The Passion of Dolssa (26 page)

“It will pass,” I said. “Garcia wouldn’t miss Saturday’s feast.”

She looked worried. “Ah. The feast. I told Focho to announce it yesterday, before I knew about Garcia.”

I wondered if Dolssa could help. But I mustn’t bring her out of hiding. “We will pray for them,” I said.

Na Pieret smiled a little. “Really? That’s kind of you.”

“You sound surprised,” I said. “Why is that?”

She leaned against me once more. “Some people pray for the sick,” she said, “while others bring them dinner.”

“And some, my dear Na Pieret,” I said, “do both.”

“If Botille has begun to pray, I’m sure the angels are smiling.” She winked. “I’ll make sure they have plenty of food and drink, Botille,” the good lady said. “I know you normally tend to these things, but I will look after Garcia’s family.”

I nodded. “You are wrong, Na Pieret,” I told her, “if you think those new sons of yours can ever replace you in Bajas.”

She turned a worried look my way. “What? Don’t you like them?”

I thought of the veins bulging in Symo’s neck this morning, and coughed to hide a laugh. “Well enough, well enough,” I said. “But no one could ever replace you. Not for Garcia, nor for your other servants.” I squeezed her tight. “Never for me.”

She returned the embrace. “There’s my girl.” She placed a hand over her heart. “Here, Botille, is where you’ll always be.” She smiled. “I need you to like the
tozẹts
. Who else will tell them what to do when I no longer can?”

That afternoon a groggy and awkward Martin stumbled next door to collect his little Ava, and he disappeared before we could ask him how Lisette and the baby fared.

Plazensa and Sazia spent the day doting on Dolssa as though she were
comtessa
of all Provensa. They bathed her nicely mending feet and rubbed them with olive oil and lavender. Dolssa seemed embarrassed at the attention, but also pleased.

The sun had just begun to set in glorious pink and violet behind Bajas when Plazi summoned us to follow her into Dolssa’s room. “I want you to try something on,” she told Dolssa. She helped her out of her nightshirt, then pulled a gown from her basket. “From Sapdalina.” She draped it long for us both to see. Together we helped Dolssa feed her arms into the sleeves and button it up.

The linen fabric was a rich woad-dyed blue. The bell-shaped sleeves fluttered gracefully past Dolssa’s hands, and the yellow sash we tied around her waist bunched up excess fabric.

Plazi frowned. “We must feed you more and fatten you up,” she said, “but I’ll still need to tell Sapdalina to take these seams in before she finishes the trim. You’re too thin by half.”

I patted Dolssa’s shoulder. “You look beautiful.”

Sazia chimed in. “Don’t let Plazensa make you feel bad.”

Dolssa smiled and ran her hands over the gown. “It’s fine, indeed,” she said, “though here in my little cell, I have no need for clothing this fine.”

Plazensa took a step back for a better look and sighed. “Ah, such a dress,” she said. “You could get married in a dress such as this.”

Dolssa’s eyebrows rose. “Is this . . . is that why you’ve had this dress made?”

“No!” said Plazensa, then quailed under Dolssa’s gaze. “Well, it was.”

Sazia and I gaped at each other. Was this our Plazensa, cowering at Dolssa?

“When you first arrived,” Plazi pleaded, “we thought marriage was your best safety. And Botille, she is good at finding husbands for young
femnas
.”

Not lately.
I kept my thoughts to myself.

“We thought you might be a fit for our Senhor Guilhem.” Plazi was actually squirming.

Senhor Guilhem!

Santa Sara,
Dieu
help me, but I had never sent word to Bajas’s lord that the fabled lady would not be coming to Bajas tonight! A thousand curses on my sorry head!

“But now,” Plazensa went on, “we vow not to speak of it again. Our home is humble, but you are welcome here forever.”

Sazia poked me with her elbow.
What’s the matter?
her eyes asked.

“After what you’ve done for us . . .” Plazi wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

Dolssa blushed at my sister’s gratitude. She squeezed Plazi’s hands. “
Grácia
.”

“Then you’ll stay?” asked Plazensa. I’d never seen her so eager, so nervous. I confess, I felt the same.

Dolssa smiled. “For as long as it pleases God.”

Plazensa let out a squeal and threw her arms around Dolssa. We all
joined in, encircling the girl who lived in Jhesus’s embrace, who, with her beloved, had saved our sister.

Down the corridor we heard the tavern door bang, and footsteps on the floor. “Suppertime,” I said, and my sisters and I hurried to the front room.

Sazia cornered me behind the bar. “What’s the matter, Botille?”

I buried my face in my hands. “I told Senhor Guilhem, days ago, that a noble lady with a broken heart would pass through Bajas tonight. That he could meet her in Na Pieret’s woods.” I wanted to tear out my hair. “And that you had prophesied her to be his one true love.”

Sazia shook her head. “You never know when to stop, do you?”

I hoisted a pan of turnips out of the coals. “You’re no comfort at all.”

“Do you think he’ll go to meet her?” asked Sazia.

A glimmer of hope at this thought. “You’re the seer. You tell me.” I burnt my finger and stuck it in my mouth. “He acted uninterested. Maybe he’ll forget about it.”

Sazia reached for my pan and spoon. “Go now,” she said. “Give him the message. Make something up, since you’re so good at that.”

I pulled off my apron and kissed Sazia’s cheek. She waved me away.

I was out of breath from running by the time I reached Senhor Guilhem’s home, straight up the hill near the church of Sant Martin. A servant boy answered. He told me Senhor Guilhem was not at home.

“Is he away from Bajas?” I begged.

“No.” The youth eyed me strangely. “He was here earlier today, and will sleep here tonight. He asked us to prepare a special supper for him and a guest.”

I was so dismayed at this that I ran off without thanking him. A great discourtesy.

I ran through the streets in the deepening twilight, uphill and down, searching for any sign of Senhor Guilhem, and found none, reproaching myself all the while. A pretty web I’d been weaving ever since Dolssa had come here. Now I’d lost count of its threads. The trap I’d spun to catch my runaway a noble husband had worked too well.

Full darkness fell. The moon rose, glimmering in the sky. I had failed to find him. Nothing for it but to head to the woods and intercept him there myself.

Nightingales called to one another overhead as I made my way toward Na Pieret’s woods. Twice today I’d traveled this way, but now darkness
swallowed the path. Creatures of the night with pale eyes filled the skies—owls and bats and spirits of the dead. I gave myself a good shake.

These woods were a small grove, only a bit larger than one of our small peasant’s plots. I passed through grassy vineyards, taking one neat row all the way up a slope to the thicket of trees. But I balked at penetrating the wood. I was too skittish. So I skirted around it and picked a large chalky rock to sit upon, just uphill from the vineyards and the trees. From here, I thought, moonlight would give me the best view of the road, the woods, and the path to it. I perched upon the rock, hugged my knees to my chest, and waited.

How angry would Senhor Guilhem be? Would he even come? Could some kindly saint in heaven have intervened on my behalf and made him forget my yarn about the virtuous noble maiden? Might his mysterious supper guest be someone else altogether?

I waited.

What a dunce I was to think I could make a match for a nobleman! What a price I’d pay for his anger. Foolish, foolish!

This would be the end of my matchmaking altogether. It would be a blow to the goodwill we held in Bajas. That worried me most. I made matches not solely for the money, though the
bon Dieu
knew we needed that, too. But all my weaving and winding of ties between the townsfolk and our family were meant to keep us safe. To allow us to fit, and not just fit but be welcome and needed. Even after four years here, with Plazensa’s exotic ale and cooking mingling on the tongues of these wine-drinking Provençals, we were still out-of-towners. A whore’s daughters, charges of a drunken vagrant whose brawling days weren’t gone from memory, with Sazia playing soothsayer, and Plazensa playing a bit of the whore herself. So long as we were liked and helpful, we got on, but if not, may the
bon Dieu
help us.

Bats swooped overhead. I hunched my head down into my body. Why wouldn’t Senhor Guilhem come, so I could catch him? Yet I prayed he would not come. I strained to see and hear.

And then I heard footsteps along the path. It was Senhor Guilhem, dressed in a surcoat, hose, cape, and tall feathered hat. He’d even taken my bait about dressing fine! Oh, if only I could slither off this rock, crawl into a hole, and disappear.

The time to approach him was now. But I couldn’t bear it. So I waited and watched.

Having reached the wood, Senhor Guilhem seemed unsure of what to do next. He stood uncertainly upon the path.

He ventured a pace or two into the trees, only to return just as quickly.

He leaned against a stout tree, then decided it wasn’t to his liking.

I swallowed. What to tell him? I lured him here with a lie. What lie could I now invent to salvage his pride?

“Donzȩlla,” he cried softly. “You can come out, Donzȩlla. There is no need to fear.”

Sazia would have died laughing at our nobleman made the fool. I’d die of mortification.

I decided to cut through the vineyard some distance away, then make myself appear to run along the road. I could tell him that I’d only just had word from the noble lady. That she was delayed by, oh, sickness, or discovery of her plans by her jealous parents. Something like that. The time was now. I rose from my perch, then halted.

Voices floated up from the woods. A woman’s voice, mingling with Senhor Guilhem’s.

What in the name of heaven?

My skin prickled. Had the tale I’d spun come true?

I crept down through the trees for a closer look.

“Don’t be afraid, noble lady,” I heard Senhor Guilhem say. “No harm will befall you. I swear upon my
onor
.”

“No harm?” answered a dusky voice. “Not even to one such as I?”

Senhor Guilhem bowed and swept his hat off his head.

“Never, so long as I live,” he said. “Come, dine with me in my home. I know your sufferings, and I long to assist you.”

The voice hesitated in replying. “But that God himself should have shown them to you,” she replied, “how could you begin to know my sufferings?”

“Come out to the path.” Guilhem grew more eager by the minute. “I will lead you from here to safety. You shall be under my protection.”

The woman’s dusky voice wove a spell around the night. “You sound like an honest man,” she said. “I’ll come.”

Footsteps crunched through the undergrowth. I ventured forward.

A dark figure left the wood and stepped onto the path.

Senhor Guilhem moved closer.

We both saw her. Senhor Guilhem stepped back.

She was rumpled and worn. Branches clung to her black clothes. She drew back her hood. Moonlight lit the streaks of white in her hair. Her bearing was tall and proud, but her eyes were sunken, and her cheeks hollow with age and hunger.

“A heretic,” whispered Senhor Guilhem.

“Blessings on you,” said the woman.

“No!” Senhor Guilhem’s cry was shrill. “Do not bless me! I do not ask you to bless me!”

What had I done?

The
bona femna
slipped her hood back over her hair. “But, gracious Senhor,” she said, her voice laden with hurt. “You promised me protection!”

“Not for you!” cried our nobleman. “Never for you. I thought you were someone else.”

“So I shall be then, if needs must,” pleaded the woman. “Only keep me safe from those who hunt me.”

He shook his head. He stepped back, and back again. He was almost in full retreat. “Leave here!” he cried. “No one saw me here. I shall tell no one I saw you. That is all the protection I can give you.”

The woman genuflected. Once, her holiness would have caused him to kneel before her.

“Then I accept such protection,” she called after him, “in God’s name.”

“In any name,” cried the retreating form, “but his!” He ran until I could hear his footsteps no longer.

The woman returned to the privacy of the trees. I blessed the dark for hiding me from her. She passed by close enough for me to hear the fugitive
bona femna
’s final malediction upon our young lord Guilhem.

“Coward.”

BOTILLE

crave your pardon, Senhor, most humbly,” I told the stone floor. “I myself only received word that the beautiful noble lady’s plans had changed last night.”