Langue[dot]doc 1305

by Gillian Polack

  Before Ben worked, however, he breathed the air and felt the season. He understood the wind and how it slipped through the hills. He knew the Cévennes and the littoral and he loved this region between them. As his eyes slipped over the garrigue and took in the stunted kermes oaks and the twisted bushes, he would smile. He named everything in French and he thought in French when he was out, for that was the contour of this land in his mind. He tasted the South in every breath he took and it grounded him.

  This land made it possible to endure the impossible. His deep dream was to one day have a vineyard in a place like this. One far removed from politics and lies.

  Ben didn’t know if he was blessed or cursed. Blessed because he had intelligence and looks and skill with people. Cursed because of his background. Also cursed because that intelligence and those looks and that skill with people always meant he was given work that drove him further and further from where he wanted to be. And he took that work because he had guilt to expiate. Personal guilt. Family guilt. So very much guilt.

  * * *

  Guilhem-the-smith was very happy that he wasn’t a consul at this moment in time. Berta’s husband, in his ineffable way, had really made an awful mess. It was for someone else to handle. Someone else could work with all the interested parties (on behalf of the abbot, of course) to clean the section of the Verdus that was distinctly odorous and to find some sort of solution. How had the cobbler done it? It looked as if more than rubbish was dumped: it was excrescence.

  The artisan looked at the clear water above the mess and the way it worked slowly to remove the foulness and he made a decision, as he had done many, many times. If there were something like this, where everyone disclaimed culpability and liability, and if he were named arbiter, he would hand it back to the abbey. His reasoning was that if Abbot Bernard didn’t give them full power over their lives, then the worthy abbot should be the one to handle all the disgusting cases. Guilhem never said this aloud, however, precisely as he never answered back when someone (usually Sibilla) asked when he would marry. There were some things one did not say aloud.

  In the meantime, he avoided that section of the stream (as he had for two weeks) and, crossing at the stones, he walked the broad path to the main street, where he watched the village go by.

  Peire had been striding in his big way. He was about to walk into someone. He took a swift step sideways. His beads clattered and his stylus fell to the ground and his wax boards refused stubbornly to catch the sun. Peire had mentioned this several times, how the wax was too thin, how parchment was better, how the heat melted the wax unexpectedly and how he never knew what notes he had made for himself. As the priest bent down to reach for his stylus, his tablet also crashed onto the ground, its leather thong too short. Guilhem-the-smith wondered if the tablet had split in half, but it was too far to see.

  It was getting dark. The smith didn’t move. He stood there, in the growing shadow, watching. There was nothing to go home for and his cold meal could wait a little longer. He wanted to watch Berta walk through the streets cautiously, on her way to see someone. She was carrying a little oil lantern in her right palm, very gently. The glow lit her face and made it softer than usual. Her prosaic sharp features looked angular and mysterious. Nevertheless, Berta was still not tempting.

  Guilhem-the-smith knew precisely why he could not get married. It was something that didn’t even reach the confessional. Or maybe, he thought, it was something that I particularly couldn’t talk about in the confessional, if Peire were the confessor. He might burn in Hell for it, but at least he would retain dignity while he was on this fair earth.

  “Come here!” Pauline’s lamp was less secure as she reached to grab a child. Ah, her children were loose again. Guilhem was relieved that he had spoken up for the girl and found her an apprenticeship. Despite the comb just now being run through Bona’s hair and the scolding her mother was giving, that family was not a good place to be a child. Not enough training and not enough attention.

  The smith yearned for a child of his own far more than he yearned for marriage. It was one of his deepest wishes to be able to scold and say, as Berta was saying at this moment, with all that love and all that mock dismay, “You are such a mess!”

  Berta gave Bona a quick hug then the wild child was allowed on her way again.

  The ironworker decided that maybe, after all, it was time to eat. He closed the big door to his workshop, went through the little one, up the stairs, to his home. He closed the shutters firmly, making himself safe from the fears of the night and the lives he would never lead.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I need a friend”

  “McGyver,” shouted Luke, striding through the kitchen and through a conversation. “Mac! I need another white board marker. Now!”

  Sylvia and Pauline ignored him and continued their conversation. Technically, it was about shops and shoes. In reality, it was carefully delineating the circles they mixed in and ensuring they were on the same wavelength. Sylvia knew this, but Pauline simply participated. If they had been closer in age, and from America, Sex and the City would be part of the conversation about now, Artemisia reflected, as she wandered through the kitchen. She wished she could email Lucia this insight. Lucia would frown at her: “Not Sex and the City again,” she would complain. “What’s wrong with it? Why do you always pick on it?”

  Gradually, over the course of a couple of hours and more than a couple of cups of coffee, Pauline and Sylvia cemented their relationship. Pauline was the strong one. Self-sacrificing. Could deal with anything. Sylvia was more than happy to be the needy one. She launched into a little litany of illness to cement that role and Pauline commented on her courage.

  “If you get one of those migraines here,” she said, “Come straight to me. I’ll take care of you.”

  Once that was settled, they talked about their work and their workmates. “Not everything fits, does it?” Sylvia asked wryly.

  “It’s not fair that you have to make it fit. The others should do their stuff.”

  “They should, but I can’t see them doing it. They don’t see the big picture. And Tony! Tony doesn’t see anything.”

  “Artemisia keeps complaining.”

  “Oh, I know. All the time. Hasn’t got this book or that piece of paper.”

  “Hasn’t got real coffee. Two types of instant, we have.”

  “She really doesn’t belong here.”

  “But we have to make do with what we’ve got.” The two women smiled across at each other smugly. Everything was now in its place. Which was just as well, because Luke had found his pen and walked through the kitchen again, “Meeting. Common room. Now.”

  Meetings were depressing. Artemisia knew this before she slumped in her chair and she certainly knew it by the time she had slumped so far she couldn’t get up again. Couldn’t get up. Wouldn’t get up. Getting up meant walking past the huddle of scientists Sylvia had determined needed their own meeting after the general one. It meant Ben Konig looking down his long nose at her and nodding the way he had twenty minutes earlier when Sylvia Smith had categorised her work as ‘easy’ and ‘only semi-skilled, really’.

  This had a context. Of course it had a context. Sylvia was explaining how very hard she herself would have to work, doing both her science and administration, and had used Artemisia as a comparison.

  And that bloody doctor had agreed. She had nodded at Dr Sylvia Smith’s analysis and said, quite smugly, “Some of us are here through personal sacrifice and for the good of others, not because we’re going to change the world with science.” Artemisia felt that comment as a sharp knife that scraped off her protection and left her hurts bare. She thought of her sister the way she had seen her the day before departure, barely out of her first set of hospital visits from the new treatment, skin covered with pustules and pain. Lucia had been determined that Artemisia wouldn’t lose out.

  “Lose out? How can I?” Artemisia lied. “Harvey’s offered me a brave new world
and that brave new world has such people in it. Shakespeare says so - it must be true.” And Lucia’s sad short hair stuck up and every strand of it pulled at her sensitised skin, and even smiling back at Artemisia’s joke hurt so much that Artemisia could see it in the way she held herself and the way she courageously looked across at her sister. Artemisia’s heart broke in that moment, for she knew that when she came back in nine months, Lucia might be gone. But still… still… Lucia had to have the chance of life. Money gave her that.

  And here Artemisia was, slumped in the chair, a person of no importance, hidden in a cave beyond the end of the world. She stayed slumped until she could control the tears. She would not give Dr Smith the satisfaction, or let Dr Adamson think that she was a lamb for the slaughter.

  When she was composed, Dr Wormwood pulled herself as inwardly as she could, walked right through the gauntlet, not looking right or left or up or down. When she reached the safety of her room, she allowed herself to cry.

  Back in the huddle of scientists, Sylvia said to Ben, “Not very friendly, is she?”

  * * *

  Guilhem’s token from Jerusalem was one of his certainties. He had done his pilgrimage. He was forgiven his heinous crime. The scallop shells that Berta and Father Peire had in the village were nothing, everything else was lead pendants from their nearer walks. Lead badges, lead pendants, they were everywhere. But Guilhem had his token from Jerusalem and he was not scared any longer.

  The outcast lordling was alone in Saint-Guilhem. He had left his valet back in the house, since that boy could never get anything right. He felt debonair. As he walked slowly down the street, he gave his greetings to each and every soul and noted that the men doffed their caps and he himself bowed his head just enough. He felt very satisfied being himself and knowing what to say to each and every person. It was a craft.

  Like every craft, it required dedicated work. It wasn’t that Guilhem wasn’t interested in idle chat. In fact, Guilhem wanted to talk, but all seemed very uphill when he only had artisans to talk to. He knew the villagers were talkative because he heard them, all day, every single waking hour. The bells silenced them, but otherwise Saint-Guilhem’s conversations flowed like the Verdus, gentle and constant. Guilhem knew that the folk held political views and views on religion and views on the crops and the weather and the idiocy of those people down in Aniane, because he had heard this, too. They didn’t talk about these things with him. They didn’t talk about anything with him. He continued to grimly work at being polite.

  He was so determined that he almost missed it when Guilhem-the-smith invited him for a drink. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m on my way home.”

  “I need a friend,” he said to himself as he walked back through his door to scold his lazy page yet again. He had accepted the sentence to exile because he knew this place was fortified. Fortifications, in his experience, contained people like him. He had made a mistake. Those who lived in the castle were nothing like him. His sort passed through, but didn’t stay. Only the Templars at Pézenas understood him and his life, only his secret friends in Montpellier understood his other interests (and if he went there often, his aunt would find out). Here and now, in this place made of rocks and hardness, he was alone. Miserably so.

  Inside the rocks and hardness, in the places Guilhem didn’t understand, there was green. Courtyards glowed with it, there were flowers tended carefully and woodfires providing warmth and flickering colour. This was the month of warmth and friendliness, where the land was less demanding and there was time to talk, to sit, to do the small works of hands. It was when the people of the town turned inwards, to their private spaces, and gained some small happiness. Or not. It was the time when some members of the town felt vulnerable, for the small familiarity of souls would never be theirs.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dead Saints and Their Amazing Adventures

  Briefing: The papacy (file from Artemisia Wormwood)

  The papacy is currently in interesting times. This is the year that started the train of events that led to the Great Schism. Three popes at once. Not yet, though. This is the beginning of that time. Right now we’re finishing an interregnum - a year with no pope at all. There will be a papal coronation in November, and after that the Papacy moves from Rome to Avignon. Not far from here. Also a universe away. Just so very different from our cave and the small town with its abbey and pilgrims. Avignon is bigger and more important and wealthier and full of life. It’s surrounded by giant walls. It has a bridge where people dance (a joke!).

  The papacy has just finished a small implosion and will be at the beck and call of the king of France for a bit, and then it will implode big-time. What this means is we have to be extra-specially careful on matters religious, as I keep saying.

  We’re past the Albigensian Crusade, thankfully, so no big groups get burned as heretics until the Templars, which isn’t going to happen while we’re here. In fact, 1305 is probably not a bad time to be here, religiously. No expulsions until next year. No mass murders at all. Also no major plagues. Sorry, Ben (à propos your comment to Sylvia, yesterday, if that comment was supposed to be sotto voce, then I’m sorry I overheard it) and sorry, Luke, we’re not in the middle of a Connie Willis novel. This is the fourth reference I’ve heard to Willis and there have been six to Michael Crichton. I hope you all get tired of these jokes very soon. Until then, I’ll keep counting them.

  You need to know a bit more about the background. Who was whom and when. It will make sense of where we are. Let me start with a chronology of the possible saints. Sorry, slip of the tongue. I meant the popes. One was a saint. All the rest were mere mortals. No papal infallibility round now, nor much in the way of common sense. Also a ten month interregnum. Although I did say that.

  Being a pope right now is not a recipe for happy ever after, though one pope from sort of around now was married, once. This is a really transitional period in Church history. Married priests are a dying breed. Almost gone entirely, I think, though I recall some oddities found in France in a tour of an archdiocese around the fifteenth century.

  Chastity is growing. The Marian cult is growing. Church lands are growing. Papal politics are becoming very, very interesting. I can brief you on all these things if you want. Maybe not on the concubines of priests from the fifteenth century - that was from a class I took during my B.A. and I have a half-memory only and no notes. There’s nothing in our e-library about it.

  The only thing you can assume is that the Church is not unified or modern. It’s highly political and very interested in making earthly affairs heavenly and vice-versa. (Why hagiography is so very cool, of course, but I get the message quite clearly that no-one wants briefings on hagiography. You don’t know what you’re missing. Dead saints and their amazing adventures!)

  Here’s a brief chronology (approximate only):

  Boniface XI was pope from 1303-1304. His original name was Nicola Boccasini. Didn’t get on well with Philippe the stunningly gorgeous statue (King of France, current). His predecessor was beaten up by Philippe’s men. Died (in his sixties, thrashed, sad but probably inevitable death). Dante didn’t like him either, and placed him in Hell in the Divina Commedia. Or was that one of his predecessors?

  Dante is alive as I type, but his Beatrice (one of the Great Loves of History) is dead. I have no idea where Dante lives right now, but it’s unlikely to be in Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert. If you meet someone on the street and they claim to be Dante, I expect they’re lying. Petrarch lived around here, though, if you count Vaucluse as around here, which it isn’t. This isn’t one of those SF novels where all the great people of history just happen to walk by. (The SF comments really get to me for some reason.)

  Anyhow, Boniface XI is dead after a very short rule (he died possibly of poisoning - that fits: one beaten, one poisoned - just keep getting rid of them until you find a pope you like) and, as I said earlier, there is an interregnum. That means there’s no pope, although there will be one quite soon. />
  Bonefficace’s (a joke on his name! if you got the joke it means you’re actually reading this briefing - hi, Cormac) successor is Clement and he gets on far too well with the King of France. That’s another briefing, though. He should be crowned while we’re here - one of the big political events of this time.

  I’ve attached a thousand years of medieval popes in case you want to know who ruled when. The modern papacy is quite different to the Middle Ages, so what you were told as a child (I can’t be the only once-a-Catholic) was probably wrong for this time and place.

  * * *

  Guilhem sat on his front doorstep, unable to see down to the main street. Someone was playing a cornemuse badly. Guilhem wondered where anyone had obtained a cornemuse - he wasn’t surprised that they couldn’t play it.

  Sibilla winked as she walked past, coming out of his neighbour’s house, her clothing slightly awry. Guilhem frowned. If she weren’t careful, she might get a bit of a reputation. He gave up on the steps and walked into the main street. Maybe the smith would be taking a break from his forge. The smith was a man who spoke intelligently.

  There was a little cluster of people in the street. Guilhem-the-smith was walking towards them. The two men fell in together. “I can’t get anything to work today,” the smith said conversationally. “I leave the iron in the heat too long and it becomes brittle. I should know better than that. I need a break.”

  “I need an intelligent conversation,” admitted Guilhem.

  “You’re in luck,” his companion answered. “Listen.” The cluster of townsfolk were talking loudly about papal politics.