The Passion of Dolssa (23 page)

“Pons?”

“Raimon.”

The bishop waited for some further revelation, but none came.

“What brings you here tonight?”

“The choir.”

Bishop Raimon’s back troubled him, and these benches weren’t helping at all. He watched as minor canons snuffed candles, one by one, throughout the nave.

“Count Raimon’s knight,” said the prior. “Hugo de Miramont. Do you know if he’s returned yet from his search for the runaway heretic?”

The bishop turned toward his friend, which sent a popping pain running up his spine. He gasped, then, to his surprise, felt some improvement.

“I haven’t heard of him returning,” he answered. “If there was news of her, Count Raimon would have let us know.” The bishop twisted the other way in hopes of the same loud miracle, without luck. “You’re sending out another band of inquisitors soon, aren’t you? Perhaps they’ll do better in the countryside.”

Pons nodded. “Yes, I am. But they’re not the reason I came.” He reached inside his habit and withdrew a folded piece of paper. “I’ve just had a letter from Lucien.”

“From whom?”

“Lucien de Saint-Honore.” The prior searched for recognition on the bishop’s face. “My young friar? The one who prosecuted the Stigata women?”

“Oh yes.” The bishop looked to see if anyone was watching, then stretched his arms high over his head. “That was weeks ago now. Has he found her?”

Prior Pons shook his head. “He’s been gone much longer than I had wanted. He writes wondering what to do next. He believes that where he has failed to find her by land, he can find her by sea.”

Raimon shrugged. “The experiment failed. No matter, bring him home.”

Pons folded the note and tucked it away. “I have already written to him at the convent where he is staying in Narbona to instruct him to return at once.” He paused. “Don’t you find it odd, though, Raimon, that two searchers have hunted in vain, so long, for this young woman? How has she eluded both of them so thoroughly?”

Bishop Raimon rested a hand on his companion’s shoulder. “She’s probably dead in a ditch. It is time to do what we should have done from the first: send out a raft of circulating letters to the bishops and parishes throughout the river valleys, probably along the Roman road—everywhere she might be. Warn them of her danger to the fold; instruct any with knowledge of her to contact us immediately.”

Pons considered this suggestion. “Couriers will be costly,” he said, “but not more than sending errant friars and men-at-arms to find her.”

Bishop Raimon clapped a hand on the prior’s shoulder. “We’ll smoke her out, Pons, dead or alive. Most likely dead. Meanwhile, bring your friar home. And now, come have a drink with me. Are you hungry at all?”

Pons shook his head. “
Non, grácia
. I must get back.” He smiled ruefully. “I didn’t even tell anyone I was going out this evening.”

“Authority,” Bishop Raimon said, rising to his feet, “is a weighty burden. Even our Lord craved solitude at times. As a bishop, well do I understand your pain.”

In the gloom of the old church at night, Prior Pons glanced heavenward and bit a reply off the tip of his tongue.

DOLSSA

otille’s rude words were a revelation. The night my beloved healed Sazia’s hand was the first time I’d truly seen myself.

I’d been a child. A weak and whining, petulant child, crying out to my beloved that he should fix all my troubles. Spare me any pain, and run at my summons. Deliver me from dark roads and vulgar sinners and crude peasants.

How could I have been so blind?

Whose prayer did my beloved answer? Botille’s, not mine. Whose hands did he send to help me? Peasants’. Botille’s. Plazensa’s. Even the whore Jacotina’s.

To love as my beloved does, I must love all those whom he loves. In heaven, there are neither nobles nor peasants. Only children of God.

I saw my pride and vanity stripped bare. With shame I remembered that my bitter cup, though bitter indeed, was nothing to his. It was time to rise up and become a true woman, a worthy and courageous bride. Rise up, o my soul!

Yet in spite of my resolve, I could only pine for him, only wish him there with me.

I sat in my room long after the sisters had gone to sleep. Maybe, I thought, tonight he would come to me. Hadn’t he heard my prayer? Wouldn’t he now break his silence, part the curtains that had so recently hidden his heaven from my view? Wasn’t Sazia’s healing a sign that our estrangement was at an end?

I waited hours to hear his voice. All I heard was the wailing infant across the wall.

Come back to me,
I pleaded.
If ever my love pleased you, let me see your face and hear your voice.

Stillness. Nothing but the baby’s cry.

Why would you heal her,
I pleaded,
and not visit me? I who long for none but you!

And then, this chilling thought: What if I never saw or heard my love again? Could I love him still? Could I prove my heart faithful in endless isolation?

Hadn’t my beloved done the same, until his lonely, bitter death?
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

All I had ever done was seek gifts from my beloved. It was time to offer them in return.

My love, for my love you will always be, what, I pray, would you ask of me?

MARTIN DE BOROC

artin de Boroc sat in a chair, his daughter draped, asleep, over his long bony legs, looking more like a parcel of washing than like a human child.

His
filha
was hungry, and so was Martin, but they neither of them even thought of food that night, nor had they since yesterday, when Botille Flasucra, one of the sisters from the tavern next door, had brought them a pot of eel stew.

Martin’s boat had not left port in days. Other fishermen were bringing in legendary catches, but not Martin. He could only sit and stare as his wife, Lisette, held their dying
eṇfan
.

Once Martin had thought the baby’s cries would drive him to distraction, but its moans grew feebler.
Cry,
eṇfan
,
he told the child silently, without hope.
Scream, and yell, and eat!

The only light in the room came from dying embers. As always, the faint smell of spoiled milk hung in the air. Martin’s father-in-law slept in the cellar amid his goat cheeses to escape the child’s noise, and Martin couldn’t blame him, though he hated him for having a place to flee to avoid this sadness.

Lisette’s cheeks, once so round and soft, hung limp from her bones. Her eyes could hold no more tears, and her breast, no more feelings, and no more milk. She could only wait and watch with a slow, sustained terror for the end.

Every time she had tried to feed the child, it had tried to suckle, then given up. When Lisette squeezed milk onto his tongue, it arched its back
and screamed. Other wet nurses were called. Goats’ milk was offered. But nothing could induce this child to survive.

How many hours had passed since the sun went down, Martin could not tell. But tonight, he was sure, would finish the matter.

His tongue was dry. He needed to relieve his bladder. His left foot had gone numb from the press of his little
filha
’s bony hip. But these didn’t seem like reasons enough to disturb her peaceful sleep upon his lap.

Martin didn’t hear the door open. He heard no footsteps. But a
femna
appeared where there was not one before. Slim and pale, like a ghost in the firelight, dressed only in white, and leaning on the wall as she walked. Martin could see little of her face except for her large, dark eyes. He watched her like one in a dream. She made his skin prickle.

“It is the angel of death,” gasped his wife, and she clutched the infant closer. But the young
femna
made no move toward the child. Instead she set to work building up the fire. She was slow. Each movement seemed hard for her. Gradually, she filled a pot with water and set it in the cinders, then draped a blanket over a peg close to the fire. She moved a chair nearer to the hearth. She gestured to Lisette, who sat in the chair as if in a trance.

Martin watched as the young woman reached her arms toward Lisette, asking for the child. She did not seize it, nor exert any compulsion. She simply held out her arms and waited.

Lisette wavered. She swayed from side to side in her chair.

“Are you living flesh?” she whispered.

“
Oc
. I am.”

Still Lisette rocked. Martin had to strain to hear her next question.

“Will the child live?”

The
femna
’s outstretched arms never faltered. “If God wills it.”

Lisette’s breath came in shallow pants. Not for the first time, Martin feared his
eṇfan filh
was not the only member of his family preparing for the next world.

“What is your name?” she asked the mysterious
femna
.

Martin watched the
femna
’s face. Even from across the dark room, her eyes pulled at him, leaving him longing for something, something he’d tasted once, or heard, or dreamed. He couldn’t remember what.

“My name,” said the phantom, “is Dolssa.”

Lisette seemed to struggle to think. “Where are you from?”

“I have no home,” was the reply. “Here is where I live now.”

Slowly, fearfully, Lisette surrendered her child.

As soon as Dolssa had the
eṇfan
, she enfolded it in her arms, cradling it close to her face. Martin blinked in the darkness. What was she doing? She was talking to the
eṇfan
, murmuring, singing, even laughing. And between every word, she kissed it, over and over. Kissed its cheeks, its nose, its forehead. Kissed its chin, its neck, its eyelids, its soft ribs and distended belly. Kissed its feet and knees and arms, uncurled its tiny fingers with her lips to kiss its little hands.

The child was not crying, Martin realized. He sat up with a start. Had it died? Had this Dolssa kissed it to death? His
filha
whimpered as his movements startled her. She shifted and nestled back into his lap to sleep.

The young woman poured a stream of soft words and kisses over the child as Lisette sat crookedly in her chair, with her limp hands hanging down. Before Martin realized how she’d reached his side, Dolssa was handing the baby to him.

He cradled the
eṇfan
in his rough hands and held it close to peer into its face in the dim light. It made no more mewling cries, but lay calmly, poking out its tiny pink tongue, which left its rose-petal lips wet and shining in the firelight.

Martin had never held his infant
filh
before. Why would he, with no milk to offer it? But as he watched the babe’s eyes open and shut, its tiny nose pulling in air, its little mouth searching for something to drink, he yearned for the child.

He brought the baby close and kissed its downy head. He drank the scent of new skin through its shock of thick black hair.

The baby kicked its little foot.

Martin kissed the head again, and kissed one smooth cheek, then the other. He kissed up and down the fragile arms, the round loaf body. The child swung an arm and poked Martin in the eye, and he laughed and realized he was crying, streaming wet tears onto his son’s head and chest, where they ran down into the crease of the neck. He kissed the tears away, only to add more.

“Live, little one,” he told the child. “Live,
mon filh
.”

And his heart broke, for the child would not live, could not live, and now he loved him. He would have to bury that love along with his
filh
’s small body. And what use would he be to Lisette, in the days to come, a shattered man comforting a shattered woman?

Lisette. He had forgotten about her. And the strange visitor.

Lisette’s back was still toward him, but where before she had sat lifeless and inert, now she leaned forward intently. Her elbows spread outward like bird’s wings, and her hands were busy doing something. Martin couldn’t tell what. The young
femna
knelt before her on the hearth, helping her, encouraging her.