18  

THE brethren of Fulda remained largely unaffected by the feud among the royal Frankish brothers. Like a stone cast into a pond, the Battle of Fontenoy created great waves in the centers of power, but here, in the eastern march of the Empire, it caused scarcely a ripple. True, some of the larger landholders in the region had gone to serve in King Ludwig’s army; according to law any freeman in possession of more than four manses had to answer the call to military service. But Ludwig’s quick and decisive victory meant that all save two of these local men returned safe and sound to their homes.

The days passed as before, woven together indistinguishably in the unchanging fabric of monastic life. A string of successful harvests had resulted in a time of unprecedented plenty. The abbey granaries were full to bursting; even the lean, stringy Austrasian pigs grew fat from good feeding.

Then, abruptly, disaster struck. Weeks of unrelenting rain ruined the spring sowing. The earth was too wet to dig the small furrows necessary for planting, and the seeds moldered in the ground. Most disastrous of all, the pervasive damp penetrated the granaries, rotting the stored grain where it lay.

The famine of the following winter was the worst in living memory. To the horror of the Church, some even turned to cannibalism. The roads became more dangerous, as travelers were murdered not only for the goods they carried but for the sustenance their dead bodies could provide. After a public hanging in Lorsch, the starving crowd mobbed the platform and tore down the gallows, fighting over the still-warm flesh.

Weakened by starvation, people were easy prey for disease. Thousands died of the plague. The symptoms were always the same: headache, chills, and disorientation, followed by high fever and a violent cough. There was little anyone could do but strip the sufferers and pack them with cool cloths to keep their temperature down. If they survived the fever, they stood a chance of recovery. But very few survived the fever.

Nor did the sanctity of the monastic walls offer any protection against the plague. The first to be taken ill was Brother Samuel, the hospitaler, whose position brought him into frequent contact with the outside world. Within two days, he was dead. Abbot Raban ascribed this misfortune to Samuel’s worldliness and immoderate fondness for jest; afflictions of the flesh, he affirmed, were only outward manifestations of moral and spiritual decay. Then Brother Aldoardus, acknowledged by all to be the embodiment of monkish piety and virtue, was struck down, followed in close order by Brother Hildwin, the sacristan, and several others.

To the surprise of the brethren, Abbot Raban announced that he was making a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Martin to pray for the holy martyr’s intervention against the plague.

“Prior Joseph will act for me in all things while I am gone,” Raban said. “Give him due obedience, for his word is even as my own.”

The abruptness of Raban’s announcement, and his precipitate departure, occasioned a good deal of talk. Some of the brethren praised the abbot for undertaking so arduous a journey on behalf of all. Others muttered darkly that the abbot had absented himself in order to escape the local danger.

Joan had no time to debate such matters. She was kept busy from dawn till dusk saying Mass, hearing confession, and administering the increasingly frequent rites of unctio extrema.

One morning she noticed that Brother Benjamin was absent from his choir stall at vigils. Devout soul that he was, he never missed the daily offices. As soon as the service ended, Joan hurried to the infirmary. Entering the long, rectangular room, she breathed the pungent aroma of goose grease and mustard, known specifics for diseases of the lungs. The room was crowded to bursting; beds and pallets were placed side by side, and every one was occupied. Between the beds, the brothers whose opus manuum was in the infirmary circulated, straightening blankets, offering sips of water, praying quietly beside those too far gone to accept any other comfort.

Brother Benjamin was propped up in bed, explaining to Brother Deodatus, one of the junior brothers, the best way to apply a mustard plaster. Listening to him, Joan recalled the long-ago day when he had first taught her that same skill.

She smiled fondly at the memory. Surely, she thought, if Benjamin was still capable of directing things in the infirmary, he could not be critically ill.

A sudden fit of coughing interrupted Brother Benjamin’s rapid flow of words. Joan hurried to his bed. Dipping a cloth in the bowl of rose-scented water that stood beside the bed, she held it gently to Benjamin’s forehead. His skin felt incredibly hot. Benedicite! How has he remained lucid with a fever so high?

At last he stopped coughing and lay with eyes closed, breathing harshly. His graying hair ringed his head like a faded halo. His hands, those wide, squat plowman’s hands possessed of such unexpected gentleness and skill, lay on the coverlet as open and helpless as a babe’s. Joan’s heart twisted at the sight.

Brother Benjamin opened his eyes, saw Joan, and smiled.

“You have come,” he said raspingly. “Good. As you see, I am in need of your services.”

“A bit of yarrow and some powdered willow-bark will have you right again soon enough,” Joan said, more cheerfully than she felt.

Benjamin shook his head. “It’s as priest, not as physician, that I need you now. You must help me into the next world, little brother, for I am done with this one.”

Joan took his hand. “I’ll not give you up without a fight.”

“You’ve learned everything I had to teach you. Now you must learn acceptance.”

“I won’t accept losing you,” she replied fiercely.

FOR the next two days, Joan battled determinedly for Benjamin’s life. She used every skill he had ever taught her, tried every medicine she could think of. The fever continued to rage. Benjamin’s large, well-fleshed body dwindled like the empty husk of a cocoon after the moth has flown. Beneath his feverish flush there appeared an ominous undertone of gray.

“Shrive me,” he pleaded. “I wish to be in full possession of my senses when I receive the Sacrament.”

She could deny him no longer.

“Quid me advocasti?” she began in the ceremonial cadences of the liturgy. “What do you ask of me?”

“Ut mihi unctionem trados,” he responded. “Give me unction.”

Dipping her thumb in a mixture of ashes and water, Joan drew the sign of the cross on Brother Benjamin’s chest, then laid a piece of sackcloth, symbol of penance, over the smudged design.

Benjamin was shaken with another violent fit of coughing. When it ended, Joan saw that he had brought up blood. Suddenly frightened, she hurried through the recitation of the seven penitential psalms and the ritual anointing of the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, and feet. It seemed to take a very long time. Toward the end, Benjamin lay with his eyes closed, completely unmoving. Joan could not tell if he was still conscious.

At last the moment came to administer the viaticum. Joan held out the Sacred Host, but Benjamin did not respond. It is too late, Joan thought. I have failed him.

She touched the Host to Benjamin’s lips; he opened his eyes and took it into his mouth. Joan made the sign of blessing over him. Her voice shook as she started the sacramental prayer: “Corpus et Sanguis Domini nostri Jesu Christi in vitam aeternam te perducat …”

HE DIED at dawn, as the sweet canticles of lauds filtered through the morning air. Joan was plunged into a profound grief. Since the moment twelve years ago when Benjamin had taken her under his wing, he had been her friend and mentor. Even when her duties as priest took her from the infirmary, he had continued to help her, encourage her, support her. He had been a true father to her.

Unable to find consolation in prayer, Joan threw herself into work. Daily mass was more crowded than ever, as the specter of death brought the faithful flocking to the church in unprecedented numbers.

One day while Joan was tipping the communal chalice for one of the communicants, an elderly man, she observed his oozing eyes and the dusky, feverish flush of his cheeks. She moved on to the next in line, a slim young mother with a small, sweet-faced girl still in arms. The woman held the child up to take the Sacrament; the tiny rosebud lips opened to drink from the same spot where the old man’s mouth had just been.

Joan pulled the chalice away. Taking a piece of the bread, she wet it in the wine and gave it to the child instead. Startled, the girl looked toward her mother, who nodded encouragement; it was a departure from custom, but the abbey priest surely knew what he was doing. Joan continued down the line, wetting the bread in the wine, until the entire congregation had received the Sacrament.

Immediately after mass, Prior Joseph summoned her. Joan was glad it was Joseph and not Raban she would have to answer to. Joseph was not a man to cling undeviatingly to tradition, not if there was good and sufficient argument for change.

“You made an alteration in the Mass today,” Joseph said.

“Yes, Father.”

“Why?” The question was not challenging, merely curious.

Joan explained.

“The sick old man and the healthy infant,” Joseph repeated thoughtfully. “A repulsive incongruity, I agree.”

“More than an incongruity,” Joan responded. “I believe it may be one way the disease is transmitted.”

Joseph was confounded. “How can that be? Surely the noxious spirits are everywhere.”

“Perhaps it’s not noxious spirits that are causing the sickness— not alone, anyway. It may be passed along by physical contact with its victims, or with objects that they touch.”

It was a new idea, but not a radical one. That some diseases were contagious was well known; this was, after all, why lepers were strictly segregated from society. It was also beyond dispute that sickness often passed through entire households, carrying off members of a family within days, even hours. But the cause for this phenomenon was unclear.

“Transmitted by physical contact? In what manner?”

“I don’t know,” Joan admitted. “But today, when I saw the sick man, and the open sores about his mouth, I felt—” She broke off, frustrated. “I cannot explain, Father, at least not yet. But until I know more, I would like to leave off passing the communal cup and dip the bread in the wine instead.”

“You would undertake this change on the basis of a mere … intuition?” Joseph asked.

“If I am wrong, no harm will derive from my error, for the faithful will still have partaken of both the Body and the Blood,” Joan argued. “But if my … intuition proves correct, then we will have saved lives.”

Joseph considered a moment. An alteration in the Mass was not to be undertaken lightly. On the other hand, John Anglicus was a learned brother, renowned for his skill at healing. Joseph had not forgotten his cure of the leper woman. Then, as now, there had been little to go on other than John Anglicus’s “intuition.” Such intuitions, Joseph thought, were not to be scorned, for they were God-given.

“You may proceed for now,” he said. “When Abbot Raban returns, he will of course render his own judgment upon the matter.”

“Thank you, Father.” Joan made her obeisance and left quickly, before Prior Joseph could change his mind.

INTINCTIO, they called the dipping of the Host, and apart from some of the elder brothers, who were set in their ways, the practice enjoyed widespread support among the brethren, for it was as satisfying to the aesthetics of the Mass as it was to the requirements of cleanliness and hygiene. A monk of Corbie, stopping by on his way home, was so impressed he carried the idea back to his own abbey, which adopted it as well.

Among the faithful, the frequency of new occurrences of the plague noticeably slowed, though it did not stop. Joan began to keep careful record of new cases of the disease, studying them in order to detect the cause of infection.

Her efforts were cut short by the return of Abbot Raban. Soon after his arrival, he summoned Joan to his quarters and confronted her with stern disapproval.

“The Canon of the Mass is sacred. How dare you tamper with it?”

“Father Abbot, the change is in form only, not in substance. And I believe it is saving lives.”

Joan started to explain what she had observed, but Raban cut her off. “Such observations are useless, for they come not from faith but from the physical senses, which are not to be trusted. They are the Devil’s tools, with which he lures men away from God and into the conceits of the intellect.”

“If God did not wish us to observe the material world,” Joan rejoined, “why then did He give us eyes to see, ears to hear, a nose to smell? Surely it is not sin to make use of the gifts He Himself has given us.”

“Remember the words of St. Augustine: ‘Faith is to believe what you do not see.’”

Joan responded without missing a beat, “Augustine also says that we could not believe at all if we did not have rational minds. He would not have us despise what sense and reason tell us must be so.”

Raban scowled. His mind was of a rigidly conventional and unimaginative cast, so he disliked the give-and-take of reasoned argument, preferring the safer ground of authority.

“Receive thy father’s counsel and obey it,” he quoted sententiously from the rule. “Return unto God by the difficult path of obedience, for thou hast forsaken Him by following thine own will.”

“But, Father—”

“No more, I say!” Raban exploded angrily. His face was livid. “John Anglicus, as of this moment, you are relieved of your duties as priest. You will study humility by returning to the infirmary, where you will assist Brother Odilo, serving him with due and proper obedience.”

Joan started to protest, then thought better of it. Raban had been pushed to his limit; any further argument could place her in gravest jeopardy.

With an effort of will, she bowed her head. “As you command, Father Abbot.”

REFLECTING later upon what had happened, Joan saw that Raban was right; she had been prideful and disobedient. But of what use was obedience, if others must suffer by it? Intinction was saving lives; she was sure of that. But how could she convince the abbot? He would not tolerate further argument from her. But he might be persuaded by the weight of established authority. So now, in addition to the Opus Dei and her duties in the infirmary, Joan added hours of study in the library, searching the texts of Hippocrates, Oribasius, and Alexander of Tralles for anything that might support her theory. She worked constantly, sleeping only two or three hours a night, driving herself to exhaustion.

One day, poring over a section of Oribasius, she found what she needed. She was copying the crucial passage out in translation when she began having difficulty scribing; her head ached, and she could not hold the pen steady. She shrugged this off as the natural consequence of too little sleep and went on working. Then her quill inexplicably slipped from her grasp and rolled onto the page, scattering blobs of ink across the clean vellum, obscuring the words. Curse the luck, she thought. I will have to scrape it clean and start over. She tried to pick up the quill, but her fingers trembled so violently she could not get a grip on it.

She stood, holding on to the edge of the desk as dizziness swept over her. Stumbling to the door, she thrust herself outside just as the retching hit hard, doubling her up and thrusting her onto all fours, where she heaved up the contents of her stomach.

Somehow she managed to stagger to the infirmary. Brother Odilo made her lie down on an empty bed and put his hand to her forehead. It was cold as ice.

Joan blinked with surprise. “Have you come from the washing trough?”

Brother Odilo shook his head. “My hands are not cold, Brother John. You’re burning with fever. I fear the plague has you in its grip.”

The plague! Joan thought woozily. No, that can’t be right. I’m tired, that’s all. If I can just rest for a while …

Brother Odilo laid a cool strip of linen, steeped in rosewater, on her forehead. “Now lie quiet, while I soak some fresh linen. I won’t be a minute.”

His voice seemed to come from a long distance away. Joan closed her eyes. The cloth felt cool against her skin. It felt good to lie still with the sweet aroma around her, sinking peacefully into a welcome darkness.

Suddenly her eyes flew wide. They were going to cover her in a sheath of wet linen to bring the fever down. To do that they would have to strip her bare.

She had to stop them. Then she realized that no matter how strenuously she resisted—and in her present condition she would not be able to put up much of a fight—her protests would be dismissed as mere feverish ravings.

She sat up, swinging her feet off the bed. Immediately the pain in her head returned, pounding and insistent. She started for the door. The room whirled sickeningly, but she forced herself to keep going and made it outside. Then she headed quickly toward the foregate. As she drew near the gate, she took a deep breath, willing herself steady as she walked past Hatto, the porter. He looked at her curiously but made no move to stop her. Once outside, she headed straight for the river.

Benedicite. The abbey’s little boat was there, moored with a single rope to an overhanging branch. She untied the rope and climbed in, leaning against the grassy bank to push off. As the boat swung away from the bank, she collapsed.

For a long moment the boat hung motionless in the water. Then the current took it, spinning it around before propelling it down the swiftly moving stream.

THE sky revolved slowly, twisting the high, white clouds into exotic patterns. A dark red sun touched the horizon, its rays burning hotter than fire, scorching Joan’s face, searing her eyes. She watched fascinated as its outer edges shimmered and dissolved, forming human shape.

Her father’s face floated before her, a ghastly, grinning death’s-head stripped of flesh beneath the dark line of its brows. The lipless mouth parted. “Mulier!” it cried, but it was not her father’s voice, it was her mother’s. The mouth opened wider, and Joan saw that it was not a mouth at all but a hideous yawning gate opening into a great darkness. At the end of the darkness, fires burned, shooting up great blue-red pillars of flame. There were people in the flames, their bodies writhing in grotesque pantomimes of pain. One of them looked toward Joan. With a shock, Joan recognized the woman’s clear blue eyes and white-gold Saxon hair. Her mother called to her, holding out her arms. Joan started toward her; suddenly the ground beneath dropped away and she was falling, falling toward the hideous mouth-gate. “Mamaaaaaaa!” she screamed as she fell into the flames …

She was in a snow-covered field. Villaris gleamed in the distance as the sun melted the snow on its roof, setting the water droplets sparkling like thousands of tiny gems. She heard the drumming of hooves and turned to see Gerold riding toward her on Pistis. She ran to him across the field; he drew up beside her, reached down, and hoisted her up before him. She leaned back, reveling in the tender strength of his encircling arms. She was safe. Nothing could harm her now, for Gerold would not permit it. Together they rode toward the gleaming towers of Villaris, the strides of the horse lengthening beneath them, rocking them gently, rocking, rocking …

THE motion had ceased. Joan opened her eyes. Above the level edge of the boat, the treetops were silhouetted black and unmoving against the twilit sky. The boat had come to a stop.

A murmur of voices came from somewhere above her, but Joan could not make out the words. Hands reached down, took hold of her, lifted her from the boat. Dimly she remembered: she must not let them take her, not while she was still sick, she must not let them carry her back to Fulda. She struck out ferociously with her arms and legs, striking flesh. Distantly she heard cursing. There was a short, sharp pain against her jaw, and then nothing else.

JOAN rose slowly out of a pool of blackness. Her head was pounding, her throat so dry it felt as if it had been scraped raw. She ran a dry tongue over parched lips, drawing tiny drops of blood from the cracked flesh. There was a dull ache in her jaw. She winced as her fingers explored a sensitive bump on her chin. Where did I get that? she wondered.

Then, more urgently, Where am I?

She was lying on a feather mattress in a room she did not recognize. Judging by the number and quality of the furnishings, the owner of the dwelling was prosperous: in addition to the enormous bed in which she was lying, there were benches upholstered with soft cloth, a high-backed chair covered with cushions, a long trencher table, a writing desk, and several trunks and chests, very finely carved. A hearth fire glowed nearby, and a pair of fresh loaves had been newly placed on the embers, their warm aromas just beginning to rise.

A few feet away, a plump young woman stood with her back toward Joan, kneading a mass of dough. She finished, wiping the flour from her tunic, and her eyes fell on Joan. She moved briskly to the door and called out, “Husband! Come quickly. Our guest has awakened!”

A ruddy-faced young man, long and gangly as a crane, came hurrying in. “How is she?” he asked.

She? Joan started as she caught the word. She looked down and saw that her monk’s habit was gone; in its place she was clothed in a woman’s tunic of soft blue linen.

They know.

She struggled to lift herself from the bed, but her limbs were heavy and weak as water.

“You mustn’t exert yourself.” The young man touched her shoulder gently, easing her back into the bed. He had a pleasant, honest face, his eyes round and blue as cornflowers.

Who is he? Joan wondered. Will he tell Abbot Raban and the others about me—or has he already? Am I truly his “guest,” or am I a prisoner?

“Th … thirsty,” she croaked.

The young man dipped a cup into a wooden bucket beside the bed and withdrew it brimming with water. He held it against Joan’s lips and tipped it carefully, starting a slow stream of droplets into her mouth.

Joan grabbed the cup, angling it so the water poured faster. The cool liquid was sweeter than anything she had ever tasted.

The young man cautioned, “Best not take too much too soon. It’s been over a week since we’ve been able to get anything into you beyond a few spoonfuls.”

Over a week! Had she been here so long? She could not remember anything after climbing into the little fishing rig. “Wh … where am I?” she stammered hoarsely.

“You’re in the demesne of Lord Riculf, fifty miles downstream from Fulda. We found your boat in a tangle of branches along the river’s edge. You were half out of your mind with fever. Sick as you were, you fought hard to keep us from taking you.”

Joan fingered the tender bump on her jaw.

The young man grinned. “Sorry. There was no reasoning with you in the condition we found you in. But take comfort, for you gave almost as good as you took.” He pulled up his sleeve, revealing a large, ugly-looking bruise on his right shoulder.

“You saved my life,” Joan said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. It was only fair return for all you’ve done for me and mine.”

“Do I … know you?” she asked, surprised.

The young man smiled. “I suppose I have changed a good deal since last we saw each other. I was only twelve then, rising thirteen. Let’s see …” He began to figure on his hands, using Bede’s classical method of computation. “That was some six years ago. Six years times three hundred sixty-five days … why, that’s … two thousand one hundred and ninety days!”

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

THEY 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.”

ARN 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.

“BONA 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.

SHE 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.”

“Thank you,” Joan said. “I will never forget your kindness.”

Arn said, “Remember, Joan. You are welcome here at any time. This is your home.”

Joan embraced him. “Teach the girl,” she said. “She is intelligent, and as hungry to learn as you were.”

She mounted the mule. The little family stood around her, looking sad. It was her constant fate, it seemed, to leave behind those she loved. This was the price for the strange life she had chosen, but she had gone into it with eyes open, and there was no profit in regret.

Joan kicked the mule into a trot. With a last wave over her shoulder, she turned her face toward the southern road—and Rome.