Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [122]
“Joan,” Arn repeated, pleased to be trusted with this confidence. “Tell us, then, if you may, how it is that you came to live among the Benedictines of Fulda, for such a thing scarcely seems possible. How ever did you manage it? What brought you to do it? Did anyone share your secret? Did no one suspect?”
Joan laughed. “Time, I see, has not dulled your curiosity.”
There was no point in deception. Joan told Arn everything, from her unorthodox education at the schola in Dorstadt to her years at Fulda and her accession to the priesthood.
“So the brothers still don’t know about you,” Arn said thoughtfully when she finished. “We thought perhaps you had been discovered and forced to flee…. Do you mean to return, then? You can, you know. I would die stretched upon the rack before anyone pried your secret out of me!”
Joan smiled. Despite Arn’s manly appearance, there remained in him more than a bit of the little boy she had known.
She said, “Fortunately, there is no need for such a sacrifice. I got away in time; the brethren have no reason to suspect me. But … I am not sure that I will go back.”
“What will you do, then?”
“A good question,” Joan said. “A very good question indeed. As yet I don’t know the answer.”
ARN and Bona fussed over her like a pair of overanxious mother hens, refusing to let her rise from bed for several more days. “You are not yet strong enough,” they insisted. Joan had little alternative but to resign herself to their solicitude. She passed the long hours by teaching little Arnalda her letters and numbers. Young as the child was, she had her father’s aptitude for learning, and she responded eagerly, delighted by the attention of so diverting a companion.
When, at the end of the day, Arnalda was trundled off to sleep, Joan lay restlessly contemplating her future. Should she return to Fulda? She had been at the abbey almost twelve years, had grown up within its walls; it was difficult to imagine being anywhere else. But facts had to be faced: she was twenty-seven years old, already past the prime of life. The brethren of Fulda, worn down by the harsh climate, spartan diet, and unheated rooms of the monastery, seldom lived past forty; Brother Deodatus, the community elder, was fifty-four. How long could she hold out against the advances of age—how long before she would again be struck down by illness, forced anew to run the risk of disclosure and death?
Then, too, there was Abbot Raban to consider. His mind was firmly set against her, and he was not a man to turn from such a position. If she went back, what further hardships and punishments might she have to face?
Her spirit cried out for change. There was not a book in Fulda’s library she had not read, not a crack in the ceiling of the dormitory she did not know by heart. It had been years since she had awakened in the morning with the happy expectation that something new and interesting might happen. She yearned to explore a wider world.
Where could she go? Back to Ingelheim? Now Mama was dead, there was nothing she cared about there. Dorstadt? What did she hope to find there—Gerold, still waiting, harboring his love for her after all these years? What folly. He was married again, more than likely, and would not be happy at Joan’s sudden reappearance. Besides, she had long ago chosen a different life—a life in which the love of a man could play no part.
No, Gerold and Fulda both belonged to her past. She had to look determinedly toward the future—whatever that might be.
“BONA and I have decided,” Arn said. “You must stay with us. It would be good to have another woman about the house to keep Bona company and help with the cooking and needlework—especially now, with the baby coming.”
His condescension was irksome, but the offer was kindly meant, so Joan answered mildly, “That would prove a bad bargain, I fear. I was always a sorry seamstress, all thumbs with a needle and no use at all in the kitchen.”
“Bona would be only too glad to teach y—”
“The truth is,” she interrupted, “I have lived so long as a man I could not be a proper woman