The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry

though she carried on a heartbroken conversation. Madness could do this, but she did not seem insane. Grief might make one mad, and if any had cause for grief, it was she. I heard her plead over and over, “Where are you? Where are you? Why have you left me alone?” Poor soul. She must be speaking to her mother.
    I was only six when I lost my mother. Is there a best age for such robbery? Was I better off for Mamà’s death being long ago, tucked behind the hopefulness of youth and the forgetfulness of time? Was Dolssa the lucky one to have had her mother longer? Or was she the more bereaved for being old enough to understand and remember all that she had lost?
    Night was fully dark when we arrived back in Bajas, but la luna revealed to us the town. For some distance, salty breezes off the sea had filled me with longing. Now, as we climbed Bajas’s round-domed hill, the lullaby of la mar ’s gentle waves called to me. We were home.
    Na Pieret di Fabri’s house was one of the grander, taller ones in town, toward the top of the hill, near the church. We went there first. We made enough noise for all sorts to poke their heads out their windows to complain and ogle the newcomers. In Bajas, with all the holes in our walls connecting one house to the next, a sound heard by one was a sound heard by all (as newlyweds often learned to their chagrin), so in no time we had a full audience.
    I’d had two days of watching Gui and Symo’s azes swagger across muddy roads and fields like they owned it all. To hear them talk, their tanta ’s vineyards had already made them rich as counts. I enjoyed watching them shrink a bit smaller now with all our curious Bajas eyes upon them.
    Astruga leaned out her window, bosoms and all, and called to the tozẹts to notice her. Dominus Bernard exited a front door and made the sign of the cross, the outrageous faker. I’d bet my inheritance if I had one that he wasn’t there comforting the sick or counseling the sinful. Correction: with the sinful, yes; counsel and comfort of a special kind. It was the home of the frisky Rixenda, whose husband, Peire, was a sailor often away at sea for days on end. Astruga saw Dominus Bernard, scowled, and retreated behind her shutters with a bang.
    Then Na Pieret di Fabri appeared in her candle-lit doorway to greet her new sons. She stared at them, and they bowed to her. She raised her trembling hands to Gui’s face, and kissed each of his cheeks. Symo next received this affectionate welcome, though given, I thought, with perhaps a little—a very little—less warmth than his handsome brother had found.
    “In a day soon to come,” the good domna proclaimed, “we will feast. My sister’s eyes have returned to comfort me in my old age, here in the faces of these, my new sons. But now, home, each of you, to your beds. I will keep my sons to myself. We have a lifetime of catching up to do. Garcia and his son will stable the animals, and we will deal with the luggage tomorrow.”
    So swept up in this reunion was I that I failed to see the mess we were in. While Garcia steered Pieret’s mule down the narrow tunnel leading to her stable below, Sazia tugged on my sleeve. “Dolssa,” she whispered into my ear.
    Symo turned and met my gaze. “The donzȩllas have much luggage in our little barrow,” he told his newly met tanta . “Like princesses, they packed too much. But since they might want it before morning, I will take it to their home tonight.”
    “Great cortezia has my new son.” Na Pieret beamed. “Like a true knight, he places the comfort of the fair donzȩllas first.”
    True knight, indeed.
    I heard a familiar voice calling out my name. Plazensa ran up the hill, her skirts clutched high to her knees, her black hair streaming behind her. She plowed into me, knocking me right into Symo’s barrow. Only by purest luck did I not hit Dolssa and crack her head open.
    “So you’re back,” Plazi scolded. “How dare you worry me so much, and then