Chapter 32 Friar Lukas
Friar Lukas
Lukas feels himself split. One piece is at Sophia’s side.
“Go forth, faithful Christian,” he intones, commending her to the saints and angels.
But another piece of him is already following Aleys, to stop her flight, to demand, how—how did you do that?
For this is what he saw: He saw Sophia’s features soften as Aleys prayed over her trapped spirit.
He saw Sophia’s spirit set free from its cage of flesh, in the moment when her eyes met Katrijn’s, and he knew that she could see, though she’d been blind moments before.
The women, all three of them—Katrijn, Sophia, and Aleys—were paused in tableau, captured in unconscious glory.
Though it was not the miracle they sought, nonetheless a holiness had descended upon them.
Or had risen from Sister Aleys, for she was lit with grace.
His eyes are wet. As the bell tolls, Friar Lukas is shaken with grief and wonder.
And as Sophia’s sisters lay out her body and begin the prayers of purgatory, he takes his leave of them.
Outside, he shoulders his way through a crowd gathered on the bridge and all around the shore of the begijnhof pond and down the canal.
The bell stops tolling. The crowd is strangely hushed, everyone facing the island.
The moon hides behind racing clouds, so it takes him a moment to understand what he sees.
In the center, there’s a mound of brown wool.
Then he realizes it’s Aleys, collapsed. Swans surround her like guardians.
Her robe is torn, her sandals and belt gone.
Even her veil has disappeared. With her hair half grown in, brown and spiky, she looks like a street urchin.
When he wades into the waters, mud sucks at his sandals and an animal smell wafts up; he is wet to his thighs.
The swans part. He lifts Aleys easily, gathering her in and tucking her head against his chest. As he wades back, his robes trailing, he knows he holds a living saint in his arms. The crowd surges toward him, but he shouts, “Stand back!”
Some of them clutch scraps of brown wool in their fists; he wants to hit them. He reins in his wrath and storms across the bridge. The people give way. They look ashamed.
At the begijnhof entrance, Ida has one hand on each of the enormous doors. She shakes her head no. Her eyes say she’s sorry.
“I’m to stop you,” she says.
“She needs attention.” Ida is birdlike, he could easily force his way in.
“Katrijn doesn’t want her here.”
“The magistra promised her shelter.”
“Sister Katrijn is the magistra now.” Ida backs through the doors and closes them. He hears her slide the bolt.