The Passion of Dolssa

by Julie Berry

  Guilhem tucked the letter back into his belt. “It’s from the bishop of Tolosa,” he said, “warning us of a fugitive heretic roaming abroad. One who somehow escaped her burning. If we hear of her, we are to let them know.”

  He thought of the woman in the woods. But there was no reason to suppose she was the heretic they sought. These last few bonas femnas and bons omes, they were everywhere throughout Provensa. An open secret no one wanted to think about. Like lepers. He would say nothing about her. There wasn’t a chestnut’s chance it was she.

  “That is a curious thing,” said the bayle. “I just spoke with Giacomo Arbrissi.”

  “The Italian merchant?”

  Lop nodded. “Oc. He tells me he stopped in port tonight with a passenger bound for Bajas. A friar. An inquisitor. One who came, he said, looking for a heretical woman believed to be in Bajas.”

  Senhor Guilhem’s eyelids fell shut. In Bajas? The noose was pulling tighter. That woman in the woods—she was no prank. She would prove his downfall. If they hunted for her, and found her, the inquisitors could say he, Guilhem, harbored heretics, and strip him of his lands and name. And if they ever knew he’d spoken with her—and she’d tell them—that would damn him even more. Until now, with lax Dominus Bernard at Sant-Martin, and no one making noise about bons omes and bonas femnas, Guilhem had figured heresy was a problem for other, larger landowning lords—not him. But if the war had taught Provensa nothing else, it had finally, and brutally, taught its nobles this lesson: keep heresy far from your borders, far from the souls of your subjects, or pay the price on earth and in hell.

  Life had gone from tranquil to deadly practically overnight. And all because he’d listened to some petty matchmaker’s tales.

  Senhor Guilhem opened his eyes. Lop was watching him strangely. That wouldn’t do.

  “Dieu, I’m tired.” Guilhem affected a casual pose. “Too much wine. I’m going to bed.”

  “I’ll walk with you.”

  Outside, the whipping wind cleared the young lord’s head somewhat.

  “Tell me, Lop,” he asked, “did Giacomo tell you the name of the heretic they’re seeking?”

  The shaggy-whiskered bayle shook his head. “Why, did the letter name the woman?”

  Guilhem climbed the dark streets toward his castrum. “Dolssa,” he said. “Unusual name.”

  Lop stopped in his tracks.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Dolssa,” Lop said, “is the name of the medica, the healer woman all the village speaks of.”

  “Blood of Christ.” Senhor Guilhem rubbed his hand over his face. “Here, in Bajas. It would have to be here. Of all the forgotten corners in Christendom . . .”

  I shall tell no one I saw you. That is all the protection I can give you.

  “You say this inquisitor is here now?”

  Lop nodded. “According to what the merchant told me, oc.”

  “Where is he?”

  Lop shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  They resumed their climb. Wind blasted through their clothes.

  “Do you want me to arrest her, Senhor?”

  Guilhem hesitated.

  “Quickly,” he said, “gather wood. We will execute her ourselves, before morning. Then when the friar begins his questioning, we can show our hands clean before the Church. They cannot fault us for exterminating heresy on our own, when first we find it. They must praise us for it. They cannot strip my lands from me for that.”

  He’d said too much. Exposed his fear to the older man. He might be young, but he was a lord, and he must never betray weakness. He hated Lop for catching him so exposed.

  “Execute her,” Lop repeated slowly. “On the Sabbath. With all the people venerating her as a holy woman.”

  “That is what we must stamp out,” Guilhem said, “before the friar observes it. Do it tonight, before dawn.”

  Lop held out a hand. “There’s rain coming.”

  “I don’t care about rain.”

  Lop’s silence irked Guilhem more than any response he might have made.

  “So, I will build the fire . . . ?” The bayle’s unspoken question dangled in the night air.

  “Oc.” Senhor Guilhem tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. “I myself will bring you the heretic.”

  BOTILLE

  here is he now?” I cried. “Has he taken her away?”

  “Hush,” Sazia hissed. “Plazi, is the friar here?”

  My elder srre was too shaken to speak. Sazia laid her hands on Plazensa’s shoulders. Plazi took a slow breath.

  “He’s here now. In the back bedroom, alongside Dolssa’s.”

  The room tilted.

  Here.

  Plazensa threw a log onto the fire. She took a broom and pretended to sweep, making noise to cover our conversation. Her whispers shook.

  “I told him we had no suitable room.” Her speech was no louder than breath. “He offered to sleep on the hearth of the tavern. I told him he should stay at the church, in Dominus Bernard’s quarters. But he didn’t want to show up at a late hour, unannounced, with a storm on the way. He wanted to pay to sleep here tonight, then make what plans he would, tomorrow.”

  But, Plazi, I wanted to scream, why did you let him stay? No man can ever get past you. You’re more cunning than them all.

  She knew my thoughts.

  “He was determined, Botille,” she whispered. “I’d attract his attention more by refusing than by simply renting him a room. It’s just until tomorrow morning.”

  “Until tomorrow,” whispered Sazia, “when we must lead him up the streets of a town where her name is on every tongue.”

  I ventured a step down the hall. From his room came the sawing sounds of the friar snoring. How dare he snore, like any man, like Jobau, or some peasant, when awake he was malice and murder roaming abroad?

  “All the inquisitor needs to do,” Sazia whispered, “is ask anyone if they know a Dolssa. All Bajas would tell him proudly, ‘The holy woman at the tavern.’”

  I was falling, sinking, drowning in the pit of my stomach, in the hungry, howling waves of la mar. Cold terror poured down my throat like salt water.

  “They will seize her by morning,” Sazia said. “They will burn her before midday.”

  “That isn’t all,” I said. “They will take and burn us, too.”

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. My young, vibrant sisters. Snuffed out like smooth new candles.

  We pretended the words hadn’t been said.

  Sazia spoke. “How did he find her?”

  “The knight,” Plazensa said. “He must have ridden off to send a message to the friar.”

  “Botille,” whispered Plazi, “are you all right?”

  She put her arms around me. The sea of grief inside me parted, and I cried into her neck.

  “I did this to you,” I said. “I brought the danger here. Sazia warned me.”

  “Don’t,” said Sazia.

  “You did what a Christian ought to do,” Plazensa whispered.

  “Even if,” added Sazia, “it was exactly what the friars say a Christian ought not do.”

  I remembered my talk with Dominus Bernard. “Inquisitors,” I said, “punish those who help heretics just like the heretics themselves.”

  We sat there in the red glow of the dying embers on the hearth, leaning against one another.

  “We could take a boat,” I said. “We could all make our escape by la mar.”

  “We’d have to go to Egypt or Araby,” said Sazia, “for anywhere in Christendom, they could find us.”

  “Mon Dieu,” whispered Plazensa. “We are all dead.”

  A movement at the back caught my eye. We froze, then looked up to see Dolssa venturing into the firelight from the corridor to our rear chambers. Her gaze took in each one of us, with eyes that overflowed with pity.

  “Get back in your room,” I whispered. “You’re not safe here.”

  Dolssa did not react. “I know the inquisitor is he
re,” she said. “I heard him.”

  Plazensa closed her eyes.

  I wanted her to say, Protect me. Hide me. Please. Just to know she was human, and afraid, as we were. What she said instead was this:

  “You have been so kind to me.”

  I took Sazia’s healed hand in mine. “A kindness,” I protested, “you have more than repaid.”

  “But you would have helped me,” insisted Dolssa, “even if none of God’s miracles had followed.” She took a brave breath. “I have endangered you all by staying here. I never should have yielded to your kindness as I did. It was unforgivable of me. I will leave you now.”

  We rose in alarm, but stifled ourselves before waking the friar.

  I reached her first, and threw my arms around her. “Never, never leave us,” I whispered. “Unless we can take you to safety ourselves.”

  “They’ll catch you if you flee tonight,” Sazia said. “Any moment now, it will storm.”

  Tears coursed down Dolssa’s face. “I watched my mother die for me,” she whispered. “I can’t allow them to hurt you, too.”

  Plazensa wiped Dolssa’s face with a cloth. “Dear friend,” she said, “your leaving now would only get you wet. They know you live with us. What will come, will come. Don’t go.”

  Dolssa sank onto a barstool. She buried her face in her arms and wept.

  After a while she raised her tear-stained face. “God knows, I am weary enough of the hunt,” she said softly. “But why must I always bring harm to those who are kind to me?”

  Sazia rubbed her shoulders.

  Dolssa raised her head. She blinked at us like a sleepy child.

  “Know that I am praying for each of you. And your Jobau.”

  And our Jobau.

  She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and rose to her feet. “My love asks me to tell you: don’t be afraid.”

  My sisters and I felt one another’s thoughts. Fear lay curled to strike in the back bedroom.

  “Does he offer you the same comfort, Dolssa?” I whispered.

  She who’d saved our Sazia—could she not save us now? Couldn’t her beloved shield us under his wings?

  She had prayed for her own mother, too.

  Outside, the sky wrenched in half, sending a cracking boom across the lagoon.

  We were dead already.

  That night, while the rain lashed at Bajas, Sazia and I climbed up and down every street and knocked on every door. Our townsmen looked murderous when they opened the doors, but we told them anyway.

  Our Dolssa’s holiness has angered the inquisitors.

  They call her a heretic. They don’t understand.

  They have sent an inquisitor here to Bajas to hunt for her. Staying, if you can believe it, at the Three Pigeons.

  They plan to execute her.

  Tell your children to forget her name.

  Please, do not betray our holy woman, or she and we will die in the flames.

  What will we do? We don’t know yet. Pray for us, and do not tell.

  Martin and Lisette de Boroc were the first people we visited. Lisette broke down weeping. She offered to hide Dolssa in her home. She volunteered her husband’s fishing boat to take Dolssa anywhere. But Martin understood. He put his arm around his wife’s waist and tugged her back inside. He had mingled enough with the larger world to see the danger more clearly. They’d find no mercy, no sympathy, no understanding in the inquisitors. Their baby’s saved life would not excuse them for praising a heretic as a holy woman, nor for helping her escape.

  We warned Dominus Bernard. He had an overnight visitor, and was none too happy to be disturbed by our knock. When we told him to prepare himself to host an inquisitor tomorrow morning, the mood for love left him, more pity to his unseen companion. We pleaded with him not to betray our Dolssa.

  “What do you think I am, Botille, a monster?” he said.

  What I knew him to be was a survivor, and that was what I feared most.

  Saura, Garcia’s wife, was devastated by the news. She was as devoted to Dolssa as she was to God and his church. They were one and the same for her. Who else but God could have allowed Dolssa to perform her mighty works? How could God burn God?

  I hated to wake Na Pieret, but she came immediately to the door, on the heels of the serving woman who answered our knock. She bid us come in out of the rain. We dripped upon her threshold. Symo appeared behind her in a nightshirt and cap.

  We told our tale, and Na Pieret leaned against the doorjamb, and thought.

  “You are sure that la donzȩlla Dolssa has been convicted by the Church?”

  “I have only her account of things,” I said, “but that is enough to leave me terrified.” I looked to Symo. “You were there when we found the friar hunting for her.”

  I wished Na Pieret would take the problem under her capable wings. With her wisdom, her wealth, her influence, could she not bring to pass a miracle of her own, one that protected Dolssa and all of us from danger?

  But she had her sons to think of now. If she became involved with Dolssa, she could lose all she possessed. All her lands and wealth. And I knew she wanted, more than anything, to leave a legacy to her nephews. She had brought them here to love them and to give them everything. So she would not die unloved and alone.

  “I will think on this, Botille,” said Na Pieret. “I will pray for you. In the meantime, though, be careful.”

  A gap appeared between us as she pulled the door shut. I saw it in her eyes. I stumbled back as though she’d slapped me.

  Not only could inquisitors seize, convict, and burn, they could slice through long ties of loyalty with the double-edged blade of fear.

  “This cannot work,” Sazia spoke through chattering teeth. Her hair hung in wet ropes down her face.

  We stood before the maisoṇ of Lop, the bayle. Guilhem’s official, the sword of the law in Bajas. What to do? Ask him not to tell himself about our Dolssa? Of course he would know of her. No one in town could fail to. His position exposed our folly to us. All our trudging about and rousing the villagers had been for nothing.

  We went home.

  The rain relaxed its fury and settled in as a steady drizzle. The storm moved south, and left off lashing through the tree branches. We were nearly home, when Sazia noticed it. A light in the woods. No, through the trees, down toward the beach, not far from the tavern, on the patchy knoll that separated the waterfront from the useful soil of Bajas.

  We crept closer and hid behind the tall trees.

  “Mon Dieu.” I leaned against a tree.

  It was Lop, building a pyre.

  Sazia ran home to tell Plazensa, and to check on Dolssa. I stayed to keep watch.

  A dark shape approached the tavern. They were coming for Dolssa. Should I scream to warn my sisters?

  Then the shape veered off course and picked its way down through the trees.

  I sagged in relief. “Thank God,” I whispered. “It’s only you, Symo.”

  “What’s happening?”

  I pointed to where Lop moved about before his smoldering, hissing fire. “He’s building a pyre.”

  Symo watched the bayle work. “He’s having a deuce of a time in all this wet.”

  “But the fire still grows.”

  Symo fingered my dripping sleeve. “Have you been out all night?”

  “Begging.” I shivered.

  Lop paused and looked toward us. We hid ourselves behind two trees. Finally the bayle went back to work.

  “They’re going to kill her,” I said, “then kill us.”

  He said nothing.

  “Symo,” I said, “stay away from this. Disappear. The friar will forget about you. If he wonders where my brother is, the villagers will tell him I have no brother. But if you get involved, you’ll die for no reason.”

  The glint of firelight reflecting off his eyes was all of him that I could see.

  “Go home,” I said. “I can’t bear to think of how Na Pieret would grieve for you.”

  F
ootsteps from up the road made us both freeze. Footsteps, and a struggle. And the muffled cries of a woman’s voice.

  “Dolssa,” I said. “They’ve got her.”

  “Hush!”

  I couldn’t. “I have to do something!”

  “Don’t!”

  Symo clamped his hand over my mouth. I struggled against him, but he wouldn’t budge. I tried to bite his fingers.

  “Be still,” he hissed into my ear, “or they’ll have you.”

  The tavern still sat quietly. A little light peeped through the shutters. Shadows passed before the light but never paused to go inside.

  Lop’s flames mounted higher. They cast enough light now that I could glimpse the man and his captive as they drew nearer where I stood.

  It was Senhor Guilhem, pulling a woman with him. A woman in dark dress, with gray hair streaked with white. A once-proud woman, hunched with age, gagged and shaking.

  Not Dolssa.

  The bona femna from the woods.

  Oh no. No, no, no.

  Yet she was not Dolssa. Was my gladness sin?

  It wasn’t gladness.

  My knees gave way. Symo caught me and kept me from falling. The wine and hearth-fire scent of him filled my lungs, while Lop threw another log.

  Guilhem dragged the struggling woman toward the fire. She fought, but the frail thing was no match for a hearty man. A dirty cloth was wound around her mouth. Lop spoke to the lord of Bajas, and the woman got in the way, so he threw her down upon the ground.

  She lay there like wet washing. They conferred, like men debating how best to plow a field. Dawn began to peer over the horizon.

  Finally Lop drove four stakes into the ground, two on either side of the fire, barely a body’s width between the two poles on either side. So she couldn’t roll away.

  “Who is she?” Symo’s grip on me relaxed.

  “An old bona femna who hides in the woods,” I whispered. “We should do something.”

  “You can’t.”

  “We have to.”

  His lips pushed his murmured words straight into my ear. “Botille,” he said, “if you try, they’ll kill you next. And your sisters. And Dolssa.”