“Are you saying that Sister Hildegard is lying, Brother Prior?” The abbot raised an eyebrow in his direction.
“I am saying there is no proof,” he repeated petulantly.
“There is no proof because we were alone when she expressed her will,” I said. “I suggested Sister Juliana myself, but Sister Jutta did not believe she wanted it.”
“It is not a matter of choice but of duty.”
“We cannot force anybody to lead a community against their will.” The abbot spread his arms. “It is too important a role. Sister Juliana’s stance on the matter will be easy enough to verify,” he added for the prior’s benefit, then gave me a considering look. “And what was your answer?”
“I said I was ready to lead if they chose me.”
“Father Abbot, she lacks the experience. It would be an insult.” The contempt had left Helenger’s voice and was replaced by a ring of frustration that I knew would give way to anger next.
Kuno leaned on his desk and steepled his fingers under his chin, contemplating me. In that moment, I saw how he, too, had aged. His face, once round and red, had thinned and become more lined, folds of skin hanging on the sides of his jaw. His hands were covered with brown spots, their knuckles more prominent than I had remembered.
“I will nominate you,” he said, raising his hand as the prior opened his mouth to protest, “but a nomination does not assure an election. The anchoresses will have to vote, and if there is a tie, I will break it.”
“But Father Abbot—” Helenger’s eyes widened as if to say, What about that other matter?
I guessed immediately what was on his mind but took care not to reveal it.
“I have made my decision,” Kuno said wearily.
“Can I make a request, Father?” I asked, encouraged.
He nodded cautiously.
“May I read the charter?”
“If you are elected, you will be entitled to have access to it.”
He rose and I followed, feeling lighter. The charter had the final answer to the question of who controlled the convent’s finances, but I was not worried anymore; Helenger’s reaction had been eloquent enough. All I needed now was the votes.
“One more thing . . . Sister.” Helenger’s voice reached me on my way out the door, and his emphasis was loaded with cold fury. I stopped, and as our eyes locked, I saw implacable hostility in them. “Whoever succeeds Sister Jutta will only be entitled to be called magistra, not prioress, because the convent ranks lower in the hierarchy of the abbey. It is not an equivalent house.”
As the caveat was unnecessary, I inclined my head and was about to turn away when a dismal thought struck me: if I were elected, I might one day have to deal with an Abbot Helenger. He had tried to throw obstacles at my feet for years, and when Abbot Kuno was gone, he would unleash everything in his power to relegate me to an anchorite oblivion. He must have read all that in my face, because as I gave him one last look, his mouth twisted in a mirthless smile full of malice.
A week later, on the first day of the year 1125, I was duly elected magistra of the convent of St. Disibod.
24
October 1125
I did away with many of the rules by which Jutta had governed the convent. I asked the kitchen to send us fresh fruits and vegetables along with our normally bare rations of bread, water, and milk, and to add fish on Sundays and holidays. With Brother Wigbert’s help, I procured larger braziers for the dorter and the chapel so they were finally properly heated, and fresh rushes were now regularly spread on the floors. It was no longer required of the sisters to kneel for hours in front of the altar; instead, I let them choose the way they wanted to perform their devotions.
Next, I turned my attention to our robes. We had always worn habits of coarse wool bought locally, but now I decreed that we could receive cloth from home—soft wool for the cold season and linen for the warm months—in colors other than gray. Juliana opted for black, while Gertrude chose white with a short silk veil. She looked very becoming in it too, as I had done away with the practice of having our hair shorn four times a year. If anyone had been allowed inside the enclosure, they would have often found us with our hair unbound and streaming over our shoulders as we went about pruning the vines and tending to our newly-planted rosebushes. How we had changed in just a few months! Never before had our cheeks been so rosy, nor our sense of camaraderie so deep. In Jutta’s time none of it would have been possible, and it gave me a bitter kind of satisfaction.
But it was not an easy transition, plagued as I was by Helenger’s constant complaints and an ongoing lack of funds. To make matters worse, Brother Wigbert’s decline had quickened after I had become magistra, and soon I was running the infirmary by myself, setting bones, lancing boils, and dispensing medicines, with ever-changing novices for assistants.
Before the first year of my tenure was over, Wigbert was confined to bed and no longer recognized anybody. I was the only one whose presence sparked a glimmer of awareness in his eyes, as if my voice managed to shed a momentary light into the darkening recesses of his mind. And I grieved for the old infirmarian, for in him I was losing a teacher and a friend whose guidance had opened my mind and made my success in the practice of medicine possible.
Whenever I had a free moment, I would sit at his bedside, hold his hand, and tell him news from the world.
The year had been an eventful one, and many throughout the Rhineland—from the heights of princely and ecclesiastical courts to the merchant shops of port towns—were looking forward to its end with hope for
