‘Everyone knows what you did. Your father too. His men swear he was near dead when they brought him here. What did you do? Is it some prayer you have? Do you see devils?’
‘I don’t do anything,’ she said again. She dared another glance at his diseased leg. It was so grotesque, she almost felt sorry for him. ‘Does it hurt you?’
‘Not yet,’ he said but she could tell that he feared it soon would.
She held out her hand, hesitated. Even when she was wearing woollen mittens she shrank from touching such a thing.
‘What, am I too filthy for you to touch? Do for me what you did for Bernart! Well? You touched a cripple and you won’t touch me?’
Fabricia encircled the extrusion of flesh with her palm. His skin was pale with coarse hairs, and the mass growing out of it reminded her of the jelly on pork fat after it had been boiled. ‘How long have you had this?’ she asked him.
‘I saw it first just before the Feast of the Epiphany. It was then a lump the size of a walnut, no more. But every day it grows more, right in front of my eyes.’ There was a tremor in his voice. ‘I have tried salves and a wise woman in Carcassonne gave me a poultice of herbs but it has done no good.’
She placed her hand on it, closed her eyes and said a prayer to the lady.
‘I can feel something,’ he said. ‘What do you have under those gloves? Show me.’ He grabbed her wrist.
‘Do you want me to heal you or not? Then let me go.’ Why did I say that to him? Have I started to believe these stories too?
He let go of her arm and then looked around the room, as if he was searching for something. ‘Do you smell that?’ he said. ‘It’s like lavender. Have you been chopping herbs?’
Fabricia had noticed it also, at the very moment she put her hand on the priest. She looked into the corner to see if the lady in blue was there.
‘What are you looking at?’ he said.
‘Nothing. You should go now.’
‘You thought you saw something!’ he said, as if he had caught her out in a lie.
‘No.’ He lowered his cassock. What was the expression on his face, was it fear, loathing or hope? Perhaps all three of them, mixed together. With one snake-like movement he snatched up the knife and buried the point of the blade into the wooden bench between her hands. ‘If this doesn’t work, I’ll be back. Don’t make a fool of me a second time. The Martys never forget an insult.’
‘Just don’t tell anyone about this,’ she said.
‘Just our little secret, òc?’ He picked up his cloak from the fire and pulled it on. ‘Pray that I get well. For your sake, if not for mine.’
XXII
THE BONS ÒMES made their way up the hill through the narrow lanes of Saint-Ybars. People came out of their houses to kneel down as they passed. Everyone knew days ago that they were coming. The bayle’s mother and old Gaston were dying and both had asked to be baptized with the consolamentum so that they would pass to the next world better prepared. The two priests would stay that night at the house of Pons the weaver, an honour he had keenly contested with three other villagers.
No heretic priest might go unnoticed anywhere, least of all Guilhèm Vital. He was tall and angular, and the way he strode along, it suggested a man marching fearlessly to his doom. He was clean-shaven and his long black hair hung about his shoulders. She imagined it might be how Jesus would have looked if he had Spanish blood in him. His companion – his socius – was a head shorter and hurried to keep up with his long loping strides.
They both wore long black hooded robes, the colour of mourning, to display their grief at finding themselves in the Devil’s world. They carried with them on a roll of cord about their necks, the Gospel of John, the only text sacred to them. They leaned on long staffs as they made their way up the hill.
They were priests, as Father Marty was a priest, but there she supposed the resemblance ended. The bons òmes never threatened any who did not believe in their teaching, and they did not charge a fee for naming children or burying the dead. Nor did they live by tax or by tithe, only by the goodwill of the crezens – even the Catholics – who held them to be good men.
The heretics believed in Jesus and the Gospel of John but not the cross; the mass, they said, was a sacrilege; the entire Roman Church was the work of Satan and the seat of all damnation. In their preaching they pointed out that there was nothing in the testaments that allowed bishops to live more sumptuously than princes and wear furs and jewels. They themselves lived as itinerant preachers, owned nothing and were paid nothing, refused even to carry a weapon in case they harmed someone by accident.
Their creed was this: all that was not spirit was doomed to destruction and merited no respect. Yet though they were hard with themselves, they were gentle with others; they allowed that not everyone could live lives of such harsh discipline, and so all that was necessary to save the soul was to believe in their preaching – to be a crezen – to offer them respect, and take the final right of baptism into the faith just before death.
Which was why so many villagers came out of their houses to prostrate themselves at their feet and ask their blessing as they passed. It was the first time heretics had come here since they had lived in Saint-Ybars and Fabricia had not realized how many crezens there were, just in her village alone.
She watched, curious about them, and it was only at the last that she realized they were headed for her own ostal. Elionor, standing beside her, did not seem at all surprised at this honour. Fabricia realized rather that her mother was expecting it and when she understood the reason her cheeks burned with humiliation.
Guilhèm Vital stopped at their door. Elionor sank to her knees. ‘Bless me, Father, and pray that I come to a good end.’
Guilhèm gave her his blessing and then looked at Fabricia, offering her the opportunity for the same. Fabricia pulled back her hood and lowered her head but did not ask for his benediction. Like Anselm, she still thought of herself as a good Catholic, no matter what anyone said.
Elionor led the two priests inside and sat them down by the fire. She brought them water and a little bread. They ate little else, Fabricia had been told, never meat or wine, and they did not fast just at Lent but all year round. You could tell that by the look of them.
It was strange to her to see someone break bread without first making the sign of the cross. Afterwards they knelt to pray the Our Father and when Elionor joined in, Fabricia fell to her knees also. No harm in that, she thought, even though Papa wouldn’t like to see her do it.
‘So, you are the famous Fabricia?’ Guilhèm said at last. He held out his hand for her to come closer. His bony wrists were covered in a mat of dark hair. She had heard a lot about him since they came to the mountains: his preaching, his prodigious energy, his skill as a healer. Physically, he was no more than a pale skeleton with piercing black eyes, though his demeanour was at odds with his appearance for he had the manner of a kindly uncle. ‘Show me these wounds.’
Fabricia looked at her mother. ‘You have told people about this?’
‘Why do I need to tell anyone? They all talk enough already.’
‘Is this why they have come here?’
‘What was I to do? You won’t talk to me about it. Paire Guilhèm is the best doctor in the mountains. Everyone knows it.’
‘Give me your hands,’ Guilhèm said. ‘Come on, I won’t hurt you.’
Fabricia peeled off her gloves. Guilhèm unwound the scraps of cloth that Fabricia had used to bind them, taking great care. As he peeled back the bandage she heard his socius take a sharp breath and look away.
Guilhèm frowned. ‘You must be in great pain.’
‘Sometimes.’
‘But these wounds, they have pierced the palms almost through. How long have they been like this?’
When Fabricia did not answer he turned to Elionor.
‘When the weather grew warmer and she would not take off her gloves I was suspicious. That’s when I first knew. I don’t know how long b
efore that.’
He brought her hand to his nose and breathed in. He seemed deeply puzzled. ‘But there is no rotting, no foul humours or excretions.’ He looked up at Fabricia. ‘How have you kept this wound so clean?’
Fabricia tried to draw her hand away from him but he gripped her tight. For such a thin man he was very strong. ‘I don’t. I just keep some cloth bound on them to stop the blood seeping.’
Guilhèm shook his head. ‘Your mother says you have an injury to both your feet as well. Show me.’
Fabricia sat on the bench and removed her boots. One of the cloths was bloodied. ‘This is impossible,’ the socius said.
Guilhèm seemed less perturbed. He placed one of her feet on to his lap and peered closely at it. ‘How do you walk?’
‘Sometimes it is difficult.’
‘Difficult? You should be crippled. How did you come by such injuries? Has someone abused you? Your father perhaps?’
‘Papa would never hurt me!’
‘Then who has done this?’
‘No one did it.’
‘Was it you?’
‘I don’t understand.’
Guilhèm looked at Elionor. ‘She has made these wounds herself.’
Fabricia twisted away and quickly rebound her feet. She felt her mother’s eyes burning into her.
‘This is what I believe also,’ Elionor said.
‘Believe what you want.’
‘There is no other explanation,’ Guilhèm said.
‘But why does she not have the rot and the fever?’
‘You are a healer?’ he said to Elionor, pointing to the herbs drying in bunches above the hearth and on the windows.
‘I make potions and restoratives when I am asked. I learned it from my mother and she learned from her mother before her.’
‘You have taught Fabricia?’
Elionor shook her head.
‘Then she must have watched you. She uses potions to clean the wounds. Yet I confess she must be very skilled, for they are deep. Her will is extraordinary for she must suffer a great deal every day.’
‘My husband says these are the wounds of Jesus on the cross,’ Elionor said.
Guilhèm looked sad at this suggestion. ‘The cross. This terrible torture that the Whore of Babylon seeks to glorify. Your daughter has taken their lies too much to heart.’ Fabricia blanched. She had never grown accustomed to hearing these gentle men refer to the Pope as a whore.
He turned back to her. ‘The cross is not something you should revere.’
‘You think I want this, that I would do this to myself? Do you think I want everyone staring at me like I am a devil? Our Lady wanted this, not me!’
‘What lady?’ Guilhèm asked her. Such a gentle voice, such compelling eyes, it would be easy to confess everything to him, have him tell her it was all a young girl’s fantasy. But she was almost nineteen years old now and she was not a girl any more.
Anyway, how could he possibly understand? For all their gentleness and piety the bons òmes were as convinced of their opinions as the priests.
She put on her boots and ran out of the house, down to the fields, to be alone.
XXIII
ELIONOR SHOVED THE door to get it open; the rain had made the wood swell. Fabricia heard her climb the ladder to the solier. Earlier, she had gone to Pons’s ostal to hear Guilhèm preach.
She heard her father’s voice: ‘How many were there?’
‘Half the village.’
The fire was down to just embers, and it was the only light. The darkness seemed somehow to magnify every sound. She heard mice scuttle in the corners, and then her father whispered: ‘I fear for your soul.’
‘They are good men, husband. You should listen to them.’
‘I have never doubted that they are good men.’
‘Good men and good priests. You could never say that about these other devils in cassocks. They don’t bleed us dry in tithes, they don’t keep prostitutes. In his own church Guilhèm is like a bishop and he doesn’t live in a palace like that dog in Toulouse.’
‘Because they live good lives does not mean I must agree with all they say.’
‘They live as they preach. How else would you judge a man’s religion other than by what he does? Have you seen how that Father Marty makes eyes at Fabricia? He bleeds everyone dry, him and his family. And you still want to call yourself a Catholic?’
There was a long silence, then: ‘Did you hear what happened in Toulouse? Someone murdered Peter of Castelnau.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘The Pope’s man, sent here from Rome. Someone stopped him on the road and butchered him.’
‘As if that would be a loss!’
‘Except that it is, for now the Pope blames Count Raymond for it. They say he will send a crusade against him, to punish him for harbouring men like Guilhèm. This is not a good time to pronounce yourself a heretic, mon coeur.’
‘A crusade against Christians!’
‘Guilhèm may call himself a Christian but that is not what they say in Rome.’
‘Those whores!’
‘Basta! I won’t have you talk like this in my own house!’
‘Who’s going to harm us here in the mountains? Perhaps in Toulouse or Carcassonne. No one worries about those things up here. If they killed every heretic in Foix there would be no one left.’
They fell silent. The wind whistled through the cracks in the door. Fabricia huddled deeper under the furs. She thought they had left off their arguing to sleep, but then a little while later it started again.
‘Why did you have them here today? I told you I did not want those men in my house.’
‘I wanted them to look at Fabricia’s hands. He’s a healer, isn’t he, the best in the whole of Foix.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He thinks she made the wounds herself.’
‘What? Why would she do such a thing?’
‘How else do you explain it?’
‘He thinks she would torture herself? Your holy man is mad.’
‘He made her uncover her hands and feet. I almost fainted. It’s getting worse. I swear one of the wounds goes right through the flesh of her hand.’
‘You don’t think she is possessed? Mengarda was possessed. She had the falling sickness, frothed at the mouth when the Devil was in her.’
‘There is all this talk about Bernart in the village. He says he saw great bolts of lightning shoot out of her hands when she touched him.’
Lightning? Fabricia thought. Had he really said that or had people made it up? All she did was help the old man to his feet. She pulled the furs over her head, opened her mouth and screamed silently into the dark. She didn’t want to hear any more.
‘. . . they say I would have died too if she had not laid her hands on me. Is it true? Did you see her do something to me?’
‘She prayed for you and held you, just like I did. That was all.’
‘You know, these wounds she has, they are the same as the wounds Our Lord bore on the cross.’
There was a long silence and Fabricia held her breath. Then her mother’s voice: ‘Guilhèm says that God cannot die and that Jesus was just a good man come to help us. He says the cross is the Devil’s sign because it is about the power of Rome, not the power of God and –’
‘I don’t want to hear any more of your blasphemy in this house!’
The wind sent the linen curtain flapping and a full moon swept from behind the clouds. Fabricia held her hands towards the light. She wore gloves now, even to bed. ‘Let this pass,’ she murmured. ‘If I truly have the power to heal wounds, let me heal my own. Oh Lady, Saint of Sinners, have some pity.’
‘What are we going to do?’ she heard her mother say.
‘I don’t know, mon coeur. When we were in Toulouse she said that she wanted to take orders. I was against it then, but perhaps it is the only answer. It is the only place she might be safe.’
You see? Fabricia thought. There only e
ver was one choice. I don’t know why I was chosen for this, but when God points his finger at you, you cannot slink away into a corner and hide. Perhaps he died on the cross, perhaps he didn’t; all I know is he sent the lady in blue to set me apart, and now all I can do is try and bear it.
XXIV
ALL THOSE WHO had gone to Pons’s house to listen to Guilhèm Vital preach now huddled into the little church outside the portal to attend the mass, alongside all of those who had not. On Sunday everyone was a Christian. Some of them, she heard her father say, fished from both banks; they bowed to the bons òmes and asked for their blessing but confessed to the priest as well in case there was a Judgement and Jesus really did drag their mouldy bones from the grave to answer for themselves.
It was raining for the third day in succession and freedmen and the poor were all crowded in, shivering in their thin woollen cloaks and wooden clogs. The stink of bodies and wet wool was overpowering. The fog of incense only made it worse, making a sweet church stink that made Fabricia’s head ache and her eyes smart.
Father Marty droned an incomprehensible babble of Latin. No one paid him much attention. Some barrowmen at the back had brought their dogs, and the miller’s wife was gossiping to her neighbour as if they were in the marketplace. The young men of the village wandered in and out, flirting with Pons’s daughters and making remarks among themselves.
Elionor made the sign of the cross as Father Marty held up the host. ‘Here’s my forehead, here’s my chin, here’s my ear, here’s the other one.’ Her neighbour snickered. Anselm glared at them both.
After they shared the body of Christ they sang a prayer of thanksgiving, and then filed out of the church, escaping into a bitter morning. The wind blew and water poured down the gullies in the lanes, turning them into sticky mud that dragged at your boots and sucked them off your feet if you did not take care. Outside the portal a dead crow lay drowned in the ditch. A bad omen.
They joined the rest of the village in the ragged procession back up the hill. They pulled their hoods over their faces to keep out the cold.
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