"How can anything be discussed out here?" Pierrette protested to Otho, in the bleak light of a stormy dawn. "What unpleasant weather."
"It's lovely weatherfor my purpose," said Otho. "I asked the castellan to bring only those people who are to witness against you, but I know himeveryone will come to see you humiliated."
"What's good about that?"
"It's good that the weather is nasty, because when I offer the involved parties the shelter of my chapel, Jerome will have no good reason to refuse. We'll shut the doors on the mob the knight hopes to incite against you."
Pierrette looked at Otho with new eyesthe humble, fumbling priest had not impressed her as especially wise. "And I'll be safe from them, in your sanctuary," she said.
"There is that," Otho said with a smile.
Indeed, the Burgundian was angrybut had no reason to insist on another venue, or to postpone the confrontation until the weather cleared. The parties to Pierrette's persecutionand some whom Otho seemed to consider her defendersentered the chapel, where three candles burned in a single sconce. The altar and crucifix at the far end were obscured by gloom.
On one side stood Otho, Gilles, and Pierrette, and opposite them were Jerome and the soldier Luc. Also present were others of whose alignment Pierrette was unsure. Granna will not speak against me, Pierrette thought. But she was not sure. What would Granna's self-interest dictate? Claudia the baker had always been kindly, but who could tell? The tavernkeeper Germain and his wife Julia were there, and Parvinus, a stockkeeper and cheesemakerand a terrible gossip. Whatever transpired would soon be known by all the town.
Of the rest, there was little doubt. The soldier for whom Anselm had recommended a cure for impotence was there, with his broken-toothed wife. Pierrette did not think they were present out of gratitude to the mage's apprentice. There was the shepherd whose headaches Anselm's herbs had relieved. What would he have to say?
Gilles stared at the knight, his fists clenched. "It's not yet my time," he muttered under his breath. "It is not my time."
Pierrette felt reassured when Otho began speaking as confidently as if this were a mass. "Much has been said of this child's sins," he said, "but we are not here for marketplace gossip. Are there real charges?"
"Indeed there are!" Jerome said loudly. "Bruno, tell these people what you told me." The once-impotent soldier was unused to speaking in front of groups, and was embarrassed to air his private disability. He blushed apple red, and stammered meaningless phrases.
"Get to the point!" Jerome urged. "You couldn't turn your rope into a spear, so you went to the sorcerer." Bruno nodded. "Then what happened?"
"The old man said words over me, and sent me and my wife up the valley, to a spring beyond the Roman fountain. There we . . . we did it, and I was cured."
"What? Is that all?"
"Well . . . no."
"Tell us!"
"It wasn't her!" Bruno blurted. "I mean, it wasn't my wife. It was her!" He pointed to Pierrette.
At Jerome's curt urging, Bruno's tale emerged. When he made love with his wife beside Ma's pool, she metamorphosed into . . . Pierrette. From a huge old tree sprang Anselm, who cavorted while they coupled in the leaves. As if that accusationadultery as well as sorcerywas not enough, the soldier declared that it had been the same ever since: the woman who came to him every night was Pierrette also.
"There you have it," said Jerome. "Bruno, you may go."
"Not so quickly!" Otho said. "I have a question or two."
The priest turned to Bruno's wife. "Didn't you mind? Did you stand aside with the mage Anselm, to watch your husband and his lover?"
"There wasn't no lover!" she bellowed. "There wasn't nobody! Just him and me!" She glared at her husband. "Thinking about young girls when you're swiving me, will you?"
"We've heard enough," Otho said, waving Bruno and his expostulating wife away. Pierrette had no doubt they would have a long discussion, one that would arise anew whenever poor Bruno felt male urges and approached his wife. Pierrette giggled, and earned disapproving looks from Jerome and Otho alike.
"Are there others you wish to call?" Otho asked the knight.
"Ah . . . perhaps it can wait. I'll question my witnesses further, to make sure there are no other misguided fools like Bruno. We can reconvene another time, when the weather . . ."
"Oh, no! Let's weed out the fools and be done with it." A murmur of assent from others sealed Otho's decision.
Unhappily, Jerome bade the shepherd tell his tale.
"I saw her in the woods," he said, and described how Pierrette removed her skirt and bleated like a goat, until someonesomethingresponded to her noises. "I saw his goat's legs, and his great tool. They did it again and again."
"She submitted to a demon, half-man and half-beast?" Jerome prodded him.
"She didn't even lie down! He leaned her up against a tree, and . . ." The shepherd enthusiastically described Pierrette's debaucheries with the pagan god, now granted demonhood.
"I see," Otho observed, pointedly staring at the shepherd's crotch, where the fabric bulged noticeably, "that you aren't revolted by what you're telling us, Claudio. Did you enjoy watching them? But nolet me remind you that though you are in my chapel, and I am your priest, this is not confession. You don't have to answer . . . now."
Claudio was well aware that he was not in the tavern among friends, but was facing his confessorand the memory of all his past confessions. Herding sheep was lonely, and masturbation was not the worst that the priest had heard of from shepherds. It was good, Otho thought, that ewes were not quickened by human seed, or there would be children in Citharista with legs like Pan's. "Claudio, tell me what you really saw."
Hanging his head, Claudio relatedwith significantly less enthusiasmhow he had heard a bleating goat. Berenice's buck had gotten his collar caught, and Berenice was trying to free him.
"Berenice, not Pierrette?" Otho interjected. "You're sure?" There was a distant resemblance between Berenice and Pierretteboth were female and had black hair. But Berenice was twenty-five and had borne six children.
"It was Berenice," Claudio admitted. When Otho pressed him, he told how the woman's skirt became caught in the thorns. She removed it, thinking herself alone. When the goat was freed, she untangled her garment and again covered her white buttocks and heavy, dimpled thighs.
"Is that all?" Otho asked. "A woman removed her skirt, freed her trapped goat, redonned the skirt, and departed? No unnatural acts were performed?"
"Well . . ." said Claudio.
"No woman performed an unnatural act, I mean."
"No. I mean yes . . . She didn't do anything."
"I'll expect you at Sunday mass, Claudiocome early." For confession, of course. The only sexual act performed in the woods that day had been Claudio's, involving no goats, pagan gods, or women. Otho was sure it would be a long time before Claudio regaled tavernmates with his fantasies.
"There is a lesson in what we've heard today," Otho said in his sermon-voice. "Men and women make scapegoats of the innocent, rather than admitting their own sin, weakness, or foolishness.
"Have we weeded the fools from our midst?" he asked Jerome. "Are we done with fanciful tales?" Several people nodded. "Then the charges of sorcery are laid to rest."
"Not quite!" Jerome blurted. "There is the matter of her changing from a boy to a woman. She was no woman before! I, and a dozen others, can swear to that."
"You might swear that you did not know she was a girl," Otho corrected him, "but others knew.
"Grannawhen Pierrette began coming to market, how long before you knew she was a girl?"
"Hmm . . . last yearor before that. When she caught young Marius behind her market stall with . . . with Claudia's daughter Marcella . . ." Granna glanced toward Claudia, and raised her hands palms up, as it to say, "What can I say but the truth?" Claudia shrugged. After all, Marcella was safely marriedthough not to Marius.
"Pierrette saw them futtering," Granna continued. "I found her weepingwhich was odd, for a boy. My curiosity was aroused, and I watched her more closely. The signs had been there all alongthe way she walked arm in arm with Marie, when a boy wouldn't walk the same side of the street as his big sister."
"Why didn't you say anything to me? Wasn't it my concern, as shepherd of Citharista's flock?"
"You already knew, Father," Granna stated. "You had to know the reason, too. If you weren't doing anything about it, why should I?"
"Indeed I knew," Otho said. "I knew Gilles's fear for his olive grove, if he had no son. Of course I thought the deception would be done with when Gilles remarried and begot a male heir, but that didn't happen. Still, the child didn't seem burdened by the masquerade, so . . ." He turned to Jerome.
"She consorts with the sorcerer!" Jerome grated angrily, his scheme eroding away.
"As do others," Otho countered evenly, "others who do not stand accused today." He turned to Claudia. "You bring bread to old Anselm," he said. "Couldn't a sorcerer make bread from stones, and wine from seawater?"
"Not like my bread," Claudia said.
"You go there often. What have you seen?"
"A hungry old man," said Claudia.
"Your bread condemns you!" Jerome spat. "He gave you a magical yeast."
"I use the yeast my mother gave me!" she protested. "You're jealous your cook bakes only bricks."
"You leave loaves on your doorstep each night," Jerome said. "Sacrifices for the old man's demon minions."
"Demons? Don't be silly. You're a foreigner, and can't be expected to understand. We leave bread and milk for the Shy Peoplethe fairy folk. They herd no cattle and sow no wheat. Would you rather they worked mischief on us?
"Father?" she asked, turning to Otho. "Is it a sin to leave bread for them?"
"You leave a loaf on your doorstep, and in the morning, it's gone. Who's to say what hungry soul picks it up? Do you pray to false gods? Do you ask favors for your bread?" Claudia shook her head.
"Then I see no harm," Otho concluded.
"We have strayed from the subject," he then said, "which is Pierrette. All that's left to discuss is what to do about her." He held up the letter from the abbess. "She must take her sister to the shrine of the Holy Marys," he said, "but our castellan has bid her remain here and wed the soldier Lucian. What is the reasonable course?"
"The sister will die one way or another!" snarled Jerome. "She's completely mad anyway. The girl is of marriageable age, and has no other suitors. A husband and a baby or two will keep her out of mischief."
"She claims to be a virgin, still," Otho said. "If it's her wish to remain unwed, and her father's . . ."
"It is!" interjected Pierrette.
"She's no virgin!" cried Jerome.
"Then the last dispute has been clearly expressed," said Otho. "If she is not virgin, Jerome's contention is supportedthough not proved. If she is virgin, her own assertions are clearly proven, and Jerome's are invalidated. The solution is simpleand we have just the person here to provide it." He turned to Germain's wife. "Juliayou've attended most births in Citharista?"
"I lost count after the hundredth, twenty years ago."
"And women come to you for advice about . . . womanly ailments?" Julia agreed they did.
"Can you determine if a woman is a virginor not?" Of course everyone knew the answer, but Otho wanted everything laid out so no future dispute could nullify what was decided.
"I can tell if some women are virginal," Julia stated, "but I can't say for sure that any particular woman is notunless she has borne children."
"Let me make this clear," Otho said. "If Pierrette is untouched, you may determine that beyond doubt. If not, it still doesn't disprove her contention. Is that so?" Julia agreed. It was possible to prove Pierrette's assertions, and impossible to prove the castellan's.
"Then let us put an end to this. Pierrette, go with Juliaand Granna and Claudia; three witnesses will suffice. We'll wait here."
Pierrette was more enraged and humiliated than another girl might have been. Had her mother lived, she might be enured to intimate examination by women. Had she been raised as a girl among women, it might have been less traumatic to lie with her legs apart while each woman held a candle close and peered at her. Only Juliaafter murmuring a quiet incantation and washing her hands in a bowl of wineactually touched her.
Despite her awkward pose, Pierrette could not resist asking . . . "What spell is that?"
"Spell?" replied Julia. "I asked Mary, mother of God, to guide me."
"And the wine?"
Julia was nonplused. "Why . . . My mother and my mother's mother always washed with wine. There's no spellI'm no paganus."
Paganus. How words changed. It meant simply a rural dweller. Why had it changed, to mean a believer in old gods? Because Christianity had always been a city faith? Contrary to the old, earthy religions, it had nothing to say about farrowing hogs, the culture of olive trees, or the illnesses of sheep or goats. Paganus. Pagan. Of course.
The four women pushed through the chapel door. Claudia and Granna looked smug. Pierrette's visage showed bitter confidence. Only Julia's face showed nothing at all.
"She's been with no man," Julia stated. "There's no question about it."
Jerome's face was neutral. It was no surprise. Had he had his way, though, it would never have been revealed.
"Let's be done," Otho said. "The girl is untouched, and the tales about her are vicious rumors. Pierrette, is it your intention to remain unmarriedand virginalat this time?" Pierrette nodded. "Speak up, that we may all witness it." She did so, between clenched teeth. The humiliation would not fade soon.
"Will you take your sister to the Marys' shrine?"
She nodded again.
Otho turned to Jerome. "Are you satisfied with the women's finding? Is she free to depart?" The Burgundian nodded.
Of course he was not satisfied, Pierrette reflected. He must be enraged. Yet the question that plagued her was: Why? Obviously, he had lost his opportunity to deflower her, but that was not his real obsession. Was Cernunnos angry that he had lost a perquisite of his fading godhood? She could not forget the consuming fire she had seen in the haunted eyes of the horned god: Jerome's anger at being thwarted was explainable; she could speculate about Cernunnos's motives. But behind the horned one was greater Evil, the Eater of Gods. What was its aim? What was so important about her?
"You're wiser than I thought," Pierrette admitted when she and Otho were alone. "You hand-picked each person, didn't you?"
Otho smiled. "My `education' in Massalia took two years," he said. "My real education began when I returned here as a priest. I exercised what choices I could. Not Jerome or Lucian, of course, and not Bruno or Claudio either, but I knew Jerome would choose men with lurid tales to tell, tales that would only hold up outside, where the shouts of his mob would muffle me."
"I know why you chose Claudia and Granna," Pierrette said. "They're respected. But Parvinus? Germain? Neither man said a word."
"Look beyond your motives and mine, to theirs."
Otho wanted her to figure it out for herself. Parvinus was easiesthe was a gossip. Now the gossip he traded would not be rooted in Bruno's self-justification or Claudio's fantasies, but in their foolishnessand Jerome's. The knight's star would fall as her own roseand therein lay her continued safety. Not soon would the gens of Citharista rise to destroy one of their own over baseless rumors and malicious lies.
And Germain? Would Julia's husband entertain suggestions that impugned his wife's skills? He would defend herand his "forum" was the largest in Citharista: the wine shop, where every man went when he had a coin to spare. No one would imply that his wife was a fool or a liar.
"And your motive, P'er Otho?"
"Mine? Consider, child. A herd of cows can have only one bull, and horses one stallion. Of course I am neitherthough priesthood has not unmanned mebut a town can have only one spiritual authority, and one temporal. Jerome crossed the boundary between our domains. Now he'll no longer threaten to have me replaced by a more docile priest."
"Will he keep a guard on the trail to the cape? Will poor Anselm remain without a soul to visit and cheer him?"
"He'll have his bread and wine," said Otho. The priest did not know the whole of it, Pierrette reminded herself. He did not know that those visitors who brought no bread and no wine, only requests for his aid, were the greater sustenance the mage required. "Even if Jerome doesn't withdraw his soldiers at once, Lucian and his men won't watch closely."
Pierrette was not ready to depart the next day, or the one after. "Wait," Granna advised. "Let the gentes guilt work for you, as their small minds once worked against you." Pierrette did not know what she meant, until the third morning.
Gustave the carter was the gens' messenger. "This is for you," he said, handing Pierrette a small, heavy sack. "Open it!" A dozen coins poured into her hand. "They took up a collection. Is that enough?" Pierrette suspected it wasthough not too much. Gilles would have to live on what he was able to make selling oil. Neither she nor P'er Otho had devised a way to get Jerome to return the coins he had stolenor to admit that he had stolen them.
"I'll manage," Gilles assured her. "Nothing will happen to me because . . . it is not yet my time."
Pierrette did not think Gilles would be lonely. She had seen the looks that passed between him and Granna. It was almost as if he could not wait for Pierrette to depart, so he would have the widow to himself. Of course Granna was too old to give Gilles the heir he had wanted, but there was more to life than babies.
Before Gustave departed, Pierrette made her first use of the new coins. She dickered with the carter for his donkey. His heart did not seem to be in his bargaining, and they reached agreement at a price far below what she would have paid. She thanked Gustavebut remembering how the beast had always eyed her with suspicion and resentment, she wondered how good a bargain she had driven.
With regret that she must again pose as a boy, Pierrette folded a dress, chemise, and shawl and stowed them in the bottom of a wicker pannier. She would be walking over rocky ground and through thorny brush. She didn't expect to meet many people on the high track, but still, a boy might be less tempting than a young woman, should she encounter anyone with malicious intent.
In a less practical sense, she felt less vulnerable. She took on a brasher attitude with her clothing, an ability to joke, bluff, even posture threateningly. She had learned the "rules" of male social intercourse while avoiding physical confrontations. She had learned how to back off short of violent conflict, but to hold her own, right up to that. Other girls didn't learn that, not in the same way.
Perhaps there was good in her skewed "education." She had bemoaned what she was missing; now she realized she had gained something in compensation: confidence, if not actual competence, in dealing with the world of men.
Several well-wishers accompanied her from the town, then one by one dropped away. Otho was the last. "You'll stop and check on Anselm?" she asked. He assured her he wouldthough his parishioners would gossip. "Wear your shiny pectoral cross, and chant in Church Latin. They won't suspect it's a social call."
"Will it be?"
Otho had never met her mentor. What would the two men, so different, yet in some ways the same, think of each other? "I can't imagine you not getting along."
"I suppose I'll find out," he replied. She had to be satisfied with that.
"This will be a long journey," she sighed. "When it's over, I wonder how ready I'll be to settle down?"
Otho chuckled. "I have a feeling that this trip is only the beginning of your journeyings. . . ."
What god or prophet, Pierrette would ask herself in the years that followed, had spoken in the priest's ear?
Otho's quill snapped in his hand. He spat an unpriestly word when he saw the spattery blotch on his parchment. What had the girl said, that day when she made pact with the knight about the olive grove? Something about making an honest pagan of him?
Otho was not sure, but it was something she had said. Something about jars of oil? About Good and Evil, and . . . about pouring all the oil but a single drop into one jar. Yes! That was what she had said. And what else? That Christians had created Satan, and should pour half the oil back. . . .
Otho's thoughts raced. Pour it back? An honest pagan? He groaned as the stiffness in his limbs made him aware how long he had sat. "Ah, well, I'll work the kinks out on the way to the knight's house."
Indeed, he felt fine and feisty when he arrived. When the elderly gatekeeper attempted to stop him, he fired off phrases in his best Latin, of which the poor man understood only that, as God is everywhere, he could not deny entrance to a priest, unless God was also absent from the house. Otho encountered no one else on his way to the knight's bedchamber.
Jerome was abed, but his painful condition made sound sleep impossible. He awakened before the priest at the foot of his bed finished three sentences of his unconventional chant. Jerome sat up, confused, but not yet afraid. Otho continued his singsong, his hand raised as if in benediction.
". . . and forgive you, and release you from your Christian pledges as if you had never heard the word of God, as if you were indeed an innocent, a child of nature not yet schooled. Jerome, protector of Citharista, you are freed. Jerome, priest of Lugh, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I release you and give you back your name, Reikhard. I withdraw your baptismal name, Jerome."
"Reikhard," the knight murmured. "I haven't heard that name in twenty years. The last priest of the old gods gave it to me. He died before I had memorized the sacred texts. . . . I was still a boy when your priest-blessed waters washed that name away. But what have you done?"
The impact of the twisted rite had not struck him yet. There was no recognized ceremony for freeing a man from the Church. Excommunication barred a man from the sacraments; it did not wash away baptism or erase professions of faith. There was exorcismbut he did not intend to drive out a demon. He intended only to make its dwelling unhabitable. . . .
"Indeed, what have I done?" Otho replied. He had likely damned his own immortal soul. "I have freed you. I have poured half the oil back. You are no longer Christian."
"Are you mad? You can't do that!" Jerome swung his bare legs from his bed. Otho backed away fearfully, for the voice was not the knight's.
"Depart, fallen one!" Otho's voice was not quite a shriek. "This pagan is not your meat. You have no place here. Depart, I command you!"
Jeromenow Reikhardgagged as if vomiting. His heavy frame heaved, and his legs stiffened, forcing him to his feet, arms outstretched and fingers curled as he tried to grasp the priest's neck. Otho stepped backwards. The knight's throat welled with wet words no living man knew, and a fetid stench rolled out upon them.
He opened his mouth, as if to scream. Black smoke belched forth and gathered like a storm among square-hewn beams, seeking exit between the planks of the ceiling. The shapeless darkness squealed as if a crowd walked on the floor above.
The knight sank back to the bed, and with one final eructation expelled a last wisp of blackness that chittered like a mouse underfoot as it fluttered upward to join its whole.
"Depart!" Otho screamed, ducking low beneath the roiling mass. "Begone!" From the noisome cloud issued sounds of scurrying rats, hissing of vipers, wet rending of living flesh. It moved, blown by an unfelt breeze, toward the tall window. It billowed, and then was gone.
The Burgundian's retching did not deter Otho from rushing to the window, in time to see something dark coalesce in the branches of the plane tree in the courtyard, to hear the hoarse croak of the great raven that took wing. The priest stared wide-eyed as black wings momentarily obscured the moon. The creature flapped away westward, and was soon lost in the night.