by Julie Berry
“Who’s there?” I called out softly. Nothing.
I ventured about as much as I could, though the thick stalks prevented my going far. Closer to the water the ground grew soggy, and my feet sank deep into the muck. Any farther, and I might sink all the way, and would my party, still marching on, even hear me now if I screamed? I had been foolish to come. It was time to go back.
I stood breathing the damp sweet river air, and told myself to return. My feet would not obey me. I wrenched one out of the muck, and then the other, then turned for one last look back.
There.
A breath.
Nothing more than a breath, with the tiniest note of a cry.
I followed the sound, faint as it was over the gurgling riverbank, and pushed through more grasses. Some reached over my head. I could see nothing, but the voice was close.
My toes stubbed against it. It was no fairy, no animal. There in a mound of flattened grasses lay a body.
La luna shifted behind the clouds, lending me just enough light to see.
It was a woman lying facedown in the dirt. A young woman, I thought, from her thin build. Too thin. I’d swear she hadn’t eaten in weeks. Her clothes sagged off her frame, and her arms lay wrapped over her head as if to hide it, or to cushion it from a blow.
I bent and nearly toppled onto her, losing my footing in the muck. I touched her back, and felt her ribs rise. She was alive but cold, frail and hollow as a wounded sparrow.
“Donzȩlla?” I cried. “Can you hear me?”
I moved her arms to more easily roll her onto her back, which gave me my first glimpse of her face. She cried out, and her eyes flew open. Eyes full of fear.
They were wide, deep eyes. Her cheekbones protruded from her hollow, starved face. As soon as her eyes flickered open, they closed again. She wanted to see me, it seemed, but hadn’t the strength.
“Please,” she gasped. “Leave me be. Tell no one you saw me.”
I slid my arm beneath her back and hoisted her upright. Her head lolled backward.
She had the strength and heft of a straw man. Her wrist, when I grabbed it, felt as weak as if she’d already bled to death. She was dying in my arms.
My companions would have gone far. I should run after them, but I feared if I took my eyes off this creature for even a moment, her soul would flee her body. I should cry out to Sazia, but it might terrify this poor bird. But there was no other option. I opened my mouth to scream, then stopped, as if a ghost had closed its hand around my throat. Do not make a sound.
I stared at the girl.
Footsteps above me on the slope caught my ear, and I looked up. I cradled the girl close to me, as if I could hide her, then saw to my relief that it was only Symo, standing in the moonlight, staring down at me. He looked about ready to skewer me. When I wouldn’t rise, he skidded down the slope toward me.
He stopped abruptly and turned back. He’d heard something.
Some twenty feet away, a tall man cloaked in black stood on the bank. A thrill of fear went through me. He stepped forward into better light and pulled back his hood, and I saw he was one of the black-robed Friars-Preachers. An inquisitor, one of the Dominicans. His crucifix gleamed in the moonlight. That’s all right, then, I thought. Some people feared them, but any man of the cloth would offer help, or at least perform last rites for this poor girl.
“You, young man,” the friar called to Symo. His voice was preternaturally deep, like the roar of ocean waves on the beach. “What are you going down there for?”
At the sound of the cleric’s voice, my frail charge roused herself enough to open her eyes and fix them upon me. She could barely shake her head. Only her dying eyes could tell me what she needed to say.
Surely, the inquisitor could help.
Her lips trembled. She pleaded silently for me to look at her. What was I to see?
Symo did not answer the friar. He turned toward me, and I gazed back. He saw what I held in my arms. I shook my head, then lowered the creature down into the grasses.
“What are you doing?” repeated the friar. “What do you see, my son, that arrests your attention?” Again his voice struck me. He spoke Oc, but his accent was northern. French. It was a delicious voice, one that would melt the most hardened sinner.
Symo made a small bow in the direction of the hilltop and the holy man. “I am keeping watch over my sister,” he said. “She is a half-wit, and she wanted a closer look at the moonlight on the water.”
Sister. Half-wit! I rose unsteadily from my crouch and ascended the slope, where I bowed to the man of God. I was still at war with myself—why shouldn’t I ask him for help? But the ghost hand had a muzzle grip on my mouth now. I mustn’t betray the poor dying girl’s secret.
“What were you doing, my child?” asked the friar, in a much gentler voice. His specially-for-half-wits voice, I reckoned. I’d give Symo a good kick later on. “What were you looking at down in the grasses?”
I twined my fingers together behind my back and twisted from side to side like a nervous little toza. If Symo would burn in hell for lying to a man of God, then I would join him in the flames. “A dying bird,” I said slowly, softly, to play my infantile part. “Sad bird!”
The friar smiled. His tonsured head might mar his earthly beauty, as it was meant to do, but when his stern face relaxed, the inquisitor was a handsome man, younger than he sounded.
“Bless you, child, and may angels guard you,” was the friar’s answer. He beckoned me closer, and I approached, all innocence and trust, while Symo glowered at us both. The Dominican, who proved a good deal taller than I had realized, noticed the crucifix around my neck. He took the silver chain between his finger and thumb. “It makes me glad to see you wear this, as a Christian ought. Remember to pray every day, won’t you?”
The friar draped an arm over my shoulder. Sweet incense perfumed his heavy cloak.
“What is your name, my good girl?”
“Botille.” No other name came quickly to mind.
“Tell me, Botille, will you help me?” he said. “I am looking for a donzȩlla who is lost. Did you see any footprints down by the river? Or any articles that might belong to a lost soul?” He gestured over the expanse of the great Aude and its dancing-grass basin.
The view to the west, as we faced it, was still fully dark, but behind us, a dim morning glow peeked into the eastern sky. Before long, darkness would no longer hide the girl.
I shook my head solemnly. “No footprints,” I said. “Only the birdie’s. Like this.” I held up a thumb and two fingers, pretending to mark the shape of a bird’s feet into imaginary soil. I caught a glimpse of Symo watching. I found some amusement in having baffled him completely.
The friar laughed. “Heaven bless you. You have a woman’s form but a child’s heart. Our Lord would have us all be so pure.” He beckoned to Symo, who obeyed, trudging forward as nimbly as mud, all the while watching the friar balefully from heavy-lidded eyes.
The friar placed a hand on Symo’s shoulder. “Now, you two. I can use your help. You are traveling, oc? If you come across this lost young lady—you will spot her as a runaway, and likely quite weak—you must send word. She needs God’s help. I am sent to lead her back to God. Ask any priest or cleric to send word to Friar Lucien de Saint-Honore of the Dominican convent in Tolosa. That is my name. Will you remember that? Repeat it to me.”
“Friar Lucien de Saint-Honore,” we both chanted. Symo looked like he’d rather still be slimed in chicken mẹrda than recite this strange catechism.
“That is right.” The friar gazed into our eyes. “I know I can count on your help.”
My conscience smote me. What had I done? Lied to a holy man, and one trying to help the girl? What if illness had addled her judgment and made her fear this man without cause? Who was I to hide her from a rescuer sent by God? Before long, hiding would no longer matter to her. She would leave this life for a place where no traveling friar could ever find her.
“Friar Luci
en,” I blurted out. Symo’s eyebrow twitched a warning, and I remembered the role I must play. I tugged plaintively on the friar’s sleeve. “Why is she a lost soul?”
“Ah.” The friar nodded. “How to put it—she has strayed far. Far from home, and far from the truth.” He looked to Symo for understanding. “The traveler I seek has not heeded the counsel of those who would lead her in virtue’s paths.”
Symo’s left eyebrow rose. A remarkable trick. He seemed wholly unimpressed with Friar Lucien de Saint-Honore’s answer.
Friar Lucien de Saint-Honore patted me on the head. “God shall correct the wanderer, though the ordeal will not be an easy one.” He smiled sadly. “As Christ’s preacher, my mission is to protect the lambs from the wolves of falsehood that enter in to destroy.”
“You’re up and about it awfully early in the morning,” observed Symo.
The friar chuckled. “So are the wolves, my son,” he said. “A good shepherd must always keep watch.”
Symo, it seemed, didn’t relish being called “my son” by a man who was only a few years older than he.
Young or no, pompous or no, Brother Lucien must be wise, it seemed, reciting scripture as he did without needing to consult a book. He could help the girl. His concern seemed earnest enough, though I couldn’t imagine how a bird’s skeleton like my poor creature from the grasses could harm the puff on a dandelion, much less a soul.
Morning larks called to one another from the shallows at the river’s edge, and the sky began to silver behind the friar like a halo.
I opened my mouth to tell him.
Then I closed it so hard, I bit my tongue. My eyes, against my will, flooded with tears, and my mouth with blood and spit. In spite of myself, I made a little squeak of pain, and wiped my lips on my sleeve.
“What is wrong with the girl?” The inquisitor took a step back and looked at Symo in alarm. “Does she often dribble and foam at the mouth like this?”
Symo steered me roughly toward the cart. “Only when she talks to people who frighten her,” he said. “Come on, Botille.” He dragged me forward. “The others are waiting for you.”
“God speed you on your way,” the friar called after us. “And remember, if you see anything, I’m Friar Lucien de Saint-Honore.”
My “brother” shoved me along more forcefully than he had any cause to. “Let go of me, Symo,” I hissed once we were out of earshot. “I’ve got to go back and check on the girl.”
“Act docile, you lackwit,” he hissed back in reply. “The friar’s still watching.”
I let him older-brother me along, all the way back to the others, but I wasn’t done talking. “That girl is dying. She may be dead already. You had best hope you don’t die anytime soon, or you’ll burn in hell for eternity, lying through your teeth like that to a holy man. Sister, indeed!”
“You were no different.”
“I had no choice. You made me do it. ‘My half-wit sister.’ I’ll fillet you like a mackerel.”
“I look forward to watching you try.”
Sazia, by now, was running to me. She crossed the distance between us and the cart in seconds and took me by the hand. Symo finally relaxed his tyrant grip on my shoulders.
“Botille, where were you?” She smoothed my hair off my forehead. “Who was that you met? What did he say? Are you ill? Why was this one”—she wrinkled her nose at Symo—“helping you along like that? Are you feeling faint?”
“In heaven’s name, I’m fine,” I said.
Sazia struck her palm against her forehead. “I never should have let you out of my sight. I knew something would happen . . .”
Symo watched us both as though he’d just discovered we each carried a horrid wasting disease. “It’s true, then,” he whispered. “You are the halfwit sister, and the younger one came along to keep you in her sights.”
“Go eat your elbow,” I snapped. Sensible Sazia’s grip on my hand had cleared my head somehow. “Little srre,” I cried, “tell me, for I don’t dare turn back. Is that man still watching us? The friar we were speaking to?”
Sazia clearly would have liked to ask more questions, but she looked over my shoulder. “He’s well down the road,” she said. “He grows smaller with each step. Who was he? Already, I don’t like him. Look what he’s done to you. Your heart is racing.”
I ignored her questions and dragged her back the way we’d come, ignoring Garcia’s shout from the cart. “You come too,” I called to Symo over my shoulder. “We need your help.”
I slid down the trail my footsteps had matted in the tall grasses, back to where the poor girl lay. Her eyes were closed. She was still.
In an instant I was six, finding my mother.
No.
I threw myself down on the mud and grass beside her. I rubbed her cheeks. I stretched myself over her body, not to crush but to warm her.
“Open your eyes,” I cried. “Talk to me. Help is here, galineta, sweetheart, wake up!”
She was cold. But not completely. Her body shuddered, and she coughed.
I heard Symo ask my sister, from a dozen leagues away, “Does she know the girl?”
Sazia knelt beside me, and together we rubbed the creature’s arms and trunk and face. There was almost nothing there.
“Don’t stand there, you great ox,” I told Symo. “Go get some wine and a blanket. If your goats have any milk in them, get us some. We’ll need you to carry her too.”
Symo started up the slope, for once without any protest.
“Don’t tell the others,” I called to him. He halted, turned, then shrugged and carried on.
“How’s he supposed to not tell?” Sazia wrapped her coat around the girl. “They’re waiting and wondering what’s become of you. Garcia the elder is hopping to be on our way.”
“I don’t know. Give her to me.” Forget Symo carrying her. I eased her into my lap myself and rocked her back and forth. The poor girl tucked her head under my chin. I could feel her shallow breath down my neck. At least she was breathing. I breathed along with her. In, out, in, out. This is the way we stay alive.
Symo returned quickly with a shallow bowl of foamy milk and a blanket. He knelt and held the bowl to the girl’s face and tipped some in. Dribbles ran down my skin under my frock. The girl snorted and spluttered, then began suckling the lip of the bowl like a baby at the breast. My own full-size baby.
“What did you tell them?” Sazia asked Symo. She tucked the blanket around us both.
“That Botille had taken a fancy to having a little nap here by the river.”
“You what?” I cried.
Symo shrugged. “Did you give me a better option? Not everyone has your gift for lying. It was the best I could do. I told them you asked for a comforting drink of warm milk before lying down.”
The girl in my arms roused herself somewhat, and raised her head.
“I’ll pickle you when we get home.” I turned to my patient. “Are you alive, donzȩlla?”
Her wet lips worked up and down as though she hadn’t realized the bowl was gone. Swallowing seemed an altogether new experience. “Is there more?”
I wanted to cheer, hearing a voice come from that hollow body.
“Slowly,” I said. “We’ll get you some. But you must drink slowly, or you’ll give it back to us, and we won’t like that a bit.”
She shrank. “Just a little more?”
Symo went to get some. The girl drooped against my shoulder. Overhead, the sky grew paler, lit with orange at the far horizon.
“Tell us your name,” I whispered. “What do they call you back home?”
She grew so still that I feared she’d left us. I shook her slightly.
“No name,” she murmured. “No home.”
Symo returned with more milk. The girl’s determination to drink it gave me hope.
“Botille,” Symo said, “Garcia and Gui have no patience for this game you’re playing.”
“And whose fault is it that they think I’m playing it?”
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“We’re losing time,” he said. “Let’s bring the girl with us and be on our way. We can explain how we found her to them.”
Milk ran down the invalid’s chin and into her lap. She pulled away from the dish and turned toward me. It was an effort.
I could not say how old she was. I would have thought young, though her wasted appearance could have belonged to a much older woman. But her eyes—they were older than lifetimes.
“No,” she said. “I won’t.”
Sazia, who stood frowning down on the whole proceedings, spoke up. “To stay is to die.”
“In Christ’s name, tell them nothing, unless you would murder me.” This speech left her tired and coughing.
“Murder you!” I cried. “Weakness has made you mad. You are on death’s very door. Come, and we will nurse you back to health. Our friends will do you no harm.”
The girl didn’t take her eyes off me. “Far better I die here,” she said, “then follow and die at the hands of my enemies.”
I remembered the inquisitor, and tucked the blanket more tightly around her. “They’re looking for you, aren’t they?”
She closed her eyes.
“The friar said he would lead you back to God,” I told her.
“I never left God.” She opened her eyes. “He means to lead me by the fastest route.”
From higher up on the banks, we heard Garcia calling to us.
“Just a moment, Garcia!” I hollered back. “I . . . I’ve been ill. I am changing my clothes.”
Symo’s eyebrow rose, and I realized my mistake. “Run up and wait with them,” I ordered. “I’m not changing my clothes around you.”
“No one asked you to.” Symo left.
“I barely escaped,” the girl went on. “My mother did not.” She sank in upon herself then. Her eyes grew dull, her face slack.
Sazia’s face brooded darkly. What do you see, little srre? I wondered.
“Blackness.” My sister answered my thoughts aloud by whispering in my ear. “She is a storm cloud of sorrow. You wander in, you may never find your way out.”
“So we leave her to die, then?” I whispered back. “I’m surprised at you, Sazia.”