by Alan Gordon
“How do you know about that?” asked Theo in surprise. “I know all kinds of things I shouldn’t know,” said Helga. “Isn’t that what an apprentice fool is supposed to be learning?”
“I suppose,” he said, sighing. “Have a good time.”
We left him and started to walk.
“Seriously, why do you know about that?” I asked her. She was suddenly quiet and subdued. “You know about my mother,” she said. “About where she raised me.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Once a bordel brat, always a bordel brat,” she said. “That’s what they used to tell me. They were only waiting for me to get old enough. Some of them didn’t want to wait.”
“But you got out,” I reminded her.
“I got out,” she said. “I joined the Guild. But they’re still waiting for me somewhere. I’m always aware of it. So, I need to know where they are. I always know where they are.”
“You know where all the bordels are in Toulouse?”
“Three in the Comminges quarter, two in Saint Cyprien, one in the bourg near the Bazacle Gate, a small one near Saint Sernin that is supposed to be a secret because the monks go there, and this one.”
“There’s a third one in Comminges?”
“Near the bridge,” she said. “Last stop for the pilgrims before they head off to Compostela and absolution.”
“Good location,” I commented. “What else do you know about that you’re not supposed to know about?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, I know what I know, but I don’t know what I’m not supposed to know, you know?”
I impulsively wrapped my arm around her head and drew her into my body as we walked. “I miss my children,” I whispered, kissing the top of her head. “But I’m glad I have you with us, Apprentice.”
“Me, too,” she said, her voice muffled with her face pressed against my side.
I released her, and she looked up at me, her face more sorrowful than any child or any jester should ever be. “My mother is dead, isn’t she?” she asked.
I knew that she would ask one day. I knew that when it came, I would tell her the truth. That foreknowledge didn’t make it any easier.
“Yes, Helga,” I said.
“When did you find out?” she asked.
“Before we left Swabia,” I said. “Father Gerald informed us. He suggested that we wait for you to ask us.”
“I knew it, somehow,” she said. “Konrad, the jester who recruited me, would send me news once in a while. But then I heard nothing. I just looked up one day in the middle of tumbling class and knew she was gone. How did she die?”
“A fever took her,” I said. “It happened quickly.”
“She got out,” she said. “She finally got out.”
“I am so sorry, Helga.”
She looked straight ahead. “She saved me,” she said. “I was going to get her out someday. When I became jester in full. I was going to go back and save her. But I can’t now, can I?”
“You saved her when you got out,” I said. “No matter what happened to her after that, she knew she was able to do that much for you. And now you save other lives.”
“Whose life are we saving right now?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Here’s the gate. Let’s get into character.”
I handed Portia to her, then thought of every woman who has ever been betrayed by a man, and stormed through the gate, barking at the guards to get out of my way.
I recognized the leper house immediately by its high walls, and took the sharp turn at an angry trot, Helga hurrying to keep pace.
“Maman, I’m scared,” she whined as the bordel came into view. “I don’t want to go in there.”
“Shut up, girl!” I snapped as a large man with a club looked at us in weary concern.
“Go away, lady,” he said. “This is no place for you.”
“Ifit’s good enough for my husband, then it’s good enough for me,” I said. “Out of my way.”
“Now, Domina, do not be overhasty,” he said, reaching out to grab me.
I grabbed him first, my hands gripping his coat at the collar. Then I jumped high, still holding on, and swung forward, my legs in front of my body. My feet landed solidly in his stomach, and he pitched forward with a surprised grunt.
Which meant that he was falling on top of me, but I bent my knees and kept my back curved. As my body hit the ground, I rolled back and kicked up as hard as I could, still keeping my grip on his collar. I let go once his body had cleared mine. He landed with a thud behind me.
I got to my feet and stood over him, bending so that my face was over his, albeit upside down. “Never put your hands on me again,” I said. “I don’t like it.”
He mumbled something incoherent.
“I accept your apology,” I said as I straightened up.
The girls were looking at me in awe.
I heard a man chuckle briefly somewhere behind me. I turned quickly, knife in hand, but saw no one. No, a quick glimpse of a hand at one of the upper windows of the leper house. A scarred, misshapen hand. Then it was gone.
“Well?” I said sternly, slipping the knife back up my sleeve. “Are you coming?”
“Yes, Maman,” whimpered Helga.
We entered the bordel.
Helga took in the lewd decor without changing her expression. I looked around, then shouted, “I demand to see the one who calls herself an abbess!”
There was a soft, deliberate tread down the stairs; then she appeared in the doorway. Her feet were bare, and they were lovely indeed, I noted with chagrin. The body was one I would have given my eyeteeth to possess when I was younger, but the face in the daylight looked haggard.
We appraised each other from across the room, and I found myself tensing for another fight.
“I have a man who is supposed to keep the likes of you out of here,” she said.
“He failed,” I said. “I have a man who is supposed to keep away from the likes of you.”
“He failed,” she said.
“Yet he claims he did not tarry,” I said. “That he was in and out of this house quickly. Although I suppose many men here are in and out quickly.”
“He was here, and then he left.”
“I know that. It is what happened in between that concerns me.”
“What is it that you want?” she asked.
“Your word that my husband did not betray me last night.”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because I asked.”
“Why should you believe me?”
“Because I asked.”
The guard staggered in, looking sheepish.
“What happened, Carlos?” asked the Abbess.
“She—I don’t know,” he said.
“Go back to your post,” she ordered. “Try to keep any more tiny women from coming in.”
He slinked out.
The Abbess turned back to me. “I have no time for wronged wives,” she said. “I must needs bury one of my women.”
“I heard,” I said. “I am sorry. Did she have family?”
“She had us,” she said. “Once you come here, that’s all you have.”
“Then I am sorry for all of you,” I said.
“Don’t ever feel sorry for us,” she said, biting off each word. “We take care of our own.”
“You didn’t last night,” I said.
The Abbess looked me up and down, appraising me. “I have customers who might pay well to be manhandled by the likes of you,” she said.
“No thank you,” I said. “Being paid would take the fun out of it. Answer my question.”
“Your husband did not dishonor your bed,” she said. “But he thought about it.”
“He may think whatever he likes,” I said. “So long as the thought remains unfulfilled.”
“I’m sure he fulfilled it with you last night,” she said. “You should thank me for providing him with the inspiration.”
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br /> I laughed in astonishment. “You dare to speak to a married woman in that manner?” I asked.
“In here, I speak how I like,” she said. “No matter how the rest of the world treats me, in this house I am the Abbess.”
“Then the Fool has the advantage over the Abbess,” I said. “I speak how I like everywhere I go.”
“Then I envy you,” she said. “Are you satisfied?”
I looked at her and nodded.
“Depart from here,” she said. “As a friend.”
I turned to leave, then hesitated. “May I come to the funeral?” I asked. “I could play my lute.”
“Why would you want to do that for a woman you have never met?”
“Because a woman died at the hands of a man,” I said. “And all such women should be mourned.”
She looked at me for a long time, expressionless. Then she nodded. “Yes, we should,” she said. “We will be at the church of Saint Agnes, down the road about a half a mile. Tomorrow morning.”
“We will be there,” I promised.
The guard flinched as we passed by him. I didn’t give him so much as a glance.
There was another chuckle from the rear of the leper house. I looked up.
“Well done, lady,” called a hoarse voice. “Best entertainment I’ve had in years.”
I curtsied grandly, then continued on.
“Why are we going to the funeral?” asked Helga.
“Two reasons,” I said. “One is to see who shows up. Always interesting, always useful.”
“And the second?”
“You’ll see tomorrow.”
* * *
Theo was curled up on our bed amidst several sheaves of parchment covered with small, cramped writing. These were Balthazar’s notes, which his late predecessor as Chief
Fool of Toulouse had kept for over thirty years. We had found them useful on more than one occasion, but as they were in chronological order, one sometimes had to go through thirty years of the past to find anything helpful for the present.
“Any luck?” I asked.
“The Count of Foix has been in and out of favor,” he said. “Balthazar actually had a great deal of respect for his intellect, which surprises me. five only seen him be a parasite and a lecher.”
“But a successful parasite and lecher,” I said. “That demands a kind of skill.”
“Says he’s a decent poet,” snorted Theo. “A poet! All I have ever heard him rhapsodize over is the charms of his latest conquest, and that was expressed in the most lurid of prose. It lacked only a few equally crude illustrations to make a book worth banning by the Vatican.”
“Perhaps only women hear his poetry,” I said. “Some women like to be wooed by poetry.”
“Nothing rhymes with Claudia,” he said. “Or Viola.”
“I’ll settle for Gile,” I said.
“There once was a woman called Gile,” he began.
“Stop immediately,” I said. “Anything else in there?”
“Well, the most interesting thing about him is his wife,” said Theo.
“That’s the most interesting thing about most men,” I said. “What about her?”
“He said she was a Cathar.”
“The Countess of Foix a Cathar? For how long?”
“Doesn’t say. But that would make her one of the more prominent members if so,” he said.
“Is she one of the Perfect?” I asked.
“Have to find out,” he said. “Interesting if she was. If she had renounced her husband’s bed to become one of the
Perfect, then that might explain his running around with so many women.”
“It could be the other way around,” I said. “Something to console her for his constant infidelities.”
“You always take the woman’s part,” he pointed out. “Someone has to,” I said.
“Well, I’ll follow up on that with Hugo down at the Yellow Dwarf,” he said, yawning. “He knows all the gossip on the Cathars.”
“And the ale is good,” I said.
“And the ale is good,” he agreed. “What will you be doing?”
“Going to a whore’s funeral,” I said.
“Hmph,” he said. “My day sounds like more fun.”
* * *
The church was small and simple, serving the small cluster of shops outside the gate and the vegetable farmers who worked within sight of the city walls. I suppose the ministry included the bordel and the leper house, more than enough challenge for the sole priest who presided over the area. I wondered which of the city parishes had jurisdiction here. I hoped it was Saint Sernin, as our current relations with the bishop at Saint Etienne were frosty. Understandable, given recent events.
The priest turned out to be a young beleaguered-looking man who sighed with exasperation when he saw us. “A jester. Wonderful,” he said. “Bad enough to have those wretched women parading in here. Now all of Toulouse will know that Father Bonadona is the whore’s priest.”
“You see, girl?” I commented to Helga. “Fools are worse than prostitutes in the eyes of God.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” he said.
“Will you be preaching the funeral Mass?” I asked him.
“Oc,” he said.
“Then we will sing for it,” I said. “A fool’s mite.”
“None of your bawdy songs in here,” he said angrily.
“I have never heard Igne divini radians amoris described as bawdy,” I said. “Depends how you sing it, I suppose.”
He looked at me in surprise, then bowed his head and put his palms against his chest. “Forgive me my wrong assumptions,” he said.
“Forgive us our motley, and we shall call it even,” I replied, returning the courtesy.
We sat on a bench by the side. I tuned my lute, and Helga took a flute from her bag.
“You know the hymn?” I asked Helga.
“I knew it before I joined the Guild,” she said. “I knew it from my mother.”
“Then you shall sing it,” I said.
“Shouldn’t you?” she asked in surprise. “You’re the jester. I’m only an apprentice. And you sing much better than I do.”
“You have a lovely voice, girl, so don’t use that excuse again,” I said. “You shall sing the hymn.”
“Is this part of my training?”
“No,” I whispered as the doors to the church swung open. “I want you to sing it for your mother.”
I had expected the denizens of the house to make a show of respect for the church, some semblance of mourning. I was wrong. In strode the Abbess, still barefoot, still in a gown that would have raised the dead, or at least one part of them. Behind her, six ladies, each scandalously clad, carried in a coffin. I scanned their faces—sorrow and resignation on some, anger and defiance on the others.
At the rear was the guard I had so recently given a tumble in an entirely different way than he was used to from a woman, followed by a small collection of people—whether passersby, curiosity seekers, or genuine mourners, I could not say. Some young men were nudging each other and whispering, trying to get a better look at La Rossa, perhaps for the first and only time in their lives. The Abbess turned and silenced them with a glare that had talons.
The priest was taking them in with horror.
“You cannot come in here like this,” he hissed at the Abbess.
She stood before him, a scornful sneer on her lips. She was taller, I noticed, even in her bare feet.
“She belongs to God now,” she said softly. “For years, she has done things that no woman would want to do because she was paid. For years. Now, you will do what you do not want to do for one hour of your life because you have been paid. Perform your office.”
His Adam’s-apple bobbed up and down rapidly. Then he abruptly moved to the lectern. He took a deep breath and composed himself.
“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me,” he began. “And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Good, I
thought.
“We are gathered in the house of the Lord to consign to him-“
He stopped and looked at the Abbess.
“What is her true name?” he asked. “I cannot call her La Rossa before Our Savior.”
The Abbess looked at the rest of the women uncertainly, and they whispered among themselves.
“She said her real name was Julie,” said a blonde in a light blue gown. “I don’t know if it was her true name.”
“We know no others,” said the Abbess. “We ask nothing of any who join us.”
“Sounds like our Guild,” I whispered to Helga.
The priest seemed less than satisfied, but began the funeral Mass, and the women read the responses with fervor. When the hymns came, Helga and I accompanied them, something that seemed new to this priest. The music lightened the air, somehow. At the appropriate time, Helga stood, took a step forward, and began to sing.
* * *
Igne divini radians amoris
corporis sexum superavit Agnes,
et super carnem potuere carnis
claustra pudicce.
* * *
“Shining with the fire of divine love, Agnes overcame the gender of her body,” I thought. “And the undefiled enclosures of the flesh prevailed over flesh.”
The priest joined his voice to hers on the next verse.
* * *
Spiritum celsce capiunt cohorts
candidum, cæli super astra tollunt;
iungitur Sponsi thalamis pudica
sponsa beatis.
* * *
“The heavenly host took up her brilliant white spirit,” I thought. “And the heavens lifted it above the stars. The chaste bride is united to the blessed bride chambers of the Spouse.”
Then, to my surprise, the Abbess and all her women sang. And they sang fiercely.
* * *
Virgo, nunc nostrce miserere sortis
et, tuum quisquis celebrat tropceum,
impetretsibi veniam reatus
atque salutem.
* * *
O Virgin, now have pity on our lot,
