Knowledge of Angels

by Jill Paton Walsh

  Josefa could talk to Amara, and Amara responded, but never herself started any conversation, except to ask for food. She would answer questions – ‘What is this, Amara?’ – but never asked any. Strangest of all, Josefa thought, anxiously watching her companion, was the absence of recollection in Amara’s world. Anything she named in her husky, limping voice was in front of her eyes; she never named something seen yesterday, or understood a promise for tomorrow. The only thing she ever asked for when it was not present was meat. Perhaps her world was without time, for another odd thing was how sometimes she would take no notice at all of a request or a question for so long that Josefa would have assumed it not heard or not understood. Then suddenly Amara would answer, naming the orange held out to her half an hour earlier, or going to stand by the door many minutes after Josefa asked if she would like to walk.

  The sisters were ill-placed to perceive how strange Amara’s preference for solitude was, how unlike a child it was to like to sit vacantly for hours, unmoving and alone. But Josefa knew. And only Josefa knew another thing. Though Amara did not resist her massage, and liked to be with Josefa, would have slept every night, if she had been allowed, curled up at the foot of Josefa’s bed, yet she disliked being touched, and could not endure being held; if Josefa put her arms round Amara, she jerked into a violent rigor, trembling, with her face constricted, and her lips drawn back over clenched and grinding teeth.

  19

  Severo sat with a pile of vellums on the desk in front of him. ‘Severo, miseratione divina episcopus Grandillensis. Salutem in domine sempiternam . . .’ Below the formal upper lines the documents dealt with the business of the diocese. A priest ordered to put aside a mistress. A merchant ordered to pay a tithe or contribute to a church roof; a quarrel over boundaries – two parishes had been fighting and appealing to Severo for the whole of his tenure on a disputed jurisdiction over a single farm of three fields. Severo signed and sighed. The room was chokingly hot; there had been no rain for weeks, and the dust of the city coated the leaves of the trees in the little garth below his window.

  ‘Severo miseratione divina etc. etc . . .’ Secular documents abbreviated his sacred preamble. Someone wanted to build a house on land belonging to a church and offered a sum which the priest considered insufficient; someone wanted a licence to carve images of the Virgin and sell them in the markets; someone wanted a warrant to travel to the northern coast and someone else wanted an order permitting him to drive a flock of geese through the streets of a town, in order to get them to Ciudad; the townspeople wanted to cull his birds for their own tables as the price of passage, alleging that the foulness the birds left in their streets entitled them to some such compensation. Severo signed and sighed.

  At last the documents were all dealt with. Severo stretched, rose, walked to his balcony, and breathed the vapid air. Then he had a sudden welcome thought. It was months since he had sent Beneditx off to convert Palinor, and he had heard no news of them since the initial report from his mentor. The mental picture of the two men walking and talking together in the cool air that flowed down from the mountainside, in the green shades of the garden there, was irresistible. After all, he had intended to place them where he could visit, could oversee them. When Rafal came to collect the signed papers and take them to the cathedral office, he said, ‘Get some horses saddled up, Rafal; we are going to the country!’

  It was an hour’s ride across the burning plain before the road entered the grateful shade of pine trees and began to ascend, and the two men were covered with the grey-brown dust thrown round them in a cloud by their horses’ hooves when they reached that point. The mountains which towered up behind the valley of Alquiera were shimmering in the harsh light. When the road turned sharply and began to run alongside the torrent that debouched from the Alquiera valley they stopped, and Rafal descended to the stream bank and filled his leather bottle with cool water. They drank and splashed their faces, leaving themselves muddied with wet dust but thankful for the relief. Then they rode on.

  Severo had known the Saracen’s House at Alquiera since his boyhood. It was full of memories for him, memories of play, of escapades. There he had been beaten by his father, for the only time in his life, because he had risked the life of his older brother by leading him in climbing a nearly sheer rock face that ascended to the hanging lake. Like almost any passionately justified punishment it had been unfair, for Gaspar had in fact been leading him, and Severo’s resentment had clouded a whole summer day. The resentment had lasted only as long as the weals, and Gaspar had brought cool water from the fountain to soothe them for him; but lifelong had been the knowledge that if a risk was taken it was Gaspar who mattered. Gaspar was first in succession and would be prince, under the remote suzerainty of the mainland monarchs; he, Severo, was for a Church not short of priests.

  Gaspar died in his bed, his reckless climbing and swimming having done him no harm but port fever having taken him in the last year of Severo’s studies, when Severo’s only ambition was to be good enough to teach theology at the Galilea under Beneditx. The Church had bishoped him once he was prince, and the cardinal’s hat had followed, for there was usually a cardinal from this pious island. Severo felt unworthy, and was ashamed of the appetite for governing which gradually unfolded in his secret heart as he exercised power, power that should have been his brother’s. Gaspar, of course, had not grown older, and appeared to Severo’s memory in the guise of a smiling stripling boy, always restless, always crying ‘Let’s . . . !’ and proposing a game, a journey, a challenge, a race.

  Severo was thinking of Gaspar as he rode, when they turned the corner and the Saracen’s House came into view. It was a tall house, and rose above the treetops of its surrounding wooded vale. Severo exclaimed with astonishment, for in front of the house, soaring above the treetops and sparkling in the light, was a column of water rising as high as the ridge tiles before turning over and descending in a spreading feathery plume. A drifting mist from the fountain caught the sun and shimmered with a faint rainbow. ‘But . . . whatever . . .’ Severo drew in his reins, and stared.

  ‘The atheist asked you if he might improve the waters . . . Don’t you remember, Holiness?’

  ‘Improve them? But how did he accomplish that? How good it sounds!’ For the soft roar of falling water reached them from half a mile away. Eagerly Severo spurred his horse for the last turn of the road.

  The servants were put about by his sudden arrival. The steward asked anxiously which of the two, Beneditx or Palinor, should be displaced to make room for Severo. ‘Neither,’ said Severo firmly.

  ‘But, Holiness, there are no other suitable rooms.’

  ‘I will sleep under the colonnade between the two,’ said Severo. ‘Put a straw pallet on the pavement for me.’

  The steward demurred, and while Severo was insisting Palinor came round the corner of the house. A foreman was with him, carrying a set-square, and they were deep in talk. Seeing Severo, he broke off, came forward and slightly inclined his head in greeting.

  ‘Is that your doing?’ asked Severo, pointing to the dancing tower of toppling water.

  ‘I had help from your servants,’ said Palinor. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘It’s wonderful!’ said Severo. ‘When I have washed, you must tell me how it is contrived.’

  ‘It will clean you faster than a ewerful from the kitchens,’ said Palinor, ‘if you don’t mind the cold. Will you swim? I’ll ask Dolca to bring towels for us.’

  Severo walked round the house with him. There on the terrace below the colonnade was an ample basin, hastily built of piled stones, where only a little pool for the seeping spring had stood before. The great fountain rose from this basin and fell back into it noisily. Overcome with desire to be cool, Severo cast off his clothes.

  Hearing laughter as he walked, reciting his office, in the shade of the garden walk, and supposing the servants to be fooling around, Beneditx was amazed to be confronted by a naked cardinal and a naked atheist cap
ering in and out of the curtains of roaring water, running through the force of the falls, stumbling, and submerging and swimming. Rafal, as hot as his master, hesitated on the brink, and then shed his intolerable black soutane and plunged in. More chaste, more careful Beneditx, unable to resist Severo’s welcoming call and beckoning hand, merely took off his monk’s gown and sat smiling on the rim of the basin, where the splashing water wet him through and ran deliciously on his skin under his soaking shift. By and by his prince and cardinal approached and pulled him in, ducking him under in a baptism of laughter.

  Later, as dusk deepened into the velvet summer darkness, they sat on the colonnade. Palinor’s beautiful servants set tables, brought simple food and wine in bottles dewy with cold from a basket held under running water which Palinor had contrived. The four men sat round the table, peaceful and content – or so it seemed to Severo. Dolca lit a lamp. Leaning against the wall at the far end of the colonnade, the boy servant played softly on a lute. Far off, somewhere in the unseen woods on the dark further slopes of the valley, a nightingale sang. Nearby, the fountain intoned on an unvarying note.

  ‘Where are we, then, Beneditx?’ asked Severo, leaning back in his chair and setting down his empty glass. He had not resumed any of his symbolic garments, but sat at ease in a clean plain shirt and wooden sandals. Only the gold and cornelian ring on his finger, catching the lamplight, signalled him great.

  ‘We are with the proof from degree, I think you said,’ said Palinor.

  ‘Expound,’ said Severo.

  ‘There is a gradation to be found in things,’ said Beneditx. ‘All around us there are things, some more and some less good; some more and some less true, noble, beautiful. But “more” and “less” are predicated of things according as they resemble in their different ways something which is “most”, as a thing is said to be hotter which more nearly resembles “hottest”; “cooler” which more nearly resembles that which is coolest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest, and consequently something which most intensely is, something which is uttermost being, for the truer things are the more truly they exist. The most complete thing of any kind is the cause of all in that kind, as fire, which is the most complete form of heat, is the cause by which any hot thing is made hot. Therefore there must be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, their goodness, and every other perfection, and this we call God.’

  The melody on Joffre’s lute made a sweet descent to a conclusion as Beneditx finished.

  ‘There!’ said Severo. ‘Got you, Palinor, my friend!’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Palinor, reaching over and refilling Severo’s glass. ‘All these proofs of Beneditx’s work the same way. They all project backwards – or perhaps I mean upwards, or even onwards, or outwards. From hot and hotter to hottest. And they all simplify, reducing the complexity of the world while trying to use reality as a platform.’

  ‘You must explain to an innocent mind,’ said Severo, happily. He smiled at Beneditx across the table. How many years had it been – twenty? thirty? – since last he sat like this, body at ease and mind locked in argument? Long ago he had spent time on summer evenings sharing wine and talk and music with his friends. Beneditx then had been dark-haired, not grey; his face had not worn the lines of bitten-in thoughtfulness, but his expression had always been grave. ‘Is fire then not the cause of heat?’ Severo demanded of Palinor.

  Palinor reached out and took his hand. ‘Feel,’ he said. He drew Severo’s plump hand with the great ring of office against the wine bottle, and then held it between his own. ‘Our hands are warmer than the bottle,’ he said. ‘Is fire the cause of human warmth? What fire? When? And I will show you another thing . . .’ With a raised hand he summoned Joffre. The boy laid down his lute, and came and leaned over his master for instruction. Then he went running. They heard his steps on the stair to the courtyard. Then the boy returned, holding two pieces of wood from the kindling pile outside the kitchen doors. Palinor nodded, and he returned to his playing.

  ‘Feel,’ said Palinor, placing one of the sticks in Severo’s hand, the other in Beneditx’s. Then he took the sticks again and began to rub them hard together, gradually increasing the speed. Then silently he handed the sticks one to Beneditx, the other to Severo. Severo took his with a firm grip and dropped it hastily – it was very hot.

  ‘Fire is the outcome of this process, but not the cause of the heat, as you have seen,’ said Palinor.

  ‘There must be latent fire within the wood,’ said Beneditx.

  ‘If you merely mean that wood can be made to burn, yes,’ said Palinor. ‘But the point I am making needs your attention, Beneditx. Simply because we can find one thing that is hotter than another does not mean that there must be something hottest – let alone that that hottest thing is the cause of heat in everything else. I deny that any more implies a most; all that is required to make sense of a statement that something is hotter is any two things which differ in respect of their warmth. There is no need to go in for one of those projections of yours in which everything is supposed to spiral off into infinity and the ultimate extremes imaginable are called God.’

  ‘You have not taken the force of the argument,’ said Beneditx. ‘Hot, hotter, hottest is just an analogy with the true line of thought. It is good, better, best that leads to God. From the goodness in things we can deduce the ultimate good, as from warmth we know fire . . . and God is the ultimate good, the cause of all beatitude, the source of the happiness that engulfs us now, for example.’

  ‘But, my friend, the goodness in the world we know is not one – it is never an absolute quality, but always for something. A good table is a bad chair. The very things that make it a good table – its height and level top – are the very same things that make it a bad chair – too high and without a backrest. A good axe is a bad hammer . . . so on and on. To get to God on a scale of goodness you would need goodness to be a single scale.’

  ‘Even this is not the true crux,’ said Beneditx. ‘The thought is that as fire causes heat in material things, so the intensity of God’s existence, of his being, causes everything that is in being to be.’

  ‘But where in nature are there degrees of being?’ asked Palinor. ‘For once, I am the one to claim the existence of absolutes. Things exist, or they don’t exist. No half measures here! And God does not exist!’

  Beneditx flinched visibly at such a spoken blasphemy. They both turned to Severo and saw that he was falling asleep, nodding gently in his chair, overcome by the long day’s work and the hot ride to Alquiera. Such a comment on their cogency had them both instantly laughing, and when he snapped awake and tried to cover his lapse, they laughed more merrily still and ordered Rafal to put his master to bed.

  The doors to the colonnade closed behind them, Rafal blew out the lamp, and Severo, wakeful for a little longer now, lay down on the pallets made ready for him and let Rafal cover him with blankets. The cool air of the evening flowed over his face, he could see the stars askance between the columns, and the lulling sounds of the fountain and nightingale kept company in the darkness. Beneditx was a nightingale, Severo thought, exquisitely expounding the truths of his faith; Palinor was a force of cold clear water.

  ‘And I?’ Severo wondered. ‘What am I?’ He thought he might lay claim to being the little candle-lamp that had cast a warm light on both their faces; but the lamp was extinguished now, and he fell asleep.

  20

  For a long while after her disastrous escape, Amara had been watched every minute and kept closely confined; as she became more tractable, the nuns began finding tasks for her. She was clumsy, and easily distracted. She couldn’t chop carrots without cutting her fingers, but she could knead bread. She could card wool, though she would do it only when bribed with meat; she couldn’t spin. She was best, really, feeding the hens and cleaning the donkey stalls – a good helper as long as someone was with her at the task, though she was as likely to eat a hen as feed it
if left alone in the chicken coop – and as time went by she was allowed the liberty of the barns and yards and garden plots, though never for a moment let out of sight. She was beginning to string words together now: ‘Me now hungry . . .’, ‘Go out . . .’, ‘Me not like . . .’ She seemed to have lost the urge to escape, and kept close to Josefa, but she had not lost her hatred of locked doors and closed rooms. When, on a day of oppressive heat, Josefa found her lying in the shade, panting like a dog and sweating slightly, she went to find Sor Agnete and asked permission to take her down to the shore, where they would gather mussels.

  The upper reaches of the path were as hot as anywhere in the nunnery, but Amara followed eagerly, looking around her. Josefa pulled flowers and named them for her as they went.

  Lower down, the cool influence of the shining sea reached them, and at last the path delivered them to a crescent of stony strand, a sliver of beach at the foot of cliff towers, on which the waves broke grandly, proportioned to the distance they had come rather than to the scale of the little beach. Laughing, Josefa broke into a run. Amara stooped at once to go four-footed, bounding along and quickly overtaking Josefa. She too laughed – a funny barking laugh – and the two of them began to play with the dancing water, running forward after the backwash and scrambling back up the strand in front of the breaking waves. Three or four misjudgements, and they were both wet – Amara all over, and to the skin, Josefa halfway up her skirts, heavy-hemmed with the drag of her soaking habit.

  At the end of the beach Josefa put down her baskets and produced her knife. She stooped and began work, hacking at the mussels to cut them loose. Willingly enough at first, Amara gathered them into the baskets, though she wandered away long before both were filled. Josefa straightened from time to time to ease her back, and looked for Amara, who had returned to playing catch with the waves. Flies buzzed on the drying seaweed that grew across the mussel beds. The baskets were full enough. And it was hot! Even in the breeze the beach was hot, the water enticing. Josefa looked around. Nobody from the abbey could see them; their eyelines went far overhead, straight out to sea. There was not a boat on the horizon, not a gull in the sky.