Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard Von Bingen Read Free Page B

air to mimic the counts and countesses, margraves and margravines. Humming courtly dance tunes, we reeled through the shallow stream, our feet splashing and prancing, until my skirt and my brother’s tunic were soaked.
    “Dancing is forbidden in the monastery.”
    I shrugged to prove to Rorich that I’d never much cared for such fripperies anyway.
    “They won’t really send you away.” My brother flung himself on the bank to laze in the sun. “Not for a long while yet. That girl in Alzey who went to the nuns in Schönau—they wouldn’t take her until she was twelve. That gives you five years, Hildegard.”
    Gratitude tingled inside me as I waded in the brook, savoring the gentle click of water-washed agates between my toes. Five years! It seemed a whole lifetime. Anything could happen in that stretch of time.
    “Mother will change her mind,” Rorich said. “She always does. Remember how Father wanted Roswithia to marry that fat widower with the gouty leg?”
    This had transpired before I was even born, but it was Walburga’s favorite story and Mother’s finest hour and bravest deed. Father was about to give our Roswithia to someone old and hideous, but Mother had overruled him just as he was about to set off for the Holy Lands. The minute he was gone, Roswithia had thrown herself at Mother’s feet and wept in relief.
    “At least you don’t need to worry about who they’ll make
you
marry.” I snapped a wand off a willow. “You’re the youngest son— you’ll have to be a priest.”
    Rorich kicked in the water, splashing me in the face. “I’ll run away first.”
    “I’ll come with you. We’ll be bandits.”
    “We’ll be poachers and hunt the Count of Sponheim’s deer. We’ll feast on venison and hide in the trees.” Rorich eyed me critically. “But you wouldn’t be sturdy enough to survive that kind of life, Hildegard.”
    “I’ve been well,” I insisted. In this warm and dry tide of summer, my lungs were clear, my breathing easy. “Not sickly at all.”
    “Prove it.” He pointed to the weeping willow. “Show me how high you can climb.”
    First I hitched up my skirts, knotting them over my knees to free my legs before I launched myself onto the first low bough. Grabbing the trunk, I worked my way up, placing one bare foot and then the other on the next highest limb till I ascended to the upper branches. There I swayed, clinging white-knuckled lest I fall, while Rorich howled with laughter. A dizziness filled my head as the orbs spun around me. Gulping for air, I slithered to the ground with as much bravado as I could muster.
    “I did it.” I looked my brother in the eye.
    He only lifted my arm to study the yellow bruises, the fruit of my grappling with the tree.
    “Walburga will murder me,” he said. “Let’s go back before she skins us.”
    “We’ll be bandits.” Grasping his hands, I clung to our daydream. “We’ll live on berries and wild mushrooms. We’ll find the white hart that lives in the deepest forest! Except we won’t kill him. We’ll build a pavilion for him, and I’ll weave my hair into a collar for him.”
    Rorich wrapped his arm around me. “Maybe Jutta will take Clementia instead of you. Jutta’s so crazy she probably can’t tell one girl from another.”
     
    Filthy and bedraggled, Rorich and I crept through the kitchen garden then darted through the low door leading into the cavernous undercroft beneath the burg. Here we parted ways, hoping to escape the servants’ detection. Hiding behind sacks of barley, I watched my brother melt into the darkness like some renegade Saracen. After counting to twelve, I tiptoed between the barrels of beer and wine, my plan being to steal up the stairs to my chamber and put on a clean shift and kirtle before Walburga pounced on me. But echoes of sobbing made me freeze.
    Wishing Rorich was still there, I inched forward, deerskin slippers padding the dust until I came upon Walburga behind stacked crocks of cheeses and