Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard Von Bingen Read Free

and pinched, as though someone had just delivered the news that Father, Hugo, and Drutwin had been slain by the Saracens and left to rot in unhallowed graves.
    But Walburga went on beaming like a simpleton. “My lady, you should give the calf to Hildegard. She’s blessed by God, that child.”
     
    Walburga’s thunderstruck proclamations soon spread as swiftly as the pox. Much to my mother’s mortification, my prophecy regarding the calf was all anyone in Bermersheim and the surrounding villages could talk about.
    I shrank from Mother’s gaze and sought refuge in Walburga’s lap, in her engulfing embrace. Walburga hugged me close, her heart beating against my ear. My nurse loved me more than my own mother did—this I knew to be a fact. Yet Walburga had sealed my doom. Mechthild von Bermersheim’s youngest daughter saw true—what would people say about our family? Either I was touched by God or possessed by Satan. How was Mother to know which?
     
    That evening after Compline in our family chapel, Mother made me stay behind with her after my siblings, the servants, and even the chaplain had quit the place. Mother drew me into the chilliest corner, near the shriving bench where we knelt to confess our sins. Unsteady candlelight sent Mother’s shadow rearing against the painted walls. Walburga had told me that Mother was thirty-five, an ancient age, and indeed my parent looked like an old woman—toothless, a few wisps of sparse gray hair poking out from where her wimple slid back, her spine buckled from bearing so many babies.
At least with your father away
in the Holy Lands,
Walburga had confided,
your poor mother can take comfort in the hope that there’ll be no more.
    “Hildegard.” Mother stared down at me. Even with her stoop, she was a tall woman. “You are the tenth child. You know that.”
    An awful tightness clutched my throat. Unable to look at Mother, my eyes slipped to the fresco of Eve with the apple cupped in her palm. Naked and glowing, the first sinner lingered beneath a tree that was nearly as exquisite as the one that had appeared in the golden sphere. Her softly rounded belly, almost like that of a pregnant woman, revealed the lust and corruption lurking inside her beautiful flesh—this was what our chaplain had told us. Eve lifted her face to the serpent, whose sinuous body boasted a woman’s head and breasts—the creature was none other than Lilith, Adam’s first wife, whispering wicked knowledge in Eve’s ear while Adam just stood there like a dullard.
    “Do you know what a tithe is?” Mother asked me.
    I nodded, fighting tears.
    “Tell me,” she commanded, her voice as cool as her fingers gripping my shoulders.
    “Every good Christian”—I gulped and swallowed—“must give a tenth of all he owns to the Church.”
    Mother knelt before me so that our faces were level. Her hazel eyes seemed as huge as the orbs that swam across my vision.
    “You are the tenth child,” Mother said again.
    I was the tithe.
     
    “It’s not a bad place, Disibodenberg,” Mother told me the following morning, as if to soften the blow.
    She allowed me to perch in her lap as she worked the bone teeth of her comb through my flaxen hair while Walburga held up the mirror of polished silver to reflect my face. Though my eyes were swollen from crying, I gazed greedily into the mirror for as long as I was allowed because this might be my last chance. Mirrors were forbidden to those in holy orders.
Mother wants to be rid of me.
What would happen if I threw my arms around her neck and begged her to let me stay? I twisted in Mother’s lap, but she told me to sit still.
    “You won’t be alone, child.” Her voice was gentle and soothing. “You are to accompany Jutta, the Count of Sponheim’s daughter, as her chosen handmaiden. Think of the prestige!”
    My family swore fealty to the Sponheim dynasty. On feast days in their hall, I had seen Jutta dancing in a circle with the other girls. At fourteen, Jutta