Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [101]
The brethren approached in solemn procession. First came Abbot Raban, drawn up tall in full abbatial dignity. To his right walked Prior Joseph, to his left, Bishop Otgar. Behind marched the remaining brethren in order of seniority. Two lay brothers brought up the rear of the procession, pushing a wheelbarrow heaped with earth taken from the graveyard.
“I hereby forbid you to enter any church, mill, bakery, market, or other place where people gather.” Abbot Raban addressed the lepers with heavy solemnity. “I forbid you to use the common roads and paths. I forbid you to come near any living person without ringing your bell to give warning. I forbid you to touch children, or to give them anything.”
One of the women began to wail. Two dark, wet patches stained the front of her worn woolen tunic. A nursing mother, Joan thought. Where is her babe? Who will take care of it?
“I forbid you to eat or drink in the company of anyone save lepers like yourselves,” Abbot Raban continued. “I forbid you ever to wash your hands or face or any objects you may use at the riverbank, or at any spring or stream. I forbid you carnal knowledge of your spouse, or any other person. I forbid you to beget children, or to nurse them.”
The woman’s anguished wailing intensified, her tears coursing down her ulcerated face.
“What is your name?” With barely concealed irritation, Abbot Raban addressed the woman in the vernacular. Her unseemly display of emotion was marring the well-ordered symmetry of the ceremony, with which Raban had hoped to impress the bishop. For it was now apparent that Otgar had come to Fulda not merely to deliver the news of Gottschalk’s release but also to observe and make report upon Raban’s stewardship of the abbey.
“Madalgis,” the woman snuffled in reply. “Please, lord, I must go home, for there are four fatherless little ones needing their dinner.”
“Heaven will provide for the innocent. You have sinned, Madalgis, and God is afflicting you,” Raban explained with elaborate patience, as if to a child. “You must not weep, but instead thank God, for you will suffer the less torment in the life to come.”
Madalgis stood bewildered, as if she doubted she had heard aright. Then her face crumpled and her crying broke out anew, louder than before, her face crimsoning from the bottom of her neck to the roots of her hair.
That’s odd, Joan thought.
Raban turned his back upon the woman. “De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine …” He began the prayer for the dead. The brethren joined in, their voices mingling in deep unison.
Joan mouthed the words mechanically, her eyes fixed on Madalgis with intent concentration.
Finishing with the prayer, Raban moved on to the final part of the ceremony, in which each of the lepers, in turn, would be formally separated from the world. He stood before the first, the relatively unmarked boy of fourteen. “Sis mortuus mundo, vivens iterum Deo,” Abbot Raban said. “Be dead unto the world, living in the eyes of God.” He signaled to Brother Magenard, who plunged a spade into the wheelbarrow, lifted out a small pile of graveyard earth, and flung it at the boy, spattering his clothes and hair.
Five times the little ceremony was repeated, ending each time with the hurling of the earth. When it came Madalgis’s turn, she tried to run, but the two lay brothers blocked her way. Raban frowned at her.
“Sis mortuus mundo, vivens iter—”
“Stop!” Joan shouted.
Abbot Raban broke off. Everyone turned to locate the source of this unprecedented interruption.
With all eyes upon her, Joan advanced toward Madalgis and examined her with rapid skill. Then she turned to Abbot Raban. “Father, this woman is no leper.”
“What?” Raban struggled to keep his anger reined, so the bishop would not observe it.
“These lesions are not leprotic. See how her skin colors, fed by the blood beneath?