Fool (english)

tonight.”
    “Yes, mum.”
    “And so, you must never speak with the anchoress about her past, and if you should, you shall be excommunicated and damned for all eternity with no hope for redemption, the light of the Lord shall never fall upon you, and you shall live in darkness and pain for ever and ever. And in addition, I shall have Sister Bambi feed you to the cat.”
    “Yes, mum,” said I. I was so thrilled I nearly peed. I would be blessed by the glory of the anchoress every single day.
    “Well that’s a scaly spot o’ snake wank,” said the anchoress.
    “No, mum, it’s a cracking big cat.”
    “Not the cat, the hour a day. Only an hour a day?”
    “Mother Basil doesn’t want me to disturb your communion with God, Madame Anchoress.” I bowed before the dark arrow loop.
    “Call me Thalia.”

    “I daren’t, mum. And neither may I ask you about your past or from whence you come. Mother Basil has forbidden it.”
    “She’s right on that, but you may call me Thalia, as we are friends.”
    “Aye, mum. Thalia.”
    “And you may tell me of your past, good Pocket. Tell me of your life.”
    “But, Dog Snogging is all I know-all I have ever known.”
    I could hear her laughing in the dark. “Then, tell me a story from your lessons, Pocket.”
    So I told the anchoress of the stoning of St. Stephen, of the persecution of St. Sebastian, and the beheading of St. Valentine, and she, in turn, told me stories of the saints I had never heard of in catechism.
    “And so,” said Thalia, “that is the story of how St. Rufus of Pipe-wrench was licked to death by marmots.”
    “That sounds a most horrible martyring,” said I.
    “Aye,” said the anchoress, “for marmot spit is the most noxious of all substances, and that is why St. Rufus is the patron of saliva and halitosis unto this day. Enough martyring, tell me of some miracles.”
    And so I did. I told of the magic, self-filling milk pail of St. Bridgid of Kildare, of how St. Fillan, after his ox was killed by a wolf, was able to compel the same wolf to pull a cart full of materials for building a church, and how St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.
    “Aye,” said Thalia, “and snakes have been grateful ever since. But let me apprise you of the most wondrous miracle of how St. Cinnamon drove the Mazdas out of Swinden.”
    “I’ve never heard of St. Cinnamon,” said I.
    “Well, that is because these nuns at Dog Snogging are base and not worthy to know such things, and why you must never share what you learn here with them lest they become overwhelmed and succumb to an ague.”
    “An ague of over-piety?”

    “Aye, lad, and you will be the one to have killed them.”
    “Oh, I would never want to do that.”
    “Of course you wouldn’t. Did you know, in Portugal they canonize a saint by actually shooting him out of a cannon?”
    And so it went, day in, day out, week in, week out, trading secrets and lies with Thalia. You might think that it was cruel of her to spend her only time in contact with the outside world telling lies to a little boy, but then, the first story that Mother Basil had told me was about a talking snake who gave tainted fruit to naked people, and the bishop had made her an abbess. All along what Thalia was teaching me was how to entertain her. How to share a moment in story and laughter-how you could become close to someone, even when separated from them by a stone wall.
    Once a month for the first two years the bishop came from York to check on the anchoress, and she would seem to lose her spirit for a day, as if he were skimming it off and taking it away, but soon she would recover and our routine of chat and laughter would go on. After a few years the bishop stopped coming, and I was afraid to ask Mother Basil why, lest it be a reminder and the dour prelate resume his spirit-sucking sojourns.
    The longer the anchoress was in her chamber, the more she delighted in my conveying the most mundane details from the outside.
    “Tell me of the weather today, Pocket. Tell me of the sky, and don’t skip a single cloud.”
    “Well, the sky looked like someone was catapulting giant sheep into the frosty eye of God.”
    “Fucking winter. Crows against the sky?”
    “Aye, Thalia, like a vandal with quill and ink set loose to randomly punctuate the very dome of day.”
    “Ah, well spoken, love, completely incoherent imagery.”
    “Thank you, mistress.”
    While about my chores and studies I tried to take note of every