Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard Von Bingen by Mary Sharratt

granted me the gift of prophecy. I see visions, my girl.” Her eyes burned into mine.
    Every part of me prickled. Trutwib’s visions were sacred, then? Who had told her so, what priest? Or had the hermit simply decided for herself? I decided that Trutwib must be one of the sarabaites that the first chapter of the Rule of Saint Benedict warned about—those stubborn souls who refused to submit to the authority of any religious order, who shunned the guidance of prior and abbot to elect only themselves as the best judge of what was holy and good.
    “You may wait in the refectory,” Volmar told her. He sounded awkward, as though unsure of how to address a woman of such low rank who seemed to exhibit every intention of courting heresy.
    “No, I’ll stay right here. Fetch me a stool, boy,” she said. “I’ll rest my bones until the holy Jutta is ready to see me.”
    “Where do you sleep?” I asked, when Volmar, now muttering to himself, went off to hunt for a stool. “What do you eat?”
    “I sleep on a bed of branches, far cleaner than any bed of straw, dear girl. I am never bitten by fleas nor troubled by lice. I eat whatever God sends my way. I set snares for rabbits—”
    “You eat the flesh of four-footed animals?” I asked, both scandalized and thrilled.
    With no abbot or magistra standing over her, Trutwib was free to do whatever she pleased.
    “Look at my cloak,” Trutwib said, holding it up to the screen. “It’s made of rabbit pelts sewn together with sinews. Nothing goes to waste. Besides, I’m no refined lady like your mistress with pilgrims to heap gifts upon me.”
    “How do you know your visions don’t come from the devil?” I asked, my eyes darting to Volmar as he lumbered through the church door with a three-legged stool.
    Trutwib’s glowing green eyes looked at me, looked
into
me. The hermit smiled. “I just know.” She turned to Volmar. “Thank you, boy. Now fetch me a mug of beer, if you please.”
    I giggled before I could stop myself, watching Volmar, exasperated beyond reason, struggle not to snap at her impudence.
    “We do not take refreshment in the church,” he huffed. “If you wish to eat and drink, you must go to the refectory.” He looked so pained that I winked at him.
    “And you, my girl,” Trutwib said, continuing to inspect me after Volmar had left. “How did the holy Jutta come to choose you as her companion?”
    “I was only eight when she brought me here. She had no other takers. My mother wanted to be rid of me.” The words spewed from my mouth with a bitterness that made me cringe.
    “You’re an honest one,” Trutwib said. “Without illusions. This is good, my girl. Keep your clear head. It will be your salvation in years to come.”
    “Were you really going to drink beer in the
church?
”
    “Who doesn’t? The nave of the church belongs to the people. If you had any experience of life outside these walls, you would know that. Besides,” she said, beaming at me, “beer is most wholesome and pleasing to God.”
    Smiling back at Trutwib through the screen, I longed to follow her out into the forest, adopt her as my new magistra. But just then Trutwib lifted her eyes and looked into the space behind me.
    “There she is at last, the holy anchorite,” said the hermit.
    I turned and tried to see Jutta as Trutwib did—a woman of twenty-one, but as scrawny as an undeveloped child. My magistra had no breasts or hips, yet she was beautiful, her eyes as blue as larkspur, her cheeks stung pink from the cold.
    “Who is this?” Jutta asked me, making a great show of ignoring the peasant woman who presumed to address her so directly.
    Our guest spoke before I could. “I am Trutwib the Prophet. I have come to reveal your future.”
    Jutta lifted her chin in disdain, an aristocrat looking down at a tramp. “A prophet, you say? Only the pope himself may bestow such a title.”
    Trutwib didn’t blink. “I know your destiny, my lady. Will you hear it or