But then the strangers came.
They came with the faraway Duke's permission. They were tenants, but they did not come to farm or to thin the ridge of its valuable timber. They were soldiers. Fifteen hard men, scarred from the wars against England, with mail coats and crossbows and swords. They brought their women who made trouble in the village and no one dared to complain because the women were as hard as the soldiers, but not as hard as the man who led them. He was tall, thin, ugly, scarred and vengeful. His name was Charles and he had not been a soldier and he never wore mail, but no one liked to ask him what he was or what he had been for his very glanqe was terrifying.
Stonemasons came from Soissons. The owls were ejected and the tower repaired. A new yard was made at the tower's foot, a yard with a high wall and a brick furnace, and soon after that work was finished a wagon, its contents hidden by a linen canopy, arrived at the tower and the new gate in the yard's wall slammed shut behind it. Some of the braver children, curious about the strange happenings at the tower, sneaked into the woods, but they were seen by one of the guards and they fled, terrified, as he pursued them, shouting, and his crossbow bolt narrowly missed a boy. No child went back. No one went there. The soldiers bought food and wine in the market, but even when they drank in Melun's tavern they did not say what happened at the tower. You must ask Monsieur Charles," they said, meaning the ugly, scarred man, and no one in the village would dare approach Monsieur Charles.
Smoke sometimes rose from the yard. It could be seen from the village, and it was the priest who deduced that the tower was now the home of an alchemist. Strange supplies were taken up the ridge and one day a wagon loaded with a barrel of sulphur and ingots of lead paused in the village while the carter drank wine. The priest smelt the sulphur. They are making gold,“ he told his housekeeper, knowing she would tell the rest of the village. Gold?” she asked.
It is what the alchemists do.“ The priest was a learned man who might have risen high in the Church except that he had a taste for wine and was always drunk by the time the angelus bell sounded, but he remembered his student days in Paris and how he had once thought that he might join the search for the philoso pher's stone, that elusive substance which would meld with any metal to make it gold. Noah possessed it,” he said. Possessed what?"
The philosopher's stone, but he lost it."
Because he was drunk and naked?“ the housekeeper asked. She had a dim memory of the story of Noah. Like you?” The priest lay on his bed, half drunk and fully naked, and he remembered the smoky workrooms of Paris where silver and mercury, lead and sulphur, bronze and iron were melted and twisted and melted again. Calcination,“ he recited, and dissolu tion, and separation, and conjunction, and putrefaction, and conge lation, and cibation, and sublimation, and fermentation, and exaltation, and multiplication, and projection.” The housekeeper had no idea what he was talking about. Marie Condrot lost her child today,“ she told him. Born the size of a kitten, it was. All bloody and dead. It had hair though. Red hair. She wants you to christen it.”
Cupellation,“ he said, ignoring her news, and cementation, and reverberation, and distillation. Always distillation. Per ascendum is the preferred method.” He hiccupped. Jesus/ he sighed, then thought again. Phlogiston. If we could just find phlogiston we could all make gold."
And how would we make gold?"
I just told you.“ He turned on the bed and stared at her breasts that were white and heavy in the moonlight. You have to be very clever/ he said, reaching for her, and you discover phlogiston which is a substance that burns hotter than hell's fires, and with it you make the philosopher's stone that Noah lost and you place it in the furnace with any metal and after three days and three nights you will have gold. Didn't Corday say they built a furnace up there?”
He said they made the tower into a prison/ she said. A furnace/ he insisted, to find the philosopher's stone." The priest's guess was closer than he knew, and soon the whole neighbourhood was convinced that a great philosopher was locked in the tower where he struggled to make gold. If he was successful, men said, then no one would need to work again for all would be rich. Peasants would eat from gold plate and ride horses caparisoned in silver, but some people noted that it was a strange kind of alchemy for two of the soldiers came to the village one morning and took away three old ox-horns and a pail of cow dung. We're bound to be rich now/ the housekeeper said sarcastically, rich in shit/ but the priest was snoring.
Then, in the autumn which followed the fall of Calais, the Cardinal arrived from Paris. He lodged in Soissons, at the Abbey of Saint-Jean-de-Vignes which, though wealthier than most monastic houses, could still not cope with all the Cardinal's entourage and so a dozen of his men took rooms in a tavern where they airily commanded the landlord to send the bill to Paris. The Cardinal will pay/ they promised, and then they laughed for they knew that Louis Bessieres, Cardinal Archbishop of Livorno and Papal Legate to the Court of France, would ignore any trivial demands for money.
Though of late His Eminence had been spending it lavishly. It had been the Cardinal who restored the tower, built the new wall and hired the guards, and on the morning after he arrived at Soissons he rode to the tower with an escort of sixty armed men and fourteen priests. Halfway to the tower they were met by Monsieur Charles who was dressed all in black and had a long, narrow-bladed knife at his side. He did not greet the Cardinal respectfully as other men would, but nodded a curt acknowl edgement and then turned his horse to ride beside the prelate. The priests and men-at-arms, at a signal from the Cardinal, kept their distance so they could not overhear the conversation. You look well, Charles,“ the Cardinal said in a mocking voice. I'm bored.” The ugly Charles had a voice like iron dragging through gravel.
God's service can be hard," the Cardinal said. Charles ignored the sarcasm. The scar went from his lip to his cheekbone, his eyes were pouchy, his nose broken. His black clothes hung from him like a scarecrow's rags and his gaze constantly flicked from side to side of the road as though he feared an ambush. Any travellers, meeting the procession, had they dared raise their eyes to see the Cardinal and his ragged companion, would have taken Charles to be a soldier, for the scar and the sword suggested he had served in the wars, but Charles Bessieres had never followed a war banner. He had cut throats and purses instead, he had robbed and murdered, and he had been spared the gallows because he was the Cardinal's eldest brother. Charles and Louis Bessieres had been born in the Limousin, the eldest sons of a tallow merchant who had given the younger son an education while the elder ran wild. Louis had risen in the church as Charles had roamed dark alleys, but different though they were, there was a trust between them. A secret was safe between the tallow merchant's only surviving sons and that was why the priests and the men-at-arms had been ordered to keep their distance.
How is our prisoner?" the Cardinal asked.
He grumbles. Whines like a woman."
But he works?"
Oh, he works,“ Charles said grimly. Too scared to be idle/ He eats? He is in good health?”
He eats, he sleeps and he nails his woman/ Charles said. He has a woman?" The Cardinal sounded shocked. He wanted one. Said he couldn't work properly without one so I fetched him one/
What kind?"
One from the stews of Paris."
An old companion of yours, perhaps?“ the Cardinal asked, amused. But not one, I trust, of whom you are too fond?” When it's all done,“ Charles said, 'she'll have her throat cut just like him. Simply tell me when.”
When he has worked his miracle, of course,“ the Cardinal said. They followed a narrow track up the ridge and, once at the tower, the priests and the armed men stayed in the yard while the brothers dismounted and went down a brief winding stair that led to a heavy door barred with three thick bolts. The Cardinal watched his brother draw the bolts back. The guards do not come down here?” he asked.
Only the two who bring food and take away the buckets," Charles said, the rest know they'll get their throa
ts cut if they poke their noses where they're not wanted/
Do they believe that?"
Charles Bessieres looked sourly at his brother. Wouldn't you?" he asked, then drew his knife before he shot the last bolt. He stepped back as he opened the door, evidently wary in case someone beyond the door attacked him, but the man inside showed no hostility, instead he looked pathetically pleased to see the Cardinal and dropped to his knees in reverence.
The tower's cellar was large, its ceiling supported by great brick arches from which a score of lanterns hung. Their smoky light was augmented by daylight that came through three high, small, thickly barred windows. The prisoner who lived in the cellar was a young man with long fair hair, a quick face and clever eyes. His cheeks and high forehead were smeared with dirt, which also marked his long, agile fingers. He stayed on his knees as the Cardinal approached.
Young Gaspard/ the Cardinal said genially and held out his hand so the prisoner could kiss the heavy ring that contained a thorn from Christ's crown of death. I trust you are well, young Gaspard? You eat heartily, do you? Sleep like a babe? Work like a good Christian? Rut like a hog?" The Cardinal glanced at the girl as he said the last words, then he took his hand away from Gaspard and walked further into the room towards three tables, on which were barrels of clay, blocks of beeswax, piles of ingots, and arrays of chisels, files, augurs and hammers.
The girl, sullen, red-haired and dressed in a dirty shift that hung loose from one shoulder, sat on a low trestle bed in a corner of the cellar. I don't like it here,“ she complained to the Cardinal. The Cardinal stared at her in silence for a good long time, then he turned to his brother, ff she speaks to me again, Charles, without my permission/ he said, whip her.”
She means no harm, your eminence," Gaspard said, still on his knees.
But I do,“ the Cardinal said, then smiled at the prisoner. Get up, dear boy, get up.”
I need Yvette,“ Gaspard said, 'she helps me.” Tm sure she does," the Cardinal said, then stooped to a clay bowl in which a brownish paste had been mixed. He recoiled from its stench, then turned as Gaspard came to him, dropped to his knees again, and held up a gift.
For you, your eminence,“ Gaspard said eagerly, I made it for you.”
The Cardinal took the gift. It was crucifix of gold, not a hand's breadth high, yet every detail of the suffering Christ was delicately modelled. There were strands of hair showing beneath the crown of thorns, the thorns themselves could prick, the rent in his side was jagged edged and the spill of golden blood ran past his loin cloth to his long thigh. The nail heads stood proud and the Cardinal counted them. Four. He had seen three true nails in his life. It's beautiful, Gaspard," the Cardinal said.
I would work better,“ Gaspard said, if there was more light.” We would all work better if there were more light,“ the Cardinal said, the light of truth, the light of God, the light of the Holy Spirit.” He walked beside the tables, touching the tools of Gaspard's trade. Yet the devil sends darkness to befuddle us and we must do our best to endure it."
Upstairs?“ Gaspard said. There must be rooms with more light upstairs?”
There are,“ the Cardinal said, there are, but how do I know you will not escape, Gaspard? You are an ingenious man. Give you a large window and I might give you the world. No, dear boy, if you can produce work like this”, he held up the crucifix, then you need no more light.“ He smiled. You are so very clever.” Gaspard was indeed clever. He had been a goldsmith's appren tice in one of the small shops on the Quai des Orfevres on the lie de la Cite in Paris where the Cardinal had his mansion. The Cardinal had always appreciated the goldsmiths: he haunted their shops, patronized them and purchased their best pieces, and many of those pieces had been made by this thin, nervous apprentice who had then knifed a fellow-apprentice to death in a sordid tavern brawl and been condemned to the gallows. The Cardinal had rescued him, brought him to the tower and promised him life. But first Gaspard must work the miracle. Only then could he be released. That was the promise, though the Cardinal was quite sure that Gaspard would never leave this cellar unless it was to use the big furnace in the yard. Gaspard, though he did not know it, was already at the gates of hell. The Cardinal made the sign of the cross, then put the crucifix on a table. So show me," he ordered Gaspard.
Gaspard went to his big work table where an object was shrouded in a cloth of bleached linen. It is only wax now, your eminence,“ he explained, lifting the linen away, and I don't know if it's even possible to turn it into gold.”
It can be touched?" the Cardinal asked.
Carefully/ Gaspard warned. It's purified beeswax and quite delicate."
The Cardinal lifted the grey-white wax, which felt oily to his touch, and he carried it to one of the three small windows that let in the shadowed daylight and there he stood in awe. Gaspard had made a cup of wax. It had taken him weeks of work. The cup itself was just big enough to hold an apple, while the stem was only six inches long. That stem was modelled as the trunk of a tree and the cup's foot was made from the tree's three roots that spread from the bole. The tree's branches divided into filigree work that formed the lacy bowl of the cup, and the filigree was astonishingly detailed with tiny leaves and small apples and, at the rim, three delicate nails. It is beautiful/ the Cardinal said. The three roots, your eminence, are the Trinity/ Gaspard explained.
I had surmised as much."
And the tree is the tree of life."
Which is why it has apples/ the Cardinal said.
And the nails reveal that it will be the tree from which our Lord's cross was made/ Gaspard finished his explanation. That had not escaped me/ the Cardinal observed. He carried the beautiful wax cup back to the table and set it down carefully. Where is the glass?"
Here, your Eminence/ Gaspard opened a box and took out a cup that he offered to the Cardinal. The cup was made of thick, greenish glass that looked very ancient, for in parts the cup was smoky and elsewhere there were tiny bubbles trapped in the pale translucent material. The Cardinal suspected it was Roman. He was not sure of that, but it looked very old and just a little crude, and that was surely right. The cup from which Christ had drunk his last wine would probably be more fit for a peasant's table than for a noble's feast. The Cardinal had discovered the cup in a Paris shop and had purchased it for a few copper coins and he had instructed Gaspard to take off the ill-shapen foot of the glass which the prisoner had done so skilfully that the Cardinal could not even see that there had once been a stem. Now, very gingerly, he put the glass cup into the filigree wax bowl. Gaspard held his breath, fearing that the Cardinal would break one of the delicate leaves, but the cup settled gently and fitted perfectly.
The Grail. The Cardinal gazed at the glass cup, imagining it cradled in a delicate lacework of fine gold and standing on an altar lit by tall white candles. There would be a choir of boys singing and scented incense burning. There would be kings and emperors, princes and dukes, earls and knights kneeling to it. Louis Bessieres, Cardinal Archbishop of Livorno, wanted the Grail and, some months before, he had heard a rumour from southern France, from the land of burned heretics, that the Grail existed. Two sons of the Vexille family, one a Frenchman and the other an English archer, sought that Grail as the Cardinal did, but no one, the Cardinal thought, wanted the Grail as much as he did. Or deserved it as he did. If he found the relic then he would command such awesome power that kings and pope would come to him for blessing and when Clement, the present Pope, died, then Louis Bessieres would take his throne and keys, if only he possessed the Grail. Louis Bessieres wanted the Grail, but one day, staring unseeing at the stained glass in his private chapel, he had experienced a revelation. The Grail itself was not necessary. Perhaps it existed, probably it did not, but all that mattered was that Christendom believed that it existed. They wanted a Grail. Any Grail, so long as they were convinced it was the true and holy, one and only Grail, and that was why Gaspard was in this cellar, and why Gaspard would die, for no one but the Cardinal and his brot
her must ever know what was being made in the lonely tower among the windswept trees above Melun. And now,“ the Cardinal said, carefully lifting the green glass from its wax bed, you must make the common wax into heavenly gold.”
It will be hard, your eminence."
Of course it will be hard,“ the Cardinal said, but I shall pray for you. And your freedom depends on your success.” The Cardinal saw the doubt on Gaspard's face. You made the crucifix,“ he said, picking up the beautiful gold object, 'so why can you not make the cup?”
It is so delicate,“ Gaspard said, and if I pour the gold and it does not melt the wax then all the work will be wasted.” Then you will start again,“ the Cardinal said, and by experi ence and with the help of God you will discover the way of truth.” It has never been done,“ Gaspard said, not with anything so delicate.”
Show me how,“ the Cardinal ordered and Gaspard explained how he would paint the wax cup with the noxious brown paste that had repelled the Cardinal. That paste was made from water, burned ox horn that had been pounded to powder and cow dung, and the dried layers of the paste would encase the wax and the whole would then be entombed in soft clay, which had to be gently pressed into place to cradle the wax, but not distort it. Narrow tunnels would run through the clay from the outside to the entombed wax, and then Gaspard would take the shapeless clay lump to the furnace in the yard where he would bake the clay and the beeswax inside would melt and run out through the tunnels and, if he did it well, he would be left with a hard clay mass within which was concealed a delicate cavity in the shape of the tree of life. And the cow dung?” the Cardinal asked. He was genuinely fasci nated. All beautiful things intrigued him, perhaps because in his youth he had been denied them.
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