Wonders Will Never Cease

by Robert Irwin

  ‘I believe not. If I am anyone’s phantom, I am that of Ripley.’

  ‘Did Ripley send you?’

  ‘No. I am no longer his slave, nor am I his friend. He too is in danger of eternal damnation, for he is a thief who steals from other men’s stories and he has also been making away with your mother’s spells. When I am returned from the East, I will deal with him.’

  ‘You will travel to the Orient?’

  ‘I will make our pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Now, after we have prayed together, I shall take my leave and travel on to the Holy City where I will pray again for your soul and because of this, you need not travel so far yourself. I suggest that you make your pilgrimage to some other holy shrine that is closer to reach. Santiago de Compostella is only a few weeks journey away from here. You must try to become worthy of the stories that are told about you and learn to be ashamed of what you have really done.’

  By the time Anthony has finished his prayers his bright shadow has departed.

  Louys is puzzled and suspicious, ‘Who was that?’

  ‘That was my brother, Robert.’

  ‘How did he find you here?’

  ‘Oh that was simple chance. He had business in the region.’

  ‘That was a mighty strange chance that two English brothers should encounter one another on a lonely road in the province of Guyenne. That is a chance that runs quite contrary to nature. This meeting must have been made by witchcraft.’

  But Anthony will not be drawn any further on the subject of his ‘brother’. Instead, as they ride on, he tells Louys that his plans have changed and that, now he has thought about it, he sees that Louys is right after all and it would be a great waste to spend so many years travelling to Jerusalem and further eastern parts. Instead, he will turn south and cross into Spain and make his way to Santiago de Compostella.

  After that he has little to say to Louys for the rest of that day, as he broods on the encounter he has just had. What a strange thing it is to discover that you are not the hero of your own story, as you thought, but its villain, just as Malory had hinted. He thinks, of course, that he should repent, but then he thinks that it might be dishonourable to repent from fear of eternal damnation. Would it not show more courage and honour to stand fast on the Devil’s side? Surely God will not respect contrition that has been expressed only in the hope of gaining Paradise and avoiding the flames of Hell? Ought there to be room in Heaven for cowards? Now Anthony remembers how Tiptoft described Hell to the Talking Head. There is a great lake of fire which burns with brimstone and everywhere a great stench. Scaly monsters with sharp-toothed mouths in their bellies, arms and legs, are Hell’s gaolers. Those who are condemned can only shit through their mouths. What awaits sinners is an eternity of suffering for what is by comparison only a few years of human wickedness. Then Anthony wonders at the fact that those who are cast into Hell will be tormented by hideous monsters who delight in evil. Surely the chastisement of sinners should be carried out by God’s angels? Then he thinks that it is likely that after a few hundred years of torture he will forget why it is that he is being so tormented. Or is it one of the tasks of the monsters to remind him of his crimes as they bite and maul him? Then, is not Hell too grand and awesome a place for the little that he has done? He is too small to endure eternity.

  As a Gascon, Louys knows the region pretty well and in a tavern that night he gives Anthony all the details of the pilgrim route to Santiago. Anthony must pass through Saint-Pierre-du Mont and Saint Sever and then cross into Spain via the pass at Roncevalles before turning west towards Santiago de Compostella. And now Louys relates the story of Roland and Oliver and the stand they made against the Moors at Roncevalles.

  For seven long years the Emperor Charlemagne has been waging war against the Saracens of Spain. Then the pagan lord of the Saracens, Marsilion offers a peace treaty. Only Charlemagne’s dauntless nephew Roland is against the proposal. After he and Ganelon, who is Roland’s stepfather and leader of the appeasers, clash in the imperial council, Roland nominates Ganelon to go on a dangerous mission to negotiate with Marsilion and Ganelon takes this as an insult. ‘This is a plot to get rid of me!’ He swears to himself that he will be avenged. Then he goes to Marsilion and treacherously arranges for the rearguard of the French army to be ambushed as it crosses over the Pyrenees. When he returns to Charlemagne, Ganelon arranges for Roland to be in charge of that rearguard. As the rearguard makes its way through the pass at Roncevalles the Saracens attack. Roland and his deputy Oliver and the small force that they have with them are hopelessly outnumbered. Oliver urges Roland to blow upon the ivory horn known as the Olifant and so summon Charlemagne and the rest of the French army back to their rescue, but Roland refuses. ‘God forbid that any living man should see me blow upon the horn from fear of the paynim.’ Only when Roland is the last survivor and close to dying himself does he blow upon the horn. Charlemagne arrives too late to rescue Roland, but in time to wreak a bloody vengeance on the Saracens. Back at Aix-la-Chapelle, Ganelon is accused of treason, and after being defeated in trial by combat, he is executed. An archangel then reminds Charlemagne that he has more wars to fight against the Saracens. ‘God!’ says Charlemagne, ‘how weary is my life!’ He weeps and plucks his flowing white beard.

  Naturally Louys takes pride in what is the French national epic. Anthony is not so sure what his own response should be. Should he really identify with the young, courageous and proud knight that is Roland and lament his valiant death? Or, since the double has shown Anthony to be a villain, should he not be on the side of villains in stories? In his imagination then he should stand shoulder to shoulder with Ganelon and Marsilion. After that Anthony wonders if, when he will return to England and read more from the pages of Le Morte d’Arthur, should he not be cheering Mordred and Morgan le Fay on. Or is it possible that, when such low and villainous folk as murderers and highwaymen listen to tales of King Arthur and the Fellowship of the Round Table, they take a perverse pleasure in the triumphs of Arthur, Lancelot and Galahad and enjoy fantasies of being virtuous paladins like them? Roland is young and heroic to the point of stupidity. Is it really heroic to allow treason to triumph? What is it that drives Roland, like Hagen in The Saga of the Nibelungs, to ride with all his men to his certain doom? Yet everything must happen as it does happen. While it is hard to pin down what Anthony feels about this story, in the end it is something very like foreboding.

  Before Anthony retires for the night he begs Louys to be allowed to buy Les dits moraux des philosophes from him, but it is pressed upon him as a gift.

  As he is drifting off to sleep, Anthony remembers the Abbot of Crowland’s belief that the century in which Charlemagne was supposed to live never happened and Tiptoft’s claim that Charlemagne was an imaginary character. So Roland, Oliver, Ganelon and Marsilion must be imaginary too. Then is it possible that he too is living in an imaginary century?

  The following morning Anthony rides on alone. There is a monastery at the crest of the pass of Roncevalles and pilgrims lodge there. A few days later Anthony passes into Galicia. Small low cottages huddle under oak and hazel trees. The meadows are studded with rocky outcrops. Now that Anthony has entered Spain, the rains begin and they hardly cease all the time he is in that region. As he gets closer to Santiago, he passes many people walking towards the city and a few are making their way there on hands and knees.

  Once in Santiago he finds a hostelry, and having unsaddled his horse, he walks out into the street. His intention is to explore the city. It is of course raining. The street is crowded with Spanish and French pilgrims. But almost immediately he is stopped by someone whose native tongue is English.

  ‘My lord do you not recognise me?’

  The man is old with only a few wisps of hair on his head and he is deathly pale.

  Anthony shakes his head apologetically.

  ‘Then perhaps you will recognise my feet?’

  Anthony looks down. The man is barefoot and his feet are filthy and a little
bloody and some toes are missing.

  He is sick with foreboding when he speaks again,

  ‘You are the leper whose feet I am supposed to have washed.’ As he says this, he thinks that it is one thing to have featured in a story in which he is described as having washed a leper’s feet and quite another thing to have to wash them in reality.

  ‘Yes, and I am grateful for that. I never did thank you.’

  ‘I thought that you were an angel.’

  ‘Do I look like an angel?’

  ‘And do you now want me to wash your feet again?’

  The leper thinks for a moment before replying, ‘No, they would soon get dirty again in these filthy streets. But I have walked all the way here from Bilbao and I am tired. I want you to give me a ride to the Cathedral.’

  Anthony starts to explain that his horse is unsaddled and stabled and needs to rest, but the leper cuts him short.

  ‘No, you are the horse. I want to ride you piggy-back. I want you to take me to the Cathedral and then I want to see the rest of this city… I want to see the world, not just the little bit that the alchemist had determined should be my lot. You are thinking that you will not do this and that there is no reason for you to do this. But I tell you that you should accept my offer with gratitude, for your immortal soul is in peril of damnation and here I am offering you the chance to show true penitence. You may think of the weight of me on your back as the burden of your sins.’

  So then Anthony submits and the leper joyfully shouts ‘Gee up!’ and they advance towards the Cathedral. Though they receive many curious looks, their partnership is not so very strange, for they overtake many heading the same route on hands and knees and some who support sick and paralytic pilgrims on their way to receive the blessing of Saint James and perhaps a cure for what ails them. But James is really a military sort of saint. True he led a peaceful enough life as an Apostle in Palestine until he was martyred by Herod Agrippa. But after James’ death an unmanned ship brought his body to Spain and he was reverently entombed here in Santiago de Compostella. Since then the saint has made a point of turning up on a white charger at such battles as Clavijo, Coimbra and Las Navas de Tolosa in order to help the Christians to defeat the Moors – hence his name Matamoros, ‘Moor Killer’. Anthony and his burden pass through the Gate of Glory. The interior of the Cathedral, with its sculpted scallop shells, golden columns, red hangings, together with lamps and candles in their hundreds and thousands, is magnificent. Anthony can imagine becoming a killer saint, one who gains in holiness with each battle he participates in. That would be a fine thing. Together he and the leper kneel in prayer.

  Then all too soon he becomes a horse again and is driven by the leper through the narrow rain-swept streets. Sometimes in sport the leper claps his hands over Anthony’s eyes. At other times, he stretches out his arms to beg from passers-by. Perhaps Anthony is in Hell. The cobbles are slippery and the mud in alleys that have not been cobbled is even worse and Anthony is often close to stumbling. Finally he does fall and in doing so pitches the leper into a stone gutter.

  The leper sits howling in the rain. When at last he can bring himself to speak, he says, ‘I do not like it here. I do not like the world you and your kind live in. It has too many hard edges and it is painful and it rains all the time and I keep needing to piss. I am going back to Corbenic and the story I was in. Though I wish Ripley had never thought of me. Why could he not have made me young, healthy and handsome? Why could I not be you? I hate Ripley.’ And as an afterthought, he adds, ‘And I hate you too.’

  ‘But what about my penance? You were to be the burden of my sin.’

  ‘Being the weight of your sins was less amusing than I thought it would be. You must find your own salvation without my help. So now farewell.’

  Anthony thankfully returns to the hostelry and changes into dry clothes. Then he starts to brood on this strange encounter. He thinks it possible that his double was really his guardian angel who chose to disguise himself as one of Ripley’s fictions. That is much more plausible than an escapee from a story. Then the leper too could be the guardian angel in another disguise. Many people have described meeting their guardian angels. Though it is not usual, yet it is quite possible. Anthony feels comforted to have found a perfectly rational explanation for the recent strange meetings.

  The following day Anthony visits the chapel which has one of the prepuces, or foreskins, of Christ as its holy relic. After Jesus was circumcised, his foreskin was carefully preserved and is guarded by the Pope in Rome, but there are other foreskins of Christ scattered all over Christendom, fourteen of them in all. Le Puy-en-Velay, Antwerp, Chartres, Stoke-on-Trent and Santiago de Compostella are among the places that display the prepuce to the devout. The multiplication of holy foreskins is a miracle and a blessing for mankind. Also, many churches have nail clippings of our Saviour among their relics, though, according to theologians of the Dominican Order, all the nail clippings of Jesus left this world and followed Him when He ascended up to Heaven and therefore the supposed holy nail clippings are no such thing. Anthony briefly wonders why the prepuces did not also follow Jesus to Heaven. But he is no theologian and he is content to kneel in devotion before the sacred relic.

  Is there enough of Anthony’s life left for him to work his way to salvation? Better yet, could he become a military saint and be canonised for having fought so many Saracens? Then he thinks of Henry of Lancaster. After he was discovered dead in the Tower and after he was displayed in Westminster Abbey, then his corpse was floated down to Chertsey Abbey, and even before Anthony had left England, Henry’s grave had become an object of popular devotion and people said that he was a saint and one who in death had acquired healing powers. People went to Chertsey to be cured of madness, blindness, deafness, sweating sickness, plague, epilepsy, ruptures, battle wounds and heresies. The dead King also helped find lost property. Is it indeed possible that when Anthony was with Gloucester and Clarence in the Tower that he witnessed the martyrdom of a saint? But then Anthony impiously reflects that, if becoming a saint involves becoming someone like the weak and silly Henry, then the price is far too high. Anthony tries to concentrate on holiness. But then he starts to worry whether being handsome is a sin, for he has heard that Saint Bernard of Comminges used demons to punish women of excessive beauty.

  As he wanders the streets of Compostella, Anthony slowly becomes aware that there are lots of Jews in the streets. Anthony had never seen a Jew before, since they are forbidden in England, and he is fascinated. Though he had thought of them as much the same as devil worshippers, now he looks on them they seem quite normal. Then just outside the walls of the city he comes across an encampment made by the Egyptians with their gaily coloured caravans. With a pang he realises that now he will never visit Cairo. His destiny is in England and after only a few days Santiago becomes wearisome to him and the rain even more so. He is sick for England. That is where he must find his salvation. He thinks that he will make penitential visits to Beth in her nunnery.

  Chapter Seventeen: Locus Amoenus

  It is August when Anthony returns to the land of marvels. In these days to breathe is like drawing hot cinders into one’s lungs. The sun’s heat is boiling it all up – seeds, dust and butterflies are turning over and over in the sun’s heat. The battle of the fields has begun. He rides past lines of men and women working to a rhythm as they take their fagging hooks and scythes to the corn. Behind them a line of stooping children and old women, the gleaners, follow. White wisps of cloud float across the blue. The land below is as if mostly painted yellow and brown. Dogs lie panting in the shade, unwilling even to pursue the hares that occasionally break from cover as the areas of upright corn shrink. It is hard to think that autumn will ever come and it is a relief when it is possible to ride through woods and find some coolness under the beech trees. How many more summers like this will he see?

  When finally he arrives at the Woodville townhouse, he receives news of Beth’s death in the nunnery a
month and a half ago. She had turned her face to the wall and refused all food until she slipped into unconsciousness. Anthony has no time to reflect on this before he is summoned by the King to Westminster. Here there is more news. While Anthony has been in Spain Elizabeth has given birth to a second son and he has been christened Richard in honour of the Duke of Gloucester. On his way to Westminster Anthony recalls that the Talking Head had prophesied that Edward would be succeeded by a Richard. At the time Anthony had supposed that most likely this would be Richard of Gloucester. But now it seems much more probable that Richard’s older brother, young Edward, will fall prey to some accident or illness and consequently the King’s second son will succeed to the throne.

  But of course he says none of this to the King. Edward is weary and lethargic and yet at the same time he is horribly restless.

  ‘Last night I had a dream,’ he wheezes. ‘I dreamt that I was in a meadow and my crown was in front of me and I picked it up and put it on my head, but it was so heavy that it pushed me down into the ground. First, my legs sank into the soil, then the rest of me up to my chin, so that I was eyeing the grass around me, and finally the earth swallowed me up entirely. I awoke in terror, but then my wakeful days are just like that, for the business of state is heavy upon me. Now the Kingdom is at last at peace, I should be content and yet I am not. The truth is I miss the days of riding out to battle. I want adventures.’ He pauses and reflects before continuing, ‘And I miss Ripley. He did me good service in collecting intelligence and spreading good reports about my government, about your sister’s beauty and goodness and about your own prowess in jousting and in battle. He made our lives seem more interesting than they really are.’And Edward repeats, ‘I want adventures. But Westminster is all solemn rituals and London is the capital of dullness. All people do in that city is buy and sell things amongst one another.’

  But then Anthony tells Edward how London had seemed to him in the days and nights when he and his father went riding through streets, hunting for the villainous redhead. Then London seemed a magical city, perhaps the capital of fairyland, and Anthony describes what he thought of as the enchanted garden that he and the huntsmen rode past several times. He recalls that he heard music and the laughter of women, but there was never time to stop. If he remembers rightly, the place was not far off Cheapside.