“I should have put a bet on the red cock,” Celeste muttered.
Behind her, Marie began to sniffle.
“It is only a cock!”
“It used to make you weep, to see an animal wounded.” Marie was crying herself. “You said it was worse than hurting a person, because animals could not understand.”
“I am not as young and foolish, now.” Celeste turned away. Weeping over wounded animals? Absurd. Yet she felt a loss, as though some part of her had been removed. How could she be someone she could not remember? Of course she was the same person. When her memory came back it would all be clear, and she would not be a stranger to herself.
The fair was not as big as Marie had predicted, but it was larger than Celeste expected. Marie skipped here and there ogling everything at the merchants’ stalls and running back to tell her.
“Stop that,” she said. What was the point of looking at goods they could not buy? What did she care about them? Lord Bernard had bought her gowns and jewels and she had run from him into a nunnery. Beautiful things had a price.
Failure also had a price. There would be those glad to see her pay it, no doubt, envying her climb into nobility. She looked about for the peddler, determined to disappoint them.
What would she say when she found him? Would he recognize her? She would have to send Marie on an errand so she could talk to him privately. And if he denied having her ring, or refused to give it back?
He would not dare. He was a peasant and she was a Lady. She need only find him.
“Fortune! Hear your future revealed!” a dark-haired, olive-skinned man cried suddenly beside her. Startled, she looked his way. A gypsy woman stood at the center of a small crowd, telling fortunes.
The gypsy’s loose woollen robe was dyed with a bold, striped pattern. Her hair was hidden under a wide-brimmed yellow hat. Several gypsy men in equally bold attire stood around her, their dark faces smiling and animated while their eyes watched the crowd intently. The fortune-teller held her customer’s hand in hers, examining it and occasionally touching the lines on the man’s palm while she spoke. As she told his fortune, the man exclaimed several times in surprise and delight, interpreting her predictions according to past and present events in his life.
Celeste looked down at her palms. Was her past written there? Was her whole life already mapped out, beginning to end, if she could only read it? She closed her hands. Did she want to?
The gypsy said something which made the man laugh. Celeste looked up. His face glowed with delight.
She pushed her way through the crowd of spectators, ignoring their protests. If other people knew their past, why should she not know her future? Why should the gypsy not make her as happy as she had made that man? Perhaps, at the least, she would tell her where to find the peddler. She reached the front of the crowd as the fortune-teller finished and let the man’s hand drop. Celeste held her left hand out, palm up, in front of the gypsy. The woman reached to take it.
One of the gypsy men stepped forward, frowning, holding his cupped hand toward her.
She could not reach her purse. If she left to find somewhere private to retrieve it, the gypsies might move on. She thrust her open palm toward the gypsy woman until their hands touched.
The fortune-teller gasped. “What have you done?” she cried, pulling her hand back and staring at Celeste’s palm.
Celeste’s fingers curled over her exposed palm. She forced them open again. “I want to hear my future.”
The woman looked at her pityingly. “You have no future, unless you can undo what you have done.”
Celeste yanked her hand back. She turned and ran, dodging through the crowd, humiliated by the stares of those who had heard the gypsy. The faces of strangers stared after her, cold and accusing.
She had been here before, or at a fair very like this, when she was Marie’s age, with her parents and her older brother. Her parents had stopped at a merchant’s booth to look at cloth, and stood there arguing over how many new kirtles she and her mother would need when Lord Bernard came to visit. The name meant little to her then, a man she had met once; she had not been told why he was coming back.
She had grown bored and wandered away, following some jugglers. Their wit and dexterity held her enthralled until they cast their cloaks on the ground with a flourish. She had no coin to toss and looked up, realizing only then how long she had been following them. Where was the cloth merchant’s stall? Where were her parents and her brother?
She tried to retrace her steps but the jugglers had wound their way through the fair and she could not remember which way she had come. She searched the crowd, looking for a familiar face in vain. To her left she spied a stall piled high with cloth. She pushed her way over to it, but when she got near it was not the same merchant. She looked around, trying not to cry.
“Have you seen a cloth merchant?” she asked a passerby.
“There are dozens,” the man said. “Which one do you want?”
“He had a—” She stopped. A beard or a moustache? Or both?
“There are two cloth merchants back that way.”
She ran off in the direction he had indicated. Neither merchant was the one her parents had been talking to. They directed her down another row of stalls. She was tired now, but she kept going, searching the crowd as she went. Where was her brother? He always found her when they played the hiding game. “Please, find me,” she whimpered, struggling through the crowd.
So much time had passed. Her father would be cross, he hated waiting. Would he go home without her? She rubbed her eyes, beginning to weep despite her efforts not to.
Someone seized her from behind. She twisted around with a cry of fear.
“I thought I would never find you,” her brother said, grinning down at her.
She threw her arms around him, buried her face in his chest. “I knew you would find me, Pierre.”
***
There was no one to rescue her today as she ran through the fair. She raced past merchants, tradesmen, and entertainers, as frightened as the child in her memory. She was lost in the present, without a past to moor her; only wisps of memory like the edges of a frayed rope torn from its anchor. All around, people shouted and laughed after her as she ran.
She reached a clump of trees and stopped in their shadows, bent over, pulling in great shuddering breaths and wiping her eyes furiously. Marie caught up with her there and stood silently catching her breath.
Celeste glanced sideways at Marie. She had cried out when she heard the fortune-teller’s words, and she would not meet Celeste’s eyes now.
Undo what you have done. Celeste pursed her lips as though she had spoken aloud. Her chest fluttered, panicky, the way it had in her nightmare. Why had she been so frightened inside her husband’s castle? Frightened and helpless, like a lost child.
Marie’s eyes were closed, her lips moving soundlessly in prayer. Did Marie know what had happened there? Celeste shivered. If Marie knew anything, she did not want to hear it.
You have no future. Or was it the loss of her ring? Had the gypsy seen its absence, read the consequences on her hand? What future did she have if Lord Bernard set aside their marriage?
She had not prayed in a long time, she realized, watching Marie. Had she done something so terrible her soul no longer yearned toward God? But she had insisted on being sent to a nunnery. She had hoped God would find her there, the Abbess said. When had that hope withered away? The Abbess’ words came back to her: Imagine what you would become if you could feel no sorrow.
Was that the deed she must undo, her trade with the peddler?
She straightened. Foolishness! How could the gypsy know anything? It was a trick to entertain her audience at the expense of someone who held out her hand with no coin in it. She was becoming as superstitious as Marie, standing there with her hands clasped and her eyes closed. The child was probably praying for protection from her mad mistress.
Celeste sighed. It would be no use tryin
g to dissuade the girl of her superstitions; she had tried that before. “The gypsy spoke true,” she said, instead. She waited until Marie looked up. “There is little future for a woman who has run away from her husband.”
“Is that what she meant?” Marie’s eyes shifted uneasily.
“What else?”
“Nothing,” Marie said, too quickly.
“The gypsy is wrong,” Celeste continued. “I have not run away. I am on pilgrimage. Mistress Blanche is on pilgrimage without her husband.”
“She had his permission.”
“I think that is what the gypsy saw. I did not get my husband’s permission to come here.”
The fear eased in Marie’s face. “Lord Bernard was not there to ask,” she said.
Celeste smiled. “That is true.”
“But you will go back to him?”
“Of course I will. He is my husband.”
“Then you do have a future,” Marie said. “You must have, Lady Celeste, because my future is with you.”
“Everyone has a future,” she said. The child was right about her own: who else would tolerate such an awkward, outspoken little maid?
Marie’s face brightened. “Then we can see the rest of the fair?”
How quickly Marie’s moods lightened. Like a homing pigeon, she was drawn irresistibly toward happiness, as though it were her nest. It was Celeste who had no home until she regained her ring. “Yes,” she said grimly. “We will search the rest of the fair.”
Celeste tried to remember what the peddler was selling, but she had seen only his face, leering down at her, and his coin. She pushed through a group of people gathered around a merchant’s stall. Not him.
She glanced at the vendor’s table, piled high with gray woollen cloaks. Each cloak had a bright red cross sewn on the right shoulder. There was also a stack of broad-brimmed gray hats, with small red crosses on their front and scarves sewn to them. Tall wooden staffs leaned at the side of the table, and leather scrips, made to carry a pilgrim’s badges and other small treasures, were tied to pegs around the edges of the table. A steady flow of money poured into the hands of the merchant standing behind the table as people chose the items they needed and others took their place.
“Why are so many people buying pilgrim’s garb?” She had not directed her question to Marie, but the girl answered.
“Cluny is the beginning of many pilgrim’s routes: one of them goes to the Apostle James’s tomb at Santiago de Compostella, and another to Saint-Gilles and Marseilles, where ships leave for the Holy Land. Father Jacques told me while we rode here.”
“Mince pies! Hot pies and pasties!” a voice cried from a stall behind them. “Salty and sweet!”
The savory smell of hot meat pies reached Celeste, strong enough to make her mouth water. She was surprised she had not noticed it before and breathed it in hungrily. Mixed in with the rich, meaty aroma was the sweet smell of apple and berry pasties, even more tempting than the pies. Their dinner was paid for at the Inn, but if she had not hidden her money beneath her kirtle she would not be able to resist buying one.
Would there come a time when she could not buy herself a meal? Would she ride back to Lord Bernard a woman in possession of her position and her past, or a hungry, helpless beggar?
She took a deep breath and hurried on, peering left and right at each vendor. He must be here. But when she had walked down every row of stalls, she still had not found him. Had he left already? It was late afternoon now. Or was he selling his spices outside the vendor’s area? She looked wearily toward the edge of the fairgrounds. Why would he set up there, so far from the crowds of buyers?
“A jongleur!”
As soon as Marie said the word Celeste remembered hearing a jongleur sing his stories to the accompaniment of his fiddle. Lord Bernard had arranged for one to come to the castle and entertain their guests at Yuletide last. His stories had come to life in the leaping flames of the hearth fire, while his voice rose and fell across the room singing of heroic deeds and battles, of love and loss and redemption.
Had she been happy then? Her memory of the jongleur was rich with the passions in his stories, but she could not recall her own emotions. Had she smiled down the table at her husband, had she laughed at his jests and opened his Yuletide gift with delight? An intense emotion swept over her. She caught her breath—and it was gone. She frowned in concentration, but could not call up even an echo of the sensation, let alone the reason for it. How would she find happiness, when she could not remember where she had left it?
Was the peddler a demon who bought her memories rather than her sorrow? “Holy Mary pray for us,” she whispered before she could stop herself. What worse thing might he do to her if she found him and demanded her ring back?
No, he was no demon, just a peddler.
Then how had she lost her memory?
A lance of fire behind her eyes made her gasp. She brushed her hand across her brow. She was exhausted. She would rest a while, and listen to the jongleur.
He was singing the last lines of the Song of Roland as they reached him. A rain of coins fell onto the cloak he had spread on the ground beside him. When he was satisfied, he scooped them up and introduced a new song: the forbidden romance between Tristan and his Lord’s wife, Iseult. He sang it sweetly, playing his fiddle in sympathy with the mood of the poem. They listened to the entire piece, lost in the romance and tragedy of the tale.
“I wish I had something to give him,” Marie sighed when it was over and others were tossing coins onto his cloak.
Celeste shrugged. The jongleur’s cloak held a quarter as many coins as she had in her pouch, and he had been singing all day. He was doing well enough.
She looked around to discover that most of the merchants were packing up. The market was over. She jumped up, scanning those left; the peddler was not among them.
“What are you looking for, My Lady?” Marie asked, hurrying to keep up.
“Father Jacques,” Celeste lied quickly. “We will need an escort back to the abbey in two days.” So soon! Tomorrow they would attend Mass to celebrate Mary’s Assumption to Heaven. Surely the peddler would be there, or at the feast that would follow. She must find him tomorrow!
***
Over a thousand people crowded into the Cluny cathedral to hear the Mass for the Assumption of Mary. Celeste stood at the front among the nobility, nauseated by the hot, still air. She would have preferred a less conspicuous position, but Father Jacques might have mentioned to the Abbot her miraculous cure at the sight of Holy Mary’s image, and her subsequent pilgrimage here to thank the Virgin. She must be seen among her rank this morning.
Her decision was justified when the Bishop began his Latin sermon, for he mentioned her cure among other miracles at this holy time. He did not point her out, but she had been compelled out of courtesy to introduce herself to those around her, who were now glancing sideways at her. They would not forget her, if her husband came asking. At least she had not divulged where she was staying.
Marie squirmed beside her, shifting from foot to foot on the hard stone floor. She straightened when the Bishop began to speak in French, and listened anxiously to the perils of a soul without the intercession of the Holy Church.
When the monks, led by the Bishop, began their procession out, Celeste went to the statue of the Virgin Mary and knelt down. She had claimed to be on pilgrimage to thank the Virgin and must do so. She made the sign of the cross, then pressed her palms together, leaning her forehead against them. It was so hot. “Holy Virgin,” she whispered. What next? She had used to pray. “Holy Mary—” There must be a prayer to do with healing.
Holy Mother Mary, send down your healing. You, who lost your son, spare me the suffering you endured. Heal my Etienne. On the strength of my faith, let him be spared…
In a rush, the memory returned: thus had she knelt and thus had she begged. And she had been refused. The words she sought now died in her breast. Holy Mary had not healed Etienne and would no
t heal her. There was no mercy in Saint Mary, then or now. She had pleaded and she had grieved. Now she was only weary: empty of emotion and empty of prayer. She rose slowly to her feet.
They were among the last to leave the cathedral. It was a long walk back to the inn, through the town square. They heard the babble of voices before they reached it.
“Let us walk another way around,” Marie suggested, when their street turned into the square and the noisy throng became visible.
Celeste hesitated. “Go learn what is taking place,” she said. “I will sit there.” She motioned to a stone bench in front of one of the buildings at the corner of the square, where she would see everyone passing by.
While Marie was gone the crowd grew, filling the square with jeers and raucous shouts. So many people. Celeste stood on the bench, searching for the peddler, until she saw Marie returning, and stepped down.
“They are stoning an adulteress,” Marie said, her round face scrunched up.
The tragic song of Tristan’s love for Iseult, married to another, was still fresh in Celeste’s mind. Was this adulteress bewitchingly beautiful, like Iseult? Celeste walked toward the square. Perhaps she herself had had an illicit romance. Perhaps that was the source of her sorrow—that she had dared everything for a great passion and now they were separated? The wife of a Lord would not be stoned like a commoner; she would be sent to an abbey.
“We are not going to watch?” Marie gasped, stumbling after her.
Celeste frowned. “Why should I not?”
“You would never have done so before.”
“Do not tell me what I would or would not have done before my illness,” Celeste cried. “What does that matter now?”
“Not before your illness,” Marie’s lower lip trembled. “Before you sold the nail.”
Celeste stared at Marie until the crowd roared again, enticing her to push her way forward where she might see the woman’s face. Had the woman been happy with her lover? Was that happiness worth the risk she had taken?
The Sorrow Stone Page 10