Pope Joan (38 page)

Joseph was confounded. “How can that be? Surely the noxious spirits are everywhere.”

“Perhaps it’s not noxious spirits that are causing the sickness— not alone, anyway. It may be passed along by physical contact with its victims, or with objects that they touch.”

It was a new idea, but not a radical one. That some diseases were contagious was well known; this was, after all, why lepers were strictly segregated from society. It was also beyond dispute that sickness often passed through entire households, carrying off members of a family within days, even hours. But the cause for this phenomenon was unclear.

“Transmitted by physical contact? In what manner?”

“I don’t know,” Joan admitted. “But today, when I saw the sick man, and the open sores about his mouth, I felt—” She broke off, frustrated. “I cannot explain, Father, at least not yet. But until I know more, I would like to leave off passing the communal cup and dip the bread in the wine instead.”

“You would undertake this change on the basis of a mere … intuition?” Joseph asked.

“If I am wrong, no harm will derive from my error, for the faithful will still have partaken of both the Body and the Blood,” Joan argued. “But if my … intuition proves correct, then we will have saved lives.”

Joseph considered a moment. An alteration in the Mass was not to be undertaken lightly. On the other hand, John Anglicus was a learned brother, renowned for his skill at healing. Joseph had not forgotten his cure of the leper woman. Then, as now, there had been little
to go on other than John Anglicus’s “intuition.” Such intuitions, Joseph thought, were not to be scorned, for they were God-given.

“You may proceed for now,” he said. “When Abbot Raban returns, he will of course render his own judgment upon the matter.”

“Thank you, Father.” Joan made her obeisance and left quickly, before Prior Joseph could change his mind.

I
NTINCTIO
, they called the dipping of the Host, and apart from some of the elder brothers, who were set in their ways, the practice enjoyed widespread support among the brethren, for it was as satisfying to the aesthetics of the Mass as it was to the requirements of cleanliness and hygiene. A monk of Corbie, stopping by on his way home, was so impressed he carried the idea back to his own abbey, which adopted it as well.

Among the faithful, the frequency of new occurrences of the plague noticeably slowed, though it did not stop. Joan began to keep careful record of new cases of the disease, studying them in order to detect the cause of infection.

Her efforts were cut short by the return of Abbot Raban. Soon after his arrival, he summoned Joan to his quarters and confronted her with stern disapproval.

“The Canon of the Mass is sacred. How dare you tamper with it?”

“Father Abbot, the change is in form only, not in substance. And I believe it is saving lives.”

Joan started to explain what she had observed, but Raban cut her off. “Such observations are useless, for they come not from faith but from the physical senses, which are not to be trusted. They are the Devil’s tools, with which he lures men away from God and into the conceits of the intellect.”

“If God did not wish us to observe the material world,” Joan rejoined, “why then did He give us eyes to see, ears to hear, a nose to smell? Surely it is not sin to make use of the gifts He Himself has given us.”

“Remember the words of St. Augustine: ‘Faith is to believe what you do not see.’”

Joan responded without missing a beat, “Augustine also says that we could not believe at all if we did not have rational minds. He would not have us despise what sense and reason tell us must be so.”

Raban scowled. His mind was of a rigidly conventional and
unimaginative cast, so he disliked the give-and-take of reasoned argument, preferring the safer ground of authority.

“Receive thy father’s counsel and obey it,” he quoted sententiously from the rule. “Return unto God by the difficult path of obedience, for thou hast forsaken Him by following thine own will.”

“But, Father—”

“No more, I say!” Raban exploded angrily. His face was livid. “John Anglicus, as of this moment, you are relieved of your duties as priest. You will study humility by returning to the infirmary, where you will assist Brother Odilo, serving him with due and proper obedience.”

Joan started to protest, then thought better of it. Raban had been pushed to his limit; any further argument could place her in gravest jeopardy.

With an effort of will, she bowed her head. “As you command, Father Abbot.”

R
EFLECTING
later upon what had happened, Joan saw that Raban was right; she had been prideful and disobedient. But of what use was obedience, if others must suffer by it? Intinction
was
saving lives; she was sure of that. But how could she convince the abbot? He would not tolerate further argument from her. But he might be persuaded by the weight of established authority. So now, in addition to the Opus Dei and her duties in the infirmary, Joan added hours of study in the library, searching the texts of Hippocrates, Oribasius, and Alexander of Tralles for anything that might support her theory. She worked constantly, sleeping only two or three hours a night, driving herself to exhaustion.

One day, poring over a section of Oribasius, she found what she needed. She was copying the crucial passage out in translation when she began having difficulty scribing; her head ached, and she could not hold the pen steady. She shrugged this off as the natural consequence of too little sleep and went on working. Then her quill inexplicably slipped from her grasp and rolled onto the page, scattering blobs of ink across the clean vellum, obscuring the words.
Curse the luck
, she thought.
I will have to scrape it clean and start over.
She tried to pick up the quill, but her fingers trembled so violently she could not get a grip on it.

She stood, holding on to the edge of the desk as dizziness swept
over her. Stumbling to the door, she thrust herself outside just as the retching hit hard, doubling her up and thrusting her onto all fours, where she heaved up the contents of her stomach.

Somehow she managed to stagger to the infirmary. Brother Odilo made her lie down on an empty bed and put his hand to her forehead. It was cold as ice.

Joan blinked with surprise. “Have you come from the washing trough?”

Brother Odilo shook his head. “My hands are not cold, Brother John. You’re burning with fever. I fear the plague has you in its grip.”

The plague!
Joan thought woozily.
No, that can’t be right. I’m tired, that’s all. If I can just rest for a while …

Brother Odilo laid a cool strip of linen, steeped in rosewater, on her forehead. “Now lie quiet, while I soak some fresh linen. I won’t be a minute.”

His voice seemed to come from a long distance away. Joan closed her eyes. The cloth felt cool against her skin. It felt good to lie still with the sweet aroma around her, sinking peacefully into a welcome darkness.

Suddenly her eyes flew wide. They were going to cover her in a sheath of wet linen to bring the fever down. To do that they would have to strip her bare.

She had to stop them. Then she realized that no matter how strenuously she resisted—and in her present condition she would not be able to put up much of a fight—her protests would be dismissed as mere feverish ravings.

She sat up, swinging her feet off the bed. Immediately the pain in her head returned, pounding and insistent. She started for the door. The room whirled sickeningly, but she forced herself to keep going and made it outside. Then she headed quickly toward the foregate. As she drew near the gate, she took a deep breath, willing herself steady as she walked past Hatto, the porter. He looked at her curiously but made no move to stop her. Once outside, she headed straight for the river.

Benedicite.
The abbey’s little boat was there, moored with a single rope to an overhanging branch. She untied the rope and climbed in, leaning against the grassy bank to push off. As the boat swung away from the bank, she collapsed.

For a long moment the boat hung motionless in the water. Then the current took it, spinning it around before propelling it down the swiftly moving stream.

T
HE
sky revolved slowly, twisting the high, white clouds into exotic patterns. A dark red sun touched the horizon, its rays burning hotter than fire, scorching Joan’s face, searing her eyes. She watched fascinated as its outer edges shimmered and dissolved, forming human shape.

Her father’s face floated before her, a ghastly, grinning death’s-head stripped of flesh beneath the dark line of its brows. The lipless mouth parted.
“Mulier!”
it cried, but it was not her father’s voice, it was her mother’s. The mouth opened wider, and Joan saw that it was not a mouth at all but a hideous yawning gate opening into a great darkness. At the end of the darkness, fires burned, shooting up great blue-red pillars of flame. There were people in the flames, their bodies writhing in grotesque pantomimes of pain. One of them looked toward Joan. With a shock, Joan recognized the woman’s clear blue eyes and white-gold Saxon hair. Her mother called to her, holding out her arms. Joan started toward her; suddenly the ground beneath dropped away and she was falling, falling toward the hideous mouth-gate. “Mamaaaaaaa!” she screamed as she fell into the flames …

She was in a snow-covered field. Villaris gleamed in the distance as the sun melted the snow on its roof, setting the water droplets sparkling like thousands of tiny gems. She heard the drumming of hooves and turned to see Gerold riding toward her on Pistis. She ran to him across the field; he drew up beside her, reached down, and hoisted her up before him. She leaned back, reveling in the tender strength of his encircling arms. She was safe. Nothing could harm her now, for Gerold would not permit it. Together they rode toward the gleaming towers of Villaris, the strides of the horse lengthening beneath them, rocking them gently, rocking, rocking …

T
HE
motion had ceased. Joan opened her eyes. Above the level edge of the boat, the treetops were silhouetted black and unmoving against the twilit sky. The boat had come to a stop.

A murmur of voices came from somewhere above her, but Joan could not make out the words. Hands reached down, took hold of her, lifted her from the boat. Dimly she remembered: she must not let
them take her, not while she was still sick, she must not let them carry her back to Fulda. She struck out ferociously with her arms and legs, striking flesh. Distantly she heard cursing. There was a short, sharp pain against her jaw, and then nothing else.

J
OAN
rose slowly out of a pool of blackness. Her head was pounding, her throat so dry it felt as if it had been scraped raw. She ran a dry tongue over parched lips, drawing tiny drops of blood from the cracked flesh. There was a dull ache in her jaw. She winced as her fingers explored a sensitive bump on her chin.
Where did I get that?
she wondered.

Then, more urgently,
Where am I?

She was lying on a feather mattress in a room she did not recognize. Judging by the number and quality of the furnishings, the owner of the dwelling was prosperous: in addition to the enormous bed in which she was lying, there were benches upholstered with soft cloth, a high-backed chair covered with cushions, a long trencher table, a writing desk, and several trunks and chests, very finely carved. A hearth fire glowed nearby, and a pair of fresh loaves had been newly placed on the embers, their warm aromas just beginning to rise.

A few feet away, a plump young woman stood with her back toward Joan, kneading a mass of dough. She finished, wiping the flour from her tunic, and her eyes fell on Joan. She moved briskly to the door and called out, “Husband! Come quickly. Our guest has awakened!”

A ruddy-faced young man, long and gangly as a crane, came hurrying in. “How is she?” he asked.

She?
Joan started as she caught the word. She looked down and saw that her monk’s habit was gone; in its place she was clothed in a woman’s tunic of soft blue linen.

They know.

She struggled to lift herself from the bed, but her limbs were heavy and weak as water.

“You mustn’t exert yourself.” The young man touched her shoulder gently, easing her back into the bed. He had a pleasant, honest face, his eyes round and blue as cornflowers.

Who is he?
Joan wondered.
Will he tell Abbot Raban and the others about me—or has he already? Am I truly his “guest,” or am I a prisoner?

“Th … thirsty,” she croaked.

The young man dipped a cup into a wooden bucket beside the bed and withdrew it brimming with water. He held it against Joan’s lips and tipped it carefully, starting a slow stream of droplets into her mouth.

Joan grabbed the cup, angling it so the water poured faster. The cool liquid was sweeter than anything she had ever tasted.

The young man cautioned, “Best not take too much too soon. It’s been over a week since we’ve been able to get anything into you beyond a few spoonfuls.”

Over a week! Had she been here so long? She could not remember anything after climbing into the little fishing rig. “Wh … where am I?” she stammered hoarsely.

“You’re in the demesne of Lord Riculf, fifty miles downstream from Fulda. We found your boat in a tangle of branches along the river’s edge. You were half out of your mind with fever. Sick as you were, you fought hard to keep us from taking you.”

Joan fingered the tender bump on her jaw.

The young man grinned. “Sorry. There was no reasoning with you in the condition we found you in. But take comfort, for you gave almost as good as you took.” He pulled up his sleeve, revealing a large, ugly-looking bruise on his right shoulder.

“You saved my life,” Joan said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. It was only fair return for all you’ve done for me and mine.”

“Do I … know you?” she asked, surprised.

The young man smiled. “I suppose I
have
changed a good deal since last we saw each other. I was only twelve then, rising thirteen. Let’s see …” He began to figure on his hands, using Bede’s classical method of computation. “That was some six years ago. Six years times three hundred sixty-five days … why, that’s … two thousand one hundred and ninety days!”