Stigmata

by Colin Falconer

  *

  He started awake, realized he had been dozing in the saddle. His sergeant-at-arms pointed: the castle loomed above the valley on a bend of the river. A smudge of smoke rose from the keep and stained a filthy sky; he saw the flare of a torch behind the arrow slits of the donjon. He looked for the window of their bedroom, high in the tower. He knew that beneath it there was an iron chest, ornamented with iron scrolls, in which she kept her treasures and rarities. It served her also as window seat and prie-dieu and he wondered if she was there now, if she could see him.

  His wife, his home.

  He felt many eyes watching their approach. He wanted to gallop the rest of the way but he could not. The mud was frozen hard with frost and rutted from the passage of cart wheels and his horse stumbled, exhausted. He had ridden her hard to arrive before nightfall.

  A wolf howled somewhere on the mountain and he crossed himself.

  They stopped outside the gates and his sergeant-at-arms called out the password. The wooden doors of the gatehouse rumbled open.

  The torches were already lit; the servants tumbled from the donjon and the stables. He was home; for one fleeting moment he felt young again, and unscarred. But even as he clutched at the moment, he felt it slip from his grasp.

  He looked for her among the servants and soldiers, but she was not there. He knew straight away there was something wrong. It was written on all their faces. They averted their eyes, none of them wanted to be the one to say.

  He dropped from his horse. Renaut, his squire, pushed his way forward.

  ‘Just tell me,’ Philip said.

  ‘She’s dead; it’s been half a year. It happened on the Eve of the Annunciation.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It was a birthing.’

  He remembered their last night together. Take me to the tilt, my warrior. Bury your lance as deep as it will go. So that was it then; he had sewn the seed of his own despair.

  ‘I wish I might tell you otherwise,’ Renaut said and fell to one knee. His entire household followed.

  He wanted to sink to his knees in the mud with them but that would not do, for he was still master of this castle and these people. He felt them all watching him. It was a rare thing to feel pitied.

  I do not want an audience for my grief, he thought, I would rather be alone, away from this stink of smoke and horses and mud. ‘Look after my horse,’ he said and limped inside.

  *

  The next day nothing would do but her gentlewomen must give him the account of how it happened. The pains began after mass; she had laboured with the child all through the next day and the next night before Renaut was sent to fetch a wise woman from the village. How she suffered and moaned! When at last the child was born there was a sudden onrushing of blood: not enough linen in the whole of the castle to stem the flow. Some women sent to the chapel to pray. I just want to sleep now, she said. Don’t close your eyes, we all told her, didn’t we? But we could not prevent it. She would not rouse. And her skin! Cold as mildewed stone.

  He would have preferred their account brief, but they wished to tell him every detail. It had been their burden all these months and they needed to be free of its weight, hand it to him. It was his now.

  It was not our fault. We did what we could.

  ‘Did she say anything?’ he said.

  They shook their heads. One word from her deathbed might have made a difference. But there was nothing to report, it seemed.

  The priest was called and she slipped away during the night. They all woke to slate roofs dusted with snow and a lady frozen in death.

  He sent them all away, climbed the stairs to their bedchamber and perched uneasily on the edge of the bed where she died. A sour wind howled around the walls and the candles guttered and danced.

  He tried to picture her face but already it was fading. Just that afternoon he could summon every curl and every glance, but she was alive to him then, though six months in her grave. He heard her voice from the dark passage. You did not even ask about the child.

  ‘I cannot believe you have left me here alone,’ he said.

  What was it she had said before he left? Promise me you will come home safe to me. He had never thought to say: Promise me you will still be here alive when I return. Now she was gone, the sun was behind her and he could not stare into the light.

  She had tried to make him stay.

  ‘I cannot,’ he had told her. ‘I am a knight, and I am foresworn to make one pilgrimage to the Holy Land in my lifetime and fight for the Lord. I have to do my duty.’

  ‘I am afraid that if you go, we will be parted for ever.’

  ‘That is for God to decide.’

  ‘No, it is for you to decide, husband.’

  ‘It is not goodbye,’ he had said. ‘I will come back to you, I promise.’

  She turned away from him.

  ‘You have to understand, mon coeur. God demands this of me.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ she said and would have left it at that. He pressed her on it. ‘It’s the Pope in Rome that wants it, husband. Can you not serve God just as well by staying here and serving the people whose lives depend on your presence?’

  The next day he put on his surcoat. Her ladies had stitched a red cross on to the fabric and he strode into the great hall to show it off. ‘What would you say if you were a Saracen and saw me come at you with my sword raised?’

  Her eyes were clouded. ‘I would say, go home to your wife and leave us here in peace.’

  What is wrong with me? he thought. I had been happy then. Any other man would have squeezed every measure from every day and not tested God’s patience and the Devil’s sense of mischief.

  And now she was gone. You wasted your brief time with her in that infernal country, looking for God’s favour, when He had already given you more than you ever deserved. And now look what has happened.

  *

  When he woke, his mouth was foul and parched, his head splitting from too much wine. Renaut was sitting at the foot of the bed. ‘I should have fetched the wise woman sooner,’ he said. ‘Else she might still be alive.’

  ‘You are not to blame, Renaut. No one is to blame but me. I should have been here.’

  It was raining outside. Last night he had thought that if he slept he would wake up and find her lying beside him in the bed, smell the musty warmth of her, spoon his body into hers. But instead he woke cold and aching. He went to sit by the fire, drew close to the meagre warmth of some green logs. He called for more wine.

  VIII

  THE BLACK-ROBED friar was again about his work in front of the cathedral. He seemed a mild sort of man for a preacher, Anselm thought, his shoulders bowed like a scribe and pouches under his sad grey eyes the size of pigeon’s eggs.

  But when he started to harangue the crowd those same eyes were of an instant lit from within by a messianic fire and his voice thundered even over the braying of the mules and the shouts of the hawkers.

  ‘It is only through Christ and his Church that you will be saved! If you listen to your heretic priests you will be consigned to the terrors of purgatory, for such is reserved for those of you who turn your back on God’s holy word!’

  From the folds of his cloak he produced a human skull and brandished it in the face of a housewife on her way home from the market. She yelped in shock and spilled the eggs she was carrying on the cobblestones. A yellow-backed cur pounced on this unexpected windfall and began to lap at the spilled yolks.

  ‘This is what awaits you! Every man and woman here owes God a death and you do not know when it will come. Are you ready to meet your Judge? Are you ready for the Last Trumpet?’

  The moment these words left his mouth there was a loud blast on a horn and several of the women who had paused to listen screamed and jumped back. A small child started to cry.

  Anselm was not quite so startled, for the trick was not new to him. He had seen one of the friar’s accomplices slip inside the nave of the cathedral some moments
before, a trumpet concealed in his robe. This elegant piece of theatre had a great effect on some but produced only rage in others.

  An apprentice retrieved some fresh horse dung from the cobblestones and hurled it at the friar. It hit him about the midriff, leaving a large yellow-brown stain, much to the mirth of the crowd.

  At this some young toughs appeared from behind the pillars and threw the dung-thrower into one of the pie stalls. Some others of the hecklers came to his aid and a brawl began.

  Anselm Bérenger shook his head and turned to Father Jorda. ‘What a world, where men should so disrespect a man of God.’

  ‘It is the times we live in.’

  ‘Indeed, Father.’

  Father Simon Jorda tucked his hands inside the loose sleeves of his cassock to warm them a little. He was struggling to conclude their business. It was difficult, Anselm appreciated, to express both sympathy and self-interest at the same time. He felt sorry for the friar; he did not doubt that it was the prior who insisted on pressing him on business matters so soon after Pèire’s accident.

  He thanked the priest once more for his condolences, and agreed that such a fine young man must at that very moment be enjoying the fruits of his virtue in heaven. He then assured him that but for a slight delay while the guild found for him a journeyman of equal abilities, his work would proceed apace. By Anselm’s calculation they would be finished by the following autumn, and could then continue as planned with the new work on Saint-Sernin.

  Simon was about to return to his duties. He hesitated, sensing from the stonemason’s manner that there was something further on his mind.

  ‘Is something wrong, mason?’ he said.

  Anselm wondered how to begin. He possessed a deft hand with stone; but when he was with his wife or a clergyman, he felt like a piece of marble himself.

  What a sight he makes, Simon thought. Yet this giant contrived somehow to look like a child about to be upbraided by his father for some mischief.

  ‘Father,’ Anselm muttered into his beard, ‘there is something . . . I wonder if you might do me a service.’

  ‘If it is within my power,’ Simon answered, thinking he might wish a special dispensation for some sin. Some unscrupulous priests refused absolution for those sins that weighed heaviest on the penitent’s mind, in order to extract payment for their pardon. A priest might ask for two or three sols from a peasant for an adultery; twenty or thirty from a man like Anselm, who could afford it.

  He despised such practices. He would refuse no man the grace of God, if he were truly penitent.

  ‘It is about my daughter,’ he said, and Simon’s heart froze.

  ‘Your daughter?’

  ‘Her name is Fabricia. She is a good daughter, and virtuous, and loves the Church.’

  ‘That all men should be so blessed. What is it with her that you wish to discuss with me?’

  ‘She loves the Church a little too much, I believe.’

  Simon strained to hear him over the noise of chisel on stone from the men working around them. ‘How can we love our Church too much, Anselm?’

  ‘Father, you know me, I am a simple man, I have no understanding of such things. The skills God has seen fit to give me, I use in the service of the Church, when I can. But there are some things . . .’

  ‘What is it you require of me, Anselm?’

  ‘She has expressed a desire to take vows, and live under the Rule, as a nun. Although I know it is a great virtue to serve God in this way, she is my only daughter, and I wish to dissuade her of it. I believe she may serve God better as a good wife and a good mother. Will you speak with her, Father?’

  ‘You wish me to persuade her against this?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘That is quite impossible,’ Simon said, and turned away, lest Anselm see the blood colour his cheeks. But he could not hasten because of the litter of stone blocks around his feet, and Anselm would not give up so easily.

  ‘Father, though she is only a daughter, I love her with all my soul!’

  ‘Your soul is for loving God.’

  ‘She is the only child I have. God has not seen fit to bless our union with more. Someday I hoped for a grandson to whom I could pass on these few humble skills that I have . . . if you would only talk to her, Father.’

  ‘There is no better purpose to life than to commend it to God.’

  ‘But, Father, she is just a girl, and has good prospects to marry . . .’

  Simon rounded on him, meaning to upbraid him for his importunate manners. The sight of this goliath reduced to hand-wringing stayed him. If only this wretch knew what was in my heart! The ways of the Dark One are truly insidious, he thought. Or perhaps God has sent this as a test for me. He intends this as my moment to overcome the Devil’s power, to defeat him as surely as the Lord defeated his temptations in the wilderness.

  ‘Please, talk with her, Father. If I had a son, it would be a gift I could give to God, knowing it was of some value. But a daughter . . . really, the sacrifice is hers alone, and I do not believe she understands the gravity of it. Will you prevail on her, for me?’

  Simon could not find his voice. He retrieved the hem of his cassock, stepped over a large block of marble, and hurried away.

  Why did he choose me? Simon wondered. Was it just because he knew me and had cause to converse with me often? There were some clerics who would not even speak to a woman, saying their gender was responsible for the sins of Eve and thus the suffering of all men. He himself believed it was because such priests did not trust themselves, were afraid that the charms that the Devil lent women could lead them from a sinless life.

  I never before counted myself among them.

  It was admitted that virtuous men were not easily found within the Church. There were many clerics who knew fornication better than they knew the words of the mass, and monks who, if they did not have a reputation for scandal, should have no reputation at all.

  He always thought himself exceptional; had convinced himself that on the Day of Judgement God would find no blemish on his pure heart. This was a test of his virtue, that was all. And he would prove finally to himself, and to his Lord, that the Devil held no play over him whatever.

  IX

  THE BÉRENGER FAMILY lived in the narrow streets on the Garonne side, close to the sweatshops and the bleachers and tanners around the church of Saint-Pèire-des-Cuisines. To get there Simon passed through several mean alleys, with workshops and stalls on every side. The imprecations of the whores and the shrieks of snot-nosed children were a vexation. Gangs of adolescents roamed there, mocking the old and the lame and getting into fist-fights outside the ale-houses.

  As in Paris, the population of the town had no other means of disposing of waste than by throwing everything into the street. The rickety upper storeys jutted at angles over the narrow lanes and Simon had once experienced the unrelieved joy of having the contents of a night jar emptied on his head. On one famous occasion even the Bishop had been so anointed. The most hideous filth was piled up outside every door, where dogs and pigs squabbled over the fare. Simon held a scented handkerchief to his nose while being forced into a doorway to make way for a shepherd and a flock of mud-spattered sheep.

  He reached a small square with a stone cross at its centre, the junction of three streets. It was here that the mason had his house. Shops faced on to the square, the wrought-iron signs hanging above their lintels creaking and swaying in the wind.

  Despite the weather, a crowd gathered around a bear sward, and voices rose as the betting and cursing began. He heard the yelping of the dogs and the desperate and enraged cries of the bear as it fought for its life. The world was steeped in sin, he thought. Only the eternal has worth.

  Remember that, Simon, before you go inside. Remember that.

  *

  Anselm Bérenger lived well, for as a master mason he received twenty-four silver sols every week, which sum afforded him a good stone house and meat on his table for most suppers. Simon was greeted
in the parlour. In the middle of the room there was a fireplace, a welcome log crackling in the grate. Mushrooms, garlic and onions hung on strings to dry above the hearth.

  He looked around. There were three small windows covered with oiled linen, which allowed a creamy light into the room. To relieve the austerity, the oaken roof timbers were painted in bright colours, wine-red and moss-green.

  Anselm brought him to stand by the fire to warm himself. Steam rose from his damp cloak. Anselm’s wife brought him a cup of mulled wine. Simon noted that the mother much resembled her daughter, though Elionor’s red curls were now flecked with grey.

  As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light inside the house, he noticed Fabricia waiting patiently in the corner. She wore a soft grey tunic, a linen chemise visible at her neck and wrists, decorated with lace. He imagined he could detect the faint smell of saffron from its last washing. She was practising her needlepoint and her brow was knit in a frown of concentration.

  After some desultory conversation, Anselm and his wife left him by the fire with their daughter, who had to this point remained silent. They went upstairs to their private chamber.

  He knew he should put her at her ease with some casual conversation – the weather perhaps, or an enquiry after the manner of the embroidery she was making – but he found to his horror that his throat was dry and his hands were trembling. Such was his panic that he launched instead straight to the business.

  ‘Your father tells me that it is your wish to give yourself over to the service of God.’

  ‘He has sent you here to dissuade me, has he not, Father?’

  ‘He wishes me to ascertain if you have the temperament for it.’

  Simon settled himself on his stool and sipped his wine. Now the conversation had begun, he felt a little more certain of himself. Many young women had been moved by the stories of virgins suffering for Our Lord; it was for such hysterical notions that their sex was famed. He knew that a man of his training and intellect should be able to disabuse her of such thoughts without too much difficulty.