The Secret Book of Paradys

by Tanith Lee

  She skirted the huts of the labourers with care, because their dogs did not altogether know her and might give an alarm. When she reached the track between the fields, the moon was going down. There was another long hour to sunrise, and no Belnard would be stirring much before.

  The track ended and Jehanine came out upon a road, old as the hills and kept in repair by the lord. This was the way Pierre had come, though he had had a donkey to ride, and one of the farm men to accompany him.

  Jehanine, however, did not feel a lack. She had known only the farm and the surrounding landscape all her eighteen years. Now she was heedlessly eager to be off, to discover the rest of the world which lay waiting. She turned south, for the road conveniently ran that way. She walked briskly, holding her small bundle of provisions, looking ahead.

  By the time the dawn began, Jehanine was well down the valley, and above her, eastward, she saw the humped tower of the village church. The bell was not ringing, for the priest was a sluggard. Inside the church stood a golden crucifix with jewels on it, which the lord had had made with some of the wealth brought back from the Holy Land. In a niche a pale and melancholy Madonna exhorted women to do their duty. She wore a golden crown, also the lord’s gift, because she had obviously done hers.

  Belnard, too, had relics of the Crossade on show. A great Saracen spear was hung up in his bedchamber, its tasselled sling still dark with blood. Besides, there were some jewels, or so he and the brothers said. Belnard had once announced he would give each of his daughters a jewel on her wedding day. He had been drunk at the time. But he had also vowed to give Pierre something at his leavetaking. This might have been true.

  Brighter than all jewels, the sun pierced through the sky.

  Though men and women were out in the fields few saw Jehanine, or if they did, apparently reckoned her on some errand. Once past the cultivated lands of the lord, the road went down among the pine forests. An unfriendly place in winter, full of hungry wolves and starveling robbers – or so they said. Bears even sometimes loitered in the pines, not to mention creatures of the Devil. But winter was a way off, and surely the City nearer?

  Among some fallow fields, Jehanine heard hoof-beats on the road behind her. She withdrew hastily to the side of the road, but there was nowhere to conceal herself. She was suddenly afraid her step-father might be after her, for it sounded like his donkey – only the lord’s sons had horses. She crouched down.

  Sure enough, the donkey came clumsily pelting along the road. On its back sat a heavy, hairy boy, not Belnard in fact, but one of the younger sons. He blundered past and reined up, hauling the animal round. He had seen his sister in the shallow ditch. The hood had slipped from her hair and the sun fired it like a pale torch.

  “There you are, you cat,” said Belnard’s son, Jehanine’s half-brother. “He said you’d be sure to go this way. When the sluts woke up and found you gone, he said to me, You take the ass and go and bring her back. She’s got work to do. He told me something else, too,” said Jehanine’s half-brother, riding up to her. His shadow came between her and the sun. He slid down from the donkey abruptly, dropping, falling against her and rolling her over in the ditch. “If you did it with him, now you can do it with me.”

  Jehanine did not struggle. Her eyes went wide and blank. She said, “If you want. But not here.”

  “Here, here and now,” he said, fumbling at her.

  “No. The priest may come along.”

  Her half-brother considered. If the priest did come this way, or the lord’s steward, which was also a possibility, Belnard’s son would be fined, or pilloried, for they were bloodkin, he and she.

  “Get up then, quick,” he said. “Come there, where the trees are.”

  He dragged her over the fallow ground, but not so fast she could not stumble and pick up as she did so a spiky, hand-sized rock from the soil.

  As soon as they reached the trees, he pushed her against one, and Jehanine struck him in the face, on the forehead, as hard as she was able. She only stunned him, but he poured with blood, and staggering aside, he fell. Then she ran round him, kicking and beating at him with the stone, now from one side, now another, until his howls and groans ceased and he lay still. The rough vengeance gave her satisfaction, but she was also frightened. Looking back down to the road, she saw no one was there. The donkey had wandered away into a patch of clover. Left to itself it would gladly feed all day, and perhaps be lost. Belnard would think his son had not found the runaway, but continued on to an inn to get drunk.

  She was not sure she had not killed her half-brother, though he was breathing. Strangely, it seemed the other inner part of her mind had again been formulating plans, even as she beat him unconscious.

  Though he was bigger than she, his clothes in their turn were rather too small for him, being cast-offs of the slender Pierre. She stuffed the loutish boots with leaves and pieces of her own shift, to make them fit, and with a strip of her shift she bound her breasts before she drew on his tunic and sleeveless surcoat. With the innocence of thoughtless knowledge, she also tucked a roll of the material inside his hose – now hers – at the appropriate juncture.

  She left him naked under the trees and ran back down to the road. She could not ride, and besides did not dare to steal her step-father’s donkey.

  The boots, so much too large, would hurt her before the day was done. But the clothes gave an extra freedom of movement, and though she did not care for their odour, this too would help in disguising her.

  She had now gone so far on her career she felt the rightness of it. She strode out, her heart was light.

  An hour later she left the lord’s estate’s behind, and came down to the brink of the pines. She had never been so far before. This in itself would be her talisman.

  The journey absorbed several days, and Jehanine kept no count of their number. Everything was so unusual to her, the area, her aloneness, the act of her flight itself. By the second day she was convinced that Belnard would not attempt to have her followed further, or that if he did so, she was now immune to his search. The weather was consistently fine, and even the nights, when she slept on the earth, were fraught only with owls.

  She walked south, which was quite easy, though the first road vanished on the first day. Later on, there were other tracks, and other better roads. Sometimes she passed through a village, where she would beg for food. Generally they gave her something; the summer had been plentiful. They thought her a boy off to make his fortune. Though her clothes were travel-stained and not new, they were those of a wealthy peasant, and her chiselled features led women to believe she was the by-blow of some duke. Now and then too, Jehanine passed the estate of some other lord, and once a fortress craned above the woods. But she had no difficulties. The land changed again, rolling and swooping, clad in wild flowers and ruined towers, then vineyards.

  Finally, she had the luck to fall in with a sort of caravan, the wagons of a tanner and an apothecary, and certain others, making for the City, which was now only one day away.

  The apothecary seemed keen to take the boy (who gave his name when pressed as Jehan) into apprenticeship. It was conceivable too that the apothecary fancied Jehan. Nevertheless, the man’s advances were mild, and he was inclined to feed his travelling companion, while allowing him to ride in the wagon among the vials and antique bottles, spilled powders and dried scorpions.

  “The City is a wonderful place,” said the apothecary, boastfully. “You’ve never been there before? Stick by me, I’ll see you don’t go wrong. Have another sausage.”

  In the middle of the afternoon, Jehanine put her head out of the wagon and saw a hilly plain below, awash as if in a sea-flood in the amber light. A river cut the plain in long burning loops.

  “There is Paradys,” said the apothecary even more boastfully, as if he had built it, pointing into the plain. Jehanine could see nothing but the landscape, then, gradually, she began to make something out. It was like a heavenly city, all hollow arches and disembodied
towers, floating on a ring of walls halfway up the sky.

  Then the apothecary began to fondle her leg, and Jehanine was forced to round on him with a gruff “Leave off.”

  “Now, young lad. This is the City. It has got great markets and avenues. We are building enormous churches to the glory of God. We’re sophisticated here. Slough your peasant morals.”

  Jehanine considered her blistered feet. She said, lowering her eyes, “Well, maybe tonight, then.”

  Having said which, she remained silent as the apothecary’s servant drove the wagon across the river, and along a winding road full of traffic, and uphill, and at last through the ring of City walls. Soon they were caught in a jam of carts and mules. Jehan-Jehanine absented herself from the wagon on the excuse of nature, and thus gave the apothecary the slip.

  She was now in famed Paradys, without a coin or a scrap of food, clad in her brother’s clothes and her sister’s cloak, and the shape of a boy, knowing only the name of an artisan to whom Pierre had been assigned. But armed with this, and the meal the apothecary had given her, Jehanine looked about her boldly.

  She knew nothing of Paradys, scarcely its title, which was almost as much as Paradys knew of itself.

  She wandered a while, carelessly aware of everything, for everything was different from all she had ever known, and consequently she observed it through the lens of familiar concepts, and could by this means discount it. The people pushed and shoved at her like herds. The bulging, craning and leaning buildings, which frequently met overhead in the narrower thoroughfares, reminded her of defiles among the rocks, or overgrown woods. The air, rank or sweet with smells of cooking, perfume, humanity and filth, was only an outdoor variety of the air of farmhouse or hut. Since she had nothing worth stealing, no one attempted to rob her, or if they did, it was performed – and disappointed – without her knowledge. Climbing up the hills of the city, even as the sun began to slide down them, she started to catch glimpses high above her of a massive form, in fact a building that was in the process of birth. Brown walls and skeletal scaffolding towered into the sky. This was unlike anything from experience, and must be one of the churches the apothecary had mentioned when inducing her to sin. At length, remembering a conversation between Belnard and Pierre, Jehanine detained a pedlar, at this moment the only creature in sight.

  “Is that the great Temple-Church they’re making there?”

  “Is so,” said the pedlar, a tall dwarf she now noticed, the crown of whose head reached to her ribs. “The Temple of the Sacrifice of the Redeemer.”

  “Then,” said Jehanine, “does Master Motius” – the name of the artisan – “live hereabouts?”

  “Oh, are you going to be apprenticed to him, or to model for the class? You might buy a ribbon for your sweetheart. Here, look –”

  Jehanine pushed the tray aside. She frowned.

  “Tell me,” she said, in a tone Belnard used with his slaves. “Or I’ll tip your tray in the muck and black your eye for you.”

  “Vicious thing,” said the dwarf, skipping back. He grinned. “It’s one of the young men you’re after. Who is it? I tell you, you won’t find him here. He’ll be in his lodging. Or in the tavern. I can guide you there, where all the students of Master Motius go drinking. Buy a ribbon for your sister.”

  “I haven’t any money,” said Jehanine. “Sod your ribbons.”

  The dwarf spat neatly on the cobbles between them.

  “See that alley? They call that Satan’s Way.”

  “Take it then and go to Hell,” said Jehanine. Her male attire, freeing her tongue, pleased her. She went by the dwarf and continued up towards the gaping caverns of the part-built Church. However, to her annoyance, she realised the dwarf was creeping after her. There was nothing lying about suitable to throw. He must be ignored for the present.

  Above the alley, circling the Church, a street of decent houses followed an old walled garden. A trough and an impressive well stood in the midst of the street, with steps, and carved figures holding up the well’s cowled roof. Something again fluttered in Jehanine’s memory. This was the very street where the artisan lived and had his studio.

  Jehanine ran to the first house and spontaneously struck the door.

  A small panel was opened. A pudgy face looked out.

  “What do you mean by it?” a voice demanded. “Be off.”

  “Wait!” cried Jehanine, her own voice rising to a wail. “Is this the house of Master Motius?”

  “It is not. Be off.”

  And the panel slapped shut.

  From the tail of her eye, Jehanine was aware of the irksome dwarf still watching her. She walked across to the well, released the bucket and let it down into the water. As she was hauling it up, another house opened itself, this time by means of a small side-door, and out came a fat woman with an apron and keys at her belt, attended by a boy with a cudgel.

  “Hey! What are you doing there?” bawled the woman.

  Jehanine leant to the bucket and drank from it. The woman flumped over, the boy at her heels.

  “As you see,” said Jehanine. “Isn’t God’s water for all?”

  “Indeed not. We pay taxes for it,” said the woman. She eyed Jehanine, Jehan to her, with a round eye. “But the damage is done. Pray Heaven you’ve not let loose some disease in the water.” The round eye was now a lascivious eye. Jehanine played her part. She smiled at the woman, and leaned on one of the carved figures of the well. “Lady,” said Jehan, “I’m looking for my brother, one Pierre Belnard –”

  “Ah!” cried the woman, and threw up her hands. “What a beauty he is. And a proper resemblance. You’ll be one of those younger brothers. Not trouble at home?”

  “I must find him at once.”

  “Not here,” said the woman. “Master Motius has the ‘Autumn Cough,’ there was no work today. Though why he can’t cure his cough, with all he knows – stop in a moment at the house. My old master’s off on his business – always off on something. I’ll feed you up, skinny boy. He’ll never know.”

  But, “A drinking-shop …” suggested Jehanine impatiently.

  “Well, your Pierre, the naughty one, that’s true. Down across the river. The Cockatrice is where they drink, bad fellows, and get up to all sorts. You ought to be careful of yourself. Now why don’t you come in –”

  But Jehan-Jehanine was running on blistered fire-hot feet. Affronted, the woman turned to scold her cudgel-boy.

  The dwarf had already vanished from the scene.

  Darkness closed on Paradys. But the night City was no worse, no more impenetrable, than a night in the country. This too had its own strange sounds, its own pitfalls, and generally the City gave more light than the forests, hills and fields, which were lit only by fire-flies, fungus, stars and moon. The City moon was made of dull plate, but lower down other luminosities shone out. High round windows in various towers of a college where the students pored late over huge books and parchments, dim bars of light behind iron grills and panes of sheepskin. Sometimes, at the gates of a fine house, or along the river and its bridges, torches flashed on poles. But on the lower bank the hovels crowded to each other in sympathy, darkling, though here and there an occasional fire bloomed on stones in the street.

  It had taken Jehanine a long while to find the Cockatrice. She had chosen wrong turnings, directions had not always been helpful. Twice, thrice, ladies of the alleys had spoken very ill of her, when the young man she was garmented as refused their services.

  Above the inn door hung the sign of a cock with the head of a serpent. Superstitiously, Jehanine would not look straight at it. In the lord’s village, only twenty years ago, a man, coming home drunk one night, had disturbed a real cockatrice in the wintry pastures. One glance, and he had petrified to stone. The place was still pointed out, and the stone which stood there, hunched over in terror, ivy growing thick on him.

  Having gone under the sign into the doorway, Jehanine was prompted to cover herself, head to toe, with the cloak. Pierre h
ad of course never seen or would ever have dreamed of her in male clothing. She sensed he might in some way be offended.

  Just then, men emerged from the inn, arguing. They blustered past Jehanine, partly throwing her against the timbers. Their features and expressions had the inimical alien look which the girl was accustomed to seeing on the faces of fellow human beings. While, at the edge of the night, lit by the opened door, she beheld the tall dwarf lurking in an alley. It seemed he had stuck to her tenaciously through all her wanderings. Jehanine hastened into the Cockatrice.

  It was a place whose light seemed only to contribute to its darkness. Beams crossed close overhead, below, a fire jerked and spits revolved. Opaque shadows had massed at tables, on benches, or passed her through the ochre gloom. The air too was thick with noise and smells. In such a place, where was her brother?

  She began to wade slowly forward, looking cautiously aside into meaningless faces. Beakers clinked or were spilled. Men shouted. Serving girls screeched. Then she heard his laugh, so known, clear and musical and all embracing, across the formless din. On instinct, she swung towards it, almost collided with one of the servers – who cursed her flightily, thinking her after all a male – and got between the tables into an alcove.

  Five or six young men sat there, indeterminate in the unlight light, oddly amalgamated by it to an entity. But in their midst, a holy face, sculpted and painted by sun-tan on ivory, and hair gilded by a master craftsman with costly gold-leaf mixed in honey.

  “Pierre,” said Jehanine.

  It was not by way of an address to him, but a magic word, spoken as an amulet.

  But hearing it from an unexpected quarter, her handsome brother turned, and stared at her blankly.

  “What’s this, eh, dear prince?” one of his companions, whose arm lay across Pierre’s shoulders, inquired of him. “Fallen foul again of the sorority of the streets?”

  Pierre smiled, and shook his head.