#37.6 Thurs., Oct. 13, 2022

Historical setting: 589 C.E. A house in the Pagan village

         Thole and Largin caught up in wonder argue incessantly over taking turns to hold the baby. Both father and grandfather have acquired that skill overnight.  Tilp is doing well, Ana says. Colleen recites instructions in monotone. I’ve known some who are Irish ceaselessly yammer – and I expect from that brogue poetry, song, and great passions of words. But Colleen is the quiet listener. If Ana weren’t cheerful this morning we would think this had been a tragic end. But now it’s a time of unspeakable joy. Villagers are outside with gifts, wreaths and bouquets, little precious pieces of linen they have kept in safe places waiting for a moment to be invited in and see this wonder that artists only wish to capture in stone – the mother and baby.

         This new morning now, I take a walk by the River to speak my thanksgivings to God alone. The river is flowing within its banks today, and the week’s flood is remembered in the debris along the banks. It seems there is a gathering of monks and other Christians from Tours on this side of the river between this path and the ferry landing. Closer, I can see that they are gathered, but standing a distance from a twisted form of human flesh tangled in the debris. Closer yet, I am warned it may be plague.

         The rites and chants over this death are from a distance. No one dare go near the dead. Only a person who has lived beyond plague can go near. And so I go.  It’s one of the ferrymen drowned. He was dead for a few days perhaps. Maybe it happened on that same day when we came seeking passage across the river.

         I climb down the bank to him. When I turn him onto the bank everyone steps back a further distance, and the other two ferrymen are keening for the man. Maybe the howls are grief, but surely the shock and sorrow is also fear of plague. I can assure everyone he has no buboes of plague. No one else would touch him so they only have my word that this is a drowning. At least now we can bring the body from the water, and a proper burial can be given.

(Continues Tuesday, October 18, 2022)

#37.5, Weds., Oct. 12, 2022

Historical setting: 589 C.E. Pagan Village near the Loire

         Thankfully, the assignment we are given is hard work and takes us until nightfall. Whenever we are near the cottage we hear sounds through the thatch, sometimes, murmurs and conversation, sometimes the cry of a woman in birth. Yet there is never that terrible empty silence of death. Even Thole can accept the possibility that everything will be alright. Please Dear God, see us all through this.

         By dusk now, this outdoor fire is raging. We’ve filled six large barrels emptied of ale, clear to the brims with this strained and boiled purifying water.  And here we have gathered plenty of extra wood to keep the fires burning. Two of the women, Ana calls students, bring us out a pot of broth and cups for our supper.  How could they think of us at a time like this? We hear a loud howling cry from Tilp, and Thole pushes passed to go in. The women instruct him to be very quiet and gentle.

         Largin and I follow and are told we must wash our hands in the trinity of bowls by the door. Thole goes immediately to Tilp, and Ana asks him to wash his wife’s face with a clean linen cloth. Now he has a more significant task than preparing six large barrels of bath water for a yet imagined baby.

         Is there ever such a thing as a normal birth?  I can’t imagine that, but it is what Colleen says, as she gathers the tiny infant from the billows of wormwood prepared for just this moment. It is indeed a baby boy, slippery and red, but with all the baby parts amazingly tiny and perfect. He cries. She wraps him in a blanket and Thole is immediately a new man — a father he is now — no longer a crazed uncontrolled youth. He is the father of a son. Tilp is glad to take the baby from his arms, and put him to her breast. How can “normal” be so amazing?

         Dear God, thank you for this beautiful thing — gnarly, slimy, bloody, messy, howling, sweating, crying – the way of entrance into life, big and grand, overwhelming and intimate. — Crinkly eyes fixed on the mother’s face. Thank you for this strange design of passage. Amen.

         Only Colleen, straight and slender at the washbasins can speak this unbelievable thing in her simple, unfettered style.

         “It were a normal birth, after all.”

(Continues tomorrow)

#37.4, Tues., Oct. 11, 2022

Historical setting: 589 C.E. The river crossing near Tours

         We all have secret fears of plague, and now the sumptuous accommodations of Bertigan Hall don’t soften worry that Tilp must be very near her time. There are worries. We learn that Thole is in a state of panic. The cooper crossed over with a boat this morning to find help for the birthing. So Ana and Colleen and I go with him crossing back through the turbulance in his little boat.

         It’s a hard row, The cooper and I are barely able to manage the oars.  We have a distance to row upstream because when he crossed alone, without weight in the boat, and without two of us on the oars the current took him ashore way downstream. Now it takes the full strength two men to steady the boat at the edge so the women can climb out.

         We go as quickly as the women can run drawing up their soaking long tunics; and breathless, we arrive at the village with two large sacks of supplies for birthing.

         Thole is in a state of complete, incoherent panic, and Largin is shouting in loud repetitions for Thole to calm down. Tilp is trying to take control of the frantic howling and whining of the men. “Listen to my father now, Thole!” She commands her husband with a firm, and steady strength. 

         And here are the old women of this village gathered also. They’ve witnessed birthing, but cattle births and human may not be the same. Yet here they wait to be of use. I see them as a crowd in the way. Ana calls them students. After all, if this goes well, Tilp may become a mother again on another day, and someone here will need to know this.

         Colleen prepares to examine Tilp, and Ana tells me to get Thole and Largin out of here, and so I do.  Now we are outside of the little thatched house, and there is quiet all around inside and out.

         Ana comes out only moments into the quiet and tells Thole that the Tilp is doing well, and there is likely time to prepare properly for this birth. She sends us for water – “the cleanest water we can harvest, strained through a linen cloth, then boiled over the fire and cooled again, before it can be brought in and used to wash a baby when it comes.”

         Thole shouts mindlessly, “Wash the baby! Wash the baby!”

         What could possibly go wrong?

(Continues tomorrow)

#37.3, Thurs., Oct. 6, 2022

Historical setting: 589 C.E. On the south side of the Loire

         The rain seems powerless now for dampening spirit. The little donkey bounds the full circumference of the pasture fence, bucking and leaping, dancing his finest moves to please the stolid mares looking on.

         Jesse stands akimbo by the gate watching the romp, and the rain doesn’t stop.

         “Yes sir, Ezra where you see a tiny little critter to tow a cart, I see a fine mule in the making. You know, you’ll not get that jackass across the Loire with the floods so high. You’ll have to leave him here for a while.”

         It’s Colleen’s donkey. She knows nothing of donkeys but we can all see it would be a good idea not to try to drive a donkey and cart across in this tempest. Jesse has his mind set on keeping the donkey with some mares while we travel on to deliver Tilp and Thole’s baby. We’ll go on foot.

         We pack the herbs into oat sacks. Leaving one sack in the cart for us to take with us when we set off on our return to Annegray, and I have a huge bundle of wormwood over my shoulder as we walk to the ferry.

         The ferry landing is closed down. No one is here and the toll shed is surrounded by rising water. Things of land flow by – pieces of houses, bundles of crops, a sheep bloated and drowned. A battalion of rats swim with noses barely above the surface. Ana steps back with a message of horror in an old rhyme.

         “A river of rats,

          A dearth of cats,

          Death follows plague

          Soon after that.”

         And today there is no chance of crossing in this storm, so we turn back to await the cresting of the river to be followed with a wide calm.

         Count Bertigan’s estate has guest rooms, and banquets of plenty. While we wait for the Loire to settle back we stay in luxury.

         I can’t help remembering in 543, then the Roman ship came up the river and soon after the Justinian plague covered all of Roman Christianity. It left my children dead or orphans. When my own life was restored as it is, I found only Ezra and Eve had survived and both, in their own ways, became the guides to deliver others from plague the next time it came. And it came.

(Continues Tuesday, October 11, 2022)

#37.2, Weds., Oct. 5, 2022

Historical setting: 589 C.E. The river crossing near Tours

         In this little fringe of a wood I watch a vixen eluding me, giving up her own hiding so I won’t notice her kits.

         It seems when I am in love the whole world is in love, and when my mind is only on keeping an infant safe, the whole world is a parent protecting family. I wish that were all I had to say of this contagion of spirit. But it is also true that fear makes the world look dangerous, and hate and hurt make the all of everything seem evil. I wonder if it is only an anticipation of things that could go wrong that makes us fear. And if we offer ourselves as the sufferers of hurt and pain can we overcome our fears of imagined losses?  Is that why monks try so hard to feel hurt? Do all those suffering Christians use pain to take control of the possibility of hurt that is actually beyond their control? And now I wonder about that thing, the birthing pain. The woman I love and the child I have yet to meet must share the anticipation of that pain into life. Every living being enters into earthly life through a gateway of pain? So how is this holy plan for birthing a metaphor of Spirit?

         Eve’s cottage is gone yet the herbs of the garden still wander wild on wayward roots.  The women see them as random hidden treasures waiting for their harvest so now the bed of the cart is filled with straggly wet roots and bundles of herbs topped off with pillows and pillows of wormwood. All this wet fresh fragrance would probably overwhelm us, but for the wafting scents of the wet wools of monks robes.

         On our way, by afternoon we reach the turn in the road toward Count Bertigan’s estate where Jesse still tends the count’s stables. Teardrop comes to the pasture gate to greet Ana, and Jesse comes out surprised to see we have acquired a cart, a donkey and another woman on my brief walk back to Poitiers.  I was just here yesterday, and I told Jesse it would just be Ana and I who would come back this way on foot.

         Jesse immediately takes notice that the donkey is a jack, and the little fellow already has his sights set on Ana’s dapple gray mare. He suggests we see what happens if we just let the donkey into the pasture with the mares.

(Continues tomorrow)

#37.1, Tues., Oct. 4, 2022

Historical setting: 589 C.E. The river crossing near Tours

         This cold October rain is relentless. Rivulets of gray water run in the ruts merging into the full river of roadway. The little donkey shakes his head to clear his eyes. I lead him walking, while the women spread the tarp over the cart for a bit of shelter for themselves.

         Ana affirms my wondering, “Before the spring planting we will be glad to have Colleen with us. She is a skilled and able midwife.”

         It’s been hinted. And I’ve had my thoughts, maybe they were thoughts but they felt more like dreams or random hopes. But now it is said in words complete with an earthly measurement of time. “Before the spring planting.”

         We arrive at the place that was once Eve’s cottage and garden. Ana wants to take time here to grieve. The graves of Eve and Eve’s mother, and the others of my family are on high enough ground not to be washed out by the floods. Colleen follows Ana, listening to each memory she shares of her days when this flattened spot of mud was a home and she was a child yet innocent of deep loss.

         I look out at the lands that were once my fields, then Ezra’s vineyards, and now here is a community of poor farms. The forests have been drawn back to nothing more than a fringe along the riverbank.  And the river roils high and fast just now, so I gaze toward a more peaceful source of contemplation starring only into the fringy wood that remains.

         A fox is sneaking a look at me.  I see her for a moment peaking around a tree that is much too thin to hide her head and tail all at one time. She probably thinks if her eyes are hidden I can’t see her.  But I do see her and now I see why she is so near and so concerned with a person in her wood. She is between me and a row of three little kit faces, climbing on their baby fox legs to see over the same fallen log I seemed to be approaching. It might be just the right breadth for carving into a cradle, but now I understand it was already serving that purpose. The brave mother fox was giving herself up as a distraction from her babies.  I know she could outrun me were I to pursue. She is egging on the chase to save her kits.

(Continues tomorrow)

#36.13, Thurs., Sept. 29, 2022

Historical setting: 589 C.E. near Poitiers

         The moon set, leaving us in a long darkness, but not at all for sleeping and already we are gathering for morning prayers. Ana and Colleen are draped in huge woolen robes hidden completely in hoods and sleeves. There are no secrets in this hall though nothing is spoken.

         I’ve always known the stable master is chatty and a hub for gossip. And this morning when I go to check on the horses he already has a story I didn’t know.

         “The earl’s guardsmen are searching everywhere for two young women on a dapple gray.

         “So Brother Lazarus, this morning there is a dapple gray right here, who seems quite accustomed to sharing a stall with the bay you ride.”

         “And so it is. The abbot is well aware of this.”

         “You will have to hide this horse better. The guards will be back.”

         I know what must be done. I will ride back to the Loire today, and deliver both of our horses to their proper stable at Jesse’s farm. Tomorrow I will walk back down this long road, and when it is safe for the women to travel the open roadway again we will make a pilgrimage to the pagan village where the Druid Largin is planning for an heir.

         A constant autumn rain washes every good plan over with a dull drudge but the horses were returned, and now I’m making my way walking along the muddy road to Poitiers when I meet with a donkey cart driven by two sopping wet “monks.”

         My gracious hugs are for Ana, and I hear their story.

         “When I told Lady Elise’s family what had happened the magistrate was alerted, so the earl’s guards are no longer looking for us so it is safe for us to travel. The earl has to answer for his crimes. Lady’s mum was so grateful she showered Colleen with this donkey and cart, and supplies for our journey, though maybe that was also because Colleen was let go for lack of need for a midwife. She was given a small purse of coins and some supplies as we go on this mission together to attend the birth of Tilp’s and Thole’s baby.

         “And Laz, by spring it will be us needing a midwife. I will be glad it is Colleen we have with us.”

         Thank you God.

(Continues Tuesday, October 4, 2022)

#36.12, Weds., Sept. 28, 2022

Historical setting: 589 C.E. near Poitiers

         Ana is telling me of her fears of the earl’s guardsmen.

         “I rode as fast as I could ride in the dim moonlight by the river, but I knew that right behind me were the earl’s guardsmen. They had seen me in the earl’s stable readying my horse. So I only took time to tell her mother where Elise was, but not to tell all the details. I took the city road into Poitiers so I wouldn’t pass the guards on the river road. When I got to the monastery of the Holy Cross Colleen was waiting and said Lady Elise had become conscious, and the nuns were only concerned for the cutting and stitching we had done. That was good. I know we both did our work well. So we left without that worry, then both of us came down to this monastery sure that no one will look for us here.”

         “You are right about that. Only men can stay here.”

         We brush down Ana’s horse, and now I meet Colleen.

         Colleen is dark haired, a simple and serious Irish girl with a mere ribbon of a form as one with a lifetime of fasting. Her brogue echoed the monks of our home in the Vosges. I asked her if she ever knew of these terrors of Gaul when she left her homeland.

         She looked away to smile at my question.

         “I knew nothing of anything then, except babies. The father of our family died, and a widow needs no midwife so I sold myself for a purse to care for my mother and the others. Here the lady’s mum sent a servant to find one like me, and now here I am hiding like a thief in another man’s hay.”

         I smile straight at the girl, “You’re very brave.”

         The abbot is standing in the man-door with a stern scowl, and folded arms.

         “These women are seeking sanctuary here, Good Father. They have had a harrowing night saving a woman and her infant and escaping the guards of a murdering husband.”

         I can well understand what he is seeing here as the abbot of a monastery. A wayward guest is found to be chatting with two young women in the hay of the stable, and now this fellow is asking for shelter for them? 

         His answer is simple. Provide them with a cell and give them monk’s robes that they may join with less notice for prayers and the meal.

(Continues tomorrow)


#36.11, Tues., Sept. 27, 2022

Historical setting: 589 near Poitiers

         Ana is telling me of finding Lady Elise.

         “She was neither blue nor gray. Her skin was pale but not dead. I thought she may actually only be unconscious but seemed not dead at all. Immediately I had to allow this dangerous man a story to save himself.

         “I said, ‘she obviously had a terrible spill down the stairs. Oh, you poor man. It must have been a terrible shock for you to find her like this. And then, to carry her all the way up the tower stairs and place her so lovingly in this bed… you poor man.’

         “He devoured my pity like a starving dog with a heap of spoiling meat.

         “And just then Colleen delivered the child. At first Colleen was miffed at my kindness to the father, then she realized the purpose and she took on the same demeanor in handing him the baby and escorting them both from the room so I could work.

         “My first task was to remove the sac, as one would do in a normal birth, something surely not done if a mother is dead. Then I set about to suture the incision. Even though I was prepared and practiced this seemed to take a very long time just to be sure I had completely mended every tear. I heard someone at the door as I was preparing to tend to the woman’s facial wounds. I realized she very certainly was living. Colleen came in and held the door closed.

         “She told me to hurry, the earl was on a tirade giving orders to have the body removed immediately. The undertakers were already scrambling up the stairs. And immediately they were here at the door. They came bustling in with a board to remove the body. I realized then I had seen one of these men at the gate at Lady Elise’s family estate and that was a great relief. I asked if he worked for her family, and he affirmed they were taking her body on to her own family. But I begged him to take Colleen and Lady Elise to the Monastery of the Holy Cross where she can get the care she needs because she is yet living; and there, also, the earl’s guards won’t go looking for her. I told them I would ride to the parent’s estate to tell her parents what had happened and where to find her.”

(Continues tomorrow)

#36.10, Thurs., Sept. 22, 2022

Historical setting: 589 C.E. Poitiers

         Dear God let us feel your presence. And stay close to Ana. Amen.

         This afternoon I return to the work of helping Brother August and his apprentice. With three of us working, we have revealed the shoulders of the mother and the head of the infant is now emerging from the stone. Shall we set this child gazing at his mother, or does his face look out at the whole world of other human faces?

         “The infant eyes seek only purity and love of a mother.” Brother August listens to his apprentice’s input. And they decide on a tender Jesus, seeing only his mother while the rest of humankind may be mired in all these loveless sins of our own making, carving Jesus to be a mini-king, not a human savior.

         It’s that very brief sliver of darkness a monastery allows for sleep between evening prayers and the dark waking for morning prayers when those of us in the guest room by the stable are awakened by a fast horse arriving in the night. I look out on the courtyard, and there is Ana and another woman both on Teardrop. Ana sees me now, looking from the window and she gestures for me to come quickly.

         Her horse needs to be walked. So the young woman with her, Colleen, waits for us in the stable while Ana and I walk and she tells me of the danger they are in.        

         “There was no waiting for morning, Laz.

         “Colleen and I were called to the Lady’s chamber but were told Lady Elise had died, yet if we came quickly enough we would be able to deliver the baby. We went, and it was just as the journal had described. The mother was wrapped tight around the head and shoulders in a linen sheet that was spotted with blood. Colleen went to work immediately making her careful cut just as we had prepared, though I noticed their was more blood than I thought from a corpse. I didn’t mention that because I didn’t want to make Colleen feel she was doing anything wrong. Meanwhile, the earl was standing by wailing and crying, sobbing convulsively but with no tears. It was a disturbing distraction. At first I brought him a basin, thinking he was puking, but then I realized he is really only trying to pretend he is in shock. I lifted the sheet from the face of the dead woman and saw she had been beaten badly.”

(Continues Tuesday, September 27, 2022)