He looked so weak. What right had she to lay her burdens on Him as well? He looked to be a man who needed mercy and salvation from men, not one who was their only hope. Why had no one in this place saved Him? How had they walked before Him every day, asking and pleading for little favours, while He hung there in agony? Would it be so hard to bring Him down and dress the wounds? His bleeding body disgusted her.
She looked away and saw Him alive, calling to His disciples in a boat floating forever on a sea of cut glass. In another window she saw Him standing with a great book in His hand, the other hand extended to her. In yet another He offered a chalice to men gathered at a table—men eager to take anything He offered. To turn in any direction in this place was to see that His calling, His book, His cup, all pointed finally to this brutal death. The gold and the damask, the linens and silk were only a bright veneer that distracted from His low, bloody end.
There was no glory in death. She knew it too intimately to be in awe of it: The weeping without comfort when all were asleep; the stains that drew the flies; the bitter stench and seeping ulcers that ridiculed the delight in young flesh, until one was heaped into a dark pit and forgotten. Every man met this fate, with or without God. She was here because she wanted something besides hunger and death.
She turned away.
A priest entered at that moment from a door at the back of the church and saw her dress, dirtied from wandering in the street, and her hands on the doors, ready to flee. He stood still. She saw his eyes move to her sleeves, and follow the curve of her frame, and she realized he understood her to be here for thieving, not mercy. If the authorities found her coin purse, it would be his word that sent her to a prison where she would die slowly, in ways that would make her wish for the briefer agony of a crucifixion.
From the corner of her eye she knew Christ held the chalice to her, too, and she sank to her knees in fear.
“I come to receive the Lord!” she cried out.
He attended to the candles burning at the altar, trimming the wicks as darkness fell outside.
“I am Father Grimbald,” he said and gestured for her to retreat into the curtained box along the far wall on her right.
When he slid into the booth, pulling back the scalloped partition, she could not stop the flow of words that rushed out. It began as fear that he would not believe her and would still call the sheriff, but it swept through to the truth before she had her second gulp of air. She had thought the guilt was buried deep within, but it was at the surface … like a grime she skimmed from her heart, working faster and faster. He had listened in silence, but it was not the silence she had known and used herself. It encouraged her to go on, to root out every wicked, soiled thing, until she was purged.
There were many paths to this redemption she sought, he told her, but she did not have the money for a great pilgrimage, or for prayers to be said on her behalf. This was understandable. Perhaps she had only to show kindness to His servants and refrain from selling herself again, and the guilt would not return. She was a beautiful girl, he said, and she did not have to live this life in such misery.
When she stepped out, she wiped the last of the tears from her face and wept again. She was determined. She could sell scraps of wool that fell from the wagons, or find employ as a dyer of wool, or even a shearer.
Grimbald emerged from the confessional, touching her shoulder from behind. He turned her gently, and she saw his face in the candlelight. He was older than she, but not by many years. His mouth was full and his eyebrows dark and heavy, so that his small eyes were almost lost. Yet he was not unpleasant to look on, though she had spent her life turning her face away from the men who held her.
“You brought no coins to offer for the confession?” he asked.
“No,” she lied. She needed every coin in her purse to eat and sleep safely off the streets tonight. If it turned cold again and froze, those coins could well keep her alive.
“I cannot let you go without payment. It is law.” He reached to her hip and patted it before she could swat his hand away. He had heard the noise her pocket made. “You have stolen from the church, receiving confession with no payment.”
“I cannot give you any coins,” she said.
He dropped his hands and took a step back, his face setting into hard lines as he turned on a heel to walk. She knew where he would go. She reached for his hand and stopped him, then drew it slowly to her face, kissing it.
“What have I that pleases you? Take that,” she said.
What roosted next in her heart was a grief so unbearable it had no name.
Later, when she hesitated to die on a rain-soaked, twisted path, she watched him hound to hell one good man already long dead. She knew then she had no hope for peace, even in death. She was of those who are forever cursed. The hope of redemption was gone and she ran to meet her death. The searing iron strength of the grace that saved her gave her hope for her son.