Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [116]
To the surprise of the brethren, Abbot Raban announced that he was making a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Martin to pray for the holy martyr’s intervention against the plague.
“Prior Joseph will act for me in all things while I am gone,” Raban said. “Give him due obedience, for his word is even as my own.”
The abruptness of Raban’s announcement, and his precipitate departure, occasioned a good deal of talk. Some of the brethren praised the abbot for undertaking so arduous a journey on behalf of all. Others muttered darkly that the abbot had absented himself in order to escape the local danger.
Joan had no time to debate such matters. She was kept busy from dawn till dusk saying Mass, hearing confession, and administering the increasingly frequent rites of unctio extrema.
One morning she noticed that Brother Benjamin was absent from his choir stall at vigils. Devout soul that he was, he never missed the daily offices. As soon as the service ended, Joan hurried to the infirmary. Entering the long, rectangular room, she breathed the pungent aroma of goose grease and mustard, known specifics for diseases of the lungs. The room was crowded to bursting; beds and pallets were placed side by side, and every one was occupied. Between the beds, the brothers whose opus manuum was in the infirmary circulated, straightening blankets, offering sips of water, praying quietly beside those too far gone to accept any other comfort.
Brother Benjamin was propped up in bed, explaining to Brother Deodatus, one of the junior brothers, the best way to apply a mustard plaster. Listening to him, Joan recalled the long-ago day when he had first taught her that same skill.
She smiled fondly at the memory. Surely, she thought, if Benjamin was still capable of directing things in the infirmary, he could not be critically ill.
A sudden fit of coughing interrupted Brother Benjamin’s rapid flow of words. Joan hurried to his bed. Dipping a cloth in the bowl of rose-scented water that stood beside the bed, she held it gently to Benjamin’s forehead. His skin felt incredibly hot. Benedicite! How has he remained lucid with a fever so high?
At last he stopped coughing and lay with eyes closed, breathing harshly. His graying hair ringed his head like a faded halo. His hands, those wide, squat plowman’s hands possessed of such unexpected gentleness and skill, lay on the coverlet as open and helpless as a babe’s. Joan’s heart twisted at the sight.
Brother Benjamin opened his eyes, saw Joan, and smiled.
“You have come,” he said raspingly. “Good. As you see, I am in need of your services.”
“A bit of yarrow and some powdered willow-bark will have you right again soon enough,” Joan said, more cheerfully than she felt.
Benjamin shook his head. “It’s as priest, not as physician, that I need you now. You must help me into the next world, little brother, for I am done with this one.”
Joan took his hand. “I’ll not give you up without a fight.”
“You’ve learned everything I had to teach you. Now you must learn acceptance.”
“I won’t accept losing you,” she replied fiercely.
FOR the next two days, Joan battled determinedly for Benjamin’s life. She used every skill he had ever taught her, tried every medicine she could think of. The fever continued to rage. Benjamin’s large, well-fleshed body dwindled like the empty husk of a cocoon after the moth has flown. Beneath his feverish flush there appeared an ominous undertone of gray.
“Shrive me,” he pleaded.