Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard Von Bingen (21 page)

“What is this?” my abbot demanded, his eyes bulging in disbelief. “A monk, a nun, and a girl convene in secret? What are you writing?”

Hoping to shield Volmar and Richardis from any blame, I thrust myself forward.

“Abbot,” I said, my head drooping lest he accuse me of any breech of humility. I anchored my eyes on his hairy toes peeping from his sandals. “I am but a weak and ignorant woman. I presume nothing. It is not my own thoughts I write but wisdom revealed to me by God. For God is so mighty that he might choose one as lowly as I am for his vessel.”

“Out of everyone in this abbey, God chose
you
to be his mouthpiece?” My abbot’s voice swelled in scorn. “If this is true, why did you not tell me? I think you hid your deeds because you knew them to be wicked. Your mind is deranged, beguiled by demons of the air.”

“Reverend father,” Volmar interjected. “I swear to you that I have detected nothing heretical in Hildegard’s visions.”

“Visions, no less!” Egon exchanged a look with Cuno, whose face went as dark as Judgment Day.

As Cuno snatched the tablet from Volmar’s grasp, my dear brother whitened in dread.

“This demands discipline,” our abbot said. “We have granted you every freedom, Hildegard, and you reward us by making us your fools, wasting Brother Volmar’s time with your delusions. I’ll wager you’ve wasted our parchment as well.”

“Her visions are holy!” a voice cried out. A young voice. A breaking voice.

Even Egon was stunned as we turned to the trembling girl with her crimson face. Tears in her eyes, she placed herself between Cuno and me.

“Her visions are
beautiful.
Why would you punish her for something so good?”

I could see only her slender back, her arms rigid at her sides, her hands balled into fists as though to hold on to her courage. My knees buckled to behold the marvel—that mute girl had regained her voice in order to defend me.

Cuno stared at her, his face incredulous. “The girl speaks? Have you heard her speak before, Brother Volmar?”

Our abbot looked past Richardis and me, as though he trusted only a man to answer his question.

“My lord abbot, I have never heard Richardis speak until just now,” Volmar said. “According to her mother, she’s been mute since the age of eleven. Surely this is a miracle.”

“Yes, I can speak,” Richardis said, full of mettle. She sounded nearly as unshakeable as her mother. “It’s all because of Hildegard. You can’t say her visions are sinful now, can you, abbot?”

My heart was so full. It was as though my inner calling to speak and write of my visions had also unlocked Richardis’s voice. In the May garden, the girl glimmered like a chalice overflowing with grace. Even the harsh set of Cuno’s face softened before her. The most curious thing was that she spoke not with the long Saxon vowels of her homeland, but just like Volmar and I did, as though she were our daughter, born and bred in this Rhineland.

“We must write to your mother at once,” Cuno said.

“Write to her, abbot,” said the girl. “Tell her that Hildegard has given me back my voice.”

“Or the relics of holy Jutta,” Cuno said, glancing over the tablet he had confiscated, covered in my words that Volmar had recorded. “I must take this away for further study. Brother Volmar, if you have written any more of Hildegard’s supposed visions, I must examine them as well.”

Before our abbot could depart, Prior Egon clutched his belly and brayed. “If God can speak through Balaam’s ass in the Book of Numbers,” he chortled, so full of his own importance that I had to clamp my lips shut lest my temper flare and ruin everything, “then perhaps he can even speak through Sister Hildegard.”

Cuno pursed his mouth and went on his way, with Egon at his heels like an eager dog.

As soon as they were out of earshot, I threw my arms around Richardis. “Oh, my dear blessed girl, it
is
a miracle. Never stop speaking, no matter what they might do.”

The May sunlight illumined her lovely young face as she smiled at me and then at Volmar, who looked at her fondly, as though she were his daughter.

“It would be worth any penance,” he told her, “just to hear you speak, my child.”

As it conspired, Cuno decided to leave us in peace, at least for the time being. It might have gone no further. This could have been the end of my story: Hildegard, the eccentric nun in her dotage, tolerated as a curiosity by her long-suffering brethren, who, out of Christian charity, allowed her to write. No longer in secret, I embarked upon my first book,
Scivias,
or
Know the Ways,
revealing my visions concerning creation and redemption, and how humans might be brought back into harmony with the divine plan, that great cosmic wheel ever whirling. As the book unfolded before me, I saw my own salvation—this, my offering to God, would redeem my entire existence, healing the wound of my long imprisonment.

And thus the word went out, traveling far and wide on the tongues of passing pilgrims. Before long, I received a letter from Rorich in Mainz.

Sister, are the rumors true? Everywhere I’ve heard it said that Hildegard of Disibodenberg fancies herself a seeress, and that you even claim to cure the mute. What do your abbot and confessor say? I pray you won’t be led astray by the False One.

My brother, who had thought me long cured of my childhood affliction of the far-seeing, seemed concerned that my divine awakening would only damage his own reputation. Grabbing my penknife, I scraped every last trace of ink from his letter before passing the bare parchment to Richardis so that she might put it to good use for her illuminations.

Richardis transfixed us all. How she enthralled the brothers, this lovely and noble virgin, her speech miraculously restored in a living embodiment of holiness. She was the most dazzling person to enter this abbey since Jutta in the days of her youth and beauty. Of course, Cuno wasted no time in sending word to her mother, appealing to her for further donations in gratitude of the glorious wonder that he attributed to the sainted Jutta’s intercession.

We expected the margravine to swoop down on the abbey any day, though in truth, I was not eager to see her, as I blamed her overarching ambition for her daughter’s affliction. I hoped and prayed that the mother’s journey from Stade would be slow, granting the girl a few more weeks in which to savor her brand-new voice before her mother dragged her back home to find a bridegroom.

My deepest joy was hearing Richardis sing the Divine Office. Her unschooled voice was surprisingly rich, setting a lovely counterpoint to Guda’s ethereal vibrato. Though the two did not always get along, their voices wove together in angelic harmony. Candlelight glinting off her long black hair, Richardis closed her eyes, as though in ecstasy, as she sang the words I had composed.

O tu suavissima virga
O sweetest branch
growing from Jesse’s stalk,
how great a power is this
that divinity looked upon
this fairest daughter
as an eagle directs
his gaze to the sun.

Watching Richardis sing with my sisters brought back the vision I’d had so many years ago, when Adelheid and Guda were children, before Richardis had even been born. I recalled how in my illness I had witnessed three maidens glowing with divinity. Adelheid appeared in the guise of Sapientia, Divine Wisdom, while Guda shone in majesty as Ecclesia, the true and inner Church. Then, from between them, emerged the most splendid figure, glowing in innocence and joy—the black-haired girl, whom I knew now to be Richardis, blazing in my vision before she was even conceived in her mother’s womb.
My name is Caritas, Divine Love.

My memory dissolved in sadness, for I knew I would soon be losing her. But if she lacked a true religious vocation, there was little point in her staying here. I kept thinking back to how that once sullen and silent girl had opened her heart to me, infecting me with the fire of youth as she cartwheeled down the riverbank. She had been a comet blazing her trail through my constrained existence. At seventeen she was as ripe for marriage as a plump peach about to fall from the tree of its own accord. Even her youth would end all too soon.

One August evening as we sang Vespers, the margravine tiptoed into the church unannounced. From the corner of my eye, I watched her weep in awe. Secretly I feared how her daughter would receive her, if she still harbored resentment. But when the service ended, Richardis launched herself into her mother’s arms and covered her in kisses. The bond between mother and daughter was so tangled and fierce that I could only pray they had reconciled.

“I can sing! I can speak!” my young friend cried out. “Hildegard cured me.”

“You have God to thank, not me,” I said before leaving her and her mother to their reunion.

The following day the margravine met me in the cloister garden. She appeared as magnificent as the Queen of Sheba in her silk gown with a necklace of Baltic amber encircling her throat. But when I looked at her more closely, I noticed the worry lines etched around her eyes and mouth. I had expected her to be elated, leaping over the stars that her daughter could speak again.

“Cuno tells me you are writing a book of your visions,” she said, speaking as though it were a scandal.

Perhaps the margravine feared I’d be condemned for heresy, thus compromising her daughter’s good name. What manner of woman had the temerity to write a book and hope not to disgrace herself? Still, it seemed rather moot since Richardis would soon be leaving us.

“My lady,” I said, “we don’t choose our path, but we are called. Sometimes God’s calling appears unfathomable.”

“Indeed,” she said archly. “My daughter certainly seems to have discovered a calling in illuminating your visions.”

“I’m most grateful for her devotion to this work.” I spoke as peaceably as I could, having little desire to turn Richardis’s mother against me.

“I wonder, magistra, why you could not have chosen another illuminator. Why my daughter?”

My skin prickled beneath her scrutiny. “My lady, I didn’t ask her to do this. She offered, and illuminating seemed to bring her such delight.” I smiled, hoping to ease my way past her anger. “But now I imagine her life will be quite different. When are the two of you returning to Stade?”

The color rose in the margravine’s cheeks. “Sometimes I think you are not a nun but a witch.”

I froze. “What can you mean?”

Within me, annoyance battled confusion. Four years ago this woman had thrust her mute daughter upon me and though I had been at a loss in the beginning, the girl had learned to trust me and opened herself in friendship. Now, through the grace of God, Richardis had regained her voice. Why couldn’t her mother be grateful?

“You and your music,” she said. “You and your visions that she turns into pictures. My daughter has fallen under your spell and chosen you.”

I shook my head, stung.

“My lady, in your absence I may have acted as a mother to her, but once she leaves these walls and returns to court, she will be your daughter again, through and through. And some lucky man’s bride.”

I imagined Richardis in a gown of crimson, surrounded by countesses and courtiers, hawks and hounds. I pictured her dancing in the arms of her future husband, of them drinking from the same goblet, the loving cup, rimmed with gold.

“What? And break her heart?” Tears slid down the margravine’s face. “If I forced her away, she would hate me forever.”

“What are you saying?” My throat grew tight as I watched the lady weep. I longed to take her hand, but everything in her stance warned me to keep my distance.

“Richardis says she wants to stay with you.”

A buzz like a thousand bees arose inside me. I could not comprehend any of this.

“Richardis wishes to take the veil,” the margravine said at last, each word coming out of her mouth like a thorn.

This lady had placed her daughter in my care, as though leaving a diamond within a vault, to be removed at any time she wanted. Except Richardis had proved that she was no dumb stone, however precious, but a young woman who could speak her own will.

The cloister garden shimmered in the late summer heat. The roses, the sunlight, the gushing fountain, and the margravine’s clenched white face blurred together. Richardis, that unbound soul, truly wished to commit herself to Disibodenberg, as I had done against my will as a frightened child? That beautiful young woman had set her heart on remaining here, on helping me finish the book that might condemn me? I pressed my fingers to my temples to clear my thoughts.

“She’s no longer my daughter,” the margravine said. “But your protégée.”

“And for all you know, I might be a heretic,” I said, reading her unspoken fears. “You dread what might happen to Richardis if she joins her fate to mine.” I sighed. “My lady, she hasn’t spoken a word about her vocation to me. Let me talk to her.”

With a heavy heart, I sought out Richardis.
Did she truly wish to embrace the religious life
, I wondered,
or was she merely eluding and confounding her mother?
Surely it was my duty to prevent her from rashly making vows she would spend a lifetime regretting.

I found her in our courtyard where she stood with her back to me, not yet aware of my presence, gazing out over the forests and hills. On a clear day such as this, I could make out the faint shape of Sponheim Castle, Jutta’s birthplace, on the far horizon. Richardis seemed lost in her contemplation of that rolling landscape, a tide of green that had reached its zenith and would slowly dwindle back as autumn approached. Loathe to disturb her reverie, I was about to creep away like a coward, when my footsteps betrayed me. The girl spun around. Rushing toward me, she took my hands. She must have been preparing shell gold pigment, in the scriptorium, for her fingers brushed mine with particles of pure gold.

“Hildegard! I mean, magistra. Did Mother speak to you? Did she reveal to you my deepest desire?”