Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [40]
IT WAS an exhausting journey to Dorstadt, for the men of the escort were eager to get home and rode long and hard every day. The rigors of the journey did not trouble Joan; she was fascinated by the ever-changing landscape and the new world which every day opened before her. At last she was free, free from Ingelheim and the confines of her existence there. She rode through squalid little villages and bustling towns with equal delight, full of curiosity and wonder. John, however, quickly grew irritable from lack of sufficient food and rest. Joan tried to soothe him, but his ill humor was only inflamed by his sister’s good-natured solicitude.
They reached the bishop’s palace at noontide of the tenth day. The palace steward took one disapproving look at the two children, in their stained and rumpled peasants’ garments, and gave orders for baths and clean clothing before he would permit them to be admitted to the bishop’s presence.
For Joan, accustomed to hurried washings in the stream that ran behind the grubenhaus, the bath was an extraordinary experience. The bishop’s palace had indoor baths, with heated water, a luxury she had never even heard of. She remained in the warm water for almost an hour while serving women scrubbed her till her skin glowed pink and almost raw. Her back, however, they cleansed with utmost gentleness, clucking their tongues sympathetically over the jagged scars. They washed her hair and twisted the long, white-gold mass into shining plaits that framed her face. Then they brought her a new tunic of green linen. The texture was so soft, the weaving so fine, Joan found it hard to believe it had been made by human hands. When she was dressed, the women brought her a looking glass set in gold. Joan lifted it and saw the face of a stranger. She had never viewed her own features, except in occasional distorted fragments reflected by the muddy water of the village pond. Joan was astonished by the clarity of the image in the mirror. She held the mirror up, scrutinizing herself critically.
She was not pretty, but she knew that. She did not have the high, pale forehead, delicate chin, and frail, slope-shouldered form so favored by minstrels and lovers. She had a ruddy, healthy, boyish look. Her brow was too low, her chin too firm, her shoulders too straight for beauty. But her hair—Mama’s hair—was lovely, and her eyes were good—deep-set gray-green orbs, fringed with thick lashes. She shrugged and put the glass down. The bishop had not sent for her to discover if she was pretty.
John was brought in, equally resplendent in tunic and mantle of blue linen. The two children were taken to the palace steward.
“Better,” the steward said, examining them appraisingly. “Much better. Very well, then, follow me.”
They walked down a long corridor whose walls were covered with enormous tapestries intricately worked with gold and silver thread. Joan’s pulse leapt nervously in her throat. She was going to meet the bishop.
Will I be able to answer his questions? Will he accept me in the schola? All at once she felt inadequate and unsure. She tried to remember a single thing she had studied, but her mind went blank. When she thought of Aesculapius, of the faith he had shown in her by arranging this interview, her stomach clenched.
They stopped before a huge pair of double-sided oaken doors. From inside came a din of voices and a clattering of plates. The palace steward nodded at the house knave positioned at the entrance, and the man swung the heavy doors open.
Joan and John walked into the room, then stopped, gaping. Some two hundred people were gathered in the hall, seated at long tables piled high with food. Platters filled with every variety of roasted meat—capons, geese, moorhens, and several haunches of stag— crowded together on the tables within easy reach of the diners, who pulled off chunks of flesh with their fingers and stuffed it in their mouths, wiping their hands on their sleeves. In the center of the largest table, half devoured but still recognizable, rested the enormous