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before. Not that I could remember. Everyone was afraid to touch the leper’s son. But she kissed me on the cheek. And it made me feel as if everything would be all right. As if I would be all right. Right there, in the middle of the yard, she had redeemed me.

Chapter 8
Katharina Martens
Lendelmolen, Flanders
    In the morning, after prayers and after the taking of bread, we washed.
    We washed our faces and our hands. Scrubbed at them: forehands, palms, fingertips. Especially our fingertips. We washed three times a day. Three times a day to protect the lace from ourselves. To keep it from being corrupted.
    We held them up to Sister for inspection.
    Mathild was stopped.
    The Sister frowned. Spoke two words: Chilblains. Go.
    I grimaced at the pronouncement. It would not do to have an ulcer rupture all over the lace.
    Mathild left my side and soon disappeared down the hall in the direction of the infirmary. I had been there only once. It was a room filled with warmth and all manner of good smells, but it was not a room I wanted to visit often. Too many visits there and soon, one did not return. There had been many over the years who had not come back: Elizabeth, Aleit, Johanna. Beatrix, Jacquemine, and Martina. I did not know what had happened to them.
    Their names had never been spoken, but their absence had been noted. And with each disappearance, there always fell a sort of…dread.
    The rest of us left the shelter of the abbey and walked through the wind and rain, water sloshing into our clogs along the way.
    Once inside, we passed the cows and the pigs. Secure in their pens on the ground level, they munched on hay and slops. We climbed the tall, narrow steps to the loft, elbows pointed toward the soiled, daub walls in case of stumbling. We were forbidden to touch anything with our hands. Least not until we sat with our pillows and put our bobbins to work.
    I could touch my lace but once, and that was during the creation of it. The completion of each twist and each cross meant the stitch was mine no longer. The smallest speck of dust could mark it. The slightest smear of dirt could stain it. At all costs, I had to save it from myself. Yet for the time I worked on it, while I created it, the lace was mine. It was mine until it spilled over the edge of my pillow and disappeared into the silk pouch where it was collected.
    As we ascended that steep stair, the odor of our animal neighbors grew…but so did the warmth of the air. Without them we might have frozen to death on our benches as we worked. There could be no fire in the fireplace. Ever. A fire produced smoke and ashes, and a hint of either would soil the lace. Far better to risk chilblains, lung fever, or worse than to risk a single ash from one sole fire.
    We worked all morning as the sun’s light crept through the tall, narrow windows. I could feel it warm my face. Our hands kept their own rhythm, bobbins clicking. Our clogs scraped the floor now and then as we wriggled our toes to try to keep them warm. Across the room, I could hear Sister chant a rhyme for the children, for those learning what it meant to be a lace maker, those who still sat on a bench without hunching over a pillow. But soon…soon…they would know. And soon they would become entranced by the dance of the bobbin, enslaved by the emerging pattern of lace.
    •••
    Needle pin, needle pin
    Stitch upon stitch,
    Work the old lady out of the ditch
    If she is not out as soon as I
    A rap on the knuckles will come by and by
    A horse to carry my lady about
    Must not look off till twenty are out.
    •••
    I set my own dance to the rhythm of the chant, but I went about it twice as quickly.
    After a while, Sister walked over to me. I felt tension pull at the lace as I heard her draw it forth from its silk pouch. “Lovely.”
    Oh, there was such joy to be had in the pronouncement of Sister’s one word. Lovely. It would live in my memory forever. It was the highest compliment I had ever been