Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [68]
Astounded, Joan gaped at the door. A dozen questions thronged her brain, but only one found its way out. “How?”
Gerold raised his eyes to Heaven in mock piety. “A holy miracle.”
Joan snorted.
He laughed. “Sorcery, then.” He eyed her challengingly, enjoying the game.
Joan took up the challenge. She marched to the door and examined it. “Can you close it?” she asked.
Gerold raised his hands again. He clapped three times. After a pause, the door groaned and began to swing inward on its hinges. Joan followed as it moved, studying it. The heavy wooden panels were smooth and tightly jointed—no sign of anything unusual there. There was nothing unusual about the plain wooden handle, either. She examined the hinges. They were ordinary iron hinges. It was infuriating. She could not fathom what was making the door move.
The door was fast closed once more. It was a mystery.
“Well?” Gerold’s indigo eyes were lit with amusement.
Joan hesitated, unwilling to forfeit the game.
Just as she was about to admit defeat, she heard something, a slender thread of sound coming from somewhere above her. At first she could not place it; the noise was familiar yet strangely out of place.
Then she recognized it. Water. The sound of trickling water.
She said excitedly, “The hydraulic device! The one in the manuscript from the St.-Denis fair! You built it!”
Gerold laughed. “Adapted it, rather. For it was designed to pump water, not to open and close doors!”
“How does it work?”
Gerold showed her the mechanism, located just under the decaying roof of the hut a full ten feet from the door, which was why she had not seen it. He demonstrated the complicated system of levers, pulleys, and counterweights, connected to two slender iron rods attached to the inside of the door so that they were barely visible. By stepping on a rope when he had circled the hut, Gerold had activated the device.
“Amazing!” she said when he finished explaining. “Do it again.” Now that she understood how the device worked, she wanted to observe it in action.
“I can’t. Not without fetching more water.”
“Then let’s fetch it,” she said. “Where are the buckets?”
Gerold laughed. “You are incorrigible!” He pulled her close in an affectionate hug. His chest was hard and firm, his arms strong around her. Joan felt as if her insides were melting.
Abruptly, he let her go. “Come on, then,” he said gruffly. “The buckets are over here.”
They carried the empty buckets to the stream a quarter of a mile away, filled them, carried them back, poured them into the receptacle, then returned to fetch more. Three times they made the trip, and by the third they were feeling somewhat giddy. The sun was warm, the air full of spring promise, and their spirits high from the excitement of their project and the joy of each other’s company.
“Gerold, look!” Joan called, standing knee-deep in the cool water of the stream. When he turned to her, she playfully slung the water from her bucket at him, wetting the front of his tunic.
“You imp!” he roared.
He filled his bucket and doused her in turn. So they continued, splashing each other in a flurry of sparkling spray, until Joan was hit by a stream of water from Gerold’s bucket just as she was bending over to fill her own. Caught off balance, she slipped and fell heavily into the stream. The cool water closed over her head, and for a brief moment she panicked, unable to find her footing on the shifting pebbles of the riverbed.
Then Gerold’s arms were around her, pulling her up, setting her on her feet.
“I’ve got you, Joan, I’ve got you.” His voice, close to her ear, was warm and reassuring. Joan felt her whole body thrum to its cadence. She clung to him. Their wet clothes stuck to each other, molding their bodies together in unambiguous intimacy.
“I love you,” she said simply. “I love you.”
“Oh, my dearest, my perfect girl,” Gerold murmured thickly, and then