The Wind Dancer/Storm Winds

by Iris Johansen

  “Perhaps Reverend Mother will let me help you.”

  “Why should you want to help me?” Juliette’s eyes remained closed but she smiled. “I’m rude and sacrilegious and cause you no end of trouble.”

  Juliette was obviously not going to be hurried, Catherine realized resignedly. She dropped down opposite her. “Perhaps you’ve not rid me of my stupidity after all.”

  Juliette’s smile faded. “Why?”

  “When I had that terrible cough last winter, why did you stay up night after night and nurse me?”

  “That’s different. You’re different. Everybody wants to help you.”

  “It’s not different. Why do you pretend to be so uncaring? When that poor peasant woman ran away from her husband and gave birth at the abbey you refused to leave her and cared for the babe yourself until she was well enough to leave the abbey.”

  “I like babies.”

  “And the mother? You spent almost a year teaching her to read so that she could find employment in Paris at a decent wage.”

  “Well, I couldn’t let Yolande go back to her lazy lout of a husband. He would have beaten her to death within days and the baby would have starved. Then I quite probably would have stuck a pitchfork in her pig husband and the Reverend Mother would have been forced to send me away from the abbey.” Her eyes sparked with sudden mischief. “So you see I was just being selfish. Give it up, Catherine. I’ll never be the saint you are.”

  Catherine felt her cheeks heat. She gazed at Juliette in bewilderment, unable to remember her ever being in such a mood as this. “I try to do what’s right. I’m not such a saint as you make me out to be.”

  “Close enough.” Juliette wrinkled her nose. “But I forgive you, for you’re not at all boring.” She glanced away, her gaze fastening on the abbey looming in the distance. “I shall miss you.”

  “I told you I was—”

  “You always think everything is going to be fine. We’ve been lucky we’ve had these years. At least, I’ve been lucky. I’ve liked being here at the abbey.” Juliette looked down at the paint-smeared hands folded on her lap. “When I first arrived I thought I’d hate it. All the rules and the kneeling and the scraping.”

  Catherine chuckled. “You break nearly every rule, and most of your kneeling and scraping is done only when you’re caught.”

  Juliette wasn’t listening. “And then I tried to find the ugliness in the sisters, but I found there wasn’t any. They’re … good. Even Sister Mathilde doesn’t realize she dislikes me. She thinks she’s punishing me only for the good of my immortal soul.”

  “Perhaps she does like you. She’s often cross with me too.”

  Juliette shook her head. “She’s younger and more clever than the other nuns. She can see how selfish I am.”

  Catherine felt helpless. Juliette, who never needed anything, needed something from her now, but she didn’t have the least notion what it might be.

  Juliette chuckled. “I see you give me no argument.”

  “You can be wondrously kind when it pleases you. But at times you are so involved with your painting that you forget the needs of others.”

  “And you think too much of the needs of others. It’s a dangerous practice. It’s much safer to close everyone out and live only for yourself.”

  “You don’t close me out.”

  “I probably would if I could. You won’t let me.” The fingers threaded together on Juliette’s lap suddenly contracted. “I closed her out.”

  “Her?”

  “The queen,” Juliette whispered. “I closed her out and refused to think about her. I was never happy anywhere before I came to the abbey. Don’t I have the right to be happy? I want to stay here with the sisters and paint wonderful pictures and tease you when you become too odiously prim and proper. I don’t want to have to leave here and go to help her.”

  “The Reverend Mother said the National Assembly put the queen and the rest of the royal family in the Temple for their protection.”

  “That’s what they said when they forced them to leave Versailles for the Tuileries. But that was to go to another palace, not to a prison. The tower of the Temple is so gloomy, so grim.”

  “You couldn’t do anything to help her, even if you did leave the abbey.” Catherine added, “And they may not be quite as comfortable in the tower, but I’m certain they’re in no danger.”

  “I may be selfish, but I’ll not lie to myself.”

  “But the Reverend Mother said no one would hurt—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve already decided I won’t leave here until Jean Marc takes you away.” Her gaze returned to the rose-pink stone walls of the abbey and some of the tension left her face. “There are silences here. Beautiful silences. I didn’t know anyone could paint a silence until I came here.”

  Catherine understood. Some of Juliette’s recent paintings possessed a tranquility as hushed as the stillness of the chapel at dawn.

  “I have a present for you.”

  “A present?”

  Juliette fumbled in the pocket of her gray gown and handed her a paint-stained, knotted linen handkerchief. “I’ll remember you, but I thought you’d probably need something to remind you of me. You’ll marry your handsome Philippe and have ten children and—”

  “You’re speaking foolishly. I haven’t seen Philippe more than three times since I came to the abbey. He thinks of me as a child.”

  “You’re an heiress. He’ll change his mind.” Juliette bit her lower lip. “I didn’t mean to say that. You know my unruly tongue. Perhaps your Philippe is as honorable as he is comely. How do I know?”

  “You’ll marry too. Most women marry except the nuns.”

  “I shall probably never marry. Who would marry me? I’m not at all pretty and I have no dowry.” Juliette lifted her chin defiantly. “Besides, I see no advantage in being a man’s chattel. It seems to me Madame de Pompadour and Madame Du Barry lived much more interesting lives than mere wives would.” She suddenly grinned. “I’ll be no man’s slave. Instead, I shall become a famous painter like Madame Vigée Le Brun. No, much more famous.”

  Catherine finally got the knot in the handkerchief undone. “You mean only a quarter of what you say.” She began unfolding the handkerchief. “And you delight in making me—” She broke off as she looked down at the circle of gold on which a single spray of lilac was exquisitely carved. She recognized the necklace immediately. Juliette had only one piece of jewelry, and Catherine had seen it on rare occasions through the years. “I can’t take it. You told me Her Majesty gave this to you for your eighth natal day.”

  Juliette’s expression became shuttered. “I’m not sentimental. The queen has forgotten me. It was always my mother she loved and she never gave me a thought unless I was underfoot.” She shrugged dismissively, her gaze fixed eagerly on Catherine’s face. “Open it.”

  “It’s a locket? I thought it only a necklace. The opening is almost seamless.…” Catherine stopped as the locket sprang open between her fingers. She stared down in disbelief at the painted miniature in the locket. She whispered, “It is I. It is … beautiful.”

  “It’s executed well enough, I suppose. I’ve never worked on a miniature before. It was quite interest—” Juliette stared at Catherine in disgust. “Holy Mother, you’re not going to cry?”

  “Yes.” Catherine looked up, the tears running down her face. “I’ll weep if I wish to weep.”

  “I did it only because I wanted to learn how to paint a miniature and I wouldn’t have given it to you if I’d known you were going to blubber like this.”

  “Well, I won’t give it back.” Catherine slipped the long, delicate chain over her head and settled the locket on her breast. “Not ever. And when I’m a very old lady I’ll show it to my grandchildren and tell them it was painted by my dearest friend.” She wiped her cheeks with the rumpled linen handkerchief. “And, when they ask me why she painted me as so much more beautiful than I could ever hope to be”�
��Catherine paused and met Juliette’s gaze—“I shall tell them that my friend was a little peculiar and could find no other way to tell me she loved me as much as I loved her.”

  Juliette stared at her in astonishment for a minute before she shifted her gaze to the locket. “It’s nothing. I’m … glad you’re pleased with it.” She jumped to her feet. “I’d better get back to the abbey. Sister Mary Magdalene will be …” She trailed off as she plunged into the long grass and straggly weeds. Jumping over low tombstones, she hurried toward the gate in the stone wall enclosing the cemetery.

  Juliette was running away. Catherine rose slowly to her feet, her palm closing caressingly around the smooth warmth of the golden locket at her breast. The locket’s warmth came from being in Juliette’s pocket, close to her friend’s body. How long had Juliette been carrying that paint-smudged, clumsily knotted handkerchief around with her? How like Juliette to do something thoughtful and kind, then claim it as selfishness. Juliette was so much braver than she when confronted with life and death but scurried away like a frightened squirrel at the slightest hint of sentiment. Affection swelled through Catherine, tightening her throat and bringing the tears Juliette so despised to her eyes again. She cupped her mouth with her hand and called to Juliette, who had now reached the gate. “Remember to wash the paint off your hands before you go see the Reverend Mother.”

  Juliette turned and waved in acknowledgment, the sunlight glinting on her wild mop of dark curls. Then she was running across the vegetable garden toward the abbey, her skirts flying.

  Catherine started after her, picking her way carefully among the crosses. As she reached the gate of the cemetery, the Comte de Montard’s large berlin, now burdened with his daughter’s bags, was lumbering out the south courtyard gates. The coachman snapped his whip, urging the horses to a faster clip. Cecile de Montard was on her way to Switzerland via Paris.

  Change. Catherine suddenly felt a chill similar to the one she had experienced when she opened the door to the crypt. She didn’t understand anything about this tempest threatening to disrupt their lives. Great and terrible changes had swept through France since the fall of the Bastille that signaled the beginning of the revolution. Riots and hunger, peasant uprisings, massacres, religious orders suppressed, the shifting of power from the king and nobles to the Legislative Assembly, the declaration of war against Austria and Prussia.

  The nuns had taught them the revolution was caused by a combination of many things but most of them seemed to concern hunger. The terrible hunger for bread by the starving peasants, the bourgeoisie’s hunger for equal power with the nobles, the hunger of the nobles for additional power from the king, the hunger of the idealists for rights such as the ones won in America’s war for independence.

  Catherine wished them all well with their aims, particularly those poor peasants, but none of it really touched her here at the abbey. She just wished all this turmoil would disperse, leaving tranquility in its wake.

  She began to run toward the high, secure walls surrounding the abbey, feeling the blood tingling in her veins as the cool morning wind tore at her hair and stung her cheeks. There was really nothing to worry about. The sun was shining, she and Juliette were both young and strong, and they would be friends forever and ever and ever.

  The bells were ringing!

  Juliette opened her eyes to the pitch darkness of her cell. The darkness was not unusual. They always rose before dawn for matins.

  It was the screams that were unusual.

  Raw screams of terror shredded the silence. Was the abbey on fire?

  Juliette shook her head to clear it of the last vestiges of sleep and scrambled off her pallet. Fire was always a danger. An ember left smoldering in the huge fireplace in the scullery, a lighted candle forgotten in the chapel.

  She lit the candle in the copper holder on the rough cedar table before pulling on her gown, her fingers fumbling frantically with the fastenings.

  “Juliette!” Catherine was at the door of her cell, her long pale brown hair tumbling about her shoulders, her eyes wide with fright. “The bells … the screaming. What’s happening?”

  “How do I know?” Juliette jammed her feet into her slippers and grabbed the candle. “Come quickly. I have no desire to be roasted alive if the abbey’s on fire.”

  “Do you think—”

  “I’ll think later.” Juliette grabbed Catherine’s hand and pulled her into the corridor. A crush of frightened girls in various states of undress clogged the narrow passage.

  “We’ll never get through to the courtyard. Come.” Juliette turned and began shoving her way in the opposite direction toward a small arched oak door. “The chamber of learning. There’s a window.”

  Catherine followed her down the hall and into the deserted room. They dodged long writing tables as they raced to the deeply recessed window. Juliette slid back the bolt and threw open the wooden shutters. “It is a fire. Look at the—”

  Torches. Men with torches. Men with swords. Men dressed in rough striped trousers and flowing linen shirts, some with strange red woolen caps. It seemed there were hundreds of men. Shouts. Laughter. Curses.

  And screams.

  “Dear God,” Juliette whispered. “Sister Mathilde …”

  The nun was lying on the cobblestones, her habit in rags, her legs obscenely parted and held by two laughing men as a third man wearing a red woolen cap brutally plunged his member into her body.

  “We’ve got to help her.” Catherine started to clamber onto the recessed windowsill. “We can’t stay here. We’ve got to help all of them.”

  The same horror was happening all over the courtyard. The nuns were being dragged from their cells, stripped, pulled to the cobblestones.

  “We can’t help them.” Juliette jerked Catherine back into the room away from the window. “Can’t you see there are too many of them to fight? But we can try to stop those silly sheep in the hall from joining them.” She turned back toward the hallway.

  Catherine grabbed her arm. “Wait,” she whispered. “It’s too late.”

  The young girls had already reached the courtyard. They stopped in bewildered horror at the sight that met their eyes.

  A laughing shout from one of the men. “Fresh meat. Leave the old crows.”

  “Here’s pretty young pullets for the plucking.”

  And new screams shrilled through the courtyard.

  “Why?” Catherine asked. “Why are they doing this? They’re hurting them.”

  “Because they’re beasts who want only to rut,” Juliette muttered, trying desperately to think what to do. “We can’t go through the north courtyard and we can’t hide here. They may come searching.”

  “Henriette Balvour.” Catherine couldn’t take her gaze from the horror outside in the courtyard. “Look what those two men are doing to her. She’s only ten years old.”

  “I’m not going to look. And neither will you.” Juliette pulled Catherine farther away from the window and slammed the shutter. She blew out the candle and set it on the windowsill. “We can’t help them, but we may be able to help ourselves.”

  “She’s only ten years old,” Catherine repeated dully.

  Juliette took her by the shoulders and shook her. “If we go out there and try to help, the same thing’s going to happen to us. Do you want that to happen?”

  “No, but we—”

  “Then no arguments. I won’t let them do that to you.” Juliette tried to ignore the sounds filtering through the wooden shutters. The screams were awful but the whimpering was worse. Someone was sobbing for her mother. Little Henriette? “We have to find a place to hide.”

  “Where? There’s no place …”

  Juliette seized Catherine’s hand and led her down the corridor toward the north courtyard.

  Catherine tried to pull away. “We can’t go there. You just said—”

  “We’re not going into the courtyard. We’re going to run down the arcade to the bell tower. It’s only a few yards a
way and there’s a back entrance that leads from the tower to the south courtyard.”

  “What if … this is happening in the south courtyard too?”

  “We’ll worry about that then. We can’t be any worse off than we are now.”

  The door leading to the north courtyard had been left open, and as they reached it, Juliette pulled Catherine to one side, pressing against the wall and into the shadows.

  Catherine shivered. “What if they see us? I’m so frightened, Juliette.”

  “So am I.” Juliette cautiously peered out into the courtyard. No one was under the arcade. All the women had been pulled into the courtyard where the rapine was going on. “Run as fast as you can for the bell tower and dart between the stone columns. I’ll be right behind you. If they catch me, don’t stop. You won’t be able to help, and there’s no need for both of us to …” Catherine was frantically shaking her head and Juliette glared at her. “Do what I tell you. Promise me.”

  “I couldn’t let them hurt you.” Catherine was trembling uncontrollably but her voice was firm. “I’d have to try to stop it.”

  “Oh, God in heaven,” Juliette said in exasperation. “If those pigs catch you, do you want me to fling myself in their arms to rescue you?”

  “No, but I can’t—”

  “Then it’s agreed. If we become separated, we try to save ourselves.”

  Catherine was silent.

  “You know I’d never let those canailles defeat me,” Juliette said. “I’d find a way to get free. Now, we don’t have time to argue. Yes?”

  Catherine hesitated and then reluctantly nodded.

  “Good.” Juliette’s hand compressed bracingly around Catherine’s. “When you get through the south courtyard, run for the cemetery.”

  “The cemetery?”

  Juliette nodded. “We’ll let Sister Bernadette hide us until this is over and they’ve gone away.”

  “They may not go away.” Catherine shuddered as she lifted her hands to her ears to shut out the screams. “It seems as if it’s already been going on forever.”