The Passion of Dolssa (49 page)

She was a grown woman now, with duties in the abbey. She trained novices in their studies. My little
s
rre
, not just a reader, but a teacher! She made me feel proud. And rough, and ignorant. But mostly proud. She kissed Bertran and gave her love.

Something was different about her, though. Her Sister Margarethe had died. There was fear in her eyes. She advised us not to visit for a time, until she found a way to send us word. Word never came, until now.

I never again saw my Bajas by the sea, though I dreamed of returning for the rest of my life. My Symo pined for his brother, Gui, and I, for news of Plazensa.

Here is how my tale ends. It’s a bitter ending, but I do not complain. Sorrow finds us all, and the
bon Dieu
has been more than kind to me.

My Symo one day could bear it no more, the yearning for his brother. He took the journey over the Pirenèus, and back into beautiful Provensa. He had to see Gui.

He never returned.

Bertran, who had grown to be a man, traveled back to learn what had become of his father. He avoided Bajas, but went to the Abadia de Fontfreda. There, staying in the strangers’ quarters, he learned of the old, crippled man who had returned to Bajas after twenty-five years away, and was executed for heresy and murder.

The shock left us weak. I thought my heart would break. At least I’d had my Symo for many years. Bertran made it home and took to his bed. My precious son could not take comfort. I recovered to tend to my ailing
filh
, but he was not so blessed. My only son.

Now I am all alone. My only comfort is my sweet little cat. I’m just an old woman, waiting to die.

BOTILLE

nd now I have told you my tale,
bon
friar. You were a patient one to listen so well. I rather fancy you enjoyed it. I didn’t think inquisitors usually took the time. But you traveled all the way from Barçalona to hear me. That would make any man patient.

Well, I think you are right to preserve a record of the account of the maid Dolssa. I wonder, though, why do you want to? To warn Christians not to be deceived?

This story will give them plenty of warning.

I’m not surprised that it took our priest a while to figure out which middle-aged woman you were looking for. I don’t feel as old as I look, I’ll have you know. And here I thought he was looking for alms for the poor when he came to my lonely little home!

Tell me, what will happen to Sister Clara, at the abbey? Will she be pardoned, because she told you about me? I pray the
bon Dieu
she will.

She doesn’t know you traced me here?
Oc
, that is a pleasing thought. How, then, did you learn of me from her?

I see. Of course. Confession.

1290

FRIAR ARNAUT D’AVINHONET

The Convent of the Jacobins, Tolosa

otille’s narrative interested me in several persons, some of whom I knew a little about. Other cases required additional inquiry on my part. Here is what I learned:

Soon after Dolssa’s death, Gui found parchment and ink in his wine cellar. He brought it to Dominus Bernard, who recognized in Dolssa’s writings a great treasure. Poems and love songs to her beloved, rivaling the
trobadors’
own ballads, were scribbled in the margins of her narrative. He set the words to music and performed them as his own sacred songs in churches throughout Provensa, to wide acclaim. He died a celebrated psalmist of the faith.

Prior Pons de Saint-Gilles served as prior in other cities, and eventually returned to serve in Tolosa before his death. He passed into eternity decades after the strange business in Bajas.

The duty of ordaining a successor to the priory fell to Bishop Raimon de Fauga. He chose Lucien de Saint-Honore, the fame of whose hunt for the fugitive heretic Dolssa de Stigata had spread throughout the Order of Preachers. After not many more years, at Raimon’s death, Lucien ascended to the office of bishop.

Bishop Lucien was known as a sensitive, gentle, almost fragile preacher, giving special pastoral care to children, the simple, and the sick. Only in matters of heresy was Bishop Lucien de Saint-Honore unyielding, though he, himself, never attended another burning in his life.

Na Pieret di Fabri died within a year of Symo’s disappearance. Gui and his new wife, Sapdalina, nursed her kindly during her ailing months and inherited her vineyards.

Plazensa Flasucra was not seen in Bajas again. Neither was the fisherman, Litgier.

Thus I conclude my record. I imagined reaching an ending would bring me rest. But Bishop Lucien de Saint-Honore bequeathed to me more than his story. He has infected me with his own unease about the matter of Dolssa de Stigata, that strange, rebellious maiden.

Now I, like he, must burn her.

As Botille did, I began to feel my efforts were being led along by Dolssa’s urgent voice inside my head. Or perhaps, across the decades, the persuasiveness of Botille’s stories simply tricked me into believing it so. Yet the number of times I felt led to just the place, within these cavernous vaults, where a useful record might be found is too great to count.

I should fling this volume into the fire that even now lights my study, and no one would ever be the wiser. But I find my heart urging me to reconsider the matter. In the interim, I shall search out a safe place to hide it, and make the fate of this record the subject of prayer.

2014

THE WRITER

Boston, Massachusetts

hat answers Friar Arnaut may have found through prayer, in his private corner of the convent archives, we’ll never know.

The Dominican convent in Toulouse was a collection of shabby buildings during Friar Lucien’s younger days, but by the time Friar Arnaut was piecing together Botille’s and Dolssa’s stories, the Dominicans had erected a magnificent church, called the Convent of the Jacobins. The great theologian St. Thomas Aquinas is buried there. Still, to this day, if you visit, you can admire its most notable feature, a soaring column made to look like a palm tree over the main vault of the nave, with arching ribs fanning out upon the ceiling like palm leaves. It’s dizzyingly grand and gorgeous.

This distinctive palm structure was still being built in 1290, and Friar Arnaut d’Avinhonet had the bad luck to pass underneath the scaffolding as a worker dropped his chisel. Friar Arnaut met his eternal reward. I hope it was a good one.

We would probably have no record of when an obscure Dominican met his death, except that his fellow friars were so troubled by the accident that one of them noted it in an official journal on 22 November. The year 1290, it appears, was a busy one for Arnaut. He wrote a book, hid it, and died.

At some point, probably long afterwards, when the concerns of the thirteenth century were a distant memory, someone must have found the forgotten volume’s hiding place. I picture a friar stumbling upon it, not bothering to read it, and shelving it in the archives without a second thought.

Old books tend to be shuffled around, stolen, loaned, sold to collectors, transferred to different churches or to universities. Though too many disappear forever, some have an uncanny way of popping up. Arnaut’s record, I’m glad to say, popped. It wasn’t my discovery, but I was fortunate to have gone to college with one of the scholars asked to translate the pages. He invited me to read the translation and offer style corrections to make the writing more accessible to modern readers. That’s how I met Arnaut, Botille, Lucien, and Dolssa.

As I sifted through and marked up each day’s new pages, one question kept running through my mind.
Do I believe this?

Normally, I would read a medieval religious text to understand how past generations thought, and what they believed. I would look for clues and details to round out my understanding of the past. The question of belief—my personal belief—would never even enter into my thoughts.

By the time I’d reached the book’s end, the question had changed. What’s more, the urgent voice asking it was clearly not my own, but a young woman’s, hopeful and trusting.

Do you believe me?

I wondered if I needed a little time off.

The night I finished Frair Arnaut’s translated account, I mourned. I remember the night was hot and muggy, as Boston summer nights can be. I sweltered in the dark and thought about Dolssa and Botille, and the cost of their friendship in human blood.

I must have finally slept, for I vividly remember waking up. A voice called my name, and a hand shook my shoulder. I snapped on the light; no one was there. I couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that someone was. Someone whose touch on my skin smelled of candlelight, ink, and lavender.

I went to my small desk, opened a notebook, and wrote the following pages. Only a few, but I wrote them without pauses or corrections. I had no intention of doing so. I didn’t know what words to use until my hand wrote them, though as I wrote, I saw every color, heard the singing bird, and tasted the dry Spanish dust.

The next morning I wondered if it had all been a dream, but there on my desk were the pages. Believe them or not. For those like me who can’t bear not knowing how stories end, I offer what follows after, though I admit it won’t give full satisfaction.