Pope Joan (39 page)

Joan’s eyes widened with recognition. “Arn!” she cried, and was immediately swept up into his enthusiastic embrace.

T
HEY
did not speak further that day, for Joan was still very weak, and Arn would not allow her to weary herself. After she had taken a few spoonfuls of broth, she immediately fell asleep.

She awoke the next day feeling stronger, and, most encouraging
of all, ravenously hungry. Breaking fast with Arn over a plate of bread and cheese, she listened intently as he told her all that had transpired since they last saw each other.

“As you foresaw, Father Abbot was so satisfied with our cheese that he accepted us as
prebendarii
, promising us fair living in exchange for a hundred pounds of cheese a year. But this much you must know.”

Joan nodded. The extraordinary blue-veined cheese of repellent appearance and exquisite taste had become a staple at the refectory table. Guests of the abbey, both lay and monastic, were so taken with its quality that there was increasing demand for it throughout the region.

“How fares your mother?” Joan asked.

“Very well. She married again, a good man, a farmer with a herd of his own, whose milk they put toward making more cheese. Their trade grows daily, and they are happy and prosperous.”

“No less than you.” With a sweep of her arm, Joan indicated the large, well-kept home.

“My good fortune I owe to you,” Arn said. “For at the abbey school I learned to read and to figure with numbers—skills that came in handy as our trade grew and it became necessary to keep accurate accounts. Learning of my abilities, Lord Riculf took me for his steward. I manage his estate here and guard against poachers of game or fish—that’s how I came upon your boat.”

Joan shook her head wonderingly, picturing Arn and his mother as they had been six years ago, living in their squalid hut as wretched as coloni—doomed, so it seemed, to a life of grinding poverty and semistarvation. Yet Madalgis was now remarried, a prosperous trades woman, and her son steward to a powerful lord!
Vitam regit fortuna
, Joan thought.
Truly, chance governs human life—my own as much as any.

“Here,” Arn said proudly, “is my wife, Bona, and our girl, Arnalda.” Bona, a pretty young woman with laughing eyes and a quick smile, was even younger than her husband—seventeen winters at most. She was already a mother, and her swelling stomach revealed that she was once again with child. Arnalda was a cherub, all round blue eyes and curly blond hair, pink cheeked and adorable. She smiled dazzlingly at Joan, revealing a set of winning dimples.

“A fine family,” Joan said.

Arn beamed and motioned to the woman and child. “Come and
greet …” He hesitated. “How shall I name you? ‘Brother John’ seems strange, knowing … what we know.”

“Joan.” The word was both alien and familiar to her ears. “Call me Joan, for that is my true name.”

“Joan,” Arn repeated, pleased to be trusted with this confidence. “Tell us, then, if you may, how it is that you came to live among the Benedictines of Fulda, for such a thing scarcely seems possible. How ever did you manage it? What brought you to do it? Did anyone share your secret? Did no one suspect?”

Joan laughed. “Time, I see, has not dulled your curiosity.”

There was no point in deception. Joan told Arn everything, from her unorthodox education at the schola in Dorstadt to her years at Fulda and her accession to the priesthood.

“So the brothers still don’t know about you,” Arn said thoughtfully when she finished. “We thought perhaps you had been discovered and forced to flee…. Do you mean to return, then? You can, you know. I would die stretched upon the rack before anyone pried your secret out of me!”

Joan smiled. Despite Arn’s manly appearance, there remained in him more than a bit of the little boy she had known.

She said, “Fortunately, there is no need for such a sacrifice. I got away in time; the brethren have no reason to suspect me. But … I am not sure that I
will
go back.”

“What will you do, then?”

“A good question,” Joan said. “A very good question indeed. As yet I don’t know the answer.”

A
RN
and Bona fussed over her like a pair of overanxious mother hens, refusing to let her rise from bed for several more days. “You are not yet strong enough,” they insisted. Joan had little alternative but to resign herself to their solicitude. She passed the long hours by teaching little Arnalda her letters and numbers. Young as the child was, she had her father’s aptitude for learning, and she responded eagerly, delighted by the attention of so diverting a companion.

When, at the end of the day, Arnalda was trundled off to sleep, Joan lay restlessly contemplating her future. Should she return to Fulda? She had been at the abbey almost twelve years, had grown up within its walls; it was difficult to imagine being anywhere else. But facts had to be faced: she was twenty-seven years old, already past
the prime of life. The brethren of Fulda, worn down by the harsh climate, spartan diet, and unheated rooms of the monastery, seldom lived past forty; Brother Deodatus, the community elder, was fifty-four. How long could she hold out against the advances of age—how long before she would again be struck down by illness, forced anew to run the risk of disclosure and death?

Then, too, there was Abbot Raban to consider. His mind was firmly set against her, and he was not a man to turn from such a position. If she went back, what further hardships and punishments might she have to face?

Her spirit cried out for change. There was not a book in Fulda’s library she had not read, not a crack in the ceiling of the dormitory she did not know by heart. It had been years since she had awakened in the morning with the happy expectation that something new and interesting might happen. She yearned to explore a wider world.

Where could she go? Back to Ingelheim? Now Mama was dead, there was nothing she cared about there. Dorstadt? What did she hope to find there—Gerold, still waiting, harboring his love for her after all these years? What folly. He was married again, more than likely, and would not be happy at Joan’s sudden reappearance. Besides, she had long ago chosen a different life—a life in which the love of a man could play no part.

No, Gerold and Fulda both belonged to her past. She had to look determinedly toward the future—whatever that might be.

“B
ONA
and I have decided,” Arn said. “You must stay with us. It would be good to have another woman about the house to keep Bona company and help with the cooking and needlework—especially now, with the baby coming.”

His condescension was irksome, but the offer was kindly meant, so Joan answered mildly, “That would prove a bad bargain, I fear. I was always a sorry seamstress, all thumbs with a needle and no use at all in the kitchen.”

“Bona would be only too glad to teach y—”

“The truth is,” she interrupted, “I have lived so long as a man I could not be a proper woman again—if, indeed, I ever was one! No, Arn”—she waved off his protest—“a man’s life suits me. I like its benefits too well to be content without them.”

Arn pondered this awhile. “Keep your disguise, then. It doesn’t
matter. You can help in the garden … or teach little Arnalda! You’ve charmed her already with your lessons and games, as once you did me.”

It was a generous offer. She could not ask for greater ease or security than she would find in the bosom of this happy, prosperous family. But their world, snug and sheltered, was too small to contain her reawakened spirit of adventure. She would not trade one set of walls for another.

“Bless you, Arn, for a kind heart. But I’ve other plans.”

“What are they?”

“I’m taking the pilgrim road.”

“To Tours and the tomb of St. Martin?”

“No,” Joan said, “to Rome.”

“Rome!” Arn was stunned. “Are you mad?”

“Now the war is over, others will be making the same pilgrimage.”

Arn shook his head. “My lord Riculf tells me that Lothar has not given up his crown, despite his defeat at Fontenoy. He has fled back to the imperial palace at Aachen and is looking for more men to fill the empty ranks of his army. My lord says he has even made overture to the Saxons, offering to let them return to worshiping their pagan gods if they will fight for him!”

How Mama would have laughed
, Joan thought,
at such an unexpected turn of events: a Christian king offering to restore the Old Gods.
She could imagine what her mother would have said: the gentle martyr-God of the Christians might serve for ordinary purposes, but to win battles, one must call upon Thor and Odin, and the other fierce warrior-gods of her people.

“You cannot go, with things unsettled as they are,” Arn said. “It’s too dangerous.”

He had a point. The conflict among the royal brothers had resulted in a complete collapse of civil order. The unguarded roads had become easy targets for roving bands of murderous brigands and outlaws.

“I’ll be safe enough,” Joan said. “Who’d want anything from a pilgrim priest, with nothing of value but the clothes upon his back?”

“Some of these devils would kill for the cloth, never mind the garment! I forbid you to go alone!” He spoke with an authority he would never have assumed had he still believed her to be a man.

She said sharply, “I am my own master, Arn. I go where I will.”

Recognizing his mistake, Arn immediately retreated. “At least
wait three months,” he suggested. “The spice merchants come through then, peddling their goods. They travel well guarded, for they take no risks with their precious merchandise. They can provide you with safe escort all the way to Langres.”

“Langres! Surely that is not the most direct route?”

“No,” Arn agreed. “But it is the surest. In Langres there’s a hostel for pilgrims headed south; you’ll have no trouble finding a group of fellow travelers to keep you safe company.”

Joan considered this. “You may be right.”

“My lord Riculf made the same pilgrimage himself some years ago. He kept a map of the route he followed; I have it here.” He opened a locked chest, took out a piece of parchment, and carefully unfolded it. It was darkened and frayed with age, but the ink had not faded; the bold lines stood out clearly, marking the route to Rome.

“Thank you, Arn,” Joan said. “I’ll do as you suggest. Three months’ delay is not very long. It will give me more time with Arnalda; she’s very smart, and coming along so well in her lessons!”

“Then it’s settled.” Arn began to roll up the parchment.

“I’d like to study the map a little longer, if I may.”

“Take all the time you like. I’m off to the barns to oversee the shearing.” Arn left smiling, pleased to have been able to persuade her so far.

Joan breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the sweet smells of early spring. Her spirit soared like a falcon loosed from its fetters, delivered suddenly to the miraculous freedom of wind and sky. At this hour, the brethren of Fulda would be gathered in the dark interior of the chapter house, crowded together on the hard stone gradines, listening to Brother Cellarer drone on about the abbey accounts. But she was here, free and unhindered, with the adventure of a lifetime before her.

With a surge of excitement, Joan studied the map. There was a good, wide road from here to Langres. There, the road turned south through Besançon and Orbe, descending along Lake St.-Maurice to LeValais. At the foot of the Alps, there was a monastic hostelry where pilgrims could rest and provision themselves for the hard trek across the mountains through the Great St. Bernard—the best and most frequently traveled of the Alpine passes. Once over the Alps, the wide, straight line of the Via Francigena led down through Aosta, Pavia, and Bologna into Tuscany, and beyond it to Rome.

Rome.
The world’s greatest minds gathered in that ancient city; its
churches held untold treasures, its libraries the accumulated wisdom of centuries. Surely there, amidst the sacred tombs of the apostles, Joan would find what she was seeking. In Rome she would discover her destiny.

S
HE
was settling her saddlebag on the mule—Arn had insisted she take one for the journey—when little Arnalda came running out of the cottage, her blond hair still tousled from her night’s sleep.

“Where are you going?” the cherubic little face demanded anxiously.

Joan knelt so her face was level with the child’s. “To Rome,” she replied, “the City of Marvels, where the Pope dwells.”

“Do you like the Pope better than me?”

Joan laughed. “I’ve never met him. And there is no one I like better than you, little quail.” She stroked the child’s soft hair.

“Then don’t go.” Arnalda threw her arms around Joan. “I don’t want you to go.”

Joan hugged her. The small child-body cuddled warmly against her, filling her arms and her heart.
I could have had a little girl like this, if I had chosen a different path. A little girl to hold and to cuddle—and to teach.
She remembered the desolation she had felt when Aesculapius had gone away. He had left her a book, so she could continue to learn. But she, who had fled from the monastery with only the clothes on her back, had nothing to give the child.

Except …

Joan reached inside her tunic and pulled out the medallion she had worn ever since the day Matthew had first placed it about her neck. “This is St. Catherine. She was very smart and very strong, just like you.” She related the story of St. Catherine.

Arnalda’s eyes grew round with wonder. “She was a
girl
, and she did that?”

“Yes. And so may you, if you keep working at your letters.” Joan took the medallion from her neck and hung it around Arnalda’s. “She is yours now. Look after her for me.”

Arnalda clutched the medallion, her little face contorted in a determined effort not to cry.

Joan said good-bye to Arn and Bona, who had come outside to see her off. Bona handed her a parcel of food and an oiled goatskin filled with ale. “There’s bread and cheese, and some dried meat—enough
to see you through for a fortnight, by which time you will have reached the hostel.”