An excerpt from Scarlet Music

Pulling on their clothes quickly, the trio splashed their faces with water from the bucket that had been placed outside their door. Mechtilde felt dazed as she combed Hildegard's hair for the last time and tied it with Clementia's blue ribbon.

They left the guest house and hurried to the abbey church. The prior looked relieved. "The brothers are waiting," he said nervously.

Hildegard could feel the sweat in her father's palm as she stumbled across the threshold. The church was dark inside and huge, like a forest, except that everything in this forest was made of stone. Huge stone trees soared up on either side of her, their trunks entwined with thick vines laden with strange-looking fruits and flowers. Grinning animals with sharp pointed teeth and horns and human faces peered out at her from the branches. The sweep of the arches seemed like arms stretching out to one another along the ceiling. Far ahead, the altar blazed so brightly in the darkness, she wondered if it might be on fire. She clung more tightly to her father's hand.

Now the sound of chanting voices began soaring around her. The new sounds embraced her, lifting her off the ground as she floated past the rows of monks who stood in their stalls on opposite sides of the altar. First one side would chant, then the other would answer, like partners in a graceful dance. The sound had such beauty and power, it held her aloft. She felt ecstatic. The voices rose even higher now, ever more glorious...

The grip of her father's hand startled her. Beside her, she felt her mother shiver.

As the trio neared the altar, Mechtilde could scarcely breathe. Her heart plunged at the sight of the funeral torches lining the steps of the altar while the chants seemed to wind around Hildegard like a burial sheet. For a moment, Mechtilde longed to seize her child and flee.

Two monks came forward to escort Hildegard to the altar. One walked beside her while the other walked ahead to cleanse her path with incense. Feeling a gush of relief, the child saw Lady Jutta smiling at her from the altar where they would make their promises to serve God as magistra and oblate.

The promises to embrace their sacred roles were uttered. Suddenly, the child felt dizzy, now overpowered by the incense that rose from the golden censer, uncoiling before her eyes like a twisting serpent.

One by one, each candle was extinguished as the chapel fluttered into darkness. Hildegard groped for Lady Jutta's hand.

Now a sudden crackling sound filled the air as the first funeral torch was ignited. As each one was lit, the flames sucked at the dry rushes, filling the chapel with an ominous hissing. Overhead, the bells tolled slowly like cries for help, mourning the symbolic passage from life to death as the anchoress and the child left the outside world for a new life of enclosure in the hermitage.

Two monks appeared at their sides now, urging them first to kneel, then to lie prostrate before the altar, extending their arms so that each of their bodies would form a cross. Then they covered each body quickly with a heavy black pall.

Around them, the monks' chanting voices rose like a cresting wave.

"Placebo et dirige." The Office of the Dead had begun.

"Go forth, O soul, out of this world in the name of the Father Almighty, who created you."

Out of this world...Remembering Hildegard's birth, Mechtilde bit her knuckles until they bled. Their tenth child would disappear from the world now. Drab, woolen shifts would cover her now, never pink damask. Her budding body would flower and wither, untouched, with no child at her breast to hush its first cry.

"Hear, O daughters, and see, bend your ears and forget your people, your father's house."

"What have we done?" Mechtilde whispered, shuddering. "She is too young, too innocent. Never again will she run free down sloping vineyards, covered with goldenrod and bluebells or search for moss-covered stones in the forest."

"Dead to this world, may they live in Thee..."

The chapel collapsed into emptiness, the monks standing like specters now, their heads lowered, their faces lost in the hollows of their cowls. The silence seemed to stretch into aeons. Then came the quickening, the new birth.

"In the midst of death, we are in life," the chants rang out.

"I will enter the place of the wonderful tabernacle!" the voices sang, as the pall was removed. The child looked terrified as she felt someone lift her to her feet. Her cheeks were flushed, her white-gold ringlets matted against her sweating forehead. Stricken with fear, she locked her eyes on her father's face, begging for comfort as he walked toward her, pleading with him to run with her from this terrible place, which choked her with smoke and had smothered her as she had lain on the cold stone floor.

Though his heart broke at the sight of her, the count dared not respond. Steadying his hands, he placed a circlet of ivy leaves on her head, ignoring the tremors from her quivering chin and her desperate whimpers.

Instead, he handed her the shining gold plate that held her dowry: the deed to his vineyards.

As he guided her tiny hands, the child lifted the gift, offering herself in exchange for the crushed grapes, the scarlet wine that would be poured into chalices and be transformed into blood at Rhineland altars, recalling another sacrifice, remembering the Christ.

Leaning down, the abbot received the offering. As the small arms trembled from the weight of the plate, a light in the child's eyes pierced him as he received it.

"Lady Hildegard, you have left your old life behind you. Your new life of enclosure begins now with your new magistra."

Removing the flaming torches from the altar, the monks held them aloft as they led the procession to the hermitage. Dipping a green bough in holy water, the abbot blessed the hermitage doorway, then each tiny room, then the door to the courtyard, whose gate would open now only to visitors.

When the moment came, the count knelt and held out his arms to Hildegard. Once he embraced her, she felt safe again, secure as before. All would be well now, and they could go home again. But she then felt her father's body shuddering around her, like a log filled with red-hot embers, collapsing in the fire. As he wrenched himself from her, she felt her mother's cheeks, wet with tears as she held her child's face in her hands and bathed it with kisses. Now there was only an eerie sob as Mechtilde stepped back and, turning from her child, joined the count and the abbot as they walked out the door and closed it behind them, leaving Hildegard on the other side.

As the parents watched, the workmen stepped forward, tools in hand. With swift, deft strokes, they plastered the hermitage doorway with mortar, covering it over until every sign of the entrance had disappeared. The enclosure was complete.

Inside, Hildegard ran back and forth, confused and fearful. Turning to the anchoress, she saw the woman struggling to fold her arms, while her eyes were wide with pity. Beside her, the servant sighed loudly, her eyes filled with tears. Shouting her parents' names, Hildegard raced from room to room, sure they were hiding, then pounded on the door as the woman stood by silently. Gasping for breath, the child began pummeling the anchoress.

"Let me out!" the child screamed, as the anchoress knelt beside her. Clasping the small fists in her hands, Lady Jutta tried to kiss them as the small sobbing body flailed in her arms.

On the mountain road, far below, the parents paused to take one last look up at the hermitage.

High above them, they glimpsed two small arms reaching through an iron grill in a window, the hands fluttering wildly like the wings of a frightened bird.

"My lord!" a quivering voice called out to them. "My lady! You forgot me. you forgot to take me home!"