bLACK, BLACK WATER IS CREEPING towards me. My legs are heavy. They won’t move. I can’t get my arms free. I’m trapped in the stocks and the water’s rising up. It’s running round my feet in a little trickle, like spiders’ feet. It’s crawling up over my belly.

“Mam, Mam, get me out!”

Why doesn’t she come? It’s cold. It’s so cold. My teeth are chattering and I can’t get warm. There are monsters swimming in the water, things with big eyes and beaks, sharp beaks stabbing at me, tearing me. I can’t fight them off. I can’t get my hands free.

“Don’t leave me here, Mam. Where are you?”

Water’s getting deeper. I’m so thirsty I want to drink the water, but the beaks are jumping out of the water at my face. Sharp beaks, hot beaks, hotter than pincers from the furnace. Black Anu’s in the water, she’s biting my belly with her big teeth. She’s eating me.

“It hurts. It hurts so much. Mam, make her stop!”

“Hush, lass, hush. She’s getting worse, Osmanna. I’ve seen bairns taken like it afore. There’s nothing can save them when they get this bad.”

“Keep wiping her with the cold water, Pega. We have to cool her; she’s burning up.”

“Mam?”

“Your mother’s not here, child. It was your brother who brought you here. Try to drink some more of this, please. It’ll make you better.”

“No, Osmanna, leave the bairn be, she only pukes it back up again and it just makes the poor mite more miserable every time. There’s nowt you can do for her now. She’ll not make it through the night. Let her rest.”

“No, Pega, she won’t die. I can’t let her die.”

“Bairns die, that’s the way of it. When they get this bad, there’s nothing can save them.”

“There’s another way… I remember… I saw Healing Martha do it once on a babe that wouldn’t suckle. Turn her onto her belly, Pega. If the medicine won’t go down, perhaps we can get it up.”

anchoress and virgin sister of saint guthlac, she lived not far from crowland. when guthlac realised he was dying he invited his sister to the funeral and she sailed down the river welland. following guthlac’s death she went on a pilgrimage to rome, where she died.

aLL EYES WERE FIXED upon the white wafer raised high above their heads, such a tiny fragile thing, yet it was the very presence, the very substance of the omnipotent God who created all Heaven and earth. I held in my hand a drop of water that is an ocean, a flame that is the essence and being of the whole fire.

“Salus, victoria et ressurrectio nostra.”

The blessed mystery, bread made by my hands and transfigured by my words into His very flesh. Upon that fragment stood our immortal souls, the eternity of our existence. My hands had become Christ’s hands. I had climbed the sacred mountain for them.

But the mountaintop was deserted. I stood barefoot and alone in the holy place and saw that it was empty. Nothing came back from all my prayers and questions except a hollow, mocking silence. I could make bread into flesh for them, but in my own mouth it had turned to dust. My hand trembled and drops of red wine spilled onto the white cloth.

I BUSIED MYSELF in the chapel cleaning the vessels, until I saw Osmanna rise and make her way towards the door. I called her and she paused with her back to me. Hesitated, just for a moment, a scintilla of defiance was all, but it was enough. Then she turned and walked back meekly, the semblance of obedience.

I’d had days to think about this moment, yet I’d still not decided how to begin it. I folded the linen cloth. The wine had seeped through it and beneath there was a small bloodred stain on the white stone of the altar on which the Mass stone rested. I scrubbed at it with a little water, but it would not come out.

“Was there something you wanted me to do, Servant Martha?” God in Heaven, could she not at least wait for me to speak? Her arms were thrust behind her back and she stood watching me, her head on one side and her eyebrows raised quizzically. Did she really not know why I’d asked her to stay?

“Did you observe, Osmanna, that eight women did not come forward to receive the Blessed Host tonight?”

Her gaze flinched away from mine and she swallowed hard. At least she appeared to retain some slight awe of me. That was something.

“I was lost in my prayers, Servant Martha… I didn’t notice who went forward. Surely we’re not supposed to watch-”

“Lost is indeed an apposite term for you, Osmanna, and for that very state in which you now find yourself. I foolishly trusted that you sought only to come to a greater understanding of the sweet mystery that is the Sacrament, but not only have you not returned in all humility to the table of our blessed Lord, you have incited others to follow your example and turn away.”

I found myself pacing up and down the chapel and was suddenly aware that my voice had risen to a strident pitch. I forced myself to lower it.

“Some of the women are not blessed with your reason, Osmanna. They were content in their faith and you have deliberately set out to undermine it. To wrestle with our own doubts is part of every religious life, but it must be done in private. To infect others with that venomous worm-”

“I have no doubts, Servant Martha.”

She stood by the altar, glowering at me. Her face was flushed, her hands clenched at her sides as if she was struggling to hold them in check. She looked as she did that first day I laid eyes on her in her father’s house. I was beginning to think he was right about her after all.

“You have no doubts, Osmanna? Then forgive me, for I see you are indeed blessed above all God’s saints, for I know of no other who makes such a claim.”

“I didn’t mean… What I… Servant Martha, you yourself say our souls may reach out directly to God and He to us. We don’t need anything else.”

Blessed Lord, forgive her youth. “I do not need reminding of what I’ve said, Osmanna. I may seem ancient to you, but I can assure you my wits are not wandering yet. I’m flattered that you listen to me so well. That being so, it makes your refusal to take His blessed body the more inexplicable. God laid hands upon me in spirit to consecrate the bread and wine as He lays His hands upon every one of His servants. Even you, Osmanna, could do this one day if-”

“No! You don’t understand!”

How dared she raise her voice to me and in here? Still, at least it was evidence that my words had penetrated that armour of self-possession. I met her gaze unblinking and she finally had the grace to lower her eyes.

She took a deep breath. “Servant Martha, don’t you see, that’s the whole point.” She spoke unnaturally slowly, as if she was struggling to keep control of her temper. “You said… I mean… doesn’t it say that God is spirit and we should worship Him in spirit? So why do we need to eat bread? Why should this little piece of wheat and water have any more power to save us than the loaves that we share daily in the refectory? It is only our faith that makes it so and our faith does not need physical signs. You taught me that.”

“It was our Lord’s command that we should do it. That should be enough for you. Did Abraham question why God commanded him to slay his son?”

“When the women were afraid to take Ralph in you sa… you said God is in each of us, Servant Martha. So if God is already in me, why must I take His flesh into my body? All I have to do is reach out for salvation and take it. I don’t need you or anyone else to give it to me.” Osmanna thrust out her chin as if she could take the world with a snap of her fingers.