Catherine, Called Birdy (3 page)

Suddenly everything stopped—no singing, no flinging, no weaving of willows. All eyes were on a young man standing in the road, holding the bridle of the most beautiful horse I've ever seen. The young man was beautiful, too, with golden hair and golden eyes and a tunic of gold and green velvet. No one spoke, but as I was right curious, I walked up to him.

"Good morning, sir. Can I assist you?" I asked, very nicely for me.

He stared at me long without speaking, while his forehead furrowed and his mouth grew small as a mouse's turd. Finally he replied, "My God, the stink! Is there no water for washing or scent for covering up in this village?"

I said nothing. I didn't think he really wanted an answer.

He went on, "Is that ahead the manor of Rollo of Stonebridge?"

"What do you want with the lord Rollo?" I asked.

"It be none of your business, maid, but I am inspecting the family with an eye to marrying the daughter Catherine," he replied, taking a piece of scent-drenched linen from his sleeve and holding it to his nose.

Corpus bones, I thought. To be wedded to this perfumed prig with his mouth in a knot and a frown always on his face! That is when I had my next very good idea.

"The lady Catherine," I repeated, trying to sound like a villager. "Oh, good fortune to ye, good sir. Ye sorely will need it."

"I will? Is aught amiss with the lady?"

"No, sir. Oh, no. She is a goodly lady, given that her wits are lacking and her back stooped. Mostly she is gentle and quiet, when she is not locked up. And the pits on her face are much better now. Truly. Please, sir, never say I suggested the lady Catherine was lacking. Please, sir."

I made then to grab his arm but he twisted away, leapt onto the back of the beautiful horse, and was off on the road toward the manor. Bones! I thought. He is still going on! But as I watched, the beautiful horse with the beautiful young man left the road, made a wide turn in the field, trampling the carefully seeded furrows of Walter Mustard, and tore off away from the
manor, away from my father, and, thanks be, away from me.

All during supper my father watched the door, finally pondering aloud about the whereabouts of someone named Rolf which I of course did not know. So this is why I am pleased with today, and pork pie seems not great enough celebration for what I have saved myself from.

10
TH DAY OF
O
CTOBER

Just three days to the feast of Saint Edward, my brother Edwards saint's day. When Edward was still at home, we celebrated this day each year with feasting and dancing and mock battles in the yard. Now our celebrations include my father's face turning purple, my mother tightening her eyes and her mouth, and the cook swinging his ladle and swearing in Saxon. The cause of all the excitement is this: On this day each year, since Edward went to be a monk, my mother takes wagons full of gifts to his abbey in his honor. My father shouts that we may as well pour his precious stores in the cesspit (one day his angry liver will set him afire and I will toast bread on him). My mother calls him Pinch-Fist and Miser. The cook boils and snarls as his bacon and flour and Rhenish wine leave home. But each year my mother stands firm and the wagons go. This year we send:

460 salted white herring
3 wheels of cheese, a barrel of apples
4 chickens, 3 ducks, and 87 pigeons
4 barrels of flour, honey from our bees
100 gallons of ale (for no one drinks more ale than monks, my father says)
4 iron pots, wooden spoons, and a rat trap for the kitchen goose fat for the making of everyday candles and soap (lots of candles and little soap, I wager, seeing that they are monks)
40 pounds of beeswax for candles for the church
a chest of blankets, linens, and napkins
horn combs, for those who have hair
goose quills, down, and a bolt of woven cloth (black)

My mother longs to see Edward on this day each year. He is her favorite child. No small wonder. Robert is abominable and I puzzle that she had any more children after bearing him first. I would have exposed him by the river. Thomas has been gone so long with the king that we hardly know him. I am stubborn, peevish, and as prickly as a thistle. So by default alone Edward would be her favorite. And mine.

11
TH DAY OF
O
CTOBER

Last night my mother lost the child she carried, the fifth I have seen die without ever having a chance to live. If God intends for me to be her last, I wish He would stop quickening her and then taking the baby away. She mourns so. I do not believe God means to punish my mother, who may not be learned or clever but is mostly good. I think He is just not paying enough attention.

White-faced, she lies in her big bed in the solar while Morwenna gives her goblets of garlic and mint and vinegar to cleanse her womb, and soothes her with "Oh my poor lady"s and clucking sounds. I must go with the wagons in her place and see Edward tomorrow—more learning to be the lady of the manor. Deus! The road is rough, the weather hot, the monks old and smelly. We leave after breakfast and hope to be well on the way before the sun finds us.

12
TH DAY OF
O
CTOBER

No more sewing and spinning and goose fat for me! Today
my life is changed. How it came about is this: We arrived at the abbey soon after dinner, stopping just outside the entry gate at the guesthouse next the mill. The jouncing cart did my stomach no kindness after jellied eel and potted lamb, so I was most relieved to alight.

A tall monk with a big nose greeted us and led us from the guesthouse through the abbey gate, past kitchens and dormitories and vast storehouses, to the abbot's office behind the chapel.

The abbot received us kindly and sent to my mother gentle words and a marvelous small book of saints, their feast days, and their great works. Today, it says, is the feast of Saint Edwin, the first Christian king of Northumbria, whose head lies at York and body in the abbey at Whitby. I think there are too many words and not enough pictures, but since I read and my mother does not, I will try to seduce it from her.

Brother Anselm, the big-nosed monk, then escorted me to Edward's desk in the writing room. Women are not allowed in ordinarily, but I believe they think me not quite a woman yet.

Edward works in Paradise. Beyond the garden, near the el, is a room as large as our barn and near as cold. Shelves lining the walls hold books and scrolls, some chained down as if they were precious relics or wild beasts. In three rows sit fifteen desks, feebly lit by candles, and fifteen monks sit curled over them, their noses pressed almost to the desktops. Each monk holds in one hand his pen and in the other a sharp knife for scratching out mistakes. On the desks are pens and quills of all sizes, pots of ink black or colored, powder for drying, and knives for sharpening.

Some of the monks copy the words from one page to another. Others add fanciful designs to the first letter and decoration to the page. Still others punch holes in the pages and
sew them together between wooden covers. Never have I seen books so beautiful or so plentiful.

The monks didn't talk to me much or even listen to me much, but they didn't send me away. I visited Brother William who was mixing colors and gave him some good ideas for inks—a rose the color of a newborn lamb's nose and the iridescent green you sometimes see in the film inside a fresh raw egg. He said nothing, only snorted, but I am sure he was grateful for these suggestions.

Another monk let me help prepare the vellum for the next day's writing, but I knew the skins came from our sheep and I was afraid I would recognize one. I have the same feeling when the cook stuffs swans and geese and lambs whole and sets them before us at special feasts. I preferred smoothing and powdering the vellum pages after they looked less like animals, even though the powder got into my hair and my nose and my clothes.

Edward's passion is for the letters and the words, which he inscribes lovingly on the softened vellum. But for me—oh, the pictures! The birds and the flowers, the saints and angels rushing up the side of the page, climbing over the capitals and down the margin, the knights riding snails into battle against squirrels and goats, the many faces of the Devil as he scampers over the page, tempting the reader away from the holy words. To spend the rest of my life making pictures instead of mending and weaving would be Heaven indeed!

That is when my life changed. I decided to run away to an abbey. This is how I will live, making pictures in the scriptorium, although I wish the place were livelier. I know it will be difficult, given that I am a girl, but I am also stubborn and clever. The abbey cannot be this one, as much as I would love
to be near Edward, for they know me here and know I am no boy. I must find another, close enough for visits from Perkin, with a writing room and mayhap an aged abbot who doesn't see too well.

Do brothers see each other naked? Who would know if a new brother were a maid and no brother at all? I must find out. Would Edward tell me? Tomorrow when I take my leave of him, I will ask.

Tonight we sleep at the guesthouse. It is near enough to the abbey so I can practice being a monk. I wonder what monks do.

13
TH DAY OF
O
CTOBER
,
Feast of Edward, king and saint, and my brother Edward's saint's day

A big difference between Robert and Edward is how they laugh at me. Robert laughs loudly, showing his big yellow horse teeth, pinching and slapping my cheeks. Edward laughs softly and kindly, but laugh he does. And did. He said with these apples on my chest, I would not fool even the most aged of abbots. Deus! Last year they were but walnuts and I might have gotten away with it.

I thought mayhap to join a nunnery instead, but as the chief occupation of nuns is embroidery, it would be like falling from the spit into the cooking fire. I could grow turnips, but I have neither land nor seeds. Be a tumbler, but I do not tumble, except when I am trying not to. A musician, but I do not play. I used to study music, since my mother said a lady must be accomplished, but the noise I made was so awful my father gave my lute to the cook. I could be a traveling spinner, but that is no escape. I am left with a beastly father, a life of chores, no hope, no friends, no escape, and a large bosom! Corpus bones! Is there no justice in the world?

14
TH DAY OF
O
CTOBER
,
Feast of Saint Callistus, slave, banker, convict, pope, and martyr

My mother must give me the little book of saints. I am already making use of it to find how saints lived and died and what lessons I may learn from them.

On the way home from the abbey we stopped at Highgate Manor to bring greetings to the Baron Ranulf's family, who are visiting there until Christmas. Their daughter, Lady Aelis, and I were together at Belleford long ago, learning highborn manners and the duties of a lady, until my mother lost another of my unborn baby brothers and in sorrow called me home. What I remember most about Aelis is she liked to complain, said "Yes, my lady" and "No, my lord" but did as she pleased when no one could see, and was more fun than anyone else.

She has been living of late at the French court. I watched her at supper. She looks to be a lady with her fancy French table manners and her yellow hair, but during the dancing she grabbed my arm and pulled me from the hall for a gossip. We tucked up our skirts and walked round and round the dark manor yard arm in arm, talking of who has rotten teeth and who married someone rich and ugly and who paints her face and stuffs her bosom.

We flirted with the guards and arranged to meet them later in a chamber, where we will send Aelis's old nurse and her sewing woman on some pretext. They will all have a surprise. Aelis told me she gets away with things because she looks so docile and innocent while she does just what she wants. She says she would like to be a horse trainer but knows she was brought home to wed. It appears that we are both in grave danger of being sold like pigs at autumn fair.

We pledged to meet in seven days' time at the high meadow, it being but half a day's walk for each of us. Since I left
Belleford I have not been much with other girls, and I long to tell her of my life and thoughts and wonderings and hear hers.

15
TH DAY OF
O
CTOBER
,
Feast of Saint Euthymius the Younger, who lived three years on nuts and herbs

Home again. While hiding from Morwenna before supper, I watched the geese returning from the pasture to their shed in the yard, all in a line like plump little knights in feathers.

I think I love geese more than any other birds because no one else does. They are not small and delicate like larks and sparrows, or swift and clever like hawks and falcons. They do not sing like nightingales and cannot be trained to talk or dance or do tricks. They are cunning, greedy, shortsighted, and stubborn—much like me, now that I think on it.

I have seen swans on the river. They are much more beautiful and stately than geese, but a little vain and not as smart. I think my mother is like a swan. My brother Robert is a rooster, strutting here and there, crowing about himself. Edward is a heron, with his long nose and long legs. Clever Perkin is a falcon, and my nurse Morwenna is a nuthatch, busy and brown and dumpy. My father of course is a buzzard, slow and stupid, the Devil take him. I think perhaps Aelis is a dove on the outside and a hawk within. And I am a plain gray and brown goose.

16
TH DAY OF
O
CTOBER
,
Feast of Saint Hedwig, who was unlucky in her children

Before I left the abbey, Edward showed me how to mix some colors and shape goose feathers into pens so I too can make flowers and angels. The black ink is easy. We have walnut husks and an abundance of soot. I also found buttercups, sneezeweed, and moss for yellows and greens, but have no lapis lazuli stone to grind for blue. I made a paste from crushed
bilberries that looks as blue as a robin's egg but grows sour and so sticky that I must add a task the brothers never dreamed of—picking bugs out of the heavenly sky or the Virgin's veil.