Margery and the other pilgrims sat down to dinner in a tavern so bright and noisy it revolved on itself like a gyroscope. Blasts of icy air interrupted the stifling heat. The pilgrims were in high spirits, looking forward to the trip. An old woman took their order; she acted slow because she had huge deaf ears. The pilgrims laughed while a little boy stared at them.

Margery’s maid was shy and ambitious; she hung back, laughing with the rest. The maid was so thin her hip bones stuck out like handle bars: she felt ideal and aerated. She needed privacy and scrutinized people’s expressions as they approached.

A priest made a quick blessing over beans and vegetable soup served by the grandmother. She had been a woman of great sophistication. When she fucked a man, she would elevate one of her legs vertically. A lamp full of oil, wick burning, was set on her foot, and while he rammed her she kept the flame steady.

They all drew their knives and began eating. Margery started to whimper; her ovaries were sponges that soaked up energy from people and situations. The pilgrims were concerned. A widow asked, “Don’t you like our company?” She remembered the arrogant young woman Margery had been.

Margery wore the open eyes of blunt wonder: Jesus was exploding her social circle. “I welcome the twelve apostles, the holy virgins, martyrs—Jesus sleeps in my bed, he calls me his dear darling!”

The pilgrims were stunned. The priest said, “Be quiet, Margery. Jesus died long ago.” Wine had given him the sensation of emptiness.

Margery couldn’t stop talking: she sought recognition in the theater of her voice. “I cry you mercy, Ihesu, for al the pepil in this world, that you make ther sinnys to me.” Her love for Jesus isolated her so she pursued any reaction to it—hostility or praise. She had a sore throat and enjoyed the rawness as if heat were biting her. “Jesus sits on a red cushion. I could never requite his love though I were slain a thousand—”

The priest cried, “I hope the devil’s death overtakes you soon and quickly!”

“I have as great a reason to speak of Jesus here as in England.” She felt valid when she said his name.

The pilgrims threw up their hands. Her white clothes were a continual affront. If she was not Jesus’s bride, her hypocrisy dismantled the entire world; if she was supernatural, she attracted the extreme: pestilence and hunger, steeples toppling, trees ripped out of the earth. “You cannot go any farther with us and we intend to keep your maid.” The young woman remained silent.