The Passion of Dolssa

  A terrible thought struck me. I remembered Sazia, and asked, “Are you a monk now?”

  He grinned. “Are you mad?” He pulled off his robe to show peasant’s clothes underneath. I sagged with relief. It was him. That thick, strong build I remembered, though it was cut leaner by hunger.

  “What happened to your leg?”

  “One of the bishop’s soldiers.”

  Mon Dieu. My poor Symo. Lame and hurting for so long. “How did you ever manage to escape?”

  For the first time I saw fear in his eyes. Then I understood.

  “You wear the cloak,” I whispered, “to avoid being caught. You’re not just a heretic now.”

  His eyes never left mine. I backed away. A little.

  “They would have killed you, Botille, if they could,” Symo whispered. “And me. And your sisters.”

  I closed my eyes. I remembered that night. I remembered the bishop. I remembered the flames.

  What must the struggle have been like? What would I have done if I’d been there?

  “If you want me to go, I will, Botille.” He stroked a lock of my hair that had escaped my scarf. “I’m just glad to know you’re all right.”

  I opened my eyes to see him resigned. Backing away. Making no demands.

  My vision blurred through my tears. He’d killed a soldier. They would have killed us. I needed to think of something else.

  “How did you find me?”

  He made a wry face. “I’ve never stopped walking or asking people questions. A nameless girl in hiding is no easy thing to find.”

  Impossible boy. Back from the dead, breathing the stale air of my tiny home, with candlelight playing over his dusty face, after faithful years spent searching. For me.

  “I thought I’d never find you. You were dead, or lost forever.” He looked away from me. “But then, these last months, I felt something was guiding my steps to you.”

  Dolssa.

  “I had to know if you lived, Botille.”

  My eyes stung. Sobs welled up inside me. I could not allow it. Think of all he’d carried since that terrible night. Pain, and fear, and scarring memories. What he’d done, and what he’d seen.

  I took his hand and held it. “I should never have left you that terrible night, my friend.”

  Symo’s head hung down. His eyes went to his cloak, and to the door. “Oc. Your friend.” He blinked several times. “That is good.” He pulled the door open and turned toward the road.

  “Where are you going?” I thrust forward my chair, the only one left. “Sit.”

  He paused, then slowly sat.

  “Show me your leg.”

  He pulled up his clothing to show me his wounds. All around the knee and thigh. The soldier had been skilled with a dagger. It was a wonder Symo had survived. I traced my finger across the livid scars, and he winced.

  He watched me closely, as if dreading my verdict. I wanted to kiss his wounds then, but feared I’d hurt him.

  “It’s a wonder you’re alive,” I told him. “We’ll get to work mending you.” I poked and prodded and examined his ribs, and raked my fingers through his shaggy hair. I needed to know all the damage his hungry years of roaming had done to him, for my sake. “Feed you up, too. Put some meat on your frame. Give you a bath. Heaven knows you need one.”

  Liar! Mine was not the examination of a healer. Like Thomas who doubted, I wanted to thrust my hand into his side and satisfy myself he was no ghost. I needed proof I wasn’t dreaming—that his living flesh had truly reappeared, in my home, tonight.

  Symo’s eyes were bright in the candlelight, but his scowl was the same old scowl. “Will you ever stop bossing and pecking at me?”

  “Pah!” I planted my fists on my hips. “Not till I’m pleased with the results. You’re a wild boar that needs taming.”

  “And you,” he said, “are the most vexatious, obstinate, cussed female ever to draw breath.”

  I began pulling off his shoes.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Do you know what you need, Symo?” I said.

  “What?”

  “A wife.”

  He unwound the scarf from my hair. “You’re not still matchmaking, are you?”

  “A little.” I perched on his lap, on his good leg. “We’ve got good, tough femnas here. Just the sort to please you.”

  He pulled me close, nearly bursting my lungs, and stopped me from speaking further in a manner most impertinent.

  I’d had enough of his talking, myself.

  1267

  BOTILLE

  he priest married us as Pedro and Maria. We were married just the same.

  We worked our little plot of ground, and Symo brought the dry soil to life. It pained me to see him limp back and forth with his yoke of buckets, but he did it daily, and his leg grew stronger. His help freed me to do other things to feed us—buy a little goat, and then another. Brew more ale, tend chickens. Sell the best onions in the county.

  We had a son, whom we named Bertran. Just the one, though I prayed for more. Loving him made me rich in ways I’d too long been poor. Tending him brought my mamà back to my side to share with me each new discovery. Watching Symo love Bertran healed my open wounds.

  We remained in Balbastro until Mima died. Seven years. Then both of us felt it was time to move on. We’d had no threats, no close calls, but if I’d learned one thing from Dolssa, it was to listen to those feelings. So we gathered our son, our animals, and our things, and packed for the trip. We went to Barçalona to inquire after Sazia, and show her nephew to her.

  She was a grown woman now, with duties in the abbey. She trained novices in their studies. My little srre, not just a reader, but a teacher! She made me feel proud. And rough, and ignorant. But mostly proud. She kissed Bertran and gave her love.

  Something was different about her, though. Her Sister Margarethe had died. There was fear in her eyes. She advised us not to visit for a time, until she found a way to send us word. Word never came, until now.

  I never again saw my Bajas by the sea, though I dreamed of returning for the rest of my life. My Symo pined for his brother, Gui, and I, for news of Plazensa.

  Here is how my tale ends. It’s a bitter ending, but I do not complain. Sorrow finds us all, and the bon Dieu has been more than kind to me.

  My Symo one day could bear it no more, the yearning for his brother. He took the journey over the Pirenèus, and back into beautiful Provensa. He had to see Gui.

  He never returned.

  Bertran, who had grown to be a man, traveled back to learn what had become of his father. He avoided Bajas, but went to the Abadia de Fontfreda. There, staying in the strangers’ quarters, he learned of the old, crippled man who had returned to Bajas after twenty-five years away, and was executed for heresy and murder.

  The shock left us weak. I thought my heart would break. At least I’d had my Symo for many years. Bertran made it home and took to his bed. My precious son could not take comfort. I recovered to tend to my ailing filh, but he was not so blessed. My only son.

  Now I am all alone. My only comfort is my sweet little cat. I’m just an old woman, waiting to die.

  BOTILLE

  nd now I have told you my tale, bon friar. You were a patient one to listen so well. I rather fancy you enjoyed it. I didn’t think inquisitors usually took the time. But you traveled all the way from Barçalona to hear me. That would make any man patient.

  Well, I think you are right to preserve a record of the account of the maid Dolssa. I wonder, though, why do you want to? To warn Christians not to be deceived?

  This story will give them plenty of warning.

  I’m not surprised that it took our priest a while to figure out which middle-aged woman you were looking for. I don’t feel as old as I look, I’ll have you know. And here I thought he was looking for alms for the poor when he came to my lonely little home!

  Tell me, what will happen to Sister Clara, at the abbey? Will she be pardoned, because she told yo
u about me? I pray the bon Dieu she will.

  She doesn’t know you traced me here? Oc, that is a pleasing thought. How, then, did you learn of me from her?

  I see. Of course. Confession.

  1290

  FRIAR ARNAUT D’AVINHONET

  The Convent of the Jacobins, Tolosa

  otille’s narrative interested me in several persons, some of whom I knew a little about. Other cases required additional inquiry on my part. Here is what I learned:

  Soon after Dolssa’s death, Gui found parchment and ink in his wine cellar. He brought it to Dominus Bernard, who recognized in Dolssa’s writings a great treasure. Poems and love songs to her beloved, rivaling the trobadors’ own ballads, were scribbled in the margins of her narrative. He set the words to music and performed them as his own sacred songs in churches throughout Provensa, to wide acclaim. He died a celebrated psalmist of the faith.

  Prior Pons de Saint-Gilles served as prior in other cities, and eventually returned to serve in Tolosa before his death. He passed into eternity decades after the strange business in Bajas.

  The duty of ordaining a successor to the priory fell to Bishop Raimon de Fauga. He chose Lucien de Saint-Honore, the fame of whose hunt for the fugitive heretic Dolssa de Stigata had spread throughout the Order of Preachers. After not many more years, at Raimon’s death, Lucien ascended to the office of bishop.

  Bishop Lucien was known as a sensitive, gentle, almost fragile preacher, giving special pastoral care to children, the simple, and the sick. Only in matters of heresy was Bishop Lucien de Saint-Honore unyielding, though he, himself, never attended another burning in his life.

  Na Pieret di Fabri died within a year of Symo’s disappearance. Gui and his new wife, Sapdalina, nursed her kindly during her ailing months and inherited her vineyards.

  Plazensa Flasucra was not seen in Bajas again. Neither was the fisherman, Litgier.

  Thus I conclude my record. I imagined reaching an ending would bring me rest. But Bishop Lucien de Saint-Honore bequeathed to me more than his story. He has infected me with his own unease about the matter of Dolssa de Stigata, that strange, rebellious maiden.

  Now I, like he, must burn her.

  As Botille did, I began to feel my efforts were being led along by Dolssa’s urgent voice inside my head. Or perhaps, across the decades, the persuasiveness of Botille’s stories simply tricked me into believing it so. Yet the number of times I felt led to just the place, within these cavernous vaults, where a useful record might be found is too great to count.

  I should fling this volume into the fire that even now lights my study, and no one would ever be the wiser. But I find my heart urging me to reconsider the matter. In the interim, I shall search out a safe place to hide it, and make the fate of this record the subject of prayer.

  2014

  THE WRITER

  Boston, Massachusetts

  hat answers Friar Arnaut may have found through prayer, in his private corner of the convent archives, we’ll never know.

  The Dominican convent in Toulouse was a collection of shabby buildings during Friar Lucien’s younger days, but by the time Friar Arnaut was piecing together Botille’s and Dolssa’s stories, the Dominicans had erected a magnificent church, called the Convent of the Jacobins. The great theologian St. Thomas Aquinas is buried there. Still, to this day, if you visit, you can admire its most notable feature, a soaring column made to look like a palm tree over the main vault of the nave, with arching ribs fanning out upon the ceiling like palm leaves. It’s dizzyingly grand and gorgeous.

  This distinctive palm structure was still being built in 1290, and Friar Arnaut d’Avinhonet had the bad luck to pass underneath the scaffolding as a worker dropped his chisel. Friar Arnaut met his eternal reward. I hope it was a good one.

  We would probably have no record of when an obscure Dominican met his death, except that his fellow friars were so troubled by the accident that one of them noted it in an official journal on 22 November. The year 1290, it appears, was a busy one for Arnaut. He wrote a book, hid it, and died.

  At some point, probably long afterwards, when the concerns of the thirteenth century were a distant memory, someone must have found the forgotten volume’s hiding place. I picture a friar stumbling upon it, not bothering to read it, and shelving it in the archives without a second thought.

  Old books tend to be shuffled around, stolen, loaned, sold to collectors, transferred to different churches or to universities. Though too many disappear forever, some have an uncanny way of popping up. Arnaut’s record, I’m glad to say, popped. It wasn’t my discovery, but I was fortunate to have gone to college with one of the scholars asked to translate the pages. He invited me to read the translation and offer style corrections to make the writing more accessible to modern readers. That’s how I met Arnaut, Botille, Lucien, and Dolssa.

  As I sifted through and marked up each day’s new pages, one question kept running through my mind. Do I believe this?

  Normally, I would read a medieval religious text to understand how past generations thought, and what they believed. I would look for clues and details to round out my understanding of the past. The question of belief—my personal belief—would never even enter into my thoughts.

  By the time I’d reached the book’s end, the question had changed. What’s more, the urgent voice asking it was clearly not my own, but a young woman’s, hopeful and trusting.

  Do you believe me?

  I wondered if I needed a little time off.

  The night I finished Frair Arnaut’s translated account, I mourned. I remember the night was hot and muggy, as Boston summer nights can be. I sweltered in the dark and thought about Dolssa and Botille, and the cost of their friendship in human blood.

  I must have finally slept, for I vividly remember waking up. A voice called my name, and a hand shook my shoulder. I snapped on the light; no one was there. I couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that someone was. Someone whose touch on my skin smelled of candlelight, ink, and lavender.

  I went to my small desk, opened a notebook, and wrote the following pages. Only a few, but I wrote them without pauses or corrections. I had no intention of doing so. I didn’t know what words to use until my hand wrote them, though as I wrote, I saw every color, heard the singing bird, and tasted the dry Spanish dust.

  The next morning I wondered if it had all been a dream, but there on my desk were the pages. Believe them or not. For those like me who can’t bear not knowing how stories end, I offer what follows after, though I admit it won’t give full satisfaction.

  For any who may wonder, I do believe her.

  FERNANDO DÍAZ

  ernando Díaz sat in the shade of the village church in Polinyino, Aragón, and dumped his pouch of polished stones into his hand. His father was inside the church, but Fernando, age eleven, had disrupted mass enough times that his father was content to leave him outside.

  A stone slipped through his fingers and rolled in the dust. Fernando crawled after it. It stopped near a hole, the size of a brick or two, in the church’s wall.

  “Little boy,” called a voice.

  Fernando froze. He looked about and saw no one. The voice came from the church. Was it an angel, sent to chasten him for not attending mass?

  “Little boy,” called the voice again. It came from below him; a movement through the gap in the wall caught his eye.

  “Are you in the dungeon?” Fernando whispered. “They keep you there to burn you.”

  “You’re a smart boy,” said the voice. “Do you fear God?”

  Fernando’s eyes grew wide. What if this was an angel, in disguise, sent to test him? “I do,” he declared. “Of course I do.”

  “Then, in God’s name, will you do a good deed for a woman about to die?”

  Fernando scuttled back away from the church wall. People about to be burned were wicked, he knew. He shouldn’t talk to the woman. But he couldn’t even see her. And she was, after all, soon to die. Fernando hated the burnin
gs. He pitied the poor sinners.

  But this woman didn’t sound forlorn.

  “You must keep this a secret. Never tell a living soul. Do you promise me that?”

  Fernando had no intention of ever telling anyone he was talking to a convict. “I swear it.”

  “Good boy.” The woman poked her fingers out through the hole. “Listen closely. Do you know the little house outside of town, on the winding road heading east, where Pedro and Maria live with their son, Bertran? Sturdy fellow, dark eyebrows? The old man has a limp, and their mean black cat has but one eye?”

  “I know it,” said Fernando. “That’s the meanest cat in Polinyino.”

  “You speak the truth. Can you go to that house, without anyone knowing, and give Bertran a message?”

  That would be easy enough. “I can,” the boy said.

  “Blessings on you, bright child,” said the old woman. “Tell him, ‘They’re coming. Go quickly. I gave you an hour, at most. Take good care of Papà. Go with God.’”

  “‘Go with God,’” repeated Fernando. He hoped he could remember it all.

  “He will be terribly sad to hear your message,” the old woman said. Fernando caught the catch in her voice. “Only that grieves me now. But tell him I said all shall be well.” She paused. “Unless he forgot to thin my onions this morning, and then I’ll haunt him when I’m dead, forevermore.”

  Fernando felt sorry this friendly voice had to die. Would she really haunt her son over onions?

  “Most of all, dear child,” it said, “never, ever tell a living soul I spoke to you, nor you to me. Once you give the message to the young man, he will vanish, and no one else in the wide world ever need know.”

  Fernando promised. As a child, he understood secrets. He could run and deliver the message, and be back before the end of mass.

  “And remember to never tell lies,” she called after him. “Liars are always found out in the end.”