Edgardo started to pray as he had been taught to by monks when he could not sleep for love or money. However, Kallis’s breath and heartbeat seemed to grow louder and dance around him. He continued to repeat his litany to chase away thoughts and images.
A creaking sound made him jump. Somebody was moving behind the hemp canvas. It was a vague rustling. Perhaps a blanket being lifted or clothes slipping off? Then there was a faint, slightly hoarse gasp. A body melting in an embrace? Was he dreaming? Was it a child’s nightmare? Or a demon’s temptation? Edgardo curled up against the wall, hiding his head under the blanket so that he would not hear, or see, or even imagine. Kallis the slave had turned into Kallis the concubine. It was no use praying, except to curse his own body, hide from nightmares and stifle dangerous dreams, the sound of her increasingly deep breathing, and the flame of the lamp that wavered, about to go out. It was not the breathing of the lagoon, nor the beating wings of a kite that had landed on the thatched roof, but the soul of Kallis the concubine arrogantly coming out to flaunt her insane pleasure to the world. Her skin, sweating salt and milk. Her numbed fingers digging into the bear’s back.
Pray, Edgardo the Crooked, pray—not that it helps, except to hide your hump. Pray to that God who has punished you from birth and who continues to proclaim His omnipotence in your failing eyesight and in the shadow falling deeper and deeper over your poor eyes with every passing day.
He fell asleep once his prayers had worn out his limbs and intoxicated his mind. It was a brief, restless sleep, light enough to allow an apparition so clear it looked real. The naked body of a woman was leaning over him, stroking his head and tucking him in like a child. It was the body of an old woman, all wrinkled and white as milk. The body of the servant who would rock him, as a child, when he could not get to sleep because of the pain in his crooked bones, and who would leave the scent of burned acorns in his hair.
He was awoken by the desperate bleating of the goat. Strips of light filtered through the reeds on the ceiling. The hut was empty. Edgardo got up, with excruciating pain in his joints. He suddenly remembered the night before, with all its torments. A naked woman had leaned over him . . . Who was she? He was unable to reconstruct a clear picture. He stepped out of the door. The sky was so clear and bright, it seemed to vibrate. He rubbed his eyes. They were watering, and a sharp sting made it so that he could not keep them open. He went to a small canal, to rinse his face and soothe the burning sensation. Against a blurred horizon, he recognized Segrado and Kallis, standing in water up to their waists, working by the bank outside the house. He approached with an unsteady step. Segrado was planting sharpened sticks into the muddy bottom, to which Kallis was attaching a wicker trellis that she then covered with slime and clay, building a kind of barrier.
“The water has been rising for months.” Segrado did not lift his head and spoke without interrupting his work. “I don’t know what’s happening to the muddy sea. We keep having to reinforce and raise the banks in order not to be submerged, and have our houses flooded, our fields destroyed, and our vineyards burned by salt water. Old people talk of times gone by when you could walk from Altinus to Torcellus and when the islands of Aymanas and Costanciacum were part of the same land. There were herds grazing free where right now there are marshes and reeds. When I took over this little island, it was a submerged shoal. I broke my back digging canals, carrying soil, reinforcing the banks—I stole this land from the water and managed to build a home on it.”
He stopped and looked up as though to check that what he was saying was true. Kallis had collected some stones on a board tied with two ropes and was about to pull them to the shore. The load was heavy, and despite all her efforts she was struggling to move it. Edgardo picked up a rope and started pulling with her. Kallis gave him a grateful look. Segrado was putting mud on the dam and paid no attention to them.
The stones had to be put behind the stilts. Kallis started moving them on to the bank, one by one, with Edgardo helping her. They worked together in perfect harmony, their movements almost blending together. They were glistening with sweat. Edgardo felt his muscles tighten and his body obey, relaxed, agile, as though his crookedness had miraculously disappeared. At the abbey, because of his disability, they had always exempted him from heavy work. And now, maybe for the first time, he was discovering muscles and strength in his arms. His hands were not just made to hold a goose quill. Kallis lifted the last load, bigger than the others, and reached out to Segrado. Perhaps she put a foot wrong in the mud, or perhaps it was too heavy for her, but the stone slipped and fell into the water, grazing Segrado’s leg.
“Bitch like your mother!” he cried. “Do you want me to be crippled? Stupid woman!”
He struck her violently across the face. A bear’s paw on a slender reed. Kallis bent double, swayed, but did not fall. Edgardo felt the impulse to pounce on the man and punish him for his cowardly action. Yet he did not move. An unnatural silence had suddenly fallen over them, interrupted only by Kallis’s panting, full of rage.
Segrado resumed his work, still swearing. She remained there for a few seconds, straight and motionless, like one of those poles stuck in the mud; then, without saying a word, walked toward the hut. Segrado did not stop her. Edgardo wanted to catch up with her and comfort her: an action that would not have been appropriate to his role. A master has full power over his slave. He can beat her and also enjoy her favors. A monk must not get involved.
Edgardo had contrasting feelings toward the man. On the one hand he admired and trusted him, recognizing his honesty, his purity of spirit, and a certain degree of knowledge. On the other hand, he felt in him a shadow of ambiguity, depths of violence that frightened him.
“Don’t worry, scribe, you’ll be safely back in your abbey by Terce. Go home and wait for me there. I’m going to pick up some materials from the harbor, and then I’ll come and get you.”
Edgardo obeyed. Kallis was feeding the goat.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“He’s gone to get some stuff, then he’s coming back.”
Kallis looked at him with surprise. “He went alone?”
Edgardo nodded.
She shook her head thoughtfully. “Are you hungry? There’s some oatmeal left.”
“Thank you.”
They went into the house. Edgardo sat at the table while Kallis gave him a bowl and a glass of water. They were alone. Segrado was far away. Edgardo was forcing himself not to look at her, but a magnetic force emanated from her soft, graceful movements and her amber skin. All of a sudden, Kallis came and sat down opposite him, and he could not help admiring her.
“Have you thought that perhaps your eyes won’t last much longer?” Her tone was hard and severe.
“I think about it every day. “
“Then you must act quickly. Maybe there’s a recipe in that book that can cure them . . . If you wait too long you’ll never know. You must read it and copy it, while you still can. It could be your salvation.”
Edgardo stared at her, astonished by her determination. “You have no idea how long it takes to copy a manuscript . . . It takes months, years.”
“Then copy only what you need for your eyes.” Her voice was like a low and monotonous chant, yet full of deep energy.
Kallis reached out with her hand. Edgardo watched her fingers draw so close, they turned into a blurry shadow. He was overwhelmed by her spice-scented breath. A light touch brushed his eyelids and a blinding light exploded in his head, accompanied by a wave of heat. Edgardo opened his eyes again, frightened. Kallis was sitting there, opposite him.
“You’re a witch!” he said.
Kallis started to laugh, to laugh without stopping. He had never seen a woman laugh in such an unseemly, unrestrained manner.
“Me, a witch?” She was laughing and laughing.
Edgardo leapt to his feet, offended, and grabbed her by the wrist. “That�
�s enough. I will not allow you to make fun of me.”
“Make fun of you? What are you saying?” A note of surprise had crept into her laugh. “It’s me I’m laughing at . . . If only I was a witch! People are afraid of witches and keep away from them. While I am nothing, nothing . . . You can beat me if you want, you can throw me out or forget me. You can even kill me—nobody would notice, nobody would cry over me.”
Edgardo let go of her. He had behaved like a petty man, merely following his pride. After all, he too, had treated her like a slave.
Kallis left the room but Edgardo went after her. “Wait!” he shouted.
At that moment, the scaula was turning into the stream outside the house. Segrado shouted to get their attention. Kallis quickly picked up her things, closed the door with the chain, and went to the bank. It all happened very quickly, and Edgardo did not have the time to speak to her. They got in from the bow. With a stroke of the oar, Segrado pushed the boat toward the open lagoon.
Kallis noticed a small, dark sack on the bench. It seemed full. She was about to put it at the bottom of the boat before sitting down.
“Don’t touch it!” Segrado’s brusque tone stopped her. “Give it here!” He put the little sack at his feet, as though protecting a treasure of inestimable value. By now they were far away, with Metamauco behind them, going toward the island of Popilia.*
XV.
DE ASPECTIBUS
He waited late into the night. The abbey was plunged into an unnatural silence. Not a breath of wind or a swish in the waves. Only a gurgling sound that came from underground, as though the lagoon was simmering beneath the island. For hours he had mulled over the right thing to do. Kallis’s words were still echoing in his head. “Have you thought that perhaps your eyes won’t last much longer?” She was right. He did not know if, only a few days hence, he would be able to read, even with difficulty, the page of a manuscript. He had noticed that the illness was progressing very fast. In old people, he had seen it advance very slowly and over many years. In his case, though, it was different. It was not just his near sight that had deteriorated. Even in the distance, contours looked out of focus and wobbly. Perhaps an evil disease was taking him toward blindness in a short space of time. In that case, not even these magical stones for the eyes would be able to save him. However, he still had one hope, so why give up? He could not consider living deprived of the supreme joy of being able to see. Not just seeing words but the entire world that surrounded him. A shadow, a dark veil would fall over the sky, nature, and men. Kallis’s face appeared before him, clear and luminous. That too would be obliterated by the darkness of blind eyes.
Edgardo left his cell. He had made his decision. The candle he had kept lit barely illuminated his steps. He did not encounter any difficulties on his way to the library; he was accompanied only by that underground rumbling which grew louder in the cloisters. When he had reached the scriptorium, he looked for the shelf where he had previously found the manuscript. It was still in the same place, together with the yet incomplete translation. He took it and placed it on the lectern. The pages had not yet been bound. It was a thick manuscript. Finding in so little time—that is, if there was anything to find—the passages that could bring him knowledge about eyesight and optics seemed like an impossible enterprise. Alhazen’s De Aspectibus was divided into seven books, and he began to look through the index: The Mechanics of Vision, The Nature and Propagation of Light, The Nature of Colors. Physiology of the Eye, Optical Cone, The Light Required by Vision, Reflection and Refraction.
With difficulty, he started reading. Alhazen claimed that if vision was possible, as those who sustained visual rays said, thanks to the eye’s emission of rays similar to sticks able to examine the external world and provide the psyche with elements to discern shapes and colors, then looking at the sun should not be painful, because the eye would not emit rays if emitting them hurt. On the contrary, reality demands that there should be an external agent operating in the eye, so that when this agent is too strong it causes pain to the sensitive organ.
Edgardo found the argument very logical and sensible. Once again, he drew close to the manuscript and continued to read.
Alhazen’s theory was that the beam of light emanated from objects and not from the eye. “Tiny slivers of peel”—a kind of shadow that envelops bodies—get detached from the bodies themselves and reach the eye. Once they penetrate the pupil, these slivers of peel are able to reconstruct inside the eye an ordered object like the one that has emitted them. Alhazen called this external agent capable of acting so as to trigger vision, “Lumen.”
Edgardo had never asked himself how his eyes or vision in general worked. He just looked at the world and was pleased with what he saw. Now, discovering that there were such complex mechanisms that explained such an immediate act filled him with amazement and curiosity. However, he could not yet understand how these notions could be related to his illness, the stones, or the crystalline glass Segrado had mentioned. He continued perusing the pages. He did not have much time left. Soon the bells would be ringing Lauds and the abbey would be awake.
Book VII: Refraction. Through a series of experiments which involved making the sun’s rays pass through glass receptacles full of water, Alhazen had discovered that when they traveled through air, glass, or water, beams of light changed their angle of impact according to precise formulas: this means that when it goes through a body, the speed of light changes and does not remain constant, as had been claimed by Ptolemy.
Edgardo felt he was close to a concept, an explanation that he was not yet able to grasp clearly. He was trying to find his way through thick fog, sensing the existence of a gash that did not seem to open.
He persevered. There were many pages: the theory of spherical lenses, experiments on the behavior of flat, convex and concave mirrors of different shapes, experiments on the magnifying properties of glass spheres and semispheres.
Edgardo stopped. Had he read correctly or were his eyes playing a trick? The words “magnifying” and “glass semi-spheres” startled him.
He remembered the drawing of the lapides ad legendum Tàtaro had shown him. It was a semisphere of rock crystal that, when placed on a page, magnified the written characters beneath. Perhaps he had really found something. He had to study this attentively, copy it, and show it to Segrado.
The sound of bells tolling for Lauds made him jump. He had lost track of time. He quickly put the manuscript back on the shelf and left the scriptorium. He needed more time and would have to come back.
Niccolò ran across Campo San Giacomo di Luprio. He was in a rush. His master was waiting and he was late already. The boat from Amurianum had taken longer than usual because the lagoon was rough and there was an adverse wind. He heard someone call him. The campo was deserted at that time. There were only penitents praying under the church porch, beggars, cripples, and lepers. He turned and saw Zoto walking toward him. Niccolò carried on walking briskly but the crystal-maker caught up with him.
“Where are you running, you peasant, wait a moment!”
“Maestro Segrado is waiting for me.”
“What’s the rush? The oven isn’t going to run away. What do you have to do that’s so important?”
“Earn my living.” Niccolò did not like the crystal-maker.
Zoto tried to keep up with him in spite of his limp. “And you think I don’t? We all have to work for a living, that’s why we should help each other out. Glass and crystal makers have always had a good working relationship, helping and supporting one another—”
“What do you want from me, Zoto?”
“I don’t want anything. Only remind your master he should be grateful to Zoto if he’s still working. I rented him a foundry. Otherwise, you’d all be stuck in the mud with them,” he indicated the beggars outside the church.
“He pays you what he owes you, doesn’t he?”
“Ye
s, I know, I’m not saying anything—just that if we need to help each other out . . . ”
Niccolò stopped and stared at him inquisitively.
“That cleric . . . ” Zoto started again, “I heard they’ve seen you together. He was looking for rock crystal . . . And I’ve got some that’s pure and perfect . . . If you see him again, tell him Zoto is a talented and honest crystal-maker who can make anything, even if I’ve never actually seen these stones for the eyes in my life.” He burst out laughing and coughed. “Zoto can even make the impossible. Just give him a piece of crystal and he’ll make anything you like out of it, even a beautiful woman’s ass.” Once again, he laughed so hard he nearly choked.
They had almost reached the shop near the foundry. Kallis saw them walking together, with Zoto laughing without restraint.
“All right, if I see the cleric, I’ll tell him you already have the crystal.”
Niccolò was about to walk away but Zoto pulled him toward him as though trying to confide a secret. “If you ever wanted to make a little extra . . . I can’t imagine the master pays you all that much . . . If you ever wanted to make something out of green or ruby glass suitable for imitating gemstones, then I’d know just how to cut them perfectly and set them so well they’d look like real precious stones . . . ”
“Let go of me, Zoto.” Niccolò broke away from him, annoyed.
“You don’t think I can? I dare anyone to discover the truth. You just give me the right color glass and you’ll see what Zoto’s capable of.”
But Niccolò was now walking away.
“So?” Zoto shouted after him. “Who do you think you glassmakers are? Craftsmen, my ass!”
Niccolò stopped, ready to come to blows. He could not bear to be insulted, but then decided it was not worth soiling his hands with someone like Zoto and pressed ahead.
The Eye Stone Page 11