Fool (english)

have it.”
    I was nervous, desperate for approval from the anchoress, and afraid that if I displeased her I might be struck down by an avenging angel, as seemed to happen often in scripture. Try as I might, I could not recall any piraty psalms. I cleared my throat and sang the only psalm I knew in English:
    “The Lord is my tosser, I shall not want-”
    “Wait, wait, wait,” said the anchoress. “Doesn’t it go, ‘the Lord is my shepherd’?”
    “Well, yes, mistress, but you said-”
    And she started to laugh. It was the first time I heard her truly laugh and it felt as if I was getting approval from the Virgin herself. In the dark chamber, just the single candle on my side of the cross, it seemed like her laughter was all around me, embracing me.
    “Oh, Pocket, you are a love. Thick as a bloody brick, but such a love.”
    I could feel the blood rise in my face. I was proud and embarrassed and ecstatic all at once. I didn’t know what to do, so I fell to my knees and prostrated myself before the arrow loop, pushing my cheek against the stone floor. “I’m sorry, mistress.”
    She laughed some more. “Arise, Sir Pocket of Dog Snogging.”
    I climbed to my feet and stared into the dark cross-shaped hole in the wall, and there I saw that dull star that was her eye reflecting the candle flame and I realized that there were tears in my own eyes.
    “Why did you call me that?”
    “Because you make me laugh and you are deserving and valiant. I think we’re going to be very good friends.”
    I started to ask her what she meant, but the iron latch clanked and the door into the passageway swung slowly open. Mother Basil was there, holding a candelabra, looking displeased.
    “Pocket, what’s going on here?” said the mother superior in her gruff baritone.
    “Nothing, Reverend Mother. I’ve just given food to the anchoress.”

    Mother Basil seemed reluctant to enter the passageway, as if she was afraid to be in view of the arrow loop that looked into the anchoress’s chamber.
    “Come along, Pocket. It’s time for evening prayers.”
    I bowed quickly to the anchoress and hurried out the door under Mother Basil’s arm.
    As the sister closed the door, the anchoress called, “Reverend Mother, a moment, please.”
    Mother Basil’s eyes went wide and she looked as if she’d been called out by the devil. “Go on to vespers, Pocket. I’ll be along.”
    She made her way into the dead-end passageway and closed the door behind her even as the bell calling us to vespers began to toll.
    I wondered what the anchoress would discuss with Mother Basil, perhaps some conclusion she had realized during her hours of prayer, perhaps I had been found wanting and she would ask that I not be sent to her again. After just making my first friend, I was sorely afraid of losing her. While I repeated the prayers in Latin after the priest, in my heart I prayed to God to not take my anchoress away, and when mass ended, I stayed in the chapel and prayed until well after the midnight prayers.
    Mother Basil found me in the chapel.
    “There are going to be some changes, Pocket.”
    I felt my spirit drop into my shoe soles.
    “Forgive me, Reverend Mother, for I know not what I do.”
    “What are you on about, Pocket? I’m not scolding you. I’m adding duties to your devotion.”
    “Oh,” said I.
    “From now on, you are to take food and drink to the anchoress in the hour before vespers, and there in the outer chamber, shall you sit until she has eaten, but upon the bell for vespers you are to leave there, and not return until the next day. No longer than an hour shall you stay, do you understand?”
    “Yes, mum, but why only the hour?”

    “More than that and you will interfere with the anchoress’s own communion with God. Further, you are never to ask her about where she was before this, about her family, or her past in any way. If she should speak of these things you are to immediately put your fingers in your ears, and verily sing ‘la, la, la, la, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you,’ and leave the chamber immediately.”
    “I can’t do that, mum.”
    “Why not?”
    “I can’t work the latch to the outer door with my fingers in my ears.”
    “Ah, sweet Pocket, I do so love your wit. I think you shall sleep on the stone floor this night, the rug shields you from the blessed cooling of your fevered imagination, which God finds an abomination. Yes, a light beating and the bare stone for you and your wit