Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Read online

  The church bells were ringing as they entered the square. The bells from the Little Town parish of St. Nicholas could also be heard chiming, the two sets of church bells echoing each other and adding to the joyous atmosphere. Alms and treats coursed through the square, passed from hand to hand as children shrieked with excitement and the needy often wept for joy that they were the recipients of such largess.

  In the crowds that thronged the square, many of those townsfolk who were neither poor nor wealthy were giving away fresh home-baked bread or meat pies (even though meat was—in theory—forbidden during the pre-Christmas fast) or some cookies for the children. The carnival-like celebration would become even more pronounced that afternoon, after the Mass was concluded, when the market stalls would open and men on stilts or performing tricks like sword-swallowing and fire-breathing would circulate to entertain the crowds. Some participated simply out of civic obligation. Others were glad for the interruption of the daily routine and the anticipation of Christmas. Many others were aware that even as they were celebrating with their friends and neighbors, they were also heeding Jesus’ injunction to feed the hungry, for in doing so unto the least of these, His brethren, they were giving alms and food to Him.

  Božena had been up since early that morning, beginning her collection of St. Nicholas Day alms by asking those few apprentices who still had work to do in preparation for the holiday, and were making their way through the still-dark streets, for an alms “out of reverence for the day.” Her old purse, still heavy with coins from both Aleksandr’s and Jiři’s funeral procession alms, was tied under her skirt, while a new purse clutched in her bony fingers was waiting to be filled. She wielded her stick, which she used occasionally leaned on as she stood at one corner or another for a few moments to rest before scuttling off towards her next hoped-for donor. Walking, she would swing the stick gaily or tap along the cobblestones, making her darting about seem almost like a jig. Even the world-weary Božena could not help but join in the celebration of the day.

  Her purse grew heavier and heavier. She was avoiding the square until later because she was more desirous of the coins given as alms along the streets and less interested in the food that was given as alms in the square. At least, until later that afternoon. As the day wore on, she would be more interested in gathering the meat pies and bread that were still available and then using them for dinner that night—and for the next few nights, if there were enough. But they were big and would be difficult to carry about during the day and she didn’t want to be bothered with them. The coins, much easier to carry in her purses, were not only easier to stow and carry but could last much longer. She didn’t have to worry that the coins would grow stale like the loaves of bread or pies.

  The church bells rang on both sides of the river. Božena was coming towards the Old Town parish of St. Nicholas, but from the back, from the side streets that led down to the river and along the riverbank to the wooden bridge. She hurried toward the church doors.

  “Most of those with the food will be out in the square,” she muttered, almost missing coins being pressed into her palms without her even asking for them. “Them wealthy folks, those with money to give as alms, will be coming into the Mass and eager to give to such a poor old woman as myself.”

  The streets behind the church had been full, but not nearly so full as the square, which she entered as she came around the corner of the church. The crowd here, especially as she neared the doors of the parish, was almost at a standstill. Folk entering the church for the Mass paused to give their remaining alms to those who crowded around them, and then those entering the church had to pause as the crowd of churchgoers had to slide through the doors that, while not narrow, were hardly ample enough to allow the crowd to flow in unimpeded. Božena pushed and shoved her way through the wall of beggars so that she could reach—and be reached by—the almsgivers passing by into the church.

  “Alms? Alms for the poor? Alms for a poor old beggar-woman on this fine St. Nicholas Day?” Božena reached up into every face she saw, turning and turning about in circles. She hardly noticed that she had moved into the flow of those on their way to the Mass and stood in the doorway, blocking anyone who wanted to enter as she turned this way and that, her stick stuck out at an angle as she held it under one arm, all the better to reach out with both hands for the alms that kept flowing towards her.

  “Wine, wine for the thirsty!” called another woman nearby. She held a great pitcher in one hand and a cup in another, mindful of Jesus’ other great injunction: “Inasmuch as you gave drink to the thirsty, you gave it unto me.” Hands reached out towards her cup, some more than once, as she gladly filled the cup again and again. Another woman stood nearby with another flagon to also quench the thirst of any who would take the cup from her hand.

  Božena found the press of people slowly moving her away from the doors and into the market space of the square. Those headed to church, hoping to not miss the entrance of the clergy and the beginning of the Mass, hurried to enter before the last bell ceased its reverberations in the steeple. The old beggar woman whirled about, turning and grasping, her stick under her arm, the people pressing past her…

  Božena spotted a particularly finely dressed young man coming alongside her. “Alms?” she demanded, turning towards him with her hand reaching into his face. Her stick caught the women with the pitchers of wine sharply in their ribs, and the pitchers sailed into the crowd, which scattered like snowflakes in a fierce winter wind, each crying with surprise and shouting or laughing.

  The larger of the two pitchers fell clumsily to the ground, it contents flying up and landing in the midst of Anežka’s fine white starched linen apron. The crowd had melted as the wine went sailing and Anežka, unable to see what the commotion was about—thinking it someone giving away an especially tasty baked sweet to the children—had stepped directly into the path of the tumbling pitcher.

  The wine covered the apron and even splashed onto the red velvet gown above it. For a moment, Anežka was frozen with uncomprehending shock. Then she saw Božena in the sea of people, still turning this way and that.

  Anežka roared with fury and charged at Božena. She boxed the old beggar-woman’s ears and sent Božena sprawling onto the cobblestones. Reaching down, Anežka grabbed Božena’s stick and flailed away mercilessly at the figure on the ground. Božena scrambled, trying to avoid the blows raining down. Many laughed at the spectacle of the wine-drenched matron and the old woman attempting to escape her, as if they were members of the company of clowns that would be performing later in the square. Others reached out, some trying to stop Anežka’s arm, some trying to wrench the stick from her grasp, some trying to help Božena to her feet. In the struggle and confusion, Božena lost her grip on her new, half-filled purse, and the coins flew across the cobblestones as the tugging and pulling on her skirts tore the other purse loose and scattered its contents on the ground as well.

  Shrieks of joy from the other beggars and whoops of excitement from the children exploded as they all fell to collecting the spilled coins into their own purses and pockets. Božena’s shrieks and wails joined theirs, as she attempted to reclaim at least some small part of what had just spilled out. Anežka, barely constrained in the arms of her husband, still struggled to reach Božena. Everyone forgot the Mass beginning in the church.

  “My alms! Give me back my alms!” Božena caught hold of one little boy by the scruff of his neck and shook him, but his mother appeared from the crowd and pulled him to her bosom.

  Anežka looked down at her apron and collapsed in exhausted wails of inarticulate fury.

  “My alms! My alms!” Božena continued to demand the return of her coins but only received laughter. She whirled towards Anežka and screamed.

  “You stole my alms! You stole my alms! How am I to eat? How am I to live now that all my precious alms are gone, stolen by the crowd that you threw them to?” The old woman’s face was bright red as the fit of apoplexy surged through her.r />
  “Your alms? That I stole?” Anežka retorted. “I stole nothing of yours, old fraud! You have ruined my new apron, stolen it by ruining it forever! You should pay me for the damage done to my apron!” Anežka’s husband struggled to hold her back as she struggled to leap onto Božena’s back.

  “Pay you? I should pay you?” Božena demanded with increasing fury and incredulity. Other men reached out to hold her back, apparently afraid that she was about to jump onto Anežka and rip the contested apron to shreds.

  Many in the crowd who had darted away with their share of the fallen coins now filtered back and gathered in a circle around the two struggling women, laughing and guffawing at their antics. Flailing about, reaching for each others’ eyes and throats, screaming and ranting, filled with the strength that comes with rage and shame, the two women were locked there, frozen in their hatred, as the men attempted—and were finally able—to pull them towards their respective corners of the market square.

  It was the misfortune of the clowns and mountebanks that performed that afternoon in the square that their shows seemed dull compared to the performances the townsfolk had already seen.

  That morning, after the other servants had left the house, Žofie counted the coins on her bedspread, away from the prying eyes of the others and thus avoiding their jealousy and complaints. She felt sick to her stomach. She knew the reason for her mistress’ generosity. Could she keep this gift and not imperil her soul? Perhaps she could give it away, distribute the coins among the needy in the street, and begin to make amends for her part in the tragedy she had caused.

  “My mistress will be furious with me for giving away her present.” Žofie scooped up the coins from the coverlet and dropped them back into the purse. “Perhaps she need not know that I have given the coins away. If I take them to another neighborhood, or even to the New Town, perhaps I can distribute them there and she need not ever hear of it. Or leave the whole purse with a priest—maybe at the parish of St. Jakub in the Ungelt?—and be rid of the coins in that way.” She did not have much time before Anežka would return from the Mass at the Old Town Square parish and she needed to be gone before her mistress returned.

  Žofie gathered up the purse and her keys to the house, wrapped herself in her cloak, and reached to open the door of her room to slip out before Anežka’s return. But the door was flung open by Anežka herself, with such force that it crashed against the wall behind, and she screamed in fright. Anežka swept into the room in a rage, clutching Žofie’s cloak and pulling Žofie’s face so close to hers that the maid could see the fire blazing deep in her mistress’ eyes.

  “What was it you did to teach Jiři his lesson?” hissed Anežka.

  Žofie turned her face away from Anežka, unable to bear the hatred she saw in the face before her and afraid to see her own fear and rage mirrored in the soul of her mistress. She bit her lower lip and felt herself tremble in the fists that held her cloak. How could she tell the secret to Anežka?

  “Well? How was the lesson taught to Jiři?” the mistress demanded again. Žofie bit her lower lip more sharply and a tear slipped from one eye. Not answer the question of her mistress? It went against everything she had been taught and believed. But the fear of damnation haunted her. How could she face Judgment Day responsible for any more deaths caused by Anežka’s knowledge of the secret?

  Anežka, furious and frustrated with Žofie’s silence, threw the maid to the floor and then stepped astride her torso and, leaning over, slapped Žofie’s face. Once. Twice. A third time.

  Žofie wept and begged Anežka to stop. Žofie had never been beaten for refusing to serve and the shock was as painful as the beating.

  “Stop, mistress! Stop!” wept Žofie.

  “Then tell me how it was that Jiři is no longer able to trouble us!” Anežka raised her hand to deliver another blow.

  “Stop! No! I will tell you!” Žofie felt her will to resist collapse. Unable to protect herself because Anežka’s feet straddled her elbows and blocked her arms from moving, Žofie clutched at her mistress’ skirts and only now, from this vantage point and through her stinging tears, saw the bright red stain seeping across the white linen apron.

  She continued sobbing. The delay only infuriated Anežka further. “What do I need to do to teach that wretched Božena the same lesson?”

  “I… I… I went to a priest. He said a Mass,” she stuttered.

  “A Mass? Which Mass did he say? Why would a priest offer the Mass if he knew what the result would be?” Anežka wanted details.

  “It… it is said that if a Requiem Mass is said for the living, that person will come to no good end,” sniffled Žofie at last. “I gave alms to a priest to say the Mass for the dead and three days later—three days later…” The words caught in her throat and Žofie still could not admit aloud the enormity of what she had done.

  Anežka seemed caught off-guard and slowly stood. She peered down at the maid on the floor and then slowly stepped away from her and turned.

  “Something so simple as having a Mass said?” Anežka murmured, surprised at her good fortune. “Nothing illegal or foul and disgusting No consorting with vile old women or reciting foolish charms? Simply have a Mass said?” Anežka glanced back at the maid struggling to pull herself up from the floor.

  “Thank you, Žofie. God will bless you for your service.” Anežka swept out the door, her shoes harshly tapping down the wooden hallway floors.

  Božena was able to collect only a handful of her coins from the cobblestones. Still seething with rage, she came back to the square that night with the stub of a candle to see if any more of the coins, which might have gotten wedged between the stones, might glint at her. Zdenka, having heard from several of the other beggars in their circle about what had happened in the Old Town while she had been across the river collecting alms at the Little Town parish, came to help her friend in the winter darkness.

  “She’ll pay for this, that one will!” vowed Božena under her breath. “Pay for this, that one will, for sure! Matron high-and-mighty, she thinks herself—and me a fraud, she said!” She pried a coin loose from the stones.

  That night in bed, behind the bed curtains drawn against the cold, Anežka spoke with her husband.

  “That old woman, the beggar who caused the wine to spill onto my apron,” she began. Her husband lifted one eyebrow.

  “That old woman,” Anežka began again. “I realize that she only caused an accident, not a deliberate affront, to me. I think I… maybe should ask her forgiveness.”

  Her husband appeared startled. “Well,” he replied slowly, “that might be a bit extreme…”

  “But I do owe her something in way of recompense,” Anežka protested. “Perhaps… perhaps I could have a Mass said for her by way of recompense. Wouldn’t that be a good thing to do?”

  He thought a moment. “Yes, that would be a good and Christian thing,” he agreed.

  “I will take alms to the church on the square tomorrow, then.” The town council of the Old Town had met in that church until the Town Hall had been built in 1337, little more than fifteen years ago, and many of the council members—Anežka’s husband among them—still considered the parish of St. Nicholas on the square their family parish, even though other parishes might be closer. Anežka patted her palms on the quilt that covered them, glad that her husband agreed and she would not have to conceal either her visit to the parish or the generous gift she intended to give the clergy. “I will have a Mass said for her benefit as soon as possible.”

  It was Saturday afternoon. One of the senior parish priests of the parish on the Old Town Square approached the elderly priest sitting with his alms bowl near the statue of St. Nicholas.

  “Father Matěj.” He addressed the old man who had been saying his prayers silently, his eyes closed. The old priest opened one eye.

  “We have just received word that one of the priests at St. Martin’s parish in the Újezd neighborhood has come down ill and they request that w
e send a priest to assist with the hearing of the confessions this afternoon. They expect large numbers of penitents, as this Sunday is the anniversary of the church’s consecration. We would like to ask you to assist the fathers there; will you go?”

  Fr. Matěj nodded. “I will go,” he said, pulling himself up from his stool. “It will be good to get outside this afternoon.”

  At the church of St. Martin, another very popular saint who had been a soldier and then a monk in the fourth century, the subdeacon showed Fr. Matěj to one of the confessional booths recently installed in the church to provide further privacy for those seeking to confess their sins before receiving Holy Communion. He had never used one, as his home parish was too small and too poor to afford such a luxury; whenever he was asked to hear the confession of a parish member back home, he simply sat inside the altar rail and the penitent would kneel at the rail and lean towards him to whisper into his ear.

  This was a much more elaborate construction, with a wooden screen blocking his view of who was confessing to him as he sat on one side and the penitent knelt on a padded board on the other. The subdeacon drew a curtain across the doorway of the booth after Fr. Matěj had taken his seat, effectively blocking the priest’s view of who was coming and going in the church. He could still hear the movement and shuffling footsteps of those gathering in the nave to pray, light candles, preparing to recite their sins in exchange for the penance to be assigned and the absolution to be bestowed.

  Fr. Matěj knew the general order of the rite and of the prayers involved, but as the practice of confession was not regulated nearly as strictly as the recitation of the Mass, he had never struggled to learn the full Latin service, as he had the Mass. Since most of his parishioners were comfortable using as little Latin as possible themselves, it had been a good fit. “Will the people here will be more used to using Latin than back home near Nymburk?” he wondered.