Chapter 66 The Bishop
The Bishop
The bishop sees her from afar. The people bow before her, and she appears as a lit taper at the end of a tunnel.
He squints past her, looking for Lukas. Jan doesn’t know that his brother has closed himself inside the anchorhold, is just now bent in prayer.
Later, Jan will bury his brother, will turn the key in the lock, will consecrate him to the hold, where he will spend his days praying to the saint he wronged.
The noon bells toll.
Jan is annoyed that the hastily erected dais was not properly squared; it swayed when he mounted it, and it feels insubstantial beneath him now.
It’s barely large enough to accommodate the six of them.
The four churchmen are forced to huddle in the center like children hiding in a closet.
The abbot and Dominican stand just behind him in their brown and black.
The legate’s red cap brushes against his shoulder.
The bishop regrets the full gold and white regalia he donned this morning.
It warmed him the day of her funeral; it is heavy on this, the day of her death.
His hand slips on the shepherd’s crosier.
He just wants to get this over with and retreat to the shadow of his manor.
The mayor stands to one side, frowning, as if to distance himself from these proceedings, though he will give the signal to touch torch to wood.
The church mustn’t be stained with actual blood.
The mayor doesn’t want this, either. “They won’t like it, Jan,” he said.
“The people think she is theirs.” Then he added, “So do I.”
As the last bell fades, the crowd begins chanting “Sint!” The sound is faint at first, from the direction of the jail.
“Sint!” A fury pushes the words along the street—“Sint! Sint!”—into the Markt.
The voices are loud, the men angry, the women violent.
The chanting reaches and runs around the fragile platform so that Jan feels adrift on a small raft in an ocean of frenzy.
The abbot shifts his weight and Jan feels the creak of the wood rise through his feet. Only the legate is calm.
The bishop stamps his crosier hard into the dais for silence, three times, but the platform only trembles as the chant swells.
The people are all craning to see Aleys.
All but one. The bishop looks down and meets the green eyes of a small boy in a red jacket, holding the hand of his mother.
He blinks up at the bishop. Then, though he cannot possibly know the meaning, the boy stretches wide his perfect ruby lips and he, too, mouths Sint!
while looking straight at the bishop and the sight chills Jan to his bones.
“I will have them arrested,” he says.
“No,” says the legate. His voice is quiet.
“The people need something holy.” The small man presses his palms together and brings them to his heart.
It looks as though he’s praying. For a moment, Jan thinks the legate will step down into the crowd and join them in shouting “Sint!” Instead he says, “We have created a martyr.”
“It’s not too late,” says Jan. “We could reverse the verdict.”
The legate shakes his head. “The decisions of the pope are the decisions of God. We weave his design.” Jan will never understand this man.