The Passion of Dolssa (7 page)

A young girl? A child? Ah, a
donzȩlla.
Many people pass by on the road, and we do not notice them all. When?

Oc
, Friar, there was a
donzȩlla
who came through. Very early in the morning. We found her in the straw with our goats. She was asleep, with her hands folded as if she prayed.

Of course you would be looking for her. She was a holy woman. Not a religious, no, not a nun. No! Not a
bona femna
. I have nothing to do with them. But one could see she was pious. My wife gave her food, and she prayed before she ate it. Our goat, she had gone missing, but she returned that morning and nuzzled up to her. It was a miracle. That goat has never liked people.

Two days ago. We urged her to stay, but she would not.

She went south and east from here, along the valley. Toward Castèlnòu d’Arri.

You will bring comfort to her, Friar. I know it. My wife, she prepares a pocket of
fogasa
bread and cheese for you. Perhaps when you reach
la donzȩlla
, you can share it with her.

BOTILLE

entered the Three Pigeons as the sun was setting. I found Sazia curled up in a corner, with a drowsing Mimi draped over her shoulder, and Plazensa leaning over the bar, talking to a customer. Jobau’s snores drifted down from the loft above the tavern.

“Botille.” Plazi smiled at me. “I saved you a dish of roasted onions.”

“Look at you,” Sazia said. “You’re filthy.”

Plazensa’s customer eyed me slantwise as I passed by in search of a bucket. His cap sat low over his thick-whiskered head. He hunched his large body over the bar as if to go unnoticed. He looked like a sailor, just in port. His gaze didn’t linger on me long, and I was accustomed to that. When a man met Plazensa, then learned she had younger sisters, his mouth would begin to water. Until he met us. Sazia and I were perfectly acceptable-looking people, I believed—or Sazia would have been if she’d wash her hair—but we were nothing next to Plazensa.

Peddling as I did in the marriage trade, I was often asked why I hadn’t found a husband for Plazensa. A rich merchant’s son, they would say, or a minor noble from Narbona would happily carry her away. But Plazensa wanted a husband about as much as Jobau wanted to toil in an honest trade—though there never was such a one to fuss over weddings as she. Plazensa preferred to run the tavern, boss Sazia and me to death, and amuse herself—and supplement our income—with a few customers on the side. She kept a room in the back. We didn’t ask questions.

I wondered if this great bushy behemoth at the bar would end up
buying entry to the back room. I hoped not, as that would leave me in charge of the ale, and I sorely needed a bath.

The door opened, and in came Felipa de Prato, a farmwife. Her face was brown as a hazelnut, and her eyes were old and tired, though she couldn’t have been thirty yet. She nodded absently toward Plazensa, then dropped herself into the low cushions before Sazia and held out her palm. In her other hand she carried a small basket of radishes and carrots.

Sazia pawed through the basket. She had a sweet tooth and preferred a bit of fruit, perhaps a cluster of grapes, but the de Pratos barely scraped by, so she got on with things, and began kneading the outstretched hand between her fingers. Felipa’s eyes rolled shut, and she sank in her seat. I’d seen that look before. When Sazia touched their hands, her clients’ worries floated away. Her hands were magic on their tired bones. I wondered whether Sazia’s palm-reading customers came to her for her prognostication, or for the massage.

Soothsaying was as natural for Sazia as matchmaking was for me. She listened to what she knew. I paid attention to what I saw and what I felt. Sazia woke up with visions of what would befall villagers; I woke up with wedding plans.

Sazia and I had inherited these gifts from our mother. I don’t remember her, but I know she had the old magic. She was a
devina
herself, I believed. A sorceress. Jobau said so. Sazia and I got her powers, and Plazensa got her beauty. The way Plazensa wore that beauty was a magic all its own. We were the Flasucra sisters. Add us together, and we made our mother.

I filled a bucket with water from our barrel and dunked a rag into it. It felt cold on my skin, but the late afternoon was so hot, I welcomed it. I stood in the corridor behind the bar, where I could listen and watch Sazia without Plazensa’s customer seeing me. I rolled up my skirt, dunked a foot in the bucket, and began to scrub.

“Don’t worry so much,” Sazia told Felipa de Prato. “The wheat will do well this year. So will the
legums
, but that husband of yours needs to get off his
aze
and water them.”

Felipa’s face relaxed, and she nodded in relief, but when Sazia mentioned her husband, she pursed her lips. Joan de Prato would get an earful tonight, I’d wager.

I dunked my other foot in the water. The smell of grapes filled my nose once more.

“Also, you are having a baby,” Sazia went on matter-of-factly. The poor farmwife’s eyes flew open. “It’s early still. You will need to eat melons, peas, leeks, and garlic. Milk and cheese, and fish when you can get it. They will be good for the baby.”

Felipa’s chest rose and fell rapidly. A single tear streamed down the side of her nose.

“No fear,” said Sazia. “This baby will be joyful and full of health. Your husband will love the child, and love you for bearing it, and stop sneaking over to— Never mind.”

“Who?”

“Never mind who.” She patted Felipa’s hand and rose from her seat. “Remember. Water the
legums
. Eat melons and leeks. Your husband will come around.”

Felipa rose to her feet, looking unconvinced. I scrubbed the last bit of wine off my shins and wrung out the cloth. The rest of the lingering purple would probably take days to fade.

“Don’t worry,” Plazensa called to her as Felipa headed for the door. “Sazia is never wrong.”

The door shut, Plazensa turned to Sazia. “Who’s Joan de Prato sneaking around with?”

Sazia waved the question away. “You bore me, sister.”

Apparently, Plazensa also bored the sailor at the bar, or else he bored her, because he rose at that moment and left. I unpinned my soiled skirt and replaced it with my usual one. Then I sat in the seat vacated by Felipa and began devouring the soft, creamy onions Plazi always made on baked-clam days, scooping them up with a crust of bread. Heaven. There is nothing in this world like a well-cooked onion.

“You’re mistaken, anyway,” Sazia said. “I have often been wrong. There was the time with the donkey, and the matter of the de Grava baby.”

Plazensa wiped the sailor’s mug with her apron. “It is not your fault if you tell a farmer to buy a donkey and it drops dead on the way home from market. It was probably the work of demons, and anyone knows the work of demons can’t be predicted.” She frowned at the mug, spit on it, and wiped it some more. “As for the baby, you said the de Grava wife would birth
un filh
. Probably the farmer wished so hard for a son, it confused you. So they had
una filha
, so what? She’s growing as big and strong as a son. You’re young,
s
rre
. Give yourself patience.”

“My turn, Sazia.” I scraped the plate with bread. “I haven’t had my fortune told in ages.”

Sazia pushed her thick hair out of her eyes and made a face. “That’s because nothing ever happens in our boring lives, pah.”

“Maybe,” I said, “your fortune can tell me how to find a husband for Sapdalina.”

Sazia stuck out her tongue at me. “I don’t tell you how to do your job. You don’t tell me how to do mine.”

“Poor Sapdalina.” I sighed. “I can’t find a man to take her for love or money. Flat, blotchy, dull, and weepy. And she never stops sniffling.”

“She’s not so dull,” Sazia said. “I read her fortune once. She had me laughing for ages.”

“That’s a sight I’d pay to see,” Plazensa said. “Cheer up, Botille. Some wife will die, leaving an old widower desperate. If you’re lucky, he’ll be half blind. Voilà, Sapdalina.”

Sazia snapped her fingers at me. “Give me your hand, or no fortune for you.”

I sat down, offered the hand, and then settled back into the soothing motions of her strong fingers rubbing and rolling my hands. Sazia didn’t read palms. She found the future embedded deep in the flesh and bones. Too bad she couldn’t find a fortune in my back.

“Ah,” she said. “Maybe you’re not so boring for once. You are to take a trip.”

Na Pieret di Fabri’s nephews! I smiled. Who couldn’t help being proud of such a sister? My little
s
rre
. I could remember when she was no bigger than one of Paul Crestian’s baby goats.

Mimi slid off her shoulder and slipped onto my lap. She clawed my legs and flopped down. Outside, gulls cried over the lagoon, which grew darker blue as the sun sank behind Bajas.

Now Sazia scowled at her own hand. “It appears I am to come with you.”

“Oh no, you don’t,” Plazensa howled. “You’re not going away and leaving me to run this dump all by myself! Leave me listening to Jobau’s rants alone?”

“Will I be successful in my errand?” I asked.

“Yes, yes.” Sazia’s face was troubled. “But you will meet someone . . .”

“Ooh,” Plazensa teased. “Finally the matchmaker meets her own match!”

Sazia set my hand down on her low table and began drumming her fingers. “That’s all.”

I knew when she was lying. “No, it isn’t,” I said. “What’s this about meeting someone?”

“Yes, Sazia, tell us,” said Plazensa. “Will he be rich or handsome? Too much luck it would be for Botille to find both.” She handed our sister a cup of ale.

“It’s nothing,” Sazia insisted.

“Wrong,” I said. “Tell me what you see.”

Sazia took a sip of ale, then looked straight at me. “You will meet someone,” she said. “You have to take the trip.” She rubbed her temples as though they ached.

“Tell more,” Plazensa demanded.

Sazia reached for my hand. Instead of rubbing it, she placed it against her cheek and cupped it there, enclosed by her own. Late summer sweat beaded on her skin. We waited.

The door to the tavern swung open, and a thirsty-looking farmer appeared, but Plazensa halted him with an imperious thrust of her arm. Her jangling bracelets told him to leave—now. He wasn’t a fool.

Sazia let my hand fall. She downed the rest of her ale. “I see only sorrow.”

Plazensa pursed her lips. “It is a
tozẹt
,” she declared. “It is always the young men who sow sorrow. Stay home, and none of this will befall you. If I must, I’ll lock you in the cellar.”

“Who said anything about a
tozẹt
?” Sazia was indignant. “You can’t go hiding from fate. It’s on its way to you, no matter what you do.”

“Sazia,” I said, “do you have any advice for me? Anything I can do to shield myself?”

Sazia sighed. “Bring a whip,” she said, “and some cheese, and wear Mamà’s crucifix.”

We never wore Mamà’s crucifix. We kept it safely tucked away. It was a gift to her from one of her lovers. One of the few things of hers we’d managed to keep.

Plazensa opened the cupboard and pulled out what was left of our lump of farmer cheese. She stuffed it all into her mouth and chewed defiantly.