A Living Light. Edward L. Risden

Take him to the infirmarr—gently! He will need rest, but I believe he will be all right. We will pray for him.

      Dall: Thank you, Lady.

      Datta: We cannot thank enough. We must pay.

      Hildegard: Don’t worry about pay. Care for your father and pray. And caution him about such stunts in the future.

      Datta: Who can tell old man what to do?

      Dall: Da, who can?

      Damyata: Bless you, Lady. Will you help the great Lady, young woman?

      Adelheid: I will do what I can to assist, of course.

      Damyata: Then I believe Grandfather shall live.

      The folk, guided by Hildegard’s nuns, carried Datta to the infirmary, cheerfully singing a drinking song as they went, not thinking so much about where they found themselves as feeling a glee that a fellow creature had, they believed, had cheated death. Hildegard waited to take a breath of air and calm her mind of visions.

      Having fallen in together at the end of the train of folk, Adelheid and Damyata briefly caught each other’s eyes. They paused, blushed. Each stammered a word, then the two hurried to catch up with the others. Their feet fell so lightly, propelled with the energy of youth, that they almost seemed to Hildegard to skip. When the watchful nun was free of migraines, little escaped her attention.

      Hildegard: This injury we can heal, but what about the next? Who knows? How close we are to love, and how close to death.

      In those days monks and nuns often shared abbeys, though they lived largely segregated lives. At the opposite end of Disibodenberg Abbey lived a cadre of monks. They entered the abbey through the main public hall that connected, through heavy, locked doors, the halves of the community. Shying away from the ruckus opposite, they prepared to welcome their abbot, Kuno, who had just returned from the synod in Rome.

      First monk: Word is she has had the work approved by the Pope himself.

      Second monk: And that she has had a vision proclaiming she should move her nuns to Rupertsberg.

      First monk: We know what the abbot will say to that. She brings money to the abbey from the rich and powerful. Alms come from everywhere for her prayers, and gifts have arrived the last three days as thanks for her healings. Everyone knows her, from peasants to kings.