CHAPTER X
The damp walls smothered Haldora. She would mechanically follow the daily routine. She was forbidden to go to the gardens so her heathen ways would not resurface. Her days were spent copying the new books and sowing,. She was able once to smuggle a velvet cloth and in the secret of the darkness, she sewed a dress like the one she had worn the day she had died. This reminded her of who she was since she felt it easy to forget everything after hearing the countless masses. She struggled to keep track on her festivals and of the phases of the moon, time was lost inside those walls and she was lost in routine.
Her words and gestures were false, and when she prayed in silence she prayed to her own god. The new God had nothing for her. He had died as a man, killed by man, but he was no man. Nothing made sense. Haldora was not at all convinced this new God was anything good, but all the people seemed to embark in his words, so she also pretended to be.
When she could speak the words of the Lord intelligently she was brought to a priest to be baptized. Her head was anointed and washed with water. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost she was now known to God and people as Isabeaux. This name was only the name of her outer shell; inside she remained the Haldora faithful to her Gods.
After a few decades, she was let out to the world as a wife of Christ. She walked out of the gates to see the world again. And she was a wife of Christ no more. No more darkness, no more dampness with four walls. She was again in her element. Upon leaving the convent, she headed straight for the harbor and took the first boat she could away from the land she had grown to love. Her new life would begin in the kingdom of France away from the eyes of the Anglos. Now a sea would be between them.
Upon her arrival she set about making a name for herself as a seamstress and in her space time she would look for her herbs. This land had new kinds of herbs and trees and Haldora was happy she could still train herself to recognize new things. Her life was quiet again. Every decade or so she would move to another remote town, which became increasingly difficult as towns grew bigger and people moved more around the country. In every step she took, she had a bit of fear of being discovered. She would hear stories of the women thought to be witches and who were killed and how they were killed. The description of their actions, Haldora understood them to be her sisters. They seem to share the same ideals and do the same work. Haldora grew angrier at this new God, Christ, whose only intent was to punish people for things they had not even done yet. He would allow people to be killed in His name and seemed to do nothing but promise them a great after life. She had heard in the convent that this new God had expelled the Devil from Heaven and it was this creature that ruined men. He was the corrupter. But men had also been expelled from Heaven. She could not help to thing, when she sat down to spend the night some where on the many fields were she slept, that this new God, wherever He was to be blamed for all the madness of this world. Devil or no she would take no chance, she would go to church and pray, but she would stay away from most people, preferring to say in the woods in caves or wholes in trees, rather then being seen in town.
The name Isabeaux was soon in the mouths of many of the town’s people, though she was a great seamstress people were doubtful of her because of her allusive ways. Talks were heard and looks were cast when she would attend church. Haldora felt the pressure, but the proof came the day the priest hesitated when giving her communion.
She made up her mind… Isabeaux would be no more…
