“Perhaps I shouldn’t be telling you this, for it will swell your head till it no longer fits the cowl,” gossipy old Hatto, the porter, had said to her just the day before, smiling cheerfully to let her know he was only jesting. “But yesterday I heard Father Abbot tell Prior Joseph that you had the keenest mind of all the brethren and would one day bring great distinction to this house.”
The words of the old fortune-teller from the St.-Denis fair echoed in Joan’s ears: “Greatness will be yours, beyond your imaginings.” Was this what she had meant? “Changeling,” the old woman had called her and said, “You are what you will not be; what you will become is other than you are.”
That much is certainly true, Joan thought ruefully, fingering the small hairless spot at the crown of her head, almost obscured by the thick ring of curly white-gold hair encircling it. Her hair—her mother’s hair—had been Joan’s only vanity. Nevertheless, she had welcomed being shaved. Her monk’s tonsure, along with the thin scar on her cheek left by the Norseman’s sword, enhanced her masculine disguise—a disguise upon which her life now depended.
When she had first come to Fulda, she faced each day full of apprehension, never knowing if some new and unanticipated aspect of the monastic routine would suddenly expose her identity. She worked hard to mimic a masculine carriage and demeanor but worried that she was giving herself away in dozens of unsuspected little ways, though no one seemed to take notice.
Fortunately, the Benedictine way of life was carefully designed to protect the modesty of every member of the community, from the abbot to the lowliest of the brothers. The physical body, sinful vessel, had to be concealed insofar as possible. The long, full robes of the Benedictine habit provided ample camouflage of her budding woman’s shape; as an added precaution, however, she bound her breasts tightly with strong linen strips. The Rule of St. Benedict explicitly stated that the brothers must sleep in their robes and reveal no more than hands and feet even on the hottest nights of Heuvimanoth. Baths were prohibited, except for the sick. Even the necessaria, the community latrines, preserved brotherly modesty through the provision of sturdy concealing partitions between all of the cold stone seats.
Upon first adopting her disguise on the road from Dorstadt to Fulda, Joan had learned to contain her monthly bleeding with a thick wadding of absorbent leaves, which she could later bury. In the abbey, even this precaution proved unnecessary. She simply dropped the soiled leaves down the deep, dark holes of the necessaria, where they mixed indistinguishably with other excreta.
Everyone at Fulda accepted her unquestioningly as a boy. Once a person’s gender was established, Joan came to realize, no one thought any more about it. This was fortunate, for discovery of her true identity would mean certain death.
It was that certainty that kept her, at first, from any attempt to contact Gerold. There was no one she could trust to bear a message, and no way for her to leave. As a novice she was closely watched at all hours of the day and night.
She had lain awake for hours on her narrow dormitory cot, tormented by doubt. Even if she could get word to Gerold, would he want her? When they had been together that last time at the river-bank, she had wanted him to make love to her—she blushed at the remembrance—but he had refused. Afterward, on the way home, he was distant and remote, almost as if angry. Then he had taken the first opportunity to go away.
“You shouldn’t have taken him so seriously,” Richild had said. “You are only the latest bead in Gerold’s long necklace of conquests.” Was Richild right? At the time it had seemed impossible to believe, but perhaps Richild had been telling the truth.
It would be absurd to risk everything, her very life, to contact a man who did not want her, who had perhaps never wanted her. And yet …
SHE had been at Fulda three months when she witnessed something that helped her decide what to do. She was passing through the grange court with a group of fellow novices on the way to their cloister when a lively commotion near the porter’s gate drew their attention. She watched as an escort of mounted men rode through, followed by a lady, sumptuously arrayed in cloth of golden silk, as straight and elegant in the saddle as a marble pillar. She was beautiful, her delicate, rounded features and pale skin framed by a waterfall of lustrous, light brown hair, but her dark, intelligent eyes held a look of mysterious sadness.
“Who is she?” Joan asked, intrigued.
“Judith, wife of Viscount Waifar,” replied Brother Rudolph, the master of novices. “A learned woman. They say she can read and write Latin like a man.”
“Deo, juva nos.” Brother Gailo crossed himself fearfully. “Is she a witch?”
“She has a great reputation for piety. She has even written a commentary on the life of Esther.”
“Abomination,” said Brother Thomas, one of the other novices. A homely young man with a melon face, cleft chin, and heavy-lidded eyes, Thomas was convinced of his own superior virtue and seized every opportunity to display it. “A gross violation of nature. What can a woman, a creature of base passions, know of such things? God will surely punish her for her arrogance.”
“He already has,” Brother Rudolph replied, “for though the viscount needs an heir, his lady is barren. Just last month, she was delivered of another stillborn babe.”
The noble procession pulled up before the abbatial church. Joan watched Judith dismount and approach the church door with solemn dignity, carrying a single taper.
“You should not stare, Brother John,” Thomas remonstrated piously. He frequently curried favor with Brother Rudolph at the expense of his fellow novices. “A good monk should keep his eyes chastely lowered before a woman,” he quoted sanctimoniously from the rule.
“You are right, Brother,” Joan replied. “But I’ve never seen a lady like that, with one eye blue and the other brown.”
“Do not compound your sin with falsehood, Brother John. Both the lady’s eyes are brown.”
“And how do you know that, Brother,” Joan inquired slyly, “if you did not look at her?”
The other novices burst into laughter. Even Brother Rudolph could not suppress a smile.
Thomas glared at Joan. She had made him look a fool, and he was not one to forget such an injury.
Their attention was distracted by Brother Hildwin, the sacristan, who hurried to interpose himself between Judith and the church.
“Peace be with you, lady,” he said, using the Frankish vernacular.
“Et cum spiritu tuo,” she replied smoothly in perfect Latin.
Pointedly, Brother Hildwin addressed her again in the vernacular. “If you require food and lodging, we stand ready to accommodate you and your entourage. Come, I will escort you to the house for distinguished visitors and inform our lord Abbot of your arrival. He will doubtless wish to greet you in person.”
“You are most kind, Father, but I do not require hospitalitas,” she replied again in Latin. “I only wish to light a candle in the church for my dead babe. Then I will be on my way.”
“Ah! Then it is my duty, as sacristan of this church, to inform you, Daughter, that you may not pass through these doors while you are still”—he sought a suitable word—“unclean.”
Judith flushed but did not lose her composure. “I know the law, Father,” she said calmly. “I have waited the requisite thirty-three days since the birthing.”
“The babe of which you were delivered was a girl child, was it not?” Brother Hildwin said with an air of condescension.
“Yes.”
“Then the time of … uncleanliness … is longer. You may not enter the sacred confines of this church for sixty-six days after the birth of the child.”
“Where is this written? I have not read this law.”
“Nor is it fitting that you should, being a woman.”
Joan started indignantly at the brazenness of the affront. With the force of remembered experience, she felt the shame of Judith’s humiliation. All the lady’s learning, her intelligence, her breeding stood for n
aught. The vilest beggar, ignorant and mud streaked, could enter the church to pray, but Judith could not, for she was “unclean.”
“Return home, Daughter,” Brother Hildwin continued, “and pray in your own chapel for the soul of your unbaptized babe. God has a horror of what is against nature. Lay down the pen and pick up a womanly needle; repent of pridefulness, and He may lift the burden He has placed upon you.”
The flush in Judith’s cheeks spread its color across her face. “This insult shall not go unanswered. My husband shall know of it directly, and he will not be pleased.” This was a piece of face-saving bravado, for Viscount Waifar’s temporal authority carried no weight here, and she knew it. Holding her head high, she turned toward her waiting mount.
Joan came forward from the little group of novices.
“Give me the candle, lady,” she said, holding out her hand. “I will light it for you.”
Surprise and distrust registered in Judith’s beautiful dark eyes. Was this a further attempt to humiliate her?
For a long moment the two women stood looking at each other, Judith the epitome of feminine beauty in her golden tunic, her long hair framing her face in a becoming cloud, Joan, the taller of the two, boyish and unadorned in her plain monk’s garb.
Something in the compelling gray-green eyes that met hers with such intensity persuaded Judith. Wordlessly she placed the slim taper into Joan’s outstretched hand. Then she remounted and rode through the gate.
Joan lighted the candle before the altar as she had promised. The sacristan was furious. “Intolerable cheek!” he declared. And that night, to Brother Thomas’s evident delight, Joan was required to fast in penance for her crime.
AFTER this episode, Joan made a determined effort to put Gerold from her mind. She could never be happy living a woman’s restricted existence. Besides, she reasoned, her relationship with Gerold was not what she had believed it to be. She had been a child, inexperienced and naive; her love had been a romantic delusion born of loneliness and need. Gerold had certainly not loved her, or he would never have left.
Aegra amans, she thought. Truly Virgil was right: love was a form of sickness. It altered people, made them behave in strange and irrational ways. She was glad she was done with it.
Never give yourself to a man. Her mother’s words of warning came back to her. She had forgotten them in the fervor of her childish infatuation. Now she realized how lucky she had been to have escaped her mother’s fate.
Over and over again Joan told herself these things, until at last she came to believe them.
15
THE brothers gathered in the chapter house, seated in order of seniority on the gradines, tiers of stone seats lining the walls of the house. The chapter meeting was the most important assembly of the day outside of the religious offices, for it was here that the temporal business of the community was conducted and matters regarding management, monies, appointments, and disputes were discussed. This was also where brothers who had committed transgressions of the rule were expected to confess their faults and be assigned their penances, or risk accusation by others.
Joan always came to chapter with a certain trepidation. Had she inadvertently given herself away with some incautious word or gesture? If her true identity were ever to be revealed, this was where she would learn of it.
The meeting always began with the reading of a chapter from the Rule of St. Benedict, the book of monastic regulations which guided the everyday spiritual and administrative life of the community. The rule was read straight through from beginning to end, a chapter a day, so that over the course of a year the brethren heard it in its entirety.
After the reading and benediction, Abbot Raban asked, “Brethren, have you any faults to confess?”
Before he finished uttering the words, Brother Thedo leapt to his feet. “Father, I do confess a fault.”
“What is it, Brother?” Abbot Raban said with weary patience. Brother Thedo was always the first to accuse himself of wrongdoing.
“I have faltered in the performance of the opus manuum. Copying a life of St. Amandus, I fell asleep in the scriptorium.”
“Again?” Abbot Raban lifted an eyebrow.
Thedo bowed his head meekly. “Father, I am sinful and unworthy. Please exact the harshest of penances upon me.”
Abbot Raban sighed. “Very well. For two days you will stand a penitent before the church.”
The brothers smiled wryly. Brother Thedo was so frequently to be found doing penance outside the church that he seemed part of the decoration, a living, breathing pillar of remorse.
Thedo was disappointed. “You are too charitable, Father. For so grievous a fault, I ask to be allowed to do penance for a week.”
“God does not welcome pridefulness, Thedo, even in suffering. Remember that, while you are asking His forgiveness for your other faults.”
The reprimand struck home. Thedo flushed and sat down.
“Are there any other faults to confess?” Raban asked.
Brother Hunric stood. “Twice I came late to night office.”
Abbot Raban nodded; Hunric’s tardiness had been noted, but because he admitted his fault freely and did not try to hide it, his penance would be light.
“From now until St.-Denis’s day, you will keep night watch.”
Brother Hunric bowed his head. The Feast of St.-Denis was two days away; for the next two nights, he must stay awake and watch the progress of the moon and the stars across the sky so he could determine as closely as possible the arrival of the eighth hour of the night, or two A.M., and then awaken the sleeping brothers for the celebration of vigils. Such watches were essential to the strict observance of the night office, for the sundial was the only other way of measuring the passage of time, and of course it was of no use in darkness.
“During your watch,” Raban continued, “you will kneel in unceasing prayer on a pile of nettles, that you may be sharply reminded of your indolence and prevented from compounding your fault with sinful sleepfulness.”
“Yes, Father Abbot.” Brother Hunric accepted the penance without rancor. For so grave an offense, the punishment could have been far worse.
Several brothers stood in their turn and confessed to such minor faults as breaking dishes in refectory, errors in scribing, mistakes in the oratory, receiving their corresponding penances with humble acceptance. When they were finished, Abbot Raban paused to make certain no one else wished to confess. Then he said, “Have any other infractions of the rule been committed? Let those who will speak, for the good of their brothers’ souls.”
This was the part of the meeting Joan dreaded. Scanning the rows of brethren, her gaze fell on Brother Thomas. His heavy-lidded eyes were regarding her with unmistakable hostility. She shifted uneasily in her seat. Does he mean to accuse me of something?
But Thomas made no move to rise. From the row of seats just behind him, Brother Odilo stood.
“On Friday fastday, I saw Brother Hugh take an apple from the orchard and eat it.”
Brother Hugh leapt nervously to his feet. “Father, it is true I picked the apple, for it was hard work pulling up the weeds, and I felt a great weakness in my limbs. But, Holy Father, I did not eat the apple; I merely took a small bite, to strengthen me so I could go on with the opus manuum.”
“Weakness of the flesh is no excuse for violation of the rule,” Abbot Raban responded sternly. “It is a test, sent by God to try the spirit of the faithful. Like Eve, the mother of sin, you have failed that test, Brother—a serious fault, especially as you did not seek to confess it yourself. In penance, you will fast for a week and forgo all pittances until Epiphany.”
A week of starvation, and no pittances—the extra little treats that supplemented the spartan monastic diet of greens, pulse, and occasionally fish—until well after Christ Mass! This last part would be especially hard to bear, for it was during this holy season that gifts of food poured into the abbey from all over the countryside, as Christians looked guiltily to the w
elfare of their immortal souls. Honey cakes, pasties, sweet roast chickens, and other rare and wonderful indulgences would briefly grace the abbey tables. Brother Hugh looked evilly at Brother Odilo.
“Furthermore,” Abbot Raban continued, “in grateful return to Brother Odilo for his attention to your spiritual well-being, you will prostrate yourself before him tonight and wash his feet with humility and thankfulness.”
Brother Hugh bowed his head. He would perforce do as Abbot Raban had charged, but Joan doubted he would feel grateful. Penitent acts were easier to enjoin than penitent hearts.
“Are there any other faults that need to be disclosed?” Abbot Raban asked. When no one responded, he said gravely, “It grieves me to report that there is one among us who is guilty of the wickedest of sins, a crime detestable in the sight of God and Heaven—”
Joan’s heart gave a leap of alarm.
“—the breaking of his holy vow made to God.”
Brother Gottschalk jumped to his feet. “It was my father’s vow, not mine!” he said chokingly.
Gottschalk was a young man, some three or four years older than Joan, with curly black hair and eyes set so deep in their sockets they looked like two dark bruises. Like Joan, he was an oblate, offered to the monastery by his father, a Saxon noble. Now that he was grown a man, he wanted to leave.
“It is lawful for a Christian man to dedicate his son to God,” Abbot Raban said sternly. “Such offering cannot be withdrawn without great sin.”
“Is it not an equal sin for a man to be bound against his nature and his will?”
“If a man will not turn, He will whet His sword,” Abbot Raban said portentously. “He hath bent His bow and made it ready. He hath prepared for him the instruments of death.”
Pope Joan Page 22