The Passion of Dolssa

by Julie Berry

  “Your beloved,” cried Lucien, “has granted all power to us. The keys of the kingdom. The power of Sant Peter, to bind on earth that which shall remain bound in heaven, to loose—”

  “Lucien.”

  The senior friar’s voice rang with warning and alarm. Lucien paused. Only then, it seemed, did he realize the danger—the heresy—in what he’d said, in who he’d admitted Dolssa’s beloved to be.

  “Release my friends,” Dolssa said, “with a binding oath that no harm may come to them, that they may live out their lives freely, and I will yield myself to your flames. God in heaven is our witness, and he will be your judge.”

  Lucien de Saint-Honore panted in frustration. “My lord Bishop,” he cried, “do not succumb!”

  “You fear me,” Dolssa said, “for my beloved is with me, and he will speak for me. Bishop, how fares your back? Friar, how mends your head?”

  Bishop Raimon’s hand went to his lower spine. He stood straighter, and a look of relief crossed his jowly face. The friar’s hand went to his scalp. His angry red wound was gone. He stared at the hand as though it were not his own. Then at Dolssa, as if he’d never seen her before.

  The bishop consulted with the other churchmen. Dolssa waited calmly, with her head bowed and her hands crossed, for their answer.

  Bishop Raimon stepped forward. “These five aren’t important,” he said, gesturing to my sisters, Jobau, Symo, and me. “Let them go.”

  The soldiers surrounding us stepped away.

  Symo was at my side in an instant. “Run,” he said. “We’ll all run together—”

  But before he could finish his thought, Dolssa spoke.

  “Botille.”

  I ran to her.

  “Oh, Dolssa,” I cried, “what have you done?”

  She smiled. “Remember me.”

  “Can’t we fly from here?” I begged.

  “Remember me,” she said.

  I kissed her face and hands. “Always.”

  I gazed into her eyes until hands pushed me away, until Lop seized my fragile friend, picked her up tenderly, like a daughter, and set her on her feet upon a wide stone slab next to the fire that lifted her head and shoulders just above the flames.

  “People of Bajas,” the bishop cried, “in fear for your immortal souls, do you consent to this?”

  No one spoke. One by one they bowed themselves down, lowering their faces toward the dust.

  It is a mercy, they say, to kill quickly those souls bound for the pyre. A mercy that also ensures the job gets done. Sometimes the marksman’s arrow finishes the task. Sometimes it’s done by strangling.

  A soldier braced himself and loaded his crossbow. He cranked back the lever and aligned the bolt, then squinted along the length of the shaft, finding the line that led straight to Dolssa’s beating heart.

  His fingers flexed.

  Lucien de Saint-Honore stretched forth his hand, almost as if to stop him.

  Dolssa stood and waited. If she felt fear, it didn’t show. She turned to where, I knew, she saw her beloved, and kept her gaze fixed on him.

  I could barely watch for tears.

  The crossbow thumped.

  A figure leaped.

  The bolt twanged.

  A gray cloak snapped.

  The bolt spun straight and true and buried itself in Senhor Hugo’s back.

  Dolssa’s mouth hung open.

  The knight slumped, and she caught him in her arms.

  Lucien de Saint-Honore’s scream rang across the beach.

  “Run with me,” Symo pleaded.

  Dolssa staggered under the weight of her prize. Hugo mustered strength to stand upon his feet, then buckled once more.

  Dolssa encircled his neck with her arm, then gently kissed his lips. A look passed across the dying man’s face that human words cannot describe. Dolssa held him tightly to her, then fell with him into the flames.

  Friar Lucien de Saint-Honore gaped at the sight. “Non!” he cried. “Non, non, non!”

  Prior Pons and other clerics struggled to push the raving friar back into his seat. He relented at last, but still strained to turn his gaze toward the fire. He watched, forlorn, like a lost soul, as his heretic and her knight were consumed together in the hellfire he had lit.

  He toppled from his chair and vomited into the ashen sand.

  Again and again I saw them both. Like two butterflies. Their capes, like fluttering wings.

  So gently did they fall, like feathers gliding on a breeze. They disappeared, like foxes slipping into their holes. There, and then not there. My nose smelled the stench of burning cloth and hair, but my soul breathed in a sweetness, as if a heavenly perfume had been released into the sky.

  Dolssa’s beloved had taken her straight to him.

  “Seize the conspirators,” cried the bishop.

  A roar broke from Symo’s throat. “You promised to release us!”

  “All contracts with the dead are broken,” said His Excellence. “Throw them in together.”

  Soldiers picked their way across the sand toward us. I took my sisters’ hands. But Jobau, that reprobate, whispered under his breath.

  “I can only give you seconds, my daughters,” he said. “Use them well.” He chucked his finger under Sazia’s chin. Then, without any pause, he plowed into the line of soldiers, taking two of them down in a jumble of arms and legs.

  Symo snatched my hand in his, and Sazia’s in his other. Plazi missed nothing. She took Sazia’s other hand, and we bolted for the shallows, splashing through them, then up behind the tavern into the swallowing dark of scrub pines and tall grasses.

  BOTILLE

  e ran.

  That is all I can remember.

  We ran, stumbling over murderous ground, blind, tripping on roots, sinking in bogs. Climbing the hillside, sucking air into our burning lungs. Racing for dear life, and trying to stay together.

  Branches and weeds whipped our faces. We were coneys fleeing from the wolf. Coneys, though, had holes to hide in.

  We ran. Each step was hope. But there wasn’t much. In no time at all, they were after us.

  Symo dragged me along. Sazia shook off his hand, but we held tightly together.

  We were losing. My srres couldn’t keep Symo’s pace. The soldiers’ cries reached our ears. I stopped. Symo’s pull almost knocked me over.

  Separate yourselves.

  The thought came so suddenly, I paused and turned to look for Dolssa. It felt like her voice. Or, rather, like the sense I’d had of where to find her, and how to help her, that night we met. I didn’t question it.

  “Together we’re no match for them,” I told the others. “We must separate and hide. It’s our only chance.”

  I felt Plazi and Sazia nod, but Symo would not have it.

  “No!” He tugged harder on my hand. “We’ll never find each other.”

  “We will,” Plazi said. “We sisters can always find each other.”

  “Daybreak,” Sazia said. “The cove, near where the wild grapes grow.”

  “Where’s that?” Symo demanded. My sisters had already gone, opposite ways, quiet as cats.

  “A league or more, south of town,” I said, and took off.

  He followed me. “I’m not leaving you, Botille.”

  “You must, you great ox!” I hissed. “You’ll get us both killed!”

  He let out a growl like an angry dog, then disappeared into the shadows.

  I ran while I could, then dropped to my knees and crept forward. I listened for any sound. Terrifying noises filled my head. Were they coming closer? Had they caught one of my sisters? I couldn’t tell what was real and what was my own fright. I crawled on.

  My knees were raw, my hands bleeding. I came to a rocky patch and found a gap underneath where two chalky boulders rested against each other. I climbed into the narrow tunnel and lay there, listening to my breath and my heart. Far away, and farther still, searchers crashed about and called to one another, but I never heard a shout of triump
h. With that sliver of comfort, I flung one prayer out upon the nighttime breeze.

  Oh, sisters, oh, Symo. Be safe tonight, and hide well, until we meet in the morning.

  Senhor Hugo’s fall, and Dolssa’s kiss. Jobau the hero, now surely dead. Symo’s whispered words to me. Jacme, Andrio, and Astruga’s betrayal. Saura’s tears, and Na Pieret’s firewood.

  Dolssa, descending into the flames. For us.

  I clutched Mamà’s crucifix between my finger and thumb.

  Life, love, neighbors, belonging. Friend, father. Town and home, peace and good name. All smoke and ashes.

  BOTILLE

  rocked to sleep in my mamà’s arms.

  “Who’s my girl?” whispered she. “Who’s my pretty girl?” I nestled down into her comforting lap, and let her put me to sleep.

  I woke in the expectant dark just before dawn. Small creatures smelled the morning coming, and as their bellies woke them, they woke me.

  Time to go find Sazia, Plazensa, and Symo.

  No hunters, no soldiers, disturbed the early peace. Each footfall that went unanswered by a pursuer’s chase made me bolder. I followed the scent of la mar and picked my way carefully over low paths toward the coast.

  My sisters would find me at the cove, I felt absolutely sure. Perhaps it is strange that I felt no fear, but truly, I did not. The sense we had of each other, that we’d always had, from Mamà, knowing each other’s thoughts, each other’s hearts, blazed full force. My sisters were alive and well. We would find each other and run away together. Oc, we had lost all we’d worked to build in Bajas, and we would mourn our Jobau. But we’d be together.

  I picked my way down a small gully where rainwater trickled into the sea, and found myself at the shore. From there it was a walk of some distance, hugging close to trees and other concealments near the waterline, until I reached Sazia’s cove.

  The sun began to lighten the eastern horizon. I looked about for any sign of the others, but made no sound. I sat and concealed myself among the snarled, wild vines, and watched and waited.

  Dawn was a long time. It could be they still slept. I waited and watched the sun climb the sky through the cool shelter of wild grape leaves.

  Morning birds pipped at one another. They pecked at snails in the shallows. Insects buzzed around my feet. Small fish broke the water’s surface to snap at bugs. If Mimi were here, I thought, she’d catch one.

  I slurped water from trickling gullies, and picked at wild sour grapes.

  Perhaps they, or I, had found the wrong spot. I ranged up and down the beach, defying enemies to find me, hoping my sisters and Symo would. Fishing boats passed by now and then, but I hid from view. Word spreads quickly from port to port, and I needed no spies telling tales of me.

  Symo. The things I had to say to him! How dare he, for one thing, and where did he come off, for another, and what made him think he had any right, for thirds. What rich delight I would take in telling him what I really thought of his bad temper, his thick eyebrows, and his nerve.

  But he never came. Nor did my srres. I waited there for three whole days.

  What if they were somewhere near? Hurt, stuck, afraid? At night I roved as far afield as I dared, softly calling out their names. No one ever answered, though dogs would bark, and creatures scuttle. More than once I was almost discovered by peasants, but the bon Dieu kept me hidden from view. Not only was I removed from my own people. Now I was invisible to them.

  I searched but found no sign that any of them had ever come. I dozed and dreamed, and woke thinking I’d heard Plazensa’s bracelets. Sazia’s low voice. Symo chewing on a plate of dinner.

  The fourth morning I rose up and walked away, heading south and inland, far from the spying eyes of the sea.

  BOTILLE

  ights grew colder. I had only my dress. I stole a shawl that an old woman had hung to dry on a bush. I felt bad for her sake, but not enough to return it. Back to thieving again.

  At first I found food. Harvesttime meant gleanings and pickings could be had in any garden plot. I slept at midday, when it was warmest, then traveled by twilight and early morning. I searched for my family, and I hid from passersby. If my family were still alive, they, too, would be hiding from the eyes of strangers, blending into their surroundings. We might pass one another on the same road and never know it.

  Every footstep made me nervous, but none more than the tread of a clergyman. What I feared most of all were the black-and-white friars. Two by two, they made their way everywhere.

  Outside Perpinhan, a group of Franciscan brothers offered sọpa to the poor. I was dirty and desperate enough to stand in line. I drank down the hot soup they offered me.

  An older friar gazed into my eyes. “Bless you, my daughter,” he said. “You are very young to look so hungry and cold.”

  His kind eyes lured me in, made me long to trust him. Did they always feed the hungry? Might my sisters or Symo have passed this way? I guzzled the soup as fast as I could.

  “What is your name, child?”

  A few gulps more, and I returned the bowl, bowed my thanks, and ran away. No churchman should ever hear my name. I hadn’t yet thought of another to give.

  I picked my way across the Pirenèus Mountains, stealing clothing and begging food as I went. Where I could, I slept in barns, huddled next to calves and goats. The mountain air was cold, and winter was fast approaching. I had to get to warmer Aragón, or perhaps Catalonha, south of the mountains. The language was different there, but not so different that I couldn’t manage. The church would be there, too, but perhaps word of a runaway heretic girl would be slower to reach this way.

  For I was the traveling heretic now. I was Dolssa. The fugitive running from the Church, bereft of family and friends.

  Every night I prayed for Plazensa, for Sazia. For Symo, too, wherever he might be. I prayed for Jobau’s soul, for Mamà’s, and for Dolssa’s, too, though it lay safe in her beloved’s arms.

  Sweet and pure Dolssa, who willingly gave up her life for ours. And that knight, who died trying to help her! Had I known he was an ally, what might have been?

  She need not have died. The world would have been better served by letting us die and preserving her gifts. She was a shining light. The world needed lights like hers more than it needed a soothsayer, a tavern keeper, and a failed matchmaker.

  I missed my sisters. Whenever I lay down to sleep, I felt as though Plazensa and Sazia were my lungs, robbed from me, and I couldn’t breathe. When finally I slept, Symo appeared in my dreams, without a word, holding me in his arms as he’d done before, resting his head upon my shoulder.

  I began telling fortunes for pennies, or for food, for travelers I met on the road. I was a fraud, of course; I didn’t have Sazia’s gifts. But I could make things up. I knew well from watching Sazia what people liked to hear. I could often learn a good deal about them just by listening to their chatter and studying their appearances. I told them things about themselves that they hadn’t told me, and they hailed me as a true fortune-teller. It was thievery of me, but less so, I thought, than stealing food and clothes outright. I gave some entertainment for my pay. I began to have the means to feed myself and buy from peasant women some of their warmer secondhand clothes.

  I was the fortune-teller now. I was Sazia.

  When asked, I told them my name was Astruga.

  I crossed the Pirenèus and kept my journey pointed south, deep into the kingdom of Aragón. Here the land was different, drier and warmer. I missed above all the call of the seagulls, and the murmur of la mar. But ports, I knew, were places where stories were told, where churchmen came and went. Better safety, I thought, could be found inland.

  Their language was different, but not so much that I couldn’t keep pace. An accent was not a drawback for a fortune-teller; it made me exotic. But I worked to imitate the local dialects so I could blend in as much as possible.

  One cold night I pooled my pennies and begged of an older woman a low price for a bed for the nigh
t. She let me in and fed me. I told her my name was Maria and that I came from Tolosa. This far from Provensa, she wouldn’t recognize my false dialect.

  She seemed glad of my company, and I was glad of hers. She told me to call her Mima. I helped her clean her cottage after supper, and brought in wood for her in the morning. I paid for my room and made to leave, but she told me if I wanted to, I could stay.

  Trust her.

  Bonjọrn, Dolssa.

  I lived with Mima for two months. She never asked where I came from. She gardened, she took in washing and boarders and sold supper. I helped her. She was a widow, she told me, with a son she hadn’t seen in years.

  I watched Mima watch her neighbors pass by, and in time I began to see one particular man hold her gaze more than any other. A grizzled cobbler who often bought her suppers and who lived just up the street.

  One night I followed him out the door.

  “Do you like her cooking?”

  He looked at me as though I’d gone daft. “I eat it, don’t I?”

  “Marry her,” I told him.

  His shoes ground a hole in the red dusty path. “How’s that?”

  “Marry her,” I repeated. “Eat her food for the rest of her life, without price.”

  So he did.

  Mima asked me if I’d look after her house for a while. As a favor, she put it, but I knew it was her gift of gratitude. It was the first time I’d ever lived truly alone. I planted her garden in the spring. I took special care to plant many onions.

  The cobbler grew fat on Mima’s cooking and made more shoes than ever. He made special shoes for Mima’s aching feet, and that was more love than her tired bones knew how to receive. I hadn’t utterly lost the old matchmaking magic.

  I took to telling fortunes in my little cottage. Mima sent people to me, and they brought silver pennies, and sometimes bits of meat or fish, in return for my predictions. When my customers were young and unmarried, I predicted spouses for them with special accuracy.