Pope Joan (15 page)

“Excellent, Gerold.” The bishop thumped him warmly on the back. “It is all settled. The girl will stay with you.”

A servant came by with a tray heaped with sweetmeats. John’s eyes widened at the sight of the honeyed treats, oozing with butter.

The bishop smiled. “Children, you must be hungry after your long trip. Come sit by me.” He moved closer to the woman beside him, clearing a space between him and the red-haired knight.

Joan and John went around the table and sat. The bishop himself served them sweetmeats. John ate greedily, taking huge bites of the gooey treats, the sticky syrup mustaching his mouth.

The bishop returned his attention to the woman seated beside him. They drank from the same cup, laughing, and he stroked her hair, disarranging her coif. Joan fixed her eyes on the plate of sweetmeats. She nibbled at one of them but could not finish it; the honeyed sweetness was sickening. She yearned to be away from this place, away from the noise, the unfamiliar people, and the puzzling behavior of the bishop.

The red-haired knight named Gerold spoke to her. “You have had a long day. Would you like to leave?”

Joan nodded. Seeing them rise, John stuffed in one last mouthful of candy and got up.

“No, son.” Gerold placed a hand on John’s shoulder. “You stay here.”

John said plaintively, “I want to go with her.”

“Your place is here, with the other boys. When the meal is finished, the steward will show you to your quarters.”

John paled, but he mastered himself and said nothing.

“That is an interesting piece.” Gerold pointed to the bone-handled knife strapped to John’s waist. “May I see it?”

John pulled it from his belt and handed it to Gerold. He turned it over, admiring the working on the handle. The blade glinted, reflecting the flickering torches around the room. Joan remembered how it had glowed in the candlelight of the grubenhaus, before it bit into the parchment of Aesculapius’s book, erasing, destroying.

“Very fine. Roger has a sword whose handle has similar working. Roger.” Gerold called to a youth at a table nearby. “Come show this young man your sword.”

Roger held out a long iron sword with an elaborate handle.

John regarded it reverently. “May I touch it?”

“You can hold it if you like.”

“You’ll be given a sword of your own,” Gerold said. “And a bow. A lance too, if you’ve the strength for it. Tell him, Roger.”

“Yes. We have lessons every day in fighting and weaponry.”

John’s eyes registered surprise and delight.

“See the little nick here on the side of the blade? That’s where I struck a blow against the heavy sword of the master of weapons himself!”

“Really?” John was fascinated.

Gerold said to Joan, “Shall we go? I think your brother will not mind our leaving now.”

At the doorway, Joan turned to look back at John. With the sword across his lap, he was talking animatedly to Roger. She felt an odd reluctance to part from him. They had often been more rivals than friends, but John was her link to home, to a world familiar and comprehensible. Without him, she was alone.

Gerold had gone ahead and was striding down the corridor. He was very tall, and his long legs carried him quickly; Joan had to take little running steps to catch up.

For several minutes they did not speak. Then Gerold said abruptly, “You did well, back there with Odo.”

“I do not think he likes me.”

“No. He wouldn’t. Odo guards his dignity closely, as a man guards his coins when there are hardly any left.”

Joan smiled up at Gerold, liking him.

On an impulse, she decided to trust him.

“Was that the bishop’s … wife?” She stumbled over the word, embarrassed. All her life she had been aware of the shameful impropriety of her parents’ marriage. It was a child’s awareness, never spoken or even fully acknowledged, but deeply felt. Once, observing Joan’s sensitivity on the subject, Aesculapius had told her that such marriages were not uncommon among the lower clergy. But for a bishop …

“Wife? Oh, you mean Theda.” Gerold laughed. “No, my lord bishop is not the marrying kind. Theda is one of his paramours.”

Paramours! The bishop kept paramours!

“You are shocked. You needn’t be. Fulgentius—my lord bishop— is not a man of pious disposition. He inherited the title from his uncle, who was bishop before him. He never took priest’s orders and makes no pretense of holiness, as you will have noted. But you will find him
a good enough man for all that. He admires learning, though he is not lettered himself. It was he who established the schola here.”

Gerold had spoken to her plainly, not as a child but as someone who could be expected to understand. Joan liked that. But his words were troubling. Could it be right for a bishop, a prince of the Church, to live like this? To keep … paramours? Everything was so different from what she had expected.

They arrived at the outside doors to the palace. Pages dressed in red silk swung the huge oaken panels open; the brightness of the torchlit hall spilled into the darkness.

“Come,” said Gerold. “You will feel better after a night’s sleep.” He strode quickly in the direction of the stables.

Uncertain, Joan followed him into the cool night.

“T
HERE
it is!” Gerold pointed off to the left, and Joan followed the direction of his arm. In the distance she could just make out dark shapes of buildings outlined against the moonlit sky. “There’s Villaris, my home—and yours now as well, Joan.”

Even in the darkness, Villaris was magnificent. Situated commandingly on the slopes of a hill, it appeared enormous to Joan’s wondering eyes. It consisted of four tall, heavy-timbered buildings connected through a series of courtyards and splendid wooden porticoes. Gerold and Joan rode through the sturdy oak palisades guarding the main entrance and past several outbuildings: a kitchen, a bakery, a stable, a granary, and two barns. They dismounted in a small forecourt, and Gerold handed his mount over to the waiting hands of the stable master. Resin torches placed at regular intervals lit their way down a long, windowless corridor upon whose thick oak walls rows of gleaming weapons were displayed: long swords, lances, spears, crossbows, and scramasaxes, the short, heavy, single-edged blades favored by the fierce Frankish infantrymen. They emerged into a large second courtyard ringed by covered porticoes and passed through into the great hall itself, a vast, echoing space hung with richly decorated tapestries.

In the center of the room stood the most beautiful woman Joan had ever seen, apart from her own mother. But whereas Gudrun was tall and fair, this woman was small and slight, with ebony hair and large, proud, dark eyes. Coolly those eyes raked Joan, inspecting her with an expression that clearly found her wanting.

“What is this?” she asked abruptly as they drew near.

Ignoring her rudeness, Gerold replied, “Joan, this is my wife, Richild, the lady of this manor. Richild, may I present Joan of Ingelheim, who has today arrived to begin study at the schola.”

Joan made an awkward attempt at a curtsy, which Richild regarded with contempt before returning her attention to Gerold. “The schola? Is this some kind of jest?”

“Fulgentius has admitted her, and she is to reside here at Villaris for the duration of her studies.”

“Here?”

“She can share a bed with Gisla, who could use a sensible companion for a change.”

Richild’s graceful black eyebrows arched haughtily. “She looks like a colona.”

Joan flushed with the insult.

“Richild, you forget yourself,” Gerold admonished sharply. “Joan is a guest in this house.”

Richild sniffed. “Well”—she fingered Joan’s new green linen tunic—“at least she appears to be clean.” She signaled imperiously to one of the servants. “Show her to the
dortoir.
” Without another word she swept from the room.

L
ATER
, lying on the soft straw mattress in the upstairs dortoir beside a snoring Gisla (who had not awakened even when Joan crawled in beside her), Joan wondered about her brother. Beside whom was John sleeping now—if, that is, he was able to sleep? She certainly could not; her mind was aswirl with troubling thoughts and emotions. She longed for the familiar surroundings of home, longed especially for her mother. She wanted to be held and caressed and called “little quail” again. She should not have run off the way she did—in silence and in anger, without a word of farewell. Gudrun had betrayed her with the bishop’s emissary, it was true, but Joan knew that she had done it from an excess of love, because she could not bear to see her daughter leave. Now Joan might never see her mother again. She had leapt at the chance for escape without considering the consequences. For she could never return home, that was certain. Her father would kill her for her disobedience. Her place was here now, in this strange and friendless country, and here, for good or ill, she must remain.

Mama
, she thought as she stared into the forbidding darkness of the unfamiliar room, and a single tear slid silently down her cheek.

   8   

T
HE classroom, a small, stone-walled chamber adjacent to the cathedral library, remained cool and moist even on this warm fall afternoon. Joan loved its coolness and the rich smell of parchment that permeated the air, an enticement to explore the vast holding of books that lay just next door.

An enormous painting covered the wall at the front of the room. It was a picture of a woman dressed in the long, flowing robes of the Greeks. In her left hand she held a pair of shears; in her right, a whip. The woman represented Knowledge; her shears were to prune away error and false dogma, her whip was to reprimand lazy students. The brows of Knowledge were sharply drawn together, and the corners of her mouth curved down, creating a stern expression. The dark eyes glared from the painted wall, seeming to focus on the observer, their look hard and commanding. Odo had commissioned the work shortly after assuming the position of teaching master at the schola.

“Bos mugit, equus hinnit, asinus rudit, elephans barrit …”

On the left side of the room, the less advanced students chanted monotonously, practicing simple verb forms.

“Cows moo, horses neigh, donkeys bray, elephants roar …”

Odo motioned rhythmically with his right hand, setting the pace of the chant. Meanwhile, his eyes swept the room with practiced skill, monitoring the work of his other students.

Ludovic and Ebbo huddled together over one of the psalms. They were supposed to be memorizing it, but the tilt of their heads toward each other indicated that they had ceased to concentrate on their work. Without letting his other hand miss a beat of the chanting rhythm, Odo smacked both boys sharply on the backs of their heads with a long wooden rod. They yelped and bent over their tablets again, models of industriousness.

Nearby, John was working on a chapter of Donatus. He was clearly having great difficulty. He read slowly, painstakingly forming
each vowel and consonant with his lips, stopping frequently to scratch his head in puzzlement over some unfamiliar word pattern.

Sitting apart from the others—for they would have nothing to do with her—Joan was intent on the task to which Odo had set her, preparing a gloss of a life of St. Antony. She worked quickly, her stylus traveling across the parchment with confidence and precision. She did not look up, nor did her attention waver for an instant. Her concentration was absolute.

Odo said shortly, “That is enough for today. This group”—he gestured toward the novices—“is dismissed. The rest of you will remain at your seats until I have checked your work.”

The novices rose excitedly from their desks, exiting the room as quickly as decorum permitted. The other students put down their styluses and watched Odo expectantly, eager to be released to the pleasures of the warm afternoon.

Joan remained studiously bent over her work.

Odo frowned. The girl’s zeal had admittedly surprised him. His hand itched to use the rod on her, but so far she had given him no occasion. She actually seemed to want to learn.

Odo walked to her desk and stood over her pointedly. She stopped working then, her expression registering surprise and even—was it possible?—disappointment.