style="font-size:15px;"> Hildegard: Serve God, not me, and we will all win His praise. Welcome home, my friend. Has the Abbot arrived also?
Volmar: Yes, and I have no doubt you shall see him soon.
Hildegard: Well, be that as it must. Brother, I have more to dictate soon and letters to write. Please come tomorrow.
Volmar: At your pleasure, Abbess. Oh, Abbess, one more thing. How can I say this? We should arrange for secretarial duty for you when I am gone.
Hildegard: Richardis serves me in your absence and can do so again when you travel.
Volmar: I thought to make provision for after my death, Abbess.
Hildegard: Surely we need not. You will outlive me. You had better, Brother.
Volmar: The work is too important to take a chance that no one will be here to replace me.
Hildegard: Let us not talk of that now. Life goes as it will, and God has given me you and Richardis as help and friends. For now let us attend to the present and its visions.
Volmar: Yes, Abbess.
The dutiful secretary bowed to both women and left them. Richardis’ blue eyes shone, and her smile showed healthy white teeth unusual in those days of the world.
Richardis: Voluble he is as the creeks when the snow melts in spring, and flitting as a sparrow.
Hildegard: But kind and chaste, faithful and good.
The two women heard a rustle of voices and many feet coming up the pathway. The nuns led the folk of the town, who carried Datta, injured in his fall, and brought him before the abbess.
Hildegard: How can we help you?
Dayadva: Dear Lady, poor Father is hurt from a fall performing in the marketplace. Please help him. He is our life and living. We have heard you can heal. Help him, please.
Hildegard: (She looks at him, then speaks to Richardis.) Boil water and bring cloth and ashes of blackthorn, also apple salve. Take Irmengard to assist you. Clementia, clear some space for us here. Adelheid, prepare a bed of soft rushes in the infirmary. (To Datta:) How are you? Can you speak?
Datta: Foolish, as old men often are.
Dayadva: He took a fall upon his head. I fear the arm and shoulder broke, too.
Dall: Do help him, Lady. Dear old father.
Hildegard: I’ll do all I can. God willing, we shall find healing for him, or at least some ease for his pain. Let us try the arm. A slight pull here. Yes. (He yells. Irmengard enters with cloths and bandages. Hildegard takes one of the cloths and binds and slings his arm and shoulder. Richardis enters with a pot of water and medicines.) Here, apply a poultice of the blackthorn to his head after you clean the wound. I will use the salve on his face and eyes. How are you, Old Father?
Datta: I think the world will put up with me somedeal longer.
Hearing that, the crowd cheered, partly for the old acrobat’s well-being, partly out of relief that their day need meet no further interruption, and partly because they wondered and feared if the mere presence of the famous Abbess had not been sufficient to heal him. Young Datta glanced from Hildegard’s eyes to his grandfather’s wounds to the luminous young face of Adelheid.
Hildegard: Take him to the infirmarr—gently! He will need rest, but I believe he will be all right. We will pray for him.
Dall: Thank you, Lady.
Datta: We cannot thank enough. We must pay.
Hildegard: Don’t worry about pay. Care for your father and pray. And caution him about such stunts in the future.
Datta: Who can tell old man what to do?
Dall: Da, who can?
Damyata: Bless you, Lady. Will you help the great Lady, young woman?
Adelheid: I will do what I can to assist, of course.
Damyata: Then I believe Grandfather shall live.
The folk, guided by Hildegard’s nuns, carried Datta to the infirmary, cheerfully singing a drinking song as they went, not thinking so much about where they found themselves as feeling a glee that a fellow creature had, they believed, had cheated death. Hildegard waited to take a breath of air and calm her mind of visions.
Having fallen in together at the end of the train of folk, Adelheid and Damyata briefly caught each other’s eyes. They paused, blushed. Each stammered a word, then the two hurried to catch up with the others. Their feet fell so lightly, propelled with the energy of youth, that they almost seemed to Hildegard to skip. When the watchful nun was free of migraines, little escaped her attention.
Hildegard: This injury we can heal, but what about the next? Who knows? How close we are to love, and how close to death.
In those days monks and nuns often shared abbeys, though they lived largely segregated lives. At the opposite end of Disibodenberg Abbey lived a cadre of monks. They entered the abbey through the main public hall that connected, through heavy, locked doors, the halves of the community. Shying away from the ruckus opposite, they prepared to welcome their abbot, Kuno, who had just returned from the synod in Rome.
First monk: Word is she has had the work approved by the Pope himself.
Second monk: And that she has had a vision proclaiming she should move her nuns to Rupertsberg.
First monk: We know what the abbot will say to that. She brings money to the abbey from the rich and powerful. Alms come from everywhere for her prayers, and gifts have arrived the last three days as thanks for her healings. Everyone knows her, from peasants to kings.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
