Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [95]
Something in the compelling gray-green eyes that met hers with such intensity persuaded Judith. Wordlessly she placed the slim taper into Joan’s outstretched hand. Then she remounted and rode through the gate.
Joan lighted the candle before the altar as she had promised. The sacristan was furious. “Intolerable cheek!” he declared. And that night, to Brother Thomas’s evident delight, Joan was required to fast in penance for her crime.
AFTER this episode, Joan made a determined effort to put Gerold from her mind. She could never be happy living a woman’s restricted existence. Besides, she reasoned, her relationship with Gerold was not what she had believed it to be. She had been a child, inexperienced and naive; her love had been a romantic delusion born of loneliness and need. Gerold had certainly not loved her, or he would never have left.
Aegra amans, she thought. Truly Virgil was right: love was a form of sickness. It altered people, made them behave in strange and irrational ways. She was glad she was done with it.
Never give yourself to a man. Her mother’s words of warning came back to her. She had forgotten them in the fervor of her childish infatuation. Now she realized how lucky she had been to have escaped her mother’s fate.
Over and over again Joan told herself these things, until at last she came to believe them.
15
THE brothers gathered in the chapter house, seated in order of seniority on the gradines, tiers of stone seats lining the walls of the house. The chapter meeting was the most important assembly of the day outside of the religious offices, for it was here that the temporal business of the community was conducted and matters regarding management, monies, appointments, and disputes were discussed. This was also where brothers who had committed transgressions of the rule were expected to confess their faults and be assigned their penances, or risk accusation by others.
Joan always came to chapter with a certain trepidation. Had she inadvertently given herself away with some incautious word or gesture? If her true identity were ever to be revealed, this was where she would learn of it.
The meeting always began with the reading of a chapter from the Rule of St. Benedict, the book of monastic regulations which guided the everyday spiritual and administrative life of the community. The rule was read straight through from beginning to end, a chapter a day, so that over the course of a year the brethren heard it in its entirety.
After the reading and benediction, Abbot Raban asked, “Brethren, have you any faults to confess?”
Before he finished uttering the words, Brother Thedo leapt to his feet. “Father, I do confess a fault.”
“What is it, Brother?” Abbot Raban said with weary patience. Brother Thedo was always the first to accuse himself of wrongdoing.
“I have faltered in the performance of the opus manuum. Copying a life of St. Amandus, I fell asleep in the scriptorium.”
“Again?” Abbot Raban lifted an eyebrow.
Thedo bowed his head meekly. “Father, I am sinful and unworthy. Please exact the harshest of penances upon me.”
Abbot Raban sighed. “Very well. For two days you will stand a penitent before the church.”
The brothers smiled wryly. Brother Thedo was so frequently to be found doing penance outside the church that he seemed part of the decoration, a living, breathing pillar of remorse.
Thedo was disappointed. “You are too charitable, Father. For so grievous a fault, I ask to be allowed to do penance for a week.”
“God does not welcome pridefulness, Thedo, even in suffering. Remember that, while you are asking His forgiveness for your other faults.”
The reprimand struck home. Thedo flushed and sat down.
“Are there any other faults to confess?” Raban asked.
Brother Hunric stood. “Twice I came late to night office.”
Abbot Raban nodded; Hunric’s tardiness had been noted, but because he admitted his fault freely and did not try to hide it, his penance would be light.
“From now until St.-Denis’s day,