I am honoured to share an extract with you from this book, seeing as though it has Norwich in it and that is somewhere I live close to, so that means it is even more special to me.
Book synopsis
‘So I will write in English, pressing new words from this beautiful plain language spoken by all. Not courtly French to introduce God politely. Not church Latin to construct arguments. English to show it as it is. Even though it is not safe to do so.’
From the author of Miles to Go before I Sleep comes I, Julian, the account of a medieval woman who dares to tell her own story, battling grief, plague, the church and societal expectations to do so. Compelled by the powerful visions she had when close to death, Julian finds a way to live a life of freedom – as an anchoress, bricked up in a small room on the side of a church – and to write of what she has seen. The result, passed from hand to hand, is the first book to be written by a woman in English.
Tender, luminous, meditative and powerful, Julian writes of her love for God, and God’s love for the whole of creation. ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’
Excerpt
Lora will not speak until I have made her drink some milk heated and infused with sage, sitting in the chair beside her bed and holding her in my lap and stroking her hands and her hair and finally the words come.
‘I did not know where you were,’ she says. ‘I was waiting in the hall, listening for you. You did not come. You did not come. And then the door crashed open and father was standing there and I was so happy to see him and so excited because I was not expecting him home, but his face was all wrong and he smelled so horrible and then he moved and I had to run backwards into the solar as he stumbled towards me and I wanted to help him but I wanted to be sick and then he tripped and I jumped away or he would have fallen on me but then I fell backwards on my bottom and he landed with his head on my lap and I couldn’t move. Oh! I did not know what to do! I wanted to help him, mother, I wanted to help him and you were not there and I felt so sick and I was so frightened!’
She weeps, then, great wracking sobs and I hold her tightly, forbidding my own thoughts, murmuring soft words. I tell her that her father is in heaven with the angels, and after a while her tears dry and her eyes shine brightly. Too brightly. Then she slackens in my arms and I can feel sleep overcoming her. I lay her down carefully in her bed and cover her quiet body.
And I am left with my guilt. I abandoned my household and let my daughter face what I had faced when I was just her age, only worse – far, far worse. How could I not have thought this might happen? I should have protected Lora from this harrowing repeated fate.
I remain upstairs stroking Lora’s hair as she sleeps, listening to the men taking Martin away and instructing John to keep the family within for a week.
The next day we scrub and fumigate the house. Lora wants to help but she is listless and does not quarrel when I bid her rest. In the evening she sits by the fire, her eyes fixed on the flames. She will not look up at me and when it is time to eat she has no appetite. She walks stiffly and although she does not make a sound I can see from her face and the tightening around her eyes and mouth and her sharp, indrawn breath that she is in pain. She looks much older than her six short years.
In the night I go to her bedchamber. She sleeps, though her breathing sobs as if she were crying, and her cheeks are bright. Too bright. Gently, without disturbing her, I feel her armpits. There are swellings. And her groin, and there are swellings.
I take myself to the solar. I sit down carefully and I clasp my hands together. I pray. I do not think I have the strength for this. It will be a very few days, then she too will be gone.
Purchase link – Amazon
Disclaimer – Thank you to the Author and the Publishers for sending me a gifted copy of this book.