Silence, in the Doorway, with the Gun

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The titular character of the thirteenth-century Le Roman de Silence is born female, at a time when women cannot inherit. To avoid disinheriting his child, Silence’s father raises him as a son. Personified Nature and Nurture quarrel over what gender Silence should be.

Silence was lost for centuries until, in 1911, a copy was discovered in a box marked “unimportant documents,” and Silence returned to the world.

***

There are two doors. The problem is, there’s a goddess in front of each.

“Settle a bet, Silence,” Nurture says. “Two doors. Choose one.”

Only moments old, the first thing you learn is that you have difficulty making up your mind.

“To help decide, we’ll each give you a gift,” Nature says. She’s digging a quill into vellum. “I give you beauty.”

“And I give you a gun,” Nurture says. There it is, heavy and blood-scented in your hand. “The gun is a metaphor. It’s also an actual gun.”

“Foul! Anachronism!” Nature cries.

“It’s not, actually,” Nurture says. “Look it up. There’s a rule about guns, though. You have to use it by the end. Do you understand?”

“No?”

“Tough,” Nurture says. “Pick a door.”

At random, you pick Nature’s door.

***

Your name is Silence. When you are old enough to understand, your father takes you to the stables. He teaches you to don the leather gauntlet, let the hawks rest on your arm.

He explains how inheritance works. How your parents kept a secret for you. How you are perfect in every way, but you will be safer in this world if you keep this secret, too.

Somewhere in your heart there are two doorways.

“Sorry,” you say. “I can’t.”

You never learn to like women’s clothes. But if you can no longer become a knight, at least you stay with your parents. For a while, anyway. Nature made you too beautiful. The king who outlawed your inheritance marries you.

You are with your husband when you learn that your father died. You think about using Nurture’s gun— on the messenger, your husband, yourself. But you don’t know that it matters anymore.

***

It takes a while, but you find yourself back in the chamber with the goddesses.

“Victory!” Nature says.

“Best two out of three?” Nurture proposes.

So you try the other door.

***

This time, when your father gives you a choice, you become a knight. You master the smart movement of horses, the impact of the lance, the clarity of the practice blade. You listen to jongleurs singing Romances and think this is what courtly love feels like.

But war, it turns out, is not like tourneys. War is sliding in crimson mud, trying not to trip onto enemy blades. You think about pulling out Nurture’s gun but fear you will drop your sword.

You wound your enemy. He does not die quickly. You wish he were dead. You wish you were, too.

***

“Women aren’t made for war,” Nature says.

No one is, you think, but you walk through her door anyway.

***

You are a lady again. But this time, you tell your father you received a divine vision and decamp to an abbey nearby. Women cannot work in scriptoriums. But you attend Mass, walk in the garden, pray.

When your father dies, you are beside him, his cool hand in your warm one. You return to the abbey. You still like the silence, music, schedule. But it feels like your life lasts for a very long time.

***

“Best three out of five?” Nurture suggests.

***

You run away with jongleurs. You miss knighthood, but you fall in love again, with the harp.

When youth no longer explains your voice, you write romances. You carve stories about female knights, give them happy endings. Your fame spreads. You wonder if your father ever hears your songs.

But like other lives, there are unintended consequences. Believing you kidnapped by jongleurs, your father bans them from his lands. With no way of passing a message, you are still in exile when he dies.

***

“Best eleven out of twenty-one?”

***

You are an anchoress.

A seneschal.

A lady-in-waiting.

An abbot.

Probably others. You have difficulty remembering, now.

“Best a hundred fifty out of a hundred ninety-nine?”

***

You are, eventually, a knight again. The king sends you on a quest to find Merlin, whom prophecy dictates only a woman can find. You make it out of court before bursting into tears.

You are grazing your horse on a riverbank, watching the hawks cut half-moon holes in the sky, when you see him.

“Merlin?” you say. “I’m—”

“Silence.” Your name, or a command. “We’ve done this before. Repeatedly.”

Probably you have. Your memory is moth-eaten.

“I would like to stop meeting you on this riverbank. So, my advice: your struggle will end when you give either goddess what they want. Do you know what you desire?”

You thought you didn’t. But as you sit there, horse wrenching up grass, you realize you do. Wandering as a knight. Meditating as a nun. You want to write songs again. You want to see your father again.

The problem has never been not knowing. The problem is that neither door leads to a life where you get to have all these things.

Merlin says, “There are never only two doors, Silence.”

***

“You have to choose!” Nature says, annoyed, quill scratching. “If you don’t choose, there’s no story. I’m writing a scribe writing this. The scribe is putting it in a box. I’m writing a lock on the box. I’m writing years passing, everyone forgetting you.”

* * *

You are Silence. There is still a loaded gun in your hand.

* * *

The box is closed. The centuries rush past. The moral of the story is: sometimes you are a knight, sometimes a daughter, sometimes both.

And sometimes, you are the bullet that splinters the lock on the box.

* * *

Ⓒ Nadia Radovich