Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard Von Bingen by Mary Sharratt Page A

not?”
    Jutta knit her hands together. She seemed as flustered as Volmar had been, not knowing how to contend with this person.
    “Hildegard, leave us,” she said.
    Drooping in my disappointment at not being able to hear what the prophet had to say, I trudged out of the room, pulling the curtain in the doorway behind me. In the outer chamber, I pricked my ears to their murmurings. At first I only made out a few words here and there, but as Trutwib went on speaking, her voice picked up volume and power until I heard her prediction ring out, her words that changed everything.
    “The one who lives under your wing, my lady, shall grow and grow until she outshines you. You will die, forgotten and obscure, and she shall blaze like the sun.”
     
    There being no brazier in the outer room, I was doubled over from cold when Jutta finally allowed me back in the main room where the shutters were now bolted to block the screen. Trutwib, I wagered, was long gone, her broad peasant feet taking her into the thick of the woods. I hoped the monks had found some beer for her, though it was more likely that Trutwib had to content herself with our sour apple wine.
    “Come stand before me,” Jutta said, her voice imperious. “Take off your veil so I can see you.”
    Trembling, I obeyed. Jutta’s eyes were so hard and cold that I couldn’t bear to meet them.
    “That
woman
says you see visions. Is that true?”
    Dumbstruck, I froze, tears flooding my eyes. Trutwib had only to look at me to divine my secret shame and then she had pulled the scales from Jutta’s eyes. My magistra glared at me as Mother once had, as though I had betrayed her out of spite. No longer could I be Jutta’s pet, the living doll she hugged for comfort when her anguish and loneliness overpowered her. No longer could I be her trusted handmaiden. Trutwib’s revelation had turned me into my magistra’s rival. First cast out of my childhood home and now out of Jutta’s confidence, my heart raced in panic. I truly had nowhere left to hide.
    Her bony fingers dug into my arms. “Tell me what you see.”
    As I stared at her, I saw the skull beneath her skin. The stench of her breath, rank from fasting, struck my face, forcing me to recoil. I could only sputter and stammer about things far too strange to understand. The Lady at the axis of the wheel of creation, the greenest branch sprouting from her and flowering. The sapphire man emerging from her bosom, his hands outstretched. Adam lay before him, naked and asleep, and from Adam’s side, the blue Christ conjured a white cloud pregnant with a million stars and that brilliant cloud’s name was Eve, shining and innocent till the serpent rose to throttle her in his great black fist.
    “Nonsense,” Jutta spat. “Those aren’t visions, just wicked and heretical fancies. I must inform the abbot. Once he knows the truth, he’ll cast you out.”
    I couldn’t say anything more for the pounding of my heart. Could Jutta truly convince the monks to banish me? If my long-cherished dream came true and I could leave this place, where would I go? Mechthild, I was certain, wouldn’t take me back. I could no longer flee to Rorich, who was owned by the Church as much as I was. What happened to the tithed souls the Church no longer wanted?
    A throbbing ignited in my head, a poker-sharp pain behind my left eye that left me queasy. As Jutta continued to berate me, I saw her mouth open and close, but I could no longer hear her voice.
God has struck me deaf and mute for my presumption, my unholy vision. The Church has used me up and now she will spit me out.
    Somehow I groped my way to my pallet. Lying as corpse-still as I’d done when they first laid me in this tomb seven years ago, I waited for something to happen. For Abbot Adilhum to appear at the screen, drag a confession out of me, and then lay on a penance that would make hell seem merciful.
    Instead, a cloud descended and from that billowing mist emerged a pale blue woman,