Free Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross Page B

innocence.
    And He had.
    But then why did He let her die?

    S HE didn’t speak about it until later, after she had resumed her lesson back at the grubenhaus. She lowered her stylus in the middle of writing and asked suddenly, “Why would God do it?”
    “Perhaps He didn’t,” Aesculapius responded, taking her meaning at once.
    Joan stared at him. “Are you saying that such a thing could have happened in spite of His will?”
    “Perhaps not. But the fault may lie in the nature of the trial rather than in the nature of God’s will.”
    Joan considered that. “My father would say that this is how witches have been tried for hundreds of years.”
    “True enough.”
    “But that doesn’t necessarily make it right.” Joan looked at Aesculapius. “What would be a better way?”
    “That,” he said, “is for you to tell me.”
    Joan sighed. Aesculapius was so different from her father, or even Matthew. He refused to tell her things, insisting instead that she reason her own way to the answer. Joan tugged gently on the tip of her nose as she often did when thinking out a problem.
    Of course. She had been blind not to see it at once. Cicero and the
De inventione
—until now, it had been merely an abstraction, a rhetorical ornament, an exercise for the mind.
    “The evidentiary questions,” Joan said. “Why couldn’t they be brought to apply in this case?”
    “Explain,” Aesculapius said.
    “Quid:
there is the fact of the knotted belt—that is indisputable. But surely there is an argument about what it means.
Quis:
Who put the knots in the belt and placed it in the woods?
Quomodo:
How was it taken from Ebo?
Quando, Ubi:
When and where was it taken? Did anyone actually see Hrotrud with it?
Cur:
Why should Hrotrud wish harm to Ebo?” Joan spoke rapidly, excited by the possibilities of the idea. “Witnesses could be brought forward and questioned. And Hrotrud and Ebo too—they could be questioned. Their answers might have determined Hrotrud’s innocence. And”—Joan concluded ruefully—“she would not have had to die to prove it!”
    They were on dangerous ground, and they knew it. They sat together in silence. Joan was overwhelmed by the enormity of the concept that had burst upon her: the application of logic to divine revelation, the possibility of an earthly justice in which the assumptionsof faith were governed by rational inquiry, and belief was supported by the powers of reason.
    Aesculapius said, “It would probably be wise not to mention this conversation to your father.”
    T HE Feast of St. Bertin was just past, the days were growing shorter, and so, of necessity, were the children’s lessons. The sun was low in the sky when Aesculapius finally stood up.
    “That, children, is enough for today.”
    “May I go now?” John asked. Aesculapius waved in dismissal, and John bounded from his seat and hurried outdoors.
    Joan smiled ruefully at Aesculapius. John’s obvious dislike for their studies embarrassed her. Aesculapius was frequently impatient, even sharp, with John. But her brother was a slow and unwilling student. “I can’t do it!” he would wail the moment he met some new difficulty. There were times when Joan would have liked to shake him and shout, “Try! Try! How do you know you can’t do it unless you try!”
    Afterward, Joan reproached herself for such thoughts. John could not help being slow. Without John there would have been no lessons at all these past two years—and life without lessons had become unthinkable.
    As soon as John had gone, Aesculapius said seriously, “I have something to tell you. I have been informed that my services are no longer needed at the schola. Another scholar, a Frankishman, has applied to be teaching master, and the bishop finds him more suitable for the position than I.”
    Joan was bewildered. “How can this be? Who is the man? He cannot possibly know as much as you!”
    Aesculapius smiled. “That statement shows loyalty, if not wisdom. I have