their carding paddles and are drawn into a knot, simply gaping.
“It’s not every day someone runs from her betrothed to join a band of friars. ”
“I didn’t run from him.” Even as Aleys blurts the words, she wonders if they’re true. “I was running to God.” Lukas shifts, embarrassed, like she’s said something indecent.
Sophia regards her with a steady gaze. The moment stretches, the older woman studying the younger one. Finally, the magistra nods. “Yes, child, I think you were.”
Sophia shifts her focus to Lukas. “You would have her stay with us? Your brown—what do we call her? Nun?”
“I’m not a nun.”
“Friar, then?” Sophia purses her lips to hide a smile.
Lukas interrupts. “Sister will do.”
“Certainly. We are all sisters here.” Then, as if she detects Aleys’s reluctance, “This is your wish? To live with us?”
Of course not, Aleys thinks, but Lukas’s stare binds her like a commandment. She nods.
Sophia’s cheeks hollow slightly. “Of course, you’ve heard tales about the begijnhof.”
Aleys feels a blush rise to her cheek. Here, in this crisp courtyard, the rumors seem implausible.
She’s heard strange things about these women.
People say beguines are not just immoral in the regular ways, vice and lust and wickedness.
They’re immoral in ways no normal person would even want.
They pray at the bedsides of the dying, for nothing.
It’s too virtuous, such charity. A priest will mumble last rites and leave with your coins in his pocket.
The beguines will stay at your deathbed and pray in low voices, ushering you from your last breath in this world to your first breath in the next.
People call them the midwives of death. Claus used to stumble about the yard, pretending to be a beguine, arms outstretched like the reaper.
Henryk claimed their prayers were as potent as those of virgins, but he still wouldn’t want to touch one.
Only Papa thought it unfair that the healthy were quick with their insults but quicker still to call the beguines to their deathbeds. Oh, Papa. You never imagined me here.
Sophia sees her blush. “Yes, I can see you’ve heard about us.
People will sow rumor like spring seed. They need better stories.
” She presses two fingers to the edge of her eyebrow.
“The truth of the begijnhof is too plain for a good tale. We commit to three things: simplicity, charity, and chastity. They’re not formal vows, nor lifelong ones, but we pledge them to each other.
And we support ourselves, so of course we value industry.
” She looks at the carding women. “More industry than gossip,” she says loudly, and waves the back of her hand at them.
The three resume carding, though not without frequent glances their way.
“You’ll join us in work, as well as worship? ” She raises her eyebrows at Lukas.
“Sister Aleys will do what you require,” he answers.
Aleys bites her tongue. She can’t fail her vow of obedience on her first day. But she left home to pray, not card wool. He’s presenting her like a draft horse. He might as well have a switch in his hand. The magistra looks pained. As she starts to say something, they are interrupted.
“Friar Lukas!” Behind them, a large woman in gray strides through the arch, a leather purse slapping against her thigh. The chink of coins accentuates her step. As she bears down on them, heat lifts from her in waves.
“Lukas, how could you do this to us?”
She stops just short of Sophia. The two women are of similar age, but where character has written grace on Sophia’s face, it has chiseled indignation into this one.
“Magistra, this morning I had a meeting with Pieter Mertens. Or should have had”—her jaw tightens—“to set the summer wool price. Then the van Bruyk daughter, from Damme, this one”—her hand chops at Aleys—“jilts him.” She glares at Lukas.
“To become one of yours. That’s what they’re saying.
” She appeals to Sophia. “Pieter’s in a foul mood.
He’s a laughingstock from here to the sea.
And Lukas would deposit her in the begijnhof? ”
Lukas opens his mouth, but she rounds on him. “Did you stop to think how this would affect us? Did you even think to clear it with the bishop?” She spits out the word. “What will your brother say?”
Aleys isn’t sure she’s heard right. His brother? Friar Lukas is brother to the bishop? He never said. However, there seems to be a lot she failed to ask about. Like where she would live.
Friar Lukas’s mouth narrows. “I don’t owe the bishop any . . .”
“Oh, spare me your family quarrel. You need his approval. We all know it. Or you’ll bring nothing but trouble upon your order.
And on us, if you drag us into this business.
A girl who abandons a contracted marriage to join a band of men?
Why would we invite such scandal under our roof?
A real scandal? When half the town tars us with lies?
And our wool contract!” She claps her hands to her wimple.
“Why in heaven’s name, Mistress Sophia, would we take this girl in? ”
“Because, Sister Katrijn, Friar Lukas is our confessor, and he has asked it of us.”
“We don’t owe him obedience.”
“No,” she agrees, “not obedience. But we do owe him our trust. If Lukas brings us a girl who’s dedicated her life to that of an apostle, we will shelter her. Imagine if he had brought us the Magdalene, Katrijn. Would we turn her away? Christ’s favorite?”
Katrijn exhales sharply and looks toward the church. Mistress Sophia places her hand on Katrijn’s elbow. Katrijn softens at her touch.
“Sister.” Sophia’s voice is gentle, but its authority unquestionable. “I have already decided.”
“Mary Magdalene better earn her keep,” grumbles Katrijn.
Sophia ignores this. “Very well,” she says to Lukas. “We will put Sister Aleys in the dormitory.”
“And she will work where?” demands Katrijn. “I don’t suppose she can handle coin.” She looks hard at Lukas. The thought is plain on her face: You Franciscans, too pure to handle money, but quick enough to let hardworking people fill your bowls.
Aleys decides she doesn’t like Sister Katrijn.
“Enough, Katrijn,” says the grand mistress. “There is ample work for her.”
Sophia claps her hands. “Cecilia!” Across the courtyard, the girl with the blonde braid brightens and passes her carding paddles to the others, dusting her hands on her smock.
As she nears, a frizz of wheat-colored curls escapes Cecilia’s cap.
She wears a dress of the sort a country girl might wear to church.
Cecilia beams at her. “Hello, miss.” She bobs a curtsy. Aleys inclines her head.
“Sister,” Sophia corrects Cecilia. “We are one family in the begijnhof.” Aleys senses that the message is meant for her as well. “Sister Cecilia, please show Sister Aleys to the dormitory.”
Cecilia’s eyes dart to Katrijn, seeming to check her approval. Katrijn’s lips tighten but she gives a small nod.
“Now,” Sophia adds.
Cecilia takes Aleys’s arm and guides her down the path, but not before Aleys hears Sophia’s next words. “The girl can stay, Lukas. But Katrijn asks a good question. What exactly does the bishop know of this?”