The Ruins of Lace (17 page)

Sister had given me a new commission on the Monday, just as I had expected.

“We have an order for something different. I told the Reverend Mother the only reason I could accept it was because I knew you would be able to do it.”

Something…Had she said something
different
? I could not hear for the buzzing in my ears. I couldn’t make something different.

“…I’ll pin it just here.”

I sat as she took my pillow from me and pinned the pattern upon it. I sat as she settled the pillow back on my lap. Sat as she patted me on the arm and then walked away. There was nothing to do. I couldn’t see to know what to do. And I knew then what my fate would be. How could it be any different than Mathild’s?

I set about twisting and crossing my bobbins for one cycle and then untwisting and uncrossing them in the next. All day long, I worked at undoing my work, praying Sister would not notice.

She did not.

The next day, Tuesday, the day of Heilwich’s visit, I told my sister I was done.

“Not with the lace!”

“I finished it on Saturday.”

“But you can’t be done with the lace. I haven’t got the money yet!”

“Sister gave me a new pattern.”

“And…?”

“I can’t see to make it. I’ve been pretending. All day yesterday and all day today I’ve been pretending.”

“You must keep pretending, Katharina. Promise me you’ll keep pretending.”

“I don’t know how long I can. And what if Sister sees me?”

“I’ll pray she doesn’t. This very afternoon, once I get back to Kortrijk, I’ll pray the rosary for you in Father Jacqmotte’s own office.”

“The rosary? For me?”

“Just…whatever you do…don’t leave the abbey. Don’t let them throw you out.”

•••

I tried not to. I tried not to let them throw me out. But the next day, Sister discovered I’d been pretending.

“What—!” She grabbed my pillow from me. The bobbins clattered to the floor. “What is the meaning of this?”

As I sat there, as I listened to the lace makers at work around me, I made a decision. I decided I was not going to be like Mathild. I was not going to let Sister shriek at me and pull me out of my clogs, following along behind her as meek as…as…a lace maker. “What happened to Mathild?”

A pair of shoes scuffed against the floor as Sister’s footsteps halted. “What did you—?”

“What happened to Mathild!” I spoke the words as loudly as I dared.

There was no sound in that place save for the animals crunching hay below. Had I not known differently, I would have guessed myself to be alone. But then Sister wrenched my arm.

“Ow! What happened to Mathild? You threw her out, didn’t you? She made lace for you, and when she couldn’t see anymore, you just threw her out!”

“Hush. You will not speak of such things here—! You will not speak at all!” She tried to snatch me from the bench, but I let my pillow fall to the floor and leaned back on my heels so stubbornly she had to relent.

“Do you know what will happen once they’ve done with us?” I tried to speak so loudly even the children across the room would hear. “They’ll throw us out onto the street.”

One of the younger girls began to cry. “I want my
moeder
!”

“Hush now.” Sister’s whisper was vicious. “Look what you’ve done!”

“None of you will escape. You’ll all go blind. Just like me. And Elizabeth and Aleit and Johanna. Beatrix, Jacquemine, and Martina.”

“She lies.”

“I don’t! I swear on the Holy Mother. I was the youngest of the lace makers when I arrived. And now I’m the oldest. What happened to all of the others?”

“Lies!”

“What will happen to all of you?”

Sister seized me with such force I had no choice but to do what she wanted. What she wanted was to drag me from the room. I nearly tumbled down the stairs. I would have, but for the grip she kept on my arm.

Once we cleared the workshop, she began to yell. “Help! Someone help us!”

I twisted to free myself from her. “What happened to them, Sister? What happened to Elizabeth? And Aleit and Johanna?”

“Help me!”

I heard doors being thrown open. Heard the slap of shoes against paving stones. Heilwich’s warning clanged in my mind. I broke free from Sister and ran to the only refuge I knew: the dark, looming shape of the chapel. Grappling with the doors, I threw them open and then ran straight for the Holy Mother herself. Hands brushing along the row of columns, I didn’t stop running until I knew she must be there before me. And then I pushed around behind her. There was a space back there I had run to before. I felt for the ledge of the pedestal with my hand and then threw my leg onto it and pulled myself up. There was just room enough to wedge myself between the statue and the wall. And no room at all for anyone else to stand up there beside me. If I was to come out, it would be my own choice, and not anyone else’s.

Once settled, I began asking questions once more. In the chapel, my voice seemed to vault up to the high ceiling and rebound from the walls. Instead of one question, it sounded as if I were asking ten. All of them at the same time. “Where is Elizabeth?”

Where
is
Elizabeth, where is Elizabeth, where is Elizabeth…?

“And where is Aleit?”

Where
is
Aleit, where is Aleit, where is Aleit…?

The chapel had filled with people now. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them.

“Hush, girl!”

“What is she talking about?”

“Can’t somebody make her stop shouting?”

When I spoke next, I tried to make my words even louder. “What happened to the other lace makers? Where is Johanna?”

“There’s no reason to speak of such things. I’m going to tell Mother. That’s what I’m going to do.” Sister’s voice. It seemed to be coming from in front of the statue.

“Tell her! And then ask her. What happened to Beatrix and Jacquemine?”

Sister was true to her word. It didn’t take long for Mother to appear. I heard her come several minutes later, her skirts brushing against the floor. I smelled the cool scent of her perfume as it invaded the air around me.

“Come out this instant!”

“
Nee
.”

“You’re being obstinate.”

“Tell me what happened to Mathild.”

“To whom?”

“Mathild. And Elizabeth and Aleit. And all the other lace makers that aren’t here anymore.”

“They left of their own choosing. They’re most of them married now. With children.”

“Lies!” I knew they were lies. It had something to do with the sound of her voice.

“Come out. Now!”

“
Nee.
I’m not coming until you bring them here.”

“Who?”

“All those lace makers. With their husbands and their children.”

I heard nothing in the sudden silence but the grinding of teeth. And then Mother’s retreat as her shoes struck the floor. “Have one of the novices stay here with her. She’ll tire soon enough. Once she comes out, bring her to me.”

I had not tired. It had been two days, and I had not tired.

On Tuesday evening, after I said the rosary I’d promised Katharina, as I was finishing my sweeping in the kitchen, I had a visitor. I didn’t know it, though, until he spoke.

I gasped as I saw him: De Grote. Had he been summoned by my thoughts, like some vengeful ghost? I crossed myself. He smiled, as if he really was the gentleman most of the city thought he was.

I frowned. Bit my lip. I didn’t know what to say to him. So I started to sweep around the hearth. It was a sin just how sooty it got…and how sooty it would be not two hours after I finished the sweeping of it. If heaven had any rewards to offer, the one I hoped to receive was a perpetually clean fireplace with enough wood to heat even the coldest of winter’s nights.

“I know I told you I wouldn’t come here again, but I need you. Something’s happened. And there’s no on else who can help me.”

No one else? There was no one else in any of those other parish churches? There was no one else who could bring themselves to do what I had done? I glanced over at him. “What makes you think you can change my mind?”

He stared at me a long moment, and then he sighed. In that sigh I read surrender. It was the sigh of defeat. The sigh my father had offered up when the nuns took Katharina and disappeared with her into the abbey. De Grote took a purse from his pocket, loosed the strings, took up my hand, and emptied the contents into it.

My prayers had been answered! “This is twice as much as you ever offered before.” And if I had added it up right, it would be just enough to buy my sister back from the nuns.

“I need you twice as much as I’ve ever needed you before. I’ve a customer I need to be rid of. It’s all yours if you can deliver me a body. And I promise you I will never come to you again.”

I took the pouch from his hand and let the money slide back into it. “The same way you promised before?” Father Jacqmotte would cast me out of his house if he ever found out what I was about. But still, I did not return the purse to De Grote.

He noticed. “You don’t need the money, then?”

Oh, I needed the money.

He must have read the indecision in my eyes. He dug deeply into his coat and pulled out one coin more. He took the purse from me, opened it up, and let the coin fall into it with a clink.

Ja.
I needed the money. I nodded.

He smiled, secured the purse, and put it back into his pocket.

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

Tomorrow! I shook my head. “It’s not possible.” Though how I wished it were! I wished I could give him what he wanted. Right that moment. “I can’t promise tomorrow. These things take thought. And planning.”

“The next day, then.”

“The third day.”

He dabbed at the glaze of sweat that covered his forehead. “
Nee.
Two days or not at all. I want to be done with this commission.”

Two days. Surely someone would die in the next two days. “Fine.”

He left me as he had found me: sweeping. Two days from now. That would work. Somewhere, someone should die. And if nothing else, if no one else, if I hadn’t misread the signs, there was old Herry. He would be long dead by then. And what he couldn’t have any way of knowing had no way of hurting him.

•••

When I went to call on old Herry, Marguerite pushed past me through the door. “It took you long enough! And where were you yesterday?”

“I was taking care of Father Jacqmotte. It’s my work, you know.”

“Well…I just…” She lifted her chin, stretched her cloak tighter about her shoulders. “I’m going out.”

I let her go. And then I went to see to Herry.

Poor man. In the day since I’d seen him, he’d gone raspy in the chest and grayer in the cheeks. I rolled him over and changed out his pallet and blanket. Spooned some potage into his mouth…or tried to.

“You’ve got to eat it.”

His gaze lingered on mine.

“You’ve got to. You wouldn’t want to save it for Marguerite. I’d lay down money there’s some young man bent on buying her supper this night.”

He blinked.

I held the spoon to his lips.

He opened his mouth and might have taken it if he hadn’t had to search for a breath.

I grabbed him by his shirt, tugged him up to sitting, and then beat upon his back until he stopped his gasping. Then I lowered him down to the pallet.

“What’s to become of us, Herry?”

His only reply was a wheeze.

“I’ve got to save my sister.” Anyone would understand that. “She was given to the nuns, you know. The ones over there in Lendelmolen, who make lace.”

If I wasn’t mistaken, I saw sympathy in his eyes. “She has over thirty years now. You know what that means. They’ll throw her onto the streets soon. They always do. How many of those poor lace makers have we seen in the streets, begging for food, tossing their skirts over their heads for a bit of bread?”

I knew he’d seen them just the same as I had. But bless Herry Stuer, I’d known him only to take up with honest whores. The kind who were willing.

“I offered them money for her. Offered to buy her back as if she were a cow. Do you know what they said? They said I didn’t have enough money. That was five years ago. You know what I’ve done since then? I’ve worked to make up the difference…and it was quite a big difference, just so we’re clear. I’ve done things, Herry. Things you wouldn’t want to know about.” Things I didn’t want to think about.

I pushed up from the floor and took up a broom. If I were going to spend my time here, why should I spend it in a sty? I pushed it around. Stirred up a nest of mice. I chased them out the door and then swept their mess out behind them.

Pausing when I got to Herry’s pallet, I leaned the broom against the wall and sat down beside him. “I would never have done it if I hadn’t needed the money. You’d have understood. Some people you’d do anything for. Katharina is the only family I have left. Think if she were your sister. You’d not let her walk the streets, giving herself away for a piece of bread. Not if you could do anything about it.”

Of course he wouldn’t.

“It wasn’t that difficult, the thing I’ve done. And it didn’t really seem like it would make any difference.”

Poor Herry, lying there silent, without anyone to cover up his feet. If I were his wife, I’d be ashamed to have him seen with a hole that size in his hose. I wondered how long he’d been walking around the city like that. You could pay a girl to warm your bed, but she wouldn’t darn your hose for you. I straightened the blanket so it covered his feet.

“You wouldn’t want to know, Herry, but Father had given all of them their last rites. Not that he had anything ever to do with it. He never has. He doesn’t know. He can’t. It weighs on the soul. More than I thought it would. It’s just not quite…right.”

I sighed. Put a hand to my coif and pushed it farther back on my head. “Some things just shouldn’t be done. And I wouldn’t have done them, Herry. Really, I wouldn’t have. I only did them for Katharina. And I only have to do it this one last time. That’s it. I’m done with it. I made a promise to myself.” Although, I’d made a promise to myself the last time, too.

Promises. They were made only to be broken.

“I hope…Do you think God forgives people…for doing things like I’ve done?” I would have gone to confession, but it was Father Jacqmotte who would hear it. And I wasn’t sure he would forgive all the things God might. Maybe this time I would go to one of the other parish churches. One of those, way across the city, where few knew who I was, and no one recognized my voice. But really, who had I ever actually hurt? And if it all worked out as I hoped, then Katharina would be saved.

No one hurt.

One person helped.

Perhaps I hadn’t done as great a wrong as my conscience wanted me to believe.

•••

That night, Annen was delivered of her babe. She sent a boy to fetch me, so I was there for its birth. A long, plump boy. A healthy boy. Once it cried, once I knew it had breathed, my work there was done.

There would be no coffins made for this family. Not this night.

Later, before the sun rose, Father got called to the home of a mason. He asked me to come along. I didn’t know what had happened until we got there, but I knew it must be something terrible. Father called for me to go with him only when he thought I might have to lay someone out.

When we got there, we were told the mason had been working at a job, cutting at a stone, that his tool had slipped and cut his leg instead. It was sliced to the bone. Father performed the last rites. It seemed the only thing that could be done. Then he left.

I stayed. I had to. Actually, wanted to. I was hoping that mason’s misfortune would be my own good luck. I might have prayed for it, but that seemed too much like cheating. I did, however, hope very hard. I needed a dead body, and his seemed the only one likely to come my way. Indeed, he lingered between life and death. His face was drenched in sweat, his voice low and distant when it came at all, as if he had already glimpsed the flames of purgatory. But near about noontime, he asked, in a voice quite unmuddled by delirium, for a sip of beer.

Miracles abounded in my parish in Kortrijk. But none of them blessed me.

•••

Is it a sin to pray for someone to die?

It wasn’t as if I was praying death on any person in particular. It wasn’t as if I
wanted
someone to die. But no one lives forever, and death was a regular visitor to the streets and alleys of Sint-Maartens parish. If that dark angel were going to visit us in any case, then why couldn’t I just ask him to speed things along? Was there anything wrong with that?

It felt like it. It felt very much like there was. I’d told De Grote I’d have a body. I needed the money he would give me, and De Grote was not a man who was familiar with disappointment. Though some of us were born to it, others, never having had the taste of it, grew testy in its presence.

Nee
, I could not disappoint him. I had to have a body. Surely someone would die.

I had work to do in preparation. The coffin to be got. The grave to be dug. The burial. And then once the burial was over, there was the coffin to be brought up again. I stopped in at the tavern to catch Big Jannes before he’d drunk a cup too many.

•••

It had always been a bit of a trick to coax Big Jannes from his cups. And he was always vexed about it. I might have gone in and just spoken to him, but I didn’t want any to remember our meeting. I passed by the window twice, three times, before I caught his eye. Inclined my head out toward the square.

He put his cup down and rose, setting his cap on his head and settling his belly over the top of his belt. After ducking through the door and peering round the square, he joined me. So to speak. As I stood by the corner, back to the building, he turned into the alley and made quick work of loosening his breeches to piss against the wall.

“Do you have to do that? I know what you’ve got without having to be shown it, don’t I?”

“What is it, then?”

“Thursday. You’ll be wanted.”

“Same as—?”

“Same as always. And bring your own shovel this time.”

I was gone before he was done and no one the wiser. I just had to find out who the body would be.

•••

By the tolling of the church bells at Nones, still I had found no body. No one in the parish was in danger of dying. Not the new babe, not the Lievens’s daughter. Not even the mason who had nearly sawn his leg in two. Even the butcher’s widow looked better than I was used to seeing her. There were two babes yet to be born this spring, but neither of them due to be delivered until next month.

I’d sought out the youngest in the parish and the oldest. I even nosed around the former lace makers who lived in the darkest alleys and plied their new trade in the most hidden of places. Not one cough, not one sniff among them.

Panic started to clutch at my innards.

Surely someone would die. Someone always had. Always. I’d never had to go looking for a body like I’d looked this day. Only one hope was left me. I went to see old Herry.

I sighed as I looked at him lying there on the floor. “You have to understand, Herry, I’m doing this for Katharina. She’s a lovely girl. I’m not a bad person. I would never think to do a thing like this, but it’s Katharina’s only hope. Can you imagine what those nuns will do to her if I don’t? They’ll throw her out onto the streets. And she knows nothing. Least nothing about any of
that
. She’s not like Marguerite. Pardon me for saying what’s only true.”

His eyes rolled about, showing the whites as they slid from side to side.

“You’ve not long, Herry. We both know it. You’d be doing me the biggest of favors by letting me kill you now rather than dying later.”

That was my plan. The only option I had left.

So how was I going to do it? I couldn’t just wring his gullet as if he were the father’s chicken I was to cook for dinner. I couldn’t do that. His neck was too big, my fingers not long enough. I looked around the room for something.
Nee
, not a knife. I wouldn’t do it with a knife as if I were some murderess. Something else. A kettle. I could dash him in the head with a kettle. That would finish him off.

Nee.

Nee
, I couldn’t see myself doing it like that.

“Couldn’t you just die, Herry? And save me the trouble?” I didn’t bother to turn round as I asked him. He couldn’t answer me anyway, could he? That was one good thing. He wouldn’t cry out when I did it. He couldn’t.

I stood there, not knowing what to think. Not knowing what to do. Really, it shouldn’t be so hard to kill someone.

There was the slightest of sounds. The dribble of liquid over straw. I knew what it was before I smelt it. “Shame, Herry. You’ve gone and soiled yourself again.”

I rolled him off and made him a new pallet. Got him settled once more.

“I really don’t want to do this. You know that, don’t you?”

I patted his hand and then pushed up from the pallet. It was one thing to decide to kill a man, but another thing entirely to do it. What was I supposed to do? I could throw a rope over a beam and string him up, but he was terrible heavy, and then no one could say he’d just drifted off in his sleep. Not with the burns from a rope around his neck. There had to be some other way.