Stigmata (10 page)

In Toulouse they had lived in a stone house with solid doors fitted with locks and there were fine hangings on the walls. Each time she came home to their new
ostal
in
the village, Fabricia experienced a stab of shame for how they were reduced. Draughts whistled under the door, and just a single ham hung from the rafters by the hearth, instead of the flitches of
bacon, black puddings and rillettes they had before. They were rich compared to the other villagers, they had a stone fireplace and even a
solier
, a room above the
foganha,
where her
parents slept. Most of the other houses were just wood and daub. But it was still nothing compared to Toulouse.

Her mother was chopping herbs and onions and throwing them into the
payrola
that bubbled in the hearth in the centre of the room. Anselm was toasting his toes before the fire. His hair
was almost completely grey now, for he was getting to be an old man, almost fifty.

Her mother could sense straight away that something was wrong.

‘Are you all right, girl? You’re white as a sheet.’

‘I saw old Bernart as I was coming back from the fields. The baker’s sons were tormenting him again. They hit him in the head with a rock. I get so angry. Why don’t they leave
the poor man alone?’

‘They say he is possessed,’ Anselm said.

‘Because he has a hump on his back?’

‘A sign of the Devil.’

‘He is not possessed! He is utterly harmless. He has a crooked back, but the sweetest nature of any man in the village!’

‘Don’t talk to your father that way!’ Elionor said.

‘Even the priest says it,’ he mumbled.

‘Father Marty is from the Devil if anyone is.’

‘You see? I’m not the only one in this family who hates those vultures,’ her mother said.

‘Did God not make all things, Papa?’

‘He did.’

‘And did He not make Bernart also?’

Anselm looked sulky, as he always did when trapped in argument.

‘Why did God make such a creature as Bernart unless He meant him to be that way? How can a God that is truly good make something that is evil?’

‘Because God did not make the world!’ her mother said. ‘It is like the
bons òmes
say, the world belongs to the Devil. That is why!’

‘
Basta!
’ her father shouted. ‘Enough! I won’t listen to heresy in my own house! And Fabricia, what have you done to yourself? You’re bleeding.’

She stared at her glove. Some blood had seeped through. ‘It’s from Bernart,’ she said. ‘It must be from where the boys hit him with the stone.’ She stared at him,
daring him to challenge her in the lie. But he just shook his head and returned his gaze to the fire. Even her mother did not demand to see the wound and clean it. So: this is what you have come
to, Fabricia Bérenger. You shout at your father, make him cross with your mother and then you lie to both of them. If there is a purgatory, then the devils will be warming the forks for you.
You deserve it.

Later that night, after her parents had climbed the ladder to the
solier
and gone to bed, Fabricia crept to the fire and examined her hands in the dim light of the embers. As if she did
not have enough to worry about already without these strange marks on her hands! A girl did not bruise the tender pride of the second most powerful man in Saint-Ybars and not think that tomorrow,
when the sun rose again, there would not be trouble for it.

Help me, My Lady, she whispered into the crumbling ashes. Take these wounds away and save me, again, from one of your priests.

‘Why was she so late getting home from the fields?’ Anselm whispered.

‘She was in the church again, I dare say. She spends all her time in there praying to the Madonna. After what that priest did to her, you’d think she’d never go in one of those
places again.’

‘She’s never been the same since the storm. It turned her head a little, I do believe. Do you think she’s all right?’

‘If only she’d married Pèire, perhaps none of this would have happened.’

‘She knew about it, do you remember? She said it would happen. “He will die soon,” she said. And a few days later he falls from the scaffold.’

Elionor was silent. Anselm put an arm around her shoulder and felt her settle in. Where to find a good husband for her here? You didn’t give a pearl to a swine. But he would have to do
something, and soon.

T
HERE WERE GREEN
buds on the vines. Some of the vineyards were a thousand years old, Elionor had told her. They had been
brought from Palestine by the Jews who fled to the Pays d’Oc when the Caesars were lords of Rome. Gauls and Jews lived side by side then, she said, there were cities and towns in the land of
our language long before there was a king in Paris and a Pope in Rome.

Many different vines have been grafted here,
she said.
Don’t listen to your father. He’s a good man but he’s from the north, what would he know about the real story
of the world? Your blood is rich, you yourself are a grafting of many vines. In the north they marry their sisters and count with their fingers. Here in the Pays d’Oc we have known the whole
world: the Jews with their cabbalas, the Moors with their al-jabr and knowledge of the stars, the Templars who brought home muslin cloth and exotic fruits.

You are a grafted vine. When your father spouts his nonsense about his saints and his Resurrection, don’t forget that.

‘Why are you wearing gloves today? Winter is over. You could roast a goose on the cobbles today.’

‘I’m cold,’ Fabricia said.

‘You can’t be cold, you silly girl.’

‘It can’t be summer. We haven’t had the feast for St Mary yet.’

‘The sun doesn’t care about feasts. If it’s hot, it’s hot. You’re limping. What’s wrong, girl? You’ve been acting strange since last night. Where are
you going?’

‘To the market.’

‘Show me your hands!’

Fabricia stared at her.
Why do I even try to lie to her? She always knows.

Fabricia started to take off her gloves.
Now there will be trouble. Perhaps they will listen to me now, let me take orders.
Someone hammered at the door. Elionor hesitated. ‘Who on
earth is that?’

‘Madame Bérenger!’ a man’s voice shouted. ‘Quickly!’

‘I’ll see who it is but then I want to know what it is you’re hiding!’ she said to Fabricia and threw open the door. She was shoved aside as four of Anselm’s
labourers pushed their way in, grunting and sweating, holding Anselm by his legs, his arms, his belt, his shirt. There was blood everywhere. They hefted him on to the bench in the kitchen.

‘
Paire Sant
!’ Elionor shouted and pushed the men aside, wailing in grief. ‘Is he dead?’ Fabricia shouted.

But Anselm was not dead. He coughed, spitting blood on the table and down his shirt. Alive, then; but just. Elionor cradled his head in her hands. ‘What have you done to yourself,
husband?’ She looked round at the men. ‘Did he fall?’

‘The carter’s dray,’ one of the men said, wiping the blood off his hands on to his smock. ‘We’d just finished unloading some stone and it took fright and bolted. He
missed the hooves but not the wheels.’

‘Was it laden?’

‘We’d taken off most of the stone but I saw the wheel go over his chest. I heard his ribs break.’

‘What shall we do?’ the youngest said. ‘There’s not one doctor in the village knows physick.’

‘We don’t need a quack, just a priest,’ another said, and the others glared at him and he fell silent.

Fabricia touched her mother’s shoulder. Elionor put her fist in her mouth to stifle a scream. Fabricia could hardly bear to look; there was blood bubbling from his mouth in a pink froth.
It sounded like he was drowning.

The men crowded back against the wall, terrified. ‘They’re right,’ Elionor whispered. ‘We need Father Marty.’

‘You hate the priest.’

‘Yes, but it’s his religion. I won’t let him die without it. It’s the one thing that ever scared him, dying without the unction.’

‘He’s not going to die.’

‘Of course he is, look at him!’ She picked up his hand, held it to her lips. ‘Didn’t I tell you to be careful?’ She wailed at him and put her head on the bench and
sobbed. ‘Why didn’t one of you help him!’ she shouted, and the men shrank further back against the wall, and for all their size they looked like little children hiding from their
father’s belt.

Fabricia felt sorry for them. It wasn’t their fault. ‘One of you fetch the priest,’ she said. They almost fought each other to be first out of the door. They had to push their
way through the crowd that had gathered there. News of the accident had travelled through the village already.

Anselm tried to raise his arm. His eyelids flickered. ‘Eli . . . onor . . .’

‘Don’t talk, husband. Save your strength.’

‘. . .
t’aime
. . .
mon co . . . eur
. . .’ I love you, my darling.

‘I told you to be careful!’ Elionor wailed again.

Fabricia fetched a pail of water and a cloth and washed the blood out of Anselm’s beard. His forehead was cold and damp and his breath rattled in his chest. What are we going to do without
you? she thought. We’ve taken you for granted for so long.

The carter’s wheel had left an imprint on his chest. There was a bloody weal on his skin, and an ugly purple bruise had spread over the whole left side of his chest. Instinctively she put
out a gloved hand and laid it there, where he had been hurt. Her mother stared at the blood that had seeped through the wool, staining it the colours of rust.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.

‘It is just comfort,’ Fabricia said.

‘What is wrong with your hands?’

‘It’s nothing.’

Anselm gave a great sigh, as if the cart had been sitting on his chest and they had just hefted it off. Elionor dropped her head on to her arms in despair and waited for Father Marty. She knew
her husband would not die until his damned priest had given him the rites.

‘Do you smell that?’ she said, dreamily. ‘How curious. Lavender.’

‘They told me he was dying,’ Father Marty said.

‘You sound disappointed,’ Elionor said.

‘The fee is the same whether he lives or dies.’ His eyes followed Fabricia. Anselm murmured a few words of confession and Father Marty put his ears to her father’s lips to
listen. He repeated the words of the holy rite. ‘Two
sols
. How will you pay me?’

‘Get your eyes off her, you dog! I have the money right here. Get out.’

Father Marty took the coins and with a final leer at Fabricia he left. Elionor stared after him. ‘Devils. The lot of them.’

Anselm was too heavy to move to the bed so they surrounded him with blankets and bolsters on the bench to make him comfortable. His colour was better and it did not seem to hurt him so much to
breathe. Fabricia allowed herself a prayer that he might yet live, but dared not say the words aloud. They said that if the Devil heard you hope, he would come and make it his business to put an
end to it.

They stood either side of the bench and watched him breathe. Elionor stroked his hair. ‘Don’t you stop fighting, my big man. You won’t leave me in this world alone.’ She
looked across him, at Fabricia. ‘Show me your hands. You thought I had forgotten? Come on, show me.’

Fabricia took off her gloves. Elionor drew in a breath. ‘
Paire Sant
! What is that?’

‘I burned it on the fire, taking the pot from the hearth. It is nothing.’

‘This is like no burn I ever saw! Did someone do this to you?’

‘No one did it to me.’

‘Are you in pain?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does anyone else know?’

She shook her head.

Elionor dared to touch the edge of the wound, but quickly snatched her hand away, as if she had been scalded. ‘What does it mean?’

‘I don’t know, Mama.’

Elionor walked around the bench and stood behind her. She put her arms around her waist and held her.

She watched the laboured rise and fall of her father’s chest; he coughed again and another froth of blood trickled down his cheek. She felt suddenly faint and started to fall, but Elionor
held her in her strong arms. ‘Be strong,
filha,
’ she whispered. ‘We will get through this.’

A
NSELM
’
S EYES BLINKED
open. A log jumped in the grate. Fabricia had kept the fire stoked
through the night. Elionor, dozing on a chair next to the bench, sat up as soon as she heard him stir.

‘Anselm, don’t get up! You’re hurt.’

‘I did not mean to sleep so long,’ he said. ‘What hour is it? Is the sun risen?’ He swung his legs over the side of the bench. Elionor tried to stop him getting up but he
pushed her hand away. ‘What are you doing? I must be up and to work.’

‘No, you can’t, not today. You were hurt yesterday. By the carter’s dray. Look.’ She showed him the bruises. ‘The priest has been here, he gave you the blessed
sacrament. We all thought you were dead.’

Anselm seemed confused. He looked at the bloodstains on his tunic, gouts of it dried black into the gaps of wood on the bench. He put a hand to his ribs and winced. ‘They are a little
sore.’

‘
Paire Sant
!’ Elionor breathed and sat down. ‘This cannot be. Thanks be to Jesus, but it cannot be.’

Anselm stood up, rocking on the balls of his feet, and steadied himself against the bench. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

‘Since yesterday morning when the men carried you in,’ she said.

‘Look, it’s a scratch, nothing more,’ he said. ‘I must have bumped my head a little, that’s all. I feel like I’ve been drinking all night.’ Elionor
started to weep. He ruffled her hair. ‘Don’t take on so,
mon coeur.
I’m all right.’

‘I thought you were dead!’

‘Not me,’ he said, as if he were indestructible.

Fabricia had been watching from the other side of the room. She ran over, put her arms around her papa’s neck and breathed in the smell of him; the sweat and stale blood stank, but it was
sweet as life to her. He patted her shoulders, embarrassed by the fuss.