The Sorrow Stone

by J. A. McLachlan

  The Cluny market! Everyone with something to sell would be there. And the peddler had been travelling north! With her ring in his pouch, no doubt.

  “They are leaving this morning?” Oh, pray they had not left already. She leaped up, ready to run to the door.

  “No, My Lady, tomorrow morning. The pilgrims insisted on taking a day to rest. The monk said their horses were tired, but I think it is the old woman who needs the rest.”

  “They are on horseback,” Celeste groaned. “How can we travel with them?” Perhaps there was a horse for sale in the abbey stable? She sat down abruptly. “Pin up my hair quickly, Marie. I will recover at Mass today.”

  “Travel with them? We are going with them?” Marie gasped. “To Cluny?”

  “I am going with them.” She could not afford two horses; she would have to leave Marie behind. That was inconvenient. A Lady would never travel without her maid. Even the wife of a common landowner or merchant would have a maid. She sighed. “There is no mount for you.”

  “Why can I not ride Blackie?”

  “Blackie?”

  “The pony. You remember Blackie, My Lady.”

  “Of course I do. Where is he?”

  “In the stable, right beside Honey.”

  “You told me Lord Bernard left only one horse in the stable.”

  “One of his horses. Honey and Blackie belong to you. You brought them with you from your father’s house.” She spoke patiently.

  I am not fooling her, Celeste thought. She knows I cannot remember. She examined Marie’s face closely. The girl looked back at her, her eyes wide and earnest in her open face. She will not tell; she is bound to me. Why or how remained a mystery, but looking into the girl’s face, Celeste was certain of it. Nevertheless, until she knew its source, she dared not trust Marie’s loyalty too far.

  “I was ill when I came here,” she said. “There are things I was not aware of. Pay it no mind. We will go to Cluny with the pilgrims.”

  Marie clapped her hands and gave a little hop, grinning broadly.

  “Stop that,” Celeste said, rising from her stool. “We must go to Mass. And then I will speak to the Abbess.”

  ***

  “…It is a miracle. I am fully recovered,” Celeste concluded.

  “Yes, I witnessed your little miracle,” the Abbess said, leaning back in the chair behind her writing table. “Nevertheless, I cannot write you a letter of permission to travel to Cluny.”

  “It is a holy pilgrimage! To thank the Virgin on her Feast Day for my miraculous recovery when I knelt before her image today during Mass.”

  “I will send a message to your husband. When he comes, he may take you to Cluny.”

  “The celebration of the Assumption will be over then.”

  “Mass will still be said. Holy Mary will still hear your prayers.”

  The market would be over. Celeste clenched her gloved hands below the table where the Abbess could not see. “Did my husband send me here to be a prisoner?”

  “He did not send you here at all. He brought you at your own insistence.”

  “I asked to come?” Never. It must be false.

  “You were distraught. You would not eat, nor allow your husband’s physic to attend you. You said that God would find you here and nowhere else, or you would die.”

  She paused. Celeste stared at her, speechless.

  “‘Find you’—A strange choice of words,” the Abbess continued. “God does not lose us, though we might lose ourselves. You were near to madness in your grief.”

  Had she lost herself? Misplaced her self? She touched the cross at her throat. No. Her soul was not lost. She had resisted the demons. But she had changed. Had been changed. That other was gone, was lost. The weak one, the girl full of sweetness and obedience and faith. But she had had some courage, after all; she had run away. What had she been running from?

  The Abbess was watching her. She forced herself to smile. “And Holy Mary found me here, and healed me.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “Do you not believe me?” She raised her chin, insulted. Even if she were speaking falsely she should be believed; she was a Lady.

  “I do not believe in people. They are seldom as they seem. Only God is constant.”

  “God need not change: He is omnipotent,” Celeste said bitterly, before she could prevent herself. Only the powerless must learn to adapt.

  The Abbess regarded her silently.

  Celeste endured her scrutiny. She obviously guessed at more than Celeste was saying. Still, the woman was her aunt. She must have some feeling for her sister’s daughter.

  “You must let me go,” she said. “You are my aunt.”

  “I am not that kind of aunt.”

  Celeste looked down. She was a prisoner, then. Her fingers curled into fists; she forced them to straighten. What would the earlier Celeste do, the one who had been lost?

  She would submit to the Abbess’ decision. She was a paltry thing. Celeste would not even pretend to be her. She raised her head.

  “I am not ready to meet my husband yet.”

  The Abbess nodded. “The truth at last. But it is a poor reason for holy pilgrimage.”

  “I have promised Our Lady that I would go. It is not your place to prevent me.”

  “It is if your reason is a false one.”

  “Or yours.”

  The Abbess sat back. After a moment she said calmly, “I am not keeping you here for your husband’s sake, child.”

  “You should be helping me, for my mother’s sake.”

  “I act for God’s sake.”

  Celeste lowered her eyes. She would gain nothing by antagonizing the woman.

  “And now there is the problem of your possession.”

  Celeste froze. “I am not possessed,” she whispered when she could breathe again.

  “Do not tempt me with stupidity, child. It does not matter whether you are or not. The accusation is enough.”

  “Not if you deny it.”

  The Abbess raised an eyebrow. “Your charade this morning before Our Lady’s statue helped. If only I could trust you not to follow it with some foolishness like running barefoot through the abbey gates or tearing your mattress apart again.”

  Celeste flushed. “I will be more circumspect now that I am well.”

  The Abbess sighed. She tapped her finger on her table.

  Celeste held her breath.

  “These rumours of demons and possession excite my nuns and novices, disturbing them from their meditations. Their souls are my responsibility, and their souls are not focused on God.”

  “Perhaps you should send me away for a while? On a holy pilgrimage? For the sake of the abbey and the souls entrusted to your keeping.”

  The Abbess smiled. “Your absence, I admit, would restore their attention to God, and a pilgrimage may confirm your innocence. If the pilgrims will accept you in their party.”

  “Their confessor has already agreed. I spoke to him after Mass.”

  The Abbess’ gaze cooled.

  “I would not waste your time asking, if it were not possible for me to accompany them.”

  “Five days. I will let your Lord husband know that you will be back here then, ready to return home to him.”

  ***

  “We are going to Cluny.” Celeste waved the Abbess’ letter of permission in front of Marie.

  “Oh! Think what we will see!” Marie did a pirouette in the middle of the room and laughed out loud. “They say the cathedral is the most beautiful in all of France, and the largest in all the world! And the food at the Feast of the Assumption is better than the King is served in Paris. And the festival market! It is so big you cannot see it all in one day, and there is nothing that you cannot buy there!” She stopped suddenly, blushing.

  “It would be best if we could leave today,” Celeste said. The stable boy was already on his way to Lord Bernard. She had five days to find her ring and return wearing proof of her husband’s vow.
/>   Marie’s outstretched hands beckoned her. She and Marie used to hold hands and twirl each other in a circle, Celeste remembered suddenly, when she was Marie’s age, and Marie but a child. She would throw her head back and let her hair fly behind her as they twirled, abandoning herself to happiness. She watched Marie twirl. She wanted to join her as she once had, to forget that Marie was a peasant and she was a Lady. But she had lost the ability to reach out, to abandon herself in a shared emotion. To share an emotion. Marie’s joy was inexplicable to her, a spice she had lost the ability to taste.

  “The Festival of the Assumption,” Marie cried, hugging herself.

  I know what it is to be happy, Celeste thought, watching Marie. She could not remember how it felt, but she remembered twirling with Marie. She had been happy like Marie, breathlessly happy. How strange the memory felt, a foreign language she no longer spoke.

  If she had really sold her sorrow, would she not be happy now? Or was happiness dearer bought than that?

  Or easier lost. She could not remember when it had fled her. Never mind: she had been happy once, and she would be again. But first she must reclaim her ring and her station. She would not be destroyed by a crafty peddler.

  ***

  The ride to Cluny took most of the day.

  “We could walk there faster,” Celeste muttered under her breath when the young monk signalled their third rest stop to accommodate the old woman. He was as solicitous of her as if she was nobility. He should have paid more attention to Celeste, who was a Lady, than to the old woman, however rich her husband might be. But he did not seem to understand that.

  Celeste stood under the shade of a tree beside the road, refusing to admit that she, too, was tired. She had not ridden in months, and would have been content with their pace if she were not constantly aware that the boy would reach her husband tonight. Would Lord Bernard come for her at once?

  He would assume she was waiting for him at the abbey. He need not rush to her. If he felt that way about her, he would not have let her go in the first place. But then, why set a spy on her? If something had happened in his castle as she feared, something that involved him, he might come at once.

  And when he found her missing? She had assured the Abbess she would return in five days. Lord Bernard would be told that when he arrived. Even if he left his castle as soon as the boy arrived, she would be three days gone when he reached the abbey. He would surely wait two more rather than ride to Cluny and try to find her.

  She must confront the peddler alone when she found him. If Lord Bernard learned she had willingly given away her marriage ring, it would not matter that she had later retrieved it.

  Celeste put her hand to her forehead, wiping away salty beads of perspiration. Even in the shade, the sun was hot. She untied her flask and tipped it to her lips. The water was warm and stale.

  Lord Bernard might not come at all. He might be away from the castle when the boy arrived.

  He might, he might, he might! No wonder her stomach was queasy and her head pounded. She spread her cloak on the ground and sat upon it. She was not as badly off as Mistress Blanche, who sagged in her saddle and coughed repeatedly. She sat a few feet away against the tree, her face pale and glistening with sweat and fever spots on her cheeks.

  “I am sorry to slow you down,” Mistress Blanche called to Celeste while they waited for the manservant to bring their horses. “I am going to the Mass of the Assumption to pray to Holy Mary to cure me.” The effort of speaking brought on another fit of coughing.

  At this pace we will arrive too late, Celeste thought. “Holy Mary will cure you, as She did me,” she replied politely, standing up to avoid the old woman’s spittle.

  The Abbess had warned her this morning that fevers could leap from person to person, like fleas.

  “Holy Mary has healed me; she will protect me on this pilgrimage to honor her,” Celeste had replied. She knew the language of piety, even if she had lost the rhythm of its meaning.

  The young man travelling with them helped Celeste into the saddle, his face twitching with impatience. It was a miracle he had not ridden on and left them.

  Their dragging pace did not dampen Marie’s enthusiasm. She chattered to Mistress Blanche, keeping a little distance between them as Celeste had ordered and raising her voice to cover it. She hummed little tunes to herself. She speculated on what they might see at the market to everyone in the party, oblivious to their lack of response, and discussed the Festival of the Assumption eagerly with the young monk. She made bracelets and coronets of wildflowers when they stopped to rest, and picked clover and young green shoots for the pony, Blackie. Celeste wanted to slap the silliness out of her and wanted even more to share such happiness and wondered why the others were so indulgent to a foolish young servant.

  The sun dipped in the west. Dusk turned the trees into black silhouettes against an orange sky, reminding Celeste of the midnight garden. She did not want to travel through that silent, silvered darkness. She urged her horse ahead and asked Father Jacques whether they were almost there.

  “Soon enough,” he replied, which did not answer her question.

  At last the tall spires of Cluny’s cathedral appeared in the distance. They picked up their pace at the sight, the old woman as eager as any of them to reach their night’s lodging.

  The guesthouse at Cluny was full when they arrived, and they had missed the evening meal. Celeste was disgusted with her companions and irritated with the young monk for allowing the delays which caused them to arrive so late.

  Father Jacques led them to the pilgrim’s hostel, but it, too, was full. They wandered in weary circles down the narrow, dark streets. There was no response at the first two inns he brought them to; the third had space for them only in the main hall.

  “Mistress Blanche must have a bed,” Father Jacques insisted, but all of the private rooms above were taken.

  “I will be all right,” the old woman assured them, her voice a sickly whisper. “We will stay here.”

  The monk conceded reluctantly. “Send your manservant if you need me,” he said.

  “I will make do without a private room, also,” Celeste said coolly.

  Father Jacques nodded, completely missing her point, and rode off to the monks’ dormitory in the monastery.

  They left their horses at the stable with Mistress Blanche’s manservant and made their way wearily to the inn. The entrance was dimly lit with rush lights. These would be extinguished soon, the innkeeper warned them, as he was on his way to bed, himself.

  The inn was smoky and hot, and crowded with the still forms of sleeping guests. They picked their way around the bodies to find space for themselves where they could. The floor rushes smelled of spilled beer, stale food, and urine, and rustled in places suspiciously like the furtive movements of rodents. Too tired to object, Celeste pulled her cloak around her and lay down to sleep.

  It was full daybreak when she opened her eyes. She pushed the heavy black cloak off her shoulders and sat up. Most of the guests had already left. She reached for the money pouch tied at her waist; it was still there, reassuringly heavy. She had been wise to pull the cloak tightly around her, despite the heat.

  A long table had been set up on the other side of the room, with benches on either side. Celeste rinsed her fingers in a bowl of warm water sitting on the hearth, and tore a hunk of bread from the long, grainy loaf resting on the table. She poured herself a cup of lukewarm ale from the jug beside the bread and sat on the bench. Marie came in, smelling of the stable, to report that Honey and Blackie were well cared for.

  If Lord Bernard had left this morning he would reach the abbey tomorrow night. She emptied her cup and stood up. Three days to find the peddler and get back her ring.

  ***

  They heard the fair before they came to it: the crowing of cocks, the braying of donkeys, the squeal of pigs and clucking of hens, the shouts of merchants and tradesmen hawking their wares and the constant babble of human voices from the
large common field at the edge of town. It was the largest fair in France, and people came from all the surrounding towns and villages, as well as distant boroughs. Pilgrims from Brittany, Normandy, Flanders, Germany, England—all the northern realms—had also come to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. Every language and accent imaginable added to the clamor and confusion of the crowded market.

  Before they reached the commons, Celeste found a narrow alley and ordered Marie to guard the entrance while she walked a little way in. Crouching against the stone wall of a building she untied her belt, hitched up her skirts and refastened the belt around the waist of her chemise, letting the deep folds of her kirtle fall over it. She would not be able to get at her money, but neither would a thief, and the market was sure to be full of them.

  At the edge of the fairgrounds, they came upon a noisy circle of people. Pushing her way through them, Celeste saw a shallow hole dug into the ground, little bigger than a wagon wheel. Inside this circle two large cocks tore at each other with their sharp beaks and spurred claws. The ground around them was coated with blood and feathers. Excited spectators pressed close to the pit, yelling encouragement to one or the other of the furious birds.

  The black cock flew up, sinking his spur into the other’s chest, drawing a spurt of blood. As he fluttered down again, the red cock’s head darted forward. Its vicious beak tore into the black cock’s head, leaving a bloody socket where its eye had been. The black cock hopped back, shaking its head from side to side as it tried to see in both directions. It staggered like a one-eyed drunk, to the hilarity of the crowd.

  “Come away, Lady Celeste,” Marie cried. Her voice sounded frightened and on the verge of tears. “This is horrible! You never liked cock fights before.”

  Celeste watched the russet-colored cock finish off the black one, opening its chest with its sharp talons and pecking at its half-blind head, scattering flesh and blood and black feathers over the ground. The black cock fought bravely, but it was finished when it lost its eye.