The Passion of Dolssa (10 page)

“You’ll die now if you don’t hold your tongue.” Village Idiot shifted his glower in my direction. “What do you want?”

“I’ve come here from Bajas, on the seashore,” I said, “as a favor to your
tanta
Pieret, to ask you to dispose of your property here immediately and go live with her. She asks you to share with her the management of her extensive vineyards and farmlands, as her heirs.”

They looked at each other for a stunned moment.

Laughing Tooth knocked over his stool and left it there. He looped a length of rope over the neck of a placid heifer that stood watching them both with a bored expression.

Village Idiot dumped a bucket of water over his head. With water still streaming over his chest and back, he began chucking tools into a canvas sack. Then he paused.

“The harvest,” he moaned. “All our work, all year. My aching back, all so someone else can eat our chickpeas and carrots and onions?”

“Symo, who cares?” whooped the one called Gui. “Maire always said Tanta Pieret was rich, rich, rich. Leave the harvest for the next poor fools.” He tethered the cow to a post, then began to tie up their mule. “
Oc
! I have it. Old Maynart’s son. He’s marrying Fabrissa the Fat. We can tell them the cottage is empty, and they can move right in.”

Symo still frowned.

“If it makes you feel better,” said Gui, “have her fill up some baskets with whatever’s ripe now.” He gestured toward me.

“Always room for onions,” I said. “But I’m not your farm wench.”

Both turned to look at me. “What kind of wench are you, then?” demanded Symo.

“It’s not that I’m too good to pick vegetables.” I felt a bit sheepish. “But if you want my help, ask me right.”

Gui grinned. Those teeth. “What kind of help are you offering?”

Symo boffed him on the ear. “Leave off, idiot.” He turned to study me. “What are you to Tanta Pieret? Daughter? Daughter-in-law?” I smelled sweat mingled with chicken shite wafting from his skin. “We should abandon our farm on the word of some strange
toza
from nowhere?”

It’s just as well that old Garcia and Sazia chose that moment to venture under the shade of the thatch enclosure, for I was about to tell Symo the Stupid precisely what I thought of him.

“
Bonjọrn
.” Garcia wiped the sweat off his brow and smiled amiably at the two brothers. “Has Botille straightened it all out, then? You’ll come with us?”

“
Oc
, we’re coming!” sang Gui.

Symo ignored his brother and addressed Garcia. “You know my
tanta
Pieret?”

Garcia nodded. “Been attached to her twenty-five years now.”

“She wants us to run her vineyards?”

“I already told you that,” I said. “Why should you believe Garcia more than me?”

Symo frowned and stuck a thumb in my direction. “Who is she to Tanta Pieret?”

Garcia looked nonplussed. “Nothing.”

“We’re friends,” I said. “La Domna di Fabri sent me because she trusts me.”

The chicken man, still shirtless, ignored this. “And my
tanta
’s vineyards, they prosper?”

The greedy dog.

Garcia’s eyes narrowed, and Symo realized his blunder. “You appear, strangers, and tell us to leave all we have and go.” He appealed to Garcia. “If my aunt has four sickly grapevines, we are lost.”

“Four sickly grapevines!” I fumed. “You think your
tanta
could afford to send all four of us here to collect you, baggage and all, from the fruit of four sickly grapevines?”

Sazia flopped down onto a pile of straw and closed her eyes. “Leave off, Botille,” she said. “They’ll come. You might as well take some rest while they pack.”

Gui took notice of Sazia then. He brandished his smile and a basket at her. “Are you the wench who’ll pick our vegetables so we can go sooner?”

Sazia regarded him coolly. She was a girl on whom toothy smiles had little effect.

“Young Garcia,” Sazia called to her comical tormentor. “Come here. The men have some
legums
for you to pick. Don’t eat them all as you go.”

Na Pieret had packed us plenty of
fogasa
, dried fish,
pomas
,
viṇ
, and cheese—and for all this, I still heeded Sazia’s warning and brought my own supply of cheese—so we had no shortage of food, but to humor the brothers, we built up a fire and stewed a pot of chickpeas with onions. Big fat beauties they were, too. Symo himself picked and ate much of the produce on the spot, shucking and gobbling chickpeas as if they were to be his last meal.

That was it, then. The gallant and the imbecile would both be coming back with me. I’d hoped for two worthwhile bachelors. I could settle for one plus a spare. No matter; I’d find someone for the idiot. Marrying him off would be interesting. I smiled to myself. A test of my abilities. Not even pregnant Astruga, I’d wager, would welcome the thought of a chicken-stinking curmudgeon like this one sharing her hearth and her bed. Whom did I have in my arsenal who was truly desperate? Besides Sapdalina, for I was fond of her. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing I’d saddled her with this lout.

ABRAHE IUDIO

Witness Testimony recorded by Lucien

T
HE
R
IVER
P
ORT AT
C
ARCASSONA

Abrahe Iudio: a Jew; age thirty-three;

wine merchant from Aragón; trading

at the port on the Aude River

ood evening. I take it you are not here to trade in wine, but in souls, yes? I will listen, if you like, though I am not from Carcassona, nor France.
Sí, sí,
Carcassona is the French king’s now. I’ve traded here since I was a boy with my father, and he, since he was a boy with his father. What he’d say to see the mighty towers of Carcassona fall from the hands of the Counts of Trencavel!

Sí
, I am a Jew, but I can listen to your preaching. Any learned man is worth hearing, and who needs enemies? Aragón, she is becoming a place where no Jew can afford to annoy his neighbors. You are one of the Dominicans,
sí
? And Dominic, he was a Castilian. That makes us all neighbors.

It is only a joke. Of course no inquisitor could be neighbor to a Jew.

You come from Tolosa? Can I offer you a pitcher to quench your thirst? You must be weary after your travels. No, put your money away.

I? I have been here four days now, this trip. Two more, and I depart for home.

Certainly, I have my licenses and papers. The port master knows me. I pay my tariffs.

Have I seen a young lady?

Good Sir Monk? Preacher, then. Good Sir Preacher, hundreds pass by every day. Young ladies in great state, and poor girls in rags. Carcassona’s towers beckon to them all.

I am a newly married man, Sir Preacher Monk. My young wife is
la niña de mis ojos
.

A girl alone, of gentle birth? A runaway? Poor creature. Her family must be very much afraid. She has no more family? May the good God keep special watch over the poor frightened stranger, and may those she meets be kind, and think of their own sisters.

Is she one of your Albigensian heretics, as the French call them? No. A Catholic? How, then, a danger to believers? She is young to have offended God. God is patient, and with the young, always patience is needed.

The river? My lodgings are by the riverside. I take my raft along the Aude from Narbona.

If I gave wine to every beggar who couldn’t afford it, I wouldn’t last long in trade. Bread? Do I look like a baker? Who said I gave her bread and wine? If it was Pedro Rodrigues, he can stick his head in a barrel. He’s so drunk, he can’t tell waking from dreaming.

Who
told you?

My wife told you.

She is quick-witted, my wife. She remembers things I forget. Well, so it is, now that I recall it. A girl did pass by here. I took pity on her. She seemed so hungry, and thin. It was nothing to offer her some food. Any decent soul would. As I remember it now, my wife gave her an apple for her journey.

Which way did she go?

Now let me think.
That
way.

Sí
, it was that way. South, along the river, toward the Pirenèus Mountains. And now, excuse me. Time I gathered up my crates and made my journey back.

Sí
, I did say I’d leave in two days’ time, but the weather’s changing. The climate can turn treacherous in conquered Provensa, and when it does, I want to be far from here.

BOTILLE

t was morning by the time we left. Gui would have left immediately, but Symo lingered over every animal, every farm tool, each sack of seed, and each hanging ham. He and young Garcia drove the chickens, ducks, and a pair of geese to a neighbor’s. Then he pored over each pot and scrap in their little stone
maisoṇ
before deciding whether to pack or leave it. We filled Garcia’s cart full to bursting, and then filled the brothers’ own small barrow.

After supper both brothers disappeared for a while, saying their goodbyes about the
vila
. I imagined more than one local girl would shed a tear at watching Gui walk away.

We travelers slept under the stars once more. The night was clear, if cold. We were well bundled up together, Sazia and I, and the Garcias on the other side of our little fire. The sky was still fully dark as we rose and readied the mules for our journey.

There would be no riding in the cart now that it bulged with their belongings. The goats and the heifer trailed along behind, attached to the rear of Garcia’s cart, while the brothers’ mule pulled their smaller barrow.

Fabrissa the Fat arrived with her mother, armed with brooms, to take possession. This didn’t cheer Symo any, but Gui laughed and plastered a kiss on the bride-to-be’s round cheek.

We set out heading south along a trail that kept its side close to the river. I watched the Aude slither by us, its dark surface beribboned with rippling moonlight.

“How long do we follow the river?” I asked Gui.

“Only a league more,” he replied. “You say we’ll reach Bajas tomorrow?”

“By evening,” said Garcia senior.

La luna
hung beautifully bright over the horizon, in a sky still dark. Cold breezes blew over the river and ruffled the tall grasses along the bank, making them rustle and chatter. In their waving fronds I sensed small animals stirring. The pure song of a nightingale, a
rossinhol
, rang across the water, ending in a trill. It was an hour for sprites and fairies. What magic might lurk among the riverbank grasses? Anything was possible just before dawn.

Up ahead of me, alongside the mules, our traveling party walked in a knot, talking together and blowing upon their hands. I let my footsteps slow just enough for some privacy. A far cry this was from my lagoon by
la mar
, but still, the riverside was a feast, and I wanted no conversation to disturb my reverie.