“Papa will be home soon, Jehan says. He’s worked long for it, all the hours of the daylight and sometimes into the night.”
Auda sat up and stared. Memories came to her in slow movements. Poncia confronting her. Revealing Jehan’s heretic friends. Throwing the tract at her. How could Poncia trust that man to help their father?
Her sister looked past her. “I thank you for watching her, for keeping her hidden. It’s not safe for anyone right now, much less so for her.”
Jaime nodded. “They’ll come looking for her soon, once someone tells the inquisitor of the papermaker’s too-pale daughter. I’ve heard no rumors yet, but we’ll have to move her soon.”
Why? Auda asked. If the inquisitor took her, maybe he would release her father.
Poncia sighed, turning back to Auda. “The Church has sent in an inquisitor, Auda. He holds court in the palace with the Jacobins as the city riots outside their doors.” She shook her head. “A fool’s folly.”
Jaime passed a hand over his weary eyes. “I suspected as much. Talk in the streets speaks of the death of the Church. Priests in other towns have been crushed to a pulp by the mob. The inquisitors all hide, or flee. Bishops too.”
“Not here,” Poncia insisted. “Our town will never do that, especially with our archbishop appealing for peace. He speaks from his balcony, importunes and prays. The Church will never fall, not with men like him about.”
Yet the soft-spoken old churchman was the one who’d sent the guards. A display, to make an example of what happens to those who challenged his authority. If the vicomte’s words held any truth, this archbishop was a cunning man. But then why not target a stranger? Why hunt a man while claiming to minister to his family?
“At least the river recedes; it’s a good sign,” Poncia added.
Jaime shook his head. “Branches and logs dam it up in the mountains. It will burst soon and the Church can preach another week of sermons on it.” He ignored Poncia’s frown. “Ills of the Church will mean penance for us all. And an inquisitor does nothing if not signal illness.”
“Yes,” her sister agreed. “But we’ve no appeal except for the archbishop.”
A pair of ants appeared on the table, skirting the trail of pear juice. They moved in and then back, to the side. Auda closed her eyes.
“They say the cross needs cleansing by new blood,” Jaime was saying, his voice soft. “But not by the blood of innocents.”
Poncia’s brightness fell away. “Not everyone is an innocent.”
Realization dawned on Auda. None of the people working to free her father believed in his innocence. Not the vicomte, not Jehan, not even Poncia.
None of them were innocent, so how could he be?
Chapter Thirty-two
The next day, Auda asked Jaime to go to her father’s house and bring back sheets of paper.
“The ones with the watermark,” she wrote on her tablet.
Jaime looked at her with suspicion. “We have tablets. Why do you want the paper?”
Auda didn’t want to say. But she had to do something to save her father, and there was only one path she could take.
Jaime relented and after a half hour he brought her back a small stack. Auda held one of the pages to the fire and looked sadly at the silhouette of the bridge that shone through.
That night, she started writing her confession.
It was I who sought out the heretic.
My father knew nothing of it.
It began when I first saw a watermark.
Jaime looked over her shoulder and gasped. He knocked the inkpot and dark black ink ran over her words.
Throwing the page into the hearth fire, Jaime turned to her in horror. “What are you doing?”
Auda shook her head. The only way to save her father was to give the Inquisition someone else to blame. Surely he could see that.
“I know you want to do something—we all want to do something,” he continued. “Should you not go to the vicomtesse? Maybe she will reconsider?”
Auda shuddered. The vicomtesse would not want to see her again—that life was past. Auda had to look to herself from now on.
Voices sounded at the door, along with a scuffle. Motioning for Auda to stay quiet, Jaime put his ear to the door. A familiar woman’s voice rose above the rest.
“Let me in,” her sister said. “I’ve come for Auda. We have to go.”
Jaime unbolted the door. Poncia strode in and pulled Auda up. “Come. We have to leave.”
What? Where? Why?
“Auda, listen.” Her sister cupped her chin and forced her to stay still. “The inquisitor has released another page of his treatise.” She brandished a small scrap of parchment.
The Mark of the Devil
They walk among us, as brothers and sisters,
Feigning good deeds and spreading good word.
But they say nothing of their true nature until it is too late.
And the city of God has gone to the Devil.
You may not know them by looks alone.
They clothe the school of the Devil in an appearance of goodness.
But still you can find them for they cannot hide
The Mark of the Devil upon them.
Auda sat with a thud, gripping the parchment with both hands.
“Where did you get this?” Jaime breathed.
Poncia kept her eyes on Auda. “They are looking for you, if not now, then soon. They will find you.”
And Poncia. And Jaime. And how many others she knew?
Her sister nodded. “Already they have taken the stationer to be questioned. And they look for the Gypsies.”
Auda let out a low cry. Tomas had been arrested too?
Jaime spoke with authority. “We’ll leave now. I have thought long about where we can go. I have some ideas.”
Poncia shook her head. “No, it’s already done.” She opened the door and let in two men wearing dark brown robes. One of them pulled back his hood to reveal a sallow face.
Auda gasped. It was the man from Jehan’s house, not the heretic who’d sold to her father but the other one, shorter and stout. The one who’d worn the yellow crosses.
Jaime flashed her a confused glance and moved closer toward her.
“I brought them with me, Auda,” Poncia said with a hint of reluctance. “They are here to help.”
“I am René,” the tall man began. “This is my brother, Ucs.” His gentle tone seemed not to fit the impassive mask of his face.
Auda only glared at him. Was he the one who’d written the words on that damned tract Poncia had given her? How could she bring him here?
“We are not your enemies,” the man said.
Auda flashed him an angry look. Was he not the reason her father was imprisoned, him and his partner? She raised her hands to speak to Poncia.
How could you?
“Who are you then? What have you to do with all of this?” Jaime demanded.
Poncia’s voice was a whisper. “Jehan sent them. They are helping to free Papa.”
Auda shook her head.
“We can help you,” the heretic, René, said, “but we must move fast. They will soon be upon you.”
Jaime turned on him with angry eyes. “And how do we know to trust you? Who are you to take her away?”
Who would know better how to hide than a heretic?
René spoke in a lower tone, eyes fixed on Auda’s face. “We have much to talk about. This will give us time.”
Auda regarded him, and nodded. Yes, she had to learn what she could of these men, anything that she could use to save her father. She turned to face Jaime.
“No,” he said, seeing her determined face. “You need not go with them. We can leave town ourselves. Tonight.”
And go where? How far, with her father still languishing in the dungeon?
Poncia crouched beside her. “Listen to René,” she said. “Jehan works hard to bring Papa home. We will take care of him. You trust me, don’t you?” Her voice trem
bled, and Auda dropped her head, nodding.
Jaime leaned in close. Hot tears from her eyes fell upon his hand.
“If this is what you choose, I will wait. As long as it takes, I will wait,” he said.
Auda collapsed against her sister, allowing Poncia to wrap her in a dark cloak. “A Kiss of Peace,” Poncia said and touched her lips to Auda’s forehead. “You will be safe with these people, I promise you.”
“Where are you taking her?” Jaime asked as Poncia led Auda to the door.
René answered. “It’s best if you don’t know.”
Chapter Thirty-three
In the darkness, René and Ucs shepherded her along an ill-marked path around the walled city, wending eastward into the fields surrounding town. A full moon silhouetted the mossy stone blocks of the old abandoned amphitheater. Something moved out here tonight. Shadows flowed in and out of other shadows, and muffled whispers mingled with the rustle of mice and birds in the garigue.
Auda stopped to catch her breath. The Roman theater was a cavity, ravaged and decayed among the tall weeds. It sagged in the dirt as the ghosts of the ancients, gladiators, and actors danced in forgotten splendor.
What was she doing here, alone with these heretics? Somewhere in the city, her father waited for her.
She let René and Ucs guide her around the stone structure, through a splintered wooden door and into an underground maze.
“We can hide you here for a time,” René said. “There are others here but they’ll leave. It’s the best hiding place we know of.”
Auda stopped. Bring her where? Who were these people meeting in the middle of the night in a desolate ruined building? More heretics, of course.
She shook her head.
“It’s as dangerous for us as it is for you,” René pointed out. “Now that you have seen our faces, you can turn any of us in. But you won’t, any more than we would you.”
They arrived at a small room filled with people. Pastilles of rosewood burned on a low table along one wall. A dozen people knelt on the dirt floor in silence, while brown-robed men placed lit torches in brackets around the room. In the front, two people garbed in black robes were whispering to each other.
Someone clapped in the back and everyone bowed heads. Kneeling, Auda bowed too, trying to peek out through her lashes.
A black-robed man came forward, tall and thin, with a slightly bent back. He looked to be about her father’s age but his face was old and gaunt, his skin sagging on his bones. In his right hand, he held a dark-colored book. An old lady stood by his side.
“He’s the Perfectus Pierre,” René murmured to Auda. “The other is the lady Beatrice.”
Auda shook her head, frowning. She didn’t want to hear any more explanation of this cursed ritual.
The perfectus raised the thick book high, his hand faltering. The lady Beatrice knelt, and he placed the book on her head.
“Benedicite, Benedicite, Domine Deus, Pater bonorum spirituum, adjuva nos in ommibus quae facere voluerimus,” he said in a mellifluous voice, every word rich and loud.
“Benedicite,” the woman replied, clasping her hands in front of her. She rose and bowed to the perfectus. He handed the book to an acolyte at his side. “Benedicite,” she said again, kneeling before she rose and bowed again, and then a third time.
Auda fidgeted. What was this ceremony, this dark ritual they’d forced her to attend? She would not be turned into a heretic, not after everything that had passed. She pulled on René’s cloak, but he only shook his head.
“Why do you come here, Beatrice?” the perfectus said.
The woman bowed her head further. “I come to seek forgiveness. I come willingly, with goodness in my heart, to seek the blessing of God, to pray to Him for worthiness, and that He shall lead the Good Christians to a good end.”
The perfectus took the book and laid it again upon the lady’s head, a small trickle of sweat dripping down his jawline. “Receive blessings from God, then. Is it your intent to take the consolamentum, to undergo baptism of the spirit under the Friends of God and His Church?”
Flames from an overhead torch flickered. Under their orange glow, the lady’s face was sallow and wrinkled, an old lady weakened by the burdens of life. Yet when she spoke, her voice was firm.
“It is.”
“Understand then, these vows you make come to us from the time of Jesus Christ and his apostles, that they are preserved by the Friends of God and His Church for all days. A Good Woman carries the Holy Spirit within her. If it be her will, she can help worthy souls free their imprisonment and sins to meet their Ultimate Creator. Do you wish to take up this responsibility?”
“I do.”
As the perfectus recited the Lord’s Prayer, Auda shifted on her knees and looked around. Every member of the congregation watched, rapt as they knelt on the uneven ground. Even René didn’t move, his attention fixed on the performance before them. Like the sheep in her own church, Auda thought bitterly. All someone had to do was speak with authority, and there was always a fool who would listen.
And yet part of her longed to hear more about this faith that allowed women to stand beside men, to make the same choices with the same consequences. Was that not what she had sought all along? She tried to calm her nerves and listen.
An acolyte handed Beatrice a paper tract. It wasn’t her father’s paper, she hoped—it couldn’t be. He did not sell to heretics, not if he knew they were heretics. He had been trapped. She was la fadata who’d been duped by so many. Maybe she should ask to see the tract, to use it as evidence. But how?
The perfectus asked Beatrice to adhere to the tenets of being a Good Woman: not to eat flesh, sin with flesh, kill flesh, honor flesh.
“Only the spirit matters. Whether man or woman, crone or child, the spirit is always the same.” The perfectus raised his hand in benediction. “May God keep you in a good life, and from a bad death.”
The congregation murmured their approval and Beatrice rose. Two acolytes came beside her and tied a black thread around her waist, then garbed her in a robe of coarse black cloth. She stood while the perfectus finished his homily.
“Keep the commandments of God and hate this world,” he concluded. “If you continue well to the end, your soul shall have life eternal and nevermore be condemned to walk this earth. Ours is not to bring new evil in the world, but to help others shed their mortal coils until all souls are free of Satan and live together with our Lord.” He gave her the Kiss of Peace. “I welcome you into the Church of God.”
The congregation rose, dissolving into a mass of tears and hugs. Auda tried to breathe, but the air was heavy with the mingled odors of sweat, unwashed bodies, and incense. The events of the last day overwhelmed her. When the crowd broke, she collapsed against the wall, relieved to be alone.
A plain meal of fish and boiled carrots was served alongside pitchers of water. When the plates were cleared, the congregation split into groups of threes and fours. Pamphlets and books were handed to some, tablets and styluses to others.
Auda sat apart from the rest, watching. Some read to each other in quiet voices while others struggled to sound out simple words. Had it been so long ago that her father had taught her to read and write? Now, watching humble men and women taught to read by leaders of their own faith, she felt a shiver of excitement down her spine and fingers.
“Have you never seen the consolamentum given before?” René asked, sitting beside her.
Of course not. She’d read about it once, that it was some sort of baptism. That was more information than she needed right now. She shook her head, her eyes fixed on the pair in front of her. Curiosity and longing warred with good sense; she knew she should show no interest in these cursed folk, but she could not help but watch. An old man was straining to copy a row of letters written on a tablet held up for him by a young boy. What did they read? What were they allowed to read?
“It was a simple ceremony, no?” René said. “Simple and beautiful. A confirmat
ion, if you like. Beatrice is a perfecta now; she has been perfected in our beliefs and practices. She can liberate the souls of those who believe.”
Much as she sympathized with things they had to say, of equality between men and women, and the need to be educated, still these were heretics.
“Man is a living contradiction,” René sighed, spreading his arms wide. “Look at this world we live in. It’s filled with such beauty and we corrupt it. Why is that?” He caught her gaze. “Have you not felt it? That joy that suffuses? There is a beauty inside all of us, a wide, expansive beauty that wants to rejoin its Creator and fill the skies with love.
“We bear the gift of God within us, but only within a rotten body that decays and rots and weakens the resolve. It is filled with ill smells and fluids, an ether that reeks of bad digestion and disease.” He gestured at her hair, still covered under her tight coif, her eyes, and then her lips. “The body is just a shell that means nothing to those who believe.”
Auda sat unmoving, though something tight, something painful she’d thought shuttered away, eased inside her.
René nodded. “We brought you here specially, and for good cause.”
She looked up in alarm.
“The Good Men and Women, we look after our own. We show others the path but do not force anyone along it. We educate our own. We hold school, when we can. When we won’t be discovered.”
Auda shook her head. She was not one of them. She didn’t need to be looked after, not by a band of heretics. Neither did her father.
“It is fitting you are here to see our school,” René continued, “to see plain people reading the word of God. It was for this, after all, that your father has given his sacrifice.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Auda stared at René in confusion. Her father had been imprisoned wrongly. He didn’t know he was selling to heretics. But René was shaking his head.
“We’d searched for so long for one such as him, who would help spread our message. Papermakers are rare in this area. And with the rains, we could not get a steady supply from afar to make more books.”
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