Chapter 56 Aleys
Aleys
Midsummer Eve. Torches illuminate the amber window as revelers make their way through the town, casting strange flickering shadows on her walls.
A crew of men sing-shout in slurred voices, “Some be brown and some be white, and some of them be cherry ripe.” The words fade as they turn the corner, but Aleys’s mind finishes the verse: “Yet all they be not so.” The carousing fades away.
A part of Aleys follows them to the landing, where they’ll light a bonfire to ward off demons that roam free on this night when the sun turns south.
She thinks of the beguines singing the Canticle tonight, if they still dance to tambourine and flute.
Was that just a year ago? She remembers Sophia bending toward the harpist, whispering in her ear.
It will be Katrijn now. Who will sing Cecilia’s part?
Even Marte will be dancing with them tonight.
It seems her allegiance to Ida and the other beguines outweighs her skepticism of Katrijn.
Just this afternoon she told Aleys she was thinking of taking the gray dress.
Longing constricts Aleys’s throat. Though Sophia is gone, though Ida may sing solo, Aleys wishes she was in the company of women tonight. Midsummer is no night to be alone.
She thinks of Finn. The monks will be fasting to atone for the town’s festive excesses and to fend off evil spirits, but at least they have each other. She wonders if Finn thinks of her; he hasn’t returned to her parlor since his surprise visit in spring.
The bells of Matins fade. She clasps her hands before her, presses her forehead into them.
Venite, exultamus Domino, she begins. These small hours were once her favorite, a solitary communion while the town slumbered and she sang glory unto the darkness.
It was at Matins that she most felt the comfort of his presence.
In his hand are all the corners of the earth, and the strength of hills is his also.
She sang romance to the night skies. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.
Now he no longer answers her, and though she reaches, tonight she feels no joy.
She can’t even rid the revelers’ smutty song from her mind.
She sighs and thinks of Job’s words: I am a brother to dragons and a companion to owls.
She keeps company with foul creatures, doubt and despair.
The outer door groans.
Not again. Someone’s entered her parlor.
Aleys sighs her amen. It will be a carouser booted out by his wife.
She should have known this night would know no peace.
Aleys shoots her thoughts into the other room.
Go home. She hears a clatter as the man stumbles into the table.
Get out. Aleys rises to check the bolt on the parlor window.
Her heart stops. The shutter is outlined by light, the way sun rims the clouds.
The fool has carried a torch into her parlor.
A tendril of burning tar reaches her nostrils.
Her eyes begin to water. She imagines the cushion on the chair smoldering, the tablecloth igniting, the curtain catching, smoke curving around her shutters, filling her cell.
She looks at Kat, who sits alert, ears pressed back.
He could escape through the squint, but she .
. . If she shouts, would anyone hear? Get the idiot out of here—please, God, get him out.
Aleys presses her hands against the shutter, willing him away.
Her movement seems only to draw the man closer, his breathing fast and urgent just the other side of the shutter.
“Go away!” she says. “Leave a holy woman in peace.” The man fumbles with the parlor curtain, tearing it aside, and pounds his fist into the wood.
The shutter slams against its bolt. Kat jumps from the cot, back arched.
The visitor bangs again, and bright light bursts around the edges of the shutter.
Aleys tries to command the man. “Leave!” she repeats, but her voice is a hoarse whisper.
She can hear his breath, louder, faster.
He bangs again. Then the man exits, slamming the parlor door behind him.
The shutter fades black into the wall. He’s gone.
She blesses the bolt. She swallows, licks her lips, finds them dry.
Her terror ebbs, her breath resumes. Kat’s eyes glow in the dark, following outside, around the corner, into the road. Kat senses something Aleys cannot.
Torchlight flickers across the horn window.
A silhouette is framed, ghoulish, swelling as the man peers into her cell, receding as he pulls back to look up the street.
Kat gives a low throaty growl. The light licks the panes and the shadow pulses in and out of focus.
Aleys backs against the opposite wall, pressing herself into the narrow strip between the door and the squint.
The man can’t see her, she knows, but she senses his eyes raking over her body.
Go to the devil, she thinks, and the thought stops her.
What if the devil has come to her? It is Midsummer’s night—anything could happen.
Uncertainty grips her gut. She edges toward her altar, touches the crucifix.
Protect me. She lifts the cross from its nail and hugs it to her chest and it jerks with her heartbeat.
She presses herself back against the wall, eyes glued to the window.
Then the creature steps away. The flames on the horn panes fade.
All falls dark again. Aleys listens to the receding steps, then peels herself from the wall.
Light, she needs light. She gropes for a piece of straw, her hand shaking as she lifts a shuddering flame from the banked hearth to her candle.
She is not ready to let go of the cross, so she fumbles with one hand, must try twice before the wick catches.
“There. Better. Right, Kat?” Her familiar room jumps from the darkness, the comfort of her four walls like old friends. “Nothing to fear. No demons. Just us.”
But Kat is in a crouch, ears pricked. Aleys listens, alert.
Then she hears it, a small noise, the creak of the cathedral doors.
No. A demon cannot enter a church. She moves toward her squint but knows she won’t be able to see down the aisle.
The thought of the devil’s face, his leering red eyes appearing suddenly in the squint scares her, and she steps back, pressing the cross to her lips.
Footsteps approach. She cannot remember what the aisle looks like; she can only picture the diamond tiles of her home church, and she wishes she were there in her blue dress and brown braid, on the portal of the village church, full of love, safe.
She is safe, she tells herself. These walls are my fortress, God is my keeper.
But fear lights up her veins. The steps draw closer.
She prays, Exi ergo, transgressor. Give way, thou most horrible, give way, thou most wicked, give way.
The steps stop outside her door that is no door.
Her heartbeat runs shallow and fast and she tries to swallow her own breath so she can hear.
The creature is fiddling with the latch.
She can only clutch the cross tighter. Sulfur seeps through the squint; its open arms blink with fire.
She looks down to see an orange cross pulsing on her shift.
She tries to wipe it away, desperate, but she feels pinned in place. She is trapped within her sanctuary.
Then she hears the impossible, the click of a lock turning. It is quiet, subtle, but the sound inserts a key in her chest, slides between her ribs, as if someone spins a poker into her flesh.
“Go away!” she shouts, and this time, her voice is loud. “Leave me, Satan!”
A scraping of iron on iron, as the bolt slides away. The door swings outward, slowly. The hinges moan. No, she thinks. No.
The light of the torch casts an orange path into her cell.
There is no one outside the door. Beyond looms an enormous space, an emptiness that rushes away and away into the blue-black cathedral.
Leagues of air stream in, forcing her lungs open.
She claps her hand over her mouth to keep from drowning.
The altar recedes like a boat blown back in a gale.
She feels lifted to her feet toward the gaping space beyond, abyss and tower, unfathomable.
It is as if a devil’s current would pull her from the hold, dragging her from God.
Excommunication lies beyond the open door, and the devil knows that. He is tempting her to step out.
Aleys braces herself against the frame, digging her nails into the wooden jamb to keep from being sucked into the incomprehensible maw of the church.
One step. One step and she would be out.
The space unfolds like a map. The vaulted ribs of the cathedral are impossibly far.
The crucifix above the altar shrinks. Christ is so small in the vast church.
She concentrates on her vow of enclosure, her small safe anchor. She shoves off to the back of the hold.
A hooded silhouette enters the doorway. Aleys’s heart seizes. She raises the cross. “Get from me, Satan!”
The figure shakes its head. “I come in the name of God.”
She knows the voice. It’s Lukas. Her voice is a low growl. “You have no business here.”
“I come in celebration.”
“Go to the bonfire, then. I have nothing for you. Go to the bishop.”
“We don’t need the bishop.” He steps inside. She can see his face now. There’s something strange in his eyes.
“I beg you. Leave me in peace.”
“Aleys,” Lukas says soothingly. “Aleys, Aleys. Do not be afraid. We must celebrate. It is Midsummer and the groom is in the antechamber.”