Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [15]
Her father stood over her. Joan braced herself for another blow. None came. Moments passed, and then he began to make hoarse, guttural noises in his throat. She realized he was crying. She had never seen her father cry.
“Joan!” Gudrun hurried into the room. “What have you done, child?” She knelt beside Joan, taking note of the swelling bruise under her right eye. Keeping her body between her husband and Joan, she whispered, “What did I tell you? Foolish girl, look what you’ve done!” In a louder voice, she said, “Go to your brother. He needs you.” She helped Joan up and propelled her quickly toward the other room.
The canon watched Joan darkly as she went to the door.
“Forget the girl, Husband,” Gudrun said to distract him. “She’s of no importance. Do not despair; remember, you have yet another son.”
3
IT WAS Aranmanoth, the wheat-blade month, in the autumn of her ninth year, when Joan first met Aesculapius. He had stopped at the canon’s grubenhaus on his way to Mainz, where he was to be teaching master at the cathedral schola.
“Be welcome, sir, be welcome!” Joan’s father greeted Aesculapius delightedly. “We rejoice in your safe arrival. I trust the journey was not too arduous?” He bowed his guest solicitously through the door. “Come refresh yourself. Gudrun! Bring wine! You do my humble home great honor, sir, with your presence.” From her father’s behavior, Joan understood that Aesculapius was a scholar of some standing and importance.
He was Greek, dressed in the Byzantine manner. His fine white linen chlamys was clasped with a simple metal brooch and covered with a long blue cloak, bordered with silver thread. He wore his hair short, like a peasant, and kept it smoothly oiled back from his face. Unlike her father, who shaved in the manner of the Frankish clergy, Aesculapius had a long, full beard—white, like his hair.
When her father called her over to be presented, she suffered a fit of shyness and stood awkwardly before the stranger, her eyes fixed on the intricate braid work of his sandals. At last the canon intervened and sent her off to help her mother prepare the evening meal.
When they sat down at the table, the canon said, “It is our custom to read from the Holy Book before we partake of food. Would you do us the honor of reading this night?”
“Very well,” said Aesculapius, smiling. Carefully he opened the wooden binding and turned the fragile parchment pages. “The text is Ecclesiastes. Omnia tempus habent, et momentum suum cuique negotio sub caelo …”
Joan had never heard Latin spoken so beautifully. His pronunciation was unusual: the words were not all run together, Gallic style; each was round and distinct, like drops of clear rainwater. “For everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted …” Joan had heard her father read the same passage many times before, but in Aesculapius’s reading, she heard a beauty she had not previously imagined.
When he was finished, Aesculapius closed the book. “An excellent volume,” he said appreciatively to the canon. “Written in a fair hand. You must have brought it with you from England; I have heard that the art still flourishes there. It is rare these days to find a manuscript so free from grammatical barbarisms.”
The canon flushed with pleasure. “There were many such in the library at Lindisfarne. This one was entrusted to me by the bishop when he ordained me for the mission in Saxony.”
The meal was splendid, the most lavish the family had ever prepared for a guest. There was a haunch of roast salted pork, cooked till the skin crackled, boiled barley-corn and beetroot, pungent cheese, and loaves of crusty bread freshly baked under the embers. The canon brought out some Frankish ale, spicy, dark, and thick as country soup. Afterward, they ate fried almonds and sweet roasted apples.
“Delicious,” Aesculapius pronounced at the end of the meal. “It has been a long while since I have dined so well. Not since