The Darkening Glass

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I awake. The dark fell of night presses down. I lie and seethe against the dying light in my own life. Shadows shroud the mountains and deep valleys of my soul, all peopled by ghosts of yesteryear. I listen to the patter of feet as the sacristan and his escort, lanterns in hand, keep strict vigil between Compline and Matins here in the Priory of Grey Friars, nestling like some bird beneath the soaring glory of St Paul’s. If I rise and peer out of the window, I can glimpse the jutting belfry of the cathedral, its beacon light glowing above the night-shadowed lanes and trackways of Cheapside, with its cross, tun and standard. The busy heart of the buzzing beehive of London. Bells, echoing sombrely, mark the passing of the hours and the creeping approach of dawn. When the call for Matins is proclaimed, I leave my bed and wash fastidiously. I dress in my heavy tunic and linen shift, with thick wool stockings over my old legs, dark leather sandals protecting my feet. Over all I put my anchorite gown to cloak myself like one of the good brothers. My hair, now white as snow, I hide behind a tight-fitting pale-blue wimple, then, vanity of vanities, I stare into a mirror of polished brass. I glimpse my face as it is now and I remember how I was when life blazed in me like a fiery torch. The ghosts of the past cluster around me, drifting up from so many, many years ago, when I was clerica medica atque domicella reginae camerae — clerk, physician and lady of the chamber — to Isabella, wife of Edward II. A time of chaos, when God and his angels slept. A hurling season when fortune’s wheel spun dizzyingly, bringing down kings and princes, a veritable litany of names of those who met horrid death on the battlefield, in lonely dungeons or high on some public scaffold.

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