Chapter 37
37
How dark it was. The nave was shadowed, its windows shrouded in the evening light. Robed men were singing Vespers, and together, they adorned the hour. Their voices drew me in—but the sanctuary was so long and tall I dared not approach the altar.
I crept into a side chapel tucked between pillars. There I sank to my knees because I could no longer stand. Gratefully, I lay on the stone floor and closed my eyes where none could see. Here, in darkness, with firm ground under me and a roof above, I felt safe as I had never been on my long journey. In this place, there were no tides, or winds, or storms. No stars but flickering candles. No waves but songs.
I slept so fast and deep it seemed but a moment later that a sharp kick startled me awake. “You, there. Move along.”
I sat up in confusion as my assailant strode off.
“Get up. Get up.” A sexton was kicking other sleeping bodies in the sanctuary, and I realized I had not been alone taking refuge for the night. “Off with you. Get along,” the sexton ordered, and each time, sleepers woke and sighed and shuffled out.
My bruises were tender and my wrist was still swollen, but I could stand and walk. Shaking out my cloak, I glimpsed dancing colors, crimson, emerald, saffron, blue. I saw stained-glass windows in the shape of a flower, a sun, a wheel. The largest seemed a cosmos in itself but I dared not step into the sanctuary to see it fully.
In the chapel, I arranged my hair and straightened my rough dress, and there in shadows, I realized I had slept between two tombs. Touching cold marble, I gazed upon effigies of a stone knight and his lady. Fully dressed, they lay upon their backs with praying hands and serene faces.
With my finger, I traced the lady’s marble gown, and I knew she had been well born, well married. Had she been blessed with children? Had she loved God? If she had traveled, she had not ventured far. When she died, a thousand prayers flew up to heaven in her name. Gazing at this lady and her husband I thought of Auguste and Damienne and my own child, who had no tombs nor prayers but mine.
Kneeling at the lady’s feet, I prayed to my three on the island. “I have been doubting. I have not trusted providence, but I beg you, be my angels. Watch over me, and help me to live or die, as I must. As you have been my examples, going first, teach me to accept my fate.”
Then I rose and counted the money I had left, for I knew I must keep traveling. Although I had no help and no companions, I must return to Périgord. I was a stranger in every other place.
I had three pieces of gold, eight pieces of silver, and thirteen copper pennies. Coppers in hand, I stepped blinking into sunlight to buy fresh bread, and I ate quickly before children could find me. Then I purchased cheese and smoked meat, a cup, a comb, and a coarse cloth. In the cloth, I wrapped these things, and I carried the bundle on a stick. With each purchase, I asked directions to Périgord, and when every answer was the same, I took the road southeast.
—
In the early morning, I walked easily, but as the day brightened, it became difficult to creep along on foot. Wagons hardly swerved, and horsemen would not slow or yield. In such traffic, I could only travel on the margin of the road where brambles scratched my arms and caught my clothes.
My feet began to blister, and by afternoon my legs ached. I needed rest, but I was afraid to stop because men on horseback called and heckled me. “Where are you going? Come here! I’ll give you a ride.” Some veered so close they could have scooped me up and carried me away. One horseman asked my name, and when I did not answer, he brandished his riding stick until I ran to hide in a copse of trees. He did not give chase, but I knew then that I must find companions. To walk alone was dangerous as it had never been upon my island.
Watching for wagons, I glimpsed an oxcart, and I hurried alongside. A young man drove the oxen while his wife rode with their child on a pile of straw.
“If you please,” I said, holding out a piece of silver to the man. He took the money readily, and I climbed up beside his wife and son, a child about the age of our small cabin boy.
“Where are you going?” the wife asked, as her blue-eyed child stared.
“To Périgord,” I answered.
“Isn’t that a long way off?” she said.
“I have traveled longer,” I told her.
“Why?” the little boy said.
“Why have I traveled?”
“Why to Périgord?” his mother said.
“I don’t know where else to go,” I answered.
The woman looked at me strangely, but when I shared my bread and cheese, she thanked me and ate. After a while, she fell asleep, and the boy drifted off as well. All that day we rode on prickly straw.
When we reached their village, I paid to spend the night with the driver and his wife. Their house had one room, and the only place to sleep was the dirt floor, but I did not hesitate as others might have done and lay down readily. Alas, the family’s dogs slept there as well, and when I woke, I was bitten everywhere by fleas.
Itching, I set out again and sought another wagon, but I was farther from the city now, and I saw none. For long stretches, the road was empty, and yet I feared highwaymen. Even with my knife, I knew I could not fight more than one.
I watched the road and hid when I saw horsemen. My coarse clothes chafed the fleabites on my arms and belly. I stopped to scratch myself, then walked, and stopped again so that my lonely progress slowed—but after many hours, I think my angels must have intervened.
I heard a hum and then a prayerful chanting. Turning, I saw a band of pilgrims—at least a dozen approaching. I slowed so that they surrounded me, and I began to walk amongst them.
None objected, and none seemed surprised. Although I was a stranger, these travelers took me for their own. I carried a bundle as they did. I was dusty as they were, and they did not revile me.
All day we walked, and the rhythm of our steps helped me to endure my bites. When we rested at the roadside, a miller and his wife broke bread with me. They shared their loaf, and I offered them my meat. Then we three took up our sticks to walk with the company.
“How long have you been on pilgrimage?” the miller’s wife asked.
“I left home four years ago for La Rochelle,” I answered.
“Truly!” she exclaimed. “And did you sail from there?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been to the Holy Land?”
“No, I have been in wilderness,” I said.
For three days, I traveled with the pilgrims. We walked through valleys ripe with summer wheat. We passed vineyards, groves of walnut trees, and orchards full of pears. The landscape quieted my heart; it was so spacious and green. My swollen wrist began to heal, and I no longer scanned the road for danger.
Our days were bright, without a drop of rain. We shared food and funds, and we paid farmers pennies to sleep in a barn or on a granary floor. Then we woke with the sun and prayed together. But we could not always be praying, and gently the miller’s wife questioned me again. “Where are you from?”
“From far away,” I said.
“But where are your people?”
“I have lost my family.”
She confided, “We seek a blessing because we have lost our only child.”
I said, “I understand.”
“You have been a pilgrim for so long,” she ventured. “Have you had blessings for your pains?”
I answered, “Yes, I have been on a long pilgrimage, and I have been blessed. And I have also lost my only child.”
“What blessings did you have?” the woman asked.
I thought of icy waves and stars. I thought of Auguste and our child with his wondering eyes. I remembered Damienne, whose voice I heard inside me. I have been loved, I thought, but did not say it, because I would not risk weeping. Once begun, I was afraid I would not stop.
Dusk fell, and the pilgrims set up camp beside the road. I prayed with them, but when the moon rose, I stole away.
I walked in moonlight, and seeing horsemen, I slipped between the trees. Clouds blew across the sky to veil the moon’s face, and yet I felt my way. I heard howling animals—either wolves or wild dogs—but the noise did not frighten me. I found a place to sleep in an old hayrick, and at dawn, I walked again.
No traffic troubled me, but my toenails loosened, and my blisters bled. Then I took off my tight shoes and stockings. I carried them for miles because I hoped to look respectable at journey’s end, but over time they grew too heavy. Meeting a farmer and his wife, I traded shoes for food.
As I walked barefoot, my blisters began to heal. My soles grew hard as they had been upon my island, and I felt earth and stones beneath my feet. I walked in early morning light, in mist, and in light rain. And as I went, I remembered Auguste and all he had dared. While apprenticed, he had walked away from his cruel master. Aboard ship, he had embraced me. I am alive, I told him silently. Do you see me?
I found blackberries to eat, and amongst these thorny canes, I discovered an old hut without a roof. This ruin smelled of animals, but here I slept till morning.
—
For ten days I journeyed, until, in the distance, high up on a cliff, I saw my own chateau. Spires and battlements pierced the sky, and, looking up at my old home, I felt how far I’d fallen. I thought, They will throw me out for begging at the door. Even if I tell them who I am, they will not believe me. They will say, You are not she. You are not the Marguerite who lived here once. And that was true.
Seeing these towers, I wondered if I should approach at all—but I did not turn around.
I walked into the forest where the Montforts once rode to hounds. I listened until I heard a rushing sound of water. Cutting away brambles and climbing over rocks, I found a brook where I could drink and wash my hands, my face, my feet. Here, I combed and arranged my hair.
Following the brook, I found the river, low and green. Crossing the stone bridge, I saw what had been my villages. My meadows, green and gold.
Farmers were cutting the long grass for hay, but some were resting under trees, and some sat by the river for their noon meal. I saw them eating together, but I dared not approach so many. I walked instead to a small field where I came upon a red-faced man. As he scythed grass on one side, his wife cut on the other, and she labored with a baby strapped to her back.
Offering a penny, I asked the woman, “If you please, do the Montforts live here still?”
Holding her scythe, she stopped to stare. She seemed to think I was a spirit of the wood.
“Please,” I said. “I only want to know if the Montforts are your masters.”
She nodded, but before I could speak again, the sunburnt man called out to her. “Have you given up already?”
With one quick motion, the woman pocketed my coin and bent to work again.
I followed a rutted path between the fields, and although I had just washed myself, my feet were muddy once again. I smoothed my rough skirts and wiped my sweaty face with my sleeve as I passed kitchen gardens where lettuces and beans and squash were flourishing.
Glimpsing the stone court, I sighed to look at stables better than any dwelling I had found in my long journey. They were so tall and elegant and clean.
“Who are you?” a groom demanded.
“Get along. You’ll scare the horses,” another told me.
Timidly I turned to the walled garden. I was afraid to approach the door near the stone court, lest the grooms see, so I walked around the back. I tried that door, but found it locked.
The garden walls were covered with roses. Setting down my bundle, I inhaled crimson blossoms, heady, sweet, and shimmering. Touching silk petals, I heard a voice I knew from within.
“No, Ysabeau. Beware the bees! You see how they are drinking from the flowers.”
“Claire!” I called, but my voice was faint, and the stone walls were tall. “Claire!”
“What was that?” another woman said.
“Claire, it’s me.”
“It is a stranger,” the woman said.
“No, it is Marguerite,” I called at the door.
Now muffled voices debated what to do.
“How can it be?”
“It’s a beggar.”
“It’s a trick.”
“Go and see,” said Claire.
The door opened to reveal two servants, a young maid and the nurse, Agnès. Behind them stood Claire and Madame D’Artois and the girls, suddenly much taller. Ysabeau, once small and soft, was now a slender girl of nine. At twelve, black-eyed Suzanne had become a beauty with white arms and raven hair and long black lashes. Lovely though she was, she looked imperiously at me, a stranger.
“Who are you?” Agnès asked.
I wanted to speak, but I could not. I wanted to rush inside, but as in dreams, my legs refused to carry me. The flowers overwhelmed me, the clipped trees, the scent of lavender. “Help,” I pleaded.
Ysabeau gasped, and Suzanne stepped back, lifting her skirts, as though she feared her hem might touch me. Claire’s mother took each girl by the hand.
“This is no place for slatterns like yourself,” Agnès declared.
I said, “Don’t you remember me?”
“Impudent!” Agnès boxed my ears and struck me down.
On my knees, I gasped, reeling from the assault.
But Claire interceded. “Do not strike her. This woman is in pain. She’s hurt.” And although she did not recognize me, she helped me to my feet. Although I looked a filthy beggar, she did not shy away but held my arms to steady me. Claire, I thought, did I doubt you? Did I ever know you?
We stood face-to-face, and I looked into her eyes—but even then, my friend did not recognize me.
“Please don’t be frightened,” I told her.
And now she did look frightened, starting back. “Who are you?”
“I would never injure you,” I told Claire. “Indeed, for love of you, I have traveled all this way.” I took off her ring and pressed it into her hand.
Claire whispered, “Where did you get that?”
“You gave it to me.”
Claire said nothing. She studied my face, my hands, and my thin arms. She looked into my eyes and then at last she spoke. Her voice came in a whisper. “You are returned.”
“Is it possible?” Claire’s mother said.
My former pupils turned to each other in confusion. I might have been a ghost, a changeling. “Where did she come from?” the girls were whispering. “Where are her shoes?” But Claire embraced me in my rags. She did not speak but wept for joy.