Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [117]
She could deny him no longer.
“Quid me advocasti?” she began in the ceremonial cadences of the liturgy. “What do you ask of me?”
“Ut mihi unctionem trados,” he responded. “Give me unction.”
Dipping her thumb in a mixture of ashes and water, Joan drew the sign of the cross on Brother Benjamin’s chest, then laid a piece of sackcloth, symbol of penance, over the smudged design.
Benjamin was shaken with another violent fit of coughing. When it ended, Joan saw that he had brought up blood. Suddenly frightened, she hurried through the recitation of the seven penitential psalms and the ritual anointing of the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, and feet. It seemed to take a very long time. Toward the end, Benjamin lay with his eyes closed, completely unmoving. Joan could not tell if he was still conscious.
At last the moment came to administer the viaticum. Joan held out the Sacred Host, but Benjamin did not respond. It is too late, Joan thought. I have failed him.
She touched the Host to Benjamin’s lips; he opened his eyes and took it into his mouth. Joan made the sign of blessing over him. Her voice shook as she started the sacramental prayer: “Corpus et Sanguis Domini nostri Jesu Christi in vitam aeternam te perducat …”
HE DIED at dawn, as the sweet canticles of lauds filtered through the morning air. Joan was plunged into a profound grief. Since the moment twelve years ago when Benjamin had taken her under his wing, he had been her friend and mentor. Even when her duties as priest took her from the infirmary, he had continued to help her, encourage her, support her. He had been a true father to her.
Unable to find consolation in prayer, Joan threw herself into work. Daily mass was more crowded than ever, as the specter of death brought the faithful flocking to the church in unprecedented numbers.
One day while Joan was tipping the communal chalice for one of the communicants, an elderly man, she observed his oozing eyes and the dusky, feverish flush of his cheeks. She moved on to the next in line, a slim young mother with a small, sweet-faced girl still in arms. The woman held the child up to take the Sacrament; the tiny rosebud lips opened to drink from the same spot where the old man’s mouth had just been.
Joan pulled the chalice away. Taking a piece of the bread, she wet it in the wine and gave it to the child instead. Startled, the girl looked toward her mother, who nodded encouragement; it was a departure from custom, but the abbey priest surely knew what he was doing. Joan continued down the line, wetting the bread in the wine, until the entire congregation had received the Sacrament.
Immediately after mass, Prior Joseph summoned her. Joan was glad it was Joseph and not Raban she would have to answer to. Joseph was not a man to cling undeviatingly to tradition, not if there was good and sufficient argument for change.
“You made an alteration in the Mass today,” Joseph said.
“Yes, Father.”
“Why?” The question was not challenging, merely curious.
Joan explained.
“The sick old man and the healthy infant,” Joseph repeated thoughtfully. “A repulsive incongruity, I agree.”
“More than an incongruity,” Joan responded. “I believe it may be one way the disease is transmitted.”
Joseph was confounded. “How can that be? Surely the noxious spirits are everywhere.”
“Perhaps it’s not noxious spirits that are causing the sickness— not alone, anyway. It may be passed along by physical contact with its victims, or with objects that they touch.”
It was a new idea, but not a radical one. That some diseases were contagious was well known; this was, after all, why lepers were strictly segregated from society. It was also beyond dispute that sickness often passed through entire households, carrying off members of a family within days, even hours. But the cause for this phenomenon was unclear.
“Transmitted by physical contact? In what manner?”
“I don’t know,” Joan admitted. “But today, when I saw the sick man, and the open sores about his mouth, I