Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [193]
She was indoors. The stupendous force of the flood had driven the little boat straight through an upper window of one of the insulae into the room within.
She saw Gerold lying in the front of the boat, facedown in several inches of water. She crawled over to him.
When she turned him over, he was limp and unresponsive, not breathing. She dragged him from the boat onto the floor of the room. Rolling him onto his stomach, she began pressing down on his back to force water out of his lungs. Press and release, press and release. He can’t die, she thought. He mustn’t die. Surely God could not be so cruel. Then she recalled the doomed young boy in the house and thought: God is capable of anything.
Press and release. Press and release.
Gerold’s throat heaved, bringing up a great rush of water.
Benedicite! He was breathing again. Joan examined him carefully. No broken bones, no open wounds. But there was a large blue-black swelling just below his hairline, where he had received a nasty blow. This must have been what had knocked him senseless.
He should be coming round now, she thought. But Gerold remained sunk in his unnatural sleep, his skin pale and moist, his breathing shallow, his pulse faint and dangerously rapid. What’s wrong? she wondered anxiously. What else can I do?
“The shock of violent injury can kill a man with a penetrating chill.” The words of Hippocrates, words that had once saved Gottschalk’s life, came back to her now.
She must get Gerold warm, and quickly.
Blasts of wind and rain were coming through the gaping hole left by the passage of the boat. She rose and began to explore the small tenement dwelling. Behind the front room there was a second, smaller one, windowless and therefore warmer and dryer. And—Deo gratias!—in the middle of the room there was a small iron brazier stacked with a few pieces of wood. On a nearby shelf she found a flint and some kindling. In a chest in the corner, there was a blanket of heavy wool, tattered but mercifully still dry.
Returning to the front room, she grasped Gerold under the shoulders and half-carried, half-dragged him into the back room, setting him down beside the brazier. Taking up the box of kindling, she struck the flint against the iron. Her hands were shaking so hard she had to try several times before she drew a spark. At last she got the little pile of straw to catch. She placed the flaming kindling in the brazier, and it flared upwards, licking at the logs above. The damp wood hissed and spat, reluctant to take. At last a tiny core of red glowed in one of the logs. She fanned the fragile fire, nursing it along with practiced skill. Just as it began to take hold, a breeze swept in from the other room and extinguished it.
She looked despairingly at the cold logs. There was no more kindling, no way for her to start the fire again. Gerold still lay unconscious, his skin an ominous bluish white, his eyes sunk in their sockets.
There was only one thing left to do now. Quickly she removed his wet clothes, baring his taut, slenderly muscular body, marked here and there with the fading scars of battle. Then she covered him with the blanket.
She stood and, shivering in the frigid air, began to take off her own soaked clothes: first the paenula and dalmatic, then the undergarments, the alb, amice, and cingulum. When she was stripped to the skin, she crawled under the blanket and lay full length against Gerold.
She held him close, warming his body with her own, willing her strength, her life into him.
Fight, Gerold, my dearest. Fight.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on making the link between them. All else was apart. The little room, the quenched fire, the boat, the storm outside—none of it was real. There was only the two of them. They would live joined, or perish.
Gerold’s eyelids fluttered, then opened. His indigo eyes regarded her without surprise; he knew she had been with him.
“My pearl,” he murmured.
For a long while they lay silent, joined in wordless communication. Then he raised his arm to draw her closer, and his fingers brushed against