The Cellars of Notre Dame

by Barbara Frale

  Maddalena shuddered. “What are we seeking in this place?”

  “A German pilgrim.”

  “German… like Rodulfus Glaber?” she asked him.

  Crescenzio shot her a surly look that was not without admiration.

  “You’re sharp, little sister. Our dear brother the Cardinal does not exaggerate when he says it was a mistake to have you schooled. Intelligent women are unstable by nature; if they become educated, God help us!”

  Maddalena didn’t take offence. The severe tone of Crescenzio’s words was in fact accompanied by a look of infinite tenderness.

  “Hold the handkerchief closer to your mouth,” he ordered.

  The rare purifying ointments he had soaked it in would suffice to preserve her from contagion in the event that there were patients in there who were dangerous to others. Passing among the rows of beds, they discreetly shifted the long pale curtain which isolated some of the sick.

  “Crescenzio, do you think we will have to contend with an epidemic of leprosy? That is a disease that spreads quickly.”

  “No. Leprosy spreads easily, but it is easy to recognize. Even the most inept would be able to identify the symptoms.”

  “And what it was Venus’ disease?”

  Crescenzio, who had some experience in the affairs of Venus, smirked at his sister’s candour.

  “I won’t go into details, my dear, but if it were really that disease, all those who avoid brothels would be safe.”

  He himself had taken care both of poor prostitutes without a future and of the richest whores! He knew well the inexorable traces with which God punishes the vice of promiscuous carnal pleasure. Sometimes it all starts with a small ulcer in the mouth, in other cases the organs of shame become affected immediately, showing where the origin of the malady is. Inflammation, joint pain, tumours the size of an egg or even a small loaf of bread spread throughout the body.

  Just like leprosy, it could corrode the throat, the nose and the tonsils, and wreak havoc upon the face, which it reduced to a nauseating mask of horror. It was not unusual in men to see their swollen and almost decomposed testicles fall like rotten fruit from the branch of a tree. Joints deprived of flesh and bone, the corroded faces opening in a horrifying gash, weeks of agony followed by an atrocious death in the contempt of all.

  “None of these poor sick people suffer from infectious diseases,” he concluded with a tangible relief in his voice when they had finished their tour. Maddalena had long since removed the handkerchief soaked in aromatic substances.

  “Come on, let’s go into the cloister.”

  She followed him while Crescenzio, having left the hall of the sanatorium, peered among the faces of the many poor pilgrims who had found refuge there from the weather, arranging themselves under the vaults of the great monastic portico. There were no beds for them, so they had to content themselves with lying on straw mattresses and other makeshift beds while they received assistance.

  “There he is,” he said, pointing to a distant corner where there was a bundle of rags which easily have been the cocoon of one of the miserable human wrecks. “That must be him.”

  They approached cautiously, she always one step behind her brother.

  “Are you from Bavaria?”

  The man nodded. He was not old, but his face showed signs of so much suffering that he looked to be a hundred. Very pale, almost albino, he had small pale eyes like those of a dying dog.

  “Were you a miner?”

  “Yes, sir. Can you heal me?”

  He spoke in a somewhat laboured way, but was comprehensible. Crescenzio bent over him and knelt on the ground, then freed him from the rags in which he had been wrapped up as if that filthy cloth, which was now reduced to rags, could somehow protect others from his atrocious illness. On most of his body he showed very serious but unusual types of burns, and widespread boils and tumescences, like nothing Crescenzio nor the other surgeons in Rome had ever seen. The man had therefore been isolated as an incurable case, well known to the doctors and pointed out to the students as bearer of a disease so anomalous as to transcend the laws of nature and to overshadow the hand of the Evil One.

  “When did all this begin?” the young man asked, covering up the irretrievably ruined flesh.

  “The day I found the stone,” he murmured.

  “What stone?”

  “The one that can make you rich,” he answered feebly. “It’s dark and dirty like a piece of hardened earth, but inside there are yellow veins that look like sulphur. The dyer’s guild pays you very well for those stones. If you find enough of them, you have ended your troubles forever.”

  “But?”

  A shadow of immense pain flitted across the man’s weak eyes. He was so exhausted by his illness that he no longer bore hatred towards men nor towards the world.

  “That stone is cursed, sir. The yellow streak flakes off in scales so thin that they enter your flesh. There is no way to remove them. And your body slowly begins to rot while you’re still alive. “

  Feeling her heart gripped with pity, Maddalena bent over and caressed him.

  “Can you help me, miss? I came to Rome to pray at the tomb of St. Peter. Perhaps the apostle will save me from my illness…”

  She hesitated, then gave her brother a pleading look which Crescenzio could not resist. It was he who answered.

  “Only God knows when your time will come. But we will give you a medicine that will help you wait while the Lord decides.”

  “May God bless you, boy!” exclaimed the poor wretch, and for a moment his eyes shone.

  “Tell me one last thing, miner. These stones that carry death… they only bring it to those who touch them, is it not so? Your sores do not cause infection. Or am I wrong?”

  “There is no contagion. Other miners who were with me refused to get them out of the ground. They are the stones of death, they said. They renounced wealth and kept the life they had before. And I don’t know which is worse, sir!”

  Crescenzio looked into the eyes of Maddalena, who pulled a small vial of thebaica out of the purse which hung from his belt. It was the strongest opiate they had, and piously she put it to the miner’s parched lips.

  Then Crescenzio helped her to her feet and took her home.

  “The horrible wounds of that poor man correspond to what Rodulfus Glaber describes, but the disease does not spread by contagion, otherwise everyone in this sanatorium would have caught it. At this point I don’t know what to think… That pilgrim is afflicted by the illness most like the one Cardinal Matthew of Acquasparta fears could spread through France, so I hoped that today’s visit would enlighten me!”

  “Why do you rule out the plague?”

  “It is not as devastating as the epidemic that occurred in the year one thousand. Pestilence, smallpox, typhus and other serious forms of infection are certainly all scourges of God, but they do not depopulate an entire kingdom. As soon as people start to get sick, cities and villages are quarantined. The bodies of the dead, their homes and their possessions are burned. Time passes and the emergency fades. If the king of France fears an unprecedented increase in mortality, then it must be a very difficult disease to recognize in time. And this poor pilgrim has the only kind of disease which it seems impossible to give a name to…”

  Maddalena crossed her arms over her chest and her little face assumed a dubious expression.

  “Always given that the king of France actually told the cardinal of Acquasparta the truth,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  An idea had occurred to the girl, and the more she thought about it, the more convinced she felt.

  “I don’t understand medical things as well as you, Crescenzio, but I know Maestro Arnaldo. He is a good-hearted man. Despite his fame, he is penniless because he has always cared for people out of a pure love of God – like Jesus Christ who healed the sick without seeking profit. In your opinion, would someone like that deny the king of France a drug capable of saving so many inn
ocent lives? Could someone like him really produce a poison capable of triggering an epidemic? It doesn’t make sense!”

  “And that’s not the only inconsistency,” Crescenzio agreed. “Even if we accept that the king actually does have good reason to fear the outbreak of an epidemic capable of devastating his kingdom, and that Arnaldo possesses the antidote: why not address the Pope directly? Why not communicate the risk of such a serious disease, which apart from anything else could cross the Alps and reach Italy? Hellfire, any political conflict would vanish in the face of a calamity like that! Yet the king did not do it. He preferred to send Matthew of Acquasparta to Rome in a private capacity, without any accreditation or official mandate. Why?”

  “The cardinal told us that the king is seeking an antidote. But Gaita always told me to wear my hair tightly wrapped in a cloth when visiting the sick; it is the best antidote against lice, she used to say. Perhaps the king too was speaking metaphorically.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps what Arnaldo knows cannot prevent a pandemic but would be efficacious against some problem that the king of France fears like the plague. More than the plague, perhaps.”

  “A state secret?”

  “Yes, little sister; and if we are right, it must be an extremely serious one. That would explain why Philip IV does not want to talk to the pope in a frank, official way. On the Seine they may actually believe that Arnaldo da Villanova is the kind of perverse man who would orchestrate a massacre, and indeed they must already hate him if they denounced him for impiety and sacrilege. In Rome, however, he has done nothing but good for his neighbours. He may be withdrawn, somewhat touchy and altogether rather difficult, but the only people along the banks of the Tiber who detest that old man are the papal doctors who are spitting blood because they know they are not as skilled as he.”

  “Nor will they ever be,” she said forcefully.

  “Perhaps the king of France suffers from some hereditary disease. It seems to me that the cardinal of Acquasparta mentioned a sick little prince in the royal family. Perhaps the heir to the throne suffers from the same thing.”

  “That would be a problem, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would be a catastrophe. If the crown prince also suffered from some obscure debilitating illness – one of those diseases that make you incapable of governing – then the great lords of France would immediately ask the king to abdicate. The heir to the throne could not take his place if were stricken with the same malady, and that would mean overthrowing the entire dynasty. Yes, if we imagine the illness that frightens the sovereign so in those terms, it all makes sense. And I don’t like it, by God! We absolutely have to find a way to extract the poisoned thorn from the Pope’s side.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The features of Crescenzio’s face hardened into a harsh grimace of decisiveness.

  “Arnaldo knows the truth – the king of France wants him in Paris and for this reason he is blackmailing the Pope. But if the Catalan left Rome then the pontiff would no longer be in check. Arnaldo must go to Salerno. The best medical school in Europe is there, and the arrival of a personage of his fame in those lecture halls would be a cause for celebration.”

  “Yes, Crescenzio… But if that happens, we will not see him again”.

  Maddalena’s tone, as heartfelt as a prayer, was plaintive and pleading. Crescenzio, though, was too deep in his thoughts to hear her.

  “Our brother Francesco must write to the king of Naples, Charles II of Anjou. He must ask the Salerno Medical School to quickly offer the Catalan a chair there. Given the old man’s reputation, the request can be considered a mere formality. For my part, I will work on Matthew Silvatico and my other teachers. The guild of doctors from Salerno will jump for joy at the idea of having that luminary down there with them – who knows how many new students he will bring in!”

  “Crescenzio, listen to me…”

  But it was pointless – he was a torrent of words.

  “We will ask Dante to give us a hand too. I’m sure he will help! He knows a lot of people.”

  Crescenzio wanted his friend to discreetly ask some questions to the large circle of Florentine bankers who had branches in Rome so as to be able to offer loans both to the Holy See and to the crowd of monsignors, prelates and ambassadors which revolved around the papal court. Those who handle money always know a great deal, and who knew, he might come up with something new about the turbulent fauna that populated the corridors of the Louvre. If there had been some agitation against the king of France, a faint echo of it would certainly have been felt; the same could be said in the case of any serious malformations or physical defects hidden in the history of the royal house of Paris.

  Maddalena gave up her protest. What good would it do? Crescenzio seemed euphoric about the idea that they would soon be rid of that problem. She could understand the way her brother felt, but she didn’t really share his enthusiasm for the fact that Arnaldo would have to leave Rome. She would never see him nor be able to talk to him again.

  For some reason she could not understand, she was drawn to that moody old man, always locked in his fortified enclosure at the far end of the Vatican gardens, with an empathic strength for which she could identify no reasonable explanation.

  But in life, she knew well, there are many things for which we can find no explanation: the invisible has its secret currents, and they push and pull us hither and to just like the currents of the sea, strong, deep and unfathomable.

  There is always room for something to happen.

  IV

  Through the mists of the moonless night, an old man crossed a forest on the edge of a swamp. In front of him there was a putrid swamp where tangles of snakes stirred. Only a handful of earth had been spared from rot and stench, and on that small island, a white rose had blossomed. The pure flower opened its corolla towards the sky, receiving a ray of light. Even the awful darkness and the violence of the icy wind seemed vulnerable to its beauty.

  Drawn to the rose and its heavenly scent, the old man walked through the water, which teemed with creatures. It seemed to him that he could no longer live if he did not pick that blossom. But someone else felt the same desire, and in that instant a black animal with a silver-streaked fleece, agile flanks and a sharp horn in the centre of its forehead emerged at a gallop from the impenetrable darkness of the forest. Lord, what an incredible beast! The unicorn was racing towards the white rose, ready to pierce him with its horn which was sharper than a sword.

  Soaked with sweat, Arnaldo da Villanova awoke with a start. Where was he? What day was it, what month, of what damn year?!

  The mournful cry of a hoopoe told him that it was still night. He got out of bed and rinsed his face. It had happened again – that recurring dream tormented him, and this time he hadn’t even drunk a philtre before retiring to his bed. A numinous power had carried him out of himself during sleep and his spirit had received a vision: the dream contained a premonition, he was sure of it. But how to interpret it?

  The putrid heath represented the world: everywhere dirt and mud, a hell populated by men as cowardly and wicked as vipers. The magnificent ferocious beast that wanted to attack him was a unicorn, and the old man knew all too well how he should interpret that creature: it was his pupil from Paris. The only person in the world to whom he had even partially transmitted his knowledge.

  Memories full of anger, pain and nostalgia surfaced quickly. “I hate you,” the old man brooded to himself. “I hate you because you betrayed me. And I hate myself too, because I trusted you. Yes, like a fool I trusted you. Without reservation I believed in your good faith, like an idiot. I wanted to tell you the secret for finding the Gold of the philosophers, while you only wanted the devil’s dung. , unworthy man! I will take to the grave what I know, and never, never again will I make the mistake of passing on what I have learned to another!”

  He touched his wrists, where his skin still bore the indelible marks of the stocks they had put on him. The pillory, the rack… It w
as impossible to forget that atrocious experience.

  He wondered if his misfortune was an instrument of Providence, and for what unknown purpose God had forced those sufferings upon him. There had to be a reason somewhere, because nothing happens by chance. Not even the dream he had just had was meaningless, so he had to decipher it to understand what mysterious message had been brought to him that night.

  Of one thing at least he was sure: the student was seeking him, he desperately needed his help, thence the ferocity with which the unicorn attacked him. And he could imagine very clearly what was disturbing the soul of the king of France, depriving him of his sleep and his appetite…

  During the months in which he had been in close confidence with the sovereign, Arnaldo had managed to learn most of the secrets that haunted the soul of the most feared man on earth. There were very few things he was afraid of, but the source of his most lacerating insecurity lay in a certain defect inherent in his own blood. An original and irremediable defect which could not be remedied in any way, except to hide it with care until someone discovered it. That moment had come, and that someone had been called Bernard Saisset and he was bishop of Pamiers. Or rather, he was the instrument of a Providence which intended to punish the king of France for his sins.

  Deus Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts, had chosen to take revenge through Saisset because he was old enough to have experienced first-hand certain serious events of the past, high enough in the hierarchies of the world to know certain very unpleasant details concerning Philip IV, and brave enough to proclaim them to the four winds.

  God punishes the faults of fathers in their children, say the Holy Scriptures, and so on, from generation to generation. The Lord forgives, of course; but for that to happen a man must bend and bow before the throne of the Most High and ask for mercy. And Philip IV was not a man to admit his errors.