The Passion of Dolssa

by Julie Berry

  “What news, Brother Lucien?” asked the prior.

  Lucien opened his mouth to give an answer he dreaded giving, then caught Prior Pons’s gaze as it moved to a brocade chair facing the fire. Lucien swallowed. Of course, Bishop Raimon would still be here. After tonight’s debacle, he wouldn’t budge until justice was served.

  Raimon de Fauga, bishop of Tolosa, rose from his seat and regarded Lucien. Even in the dim light, the elegant material of his robes set him apart from Pons and Lucien. His bishop’s ring gleamed.

  “I see by your eyes that you have not found her.” The bishop shook his head and glanced at the older prior. “Tonight is a blot upon the record of our order, Pons.”

  Prior Pons warmed his hands at the fire. “We are here to heal Christendom, not to hunt runaways in the dark.”

  Raimon’s robes swished as he turned away. “It’s a disgrace. An affront to the Church, and to law in Tolosa. If she makes it out of town and into the countryside, the bayles will wash their hands of her, while she infects some other corner of the Lord’s vineyard.” His servants entered, bearing fragrant baskets. “Ah! Dinner.”

  “The bayles are looking for her even now,” Lucien blurted. Bishop Raimon turned to him, and he lowered his gaze. “Lord Bishop—”

  “As they should.” Bishop Raimon beckoned to one of his servants, who sliced a slab of roast duck onto a waiting plate. The bishop gestured to the other to move his chair to the table, then sat and seized a delicate pair of ebony-handled knives and applied them to his meat. Lucien had never seen such graceful little utensils. He found himself staring at them in doped fascination, while the rich red scent of the meat wet his tongue.

  “Sit, Pons, and eat,” the bishop said. “There’s plenty.” When the prior hesitated, the bishop poked a knife laden with meat in his direction. “Even our moderation needs moderation, Pons. I declare it would be a sin of ingratitude for you to refuse me.”

  Prior Pons took a seat, and the bishop’s servants carved him a plate of food. They must have carried the bishop’s dinner all the way from his palace.

  Lucien’s stomach writhed. The friars had dined on bread and thin soup hours ago. Would he also be invited to sup? No. He made himself look away. Oh, for but one slice of fowl! There was never meat for the lesser friars. Even when Lucien was a boy, there had been only hunger. His father, a candlemaker, always seemed to have more mouths to feed than customers.

  Bishop Raimon spoke without looking up. “Senhor Hugo.”

  “My lord.”

  A figure appeared out of the shadows, making Lucien jump. He was dressed as a knight of rank in a velvet cap and an emblazoned surcoat displaying a family coat of arms. Lucien recognized him from the execution. He’d stood with Count Raimon, watching the proceedings through grim, angry eyes. It seemed like days ago, instead of hours.

  “Hugo, are you sure you didn’t see anyone close to the heretics tonight?” The bishop chewed a morsel thoughtfully. “No one who might have cut the younger one free?”

  The knight’s gaze took in Lucien in a sweep. The scabbard at his side shimmered as if it had a murderous will of its own.

  “I saw no one but ourselves, my lord,” said the knight. “Count Raimon, your retinue, the inquisitors, and the executioners. I would have said it was impossible for anyone to reach the women unseen in such an audience. They were well surrounded.”

  The bishop swallowed a dripping bite. “What does the count intend to do now? Wash his hands of the girl?”

  Senhor Hugo’s stance shifted, slightly, but with power. “That is why I’m here,” he said quietly. “I will track the girl myself.”

  Lucien thought the bishop looked momentarily impressed, though the elder churchman was much too smooth to show it.

  “Examine the executioners,” the bishop said, with a wave of his little knife. “Inquire into their characters. Learn whether one of them might have been bought by friends of the family. Or whether they deliberately freed her in defiance of our work.”

  Lucien blinked. The executioners, defiant?

  “Lucien,” the prior explained, “we’ve only just had our permission to conduct inquisitions restored earlier this year. Three years ago the city of Tolosa rose up in such protest that Count Raimon petitioned the pope to halt our work, and was granted it.” He sighed. “They did the same, six years ago, and I traveled with Bishop Raimon myself to petition the pope for relief. To be an inquisitor is to be like one of the holy martyrs. Wickedness will always try to stop us.” At the word wickedness, his gaze fell upon Hugo, but the knight showed no reaction.

  “The Count of Tolosa comes from a long line of heretic lovers,” muttered the bishop darkly. He turned to Lucien. “Young friar, understand this: these suspensions of inquisition were mere delays. We shall be wiser this time. Some of the inquisitors among our order were, shall we say, a little too quick to convict, hence the outcry. But we can’t trust the loyalty of the people of Tolosa. The executioners could be conspirators. You’ll see to the investigation, then, Senhor Hugo?”

  The knight stirred. “I will.”

  Lucien was glad not to be one of the executioners.

  “Use what force you deem necessary,” the bishop added.

  The knight nodded. “I will speak to the officers.”

  “As will I.”

  The knight shot an annoyed look at Lucien, whose stomach, just then, groaned loudly. He blushed hot.

  “I will speak with them, my lord,” Hugo repeated, “but I doubt the executioners were in league with the prisoners.”

  Raimon plucked a tidbit of duck from the point of his knife with his lips. “Then somehow she must have brought her own blade and concealed it.” He licked grease off the blunt edge of his knife. “The heretics often display a most diabolical will to survive.”

  “Men on the field of battle behave no differently, Bishop,” said Hugo. “The will to cheat death is not confined to heretics.”

  This comment earned Hugo a wrinkle of the bishop’s upper lip. “This one,” the bishop said, “will not cheat me.”

  “I will bid you bon sẹr,” said Senhor Hugo. “I have a runaway to find.”

  Prior Pons beckoned for Lucien to approach for a private conference. He spoke softly in his ear. “Where is Brother Humbert?”

  “Resting,” Lucien whispered. “Tonight’s chase exerted him uncomfortably.”

  It wasn’t the first time Prior Pons had inquired about Brother Lucien’s older, less vigorous companion. By their rule, Dominican socii ought always to be together, but Brother Humbert’s age and ailments often worked to prevent this.

  Bishop Raimon waved, and his short-haired attendant produced a parcel full of dark, moist cake. From the fragrance of it, it was made with apricots and soaked in red wine.

  “Let the girl slip away,” the bishop said between bites of cake, “and she’ll light a fire throughout Provensa. She’s as unrepentant a heretic as any bona femna or bon ome, and a defiant, unnatural female, which is worse. And she’s not the only one.” He chewed. “I hear reports. In Bavaria, in Flanders, these women gather without orders or vows. They form private religious houses. Some claim to speak with God themselves, as yours does. It’s clear where that will lead.”

  Prior Pons murmured his assent.

  Bishop Raimon laid his utensils on the table and leaned back in his chair. “You must find the girl alive,” he said. “The little slut must be caught by morning.”

  Lucien blinked. Slut? He pictured, for a moment . . . “Of course we’ll find her alive.” His words earned him a look of warning from the prior. “Why, Bishop, would she not be alive?”

  The bishop chuckled. “Dolssa de Stigata has lived a soft and comfortable life in her parents’ home. She has never exerted herself more than to pluck a chestnut from her father’s tree. If she makes it through this night, she could well die yet of thirst or exposure or injury.”

  “Then we leave it to God,” said Prior Pons, “to execute his own justice.”

&n
bsp; “You are an indulgent fellow, Pons,” said the bishop. “The people must witness her end. She herself no longer matters. She’s beyond all hope of salvation. But let her die on the road, and she becomes a martyr.”

  Slut. The impossible image of Dolssa de Stigata trying to entice a man would not leave Lucien. He thrust it from him with effort. “We will find her, Lord Bishop. If I must find her myself.”

  “I know you will,” Bishop Raimon said. “The Lord requires it of you.” He dabbed at his lips with a napkin, then rose and made his way toward the fire, where he leaned against the mantel.

  “Go prepare yourself, Lucien,” said Prior Pons. “Friar Humbert would slow your journey, I fear. Let him remain, and you go, but if you haven’t found her in a few days, return. Be safe.” Friar Lucien nodded and left the room.

  Bishop Raimon watched Prior Pons’s thoughtful expression as the young friar left.

  “I really thought she would recant when they brought her mother to the pyre,” the bishop said. “That’s why I ordered them to take the mother first. My little gamble went awry. It was never the mother who mattered. If we had burned the daughter first and let the mother live, she’d have found her grief hotter than our flames.”

  Prior Pons sipped his wine. “All for nothing, then?”

  “Oh, no,” Bishop Raimon said. “An execution is never wasted.” He chuckled. “Attendance at mass soars after a burning.”

  IZARN DE BASIÈJA

  Witness Testimony recorded by Lucien

  VILLAGE OF BASIÈJA

  Izarn de Basièja: peasant farmer in

  the village; resides on the outskirts, near

  the highway; age thirty-one; married,

  three children; grows cabbages, radishes,

  parsnips, and the like

  ood day, Friar, good day. You honor us by coming here. Can we offer you our humble food? My wife, she is very talented with sopa. You will like it. Come sit. I will pour for you.

  A young girl? A child? Ah, a donzȩlla. Many people pass by on the road, and we do not notice them all. When?

  Oc, Friar, there was a donzȩlla who came through. Very early in the morning. We found her in the straw with our goats. She was asleep, with her hands folded as if she prayed.

  Of course you would be looking for her. She was a holy woman. Not a religious, no, not a nun. No! Not a bona femna. I have nothing to do with them. But one could see she was pious. My wife gave her food, and she prayed before she ate it. Our goat, she had gone missing, but she returned that morning and nuzzled up to her. It was a miracle. That goat has never liked people.

  Two days ago. We urged her to stay, but she would not.

  She went south and east from here, along the valley. Toward Castèlnòu d’Arri.

  You will bring comfort to her, Friar. I know it. My wife, she prepares a pocket of fogasa bread and cheese for you. Perhaps when you reach la donzȩlla, you can share it with her.

  BOTILLE

  entered the Three Pigeons as the sun was setting. I found Sazia curled up in a corner, with a drowsing Mimi draped over her shoulder, and Plazensa leaning over the bar, talking to a customer. Jobau’s snores drifted down from the loft above the tavern.

  “Botille.” Plazi smiled at me. “I saved you a dish of roasted onions.”

  “Look at you,” Sazia said. “You’re filthy.”

  Plazensa’s customer eyed me slantwise as I passed by in search of a bucket. His cap sat low over his thick-whiskered head. He hunched his large body over the bar as if to go unnoticed. He looked like a sailor, just in port. His gaze didn’t linger on me long, and I was accustomed to that. When a man met Plazensa, then learned she had younger sisters, his mouth would begin to water. Until he met us. Sazia and I were perfectly acceptable-looking people, I believed—or Sazia would have been if she’d wash her hair—but we were nothing next to Plazensa.

  Peddling as I did in the marriage trade, I was often asked why I hadn’t found a husband for Plazensa. A rich merchant’s son, they would say, or a minor noble from Narbona would happily carry her away. But Plazensa wanted a husband about as much as Jobau wanted to toil in an honest trade—though there never was such a one to fuss over weddings as she. Plazensa preferred to run the tavern, boss Sazia and me to death, and amuse herself—and supplement our income—with a few customers on the side. She kept a room in the back. We didn’t ask questions.

  I wondered if this great bushy behemoth at the bar would end up buying entry to the back room. I hoped not, as that would leave me in charge of the ale, and I sorely needed a bath.

  The door opened, and in came Felipa de Prato, a farmwife. Her face was brown as a hazelnut, and her eyes were old and tired, though she couldn’t have been thirty yet. She nodded absently toward Plazensa, then dropped herself into the low cushions before Sazia and held out her palm. In her other hand she carried a small basket of radishes and carrots.

  Sazia pawed through the basket. She had a sweet tooth and preferred a bit of fruit, perhaps a cluster of grapes, but the de Pratos barely scraped by, so she got on with things, and began kneading the outstretched hand between her fingers. Felipa’s eyes rolled shut, and she sank in her seat. I’d seen that look before. When Sazia touched their hands, her clients’ worries floated away. Her hands were magic on their tired bones. I wondered whether Sazia’s palm-reading customers came to her for her prognostication, or for the massage.

  Soothsaying was as natural for Sazia as matchmaking was for me. She listened to what she knew. I paid attention to what I saw and what I felt. Sazia woke up with visions of what would befall villagers; I woke up with wedding plans.

  Sazia and I had inherited these gifts from our mother. I don’t remember her, but I know she had the old magic. She was a devina herself, I believed. A sorceress. Jobau said so. Sazia and I got her powers, and Plazensa got her beauty. The way Plazensa wore that beauty was a magic all its own. We were the Flasucra sisters. Add us together, and we made our mother.

  I filled a bucket with water from our barrel and dunked a rag into it. It felt cold on my skin, but the late afternoon was so hot, I welcomed it. I stood in the corridor behind the bar, where I could listen and watch Sazia without Plazensa’s customer seeing me. I rolled up my skirt, dunked a foot in the bucket, and began to scrub.

  “Don’t worry so much,” Sazia told Felipa de Prato. “The wheat will do well this year. So will the legums, but that husband of yours needs to get off his aze and water them.”

  Felipa’s face relaxed, and she nodded in relief, but when Sazia mentioned her husband, she pursed her lips. Joan de Prato would get an earful tonight, I’d wager.

  I dunked my other foot in the water. The smell of grapes filled my nose once more.

  “Also, you are having a baby,” Sazia went on matter-of-factly. The poor farmwife’s eyes flew open. “It’s early still. You will need to eat melons, peas, leeks, and garlic. Milk and cheese, and fish when you can get it. They will be good for the baby.”

  Felipa’s chest rose and fell rapidly. A single tear streamed down the side of her nose.

  “No fear,” said Sazia. “This baby will be joyful and full of health. Your husband will love the child, and love you for bearing it, and stop sneaking over to— Never mind.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind who.” She patted Felipa’s hand and rose from her seat. “Remember. Water the legums. Eat melons and leeks. Your husband will come around.”

  Felipa rose to her feet, looking unconvinced. I scrubbed the last bit of wine off my shins and wrung out the cloth. The rest of the lingering purple would probably take days to fade.

  “Don’t worry,” Plazensa called to her as Felipa headed for the door. “Sazia is never wrong.”

  The door shut, Plazensa turned to Sazia. “Who’s Joan de Prato sneaking around with?”

  Sazia waved the question away. “You bore me, sister.”

  Apparently, Plazensa also bored the sailor at the bar, or else he bored her, because he rose at that moment and left. I unp
inned my soiled skirt and replaced it with my usual one. Then I sat in the seat vacated by Felipa and began devouring the soft, creamy onions Plazi always made on baked-clam days, scooping them up with a crust of bread. Heaven. There is nothing in this world like a well-cooked onion.

  “You’re mistaken, anyway,” Sazia said. “I have often been wrong. There was the time with the donkey, and the matter of the de Grava baby.”

  Plazensa wiped the sailor’s mug with her apron. “It is not your fault if you tell a farmer to buy a donkey and it drops dead on the way home from market. It was probably the work of demons, and anyone knows the work of demons can’t be predicted.” She frowned at the mug, spit on it, and wiped it some more. “As for the baby, you said the de Grava wife would birth un filh. Probably the farmer wished so hard for a son, it confused you. So they had una filha, so what? She’s growing as big and strong as a son. You’re young, srre. Give yourself patience.”

  “My turn, Sazia.” I scraped the plate with bread. “I haven’t had my fortune told in ages.”

  Sazia pushed her thick hair out of her eyes and made a face. “That’s because nothing ever happens in our boring lives, pah.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “your fortune can tell me how to find a husband for Sapdalina.”

  Sazia stuck out her tongue at me. “I don’t tell you how to do your job. You don’t tell me how to do mine.”

  “Poor Sapdalina.” I sighed. “I can’t find a man to take her for love or money. Flat, blotchy, dull, and weepy. And she never stops sniffling.”

  “She’s not so dull,” Sazia said. “I read her fortune once. She had me laughing for ages.”

  “That’s a sight I’d pay to see,” Plazensa said. “Cheer up, Botille. Some wife will die, leaving an old widower desperate. If you’re lucky, he’ll be half blind. Voilà, Sapdalina.”

  Sazia snapped her fingers at me. “Give me your hand, or no fortune for you.”

  I sat down, offered the hand, and then settled back into the soothing motions of her strong fingers rubbing and rolling my hands. Sazia didn’t read palms. She found the future embedded deep in the flesh and bones. Too bad she couldn’t find a fortune in my back.