Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard Von Bingen (29 page)

She didn’t answer at once but stopped to reflect. As I waited, a chasm of emptiness opened inside me. At moments like this, I thought that, despite our bond, she held part of herself back, a secret self that remained veiled and obscured, unknown to me.

“A true love,” she said at last, “sees past the beginnings of things. It sees them through to the end. Anything less is mere vanity.”

As she stared into my eyes, I saw the fire in hers. Every part of me melted. She smiled, touching my hand. Together we lit the candles.

In the candlelit chapel, I could lose myself in the elation of our sung devotions, but in the chapter meeting, held in the open air, there was no ignoring Guda. Her once beautiful face appeared haggard, her eyes dull and shadowed by dark circles, as though she had aged a decade since we left Disibodenberg. My heart ached to remember that golden-haired girl who had come into my care at the age of five. Guda with her angel’s voice, her singing that could move even Cuno to weep.

As I addressed my daughters, I strove to embody a nurturing mother who could soothe away their anger and fears, and coax them to look to the glory that would be our reward if only we persevered in bringing our new community to fruition.
A true love sees things through to their end.

“My daughters in Christ, Provost Volmar, the heavens have cleared.” I lifted my hand toward the widening gap in the clouds.

“The sun shines upon us. Soon the warmth of spring and summer shall lighten our days. The workmen have given me their word that our new dormitory shall be completed by summer’s end. I am at work on a new composition that shall embrace all of you—a musical morality play, the
Play of Virtues.
We shall perform this for the archbishop when our new abbey is finished and consecrated.”

I smiled at each one of them.

“Everyone shall have a part, even you, Volmar. The Virtues, embodied by you, my daughters, work together to rescue Anima, the soul, from the devil’s grasp. I have written the lead role for Sister Guda, since God has blessed her with the most heavenly voice.”

Surely Guda would soften to hear this tribute. How I prayed that the soul of our community could be delivered from the dissention that threatened to tear us apart. But the faces I saw before me remained glum.

“That’s all very well, magistra, but we can’t eat music,” my own niece Hiltrud said. “Meanwhile, we sleep in a byre like animals!”

At this, I made myself smile sweetly. “But sister, our Bridegroom himself was born in a byre. If it was good enough for him, surely we can make do for a few more months.”

Richardis met my eyes before ducking her head lest the others see her smile. My niece flushed red and looked in confusion to Guda, who had no doubt put those words in her mouth.

Then Guda herself took the floor, her words as unsubtle as a hammer bashing my skull. “Hildegard, you have led us into the wilderness and now we starve and live in deprivation, as I feared from the beginning.”

I bade myself to remain calm. More than ever before, I needed to sound strong and assured.

“Sister Guda, pray, do not exaggerate. The beggars at our gate know what true starvation is. Without our charity, they would not have survived the winter. We have enough to sustain our bodies, though it isn’t the richest fare. We didn’t choose this life in order to wallow in worldly luxury.”

Guda’s eyes brimmed. She was not just angry, she was despairing. Her look of hurt reminded me, yet again, that neither she nor I had freely chosen this life. Our families had cast us into the anchorage as children.

“The workmen stuff themselves while we go hungry!” Sibillia, the youngest novice, said.

“The builders need more rations than we do because their labors are more arduous,” I told her. “Hewing stone and cutting wood are more toilsome than sewing and praying.”

“But it’s been raining and they’ve been doing
nothing!
” Guda spat. “They sit in their tents like great lazy lumps, and they drink and curse and leer at us.” She spoke with such vehemence, as though a stonecutter’s glance could set fire to her habit and kill her in the conflagration.

“My mother didn’t send me into holy orders so I could be ogled by some filthy carpenter,” the novice Margarethe cried.

“No doubt the magistra will now remind us that our Bridegroom was a carpenter,” Guda said in cold spite.

As I wrestled down my temper, their voices rose in a cacophony.

“Volmar, could you please speak to the builders?” I asked, pitching my voice above the pandemonium. “Please remind them that they are not to pester the sisters or cause any unpleasantness.”

“Of course,” he said. “I will speak to them directly after the meeting.”

Volmar looked as beaten down as I was.

“Magistra, you promised you would convince Cuno to release our dowries,” Adelheid said. Quiet, thoughtful Adelheid who usually took my side. She, too, was looking gaunt. “You said you would write to the archbishop.”

“Indeed I have.” Pain shot through my temples. “I have written to Archbishop Heinrich and to Cuno, but I lack the power to force their hands. We must pray that God will guide Cuno to do what is right.”

“We’re losing what little support we have,” Guda said, her eyes glittering and sly, as though she were a lean, hungry she-wolf leading her pack to circle me. “Margarethe and Sibillia’s parents have elected to withdraw their donations.”

I shook my head at Guda and wondered how she had come to be privy to this when the parents must speak directly to me, the magistra, concerning their donations to Rupertsberg.

“They have richly endowed Disibodenberg,” Guda went on, “only to have you move their girls to this muddy hilltop where we live like wretches.”

“Sister Guda,” I began, but she cut me off.

The she-wolf went straight for my throat.

“How much longer must we suffer for your folly? If your pride, magistra, prevents you from returning to Disibodenberg, perhaps we might join the sisters at Schönau Abbey.”

Everything in Guda’s stance told me that she was prepared to leave, taking the novices with her, in a rebellion as radical as my own when I had led our community away from Cuno. Guda was threatening us with schism.

I wanted to shriek in her face, remind her that I was the one who had saved her from Jutta’s ghastly punishments those many years ago. Instead, I pressed my hands together and looked at all my daughters, from the tearful novices to sullen Hiltrud and Verena to bewildered Adelheid. Even Richardis appeared perturbed. Although she did not speak against me, she did not defend me from the others’ outrage. Had Richardis done so, Guda would have undoubtedly accused her of being my favorite. Guda would have reminded everyone present that my special regard for Richardis broke the Rule of Saint Benedict. Richardis kept her silence, her eyes on the muddy ground.

“May I remind Sister Guda and everyone that you have sworn an oath of stability to this community.” My heart was as heavy as the sandstone blocks the masons cut to build the dormitory that would remain empty if Guda had her way. “But those who undermine our holy sisterhood with ill will are free to go.”

With my crook, I pointed to the path snaking down the steep slope.

“Those who are unhappy may go where you will and leave the rest of us in peace to build our new home on this sacred hill of Rupertsberg.”

Guda sagged. In calling her bluff, I had stolen away her power. How easy it was to tear things down, how difficult to build something up from the ground. Guda could grumble, but could she lead? Would the novices dare to follow her into some uncertain future?

The nuns looked from one to the other. It appeared they had nothing more to say.

“Is there any more business?” I asked, preparing to adjourn the meeting.

Volmar stepped forward, his eyes rimmed red. From the folds of his habit, he drew out a scroll. “Magistra, dearest Mother of Rupertsberg, Cuno has ordered me to return to Disibodenberg. He says he requires my services as secretary and scribe.”

His words, spoken with such regret, knocked the breath from my lungs. This was Cuno’s final insult. He would let us come this far, watch us flounder and go hungry without our dowries, and then deliver his death blow. Without Volmar, our provost, there could be no new abbey. Without a priest, there would be no Mass, no sacraments.

I didn’t dare look at Guda for fear of seeing the vindication in her eyes. I, Hildegard, had failed, and now we would be forced to return to Disibodenberg.

“Hildegard, my dear sisters, I’m so sorry. This is not of my choosing,” Volmar said. The good man wept.

“When do you leave?” I asked. My mind raced as I thought how I might unravel this snare Cuno had woven.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Forgive me.”

“I shall go with you,” I said.

Turning to my sisters, I spoke in such a loud voice that the builders turned their heads.

“Tomorrow I shall return to Disibodenberg to ask Cuno to release our dowries and restore Volmar as our provost. I will go to Mainz on my knees if I have to and speak to the archbishop. But the building of Rupertsberg shall go on.”

At last I faced Guda and prayed that she could love and trust me once again.

“Daughters, I give you my word that I won’t return empty-handed.”

Volmar and I made ready to ride at dawn on borrowed horses. Decency demanded that I travel with a female companion, but this time Richardis refused.

“Forgive me,” she said. “But think how the others see us.”

My heart dropped like a stone. By
the others,
she meant Guda.

“It saddens me,” I said, “that one with a spirit as noble as yours should be swayed by such pettiness.”

“Hildegard, don’t you understand? There’s already enough enmity between the sisters. I don’t think we can endure any more. At least
I
can’t. If they goad me one more time for being your favorite . . .”

“Then it is I who must beg your forgiveness,” I said, beside myself to see how she had suffered.

Only when her eyes met mine did I notice how glassy they were. I touched her brow, which burned in fever.

“Cara, you’re ill! Why did you not say anything?”

In a panic, I took her to our makeshift infirmary where I brewed infusions and laid damp cloths on her forehead. She had always been so robust, this young woman who had nursed me through illness and paralysis. But our hardship had ground her down to nearly nothing. With purple smudges beneath her eyes and every spark of color drained from her cheeks, the girl looked as hard done to as the beggars at our gate.

“I’ll call off the journey,” I swore. “I can’t leave you like this.”

Weak though she was, her hand pressed mine. “You
must
go. For all of us. You must see this through, Hildegard.”

When I asked Hiltrud to accompany me, my niece seemed too shocked to say no. At daybreak the following morning, I watched her exchange wide-eyed glances with Verena as we set off down the muddy track.

Once I had been frightened to perch atop a horse, but now I sat deep in the saddle and squeezed my legs to urge the bay mare forward in a ground-covering trot. I had been riding more and more on my trips back and forth to Bingen to order supplies from the tradesmen.

“You must prepare yourself,” Volmar told me, riding at my side. “Disibodenberg has gone into decline since we left. Brother Otto has died, bless his eternal soul, and the new physician is a poor substitute. Cuno’s failing is that he appoints men not according to their ability but because of their loyalty to him.”

“What about Egon and his goiter?” I asked. Surely Cuno thought it reflected poorly on him to have a disfigured prior as his second-in-command.

“Egon has given up his office,” Volmar said. “I understand the new prior is named Helengerus.”

As we hastened toward the place I had wanted to leave behind forever, I plotted what I would say to Cuno. Never in my life had I been so grimly determined.

We reached Disibodenberg at dusk, just before they locked the gates. When we trotted into the courtyard, our horses’ hooves clattering on the paving stones, a mob encircled us. Such foul looks they threw me, as though I were a bird of gloom. How their eyes raked us over, as though they rejoiced to see how scrawny and sorry we had become, these men who were fat off my daughters’ dowries. They looked hostile enough to drive us out to sleep in the forest like outlaws. The whites of my niece’s eyes shone in dread, her mouth frozen in a silent cry. Little wonder that Richardis had refused this mission.

“Brothers!” Volmar shouted in his attempt to pacify them. “I have come at Cuno’s behest. Hildegard and Hiltrud are my guests. Kindly let us pass.”

Cuno emerged from the throng. “Volmar, I expected you to arrive alone.” He didn’t even deign to glance in my direction.

“Abbot,” I said, towering above him on my horse. “I will speak to you now, if you please. Unless you are afraid of a poor weak figure of a woman.”

Cuno stalked off, leaving us to follow in his wake. After twelve hours in the saddle, I staggered like a cripple, using my magistra’s staff as a cane, which seemed to provide the brothers with untold amusement. Cuno would have his revenge by letting me appear as foolish as possible, a woman misled by her sinful pride, her humiliation laid bare.

As I limped through cloisters and corridors, my empty stomach howling for sustenance, the walls of Disibodenberg reared up, a prison once more. The very air seemed noxious, as though the monks, angry and bitter as never before, exhaled poisonous smoke.

In his private parlor, my abbot sat as though enthroned, with a cup of wine in hand and his most trusted men clustered around him like courtiers. Instead of inviting Volmar, Hiltrud, and I to sit, he let us kneel before him on the cold stone floor, as though we were penitents. Filthy from our long ride, the smell of horses rose off our garments, causing the men to wrinkle their noses.

“Hildegard said she would never darken our threshold again,” Cuno told his men. “Yet here she is.”

“I have come at God’s admonition,” I said, “to ask you, once again, to release our dowries.”