by Tony Moyle
“Clients. Why are you so desperate to be accepted by the nobility?” implored Philibert.
“I’m not. I’m just a small lamp in the great, dazzling glow of enlightenment that is illuminating our world. I dedicate my life to the advancement of the human race in order to fulfil our species potential, to be more than we currently are.”
“Michel, the Enlightenment is not illuminating the world. It’s crawling through the undergrowth like a frightened child hiding from a mugger. Almost everyone in France thinks the Enlightenment is what happens when you light a very small candle. Only a precious few are lucky enough to be witnesses to it and even less who understand its advancements. You’re not interested in the masses. If you were you’d be using your profile to help them. All you’re interested in is the attention of the elites.”
“Am not!” huffed Michel.
“Who are you kidding? Writing prophecies for the King, manipulating an invitation to attend their court, making star charts for Lords, seeing your name in print and knowing that everyone who can read is talking about you. No, you’re right, your work is all about advancement…yours. You and I were not so different to begin with. We both wanted more for ourselves. We both dragged ourselves out of the gutter to show society achievement was possible even if you had the wrong parents. But you have been corrupted by your own greed.”
Michel sat on his little wooden stool in silent contemplation. Phil was right of course, even if he’d never openly accept it. Michel’s real gift was the ability to manipulate those in high office using scientifically sound, and some rather less sound, theoretical practices. He believed unwaveringly in the accuracy of his prophecies, even though some of their meaning might not initially be clear. What impact would it have if he taught this imposter a few of his tricks? He’d never be able to do it as well as he could and then the world would soon learn he was a fraud. But if it helped get him out of here a few days earlier than expected, what was the problem?
“I believe in what I write. I believe that it tells a future, even if it’s not clear when that future will be. The stars come in cycles. If I predict a drought because Mars is interfering with Venus, that event might happen fifty times in the future. I won’t live long enough to see if my prediction came true. But someone will. My writings will live longer than I will, and it will be up to others to decide whether I was right or not.”
“It’s also a cracking excuse when things don’t work out,” said Phil.
“That’s irrelevant.”
“But convenient.”
“Maybe,” replied Michel as his tongue tiptoed over his decision. “Ok. I might regret it, but I will teach you some of the basics.”
“Excellent,” said Phil with a grin.
“But on one condition,” added Michel quickly.
“Certainly. Anything.”
“If by some miracle your prophecies are more accurate than my own, I will reveal you as the imposter you are. Agreed.”
“Agreed.”
Phil had no intention at being good at prognosticating whether on purpose or by accident. The only reason to participate was to weave it into the con taking baby steps in his mind. If it worked to secure his release his short career in future reading would be over. Then he could regroup with Chambard and create a new identity. Another in a long line of masks he’d worn since that spring morning in Aix all those years ago.
“Ok,” said Michel. “Also you should know that I don’t like to be argued with. You must do what I say and study when I say so. Understood?”
“Yes. Got it. I am your apprentice and you are the master. I’m used to playing the understudy. So how do we start? Learn the star signs, write a star chart, develop my Latin…”
“Settle down, one step at a time. Let’s see what natural ability you have first. Write me a quatrain?”
“A quatrain?”
“A four-lined prophecy.”
“About what?”
“Whatever you feel coming through the cosmic energy.”
“Cosmic energy...right.”
Before the start of the week, Philibert had never even heard of cosmic energy, let alone ‘felt’ it. He imagined in his mind it acted like an invisible energy field so weak that it didn’t really interact with humans in any obvious way. He thought it might be similar to the way people used dowsing rods to find water. Chambard had taught him that relatively new technique when they were lost in the wild on one of their many detours. They had on occasions found water, but then again Phil thought you probably didn’t need two pointy sticks to find a massive waterfall crashing noisily over a cliff face. Chambard insisted it was because of the rods.
Phil picked up a dented pewter plate and placed it on his head. He took off his boots and stood barefoot on the cold stone floor. Next he picked up two carrots, part of the lunch menu that had been ignored, and gripped them tightly in both hands. Finally he closed his eyes and started to hum incoherently.
“Um, what are you doing?” said Michel curtly.
“Connecting with the cosmic energy.”
“No…you’re really not. You might be connecting with cosmic nonsense. Take all that stuff off. Just sit by the table and write whatever comes into your head. Just concentrate on what you can feel.”
Sheepishly, Phil discarded his ridiculous outfit and sat down at the oak coffer. He took out a piece of parchment and racked his brain. To his surprise the murky image of an event framed itself in his mind. Almost without delay Phil started to write. The passage was restricted by poor handwriting and a less extensive vocabulary than would be available to Michel through all his years of study. What he lacked in natural talent he made up for with a healthy dose of bullshit. After all, he was a master in that area. Once the four lines had been scribbled down he passed the result to Michel with the expression of a student handing in an exam paper two hours before the end of the deadline.
“That’s it, is it?”
“Yep.”
In the port of Calais a week on Friday,
A man with a white beard and a scabby dog
Shall misplace his canoe, which
shall mysteriously be found in his neighbour’s garden
“So…” said Phil, “any good?”
Nostradamus read it through a number of times in case he’d missed some spectacularly clever meaning. He hadn’t. Not wanting to dampen his pupil’s enthusiasm he’d reserve the hard critique until later. “What does this mean to you?”
“I guess it’s pretty clear that someone is going to have their canoe stolen,” replied Philibert.
“And that’s what the cosmic energy was telling you, was it?”
“Hard to say really, not sure I’m quite on the right frequency yet, but I did get a really strong vision of a long, skinny boat sitting in a garden.”
“And the man with the dog?”
“I just felt that a man who owns a canoe probably has a dog,” replied Phil confidently.
“What sort of dog?” said Michel to see how deep this vision went and how long Phil would keep up the nonsense.
“Oh, a big one for sure.”
The minutes that followed were only interrupted by the distant noise of bats whizzing past the window as they ventured out to find their midnight meal, and the whistling of the air being sucked into Michel’s opened mouth. Both men knew that what Phil had written was not only useless, unless you had a dog, beard and canoe and lived in Calais, but it was also not a very good prophecy. Michel decided to tackle the failure head on.
“The problem with your prediction is, well, how can I put this kindly?” he said reflecting on the nicest way to frame it. “It’s terrible.”
“Oh. It kind of figures, though. I mean you haven’t told me how to do it yet, have you? Anyway, what was wrong with it?”
“I’d say everything really.”
“Everything isn’t very helpful. Narrow it down.”
“Ok let’s talk basics. Your quatrain breaks the three golden rules.”
- Chapter 14 -
The Three Rules
By fifteen-sixty-one, when Nostradamus’s productivity took a knock as a result of being in prison, Michel had been writing prophecies for almost a decade. He’d started off small. A series of experiments published in small circulation and barely noticed by the world. Although frustrating for Nostradamus’s desire for attention, it had at least given him ample opportunity to check his own work. Every year he created an almanac of predictions for the coming twelve months and because few people initially read them he was able to review his performance at the end of the period to see how many he got right.
In the early days it amounted to…not many.
There were several factors that brought about these defeats. Because he was writing almanacs, he was by definition writing predictions about specific future events that would have to occur in a window no bigger than three hundred and sixty-five days. The movement of the stars and planets had a much wider time frame. He might actually predict the right event, only to discover that a prediction he’d made for fifteen-fifty-seven actually came true in fifteen-fifty-nine.
The second issue was around specific details contained within the prophecies. Any exact wording or detailed description of the predicted events meant more scope for failure. Indicating that a specific church would burn to the ground was much harder to build a case for than a ‘holy place being destroyed’. This change increased the odds of success dramatically. If any church, rectory, cathedral, religious town or even the Pope himself for that matter were burnt down, sacked, struck by lightning or blown up at any point over the next twelve months, it counted as a win. It was called hedging your bets.
Michel also struggled with two diametrically opposed issues. Prophecies worked because the population had a catatonic fear that the end of the world was marching unimpeded over the horizon towards them. Their desperation for answers made the work of any would-be prophet highly sought after. But predicting Armageddon wasn’t good for business. If he predicted its likelihood in fifteen-sixty you could kiss goodbye to a decent level of sales for your almanac of fifteen-sixty-one, as in truth you’d already convinced people that there wasn’t going to be one.
So irrespective of the need to utilise the star charts, learn historic comparisons, plagiarise deeply dubious prophecies of the last few centuries, and understand the public’s general sentiment, some rules had to be applied to get the balance right between believability and reliability. There needed to be enough information for the prophecy to look genuine, but tethered to a heavy dose of ambiguity to allow for suitable wiggle room. It was through this early process of trial and error that Michel worked out his prophecies had to pass three golden rules.
“What three rules?” asked Phil, paying close attention as he felt he needed to improve fast if he was going to convince people of his supernatural talents.
“They’re the rules I live by whenever the cosmic energy presents me with a vision of the future. If you want to build a decent career in this game you need to apply them, too. If you don’t you won’t last five minutes.”
“Ok, what are they?”
“Rule one. You can’t make any references to times or dates.”
“That’s not much of a prophecy, then, is it?”
“A prophecy doesn’t come with a clock.”
“Then how are people going to know when death and destruction are coming?”
“They don’t exactly because we might make reference to events that happen more than once. For example, feel free to make reference to winter in a quatrain, particularly if you’re predicting a lot of snow, but never say when in winter or which particular one.”
“So I can write about seasons and periods in time, but not days, weeks and years?”
“Precisely. Best to stick with the movement of the stars in your description. If you write ‘when Jupiter is in the East,’ it’s up to everyone else to work out when that is and to act accordingly.”
“But the vast majority of people don’t know what Jupiter is, let alone when it’s likely to appear somewhere.”
“That’s true.”
“So what’s the point?” replied Phil in confusion.
“It’s up to scholars to make the assessment of your writing and pass it on. That’s how the process works. No different from religion. God tells the clergy and the clergy tell the community. And because the community trust them, their word is God’s. Prophets write, scholars interpret and everyone else panics.”
“But what if the scholars are wrong?”
“What if they are? Doesn’t bother me one bit. That’s their mistake not mine. We still get paid.”
Phil knew that this first rule didn’t sit well with what he was trying to achieve. The plan was to convince Claude that his prophecies were so accurate and compelling that it would be sacrilege to have him put to death. But Claude was already a convert. He believed wholeheartedly with those who had the gift, and thus far Phil had no track record of having it. If he was to get out of here his prophecy would have to be short-term and, more importantly, would definitely have to come true.
“Rule two. You can’t give any specific details. No exact names, places or circumstances. Ambiguity is the name of the game.”
“Are you sure you write prophecies and not just fancy poems?”
“Just because it’s ambiguous doesn’t mean it’s worthless,” said Michel defensively.
“Surely the cosmic energy has something to say about that,” added Phil, wondering if the stars had anything at all to do with Michel’s writing.
“Sometimes it does. Sometimes I see very clearly the places and people that are affected, but it’s best to be a little less accurate in case things don’t go to plan or something changes.”
“Explain?” asked Phil.
“Ok. Let me show you an example.”
Michel opened the two doors of the oak coffer and rustled around inside. The wooden cabinet was packed to the brim. Reams of paper, scabby books bound weakly at the seams, unusual artefacts with unknown uses, a gleaming sextet, jars of colourful powders, and all manner of incongruous items. It was all ordered chaotically in a way that only the owner would understand. Michel very quickly found the example he was after in one of the manuscripts.
“I keep some of the work I’m less proud of in here,” he said, giving the box a little tap. “And a great number of other possessions.”
“Less proud of?”
“Work that I’d prefer others did not see. Right, take a look at this quatrain and tell me what you think,” he said, carefully placing the manuscript on Philibert’s knees to stop some of the pages making a gravity-assisted dash for freedom.
Out of the deepest part of Western Europe
Of poor people a child will be born
Who will seduce many people with his tongue
His fame will increase in the Eastern Kingdom
“It’s hard to say really,” replied Phil, who wasn’t an educated man and still found this type of critical thinking a little challenging. “I mean, most people are born to poor people so that’s about ninety-nine per cent of the population, and Western Europe could mean anywhere. There’s no year or time frame, the first rule coming into force I assume, so it could be anyone, anywhere at anytime. What does it mean?”
“To me it means that a Western European man will bring about a great change thanks to his incredible ability to rouse others through his use of words and passion.”
“When?”
“No idea. Please refer to rule one.”
“And that’s all that the cosmic energy gave you, was it?”
“Certainly not. This particular prophecy was more clear in my mind. I kept hearing this word Hitler.”
“Hitler?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s that?”
“I couldn’t find it on the map so I just went with Western Germany. Presumably the town of Hitler hasn’t been built yet and this particular prophecy is one for the future. And there’
s the point of rule two. Keep the interpretation open.”
Rule two wasn’t much better than rule one in Phil’s scheme. His next prediction would have to refer to those whom he needed to convince. But how could he do that and maintain the odds of proving that the prophecy would come true? Nostradamus’s whole reputation rested on a million interpretations of his thoughts so that none could be truly dismissed as inaccurate and none could be truly explicit.
“Fine. So no dates and no details. Sounds pretty easy.”
“The prophecy still has to be based on the science of the stars, though. You can’t just write any old rubbish down and palm it off as a prediction.”
“If you say so. What’s the last rule, then?”
“That one is the most important of all. Under no circumstances can you directly predict the end of the world.”
“Oh well, that’s easy enough.”
“You say that, but it’s a fine balance. If prophecies don’t scare the wits out of people then no one will read them. People already believe that they’re on the precipice, clinging desperately to the edge of life’s abyss. We need to give them a little nudge, but not a shove.”
“Why are they so worried?”
“Well, why wouldn’t they be? Look at most people’s lives. There’s not much joy, is there? That’s why you don’t tend to read happy prophecies. That’s not people’s perception of the world. Who wants to read about a nice, long, hot summer when in reality it’s always raining. No one would believe you. Who wants to read about an economic windfall when most people haven’t seen an actual coin in their lives. Fear is what keeps us in a job, not happy thoughts.”
“So moderate desperation, bloodshed and destruction is good, suggestions of full-scale extermination is bad?”
“You got it. By all means make vague references to impending catastrophe but hint that it might be ages away or make it so vague that people are kept on their toes. Remember the end of the world is never nigh.”