Pope Joan (20 page)

She swung down out of the saddle into the cold water. She could not swim, but she did not stop to think of that. She began splashing wildly toward the hole. Luke leapt back and forth in front of her, trying to block her advance, but she shoved past him. Only one thought occupied all her mind—reach Gerold, pull him out, save him.

She was half a yard from the water hole when there was a splash and a plume of water. Gerold broke the surface in one leap and stood gasping, his red hair smeared across his face.

“Gerold!” Joan’s exultant shout sounded clear above the cheers of the men. Gerold turned to her and nodded. Then he took a deep breath, ready to dive again.

“Look!” The mule driver in the first wagon pointed downriver.

A round blue object rose and fell gently against the far bank. Bertha’s robe was blue.

They remounted and rode downriver. In the water, caught in branches and debris that had accumulated along the bank, Bertha
was floating on her back, limbs thrown wide as if discarded, her lifeless features fixed into a terrible expression of helplessness and fear.

“Take her up.” Gerold spoke brusquely to his men. “We will bear her to the church in Prüm for a decent burial.”

Joan began to tremble violently, unable to pull her eyes away from Bertha. In death, she looked so much like Matthew had—the pale gray skin, the half-closed eyes, the slackened mouth.

Suddenly Gerold’s arms were around her, turning her head away, pressing it to his shoulder. She closed her eyes and clung to him. The men dismounted and splashed into the water; she heard the soft, wet rustle of the river reeds as they released the weight of Bertha’s body.

“You were coming after me back there, weren’t you?” Gerold whispered, his mouth close to her ear. He spoke wonderingly, as if the realization had just struck him.

“Yes.” She nodded, never taking her head from his shoulder.

“Can you swim?”

“No,” she admitted, and felt Gerold’s arms tighten around her as they stood together by the river’s edge.

Behind them, the men slowly carried Bertha’s body toward the wagons. The chaplain walked alongside, his head bowed as he recited the prayer for the dead. Richild was not praying with him. Her head was high, and she was staring at Joan and Gerold.

Joan stepped out of the circle of Gerold’s arms.

“What is it?” His look was warm with affection and concern.

Richild was still watching them.

“N-nothing.”

He followed the direction of her gaze. “Ah.” Gently he lifted a stray lock of white-gold hair from her face. “Shall we rejoin the others then?”

Side by side they walked to the wagons. Then Gerold left to consult with the chaplain about the disposition of the body.

Richild said, “Joan, you will ride in the wagon for the rest of the journey. You will be far safer here with us.”

It was useless to protest. Joan climbed into the wagon.

The men gently laid Bertha in one of the rear wagons, moving sacks aside to make room. A household servant, an older woman, cried out and threw herself onto Bertha’s body.

The woman began the traditional keening wail for the dead.
Everyone waited in a respectful, embarrassed silence. After a decent interval, the chaplain approached and spoke softly to the woman. She raised her head; her eyes, wild with grief and pain, fixed on Richild.

“You!” she screamed. “It was you, lady! You killed her! She was a good girl, my Bertha, she would have served you well! Her death is on your head, lady. On your head!”

Two of Richild’s retainers grabbed the woman roughly and hurried her away, still screaming imprecations.

The chaplain approached Richild, wringing his hands in nervous apology. “She is Bertha’s mother. Grief has driven the poor woman quite out of her senses. Of course the child’s death was an accident. A tragic accident.”

“No accident, Wala,” Richild said sternly. “It was God’s will.”

Wala blanched. “Of course, of course.” As Richild’s chaplain, a private “house priest,” Wala held a position little better than that of a common colonus; if he displeased her, she could have him whipped— or worse yet, cast out to starve. “God’s will. God’s will, lady, most assuredly.”

“Go and speak to the woman, for the extremity of her grief has surely placed her soul in mortal danger.”

“Ah, lady!” He fluttered long, white hands skyward. “Such heavenly forbearance! Such
caritas!”

She dismissed him impatiently, and he hurried away, looking like a man who has been cut loose from the gallows just before the trap opens.

Gerold gave the command to start up, and the procession moved out, bumping along the riverbank back toward the road to St.-Denis. Behind them, in the rearmost wagon, the mother’s screams gradually subsided into a steady, heart-wrenching sobbing. Dhuoda’s eyes were moist with tears; even Gisla’s unflagging high spirits were quenched. But Richild appeared entirely unshaken. Joan studied her appraisingly. Could anyone be that skillful at hiding her emotions, or was she really as cold as she appeared? Did the girl’s death not weigh upon her conscience at all?

Richild looked at her. Joan turned her eyes away so she could not read her thoughts.

God’s will?

No, my lady.

Your
command.

T
HE
first day of the fair was in full swing. People streamed through the huge iron gate that led to the open field fronting the Abbey of St.-Denis—peasants in ragged
bandelettes
and shirts of rude linen; noblemen and
fideles
in silk tunics crossed with golden baldrics, their wives elegantly bedecked in fur-trimmed mantles and jeweled headdresses; Lombards and Aquitanians in their exotic bouffant panta loons and boots. Never had Joan seen so odd or so large a conglomeration of humanity.

On the field, the stalls of the merchants crowded closely together, their various goods displayed in a gaudy, incoherent riot of color and form. There were robes and mantles of purple silk, scarlet phoenix skins, peacock’s feathers, stamped leather jerkins, rare delicacies such as almonds and raisins, and all manner of scents and spices, pearls, gems, silver and gold. Still more merchandise poured through the gates, heaped high on wagons or carried in unwieldy piles upon the backs of the poorer vendors, bent almost double under the weight. More than one of these would not sleep that night from the pain of muscles strained past endurance, but in this way they avoided the expensive tolls, the
rotaticum
and
saumaticum
, charged against goods carried in on wheeled vehicles and beasts of burden.

Inside the gate, Gerold said to Joan and John, “Hold out your hands.” Into each of their outstretched palms, he placed a silver denarius. “Spend it wisely.”

Joan stared at the shiny coin. She had seen denarii only once or twice before, and those at a distance, for in Ingelheim trade was accomplished by barter; even her father’s income, the
décima
tithed from the peasants of his parish, had been offered in goods and foodstuffs.

A whole denarius! It seemed a fortune beyond measure.

They wandered down the narrow, crowded passageways between the stalls. All around vendors hawked their merchandise, customers bargained hotly over prices, and performers of every kind—dancers, jugglers, acrobats, bear and monkey trainers—plied their trades. The din of innumerable deals, jests, and arguments surrounded them on every side, conducted in a hundred dialects and tongues.

It was easy to get lost in the jostling crowds. Joan took John’s hand—to her surprise, he did not protest—and kept close to Gerold’s
side. Luke stayed right behind them, inseparable, as always, from Joan. Their small group was soon parted from Richild and the others, who had walked more slowly. Halfway down the first row of stalls, they stopped and waited for the others to catch up. Off to their left, a woman stood screaming at a pair of merchants pulling at either end of a piece of linen cloth laid out beside a long wooden ruler measuring exactly one ell.

“Stop!” the woman shouted. “You dunderheads! You are stretching it!” And indeed, it appeared as if the men would rip the cloth in half to make the most of its measure.

There was a loud burst of shouting and laughter from a crowd circling a small open enclosure a short distance ahead.

“Come on.” John pulled on Joan’s arm. She hesitated, not wanting to leave Gerold, but he saw what John wanted and good-naturedly shooed them in that direction.

Another great shout rose from the crowd as they drew close. Joan saw a man fall to his knees in the center of the enclosure, clutching his shoulder as if it were hurt. Quickly he got back up to his feet, and now Joan could see that in his other hand he held a thick, sturdy birch bough. Another man stood in the ring, similarly armed. The two of them circled each other, swinging the heavy sticks with ferocious abandon. There was an odd, high-pitched squeal as a blood-spattered pig ran frantically between the two men, its stubby legs pumping like matched butter churns. The two men swung at the pig, but their aim was wild; the one who had just fallen shrieked as he took a solid hit on his nether parts. The crowd roared with laughter.

John laughed along with the others, his eyes lit with interest. He tugged on the sleeve of a short, pockmarked peasant who stood beside them. “What’s going on?” he asked excitedly.

The man grinned down at him, the holes in his face widening as the skin creased. “Why, they’re after the pig, lad, d’ye see? Him as kills it, takes it home for his table.”

Odd
, Joan thought, as she watched the two men compete for the prize. They swung their sticks forcefully, but their blows were random and undirected, falling on thin air or on each other more often than on the hapless pig. There was something strange about the appearance of the man facing her. She looked more closely and saw a milky whiteness where his pupils should have been. Now the other
man turned to face her; his eyes looked normal enough, but they stared out fixedly into space, vacant and unfocused.

The men were blind.

Another blow found its mark, and the milky-eyed man staggered sideways, clutching his head. John jumped up, clapping his hands and shouting with laughter along with the rest of the crowd. His eyes glittered with a strange excitement.

Joan turned away.

“Psst! Young mistress!” a voice called out to her. Across the way, a vendor was gesturing at her. She left John cheering on the bizarre combat and went to the man’s stall, fronted by a long table displaying an assortment of religious relics. There were wooden crosses and medallions of every kind and description, as well as holy relics of several locally popular saints: a strand of hair from St. Willibrord, a fingernail of St. Romaric, two teeth of St. Waldetrudis, and a scrap of cloth from the robe of the virgin martyr St. Genovefa.

The man pulled a vial from his leather scrip.

“Know what this holds?” His voice was so low she could barely hear him over the surrounding din. She shook her head.

“Several drops of the milk”—his voice dropped still further—“of the Holy Virgin Mother.”

Joan was stunned. So great a treasure! Here? Surely it should be enshrined in some great monastery or cathedral.

“One denarius,” the man said.

One denarius! She fingered the silver coin in her pocket. The man held the vial out to her, and she took it, its surface cool in her hand. She had a brief vision of the look on Odo’s face when she returned with such a prize for the cathedral.

The man smiled, holding out his hand, fingers waggling to coax the coin from her.

Joan hesitated. Why would this man sell so great a treasure for such a sum? It was worth a fortune to some great abbey or cathedral in need of a holy relic for pilgrims to venerate.

She lifted the cap off the vial and peered inside. Halfway down the length of the tube, the pale surface of the milk shimmered smooth and blue-white in the sunlight. Joan reached down and touched it with the tip of her little finger. Then she looked up, her keen eyes scanning the area around the stall. She laughed, lifted the vial to her lips, and drank.

The man gasped. “Are you woodly?” His face was contorted with anger.

“Delicious,” Joan said, recapping the vial and handing it back to him. “My compliments to your goat.”

“Why, you … you …,” the man sputtered, unable to find the words to express his rage and frustration. For a moment it seemed as if he might come round the table after her. There was a low growl; Luke, who until then had been sitting quietly, moved in front of Joan, a deep line furrowing the length of his muzzle, lifted at the sides to reveal a row of menacing white teeth.

“What is that?” The vendor stared at Luke’s glittering eyes.

“That,” a voice said behind Joan, “is a wolf.”

It was Gerold. He had come up quietly during her interchange with the vendor. He stood loosely, his arms at his sides, his body relaxed, but his eyes were hard with warning. The vendor turned away, mumbling something under his breath. Gerold put his arm around Joan’s shoulders and led her away, calling to Luke, who growled at the vendor one more time, then ran to join them.