Authors: Iris Anthony
My eyes strained through the darkness, trying—and failing—to discern one thread from another. In a short time we would be allowed a candle, but for now, my fairy dance continued, unaided, unfettered, by my lack of sight. As we worked, we waited. Waited in anticipation, just as we waited in the chapel to receive the Host.
Soon, Sister placed a single candle on a table before us. And then she began positioning the condensers. Clear glass balls filled with water, they focused the candle’s light and then sent it forth. Around the table she went, adjusting each one so it cast a narrow beam of light upon each pillow.
With much gratitude, we repositioned our work into that light.
When I could still see well, it had been more difficult to work after the shadows of night fell. The pillow had to be constantly adjusted to follow the flickering of the candle’s light. Now, it didn’t matter. I could work in darkness as if it were the brightest of noondays. I had memorized my pattern. But still, I had to concentrate.
Think too much, and I would muddle up the bobbins. Think too little, and I would lose my place in the pattern. In my head, I sung a little tune the sisters had chanted when I was a child. And quick as that, the dance regained its rhythm and its grace.
I sung it to myself over and over, again and again. Who knows how many times I sung it, until at last, Sister said the word:
Done.
My prayers that night were wordless.
My supper, tasteless.
My sleep, dreamless.
I had been so close last month! I’d had every Spanish real the Reverend Mother had demanded. She had glanced up from her table as I entered the room, her coronet making her head look as if it were about to take flight.
I touched a knee to the floor. “Reverend Mother.”
“And you are…?”
“I am Heilwich Martens. Of Kortrijk.”
“Heilwich Martens…”
“I work for Father Jacqmotte. At Sint-Maartenskerk.”
“Ah. A priest’s woman.” The Reverend Mother nodded, sending a shiver through her veil.
“I came to speak to you about my sister. I wish to take her home with me.”
“Sister—? Which one?”
“
My
sister. My own sister. Katharina. She makes lace.” I withdrew the pouch from my sleeve and set it on the table before her. The coins inside it betrayed their presence with a clink.
The Reverend Mother’s hand snaked out and clasped the pouch, loosened the thong that bound it, and poured the contents out upon the table. “Katharina, you say? I am told she is our best lace maker.”
I was surprised the Reverend Mother knew her, but isn’t that what Katharina had told me herself? That she was the abbey’s best lace maker? An undue sense of pride kindled within my veins. I felt my chin lift.
“We have come to rely upon her skills.”
Katharina had told me that as well.
“The skills we have spent many months, many years, in fact, perfecting.”
Ja.
I knew quite well how many years there had been between Katharina’s leaving our father’s house and my own visit to the abbey this day. Twenty-five of them.
“This is not enough to compensate us for our expense in training her.” She gathered the coins and dropped them back into the pouch.
Clink.
Clink.
Clink.
Clink.
Clink.
She secured the thong and pushed it back across the table toward me.
“But…but…last time we spoke, this is the price you named!” And I had worked and saved for five years to gather all of it.
“That was several years ago, was it not?”
“
Ja
, but—”
“Did you think we would stop teaching her in the intervening time? Stop feeding her? Clothing her? Providing a place for her to sleep? A chapel in which to worship?”
“
Nee
, but—”
“Surely you can understand we must be compensated for all we have invested in her.”
“But she is not a…a…piece of property or a…a…cow! She’s a girl! And she’s nearly gone blind from all of the lace you’ve made her make!”
“Blind? Truly? I shall have to investigate.”
I shut my mouth up tight as a cooper’s barrel. I had said too much. Or perhaps…perhaps I had not said enough. “
Ja!
She’s hunched as an old woman. And very soon you’ll throw her out of your abbey, just as you always do to those too blind to be of use.” If the abbey could not see her worth, the men who lurked at the abbey’s gates would. A girl did not have to see to be persuaded to open her legs to paying customers.
“And what would you have us do? Keep girls who can provide no assistance in exchange for our very great generosity? We would soon have to shut our doors.”
“If you won’t take my money, could you send for me before you turn her out?”
“For what purpose?”
“So I can take her home.”
“You mean keep her here until you are able to come fetch her?”
“
Ja
.”
“As if we were some kind of lodging house?” The crook of her brow above her eyes told me her answer before she even spoke it. “Kortrijk is quite a walk, even if the father would let you come. I cannot do this. If I did it for you, then every family would expect the same.”
“How much more do you need?”
She named her price.
It was much more than I could ever hope to earn, even if I had five more years in which to do it. Katharina was as lost to me as our father and mother. I had told her I would rescue her, but I couldn’t do it.
•••
I did what I could. I shamed the men who lingered by the gate into leaving, though I had no hope my words would drive them far. I shuddered to think of Katharina having to throw herself upon their mercy. I gave a silver coin to an urchin, as well. “If you see a girl come from the abbey, one of the lace makers, come tell me in Kortrijk. I work for Father Jacqmotte at Sint-Maartenskerk. The church with the great tower. Her name would be Katharina.”
“Katharina.”
“
Ja
.”
“And if I do? If I come tell you…?”
“Then I will give you another one of these.” I took a second silver coin from my purse and held it out so he could see it.
His good eye gleamed as he reached for it.
I enclosed it within my fist. “And what is your name? Remember, I work for a priest. I’ll tell him if you lie to me or if you cheat me.”
The hand withdrew as he eyed me for a moment. Then his frown relaxed and, finally, he spoke. “Pieter. My name is Pieter.”
•••
I had done what I could, but it had not made my heart feel better. It still didn’t, even three days later. Katharina should have been me. I should have been the one the abbey had taken. I was the older sister, after all. Katharina could easily have been placed out for work somewhere. She was a child of the sun, all golden hair and gleaming smiles. But I was not the one the abbey chose. They had taken one look at my short, stubby fingers and had not even let me enter their gates. It wasn’t what we had planned. Not at all. It was me who was oldest. Me who ate the most. But in the end, it was Katharina they had taken and me they had left behind.
Several years after Katharina had gone, Father died, and the parish priest had taken me in. The elderly housekeeper showed me how to sweep a wood floor and how to manage a kitchen. Father Jacqmotte taught me how to care for the needs of the sick and how to lay out the dead. I did all the work—I did everything—but it still did nothing to beat back the knowledge that it was all my fault.
It was my fault Father had died: he had placed into my bowl the food intended for his own mouth. And it was my fault Katharina had become what she was: a girl who had found her age too early. Back bent, fingers gnarled from her work.
But in the priest’s house, I had served the penance for my sins. I had worked my short, stubby fingers to the bone these twenty-five years to regain that which had been lost…only to discover my work had been in vain. It had not been enough.
I had not saved enough.
I might have paused by the River Leie, sat down upon the bank, and wept into my apron for sorrow at what life might have been, but there was too much to be done in the life that was. There were wicks to be trimmed and accounts to be looked over, supper to be prepared and vestments to be mended. There was old Herry Stuer to be visited. His pallet to be changed and water dripped into his mouth.
And for certain, the girl who looked after him would stick me with his care for the rest of the forenoon.
But I was the priest’s woman. Such things, such generosity of time and of spirit, were expected of me. A gentle hand, a cool head, a ready smile…when all I wanted to do most times was shriek at them all and dash them over the head with my broom.
I turned from the river, jabbed at my tears with the edge of my apron, and sniffed the rest of them back down. It was too late for sorrow, and tears helped nothing.
“I don’t know why I bother.”
Was the lieutenant asking me a question? Did he expect an answer? With him, sometimes it was hard to know. And the sun had barely just peered into the sole window of the shack. It was a tough job pleasing the lieutenant before he’d eaten the day’s first meal.
“You understand what your job is.”
Another statement that seemed as if it might be a question. So then I must answer it. “
Oui
, Lieutenant.” It was to assist the
douaniers
with their work. To help them by guarding the border with the Spanish Netherlands and to assist in the collection of import taxes.
He looked down his long, crooked nose at me. “Then why aren’t you doing it?”
Ah. Now there was a question. A true question. But it was a question I did not understand. “I am…I mean, I thought—?”
“Do you know what passes across the border? Every single day?”
“
Oui, chef
.” I did. People. Sometimes animals. And carts.
“Hundreds of people cross the border every single day.” He’d raised his hands, slicing at the air in front of me, setting in motion the lace that hung like cobwebs from his wrists. “And do you know what they carry with them?”
That was a question that really didn’t sound like one. It didn’t seem as if he truly wanted an answer. So I kept my mouth shut. That was easiest. How I wished he would stop talking, so I could stop standing at attention.
“The people who cross the border here are liars, cheats, and thieves. Every single one of them.”
Every single one? I found that difficult to believe. The old granny I had given my arm to just the other day? Surely she wasn’t a liar or a cheat or a thief. And that young mother with the three children, one of them just a babe in her arms? She had looked as if she might dissolve into tears at any moment. That’s why I had helped to hurry her through the line. For that was my job, after all: to aid the
douaniers
.
“Do you know whom they’re trying to cheat?”
Well. That was an easy question to answer. My mother had always said cheaters cheated only themselves. Although…hadn’t they first to cheat someone else? Before they cheated themselves? Isn’t that what cheating was?
“Denis!”
“
Oui, chef!
” I pulled my chin in even closer to my chest, making it touch the top button on my coat.
“Every blessed day, thousands of livres of merchandise cross this border. And do you know what’s wrong with most of it?”
I guessed—I supposed—an answer was expected. “That it comes from the Spanish Netherlands? From those Flemish?”
“Those dirty, rotten, stinking Flemish.
Oui.
And those dirty, rotten, stinking Spaniards.”
“The dirty, rotten, stinking,
filthy
Spaniards.”
“You’ve a way with words, Denis Boulanger.”
“
Merci, mon chef
.”
I’d always liked words. They were so particular as to their meaning. No one word could ever quite substitute for another. It wasn’t like the army, where it didn’t really matter what you looked like or where you were from. Where the next man could do the job just as well as you.
“But the fact that all of those goods come from Flanders and those
débectable
Spaniards doesn’t really concern me at all. Do you know what concerns me?”
I could guess, but I wasn’t sure I would be right. It was safest not to answer.
“What concerns me is those dirty, rotten, stinking Flemish are smuggling contraband across our border every single day.”
I’d heard that. The lieutenant had said that. He’d said it nearly every day for these six months I’d been posted here.
“And do you know who helps them?”
Well—
non
.
Non
, I didn’t.
“We do. We French do. We French conspire with those dirty, rotten, stinking Flemish to cheat our own King out of the tariffs he deserves.”
Not
we
French. I mean,
I
didn’t. And the lieutenant didn’t.
Some
French. That was the better way to say it.
Some
French do.
“But do you know what’s worse, Denis Boulanger?”
There were many things that were worse. So many things that were worse. It was difficult to choose just one.
“What’s worse is some people even try to smuggle in things that are forbidden. Did you know that?”
“
Oui, chef
.” I knew that.
“Every single day, people try to bring things into France that don’t belong here. Things the King,
our
King, doesn’t want here.”
He had come to stand quite near me. His tips of his boots touched the tips of my own.
“
Oui, chef!
”
He scowled. “
Oui, chef? Oui, chef!
You know this?”
“
Oui, chef
.”
“Then why don’t you do something about it!” He yelled the words so loudly they hurt my ears. So forcefully his spittle landed on my face.
I couldn’t keep from blinking. And falling back from his assault. “I do,
chef
. I mean, I try.”
“You haven’t tried hard enough. Do you know how many times you’ve intercepted contraband these past six months?”
I nodded. I did. I knew exactly how many times.
“None! Thousands of livres in goods are smuggled across this border daily, and you’ve intercepted none of it!” He shook his wrist in front of my face. “Do you know how old this lace is?”
“
Non, chef
.”
“Six months old. And do you know why?”
“
Non, chef
.”
“It’s because you haven’t brought me any that’s newer!”
“I haven’t…I’ve never seen any.”
“Never seen any.
Bon.
” He turned on a heel and strode to his desk.
I wished I could do that. Turn on my heel and do it so quickly it looked like my foot was nailed to the floor. I’d tried. Many times. But I’d only ever made myself stumble.
“Never seen any. Never going to. I’m going to send you somewhere else. Lots of places to choose from. We’re a country at war with these dirty, rotten, stinking Spaniards. So… do you think you could kill someone?”
“Kill someone?”
“With that musket.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would I want to kill someone?”
He sighed. Took up a piece of paper and began writing. “I have here, in my hand, your new orders.” He signed them with a flourish as he spoke.
“
Chef?
”
“You’re leaving. I’m done with you. You’re a disgrace to your King.”
“But…I…I
would
catch them. I would arrest those smugglers if I could only tell which ones they were.”
“The trouble with you, Denis Boulanger, is you’ve no imagination. Do you know how contraband crosses the border? How
lace
crosses the border? Because that’s what we’re looking for—
lace.
Do you know how lace crosses the border?”
I nodded. He’d explained it many times.
“Lace crosses the border in hollow loaves of bread. It crosses the border pinned to a woman’s underskirts or the inside of a man’s breeches. It crosses the border in boots and books. It even crosses the border in coffins.”
Coffins? I didn’t think I believed him. I was quite sure, in fact, that I didn’t.
“It crosses the border with men and women. With children and dogs. With the young and with the very old. It crosses the border with
people
.”
Oui.
I knew all of that. Every day I looked for lace. That was what I was supposed to do. But how could I know who was smuggling it? “Just—give me more time! I’ll find some lace. I promise.”
He folded his arms in front of him, leaned on the table’s top. Frowned. “I’ve been giving you more time for six months now.”
“Please.”
He scowled. “Fine. One more month. It’s hard enough as it is with the war going on. Be warned, if you don’t find any”—he waved the orders above his head as he dismissed me with his other hand—“then you’re done.”