“You wished to see me, Father Ulfrid. I assume the matter must be of some import to bring you here on such an inclement evening?”

The priest cleared his throat as if he was about to deliver a sermon. “It has come to my attention that you have in this house of women a piece of the sacred Host. I am told this Host was vomited by the anchorite Andrew on her deathbed and preserved intact from the flames of a fire.”

So the rumour had finally reached him. Healing Martha warned me on the day Andrew died that a miracle does not bring peace, but I had foolishly begun to believe that, for once, my old friend might be wrong. Andrew’s miraculous Host had lain undisturbed in the chapel for almost a month now and I had begun to hope that God had answered my prayers and the danger was now safely past. But if Father Ulfrid had learned about the miraculous Host, what else did he know?

“Might I inquire who told you this?” I asked.

“It does not matter who told me. The point is how did Andrew acquire this Host in the first place? I did not give it to her nor, I imagine, did the priest at St. Andrew’s. So the question remains: Who did?”

I swallowed hard, trying to keep my face impassive. I prayed Healing Martha was able to do the same, but I dared not look at her, knowing that the priest would immediately interpret any such glance as a sign of guilt.

“Did not this anonymous informant answer that question for you, Father Ulfrid?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed,” he replied triumphantly. “I know all that has been going on here, Mistress, every abomination that has been committed within these walls.” His pale grey eyes blazed in fury. “How dare you allow a friar to give Andrew the holy bread? Only consecrated priests are permitted to administer the sacraments. You have damned Andrew’s soul to Hell in this mockery of the rites and you have damned your own soul along with hers. Did you really think this friar would not be seen creeping to your gates at night? What other wicked practices did he perform within these walls? Did your women have sex with him? Did you?”

I felt my breath pour out in sheer relief. The priest did not know the truth after all. He believed the Franciscan had given the Host to Andrew with his own hand. I would not attempt to deny it. Father Ulfrid was outraged enough that a friar had usurped his right as a priest, but that a woman might do it was beyond his wildest nightmare. Thanks be to God, he had such a dull imagination that the possibility had not even entered his head.

Father Ulfrid interpreted my silence as an admission of guilt, for when he spoke again, the anger had left his voice, replaced with a cold authority. “You and all your women will present yourselves at the Mass next Sunday, barefoot and clad only in your shifts. I shall hear your confession before the whole congregation and you shall perform full and public penance for your crimes. You will-”

“For what shall we do penance?” I interrupted him. “Have you forgotten the news that brought you here? God preserved the blessed Host in the flames. Would our Lord have vouchsafed us such a miracle if His blessed body had been defiled in the manner of its giving? Andrew herself begged for the sacrament knowing the nature of the one who would give it to her. Could a saint on her deathbed be so misguided and remain a saint?”

Father Ulfrid’s face blanched with fury at my challenge. “That Andrew was unable to swallow the holy body of our Lord is proof that her sins still lay heavy upon her and God had rejected the mockery of the Franciscan’s absolution.” The priest’s fists were clenched tightly. It appeared to be costing him a supreme effort not to strike me. “That you tried to destroy the evidence of your heinous sin in the fire is proof beyond dispute of your guilt in allowing this travesty. God preserved the holy body from the flames to expose your crime for all to witness.”

He stepped forward and thrust his face in mine trying to force me to cower away, but I was taller than him and he couldn’t achieve the effect he wanted. I stood my ground.

“Father, am I to understand that you deny that Andrew died a saint? It is strange, is it not, that a miracle should follow on the death of a sinner? I warrant that many have taken the Host with sins still unconfessed lying heavy upon their souls, yet no such miracle has followed their sin.”

For a moment he hesitated and seemed to be at a loss for an answer. Then his chin tilted up. “The sacrament was plainly forced upon her without her consent while she lay helpless, in an effort to condemn her. From jealousy and malice, you and that friar sought to drag her soul to Hell along with yours. You will present yourselves on Sunday as I have directed and you will deliver the miraculous Host to me on that day and before all the people.

“If you fail to do so, you and all within this beguinage will be excommunicated. You will be forbidden to attend Mass. All the blessed sacraments of the Church will be denied to you and to your women. If you refuse to repent, you will die unshriven and you will be denied a Christian burial. The Devil himself will carry you screaming straight to the eternal fires of Hell. I will make certain every man, woman, and child in Ulewic knows that no Christian soul shall be permitted to trade with you or set foot within your gates without suffering the same penalty. How many will bring their sick to you knowing they are condemning them to everlasting torment?” He crowed the last words out with the triumph of a man who knows he has won.

“Spare me your threats, Father Ulfrid. You have already excommunicated half the village because they will not pay their tithes. So why wouldn’t they come to us? Can you excommunicate them twice over? As for the sick, most are here because the Mother Church in her great charity has already damned them and driven them out. The churches are emptier than a pauper’s purse and little wonder, for men get more solace from the alewives than from their priests. More stand now outside your church than within it. What difference does it make if you forbid them burial in the churchyard, since they cannot afford the soul-scot you charge them to be buried there? Those who still look to God make their prayers far away from the church, where the air is sweeter and their voices are not smothered beneath your hypocrisy and greed.”

I was shaking and couldn’t trust myself to say more in case my voice faltered. With great deliberation, I turned my back on him and, linking my arm through Healing Martha’s, led her back inside.

“I need that relic!” he screamed after us. “I must have it. I am your priest. You cannot refuse me. In the name of the Holy Church I command you-” He was still shouting threats as Gate Martha bolted the gates behind us. She drew us over to her brazier in the entrance to the little shelter next to the wall. Healing Martha and I warmed our hands gratefully over the glowing wood.

“Coming here to demand our relic, I’ve never heard the like.” Gate Martha laid a horny palm upon my arm. “You pay no heed to him, Servant Martha. He’s all wind and fart. The women of Ulewic know fine rightly what you do for them and most are grateful, for it’s more than they get from him and his kind.”

Just as I thought, behind the gate she had been listening to every word.

“You answered well.” Healing Martha patted my other arm.

I was grateful for their kindness, but exasperated by their easy reassurances. They didn’t seem to have grasped what had just happened.

“Did you not hear what the priest said?” I snapped. “He is going to excommunicate all of us. How many beguines will stay with us when they discover that they will be denied the blessed body of our Lord? What if one of them should have an accident or fall ill and they die without the Last Rites?”

Gate Martha looked at me as if I was sun-touched. “But you’ll give the sacraments, as you did Andrew.”