The Passion of Dolssa

  “So, naturally,” the priest went on, “they concern themselves mainly with inquisitions in places where there are offenders with goods worth confiscating.”

  For the first time since our conversation began, I took a deep, relieved breath. “Just as well.”

  “To be small and unimportant, Botille,” said my priest as I bid him bonjọrn, “is true freedom. That’s why I like Bajas. When you’re my age, you’ll see what I mean.”

  MAURINDA

  ust outside the town of Raissac-d’Aude, an old woman watched her grandchildren play on the grassy bank of the wide Aude River. Her name was Maurinda, and she had seen a great many things in her long life, many of which she would much rather not have seen.

  But days like these offered sights more welcome to tired eyes, when autumn colors brushed the leaves, when cooler air meant grapes and olives and relief from August’s oppressive heat. The blue of the sky, sharper than memory, bluer even than la mar itself.

  The prettiest sights of all were her grandchildren. Five of them, through God’s grace, and the tireless body of her daughter, Esquiva. Esquiva was all Maurinda had left, but she’d married a decent man, and God had blessed them with many children. Strange that after so many sorrows, so much loss in the wars, God should allow Maurinda these comforts in her later years. Her mother’s generation had lived joyfully in their youths, in the old, colorful, courtly Provensa before the war, before the hated French crusaders came. Her mother, her aunts, her mother-in-law—their bitter cups came at the ends of their lives, but now, for Maurinda, sadness and loss were in the past.

  For here they all were, these delicious children. Two tozẹts and three tozas, brown and red, round and fat. Their cheeks, so full, their eyes, so bright. In all the world, Maurinda thought to herself, there were never such pretty children. She was too old to be much help in the fields, but this Maurinda could do for her daughter, to earn her keep: she could keep a hawk’s eye upon the children. And she did.

  Maurinda watched them invent games in the dirt and push each other about. She didn’t mind. Children will argue, and if you stop them, they never learn how to fix things themselves. Much marital woe, she reflected, might be prevented by teaching little tozẹts and tozas early how to properly fight with one another.

  A movement down the bank caught her attention. A man in holy orders, all by himself, settling down to sit overlooking the river. Tall and lean, he was. A young man, dressed in white and black now dusty with travel, his shaven head curly with new hair.

  Maurinda firmly returned her gaze to the children. Three, four, five . . . They were all there. The second to youngest, Garina, was slippery as a fish, and just as drawn to the water. Maurinda dared not take her eyes off her.

  But now little Garina had caught sight of the man of God. She called to her siblings and wandered over to him on her chubby legs.

  The other children, more inhibited than Garina, watched as their sister toddled up to the holy man and climbed right into his arms. He was so surprised that he did not resist, but supported her weight cautiously, as though she might break, while she stretched her brown arms around his neck and kissed his whiskered cheek.

  Maurinda knew she should get up and intervene. But old bones prefer their rest. She watched to see what would happen. Some infants are gifted with special grace, and Garina was one of these. Maurinda hoped the man of God would see it.

  Slowly, as if he’d once known how to but had since forgotten, the young friar gathered his arms around the child and patted her back. She pulled her face away and regarded his, then jabbered at him in that dear way she had, asking him questions without waiting for answers. She’ll be telling him about the dog, Maurinda supposed, though he won’t understand a word.

  The young man answered, and the baby beamed and released another torrent of babble.

  Then the child called to her siblings once more, and they crept forward one cautious step at a time. The youngest, smaller than Garina, lost her courage and ran to her mima, but the three older children made their way to Garina’s discovery. They circled the seated young man and watched him watch their sister. Baudois, the oldest boy, dared to greet the holy man with a proper bow. Maurinda nodded. That’s right. Bon eṇfan, Baudois.

  The holy man rested his hand atop Baudois’s floppy-haired head. The two other children nestled close to the young man on either side, like nursing pups to their mother. The baby in Maurinda’s arms peeked at the scene, then buried her face in her mima’s neck.

  “It’s all right, galineta, my sweet,” Maurinda told her. She rose with a creak and settled the eṇfan’s weight upon the hip that bothered her less, then headed over to the children.

  With a closer view, she decided that she liked the holy man’s face.

  “A blessing on you,” she said to greet him.

  “And upon you, and upon these children,” he said in return.

  “Are you well?” she asked him. “Tired from travels?”

  The holy man smiled. “I am well enough. Grácia.”

  But he wasn’t, quite. Maurinda noticed him wiping a tear from under his eye. “What ails you, good brother?” she asked. “Have the little ones been careless and injured you by mistake?”

  His face seemed to glow. “I am not hurt. This little one . . .” He shook his head. “Our Lord spoke truly when he said that of such is the kingdom of heaven. She has brought me heavenly peace.”

  Maurinda smiled. “What brings you to Raissac-d’Aude? I gather, from your speech, that you’re not from this place.”

  “The Aude led me here.” He settled Garina on her feet and rose to stand on his own. “I followed the river in search of a lost soul. But I have found no sign of the person I seek. I sat down here with great heaviness, and thought I now must return to Tolosa in disappointment. I have already been gone far too long.”

  “Tolosa!” Maurinda tutted in sympathy. “On foot? No wonder you’re weary.”

  “You have not seen a donzȩlla pass by? A runaway? Thin and dark and travel-worn?”

  Maurinda shook her head.

  The friar swallowed his disappointment. “So be it. I will find her.”

  “Of course you will.” Maurinda patted his arm. “Come refresh yourself and eat. My son-in-law, Gardoz, and my daughter, Esquiva, will welcome you gladly.”

  Maurinda was pleased that he agreed. Esquiva would be too. This guest would honor their house. Little Garina took him by the hand and chattered as she drew him toward their maisoṇ. Maurinda hefted the baby higher and shepherded the three other children along behind them.

  “Don’t lose hope,” she told her new companion as they neared her daughter’s small dwelling. “The river draws everyone to it sooner or later. The only thing that draws the river is the sea.”

  He stopped. His young escort tugged his hand in vain. “The sea,” he whispered. “God has heard my prayer.” He turned and smiled at Maurinda, and the beauty of it made even her cheeks blush. “I must send a letter.”

  BOTILLE

  he sun was nearing its peak in the sky when I returned home from the church of Sant Martin. Fishing boats’ bells called to one another, and to me, but I resisted the temptation of another walk along the water and went inside.

  The tavern was empty except for Plazensa, and fragrant with her pọl sọpa. After making sure we had no customers, I asked her, “Has she woken up yet?”

  “Once,” was my sister’s reply. “She ate a little porridge and went back to sleep.”

  “Poor thing.”

  “I heard her talking to herself for a long time,” Plazensa whispered. “You’ll need to speak to her about that. We’ll have a hard time hiding her if she jabbers like a madwoman.”

  I wondered what it must have felt like for Dolssa to wake up alone in our small room. Her journey here in Symo’s barrow must have seemed to her like a terrible nightmare.

  “Have you taken some food next door to Martin and Lisette yet?” I asked my sister.

  “Oh, would y
ou?” she asked. “That baby fussed all night. Lisette probably can’t see straight today.”

  I filled an urn with sọpa and stepped outdoors, then pushed my way through Martin and Lisette de Boroc’s front door.

  The Lisette I knew would never have tolerated the mess that greeted my eyes. I pushed through a curtain to find her perched anxiously upon the edge of her bed, clutching her baby in one arm and trying to coax him to latch on and nurse with her other. She looked ghastly. It was not for lack of experience that she struggled. Her two-year-old daughter sat on the floor, banging a stick against the wall and watching me with large, serious eyes.

  “Bless you for coming, Botille,” she said. “This baby won’t eat. Won’t sleep, won’t stop crying.”

  I set down the pot of food. “Give him to me,” I ordered, “and eat something.”

  Together the babe and I paced their house, and I attempted to tidy up as I went, but their son wouldn’t stop squalling in my arms. It took both my hands to hold him snug. To be sure, I felt badly for the poor mite, but it wasn’t long before my sympathies were greater for his mother. No wonder she looked so tired and so worried. If this child didn’t fill his belly well and soon, he wouldn’t thrive.

  We went outside, and I greeted the goats that wandered over to gently butt my knees, and picked Lisette some plums. Her father, the goat-cheese man, came up from their cool cellar. He eyed the baby with trepidation.

  “I keep to my cheeses,” he whispered to me. “The cellar is the only place where I can’t hear the child.”

  I understood.

  I bounced, I bobbed, I shushed, I soothed, I sang, but no matter what I did, the baby wouldn’t settle. Even the goats ran off to avoid him. Finally I went back into the house with the child and the fruit, and handed both to Lisette. She thanked me, and I slipped away. I would return to bring meals, I told myself, and I would say a prayer for poor Lisette.

  Back at the Three Pigeons, a sailor sat at the bar, finishing a bowl of sọpa. Sazia washed tables, and Plazensa pounded on a dark mass of bread dough. She already had a pot of eel stew simmering for supper guests. Mimi would not leave the hot pot alone. She could never resist a fish. I took a bucket and went outside to fill it at the well several times, until I’d filled a pan on the coals and started filling another one.

  “What are you about?” Plazensa wasn’t pleased at my splashing.

  “A bath,” I whispered, “for Dolssa.”

  Sazia looked up. “Poor thing needs it,” she said. “I’ll help.” When all was ready, Plazensa locked the door to the tavern and joined us.

  We opened the door to Dolssa’s room, armed with suds and steam. Sazia carried a bowl of sọpa and a mug of ale. I carried two pans of hot water, and Plazensa’s arms were filled with a dish of soap, a vial of oil, cloths, a blade for trimming, and a lavender concoction of her own. Mimi slipped through the gap just before we shut the door behind us.

  Dolssa knelt upon her mat, praying. She finished, then greeted us with a worried look.

  “What are you doing to me?”

  “Don’t fear,” Sazia said. “We’re helping you get cleaned up after your long journey.”

  She edged away from us, toward the wall. “Grácia,” she said. “I’ll tend to myself.”

  Plazensa placed her things on the floor and sat to peel off Dolssa’s stockings. “No one,” she said, “refuses the help of the Flasucra sisters. We’re the helpfullest help you’ll ever find.”

  I loved these moments, when we three worked together. The sense of our mother, of her magic in our fingertips, tingled in the air about us. Perhaps, it amused me to think, Mamà was Mimi today, or Mimi was Mamà. The gray cat sat primly in a corner with her tail curled around her feet, watching the spectacle.

  “Eat.” Sazia held a spoon of hot broth up to Dolssa’s mouth. She looked reluctant, but she obeyed. I wasn’t surprised. Strong men melted under the influence of Plazi’s cooking.

  I got to work unbuttoning Dolssa’s dress. I paused as I saw her eyes roll upward and close, her lips muttering silent words.

  “Is she putting a hex on us?” Plazensa asked.

  “She’s praying,” I whispered. “It’s all right, Dolssa. You don’t need to pray for protection from us. We want to get you clean so you can mend.”

  “Aiee!” Plazensa let out a cry as she peeled a wool stocking off our patient’s foot. We crowded around to look.

  The skin was black with filth and dried blood, but the toes looked waxy and yellowish under toenails grown too long. Burst blisters oozed with pink discharge. Rotten skin peeled away. The smell of sickly flesh assailed our noses. Mimi approached to sniff.

  Plazensa ripped off the other stocking and looked away.

  This was serious. Such wounds could take infection or abscess. She could lose a foot. “Into the water,” I said firmly, and raised both Dolssa’s knees to submerge her feet in my larger bucket. She winced at the heat of the water, then sank into a rest.

  “I’m not an unclean person,” she said weakly. “My maid, Monica, used to bathe me . . .” Her eyes grew red, and she began to shake.

  “Sọpa,” demanded Sazia, the tyrant. I was happy to have my little srre distract Dolssa with food while I removed her remaining clothes. The rest of her body was not so frightening as her feet, but she was dirty everywhere, bruised in places, bitten by lice, and weakened by hunger.

  “Poor child,” Plazensa murmured. “Poor little bird.”

  We propped her up with pillows while Plazi sponged her sore skin. I dunked Dolssa’s hair in my other bucket and rubbed soap and water through her long, draggled locks.

  “We’ll need more hot water,” I told Sazia, and she went to refill the pans.

  While Plazensa whistled and splashed, Dolssa’s eyes met mine, though upside down, as I cradled her head over a bucket. “Why are you doing this?” she murmured. “You don’t even know me.”

  Her sopping hair hung from her face, leaving her looking weak and pitiable. She reminded me of a bedraggled Mimi one time when she grew too adventurous, playing in the surf. I wanted to laugh, but it would be cruel. The poor girl was bewildered and terrified.

  I remembered something my mamà used to say. “God knows you,” I said. “God knows just what you need.”

  Dolssa’s eyes filled with tears. Poor tired thing—even the least kindness was too much for her.

  “What are you two saying?” demanded Plazensa.

  I smiled at my sister. “We’re discussing your beauty. I say you’re the prettiest femna in all Bajas, but Dolssa here says all of Europe.”

  “Oh, pah.” Plazensa busied herself with scrubbing and worked hard not to smile. Dolssa’s face betrayed a rising sense of panic.

  Plazensa removed one of Dolssa’s feet from the water and rubbed soap into her skin. When it reached her wounded toes, she hissed through her teeth. Plazi carefully wiped away the suds and rubbed the poor foot with a rag. She worked her lovely fingers carefully around the mangled toes, then, with her knife, deftly pared away the offending nails.

  Dolssa vacillated between flinching with pain, cringing in embarrassment, and sinking into the comfort of our ministrations. But every time she caught herself reposing in our care, she would jolt herself back to alertness and fear.

  “Are you cleaning me up,” she whispered, “for some particular use?”

  “We don’t plan to fry you and eat you,” I said, “if that’s what you mean.”

  Sazia returned and resumed force-feeding our charge, then helped me wash her body with wet cloths until it was time to refill our buckets with fresh water. There was no sound but the soft splashing and the sibilant shush of our breathing. Slowly, gently, we washed away the residue of her ordeal fleeing Tolosa. It reminded me of when Plazensa and I would bathe little Sazia after Mamà first took sick.

  Sazia worked a comb patiently through Dolssa’s long, wet tangles. Finally we both joined Plazensa in rubbing her chafed and harassed skin with oil, anointing her hair and neck with
lavender. Plazensa wrapped Dolssa’s cleaned and oiled toes in soft, dry cloths, then pulled some knitted slippers of her own over the bandaged feet.

  Dolssa finally seemed to have settled into a sleepy peace. She had ceased resisting our attentions, and gone limp. I was glad to see it.

  “It’s important that you know,” she told us, “that I am a virgin for Christ.”

  Plazensa’s lips twitched. “Good for you. Are you bound for a convent, then?”

  The girl shook her head. “No. I . . . I just wanted to make sure you knew, in case . . .”

  “Good.” Plazensa nodded firmly. “Remain a virgin, then, until you marry. Men like to imagine that’s how every girl—”

  “Oh, but I won’t marry,” Dolssa said breathlessly. “I couldn’t ever.”

  Sazia chimed in. “I don’t blame you. Watch out, though. My sister Botille could persuade a eunuch to take a wife. No one’s safe around her.” She pulled a nightshirt over Dolssa’s head and shoulders while Plazensa and I stripped her bed and spread fresh sheets for her.

  My thoughts returned to Senhor Guilhem and the mystery lady I’d concocted. Dolssa’s virgin pledge was an unwelcome twist. If she wouldn’t marry, what safety was left for her?

  “Finish your broth, and back to bed with you,” ordered Plazensa. “You need sleep if you’re ever going to return to strength.”

  Dolssa submitted to Plazensa, as most people do, and lay down upon the clean bedding. Plazi and I spread a blanket over her.

  “I’m curious,” I said, “why you’re so concerned that we know about your pledge. It’s scarcely our affair.”

  Dolssa pulled the blanket up to her chin and nestled down under the blanket like a child. Mimi claimed a space next to Dolssa’s knees, prodded it with her claws, then cozied up beside her.

  Dolssa’s eyes were wide as she peered up at me. “I assumed you were . . .” She yawned. “Aren’t you grooming me to be one of you?”

  “Grooming you?” Plazensa laughed. “To be one of us, sisters! Why, you dear child . . .”

  Dolssa’s heavy eyelids closed. “Not a sister,” she murmured. “A prostitute.”