Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard Von Bingen by Mary Sharratt Read Free Book Online Page B

me. Save me.
    Now came the Office of Prime and still Jutta didn’t move. She breathed, but her skin was clammy to the touch, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. I tore open the shutters and knelt at the screen to perform my devotions, the prayers tumbling dull and wooden off my tongue. My every muscle trembling, I clung to the screen and dared myself to break one of Jutta’s innumerable rules. After the office ended, instead of closing the shutters, I kept them wide open and gawked at the men as they shuffled out of the church. One novice monk remained behind to trim the candlewicks, moving on sandaled feet to each side altar. For a long while he lingered at the Lady Altar before going to that of our patron, Saint Disibod. He looked about Jutta’s age. My loneliness and desolation rising in a pure white flame, I stared fiercely, my eyes burning a hole in his back until he turned and made his way toward the screen. With a start, I recognized him as the same boy who had glanced back at the screen our first morning at Lauds when Jutta’s lovely voice rang out to join the monks’ song.
    Every part of my brain screamed at me to slam those shutters, yet I gaped at the boy in unholy curiosity. His face was mild but inquisitive. He was tall and slight, with light brown hair and gray eyes. He stood so close that I could smell the wool of his habit.
    “Little girl, why are you crying?” he asked. “Where’s your magistra?”
    “My what?”
    “Your magistra. Your mistress. The holy Jutta.”
    “She’s in bed. She won’t get up.”
    “Is she ill? I can send for medicine from the infirmary. Special rations, too. A tureen of turtle soup. Never fear. Brother Otto is the best of physicians. For every ailment under heaven, an herb grows to cure it.”
    My mouth watered at the thought of soup.
    “She’s sick from melancholy,” I whispered, choking on my fear that Jutta would suddenly come to and berate me for betraying her.
    “That’s the hardest thing to cure.” The boy looked crestfallen. “Brother Otto might even say there’s no cure but prayer.”
    “She prays all the time and it only makes her
worse,
” I hissed.
    At home, Mother would have slapped me for such irreverence, but the boy regarded me with thoughtful gray eyes.
    “How old are you, child?”
    “Eight.”
    “You sound melancholy yourself.”
    I couldn’t stifle my sobs. “I’m hungry and cold. This hair shirt is so scratchy it makes my skin bleed. I want to go home. It’s awful here. Jutta says we can’t even talk because the demon Tutivillus will write down every word we say.”
    For a moment the novice monk was silent, as though searching for words.
    “My parents sent me here when I was five,” he said. “There were too many of us to feed. They thought me girlish and my father knew I would never make a good warrior. The first year I missed my mother so much that I thought I would die. I was sick in body, sick in my soul, practically living in the infirmary under Brother Otto’s care. Then they discovered I was clever, and Brother Ulrich taught me to read and write in a good hand. When I was as old as you, they put me to work cutting quills. From my very first day in the scriptorium, I learned that I could be happy here. When they were satisfied that my handwriting was good enough, they let me copy my first manuscript. As for Tutivillus, the demon you mentioned, he’s the patron of scribes. If our attention wanders, he causes us to smudge our ink and misspell our words, even miscopy the Scriptures.”
    “What’s the scriptorium like?” I asked, anxious to keep him there, talking to me.
    “It’s a wide and airy room, with a ceiling nearly as high as the church’s. It has windows on three walls. New windows made of glass,” he added, “thanks to the endowment we received from your magistra and her family. The place is flooded with light, even in winter. There are long tables and benches where we copy texts.
    “Our library is huge,