The prior delivered a hurried final blessing and motioned for Angmar to be taken away, and I followed again to ensure that she was comfortable. Earlier, Simon had told me his sister had always been a good-natured girl, and that the illness had taken everyone by surprise. It may have been unexpected, I thought, but it was not without a cause, and I needed to discover what painful experience had brought a healthy young woman to such a wretched state.
The chirping of crickets outside the window grew louder as the sounds of the summer day began to die down. I was in the surgery, recording my observations of the herbs encountered on the way to Sponheim. I could hear the usual sounds of activity as Elfrid and Fabian went about their work in the ward next door.
A knock on the door caused my hand to jerk sideways and make a horizontal line on the parchment with the stylus.
I knew immediately. Years had passed, but the sound was unmistakable. “Come in.” The words came out as a whisper, and I had to clear my throat. “Come in!”
Volmar’s face, when he entered, was serious, but I could see a smile flickering behind his eyes. The amber-green depths of those hazel eyes hid so many memories and so much meaning. I dropped my gaze so he would not read my thoughts or see the joy that filled me to overflowing and pushed out the last vestiges of my resentment.
“I did not think I would see you again.”
“And yet I am here.” His voice had a deeper, warmer timbre than I remembered, and suddenly I was out of breath. “Let’s go outside.” I motioned to the open door that led to the infirmary garden. “It’s a fine evening.”
“It is beautiful.” His eyes had not left my face.
Outside, a few patients ambled among the flowerbeds. I led the way to a bench at the far end by the hedge as the last rays of the sun spilled over the abbey wall, flooding the middle of the garden with fiery light. I studied Volmar discreetly. He was more mature now, the lean silhouette of youth having given way to the fuller frame of manhood.
“So you are magistra now,” he said as we settled side by side. His features had lost the mischievousness of childhood and the melancholy of adolescence, and assumed a look of quiet serenity. “I cannot say I’m surprised.”
“Prior Helenger was.” I grinned, recalling my moment of triumph in a decidedly non-Benedictine fashion. Volmar was still the only person who could bring that kind of smile to my face. “But all that is past, and I am taking the convent down a different path.”
“Father Abbot mentioned it, but it was the prior who felt it his duty to fully apprise me of this scandalous development.” Volmar shook his head in mock despair. “Some things never change.”
Elfrid came out to help a patient on a crutch back inside and cast a curious glance in our direction. We sat quietly for a while, and I relished the eloquence of our silence. We were still friends, accomplices, and, judging by his garb, we had chosen the same way of life after all, a fact that delighted me more than I ever would have expected. Until a few days before, I had imagined him—and it had been a bittersweet image—with a wife and children somewhere in the rolling countryside on the other side of the Rhine.
“I am glad you ruffle their feathers.” Volmar laughed quietly when we were alone again, and I savored the gentleness of the sound. “It’s not good for them to lead a stuffy existence without fresh ideas or new ways of doing things. You are doing them a favor.”
I made a dismissive gesture. “There is not much anyone can do to change the way Helenger sees the world, and that is not my goal. What I want is to make the convent as great as it can be using the authority our charter gives me.” I lowered my voice, for I could not be sure that any of my patients did not report to the prior. “Who knows, maybe one day I will find a way to remove us from under their control once and for all.” It was the first time I had confided this to anyone, and I was glad I did, even if Volmar was likely to disapprove.
But he did not. Instead, he turned to me with an honest look. “I think you will. Confines are not for you, they make you unhappy—” He broke off as he realized the intrusion of our past. He changed the subject. “Few people I met in France know anything about the Abbey of St. Disibod except that it has an accomplished physician in you, and that its infirmary has the reputation for being the best in the Rhineland.”
I blushed. “Surely it cannot be known as far as France!”
“But it is. Abbot Bernard himself questioned me about it when he found out I had been a novice here.”
“Abbot Bernard, the Cistercian who is leading the movement for monastic reform?!” I exclaimed, astonished. Bernard’s fame had spread throughout Europe like wildfire. He had founded a small reforming house at Clairvaux not long before, and it had already grown to the point where its monks were being sent to establish new foundations in France and beyond. He had gained a devoted following for his strict observance of Regula Benedicti, which was rumored to have once brought him to the brink of death after an extended period of extreme fasting. It was also said that his cell at Clairvaux was too low to stand upright in and his bed too short to fully stretch his legs. It was he who had been instrumental in condemning Master Abelard
