Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [65]
They stepped inside. A strange smell pervaded the stall, cloying and sweet, like fermented honey. In the center of the enclosure, a tiny figure sat cross-legged—an old woman, dressed simply in a loose, dark robe. She appeared unbelievably ancient, perhaps seventy winters or more; her hair was gone, save for some fine white strands at her crown, and her head shook constantly as if she were afflicted with the ague. But her eyes shone alertly in the darkness, focusing on Joan and Gisla with shrewd assessment.
“Pretty little doves,” she croaked. “So pretty and so young. What do you want of Old Balthild?”
“We just wanted to—to—” Joan faltered as she searched uneasily for an explanation. The old woman’s gaze was unsettling.
“To find out what is for sale here,” Gisla finished boldly.
“What’s for sale? What’s for sale?” The old woman cackled. “Something that you want but will never own.”
“What?” Gisla asked.
“Something that is already yours though you have it not.” The old woman grinned at them toothlessly. “Something beyond price and yet it can be bought.”
“What is it?” Gisla said sharply, impatient with the old woman’s riddles.
“The future.” The old woman’s eyes glittered in the dimness. “Your future, my little dove. All that will be and is not yet.”
“Oh, you’re a fortune-teller!” Gisla clapped her hands together, pleased to have deciphered the puzzle. “How much?”
“One solidus.”
One solidus! It was the price of a good milking cow, or a pair of fine rams!
“Too dear.” Gisla was in her element now, confident and assured, a shrewd customer looking to strike a bargain.
“One obole,” she offered.
“Five denarii,” the old woman countered.
“Two. One for each of us.” Gisla withdrew the coins from her scrip and held them out on her palm for the woman to see.
The old woman hesitated, then took the coins, motioning the girls to the floor beside her. They sat; the woman clasped Joan’s strong young hands in her shaking grasp and fixed her odd, disquieting gaze upon her. For a long time, she said nothing; then she began to speak.
“Changeling child, you are what you will not be; what you will become is other than you are.”
This made little sense, unless it meant simply that she would soon be a woman grown. But then why had the old woman called her a “changeling”?
Balthild continued, “You aspire to that which is forbidden.” Joan started with surprise, and the old woman tightened her clasp. “Yes, changeling, I see your secret heart. You will not be disappointed. Greatness will be yours, beyond your dreams, and grief, beyond your imaginings.”
Balthild dropped Joan’s hands and turned toward Gisla, who winked at Joan with an expression that said, Wasn’t that fun?
The old woman took Gisla’s hands, her bent, gnarled fingers curling around Gisla’s smooth, pink ones.
“You will marry soon, and richly,” she said.
“Yes!” Gisla giggled. “But, old woman, I did not pay you to tell me what I already know. Will the union be a happy one?”
“No more than most, but no less either,” Balthild said. Gisla raised her eyes to the ceiling in mock despair.
“A wife you shall be, though never a mother,” Balthild crooned, swaying with the rhythm of the words, her voice singsong, melodic.
Gisla’s smile vanished. “Shall I be barren, then?”
“The future lies before you all dark and empty.” Balthild’s voice rose in a keening wail. “Pain shall be yours, and confusion, and fear.”
Gisla sat transfixed, like a stoat held fast by the stare of a snake.
“Enough!” Joan pried Gisla’s hands from the old woman’s grasp. “Come with me,” she said. Gisla obeyed, compliant as a babe.
Outside the stall, Gisla began to cry.
“Don’t be silly,” Joan soothed. “The old woman’s mad, pay no attention to her. There is no truth in such fortune-telling.”
Gisla would not be comforted. She cried and cried; finally, Joan led her to the sweetmeat stalls, where they bought honeyed figs and gorged