“Go in peace, child,” he said, “and leave your sorrow with God.”
Celeste stumbled. “I have already left my sorrow behind.”
“Have you?” Father Jacques asked. He waited until she looked up.
Her heart pounded. “Has Marie—?”
“I am bound to silence when I hear confession.”
“Marie is prey to many superstitions.” She was sorry she had confessed her impatience with Marie. She could not box her ears right after doing so. “I do not believe in the superstitions of peasants, Father.” She began to walk away quickly, before he saw the tremble in her legs.
“Lady Celeste.”
She turned back to him.
“Do not take these peasants’ tales lightly. There is great power in symbols.”
***
Deep, slow breathing surrounds her in the darkness. She feels her way carefully across the great hall. If she does not touch them, stumble against one of them, they must continue sleeping.
Wake up! She tells herself. But she is trapped inside the dream. The weight of the darkness, the roughness of the wall against her hand, the death-like cold of the stairs under her bare feet are all infused with the intense reality of nightmare, more vivid and substantial than anything she has experienced awake.
Slowly, the door of her bedchamber opens. She gasps, desperate to cry for help, but dares not disturb the false slumber of those below. They would rush up the stairs, not to help her, but to accuse her.
The wooden box on the bench is so small its size mocks her. It should fill the length of the bench. It should be long enough for her to lie down in, to draw death over her as well.
She is kneeling beside the bed, her knife in her hand. She stares at it, horrified. A scream rises in her throat. Her fingers open, dropping the knife…
A hand reaches out of the dark and wraps around her left hand, swallowing her small white fist within it. Blood oozes between her fingers, dripping onto the floor…
***
Celeste awoke screaming. She shook her left hand and wiped it fiercely against her cloak, uttering short, piercing shrieks. There was nothing in it. She peered at it but the night was too dark for her to see whether there was any mark. She raised it to her nose. It smelled of sweat, not blood.
“What?” “Who’s there?” “Where are they?” Her companions stumbled up from sleep, clutching their staffs and knives and staring around them.
“Help! Thief! Help!” Monsieur Robert shouted, huddled under his blanket.
The men-at-arms ran to Celeste and positioned themselves between her and the forest, holding their swords ready. “Where?” one of them asked curtly.
Celeste blinked, pulling herself out of the nightmare. A cool night breeze blew across her fevered brow and dried the beads of sweat. The moon was hidden in cloud, too dark for her to see clearly.
“Where?” he repeated, a sharp edge to his voice.
“There.” She scrambled unsteadily to her feet and pointed vaguely toward the woods. “I think he ran away.”
“How many?”
“One. I only saw one,” she stammered, trying to tamp down the situation without raising their suspicions. She could not tell her companions, standing with their weapons ready, that she had had a bad dream.
A dream or a memory? Bile rose in her throat. She clapped her hand over her mouth.
“He was trying to steal our horses,” the boy cried, brandishing his short sword.
The men-at-arms sheathed their swords. A single horse thief now run off was no threat.
Celeste swallowed. Only a nightmare. She breathed the cool air in deeply.
Father Jacques knelt in prayer, giving thanks now instead of requesting aid. Monsieur Robert came out from under his blanket and tried to comfort Agnes, who pouted prettily. The boy sheathed his sword, his mouth forming a moue of disappointment.
Lady Yvolde approached Celeste. “What is troubling you so?” she asked quietly.
She had not looked toward the forest, Celeste realized. She looked into Lady Yvolde’s face, at its mixture of compassion and peace, and wanted, very badly, to tell her everything.
Marie ran over. “Are we safe now?” she cried, looking at Lady Yvolde.
“Perfectly safe,” Lady Yvolde told her gravely. She looked back at Celeste.
“I am not troubled,” Celeste said.
***
The deep breathing of sleeping people surrounded her. For a moment, at the edge of waking, her nightmare returned. Then she heard the soft whinny of a horse nearby and the low, drawn-out hoot of an owl in the woods, and a quiet grunt as one of the watchmen shifted position to keep himself awake. She opened her eyes. A sheen of moonlight diffused the sky with silver.
She felt a flutter of movement deep inside her. “Do not fear,” she whispered to him, this stranger in her womb for whom she had no feelings, whom she would never hold and never grieve over. “I will take you to Jerusalem.” Then she would stop dreaming. She could resume her life when she had safely disposed of him. She thought of the nail she had felt in her hand, the one she had sold to the peddler. Her stomach clenched. It was not sorrow she had wanted him to take from her. Her dreams were not about sorrow.
She stood up quickly and shook out her cloak. Lady Yvolde’s man looked over at her, then returned to watching the forest. Had she seen scorn in his eyes? Had he guessed that there was no thief in the night?
She went a little way into the bushes to perform her toilet. When she returned, the harsh moonlight had brightened into dawn.
Father Jacques was awake and kneeling in prayer. It must become a habit, waking in the darkness to pray. She wondered what it felt like, subduing oneself to constant obedience.
Like being a woman, she thought. Only he chose his obedience. Unless he was a younger son, as trapped into his submissiveness as any woman.
The others began to stir. They did not relight the fire, but ate dry bread and drank from their flasks warm water that tasted faintly of leather while they packed their things and prepared for another long day of travel.
Jean limped through Saint-Gilles, glad of the pilgrim’s staff. No one would note his infirmity here: many strangers limped, crawled or were carried into this town to pray at the tomb of Saint-Gilles, the patron saint of cripples.
It was a long, slow walk to the small wooden hut with its straw-thatched roof at the edge of town. A strong Mistral wind pulled at his tunic and threatened to topple him. He shivered. His cloak was keeping some thief warm now. He hoped they had fought over his goods and killed one another.
It would be warm in his hut. He had filled the chinks in the walls with mud to make it snug in winter. Jean had slept in manors and castles and monasteries, but the thought of that little hut and the straw mattress he shared with Matilde quickened his pace as no other dwelling could.
“’Way, beggar!”
Jean stumbled sideways as the carriage swept past him. He stood catching his breath, looking down at his patched hose, his worn shoes…
They would be frightened to see him limping home, without the donkey. They would believe themselves ruined, Mathilde and the boys, and try to hide their despair, telling themselves to be glad he had made it home. He could not show them the ring—better they never saw it—so how would he reassure them?
The merchant’s section was straight ahead. If he sold the ring now—
Never trade at home. That was the rule that kept him and his family safe. A rule to abide by.
Besides, he was dirty and ragged. The metal smith would see his need at once and take advantage of it. Better to have Mathilde wash and mend his clothes and trim his hair and feed him a good chicken dinner as she always did to celebrate his homecoming.
He smiled to himself. She would boil the chicken in her big black pot over the fire until the meat was white and tender, swimming in its own juices. Then she would throw in onion and parsnip and herbs from her garden. The little hut would fill with the smell of their fine feast. He licked
his lips and turned from the metal smith’s doorway. When he was stronger, he would take the ring to Marseilles, sell it to a merchant who did not know him and would ask no questions.
The rows of joined houses grew lower and narrower as he walked further from the town center, until they ended altogether. He was on the outskirts of Saint-Gilles, where people like him built their mud-and-wattle huts, with a little land for a garden and if they were lucky, a hen coop. Someday, with Simon and Gilles helping him, they might move into a town house and live like proper merchants, and Mathilde would buy their food at the market. The dream was farther away now than it had been in Lyon, but it might still be possible.
When he saw his hut, he paused. How quiet it was; as quiet as a graveyard. He shook away the thought. Mathilde must have sent the boys on some errand to keep the hut quiet while Jeanne was napping. Even the chickens obliged her, for there were none in sight, nor any clucking coming from the henhouse.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Mathilde—” his voice broke off.
She was kneeling on the dirt floor beside one of the children’s pallets. She raised her head to look at him. Her eyes were bruised and hollow. “Thank God you are home,” she whispered.
He stood at the door, unable to move or speak. “Who?” he said, forcing the word out.
He knew already. He had dreamed it. Jeanne—the name lodged in his throat.
Mathilde looked down at Jeanne, lying so still on her little pallet.
“She is not—?”
“No,” Mathilde said in a voice that stopped his heart. Not yet.
Jean limped across the room.
“You are hurt,” she cried, rising to help him.
“It is nothing. It will mend.” He waved her arm aside and lowered himself to the floor.
A bowl of water sat beside Jeanne’s pallet. Jean wrung out the cloth in the water and wiped her forehead. Her cheeks were as scarlet as glowing embers against her pale face. He dropped the cloth into the water and lifted her, cradling her to him. She was hot against his chest, like a little candle burning itself out.
“Where are her brothers? Send them for a doctor.”
“I have.” Mathilde’s voice was dull. “He has come three times, and bled her. We sold the chickens to pay him. There is nothing more he can do. I have sent Gilles and Simon for the priest.”
“No!” Jean stumbled to his feet, holding Jeanne. “She will not die.”
Jeanne’s eyes opened. “Papa…” she whispered.
“Yes, Jeanne!” he cried. “Yes, it is Papa. I am here, Jeanne.”
She closed her eyes again.
“You see? She is clear-headed, she knows me.”
The door burst open. Simon and Gilles rushed in, with the priest behind them. “Papa! Papa!” they cried, running to him.
“You are not needed here,” Jean told the priest. “She spoke to me. She is not dying.”
The priest stopped in the doorway.
“Jean,” Mathilde said, coming close to him. “Jean, we must.”
“Consider her soul,” the priest said.
“She will recover. They said the last rites over me, and here I stand.” Beside him he heard Mathilde’s sharp intake of breath.
“They said the last rites over you?” Simon’s voice broke at the end, deflecting the shrill boy’s cry into a man’s deeper tone.
“I must do for Jeanne what was done for you, and pray that it be God’s will for her to recover, as well.”
“Please, Jean,” Mathilde whispered, touching his arm.
Jeanne murmured something, turning her head fretfully. Jean listened, but she did not repeat it. He heard only her breathing, ragged and shallow, against his heart.
The priest approached and held his palm over Jeanne’s burning forehead. “In nominus Deis…”
She was so light; a little sparrow in his arms. Jean held her tightly, his eyes blurring until he could barely see her. It is the fog, he thought. I dreamed it, and it is happening. His blood pounded in his ears, drowning out the sacred rites. He felt Jeanne burning against his chest and Mathilde weeping at his side and the boys clinging to him, and just below Gilles’ hand, the leaden weight in the hem of his tunic.
I have brought this upon us, he thought.
The fog closed in. He stood alone, holding sorrow in his arms. It was as light as a lie, as heavy as the sin in a man’s soul.
***
When the priest left, Jean laid his daughter on her pallet. She appeared to be breathing a little easier.
“Where is our donkey?” Gilles asked.
“Stolen by thieves.”
Mathilde put her hand to her throat. “How badly are you hurt?” She reached toward him.
“I will heal.” His voice was bitter. He did not look away from Jeanne.
“Sit down,” Mathilde said. “Simon, watch your sister and wipe her forehead with the cloth.” She bustled about, setting bread and ale on the table before him. “It is all we have. Eat,” she commanded when he did not take them. “I cannot lose you both.”
He took a bite of bread. Gilles stood at the table watching him, his eyes wide in his pale face, full of questions.
Mathilde sat across from him in the other chair. How weary she looked.
“I have some money. Set aside. With someone,” he mumbled around the thick, dark bread.
Mathilde nodded, forcing herself to smile.
***
Jeanne’s fever waned the next morning but it returned by mid-afternoon. Mathilde boiled willow bark and yarrow, and they took turns sitting Jeanne up and forcing her to sip the hot, bitter tea. Jean sat beside his daughter, listening for the thin sigh of her breathing, while Mathilde prayed.
She was still breathing. Each time he bent his ear to her little mouth, she was still breathing.
“Papa, tell me about the thieves. Did you kill them?” Gilles asked, coming to sit cross-legged beside him.
“Two of them.”
Gilles grinned. “And the others all ran away?”
Jean shook his head. “They beat me and left me for dead.”
“But you did not die,” Simon said quickly. Gilles shot him a scornful glance.
If he had died, would Jeanne be well? If he had not brought the woman’s sorrow home with him? What if he threw the nail away? But he would have to throw away the ring as well, it was part of the bargain.
And what if Jeanne died anyway, and the boys and Mathilde went hungry because he had thrown away the only valuable thing they had left?
“Papa?”
“A priest found me,” he said. “A priest with a band of pilgrims. They carried me to an inn and cared for me.”
“Like the Good Samaritan,” Simon cried, clapping his hands.
Jeanne started and gave a weak cry. Simon looked chagrined.
“Go outside and tend the garden,” Mathilde said, bending to wipe Jeanne’s forehead.
“I will watch her,” Jean said when the boys had gone. “Get some sleep.” He sat beside his daughter and watched her breathe, the rise and fall of her chest barely discernable. He waited for her to open her eyes again, to say his name again.
***
When Mathilde shook him awake in the morning, he leaped up in a terror. He had slept little all night, dozing and waking to listen for Jeanne’s breathing. “Jeanne—?” he gasped.
“No,” she said. “She is a little better this morning. I want you to watch her while I get more willow bark.”
He rose and sat by Jeanne. Her breathing was better, as Matilde had said. He leaned forward and kissed her. She was still hot with fever. “Be well, Jeanne,” he whispered. “Please, be well.”
He went to the table where Mathilde had set out some porridge for him, and dropped heavily onto a wooden stool. Something sharp dug into his thigh. He lifted the hem of his tunic and tore the threads loose. Pulling the ring and the nail out, he dropped them onto the table. They rolled against each other.
He stared at the long, gleaming
nail. Had it come from a child’s coffin, after all? Behind him, Jeanne whimpered on her pallet. He held his breath until her breathing was even again.
The wadmal bag he had carried home lay on the floor beside his stool. He lifted it up and tossed the cold, bent nail inside, out of sight. Jeanne was better today. The nail was only a nail, after all.
The hut was very quiet. Jean ate his porridge slowly. The brilliant ruby winked up at him. Without thinking, he picked up the ring and tried it on. It was too small for his ring finger, but fit snugly onto his little finger, turning his rough hand into a Lord’s hand.
He did not hear Mathilde come in until she gasped beside him. He tried to pull the ring off but she had already seen it.
“Jean,” she cried, her voice frightened. “What have you done?”
He twisted the ring, trying to get it off. “I have done nothing. I received this in trade.”
She sat down slowly, laying the willow bark and a small posy of white yarrow flowers on the table. “Who would barter something so valuable?”
“Someone who wanted my spices!” Why had he not thought up some plausible lie to tell her in case she saw it?
“Jean, I am not simple. That ring is worth more than a barrel of spices.”
The cursed thing would not pass over his knuckle. He felt his face reddening. What right had she to question him? “Hold your tongue, wife. You mind your house and I will mind my trade!”
“Take it off!”
“I am trying to!” They were both on edge, worn out by sleeplessness and worry. He should walk away now, give them both time to calm down. He knew it and he did not care. He gritted his teeth and yanked on the ring, scraping his knuckle, and threw it on the table.
“Is this why there is no money for next year’s spices? Is this why we have no donkey to carry your wares? So you can wear a rich man’s trinket on your hand?” Her cheeks were flushed; tears of anger stood in her eyes.
The Sorrow Stone Page 23