Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [100]
“I’ve been giving some thought to your problem,” Joan said. “Next month there’s a synod in Mainz. All the bishops of the Church will attend. If you submitted a petition for your release, they would have to consider it—and their ruling would supersede Abbot Raban’s.”
Gottschalk said bleakly, “The synod will never contravene the will of the great Raban Maur. His power is too great.”
“The ruling of abbots, even of archbishops, has been overturned before,” Joan argued. “And you’ve a strong argument in the fact you were offered as an oblate in infancy, before you had reached the age of reason. I searched the library and found some passages from Jerome that would support such an argument.” She pulled a roll of parchment from under her robe. “Here, see for yourself—I’ve written it all down.”
Gottschalk’s dark eyes brightened as he read. He looked up excitedly. “It’s brilliant! A dozen Rabans could not refute so well made an argument!” Then the dark clouds rolled in again. “But—there’s no way for me to present this before the synod. He will never grant me permission to leave, even for a day, and certainly not to go to Mainz.”
“Barthold, the cloth merchant, can take it for you. His business brings him here regularly. I know him well, for he comes to the infirmary to fetch medicine for his wife, who suffers from headache. He’s a good man and can be trusted to bear the petition safely to Mainz.”
Gottschalk asked with suspicion, “Why are you doing this?”
Joan shrugged. “A man should be free to live the life he chooses.” To herself she added, And so, for that matter, should a woman.
EVERYTHING went off as planned. When Barthold came to the infirmary to pick up the medicine for his wife, Joan gave him the petition, which he bore away tucked safely in his saddlebag.
A few weeks later, the abbey received an unexpected visit from Otgar, Bishop of Trier. After the formal greeting in the forecourt, the bishop requested and received immediate audience with the abbot in his quarters.
The news the bishop brought was astonishing: Gottschalk was released from his vows. He was free to leave Fulda when he chose.
He chose to leave at once, not wishing to remain one moment longer than necessary under Raban’s baleful eye. Packing was no problem; though he had lived all his life at the monastery, Gottschalk had nothing to bring away with him, for a monk could not own any personal property. Brother Anselm, the kitchener, put together a sack of food to see Gottschalk through the first few days on the road, and that was all.
“Where will you go?” Joan asked him.
“To Speyer,” he answered. “I’ve a married sister there; I can stay with her for a while. Then … I don’t know.”
He had fought for liberty so long and with so little hope he had not stopped to consider what he would do if he actually achieved it. He had never known anything but the monastic life; its safe and predictable rhythms were as much a part of him as breathing. Though he was too proud to admit to it, Joan read the uncertainty and fear in his eyes.
The brethren did not gather for a formal leave-taking, for Raban had forbidden it. Only Joan and a few other brothers whose opus manuum brought them across the forecourt at that hour were there to see Gottschalk walk through the gate, a free man at last. Joan watched him make his way down the road, his tall, spare figure growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared on the horizon.
Would he be happy? Joan hoped so. But somehow he seemed a man fated always to yearn after that which he could not have, to choose for himself the rockiest, most difficult path. She would pray for him, as for all the other sad and troubled souls who must travel roads alone.
16
ON ALL Souls’ Day, the brethren of Fulda gathered in the forecourt for the separatio leprosorum, the solemn liturgy segregating lepers from society. This year seven such unfortunates had been identified in the region surrounding Fulda, four men and three women. One was a youth of no more than fourteen, in whom the marks of the disease were as yet very indistinct; one an