The Passion of Dolssa

by Julie Berry

  “Ah,” she said. “Maybe you’re not so boring for once. You are to take a trip.”

  Na Pieret di Fabri’s nephews! I smiled. Who couldn’t help being proud of such a sister? My little srre. I could remember when she was no bigger than one of Paul Crestian’s baby goats.

  Mimi slid off her shoulder and slipped onto my lap. She clawed my legs and flopped down. Outside, gulls cried over the lagoon, which grew darker blue as the sun sank behind Bajas.

  Now Sazia scowled at her own hand. “It appears I am to come with you.”

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Plazensa howled. “You’re not going away and leaving me to run this dump all by myself! Leave me listening to Jobau’s rants alone?”

  “Will I be successful in my errand?” I asked.

  “Yes, yes.” Sazia’s face was troubled. “But you will meet someone . . .”

  “Ooh,” Plazensa teased. “Finally the matchmaker meets her own match!”

  Sazia set my hand down on her low table and began drumming her fingers. “That’s all.”

  I knew when she was lying. “No, it isn’t,” I said. “What’s this about meeting someone?”

  “Yes, Sazia, tell us,” said Plazensa. “Will he be rich or handsome? Too much luck it would be for Botille to find both.” She handed our sister a cup of ale.

  “It’s nothing,” Sazia insisted.

  “Wrong,” I said. “Tell me what you see.”

  Sazia took a sip of ale, then looked straight at me. “You will meet someone,” she said. “You have to take the trip.” She rubbed her temples as though they ached.

  “Tell more,” Plazensa demanded.

  Sazia reached for my hand. Instead of rubbing it, she placed it against her cheek and cupped it there, enclosed by her own. Late summer sweat beaded on her skin. We waited.

  The door to the tavern swung open, and a thirsty-looking farmer appeared, but Plazensa halted him with an imperious thrust of her arm. Her jangling bracelets told him to leave—now. He wasn’t a fool.

  Sazia let my hand fall. She downed the rest of her ale. “I see only sorrow.”

  Plazensa pursed her lips. “It is a tozẹt,” she declared. “It is always the young men who sow sorrow. Stay home, and none of this will befall you. If I must, I’ll lock you in the cellar.”

  “Who said anything about a tozẹt?” Sazia was indignant. “You can’t go hiding from fate. It’s on its way to you, no matter what you do.”

  “Sazia,” I said, “do you have any advice for me? Anything I can do to shield myself?”

  Sazia sighed. “Bring a whip,” she said, “and some cheese, and wear Mamà’s crucifix.”

  We never wore Mamà’s crucifix. We kept it safely tucked away. It was a gift to her from one of her lovers. One of the few things of hers we’d managed to keep.

  Plazensa opened the cupboard and pulled out what was left of our lump of farmer cheese. She stuffed it all into her mouth and chewed defiantly.

  “Don’t be silly, Plazi.” I went in search of something else to eat. “I can get more cheese from the de Borocs, next door.”

  “You’re not leaving here.”

  Sazia rose and stretched. “Her only hope is to go out and meet what is coming,” she said. “If she waits, greater sorrow will find her. Fate punishes those who try to cheat it. When do we leave, Botille?”

  I looked out the window at the rolling waters of the lagoon. I would miss them.

  “I have to talk to Sapdalina,” I said, but my mind was not on Sapdalina. “We leave in the morning.”

  WILLIAM DE LAURAGUÉS

  Witness Testimony recorded by Lucien

  VILLAGE OF VILAFRANCA DE LAURAGUÉS

  William de Lauragués: stonemason;

  age forty (he thinks)

  ood day to you, Friar Inquisitor. Have you come to preach? My men will not mind listening to preaching after we break for the day and for dinner. We must seize the daylight. Count Raimon’s bastida will not build itself, and these stones, they do not cut themselves, either. We’ll be a fine town here before too long.

  If you’re hungry, the cook has some nice fatty coneys, and turnips, and bread and cheese. Probably some wine, too, if he hasn’t drunk it all himself. He’s over there by the fire.

  I go to mass, Brother Preacher, on holy days. My wife, she makes me. My soul is good enough with God. Eat some food, and save your words for those who need them more. If you will return in the evening, the men will be glad of some preaching to pass the time.

  A femna? That’s the other way they like to pass the evenings. Ho! Ha!

  Friar Inquisitor, I have one hundred and forty men here under me, building this bastida. I can’t concern myself with every wench who wanders into this camp.

  How was this one different, then?

  And when would that have been?

  Hm? Oh, nothing. Are you related to her?

  What has this donzȩlla done, to have a preaching friar searching for her? Does she have a father or uncles or brothers looking for her? I ask, because a man came through yesterday seeking a girl. A lordly man, I should say a warrior. Likely no connection.

  I haven’t seen a young donzȩlla. But I will tell you this, Friar. You’ll recall the rainy morning, a few days back. My men huddled in tents and waited for the storm to pass. I came out in the rain to examine a section of wall. When I approached, I saw a figure get up and scurry off. Man, woman, young, old. I don’t know. Vagrants do pass through. If this person thought the wall would offer shelter from the wet, he—or she?—was mistaken.

  Here’s the odd thing. I reached the spot where the person had been. All around it was mud, thick and black. Wet as eels, the day was. But in the spot where the person had been, it was dry as salt. With grasses spread in a hollow like blankets. Dry as holy relics, yet surrounded by all that wet, like Gideon’s fleece.

  My wife said the person must have been a true saint for God to keep the water off like that. She said it’s a miracle.

  My wife is a faithful Catholic, Friar Preacher.

  It may have nothing to do with the donzȩlla you’re looking for.

  You asked if I’d seen anything, and that’s what I saw.

  DOLSSA

  lways I avoided the towns. I made my way around them at night. The days were warm, but the nights chilled me.

  I starved and hid and slunk across the countryside, keeping close to, but off of, the Roman road. I slept in barns, curled against animals. I drank from streams and ate apples from trees.

  When I had the strength, I cried for Mamà. And for my life, for all I ever thought it could be. My mother was dead. My beloved seemed deaf to my cries. My name, my home, the little world of kindness that once surrounded me. All were gone. And Mamà, gone most cruelly.

  I came to a larger town than any I’d seen since leaving Tolosa. A child told me it was Castèlnòu d’Arri. I didn’t dare hide here to sleep. Too many people coming and going, too many who might notice me and report me to a bayle or a cleric.

  Lord, save me, I cried within my heart. Carry me past this place. But my feet were leaden. The friar’s fires began to sound like a way of keeping warm.

  The smell of smoke drew me to the smoldering remains of a supper fire. There was no one near, and nothing close but a small darkened maisoṇ on the outskirts of town, so I lay down beside the coals. Cinders pressed into my cheek, but the warmth on my body was heaven.

  “What’s this?”

  I sat up. It was a woman’s voice. By the embers’ glow, I saw her filthy clothes and hair tied in a rag. She stood with her fists on her wide hips and studied me.

  “You don’t belong here.” I didn’t belong anywhere. “You look like a ghost. Hungry?” My stomach would not let me deny the offer of food.

  The woman disappeared into the maisoṇ and returned with a clay bowl. “Caçolet,” she said. Beans, swimming in grease, and bits of meat, served with a slab of stale fogasa.

  She saw me staring. “Too fine for my food?”

  I dunke
d the flat-baked fogasa in the brown sauce and bit off a bite. It burned my tongue. I didn’t care. Once, I would never have eaten such foul fare.

  “I’m called Jacotina.”

  I barely heard her, for chewing and swallowing. Then I realized she wanted my name. Should I lie? She had fed me.

  “What do you call yourself?”

  I swallowed a burning lump. “I don’t have a name anymore.”

  She nodded. “Lots of us get here that way. Here. Come in. I’ve got a cot you can use.”

  I rose on shaky legs. My dish tipped, and I almost lost a morsel of caçolet. I cried out.

  “It’s all right,” Jacotina said. “There’s more. Don’t be afraid.”

  I followed her into her little maisoṇ, ducking low through her door. She lit two candles, and I looked around. It was small and dirty, and a rose perfume smell mingled with sweat and mildewed bedding. She had, indeed, an extra cot, separated from her own bed by a threadbare curtain on a string. Even such a simple cot beckoned to me. To sleep on something other than the damp, frosty ground!

  She handed me a bucket and a cloth.

  “You’re a sight,” she said. “Clean yourself up a bit. They’ll be coming soon.”

  I froze. “Who’s coming?”

  She cocked her head to one side. “Not the bayle,” she said. “Least, not usually. I keep outside the walls and don’t trouble anyone. Who are you hiding from?”

  I gulped down more caçolet.

  She fished inside a small wicker trunk and pulled out a peasant frock like her own. “It’ll be a sight too big for you. We can lace it up. It doesn’t need to stay smart for long.” She pulled sashes and a belt and ribbons from her trunk and draped them over her shoulders.

  It was growing on me, this peasant food. It wasn’t half bad once it stopped burning my mouth. “Why do I need to change my clothes?”

  She paused. “Here’s as good a place as any to disappear, my girl without a name,” she said. “You’re not from Castèlnòu d’Arri, that’s plain. And you don’t know how to get by. I’ll help you. Start you out on the young, timid ones. But you’ve got to earn your keep.”

  I fingered the dress she’d thrown down on my cot. The fabric was thin, transparent as calfskin vellum, and trimmed with flimsy lace.

  “Most people’s working day is done; ours is only just begun,” she said. “I’ll call you Rose. Eat up, and get that face washed, Rose, before the men come.”

  I realized then what she’d offered me. A bite of food stuck in my throat. I should have refused any more food, but I didn’t know when I’d eat again. I gulped another bite, and another, and another still.

  “I can’t do that,” I cried, said, with sauce dribbling down my chin. “I won’t! Lie here, with strange men? I’ll die first.”

  Jacotina laughed. “Not with your belly full of my caçolet. You make your maiden protests, and still you gobble like a baby pig.” She untied her skirt and replaced it with a red one from her trunk. “Do you have money to pay for it? No? Of course, no. Yet you ate it. Too noble to pay, just noble enough to take.”

  “I accepted your food as given in charity,” I cried. “I’ll trouble you no more.”

  Jacotina sat upon her mattress. “You’re on the run, aren’t you?” Her eyes grew afraid. “Are you a bona femna? The kind they call heretics?”

  The taste of caçolet grew sour on my tongue. “No,” I said, “I am not one of the friends of God. Not a bona femna.”

  How many times had Lucien de Saint-Honore asked me the same question?

  “Then what if I were to let the bayle know I’d seen you?”

  Fool to rest, to eat, to warm myself by anyone’s embers! “Then they will find and kill me all the sooner.”

  Jacotina’s black eyes studied me.

  “I have made a holy vow of chastity,” I said. “I dare not break it, in fear for my soul. My Lord will provide for me.”

  Jacotina eyed me as though I were a waste of space. “You are a bona femna,” she said. “I do not honor you. I do not bow. But I can give you pity.”

  “I’m not one,” I said. “And what use have I for pity from a sinful woman like you?”

  The words. They landed on the packed dirt floor. Next to the clay pot of beans and meat.

  She’s a prostitute! I told myself. With the gall to think that I, Dolssa de Stigata, would stoop to her base and wicked sins. What claim has she upon my courtesy?

  My anger, my mortification at what she’d suggested I do, burned hot. Yet my insulting words! My beloved, I knew, would not be pleased with me. I looked back at her face, ready to submit to her anger.

  But there was none. When I’d flung out my hateful words, she had chosen to ignore them.

  She rose and opened the door. “Here comes someone,” she said. “Time to go. Duck out and follow the stream around the town. I must get ready now. May the bon Dieu provide for your soul as you hope he will. It has never been so for me.”

  I touched her hand in parting. Then, in haste, I swallowed four more urgent bites of caçolet. I had no more shame left. Only enough to resist her profession.

  I stooped through the doorway of the tiny maisoṇ and out into the black night. I ventured forward as fast as I dared, but I could barely see my hand when I extended my arm in front of me. Soon I heard a hearty voice greeting Jacotina, and the sound of her voice in return. I tried not to think of what would happen next.

  I reached the stream and followed its sounds along the bank. La luna swam behind the clouds all night, until it finally peeped through, and by its light I looked about to see that, to my surprise, I had left the town well behind, and rejoined the river. For the first time in days, my limbs had strength for the journey. My body was warm with the vigor of movement and the memory of the caçolet.

  Help had not come from my beloved, but from the vilest of sinners. Friendless and alone as I was, hunted by the Church I’d once called home, the wicked might now be my only safety. Safety! She wanted me to be her paid whore, and she, my procurer! Thank Dieu I’d escaped.

  Yet, I could not deny, there’d also been sympathy, help, and patience in Jacotina’s greedy eyes.

  JACOTINA

  Witness Testimony recorded by Lucien

  VILLAGE OF CASTÈLNÒU D’ARRI

  Jacotina: meretrix publica; age forty-six;

  residing outside the city walls

  ou want to talk to me? Talking’s not usually what they have in mind when they come here.

  Oc, I’ll talk with you. Come to my place, where we can talk more privately.

  Take a seat. Make yourself at home.

  You’re young for this, aren’t you? Not too young. Your beard wants to grow faster than you can shave it, and so does the hair on your head. That’s a fine head of hair you’d have, if you’d let it grow. Stay with me a few days, if you like, and let it.

  It’s hard work, preaching the word. A man’s got to have some release. Just like he needs food and water and sleep. He needs other things. That’s why I’m here. Isn’t that why you’re here? Oh, now. Don’t fret. There’s no shame. No shame at all. The tales I could tell you—but of course I never tell tales. Let’s just say that men of the cloth are some of my best customers.

  Well enough. If we must talk first, we’ll talk. Have some wine. Wine helps with talking.

  When was this?

  A young girl?

  Oh, I see. Too old for you, am I? Just how old do you think I am?

  Don’t be fooled by youth. You’re old enough to know what experience is good for.

  All right! I hear you. Not that kind of young girl. A young girl just passing through? Traveling alone? Why would she have passed my way?

  What would make her wish to avoid the town?

  Isn’t that a curious thing? A young girl without a mother, an aunt, or a companion, fleeing through the countryside. Traveling by night? She must be trying to die. What has she done to make you want so badly to find her? Is she your mistress? Your dainty young en
amoratz?

  Never mind. Don’t take on so; it’s a fair question. Many a holy brother like you has a concubine.

  Tell me this. When you’ve found her—this person—what will you do with her? Is she to be restored to her family?

  Of course it’s none of my affair. I’m curious. You haven’t told me all, that’s plain. But your business is yours to keep. I can’t help you. I have not seen a young gentlewoman come passing through by night and all alone. You’ve wasted my time and cost me tomorrow’s dinner.

  You don’t mean that.

  You do mean it.

  Monster! You knew what I was when you came here.

  You would threaten me with this, a poor woman, all weak and alone? I don’t do any harm to anyone. There’s not a judge nor a priest in the city who doesn’t know I’m here.

  I have told the truth. Upon my honor, I have.

  Please, good sir, forget you met me here. Are you hungry? I have caçolet in my pot.

  I only meant to help.

  Help you. That’s what I mean. Help you. Not help her. How could I help her if I never even saw her?

  If all you say is true, she’s probably already long past helping now.

  BOTILLE

  knocked at the door of the small stone maisoṇ. No one answered. I knocked again.

  “Wait here,” I called to Sazia, who stood with Garcia and his son, and the mules.

  I headed around to the back. Sazia called after me, but I was in no mood to wait.

  It was the afternoon of our second day of traveling, and after several wrong stops, we’d reached San Cucufati, and found what several nearby folks assured us was the maisoṇ we wanted. Plazensa hadn’t let us depart without first making Sazia swear on our mother’s grave that she wouldn’t leave my side, so Sazia never let me out of her sight. This charge to protect me had turned my baby srre into a tyrant hovering mother, and I don’t take kindly to mothering. I’m not used to it.