“Had I known you as I do now,” Juliana said, “I would have informed you of all of it. But you were a stranger to me. And the traitor could have been anyone in the royal courts.”
Raphael continued to pace. “I sat in the dungeon, afraid for not only my life but for my family. Certainly once I was there, you could have told me it was merely a game.”
“I wanted to,” Juliana said. “My heart broke to think of your pain. Had you reached Tarascon, all would have been explained to you. Please understand that. All I needed was for it to appear that someone — you as it happened — tried to kill the pope. You were to be taken from Avignon that night, as you were, and in the safety of another town, you were to be held until the traitor had been captured.”
Raphael managed a rueful smile. “Only I abandoned my rowboat.”
“Your return threatened to ruin everything. Demigius as our prisoner had confessed who hired him. Demigius had told us of the meeting place and time where we could capture the men behind the threats. Had you stayed away two more days, my plan would have been complete. Nor would I have worried so much about the gold on your head.”
“The English bankers desperately wanted me dead.”
“Yes. I intended to meet you at midnight and ask you to wait one more day until returning to Avignon. But Alfred followed me to the bridge, so once again it appeared I betrayed you.”
“Why did Alfred suspect you?”
Juliana bowed her head. “He was wiser than I. The hunted was hunting the hunter. Little did I know that he too had Demigius followed from the dungeon. Once he knew that I had been part of Demigius’ capture, he knew I was on his trail.”
Raphael laughed. “It pains you not to have been perfect?”
“Clement VI’s life was at stake.” She raised her head. “The possibility of war across Europe. My mistake nearly cost it all, including my life and my brother’s. Alfred, of course, had turned our trap for him into a trap for us. We arrived with a battering ram and pounded our way into our own capture.”
“It strains my head to think of all of this,” Raphael said. “Why did you leave me in the stable?”
“Again, because I wanted you safely out of the way. I had rescued you from the river and needed to leave you to assist in capturing Alfred. Yet I did not want you roaming Avignon. I had bribed the stable master once to say you’d purchased a horse and provisions. It was easy to bribe him again. With you in the stable, I could return to the palace and continue my plans. I would have returned the next day to release you and explain all.”
She stood and approached him. She took his hands in hers and smiled gently. “You escaped the stable. Because of that, we are both alive today.”
He stepped back from her. “I have not yet finished my questions.”
The hardened look on his face bothered her greatly. Could it be he did not share the feelings she had?
“The silver in my room,” he said. “You again?”
“Yes. Once your escape was made known, it seemed wise to let all of Avignon believe you indeed had attempted to kill the pope. In so doing, I hoped you would be discouraged from returning.”
“You asked me about the silver I carried, knowing full well I was not a traitor.”
“If I did not ask, you would have thought it strange. After all, I wanted you to believe I knew nothing of any of these events.”
Raphael mulled it over. “I understand it now.”
Juliana walked toward him. Again, she took his hands in hers. He did not pull away but held her gaze steady.
“Raphael,” she began, “you are among the best of jesters in the land. My own eyes witnessed your feats of skill. Climbing rope. Running narrow beams. Escaping the stable. I doubt any athlete in the kingdom could best you. Yet…”
She struggled for words. How could she sum quickly everything she believed, everything she’d been taught?
“Yet, it is not enough.”
Raphael remained silent, watching, unprotesting.
“To be sure,” she said, “I have learned much over the last week. I thought matters of the mind could reign supreme, replace matters of the heart and body.”
She blushed. “My heart, however, in your presence has shown me otherwise. And it was your feats of daring which saved my life. I can no longer pretend the heart and body matter little.”
Raphael still said nothing. Was he shutting out her words?
She rushed ahead. “Thus it is my heart which beseeches you to consider carefully what I say next.”
He slowly nodded.
“Raphael, too often men like you — who excel in the physical world — forget there is another world. Much less visible. The world of mind and soul.”
His silence unnerved her, but she swallowed several times and forced herself to continue. “Thinking itself is invisible. One cannot hold thoughts, touch thoughts, see thoughts, smell thoughts. Yet thoughts exist, do they not? The same with your soul. To deny your soul simply because you have no visible evidence of its existence…”
“Love,” Raphael said.
“Love?”
“You cannot hold love, touch love, see love, smell love. Yet it exists. I understand what you’re trying explain. This experience and my struggle to make sense of all of this have shown me that there is more to life than what a jester does and sees. Now it seems I have a hunger to learn what I have been missing.”
Juliana would have clapped her hands in glee, but that would have demanded she release Raphael’s hands first, something she did not desire.
“My childhood,” she said, “was a childhood spent in seeking knowledge of mind and soul. Because of it, I understand that it is man’s lifelong purpose. To always seek God.”
“Yes?” Raphael correctly saw the hesitation building within her.
Could she speak her words loudly enough to be heard above the thumping of her heart? Because if he answered no, the pain would be unbearable.
“I would wish you might do the same, to seek God and embark on that journey we all must answer and too often ignore,” she said. “For if our hearts travel in the same direction, Raphael, they might travel together.”
It seemed like everything around her magnified as she waited. Clear and loud, the song of the birds. Dark and sharp, the shadows of each blade of grass. Angel bright, the sun across his face.
“Yes,” he repeated, this time not a question.
“Tomorrow I leave,” she said. “With Reynold, for duty demands I return to the courts of Normandy. Much more than duty, however, is my one desire to be with you again.”
“And mine.” Simple, dignified.
“But we can only be together if we share the same faith.”
“Then I will seek God,” Raphael said.
Juliana kissed Raphael lightly. She stepped back and smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “I await you at the end.”
Historical Note:
There was indeed a time when the seat of the popes of the Roman Catholic Church was moved from Rome to Avignon, France. This was a period from A.D. 1309 to A.D. 1378, also called the “Babylonian Captivity” by some historians.
Clement VI was the fourth of the Avignon popes, elected in May 1342.
He died on December 6, 1352.
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