Chapter 35 Friar Lukas
Friar Lukas
Friar Lukas watches as she descends the stairs in a dress, some fine green thing.
Her hair is short and bristling. She is a changeling.
The dress restores her as female, abruptly, violently, before his eyes.
He can hardly look at her. He wonders how his brother owns such a gown, but he knows better than to ask.
He cannot object, not when her robe is in tatters.
She is not herself. She does not seem Franciscan.
She gives his brother the coldest look he’s ever seen anyone dare give a bishop.
When Jan suggests, in his oiliest tones, the anchorhold, Aleys looks up to the ceiling and laughs. She says, “You mean a fox den?” When she looks back at them, she is wiping tears from her eyes. “Or a bird’s nest?” Lukas wonders if the violence of last night’s mob has deranged her.
“Tell me,” she says, “about it.”
He needs to talk her out of this. He’ll find some other solution. His brother is pressing his case, adorning the argument. Jan tells her she will live the vita angelica, the life of God’s favored angel. Her prayers and meditation will rain blessings upon Brugge.
“Like last night,” she spits at Jan.
“You will be a recluse,” says Lukas. “For life.”
“Yes, I understand.” She nods, too eager. “I am willing.”
Lukas cannot believe she understands. “You’ll never leave the anchorhold. Not for illness, not even for madness.” She may already be mad. “You’ll be interred.”
“Symbolically interred,” corrects Jan.
Lukas presses. “You will be permanently enclosed in the cell. You’ll never come out. You’ll never touch another person. Your family, your friends . . .”
“They can visit through the window,” says Jan.
Aleys regards the bishop with a look of disdain. “I gave up that life already.”
“If you set foot outside the anchorhold,” Lukas warns, “you’ll be excommunicated.
” He wants to command her to remain in the brotherhood, though he knows it’s not a viable alternative.
Jan has backed him into this corner. Still, he wants to order her to stay.
If he could change her into a falcon and tether her to his wrist, he would.
His urge to demand her obedience is strong and irrational. He has no counteroffer, yet he presses.
“Excommunicated, Sister! You would be denied the sacraments if you left.”
“If I leave the hold, I will be banished from the Church,” she says calmly, “and society. I understand perfectly. I would be a pariah. But what need will I have to leave?” Lukas feels her tense, ready to fly.
“Friar Lukas will be your confessor,” says Jan, “and your hold has a squint onto the cathedral, so you can watch him celebrate Mass.” Lukas knows it’s a concession to let a Franciscan preach in his church. “You will receive communion from his hand.”
Lukas has seen the squint from inside Sint-Salvator, the narrow window carved into the wall that separates the church from the anchorhold. It’s cut in the shape of a cross, barely wide enough for a hand to pass through to administer communion to the hermit within.
“You need to see the hold before you commit.” But Lukas can tell. She’s already left him for God.