Night Blooming (36 page)

I am also asking you to further the terms of your father’s Donation by agreeing to be my safe-haven if Roma becomes too hazardous a place for me. If you are willing to receive me at your Court as your Pope, I will rest far more comfortably than if I must face the world, knowing that at any hour I may become a fugitive.

I know of your desire to become Emperor, and I have heard the outcry from the Byzantines, who declare there can be only one Emperor-or Empress-of the Roman Empire. If you are willing to pledge me the support I seek, I will do my utmost to ensure that you are made Emperor in the West, which the Byzantines should accept, no matter how gracelessly. But to ensure such a position, you must be willing to extend all your might to protecting me, in Roma and away from her. You comprehend the stakes of this game we must all play, and for that reason alone, I beg you to consider all that you may achieve in granting what I ask. It is a pact that will exist privately between us, and I swear on the Blood of Christ that I will honor my obligation to you so long as you remain steadfast in your devotion to the Church and to me, as the Pope. Both of us have much to lose if you are unwilling to vouchsafe me the assurances I seek.

Give my messenger your answer and he will bring it to me as secretly as he came. No one will question a pilgrim, or seek to rob him. He is not part of my Roman Court, and therefore no one will know him for what he is, providing safety for you and for me. I am grateful to you for all you have done for the Church in the past and I am prepared to be more grateful still, in the fullness of time.

Amen

Leo III

Bishop of Roma

Chapter Fourteen

G
YNETHE
M
EHAUT STOOD OVER THE FLOWER BED
with a wedge-trowel in her hand. She had left Sorra Celinde in the cubiculum to which they had been assigned; the nun was about to visit Bishop Iso. This time in the garden seemed to be an escape, at least for a short while, from all the scrutiny and investigation that eddied like water around her; there was more to come, and she wanted to muster her self-possession before facing new interrogation. She bent down over the new buds, noticing the faint aroma. It was pleasant to pass the time before the end of Compline and the beginning of Nocturnes, at the conclusion of which she would have to go to the chapel for her night-time penitential prayers; the moon was almost full, no clouds to lessen the soft light that was kind to Gynethe Mehaut’s red eyes. Her hands felt stiff in their new bandages, but she continued to work the earth, loosening it and turning it, glad that winter had finally released its hold on the ground. She looked up as an owl drifted across the sky, something dangling from its beak; she watched it fly, thinking it was a failing in her that she did not hate owls as most did, but instead admired them; perhaps this was another sign of her damnation. With that to comfort her, she went back to her work, doing her best to concentrate on her simple task rather than any considerations related to the state of her soul.

Although his step could be nearly as silent as the owl’s wings, Rakoczy made a point of treading loudly, in order to announce his coming; he did not want to startle her, for that would hamper his purpose: he had been enjoined to question the Pale Woman, and he had complied promptly, for he was aware that Karl-lo-Magne was growing impatient with the Bishops who continued to quarrel over this young woman. Before she was moved from Attigny, the King wanted answers; all this fuss over a woman—however unusual—was unseemly. Alcuin had endorsed the suggestion that an outside opinion might provide an answer the Bishops could accept, which inclined the King to require a response from Rakoczy as quickly as possible. He saw her, pale as wax, kneeling beside a plot of night-blooming milk-flowers, her attention finally claimed by the noise of his approach. “Gynethe Mehaut,” he said, his voice low and the tone mellifluous. He stopped still, letting her take stock of him.

From her place by the night-blooming bed, she studied him, taking time to consider his face in the rime of moonlight. There was a dawning recognition in her ruby eyes. “I have seen you before, haven’t I?” she asked as he came up to her. “You are familiar to me.”

“We met on the road to Aachen, very briefly, a few years since; I am honored you remembered. It was such a minor meeting,” said Rakoczy, surprised.

“It wasn’t minor, not as I saw it,” said Gynethe Mehaut. “You were kind to me.”

Rakoczy felt a moment of pity that so brief an encounter should have meant so much to her. “You were bound for a monastery, as I recall.”

“With Priora Iditha,” said Gynethe Mehaut. “She has since returned to Santa Albegunda. I think of her often.” She put down her trowel and accepted his hand to assist her to her feet. “I have been told I must speak with you, and answer your questions. I will do so.”

This blunt acknowledgment of his purpose was slightly disconcerting, but Rakoczy quickly recovered his aplomb. “Do you ever have news from Santa Albegunda?” he asked, choosing a matter that would not probe too painfully.

“No. No one there has sent anything to me, not letters, or stories from couriers; or if they have, I haven’t received them. I have news of very little. But there isn’t much I want to know, so it may be just as well. Sorra Celinde occasionally tells me what is being whispered at Court or among the Bishops, but in general, I don’t converse with anyone; they leave me to myself. I am thought to be too dangerous, and so desire I remain ignorant, for my safety.” She sounded more saddened than angry, but there was a hardness to her mouth that hid an abiding anguish.

“I am sorry to learn this,” Rakoczy said with genuine feeling. “Come. Let us find a bench where we can talk.”

“We can talk anywhere, sitting or walking,” she said, her pale garments and white skin providing a stark contrast to his black clothing and dark hair. “If we sit, we may be more easily overheard. If we walk, anyone watching us will have to expose himself eventually.”

“Do you expect to be spied upon?” Rakoczy said, beginning to make his way along the narrow paths between the various beds of herbs and flowers.

“Anyone who lives in such a place as this should do,” she said, no emotion in her voice. “The mansionarii make themselves useful in many ways, some of them through reporting all they hear. The slaves are as bad, or worse.”

Rakoczy was aware of these problems, and he said, “I, too, have noticed the attention they give. No wonder you are so cautious.”

“I would say more sensible than cautious,” she corrected in the same detached tone.

“Do you think you are more closely watched than some?” Rakoczy inquired, knowing the answer.

“Certainly the monks and nuns look after me, as they must,” she answered, a suggestion of resentment beneath her calm manner.

“Does that trouble you?”

“I have tried to conduct myself so there would be nothing held against me,” said Gynethe Mehaut. “I say my prayers, I tend my garden, and I keep to myself as much as I can. You see, I am being candid with you; any one of a dozen nuns and monks can confirm these things. Sorra Celinde is perhaps the best informed on my doings; she watches me for Bishop Iso, and tells him everything.”

“Do you think she is watching you now?” He lowered his voice to ask.

“No, not now. Now you and I are as unobserved as we are ever likely to be.” She offered him a hint of a smile. “I am used to being questioned. It is the only time I am likely to speak with anyone but Sorra Celinde.”

“And where is she—Sorra Celinde—just now?” Rakoczy wondered.

“She is with the Bishop. She is his woman as well as his handmaiden.” She walked several steps in silence. “She will come for me when he has left her, but that won’t be too soon. We have some time to be undisturbed.”

“How long, do you think?” The time would not be exact, but would give him a frame of reference by which to gauge their conversation.

“Until near the end of Nocturnes,” she replied. “The Bishop has already attended to his evening devotions to God and now gives himself to the flesh.”

“And what will she do when she is finished with the Bishop? Isn’t it time for her to sleep? Surely she won’t attend on you until morning.” Rakoczy’s sympathy for the young woman was increasing; he knew the burden isolation imposed, and the suspicions that the unfamiliar generated in those unused to it. Willing as she appeared to be to speak with him, and no matter how direct her answers to his questions, there was a great reticence within her, an impregnability that he could not breach.

“She must escort me to the chapel tonight, so I may begin my prayers after Nocturnes,” said Gynethe Mehaut. “She goes with me almost everywhere.”

“But surely you can go to the chapel by yourself; Attigny may be large, but not so huge that you would be lost,” said Rakoczy, perplexed by the conditions imposed on her. “Why should you need an escort?”

“I suppose I could go alone, but then there would be those who would claim I had not performed my devotions, that I had shirked my duties to the Church; that would leave me open to punishment for apostasy. With her attentions, Sorra Celinde may bear true witness to my compliance,” she said, no note of complaint in her voice and only a tightening in her shoulders revealing her opinion. “I am housed and cared for, and in exchange, I must keep the Hours given to me, much as a peasant must plant the Potente’s crops and share his harvest to keep his children fed and housed.” They had reached a branch in the path, and after a glance at Rakoczy, she turned to the right.

“You keep your Hours at night,” he said.

“As I must.” Gyenthe Mehaut tipped her head back to study the night sky. “I am made for nighttime as much as those flowers are. My skin cannot endure the sun, and I must stay away from it as much as I can. You said the same to me that day on the road to Sant’ Audoenus. I heeded your words then, and I have benefited from them. Night is my day; I live in reverse to the nuns. While the sun is shining, I rest and sleep, which offends many of the truly industrious Sorrae and Fratri, for they see my restrictions as sloth, and rightfully condemn it. I, too, occasionally fear I am shirking my duties.” She extended her arms toward him, her flesh as pale as the linen strips wrapped around her hands. “You said, on the road, that I cannot abide the sun, and you were right I have accepted the burden this imposes on me. When the Sorrae tend the flocks and the gardens, I must remain indoors, and so I keep my Hours at night, as a penitent. This makes me more acceptable to most of the nuns, but not all.” Pulling her sleeves down, she resumed walking.

“Does it seem just to you that you should be required to do this—worship all night long?” Rakoczy stayed half-a-step behind her, for the way was narrow and a water-worn channel ran down the center of the track.

“It is what I must do, and I am willing to do it,” she answered, her posture very straight and the sound of her voice formal. “I pray as I am told, and I am spared the hard life of beggary or whoredom.”

There was nothing Rakoczy could say that would negate her assumption; he nodded once. “I suppose you are constrained, then, to do as the Church instructs perforce.”

“Oh, yes. I should die very quickly if I were to be left to the kindness of the laity. But I am not yet ready to enter the next world, so I do as I am commanded.” She paused and turned back to look at him. “You may not have heard this: I am told my mother wanted to expose me when I was born, and perhaps she was right. It may have been a better thing than how I have had to live. My father would not permit it, for I was their only child born alive, and he thought I would acquire color as I grew older. He insisted that I be swaddled and nursed. My mother knew better. She had had a white brother; he died when she was still a child, and he remained pale to the end. My father didn’t believe her. He said God would restore me.” Abruptly she stopped talking.

Rakoczy had listened closely, and when she said nothing more, he told her, “It must have caused your parents much discord, to have to find a place for you.”

“I know they wanted me to … to become as others; they gave me to the Church, thinking that this would hurry my healing. At least I didn’t bring them notoriety in the town any longer, so they hoped the worst had ended. Instead my hands began to bleed, and that frightened them, I think. My father didn’t want to look at me, and my mother wept.” She stared down at the ground.

Rakoczy laid his hand gently on her shoulder. “And what do they say now? Have they become reconciled to your condition, as you have?”

She shook her head. “It is all of a piece: I have heard nothing of my parents for more than four years now. I don’t even know if they are alive.”

“Would you like to find out?” Rakoczy inquired, seeing injury in her posture that she had been able to keep out of her words.

She shrugged, dislodging his hand. “If they live, I would be glad to know of it, and if they are dead I will pray for them. But I no longer fear for them as I did after they stopped coming to see me. Santa Albegunda was a three-day journey from their town, where my father is a tanner and a seller of leather, and when he travels—as he must—it is to procure skins or sell his wares, not to visit a nunnery. My mother must keep his house for him, and tend to selling and trading hides on market-day. Neither of them can be gone from his work for long, and he only has a donkey to carry hides for him, so they travel slowly. And I think they are relieved to have me out of their lives, for I had become a detriment to them.” Looking at him, a flicker of defiance in her red eyes, she said, “They have left me, and so the Church is my only kin now. As they intended. My stay at Santa Albegunda was the second time I was sent to a convent; I spent most of my young years at Sant’ Osmer. I was returned to my parents shortly after my hands started to bleed.”

“Did they—your parents—want to keep you with them?” Rakoczy could see that this question disturbed her, although she sounded tranquil when she answered.

“I don’t know. When I was returned to their care, the priest beat me regularly, and for a time that sufficed. But the bleeding continued, and he said Santa Albegunda had waters that would cure me, so I was sent there, in the hope that the Saint might work a miracle. I think my parents were relieved to be rid of me. The rest of the town was growing nervous, and some of the neighbors had already asked that my father take his family somewhere else. He could not do so, of course, the Potente wanting to keep a tanner in his fisc.” She stared toward the distant wall, seeing far beyond it. “I was tired of the beatings, and being spat upon in the street, so I consented to go to the convent at once. Perhaps I thought Santa Albegunda would cure me—I don’t know—but most of the nuns weren’t too much afraid, and that was a wonderful thing.” As she glanced back at him, she said, “You cannot know how hard a thing it is to be despised.”