Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [12]
Above them, in the dark, the canon’s voice droned into the night, reciting prayers for his son’s deliverance. “Domine Sancte, Pater omnipotens, aeterne Deus, qui fragilitatem conditionis nostrae infusa virtutis tuae dignatione confirmas …” Joan nodded drowsily.
“No!”
Joan wakened suddenly to her mother’s wailing cry.
“He is gone! Matthew, my son!”
Joan looked at the bed. Nothing appeared to have changed. Matthew lay motionless as before. Then she noticed his skin had lost its feverish flush; he was entirely gray, the color of stone.
She took his hand. It was flaccid, heavy, though not so hot as before. She held it tightly, pressing it to her cheek. Please don’t be dead, Matthew. Dead meant that he would never again sleep beside her and John in the big bed; she would never again see him hunched over the pine table, brow furrowed in concentration as he labored at his studies, never again sit beside him while his finger moved across the pages of the Bible, pointing out words for her to read. Please don’t be dead.
AFTER a while, they sent her away so her mother and the village women could wash Matthew’s body and prepare it for burial. When they were done, Joan was allowed to approach to pay her final respects. But for the unnatural grayness of his skin, he looked to be merely sleeping. If she touched him, she imagined, he would wake, his eyes would open and gaze upon her again with teasing affection. She kissed his cheek, as her mother instructed her. It was cold and oddly unresistant, like the skin of the dead rabbit Joan had fetched from the cooling shed only last week. She drew back quickly.
Matthew was gone.
There would be no more lessons now.
SHE stood alongside the livestock pen, staring at the patches of black earth beginning to show under the melting snow, the earth in which she had traced her first letters.
“Matthew,” she whispered. She sank to her knees. The wet snow penetrated her woolen cloak, soaking through to the skin. She felt very cold, but she could not go back in. There was something she had to do. With her forefinger, she traced the familiar letters from the Book of John in the wet snow.
Ubi sum ego vos non potestis venire. “Where I am you cannot come.”
“WE WILL all do penance,” the canon announced after the burial, “to atone for the sins that have visited God’s wrath upon our family.” He made Joan and John kneel in silent prayer on the hard wooden board that served as the family altar. They stayed there all that day with nothing to eat or drink until at last, with the coming of night, they were released and permitted to sleep in the bed, big and empty now without Matthew. John whimpered with hunger. In the middle of the night, Gudrun woke them, her finger pressed warningly to her lips. The canon was asleep. Quickly, she handed them several pieces of bread and a wooden cup filled with warm goat’s milk—all the food she dared smuggle from the larder without arousing her husband’s suspicions. John gobbled down his bread and was still hungry; Joan shared her portion with him. As soon as they were done, Gudrun took away the wooden cup and left, pulling the woolen covers up under their chins. The children nestled together for comfort and were quickly asleep.
With the first light, the canon woke them, and without breaking fast, sent them to the altar to resume their penance. The morning came and went, and the dinner hour, and still they remained on their knees.
The rays of the late afternoon sun slanted onto the altar, spilling through the slit in the grubenhaus window. Joan sighed and shifted position on the makeshift altar. Her knees were sore, and her stomach growled. She struggled to concentrate on the words of her prayer, “Pater Noster qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum…”
It was no use. The discomforts of her present situation kept intruding. She was tired and hungry, and she missed Matthew. She wondered why she did not cry. There was a sensation of pressure in her throat and chest,