The Greenest Branch Page 2

  2

  November 1115

  We moved slowly through the quiet countryside under an overcast early morning sky, my father riding at the head on a bay mare. His easy posture in the saddle betrayed his past as a crusader in the Holy Land before he retired to tend to our ancestral land. Riding alongside him was my eldest brother, Hugo, who had come down from Mainz for the occasion of seeing me off to the Convent of St. Disibod. My mother and I rode in a wagon pulled by two dappled gray cobs and hemmed by several chests, including a carved cedar box that my father had brought from the East and that contained my monastic dowry of one hundred golden bezants.

  It was still ten days to the Feast of St. Andreas, but the clean, sharp scent of winter already permeated the air. It had snowed a little in the last few days, the grayish patches melting over the shriveled autumn leaves as the winds turned milder again.

  Wrapped in a cloak, I observed the countryside with interest, especially when the thick forest parted to reveal a farm or a village. Most of these were small and made up of ramshackle huts with thin wisps of black smoke rising from their chimneys. Among these abodes, skinny pigs and scrawny dogs mingled with children playing in the mud. The hamlets showed none of the prosperity that surrounded Bermersheim, with its whitewashed cottages covered in thatched roofs and abutted by vegetable plots. My father threw coins as we passed by, followed by watchful eyes staring from weather-beaten faces, dark with the perpetual tan of those exposed to the sun and wind all their lives.

  In the early afternoon we stopped at an inn, a solid-looking timber structure with a tall column of smoke issuing from a single chimney in the middle of the roof. A small house, probably belonging to the innkeeper’s family, was attached to the back. Beyond the buildings, a small area of the forest had been cleared for pasture. As it was November, the sounds of its seasonal occupants were now coming from the nearby cowshed, which also apparently served as a chicken coop and a pigsty. The property had a modest but well-kept look.

  The innkeeper, a stocky, black-bearded man in his thirties, emerged to greet us and introduced himself as Burchard. He bowed as he invited us inside and shouted in the direction of the stables, from which a boy of about sixteen, also short and starting to sprout a similarly black beard, came out to take our horses.

  The establishment was neatly furnished with rough-hewn tables and benches. There was a sizable barrel of beer in one corner while the center was occupied by a large hearth. A cheerful-looking matron, plump and brisk, came out from behind the counter and called the maid to set a table.

  I took off my cloak and went to the fire to warm my hands. I wore a new frock of fine brown wool. A short veil covered my hair, recently cut in preparation for my new life. Instead of the thick braid that used to fall to my waist, ash blonde strands were poking from under the veil, curling slightly.

  When the food was brought in, the matron was joined by a girl of about ten, whose gaze drifted toward me even as she helped carry the plates of boiled ham, pea soup, and bread.

  “Are you taking the child to the Abbey of St. Disibod, my lord?” the innkeeper’s wife asked as she set a jug of ale in front of my father.

  “Indeed,” he said, nodding proudly. “She was accepted as an oblate.”

  I noticed the young girl’s eyes widen and her mouth open as if to ask a question, but her mother was already on the way back to the kitchen and beckoned her to follow.

  We attacked the meal with great appetite, but when wine and fruit pies arrived, I slipped out of the inn. A pale sun had come out, and I stood in the yard enjoying its light on my face, if not its warmth. After a while, amid the intermittent bleating and squealing coming from the barn, I heard soft footsteps squelching in the mud and turned to find the innkeeper’s daughter walking toward me with a bowl half full of grain.

  She seemed shy for a moment, then mustered her courage. “I’m Griselda.”

  “My name is Hildegard.” As she continued to regard me silently, I asked, pointing to the bowl, “Are you off to feed the chickens?” The coop was in the opposite direction.

  “Yes.” Griselda blushed as she realized that I had seen through her ruse. “I do that sometimes when Warin is busy.” She pointed toward the barn, where a lanky, fair-haired boy, clearly a hired hand, was balancing a pitchfork heaped with hay.

  I nodded. I had sometimes accompanied my father and his steward as they inspected Bermersheim’s estates and had seen peasants at work in the fields and with livestock. It was hard work, but I envied them the chance to be outdoors and observe nature as it went through its endless cycle of birth, growth, and decline. I had once asked to be shown how to milk a cow, but my father had responded that ladies did not do that sort of work.

  “What’s an oblate?” Griselda asked. Curiosity shone in her green eyes, which were made even more striking by the whiteness of her skin and her dark hair. She was stocky like her father and had a heart-shaped face with a sharp chin that gave her a determined look.

  “It means ‘a gift to God’,” I replied. “Someone who lives in a convent until she becomes old enough to enter the novitiate, which is when she learns to be a nun,” I added with an air of authority.

  Her eyes lit up. “My papa once took me to the market at Disibodenberg,” she said. “It was a feast day, and there was a Mass in the abbey church that all the townspeople went to, and we went with them. I still remember the bells and the singing and the incense.” She flushed at the memory. “It was beautiful!”

  A shiver ran down my spine. Suddenly, I could not wait to be there.

  “I wish I could become on oblate too,” Griselda said wistfully.

  “Then why don’t you ask your father to take you there?”

  She looked sideways at the inn. “Papa says girls must help their parents with their work and care for them in their old age.”

  I was mystified. I knew that parents cared for their children, but the other way around? I looked at Griselda, whose face darkened as she added, “He says my dowry will be barely enough to marry me off to the baker’s son.” She jerked her chin toward the forest, presumably in the direction of the baker’s cottage, and set her jaw. “But I will never marry that oaf!”

  I did not know what to respond to that, but Griselda’s thoughts were already running along a new track. “It would be so nice to spend time with only girls!”

  I felt a tinge of sympathy, realizing that the innkeeper’s daughter must have had little female companionship apart from her mother. “There are monks at St. Disibod too,” I said, as if that were a consolation.

  Griselda shrugged her shoulders. “They have separate cloisters and do not mingle.”

  That authoritative-sounding statement made me frown. Nobody had explained to me what life would be like at the abbey, except that I would pray, work, and—this I had added myself, for it could not be otherwise—study with the other oblates and novices. The prospect of studying excited my imagination, conjuring an image of a vaulted schoolroom full of pupils.

  I was about to share it with my new acquaintance when the sound of voices coming from the doors of the inn signaled that it was time to continue the journey. My mother waved, and I ran to her; together we climbed onto the wagon. As it wobbled back toward the road, I waved to Griselda, who was still standing where I had left her, a look of envy and admiration on her face. I turned again just before we entered the forest, but she was gone.

  We travelled through the gray landscape, faintly illuminated by colorless sunshine, and the silence was broken only by the creaking of the wheels and the splash of the horses’ hooves on the muddy ground. My father was dozing in the saddle, lulled by the gentle rocking movement and the ale with which he had washed down his meal. My mother gazed pensively ahead, and my thoughts kept returning to the girl from the inn and the unfamiliar world I had glimpsed through her.

  “When peasants’ children grow up, do they become peasants too
, mother?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She lifted her eyebrows, surprised at the question. “Sons usually take over working their fathers’ fields, although some become apprenticed to craftsmen to learn a trade.”

  “Can they enter monasteries?”

  She thought for a moment. “They can become lay brothers, I suppose, but monks need to be able to read and write.”

  “What about girls?”

  “They marry or remain with their parents to care for them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they do not have servants to do so, and besides—” she added, anticipating my next question, “they cannot afford an endowment.”

  “But what if that is what they want?” I felt myself flush. “It seems unfair!”

  My mother smiled sadly. “Your indignation comes from the right place, daughter. The ability to answer God’s calling should not depend on how rich one is. After all, Jesus asked the Apostles to give up their possessions to follow him . . .” her voice trailed off, and it was not until some years later that I understood her hesitation. There is a heated dispute within the Church on the issue of the poverty of Christ and whether monks and priests should imitate the simplicity of the first Christians or be free to enjoy worldly trappings, as many of them do. And because proponents of both approaches tend to accuse each other of heresy, my mother thought it prudent not to excite my young mind.

  She had been fond of telling me that I was quick, inquisitive, and—even at that age—unwilling to accept answers as givens, and I could see that that gave her satisfaction. She liked to tell the story of how, when I was four, I had asked why God, if He was all-powerful, had not defeated Satan yet? And if He was the creator all things, as the Holy Bible said, then had he created Satan too? And if He loved all of his creation, did not that mean that he should love Satan equally?

  My mother did not know how to answer those questions, but she was proud of me, even if that pride was bittersweet. When I had first asked for reading lessons, she was reluctant. “Reading only makes you desire to know more and see more, but women’s lives are destined to be lived within the confines of our worlds, whether domestic or monastic,” she had told me before relenting and teaching me to read anyway.

  Now she put her arm around me, and I reciprocated the gesture. From the moment she had realized that she was with child again and that monastic life would be its destiny, she had prayed every day for me to be blessed with a vocation. She had heard of women—and men—cloistered against their heart’s desire or their mind’s inclination and felt the injustice of it. That was why, even though she was gifting me to the Church, she was determined to ensure that I would have the time to make the final decision on my own.

  But she hoped the vocation would come. She later wrote to me that riding through those poor hamlets, she saw enough reasons why a cloistered life was a better option. The world was harsh and dangerous with the perpetual specter of famine and threat of violence, either from outlaws or from constant skirmishes among the empire’s restless barons. And then there was Eve’s lot: the brutal cycle that compelled a woman to give birth every year for as long as her body endured. She herself had brought ten children into the world at a great cost in bodily suffering—and anguish when four of them had died. Her only consolation on that journey was that I would be spared that fate and live out my life in relative security, protected from ignorance, privation, and violence by walls more respected than those of our house, even if it meant that we would never see each other again.

  The trees were casting lengthening shadows onto the high road when we reached the final stretch leading to Disibodenberg’s gate. Bare fields lay on both sides of the tract, bordered by the forest to the south and vineyards to the north. About a mile ahead, at the confluence of the Glan and the Nahe, the abbey sat atop Mount St. Disibod, thickly forested and gently sloping toward the rivers. A small town walled by a wooden palisade hugged its western foothill.

  A sleepy-looking watchman barely glanced at the abbot’s letter before waving us through. We entered the main street lined with timber houses, with only a few—occupied by merchant families, as I learned later—a mix of timber and stone. The side streets were already dim, candlelight beginning to seep through the shuttered windows of their smaller, simpler abodes. Farther up was the market square, where sellers were taking down their stalls and shopkeepers boarding up their windows for the night. A few glanced curiously as we passed in front of the parish church and took the road that ascended toward the abbey.

  At the gate, my father dismounted and knocked on the iron-bound doors. A moment later, the porter opened the small grille. When he learned our business, he began to manipulate the heavy latch, and the doors squeaked on their hinges and opened wide.

  “The abbot is awaiting you, my lord.” The monk bowed.

  “Thank you, Brother.”

  As we passed under the stone arch, I noticed my father taking stock of it with his soldier’s eye. The gate was new and solid, but the abbey wall was no more than a wooden palisade, much like the one surrounding the town. Despite the deepening dusk, it was obvious that it was in serious need of repair, with some of its logs rotten at the bottom and streaked with lichen, and weeds growing profusely in the cracks.

  He clucked his tongue softly and made a motion with his head that I immediately recognized. I could almost hear him think, The abbot must be a persuasive man to have enlisted the Count von Sponheim as a benefactor.

  Two months earlier at Bermersheim, the count had painted an intriguing picture of the Abbey of St. Disibod, where his daughter Jutta had founded her convent. Established more than four hundred years before by a saint from Hibernia who had brought Christianity to the Rhineland, the abbey had once possessed an impressive library that attracted monks from as far as France eager to cultivate their minds.

  But a series of plunders by the Normans and the Hungarians had caused its fortunes to decline, and by the time the fourth Emperor Heinrich ascended the throne, the community had been reduced to fewer than ten monks, and the buildings had fallen into such disrepair that the brothers considered abandoning the place altogether.

  The abbey continued its unremarkable existence until Abbot Kuno’s election five years before, after which he set out to increase the number of brothers in residence and undertake extensive repair works.

  Although Count Stephan had at first thought of the abbey of St. Eucharius in Trier as the most suitable place for Jutta, he was sufficiently impressed with Kuno’s efforts to support her wish. “I had no hesitation in giving my consent, and I am glad her endowment is contributing to the reestablishment of St. Disibod,” he had told my father, before adding proudly, “In his letters, Abbot Kuno has praised her learning and piety.”

  The courtyard was dominated by a bulky church with small, square windows through which dim light filtered onto the courtyard, where traces of snow melted between the flagstones. A pair of grooms carrying torches appeared from the stables. A moment later, a portly, middle-aged monk came out from a building located along the northern wall. He made his way toward us at a surprisingly brisk pace, his black robes fluttering around the knotted belt girdling his prominent belly. He was followed by another monk, tall and thin, with a cowl pulled low over his face. The shorter one had graying hair around his tonsure and a jovial red face, which betrayed a weakness for food, and perhaps drink too.

  As soon as he was within earshot, he exclaimed cordially, “Mein Herr Hidelbert, I am

  Abbot Kuno, and it is an honor to welcome you to St. Disibod.” He pointed toward his companion, whose face emerged from under the hood to reveal a younger man with finely chiseled, aristocratic features frozen into a haughty and forbidding expression. “This is Prior Helenger. We trust you had a pleasant journey.”

  My father bowed slightly before addressing his hosts. “We set out early and rode most of the day, but God willed that we arrived safely and i
n good spirits, if a little tired.”

  “I am sure of that.” The abbot nodded as if the exhaustion of long journeys was something of which he had extensive experience. “I had our guesthouse prepared and a meal laid out for you. After you fortify yourself, you are welcome to join us at vespers.”

  “Father Abbot, this is my daughter, Hildegard.” My father turned to me. Thus prompted, I curtseyed, although under my cloak my heart was pounding against my ribs. But I lifted my chin, determined not to show the anxiety.

  The abbot smiled and put his hand on my head. “God bless you, my child. We are happy that you are to join us on our spiritual journey, and we hope that it will be a fruitful one for you.”

  Emboldened, I returned his smile, but when I turned to Prior Helenger, I saw that his face had not lost its stony severity.

  But I held his gaze.

  3

  Abbey of St. Disibod, November 1115

  Much later, in a letter she wrote me, my mother described those events I was not privy to on the following day. After breakfast, my parents and the abbot had a private meeting. Prior Helenger was also in attendance, standing behind Kuno’s chair with his head bowed and arms folded inside the sleeves of his robe.

  My mother complimented the abbot on the simple yet satisfying fare in the refectory.

  “In recent years we have received generous gifts of legacy that include fertile lands along the rivers, and we were blessed with a good harvest this year,” he informed them proudly.

  “I am pleased to hear that.” My father cleared his throat. Under pressure from my mother, he had come with a petition regarding the terms of my enclosure. It made him nervous, for he was instinctively deferential toward religious authority. Now he shifted from one leg to the other, struggling to find the right entry point to his business. “The abbey’s reputation has grown greatly thanks to your wise management, and I am certain your successes will continue to attract generous benefactors.”