No one can enter my cell, but many people come to my window on King Street. When I have a visitor I put up a black curtain so my person is kept hidden. My visitors include lords and ladies, merchants and their wives, traders, farmers, weavers, dyers, bakers, coopers and women who sell their bodies.
I give the same counsel to them all, reassuring them of God’s love and asking them to find forgiveness and patience in their hearts for others. For we are all imperfect creatures, in need of these things daily.
From my window I hear many tongues — English, French, Latin, Flemish, Cornish — though laughter and anger sound much the same in any language. I hear dogs barking and horses whinnying, and the sound of traders calling out their wares has become as familiar as birdsong: Hot peascods! Ribs of beef! Hot pies!
From the mouths of pedlars and minstrels much information has reached my ears. I heard about the crowning of the new king, whose mother tongue was English, not French; I heard when there were three popes claiming to be the only true pope; I heard when Henry le Despenser died and the new bishop was consecrated; I heard when the poet Geoffrey Chaucer died.
I also hear much in the way of gossip and speculation. People tell me the stories of their lives, and some days my mind swirls with their words. Whispers of dark deeds and crimes and violence.
Some years ago they started burning heretics nearby. I’m told they’re tied to stakes, with brushwood piled around them so the fire burns vigorously. When the wind blows from the north, I smell charred flesh on the breeze and hear screaming. I picture black petals of skin rising up into the air.
Heretics. That’s what they call people who own a Bible in English; or who believe that men are saved through God’s love; or who feel close to God without need of a priest to intercede for them; or who question whether the buying of pardons is really God’s will. All over the city, houses are searched, people are arrested. The smell of burnt flesh hangs over the city, shaming it.
Go, gentle souls, I whisper over the screams. Depart this world and go to your Lord who loves you.
Sara tells me that weeping relatives sometimes beg for a remnant from among the ashes. The officials refuse, so loved ones come later, in secret, scrabbling for some piece of their departed, some chip of bone they can bury and visit as a grave.
After all these years, I have told no one of my shewings. People come to me because I am an anchoress and live quietly, not because I have heard the voice of God. I try to listen and to ease each heart that comes to me. People ask me to pray for them, and this I do with love and fervour. Some want me to be their confessor but I tell them they must speak to a priest, for I cannot absolve them. Bands of pilgrims visit too, on their way to take a boat to France. Some people bring me things, but I keep only what is of little value; the rest I give to the church. I have a shelf laden with pebbles, shells, feathers and dried flowers – if people ask for a memento, I give them an item from this shelf.
Occasionally, people ask me to look after things for them – money or jewels that they fear will be stolen by a drunken husband or an untrustworthy daughter. But I do not offer this service. Nor will I engage in any teaching or regular counsel, for if I did, I would have no time for prayer or meditation. Indeed, I have so many visitors it sometimes feels I do not have enough time for these things anyway. I must strive to keep my thoughts focused inwards, while the world is always trying to draw them outwards.
The Ancrene Wisse states that anchoresses may keep no animals but a cat. I have had several cats over the years, and they come and go as they please, without fear of excommunication. Indeed, my present cat fears nothing. I often joke with him, ask him if he has been visiting witches. We keep this joke to ourselves, lest we’re overheard and both of us drowned or burnt.
But other creatures choose to share my cell: spiders, beetles, woodlice, earwigs, wasps, fleas, lice. One particularly cold year, a squirrel spent the winter under my bed. My cat did not approve and slept in Sarah’s room.
The street can be noisy at night with music, singing and shouting. There are taverns nearby, and occasionally men come to my window to abuse me. Once, a man threw a piece of stale bread into my window. Sara was woken by the sound and rushed out, waving her broom, but the man ran off before she could inflict her wrath upon him.
Although I do not speak of my shewings, there have been time when I wondered if it was God’s will that I should. A man came to my window who whispered that what he was most afraid of was that there was no God: that the words of the mass were just old, dead words; that the bread the priest gave him was the same thing he ate at home; that the wine was nothing but fermented grapes. That all our living and dying was for no purpose; that we were just like the flies that hatch in the dung-clogged streets.
I had never met a soul so lacking in hope. I told him not to fear, that God was real and full of love for him. He asked me how I could be sure. I wanted to say it was because I had seen God and knew he was in all things, but he might have told someone of my claims.
— Victoria Mackenzie, For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain
Notes from a Room 