Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [27]
“Don’t go.” Grief rose within her like a palpable substance, forming a hard knot at the base of her throat. “Please don’t go.”
“My dear girl, I must. Though truly I wish it were not so.” He stroked Joan’s white-gold hair fondly. “I have learned much from teaching you; I do not look to have so apt a pupil again. You have a rare intelligence; it is God-given, and you must not deny it”—he glanced meaningfully at her—“whatever the cost.”
Joan was afraid to speak lest her voice betray her emotions.
Aesculapius took her hand in his. “You must not worry. You will be able to continue your studies. I will make arrangements. I do not know exactly where, as yet, or how, but I will. Yours is too promising an intellect to lie fallow. We will find the seeds with which to sow it, I promise.” He grasped her hand tightly. “Trust me in this.”
After he had gone, Joan did not move from her little desk. She sat alone in the gathering darkness until her mother returned, carrying logs for the hearth.
“Ah, so you are finished?” said Gudrun. “Good! Now come help me build the fire.”
AESCULAPIUS came to see her the day he left, dressed in his long blue traveling cloak. In his hands he carried a package wrapped in cloth.
“For you.” He placed the package in her hands.
Joan unwrapped the strips of linen, then gasped as she saw what they had concealed. It was a book, bound in the Eastern fashion with leather-covered wooden boards.
“It is my own,” said Aesculapius. “I made it myself, some years ago. It is an edition of Homer—the original Greek in the front half of the book, and a Latin translation in the back. It will help you keep your knowledge of the language fresh until the time you can begin your studies again.”
Joan was speechless. A book of her own! Such a privilege was enjoyed only by monks and scholars of the highest rank. She opened it, looking at line after line of Aesculapius’s neat uncial letters, filling the pages with words of inexpressible beauty. Aesculapius watched her, his eyes filled with tender sadness.
“Do not forget, Joan. Do not ever forget.”
He opened his arms to her. She went to him, and for the first time they embraced. For a long while they clung to each other, Aesculapius’s tall, broad form cradling Joan’s small one. When at last they parted, his blue cloak was wet with Joan’s tears.
She did not watch as he rode away. She stayed inside where he had left her, holding on to the book, grasping it so tightly that her hands ached.
JOAN knew her father would not permit her to keep the book. He had never approved of her studies, and now, with Aesculapius gone, there was no one to stop him from enforcing his will. So she hid the book, rewrapping it carefully in its cloth and burying it under the thick straw on her side of the bed.
She was on fire to read it, to see the words, to hear again in her mind the joyous beauty of the poetry. But it was too dangerous; someone was usually in or near the cottage, and she feared discovery. Her only opportunity was at night. After everyone was asleep, she could read without risk of sudden interruption. But she needed some light— a candle, or at least some oil. The family got only two dozen candles a year—the canon was loath to take them from the sanctuary—and these were carefully conserved; she could not use one unnoticed. But the church storehouse had a huge stockpile of wax—the coloni of Ingelheim were required to supply the sanctuary with a hundred pounds a year. If she could get hold of some, she could fashion her own candle.
It wasn’t easy, but in the end she managed to pilfer enough wax to make a small candle, using a piece of linen cord for a wick. It was a makeshift job—the flame was scarcely more than a flicker—but it was enough to provide light for study.
The first night she was cautious. She waited until long after her parents had retired to their bed behind the partition and she could hear the canon’s snoring before daring to move. Finally she slid out of bed, silent and watchful