The Leper's Companions Read Free Page A

saint who is able to help women in labor.
    The painting was done on wood in dark rich colors. It was divided into six squares, and each square showed a stage of the saint’s life. In the first square Margaret was cast out of her house by her cruel father and you could see her walking into the hills with her head bowed. In the second square the Roman Patriarch, whose name the fisherman could not remember, tried to rape her, but she resisted him. In the third square she was hung on a rack that was similar to the racks used in the village for drying fish. Two soldiers were scraping at her body with an iron hook so that the bones were revealed, and the blood fell from her like red water. Next she was put into prison and the bars of her cage were all around her.
    While she was in prison the Devil appeared in the form of a green dragon and with its hot breath it sucked the saint into its mouth. You could see her standing with bare feet on the soft red tongue, the row of teeth hanging down above her like icicles around the eaves of a house. But now that she was inside the body of the dragon she held up an iron cross and spoke the name of God. The dragon exploded and she was delivered safely back into the world and out of danger.
    The old fisherman stood there in the dim light of the church, gazing at the white face of the saint, at her gold halo like the sun at harvest time, at the dragon’s scaly skin, the teeth, the blood. And he began to sing the story of what was happening. He sang the saint out of the sorrow of leaving home, out of the fear of rape. He gave her courage when the metal hook bit into her flesh. He comforted her in the loneliness of the prison and he prayed for her when she was trapped inside the dragon’s body until he could feel her breaking through and escaping.
    When the story was completed he told the saint that if his daughter survived he would show his thanks by setting out as a pilgrim to Jerusalem. He would go in a boat across the North Sea and then he would walk to Venice, where a ship could take him to the port of Jaffa. From there he knew it was not far to the Holy City. If he died on the way he would accept that the saint was exchanging his life for his daughter’s.
    He returned to the house and went to sit by the fire next to his son-in-law. The noise had subsided and everything was poised in the quiet of anticipation. The midwife appeared with blood on her clothes and said the two men could enter the bedroom. There they found Sally as limp as a fish with a little baby suckling at her breast.
    Her father fulfilled the vow he had made to Saint Margaret. He left early one morning and his boat faded from sight as it approached the horizon.
    Before he went he explained to Sally what it was that hehad to do. She did not disagree with him or try to make him stay, but as soon as he had gone she was as desolate as a child for whom the present moment has no end.
    Her husband spent more and more time out at sea searching for the mermaid, coming back with his nets empty. Finally he did not come back at all for several days. Sally found him washed up by the tide, naked and cold, not far from the black stone under which the lock of hair was buried.

5
    A group of people from the village were running to the house of the woman who saw devils. Sally was there with them and so was the shoemaker and his wife, the red-haired girl, the man who could remember the Great Pestilence and several others whose faces were turned from me.
    They came to a halt in front of an open door, jostling awkwardly against each other like sheep in a pen.
    â€œWe must do something!” said one voice and everyone waited to be told what was to be done.
    â€œShe has bitten her husband, who is such a gentle man!” said another voice, urgent with indignation. “She has tried to murder her new baby! She is tearing at her own flesh and pulling out her hair! She can see thousands of devils, the room is thick with