The Passion of Dolssa (48 page)

Bajas had plenty of summer heat, but nothing like this. Grateful as I was for the safety of my hidden life, I was reminded so often of who I was—an alien in a strange land, far from the world that worked as I wished it would.

I thought often of Sazia in her cloister. If I’d had to spot her solely on the life she led, I never would have recognized her. Would those who knew me ever recognize me? I couldn’t recognize myself.

One scorching evening before the sun set, when the day’s work was done, I collapsed onto my cot. Too hot to eat, too thirsty to live, but too limp to trudge to the stream for a bucket for drinking and washing. What I’d give to dip my feet in
la mar
tonight. Scoop up a bucket of oysters and eat them cold. Instead I lay panting atop my covers, feeling the dusty red soil of Aragón cling to my weary skin. If the heat would’ve let me, I’d just go to sleep, but in the stale air of the cottage, sleep wouldn’t find me for hours.

The sun was nearly set. I loosened my dress.

A coin clinked in my fortune-teller’s bowl.

I moaned. What, now? At this hour, when I was so filthy and spent?

I rolled slowly upward and reached for my scarf, which I wound around my hair. I attached my earrings, made an attempt at dusting myself off, then opened the door.

A tall man entered in a cleric’s dark robe and hood.
Lucien de Saint-Honore.

No, it wasn’t. It was only my fevered imagination. Every clergyman was still Lucien to me. This man wasn’t quite tall enough. He walked with a limp.

I took a step back. In the fading light, I couldn’t make much of the hooded face. But I never read fortunes for churchmen.

“I’m sorry, good sir,” I told him, “but I am not giving fortunes at this hour.”

The man regarded me, though what he saw in the dim light, I couldn’t guess. Hopefully, not my dirty face.

“A pity,” he said. His voice rasped like a sick person’s, but he did not seem ill. “I have come a long way. Word spreads of your fortunes.”

A new fear gripped me. I did
not
want a reputation. Was it time to move on and begin anew? Had I stayed here in Mima’s hut outside Balbastro too long?

I peered more closely at the stranger. Again I thought back to the Dominican friar, but I knew it couldn’t be him. He frightened me, though. I needed to get him out of there.

“I don’t give fortunes to holy men,” I told my visitor. “I can’t afford to offend the heavens.”

“But you can afford to offend me?”

I handed him his coin back. “You’re not from Aragón.”

“Neither are you.”

“Provençal?”

“As are you, or so my ear tells me.”

“You know,” I said, “you sound terrible. Truly. Do you want a drink of water?”

He coughed. “I wouldn’t mind.”

I frowned. “Too bad my bucket’s empty.”

He shook his head, then pushed the coin back. “Please,” he said, as though the word were foreign to him. “A favor. From your native
countryman. I’ve come all this way with a question pressing heavily. They said you could lead me to the answer.”

He would not go away. I might as well keep his coin. It was the first I’d seen in more than a week. “Hold a moment.”

I stirred up the ashes in the fireplace enough to kindle a small blaze, just enough to light a candle. I set it on the table.

“Sit,” I said. “Hold out your hand.”

I took his palm and began to massage it. The Sazia I remembered had taught me well, even if Sister Clara would never touch a man’s hand again. A small sigh escaped his lips. It worked every time.

“You have traveled long,” I began.

“I already said that.”

“Who says you didn’t?” I snapped. “Be still, or the spirits will not speak to me.”

I rolled the fleshy thumb in its socket. “You’re troubled in mind.” I racked my brains for more to say. His dusty cloak and covered face gave me little to work with. Then I remembered his limp. “You’ve been wounded . . . in body and spirit.” I felt rather proud of that last little touch.

“As anyone could see,” said he.

I was tempted to bend his thumb back the wrong way. “You’ll not get your money back for your rudeness,” I said. “Be quiet and wait.”

The night air was stiflingly hot. I knew better than to let this arrogant creature in my door, then I’d gone ahead and let myself be persuaded.

“You should not give up hope,” I said at length. It seemed like a promising direction. “What you seek is nearer than you think.” Everyone, I found, was seeking something.

The stranger made a little snorting sound.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“
Non
, pardon.” He coughed. “Dust in my nose.”

I shifted my attention from his thumb to his fingers. I noticed how his cloak shadowed his features. “You are also, I think, hiding from something. Or someone.”

He didn’t object. A good sign.

“You have lost a loved one.” Everyone had. “They watch over you.”

“What is your name?” he asked me.

The interruption peeved me. I was just getting going. “What does that matter?”

He waited.

“My name’s Maria.”

“Do you live alone here, Maria?”

My gut turned to water. “Not so alone,” I said, “that others won’t hear me if I scream.” Clergy or no, he might be forming some plans for me tonight.

He held up both hands. “Peace.” The hands rested again on the table. “I must say, I’m disappointed,” he rasped. “You were praised to the skies. But you’ve told me nothing to answer my question.”

The end of my scarf came loose and clung to the back of my sticky neck.

“Why don’t you quit wasting my time and tell me what your question is?” I said. “Then perhaps I can help you.”

He thrust his hand at me. “Aren’t you supposed to guess it?”

“Aggravate me too much,” I told him, “and the spirits may anger and punish you.” I rubbed his hand. I may have also tugged on the hairs on the back.

“I wouldn’t want angry spirits after me.” He mocked me, the pig. How quickly could I get him gone? Even a sleepless, sweaty summer night was better than his irksome company.

“The question is, where have you been so long, Botille?”

I couldn’t find breath. The raspy voice was gone. The voice I knew had come back to me.

He took my hand in his.

With my free hand, I reached over and snatched off his hood from his head.

“Why didn’t you wait for me to come find you?”

Symo’s face in the candlelight. Here, in my home.

I can’t be certain of what happened next. The chair Symo sat in did not survive it.

I stood up, embarrassed, wiping tears off my face. He clambered to his feet and stood before me.

A terrible thought struck me. I remembered Sazia, and asked, “Are you a
monk
now?”

He grinned. “Are you mad?” He pulled off his robe to show peasant’s clothes underneath. I sagged with relief. It was him. That thick, strong build I remembered, though it was cut leaner by hunger.

“What happened to your leg?”

“One of the bishop’s soldiers.”

Mon Dieu
. My poor Symo. Lame and hurting for so long. “How did you ever manage to escape?”

For the first time I saw fear in his eyes. Then I understood.

“You wear the cloak,” I whispered, “to avoid being caught. You’re not just a heretic now.”

His eyes never left mine. I backed away. A little.

“They would have killed you, Botille, if they could,” Symo whispered. “And me. And your sisters.”

I closed my eyes. I remembered that night. I remembered the bishop. I remembered the flames.

What must the struggle have been like? What would I have done if I’d been there?

“If you want me to go, I will, Botille.” He stroked a lock of my hair that had escaped my scarf. “I’m just glad to know you’re all right.”

I opened my eyes to see him resigned. Backing away. Making no demands.

My vision blurred through my tears. He’d killed a soldier. They would have killed us. I needed to think of something else.

“How did you find me?”

He made a wry face. “I’ve never stopped walking or asking people questions. A nameless girl in hiding is no easy thing to find.”

Impossible boy. Back from the dead, breathing the stale air of my tiny home, with candlelight playing over his dusty face, after faithful years spent searching. For me.

“I thought I’d never find you. You were dead, or lost forever.” He looked away from me. “But then, these last months, I felt something was guiding my steps to you.”

Dolssa.

“I had to know if you lived, Botille.”

My eyes stung. Sobs welled up inside me. I could not allow it. Think of all he’d carried since that terrible night. Pain, and fear, and scarring memories. What he’d done, and what he’d seen.

I took his hand and held it. “I should never have left you that terrible night, my friend.”

Symo’s head hung down. His eyes went to his cloak, and to the door. “
Oc
. Your friend.” He blinked several times. “That is good.” He pulled the door open and turned toward the road.

“Where are you going?” I thrust forward my chair, the only one left. “Sit.”

He paused, then slowly sat.

“Show me your leg.”

He pulled up his clothing to show me his wounds. All around the knee and thigh. The soldier had been skilled with a dagger. It was a wonder Symo had survived. I traced my finger across the livid scars, and he winced.

He watched me closely, as if dreading my verdict. I wanted to kiss his wounds then, but feared I’d hurt him.

“It’s a wonder you’re alive,” I told him. “We’ll get to work mending you.” I poked and prodded and examined his ribs, and raked my fingers through his shaggy hair. I needed to know all the damage his hungry years of roaming had done to him, for my sake. “Feed you up, too. Put some meat on your frame. Give you a bath. Heaven knows you need one.”

Liar! Mine was not the examination of a healer. Like Thomas who doubted, I wanted to thrust my hand into his side and satisfy myself he was no ghost. I needed proof I wasn’t dreaming—that his living flesh had truly reappeared, in my home, tonight.

Symo’s eyes were bright in the candlelight, but his scowl was the same old scowl. “Will you
ever
stop bossing and pecking at me?”

“Pah!” I planted my fists on my hips. “Not till I’m pleased with the results. You’re a wild boar that needs taming.”

“And you,” he said, “are the most vexatious, obstinate, cussed female ever to draw breath.”

I began pulling off his shoes.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you know what you need, Symo?” I said.

“What?”

“A wife.”

He unwound the scarf from my hair. “You’re not still matchmaking, are you?”

“A little.” I perched on his lap, on his good leg. “We’ve got good, tough
femnas
here. Just the sort to please you.”

He pulled me close, nearly bursting my lungs, and stopped me from speaking further in a manner most impertinent.

I’d had enough of his talking, myself.

1267

BOTILLE

he priest married us as Pedro and Maria. We were married just the same.

We worked our little plot of ground, and Symo brought the dry soil to life. It pained me to see him limp back and forth with his yoke of buckets, but he did it daily, and his leg grew stronger. His help freed me to do other things to feed us—buy a little goat, and then another. Brew more ale, tend chickens. Sell the best onions in the county.

We had a son, whom we named Bertran. Just the one, though I prayed for more. Loving him made me rich in ways I’d too long been poor. Tending him brought my mamà back to my side to share with me each new discovery. Watching Symo love Bertran healed my open wounds.

We remained in Balbastro until Mima died. Seven years. Then both of us felt it was time to move on. We’d had no threats, no close calls, but if I’d learned one thing from Dolssa, it was to listen to those feelings. So we gathered our son, our animals, and our things, and packed for the trip. We went to Barçalona to inquire after Sazia, and show her nephew to her.